The red light of early evening spilled across the rubble like blood on marble.
Broken terrain hissed quietly under the boots of Luce Nera agents, their silhouettes sharp and composed against the low-hanging sun. The rift was long gone now sealed, silenced but the air still buzzed with its aftertaste. Energy streaks, claw marks on steel, scorch trails from energy rounds. It looked like a battlefield straight out of an old Toppler war reel.
Near the edge of a cracked stone ledge, Huey Cross sat still, the side of his face swollen, his lip slightly split. Bandages peeked from under the sleeves of his black hazard suit, unzipped and hanging loose around his waist. He had one leg stretched out, his back against a tilted wreckage pod, helmet resting beside him.
Overhead, Luce Nera hover drones hummed like flies.
"Could've at least said thank you," Hailee Cross muttered as she walked up, her shadow stretching long behind her.
Huey cracked one eye open, wincing slightly as he tilted his bruised jaw. "I did. In my head. Several times."
She rolled her eyes, arms crossed over the formal cut of her Luce Nera Vice Captain uniform — air-whipped, badge still faintly glowing. Her silver-braided hair shimmered in the dying sunlight.
"Half a second later," she said, "and I would've been dragging your charred remains out of a crater."
Huey smirked with tired pride. "Then it's a good thing you're early."
They let the quiet hang between them — the kind of calm only earned after chaos. Luce Nera agents worked methodically in the distance, detaining the last unconscious variant. Riva had already been sedated and taken away, bound in containment cuffs that shimmered faintly with symbiont-dampening energy. It was over now. Or at least, this chapter was.
Hailee didn't sit. She simply stared down at him with that typical big-sister glare: half judgment, half grudging admiration.
"So," she said, voice lowered. "It was your idea. Sending Wheeler to Hermione."
Huey gave a small shrug, eyes drifting up to the orange-stained clouds. "Willy had him. Hermione was already in the air. I needed a message delivered fast… and Wheeler's cuter than a drone."
Hailee exhaled a quiet laugh, shaking her head. "You're insane."
"I'm resourceful."
She lowered herself onto a metal crate beside him, gaze still fixed ahead. The tension had begun to settle, like dust after a long fall.
"What I don't get is…" Her voice softened. "You couldn't have known we'd act that fast. Or that Riva would slip."
Huey tilted his head slowly, a familiar glint in his swollen eye. "That's the thing about liars," he said. "You just need to give them the right reason to start talking."
Hailee paused. She looked at him again — really looked — and for a moment, the battlefield, the sunset, the weight of everything they'd seen faded.
"You played her," she said quietly.
Huey reached for a loose pebble at his feet, turning it over in his fingers. "I didn't need to beat her. I just needed her to beat herself."
"And all this…" she gestured to the aftermath — the damaged terrain, the frightened students, the wrecked sky. "You knew it'd happen like this?"
Huey dropped the pebble.
"No," he said simply. "But I hoped it would."
And with that, the sun dipped just a little lower — and the last of the warmth drained with it.
The sky bled violet now, the red haze giving way to early dusk. Behind them, the damaged ridge buzzed with cleanup chatter and arcane scans. But here—on this ledge where nothing moved but the wind—truths were finally unraveling.
Hailee sat upright now, forearms on her knees, staring at her brother with narrowed eyes. Huey had that look again—half smug, half detached. As if he'd already run the next ten steps before anyone else could take one.
"So," she said. "Walk me through it. Slowly."
Huey's voice was low, almost reflective. "It started with the Echoe."
Hailee blinked. "You're saying this whole thing started… in your dorm?"
"Technically," Huey tilted his head, "in my hand. I made it. A low-level Echoe. Weak, compliant… cheap to maintain."
"You made it?" Her brows furrowed. "From scratch?"
He gave a light shrug. "Call it a… synthetic proxy. Not very durable, though. Calvin chased it out the room, so that was convenient."
"Convenient."
Huey leaned back slightly, eyes catching the last sliver of sunset behind the broken terrain.
"That Echoe," he said, "got taken in for study. I knew they'd store it at the vault under Sector 2. I also knew my crest signature would still linger on it… enough to let me nudge it. Duplicate it."
"You can remote control your Echoes?"
"From a distance? Barely," he admitted. "But enough. The duplicate I created—it wasn't strong, just smart. I fed it a path. Led it straight to the admin systems in the archives block."
Hailee blinked slowly. "You… hacked the supervisor assignment logs."
"Didn't need to hack," Huey said, matter-of-fact. "Just nudged the rotation system to 'randomly' assign Riva to us. As luck would have it, she took the bait."
"And the site?"
Huey smirked. "Kaiser was going to meet her there. They'd planned it for weeks. Thing is… she didn't know they planned to test her loyalty."
Hailee leaned back slightly, crossing her arms. "So they thought she turned on them."
"And sent Luigi to retrieve the chip before she could flip it."
A pause. The dusk wind swept across the wreckage below them.
"She confessed anyway," Hailee muttered.
"As expected," Huey said. "She was cracking. I just needed one more thing in place."
Hailee exhaled. "Hermoine."
Huey nodded. "Wheeler delivered the warning. Hermione contacted you. You got to the site just in time. Just like I hoped."
Hailee looked sideways at him. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
Huey didn't answer right away.
"Because if you knew, you'd try to protect me."
Silence again.
Hailee looked down at the crate beside her and tapped her fingers once, twice.
"And the chip?"
Huey pulled a small bandage-wrapped hand from his pocket and pulled a slight grin. "That's the best part."
A grainy green glow lit Luigi's grizzled face as he slouched in front of a secure console. His arm still bled faintly from the skirmish. Behind him, Kaiser insignia marked crates in rows.
A voice buzzed through the comms. Robotic. Hollow.
"Is it intact?"
Luigi wiped his brow. "Yeah, yeah. Got it from her jacket myself." He inserted the chip. "Uploading now."
The screen blinked. A loading bar filled.
Then—
"Hello and welcome back to another episode of ShardTalk: Anime Edition!"
Willy's voice blared, chipper as ever.
"Today's topic: Top ten anime characters that could definitely beat a Diavolo Variant in one-on-one combat"
Luigi stared.
The voice on the other end was dead silent.
Then,
"You idiot."
Luigi quietly lowered his face into his hands.
Hailee was laughing. Not loud. But real.
"You really swapped the chip with Willy's podcast?"
Huey smiled faintly. "Hermione's crest. transposition. Sleight of hand, executed mid-battle. The real chip's back with the Arcana Order now. Safer than a locked vault."
"You've been playing too many spy dramas."
"Don't be ridiculous," Huey said, looking forward. "I only watch crime thrillers."
Hailee turned to him. "Still… thank you. For helping."
"I didn't do it for you," he said without turning. "You just happened to be in the way of something bigger."
Hailee smiled anyway. "So that's it? No more thanks?"
Huey stood.
"Just one thing left."
She raised a brow. "The favor."
He nodded.
Hailee reached into her coat and handed him a black file. "Everything on Lorenzo. His crest readings. Crest infection report. And anything else the Arcana Order's been hiding about this case."
Huey took it, no smile this time. Just a long stare.
Then he turned.
"I should go," he said. "Don't want people thinking this was some warm family moment."
Hailee opened her mouth like she wanted to say something else. Instead, her lips moved
no sound.
Huey paused mid-step.
Didn't respond.
But the faintest smile tugged at his bruised mouth.
His eyes flicked up, blue glow blooming softly in the shadows.
And then he disappeared into the dusk.