The Cyan-Void was never truly silent. To most, the vacuum of space was a cold, empty expanse, an endless graveyard of silence where sound went to die. But to Missori, it hummed. It vibrated with the rhythmic pulses of a thousand dying stars and the crackling static of ancient, forgotten energies. For a Keikai Kusa-jin, space was not a void; it was a symphony, and she was its most attentive listener.
Floating in the zero-gravity shadows of the Aurelius Asteroid Belt, Missori adjusted her grip on a specialized pulse-welder. The belt was a chaotic dance of jagged rocks and frozen gasses, relics of a planet that had shattered eons ago. Her long, silvery-green hair was tucked into a sleek, transparent vacuum-hood, though her dual black antennae remained outside, protected by a thin, bio-organic membrane.
Those antennae were twitching rhythmically, cutting through the cosmic noise. They were her most honest compass—more reliable than any radar. Right now, they felt a sharp, metallic "itch" at the back of her mind. It was a sensation like biting into a lemon, but for her soul.
The sign of a highly unstable Spark Crystal.
"Easy now, you beautiful little disaster," Missori whispered. Her voice was soft and melodic, carrying a playful lilt that even the crackling comms couldn't dampen. She drifted closer to a massive, rotating asteroid that looked like a charred skull.
Deep within a jagged fissure in the rock's crust, a violent, electric-blue light pulsed. It was raw, unrefined Spark energy—the lifeblood of Keikai technology and the most coveted fuel in the Cyan-Void. But in this state, it was also a ticking time bomb. The crystal was attempting to vibrate itself into a localized explosion that would turn the entire asteroid into shrapnel.
"Nexus, report. How's the stabilization field holding up? Give me something better than 'we're all going to die,'" she said, kicking off a smaller stone to drift toward the target.
"The field is at forty-two percent and dropping, Missori," the ship's AI replied. Nexus had a dry, synthesized tone that always sounded slightly disappointed in her life choices. "Internal pressure sensors within the asteroid are spiking. I would suggest a tactical retreat before the rock decides to become a second sun and vaporizes my hull—and your very expensive boots."
Missori smirked. Her cyan eyes danced with a predatory excitement, the golden shimmer in her pupils catching the blue glare of the crystal. "Retreat is such a boring word, Nexus. Let's call it 'proactive resource acquisition.' Besides, do you know how many credits this much raw Spark is worth on the black market? We could upgrade your processing core. You might even find a sense of humor."
"I am a Class-A intelligence, Missori. Humor is an inefficiency," Nexus retorted.
"Whatever you say, darling."
As she reached the harvesting drill she had planted earlier, the machine groaned. A shower of orange sparks erupted from its logic board, the smell of ozone faint even through her suit's filters. The machine stalled. Without its containment beam, the blue crystal began to hum at a pitch so high it made Missori's teeth ache and her antennae curl in discomfort.
"Oh, don't you dare quit on me now!" she scolded the machine.
With practiced grace, she used the momentum of the vacuum to spin mid-air, landing squarely on the drill's vibrating chassis. Her strong, agile legs cushioned the impact. In a blur of motion, she ripped open the maintenance panel. Most people would have needed a manual, a diagnostic tool, and an hour of patience. Missori didn't.
She could feel the flow of electricity. To her, a circuit board was like a musical score. Her antennae stiffened, sensing the "heartbeat" of the malfunctioning tech.
"Blown capacitor. Typical," she muttered. She didn't have a spare. Instead, she unclipped a strand of her own gold-alloy bracelet—a piece of Keikai tech itself—and jammed it into the circuit, using a quick, surgical burst from her welder to fuse the connection.
The drill roared back to life, the stabilizers humming a steady, calm emerald green. The blue crystal's frantic pulsing slowed, surrendered, and was finally extracted by the mechanical arm.
"See? A little Keikai charm and a bit of jewelry is all it takes," she chirped, securing the glowing gem into a lead-lined container on her belt.
But then, the symphony of the stars went silent.
The hum of the asteroid, the static of the Void, even the vibration of her own suit—everything stopped. Her antennae didn't just twitch; they went rigid, hardening into horn-like structures as her combat instincts flared.
A wave of absolute, crushing cold washed over her. It wasn't the thermal cold of space; it was a cold that started in the marrow of her bones and radiated outward. It was the cold of a grave. The vibrant blue light of the Cyan-Void seemed to dim, as if an invisible hand had poured gray ink into the cosmos, staining the stars.
"Missori," Nexus's voice was no longer dry. It was sharp, ringing with a priority-one alert. "Unidentified energy signature detected. Distance: fifty meters and closing. It is not biological. It is... an absence."
Missori didn't need the AI's analysis. She turned her head toward the dark side of the asteroid. A shadow was moving. It wasn't a shadow cast by the sun; it was a silhouette of pure, flickering darkness, a tear in reality itself.
An Echo.
The creature was a distorted, translucent shape of a long-dead pilot, its limbs elongated and its face a featureless void. It lunged, its movements jerky and unnatural, reaching out with fingers that looked like wisps of smoke. Through her antennae, Missori felt its hunger—not for food, but for the very light that made her who she was.
"Time to go! Nexus, prep the engines!" Missori gasped, her playful bravado replaced by cold calculation.
She wasn't fast enough to reach the ship. The Echo was already between her and the Stellar Needle. She could feel the temperature dropping further as the entity drew closer, its presence beginning to destabilize the very Spark crystal she had just salvaged.
"Keikai Gate, don't fail me now," she hissed.
She threw her hand out, her fingers splayed. Her antennae glowed with a fierce, blinding green light, reflecting off the golden accessories on her suit. The space in front of her began to groan, the vacuum tearing open like wet parchment. An emerald portal, swirling with ancient symbols and chaotic energy, ripped open with the sound of a thousand mirrors shattering at once.
She dove.
Missori felt the freezing sensation of the Echo's fingers brush the heel of her boot—a touch that felt like liquid nitrogen and existential dread. She tumbled through the green light, the world spinning in a kaleidoscopic blur of emerald and gold.
A second later, she slammed onto the hard, polished floor of the Stellar Needle's bridge. The portal snapped shut behind her, leaving only a few fading green sparks in the air.
Missori lay there for a moment, gasping for air, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. Her antennae were still rigid, slowly softening as the immediate threat vanished.
"Safety status: Confirmed," Nexus announced. "Though I must inform you that the Echo's touch has caused a microscopic fracture in your left boot's plating. Also, your heart rate is currently thirty percent above the recommended threshold for a Keikai of your age."
Missori rolled onto her back, staring up at the ship's ceiling. She reached down to her belt, her fingers trembling slightly as she touched the container. The Spark crystal was still there.
"I'm fine, Nexus," she breathed, a small, shaky smile returning to her lips. She sat up, brushing her silvery-green hair out of her face. "But did you see its eyes? Or where the eyes should have been? It wasn't just a stray Echo."
She stood up, walking toward the large viewport that looked out into the Cyan-Void. In the distance, the asteroid she had just left was no longer glowing blue. It was being swallowed by a creeping, oily darkness—the Shadow of a Thousand Worlds was moving faster than the council had predicted.
"The galaxy is getting darker, Nexus," she whispered, her golden pupils narrowing. "We're going to need more than just Spark crystals to survive what's coming. We're going to need a miracle."
She looked at her reflection in the glass—a young Keikai girl with too much curiosity and a portal that only worked once a day.
"Or at least, someone who knows how to fight back."