The entity moved with terrifying grace, tendrils of shimmering mana lashing out like whips of living thought. Each strike was guided by unerring precision, slicing through the surreal space they floated in.

Akiko darted and weaved, her foxfire flaring in bursts to hurl her out of danger.

But every movement came at a cost.

Here, in this weightless void, effort felt paradoxical. Effortless and exhausting all at once. Her will was her fuel, and the entity was bleeding it dry.

Tendrils cut through the space around her, leaving behind jagged scars of blue light, wounds in the fabric of reality. One grazed her shoulder, and pain flared. Not physical, but existential. Like a piece of her had been torn away.

She gasped, reeling.

I can't let it touch me again.

Her AI flickered at the edge of her vision, its fox form darting along the periphery, golden eyes sharp, urgent. HUD warnings flared red: stamina and mana critically low.

"Critical levels approaching," the voice echoed.

Akiko gritted her teeth, dodging through the maelstrom. There were no muscles here to burn, no lungs to scream, but each dodge tore at her soul. Every action left her a little more frayed.

The entity laughed. A sound that echoed through the void, cruel and omnipresent.

"Run, little fox," it hissed, voice slick with malice. "But you cannot run forever. I will tear you apart, piece by piece, until there is nothing left."

Akiko's glare was unflinching. "You talk too much," she snapped.

She twisted away from another lashing tendril, narrowly evading as foxfire sputtered around her. Her magic was failing. Her body, whatever passed for one here, grew slower. Dimmer.

She was losing.

Her AI drew closer, its presence radiant with quiet urgency. No words. Just shared intent. Shared resolve.

Then, impact. A tendril struck true.

It slammed into her chest like a god's hammer, sending her spinning through the void. Pain lanced through her. Like something fundamental inside her had been cracked.

For a single, searing instant, her awareness brushed against the entity's. A collision of minds. Not just force, but thought.

She felt it. The storm. The hunger. The layered, hissing fury. But beneath the precision: fracture.

The entity was not whole. It was a cacophony of stolen voices, each one screaming for dominance. An unstable symphony of wills, held together by sheer force.

It wasn't a god. It was a riot in a cage.

The connection snapped.

Akiko hit something, reality buckling around her, and gasped. Her form flickered, shivering under strain.

The entity's voice slithered through the dark, smug and triumphant.

"You're breaking," it purred. "I will unravel you thread by thread. And when I am done, you'll join me, just another echo in my chorus."

Akiko forced herself upright. Her foxfire was pale. Barely more than memory. But she stood.

"You're not as invincible as you think," she said, voice low and clear.

She closed her eyes. Focused. Remembered the collision. There had been cracks. Discord. Weakness. And if she could feel them, she could break them wider.

Her AI flickered again, eyes gleaming with mirrored insight. It pushed fragments of data into her awareness. Jagged maps of the entity's composition. Shards. Edges. Mismatched minds bound by fear and hunger.

Akiko opened her eyes.

The entity loomed, tendrils writhing, shimmering with malice.

She stepped forward.

"You're right about one thing," she said, voice steady. "I am breaking."

The entity faltered, just slightly.

Akiko's foxfire flared, faint but fierce.

"But so are you."

A flicker in the entity's form. Barely perceptible.

"You're not one voice," she continued. "You're a thousand. Screaming. Tearing each other apart."

Her voice rose.

"And I think it's time someone turned up the volume."

The entity hissed. Its tendrils lunged.

But this time? Akiko was ready.

She darted through the surreal void, the entity's tendrils slicing arcs of luminous blue through the air around her. Her foxfire burned faintly at her feet, each burst propelling her forward in sudden, agile blurs. Every movement was a balancing act, grace and desperation.

But this time, she wasn't just evading.

She let the tendrils brush against her. Brief, calculated touches that sparked pain through her limbs like live wires.

Not just pain. Information. Each grazing contact wove fragments of insight into her mind. Threads of the entity's composition. Its logic. Its unraveling soul.

But it was a two-way exchange. With every touch, she felt her own defenses slipping. The entity was adapting. Its strikes narrowing, movements becoming frighteningly precise.

Akiko gritted her teeth. She couldn't afford to falter now.

Her HUD flickered in her periphery. Mana bar: low, but steadily rising. With every brush, she siphoned a thread of power.

"If I can keep this up…"

"What are you doing, little fox?"

The entity's voice was close, too close, sliding behind her thoughts like a shadow with teeth.

"Do you think you can take from me? That your tricks will save you?"

She didn't answer. Another dodge. Another grazing strike. A jolt of pain, and her mana climbed again.

The void shimmered with light and motion. The entity struck faster. Angrier.

Almost there.

"I see you now," the entity purred. Its voice had changed. Less composed, more unhinged. "Your essence… so fragile. And so… delicious."

Akiko smirked, breath ragged.

"Keep talking," she muttered, brushing another tendril, letting the jolt fill her.

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The glow around her intensified. And then, clarity. The rhythm of her movements, the stolen threads of knowledge, they aligned.

A fault line revealed itself within the swirling chaos of the entity's form. Not just a crack in its shell. A wound in its soul.

A fracture where the minds it had devoured clashed and screamed in disharmony.

The tendrils surged again. Furious. Desperate.

Akiko didn't retreat. She stepped in. A burst of foxfire. Her body blurred, sidestepped a lashing arc, and her hand shot out.

She grasped the tendril. Her claws flared, sinking deep into the writhing mana.

The tendril convulsed, but she held firm. This wasn't just contact. It was collision. Will against will.

And she pulled. The tendril tore free with a soundless scream. Energy rippled through the void, the entity's body spasming in agony.

Akiko staggered back, the severed strand dissolving in her hand. Motes of light surged into her.

Not just mana. Essence. Memory. Emotion.

Evelyn.

The world spun. Akiko buckled. Not just her own thoughts now. Another presence. Familiar. Delicate. Broken.

A spark of Evelyn's soul. Twisted, trapped, and still alive. Pain lanced through her mind. Her awareness fractured.

Two voices. Two hearts. Too much. And then, a pulse of warmth at the base of her skull.

The neural link engaged. Her AI's stabilizing signature swept through her mind like breath after drowning. Barriers formed. Pressure eased.

Evelyn's essence drew inward. Separated, anchored.

Akiko's breathing steadied. Foxfire flared bright around her again.

And the entity screamed, "What have you DONE?!"

It reeled, its form glitching, tendrils spasming. A chorus of panicked voices shrieked through its resonance, collapsing into discord.

Akiko stood tall. The faint hum of Evelyn's essence glowed behind her eyes.

"I'm not just here to stop you," she said, her voice cutting through the entity's howl. "I'm here to take back what you stole."

Akiko's breath steadied as the chaos churned around her. In the corner of her HUD, a new icon appeared: the silhouette of a bow, shimmering with the same glow as Evelyn's soul.

Her gaze locked on it. As she focused, potential surged.

The bow manifested in her hands, spun from starlight and mana. Its frame pulsed with shifting constellations; the string, a filament of radiant tension. It felt alien in her grip.

I've never used a bow in my life, she thought, ears twitching in frustration.

But then...A warmth, steady and light, pressed over her hands. Even now, Evelyn's essence moved with her.

Akiko's posture adjusted. Her grip shifted, awkwardness dissolving. Movements not her own became fluid, instinctual.

The entity paused, glitching mid-motion.

"A new toy?" it sneered. "And what do you think you'll accomplish with that?"

Akiko's lips curled in a small, defiant smile. "Let's find out."

She raised the bow. The string thrummed as a glowing arrow formed. Pure mana, aimed at the fracture she'd marked in the entity's form.

Tendrils lunged.

But Evelyn steadied her aim.

Akiko released the arrow with a sharp exhale. It streaked forward like a comet.

Direct hit. The arrow struck the fracture dead center.

The entity shrieked, its body convulsing, the wound yawning wider as sparks of mana bled out into the void.

Akiko's foxfire ignited. She launched skyward as the entity's tendrils slammed into the ground where she'd stood.

She spun through the air, weaving between the lashing strikes. Her movements blurred, more dance than dodge. Every flare of foxfire bought her moments. Seconds.

The bow hummed in her hands, its resonance now hers. Arrow after arrow fired into the chaos, each one exploding in bursts of radiant light. She soared higher, a blur of blue-white flame against the storm.

At her apex, she hovered, bathed in ethereal glow.

Below, the entity glared up. Flickering. Glitching. Fractured.

"You think you can destroy me? You're a speck of flame. I am infinite."

Akiko drew one last arrow, its glow brighter than any before. Constellations aligned across the bow's limbs as the power gathered.

Her HUD blinked red. Mana dipping into critical.

She didn't care.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered. "Big speeches. Bigger egos."

She loosed the arrow. It plunged downward, a comet of concentrated mana, and struck dead center.

The impact tore a gaping hole through the entity's chest. Blue light flared from its core, exposed and pulsing.

The space trembled.

The entity staggered. Its form shuddered. One hand rose, shielding its core.

"You... dare..." it hissed, voice laced with fury and fear.

Akiko's heart twisted.

It won't end until I take the core.

The memory flashed, of the drone, of tearing its battery free. This was no different.

Her grip tightened around the bow.

I'll have to get close.

She descended, foxfire blazing.

Tendrils rose to meet her. She let the bow dissolve into light, summoning her claws. Shimmering, ephemeral blades of mana. Her momentum became a blur of cuts and strikes, carving through the storm that separated her from the core.

For the first time, hesitation. The entity's fractured gaze flickered.

"You think you've won? This is only a fraction of my power. I'll survive. You'll be nothing!"

Akiko didn't answer. Words couldn't match the gravity of this moment.

Her claws flared brighter. She lunged. And slashed through the glowing tethers binding the core to the entity.

The tendrils recoiled. The entity screamed, a sound of unmaking.

Her momentum carried her past it. She hit the ground hard, rolling across the fragmented space, core clutched tight to her chest. She wrapped herself around it instinctively.

It pulsed in her arms. Hot, heavy, and alive.

The entity's shriek became a hiss. Then a whisper. Its form disintegrated, glitching out like static, folding into nonexistence.

But Akiko's triumph died as the core throbbed in her hands.

Too much. Too strong.

This wasn't just power, it was concentration. Dozens of minds. Hundreds. Compressed into one volatile mass.

It poured into her, unstoppable.

Her body convulsed. Mana flooded every nerve, saturating her from within.

The space around her cracked. Lines of shattering light spidered through the conceptual realm. Too much power, too little containment.

Her HUD dimmed. Her thoughts frayed. And with a final, shuddering pulse, the space collapsed.

Akiko gasped as she hit the floor of the station's control room, reality slamming back into her like a punch to the ribs. Her limbs spasmed as she collapsed, mana thrumming violently through every nerve.

The core had dissolved into her. Its energy burned like wildfire.

Her HUD exploded in a storm of red:

Mana Overflow.

System Integrity Compromised.

Metabolic Instability Detected.

She curled into herself, every breath shallow. Her hands shook uncontrollably, her body buckling under the pressure of the power she'd stolen.

No... not stolen. Claimed.

But it was too much. Too fast. Never meant for one person.

Nearby, she spotted Tomas. Unconscious. Breathing. His skin pale and gaunt, runes faded into silence. Whatever tether had bound him to the entity, it was gone.

Akiko could feel it. The connection was severed.

Cassandra's voice pierced the haze. "Akiko! Status report! Are you—what happened?!"

Akiko forced her head up, her voice gravel. "I... I've got it... the core. But..." Her body seized as another wave of mana surged through her. Her ears flattened. "I don't know how long I can hold it."

Hayes appeared, rifle already raised.

"He's still breathing," he growled, aiming at Tomas. "Let's finish this before he wakes up."

"Stand down!" Cassandra snapped, stepping between them. "We need intel. Killing him now won't help."

Akiko's focus flickered. Vision blurring. Sound distorting. Her claws dug into her suit as if she could tear the power out by force.

Her AI flickered online, its fox form ghostlike but present.

"Stabilize," it urged. "Focus... balance."

Akiko shut her eyes. Breathed deep. The AI's pulse steadied hers. Just enough to regain control. Temporary, but enough.

She opened her eyes, blinking sweat from her lashes.

"Cassandra..." she rasped. "We need to move. The station... it's not done with us yet."

Her legs trembled as she pushed forward, body weighted with heat and unraveling pressure. The ruined control room spun around her, but she kept walking.

Behind her, voices blurred into arguments, Cassandra's command cutting through the noise.

"Marines, secure Tomas. Get him back to the transport under guard."

A quieter voice followed. "Recover the body of the fallen marine."

Akiko flinched.

The words sliced through her composure. That death, that loss, was on her. She didn't want to admit it. Didn't want to feel it.

She'd trusted the Sovereign. Trusted the chain of command. But it hadn't been enough.

She shoved the thought aside.

There's no time for regrets now.

The entity's grip had weakened, yes, but the station still thrummed beneath her feet. The darkness hadn't lifted.

Her HUD flickered with low-grade mana poisoning, a faint blue haze bleeding into her vision. Her body wasn't holding.

Her AI pulsed. Its fox ears twitched.

"Focus... forward," it said.

Akiko managed a bitter smile.

"You're not wrong."

Behind her, boots echoed across metal. Cassandra's voice, sharp and closer now.

"Akiko, hold up. You're not in any shape to keep charging ahead without backup."

Akiko half-turned. Her foxfire eyes met Cassandra's steely ones.

"I don't think we have the luxury of moving at your pace anymore," she said. Her voice was even, but the words had edge. "The entity isn't playing by your rulebook."

Cassandra's jaw tightened.

Akiko softened, slightly.

"Look," she said, "you're good at what you do. Better than most. But this thing? You're not ready for it. I've seen what it can do, and I won't sit back while we lose more ground."

Cassandra crossed her arms. "And what's your plan? Keep burning yourself out with that thing inside you? You won't make it to the next corridor."

Akiko glanced down. Her fingers brushed the glowing runes stitched into her suit, felt the heat pulsing against her spine.

She thought of Kaede's calm guidance, Brom's stubborn heart, Valric's relentless cunning.

She'd followed their plans. But not this time.

She straightened.

"I don't plan on dying," she said with a hint of a smile. "But we're not going to win this with chain-of-command logic and field reports. You handle Tomas. I'll handle the station."

Cassandra studied her for a long moment, unreadable.

"Fine. But keep your comms open. If you find something useful, you report it. Don't make me regret trusting you."

Akiko nodded once.

Then turned. Her steps were quick. Purposeful. Every movement strained, but driven.

I don't have the luxury of waiting anymore.

The Sovereign had its mission. But so did she.

The entity was fractured, but not gone.

And if Akiko didn't move now, didn't act, she might not survive long enough to finish what she started.

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