The light was warm.
Not like the harsh orange of a battlefield flare, or the sterile hum of medbay panels—but real sunlight, filtering through wooden window slats and falling in fractured angles across the floor. It stretched long across the old pine boards, highlighting every scuff, every knot in the grain. Dust hung suspended in the air, caught in its path like it had nowhere better to be.
The house was quiet. Still.
The kettle sat on the stove, half-full. A chipped mug waited beside the sink. The solar panel controller blinked a low green from its spot near the door, just like always. One of the chairs had a missing back slat, just like always. And when Lina stepped forward, one floorboard let out a low, familiar creak.
It was all the same.
Exactly the same.
Like he had just stepped outside.
She turned—and there he was.
Kai sat in the windowsill, one leg pulled up, the other dangling lazily over the edge, backlit by soft morning light. He wasn't looking at her yet—just staring into the trees, arm draped along the frame. His hair was longer than she remembered. His jacket looked too thin for the season. But the shape of him—tilted spine, bent wrist, half-smirk ghosting at the edge of his mouth—was the same.
He looked over.
Tilted his head.
"You're late."
Lina laughed before she meant to, breath catching halfway up her chest—and then the door creaked open.
"Someone brought real coffee?" a voice called.
Boots thudded in across the porch, and one by one, the others stepped inside.
Juno dropped his gear beside the door, already shrugging off his coat. Tess moved without a word, leaning in the doorway with arms folded and that familiar sharpness in her eyes. Roan went straight for the cabinets, humming tunelessly as he pulled down a mismatched row of mugs. Vern gave her a nod—brief, tired—and passed Elya something small and silver, as if handing off intel.
For a few moments, it felt like nothing had changed.
Like they'd never left.
Like none of it had ever gone wrong.
"You missed the last run," Juno said, grinning. "Took us ten minutes longer without your dramatic entrances."
"Eleven," Roan added from the sink.
Kai gave her a look like, see what you missed?
And Lina—
She almost believed it.
Almost.
The light shifted.
Not gradually. Not with time. Just—shifted.
Paled. Flattened. The warmth pulled away from the edges of the room, and the sunlight on the floor turned colorless, almost grey.
Tess spoke again, but her words didn't land right. Too slow. Slightly off. Like an old tape reel stuttering.
Roan poured coffee into a cup that vanished the moment she blinked.
Juno's laugh came a second too late.
Vern's fingers moved, but nothing was in his hands anymore.
Then they all looked at her
Together.
They were still standing, smiling at her.
But something behind their eyes had gone quiet.
"You weren't supposed to touch it," Juno said.
"You always break things," Tess added, brushing nothing from her sleeves.
Roan's voice was softer, now flat:
"We told you."
And Kai—
He hadn't moved.
But his smile had disappeared.
He stood.
"You weren't one of us. Not really."
The wood beneath her feet cracked. The shadows broke.
And the house began to come apart—
in silence.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Darkness peeled away.
Her eyes snapped open—too fast, too dry. Her breath came in short, ragged pulls, chest heaving like she'd surfaced from drowning.
The dream was gone. But the voice remained.
The ceiling above her was paneled wood, warm-toned and slightly uneven, old enough to creak but clean enough to care for. The walls were matte steel softened with pale cloth drapes, and somewhere near the far corner, a slow fan turned in lazy circles above a potted plant—broad green leaves catching light from a slit in the ceiling.
The air smelled faintly of antiseptic, but beneath it, something gentler—dried herbs, sun-warmed dust.
Through a half-open window near the far wall, soft sunlight filtered in across the floor—clean, gold-edged, the kind that didn't sting.
Outside, she glimpsed a low courtyard bordered by narrow garden beds and pale stone paths. A windchime stirred faintly from one corner, catching the breeze in metallic murmurs.
Somewhere beyond the wall, birds were singing.
Not warning sirens. Not patrol hums.
Just birds.
This didn't look like a Sector Nine medbay.
Her right hand twitched—too fast. Too smooth.
She looked.
And froze.
The fingers weren't hers. They flexed, almost naturally. But she didn't know how to tell them what to do.
Pale, seamless plates arched over the knuckles where skin used to be.
Fine silver lines pulsed beneath the surface—clean, perfect, utterly foreign.
Her chest locked.
She jerked back, instinct screaming, and the movement yanked at her spine—hard, wrong. A white flash of pain shot up her side and left her gasping, twisted halfway off the cot.
"Easy—hey, hey, no," came a voice—low, calm, close.
Elya's hands caught her shoulders before she could fall.
"It's okay," she said gently, steadying her. "You're safe. You're in medical."
Lina's eyes were wide, locked on her hand. The metal shimmered faintly in the half-light.
"That's not mine," she whispered.
"No," Elya said softly. "But it's still you."
She adjusted the blanket up around Lina's back, careful not to touch the arm again.
"We tried to run diagnostics," she said. "The neural grafts don't match any known tech base. No ports, no anchor nodes, no latency window. It's not a prosthetic."
She hesitated.
"You weren't given this," she said finally. "You became it."
A beat passed.
"Somehow," she added, voice lower now, "the sword didn't just choose you. It rewrote you. While you were still breathing."
Lina didn't answer.
Her breath was still fast and shallow. Her left hand curled into the blanket like it could ground her.
But her right hand—
It stayed still.
Waiting.
She wasn't sure it would ever feel like hers again.
"Why..." Her voice caught, rough and uncertain.
"Why am I even alive?"
Elya didn't answer at first. Just watched her for a moment—face unreadable.
"You'd have to ask Senn for the full version," she said finally. "But I know this much—"
She reached forward, adjusted a loose fold in the blanket. Something soft in the gesture, but not weak.
"You moved. After the collapse. You didn't breathe right. Your body was shutting down. But your hand held on."
She glanced toward the medical monitor, where faint threads of data still ran.
"The sword wouldn't let go. And neither did you."
"Great," Lina muttered. "Me and a sword. Real romantic."
Her voice was sharp, but the edge shook.
"That doesn't answer anything."
Elya's gaze didn't waver.
"We're not Church. And we're not the old rebellion either."
Lina gave a dry, humorless huff.
"So let me get this straight," Lina said, voice dry. "You drop out of nowhere, knock down three top-tier Seraphs like it's casual exercise, drag me out of the wreck, patch me up with whatever that is—"
She flicked her gaze to the metal hand.
"—and now I wake up in a sunlit bunker with herbal soap and actual blankets."
Her tone sharpened.
"You don't know me. You're not Church. You're not rebel command."
She narrowed her eyes.
"So tell me. Why the hell did you bother?"
That made Elya pause—just a flicker.
"Then who are you?" Lina added, low and tense. "And what the hell did you do to me?"
Elya didn't bristle. She just gave a tired half-smile.
"Ash Light," she said. "For now, that's enough."
Lina leaned her head back against the wall, exhaling through her teeth.
"Of course it is," she muttered. "Classic secret team energy."
Elya didn't answer. Just started to adjust the drip near the cot, eyes tracking the vitals screen.
But Lina wasn't done.
"You had time to drag me out," she said, voice lower now, rougher. "What about the others in the base?"
Elya paused.
"You don't have clearance for that," she said carefully. "Not yet."
"Screw clearance."
The words came out sharp, fast. "I was there. I watched them fall. If you're going to play savior, then tell me who's left."
Elya didn't flinch, but she didn't answer either.
"Ask Senn," Elya said. Not cold. Just… final.
"He'll tell you what he can."
She hesitated, then added, quieter now:
"We weren't deployed for the base. Our team was rerouted to extract a signal trace—we didn't know it was you until we got there."
She looked at Lina again, steadier this time.
"There was no time to sweep the field. Med evac was priority. And by then, the main front was already clashing with Aurelion units."
"If anyone else made it out, Senn would know."
She didn't move for a while.
The room held still with her—just the quiet hum of medical systems and the occasional breath of wind stirring the curtains.
Her gaze drifted—past the monitor, the soft edge of the curtain, the neat stitches of gauze wrapped around her ribs.
For a second, she let herself believe she could rest.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then she heard it.
"You're stable," not unkind. But unmistakably official.
It was a man's voice—not gruff, not warm, but balanced. Like someone trained to speak clearly, carefully, and only when necessary. Something about the tone pulled her fully awake.
Her eyes found him slowly—too clean, too still. Her instincts recoiled first, before her mind caught up.
Voices like his usually meant orders.
He stood by the far wall, posture straight despite the relaxed stance—arms folded over a lean, military-cut jacket. The lines of the fabric sat clean over his frame—broad through the shoulders, but without show. His hair was ash-grey, cropped short at the sides, a few strands falling loose across his brow. His face was young—maybe not much older than hers—but his eyes had seen more than his age should allow.
On the left side of his chest, stitched just above the strap seam, was a sigil she didn't recognize—
a pale ember against a dark field, a minimalist design: no crest, no rank, just the outline of a flickering flame.
Not part of the rebel factions she remembered. Must be Ash Light, then. The name no one wanted to explain.
She blinked once.
"Great," she muttered. "Another uniform with opinions."
"We talked. Briefly," he said.
The voice matched with the one from the comm. Calm under pressure. The one that told her to run.
Lina stiffened. Her breath caught. The question came before her mouth could shape it.
"I'm Senn," he said, as if answering anyway. "Tactical adviser of Ash Light. I handle external feeds and field support."
"We watch the grid. Sometimes, we get to someone before the system does."
She wanted to ask—about Kai, about the sword, about what he knew.
Elya adjusted the blanket around her shoulders without a word, her hands practiced, gentle. One palm rested briefly against Lina's neck, checking her temperature again.
Lina didn't flinch. Somehow, the quiet presence at her side made it easier to keep breathing.
But her throat locked. Her body still hadn't caught up with her mind.
Senn didn't press.
He simply watched, quiet and patient, like someone used to waiting out storms.
"You'll have better questions when you're not half-unconscious," he said, stepping toward the door. "And I'll still be here when you do."
He paused at the threshold, one hand resting briefly on the frame.
"Take your time," he said, voice steady. "Just… heal up, alright?"
Then he was gone.
Her body gave out before she could say anything else.
She closed her eyes—and slept.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She drifted in and out of sleep.
Voices came and went.
Soft footsteps. The click of Elya's boots.
Once, someone was arguing outside the room—Arlen, by the sharpness.
Another time, Rei's voice muttered something about "overclocked hero types" and the clatter of a snack bar hitting the floor.
Sometimes she felt warmth on her back, a cooling gel being reapplied.
Other times, just silence.
And now and then, she caught the faint scent of old wood polish and warm metal—sunlight slipping in through somewhere half-sealed, stirring up the kind of dust that didn't sting, just lingered, soft and tired like breath held too long.
But slowly—too slowly—she started to come back.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been asleep, but when the door opened again, it wasn't quiet.
"Still alive," Rei said, smug as ever. "That's promising."
Lina didn't bother opening her eyes.
"Talking to yourself," Arlen added from the doorway. "Less promising."
She blinked. Evening. The lights had dimmed. A packet of protein brick sat near her cot—half-crumpled foil. Rei tossed it at her. It bounced off her arm.
"Fig paste," he said. "Luxury edition."
She tried to sit up. Failed. Rei pulled up a stool.
"We didn't win," he offered. "But we didn't die either."
Lina's voice was rough. "What about my base?"
Rei hesitated. "Ask Senn."
Arlen's eyes flicked to her. Then away.
He knew something. He wasn't saying it.
"And the sword," Rei added. "We contained it. No more weird glowing."
Arlen cut in, flat. "It sync-locked to her. That's not normal."
Lina's jaw clenched. "Sorry I ruined your scan."
"You're a variable," Arlen said. "That's all."
She didn't respond. But her eyes didn't leave him.
Rei cleared his throat. "Whatever it was, it worked. You're alive."
Lina exhaled slowly.
Then her gaze shifted—to his jacket. The patch. A pale stitched flame.
She spotted her coat on the nearby chair—cleaned, folded. The rebel insignia still marked the shoulder: a sword and a rifle, crossed hard. The kind of symbol made to be seen, shouted, feared.
"Ash Light," Rei shrugged. "Not a faction. Just the ones still standing."
He peeled the corner of the foil on his protein brick, then glanced at her again.
"We're not flying a flag. We're just holding the last light."
Arlen muttered, "For now."
A quiet clink caught her attention. Rei reached into a pocket, pulling out something small, delicate, silver glinting softly in the dim overhead lights.
"Almost forgot," he said casually, leaning forward to press it gently into her palm. "Found this near you after the evac. Figured it mattered."
Her breath caught. She closed her fingers around the thin chain, heart suddenly tight in her chest.
"Thanks," she said, voice quieter than she intended.
Rei just nodded, expression softening briefly before he leaned back again.
Lina didn't reply further, just let her fingers drift once more over the insignia stitched into her old coat—sword and rifle, crossed hard. Sharp lines. Proud.
She wasn't sure it meant anything anymore.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Somewhere deeper in the compound, a sealed door hissed shut.
Arlen stood by the terminal, arms crossed, eyes locked on the pale-blue scan flickering above the console.
"We lost six people," he said. "And for what?"
A pause.
"A variable. A walking override event."
He tapped the screen—once, sharp.
"You saw the sync-lock. That wasn't survival. That was a rewrite."
Senn said nothing at first. Then, calmly:
"We brought her back. That means we watch closer. Not less."
Arlen's voice dropped lower.
"She's a breach."
Senn didn't argue.
He didn't need to.
The sword wasn't the only thing watching her now.