The tunnel was long, cold, and mercilessly silent.
Each step Jiro took echoed like a memory he didn't want to keep. Behind him, somewhere deep in the sealed White Lab, Old Gin was still fighting—a rhythm of light and thunder that was fading more with every heartbeat.
Jiro stopped halfway through the corridor. His breath came ragged; his hands shook.
He hit the steel wall once. Then again.
The third time, his fist left a dent.
"Why… why can't I ever do anything?" he muttered, voice breaking. The images of Gin pushing him away replayed over and over—the calm smile, the order to run, the hum of that Level 2 aura fading under the storm.
He sank to his knees.
For a long moment, he said nothing. Then his head dropped, shoulders trembling as tears hit the metal floor.
"I swear," he whispered, the words cutting through the quiet, "I'll never be weak again. Never."
The wrist-watch on his arm pulsed softly, as if answering his vow. A faint blue map blinked to life, projecting a trail out of Sector Null. At the edge of the projection, a name appeared in small text:
> Destination: District 34 – Ashlane.
The map zoomed in. Jagged terrain, scattered ruins, and red markers labeled Unregulated Zone. Gin had once called it "the place where laws die."
A no-man's-land of outcasts—failed experiments, ex-soldiers, and wanderers who'd slipped through the Authority's grasp.
Jiro stood, wiped his face, and began walking.
---
Five Days Later
Dust storms rolled endlessly across the borderlands. Broken towers jutted from the earth like bones of a forgotten city. Jiro's coat was torn; his boots were grey with ash.
The wrist-watch had become his lifeline.
Whenever hunger struck, he tapped its side—light shimmered, and a small ration pack materialized from its inner storage field. Gin had thought of everything.
At night, he rested beneath shattered billboards and watched the smog-choked sky. The stars never appeared over Sector Null. Only the faint glow of energy storms.
Sometimes, he'd hear the hum of his cores, out of rhythm—like they were grieving too.
---
On the fifth evening, as the sun bled crimson over the wasteland, the map flickered again. The blue line ended at a cluster of metal huts built against a collapsed freeway. A lone signal blinked at the center.
Jiro approached cautiously. He could feel it—a presence, old yet steady, carrying the weight of countless battles.
A voice called out from the shadows.
> "So you made it out, kid. Gin always said you were stubborn."
Jiro froze. From behind a rusted barricade stepped a man with white hair tied back in a cord, a long coat flapping in the wind. His left arm was mechanical, humming faintly with Essentia.
The man looked him over once, eyes sharp but kind.
"Name's Rein Varro," he said. "Old Gin's comrade… and apparently your babysitter now."
Jiro's grip tightened on the strap of his watch.
"Where's Gin?"
Rein's smile faded. He turned toward the dying sun.
"Come inside, boy. You'll need to hear everything."
*****