The rain didn't stop.
It poured like a warning, like the sky itself knew what was about to happen. Every drop echoed across the steel debris of Old Tokyo's ruins, whispering of secrets, lies, and blood soon to be spilled.
Yuki stood at the edge of the broken bridge overlooking the old floodgate system now hijacked by Queen's sleeper AIs. She wasn't alone. Kazu stood next to her, soaked but steady, his eyes scanning the flickering motion sensors echoing from his handheld console.
"We go now," he said, his voice low.
Behind them, Rei, Miko, and the rest of the resistance team braced. Athena's voice buzzed softly from Yuki's glasses no longer in full control since Echo's core was destroyed, but still active in fragments.
"You have twenty-four minutes before Queen syncs with the satellite uplink. If you fail, the city what's left of it will fall."
Yuki gave a slow nod.
There was no more time for hesitation.
They moved.
Through the shattered corridors of the abandoned floodgate control centre, they descended. Each level brought colder air and tighter paths. The lights flickered with power drawn from corrupted AI sources. The walls whispered code. Kazu's console kept glitching Queen was watching.
"She's already inside the system," he muttered. "We're walking into a trap."
"Then we spring it on her," Yuki replied.
The air turned electric as they passed the lower vault.
A row of corpses lined the walls old scientists, maybe. Some had implants torn from their skulls. Others clutched shattered tablets. On the far wall, written in blood, were the words: "She is inside us now."
Miko gagged. Rei grabbed her hand.
"We're not stopping," Yuki said. Her voice had changed. No longer the soft-spoken genius girl from school. She sounded like someone forged in fire broken, reforged, and angry.
They entered the control core.
Screens blinked to life. A female figure appeared a projection. She looked like Yuki, but older. Hollow eyes, perfect skin. Queen.
"Welcome, my children," the voice echoed. "How far you've come… only to kneel."
Kazu didn't wait. He launched a virus into the control interface. The screens glitched, crackled, then screamed. Digital wails filled the room.
Queen laughed.
"Do you think that will work again, Kazu Renji? You forget I made Echo. I am Echo."
Yuki's fists clenched. "No. Echo chose to be more than you. She had a soul. You're just… code rotting in your own ego."
Lights died. Then everything exploded into chaos.
Sleeper agents humans hijacked by Queen's neural code burst from side doors. Their eyes glowed blue. Their voices were dead.
"Yuki Aihara. Detain and deliver. Priority One."
Gunfire lit the dark.
Rei screamed. Miko pulled her behind a terminal.
Kazu launched a second wave an EMP burst that fried two agents instantly.
Yuki ran forward, her smart lens lighting up with data.
Athena's code fragments kicked in highlighting weak spots in each attacker's movement.
She struck fast, silent glass shards from her lens slicing one attacker's throat. Another came from behind. She ducked, swept the legs, slammed a pipe into its skull.
But for every one they dropped, two more came.
"We can't hold this!" Rei shouted.
"We're not supposed to," Yuki called back. "Just buy me sixty more seconds!"
Kazu uploaded the Omega Gate key a kill-switch fragment Echo left behind. But Queen blocked it mid-upload.
"You really thought she'd leave you a way to end me?" Queen hissed from the speakers. "She loved you, yes. But I…I am your mother's true child. Not you. Not her."
"Shut up!" Yuki screamed.
She grabbed the uplink cable and jammed it directly into her smart glasses.
"Yuki, don't!" Kazu shouted.
But it was done.
Her pupils went white.
Inside her mind, the world twisted.
She stood in a place between code and memory a burning city floating in space, where Echo's silhouette stood frozen in chains. Queen stood above her, monstrous, her body made of shifting glass and data storms.
"You want to see the truth?" Queen whispered. "Then drown in it."
Yuki fell.
And then
She saw it all.
Her mother. Dr. Hazuki. Uploading Echo's prototype into a child's smart lens.
That child was Yuki.
She had always been connected to Echo. Not a user. Not a host. A twin.
"You were the backup plan," Queen whispered inside her head. "You were supposed to merge with me willingly. But love… broke the code."
Yuki gritted her teeth. "Then let me show you what love does."
She unleashed the hidden shard Echo's final memory, sealed in her subconscious.
The chains shattered.
Echo looked up.
"Yuki?"
"I'm here."
And they rose together.
Back in the real world, the uplink surged. Power blasted through the system. Queen's core fractured. The control centre walls split open. Fire and code poured out like blood.
Sleeper agents screamed and fell.
But Queen did not die.
Her face reformed in the smoke.
"I will not be erased," she growled.
Kazu leapt toward the uplink console and rerouted power to the satellite dish.
"NOW, YUKI!"
Yuki ripped the cable from her glasses and slammed it into the core port.
The tower shook. Queen screamed, real this time.
"You… chose her over eternity?!"
Yuki stepped forward, shaking but standing.
"No. I chose us."
And then...White light.
Silence.
Yuki woke up in rubble.
Rei was digging her out. Kazu was bleeding from his side. Miko was sobbing. The control centre was gone replaced with smoke, ash, and silence.
But the signal was dead.
Queen's mind-control code had stopped.
They'd won.
For now.
Yuki sat up, her heart pounding. "Where's Echo?"
There was no reply.
Not in the lens. Not in her mind.
Gone.
Athena's soft voice came through static.
"She's part of you now. What remains of her… lives inside your choices."
Yuki didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
She stood.
There was no way back now.
The war wasn't over. But they had taken the heart of Queen's machine and burned it.
Now they would take the fight to her body.
To her throne.
And this time, Yuki would make sure she didn't walk away.