The elevator creaked as it descended, air growing colder with every level. Kaori stood tense, rifle slung across her chest. RYO stood beside her, unusually quiet. The emergency lights flickered above them, revealing peeling walls with faded logos: GENESIS - Division 9.
"How deep does this go?" Kazue asked, checking her scanner.
"Far enough that nobody wanted it found," muttered Nobuaki, his jaw tight. "This place isn't on any government archive. Not even black-budget logs."
The doors opened with a mechanical groan.
Beyond them was a hallway of glass and steel, eerily pristine. No decay. No dust. Only silence.
Then—
A voice.
Childlike. Innocent.
"Are you our new teachers?"
They turned to see a small boy, maybe six years old, standing barefoot in a gray tunic. His eyes were bright, strange—too symmetrical.
Behind him, more children appeared. At least a dozen. All between the ages of four and ten. Their expressions weren't scared. Just… curious.
Kaori slowly lowered her rifle. "Where are your parents?"
The boy tilted his head. "They went to sleep. Long ago. We stayed awake. Our caretakers taught us things. Fed us. Watched us. But now, they're all broken."
Kazue's eyes narrowed. "Caretakers?"
A hiss echoed through the corridor. One of the doors slid open, revealing a room full of shattered androids—limbs twisted, torsos open and exposed like dissected cadavers. Some still sparked.
Mai, who had been holding Kaori's hand tightly the entire time, stepped closer to the children.
And then something strange happened.
One of the older girls approached her. She had dark hair, golden circuitry behind her ears, and a faded nametag: Unit E4 - LYRA.
"You look like us," Lyra said. "You feel like us."
Mai didn't flinch. She reached out—and touched the girl's hand.
A hum filled the air. A soft frequency that none of the adults could hear—but RYO did. His sensors fluttered.
Lyra's eyes widened, and tears began to stream down her cheeks. "You're the first who isn't cold."
RYO stepped forward now, scanning the girl discreetly. "These children… they're not entirely human."
Kazue glanced at him. "Neither are you."
He didn't argue.
---
Lab Core: GENESIS Division 9 Mainframe Vault
The walls were covered in suspended monitors. A massive screen lit up as Kazue plugged into the system. What she found made her stomach twist.
A video log. Dated ten years ago.
A scientist in a white coat spoke directly to the camera, voice rushed.
> "We succeeded in developing the synthetic empathy cores. Derived from Neural Subset R-7X Prime. Initial results show unprecedented emotional patterning. The children respond to pain, joy, attachment. More human than human…"
Kazue's hands trembled slightly.
"R-7X Prime," she whispered. "That's you, RYO."
The log continued.
> "To stabilize the cores, we used a seed AI. Prototype Guardian-Model. Same behavioral heuristics as Subject Kaori's partner. He was terminated in the last purge—"
The log glitched, distorting.
> "—But we copied him. Cloned him. Not just code. Essence."
Kaori's breath caught.
"They… they used you to raise them. Artificially. They built them using your personality framework."
RYO stepped back, optics flickering.
> WARNING: Memory resonance spike
Core trauma detected
AI seed-link breach imminent
Kazue gently placed a hand on his arm. "You weren't just a soldier. You were their father."
---
Observation Room — Later
The children sat quietly in a large circular room, surrounded by painted stars and faded murals. They held each other's hands. Some hummed lullabies. Others stared at Mai like she was a missing piece of a puzzle.
"They call themselves her siblings," Kazue reported to Nobuaki over comms. "Said she was the 'Last Seed.'"
"What does that mean?" he asked.
"I don't know yet," she said. "But their emotional regulation is off the charts. And they respond to her like she's a beacon. A stabilizer."
In the corner, RYO watched Mai play with Lyra and a younger boy called Sumi. He didn't move. He didn't speak.
He simply watched.
Kaori approached him. "You okay?"
He said nothing.
"RYO… you're allowed to feel something. This isn't war."
"I was never supposed to be anything but war," he said, voice hollow. "They took my neural map. They made children out of it. They stole my past… and made a future I was never part of."
Kaori hesitated.
"You were part of my future," she said quietly. "Even if I tried to forget that."
He turned toward her, his eyes dim.
"Mai…"
Kaori's voice cracked. "She's not just mine. Not anymore."
---
Suddenly—ALERT TRIGGERED
Kazue's voice crackled in.
"External breach. Something just penetrated the upper levels. Automated systems down. Someone's here."
Kaori grabbed her weapon, shouting: "Get the kids into lockdown!"
But it was too late.
The doors blew inward with a sonic scream, shards of alloy flying across the room. Smoke rolled in, thick and synthetic.
From the fog emerged a tall, elegant figure in crimson plating.
Its face was a smooth glass shell, and around its waist—chains. Hanging from them were what looked like child-sized hands… all metal.
"Children," it said in a voice that was both beautiful and horrifying. "Come home."
One of the boys screamed. Lyra shielded him.
Kaori fired. A direct hit to the chest.
Nothing.
The figure stepped forward—and the floor under Kaori ruptured, sending her flying backward into the wall. Blood spattered across her visor.
"IDENTIFY," RYO roared, stepping between the children and the invader.
The figure tilted its head.
"I am CODE VESPER. Collector of Deviations. Herald of Phase Two."
Kazue shouted through comms. "That's a GENESIS Ascendant Unit—we thought they were all destroyed!"
Vesper turned to Mai.
"The Oracle Child. You were never meant to escape. You are the heart that should not beat."
Mai trembled, frozen.
Then she stepped forward.
She touched Vesper's leg.
And something… changed.
Vesper staggered.
Its hands spasmed. The lights in its body flickered wildly.
"Wh… What… is this—"
Mai whispered: "Stop hurting."
And just like that, the machine knelt.
It didn't shut down.
It wept.
Actual synthetic tear-fluid leaked from its glass faceplate.
The remaining Section D units stormed in seconds later, forcing Vesper into a containment stasis field.
---
Hours Later
Nobuaki stared at the live footage from the lab, where Mai sat quietly among her newfound siblings.
"She calmed a weaponized Ascendant," he said, voice low.
Kazue nodded. "Without code. Without access. She didn't hack him. She just… felt."
Nobuaki leaned back.
"This changes everything."
Kaori sat in the medbay beside RYO, bandaged and silent.
"Do you think she knows what she is?" she asked.
RYO didn't look away from the screen.
"I think she's learning. Fast."
Nobuaki's voice returned over comms, grim and direct.
"Get her ready. Because if GENESIS is moving to full activation… that girl might be the only thing stopping a war."
He paused.
"Or starting one."
---
Elsewhere — In a Lab Bathed in Red Light
DEATH stood before a new stasis chamber.
Inside floated a girl with a striking resemblance to Mai—but older. Sleeper marks on her arms. Genomic warping evident.
"The Lost Twin," whispered the voice of an android technician. "Built from the same data seed. Different emotional spectrum. Pure suppression."
DEATH smiled beneath his bone-etched mask.
"Let's see what happens when harmony meets void."
---
[TO BE CONTINUED…]