Age 18 — Averikan Union States
Eight Months After Kersnik's Ultimatum
The war started on a Tuesday.
No declaration. No warning. Just gunfire in the streets of Port Victory and armored vehicles rolling through the capital. The Averikan Union fractured along lines that had been drawn decades ago—political, economic, regional—and suddenly everyone had to choose a side.
Krovka had been inside for months. Embedded. Waiting. Now they scattered across the chaos.
Netoshka's mission shifted from observation to action. Intelligence gathering became something else. She moved through the burning city, cataloguing factions, mapping, identifying players. The Synarchy wanted data. She delivered.
But something else moved through the chaos with her.
A presence.
A shadow.
Familiar.
---
The Split
The squad divided. Too dangerous to operate as a unit. Too many checkpoints, too much surveillance, too many eyes.
Zimor took the northern sectors. Volna disappeared into the industrial zones. Kedr went south, talking his way through every checkpoint. Sova stayed near the medical districts, watching triage centers become morgues.
Qi-7 and Yunyan worked the communications networks, intercepting military signals. Honglian planted charges at key infrastructure points, waiting for activation. Lotus tracked financial flows, following money to power.
Netoshka operated alone.
She moved through Port Victory like a ghost. The city she'd infiltrated as Mimi was unrecognizable now. Barricades. Burning vehicles. Snipers in windows. The smell of smoke and death.
On the third day of the war, she found a pattern.
Someone else was moving through the same sectors. Same routes. Same targets. Always one step ahead. Always gone before she arrived.
She started watching for them.
---
The Encounter
The warehouse district. Abandoned. Perfect for ambushes.
Netoshka moved between shipping containers, senses extended, feeling for threats. The fighting had passed through here days ago. Now it was silent. Too silent.
She rounded a corner.
A figure stood twenty meters away.
Black tactical gear. No insignia. Face obscured by a scarf and goggles.
The same build. The same stance. The same way of holding weight on the balls of the feet, ready to move.
Netoshka's hand drifted toward her weapon.
The figure didn't move.
For a long moment, they simply looked at each other across the debris-strewn space.
Then the figure spoke.
"Hello, Netoshka."
The voice was distorted. Muffled by the scarf. But the cadence. The rhythm. Familiar.
"Take off the mask."
A pause. Then gloved hands reached up. Pulled away the scarf. Removed the goggles.
Short red-orange hair. Sharp blue-gray eyes.
Ruzina.
Netoshka's breath caught.
"You're dead."
Ruzina smiled faintly.
"No. You just needed to think I was."
The world tilted. The warehouse. The war. Everything receding.
"The plane. The water. I watched you—"
"You watched me let go." Ruzina's voice was calm. Clinical.
"That was the plan. You needed to escape. You needed to believe I was gone. You needed to carry what we put inside you back to where it belonged."
Netoshka's hand tightened on her weapon.
"What are you talking about?"
Ruzina took a step forward. Netoshka raised her weapon. She stopped.
"Everything you've experienced since Sombiro. The hallucinations. The dreams. The moments when reality seemed to... glitch." She tilted her head.
"That was us. DSI. We've been inside your head since the island."
Netoshka's mind raced. Sombiro. The medical wing. The DK-Ultra sessions. Ruzina's friendship. The escape. The crash.
All of it. All of it planned.
"You used me."
"I completed you." Ruzina's voice was almost gentle.
"You were broken when you arrived. Fragments of programming from three different nations, all fighting for control. We stabilized you. Gave you focus. Made you something coherent."
She paused.
"And now you're exactly where we need you. Inside the Synarchy. Connected to every faction that matters. Ready to be activated."
Netoshka's finger tightened on the trigger.
"Activated for what?"
Ruzina smiled again.
"That's not for you to know yet."
---
The Duel
Netoshka fired.
Ruzina moved—fast, impossibly fast—rolling behind a shipping container. Bullets sparked off metal.
"Netoshka!" Ruzina's voice echoed through the warehouse. "This doesn't have to be violence!"
Netoshka advanced, firing controlled bursts.
"You lied to me! You used me! You made me think you were dead!"
"I saved you!" Ruzina's voice came from a different direction now—she was moving, circling.
"Without me, you'd still be in Sombiro! Without me, you'd be nothing!"
Netoshka rounded a container. Ruzina was there. Close. Too close.
They fought.
Hand-to-hand. Brutal. Efficient. Both trained in the same methods—Netoshka realized with horror that Ruzina had studied her, learned her, anticipated her every move.
Strike. Block. Counter. They moved through the warehouse like dancers, like assassins, like two halves of the same broken whole.
Netoshka landed a hit. Felt ribs crack under her knuckles.
Ruzina staggered. Smiled. Blood at the corner of her mouth.
"Good. You're still learning."
She struck back. Caught Netoshka in the jaw. The world spun.
They separated. Breathing hard. Circling.
"You could join us," Ruzina said. "DSI. We could use someone like you."
"I'd rather die."
"Interesting." Ruzina's eyes flickered—something like sadness, something like recognition. "You said that once before. In the tunnel. When we first met."
Netoshka hesitated.
Ruzina continued.
"You were trapped. Buried. I pulled you out. You looked at me and said, 'Why?' Not thank you. Not help me. Just... why."
She took a step closer. Netoshka didn't fire.
"Because I saw something in you. Something worth saving. Something worth using, yes—but something worth saving first." Her voice softened. "That wasn't a lie, Netoshka. The mission was real. The friendship was real. They're not the same thing."
Netoshka's weapon wavered.
"You're trying to manipulate me."
"Of course I am." Ruzina smiled sadly. "That's what I do. That's what we both do. But it doesn't make the other thing less true."
She spread her arms. Open. Vulnerable.
"Kill me if you have to. I understand. But know this—I'm not your enemy. Not really. I'm just the person who saw you clearly and decided you deserved more than what they made you."
Netoshka stood frozen.
The warehouse. The war. The years of programming and betrayal and loss.
All of it came down to this moment.
This woman.
This lie.
This truth.
---
The Choice
Netoshka lowered her weapon.
Ruzina's eyes widened slightly—genuine surprise.
"I don't know what's real anymore," Netoshka said quietly. "I don't know if anything you've said is true. But I know that when I was in that tunnel, buried alive, you came for me. You didn't have to. You did."
She met Ruzina's eyes.
"That means something."
Ruzina nodded slowly.
"It does."
"Go." Netoshka's voice hardened.
"Before I change my mind."
Ruzina studied her for a long moment. Then she nodded again.
"This isn't over. The war is just beginning. We'll meet again."
She turned. Walked toward the warehouse's far exit.
At the door, she paused. Looked back.
"One last thing. The hallucinations? The voice you hear sometimes? The one that's been with you since childhood?"
Netoshka stiffened.
"That's not us. That's not DSI. That's something else. Something older." Ruzina's expression was unreadable. "You should find out what it is. Before it finds you."
She disappeared into the smoke.
Netoshka stood alone in the warehouse.
The war raged outside.
But inside, something else was beginning.
---
The Promise
Hours later. A ruined apartment building overlooking the city.
Netoshka sat against a wall, watching Port Victory burn. The fires lit the sky orange and red. Gunfire echoed in the distance. Somewhere out there, Ruzina was moving through the chaos. Somewhere out there, the war continued.
She thought about what Ruzina had said.
The hallucinations. The voice. That's not us.
The Voice. The one from Kholodny. The one that had guided her, whispered to her, watched her through years of horror.
It wasn't programming.
It wasn't conditioning.
It was something else.
Something older.
And it was still there. Waiting.
Netoshka closed her eyes.
The city burned.
The war continued.
But she had made a choice.
Not for Rosalvya. Not for Riyue. Not for Averika. Not for the Synarchy.
For herself.
She would find out what she really was.
And when she did—
She would change everything.
"I promise you, Ruzina. I promise you all. Erythia will be different. Or it will burn trying."
---
End of Entry 102
The Second Averikan Civil War raged on.
Krovka scattered across the chaos.
Ruzina vanished into the shadows.
And Netoshka Nezvany stood at the center of it all, holding a truth she didn't yet understand and a promise she intended to keep.
The Voice waited.
The war preparing.
And somewhere in the darkness, something ancient stirred.