Sola leapt into the air, her silhouette momentarily blotting out the dim streetlights. She dove toward him like a bullet. Kenzo's reflexes—jagged and automatic—kicked in, but they weren't enough. The flat of her crescent blade slammed into his chest, the strike sending him flying backward.
Kenzo crashed into a parked transit bus, the metal crumpling like paper under the force of his impact. Glass shattered, raining down on him as he slumped against a ruined tire.
"Stop this!" Kenzo grunted internally, his mind clawing for air. "We need to turn down this fight. It won't help anything. The Weaver is dead. The threat is gone!"
However, the Echo didn't back down. Its voice was low.
"You don't understand, Kenzo. You don't understand the power that woman holds."
"Power?" Kenzo asked, his vision swimming. "You mean her Evo? Her rank?"
The Echo didn't reply at first. Outside, Sola walked toward the wreckage of the bus, her boots clicking with terrifying rhythm. She looked at Kenzo, but her eyes weren't focused on his face—they were focused on the pulsing purple static around his heart.
"Yes," the Echo finally hissed. "You hear me, don't you? You hear my voice clearly, can't you... Commander?"
Sola didn't reply with words. Her expression remained a mask of cold porcelain, but her grip on her axe tightened until the leather wrap groaned. She lunged again, a vertical strike meant to split the bus in half. Kenzo threw his glass-encrusted arm up, parrying the blade. The contact created a shower of purple and sapphire sparks that lit up the plaza.
"You're not controlling it, Kenzo," Sola said, her voice dropping. She leaned into the axe, putting more of her strength into the press, forcing Kenzo's knees to buckle. "I follow my duty. I end all Remnants. That includes the rogue consciousness living within your ribs."
Kenzo struggled to keep the blade from his throat. "She can hear you?" he thought, his heart racing.
The Echo let out a jagged, digital laugh that vibrated out of Kenzo's mouth.
"Then do something about it, Sola! Strike the heart! Erase the mirror!"
Sola's eyes widened for a fraction of a second. She realized the Echo knew her name. It knew what she was.
"So that's how it is," Sola whispered. With a sudden, violent surge of energy, she kicked the bus, using the leverage to push Kenzo back and send him tumbling into the street.
Kenzo scrambled to his feet, his breath hitching. His mind was spinning. "Wait... she replied to that voice. She actually replied to it. Does that mean she can... she can hear the Echo too?"
He looked at Sola—really looked at her. He saw the way she held her right arm, the way the white scarf was wrapped specifically to hide the shoulder line.
"You're like me," Kenzo said, the realization hitting him harder than her axe ever could. "That's why you're so afraid."
...
The dust from the bus impact settled, but the air remained thick. Kenzo pushed himself off the asphalt, his fingers digging into the cracked road. His vision blurred, the purple tint of the Distortion making everything look like a fractured mirror.
"You realized as well, didn't you?" The Echo's voice rumbled in the back of Kenzo's mind, sounding smug. "The way she flinches. The way she reacts every time I speak. That woman standing before you... she isn't just a Commander. She is also part Remnant."
"You can hear it, can't you..." Kenzo rasped, his voice sounding more human than it had in hours.
Sola didn't move. She didn't deny it. The silence stretched between us, filled only by the distant sounds of sirens and the hum of the city.
"Yes," Sola finally replied. Her voice was a cold, hollow whisper.
She took a slow step forward, her gaze piercing through me as if she were looking at something behind my eyes. She didn't look angry; she looked exhausted.
"It's not just the thing living inside of you, Kenzo," she said, her grip on the axe loosening for the first time. "It's every single one of them. Every Remnant that breaks into our world, every lingering shadow of a dead reality... I can hear them all. I can speak with them. And most of all, I can hear their hunger."
Kenzo felt a chill run down his spine. I thought having one voice in my head was a nightmare, but her? She was living in a constant storm of static.
"Every time I strike one down, I hear it scream," Sola continued, her eyes fixed on the purple glow around Kenzo's hand. "They don't just die. They beg. They taunt. They remind me of what I am and what I'll eventually become."
...
"You think we are the same, Kenzo? We aren't," Sola said. "The Remnant living inside me... it has never spoken a single word. Not once in ten years."
She explained that while she was granted the gift of Distortion and the curse of hearing every Remnant in existence, her own internal parasite remained a silent, heavy void. She lived in a world of constant external noise, but internal silence.
Slowly, Sola reached up and unwound the long white scarf from her neck. As the fabric fell away, Kenzo's breath stopped.
Starting from the base of her throat and spreading across her collarbones to her shoulders was a jagged, glass-like texture. It wasn't skin anymore; it was translucent, violet-tinted crystal that shimmered under the city lights.
"A constant reminder of what I am now," she whispered.
Kenzo was gripped by a sudden wave of shock, but right behind it came a strange, heavy sense of relief. He wasn't the only one. He wasn't a solitary freak of nature. But as he looked at her, he realized her relief didn't match his.
"To tell you the truth," Sola said, her eyes narrowing as she stepped closer, her boots crunching on glass, "I hate you, Kenzo."
Kenzo flinched, his brow furrowing. "What?"
"I hate the way you look at this power," she spat. "I hate the way you still fight, the way you still hold onto hope while knowing there is a deadly, world-eating being coiled within your ribs. You act as if this is a gift you can master. You act as if you're still human."
Kenzo straightened his back, the purple glow of his reconstructed arm pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. He didn't look away. "I have a goal, Sola. I'm going to protect my home. I'm going to make sure my family is safe, and one day... I'm going to find a way back. But I can't do that if I'm afraid of myself. I have to eliminate the Remnants, and I have to understand how this power works."
Sola let out a short, dry laugh. "That's touching. Truly. But I cannot allow you to live purely off of ambitions. This reality doesn't care about your goals."
She raised her axe, the black-and-blue energy swirling around the blade.
"You must either tame that being," Sola declared, her voice booming through the plaza, "or you will die trying to survive. There is no middle ground for poeple like us. So, Kenzo... which one will it be?"
The Echo's voice rumbled through Kenzo's mind, a dark, amused vibration that made his skin crawl.
"This one is interesting..." the Echo mused. "She wants to see if you can hold the leash."
Sola's eyes snapped to Kenzo's face, a grim smile tugging at her lips as she heard the Echo's resonance vibrating through the air.
"It sure is," she replied, addressing the voice directly.