Later that day, Kuro ran an errand alone, swinging by the edge of the old district. He cut through a side alley behind the recycling depot. Narrow. Overgrown vines. He wanted quick. Just in and out.
Three figures leaned near the shuttered back of a repair stall. One of them glanced up.
"Yo," the tallest said, flicking a coin mid-air. "You from the campus?"
Kuro stopped, instinctively placing his left hand near his pocket. "Just passing through."
And Kuro thought - How does this day could be that bad, why Kuro, why this damn path.
"Not anymore," another muttered, stepping closer.
One of them reached out, too casual, and brushed Kuro's coat as if testing texture.
Hands slid into his side pouch. Then the others blocked the path behind and forward.
They weren't kids playing gang. They had a rhythm.
Something tightened inside him. Not fear, exactly. But that same animal tension he'd once felt standing too close to an unstable grid coil, any wrong move, and something explodes.
He didn't run. Couldn't.
Instead, he scanned.
A pause in the pattern.
The smallest one, standing just a little too far forward for someone guarding. Shoulders tense, but eyes unfocused. Breathing through the mouth.
Bluffing.
The tallest leaned back slightly-feet not squared. The real threat was the middle one, feet flat, waiting for Kuro to flinch.
Kuro's eyes flicked - less to see, more to feel - the heat against his ribs, the rhythm of their footwork, the smell of overused cologne.
He mapped it, not with logic, but by instinct. The kind that sensed micro-movements.
A flicker. An edge exposed.
He moved.
He took a half-step forward and threw a punch, not meant to injure, just to disrupt. A calculated burst of motion against the one directly in front of him. Enough to shock, to break the timing.
"Hey!!" a voice barked, sharp and close.
A fist slammed into his stomach, a searing pain that stole his breath.
"F*.. …"
Still, he ran.
Fast. Desperate. Wild.
He elbowed the closest chest, twisted his shoulder sideways, and charged at the weak link. Not to hurt, just to break formation.
A jolt of pain burst in his shoulder as he barreled through. One hand grazed his neck, fingers tried to catch hold, but missed.
Then air.
Then open street.
He didn't fall. Despite the pain, he pushed forward. He just ran, breath ragged, pulse roaring like thunder in his ears.
He dove into the nearest vending shelter, half-collapsing behind the bench. Hands shaking. Adrenaline screaming in every muscle.
A bruise was already spreading across his side. But he was alive.
Then,
"Wait, Kuro?"
A familiar voice. He turned. A classmate. Couldn't remember the name. Wavy hair. Quiet. Always stood at the edge of group labs. An odd steadiness in his eyes now.
Kuro blinked. "Wait, what!?"
Behind him, footsteps pounded. The three figures were back.
Kuro yelled, voice hoarse. "Run! Just run!"
But before the chase resumed, two large men in orange maintenance suits turned the corner, lugging gear crates.
The gang didn't want attention. Didn't want witnesses.
They backed off. Disappeared like shadows behind dumpsters.
One of the workers frowned, looked toward Kuro.
"You alright, kid?" he asked.
Kuro nodded, still panting.
He looked at the classmate again. The guy said nothing, holding the phone. Just handed him a bottle of water from the vending machine.
Kuro accepted it. But then… he noticed it.
A faint light on the screen. A triangle. A play icon.
Just for a second. Something twisted in his chest.
Was I being recorded?
The thought slithered through his mind - half absurd, half real. His eyes narrowed slightly.
"Yeah. You helped me rewire a sensor in workshop LCD, LED, remember?"
Kuro didn't. But he nodded anyway.
"Thanks," he said. The guy smiled faintly. "Stay off these alleys next time."
"Hey! Did …" Kuro yelled.
Kuro blinked, and he was gone into the crowd.
"What the …"
Kuro lingered a moment longer, fingers still clutching the half-crushed water bottle. He looked again at the corner where the guy had vanished.
No shadow. No footstep. Just vapor curling in the warm streetlight. A strange shiver crawled across his spine.
Had he really seen that icon on the phone?
The pain in his side throbbed - sharp, rhythmic. But it wasn't just his ribs.
Something else was bruised.
He didn't tell Mike.
By the time he made it back to his place, his ribs ached with every breath. He showered in silence, avoiding the mirror.
That night, he boiled water slower than usual. His gait was slightly off.
Mike noticed.
"You alright?"
Kuro hesitated. Then nodded. "Just twisted something. Wrong alley."
"You're limping," Mike said.
Kuro exhaled. Sat down. "Got jumped on the old path behind the school. Three of them. I got away, mostly."
"Mostly?"
"Nothing's broken. Just bruised."
"You must be on the bad luck. Last time I measured, nothing hostile there."
Kuro gave a dry chuckle. "Yeah. I guess human chaos isn't always measurable."
Mike tone softened.
"We should reschedule. Three days later, if you recover quick"
Then Mike reached for a med patch and slid it across the table.
"I was wondering... should we bring someone else along?"
Kuro looked up. "You mean, invite someone?"
Mike nodded, eyes still fixed on the paper.
"Not for backup. Not someone to dive into the pit with us. Just... someone who can offer another angle. So we don't tunnel into just one line of thought."
"Anyone come to mind?"
Mike didn't answer. He stared through the window, where the night passed in a blend of street lamp glow and distant starlight.
"No one specific. But they need to be quiet enough to listen. And alert enough not to believe too fast."
Nothing was decided that evening. The next morning, Kuro moved slower.
He grimaced slightly when leaning. A hand brushed his side, protective.
Only two mandatory sessions remained next week; the rest were virtual discussions. Neither said it aloud, but both knew: if they disappeared for a while, no one would really notice.
The following days passed in a muted rhythm - school life, quiet classes, and drifting gossip about everything and nothing.
Kuro slept more. Read more. Spoke less.
Mike didn't push, but he fine-tuned the gear anyway.
Some nights, they just sat on the porch, not saying much, watching the lights flicker across the sky.
When Kuro finally recovered, they didn't say "let's start" - they just moved. As if the plan had been quietly waiting for them to catch up.
They'd been here before.
Same cluttered shelves. Same clink of loose capacitors in unlabeled bins. But something had shifted.
Kuro grinned. "We setting up camp or building a mobile lab?"
Mike didn't smile. But his eyes gleamed.
"Better to be ready for both."
Mike didn't linger this time. He moved with purpose, eyes scanning for exact specs.
Kuro followed behind, carrying a printed checklist on recycled paper – this time not scribbled, but itemized by category: power, signal, defense, backup.
At a stall tucked beneath a rusted awning, the shopkeeper looked up.
"You again?"
Mike nodded. "Need reinforced shielding. Handheld. No heat delay."
The man blinked. "What kind of environment are you working in?"
Mike didn't answer. Just pointed to a rack of resonance filters and placed three coils on the counter.
They packed fast. Thermal bottles, low-glare lights, backup wiring. Kuro grabbed a twin-band emitter Mike once dismissed as "obsolete but persistent."
Now, he simply said, "Could be useful."
By the time they stepped outside, their bags had weight. Not just from metal – from intent.
This wasn't a hobbyist's run anymore. It was a field kit. Improvised, sure. But focused.
They didn't say much on the way back. Mike tapped on his pad, organizing sensor thresholds.
Kuro walked slightly behind, fingering the baton clipped to his belt, feeling the subtle shift in its balance. He'd packed it instinctively this time. No hesitation.
As the tech market faded behind them, Kuro finally spoke.
"Feels heavier now, doesn't it?"
Mike didn't look up.
"It should."
Kuro hesitated, then said, "I'll swing by the bookstore. Won't be long."
Mike gave him a side glance. "Yeah? Just... don't get punched like last time."
A faint smirk from Kuro. "Not planning to."
They split ways near the transit line.
…
Kuro didn't expect answers. Not now. Not from books. But something about the bruises - and that triangle on the stranger's phone - had stirred an unease he couldn't measure.
So Kuro found himself back at the old bookstore. Alone.
He didn't search for knowledge this time. He searched for echoes.
Margins scrawled with someone else's thoughts. Gaps in archived pages.
Kuro picked three:
A history book with its appendix torn out. A handwritten copy from Archive R-7, too neat to be fake, too raw to be official. And an anthology of unverified legends - the kind the textbooks conveniently left out.
Somewhere beneath the dust and fractured ink, he hoped for a clue. Not to decode the past. But to understand the fracture that still echoed now.
Somewhere beneath the dust and fractured ink, he wasn't searching for facts.
He was searching for fractures. Cracks in the story too deep to mend.
He thought he knew what triggered the pre-World collapse. The numbers were archived. The slogans censored. But the shape of it - it echoed something older.
Labor factions.
Young men conscripted into extraction zones, sent to mine volatile matter under failing domes. Military quotas. Work until your lungs bled, or your name disappeared from the list.
And then came the whispers.
Of rebel cells aided by off-world sympathizers. Weapons smuggled in. Messages carved into the insulation of mining suits. A quiet defiance.
When the regime tightened its grip, it didn't suppress the movement - It ignited it.
They didn't choose peace.
They chose fire. They chose mutual destruction over submission, Scorched-earth rebellion over silent obedience.
And they paid.
Whole sectors remain blackened, uninhabitable. Wiped from transit grids. Archived as "zones of ecological instability."
Kuro didn't know why his mind drifted to the pre-War.
Maybe because no one else seemed to.
Nowadays, people were too comfortable - too removed - to imagine something that terrible had ever burned this close.
And yet, the name that surfaced next wasn't from a textbook.
It was personal.
Cerin.
Not by logic. Just instinct.
He used to be close with Kuro in middle school, back when they biked to school, debated wild theories, and joked about the stars. He was quick-witted, calm, and startlingly sharp. Cerin could assemble a sensor array while composing verse in his head.
"If it were Cerin, he'd understand," Kuro thought, closing the book. "But... could he leave?"
For a moment, Kuro wrestled with the thought. He drafted a message. Deleted it. Tried again. Deleted it again.
He never sent it. Not out of fear Cerin would say no. But because if Cerin said yes, Kuro would have to accept the risk of bringing someone he cared about into something dangerous.
"Not worth it," he muttered.
…
On the walk home, Kuro finally shared what had been circling his mind.
"Cerin… he used to be part of this. Not the anomalies, but the way we thought. The patterns we saw. He'd keep us grounded."
Mike didn't stop walking.
"Then why not ask him?"
Kuro hesitated.
"Because if he says yes, I'll have to take responsibility for what happens next."
A pause. A passing truck hummed by.
Mike just replied, "Two's enough."
Kuro injures still lingered. So they waited a least a week.
After their final class that week, a quiet seminar, Mike and Kuro left the academy without looking back.
The way back felt shorter that day. The sky clearer. Like the world was holding its breath.
Mike checked his gear again. Green symbols blinked on a tiny screen. Kuro leaned at the doorway, holding his collapsible baton, cool, solid.
"Should pack the action cam," Kuro said.
"Probably," Mike murmured.
"I tweaked the sensors," he added. "If the ambient frequency deviates past 2.5, the device sends the coordinates to both our family inboxes."
Kuro was silent for a moment.
"What if the zone blocks signals?"
Mike gave no reply. He slid the cam into his bag, connected the short charger cable.
"Then the logs stay local. Someone'll find them... someday."
Kuro didn't push. He sat at the bed's edge, pulling out a rough cloth pouch. From it, he retrieved a tiny spray can, its cap worn from use.
Mike raised an eyebrow. "You kept that?"
"Homemade," Kuro said with a faint grin. "Chili extract. Alcohol. Camphor oil. Won't blind anything, but it'll make stuff back off."
Mike studied him for a second. Then returned to calibrating his device.
Kuro's thoughts lingered on Mr. Than's eyes, clouded, gray, and silent like a snowfield.
He snapped the baton closed and clipped it to his back.
"We're not kids interviewing lonely retirees anymore," he said, voice rasping.
Mike chuckled. "Nope. But at least we're walking into this trap by choice."
They met under the old Noctis overpass, where they once dreamed of building a vegetable-picking robot. Back then, it took weeks of sweat to achieve nothing.
Now the dream stared back as a hush fell. As risk. As a challenge asking whether they'd grown up enough to face it.
"I won't blame you if you quit," Mike said.
"And I won't blame you if you run ahead," Kuro replied, smiling.
No more excuses. No one else to ask.
So they left.