### **Arc 2: The Echo of the Cage**
#### **Chapter 6: The Decryption**
Kuro's fingers flew across his keyboard, a storm of motion against the quiet hum of his servers. The W.A.O. data drive was a fortress. Its encryption was layered, dynamic, and viciously complex. For anyone else, it would be a digital tombstone. For Kuro, it was a Tuesday afternoon puzzle. He peeled back the layers one by one, bypassing biometric locks and quantum-randomized firewalls.
Finally, a cascade of green text filled the screen. Access granted.
He bypassed the standard files—agent rosters, financial reports, mission logs. He was hunting for the reason this drive had warranted an Alpha-level flag. He found it buried in a partitioned, triple-encrypted folder labeled simply: "Contingencies."
Inside were two files that made him pause.
The first was titled "Project Chimera." It was heavily fragmented, but the pieces he could assemble spoke of advanced bio-weaponry and genetic augmentation. It was far beyond the scope of a simple assassination agency.
It was the second file that made his blood run cold. It was a complete psychological and operational profile of W.A.O.'s top internal enforcer. An assassin known only as "The Warden." The file was updated daily. The Warden was meticulous, obsessive, and, according to the latest psychiatric evaluation, fixated on the "dishonorable departure" of a single agent: Kyro-3755. The report detailed The Warden's personal vow to "correct the anomaly" and "restore order" by bringing Renji back into the fold. Dead or alive.
Kuro's jaw tightened. This wasn't a random courier run. This was a message. W.A.O. hadn't forgotten them. And they were sending their most relentless monster to hunt them down.