Chapter 35 Thirty Five
Chapter 35 Thirty Five
Days of rain fell, marking an unprecedented event in recent history that wasn't perceived as an assault. For the first time since anyone could remember, there were no piercing emergency alerts blaring from the walls, no chaotic evacuation procedures, and no mechanical sirens directing terrified people on where to go while the city decided who would live and who would die. The sky just opened up.
The water seeped quietly through abandoned transit lines and empty ventilation shafts, pooling in deep, forgotten areas that hadn't been touched by natural elements for centuries. Initially, people hesitantly waded into the puddles, shielding their faces in fear, but they soon discovered the truth. The water didn't burn. It didn't infect their skin, mutate their cells, or demand a human sacrifice to make it stop. It was just rain.
Neo-Kyoto underwent unexpected transformations, mostly because the city had been built on enforced dependence rather than actual survival instincts. Without the automated distribution systems, everything broke down. Within weeks, entire high-end neighborhoods lost access to stored food completely. This prompted wealthy families from the Inner City, who had been detached from physical labor for generations, to do things they never dreamed of. They started dismantling expensive, decorative bone features from their walls to use as scrap resources, venturing down into the lower sectors with their heads low to trade skills they never thought they would need just to buy a handful of dirty vegetables. Former maintenance workers who knew how to fix pipes suddenly became the most valuable people in the district, while former executives faded into complete irrelevance, begging the laborers for help.
"I used to manage three entire grids," an older man in a ruined suit muttered, holding out a silver watch to a group of mechanics. "There has to be something I can do in your workshop."
The mechanic didn't even look up from the pipe he was welding. "Can you swing a hammer? No? Then move along, pal. The watch doesn't patch a leak."
Arisugawa did what she could to help. She set up a permanent settlement directly beneath the dilapidated Palace, utilizing the old medical facilities that still had functional sterile chambers and water filtration systems that didn't depend on Pulse support to run. Survivors gradually made their way to her clinic, limping through the rubble without any official summons or announcements. They just followed the smell of clean water and the small lanterns the doctors hung outside.
Himari, however, kept her distance from the growing colony. While Arisugawa was busy treating people, Himari returned beneath the ruined throne room every single day, crawling into the damp foundation chamber just to place her hand on the crystallized Apex-Wire.
Lately, the reactions were beginning to shift. Initially, the blue pulse under the rock would only occur upon her direct touch, like a sleepy child reacting to a nudge.
Then, the frequency became erratic, jumping and skipping in weird patterns. Eventually, the Wire started responding even before she made physical contact, the blue lines flaring to life the moment her shadow fell across the stone.
"Look at this," Arisugawa said one evening, bringing a portable diagnostic monitor down into the hole. She hooked a wire to the edge of the crystal and watched the screen closely. "The data is changing, Himari. I found something troubling."
"Is he disappearing?" Himari asked, her heart dropping.
"No, the opposite," Arisugawa said, her expression grim. "The responses are adapting. The imprint Kaito left within the network is transforming itself. He isn't recalling his old human memories, Himari. He's creating entirely new pathways. He’s remapping the dead Vex architecture to fit whatever he is becoming."
"Is that a bad thing?" Himari asked, touching the warm stone.
"I don't know," Arisugawa admitted honestly. "But something else is happening because of it. The dormant Vex organisms outside... they're beginning to stir."
It wasn't an attack, but it was terrifying in a completely different way. Across the city, thousands of inactive Vex quietly departed from the ruinous areas where they had been frozen for months. They didn't growl, and they didn't activate their weapons. They just started walking, moving in silent, single-file lines past the city limits, heading toward the vast, empty land that had been exposed following the sudden retracing of the Sea of Spores. They walked without any orders, like a colony of ants moving to a new nest.
Himari stood on a crumbling balcony of the Palace ruins, observing one of the massive migration routes winding through the mud below. As she watched the faceless machines march toward the horizon, she suddenly felt a gentle, familiar tug right in the middle of her chest.
She gasped, pulling her jacket tight around herself.
From the direction of the buried Wire down below, and for the very first time since she had stood in the throne room, the rhythm shifted completely. It wasn't a cry for help anymore. It was a command.