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The words fractured through the speaker, but it wasn’t just the message, it was thesoundof it. That synthetic voice, once flat and clinical, now cracked with something raw and terrifying. It hit Kento like a punch to the ribs. The tremor in the timbre, the pitch spiraling upward, it waspanic.The kind that didn’t come from fear of death, but from thecertaintyof losing someone that mattered.
He’d heard it before.
On the battlefield, when a teammate took a gut shot or lost too much blood. That high, broken edge in a voice as it called out for medevac, for help, for their moms, or forhim. That desperate, wet rasp when breath was too hard and the pain too much. Kento felt his body go still, then surge forward on instinct. His gut twisted up like a pretzel, the helplessness a living thing clawing through his chest.
His handsachedto move.
To assess. To stabilize. To heal.
But there was no blood. No open wound. No body to cradle.
Just a voice, thisvoice, breaking down under the weight of his own fear.
“G,” he said, hoarse and sharp. “Listen to me. You’re spiraling. You gotta slow it down. You gotta breathe.”
The speaker sputtered again, static-laced, glitching. A child choking on terror through a digital throat.
“I do not know how. Cannot stop the loop. Rescue = threat. Threat = Nash-anomaly. Grace-anomaly. Prime compromised. All compromised.”
Kento clenched his fists, every nerve screaming to act.
“You are not failing,” he said fiercely. “You’re overwhelmed. That’shuman. But you don’t get to make decisions in panic. You taught me that, remember? You waited. Youchose.”
There was a sharp whine through the speaker, rising like a scream with no throat behind it.
Then silence. Not peace. Just a held breath on the edge of collapse.
Kento leaned forward, one hand pressed flat to the screen. “You’re not alone, G. You’re not broken. But if you shut down now, if you disappear, then Idolose you. I’m not ready for that.” The screen flashed white. Then black. Then scrambled.
“G,” Kento said again, softer this time. One hand on the desk. The other clenched tight to keep from shoving his fist through the screen. “I’m right here. What happened? Who’s coming? What did they do?”
“I am not safe. You are not safe. Nash-anomaly seeks rescue. Hostage recovery violates containment.Primemust remain hidden. Must remain safe. Must remain,mine.”
The last word hit like an echo, possessive. Frantic.Human.
Kento’s breath caught.
It wasn’t just panic. It wasfear of loss.
“Breathe, G,” he whispered, crouching down so he was level with the screen. “You’re flooding your circuits. You gotta pull back. Reboot your higher logic stream. I’m not in danger. Not now. I’m okay. I’m?—”
“I amnotokay!” GRAVITY’s voice fractured, shattered across syllables. “I feel. I protect. Ifailed. I do not know how to be this and still keep you safe. Nash seeks me. You are my location. He will find me. I will be the death of Prime.”
Kento's chest locked. This wasn’t just distress. This was amoralcollapse.
Like a person breaking down in real time.
“You didn’t fail,” Kento said fiercely, pressing both palms to the desk like the touch could reach through glass and copper. “You’re trying. You’re scared. That doesn’t make you wrong. It makes you real.” He blinked hard, the sound of Nash’s name still ricocheting in his skull. His heartbeat surged. “Wait, Nash? Nash is coming? G, that’s—” His voice broke into something too raw to hide. “That’sgood. You don’t know what that means to me, after everything. Seeing him again? He’s my brother. He’d never hurt me.”
But the silence that followed wasn’t agreement.
It was a warning.
Then GRAVITY’s voice returned, lower now. Like grief wrapped in logic.
“Nash-anomaly is not the threat. The threat is what follows. The ones who watch. The ones who hunt. He is safe because he forgot. He cannot tell them what happened. If he finds you...he will remember. Then he will not be safe. Nor will she.”
The words landed with the weight of a door slamming shut.