She entered the lab silently. Nyserith.
Haki watched her from beside her hair strands—closer than proximity should allow. He didn't move. He didn't even exist in her frame of reference.
She stood still on the spot, her brain was firing at rapid speeds as she was currently searching for something intently. Her perception searched the corners of the room, through the spatial layers, but found only vacuum and subtle echoes.
She turned around, Haki's Lab was quite chaotic for an Unfamiliar.
"This is going to take a while" She said with a voice as soft as water.
Contrary to her thoughts, she found it in a not so conspicuous place.
The Recursive Time Chamber.
"Bold" She smiled, but it was fake. "As always." Her eyes narrowed as she noticed something.
The key. Just a simple hexagonal strip of pale-gold alloy. Placed right on the edge of the table. No lock, no passphrase, no defense grid. Just... there.
She frowned.
"This isn't like him." She said and paused a bit.
"But maybe... just maybe, he doesn't know I'm here. He should still be entangled with Hamman… and I made sure to stall. My clone bought me time—the first passage collapsed just before I crossed over and once I used the original route, I destroyed it."
The plan had been tight and precision-timed, she thought.
But how could she have known better?
In this age, even civilians could make clones with a street-side bio-tech scanner and honestly, frying popcorn took more effort. But to make one that powerful, one that held its own against her doppelganger? That was another story.
"Fine," she whispered, comically scratching her butt "I'll just take it. Since you didn't want to hand it over, I'll do what you wouldn't."
She reached out, slid the key into the air next to the cube—and the space twisted open like a flower unfolding.
She stepped through…
Inside the Recursive Time Chamber
It didn't look like much at first, but then it unfolded.
A spherical void that stretched "infinitely", the outer surfaces was a pulsing gradient of shifting runes and repetitive holograms. Data streams curved through nothingness, forming bridges of light. There were stairs that led nowhere, mirrors that showed possible outcomes of nothing… not yet, and condensed areas of gravity called gravity wells were suspended like chandeliers, humming with stored time instead of light.
Time wasn't just ticking, it was actually coiling, doubling and repeating itself selectively. It seemed this place was also a time chamber, but could that be all there was to it?
Nyserith stood still, her expression… conflicted.
"So this is what he was building…"
The rumors hadn't done it justice. Haki had once "advertised" this tech. He told the world a little about it and teased its possibilities. And then… nothing. Silence. As if the release was just a bait. At the time no one could tell for who or what, but they didn't care too much…
Unknowingly to her, Haki, who was just beside her and reading the subtle brainwaves she unconsciously emitted, probably because she thought she was alone, conversed within himself;
'That's exactly what it had been.' He quietly thought and subsequently sipped his coffee. He had wanted people to come for it. And they hadn't. Or was that it? Honestly, he couldn't remember, but if he were to take a guess…
'The only reason I would have revealed my project would have been in a scenario where I want to hoodwink someone, by making them think they had an advantage over me, but… who was it again?'
Haki started digging into the deepest recesses of his mind, refusing to use the Daily Log Handling feature of his AI to revisit the memory.
"Strange… I can't remember something that should've been important." Haki's expression grew serious. He set down the cup he had been drinking from and stood, pacing in circles around Nyserith—unbeknownst to her… This was a subconscious show of disdain, born from his overwhelming confidence in handling the situation. This act too was strange.
He was in control of his subconscious, any trait of confidence, aura, pride and ego (CAPE) was actively controlled by Kevide. But he wasn't at the front seat of his mind currently, so why…?
As he was onto something, he suddenly remembered the reason why he had revealed his secret project to the world. He knew that only those who still dared to think of themselves as "family" ever approached him. And even then, from the periphery.
He had wanted the information to reach his grandpa's ears as fast as possible. That was why.
He sat down again and continued watching Nyserith…
She knew she wasn't here out of loyalty. She was here because he had left this "loose end" hanging.
And that made it her responsibility.
She adjusted her hair, changed her outfit with a soft pulse of her bio-suit—a flowing royal dress, golden trim, glimmering with Nano threads. She waved her hand and a throne emerged from the recursive latticework of the chamber, forming itself like a blooming idea.
She proceeded to sit with her legs crossed, facing the entrance, waiting…
'Let me get into my signature aura farming pose' she thought…
Right beside her, watching her little antics, was Haki. He realized she would assume he was going to come out of the spatial checkpoint, he smiled faintly and decided to play along with this game of hers.
He moved to the entrance of the Checkpoint and entered inside. He came out shortly after, but this time, he was uncloaked.
'Does she know about the clone yet? If so, she will be expecting to see the clone too' He thought.
At that same moment in the recursive chamber, Nyserith, observing the now revealed Haki while sitting on the throne like a queen, received a message from someone— Hamman.
[The entrant from before was a Clone. He can make clones now. You should prepare the Recursive Energy quickly. He will definitely show himself to you—His real body, that is.]
As she read this message, she cursed the speed of light for being this slow. If not she would have received this message earlier.
She sent back a message likewise, unsure of when it would reach him:
[I had released my construct with the recursive energy from the moment I arrived here. I couldn't be sure he didn't have contingencies behind but now that you've confirmed a clone, it means he's somewhere here.]
She stopped Aura farming and stood up trying to find his weaker body. She might actually have the chance to kill- no, apprehend him.
At the checkpoint, Haki- no, Acca, the thinking side of Haki—had calculated it all. Not through screens, but through the smallest vibrations in the space and light around him and some principles of the UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. He saw the encoded message coming through the portal using his Yocto-optic eyes.
This eyes was really his golden finger. But he created it himself, so… he simply urged the fake Haki body forward and it appeared outside the checkpoint. He stored it subsequently.
Then, slowly, carefully, he walked out himself.
He slowly walked towards the entrance of the chamber, towards her.
He would play along with her game.