The air inside the underground chamber grew colder as silence wrapped the group like a noose. Yuki's fingers twitched near the edge of her coat, her glasses fogged slightly, but her eyes never blinked. Beside her, Aito watched her closely, as if afraid she might disappear again without a trace.
But this time, Yuki wasn't going anywhere.
"I'm going down there," she said, her voice low but certain. The room's centre had opened, revealing a narrow tunnel veiled in mist and silence.
"No." Kazu stepped forward. "You vanished for three days last time. You nearly died. We don't even know what's at the bottom."
Yuki adjusted her glasses. "That's exactly why I need to go. Whatever's down there… it's calling me again."
Aito reached out to stop her, but his hand froze mid-air. He knew that look. That determination. Yuki wasn't just chasing answers anymore she was the answer. Whether she liked it or not.
She disappeared down the shaft without waiting for a reply.
What the others didn't know what Yuki hadn't dared to say out loud was that when she had vanished before, it wasn't a blackout. It wasn't memory loss. It was something else entirely.
She had been somewhere.
Not here. Not Earth. Not time as we know it. A place between thought and matter, where things existed only if you believed in them hard enough. A place where her name wasn't Yuki.
It was Echo.
As her boots hit the damp floor beneath, she heard it again.
"Echo…"
The voice came from nowhere. It didn't echo in the usual way. It vibrated inside her ribcage like a drumbeat. Familiar. So familiar it hurt.
A dim corridor stretched ahead, its walls lined with shifting symbols that blinked like breathing skin. With each step she took, a ripple moved through the floor as if it were alive. She felt no fear this time. Just a strange peace. And a whisper of unfinished business.
Suddenly, behind her, footsteps.
She whirled around. Nothing.
Then a flicker.
A silhouette. Female. Same height. Same glasses.
No… not same. It was her.
But not her now.
It was the version that never escaped.
"Who are you?" Yuki demanded.
The girl smiled. "I'm the truth you buried. The choice you didn't make. The one who stayed."
Then she turned and walked through a solid wall like it was air.
Yuki rushed forward, heart thudding.
Her hand passed through the wall and so did the rest of her.
For a moment, she was falling. Not through space, but through memories she didn't know she had. Her mother's face. A necklace in a drawer. A boy with grey eyes crying. A name she hadn't heard in years: Juno.
She landed in a city. Not Tokyo. Not even close.
It was the future. Or one version of it.
Tall buildings spiraled toward a colourless sky. People moved with robotic grace. But none looked at her. They walked around her as if she didn't exist.
But one pair of eyes found her.
A child.
The girl stared up at Yuki with the same brown eyes, the same tiny scar above the lip.
She was looking at herself.
"You left me," the little girl whispered.
Yuki knelt down. "I didn't mean to."
"But you did. And when you left, everything went wrong."
Before Yuki could answer, a deafening siren split the air. A red light bathed the street. People froze. Then screamed. The sky cracked open.
Yuki looked up and saw herself again.
Older. Stronger. Eyes like glass. Floating.
"You don't belong here," the older version said, her voice metallic, stripped of empathy. "You tried to change the ending. There's a price for that."
Suddenly, someone grabbed Yuki's wrist. A hand yanked her backward. Back through time. Back through sound. Back to now.
She crashed onto the underground floor, gasping.
Aito hovered above her, wild-eyed. "You were gone again! For thirty minutes! What did you see?"
Yuki sat up slowly, dusting off her clothes. Her face had changed. Just slightly. Enough to send a shiver down Aito's back.
"I saw what I could become," she said, voice quieter than a whisper. "And it terrified me."
Above them, the rest of the team scrambled to decode the symbols Yuki had touched before vanishing. But they didn't notice one symbol glowing faintly in the corner.
It was a countdown.
Twelve hours.
Not until destruction.
Until arrival.
Later that night, Yuki stood alone under the metal sky of Sector 9, her thoughts circling like vultures.
Kazu approached from behind. "You still hear it, don't you?"
She nodded. "Every time I blink."
"What is it?"
"A version of me," she said flatly, "who never forgave."
Kazu hesitated. "You think it's real?"
She turned, eyes sharp. "No. I know it is. And she's not done yet."
Just then, an alarm blared through the zone. Not the usual one.
This one was different.
Colder.
And in the sky above, something tore open like a wound.
A figure stepped out of it.
Not falling.
Descending.
And as her feet touched the rooftop of the compound, Yuki's breath caught in her throat.
It was her.
Again.
Same face. Same eyes.
But this one didn't look lost.
She looked like a queen ready for war.