Keshi watched the shadows shift in the pale light.

He couldn’t remember how long he’d been staring at them. 

Or where he was. 

Or how he came to be there.

There were flashes—but nothing that made sense.  

Despite this, he felt strangely at ease. 

Normally, his mind was crowded with unpleasant thoughts. 

The all-white room was completely empty. Smooth. Nothing that caught the eye, apart from the projection on the wall: shadows of tree branches swaying in a phantom breeze. 

No sound, apart from his own breathing, and—if he listened closely—his heartbeat. 

He turned his head to stare up at the ceiling.

Above him, a rectangular portal to a crisp, cloudless sky.

It was nice to just lie there. 

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

“So. Now that he’s awake.”

Akashi leaned back in his chair, propping one foot on the desk.

"What do we do with him?"

Ren leaned against the back wall of her office, watching through the window as Yuki clumsily climbed the side rungs of her workstation, spraying it with foamy shots of cleaner.

The harsh light aggravated the dull ache behind her eyes, making Akashi’s feigned ignorance all the more annoying.

"A stupid question. He’s the right age. No family. No attachments…"

She trailed off, spinning the empty paper cup in her hand, before adding:

"He’s the perfect candidate."

Ren’s eyes narrowed. She’d told Yuki a dozen times to use soap and hot water. Spray left residue.

Akashi nodded slowly.

“...And if not, well, problem solved, I guess.”

He pouted his lower lip in thought, swiveling his chair with his perched leg.

“Of course… there’s Emi.”

Ren’s brow twitched.

Another headache. 

"Right. We don’t know what happened when their signatures merged. What he was exposed to. If DEEP secrets were to leak to the public, they’d shut us down overnight."

Yuki scrubbed at the foam with a brush, bobbing her head, mouthing the words to a song only she could hear. Ren bit her upper lip. 

She was going to scratch the finish.

Akashi twisted his neck to look out the window and see what it was she was staring at. He smirked.

"...That’s not what I meant.”

He turned back around—his expression suddenly serious.

“She’s been doing this on her own for too long. It’s starting to take a toll. I know you see it too."

How long had it been? Ren wondered. Time no longer passed the same since she was promoted. 

It was the light. There was no frame of reference for anything down there. To her, it had just been one long day.

A day, a year, or an eternity, Ren had been putting off recruiting a new Aeon from the moment she took over.

It wasn’t an easy thing. To find someone willing, let alone someone who could actually endure it. Not just once, but again and again.

ID Transplant was taxing on the system—on the mind. They had a profile for the kind of person likely to withstand it. But even then, there was no way to know until they took the leap.

According to Akashi, 15-22 was the sweet spot. Too young, and the risk of assimilation shot up exponentially. Too old, and they’d start to experience psychological breakdown post-extraction. 15-22 was flexible. Malleable. But Ren refused to use anyone below the age of 18.

Emi had started before Ren was Chief of Operations—at sixteen. She was nineteen now, and their sole Aeon since the flood.

Ren let out a long, weary sigh, eyelids throbbing.

"It’s too much for her. I know that."

"I recommend no more missions until we can properly evaluate her.”

As Ren stared absently into space, Yuki’s form began to blur.

"Hey."

She turned to see Akashi, staring at her with a steady, reassuring look.

"We got her back. And we gained one more in the process."

He planted both feet on the ground and leaned forward.

"We’ve had worse days."

Ren crushed the paper cup in her hand, tossing it into the bin, which was filled with identical cups and expended packs of pills. 

As she strode past Akashi toward the door, she muttered:

"Hopefully in one piece..."

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

“Okay, now where were you born?”

Emi sat hunched over on the side of the bed, elbows on her knees, rolling the small piece of warm metal between her fingers. Across from her, Mamoru sat in bright red scrubs, pupils flickering as he entered her answers into a form generated by his Ichor.

“Tokyo,” she replied flatly.

It was the third day in a row of this, and she was starting to lose it. 

“Can you be more specific?”

“Inagi City.”

Normally she’d be long gone by now. But after what happened, they’d put her on lockdown. She’d been confined to her room ever since—killing time sleeping, watching videos, and playing a gardening game that never got fun, even after buying all the dumb upgrades.

Hmph.

“Her room” was nothing more than a glass cage in the infirmary. 

So what if they dressed it up to look like a bedroom. That didn’t make it real. Plus, half the stuff inside was just junk from her grandma’s place.

If anything, it was more like a museum.

The Emi Toriumi Museum…

“Your mother’s blood type?”

She sighed through her nose, feeling the smooth lumps on the tiny object with her fingertips.

“Dunno.”

Mamoru looked at her suspiciously.

“I forgot.”

There was a reason she didn’t take any of that stuff with her when she left…

“Emi…”

“Can we come up with something new? I’m sick of answering the same questions.”

"That would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?”

Her eyes wandered down to her shorts. Black. Boring. Like her shirt. Her socks. Towels. Swimsuit. The toothpaste. 

Boring. 

Everything was so boring.

She started humming low in her throat, rising to a growl—louder and louder—until it broke into a near yodel through gritted teeth, spinning her head around in her palms.

“Emi.”

She stopped. Her eyes drifted over to the mole on Mamoru’s cheek.

“Did you cut your hair?”

That caught him off guard. Mamoru sat up, running his fingers through the gelled bangs that framed his forehead.

He smiled sheepishly.

“I parted it on the other side today. What do you think?”

Emi smirked. 

Too easy. 

“I think you should grow it out. Long. Like, past your shoulders.”

Mamoru chuckled.

“I don’t think the commander would like that.”

He always seemed so put together. Trying so hard. 

She felt bad for him sometimes.

Sometimes.

“Ahem.”

Mamoru refocused, his tone firm again.

“Alright. You were about to remember your mother’s blood type.”

“AB.”

“Three more. Almost done. What was your maternal grandmother’s first name?"

Emi let her legs fall to the floor.

"Natsumi."

"The day after your half-birthday?"

"July 15th."

"Where did you first—"

"—Nishiogi."

She stared down at her feet, cheeks hot.

"Can’t believe I told you that..."

Mamoru entered the rest of her answers into his form.

"Alright, I think we can move on."

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

Keshi stared into nothingness. 

Slowly, things were starting to return. He had been able to piece together most of his journey through the Heiiki Zone.

But that didn’t explain the bed. 

Or the black hospital gown. 

Or the IV in his right arm.

He hadn’t noticed it at first, and was now doing his best not to look.

As he squinted at the sky above, something registered in the corners of his vision: small, transparent icons—a clock, a thermometer, and a cloud. Each with a slash through it.

His eyes widened in sudden realization.

Before words could follow, he heard a voice in his right ear.

"Keshi Kagami."

Startled, he turned to see a woman in black standing over him.

“Nnssttt!”

A searing pain in his abdomen kept him from sitting up. He clutched his side, collapsing back onto the pillow.

Almost instantly, a warmth spread through his stomach—the pain dissolved away.

As he lay there, catching his breath, the woman gazed down at him, her expression grave.

"It looks like we owe you an explanation."