"Let's leave it be," Yangyang murmured.
Rover nodded, and together they turned away, leaving the strange, wobbling Tick Tack behind—its hollow gaze still fixed on them, as if it had seen far more than it was ever meant to.
Yangyang and Rover pressed deeper into the ruins of Qichi. The air grew heavier, thick with the scent of burned stone and grief that had never been soothed.
Then Yangyang paused. Her boots crunched against a scattered pile of blackened, brittle cards half-buried in ash. Her eyes widened. She crouched, fingers brushing the soot aside.
"These cards…" Yangyang said slowly, voice tightening. "I see…"
She stood, brows furrowing sharply. "The Fractsidus is likely behind it all."
Rover turned toward her, uneasy. "The Fractsidus?"
"Yes," she nodded grimly. "I don't know much, but as an Outrider, I've worked on related cases. It's a group of extremists obsessed with… fusing humans with Tacet Discords."
She didn't need to explain how twisted that was. Rover's silence said it all.
"They've orchestrated terror attacks all over the world," Yangyang continued. "You never see them until it's too late. We've found traces of their presence even in Jinzhou—left by their foot soldiers, the Artificers."
Her voice grew colder. "Above them are the Overseers. Commanders with grotesque abilities and goals we still can't understand. Some speak of world destruction. Others… seek power without end."
She hesitated. Her hand clenched. "And then there's one Overseer... someone even the others are afraid of."
Yangyang's voice dropped, low and taut—like a wire stretched to its limit. "Amongst them, there's one… particularly insane Overseer."
She looked away for a moment, her eyes scanning the burnt ground as though the memory alone made her skin crawl. "Even by Fractsidus standards, he's titled as crazy..."
Rover's gaze sharpened, lips parting, but he said nothing.
Yangyang continued—more to herself now, as if repeating what she'd buried in reports and dossiers. "A man who sees no order and revels in destruction..."
Her hand pointed at the scorched cards. "I've seen these before. Back at headquarters. They matched one case—one that made even the old investigators walk out of the room."
A beat passed. Then, Yangyang revealed this psycho's name. "They call him... Scar."
She met Rover's eyes. "If he's the one behind this... then this wasn't just a slaughter." Her voice trembled, barely. "It was a stage. And the whole village was his play."
She looked at Rover, her eyes shadowed. "If he did this to the village—if this massacre was his work—then we're dealing with someone capable of unspeakable cruelty."
Rover's fists had balled without him realizing it. Yangyang placed a steady hand on his arm. "Let's investigate more. Carefully."
He nodded. "Yeah. Let's."
They combed the area in silence, the wind carrying faint, ghostlike whispers. Then—something rustled in the bushes.
Yangyang froze. Her hand hovered near her weapon as she stepped forward with practiced caution. But from the shrubs emerged a tiny, scruffy cat, blinking up at them with bored innocence.
Rover exhaled, unaware he'd been holding his breath. His shoulders loosened. Yangyang let out a soft, amused chuckle.
But that moment lasted less than a heartbeat.
Without any warning, space itself twisted behind her.
A black door—silent, seamless, and unnaturally smooth—materialized from the air like a ripple folding in reverse. It yawned open behind Yangyang without warning, and a furious suction surged outward, dragging at her with terrible force.
Yangyang had no time to scream.
She staggered, caught in the pull—not merely physical, but something deeper, resonant, as if her very soul were being wrenched toward the void.
Rover's eyes widened. She was too far. It was happening too fast. He reached for her, but it was hopeless.
But then—something fell from the heavens.
No, not fell.
It descended like judgment.
A blur of gold and silence slammed into the ground between Yangyang and the door, kicking up a blast of dust and force so dense it sucked the sound out of the world.
Every Resonance in the vicinity—Yangyang's, Rover's, even the Doors'—was stifled to nothing. Whatever had arrived did not sought to resonate. It commanded.
"Yangyang," Rover called, stepping closer, his voice tight with concern.
She staggered, catching herself on a half-buried stone. Her breathing was shallow, her fingers trembling—not from fear, but from the sheer gravity of what she felt.
"Yes..." she nodded, but her voice was thin.
The pulses from the foreign object echoed again—deep and sonorous like the tolling of a massive bell. Resonance surged through the air in waves, pressing against their bodies, vibrating through their marrow.
Gong.
The village of Qichi shimmered.
And for a single heartbeat, reality shifted.
The ruined village vanished. In its place stood Qichi whole again—intact homes, clean stone paths, golden light bathing it all in the soft hush of dusk. As if memory had overwritten the present.
Then it was gone—like breath on glass.
Yangyang stared, her eyes wide with disbelief, awe, and a slow-rising dread.
"Is… is this a Waveworn Phenomenon?" she quivered.
Her voice trembled—not from ignorance, but from understanding.
Because if it was—if this truly was a Waveworn memory echoing so powerfully it overrode the present—something had deliberately summoned it.
And that something was still here.
Rover and Yangyang turned slowly, hearts still pounding with the fading echoes of the Resonance pulse.
There, nestled in the cracked earth where the phenomenon had struck, lay a gourd-shaped object—humming faintly with residual energy. Not merely humming—singing. A haunting chorus of distorted memories whispered across time.
Yangyang's breath hitched. "That… that's a Terminal. But whose? And why is it here?"
Its lacquered surface shimmered with chromatic ripples—not reflecting light, but bending it. The air itself seemed to curve in reverence around it.
They barely took a step forward when—
"Aw, c'mon," a voice groaned, thick with theatrical exasperation. "I spent so much time working on that entrance."
They turned.
A man stood atop a broken roof—slim, sharp, impossible to ignore, and adorned with menace. Crimson clothes draped over him like chaos incarnate.
His white-and-red hair jutted in wild spikes, and scars split his face like deliberate punctuation. One eye glowed an infernal red. The other was a dull, unreadable gray.
His outfit was chaos incarnate: too many collars on an open jacket, mismatched belts, boots that looked stolen from two different centuries, and knives tucked at his sides as if forgotten there. A gold fleur-de-lis earring swung lazily from his ear as he smirked.
He looked like a contradiction given flesh—half jester, half executioner.
"Scar." Yangyang's voice was calm, but tension coiled beneath it like a drawn sword. Her weapon was already in hand, Resonance glinting off its edge in Qichi's fractured light.
"Is this your doing?" she demanded, eyes narrowing.
Scar tilted his head, mock-wounded. "Calm down, missy," he sighed dramatically. "This little ghost-show? Not mine."
He turned his gaze toward the gourd-like Terminal, lips curling in curiosity. A flicker passed through his expression—one of recognition. His eyes caught the faint, almost hidden Ghost Hound mark engraved into the terminal's lacquered surface.
He muttered to himself, voice thin with contemplation. "Could it be… him?"
The Terminal stirred.
It vibrated subtly, like a heart remembering its beat. Strands of tied hair fluttered as if exhaling. Then—from the braid—a single feather slipped loose.
As it drifted down, a wave of Resonance surged outward.
It wasn't violent—but ancient. Heavy. It swept across Qichi like a forgotten memory finally given voice.
Yangyang paled. Her stance faltered.
"Careful…" she whispered, pupils wide. "That pulse… it's an Overlord-Class Tacet Discord's frequency."
The air grew still, then colder. As if the village held its breath.
But no monster came.
Instead, a strange whispering began, faint at first—like the tapping of wood against wood. Like a rhythm.
Tick. Tack. Tick. Tack.
The sound drew their eyes toward the shadows of the ruin.
There, standing motionless, was the Tick Tack—the Tacet Discord they had encountered earlier. Its bloated, spherical form quivered faintly, stubby limbs twitching with unnatural rhythm.
The pulsing horns still glowed with that sickly amethyst sheen, but something in its bearing had changed.
It was certainly looking at them. But this time, with more.
Not with just eyes. But with awareness.
Yangyang hesitated, then softened her voice. "What are you doing here, little one?"
The creature didn't respond at first. It tilted its head, as though sifting through layers of static. Then—
A voice—soft, trembling—not warped or glitched, not even a Tacet's mimicry, but unmistakably human, the voice of a little girl: "F-Father…"
Rover froze, jaw tightening. Yangyang's weapon trembled in her grasp.
Scar smirked. "Hoh?"
Silence reclaimed Qichi's ruins, broken only by the Terminal's rising hum as it floated in the air, encircled by the strands.
The three strands of hair spiraled faster and faster—like protons orbiting a nucleus—until a sudden refraction shimmered, and where the Terminal had hovered, a woman now stood.
"Whoa," Scar muttered, awestruck.
A profound sense of pleasantness radiated from her—a quality so inherent it seemed to predate any formal definition of beauty.
Her navy hair flowed like deep twilight, contrasting beautifully with the soft allure of her lotus-shaped eyes, which held the luminous, captivating hue of aquamarine irises
The subtle, earthy scent of petrichor accompanied her—a surprisingly fitting aroma for one so tranquil and yet undeniably a warrior.
She wore a simple blue hanfu, subtly tailored to grant unhindered movement. Despite the intensity of her bearing, her appearance held no harshness or sharp edges—only a refined grace that softened her formidable presence, like a lotus in bloom.
The feather, floated back into her hand as the Tick Tack repeated, "Father."
The onlookers watched intently as the woman met the Tacet Discord's gaze. Yangyang glanced at Rover and whispered, "Could she be related to the little one?"
Rover's brow furrowed in confusion. "I don't think so," he replied, sensing the Tick Tack was addressing the feather as its father rather than her.
The mysterious figure—Lian—looked down at the Tick Tack and said flatly, "You're going to die, little one."
Yangyang gasped. "Too blunt!" she exclaimed.
Lian descended, passing the feather toward the Tick Tack, but it ignored the feather—not out of defiance, but because it could not recognize it.
The creature had only emerged after sensing something familiar, but that recognition lasted just a fleeting moment.
"I see," Lian whispered, her voice tender and soft, as if it might melt the weight of the moment. "You cannot even recall."
Rover watched her thoughtfully. 'Isn't she from yesterday and this morning?'
Scar, observing from the rooftop, dropped down and rubbed his chin in curiosity. "Who is the she—Is she here for that Tick Tack?"
His eyes drifted to the Tick Tack. It was a Tacet Discord of amalgamation—not of one frequency, but many. The girl who had cried "Father" was herself a merged frequency, lost to memory now.
"Father," the Tick Tack repeated softly.
Lian's eyes flickered. She spoke quietly, "I am not your father, and I cannot prevent your encroaching death—'such a thing would go against my nature; Impermanence'." The last word remained unspoken.
But then her gaze softened, voice tender. "Yet you called me father, I am moved."
Scar blinked in disbelief. 'Are you serious?!' he exclaimed inwardly. He hadn't expected the mysterious woman to show such warmth.
From his first impression, she seemed the distant, indifferent type—cold, aloof, untouchable. But this? This was a complete reversal. A tenderness that unsettled his assumptions. A warmth he hadn't accounted for.
Yangyang and Rover exchanged curious glances. They knew who this woman was. She was that strange lady form that morning.
"She's the same one who fed you, right?" Yangyang asked, and Rover nodded without taking his eyes off Lian. For some reason, Rover felt an inexplicable pull toward Lian—something even Rover didn't fully understand.
Ignoring the onlookers, Lian knelt and spread her arms. The Tick Tack shuffled closer, and she gently embraced it.
Whispering softly, she said, "Your original father told me to preserve your resonance, but nothing lasts forever—that's the way of nature."
"But some things…" Lian's lips curved into a mischievous smile as she lifted the Tick Tack into her arms.
Her eyes shimmered, and reflected within them was the image of a little girl replacing the cold surface of the Discord. "Some things, though, can be made beautiful again. Let me make you pretty—as you once were."
To be continued...
***
A/N: Originally, there was another OC who was like my OC's adoptive daughter—or, to be more precise, the OC's first echo.
Also, someone once asked, "Will we have the munchkin?" I did think about it, but decided that the story needs some setup first.
So now, I want to ask those who are reading—whether you're an OG reader or a new iteration reader—do you want "Hanya" back or not?