The second expedition into Sector 7 began before sunrise.
Fog covered the ruined district.
The underground entrance had been reinforced overnight, but the readings coming from below had only grown stronger.
Hitake stood with Team 7 while instructors checked the equipment.
Mirai stood several meters away with the senior combat group.
She kept looking toward him.
Hitake noticed.
He pretended not to.
Zena noticed too.
She said nothing.
Her shadow, however, slowly crept toward Hitake's boots.
He looked down.
“Seriously?”
Zena followed his gaze.
Her shadow immediately withdrew.
“I didn't do anything.”
“Your shadow did.”
“It has a mind of its own.”
“Convenient.”
Mirai approached.
“Hitake.”
He turned.
“You should stay behind the senior team.”
“Why?”
“Because the lower tunnels haven't been mapped.”
“I can handle myself.”
Mirai frowned.
“You always say that now.”
“Because it's true.”
Something about his answer bothered her.
The old Hitake would have listened.
The old Hitake would have looked at her differently.
This Hitake simply walked past her.
Mirai watched him go.
Her fingers tightened.
She hated how much she noticed.
She hated how much his indifference bothered her.
Most of all, she hated that she had only begun to realize what she'd lost after he stopped chasing her.
The team entered the tunnels.
The deeper they went, the stranger the hive became.
Green organic material covered the walls.
But beneath it was something else.
Metal.
Ancient metal.
Hitake's Eyes of Truth activated.
The organic growth wasn't simply spreading.
It was feeding on something.
“Stop.”
Everyone halted.
Hitake pointed toward the wall.
Inside it were dozens of dead Hive Crawlers.
Their bodies had been hollowed from within.
Mirai's expression tightened.
“What did that?”
“I don't know.”
Nefertiti whispered inside his mind.
[The foreign energy.]
Hitake's eyes narrowed.
The tunnel shook.
A roar echoed through the darkness.
The Hive Queen emerged.
It was larger than before.
Its armor was cracked.
Green acid dripped from its jaws.
But the strangest thing was the core.
Black energy wrapped around it like chains.
The Queen stared directly at Hitake.
It didn't attack.
It bowed its head.
Everyone froze.
“What the hell?” one instructor whispered.
Mirai raised her weapon.
“Is it afraid?”
Hitake's sword began vibrating.
The Queen suddenly screamed.
Black energy exploded from its core.
A voice echoed through the chamber.
“Kael...”
Hitake froze.
The Queen recoiled.
Then the floor collapsed.
“Move!”
Everyone fell.
Hitake landed on a lower platform.
Zena landed beside him.
“I'm fine,” she said before he could ask.
John and Mirai disappeared into another passage.
“John!”
“I'm fine!”
The Queen crashed into the chamber.
Its body shook violently.
Hitake raised his weapon.
“What are you?”
The Queen's eyes remained fixed on him.
A voice emerged from somewhere beneath the floor.
“His blood.”
Hitake's skin prickled.
“Who are you?”
No answer.
Then—
“Coming.”
A black crack spread across the stone.
Hitake's Eyes of Truth nearly overloaded.
Behind the crack was something that should not have been there.
Space.
Not a tunnel.
Not a chamber.
Space itself.
Stars moved behind the crack.
Nefertiti's voice became urgent.
[Don't look directly at it.]
Hitake immediately turned his eyes away.
“Why?”
[Because it isn't supposed to exist here.]
The Queen charged.
Hitake moved.
Everything slowed.
Analyze Weakness activated.
Red lines appeared across the Queen's body.
Its joints.
Its throat.
Its core.
Then Hitake saw something else.
A massive red point beneath the foreign energy.
The true weakness.
“Zena!”
She moved immediately.
“Core?”
“Yes!”
Shadow exploded around her.
John crashed through the wall.
“Hitake!”
“Protect the others!”
John raised his shield.
Mirai appeared behind him.
“I'll help.”
Hitake looked at her.
“Stay with John.”
“I can fight.”
“I know.”
He turned away.
“But I need you there.”
Mirai froze.
It was such a simple sentence.
Yet hearing him acknowledge her ability without giving her special treatment somehow hurt.
She nodded.
“Fine.”
The Queen attacked.
Hitake dodged.
Zena struck its rear leg.
John blocked the next impact.
Mirai fired a concentrated Aether spell into its exposed side.
The Queen staggered.
Hitake saw the opening.
The black blade extended from his forearm.
He drove it into the Queen's core.
The weapon screamed inside his mind.
Images flooded his vision.
Kael.
A strange sky.
An unfamiliar world.
The same weapon in his father's hand.
Then Kael turned toward him.
His face was filled with fear.
Run.
The vision vanished.
Hitake ripped the weapon free.
The Queen collapsed.
The foreign energy withdrew.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then the Queen opened its eyes.
It whispered one final word.
“Coming.”
Hitake stared.
“Who's coming?”
The Queen died.
Nefertiti answered softly.
[Someone who knows your father.]
Above them, something appeared through the cracked ceiling.
A black object.
Watching.
Then it vanished.
No one spoke.
Hitake looked toward the place where it had disappeared.
For the first time, he understood.
The Hive Queen had never been the real enemy.
It had been a warning.