D-Animal
O mundo pareceu parar no exato instante em que o estalo ecoou.
Não foi um som alto.
Não foi uma explosão.
Foi seco, curto — definitivo.
Elara sentiu primeiro no corpo, não na mente.
O ar mudou. Ficou pesado demais para entrar nos pulmões. Fenrir rosnou baixo sob ela, as sombras ao redor do lobo se contorcendo como se quisessem fugir. O latejar em suas costas desapareceu por um segundo inteiro, substituído por um frio profundo, um vazio absoluto que subiu pela espinha.
— "Se abaixe!" — a voz de Rafael cortou o ar, rouca, atrasada por um fragmento de segundo.
Tarde demais.
O guepardo surgiu como uma lâmina viva.
Saltou do beco escuro com a elegância assassina de algo feito apenas para matar. As placas metálicas de seu corpo eram mais finas, anguladas, projetadas para velocidade extrema. Cada articulação rangia em sincronia perfeita, e seus olhos dourados piscavam de forma irregular — falhando, enlouquecidos, Deletio até o último código.
Elara viu tudo em câmera lenta.
O impacto contra Iron.
O corpo de Seung-Woo sendo lançado para o lado.
O som oco do crânio batendo contra o asfalto rachado.
— "Seung—!" — a voz de Elara morreu na própria garganta.
O coreano tentou se mover. Apenas tentou.
Os olhos desfocados buscaram o céu negro por um segundo, o mundo girando ao redor dele. Sangue escorria pela lateral de sua testa, misturando-se à poeira.
O guepardo pousou sobre ele.
Rosnou.
A mandíbula metálica se abriu além do limite natural, e de dentro do céu da boca, um pequeno cano retrátil se estendeu com um clique quase educado.
O disparo foi tão próximo que não houve eco.
A bala atravessou a cabeça de Seung-Woo a queima-roupa.
Catherine gritou.
O som foi agudo, quebrado, puro pânico. Ela caiu de Iron no mesmo instante, o corpo pesado demais para reagir, as pernas inúteis batendo contra o chão com um baque surdo.
Elara sentiu algo rasgar dentro do peito.
Não foi choque.
Não foi incredulidade.
Foi fúria pura.
Iron reagiu antes que qualquer humano pudesse pensar.
As engrenagens dentro do leão rugiram como um trovão contido. O ar ao redor dele vibrou. Uma lufada de fumaça quente escapou por suas narinas metálicas, carregada de óleo queimado e ódio digital.
O leão saltou.
Não houve estratégia. Não houve comando.
A mordida foi brutal.
As presas de Iron se fecharam ao redor do pescoço do guepardo com um estalo úmido de metal contra metal, carne sintética sendo esmagada. As garras se cravaram na anca do assassino, rasgando placas, arrancando cabos, expondo circuitos que chiavam em desespero.
O guepardo tentou reagir. Tentou disparar de novo.
Não conseguiu.
Iron torceu o pescoço com força absoluta.
A cabeça do guepardo se separou do corpo em um movimento seco. O corpo caiu no chão com um baque metálico, rangendo sobre o asfalto destruído, espasmos finais percorrendo suas pernas antes de ficar imóvel.
Silêncio.
Um silêncio horrível.
O corpo de Seung-Woo jazia alguns metros atrás, imóvel, o sangue se espalhando lentamente sob sua cabeça. Catherine chorava em silêncio, os olhos arregalados, incapaz de se mover, incapaz de desviar o olhar.
Rafael ficou rígido sobre Kaiser.
Lucas não fez som algum.
Elara não respirava.
Iron permaneceu parado por um segundo inteiro, o corpo ainda tensionado, como se esperasse outra ameaça surgir. Então, sem aviso, a luz em seus olhos diminuiu. As engrenagens desaceleraram. O protocolo automático foi acionado.
O leão foi recolhido para dentro da D-Armilla.
Um feixe de luz se dissipou no ar.
E então… só restou o vazio.
Elara desceu de Fenrir com as pernas trêmulas.
Cada passo parecia atravessar lama espessa. O cheiro de pólvora misturado a sangue era sufocante. Ela se ajoelhou ao lado de Seung-Woo, a mão tremendo ao tocar o pescoço dele.
Nenhum pulso.
Nenhum calor.
O Nexus havia se rompido no instante do disparo.
— "Não…" — o sussurro escapou sem que ela percebesse. — "Não… não agora…"
Fenrir rosnou atrás dela, baixo, instável. As sombras se agitavam de forma errática, refletindo o estado da mestra.
Rafael cerrou os dentes.
— "Elara," — disse, a voz dura, quase um rosnado humano. — "A gente não pode ficar."
Ela sabia.
Sabia melhor do que ninguém.
O Depletio Affinitatis já havia começado.
Em poucos minutos, se Iron não tivesse sido recolhido automaticamente… o que teria surgido ali não seria mais um leão.
Seria algo pior.
Elara fechou os olhos por um segundo.
Quando abriu, eles estavam vazios de lágrimas — apenas foco, dor e algo que começava a se solidificar em silêncio.
— "A gente continua," — disse, a voz rouca, mas firme. — "Agora."
O mundo não tinha parado.
E não ia esperar por eles.
The smell came before the sound.
It was a metallic, dense odor, mixing with the hot dust and the soot still suspended in the air — burned iron, leaking oil, human flesh charred somewhere in the distance. A smell that clung to the throat and refused to leave, no matter how many times one breathed deeply. Elara felt her stomach twist, but she didn't slow down. She couldn't.
She held Catherine firmly, the woman's arm braced over her shoulder, feeling the uneven weight of the injured body, the involuntary trembling that betrayed pain and exhaustion. Catherine limped, her face pale, lips dry, but still conscious — and that, in a collapsing world, was already a rare victory.
— "Can you still feel him?" — Elara asked, her voice low but firm, leaning closer so Catherine could hear despite the cutting wind and the distant cracks of collapsing structures. — "Your D-Animal. The connection."
Catherine blinked a few times, took a deep breath, as if testing something invisible inside herself. She raised her trembling hand to her wrist, where the D-Armilla pulsed with a faint, intermittent light.
— "I can…" — she answered, her voice hoarse. — "It's weak, but… it's still there. Like a thread stretched too tight."
Elara smiled faintly. It wasn't joy — it was strategic relief.
— "That's good," — she said. — "It means he's close. Very close."
The convenience store building groaned behind them. The left side had nearly collapsed completely, twisted beams exposed like broken bones, the roof sagging at impossible angles. Glass fragments cracked beneath Fenrir's steps as he prowled restlessly, his metallic form partially blurred by the shadows wrapped around him.
— "Catherine," — Elara continued, stopping for a moment. — "You need to call him back. Now."
— "What?" — Catherine's eyes widened, confused, frightened. — "But… what if he's fighting? What if—"
— "If you don't," — Elara interrupted, without harshness but with no room for debate, — "he'll be buried with the building. Or worse."
The ground trembled, as if the world had coughed.
Catherine swallowed hard. There was no more time for doubt.
As she was pulled out of the store, now also supported by Seung-Woo, she raised her arm with effort, her wrist glowing irregularly. The D-Armilla felt too hot against her skin.
She took a deep breath, gathered what little strength she had left, and shouted, her voice echoing among the debris:
— "Koks! Time to return! Disconnect and come back!"
The response came almost immediately.
Bluish waves spread through the air, distorting the light around them as if reality itself had bent for an instant. A bright beam emerged from the rubble — digital particles tearing free from something invisible, converging rapidly toward Catherine's wrist. The sound was familiar to Elara: the low hum of data being recalled, the soft click of digital gears aligning.
Koks was returning.
But the building didn't wait.
A dry, deep crack reverberated like a cannon shot. The roof finally gave way, tons of concrete and metal crashing down in a cascade. The impact raised a dense cloud of dust and soot, the air turning heavy, almost solid.
— "Now!" — Elara shouted.
Fenrir reacted first, bursting outward with a muffled snarl, shadows stretching around his body. Iron appeared right behind him, the weight of the metal lion cracking the asphalt beneath his paws. Kaiser charged forward with a deep mechanical roar, Kaine's spiders scattering and clinging to the larger plates, seeking stability.
Seung-Woo didn't hesitate. He yanked Catherine forward, lifting her with Iron's help.
— "Up!" — he ordered.
Catherine barely had time to react before being placed atop the lion's back. She instinctively clutched the metallic mane, gasping.
Rafael was already mounted on Kaiser, Lucas held firmly in front, thin arms wrapped around the ligre's cold structure. The boy trembled, but he didn't cry. Not anymore.
Elara leapt onto Fenrir, feeling the pain in her back explode in protest as the impact pulled at her injured muscles. She growled low, teeth clenched, refusing to give in.
— "Run!" — she shouted.
They took off.
Metallic paws hammered the ground in a frenetic rhythm, each stride echoing like muffled thunder. Behind them, the convenience store building collapsed completely, raising a wall of dust that swallowed the entire block.
Visio flew high, eyes widening the view, transmitting fragmented images to Elara: shattered streets, open craters, overturned vehicles, structures reduced to smoking skeletons.
And then she saw them.
— "No… no, no, no…" — Elara murmured, her voice tight.
Three colossal masses advanced down the side avenue, knocking down poles and crushing the asphalt with brutal ease. Elephants. Ferus. Their metallic tusks gleamed under the dim light, massive bodies covered in thick plates, cracked and stained with dark oil.
— "Seung!" — Elara shouted. — "Three Ferus elephants coming from the left! Speed up!"
The Ferus roars followed — deep, vibrating, making the air tremble.
The D-Animals responded, pushing their structures to the limit. Fenrir stretched the shadows, his body almost dissolving into them as he ran. Iron lowered his head, increasing speed despite the extra weight. Kaiser surged like a projectile, artificial muscles grinding under extreme strain.
The path ahead was a cemetery.
Uthos littered the streets — carcasses of abandoned D-Animals, some motionless for days, others clearly destroyed by force. Some still flickered, systems slowly failing, like dying eyes that could no longer close.
The smell there was worse.
Burned oil. Oxidized metal. Something rotten, ancient. Digital and organic death fused into a single nauseating layer.
— "My God…" — Catherine whispered, her voice barely audible.
Farther ahead, human bodies appeared among the rubble. Soldiers. Torn uniforms, armor ripped open by force. Elara felt her heart tighten.
— "D-Armillas removed," — Seung-Woo murmured, jaw tense. — "All of them."
Elara nodded, eyes burning.
It was protocol. A fallen soldier couldn't maintain the bond. If the D-Armilla wasn't removed in time, the invisible clock began to tick.
Depletio Affinitatis.
Ten. Fifteen minutes.
After that, the Nexus broke.
And the Deletio was born.
— "They didn't make it in time…" — Lucas murmured, his voice breaking.
Elara didn't answer. She didn't trust her voice in that moment.
Time had passed too quickly. They had left home at five-thirty in the morning. Now the sky darkened completely, night almost fully falling over the ruined city. Soot clung to Elara's blonde hair, turning it gray. Lucas's red hair was unrecognizable, smeared with mud and dust.
Elara's back burned with every movement. Each breath made the cuts protest. But she ignored it. She always did.
The Ferus elephants roared again, closer now.
— "Faster!" — Elara shouted, even knowing they were already at their limit.
The D-Animals leapt over bodies, dodging carefully — not out of respect, but out of their masters' programmed instinct. None of them wanted to touch that. None of them wanted to feel more of that smell.
Visio circled in the air, vision adjusting.
— "We're almost out of range," — Elara said, more to herself than to the others.
Behind them, somewhere unseen in the city, something roared.
Something that no longer had a master.
Something whose Nexus had shattered.
The world of D-Animals did not forgive delays.
And that night was far from over.
The world seemed to stop at the exact moment the crack echoed.
It wasn't loud.
It wasn't an explosion.
It was dry, short — final.
Elara felt it first in her body, not her mind.
The air changed. It grew too heavy to enter her lungs. Fenrir growled low beneath her, the shadows around the wolf twisting as if trying to flee. The throbbing in her back vanished for a full second, replaced by a deep cold, an absolute void that climbed her spine.
— "Get down!" — Rafael's voice cut through the air, hoarse, delayed by a fraction of a second.
Too late.
The cheetah appeared like a living blade.
It leapt from the dark alley with the lethal elegance of something made solely to kill. The metal plates on its body were thinner, angular, designed for extreme speed. Every joint rang in perfect synchronization, and its golden eyes flickered erratically — failing, deranged, Deletio to the last code.
Elara saw everything in slow motion.
The impact against Iron.
Seung-Woo's body being thrown aside.
The hollow sound of his skull striking cracked asphalt.
— "Seung—!" — Elara's voice died in her throat.
The Korean tried to move. Only tried.
His unfocused eyes searched the black sky for a second, the world spinning around him. Blood streamed down the side of his head, mixing with dust.
The cheetah landed on him.
It snarled.
The metal jaw opened beyond natural limits, and from within the roof of its mouth, a small retractable barrel extended with an almost polite click.
The shot was so close there was no echo.
The bullet passed through Seung-Woo's head at point-blank range.
Catherine screamed.
The sound was sharp, broken, pure panic. She fell from Iron at once, her body too heavy to react, useless legs hitting the ground with a dull thud.
Elara felt something tear inside her chest.
It wasn't shock.
It wasn't disbelief.
It was pure fury.
Iron reacted before any human could think.
The gears within the lion roared like a contained thunder. The air around him vibrated. A blast of hot smoke poured from his metal nostrils, heavy with burned oil and digital hatred.
The lion leapt.
There was no strategy. There was no command.
The bite was brutal.
Iron's fangs closed around the cheetah's neck with a wet crack of metal against metal, synthetic flesh crushed. The claws dug into the killer's haunches, tearing plates, ripping cables free, exposing circuits that screeched in despair.
The cheetah tried to react. Tried to fire again.
It couldn't.
Iron twisted the neck with absolute force.
The cheetah's head separated from its body in a single dry motion. The body hit the ground with a metallic crash, scraping over the ruined asphalt, final spasms running through its legs before going still.
Silence.
A horrible silence.
Seung-Woo's body lay a few meters behind, unmoving, blood slowly spreading beneath his head. Catherine cried silently, eyes wide, unable to move, unable to look away.
Rafael went rigid atop Kaiser.
Lucas made no sound.
Elara wasn't breathing.
Iron stood still for a full second, body still tense, as if waiting for another threat to appear. Then, without warning, the light in his eyes dimmed. The gears slowed. The automatic protocol activated.
The lion was recalled into the D-Armilla.
A beam of light dissipated into the air.
And then… only emptiness remained.
Elara slid down from Fenrir, legs trembling.
Each step felt like wading through thick mud. The smell of gunpowder mixed with blood was suffocating. She knelt beside Seung-Woo, her hand shaking as it touched his neck.
No pulse.
No warmth.
The Nexus had ruptured at the instant of the shot.
— "No…" — the whisper escaped before she realized it. — "No… not now…"
Fenrir growled behind her, low, unstable. The shadows writhed erratically, reflecting their mistress's state.
Rafael clenched his teeth.
— "Elara," — he said, voice hard, almost a human snarl. — "We can't stay."
She knew.
She knew better than anyone.
Depletio Affinitatis had already begun.
In a few minutes, if Iron hadn't been automatically recalled… what would have emerged there wouldn't be a lion anymore.
It would be something worse.
Elara closed her eyes for a second.
When she opened them, they held no tears — only focus, pain, and something beginning to solidify in silence.
— "We move on," — she said, voice hoarse but firm. — "Now."
The world hadn't stopped.
And it wouldn't wait for them.
The term came to Elara's mind like an ancient whisper, learned in classes few took seriously, now carving itself into her awareness like a blade.
Ultio.
Vengeance.
That was the name given when a D-Animal, still active at the moment of its human bond's death, received a final window of action — a short, brutal, inevitable interval. A last fragment of shared will, not rational, not strategic, but instinctive. The D-Animal felt the Nexus rupture as absolute pain, and before the total collapse of affinity dragged it back into the D-Armilla, it was permitted to do one thing:
Avenge.
Iron had done exactly that.
Elara swallowed hard, her throat burning. The metallic taste of soot mixed with tears threatening to fall made it hard to breathe. She dismounted Fenrir without realizing when she had moved, her feet touching the cold, uneven ground with almost no sensation.
The world felt distant, muffled, as if submerged.
She ran to Seung-Woo.
His body lay on its side, far too still for someone who minutes ago had been breathing, speaking, protecting. The blood had stopped flowing, forming a dark pool beneath his head. Elara dropped to her knees beside him, ignoring the searing pain in her back, ignoring the tremor in her arms.
— "I'm sorry…" — she murmured, not even sure for what.
Her hands went straight to his wrist.
The D-Armilla was still there.
Active.
Pulsing faintly.
Elara's heart missed a beat.
— "No… no, no, no…" — she whispered, her fingers slipping slightly from blood and dust.
She knew what would happen if she delayed.
Depletio Affinitatis had begun the instant Seung-Woo died. The Ultio had been triggered and completed, but if the D-Armilla remained there, bound to a lifeless body, the Nexus collapse would continue its inevitable course. In a few minutes, even recalled, Iron could be lost. He could return as something else.
As something wrong.
Elara clenched her teeth and pulled.
The D-Armilla's lock resisted.
— "Come on…" — she murmured, voice breaking as she forced it again, fingers aching. — "Please…"
The mechanism gave with a dry click.
The D-Armilla came free from Seung-Woo's wrist, the internal light slowly fading until it went completely dark. Inert. Safe.
Iron would not become a Deletio.
Elara let out a trembling breath that sounded almost like a sob.
She stayed there a second longer, kneeling beside him, holding the D-Armilla in her hands as if it were something sacred. Then, with almost ceremonial care, she raised her right hand to Seung-Woo's face.
His eyes were still open, empty, reflecting the dark, broken sky of the city.
She closed them gently.
— "Rest…" — she whispered. — "You did more than you should have."
A tear slipped free, carving a warm, dirty path down Elara's cheek. She didn't wipe it away.
They barely knew each other.
He was the student council president, first in the rankings. She was just an ordinary student, fourth place, invisible to almost everyone. Still, Seung-Woo had helped. He had lied for her. Put himself at risk. Pretended to be her fiancé. Opened doors that would never open for someone like Elara.
And now… he was dead.
Catherine watched the scene with wide eyes, her face far too pale for someone still alive. The air didn't seem to enter her lungs properly. The Deletio cheetah had passed her from the side, too fast to react — and only now, as the heavy silence settled, did reality catch up.
If it had been one step different… one second more…
She swallowed hard, her stomach churning.
Rafael didn't say a word.
From the instant the cheetah appeared, he had reacted on pure instinct. His arm had shot out, firm, covering Lucas's eyes before the boy could even understand what was happening. His large, calloused hand pressed gently, but without leaving room for resistance.
Lucas heard everything.
The impact.
The shot.
Iron's roar.
The metallic sound of the head rolling across the ground.
But he didn't see it.
And Rafael stayed there, unmoving, shielding him from the kind of memory that never fades.
— "Don't look," — he murmured, almost inaudible, more to himself than to the boy.
Fenrir stayed close to Elara, the shadows around the wolf vibrating unstably, reacting to their mistress's emotional state. Visio hovered above in absolute silence, eyes glowing softly as she watched the surroundings.
The danger still existed.
But in that moment… no one moved.
The world of D-Animals continued cruel, merciless, governed by rules that left no room for mourning. Still, Elara remained kneeling for a few more seconds, carving that face into her memory.
She knew.
It wouldn't be the last body.
But it would be the first she would never forget.