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The Rust District never changed.
The air still stank of smoke and sweat, the streets still sang with the hum of broken machines and desperate lives. Gin moved through the crowd like a shadow, a hood drawn low over his scarred face. He carried a sack of circuit scrap on one shoulder and a ration ticket in his pocket — just another old man buying parts to keep his ghosts alive.
The market buzzed around him: stalls piled with copper coils, leaking batteries, fried meat that smelled more like oil than food. Voices bargained, cursed, laughed. The world above the ruins didn't care about vanished kids or government tests.
Gin did.
He stopped at a tech-stall run by a wiry girl with soot on her cheek.
"Got any pure capacitors?" he asked.
"Depends who's asking," she shot back.
He flipped a coin across the table. It gleamed faintly blue — currency from the old wars.
Her eyes widened. "Alright, old-timer. What do you need them for?"
"Building a transmitter."
She smirked. "Still sending signals to ghosts?"
"Maybe," he said, half-smiling.
While she rummaged through boxes, a group of scavengers nearby whispered loud enough for Gin's trained ears to catch:
> "You hear about that kid they took from Sector 12?"
"The one glowing blue?"
"Yeah. Authority boys dragged him straight to the White Lab. Said he burned through three guards before they dosed him."
Gin's heart stopped for a beat. Sector 12. Blue. Kid.
It couldn't be.
He turned slowly, the market noise fading to a dull throb in his skull.
"What kid?" he asked, voice low.
The scavenger squinted at him. "Why, you know him or somethin'? Just some punk. They say his eyes lit up like lightning before they knocked him cold."
Gin dropped the coin he'd been holding. It hit the ground with a metallic chime.
The girl behind the stall frowned. "Hey, you okay, old man?"
But he was already moving.
Down the narrow alleyways he went, boots splashing through puddles of rust water, the pulse in his chest beating faster than it had in years.
He reached the old factory entrance — their hideout — and slammed his hand against the control panel. Nothing answered. Dust. Silence. The place felt hollow, stripped bare.
Jiro was gone.
Gin clenched his fists, the air crackling faintly around him. "Damn fools," he muttered. "They think they can cage him?"
He turned toward the northern skyline. Beyond the haze, the faint silhouette of the Authority's white spire rose — the lab where monsters were made.
"Hold on, kid," he growled under his breath. "I'm coming."
He reached beneath his coat, pulling out a rusted comm device. The screen flickered, connecting to an encrypted frequence
"Old Man Gin. You're still alive."
"Need access," Gin said flatly. "White Lab coordinates."
"You're out of your damn mind. That place—"
"Send it."
Silence. Then: Coordinates received.
Old Gin's eyes hardened. The market noise returned faintly behind him, but he no longer heard it.
For the first time in years, the old soldier felt the fire again — Essentia whispering beneath his scars.
He would walk into the Authority's den.
And if they stood between him and his student, the Rust District would burn for it.
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