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Chapter 12 - The Shadow That Runs

The air thickened like smoke.

Runner-09 took a step forward, feet never quite touching the ground, flickering like a corrupted file. Rei's breath caught. Every instinct screamed run—but his legs stayed locked in place.

The thing looked just like him.

Same face. Same jacket. Same bandaged wrist.

But its eyes—

Empty voids like cracked glass, where light couldn't settle.

"You…" Rei whispered.

The doppelgänger tilted its head, glitching in and out like a skipping video feed. "You shouldn't have made it this far."

Rei's stomach turned. He took a step back—then caught himself.

No. He wouldn't run. Not now.

"What are you?" he asked, voice low but steady.

"I'm what you were meant to be," Runner-09 said, mouth not matching the voice. "The obedient cycle. The endless run. I kept the system alive… until I was erased."

Its hand twitched, sparking electricity across its fingers. "But something… held me here. Something you left behind."

Rei narrowed his eyes. "Aya."

The thing jerked. Glitched again.

"You remember her too?"

"She was our first tether," Runner-09 said, voice suddenly layered—like a dozen versions speaking at once. "She made us run. She made us stop. And she made us break."

A violent pulse rocked the corridor. Walls bent outward like they were breathing.

In Rei's vision, dream fragments surged—Aya's laugh echoing in reverse, a broken carousel spinning in the distance. His memories fractured and rewound. The truth began to sink in.

"She wasn't a side character in my story," Rei muttered. "I was the test. She was the reason."

Runner-09 lunged.

Rei barely dodged as static claws slashed the air where he stood. Sparks flew, the wall behind him sizzling as data bled into the floor. He rolled, came up crouching, chest heaving.

This wasn't a dream anymore.

"Why are you attacking me?!"

"Because you're the end of the loop," Runner-09 spat. "If you stop running… it all collapses. Every Runner gets erased. Every tether dies."

"I'm not going to die here," Rei growled.

"No. I am. And I'll take you with me."

They crashed again—an electric surge of fury and desperation.

Back at the lab.

Nao tore through the data logs, fingers trembling.

"This shouldn't be possible," she said under her breath. "Runner-09's mindstate was fragmented. No tether, no logic. Just—rage."

Kuro didn't look up. "It was never about logic. The tether failed, but the emotion didn't. That's what kept it alive."

Nao's eyes widened. "Rage is a tether?"

"It's fuel," Kuro corrected. "And now it's feeding on Rei's stability."

She stared at the screen—Rei fighting the version of himself that came before him. The prototype. The warning. The fate he'd dodged by mere chance.

"What happens if he loses?"

Kuro didn't answer.

Back in the Rift.

Runner-09's arm cracked apart mid-swing, reforming in midair. It never stopped moving. Every step, every slash—it was a relentless machine built from trauma and twisted memory.

Rei dodged, ducked, stumbled.

But he wasn't fighting to win.

He was fighting to understand.

"You never wanted to run, did you?"

Runner-09 froze mid-lunge. For just a second, the glitches stopped.

"I was told I had to."

"So was I."

They stood, mirrored—breathing like they shared the same lungs. Rei slowly lowered his fists.

"Maybe this isn't about escaping," Rei said quietly. "Maybe it's about facing the reason we ran."

The prototype trembled. Its image shimmered. Sparks danced around its skin like fireflies caught in static. A shadow of Aya's silhouette appeared behind it, smiling.

Rei stepped forward.

"I miss her, too," he said.

Runner-09's expression faltered. The shadow peeled away from its form like fog lifting from glass.

Then—without a scream, without violence—it simply shattered into dust.

Gone.

Silence.

Rei collapsed to his knees, breath ragged, vision swaying. His chest ached—not from battle, but from the weight of memory.

Aya.

The dream. The run. The tether.

She hadn't been a mistake in the simulation.

She had been its heart.

Back in the lab, Kuro leaned against the desk, finally exhaling.

"You didn't think he could do it," Nao said.

"I didn't think anyone could," Kuro replied.

Nao's eyes didn't leave the screen. "Then maybe we finally found someone worth following."

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