The rain had stopped, but the city hadn't dried. Water still dripped from rusted gutters, pooling in the cracks of the street, catching neon light like broken glass. The warehouse sat quiet in the dark—too quiet, the kind of silence that came before something shattered.
Inside, the air felt thick. Heavy. Wrong. Kojo stood near the flickering light strip, steam curling off his damp coat. His grin was gone. The easy confidence, the swagger—gone. What was left looked older. Tired. Dangerous. And beneath his voice, when he spoke, there was a hum. Low. Steady. Rhythmic. Like a bassline nobody else was supposed to hear.
Seraph noticed it first. She'd been trained to hear things others missed—frequencies, distortions, the subtle wrongness that marked Tuned trying to hide what they were. Her pupils dilated slightly, instinctive, and the world shifted. Resonance painted the room in colors only she could see. Kojo's body wasn't just alive. It was resonating.
"You want to tell me," Seraph said slowly, hand drifting toward her blade, "why your frequency sounds like a Sanctifier's?" Kojo's jaw flexed. "You've been listening too hard, soldier."
"Answer the question." Reverb's hand moved toward his sidearm—subtle, careful. He didn't draw. Not yet. But his fingers were ready.
Ilias stepped between them, hands raised, that reckless grin on his face even though his eyes were sharp. "Whoa, hey. This guy's cool, alright? He saved my life back in Kuro Pier. He's not—" Kojo's eyes flicked to him. Sharp. Almost sad. "You still think I did that for you, little brother?" The words hit like a punch to the gut. Ilias froze. His mouth opened. No sound came out.
"Brother?" Seraph echoed, voice flat, dangerous. Kojo turned, letting the mask drop. He reached up, pulled down his collar, and revealed what he'd been hiding. A burn mark. Faint but unmistakable. Shaped like the Church's harmonic sigil—three concentric waves, rising. It pulsed faintly with bioluminescent light, shifting in rhythm with his heartbeat. The mark of a Resonant Proxy.
"Half-brother," Kojo said quietly. "Different mothers. Same father. Same blood the Church wanted to refine." The silence that followed felt like thunder building in the distance. Ilias's voice cracked when he finally spoke. "You're lying." "You think I wanted this?" Kojo's voice rose, raw and angry. "They took us both, Ilias. You were three. I was seven. You don't remember because you got out. I didn't."
He slammed his fist into the wall. The metal warped. Not dented. Warped. Like it was liquid, like the resonance in his body had rewritten the laws of physics for half a second. The vibration rippled outward, shaking the floor, rattling the windows. Reverb stumbled back. "Okay, that's definitely new." Seraph steadied herself, eyes locked on Kojo. "You're a weapon."
"I'm what they made to hunt the thing you're hiding." Kojo's gaze cut to Ilias, and there was something broken in his eyes. Something that had been shattered a long time ago and never healed. "And you're the prototype." Ilias's breath hitched. "What are you talking about?"
"The Church doesn't just tune people for worship, Ilias. They tune them for war. They wanted soldiers. Living weapons. Resonance bombs they could point at enemies and detonate." Kojo's voice dropped. "You were the first success. I was the second. And when you disappeared—when Dad smuggled you out before they could finish—they turned me into what you were supposed to become."
The air in the room grew heavy. Ilias felt it before he understood it—his pulse spiking, his chest tightening, the frequency building inside him like pressure behind a dam. "No," he whispered. "No, you're—" "I'm telling the truth," Kojo said. "And you know it. Because you can feel it, can't you? The way our frequencies match. The way we resonate."
And he was right. Ilias could feel it. Like standing next to a mirror that reflected sound instead of light. Kojo's frequency hummed in harmony with his own—not identical, but complementary. Two halves of the same chord. "They made us to be a pair," Kojo said quietly. "A symphony of destruction. And when you vanished, they broke me trying to make me whole again."
Seraph's hand was on her blade now, fully drawn. "If you're here to bring him in—" "I'm here because I owe him," Kojo snapped. "Because he's the only family I have left. Because our father died getting him out, and I'll be damned if I let the Church take him back."
"Then why didn't you tell him?" Seraph demanded. "Why the gang colors? Why the act?" "Because the Church is watching," Kojo said. "They've been watching since the day he lit up the Pulseforge. Every move he makes, every frequency he throws—they're cataloging it. Building a profile. And if they knew I was here, if they knew we'd made contact—" He looked at Ilias. "They'd deploy everything they have."
"They already are," Reverb said, still crouched behind cover. "In case you missed it, we've got about ten minutes before the Council's triangulation hits this building." Kojo nodded. "Then we need to move. Now." "We're not going anywhere with you," Seraph said. "You don't have a choice." "Watch me."
And then Ilias sang. It wasn't intentional. It wasn't controlled. It was instinct. Grief. Rage. Betrayal. Confusion. All of it compressed into a single frequency and released. The sound tore through the warehouse like a shockwave. Windows exploded outward. Metal groaned. The floor cracked, splintering down the center like ice breaking under weight.
Kojo stepped forward through it, aura flaring red around his body—matching the frequency, harmonizing with it, fighting it. Two brothers. Two resonant storms. One harmony turning violent. Seraph tried to move—tried to do something—but the sound pinned her down. It wasn't just noise. It was emotion, raw and unfiltered, pressing against her chest like a weight
Reverb yelled something—lost in the roar. And Kojo, standing in the center of the maelstrom, locked eyes with Ilias. "If you can hear this, brother," he said, voice cutting through the chaos like a blade, "then you know how it ends." He slammed his hands together.
The explosion that followed wasn't fire. It was sound. A detonation of pure resonance that tore the warehouse apart—glass, metal, memory—all of it scattering into the rain-soaked night.
When the dust settled, the warehouse was gone. Just a crater. Smoking rubble. Twisted metal frames jutting out like broken ribs. Seraph woke first, ears ringing, vision blurred. She dragged herself upright, coughing, tasting blood. Her blade was still in her hand—muscle memory, even unconscious.
Reverb groaned nearby, half-buried under debris. "Everyone… still got all their pieces?" Seraph scanned the wreckage. "Where's Ilias?" Silence. She stood, stumbling, heart pounding. "Ilias!" No answer. Just the distant wail of sirens. The Church was coming. And in the center of the crater, where the explosion had started, there was nothing. No body. No blood. Just a faint scorch mark shaped like two overlapping spirals. And footprints. Leading away. Two sets.
Ilias woke to the smell of rain and rust. He was moving—being carried, half-conscious, over someone's shoulder. His head pounded. His ears rang. Everything hurt. "Put me down," he mumbled. "Not yet," Kojo's voice said.
Ilias tried to struggle, but his body wouldn't obey. "Where… where are you taking me?" "Somewhere safe." "Liar." Kojo didn't answer. They moved through the dark, through alleys Ilias didn't recognize, past buildings that looked abandoned but weren't—eyes watching from windows, shadows shifting in doorways.
Finally, Kojo stopped. Set him down carefully against a wall. Ilias looked up, vision clearing slowly. They were in front of a small clinic. The sign was half-burned, barely readable: "Mira's Hope — Free Resonance Care." "Mira?" Ilias whispered. Kojo nodded. "My sister. Our sister. She's been waiting to meet you.
The door opened. And a woman stepped out—mid-twenties, dark skin, eyes sharp and kind at the same time. She wore a medic's coat, hands glowing faintly with healing resonance. She looked at Ilias. And smiled. "Welcome home, little brother."