Distance is simply a lie we tell ourselves.
It is not the case that the distance is created by physically moving away—it is the case that the distance is created by changing your persona to the people who are left behind.
When I came back, BLACK LOTUS seemed to be different.
Not more or less quiet.
Heavily.
It was the sort of heaviness that accompanies the unspoken but still not fully accepted truth. Individuals acted with intention, but their gaze was on me more than before. Talks sank. Laughter was cut off in the middle.
They sensed it.Whatever I had done with the Collectors, the line I had crossed, the pressure I had bent without breaking—it all had an influence on me that changed my surroundings.Akino didn't summon for a meeting.
That was more serious than the previous situation.He kept holding me up till the night cycle, when the patrols were deployed, and the area was sealed off before finding me at the edge of the upper platform that provided a view of our territory. The broken street lights below were flickering and were casting light on the roads that now belonged to BLACK LOTUS."You are going," he stated.
Not a question.I did not reject it. "Not for long.""That is a long time," he said.
We were at the same place as before, standing together and observing the city's ebb and flow.
"You kept silent," Akino went on. "About the conditions. About what they expect of you."
"They do not want such a burden," I replied. "Not now."
Akino's teeth ground. "You do not have the right to choose the burden that will be shared."
At that moment, I turned to him and really looked at him.
He was turning into what the system desired him to be—stable, commanding, and unavoidably present. A leader who was a product of necessity.
And leaders require something they do not question.
I was turning into someone who could not be questioned to stay.
"If I do not go," I said softly, "the situation will be intensified. Not through street gangs. Not through the Collectors. But through the rules of the game and events that are staged to drive cooperation."
Akino pierced me with his gaze. "So, you are saying the system would be after us through you."
"Exactly."
A pause.
Then Akino spoke the thing that I had not anticipated.
"Then take Rei along."
I was surprised.
"She is a scout," he added.
I gave"Light-type. She can see what is invisible to you. Besides, she will not be consumed by you."
A quiet giggle. "You suppose that I would allow it?"
"That is precisely the reason," he explained.
The lights of the system had reduced their brightness by another degree when we were still there.
"I will go beyond the barrier," I eventually said. "Into the regions that nobody wants. Places that the Collectors have not yet fully taken over."
Akino agreed with a nod. "And when they come then?"
I gave a weak smile. "Then they will not be coming for BLACK LOTUS."
Rei didn't put up a fight.
That was more frightening to me than if she had.
She packed silently and quickly—light gear, signal markers, emergency cores. When at last she raised her head to me, her face was not one of fear.
It was one of determination.
"I understand your motives for doing this," she stated.
"Do you?" I countered.
She confirmed with a nod. "You are turning into a magnet. If you stay, everything hits the team."
I did not respond.
She was uncertain, but then she said, "Just… don't completely disappear."
"I won't," I assured her. "I'm not good at that."
We took off in the dark before the dawn cycle.
There was no ceremony.
No farewells apart from nods and glances. Chiemi was watching us from some distance away, hands tightly clenched, silent. Sasha gave me a quick smile that did not quite reach her eyes. Taro hit his fist on his chest one time.
Dragon held my gaze and nodded.
Recognition.
The moment we stepped over the last boundary marker, the system made a low and deliberate sound.
[TERRITORIAL STATUS CHANGED]
KURO AYANAGI - OPERATING OUTSIDE GANG JURISDICTION
WARNING: SUPPORT RESTRICTED
Fine.
Support is a constraint.
The city on the other side felt wrong.
It was less structured and more hostile. The ruins here did not obey territory or hierarchy. Creatures were wandering around without any restrictions. System distortions that were left behind after the shutdown had been changing space in subtle and very unpleasant ways.
As she was guiding us ahead, Rei's light emitted a faint pulse.
"Everywhere you look there are signs of disturbance," she said with a soft voice. "Just like a creature that has taken this place as its own for so long."
I sensed it likewise.
Not looking.
Just biding.
Utilizing the rubble of an uprooted transit spire, we managed to secure our position—a vertical, shaky, and bear with disappearance type of location. While Rei was placing sensors, I permitted the darkness to envelop me.
It shrank back.
Forcefully.
I got rigid.
Beneath the surface, there was something moving; its size not to be confused with its depth. It was a kind of being existed under the debris like an ancient scar hidden under the skin.
The monitoring system failed to warned us.
That was the worst thing.
"Kuro," Rei hissed. "I've a bad feeling about this."
So did I.
A noise came from beneath.
It was not a roar.
It was not a voice.
It was a pressure—like a buried memory of the world coming back to the surface.
At last, the system broke its silence.
[ANOMALOUS ZONE CONFIRMED]
CLASSIFICATION: PRE-TRIAL REMNANT
STATUS: UNRESOLVED
Pre-trial.
The period before the Descent.
The time before rules came.
I gradually grinned, the shadow writhing around my feet.
"It seems we have come to the right place," I stated.
Rei gulped. "What have we found?"
My gaze was directed at the void below.
"Where the system got to know how to punish," I answered.
"And that it was unable to stop."
The BLACK LOTUS above us was in a state of slumber—much safer than it had been for days.
Down below, a very old entity began to wake.
And I could detect it very well for the first time since the Descent started:
This was no longer a fight about gangs.
Nor Collectors.
Nor land.
It was a matter of the beginning.
And of the dark—
Darks never forget where they came from.