Chapter 2: During
The transit pod hissed as it lifted from the platform, its magnetic rails humming beneath the floor. Ren pressed his forehead against the cool glass, watching the Ikawi house shrink into a dark speck against the verdant slope. Below, the refugee encampment sprawled like a stain, a chaotic mosaic of patched tents and stacked shipping modules, hazed by the smoke of morning cookfires. A group of children chased a threadbare ball through the mud, their laughter swallowed by the pod’s soundproofing.
He felt it then, a sharp, twisting desire in his gut. Not pity—that was a luxury, and a useless one. It was a fierce, combustible need to do something. To stand between that raw, struggling chaos and the clean, ordered streets of the inner districts. To be the barrier. To be the one who made sure the spreading stain never reached further. To be someone those children in the mud would look up at, not stare through. An Ikawi. A Cleanser.
The pod dove into a tunnel, and his reflection replaced the view: a pale, sharp face with his mother’s delicate jawline and large, dark eyes, framed by hair that fell a little too long around his ears. The androgynous look that made his neck burn back in the district schools. He looked away.
District Central Station was a blast of sterile, pressurized air and echoing footsteps. He merged with the river of grey and blue cadet uniforms flowing towards the Academy gates. The building was a brutalist slab of black composite and reinforced glass, but centuries-old gnarled wisteria vines, genetically hardened against pollutants, climbed its sides, their purple blooms a startling contrast to the austerity. It felt less like a castle and more like a fortress that nature was patiently, stubbornly, trying to reclaim.
He was checking his datapad for the day’s simulation schedule when a shoulder slammed into his, hard. The impact sent him stumbling sideways, his bag strap biting into his collarbone.
“Oops. Pardon me.”
The voice was a lazy drawl. Ren knew it. Jiro, a hulking third-year from a logistics family, flanked by two of his usual shadows. Jiro looked him up and down, a smirk playing on his lips. “Didn’t see you there, Ikawi. You blend right into the scenery. So… slight.”
One of the others snickered. “Watch your step, m’lady. The halls can be treacherous.”
The old, hot coals of anger ignited in Ren’s chest. His fingers clenched. He saw himself swinging, his fist connecting with Jiro’s smug mouth. But he saw Kaito’s face, scarred and calm, and heard the steady roll of his wheelchair on the floorboards. Unstable terrain. He forced a breath, his expression smoothing into the detached, vacant mask that infuriated bullies more than any retort. He didn’t look at them. He just adjusted his bag and walked on, as if they were nothing more than a draft in the corridor.
“Yeah, walk away!” Jiro called after him, the laugh echoing. “Go play with your dolls!”
The words faded behind him, leaving a metallic taste in his mouth. He pushed through the heavy doors into the Applied Tactics lecture hall, the noise of the corridor dropping to a murmur.
“Ren! Over here!”
Haru was waving from a middle-row seat, having saved a spot with his jacket draped over the chair. His friend’s face was a welcome shock of normalcy—bright-eyed, with perpetually unruly hair and a smile that seemed to ignore the Academy’s general grimness.
“You look like you licked a battery,” Haru said as Ren slumped into the seat.
“Jiro,” Ren muttered, unzipping his bag.
“Ah, the charmer. Don’t sweat it. He’s just pissed because his neural compatibility scores are lower than his temper.” Haru leaned in, conspiratorial. “Heard a rumor. Big guest speaker today. For the pilot-program hopefuls. Not just another retired suit-jockey, either. Someone… current.”
Before Ren could ask, the lights dimmed. The ambient chatter died. Instructor Valerius, a tall, austere woman with steel-grey hair cropped close to her scalp, took the podium. “Cadets. Silence. Today’s curriculum is deviation. You will listen. You will absorb. You will understand the scale of what you aspire to. Please welcome Major Aris Thorne, 7th Clean Cohort, Vanguard Pilot.”
A man walked to the podium. He wasn’t what Ren expected. He was of average height, lean, with a quiet economy of movement. He wore the standard black duty uniform, not dress regalia, but the left sleeve bore a simple, stark patch: a silver helix encircled by a starburst. The mark of a bonded Pilot. The room held its breath.
“Cadets,” Major Thorne began. His voice was calm, clear, and carried without effort. It wasn’t the booming, theatrical voice of a recruiter. That made it more compelling. “You look at the world outside these walls. You see the containment barriers, the refugee settlements, the news feeds showing the shimmer at the edge of Osaka. You see a problem.”
He paused, his gaze sweeping the room. It felt like he looked at each of them individually.
“I am here to tell you that you are not looking at a problem. You are looking at the reason. The reason you get up for dawn drills. The reason you study neural topography and anomaly physics. The reason this Academy exists.” He tapped the podium twice, and the wall behind him illuminated. It showed a serene, sun-drenched park—pre-Event footage from Kyoto. “This was. This can be again. Every square meter we reclaim from the distortions is a piece of our world handed back. It is a garden replanted, a street made safe, a home returned. There is no higher calling.”
Ren felt a shiver run up his spine. This wasn’t the dry, technical briefing from a tired instructor. This was different.
“The anomalies are a sickness in the fabric of place,” Thorne continued, the image shifting to a grotesque, pulsating honeycomb of distorted geometry—a Class-2 Spatial Bleed. “But they are not intelligent. They are not an enemy with a strategy. They are a natural disaster with teeth. And we are the surgeons. The Cleansers.”
The footage changed again. Now it showed a Vanguard exosuit in motion. Not a sim, not a training vid. Real combat. The suit, a sleek, predatory assembly of black alloy and blue energy conduits, moved with a terrifying, graceful speed. It flowed between jagged, crystalline growths, its arm-mounted plasma caster firing pulses of incandescent light. A creature, a mess of distorted biomass and sharp angles, lunged. The suit pivoted, grabbed a lamppost torn from the ground, and sheared the thing in half in a shower of disintegrating data-static.
“The bond is not a tool. It is a conversation,” Thorne said, his voice softening almost reverently. “The AI within the suit… it learns you. Your reflexes, your instincts, the very rhythm of your fear. In return, it grants you perception beyond senses. You don’t just see the enemy. You understand the flaw in its existence. You see the world as it truly is, and as it truly should be. And together, you fix it.”
Haru was leaning forward, elbows on the desk, completely rapt. Ren realized his own hands were clenched tightly together in his lap.
“Some will tell you it’s a sacrifice,” Thorne said, and for the first time, a hint of something personal, a shadow, crossed his composed features. “The training is brutal. The compatibility requirement is a lottery with terrible odds. The bonding process changes you. It leaves marks on the mind as well as the body.” He looked down at his own hands, then back up, his eyes blazing with a conviction that felt absolute. “But I ask you: what is the alternative? To hide behind walls? To let the world slowly be unmade? Or to stand up, to reach out, and to make it right?”
The screen behind him now showed a slow-motion pan across a cleared city block. Cleaners in hazard suits were removing the last of the residual distortion fog. A woman was handed a potted plant by a soldier, and she placed it on a windowsill, weeping. The image was perfectly composed, deeply emotional.
“You are the next line. You are the hope,” Thorne said, his final words dropping into a silent room. “The future isn’t something that happens to us. It’s something we build. And we build it by cleaning away the past’s mistakes. Every one of you has that potential. The question is, do you have the will to reach for it?”
The lights came up. For a moment, there was utter silence. Then applause erupted, not the polite kind, but a roaring, stombing, visceral wave of sound. Haru was whooping, pounding the desk. All around, cadets were on their feet, faces alight with a fierce, hungry hope.
For the first time that day, the weight didn’t feel like it would crush him. It felt like something to shoulder. Something to carry forward. Major Thorne was leaving the podium, and as he passed, his eyes briefly met Ren’s. The Major gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod, as if recognizing something. Then he was gone.
“You see?” Haru shouted over the dying applause, his eyes shining. “That’s it! That’s what we’re doing this for!”
Ren looked at his friend, then at his own hands, unclenching them. He nodded, a slow, certain breath filling his lungs. “Yeah,” he said, his voice quiet but clear. “It is.”