"Some weapons wear faces. Others just wear scars."
The rain fell in icy sheets, hammering the rooftops of District 7's outer ward. Rentarō stood beneath the overhang of an old steel awning, watching gray water pool in the cracks of the street. His coat clung to his back, soaked through, but he didn't notice.
His thoughts were elsewhere.
The memory of the girl—Chrysalis—lingered in his mind like a parasite. Her pale face. Her emotionless voice. The impossible strength behind her fragile frame. She was a contradiction made flesh—human and not, weapon and child.
And she was still out there.
"You're thinking too loud again," Enju muttered from the broken bench beside him. Her legs swung just above the flooded curb, water dripping from her twin red ribbons.
"Sorry," Rentarō murmured.
Hotaru sat nearby, quietly checking her knives. The tension among the trio had thickened ever since the Chrysalis encounter. It wasn't just fear—it was anticipation. Something was coming. Bigger. Worse.
And Rentarō felt it in his bones.
A faint chime interrupted them.
Karasuma's voice came over comms. "Satomi. You're not going to believe who showed up at the barricade."
They met her in the shadow of the south checkpoint.
A lone figure in a rain-slick black coat stood with her arms crossed, a massive anti-material sniper case strapped to her back. Silver-blonde hair peeked out from beneath her hood, eyes concealed by damp bangs.
"Tina..." Rentarō blinked. "Is that really you?"
Tina Sprout looked up, her face unreadable. "Long time."
Enju rushed forward, nearly slipping in the mud as she flung her arms around her. "Tina! You're alive! I thought you were—"
"I was," she replied softly, then gently returned the hug. "But the world's not done with me yet."
Hotaru raised an eyebrow. "Did Seitenshi send you?"
Tina shook her head. "No. I came on my own. I intercepted fragments from an encrypted relay. Mentions of Project Chrysalis. I thought... Rentarō might already be involved."
He nodded grimly. "We are. And we've already lost too much."
Back at the safehouse, Tina dried off in silence as the team huddled around the cracked map table. Her arrival brought a strange calm—like a sniper's breath before the trigger. She hadn't changed much, but there was a sharpened stillness to her now. A ghost of something she'd buried.
"So," Karasuma said, tapping a blinking red dot on the map. "She's been seen again. Chrysalis. Hit a Council blacksite near the old military base."
"Let me guess," Rentarō muttered. "Left it in ruins?"
"Worse. She didn't destroy the site. She took it over."
They all went still.
"She's thinking now," Hotaru whispered. "She's not just following orders."
"She never was," Tina said.
They looked at her.
"She hesitated when she saw you, Rentarō. Didn't she?"
He nodded slowly.
Tina continued, her voice low. "That hesitation means she's developing independent reasoning. That's not something a Council bioweapon is supposed to do."
Enju looked up. "You think she's learning?"
"I think she's remembering."
Rentarō frowned. "But what would she have to remember?"
Tina's hand slipped to her side, brushing against the edge of her rifle. "We'll need to find that out. Fast."
The rain came down hard, washing the ash and rust from the fractured streets of District 7's outer perimeter. Rentarō crouched behind the ruined husk of a patrol mech, staring through a cracked optic lens toward the horizon. The skyline was empty, but he knew better than to trust it.
Behind him, Enju wiped her soaked bangs out of her face. "I liked it better when the monsters were outside the walls."
He didn't respond.
Hotaru had gone ahead to scout the underground access route. Karasuma was holding position at the north perimeter, and Tina—back in her element—was cleaning her scope under a collapsed antenna dish, unmoved by the weather.
They were preparing for what lay beneath the wreckage of the Council base ahead.
That's where she was.
Chrysalis.
"We breach in two," Rentarō said over the comms.
Tina nodded, slipping the bolt of her rifle forward with a satisfying click. "Distance coverage secured."
Enju adjusted her stance, hands tightening into fists. "I'll take left."
The storm masked their movements well as they crossed the dead field of broken turrets and shattered drones. The entrance to the bunker gaped like an open wound, the doors torn apart from within—twisted by unnatural force.
"She left this open on purpose," Rentarō muttered.
"She wants us to follow," Tina confirmed. "It's a message."
He hesitated at the edge of the threshold, then descended.
The inner corridors of the bunker reeked of ozone and old blood. Emergency lights pulsed in red intervals, like a heartbeat buried under layers of concrete. Rentarō advanced with Enju at his flank, his prosthetic hand ready on his sidearm.
And then, ahead—movement.
A shadow stepped into view, quiet as breath.
Shōma Nagisawa.
Not a stranger, but not an ally. Not anymore.
Rentarō froze, narrowing his eyes. "You recovered fast."
Shōma said nothing for a moment. His coat hung wet from the storm, and his left arm was bound tightly in thick black cloth—more brace than sleeve.
Enju tensed. "What are you doing here, Nagisawa?"
"Same as you. Only I've been watching longer."
Rentarō didn't lower his weapon. "You're not with the Council. You're not with Seitenshi. So who are you with?"
Shōma's expression didn't change. "I'm with the truth. And right now, that truth is walking on two feet, shaped like a little girl who could kill every one of us without blinking."
There was a silence.
Enju frowned. "So why haven't you tried to stop her?"
"I have," he said simply. "I failed."
They moved through the corridors in an uneasy truce. Shōma guided them past twisted gates and blackened labs—remains of what used to be a Council weapons research site. And everywhere they went, they found signs of her.
Chrysalis hadn't just passed through.
She had stayed.
Left messages—drawn in the dust, scratched into walls in repeating patterns. Symbols. Equations. Almost... childlike. But not innocent.
"She's thinking," Tina said, glancing at the etched symbols. "Calculating."
Shōma nodded. "She's learning how to command. And others are listening."
Rentarō looked at him. "You mean there are more?"
"Failed versions. Cursed children discarded by the system. Some who should've died. They follow her. Not because she leads with fear—but because she tells them they're not mistakes."
The silence returned, heavier this time.
"She's not building an army," Shōma said. "She's building a tribe."
They reached the central control chamber. The floor was scorched, panels ripped open, monitors flickering with static.
And in the middle—
A girl.
Chrysalis stood barefoot in the broken light, cloak draped over her small frame, eyes open and watching.
She didn't move when they entered.
Didn't attack.
Just... watched.
Rentarō stepped forward, gun at his side.
"Why?" he asked.
Her head tilted, almost curious. "You came," she said. Her voice had changed—less synthetic. More human. A trace of emotion. "Good."
"Why are you doing this?"
She blinked. "Because they told me I wasn't real. That I didn't belong. So I made a place where I do."
Enju whispered, "With monsters."
"No," Chrysalis said. "With those you discarded."
Rentarō flinched.
Her eyes found him again. "You saved many. But you couldn't save all. You stopped choosing. I didn't."
She raised a hand.
Tina aimed.
"Don't," Rentarō said quickly. "She's not here to fight."
"No," Chrysalis said. "Not yet."
Shōma tensed. "So what are you here for?"
"To warn you," she said. "They're coming."
Rentarō's eyes narrowed. "Who?"
But she didn't answer.
Instead, she stepped back into the shadows—her form merging with the darkness behind the chamber. By the time the lights returned fully, she was gone.
Later, outside in the rain, Rentarō sat on the ledge of the ruined bunker.
"She could've killed us."
"She didn't," Tina said. "Which might be worse."
Shōma stood nearby, staring out at the city skyline. "She gave you a warning. Don't waste it."
"You coming with us?" Rentarō asked.
Shōma shook his head. "No. I've got ghosts to follow. And fewer lines left to cross."
He vanished into the mist again—like always.
Rentarō looked at Enju.
"She's becoming something else," Enju said. "Not a weapon. Not a child."
"No," Rentarō replied. "She's becoming a mirror."
And what they saw reflected in her...
Was everything they had tried to forget.