Anchor 1857.3X – Neo-Edo Underground, 20:47
Kael didn't usually rescue kids.
Or rebels.
Or… anyone, really.
But here he was, leaping across steam pipes above a neon-lit street, holding an unconscious silver-haired girl over his shoulder while dodging bolts of magnetic shuriken and curse-scripted arrows.
"Why are they so angry?" he growled.
The plasma katana blocked another incoming projectile with a screech. A shuriken sliced his coat. He winced. "This was my favorite jacket, you cybernetic clowns."
He dove into an alley, hit a hidden switch on the wall — the girl had pressed it earlier with her foot — and a secret hatch swung open beneath them. They dropped into darkness.
⸻
Ten minutes later.
A flickering lamplight. Pipes hissing. Kael sat across from the girl, who was now awake, chewing dry noodles and glaring at him like he owed her three planets and a space dog.
"You're not him," she said, pointing with her chopsticks. "You're not Ghost Ronin. You're… lopsided."
Kael blinked. "Lopsided?"
"Your time-thread. It's frayed. Too many loops. You're unstable. You're… weird."
He raised a brow. "Says the 12-year-old eating noodles in a bomb tunnel."
"Thirteen and a half," she corrected, stuffing her face. "Name's Myra. I'm a ChronoSensate. I remember things that haven't happened yet."
Kael froze. "That's not possible."
She shrugged. "Tell that to my dreams. I remembered you before you landed here. Saw you watching your other self. You were crying."
Kael looked away. "I don't cry."
"You will."
A silence fell.
Then she reached into her coat and pulled out a rusted time-beacon — a miniature version of his own ThreadKey. It hummed in harmony with his.
"Where did you get that?"
"My mom," she said.
"And who's your mom?"
Myra looked at him. Dead serious. "You don't remember her yet."
Kael's heart stopped. "Wait—are you saying—?"
She cut him off. "No time. Ghost Ronin's base is under the Meiji Clockforge. You go in now, you'll die. It's a trap."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "You're helping him?"
"I'm helping you. Just… not this you."
Before Kael could speak, a siren howled from above. The tunnel shook. The Empire had tracked them.
Myra stood and tossed him a metal band. "Put that on. It hides your frequency. You'll need it to survive inside the Forge."
He caught it. "Why help me?"
Myra looked sad. Older than her age. "Because… if you die here, everything else falls apart. Even the versions that were happy."