Next thing he knew, his brain went full demolition zone. Like someone jammed a grenade into a box of old memories and yanked the pin.It didn't "appear"—nah, that memory didn't knock. It kicked the door in and started pouring fire down his spine. Imagine swallowing a burning delivery crate that starts smoking before you even unwrap it.And her voice slid in.Sticky. Glitchy. Like some ancient recorder coughing up broken lullabies right by his eardrum.
"Hayate... you back? You're coming back... right?"Yeah, except that voice—no way it was coming from a living person anymore.Some of it sounded like her. Some of it? Like someone pretending to be her.The rest? It was like someone chopped her voice into jagged pieces and ran it backwards on a haunted tape deck."He shouldn't be hearing her anymore. He killed that right himself—ten years ago. That day."
The deck under his boots shuddered again. Like someone down there was kicking the floor, asking, "You coming back or not?"He gritted his teeth, pressed a hand to his temple, ready to shout back—but his right eye hissed. Literally hissed. Like a kettle on the verge of screaming.The voice kept leaking in. Bit by bit. Out of tune. Like a broken record jammed on repeat in the worst corner of his head.
"You'll come back. You will... you will... you will...""Then just kill me already—don't play the whole damn mixtape," he rasped, half-spitting the words out, like he was begging himself to wake up.His right foot twitched, kicked something hard. Metal clanged. He'd slammed into the hatch.And bam—screen flicker.Not clear. More like blinding flash cuts.He saw a shape. Someone with their back to him. Hair unbrushed and floating like dust. And those slippers—still at the doorway. Dry. But the edges stained with some old water lines.
The table had a bowl of untouched porridge. Cold enough to turn solid.He tried to speak. Mouth opened. But the words got caught.Not a sob.More like every nerve he had got clogged up—right at the source. That messed-up right eye."...this...this wasn't...the scene I wanted to remember..."That one surviving chunk of logic inside his skull tried to scream. But his eye? Didn't give a damn. It just kept overheating. Flashed. Twisted the picture like crazy.
The view cracked. Warped. Like someone was force-opening ZIP files inside his retina.Every blink added another fracture. Every glimpse brought in another messed-up scene he never wanted to remember."No. Stop. Enough already..." he whispered so low it barely counted as sound. But his lips moved anyway.The lights flickered. Alarm beeps went nuts in the background—high-pitched, mocking. Like they were laughing, "Didn't you want to remember? Isn't this what your right eye saved for you?"
His body started failing. Shoulder twitched. Fingers spasmed.Five seconds. That's all he had left."I'm not done yet—"Thud.He collapsed backward, balance gone, head cracking hard against the wall.And then—black.Total blackout.Nothing left.Except—That voice. Still playing.Not from the present. Not even the past. Like someone shoved it into his head on purpose, to echo through his broken right eye the moment he couldn't fight it anymore.He didn't hear her say his name.But the eye remembered everything.Even added a damn timestamp.
His right eye exploded with this blinding ring of white—like someone jammed a laser pointer into his socket and hit spin cycle.His whole body jerked. Instinct kicked in. Right hand shot up to shield his face—Too late.It was like someone yanked the plug on a machine mid-download. Dude just shut off."Yo, c'mon… not now… I haven't even made it past the theme song—" His mouth was still going, but his face was already dropping like a bugged-out screen saver.
First his knees gave up. Then his shoulder twitched. Left arm started buzzing like a half-dead wire about to pop. And the right side of his body? Gone. Felt like someone yanked his bones out and left the rest stuck in a glitchy loop."…I swear if I die like this and someone marks the delivery note as 'fell out en route, please retrieve manually'—I'm haunting you."
And that's when the ship said: "Bet."The cockpit lights started strobing like it was throwing a rave. Whole room tilted hard to the right. Metal creaked deep—like something massive just got crushed from the inside.Cockpit AI tried to chime in."Please evac—plea—plea—please evacua—pl—peac—"Then silence.Then a lullaby.Yep. It skipped straight to playing a lullaby.Hayate had maybe three brain cells left online. He tried to spit out something cool—last words kind of cool.
But as his foot slipped out from under him, all he managed was—"If I wake up and see my childhood underwear flying around—don't. Just don't."He smacked the wall. Hard.Out cold.Right eye still leaking light like a broken headlamp. Body sliding like a dead fish toward the tilted floor's edge. Hull panel was hanging open. Barely. Just enough.What was outside?—The Stardust Rift.
Bottomless. Like a blender made of shattered bone dust and rogue engine parts. Every rotation spat out limbs, sparks, half-alive cables twitching like hungry eels.It looked like the kind of place where stuff didn't fall.It got sucked.Hayate was inches from the edge.Any normal person watching this would've gasped right about now.But Hayate? Guy was completely out. Had no clue his body was rolling like a ragdoll toward a death trap.
And then—Right as he was about to go flying out the hatch—Clang.Metal. Sharp. Screaming against steel.He didn't see her. Didn't have to.He heard it. The bite of something piercing through bulkhead.Someone wasn't letting go.Someone stabbed the wall just to stop him from falling.Rin.Her blade dug into the side of the ship, dragging metal with it. Their bodies tumbled, slammed, spun—And dropped straight into the drifting maze below.
The second she hit the ground, it felt like someone stomped her straight between the shoulder blades.
Boom.
She slammed into a pile of god-knows-how-old debris, and yeah—it didn't smell like it had been cleaned this century.Next to her, Hayate groaned. More like a half-taped delivery box that fell out mid-shipment."You make one more noise, and I swear—I'll use you as a spare Stardust engine and launch you."Her mouth was running, sure. But her shoulder? Dripping.
That blade stab she pulled to stop them from dying? It cost her. Half her arm felt like someone ripped the muscle straight out with a steel cable.Pain? Off the charts.But whatever. Bleeding was background noise. Staying alive was the main gig.She gritted her teeth and got up, scanning the room in a single hard glance.This wasn't a room. It was a ship's ghost.The navigation bay looked like an abandoned organ chamber. Lights were flickering like dying fireflies. The floor was tilted. Wall panels split like claws had tried to dig their way out from inside.
She stepped near a metal shard still steaming hot.And above her? The ceiling had a crack.Drip. Something fell.She caught it on instinct.Sssss—!That wasn't water. Not even oil.It was... something sticky. Kinda see-through. Not just hot—it smoked. And as it slid, it left behind this weird trailing string—like mucus crossed with a twitching nerve.The stuff grabbed her sleeve.Twitched.She yanked her arm back, ripped the sleeve clean off, and flung it to the floor."Okay. Cool. Slime with an attitude. Logging that."
She turned toward the pile of junk nearby—except it wasn't just junk. Looked more like a bunch of broken humanoid bodies. Like build-a-dudes that ran outta batteries.She grabbed Hayate by the collar and hauled him up halfway onto her shoulder.One hand dragging him, one hand on her blade.Her legs moved steady. But the rest of her? Shaking.Her voice sounded fine. Her breath didn't.Didn't matter. She kept walking.Then—bam. First step into the corridor, her foot hit something soft.
Metal wasn't supposed to feel soft.She looked down.A body. Humanoid. Coated in half-melted stardust crust. Skin like silicone gone bad. Twisted. Slumped right in the middle of the hall. Neck tilted. Limbs folded too perfectly.Dead?Too perfectly dead.Her eyes narrowed."Please don't do that horror-movie wake-up move now…"The body's finger twitched.She didn't even need to turn. Her spine already knew.She heard it.A laugh. Just one. Short. Broken. From behind her head.
Like the corpse found something funny.Every muscle along her back locked up. She gripped the sword tighter.And yeah, now she could feel it—Not just that thing.The whole damn chamber?It was breathing.It wasn't a metaphor.Something was actually moving.The floor had a pulse. Like a heartbeat—but wrong. Jittery. Electric. Like somebody left a whole nervous system plugged in and forgot to turn it off.
Rin dragged Hayate toward the wall, slammed him down with one hand, and yanked her blade with the other.The sword twisted as it came loose, letting out this dry, metallic hum.Sounded like a threat. Maybe a welcome. Or maybe it was the blade saying, "Yup, clocked in."She didn't say a word.But her eyes? Loud and clear—you want a piece, you go through the blade first.Problem was, it wasn't just motion. There was a smell.
She pushed aside a scorched pile of junk—and boom. A whole clump of translucent, stringy...nerve-looking crap slithered out underneath.It stretched. It pulsed. It recoiled.She stared at it. No, through it.This wasn't static.It was tugging on something.Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a body—head starting to lift.Another one? Rolled its shoulder.One more? Spun around like it was trying to decide if it should stay dead or get up and ruin someone's day.
"Yo… what repair shop patched you guys up? Return policy's broken."Her feet moved back. Blade stayed up.She didn't stop dragging Hayate either. One hand. Teeth clenched so tight it hurt.She wasn't mad at him.She was mad he wasn't moving. Because if he didn't start moving, she wasn't sure she could forgive herself.
"You got like five seconds before I mark you as 'salvaged' and upload your location to the freakin' cult."She said it mean.But her hand was shaking.Her back was soaked.And her heart was going full war drum.She realized something creepy—the floor wasn't just under her feet. It was following her. Or... something under the wreckage was.Something big.Crack.Not good.She spun around—One of the bodies had flipped. Now face-up. Elbow bent wrong. Knee locked like a hinge. Head tilted, like it was about to leap.
And then—it did.No growl. No scream.Just whoosh—a dead-silent glide across the floor like it was being vacuumed straight into her face.Her blade went halfway up——and the corpse behind her coughed."Wh-who the hell—are you my mom?! Why you holding a sword—ow! Lady, I ain't your kid!"She froze.Turned.Hayate was awake.Still half-fried. Still horizontal. Looking around like someone reset his world settings wrong.
One eye glazed. One mouth fully online—already launching his mouth missiles without knowing who was who."…Wait… hold up. Are you that client who bailed on the delivery fee last week—?"Rin turned around.Her face? Yeah. That face could headline Top 10 Expressions That Make You Want to Return Your Teammate for Store Credit."Delivery your ass. One more word and I'll install a cargo hatch in your ribcage.""Nah nah, lemme think. Who were you again? Mona? Larka? No wait—"
His eyes went wide, like he'd just solved the secret of the universe."You're the lady from that fried chicken stand! That's why you move so fast!"Rin's entire soul snapped.Her wrist flipped. Blade scraped the floor with a flash and a shing that meant business."Say one more thing and I'll enroll you in the 'premium cadaver testing program.'"She was yelling, sure. But her hands never stopped moving—clearing the path, blade ready, eyes locked on the twitchy maybe-dead things littering the way.Because honestly?
In her head, she was screaming, If you don't wake the hell up, I'm not dragging your corpse one more meter.Then—crunch.Behind her.Not a quake.Not ambient noise.That half-dead thing from earlier? Yeah, it was crawling now. Dragging its body by a torn-out pipe like some death metal version of a baby's first crawl.Its bones scraped the floor like teeth on rusted iron.
"Hey hey hey! What's that sound behind us?! I heard that! I heard that!" Hayate shouted, voice rising—but still refusing to shut the hell up.Rin spun, blade whipped, and sliced the thing across the torso. No blood—just a blast of thick, oily black gunk.She reversed her grip, kicked the carcass back into the pile, and used her knee to shove Hayate's butt down the hall."Shut. Up. I haven't decided if I'm keeping your sorry life yet!""Yo, where are we going?! Am I being abducted by a damn stardust trauma taxi?!"
"I'm here to shut you up. Permanently, if needed."She hauled him like a meatbag through the mess—slashing, shoving, dodging. It was like someone dropped an RPG escort mission straight into a hardcore survival horror game.Hayate smacked into the wall again. Still had the nerve to glance back."I'm starting to think I owe you money or something. Is this revenge or just aggressive customer service?!"Rin's breathing was getting heavy. Shoulder still bleeding. But not a single sign she was slowing down.
"You could owe me the universe, doesn't matter. Right now? Only one thing does."She stopped.Took two breaths.Raised her blade—pointed it at the corridor's end."If I hear one more word of your damn precognition intro—I'm slicing you a fresh reboot before you even finish."
Rin said it so casually, it was like she clocked into work swinging a sword on instinct.
And honestly? For a second, Hayate believed it. Like maybe this was just her Monday routine—slash, drag, reboot someone, repeat.She was hauling him through the corridor like a broken vacuum cleaner. The lights flickered overhead, not like warning signals—but like some undead rave was warming up backstage.And the air?Thicker. Not metaphor thick. Like... chewing-on-your-words thick. Like plastic wrap just slapped your lungs.
"Hey, hey... am I about to pre—"WHAM.She turned and socked him straight in the forehead.Her fist didn't just hit. It resonated. Like punching a half-melted memory drive that hadn't finished cooling."Okay—ow—ow, not trying to trigger precog mode! I just had a mouth itch and a brain glitch, I swear!!"Her glare hit harder than the punch. He shut up. Fast.Because her sword? That thing looked like it had a personality. And it wasn't friendly.
The corridor started acting weird.Metal walls swelled like they were growing second skins. Panels bulged, like something alive was squirming underneath.Lights swapped colors—cold white turned neon pink, then snapped to seizure-blue strobes.And the smell?Like burnt fiber optic cables dipped in synthetic gut juice. Imagine someone farting directly into your neural port while blasting synth bass. That.
"You smell that? That's what dead cyborg guts smell like... after being reheated. Three times.""Okay okay, now I wanna puke.""Perfect. That means you're still alive. Keep moving."She yanked him up again. One hand on the blade. One hand on the loudmouth.Didn't matter that the next bulkhead read UNDER REPAIR.She kicked it open like it owed her money.
Boom.
Whole corridor quaked from their combo of body mass and bad energy.Even the walls behind them were vibrating. Like someone on the other side was tuning up a machine. Or worse—waking something up."You sure this isn't like... some reverse stomach? Because I swear, my bones are vibrating weird."
"If you premonition me again, I'll dice you into pixelated meat confetti."She didn't stop.
Didn't blink.Even as her breath got faster and her shoulder kept bleeding, she kept going.Because this ship?It wasn't collapsing.It was changing.Like something alive was swallowing the whole damn hull.Hayate opened his mouth to ask something stupid—when it hit.Not the precog flash.Not a hallucination.A real explosion.And not just boom.
It was BOOM-KRAKK—SKRRRRRRRANG-BWAM, with bonus debris and sparks included.Half the titanium wall peeled open like a soda can.Air got sucked out in a hiss. Pressure drop slammed Rin to her knees. Hayate hit the wall headfirst.And through the ripped-open breach?Not a rescue party.Three hulking Church SpecOps mechs marched in. White armor. Soul-lock cannons on their arms. Shoulders flashing coded lights.Not a single word.They just started shooting.