[LOCATION: BLACK SECTOR ARCHIVES – NIGHT]
The thunder outside cracked like distant artillery, washing the metallic tower of Black Sector Command in flashes of violet. Umi Kisaragi stood alone in the lower archives — a forgotten wing lined with war records, battle logs, and inactive terminal screens. The hum of the mainframe echoed like whispers from the past.
On the screen before her, a paused video feed: Lin, standing beside Rune, shielding her from enemy fire in Operation: AETHER'S WALL.
Umi's fingers curled into a fist.
That was the moment it all changed.
---
[FLASHBACK – THREE YEARS AGO]
Operation: Aether's Wall – Snowfield Barricade, Northern Region
They were surrounded — enemy forces closing in from the west ridge. Umi, bleeding and exhausted, knelt beside the terminal relay, trying to manually reboot the Reactor Grid.
"Umi!" Lin's voice cut through the chaos.
She turned. "Go! I've got this!"
But he was already running past her — toward the smoking outpost where a girl with silver hair had been pinned down. Rune.
Umi shouted after him, voice cracking. "Lin—She's not mission priority! We have to restore the Reactor!"
He didn't stop.
He reached Rune just as the grenades hit. The explosion consumed them both in flame and ash. For a second, Umi thought he was gone — and part of her, shamefully, hoped it.
But when the dust settled, he emerged carrying Rune in his arms. Burned, injured — but alive.
And Umi was alone, again.
---
[PRESENT – SECTOR 9 BRIDGEWAY UNDERPASS]
Umi stared down from the overpass into the rain-slick city. Her coat fluttered in the storm wind, but she didn't shiver. Not anymore.
She replayed Command's words in her mind: "Suspended until further notice. You're lucky we're not executing you."
They'd discarded her. After all she'd done. All she'd given.
She reached for her saber, only to realize it was no longer there. Stripped of her badge. Her clearance. Her name, soon enough.
A slow clap echoed behind her.
She spun, drawing her emergency dagger.
The man was tall, lean, and faceless — his mask shaped like a cracked porcelain smile. He wore a long black coat, lined with old military plating. Reactor burns marked his hands, but they glowed not with pain — but power.
"Umi Kisaragi," he said. "Loyal to a fault. I watched your little performance at the outpost. Brave. Pointless. Predictable."
"Who are you?"
"I represent Nocturne."
The word struck like a warning.
"Nocturne is a ghost story," Umi said. "Dead men with broken minds."
He chuckled. "Close. We're very much alive — just forgotten. Like you."
She tensed, but the man continued.
"You gave everything to an empire that used you. Loved a man who chose blood over loyalty. And now… what are you? A ghost."
"I don't need your pity."
"Good. Because I'm not offering it. I'm offering purpose."
She hesitated.
"What do you want?"
"To bring balance. Black Sector plays god with the Reactor-born — creates weapons, monsters, orphans. We aim to stop them."
He stepped closer.
"And we want Lin."
Her eyes flared. "Why?"
"Because he's the last key. And because he failed you."
Silence stretched between them. Umi's grip on the dagger slackened.
"…If I help you," she said slowly. "I want something in return."
The man tilted his head.
"I want her. The girl. Nel."
His smile beneath the mask was palpable.
"Done."
---
[LATER – NOCTURNE BASE, LOCATION UNKNOWN]
The walls were made of reclaimed tech and bone-white steel. It smelled of ozone and something far older — like scorched iron. Umi walked through the halls with a strange sense of déjà vu.
She saw them — the Forsaken. Ex-soldiers of the Black Sector: men and women with Reactor-implanted limbs, faces warped by unstable augmentation, eyes glowing in unnatural colors. War survivors turned weapons.
Each bowed slightly as she passed.
"You will lead one of our phantoms," said the masked man. "Your codename: Revenant."
"Revenant," she repeated. "Like something that returns from the grave."
"Fitting, isn't it?"
She stepped into her assigned chamber — sparse, cold, but functional. A new saber lay on the table, forged from dark alloy. A serum injector beside it — Nocturne's way of enhancing resistance to Reactor shock. She didn't hesitate. Injected. Accepted the pain.
In the mirror, she barely recognized herself. Her reflection — colder, crueler, eyes darker than before. But alive.
More than she ever was under Sector Command.
---
[MEANWHILE – SECTOR 9 – TEMPORARY SHELTER]
Lin stirred from sleep. Nel sat nearby, quietly watching over him. He was healing — slowly — from his last clash with Umi.
"I dreamt about her again," he muttered. "Rune."
"She was in the fire again?"
"No. This time… she was crying. And someone else stood behind her."
"Who?"
He frowned. "I don't know. But I think it was Umi."
Nel's hand tightened around the pendant. "Something's changing."
"I feel it too," Lin said. "Like storm clouds forming. Something's coming."
And he wasn't wrong.
---
[NOCTURNE – HALL OF MEMORY]
A ritual chamber, where the fallen of Nocturne were remembered. Umi walked alone through it — each wall etched with names of the erased: soldiers killed in false reports, children never documented, assets labeled as losses.
She placed a hand on one name: Kaien Kisaragi.
Her brother. Killed during a Black Sector cleanse.
"I told myself I forgave you, Lin," she whispered. "For choosing Rune. For leaving me to die. But that wasn't the truth, was it?"
She looked at the new saber — her revenant's blade.
"You made me feel alive once. And now… I'll return the favor."
She turned — cloak billowing — and walked into the war room, where her first mission brief awaited.
Target: NEL.
Objective: Capture. Live.
Condition: Kill Lin on sight.
---
[FINAL SCENE – UMI'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE]
> Love is a funny thing.
It turns to rage so easily when it's unanswered.
I told myself I wanted justice. That he betrayed me. That Nel took my place.
But maybe I just couldn't stand watching him care about someone else.
I was supposed to be the one he saved.
And now I'll be the one who breaks him.
---
TO BE CONTINUED...
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