The upper atmosphere burned.
A streak of molten light tore across the sky, trailing vaporized clouds and gravitational distortion. Civilians saw it as a shooting star. Satellites saw it as an unidentified mass with impossible density.
The UNDF saw it as a potential extinction event.
Inside the high-altitude deployment bay, the wind screamed through open launch gates. Engineers scrambled to secure equipment as the air pressure fluctuated from the shockwaves outside. Klaxons wailed.
Yuuji Kiroyu stood at the threshold.
No armor to don—his Bio-Aegis system flowed across his shoulders like a liquid halo, subtly reshaping to combat configuration.
Kurogami approached beside him, silent, composed, eyes fixed on the falling star.
They did not speak.
There was no strategy discussion.
No argument.
Just the shared understanding that whatever was coming owned enough mass to alter Earth's upper atmospheric flow.
Kiromi ran up behind them, breath quick and uneven.
"Deployment window in twenty seconds," she called. "Crosswinds unstable. If you jump now, you'll be—"
Yuuji cut her off with a glance.
"Kiromi."
"What?"
His voice softened just slightly.
"Stay here."
She froze.
Kurogami turned to look at Yuuji. Not mocking. Not questioning. Simply observing this rare shift in tone.
Kiromi clenched her fists.
"You can't both go without a support team. That object is emitting harmonic interference—your sensors will be blind."
Yuuji didn't respond.
Kurogami did.
"We won't need sensors."
That irritated her more.
"You can't predict something we've never encountered!"
Kurogami tilted his head. "I can predict its path."
"And how exactly—"
Yuuji spoke, still facing forward.
"He took one breath the moment it entered the atmosphere."
A beat.
"That was enough."
Kiromi stared at Kurogami.
"You smelled the trajectory?"
Kurogami shrugged lightly. "Gravity has a… flavor."
She threw her hands up. "That's not scientifically—"
WHOOOOM—
A thunderous ripple shook the hangar as the falling star broke through another atmospheric layer. The lights flickered.
The deployment gate's countdown reached zero.
Yuuji stepped forward.
Kurogami did too.
For a moment, the two stood side by side on the edge of the world—one a human made ascendant through force of will, the other a being whose power bent reality without effort.
The gulf between them was immeasurable.
Yet here they were.
Kiromi took a step forward, voice shaking.
"Kurogami!"
He glanced back.
Her eyes softened.
Not romantic.
Not dramatic.
Just deeply, painfully human.
"Come back alive," she whispered.
Kurogami nodded once. "I will."
Then Yuuji Kiroyu spoke without looking at his daughter.
"I'll bring him back."
Kurogami blinked in faint surprise.
Yuuji added, low and cold:
"Because if he dies, I'll have no one left to surpass."
Kurogami exhaled a quiet laugh.
Then—
FWOOM—
Gravity folded.
Air warped.
Two shapes launched from the hangar, shattering the sound barrier instantly as they shot upward—one trailing a halo of condensed silver, the other leaving behind rippling shockwaves.
They rose through the clouds.
Through the cold.
Through the thinning sky.
Until only stars remained.
And ahead of them—
The falling star cracked open, revealing something massive shifting inside its molten shell.
Something alive.
Kiromi watched their signal dots streak into the upper atmosphere, her nails digging into her palms.
"Please… don't let that be what I think it is…"
Because the energy signature was familiar.
Too familiar.
It matched a class of creature that shouldn't exist anymore.
An Extinct-Class Devourer.
A breed last seen during the First Incursion.
The kind that required entire nations to stop.
Now, two figures raced toward it alone.
And the world held its breath.