Location: Vire-Laravé – Sector 5-H (Lira's Place, aka the Compressed Condo)
Time: [Cycle 4 : 20:11 : Local Drift]
After a long day of:
✔ Fighting space-bullies,
✔ Breaking physics with an invisible stick,
✔ And emotionally bonding with a magically shrunken girl with the soul of a retired war general,
Ren had one request:
"Please, for the love of noodles, let me sit on a chair that doesn't hum at me."
Lira smiled. "Then welcome to my place."
🏠 Lira's Home: The Mini Fortress
It wasn't fancy.
It wasn't big.
But it was weirdly cozy.
A small floating house, built on a stone platform suspended in midair, connected by a spiraling staircase made of light tiles that Ren absolutely tripped on twice.
Inside?
Floating lamps that changed color based on mood.A couch made of woven plant-fiber that squeaked like a duck every time you sat down.A fridge that opened by yelling at it. (Ren tried please — it didn't work. Lira yelled "OPEN, YOU STUPID CUBE," and it opened instantly.)
She pulled out ingredients Ren couldn't name, tossed them in a pan that looked like a wok had a baby with a crystal ball, and within minutes—bam—there was food.
It looked like noodles.
It smelled like comfort.
It tasted like somebody finally gave Ren a hug through his stomach.
"Holy crap," Ren said with his mouth full. "This is amazing. It's like ramen and dumplings and hope all rolled into one."
"Glad you like it," Lira grinned. "It's just glow-root soup and wingleaf dumplings. Basic stuff."
"Girl, if this is basic, I've been eating disappointment for twenty years."
🍜 Dinner Table Talk
They sat at a low-floating table, steam rising from the bowls.
"So, about the core fragments," Ren asked between bites, "how many are left?"
"Just one," Lira said. "Yours."
"...Ha ha," he muttered. "Wait. You're serious?"
"Yup. The final piece is somewhere in your body. Or your aura. Or your pants. I don't know how your system works."
"Great. I'm a walking treasure chest and I didn't even get a cool unlock sound."
FROST (inside his head):
"Next time you fart, maybe it'll drop loot."
BLAZE:
"Classy. Real classy."
Lira chuckled at the look on his face.
"But yeah. Once we figure out how to safely extract or trigger the last core, we can access the Memory Archive again."
"Cool, cool, love it. Totally chill... Except for one thing: you said people forgot stuff on purpose?"
Lira's smile faded slightly.
"That's where the Guardians come in."
"The what now?"
⚠️ City Politics, But Dumbed Down™
"They're like... the weird mayor-police cult combo," she explained. "They run the city. They wear masks. They talk in riddles. They hate anyone who messes with core energy. Or asks too many questions. Or sneezes too loud in their sacred zones."
"So, naturally, they'd love me."
"Oh yeah. You're their favorite kind of citizen: mysterious, glowing, unregistered, and allergic to authority."
"Amazing," Ren muttered. "Can't wait to be arrested for breathing 'offensively.'"
"They don't know about me," Lira added. "Yet. But now that you've flung three bullies into a wall and your eyeballs are whispering boss music, they will start sniffing around."
Ren slurped his soup dramatically.
"Okay, okay. So we've got a plan. Step one: don't die. Step two: keep glowing to a minimum. Step three: steal cool masks from Guardians if we get the chance."
"Step four," Lira added, "don't lick anything glowing."
"Too late."
"...What did you lick?"
"Tree. Long story."
They sat in silence for a moment. A quiet, oddly warm one.
Lira smiled to herself.
Ren leaned back, patting his stomach.
"Best day I've had in two timelines."
CORE (softly):
"...You'll need the strength. Things are going to get harder from here."
Ren didn't reply. He just quietly reached for another dumpling and decided, just for now, that maybe, maybe, he could survive this world one warm meal at a time.
Four hours had passed since the comforting glory of glow-root soup and dumpling euphoria. The sky outside Lira's floating home was a soft purplish hue — not "night" exactly, just what this city called low-light quiet hours.
And Ren?
Bored out of his goddamn mind.
"I'm going stir-crazy," he muttered, tossing a glowing pebble off the floating porch. "I've read the weird tea labels in the kitchen twice."
FROST:
"You slept for three of those four hours, don't lie."
BLAZE:
"We all saw you drool on the cushion that quacks."
"I thought it quacked first!"
CORE (dryly):
"Stealth walk approved. But don't get caught. Or do. Either way, we get entertainment."
🕶️ Stealth Mode: Activated (Poorly)
Ren slipped outside wearing the oversized cloak Lira had left hanging near the door. It was enchanted to dampen auras, hide energy, and accidentally smell like bubblegum.
He crept across the lightpath bridges and floating walkways like a dude sneaking out past curfew with no plan, no map, and only mild anxiety holding his common sense hostage.
Then he saw them.
🚨 The Cops of Vire-Laravé
Not the Guardians, not yet. These were less fancy, more "mall cop but might zap you if provoked" types.
Their armor glowed soft orange, with visors that read public IDs like scanners. They glided on small hover-discs and talked into floating crystals shaped like conch shells.
Ren ducked into a shadow corridor between two buildings made entirely out of shifting cubes.
He listened.
And he heard her name.
"—still unregistered. Name: Lira. Sector-class: C-Child Tier. Violation: unsanctioned solo movement, city perimeter breach, manipulation of forbidden cores—"
"What's her sentence?"
"Pending. Depends if they decide she's corrupted or just unstable."
"Tch. Another broken Drift orphan."
Ren's blood ran cold.
"They're… hunting her. Just for leaving her house?"
CORE (quietly):
"This society has strict laws about minors. Anyone under age-class C is considered unstable, emotionally dangerous. They aren't allowed freedom. Especially not someone with core resonance like hers."
"She's not even a real kid. She was compressed!"
BLAZE:
"They don't care. They see a 'child' with dangerous energy. That's all they need."
Ren clenched his fists. He backed away, heart thudding, and ducked through a side alley.
As he moved, he overheard people talking in market corners and light-bridge crossings — whispers, rumors, accusations.
"That weird glow-kid's wanted again."
"Probably unstable. Did you hear she fried a stabilizer tower once?"
"They say she's cursed — a born Breaker."
"Some say she used to be an adult. Twisted into a child form. Sin, maybe?"
"Whatever she is, she's dangerous. Better off detained."
💭 Ren's Thoughts: The Rage Builds
"She saved me from collapsing. She cooked dinner. She made fun of my tree-licking incident but didn't judge. And they want to lock her up because she looks like a kid with a lightbulb for a heart?"
He slipped behind a vendor stand, breathing heavily. He reached into his coat.
The fragments inside him pulsed. Four of them. One still dormant, like a puzzle piece waiting for the right hand.
"If I gave her one… Would it help?"
CORE (hesitant):
"Possibly. But the curse isn't just age. It's locked into her identity. You'd need to bind the fragment to her will, not just her body. And that… could break her. Or restore her. No one knows."
FROST:
"Fifty-fifty odds, Ren. Either she becomes whole again... or explodes into glitter and screams."
BLAZE:
"...But hey. You always were terrible with odds."
Ren stood up.
"I'm not letting her get dragged off and locked in some psychic daycare just because the system's scared of her."
"So what now?" Core asked.
Ren looked toward the glow of patrol lights in the distance.
"Now? We sneak back in. Tell her what's happening. And find a way to break this curse — or break the system that put it there."
Ren's mind was racing.
One fragment. One gamble. He wasn't even sure it would work, but if giving Lira a part of the Aetherium could reverse her curse — or prove she wasn't dangerous — he'd do it.
He crept up the spiral light-staircase leading to her little sky-home, cloak still wrapped around him like the worst superhero disguise ever.
The porch light blinked gently.
He was just about to raise his fist to knock, heart thumping—
Thud.
Not his fist.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Bootsteps. Behind him.
Heavy.
Metal.
Deliberate.
Ren froze.
Slowly, he turned.
👁️ Enter: The Masked Guardian
A figure stood at the base of the steps, half-hidden in the mist, glowing street sigils lighting him from below.
Seven feet tall, black robe trimmed in ash-white lines, and a mask so smooth and bone-like it looked carved from silence itself. The mask bore no eyes — just a single engraved symbol in the forehead: ∴
The presence hit like a truck made of intimidation and existential threat.
"Ren Ishida," the Guardian spoke — but not aloud.
The voice was in his head, low and smooth, like it had been practicing how to scare mortals on its lunch breaks.
"...How do you know my name?" Ren asked, stepping back instinctively.
"Your resonance does not belong here. And the girl inside," the Guardian said, voice vibrating like thunder held in a box, "has already violated her containment threshold."
"She's not contained. She's just... compressed!"
"She is a danger."
"She's cooking soup and minding her business!"
CORE (whispering inside Ren's head):
"Bad. Bad. BAD. This isn't a patrol. This one's upper-tier enforcement. You're on a list now. A glowing, sexy, wanted list."
The Guardian raised one hand. Time around Ren slowed — not stopped, just lagged, like a buffering video made of fear.
The cloak flared open slightly, revealing a cylindrical object pulsing with shifting light — a device Ren didn't recognize but instinctively did not want shoved up his timeline.
"By law of the Drift Order, I will now—"
CRACK.
The door behind Ren burst open.
Lira stood there, holding a frying pan.
"He's with me," she said flatly.
"He is unregistered. You are restricted," the Guardian said without looking at her.
"I. Said. He's. With. Me."
She raised the pan.
Silence.
Then—
BLAZE (in Ren's head):
"I swear to every core circuit I have... if she smacks a galactic enforcer with a frying pan, I'm marrying her on the spot."
FROST:
"Popcorn. Now."
Ren stepped in front of her.
"Don't."
Lira blinked. "You're in the way."
"Yeah. That's kind of my new hobby."
The Guardian didn't move.
"One more step," it said, "and your Core Resonance will be purged."
Ren narrowed his eyes.
"Then try it."
The Guardian raised its device — the kind that didn't look lethal, but felt like it had erased civilizations accidentally.
Ren stood firm, every bone in his body screaming bad ideas.
Lira stood behind him, still holding that frying pan like it owed her money.
Then the air changed.
Sharp. Electric. Loaded.
CORE (warning):
"She's building energy. Too fast. Too dense. If she does this—"
But it was too late.
Lira stepped forward.
And exploded.
Not literally — but visually?
The world flared.
Her child-like body glowed, stretched, warped. Light twisted around her form as the compressed curse shattered for a moment like glass dropped in slow motion.
Her figure elongated, shadows bending like they didn't want to let her go. Her eyes — no longer wide and soft, but sharp, ancient, furious — locked onto the Guardian.
The cloak burned away, revealing silver-white armor laced with intricate glyphs, and a half-tattered cape that moved like it remembered battlefields, not bedrooms.
Her voice?
No longer gentle.
"Touch him again, and I'll unmake you."
The Guardian hesitated.
Actually stepped back. Just a fraction.
Ren?
Ren's jaw dropped like a damn elevator.
"HOLY. HELL. LIRA?!"
BLAZE (stunned):
"Oh my god she's hot."
FROST:
"I—I think I'm in love. Is that allowed?"
CORE (whispers):
"She's a Temporal Warden-Class Resonant... no wonder they cursed her."
Lira raised one hand.
Her crystal orb — the one she always kept close — hovered beside her, spinning fast, glowing white-hot. With a flick of her fingers, she launched a blast that didn't hit the Guardian—it unwrote the space near him, destabilizing reality for a second.
The Guardian staggered back.
No damage. But that was a warning shot.
He turned his masked face to her.
"You should not exist like this," he said flatly.
"Then stop pretending you have the power to erase me," she spat, her eyes dimming slightly.
Then it happened.
Her breath caught.
She staggered forward—
Hands shaking—
The light flickering from her body like a candle about to go out.
"Lira—!"
She collapsed.
Ren caught her just in time, dropping to his knees as she fell limp in his arms.
Her form shrank again, collapsing inward until she was back in her "compressed" state. Small. Pale. Weak. Breathing shallow.
The Guardian didn't attack.
Didn't speak.
He simply watched.
Then, like smoke fading into silence—vanished.
Ren stared down at her, panic rising like a scream in his chest.
"Lira—hey, hey—c'mon, don't do this, don't disappear on me now, we just got cool again—"
Her eyes fluttered open—barely.
"I wasn't… supposed to use that much…" she whispered. "I'm not stabilized yet."
"Why would you do that for me?"
"Because…" she coughed once, smiling faintly.
"You're the first one who looked at me like I wasn't broken."
She gripped his shirt weakly.
"There's more you need to know. About me. I'm not just cursed. I was—"
She passed out before she could finish.
Ren sat there, heart pounding, holding her like she'd fall apart completely if he let go.
"We'll figure it out," he whispered, teeth clenched. "Even if I have to fight every masked bastard in this damn city."