Her face, still downcast. Her eyes… not quite closed.
Frozen.
But not gone.
Then, something shifted.
He leaned closer.
Not too far. Just enough.
Enough for his breath to fog faintly on the glass. Enough for her to notice.
Her lips were neutral, blank.
But something sat beneath the surface. Not a smile.
Satisfaction.
A cold, awful pleasure, like she'd just solved an equation no one else understood.
"Tenka," he breathed, "she just-"
"LET'S MOVE, KENTARO!"
Tenka's voice cracked into the silence like a whip.
And then.
The girl moved.
Not a twitch. Not a flinch.
Her eyes rose.
And locked with his.
His heart slammed into his ribs. He stumbled backward, reaching for Tenka's sleeve like a man clutching at gravity.
"She just looked at me!" he gasped. "She moved, Tenka she moved!"
Tenka's head whipped toward the silver-haired girl. She saw her too. Still seated. Still calm. But with something utterly wrong about her stillness.
The corner of the girl's mouth curled, ever so slightly.
Not a smile.
A verdict.
Tenka's body tensed. She gripped his wrist.
"We're leaving," she whispered. "Now. Run."
They bolted.
The hallway ahead was still, the same pale walls, flickering lights, tiled floor. But something was wrong.
The air was too thick.
Too heavy.
Like the world was holding its breath.
Kentaro could feel it pressing against his skin, into his lungs, behind his eyes.
Then, a sound.
Not footsteps. Not alarms.
A low hum. Like metal vibrating against metal. Inevitable. Final.
And then.
The corridor detonated.
No fire. No flash.
Just force.
A rupture in the shape of sound. Space twisted. Gravity cracked. Kentaro's feet left the ground, but he never landed.
He just... Stopped.
Everything froze.
No wind. No heat. No impact.
Kentaro shielded his head, expecting pain, expecting to feel something crack or burn or shatter, but nothing came.
When he dared to open one eye, the world had turned purple.
Not natural. Not light through stained glass.
Something else.
The explosion was still there. Flames caught in mid-burst. Debris suspended like a photograph taken the instant before chaos unfolded.
Time hadn't slowed.
It had stopped.
Tenka was standing in front of him, frozen mid-turn. Her scream locked in her throat, her eyes wide, a perfect statue of horror.
"Tenka? TENKA! Hey! Can you hear me?!"
He reached out, but something stopped him.
Like a thin membrane, invisible, unbreakable, separated her from him. His fingers hovered an inch from her shoulder, but couldn't cross.
He stepped back.
His breathing grew shallow.
Then he realized.
They were back in the lecture hall.
Back where this had started.
Except now…
It was silent.
Utterly silent.
And worse.
She was gone.
The silver-haired girl's seat was empty.
Gone like she'd never existed.
Then.
A voice.
"…That's a strange face to wear."
A whisper, warm and quiet, brushed his right ear.
Kentaro turned to ice.
He felt her breath on his skin. Heard the shape of her smile in the syllables.
He turned sharply, stumbling back, almost falling.
And there she was.
Behind him.
The same silver-haired girl.
Unmoving. Watching. Close.
Too close.
No footsteps. No warning.
Like she had been there all along, waiting for him to realize it.
As if the world had rearranged itself to put her in place
"Hehehehe."
The sound was soft, too soft. But it scraped the silence like a blade on glass.
The silver-haired girl glided closer to Tenka's frozen frame. Her fingers curled under her chin, tracing the line of her neck with absentminded amusement… then lower places that made Kentaro's heart seize with a cocktail of panic and shame.
"My, my, my, my, my… not frozen, are you?"
Her head tilted, eyes narrowing with amusement. "Could it be… you're like me?"
She never stopped staring at him. Never blinked.
Kentaro stiffened. His mouth opened before his brain could stop it.
"W-who are you?"
His voice trembled. "A-and what are you? What do you mean I'm like you?"
The fear was in every syllable, clinging to them like wet ash. He tried to sound strong. He didn't.
And she knew it.
Before he could even process her answer, she was there, right there, a finger's length from his face. Her movement hadn't been fast. it had been absolute. No motion, no blur. One blink and reality rearranged.
She leaned in. Her breath brushed his skin.
"You want to see what happens if I unfreeze her mouth… but not her lungs?"
Kentaro jolted, eyes wide.
His stomach turned. He understood what she meant. Too clearly.
"N-no, what the hell is wrong with you?!"
She didn't flinch. She only smiled.
A little deeper this time. A little sharper.
"Hehe… such a gentleman. A noble little human. You're... Delightful."
She turned from him, humming as she circled Tenka. Her steps were too light, like the floor wasn't real beneath her feet. The distance between them stretched as Kentaro backed away instinctively, half-running down the stairs. Every step made the room feel thinner. More brittle.
He reached the door.
Tried to open it.
But his hand hit empty air.
A wall that wasn't there.
His fingers stopped inches from the handle, as if space itself refused to let him touch it.
He turned around.
And of course.
There she was.
In the exact spot he'd just left.
Walking forward.
One step at a time.
Slow. Beautiful. Horrifying.
Every inch she closed only deepened the terror. Her face was elegant, sculpted like a dollmaker's finest work, but that smile?
That wasn't human.
That was a weapon.
A smile designed to paralyze.
Kentaro's back hit the wall.
Cornered.
Nothing left to do but speak.
Not brave.
Just tired.
"If you're going to kill me… at least tell me your name."
She stopped.
Three feet away.
That damn smile still playing on her lips.
"My name?" she echoed softly.
"It's Rin. Just Rin."
She blinked slowly. Tilted her head.
"And what am I…?"
She let the question hang like a noose.
"That's the funny part. No one knows. Not your scientists. Not your task forces with their shiny guns. You've tried to name us. Classify us. Kill us."
Her voice darkened. Deeper. Quieter. Like a hymn to something long buried.
"You call us aberrants. Refractions. Alberlines. But none of you understand what we really are. We weren't made. We weren't born. We were… left behind."
She snapped her fingers.
Reality didn't shatter, but it felt like it might.
"We slipped through the cracks when your world broke. And now? You chase us like vermin. Because you're afraid."
Kentaro's brain raced. None of it made sense.
Scientists? Task forces? What the hell was she talking about?
"You said they're hunting you, why? What are you?"
His voice cracked with urgency. "Why do they want you dead?"
For the first time, something flickered in her eyes. Her smile wavered, not gone, but softened.
Like his words had struck a chord.
Then, snap.
Back to grin.
Back to games.
"Mmm… what were they called again?" She tapped her chin.
"Project Broomsticks? Suit Squad 5? No, no, wait…"
She snapped her fingers again.
"Mecha-Mecha Squad. That's the one."
She nodded proudly, as if she'd just named a cartoon show.
Kentaro blinked. "What."
"Yep."
Rin grinned ear to ear. "Always stomping around in those little tin suits. Trying to catch shadows."
He stared.
"I-"
He couldn't even find the words.
She giggled again. It was worse than before. High-pitched. Asymmetrical.
Then, her face dropped.
Serious.
Cold.
She looked up.
And said two words:
"They're here."
BOOM.
The ceiling detonated.
Not cracked. Not split. Obliterated.
Chunks of debris rained down, shattering desks, silencing frozen students. Kentaro was thrown back by the shockwave. He hit the ground hard. His hands flew over his head, eyes shut tight.
He looked up.
And saw it.
A jagged slab of concrete, easily two hundred pounds, was falling straight for him.
"I'm gonna die," he whispered. "I'm actually gonna-"
"Tenka…"
Her name left his lips like a prayer.
He braced for it.
And then, nothing.
Not impact. Not pain. Just… warmth.
He cracked one eye open.
And saw pink light.
A shimmering field hovered above him, holding the rubble in place.
A shield.
A hand extended above his chest.
Rin stood beside him.
Hair glowing faintly in the pink aura. Her expression unreadable.
But her eyes… locked on the stone above him.
Focused.
Controlled.
He stared in disbelief.
She saved him?
"…This is a shield," he muttered.
Barely a whisper.
But even as the realization sank in, Kentaro knew this wasn't mercy.
It wasn't affection.
It was something worse.
Rin didn't save him because she cared.
She saved him…
Because she wasn't done yet.
Kentaro's breath caught as the slab above him, thick enough to flatten a truck crumbled to ash before touching down. Dust vaporized into light. The danger, dealt with, as easily as flicking away a candle.
The world, once frozen, pulsed again. But Rin didn't move right away. She stood there, still as death, her side profile catching the remnants of pink light from her shield.
Kentaro couldn't look away.
She wasn't beautiful in the way magazines made people. She was beautiful like deep space. Distant. Cold. A mystery too vast to understand and too dangerous to approach.
If he touched her, he was sure her skin would feel like silk pulled tight over something sharp.
Her lips were drawn into a frown. Not the playful, eerie smirk from before.
No, this was something else.
And for the first time since they'd met, she looked… almost human.
"What are you staring at?" she murmured. Her voice was low now. Flat. "Is there something wrong with your eyes?"
Kentaro flinched, pulling his gaze away like a child caught peeking into a sacred temple. But before shame could swallow him, he turned back, forcing the words out.
"You… you saved me. Thank you."
He expected her to mock him. To flirt. To smile.
She didn't.
Instead, she stepped forward, her expression hardening.
"I didn't save you," she said coldly. "You were just nearby."
Her eyes lifted, staring through the new hole in the ceiling like she was waiting for something, or calculating how bad it could get.
Her presence turned heavier by the second.
Kentaro swallowed.
"Are you… okay?"
Stupid question.
Rin didn't answer. Her head tilted slightly as she whispered something that chilled his spine.
"Your friends are here," she said, quiet as mist. "The ones who want me dead."
Kentaro blinked.
"What? I don't, no! I don't know who they are! I swear I'm not-"
He was yelling now, panic in every word.
"I don't know anything about Mecha Squad or task forces or whatever! I don't even know what you are!"
His voice cracked. Too high. Too honest.
But Rin didn't soften.
Her gaze shifted back to him, unreadable. Like a scientist inspecting a failed experiment.
"Tch. Just like the rest of them," she muttered. "I thought maybe…"
Her voice drifted.
And then she looked at him, not with rage, but with something else. A quiet, slow sadness. One she didn't want him to see. But he saw it anyway.
It was a face he had seen Tenka make many years ago.
Without thinking, Kentaro stood up. His leg trembled, breath ragged, but his spine straightened.
"I'm not here to hurt you," he said. "You're wrong about me."
He meant every word.
Rin said nothing.
Then.
She kicked him.
Hard.
He crumpled like paper. His back hit the cold floor, knocking the breath from his lungs. The pain radiated through him, sharp and bitter.
But even through the haze, he looked up. Grimaced. Sat forward on shaking arms.
"Please," he gasped. "Rin… I want to help you. I know that look. That's not anger. That's pain."
Rin's smile returned.
But it wasn't kind.
"Oh?" she whispered. "You think you know me, now?"
Her boots clicked as she stepped toward him.
"You know nothing."
Her voice dropped a full octave. The playfulness vanished.
With a single motion, she lifted her hand.
And reality responded.
Light gathered, no, memory, shaped into metal. A revolver, old and black as coal, formed in her hand. Veins of silver pulsed along its surface like a heartbeat.
It was real.
More real than it had any right to be.
A weapon born from emotion.
From somewhere she shouldn't still remember.
"Begone," she said softly, raising the gun.
Kentaro didn't flinch. Couldn't. His body locked up, but his voice scraped its way out.
"Why me?" he asked. "Why the hell are you pointing that at me? I want to help you, damn it!"
The revolver didn't waver.
But her eyes did.
Just a flicker. A flash of regret.
The crimson energy around the barrel swirled, thickening. Condensing.
She didn't look angry anymore.
She looked… tired.
Like this wasn't her first time killing someone she didn't want to.
Her finger twitched on the trigger.
"Sav-"
She never finished.
Because sound itself split in two.
A crack peeled through the sky, sharp and screeching like metal folding into itself. The roof shook. The air warped.
Then, impact.
Seven figures fell like meteors, encased in smoke and light, jetpack trails cutting fire through the classroom air.
Their boots hit the ground with enough force to rattle the bones.
Kentaro's ears rang.
His vision blurred.
Rin didn't blink.
"Oh. Mecha-Mecha Squad," she deadpanned. "With jetpacks this time. Cute."
Kentaro turned, half-dragging his body back toward cover. But they were surrounded.
Men and women in half-armor stood around them in a loose circle. No insignia. No words. Just tech that pulsed with unnatural light. Their helmets covered their eyes. Their rifles locked in unison.
Target: Rin.
"Open fire!"
Too late.
A second pink barrier erupted around Rin and Kentaro, silencing the room like someone hit mute on the world.
Bullets struck and vanished.
Sound died.
She turned to Kentaro, her expression unreadable once more.
"Well then, Renny," she said. "Looks like we're out of time."
He tried to get up. His leg gave out. Pain bloomed like fire.
Didn't matter.
He looked up.
And saw the revolver again.
Pointed at him.
But now… she was smiling.
Softly.
As if saying goodbye.
Not hate.
Not regret.
Something worse.
Affection.
"If you want answers," she said, "find me again."
She winked.
Then whispered something Kentaro wouldn't forget for the rest of his life.
"Phase Step."
And the world shattered.