Chapter 1: The Red Signal
At 2:03 AM, the Tokyo sky turned blood red.
No one knew why. No storm. No lightning. Just… red.
In the middle of the silence, a black silhouette dropped from the clouds like a dead shadow falling back to Earth. No parachute could be seen. Just a figure descending… fast.
Codename: Kade Zero.
He hit the rooftop of the Tokyo Intelligence Core building with perfect precision — no sound, no echo. The red alarm lights below flickered, unaware that their worst nightmare had already arrived.
Inside, cameras blinked. Firewalls crashed. A name flashed across every dark monitor:
> "CRIMSON ECHO - CODE REACTIVATED"
Kade drew both of his short swords. His voice echoed in the comm channel:
> "Target: Cipher Child. Mission: Extraction. Time: 6 minutes."
Chapter 2: The Cipher Child
Deep beneath the surface, in Sub-Level 9 of the Core, Mei stood barefoot on a glowing platform. Ten years old. Small. But with eyes that reflected code, not childhood.
Her brain held the Ghostfire Algorithm, a digital weapon so advanced it could destroy satellites, erase national banks, and collapse governments.
She didn't speak much. Not after they killed her parents. Not after they injected her mind with ghostcode. She only listened.
Suddenly — the platform flickered.
Sirens screamed.
> "Unauthorized breach detected!"
Mei didn't move. She whispered to herself:
> "The ghost is here…"
A blast shook the wall behind her.
From the smoke stepped a man in black armor. Masked. Silent. Swords glowing faint red. He looked like a memory that had come back to life.
> "You're Mei?" Kade asked.
She nodded.
> "I'm the one they send when they've already lost."
He raised his blade.
"Let's go."