The tunnel from the maintenance released a stale, metallic breath when Seraphina inputted the final access code. Rusty shavings fell away from the hinges of the vault door as it slowly opened and a darkness so complete that it seemed to devour the beam from Kaito's stolen tactical light.
"Welcome to Project Phoenix," Seraphina growled, her tone as hollow as a shell she'd scooped out. The purple glow around her hands emitted the only light as they stepped into the abandoned bunker.
Lena was still stuck in the entranceway, arms crossed over her chest. "I'm not going in there until someone explains to me why that monstrosity called Kaito 'Subject Zero.'" Her gaze darted back and forth between them, alighting on Kaito's still-glowing veins.
Kaito's jaw fell open, but the action let another flood of memories pour out:
—metal cold against his bare back—
—needles piercing through his ribcage like wiry worms—
—a scream of a child that could be his own—
He lurched, grasping a bank of dead screens for support. Seraphina caught up to him in an instant, her grip firm beneath his elbow. "Breathe through it. The memory grafts are destabilizing."
Memory grafts. That term slid into place with awful accuracy. Kaito shook off her. "You knew about this?" His own voice was foreign in his own head—too deep, resonant with a harmonic hum.
Seraphina's jaw shifted soundlessly before she spun to a dust-studded console. Her fingers flew across the keyboard with practiced ease. "Watch."
The monitors flickered to life.
The clip depicted a younger Dr. Kael alongside a man who must have been Seraphina's father—Dr. Elias Vexis. Their white lab coats were pristine, their expressions earnest as they gestured to a cylindrical stasis pod.
"Phase 12 trials begin today," Elder Vexis clarified, pushing his glasses back onto his nose. "If the adaptive mnemonics hold, Subject Zero could revolutionize powered combat."
The camera panned to reveal the pod's occupant.
Kaito's gut twisted as if it'd been turned inside out.
A boy no older than six hovered in deep blue fluid, his small body enveloped by lines of intravenous tubes that glowed with silver liquid. Even warped as it was, Kaito recognized his own face—spotted, younger, but unequivocally his.
"Astounding, isn't it?" Modern-day Kaito's teeth were clenched at Kael's voice on the recording. "'Synthetic genome with perfect chameleonic functions. It's not imitating abilities—it's understanding them at the quantum level.'"
The video continued forward.
Smoke poured through the laboratory. Alarms screamed. Elder Vexis was shouting, shoving data drives into his lab coat as Kael stepped forward with a syringe of glinting black liquid.
"You'd throw away the century's greatest military leap for ethics?" Kael stuck the needle into the control panel of the stasis pod. "See how you like being moral when your precious subject goes nova."
The screen folded into white noise.
Today's Seraphina dove the pause button, struggling to breathe. "My father smuggled you out that night. Had your memories repressed. Planted you in foster care." She would not even glance at Kaito. "I was meant to protect you. Not... not care."
Lena gagged by the door. "So what—Kaito's some kind of robot?"
"No." Seraphina stroked another screen. Helices of DNA wrapped around the console. "He's human. Just. bioengineered. His whole body is full of adaptive mnemonics—small machines that rewrite his biology to fit whatever power he's near."
Kaito's knees gave out. He collapsed into a rolling chair, his hands digging into his knees hard enough to leave bruises. "The phase-shifter. I didn't just see its pattern. I."
"Became it," Seraphina finished quietly. "Temporarily."
A revised warning flashed on the console. Seraphina swore, calling up a live security cam.
Kael stood before what appeared to be Celestia Academy's central lab, his biomech arm hooked into the mainframe. Ranks of banked stasis pods behind him—each filled with a fuzzy human silhouette.
"Phase 13 is done," Kael said to someone off-panel. "With Zero's DNA, we can produce adaptive troops in mass. The military will have the powered ground in a year."
Lena gagged. "They're making an army of Kaitos?"
"Worse." Seraphina focused on one pod's screen. "They've stabilized the adaptation process. No burnout anymore." Her throat worked. "No more humanity."
Kaito's vision went fuzzy. The bunker walls seemed to throb with his accelerating heart. He could sense the mnemonics coursing through his veins responding to his fear, preparing to switch—but to what?
The console beeped again. A program began automatically to play:
'Contingency recording.'
Elder Vexis's face filled the screen, drawn and bloody.
"If you're reading this, Elias has activated the termination protocol. Seraphina—the mnemonics need a moral anchor or they'll consume the host. That anchor was always meant to be—".
The screen went dark.
There was silence as thick as nuclear winter.
Lena broke it first. "So what do we do now? We just let Kael build his super army?"
Seraphina sat up straight, her Celestia crest glinting in the dim light. "No. We reduce it to ashes." Her purple eyes locked onto Kaito's. "But you need to understand—if we do this, there's no going back. Your body's fought the mnemonics for years. If you completely adapt."
Kaito knew. He could feel it in the ache of his bones, the beat of his blood when danger loomed. The true him—the real him—was being buried beneath veneers of borrowed strength.
He pushed to his feet, rolling his shoulders until vertebrae cracked. "Where do we begin?"
Somewhere in the heavens above them, there was an explosion on the surface. Dust rained from the ceiling as the emergency lights of the bunker flickered to life, bathing the whole group in blood-red.
Seraphina smiled—no smiles and all teeth.
"Looks like Kael found us."
Silver veins flared on Kaito's.
Finally, something made sense.