Metal screamed against metal, the sound sharp enough to bite. Akio twisted in midair and landed backward against the vertical face of the structure, boots catching on a narrow seam as if gravity were only a suggestion. The moment his weight settled, he was already moving again—skimming along the wall as he reoriented his angle of attack.

  Below him, the Hollow was forced to split its attention.

  Gabriel dropped in like a guillotine of red light, scythe carving a rapid, lethal arc. Chain blades met it with a sharp clash, sparks scattering as the Hollow deflected the flurry with unnerving precision. Akio didn’t wait for an opening to be offered. Feathered projectiles flared from his bow-hand, pale arcs of light slicing through the air as he shifted positions, attacking from a different vector entirely.

  He and Gabriel moved as one. Step by step, slash by slash, they drove the Hollow backward, herding it deeper into the city’s infrastructure.

  The D.L.N. node loomed ahead—a towering pillar of concentrated data-light rose from a rounded plateau, white brilliance pouring through it like a vertical river. It illuminated the surrounding structures, the quiet heart of the city’s systems. One of many outposts.

  The D.L.N. didn’t just power the city, it was a containment measure built into the urban skeleton itself. Within a defined radius, it automatically quarantined M.A.W. infected entities, erecting barriers of luminous, holographic data-light that snapped into place the moment corruption crossed its threshold.

  The Hollow landed within the radius and the quarantine system immediately flared to life in a brilliant burst of white, unfolding into a perfect sphere around the target. The barrier sealed with a low, resonant hum, the air inside it shimmering as layers of reinforcement stacked over one another.

  The Hollow stilled at the center of the containment, chains hanging loose, posture unreadable. The Hounds touched down nearby, silent as shadows.

  Akio’s gaze flicked over the barrier, assessing it. The system had reacted exactly as expected. So long as the M.A.W. influence was present, the Hollow shouldn’t be able to force its way out. The D.L.N.’s constant exposure would erode the corruption over time, and the barrier would continue to reinforce itself against any resistance.

  But then—

  The Hollow moved.

  Slowly, deliberately, it raised a hand and pressed it against the barrier.

  White light shimmered outward from the point of contact, folding back on itself like fabric being gently dismissed. In the space of a breath, the quarantine sphere unraveled and vanished entirely, leaving empty air where containment had been.

  Akio’s blade was in his hand without conscious thought, posture snapping into readiness. His eyes narrowed, mind racing.

  Did it… override the system?

  He replayed the interaction in his mind, running calculations and scouring his memory for potential unaccounted variables—but came up blank. There had been no resistance. No conflict between opposing forces. The D.L.N. hadn’t malfunctioned or been broken.

  He felt Gabriel tense beside him, the shift subtle but unmistakable, scythe angling just enough to signal readiness. Neither of them moved to reengage.

  The Hollow spun its chain blades once, twice, the motion deceptively casual as it readjusted its grip.

  That was when Akio saw it.

  Thin lines of white traced along the curved edges of the blades, threading through the metal like veins of light. They glowed clean and sharp against the Hollow’s heavily backlit silhouette. His gaze snapped upward a heartbeat later, locking onto the singular eye on the right side of its mask.

  White.

  Not red.

  The Hollow slashed the air.

  Arcs of white data-light tore forward in an instant, carving through space itself. Akio reacted on instinct, twisting hard to the side as heat scorched the space where he had been standing a fraction of a second earlier. He landed, boots skidding, already looking up.

  The Hollow was gone.

  For a brief moment, Akio didn’t move. He stood there, replaying everything: the blade markings, the eye, the barrier’s compliance. The nature of the attack.

  He forced himself to cut the spiral short. They couldn’t afford to linger here.

  Akio caught Gabriel’s gaze across the clearing. In the next breath, they were already moving—leaping over rooftops in clean arcs before slipping through the upper floor of an abandoned building. Only once they were safely inside did Akio remove his mask, exhaling as cool night air brushed against his skin. Across from him, Gabriel did the same, leaning back against the wall, expression unusually sober.

  “...That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Gabriel said at last. “Did we miss something?”

  Akio shook his head slowly.

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  “There was no indication the Hollow could interact with the D.L.N. safely,” he said. “We accounted for every known variable. If this capability existed, it was deliberately concealed.”

  Gabriel hummed, thoughtful. “That tracks. In the past, it was always cautious around node-heavy areas, meaning it probably knew the quarantine wouldn’t work but chose not to reveal that until now.”

  Akio exhaled, silently re-evaluating their intel. If the Hollow had brute forced the barrier, it would have required far more M.A.W. output—enough to leave scars on the system itself. But instead, the D.L.N. had responded like it was following an instruction.

  “I talked to Lillianne about the Fractal recently,” Akio said at last, voice low, more to anchor his thoughts than to start a conversation. “She explained it like it was a law of nature, not something abstract. Just… how things are.”

  He glanced down, thumb brushing the hilt of his blade as he recalled her exact phrasing.

  “According to her, both the M.A.W. and the data-light in the D.L.N. are manifestations of the Fractal. Different expressions. Different behaviors. But built from the same foundational pattern.”

  Akio’s fingers tightened slightly.

  “I wonder,” he continued, slower now, “if the Hollow is able to control the D.L.N. as well—perceive that pattern and apply it.”

  Across from him, Gabriel shifted, considering.

  “Aren’t they incompatible, though?” he asked. “The two forces cannibalize each other when they interact. There’s never been a recorded incident of a sentient creature wielding both. The D.L.N. by design should harm anything contaminated by the M.A.W.”

  Akio let out a quiet hum. “That’s the assumption, but it’s not that they’re incompatible. It’s that they assimilate. The M.A.W. is concentrated deep beneath the surface near the planetary core. It claws its way upward, searching for information to destroy and erase. It consumes by subtraction.”

  His hand lifted, palm turning upward.

  “The data-light, on the other hand, exists in the atmosphere. It’s everywhere, but diffuse. The D.L.N. was built specifically to prevent the M.A.W. from surfacing. Data-light restores loss, and when concentrated, it wards the M.A.W. off by its very nature.”

  Akio’s eyes narrowed slightly as he reached the point that refused to settle.

  “Under normal circumstances, the two barely interact. And if they do, whichever is present in greater quantity should assimilate the other.” He paused. “But what we saw was brief. Too brief to know what actually happened after contact.”

  Gabriel nodded slowly. “It didn’t look like it absorbed the data-light, but its eye turned white. That’s usually an indication of connection.”

  He exhaled. “Still… we don’t even know what the Hollow really is. The prevailing belief is that it’s a hyper-intelligent anomaly—a mass of mechanical parts driven by the M.A.W.”

  Akio tilted his head slightly, the motion subtle. “We never found solid proof that Erebos created the Hollow.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “No. That part’s still rumor. But considering Erebos was responsible for the Pristine and the Desolate, it’s not an unreasonable leap.”

  “Agreed,” Akio said quietly. “They do have a history of creating monsters.”

  He fell silent again, replaying older encounters and patterns.

  “The Hollow we’re facing now feels… different,” he said finally. “Different weapon. Different fighting style. And now this interaction with the D.L.N.” His gaze sharpened. “The only constants are the M.A.W. affinity and the appearance.”

  The implication settled uneasily in his chest.

  “We have to consider the possibility that it isn’t the same entity,” Akio continued. “That the Hollow is no longer a singular creation, but a mantle. Taken up by someone hyper-attuned to the M.A.W.”

  Gabriel went quiet.

  Not the easy, performative silence he slipped into when he was being dramatic, but the kind that meant he was turning something over carefully, testing its weight from every angle. He leaned back against the wall, arms loose at his sides, thinking.

  Eventually, Gabriel tilted his head and opened his eyes, meeting Akio’s gaze.

  “I ran into Aira’s friend,” he said.

  Akio blinked, the surprise subtle but real. “Her… long lost one?”

  Gabriel nodded once. “Yeah.”

  A quiet hum followed as he crossed his arms, settling more firmly against the wall. “Interesting guy. Pretty quiet. Polite. We shook hands, talked for a bit. Nothing that stood out on the surface.”

  He paused, eyes narrowing faintly.

  “But,” Gabriel continued, voice light but edged with something sharper underneath, “there’s something off about him. I can’t put a clean label on it. Just… his presence. It’s familiar in a way I don’t like.”

  Akio inclined his head slightly. “Familiar? How so?”

  Gabriel hesitated, then nodded to himself. “Like I’ve fought him before. Or at least stood across from him. But that’s not the only thing.”

  He shifted, pushing off the wall just enough to look more engaged.

  “The timing of his disappearance and reappearance lines up uncomfortably well,” Gabriel said. “And he has red eyes.”

  Akio exhaled slowly through his nose. Red eyes weren’t uncommon. Disappearances even less so, not during that period. Individually, they meant nothing.

  “I know,” Gabriel said, as if reading the thought. “There were plenty of cases back then. And red eyes alone don’t prove anything.”

  His mouth curved faintly, humorless. “It’s not enough to build a case. Not even close.”

  “Then… what are you thinking?” Akio asked, though he dreaded the answer.

  Gabriel met his gaze directly this time. “That he could be the Hollow. Or connected to it, somehow.”

  The words settled heavily between them.

  Akio didn’t react immediately. Gabriel wasn’t impulsive—not about things like this. If he was voicing the suspicion at all, it meant he’d already tried to disprove it and failed.

  “I haven’t met him yet,” Akio said at last. “But Aira did manage to set something up a few days from now. That’s the earliest time that works, from what I can tell.”

  Gabriel nodded. “Let me know what you think after.”

  “I will.”

  Gabriel pushed off the wall fully, rolling his shoulders. “I’ll see what else I can dig up in the meantime. But for now… all we have is intuition and circumstantial overlap.” He shrugged lightly. “That’s not enough to move on.”

  Akio hummed in agreement, but his thoughts had already drifted to Aira.

  The idea that her long lost friend—someone she trusted, someone she had known for years—could even possibly be the Hollow made something tight coil in his chest. This wasn’t a stranger she’d just met. This was someone woven into her past. Someone she liked. Someone she felt safe around.

  If Gabriel was wrong, then it was nothing more than paranoia and coincidence. But if he wasn’t…

  Akio’s jaw set almost imperceptibly.

  The Hollow had tried to kill her.

  The thought of Aira unknowingly spending time with someone who attempted to end her life years ago made his composure strain, just slightly. The risk was unacceptable—not because he had proof, but because the cost of being wrong in the other direction was too high.

  Akio exhaled slowly, forcing the weight in his chest back into something manageable. Worry and speculation could wait. Right now, there was nothing more to be done.

  He lifted his mask and settled it back into place, the familiar weight grounding him.

  “We can’t act on this yet,” he said quietly. “Staying here won’t change anything. Let’s move.”

  Gabriel was already ahead of him, mask on, window open, moonlight spilling in as he stepped toward it without hesitation. Akio followed a heartbeat later.

  They slipped out into the night together, shadows among shadows, clearing rooftops in smooth, practiced strides. Below them, the city slept—streets washed in silver, windows dark, the world blissfully unaware. Akio kept moving, but his thoughts lagged behind, circling the same unresolved fear.

  He hoped they were wrong.

  And if they weren’t, he would make sure she never had to know how close it came.

  ─ ? NEXT CHAPTER POV ? ─

  Aira