POV: Ryuu Takeda
Location: Sector 13 – East Sub-Track 7, Maintenance Corridor
Time: 03:48 Local
---
They always said Sector 13 was haunted. Not by ghosts—ghosts were too clean. Too human.
What lurked here was older. Meaner. The kind of memory that chewed through steel and whispered back through welding sparks. Ryuu Takeda had spent too many nights beneath these rails to pretend otherwise. You don't get haunted by the dead. You get haunted by what refuses to die—things like regret, broken protocols, and static that never shuts up in your helmet.
His reflection in the visor said it all: oil-slick hair matted by sweat, amber eyes dulled from graveyard shifts, cheekbones sharp from stress and ramen. A frame too stubborn to break, too worn to shine. He looked like someone who used to matter… then forgot how.
He didn't believe in monsters.
But when the rails hummed wrong, he remembered why no one called this place a sector anymore.
They called it a warning.
The old engineers called it "metal that walked hollow." A superstition passed down from rusted welders and half-drunk mechanics who swore the underrails still remembered. Back when they pulsed with more than power—when Knights rode them into battles, and monsters screamed beneath.
They used to whisper it in the late hours. Half-mocking. Half-hoping the rails weren't listening.
Ryuu Takeda didn't believe in ghosts.
But he wasn't convinced the rails believed in him either.
He crouched beneath East Sub-Track 7, arc-welder hissing sparks like desperate fireworks. The cracked visor over his eyes flickered with static, the HUD stuttering in and out of sync. A gust of recycled air kicked dust into his lungs, but he didn't cough. Not anymore.
He thought, "Haruki hadn't pinged back in three days. Probably nothing. Probably just gridline interference from Sector 6.Still…"
Just kept working.
The visor twitched again—once, then twice. Lines of white static traced the edge of the display. Same glitch. Same faulty helmet. Same decaying memory-core. Same voice.
"Endure."
He ignored it.
It wasn't real. Wasn't supposed to be.
It came sometimes—when the Core inside him surged too hard. Or when the world forgot to make sense. He adjusted his grip on the welder and let the hiss and pop drown it out.
Dust clung to his skin. Rust to his boots. Grit to every breath.
["Sector line integrity: 32%. Kinetic anchor misalignment confirmed."]
MIRAGE's voice echoed in his helmet—calm, clinical, and painfully bureaucratic.
"Yeah, you've said that," Ryuu muttered.
"Because you've ignored it. Again. Subject Eleven."
His jaw clenched.
That name again.
No matter how many requests he filed or how many times he reset the civic ID tag, MIRAGE always reinitialized to that designation:
"Subject Eleven".
He hated how it sounded.
"Your sarcasm isn't helpful," he said.
"That's because it's automated."
Then the HUD flickered again—this time, not red. Not orange.
Violet.
[ANCHOR STABILITY: DEVIATION DETECTED — 0.7%]
[RECURSION ECHO — CLASS C FLUX]
That wasn't in the manual.
Recursion readings only triggered when someone activated an Eidolon node—or stepped too close to a cursed relic. And Ryuu was just here to fix a blown conduit beside a vending unit that hadn't worked since the last security riot.
The welder gave a final sizzle—then shut down. Overheat.
He leaned back, tugged off the helmet, and inhaled through grit-coated lungs.
Silence.
Then -
Shuffling.
Boots scraping against metal. From the hatch behind him.
He turned fast.
A figure stumbled into the maintenance corridor. Jumpsuit torn. Ear bleeding. Eyes wide and glassy. Fingers twitching like they'd forgotten what they were for.
"Hey! This line's sealed. You okay?" Ryuu called out.
No response.
Just those eyes—too empty.
The man opened his mouth. Something caught in his throat. A wheeze. A whisper.
"...Ash..."
The word slid into Ryuu's spine like a needle.
"...Ash... war... Ash...veil..."
That wasn't his name.
But it was close.
Too close.
"What did you say?"
The man fell to his knees. Coughing.
Not blood—ash. Dry, black. His skin cracked, paint-thin. Veins bulged like something inside was trying to claw out.
"...Ash...warden..."
And then—
He vanished. Not fell. Not fled.
Just gone. He disintegrated as if something unmade him from within.
No Core Burst. No aura flare. No sound. No heat.
Gone.
Ryuu stood frozen.
There was something in the dust that felt familiar.
So was the fear.
[ANCHOR MATCH DETECTED — ASH-WARDEN (LEGACY ENTITY)]
[WARNING: UNSANCTIONED CORE SYNC — FLAGGING]
His hand moved instinctively to his side.
To the place beneath his ribs where his Core pulsed—faint, warm, alive.
Just once. Then quiet.
Recognition. Or memory. Or both.
He did the only thing he could.
He finished the weld.
Hands trembling, nerves flaring, head screaming.
But the motion came from muscle memory, not decision.
He sealed the panel, clipped his tools to his belt, and walked—too fast—down the corridor.
----
The locker room was empty. It usually was. Ryuu didn't talk to the others that much. He peeled off the insulated suit and shoved it into the sanitization chute. Steam hissed. Foam hissed louder.
He stared at the mirror.
And didn't recognize the man staring back.
Same face. Same scar. But older. Tired. Ash smudged his cheek—where he hadn't touched.
"Not me," he whispered.
But almost.
The reflection twitched a half-second late—like it had to remember what being him looked like.
He blinked and shook it off.
Then he turned and left.
---
A voice greeted him as he pushed through the alley tunnel connecting the utility substation to the upper walk.
"You're late again, boss. One of these days, the conduit's gonna fry us both."
Ryuu stopped. Slouched against the tunnel wall stood Ishan Kael, his only semi-friend on this side of the sector—a tram engineer turned diagnostics runner.
Ishan looked up from the cracked tablet he was balancing on one knee, his oil-streaked hands busy reassembling a pulse-breaker node. He wore the kind of smile people only had after four cups of stim-coffee and zero self-preservation.
Ryuu managed a grunt. "The welder blew out. Core flickered. MIRAGE threw a recursion flag."
Ishan blinked. Then frowned.
"Again?"
"Violet reading this time."
Ishan sat up straighter. "Violet? That's not just a flicker. That's a relic-grade echo." He wiped his hand on his vest. "And let me guess—no backup footage because MIRAGE 'auto-archived' the second it glitched?"
Ryuu nodded.
Ishan sighed. "I swear, the only thing more haunted than this place is the system trying to clean it."
They walked in silence for a bit. Just the clang of boots on old grating. Then:"Do you ever feel like something's watching us repeat?" Ishan asked. "Not watching. Replaying."
Ryuu paused. "Every day."
---
Back home, the apartment fought him as always.
Door stuck. Lights buzzed. Fridge beeped and died. Window jammed halfway. The air smelled like burnt ramen and old rust.
The kettle screamed two seconds early. Faucet water tasted like regret boiled twice.
Still, he boiled water. Loose-leaf tea from a market he didn't remember.
Sat in the same chair.
Stared out the same half-working window overlooking the Sub-Line.
No trains.
Just the hum of rails that used to carry gods. Some said it was the city's breath. Others said it was the last thing the Knights left behind when they fell—echoes in steel, waiting to wake again.
His Core pulsed again—low, steady.
He opened the palm of his left hand. Let the pulse rise under the skin. Flamelight flickered faintly beneath the surface, like a heartbeat suspended between breaths.
The ID panel on his wrist blinked.
[SUBJECT ELEVEN — RECURSION FLAGGED — PENDING AUDIT]
"Subject Eleven," he murmured aloud.
It sounded like both a threat—and a prophecy.
His eyes drifted to the shelf.
A photo frame lay face down, untouched.
He didn't flip it over.
He didn't need to.
"Endure."
The word wasn't spoken.
Not aloud. Not by him.
But it carried his voice.
The kettle shrieked.
He didn't move.
Outside, a freight train thundered through Sector 13 without slowing.
And in the space between moments—in the silence under the hum of rails—a name tried to crawl free from somewhere deep and unwelcome.
"Ashwarden."
But that wasn't his name.
Right?
Far beneath the city, hidden in the recursion grid, a legacy thread flared—and was instantly suppressed.
[ERROR: EIDOLON RECOGNITION]
[THREAD NOT DELETED — FLAGGING FOR REVIEW]
[Note: Anchor Mismatch Detected — Origin: Suppressed Thread // Legacy Tag: Flamebound Echo]
And in the back of Ryuu Takeda's skull, a voice—not memory, not hallucination—whispered:
"You are not ready."
"But the vow is."