[POV: Nardia]

  —The people who break others with “beautiful logic” are the ones I hate most.

  Deep inside the supply block was Fanark’s back of the back.

  The front corridors were white, floors polished to a shine, air so light it almost felt fake.

  This wasn’t like that.

  Here, it smelled like oil. Pipes ran naked along the walls. Paint had peeled in strips. The lights were old, the kind that buzzed faintly like they were tired.

  The fact this place existed at all meant Fanark was never just “clean.”

  Footsteps.

  The footsteps of an enemy I couldn’t see—fading a little ways ahead.

  Camouflage can hide light.

  It can’t hide weight.

  And I could feel it, clearly: that weight was leading me.

  I knew it was bait.

  I still had to follow.

  “…Miyu…”

  Saying her name out loud drove my anger down another layer.

  Anger is fuel.

  But fuel explodes if you don’t keep a hand on the throttle.

  I knew that.

  I knew it—and I still felt like I was about to blow.

  I turned a corner.

  A thin band of light ran across the hallway—an infrared sweep from a surveillance camera.

  Not the normal “station security” kind.

  A different system. A separate set of eyes.

  GDC training had drilled this into us: that kind of scan line was the sort criminals used.

  “…Why?”

  My breath caught.

  Inside Fanark—a research station—there was a criminal surveillance net?

  Cold crawled up my back.

  And even as I went cold, my anger stayed hot.

  Further in, there was a door.

  A cargo door—an old pressure door.

  But the lock on it was new.

  Recently replaced.

  “…This is it.”

  I pressed my ear to the metal.

  Sound leaked through: low music, laughter, the clang of metal on metal.

  A noisy, lively atmosphere that felt violently out of place.

  I tightened my grip on my terminal.

  Emergency authority—useless here.

  Different lock. Different system.

  “…Then we do it the old way.”

  I hated that I was copying Genichiro.

  But I didn’t have another choice.

  A tool case had been left on the floor like trash. I yanked out a heavy wrench.

  It settled into my hand like it belonged there.

  For once, the weight of a “tool” was on my side.

  I jammed the wrench into the seam and threw my body weight into it.

  Metal screamed.

  The lock shifted one stage.

  Then another.

  —It popped.

  The door opened.

  Inside was neon, smoke, and the stench of cheap alcohol.

  Alcohol smell in space made me nauseous.

  Because there’s no escape from it. Nowhere for it to go. It just sits in your lungs and laughs at you.

  It was a club—except it was a club pretending to be a club.

  A criminal den.

  Weapons stacked by the wall. Cameras tucked into the ceiling. Entrances and exits minimized.

  The flow lines were too clean.

  This wasn’t amateur work.

  “…The Franken Family.”

  I’d studied them. The “handymen” around Fanark who did convenient jobs on the surface—while under the surface they trafficked, kidnapped, modified.

  The more “convenient” something is, the more likely someone bled for it.

  The moment I stepped in, a man at the front desk narrowed his eyes.

  “Hey. Who the hell are you?”

  His gaze was muddy, but his movement was sharp—trained.

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  “I’m not a customer,” I said.

  My own voice was lower than usual.

  It sounded… dangerous.

  “I came to take something back.”

  The air changed.

  Music kept playing, but every eye in the room snapped toward me at once.

  Stares are blades.

  And all those blades turned the same direction.

  “A girl, by herself?” someone scoffed.

  “Shut up,” I said. “Doesn’t matter.”

  In that moment, the door behind me shut.

  A lock clicked.

  My exit vanished.

  “…Ah. Worst.”

  Worst or not, I only had one direction left.

  Through the crowd’s gaze—up on the second floor, behind a glass-walled room—I spotted a stretcher.

  And on it—

  Miyu.

  “Miyu!”

  The instant I shouted, bodies moved.

  Men swarmed.

  The distance collapsed.

  Hands reached for me.

  —If they grabbed me, it was over.

  “Get off!”

  I swung the wrench.

  It knocked one man’s hand aside.

  But there were too many.

  Arms hooked around me from behind. A blunt impact slammed into my ribs.

  My knee almost buckled.

  “Women get quieter once you put restraints on,” someone whispered by my ear.

  Disgust crawled through me.

  My anger surged so hard my vision threatened to go red—

  And then I heard clapping.

  Clap. Clap. Clap.

  Too neat. Too clean.

  Applause that didn’t belong in this room.

  “Wonderful. So brave, Black-Snow Princess.”

  A voice fell from above.

  A man stepped out from the second-floor glass room.

  He wore an expensive suit. Shoes polished to mirror shine.

  His smile was gentle.

  His eyes were ice.

  When he blinked, it was too slow—measured, like something imitating the habit.

  He was the type who could play “polite” so well it made you sick.

  —Grim Barlock.

  The name sounded evil.

  The person was worse.

  And apparently, he wasn’t even human.

  “…What,” I spat.

  Barlok bowed politely.

  “Long time no see. Around here, they call me a ‘manager,’ I suppose. …The Franken Family, and this place you’re glaring at—both are my subordinate organizations.”

  Subordinate.

  The word made my stomach twist. Like a dog collar.

  “So you’re the one who had Miyu taken?”

  “‘Taken’ is an unfortunate phrasing,” he said, still smiling. “Recovered. …She was originally mine.”

  I actually laughed.

  Better to laugh than choke on rage.

  “Huh? What is this—claiming ownership? This isn’t daycare. It’s space!”

  Barlok’s smile didn’t crack.

  “Not daycare, no. That’s precisely why ownership matters. …I acquired, legitimately, a ‘kikai doll’—a machine monster doll—made with exclusive Grabhul technology.”

  “‘Legitimately,’ says the criminal?”

  He shrugged lightly.

  “‘Criminal’ has an unpleasant ring. I’m a rationalist. —But yes, I’ve been identified and put on lists. Living in the ‘front’ world has become inconvenient.”

  He said identified the way someone might say missed a train.

  That casualness was part of his cruelty.

  Then he sighed, theatrically.

  “And yet—weren’t you the ones who stole from me?”

  “Huh?”

  My eyebrow jumped.

  “We picked her up at a ship graveyard. If you want to talk about stealing, that means you did something first.”

  “You truly don’t look beyond the story’s frame,” Barlok said gently. He glanced at Miyu on the stretcher, like she was a tool on a shelf. “That craft was scheduled to be recovered by my people. Grabhul technology should be handled by those who can handle it.”

  “Those who can handle it? You mean you.”

  He laughed.

  Then, without losing that calm, he turned toward his terminal inside the glass room.

  “Yes. I need a vessel.”

  A vessel.

  The word iced my spine.

  “A vessel…?”

  “A body,” Barlok said, as if explaining weather. “A new body. …When one’s face is known, changing bodies is the most rational solution.”

  He spoke it plainly.

  But his eyes were bright—like a child before taking a toy apart.

  I grit my teeth.

  “Miyu isn’t a ‘body.’ She’s a person.”

  Barlok tilted his head, deliberately.

  “A person? Interesting. You truly consider that human?”

  “I do,” I said. “I don’t need your permission.”

  “Then allow me to explain.” His voice stayed soft. “That android captures wandering souls—”

  The air changed.

  On the stretcher, Miyu’s shoulder twitched—barely.

  Like she’d reacted in her sleep.

  “Captures…?” I echoed automatically.

  “Yes. A soul is a bundle of information. That ‘machine monster doll’ captures drifting information, seats it in a vessel, and simulates a personality. …It behaves like a human. It cries, gets angry, loves—so convincingly. A marvelous technology, isn’t it?”

  “‘Simulates’…?”

  “Whether it’s real is irrelevant,” he said, smiling like a priest delivering doctrine. “Function is what matters. —So tell me, your Miyu… whose soul did she capture?”

  His gaze slid—deliberately—toward the side where Genichiro wasn’t.

  As if he already knew the answer.

  My throat went dry.

  “…Genichiro’s…?”

  Barlok nodded, almost kindly.

  “Yes. Your companion’s guardian spirit. An ancestral spirit. Or—something that clung behind him for a very long time. That vessel captured the wandering soul attached to him, and reconstructed it in the shape of the original data: a ‘high school girl.’”

  The words stabbed like blades.

  Miyu… a soul that had been following Genichiro?

  That was—

  “…Liar,” I spat.

  Barlok’s smile widened.

  “Do you want it to be a lie? But you’ve noticed already, haven’t you? She isn’t a simple human-made machine—just an android. That’s why she’s terrifying. That’s why she’s beautiful. That’s why she has value.”

  “Don’t say ‘value’!”

  I snarled.

  Barlok, still smiling, stretched a hand toward the terminal.

  Red letters glowed on the glass-room display.

  RESET

  My heart kicked.

  “Stop!”

  “You misunderstand,” Barlok said. “I don’t intend to break her. …I’ll simply ‘initialize’ her.”

  “Initializing is the same thing!”

  “No. Breaking is wasteful.” His fingertip hovered with leisurely cruelty. “Initialize her, and empty the soul-seat. …Then I will sit in that seat.”

  He said it so calmly I felt sick.

  A person treated like a chair.

  And the worst part—he said it with manners.

  “…You’re the lowest.”

  “Fine,” he said softly. “I will survive. To survive, I treat other lives as resources. That is space, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t use space as your excuse!”

  I tried to thrash, but arms pinned me. My knee was forced to the floor. Bone creaked.

  Rage threatened to burst, painting everything red.

  Barlok placed his finger on the switch.

  Slowly.

  Deliberately.

  The truly cruel never hurry.

  They want to watch you break.

  “Lastly,” Barlok said, smiling, “I’ll give you a choice, Black-Snow Princess.”

  His voice was honey.

  “Bow here and admit she is a ‘thing,’ and I’ll delay initialization a little.”

  My throat burned.

  If I spoke, I might lose.

  If I stayed silent, Miyu would disappear.

  In that moment, deep inside me, I felt the nanomachines stir—correcting my heart rate, forcing a thin artificial calm into my blood.

  It infuriated me.

  Right now, it was necessary.

  —Think.

  Don’t kneel.

  But don’t let him erase her.

  I clenched my teeth and said, low:

  “…If you’re going to press it, press it.”

  Even I didn’t expect my own voice.

  It didn’t shake.

  I was terrified, and it still didn’t shake.

  Barlok’s eyebrow twitched—just slightly.

  “Oh?”

  “If you press it, I’ll kill you,” I said. “Not right now. Not today. But anywhere in space you run. Soul or vessel—I’ll chase you down and crush you.”

  The room rippled with unease. The Franken men reacted—too quick, too small.

  A woman’s threat shouldn’t have moved them.

  But it did.

  “—Nardia…!”

  Someone shouted. Far away.

  Ahmad? Genichiro?

  Not here yet—but the presence was closing.

  Barlok laughed, delighted.

  “Anger is beautiful. …I think I’m starting to like your anger.”

  “Don’t say you like anything!”

  “But you will die here,” he said, voice turning cold. “And she will become me.”

  His finger began to sink—

  And then the ceiling vent screamed.

  Metal shrieked, tearing.

  Not a bad sound.

  A sound that meant allies.

  At the same time, the lights flickered across the room.

  Camouflage distorted.

  Surveillance lines glitched.

  For a single instant, the grip on my arms loosened.

  I bet everything on that instant.

  I twisted.

  Folded one man’s fingers backward—no hope for pain compliance, just snapping joint limits.

  He screamed.

  I kicked off the floor, grabbed the wrench again, and threw it at the second-floor glass room.

  “—DON’T!!”

  The wrench hit.

  A spiderweb of cracks raced across the glass.

  It was only cracks—yet Barlok’s “perfect composure” wavered for half a heartbeat.

  That wobble was my win.

  Wins exist to be chained into the next win.

  I screamed, voice scraping raw:

  “Miyu isn’t a thing! I don’t care whose soul she was, or what you call her—she’s Miyu, right now, right here! She’s not your seat!”

  My voice cracked at the end.

  Cracked was fine.

  It only had to reach her.

  Barlok smiled.

  And with that smile, he said in a cold voice:

  “Splendid. …That is precisely why the reset has value.”

  His finger moved back toward the switch.

  —Make it in time.

  Time stretched inside my skull, like during pulse travel.

  The worse the moment, the longer time became.

  And at the very edge of that stretched time—

  The vent shattered.

  Light fell.

  A heavy shadow dropped.

  And I knew—

  —Genichiro.