Location: Ghost Laundry Mainframe Vault, Seoul – 7:05 AM
The holograms shuddered as if alive, fragments coalescing into shape—data points, rotating wireframes, severed DNA strands that spiraled like dying galaxies. Keisuke's fingers danced over his keyboard, and a digital heartbeat echoed from the walls. Aiko watched in silence as her own face appeared—projected in luminous lines, interlaced with something far more alien.
"This," Keisuke said, voice level, "is your neural pattern. Scanned from leaked Division Zero archives. This is what they thought you were—subject-level talent, latent psionic, potential empath-link host."
He flicked his wrist.
A second image bloomed beside the first.
"And this… is what you actually are."
The second projection was jagged. Glitched. Not human.
At its center pulsed a symbol—fractal, recursive, alive in ways that light shouldn't be. Every line of it was wrong, too perfect, too ancient. Aiko felt her chest tighten. Her spine twitched where the Seal lived.
"That symbol," she whispered. "It's in my dreams."
"It's not a symbol," Keisuke said. "It's a signature. That's the problem."
Ryoji leaned forward. "Explain. Now."
Keisuke nodded. "Long before Division Zero existed, before the Hypernet even booted its first framework, a black site called ASHGLASS went live. Not a weapons lab. Not biowarfare. Something worse."
He zoomed in. The glyph bloomed wider.
"They were experimenting with nonlinear memory. Memories that didn't belong to anyone. Places that hadn't happened yet. And buried in the tests, they found… this. The Forgotten Root. A god, or maybe just the first idea that ever lived."
Aiko's breath caught. Her Seal pulsed once—then again, like a heartbeat syncing to the image.
"They fed it memories. Human pain. History. They gave it timelines and it began writing back. Project ASHGLASS was supposed to contain it. Instead, they sealed it into a prototype vessel. A child. You."
Aiko stared.
"I wasn't born," she murmured. "I was… made?"
"No," Keisuke said quickly. "You were born. But the seal was grafted. Your memories fractured and rewritten. Even your family—"
He paused. Looked at her carefully. "Do you remember your brother?"
She blinked.
Her heart dropped.
A flicker of a laugh. Rain on glass. A boy calling her 'ai-chan' in a voice she hadn't heard since childhood.
"Kenji," she said aloud.
Ryoji's eyes widened. "Helix-0."
Keisuke nodded grimly. "Bingo."
"Wait," Aiko said. "If he was my brother… if I was the vessel… then what was he?"
Keisuke exhaled. "The failed one."
Silence stretched across the room like a noose.
Keisuke continued, his voice slower now. "They tried to copy the Seal—mass-produce it. But the entity wouldn't bind to anyone else. Kenji broke instead. His body became an antenna, a puppet. Division Zero renamed him Helix-0. But something inside him still remembers you."
Ryoji clenched a fist. "That's why he didn't kill us at the Vault. He hesitated."
Keisuke nodded. "Somewhere inside the code, there's still a brother who never stopped looking for his sister."
Aiko felt tears prick the edges of her vision—but there was no time.
Because the lights suddenly flickered.
Keisuke's eyes snapped up. "No, no, no—"
The screens went red. Sirens wailed through the corridor.
ALERT: BASE INTRUSION. ZONE 6 BREACHED. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED.
Ryoji drew his weapon in a blur. Miura cursed and pulled up her sidearm.
"Division Zero's here," Keisuke growled. "They must've traced the Seal's awakening signal."
Another alert flashed:
IDENTITY CONFIRMED – HELIX-0.
Aiko's blood ran cold.
Keisuke shouted, spinning his chair toward the exit corridor. "There's an emergency lift on Sublevel B. But you won't like where it leads."
"We don't care," Miura barked. "Move!"
The hallway beyond their chamber roared with a sudden tremor. A low, distorted voice echoed through the ductwork.
Like a whisper buried in static.
"Aiko…"
The lights burst.
Darkness swallowed them.
Then, from the corridor—
A figure stepped through the black.
Tall. Pale-skinned. White eyes burning through the dark like twin moons.
Helix-0.
His voice glitched when he spoke.
"Sister…"
Aiko froze.
Ryoji stepped in front of her. "Don't. Move."
But Helix-0 didn't attack.
He tilted his head. His voice softened.
"Do you remember the garden? The music box?"
Aiko whispered, "Kenji…"
Something in his face twitched.
Then—his body jerked. Hard. Like something inside overwrote him.
His voice became monstrous.
"RETRIEVE THE VESSEL. ERASE ALL OTHERS."
Keisuke slammed his fist onto a terminal. "That's it—we're blown."
The far wall cracked. Explosives.
Division Zero forces began pouring in, tactical armor, pulse rifles.
Ryoji grabbed Aiko by the wrist.
"Run."
She didn't argue.
Behind them, alarms screamed.
In front of them—only the unknown.
The Heart of Ashglass had awakened.
And so had the war.
TO BE CONTINUED… CHAPTER 74