POV: Ryuu Takeda
Location: Sector 13 – Lower Hubs, Maintenance Tunnel 4-A
Time: 03:21 Local — ~1 hour after recursion sync flagged in MIRAGE logs
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"Not every Knight falls. Some become questions the city forgets how to answer."
— Fragment Log 6B, Anchor Review Backchannel (suppressed)
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Ryuu Takeda didn't sleep. He lay flat on a dented cot in the breakroom two levels beneath street level, still wearing his coat, still cloaked in silence. The Aura burn on his arm had cooled, but it hadn't healed.
He flexed his fingers.
The tendons ached in ways that didn't make sense — like they had spent hours gripping weapons he'd never owned. Every movement felt practiced. Too practiced, too sharp for someone who hadn't thrown a proper punch in his lifetime.
Like muscle memory from someone else's body.
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[Subject Eleven: Core surge trace unstable.]
[Cognitive drift projection: 12.9% — increasing.]
[Feedback risk: moderate to high.]
MIRAGE's voice rattled across the room like a bureaucrat reading a casualty report.
Then—
"Endure."
Pause.
"…Then burn."
That last part didn't come from MIRAGE.
That was him.
But… older.
Or maybe not him at all.
---
He stood.
No plan. No purpose.
He pulled on his gloves, leaving the cot behind. He walked with no real direction—except the one his Core wanted to retrace.
Taking the long route toward Sector 13 transit path B, back where it had happened: the fight, the flare, the shadow, the wound.
---
The alley was empty now.
Just silence.
The burn marks from the fight were still there. Metal warped from heat. Pipe cracked from a redirected swing.
But it was the wall that made him stop.
The same spot where the second attacker had slammed him.
Now burned deeper than before.
Not just a black mark.
A shape.
A figure, faint and cloaked. Not holding a blade. Not making a move.
Just standing.
Head lifted.
Back straight.
No face. No sigil. Just intent.
The kind of posture that didn't ask to be respected—It expected it.
He stepped closer.
He raised his gloved hand toward the wall.
The wall hissed beneath his glove.
And his Core surged once under his ribs.
"Endure."
His own voice. Or something wearing it.
But slower. Scarred. Weathered by something ancient.
---
He left the alley.
Didn't know why.
Didn't even realize he'd moved until he was halfway home.
The streetlights buzzed in sequence above him. No one else was around.
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Ryuu's Apartment — 04:02 Local
His apartment greeted him like always—buzzing light, rattling pipes, and air that smelled like regret burned at medium heat.
He didn't turn on the TV.
Didn't touch the half-finished tea.
Didn't flip the photo frame on the shelf.
He didn't need to.
He knew the image by heart.
---
Kaito's face.
The eldest — Kaito (海斗) Takeda.
Fire in his stance. Calm in his words. A fighter who didn't sell pain — he earned respect.
He had been one of the few clean competitors in the Rings beneath Sector 8.
He was clean in a sport that punished clean.
TitanTech labeled him "noncompliant" during their backend project trials. Then fed him to a rigged match under the old arena dome.
Ryuu saw the footage once.
Didn't keep it.
Didn't need to.
Kaito didn't scream when he died.
He exhaled — like a flame being pulled from a candle without warning.
And Ryuu never told their younger brother the truth.
---
Haruki (春樹) didn't need that weight.
The youngest. Still smiled like the city hadn't chewed him up yet.
He worked a Metroline courier job in Sector 6. Quiet. Smart. Bit of a dork, but kind—the kind of kid who gave pigeons names and believed vending machines had feelings.
Last Ryuu heard, Haruki was applying for off-grid work clearance.
He hadn't responded to Ryuu's last ping.
But that wasn't new. Family in the Federation often meant surviving separately.
In the Federation, family didn't break. It just got… misfiled.
Ryuu lifted his wristband. Tapped the courier ping.
[PING FAILURE — SUBJECT: HARUKI_T]
[LAST TRACE: SECTOR 6-C — STATUS: ANCHOR UNSTABLE]
His HUD dimmed slightly. His Core flared once — not hot, but aching.
He opened Haruki's last message.
A joke.
About vending machines being too proud to give change. That was six days ago.
Then, quietly in his ear, a voice: "He smiled like the future still had room."
The courier ping flickered one last time, then greyed out. Unreachable. Again.
Ryuu rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Didn't even sigh.
Just sat. Still. Listening to the hum of the city through the floor
Then—
Movement.
A flicker near the wall.
He looked up.
His shadow shifted.
Not longer. Not larger.
Just… different.
The arms held a posture he didn't recognize. One foot angled out. One shoulder squared. Elbow locked in preparation.
Not his stance. It's stance with weight behind it.
A warrior's.
Trained. Disciplined. Measured.
Like a soldier trained for a war he couldn't remember.
He didn't move.
Neither did the shadow — locked in the memory of a battle stance from a war he never fought in — but somehow remembered losing.
---
MIRAGE pinged again.
[System Note: Knight Echo Unregistered — Memory Source: Unknown]
[Recommendation: Submit anomaly to Anchor Review Division]
He scoffed.
Quiet. Bitter.
"Yeah. Let's hand that in with a thank-you note, too."
---
The kettle beeped. Cold water this time.
He poured a cup anyway.
Didn't drink.
Didn't move.
---
Elsewhere — 04:19 Local
Across the district, beneath the recursion grid of Sub-Tower 9, a marker flared for 0.43 seconds, then faded.
The system tagged it as
[Anchor Echo Signature: ASH-WARDEN TYPE — INCOMPLETE // SUBJECT-11]
[Name Not Found In Registry].
No handler received it.
No red flag was raised.
Because the name it recorded no longer existed in MIRAGE's registry.
Not erased.
Just forgotten.
---
Back in the Alley…
On the scorched alley wall, the burn mark of the cloaked figure deepened.
A little more real.
A little more waiting.
Ash remembered no footsteps, yet it carried the weight of every step taken before. And when the shadow of ash falls, the forgotten shall rise, bearing scars the city dares not name.
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