Akiko slipped into the room, bare feet silent against the cold metal floor.

The air reeked faintly of ozone and oil, the sterile tang of industrial systems she'd never learned to love. Shelves lined the walls, each one meticulously labeled and arranged, a far cry from the chaotic hoards of her old life.

Her eyes caught a familiar gleam of silver. Middle shelf. Her breath snagged in her throat.

There you are.

She crossed the room in three quick steps, reaching out before doubt could interfere. Her fingers closed around the device, the metal cool in her palm, foreign and familiar all at once. A piece of herself she hadn't realized she missed until it was taken.

She pressed it into place.

For a moment, nothing.

Then, a soft hum. A pulse against her spine. And a calm, measured voice echoed in her thoughts.

"Connection restored. Welcome back, Akiko."

The tension in her chest gave way. She exhaled, shaky and quiet. "Missed you too," she murmured.

"Your current status is compromised," Takuto reported. "Mana levels critically low. External conditions indicate immediate action required."

Akiko let out a dry breath. "Yeah, no kidding."

She tapped the device. Her suit responded instantly, liquid-smooth, flowing down from the collar like dark water. It wrapped her in layers of synthetic weave and dragon-scale armor, the familiar weight settling over her shoulders, her limbs.

Her fingers flexed as the material adjusted. Back in her skin.

"Well," she muttered. "Let's get to work."

A soft buzz of wings broke the silence. Sifra darted into the room, arms crossed, her grin already in place.

"There's my little runaway," she cooed. "Got your shiny back?"

Akiko didn't look up. "Got it."

"And here I thought you'd need my help," Sifra said, circling her like a curious bird. "What does it do? Make you taller? Smarter? Oh, wait, better at sneaking?"

Akiko rolled her eyes. "It keeps me alive."

"Dramatic," Sifra said, landing on a shelf with a practiced flutter. "So. What now, fearless leader?"

Akiko's HUD was already sweeping the room, mapping paths, calculating risk. "We're getting off this ship. Quietly, if we're lucky."

She crouched near the doorway, the HUD overlay lighting her vision with soft blue. Faint corridors, heat trails, branching routes. Heat signatures flickered on the map, unpredictable, scattered.

"Great," she muttered. "A maze full of rats."

Sifra hovered just over her shoulder. "What's the matter? You scared of a little chase?"

Akiko didn't look at her. "No. But I'd rather not end up in a cage again."

Sifra smirked, touching down on her shoulder. "You're no fun. Fine. Lead the way. I'll spot the rats."

"Keep your voice down," Akiko hissed.

She slipped into the corridor. Her suit dampened every step. The HUD flickered, real-time updates mapping routes and dead ends, watching for movement.

The lighting was dim. The ship groaned softly with distant hums and pressure shifts. Akiko moved with practiced stealth. Sifra flitted ahead, a flicker of glow, barely perceptible in the dark.

"Two ahead," Sifra whispered, pointing down a branching corridor.

Akiko nodded. She flattened herself to the wall and waited.

Two mercenaries passed, their voices low and irritable; fragments of complaints, words like "bounty" and "fox" brushing past her like nettles.

Akiko didn't move. Not until they were gone.

"That's a lot of trouble for one fox," Sifra whispered. "You're quite the celebrity."

"Don't remind me," Akiko muttered, already moving again.

After what felt like an eternity of weaving through corridors and ducking past guards, Akiko's HUD flared with a soft ping. An airlock nearby. Relief uncoiled in her chest. She picked up speed.

The bay was small and utilitarian, tucked into a maintenance junction that smelled of oil and burnt wiring. The kind of space that existed to be ignored.

She dropped to a crouch beside the airlock panel. "Looks simple enough," she murmured, fingers hovering over the controls. "Just need to override—"

"Footsteps," Sifra whispered, already darting for the shadows.

Akiko froze. Her ears twitched, then caught it: boots on metal, closing in. She cursed under her breath and scanned the space. A nearby stack of crates lit up on her HUD. She gestured sharply at Sifra, then slipped behind them, her suit fading into the gloom with practiced silence.

Two mercenaries entered the bay. Their voices bounced off the walls.

"Can't believe we're hauling her," one grumbled. "You know how much heat she's brought down? Every stop we've made, there's been a leak."

The other scoffed. "Heat? She's a payday. Boss says we're delivering her to Zephara, that's all I need to know."

"Still. Bad luck. You see what she pulled in the belt? Took out two Haven gunships. Vanished into thin air."

"Doesn't matter," the second said. "No one's dangerous without their tricks. She's in a cage now."

Their footsteps lingered a moment longer. Then faded.

Akiko waited another five heartbeats before emerging, pulse still hammering.

She returned to the console. Her fingers danced across the interface. Takuto linked in silently, mapping unfamiliar code. It wasn't a secure system. Probably not built to withstand someone like her.

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But then the countdown timer lit up.

"Three minutes," Takuto chimed in her thoughts. "Ship-wide alert probable within thirty seconds."

Akiko's jaw clenched. "Yeah, yeah. I got it."

The airlock rumbled. Status lights pulsed amber along the hatch. The first pressure cycle began.

She turned to Sifra. "This is gonna get loud. Ready?"

The fairy's wings twitched. But she smirked. "Loud is my specialty, foxy. You do your thing, I'll keep watch."

She zipped to the viewport and peered out, then paused.

Her smirk faltered. "Uh. You do realize there's nothing out there, right?"

Akiko didn't answer. She was already flicking through her suit's active functions, checking charge levels, recalibrating her mana for thrust.

"Sifra," she said calmly. "We're going out there."

Sifra turned. "Come again?"

"You're coming with me," Akiko continued. "It's going to be tight."

The fairy blinked. "Tight? Foxy, I'm getting a little too comfortable with you."

"Do you even breathe?" Akiko asked, lunging and catching her midair before she could flit away.

Sifra squeaked in protest. "Not the point! And no, not exactly. But still!"

Akiko brought her close and gestured to the hollow curve beside her neck, the shield's curvature zone. "Good. Tuck in here. Stay close. The suit will cover you."

Sifra muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Mad. Absolutely mortal and mad," but zipped into position nonetheless, her glow dimming as she pressed herself flat into the space. Her wings folded tight against her sides.

"Two minutes," Takuto warned. "Hostile movement approaching the airlock."

Akiko cursed inwardly. She needed the mana for the escape. Which meant no foxfire. No shield. She'd have to make do.

Her thoughts stilled, crystalizing into readiness. They were coming.

She shifted her weight, forcing her stance lower, tighter. The dim flicker of the airlock control panel pulsed behind her, cycling through its final overrides.

Akiko hissed out a slow breath.

Two steps to the cover of the support strut. Five meters of open corridor beyond that. Not great odds.

The door at the far end hissed open with a hydraulic snap. A merc stepped through, heavy boots thudding against the grated floor.

Kinetic armor. Knife in hand.

Akiko's pulse spiked.

The merc spotted her instantly, barking something into a comm Akiko couldn't hear.

No time.

Akiko pushed off the strut, sprinting low.

The merc lunged to meet her, knife flashing toward her throat.

She ducked under the first swing, teeth clenched, air whispering hot across her ear as the blade missed by inches. Then she slammed her shoulder into his chest. A jarring impact, like colliding with a bulkhead.

Pain shot through her collar, but the merc didn't budge. He twisted, knife arcing toward her neck, fast. Too fast. Her thin oxygen veil wouldn't stop it.

She snapped her arm up, catching the strike on her forearm. The dragon-scale plating held... mostly. Pain flared anyway, sharp and biting, ringing up to her elbow.

Akiko gritted her teeth and shoved low, driving her weight through her hips. The merc's leg folded awkwardly, balance faltering just long enough.

She surged upward, seizing the wrist that held the knife. They grappled, blade jittering between them, every shift of pressure threatening to end it.

Her muscles locked. Breath stuttered in her chest. Then she lunged forward, ramming her forehead into his helmet.

The crack was sickening. The merc's visor fractured in a spiderweb of lines.

He flinched.

Akiko ripped the knife free and didn't pause. Drove it up under his arm, sliding it past the weak point in the plating. Not deep enough. He stiffened but didn't drop.

She tried to shove off, reset—

Too late. The door behind her banged open, two more mercs charging through.

"Dammit—"

She spun, but a baton crackled toward her spine. Pain exploded through her back as it struck the fragile mod at her lower spine, the one they'd built on Callistra.

Her HUD shrieked. Mana surged. The plate fractured and detonated. The blast knocked the attacker flat, but threw Akiko forward like a ragdoll. She slammed into the first merc, breath ripped from her lungs. Her suit caught most of it, but it still felt like getting punched by a railgun.

The world lurched sideways, colors tearing at the edges of her vision, her ears ringing so sharp it was like knives behind her eyes. Instinct screamed to move, but her limbs didn't get the message. The ground seemed too close and too far all at once, gravity pulling her crooked.

Akiko hissed, fighting for air. One more hit like that and she wasn't getting back up. By the time she caught herself, the merc was already seizing her arms, turning the stumble into a grapple.

Her HUD flickered. Takuto's voice cut through the static.

"Recommendation: environmental manipulation."

Akiko's lip curled. "Do it."

Takuto's threads reached out, tapping into the ship's local grid, and killed the lights. Darkness crashed down like a falling blade.

The mercs cursed, shifting their stances, visors struggling to recalibrate.

Akiko's HUD stabilized, clean overlays locking onto heat signatures. Kitsune eyes drank in the dim light, slitted pupils widening.

They were slower now. Clumsier.

She pressed her back to the nearest bulkhead, sucking in a ragged breath.

Flashlights snapped on with harsh beams of white, cutting through the shadows. Akiko ducked low, weaving between crates and broken support struts, her breaths short and sharp.

A flicker of movement caught her eye—

A heavier silhouette stepping through the far door. The merc leader. His pistol was raised. Finger on the trigger. No hesitation.

Akiko's heart lurched. She was out of time.

Her HUD chimed: "Airlock control override complete."

Akiko didn't think, didn't hesitate. "Blow it."

The airlock's lights flared red, sirens screaming to life. The control panel snapped green.

A split-second pause, then the deck detonated with roaring wind as the outer seal blew open. Air ripped from the chamber in a howling vortex, dragging crates, loose plating, and bodies toward the breach. Akiko threw herself backward, catching the lip of the airlock frame as the pressure drop sucked her toward the void.

The mercs scrambled, boots skidding across the deck. One managed to grab a strut. Another wasn't so lucky, slamming into the bulkhead before being dragged out into the black.

Akiko didn't wait to see if the leader made it.

The rush of escaping air hurled her into open space, spinning her away from the ship like a leaf in a storm. Her HUD flared proximity warnings as debris tumbled past her.

But the mercs weren't following.

She twisted, forcing herself into a controlled spin, her breath ragged in her throat.

Akiko's pulse thundered in her ears.

"Trajectory stable," Takuto reported.

Akiko swallowed hard, adrenaline burning her veins raw. She wasn't dead yet. Not yet.

"Okay," Sifra said, voice tight but bright with forced cheer, from somewhere behind her ear. "Definitely worse than I imagined. Next time, I'm picking the escape route."

Akiko's ear twitched towards her, eyes narrowing. "Where the hell were you during that?"

Sifra popped her head up, wings brushing Akiko's shoulder, eyes wide with innocent mischief. "What, and ruin the dramatic tension? Please. I know when to be stage left."

Foxfire flared to life as they hurled her, and her passenger, into the waiting dark. The stars didn't twinkle out here. They were steady, cold pinpricks of light. So distant they offered no comfort, only calculation.

Her mana reserves, so carefully conserved during the fight with the mercs, ticked down on the HUD with every pulse of her foxfire.

Behind her eyes, the ache began, the warning sign of depletion. Too many long burns. Too far from help.

Sifra shifted against her shield bubble, her glow dimmed to a nervous shimmer. She clung to the curve of Akiko's suit like a stubborn ember refusing to be snuffed out.

"Okay," the fairy muttered. "I've changed my mind. The cage wasn't so bad."

Akiko smirked faintly but kept her focus locked on her HUD's navigation overlay. "Too late now. You're part of the crew, remember? Time to pull your weight."

Sifra snorted. "I didn't sign up for this. No trees, no sky, no dirt under your feet, it's unnatural."

"Tell me about it," Akiko murmured. "I don't think anyone was built for this."

Her HUD pinged softly. Oxygen levels ticked downward, faster than they should've. The suit's recycler was running hot. Her margin for error: razor-thin.

"Estimated oxygen reserves: one hour," Takuto reminded her. "Recommend altering course to minimize travel time."

"I'm already on the shortest path," Akiko said aloud, her voice tight. She hesitated for a beat, then glanced sideways. "Sifra, I'm going to need a little help."

The fairy perked up, glow brightening slightly, though her expression pinched. "Oh, so now you need me? What's the plan, foxy?"

"My mana reserves are low," Akiko said, nodding at the dwindling bar on her HUD. "If I run out, we're stuck. I need you to feed me some magic."

Sifra hesitated. Not long, just enough for Akiko to catch it. Then she sighed and rolled her eyes dramatically.

"Fine. But don't get greedy. I'm not an infinite well, you know."

Akiko closed her eyes.

The connection wasn't mechanical. There was no wire, no port, no seamless fusion of systems. It was breath. It was pressure. It was heat threading into the base of her spine like someone had opened a window inside her chest.

A soft shimmer rolled through her suit. It was warm. Unruly. The foxfire in her veins pulsed brighter, steadier.

Her muscles eased, just a little.

"Thanks," Akiko said quietly. And meant it.

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