The chamber shifted as Damien stepped through the rotating wall, gears whirring softly as the panels sealed behind him. The air inside was warm, bathed in the soft pulse of orange light from the suspended machinery that floated above him. He exhaled slowly, removing the mask from his face and rubbed at his temples, exhaustion pressing in.

  “Why?” he muttered under his breath, the words slipping through clenched teeth. “Why were they there?”

  The question hung heavy, unanswered.

  His mind replayed the scene with precision, every detail reconstructing itself behind his closed eyes. The plan had been perfect. The infiltration was clean, the serpent constructs fully under his command, the grid ready to be compromised. He’d anticipated the Twin Hounds would arrive, of course. The best strategy was isolation—separate the two and crush them individually before they could synchronize.

  The Dawn Hound had fought alone below. Every counter move Damien made, the Hound matched. Of the two, it was always the Dawn Hound who dictated the pace of battle, the strategist who read the field before a strike was ever thrown. That made him the more irritating of the pair—the one who didn’t just react but predicted, who forced Damien to fight not against muscle but against intellect.

  There was a professional satisfaction in that, in knowing that every engagement between them was as much a duel of systems as it was of skill. This was the rival he had clashed with for years. And for once, Damien had felt the balance tipping in his favor. The system had been seconds away from full compromise. The data lines were his. The energy cores were responding. Everything was going exactly as planned.

  Then he heard it—

  Click.

  His focus faltered for the briefest instant, just long enough to register the voices that followed. High, bright, painfully familiar.

  “Oh my god, this battle is insane!”

  The world seemed to stop. Slowly, he turned his head.

  There—at the far edge of the chaos, crouched behind debris—was a silver haired girl with a camera practically glued to her face. Aira. Beside her, another girl—dark hair, orange eyes, posture far too calm for the situation. His younger sister. Yoru.

  For one horrifying moment, Damien didn’t move. Outwardly, his mask betrayed nothing. Inwardly, he was screaming.

  This cannot be happening. This CANNOT be happening right now.

  He had gone through every contingency, accounted for every potential failure point, but not this.

  Yoru’s voice, soft but tense, carried through the space. “Aira, I really don’t think we should be here…”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Aira’s voice was bright and oblivious, “Yoru, you’re kidding, right? This is history in the making! The Dawn Hound versus Echo! We’re talking front page material here!”

  “If you say so…” Yoru murmured finally, uncertain but loyal as always.

  Damien felt like he was going through all five stages of grief simultaneously—denial, anger, bargaining, despair, and sheer existential disbelief. His jaw tightened behind the mask, every nerve screaming.

  WHERE ARE YOUR SURVIVAL INSTINCTS?? DON’T LISTEN TO HER, YORU, SHE’S GOING TO GET YOU BOTH KILLED—

  He believed in change. In breaking the system, in tearing down what was rotten to rebuild something better. His operations endangered lives, yes, but never without purpose. Collateral damage was the price of revolution—but not like this. Never them.

  He had accounted for civilian variables, evacuation protocols, even interference from the Sentari. But the one thing he hadn’t prepared for was his sister and her best friend walking into his battlefield.

  And now they were in the firing line.

  His pulse spiked. He tried to redirect the serpent constructs, recalibrate their targeting systems—but Aira moved.

  He saw her lift her arm, waving enthusiastically. “Dawn Hound! Don’t mind us! I’m just getting footage for my blog! Go—”

  The word barely left her lips when the nearest serpent registered motion. Its targeting array flared to life, core charging in an instant. The head rotated, locking onto the two girls like prey.

  Damien’s blood ran cold. He extended a hand, desperate to override the command, but the firing sequence was already live.

  The cannon ignited.

  BANG.

  The explosion tore through the station, shattering glass and throwing waves of heat through the open space. Damien reacted on instinct. His hand snapped out, orange light flaring from his fingertips as he seized control of the serpent construct mid-fire. The machine convulsed, its cannon twisting sharply off-course before it slammed into a nearby wall. The ceiling cracked, metal shrieking as chunks of debris crashed down in a thunderous cascade.

  Through the smoke, he caught a flash of white—the Dawn Hound. The masked vigilante shot across the floor in a blur, cloak streaming behind him as he reached the two civilians seconds before the collapse. In one fluid motion, he pulled them clear of the falling debris, rolling to safety just as the ceiling gave way.

  Damien’s pulse hammered. He severed his link to the serpent immediately, the construct spasming as he cut its energy feed. One by one, he disabled the rest, forcing them into shutdown. The field of mechanical beasts collapsed into silence, lights dimming to black.

  He withdrew everything—the constructs, the cubes, the projections. The battlefield folded in on itself, light fading until nothing remained but the sound of metal cooling and the quiet hiss of fire dying out. Then he vanished, retreating into the shadows as the chaos below began to settle.

  Back in the present, Damien ascended the hidden steps, each one triggering the mechanical walls to retract and seal behind him. The firelight faded gradually until the last gear clicked shut, leaving him standing in stillness. He stepped through the hidden doorway, emerging into the calm familiarity of his apartment.

  The transition was seamless—like waking from a dream and realizing he’d been holding his breath the entire time. He straightened his collar, and crossed to the window. The afternoon sun cast long streaks of gold across the city, the glass towers glittering as if nothing had ever happened. Down there, the Auroride hub was already being cleaned up, cordoned off, normalized. The world moved on quickly from catastrophe.

  His phone buzzed softly on the desk. Damien turned and wasn’t surprised when the name appeared on screen.

  Yoru: There was an incident at the Auroride Central Hub. I’m with Aira at the police station. Can you come pick me up?

  He stared at the message for a long moment, the reflection of the text glowing faintly in his eyes, before he set his phone down and exhaled. Frustration, irritation, exhaustion—they all blurred together until only relief remained.

  She’s safe. Both of them are safe.

  He ran a hand through his hair, fingers dragging briefly through the mess before falling to his side. The operation was a failure, yes—but a controlled one. The kind he could recover from. He could rebuild the plan, reconstruct the systems, shift the timeline. There were always contingencies.

  Damien grabbed his keys, moving towards the door with smooth, practiced movements. As he stepped out into the hall, the door clicked softly shut behind him, sealing off the hidden world he’d built beneath his feet. For a moment, he caught his reflection in the dark glass—expression calm, composed, the faintest shadow of something tired behind the eyes.

  It could’ve gone worse.

  ─ ? NEXT CHAPTER POV ? ─

  Akio