Far East Stream (Revised) 🏍

Under a fake sky, the boys have been picking up scrap, fixing bikes, and living life to the fullest.
The Far East New District, a tiered city ruled by giant corporations.
The Elevens, a group of misfits living in the lowest-level factories, find themselves stepping into the depths of the city after a strange incident brought back by one of their own.
Those who dream of the lost starry sky, those who believe only in numerical sequences, and those who keep on running.
Beyond the canopy they look up at, a night sky that no one knows yet is spreading out.
The riders were searching for the real stars.

Chapter 1: The Junkyard of Red Time

When Red Time arrives, the residents of the Ravens go a little quiet.

It is not a real sunset.
It is a fake twilight, exhaled by several giant exhaust vents.
The red light shining through the gaps in the overhead viaduct makes the bottom-tier city, soaked in the smell of rust, scrap, and oil, look like a different place for just a moment.
Even so, in this city, it had become twilight.

“Hey, Haruki! You’re up on the workbench with those dirty boots again!”

May’s sharp voice cuts through the humid factory air.
Flipping the hem of her oil-yellowed coveralls and swinging a large wrench inherited from her father, she slapped Haruki’s back as he was absorbed in adjusting his beloved machine, “Cerberus.”
Hit and away.
A pleasant, hard sound echoed through the factory.

“That hurts... I’m in the middle of an adjustment. To shave off a hundredth of a second, the gravity balance of the entire frame has to be—”

“Don’t give me excuses! Before that, you should do something about your ‘hygiene balance.’ Your clothes are stiff with oil, too. Don’t touch precision machinery with a body that dirty!”

Shizue appeared from the back.
Every step she took made the iron floorboards creak.
Her old-fashioned prosthetic right arm moved with a hydraulic hiss, and the edge of an armor plate peeked out from the shoulder of her work clothes.
No one knows what she did when she was young. Because she never talks about it.

“May, it’s useless. These guys are the type who run with gasoline flowing in their veins instead of blood.”

Shizue lit a synthetic cigarette and exhaled a cloud of purple smoke.

“You can’t do decent work if you throw away the tools you’re used to.”

That was her favorite saying.

“Cerberus” sat heavily in front of Haruki, who had reluctantly taken off his boots and stepped onto the floor.
A composite frame of titanium alloy and carbon fiber. Military-grade twin motors that can’t be obtained through regular channels. An electromagnetic anchor ejection mechanism built into the front fork. It is truly a living, modified creature that he has spent the last three years working on, sparing no time for sleep.

A shadow slid down from the waste pipes overhead.
Kaito had his upper body turned toward them, while a fiber-optic cable remained connected directly from the wall’s wired terminal to the nape of his neck.
A five-meter cable is his current range of action.

“Shizue. There’s an anomaly in the monitoring logs for the factory perimeter. Traces of electromagnetic interference, originating from the northeast—the direction of the Fifth Sector. The frequency is increasing.”

“Got it. I’ll check it out tomorrow.”

Kaito quietly pulled out the terminal.
A soft electronic pop vanished into the humid air.

Shizue’s expression stiffened for a moment, and then she exhaled a long stream of purple smoke.

I haven't seen Atsushi around lately.

He's... probably looking for the 'outside.' The other side of the holographic lid that blocks out the sky above us.

Haruki said, wiping his face with a towel.

The outside, huh...

Shizue scoffed.

Do you guys even know what this city is made of? It's made of the remnants of the memories of those who vanished and the debris of military nanomachines that lost their destination. It's not some cool 'Stream' you guys dream about. It's a massive, unstoppable chain of corrosion. The stars Atsushi is looking for are just an illusion.

Dinner was a stew of synthetic protein. The taste was hopeless.
Even so, May managed to make it something that could go down by using suspicious spices collected from the bottom of oil drums and chemical seasonings refined from waste oil as a secret ingredient.
Gathered around the scarred workbench, they silently slurped the stew.

Hey, Kaito. Are you seriously not hungry?

Consuming food is not a problem for my system. However, battery charging is more efficient.

Then don't eat it. I'll take it.

The moment Haruki reached out with his chopsticks, May's wrench struck the back of his hand, knocking them down.

Ouch!

If Kaito isn't going to eat it, I'll take it!

You already polished off a second bowl just a minute ago!

So what! I'm still growing!

Don't call yourself 'still growing' when you're over nineteen, you glutton!

I wonder if Atsushi won't come today either...

May muttered softly.
Across the pot, in the shadow of the factory entrance.
The space where Atsushi's beloved machine, 'Ashura,' should always be parked remained a bare, cold steel plate today, leaving behind a dark void.

He'll come.

Haruki set down his bowl and declared it.
There was no logical basis for it. Just a wild hunch.

When he's hungry, he always comes back. He's strangely punctual when it comes to mealtime, that guy.

Shortly after that, a disturbing engine sound echoed from the darkness outside the factory.

It was Ashura.
But the sound was different than usual.
An eerie, heavy bass sound, like a beast gasping, with the RPMs fluctuating irregularly and screeching.

The moment Haruki saw Atsushi get off his bike and duck through the rusted shutter, he set down his bowl.

Atsushi! You...

His left arm is shaking.
His complexion is pale, almost earthy.
More than that, every time he takes a step, fine black powder, like crushed charcoal, falls from his jacket sleeve onto the floor.

...It's nothing. I just got hit by some line noise on the Third Loop Line. It's no big deal.

But that arm...

Hey, May, what's for dinner today? I'm so hungry I could die.

Cheerful words. A smile that looked forced.

May handed him a bowl without saying a word.
Shizue took out a new cigarette.
Kaito stared silently at the black powder that had fallen from Atsushi's sleeve.

Haruki was looking at the same thing.
The black powder on the floor, as if it were a magnet with a will of its own, crawled toward the red rust on the iron plate, slowly merging with it while faintly pulsing, 'thump-thump, thump-thump'.

...Haruki, Kaito. Watch me.

As he took the bowl, Atsushi smiled just like he always did.

I'm going to become the 'system' of this city itself and take you all out of this bottom-tier life. To a place where you can seriously see the stars.

Haruki looked straight into Atsushi's eyes.
They were the same eyes as always. Eyes that seemed to be staring at a future infinitely far away, eyes that held a touch of madness. Eyes searching for something no one had ever seen beyond the loop line that circled the lowest level.

No one thought that tonight would be their last peaceful supper.

Chapter 2: Takoyaki Scrap Blues

Two days after that night when Atsushi returned, dropping that disturbing black powder.

Because of the holographic advertisements overhead that projected a fake blue sky as always, the Ravens' junkyard was bathed in a strangely garish purple light.

In the midst of a daily life that had resumed as if nothing had happened, Atsushi burst in with enough force to kick down the rusted shutter.

"Hey! You guys! I've managed to get my hands on some top-tier stuff from the smuggling guild in the Naniwa Sector!"

As if that sallow face and the pulsating, eerie black powder from the night before last were all a lie, he was shouting in his usual booming voice.
In both hands, he was carefully cradling a brown craft paper bag stained with oil.

"What is it, Atsushi? You're loud! I'm currently fine-tuning the synchronization rate of Cerberus's electromagnetic anchor down to the sub-millisecond!"

Haruki, who had crawled out from under the workbench, cursed while wiping the black grease off his face with his sleeve.

"Heh, leave such trivial numbers to Kaito's cyberbrain! Look at this!"

When Atsushi slammed the bag onto the workbench, a pungent odor wafted out.
The sour scent of burnt sauce, the briny smell of cheap dried seaweed, and a violent aroma that suggested synthetic oils of unknown origin had been scorched by heat.

"...Takoyaki?"

Mei approached with a wrench in one hand, her nose twitching like a dog's.
She peered into the bag while wiping her face with a sweat towel wrapped around her neck, her jumpsuit daringly unzipped at the chest.

"It's not just any takoyaki! It's a high-grade replica meat version from the Third Slum of Naniwa, mixed with 3% real octopus genetic code! The stall owner said that since there's no inspection by the Security Forces today, he's being generous. Eat it while it's hot!"

"Octopus? You mean that eight-legged cephalopod whose nervous system is distributed throughout its entire body?"

Kaito's voice descended from above.
He was hanging from his usual spot on the abandoned pipes, his feet swaying slightly while he remained connected to the wall's wired terminal via a five-meter fiber cable attached to the back of his neck.

"According to biological data, the friction coefficient when humans chew that is extremely high, and the energy conversion efficiency is considered to be extremely poor."

"Shut up, you intellectual cyborg! Can you eat with efficiency? Come on, Mei, Haruki, grab some chopsticks!"

When Atsushi tore open the bag, what emerged were 30 brown objects that had melted together into a single organic mass due to their mutual heat.
The mayonnaise-style chemical seasoning drizzled on top glowed suspiciously in a color close to fluorescent pink.

"Wait, Atsushi... is this really okay? It's turned into something like shiratama... This pink sauce looks like the coolant crystals from the factory in the back."

Mei looked at it with a skeptical expression and, using a super-thin injection pin she found lying around as a toothpick, stabbed one of them.

"Don't worry about it! Even if it's shiratama takoyaki, once it's in your stomach, it's all the same synthetic protein!"

As he said that, Atsushi tossed a piece of takoyaki into his mouth with gusto.
The next moment, his eyes widened to their limit, and he spewed white steam from his mouth.

“Hot! Hff, hff!”

“Geez! What are you doing?!”

“This thing, the magma inside is insane! It’s practically undergoing nuclear fusion!”

“Hahahaha, you idiot!”

Laughing, Haruki also grabbed one and popped it into his mouth.

“Nnnngh!?!”

He couldn't make a sound. It was hot. It wasn't even on the level of just being hot. Even though the outer skin was fried crispy with oil, a mysterious liquid that seemed to be broth was trapped inside at a high temperature. It was a violent heat that mercilessly scorched the mucous membranes of Haruki's mouth, burned his esophagus, and dropped directly onto his stomach lining.

“H-hey, Kaito...! G-give me some water! The stuff from Cerberus’s reservoir tank is fine!”

Haruki pounded on the workbench while rolling his eyes back.

“Industrial coolant contains ethylene glycol, which exhibits fatal toxicity to biological tissue. There is a risk that your organic brain will suffer a 2% decline in function.”

Kaito read the data out calmly.

“Alternatively, I can operate my internal cooling fans at maximum output and blow air into your mouth. Shall we try it?”

“Idiot! A fan won't be fast enough!”

“Geez! You two are so pathetic! Here, have some water.”

Laughing as she watched the two of them, May held out a glass. She moved the takoyaki to a small plate with practiced hands, split one in half, and blew on it. From the open collar of her jumpsuit, her youthful collarbone and the lace of her underwear, stuck to her skin with sweat, peeked out. Haruki looked away, but he was too preoccupied with the heat in his mouth to care.

May took a bite of the cooled-down takoyaki.

“Mmm... Oh, but this actually tastes decent, surprisingly. Look, this rubbery lump in the middle, this must be the ‘3% octopus.’ It has the texture of an eraser soaked in sauce and boiled for three days and three nights, though.”

“Right!? Taste it, May, that’s what the people in the upper levels call ‘the true memory of the sea’!”

Atsushi puffed out his chest. Of course, there was no way the wealthy aristocrats of the layered city were eating meat like an eraser, but for the youths of the lowest level, this was the ultimate luxury.

Before long, heavy footsteps approached from the darkness in the back of the factory, thud, thud.

“It’s noisy. I was finally taking apart an old-fashioned carburetor and soaking in the smell of gasoline.”

Shizue approached the workbench, her old-model prosthetic right arm making a “hiss” sound from its hydraulic cylinders.
A lit synthetic cigarette was already held between her fingertips.

“Oh, Shizue-san! It’s takoyaki! From Naniwa!”

Atsushi straightened his posture and held out the largest-looking one, which had pink sauce glowing in a particularly eerie way.

Shizue glanced at the mysterious object while still holding her cigarette in her mouth.

“Hmph, the Third Slum of Naniwa, huh? The old hag at that takoyaki stand used to be in the military’s electronic warfare unit. The chemical seasoning they use in their broth is a kind of legal drug that stimulates specific areas of the brain to trick you into thinking it’s ‘delicious.’ If you guys keep eating stuff like that, the nerves in the fingers you use to grip the throttle are going to get fried.”

Even as she said that, Shizue skillfully grabbed a toothpick with her prosthetic fingers and popped the takoyaki into her mouth.
Haruki and Atsushi held their breath, waiting for her reaction.
Would even this big woman, rumored to be a former soldier, be driven to agony by the heat of that nuclear fusion-level temperature!?

But Shizue didn’t change her expression at all.
She just gulped it down and elegantly exhaled a long trail of purple smoke from the tip of her cigarette.

“...The broth is lacking. And the grilling is amateurish. The temperature control on the iron plate is all wrong. It’s laughable that someone who doesn’t understand how to apply heat down to the sub-millisecond level would carry the Naniwa-ya name.”

“Are you serious...”

Atsushi slumped over.
Even the legendary taste of the lowest level was dismissed by Shizue with a single comment about it being “poorly grilled.”

“Kaito, you should eat one too. Come on, I’ll experiment to see what happens if sauce gets on your battery.”

Haruki, having recovered a bit, called out jokingly to Kaito, who was on the piping.

“I refuse. If salt and moisture enter my internal circuits, it could cause a short circuit, and there is a possibility that 24% of my entire thought log could be lost.”

“What a stingy guy. It’s delicious, enough to burn your brain.”

“The sensation of ‘delicious’ is defined by the amount of dopamine secreted in the brain. I can generate more pleasure than you are currently experiencing at any time by simply writing a ‘1’ directly into my cyber-brain’s reward system program.”

“You really are the most boring guy ever.”

Atsushi laughed as he threw a toothpick at Kaito.
Kaito avoided the small dart by just slightly tilting his head.

“Hey, Haruki. Earlier, that girl Mei wrote something on the back of the inspection sheet.”

Atsushi said with a grin.

“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Hey! Atsushi, don’t say unnecessary things!”

May tried to cover Atsushi’s mouth in a panic, but he skillfully dodged her and pulled a dirty scrap of paper from the workbench drawer.

“Look at this. ‘Haruki, you idiot. Before you oil Cerberus’s chain, oil the circuits in your own head. Also, your share of this month’s food money is three thousand credits short.’ It says so right here!”

“Hey, May! I gave you the food money properly last week!”

Haruki shouted.

“It’s not enough! Because you go sneaking off to the Third Ring Road in the middle of the night for joyrides, the cost of that high-octane gas is coming out of our budget! I’m the one out there bowing and scraping at the guild’s black market to get those shady spices!”

“That wasn’t a joyride! It was a test run!”

“It’s the same thing! You gas thief!”

May tried to lightly tap the giant wrench she was holding against Haruki’s head. Haruki immediately put on his helmet to guard himself. A pleasant clinking sound echoed through the factory.

“Ouch! This isn’t Whac-A-Mole, go easy on me! What are you going to do if you damage my brain cells?”

“In that case, have Kaito shove his chip into your brain! Maybe you’ll get a little smarter!”

Up on the pipes, the blue light in Kaito’s eyes blinked silently.

“Synchronizing my ghost with a biological brain is impossible with current medical technology. Due to brain overload, the subject would be completely reduced to ash within 180 seconds.”

“See? Even Kaito says so!”

“I was obviously joking, you blockhead!”

Watching the two of them argue, Atsushi finished off the last of the takoyaki and flopped back onto his seat, satisfied. There was pink sauce smeared all over his mouth.

“Ah, man. That was good. Hey, let’s get out of this bottom-tier city someday and go to one of those real restaurants in the upper district. I heard you can eat takoyaki with actual octopus in it there.”

“There’s no such thing.”

Haruki gave a bitter smile.

“A sphere that’s 100% octopus? That’s basically just an octopus, isn’t it?”

“What’s wrong with that? You eat it with a knife and fork. Pretty cool, right?”

“I want to drink cocoa made from real cacao.”

May muttered, hugging her knees tightly at the edge of the workbench.

“Something sweet and incredibly rich. I saw in the wired network archives that the girls in the upper sectors drink that.”

“Alright, it’s settled. 100% cacao and 100% octopus. What about you, Kaito?”

Kaito was silent for a while.
The fibers on his neck were trembling slightly, picking up the city’s noise.

“...I want a frequency without noise. A complete, vacuum-like silence, stripped of all electromagnetic waves in this tiered city.”

“Your wish sounds like the most expensive one.”

Atsushi laughed.
Shizue dropped her cigarette on the floor and crushed it with her prosthetic leg.

“You lot. You’re free to dream, but by tomorrow morning, the scrap collection guild from the Fifth Sector will be eyeing our territory. Keep your heads clear with the smell of gasoline.”

She said that and disappeared back into the darkness at the back of the factory.

It started raining a few hours later.

Acid rain pounded violently against the corrugated iron roof of the Ravens, making the distinct, rusty smell of the iron city even stronger.
The light from the vending machine blurred in the rain like a streetlamp.

Haruki was in the makeshift shower room in the corner of the factory.
Though it was called a shower room, it was just a crude stall made by welding discarded oil drums together, and all that came from the ceiling was strangely metallic-smelling hot water that Shizue had piped in from the waste heat pipes.

“Tch... is the water temperature acting up again?”

Haruki turned the rusted valve with his left hand, but the water mercilessly switched from cold to scalding hot in an instant.
His flesh-and-blood body was always at the mercy of this city’s fickle infrastructure.

“Haruki, are you in there?”

Suddenly, May’s voice came from the other side of the plywood door.

“Yeah, I’m in here! Can’t you tell?”

“Hey, this is a buffer board I got from Kaito. He said you should swap this into your Cerberus’s front fork before tomorrow’s collection job.”

The door swung open with a clatter.
May suddenly appeared amidst the steam.
She was dressed in the most minimal, rough attire possible for spending a sweltering night in this lowest level: a thin tank top and shorts.
Sweat and steam made the tank top cling tightly to her curvaceous body.
I could see droplets of water dripping from her wet hair, tracing down her collarbone and falling toward her chest.

“Whoa! Hey, you, at least knock!”

Haruki hurriedly covered his lower body with a dirty towel.

“What’s your problem! It’s not like you’re losing anything. I’ve seen you naked enough times that it doesn’t even phase me anymore!”

While her cheeks flushed slightly, May acted aloof as she placed the circuit board on the shelf outside the shower room.

“More importantly, about what Atsushi was saying earlier...”

May’s gaze turned slightly more serious.
The sound of hot shower water hitting the corrugated metal walls echoed intensely between them.

“...You mean about the upper levels?”

“Yeah. He’s been acting really strange lately. Even when he was laughing during the takoyaki earlier... sometimes, his eyes look like they’re channeling into some other world. Haruki, you ride with Atsushi—haven’t you noticed anything?”

Haruki turned off the shower valve and wiped his wet hair carelessly.
A damp silence filled the room.

“...He’s always been like that. He looks at things far away that no one else sees. The scenery of the ‘outside’ that we can’t see has been visible in his head from the very beginning.”

“That’s what scares me.”

May gripped the hem of her tank top tightly.
Her ample chest rose and fell with her breathing.

“Kaito only sees numbers, and you only see bikes. Atsushi only sees the stars. ...It feels like Mom and I are the only ones actually looking at this factory, at this place right now.”

“May.”

“What?”

“That outfit of yours is a bit of an eyesore, so put some clothes on. Also, I’m going to recover this month’s food money tomorrow, even if I have to pickpocket it straight from Atsushi’s pocket.”

May looked blank for a moment, but then, as if she had just realized how revealing her outfit was, her cheeks turned bright red.

“You pervert!”

With a loud crack, the plywood door slammed shut with force.
The shower room shook violently, and the rainwater that had pooled above Haruki’s head came crashing down all at once.

“It’s freezing!!”

Haruki’s scream was drowned out by the sound of the rain.

Perched on a discarded pipe, Kaito silently received all the acoustic data through the terminal on his neck. His cybernetic system recorded a 12% increase in Haruki’s heart rate and a shift in May’s vocal frequency toward the higher range.

“Fluctuations in biological response. Analysis impossible. However, the maintenance efficiency of this community in the driving logs is currently at 94.2%. It is extremely favorable.”

Kaito muttered this, then sank his consciousness back into the abyss of electrons.

Outside, the acid rain was intensifying. The fake purple light filled the lowest level of the junkyard. Within it, the members of the Elevens were quietly waiting for a fake dawn, believing that this rough daily life would last forever. Come to think of it, their beginning was also on such a night of heavy rain.

Chapter 3: Three Tracks

It was raining.

Atsushi’s red taillight was running ahead of Haruki’s bike. He dove nonchalantly into a line that should have led to a collision with the wall.

“Is he trying to get himself killed?!”

Kaito’s machine slid into the inside. The three bikes scattered sparks as they crossed the finish line together as one mass.

The race was over. In the dim light under the overpass, Atsushi took off his helmet and grinned with a dirty face.

“You guys! That corner just now was the best! I’m Atsushi. Hey, you, the cyborg kid, what’s your name?”

“Kaito. There is a 0.3-second deviation in your cornering every lap.”

“What did you say, you bastard!”

Just as Haruki was about to grab him, Atsushi stepped in between them.

“Hahaha! Interesting! Hey, Kaito, Haruki. Don’t you think if the three of us ride together, we could make it to the very top of this shitty tiered city?”

From that day on, the three tracks began.

They stole parts from their fellow Elevens, bought them, or dug them up from trash heaps, and spent all night in the factory building their bikes. Shizue would call them “fools,” but she always provided a corner of the factory and silently lent them her spanners.

Shizue picked up Haruki when he was fourteen years old.

She found him collapsed in the acid rain, having fallen to the very bottom after his parents were deregistered from the system due to multiple debts, leaving him all alone.
Shizue grabbed Haruki's thin arm with her left hand, which was still flesh and blood at the time.

Do you want to live, kid?

...

If you want to live, learn how to hold a wrench. In this city, those who don't get their hands dirty are the first to become food for the system.

That was all she said.
She didn't even ask his name.
She didn't ask where he came from either.

From the next morning, Haruki lived in the Ravens' workshop, learning maintenance work while getting his head knocked by May's wrench.

The words Shizue said that day and the pain of the wrench May would strike him with were, for Haruki, the only proof that he was still alive.

Before the lowest level of the Far East New District came to be called the "Ravens," it was just an undeveloped, massive culvert known only as "Sector 11" or "the dump."

There were no fancy hologram lids overhead yet, and the sewage and hot water spewed out by the skyscrapers in the upper levels, along with literally pitch-black mud rain containing heavy metals, poured down incessantly twenty-four hours a day.
It was an era when it was said that if a flesh-and-blood human walked for three days without an umbrella, their lungs would turn to fiber and they would drop dead.

Hey, Shizue! Get a grip! The hydraulic cylinder in the third shaft is busted! If we don't support it, the ceiling will collapse on this whole sector in five minutes!

Shut up! Who do you think you're talking to!

Twenty-five years ago, Shizue still rolled her coverall sleeves up to her shoulders, showing off a magnificent, flesh-and-blood right arm covered in oil and mud.
It wasn't the old-fashioned prosthetic arm that makes the dry hydraulic sounds it does now.
Iron-like muscles, forged by the gravity of the lowest level, truly resided in her arm.

At the time, Shizue was still in her mid-twenties.
She gripped the 40mm heavy-duty wrench inherited from her father—which would later be passed on to May—with both hands, tightening the bolts on the collapsing bulkhead with all her might.

Haa... alright! It's tightened! Are you boys ready to swallow some mud!

The moment Shizue shouted, several tons of scrap metal from the upper levels fell, grazing just centimeters away from them with a roar. Sparks flew, and acidic steam burned her young cheeks. Even so, Shizue just grinned, showing her white teeth.

The lowest level back then was a frontier where deregistered people who had fallen out of the upper-level construction sites and workers who had lost their names to multiple debts dug through the mud, aiming only for tomorrow's ration capsule. There was no law, and no patrols from legitimate security firms. All they could rely on was their own physical strength and the uncertain sense of camaraderie that the person next to them would never betray them.

Among those ruffians, Shizue reigned as the only "First-Class Heavy Machinery Mechanic."

Boss. The guys from the upper-level construction guild are rerouting the lower-level pipes again, dumping their waste oil down here. If this keeps up, the residential area's filtration tank is going to burst.

A young worker ran up to Shizue with a mud-covered face.

Those stuck-up upper-level citizens...

Shizue lit a cheap cigarette, which at the time was still made of real leaves, and exhaled a cloud of purple smoke. Even so, it was a luxury item in the lowest levels.

“Those people have never once thought about where the shit they excrete ends up. Listen, don't just lie down and take it! If they're dumping waste oil, we'll splash that same waste oil onto their automated defense system sensors and blind them.”

“Heh, if that's what you say, Boss, we'll do it!”

She was more than just a mechanic.
She was the one who taught the drifters—who had lost their way and were just waiting to be preyed upon by the system—how to hold a wrench, how to tighten a bolt, and the skills to stand on their own two feet.
It was because of her that District 11 transformed from a mere garbage dump into a town with grit and pride, known as the nest of the 'Ravens' migratory birds.

However, even the Iron Lady has her limits.

It was the night of the ground subsidence accident in Sector 14, later called 'The Great Collapse.'
Because greedy developers in the upper levels ignored the load-bearing calculations for the lower levels and built a massive hologram tower, the strength of the canopy reached its limit.

The scale of the collapse was several kilometers.
Shizue was gripping the lever of a massive protective bulkhead she had built herself.
If she kept pulling that lever, the residential area where hundreds of workers lived would be saved. But due to hydraulic backflow, the operating lever reached temperatures exceeding one hundred degrees, and the drive cylinder was in a state where it could explode at any moment.

“Shizue! Let go! Your arm will melt!”

Her companions' shouts were drowned out by the screeching of metal.

“You idiots!! Like I could let go...!”

Shizue gritted her teeth and kept gripping the red-hot iron lever with her bare right arm.
There was a sickening sound of flesh burning, and smoke rose up.
Her nerves were scorched, and her bones were warping.
Even so, her eyes were fixed on the 'real night sky' she caught for just a moment through a gap in the collapsing ceiling.

(Ah... are the stars really that far away...)

At that moment, the cylinder burst.

High-pressure hydraulic fluid and titanium shards mercilessly tore through the right side of her body.

...When she woke up, her right arm had been replaced by that rugged prosthetic that makes the hydraulic sound Haruki and the others are looking at now.
It was a piece of junk she had forced her companions to attach to her while she was drifting in and out of consciousness, using military scrap.

“...Well, a flesh-and-blood body is inconvenient at times like this.”

On the bed, Shizue reportedly laughed as fearlessly as ever while moving her new right arm with a 'hiss.'
But it wasn't just her right arm that she lost.
Half of her internal organs and the fresh skin of her youth were all replaced with titanium plates and synthetic nanomachine artificial skin.
At this moment, she had become half a part of the system.

Several years later.

Shizue, who had settled down as the gutsy mother figure of the lowest level, had a man stumble into her place carrying a newborn baby.

No one knew the man's name.
The story was that he was a technician who had stolen something from a research lab in the upper levels and was being hunted. The man offered Shizue 15 million credits. It was a huge sum of money that no one here had ever seen before.

“This child's name is Mei. Someday... show her the real sky, the one without any noise.”

After entrusting the baby to Shizue, the man left those words behind and vanished into the darkness of the acid rain.
Shizue clumsily lifted the wailing baby with her cold iron right arm.
She placed a towel between the baby's skin and the hydraulic cylinders to avoid hurting it, rocking it as gently and carefully as she could.

“Are you May? Everyone from the upper levels just keeps dumping their selfish dreams on us.”

As she muttered this, Shizue gently pressed her own cigarette-smelling forehead against the baby's tiny one.

More than a decade passed, and Shizue's factory became a place where Haruki, who had lost his parents, drifted in; where Kaito, like a stray dog with a fried cyber-brain, arrived from somewhere; and where Atsushi, a former biker gang member, began to ride his motorcycle.

Looking up from the lowest level—the place she had risked her life to support in her youth—at the canopy covered in holographic advertisements, Shizue lit a synthetic cigarette again today.

“Why do you young ones always want to look up so much?”

With her iron right hand, she scrubbed the workbench—stained with the pink takoyaki sauce left behind by Haruki and Atsushi—with all her might.
No one knew that hidden within those clumsy movements was a love harder than iron, watching over every 'rut' in this city.

Chapter 4: The Abyss of Electrons

Two in the morning, a few days later.

Only half the factory lights were on.
It was to save on electricity.
Shizue said, “It’s easier to focus on work in the dark,” but May simply thought it would ruin their eyesight.
And, as expected, she couldn't sleep. She knew the reason.

Haruki and Atsushi had left in the evening saying they were going to ride the Third Loop, and they hadn't returned for six hours.
Only Kaito remained in the factory, sitting still on that old waste pipe, connected to the wall's wired terminal.

May made synthetic cocoa again in a small pot placed on the corner of the workbench.
It wasn't real cacao.
It was a re-synthesized product from food waste, and it left a distinct sour aftertaste when dissolved.
But it was much better than Shizue's synthetic coffee. That stuff was truly terrible.
She prepared two mugs and offered one to Kaito.

“Kaito, I made cocoa.”

There was no reply.
It was the face he made when his consciousness was sent somewhere far away while connected to the terminal.
As proof, only his blue eyeballs were moving minutely.
Kaito hated being spoken to at times like this.
May wasn't sure if he actually had the emotion of 'hating' it, but at the very least, he would say it was 'inefficient'.

Even so, May placed the cup on the edge of the counter.

After waiting about three minutes, she heard the 'hiss' of the electronic sound as the terminal slowly disconnected from the port on the back of Kaito's neck.
Then, Kaito blinked twice and finally looked at May's face.

“May...”

“Were you tracking Haruki and the others' logs?”

“It was a routine security check.”

Liar, May thought.
Though she didn't say it.

Kaito took the cup and wrapped both hands around it.
Since his prosthetic hands have no body heat, it is impossible to tell if he even feels the warmth.
Even so, he always holds it properly with both hands.
May has never asked if someone taught him that, or if it is simply the result of learning human movements as data.

“Are you looking at those tiny numbers without sleeping again?”

“The prosthetic system is capable of twenty-four-hour operation. Sleep is—”

“I wasn’t going to say you’d go crazy.”

May sat on the edge of the workbench and dangled her legs.

“I mean, don’t worry about Atsushi and the others.”

Kaito fell silent.

May had recently come to understand that Kaito’s silence at times like this didn’t mean there was nothing there, but rather that he was processing something.
It was less like a machine thinking and more like the pause a human takes when choosing their words.

“The definition of the concept of ‘worry’ is ambiguous.”

“Forget about definitions.”

“...However.”

Kaito continued, his eyes still fixed on the cup.

“There has been a minute irregularity in Atsushi’s riding logs since last month. His throttle input pattern has become slightly erratic. At this point, I have not been able to determine if the cause is physical or mental.”

May’s hand stopped over the cup.

“Did you tell Haruki about that?”

“No, I have not.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am not certain. The fluctuation in the data might be within the margin of error. If I tell Haruki, he will act immediately. That action could potentially complicate his relationship with Atsushi.”

May was silent for a while.

It was a bit surprising that Kaito used the phrase “complicate his relationship.” Sometimes, he uses such human-like expressions.
Perhaps he doesn’t even realize it himself.

Kaito. You're worried about them, aren't you?

...It's a calculation to maintain optimal running conditions.

It's the same thing.

Silence again. This time it was a little longer.

Outside the window, some exhaust vent was dyed red. It's a bit early for the red hour, but the factory nights are always like this. You can't see a real sunrise or a real sunset from here.

May.

Kaito said abruptly.

Do you like this factory?

Why the sudden question?

I want to know as data.

That's a lie, May thought again. But she had learned from her own experience that the correct answer in times like these was to answer properly.

I do. It's noisy, it's dirty, the food is bad, and Haruki never fills out his inspection forms. But I like it.

The reason?

Because it's a place I can come home to, I guess. Because it's my home.

Kaito fell silent again. This time it was short.

...I see.

He stood up and put his hand into the inner pocket of his jacket. What he pulled out was a small terminal. It was covered in scratches and heavily reinforced.

You should keep this, May.

A memory? What is this?

It's a dedicated terminal that can communicate with my ghost. Just in case.

"Just in case..."

Kaito did not answer.
She had also recently learned that when he didn't answer, it wasn't because he didn't want to, but because he didn't have an answer.
Mei took the terminal.
The cold sensation of the metal slowly grew familiar in her hand.

"...Thanks. You really are kind, you know."

"The definition of the concept of 'kind' is--"

"Vague, right? I know."

Mei smiled.
Kaito didn't smile, but she felt the focus in his eyes soften just a little. It might have been her imagination.

Before long, the sound of engines could be heard from outside the factory.

Two of them.

Haruki and Atsushi.
She could tell by the way they rode.

Atsushi's Asura had a habit of always swinging a little wide on the final corner. Tonight, that swing was a bit wider than usual.

"They're back!"

"Yeah."

Kaito connected the terminal to his neck again and returned to the top of the abandoned pipes.
The five-meter cable stretched to its limit and stopped. It was his usual spot.

The shutter opened, and Haruki and Atsushi entered.
Both of them were blackened with oil and exhaust.
Atsushi was shouting something.
Haruki was replying with an exasperated look.

It was just like always.

Mei put the terminal in her hand into the desk drawer.

"Hey! Haruki! I told you not to come up here with your shoes on!"

"Shut up, I'm starving! Isn't there anything to eat!"

"I don't know! Atsushi, you stop him too!"

"It's not my fault!"

“Both of you, stop it!”

On top of the abandoned pipes, Kaito moved the corners of his mouth slightly while still connected to the terminal.
Only Mei saw it.

Years later, until the terminal glowed in the back of a drawer, Mei remembered that night of synthetic cocoa.
She also remembered that brief silence when Kaito heard the words “a place to return to.”

The next day, Atsushi did not come home.

One day. Two days. Three days.

Only Ashura’s parking space at the factory entrance remained empty and white.
That void looked strangely vast.

At first, no one cared.
He had always been like that.
He runs when he gets an idea. He comes home when he’s hungry.
That was the kind of man he was.

But Mei served dinner into Atsushi’s bowl three times, only to throw it away each time.
Shizue said nothing, but began checking the factory’s perimeter camera logs every morning.
Kaito remained connected to the terminal on the wall and didn’t even come for meal times.

On the fourth night, Haruki straddled Cerberus.

“I’m heading out.”

“Where to?”

Mei started to ask, but stopped.
She knew without asking.

The Second Loop Line was painted over by a fake night again tonight.
Haruki opened the throttle.
The twin motors growled low, and Cerberus leaped into the darkness.
Once he exceeded 200 kilometers per hour, the wind was no longer just air.
It was a knife that stripped away flesh. Still, he didn’t ease off.
He ran the same line on the road Atsushi had taken.

“Everything’s broken... this city, and him too!”

The moment he banked the bike as if slamming it into the corner, the lower levels of the skyscraper behind him exploded.
The blast shook Cerberus sideways.
Haruki’s fingers did not ease off the throttle.
With the silhouette of the collapsing lowest level at his back, he simply hurried ahead.
Toward the Fifth Sector, the direction indicated by the log of where Atsushi last traveled.

On a different highway, Kaito connected the terminal to his neck.
His consciousness sank into the abyss of electrons.
Before long, all the data emitted by the city began to flow in.
Surveillance cameras, logs from autonomous vehicles, the faint pulses of street terminals.
Kaito searched for traces of Atsushi from four days ago within that flood.

…Found it.

An abandoned district in the northeast of the Fifth Sector.
That was where Atsushi’s bio-ID was last recorded.
But the logs after that were painted over with nothing but noise.
As if someone had erased them.

A cyborg from a security firm in the upper district that had been pursuing him began firing.
Kaito didn’t change his expression, sliding his mono-bike into a dark gap between abandoned pipes. The pursuer crashed into the pipes, and flames dyed the night red.

Kaito did not look back at it.

What floated in my mind were the last coordinates from Atsushi's log and the sight of that black powder that fell to the floor that night, crawling toward the red rust.
The analysis results have not changed since four days ago.
Kaito has not told anyone that answer yet.

Late at night, Mei was waiting for Haruki and Kaito when they returned to the factory.

"Did you find it?"

Haruki shook his head.

"But we know where it's headed. The abandoned sector of the Fifth Sector."

"That area is a zone with abnormally strong electromagnetic interference."

Kaito said.

"Normal communications won't reach it. We have no choice but to go in directly."

"I'm going."

Mei said immediately.

"Idiot, you—"

"I said I'm going!"

Haruki couldn't say anything back.

Shizue called out from the living quarters in the back.
Without turning around, she spoke to their backs.

"The supply parts are on the third shelf. Be back before dawn."

That was all.
She didn't say, 'Don't go.'

Chapter 5: Ashura's Sudden Change

The Eighth Waste Pipe District.

Haruki slid Cerberus into the shadow of a rusted crane.
When he cut the engine, the surroundings became quiet.
It was quiet, but not silent.
The sound of acid rain hitting the corrugated iron, the roar of sewage flowing deep within the pipes, the lingering echo of a distant siren. This is the breathing of this city.

You're late, cyborg.

The moment I took off my helmet, the chemical-smelling night air wrapped around my neck.

Without a sound, Kaito's monobike slid out from the darkness.
Fresh bullet scars were etched into the cowl.
Kaito dismounted and pulled the connector from the port on his neck.
A small electronic hiss.

I had trouble hacking the wide-area surveillance network.

Your right shoulder is hit.

The titanium armor was warped, exposing the interior.
Kaito glanced at it, but that was all.

It doesn't hinder combat. More importantly—

Yeah.

Haruki said.

That explosion earlier. It was Atsushi.

At Haruki's words, Kaito fell silent.

There's no one else who takes that chicane like that, other than Atsushi.

...Logically, that's impossible. Atsushi's ghost was confirmed in the accident logs. Not to mention his biological readings—

It's not about logic!

Haruki struck the tank of his Cerberus with his fist.
The dry metallic sound was swallowed by the darkness of the waste disposal zone.

I felt his riding with my own skin.

Kaito was silent for a while. Then he said quietly,

...If your prediction is correct, the situation is grave. Atsushi is no longer just a 'ghost' now.

Kaito didn't finish the sentence.
The analysis results inside his cyberbrain since that night.
He hadn't told anyone yet.

At that moment, the air in the waste disposal zone changed.

It came from above.

Weaving through the gaps between pipes and power lines, something was descending at a furious speed.
Haruki reflexively jumped onto Cerberus.

The ground shook from the impact of the landing.

It was a red motorcycle.
No, it was a motorcycle that used to be red. It was different now.
The body had discolored to a dark red, constantly shifting its shape like the muscles of a living creature. Only the brightly glowing headlight was the color of blood.

“Ashura...”

Haruki muttered.

The shadow sitting on the seat slowly took off its helmet.

Haruki gasped.

It was Atsushi.

Without a doubt, it was Atsushi's face.

But only the eyes were different.
There was no human light in them.
There was only a bottomless night.

“...Haruki, Kaito. It’s been a while. You finally caught up.”

The voice was Atsushi's.
But multiple voices were layered over it.
It sounded like a synthesized voice, as if the dead were all speaking at once.

“Atsushi—!”

The moment Haruki shouted, Ashura moved.

Black mist erupted from the bike's body, corroding the surrounding concrete.
Kaito immediately drove his monobike and fired a wire anchor at Ashura's cowl.
The anchor bit in.
Kaito wrapped the wire around his arm, trying to stop Ashura with his own weight.

For an instant, Ashura stopped.

The next moment, black tentacles crawled up the wire toward Kaito's arm.

“Kaito!”

Kaito stopped moving.
His expression didn't change.
But his body had stopped obeying him.

Haruki... get back! His electromagnetic field is—

Shut up!

Haruki drew the gun he had inherited from Shizue and aimed it at Atsushi.

You bastard!!

He pulled the trigger recklessly.

The bullet stopped a few centimeters in front of Atsushi's face. The space warped unnaturally, and it fell, scattering sparks.

Atsushi laughed.

Hahahaha. ...Haruki. Your hot-bloodedness is always refreshing. I don't hate it. But it's not enough. To burn this shitty city's system to its roots... Haruki, become a part of me.

The ceiling collapsed all at once. Thousands of tons of waste piping crumbled in an instant. Haruki dragged his broken leg and dove toward the immobile Kaito.

Debris rained down.

A flash of electrical discharge streaked across.

While holding Kaito's body, Haruki still stared at Atsushi's Asura.

(Is he still in there, deep behind those eyes...)

A mountain of rubble swallowed the two of them.

Chapter 6: The Sprinting Savior

Haruki regained consciousness amidst the rubble.

His right arm was bent at an odd angle. Blood was trickling from his neck. His whole body burned with pain.

...Having a flesh-and-blood body is inconvenient at times like this...

He pushed the rubble aside with only his left hand and crawled out. Kaito was lying next to him. His prosthetic body had turned black, and the blue light in his eyes had gone out.

"Kaito..."

Haruki touched Kaito's chest.
It was cold, with nothing moving inside.

At that moment, a faint vibration traveled from his neck.

"...Haruki... can you hear me..."

"Kaito!"

"The prosthetic body has reached its limit. But I managed to evacuate my ghost to the connector on my neck."

A fiber-optic connector slowly crawled out from the port on Kaito's neck.

"Haruki. I am going to sync my ghost with your neck."

"Don't be stupid! If you dump that much processing power into a living brain--"

"There is a risk that thirty percent of your brain cells will be damaged. I know. But there is no other choice."

Kaito's voice was flat, as always.
Haruki thought that it wasn't that he lacked emotions, but that he was a man who could only express them in that way.

"Atsushi is heading for the city's core system. We are the only ones who can stop him. If we fail, Shizue, Mei, the Ravens—everything will be over."

Haruki gripped the heated connector with his left hand.

"...Your calculations and my intuition, huh..."

"Let's run, Haruki."

Haruki steeled himself and slammed Kaito's connector into his own neck.

"Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!"

A tsunami hit his brain.

All of Kaito's memories flowed in.
The terminal he gave to Mei, his helpless feelings toward Atsushi--
His thoughts for Haruki and Shizue.
And then, his own sorrowful origins and past.
Haruki's brain boiled from the inside.

"...Synchronization complete. Let's go."

Wait... hold on, I'm not ready yet...

We're out of time.

Kaito's voice echoed quietly in his head.
Strangely, the pain in his broken right arm vanished instantly.

Haruki dragged Cerberus out from the rubble.
The cowl was shattered, and smoke was pouring from the motor.
Even so, the moment he opened the throttle, the bike changed.
Pale blue electrical discharges raced across the tank.

Damn it! I'm going in blind! Let's go, Kaito!

Understood.

Deep within the 8th Waste District, where the city's core server sat.
Atsushi was at its center.
He had merged with Ashura, and black mist drifted around him.

They're slow... I'll connect everything. To this city's system.

Just then, a single beam of light burst in.

ATSUSHI!!!

Haruki, you should be able to see the thin parts of the barrier glowing red.

Kaito's voice sounded in his mind.
Faint red mist emerged within his field of vision.

Is that it!!!

Haruki slid toward that single point.
Countless black tentacles of nanomachines closed in.
He dodged. They came again. He dodged.

Hahahaha. It's useless, Haruki! This entire city is my system!

Server racks collapsed.
Currents surged from high-voltage cables, scorching Cerberus.

...Your brain won't hold out, Haruki!

Not yet! I still can't see his frame!

He couldn't see him.
He couldn't see Atsushi.
Even though he knew he had to be there, beyond the black mist.

...From here on out, calculations won't be enough to reach him.

There was a moment of silence.

I'll do it!

Haruki. I'm leaving everything to your intuition.

At the same time as Kaito's words, the Third Loop Line on a rainy night flashed through Haruki's mind.
That night when the three of us were riding.
That habit Atsushi had of opening up the inside line for just a split second before a corner.

Kaito! Divert all energy to the electromagnetic anchor!!

You'll die, Haruki!

I don't care. It's now or never!!

...Understood.

Cerberus lunged into the side of Ashura.

The black wall closed in.
A tenth of a second before impact, Haruki slid the bike sideways and fired the electromagnetic anchor at a specific point on Ashura's cowl.
The anchor pierced through the black armor and embedded itself into the titanium frame of Ashura deep inside.

What... into my... frame...

For the first time, shock was mixed into Atsushi's voice.

Now, Kaito!!

A pale blue torrent flowed in reverse.
The nanomachines inside Ashura began to burn away.

Guaaaaaaa!!!

The black mist cleared.

Ashura began to crumble.

From beyond it, Atsushi appeared.
He was smiling, covered in mud, with that same look from that rainy night.

...You finally caught up! Haruki, Kaito...

You idiot! ...You're just too fast! ...

Haruki's voice was raspy.
He didn't even know himself if he was crying or angry.

Kaito is... there too, right? Thanks, you guys...

It was Atsushi's real voice.
It was a raspy, gentle voice.
That voice quietly melted and vanished into the light, which was burning like a blast furnace.

Silence.

Haruki crawled out of the Cerberus, covered in mud.

He had absolutely no feeling in his right arm.

Kaito's connector slipped from his neck and fell to the ground.

“...Kaito.”

He touched it.

It was cold.

There was nothing there.

Haruki sat there for a while.

He couldn't find a reason to stand up.

“...You idiot! Disappearing all by yourself... don't try to act cool.”

He could see the sky through a crack in the canopy.
Real stars were twinkling in the night sky where the hologram advertisements had vanished.
It was the twinkling of the stars that Atsushi had been looking for.

“...I’m the only one... who survived...”

Clutching the fragments of Kaito's connector that had fallen to the ground, Haruki finally stood up.

On the upper levels, the stopped hologram advertisements began to flicker again, as if nothing had happened.

This city never changes.

But the light of those real stars remained burned into the back of Haruki's eyes forever.

Chapter 7: Beyond the Starry Sky

Several years have passed since that massive system failure.

The explosion incident in the Eighth Waste District was processed in official police and security firm records as a “sudden self-destruction accident due to the aging of core infrastructure,” and both Atsushi's name and Kaito's disappearance were quietly buried within the city's vast archives.

Ironically, the lowest level of the Far East New District had become much brighter than it was that day.
Due to the system reconstruction, the resolution of the holograms filling the canopy had increased dramatically.
The city certainly looked cleaner.
But its essence had not changed much at all.

For the first time in a long while, the sound of a motorcycle engine echoed through the scrap yard on the outer edge of the lowest level, where rusted containers formed mountains.
An old-fashioned, common exhaust sound.
It lacked the sharpness of the Cerberus of the past.
Even so, the moment May, who had been working in front of the factory, heard that sound, she dropped her wrench onto the floor with a clatter.

(It's Haruki!)

Even if his riding style had changed, even if the quirks of his engine had changed, she knew.
That was what years of companionship meant.

The rider quietly got off the bike, dragging his right leg slightly.
When he took off his helmet, she saw that nostalgic smile, stained with oil soot.

"You're late, you idiot! How many years were you going to make me wait?"

Those words were all May could muster.

"...It's been a while, May."

Haruki looked down and smiled a little shyly.
His right arm, just like Shizue's, had been replaced by a prosthetic.

"I thought you'd vanished beyond the sky."

Shizue appeared from the back and silently handed Haruki a cup of synthetic coffee.

"My bad. I'm alive."

Haruki sat on the edge of the workbench, grabbed the cup with his prosthetic hand, and took a sip.

"Ouch!"

It was bitter.
As always, it was thin and bitter.
No matter how many years passed, the coffee Shizue brewed still tasted like crap.

"...Where's Atsushi?"

May asked in a trembling voice.

"He's not here..."

"Did he disappear?"

"He... went beyond the sky."

"What about Kaito?"

Haruki gently touched the port on his neck with his fingertips.
There was a fragment of Kaito's connector that had completely fused with his nerves and could not be removed. Occasionally, it sent a cold phantom pain through him, as if an old arithmetic circuit were still running.
It had become a complete part of his body.

...I'm here. Always, inside me.

Shizue lit a synthetic cigarette.
Her old-fashioned optical sensor flickered with a pale blue light.

...Is that so? Then, that's fine.

She exhaled a deep cloud of smoke and said only that.

May took a scratched, old terminal out of the workbench drawer.

May, that is...

Haruki recognized it too.
It was the spare terminal that Kaito had handed to May at the factory late that night.

This thing was acting strange until just a moment ago. Since yesterday, it's been displaying a single line of calculations over and over...

Haruki took the terminal.

The screen was filled with orderly sequences of numbers.
Mathematical formulas in polar coordinates used for astronomical observation.
Right ascension, declination, and an unknown vector.

It's true. It's actually running...

Haruki didn't understand the meaning of the formulas.
But he definitely recognized the way the data was arranged.
It was that efficient, yet somehow human, habit that was Kaito's alone, which he used to show when organizing his calculations.

...That guy, he left a backup in a place like this?

He felt as if the metal fragment in his neck had grown slightly warm.

Can you read it?

May peered over his shoulder.

It's coordinates. Real coordinates of the starry sky.

Real ones?

Yeah. Once you strip away the light from the hologram ads, the waste heat, and the electromagnetic noise, these are the coordinates of the universe where the stars are truly shining, calculated by Kaito.

May stared at the terminal for a while, then slowly looked up at the sky.
Rusted scrap metal and pipes crisscrossed in layers, and through the gaps, the fake light of the holograms shone down again today.

We can't see them. Not from here...

Ah...

But it's there, isn't it?

It is. Kaito calculated it. It's definitely there.

Shizue slowly tapped the ash off her cigarette with her prosthetic hand.

That meticulous cyborg bastard said so. There's no mistake. We have to go see that star someday, too.

Her voice was a little lower than usual, and gentle.

Haruki returned the terminal to Mei and drank the last drop of the terrible coffee. There was a nostalgic black sediment left at the bottom of the cup.

Hey, what are you going to do starting tomorrow?

I'm... going to ride.

That's it?

That's it. I'll ride and ride, and keep carving what they left behind into the asphalt. If I keep riding, I feel like I'll reach that star someday. It's not about logic.

Mei sighed as if a little exasperated and lightly tapped Haruki's head with a wrench.

Then at least wait until I'm done with the inspection. Your front forks are squeaking.

Got it.

And fill out the inspection sheet, too.

Huh? Yeah, I'll write it, probably.

Make sure you write it properly.

The two of them laughed together for the first time in a while.

The next morning.

Before the hologram could announce the dawn with its pale light, Haruki started the engine.

The front forks had been perfectly maintained by Mei, and fresh grease had been applied.
On the workbench, there was an inspection sheet with the maintenance items written out in detail in Mei's rounded handwriting.

Haruki carefully folded the paper and started to put it in his inner jacket pocket, but then changed his mind and tucked it into his collar, where the shard of Kaito was embedded.

The metal at his neck pulsed faintly as it touched the morning chill.

He starts to ride.

The Far East New District is the same as ever today.
Noisy, dirty, and filled with false light.
Even so, black, powerful tire tracks remain on the asphalt.

At the factory entrance, Mei stood with her arms crossed, a wrench in one hand.
She wasn't scolding him, nor was she crying.
She was simply watching him with eyes that believed in Haruki.

Haruki honked the horn once and sped out of the scrapyard.

The coordinates of the starry sky that Kaito left behind were glowing quietly in his pocket. 🌠♋️

(End)