POV: Ryuu Takeda
Location: Sector 13 → Transit Edgewalk → Sector 12 Alley Outskirts / Forgotten Metro Service Station
Time: Early Morning, Post-Red Null Exit
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"Some wounds do not scar. They wait—so the body learns to remember around them."
— Entry 8B, Hollow Line Memory Catalog (Unverified)
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Present
The city wasn't asleep. It was pretending.
Pretending the flickering lights weren't warnings. Pretending the smoke from under the vents wasn't breathing. Hummed with ten thousand lives lying about what kept them up at night.
Ryuu Takeda moved without urgency—but not without purpose. Every step down the Sector 13 edgewalk left the taste of metal on his tongue. His ribs ached from the last match. His knuckles, still raw. The pain wasn't the kind that hurt. It was the kind that reminded.
His hands were burned. His feet sore. But his name—Crimson—still hadn't been taken from him.
Not yet.
Not even the Bone Market had managed that.
And now, it was early. Sector 12 was breathing steam from the sides. The tramlines hissed. Rusted warning klaxons buzzed like gnats. And then…
He saw it. The alley.
From before.
The one where everything had first gone… strange.
Weeks ago, he'd walked past it. Tonight?
He paused.
Shadows moved inside—but nothing else. Not even wind.
He didn't step in. Not yet. But he knew.
Something had changed.
And so had he.
---
Flashback — Sector 5: When They Still Had Time
Kaito's glove hit the floor.
Ryuu, nine, stared down at it like it was a relic. Frayed. Split at the knuckles. The padding nearly gone. Kaito had used it to fight someone three weight classes above him.
Haruki was pacing. Furious.
"You're going to get fired," he'd hissed.
Kaito shrugged. "They don't see me anyway."
Ryuu hadn't spoken.
Just picked up the glove.
"I'll get strong enough for all of us."
He hadn't said it. But that didn't matter.
He had vowed it.
---
Present — Vending Row, Sector 12
The old bench still bore the scratch mark:
`S-27 WINS / FIGHT 9`
He sat. Unwrapped a stim bar. Let the weight settle.
The moment was quiet.
And that's when she arrived.
Sergeant Nyra Lin.
Not Federation. Not MIRAGE. Something stranger.
She dropped a file on his chest like it weighed less than her fist—and her fist looked like it had punched through small buildings.
"Takeda," she said. "Five Anchor pings? You're either dead and don't know it, or walking wrong."
Ryuu barely caught the file.
"How did you find me?"
"Your presence was far too evident and you don't know how to cover your trail. That, and MIRAGE lets me watch all Class-D Anchor anomalies."
He looked up. "Didn't ask for help."
"Didn't say you did." She smiled, sharp. "I'm here because someone's paying attention to the wrong ghosts. And you're glowing like one who hasn't decided if he's still human."
Short. Bronze-toned skin. Plum-dyed undercut. Riot-grade prosthetic arm. Her patchwork jacket still had Federation tags half-burned off.
She didn't smile.
"You bled too clean in Red Null. That means something old's riding your spine."
She handed him a datapad. He scanned it.
[ANCHOR MATCH: FLAMEBOUND ECHO // SYNC: PARTIAL]
[DNA VARIANCE: SUBJECT_11 — INHERITANCE FLAGGED]
Ryuu's breath caught.
"Haruki pinged near Junction 11-B," she added casually. "Off-grid. Relay path burned before the logs could update."
He stood before he realized it.
She was already walking away.
"Don't get erased, Takeda," she called over her shoulder. "The people that remember you are running out."
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Glitch Feed — Echo Trace (Unstable)
[RETRIEVING FRAGMENT — PROJECT S.U.I.T. LOG 3.17]
[ANCHOR ID: SUBJECT-11 / CODE: ANONYMOUS ]
White light. Straps. A child. Him.
Wires. Diagnostics.
A voice, filtered and flat:
"Doesn't resonate with templates. No ■■■■■. Still viable."
"Then adapt the relic to him."
"And if it fractures?"
"Then we find what chooses him instead."
Cold. Lights. Something pulled from his Core like a scream never born.
---
Return to Present
Ryuu collapsed against a service hatch, breathing in rust.
His palms smoked. But not from heat.
From memory.
Faint glyphs shimmered over his skin—like old circuits, like something unfinished.
He touched one with his thumb and felt nothing but a cold pulse.
The Core wasn't flaring.
It was remembering.
---
As he steadied himself, Ryuu caught the flick of movement down a corridor—too fast to chase, too clean to be a coincidence.
A scout.
A watcher.
Red Null had eyes outside the pits now.
Someone had noticed him.
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Flash Memory — Haruki, Age 12
A cracked tram station. Ryuu was coughing blood. Haruki was trying not to cry.
"You always come back broken," Haruki muttered. "But I wait anyway."
They sat in silence.
That was the last time Haruki waited.
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Freight Ring: Sector 11-B
Now, Ryuu stood on the edge of a forgotten rail loop.
The power grid buzzed. Not from damage. From memory interference.
[ANCHOR TRACE: STABILIZATION PARTIAL]
[PROJECT S.U.I.T. COMPATIBILITY: INERT // REBIND ATTEMPTED]
He didn't feel strong.
But he didn't feel lost anymore, either.
Haruki had come here.
So now, he would too.
Not for vengeance.
Not for glory.
For memory.
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"Some names aren't chosen. They're burned into you when no one's watching."
— Anonymous Pit Roster Note, Bone Market Intake #17C
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