CHAPTER 7: C-R-A-D-L-E

It was, Shogo. Finally coming back from his ’Punishment’ that he had received from the coffee incident with Tenka, but now...

He was hobbling...

Kentaro was the only one shocked, his face widened when Shogo slowly walked over to the three of them. But Tenka and Haruka’s faces stayed the same, as if they were used to this.

Shogo stood next to Haruka, trying to keep his face stern and serious, but he couldn’t hide the fact that he was in a lot of pain.

"Hell, some of them say it’s kindness. That putting someone down before they collapse is mercy." Shogo slowly muttered.

Kentaro snapped out of his worry for Shogo and shouted, "But that’s insane!"

Tenka’s eyes narrowed

"It’s logical. Efficient. And terrifying."

Tenka continued to talk.

"This organisation is funded by the government; they want these Alberlines gone as it’s hurting their pocket having to reinvest into rebuilding buildings again. Not to mention the countless people that go missing and the government has to fund their searches even though they know there’s a very low chance of them being found."

Haruka turned off the footage, letting the darkness linger a second too long.

"They operate in silence. No survivors. No evidence. If they ever find out someone like you can anchor.... you’ll become their next target."

Those words hit Kentaro hard as he stood frozen. This wasn’t just about saving people anymore. It was about choosing what kind of world should survive.

Everyone stood there in silence before Tenka began to walk back to her commander’s chair. Everyone, including the soldiers, had stopped typing and talking. They all turned around to face the commander’s chair, almost as if it was rehearsed. Tenka now facing back towards Kentaro and the others, her eyes flickered between everyone but stopped right on Kentaro. She took a deep breath in preparing to say something to Kentaro.

"Kentaro, now you know what cradle does. It is time to reveal what we do," She shouted loud and proud.

With just another quick deep breath, she continued.

"We are Halcyon, an organisation that protects and saves Alberlines from the clutches of cradles."

She stood there grinning.

"Though for awhile now it’s been quite difficult, due to us having a hard time getting in contact with the Alberlines."

She paused. Her smile became bigger as she kept her laser-focused eye on Kentaro, then as if to call him out, she pointed directly at him.

"YOU! My dear Ken, you are the one that our organisation has been looking for, for all these years. You are the perfect man for this job to save the Alberlines."

Kentaro stood frozen, staring right at Tenka, slightly tilting his head.

"Wait.. WHY ME?"

Kentaro’s voice crackled slightly. "Why can I do this? W-why not Shogo, or.... any of you?"

Tenka’s face still had her smile as if she knew he would ask that.

But instead of answering him straight away, she looked at Haruka. Haruka understood her look and began to walk over the nearby holo-console and brought up a shimmering projection, an echo of the simulation date from earlier. A waveform, erratic and violent, was shown, but when Kentaro was around, the storm calmed.

"Because you didn’t suppress Rin."

Haruka’s voice was precise. Clinical. But under it... Awe.

"You resonated. Without syncing tech. Without training. The drift didn’t reject you."

Shogo whistled low.

"She aimed a gun at your head, and yet you still calmed her down, even for a bit, but that’s like taming a rabid bear with a compliment."

Kentaro blinked.

"Umm, that wasn’t my intention, honestly, it was me trying to be honest with her."

Tenka finally stepped forward. Her eyes were locked onto the display, but her voice hit straight.

"That’s what makes you dangerous, but also very valuable at the same time, Ken."

"We’ve tried simulations. Artificial anchors. Emotional dampeners. None of them worked."

"But you, somehow, can connect with them on a level we can’t replicate."

Kentaro lowered his head, looking dejected.

"I’m not that special.. I-i was just there."

"Exactly."

Tenka replied.

"And you are here talking to us... You survived. With this, we can use your ability to talk to them directly. To put it bluntly, you are someone that we need..."

*

After talking to Kentaro, trying to convince him to help them on their mission to save the Alberlines, Tenka suggested that they go through a test, more like a simulation, to give Kentaro an idea of what he will get himself into and to get a feel for how the situation is going to play out.

"Listen, at least try out our simulation tech. It’ll show you what you could go through and overall give you an idea of what to do and how you’ll feel." Tenka asked, trying to convince Kentaro.

Haruka nodded in agreement with Tenka.

"Yes, I think so, Ren."

It wouldn’t take too long for Kentaro to eventually give in to their demands and agree to their simulation.

"Great! Let’s find out what you can do," Tenka Announced.

And so they began to make their way to the ’Simulation Room.’

They were standing on a small round section of the bridge floor, just big enough to fit the captain’s chair with a narrow space around it. A thin line marked its edge, like it was cut out from the rest of the deck.

Kentaro didn’t think much of it, until Tenka clapped her hands.

With a soft mechanical click, the floor beneath them began to sink. The circle dropped slowly, separating from the rest of the bridge. Kentaro wobbled a bit, startled.

"This part’s not connected to the main floor," Tenka said calmly. "It’s its own lift. Commander access only."

As the now separated floors began their descent, the light from the control room began to fade away until eventually it was pitch black.

Haruka, though not being able to see him, would want to show him something.

"Listen, Ren, before we get down there, I thought since you might want to know a bit more about the Alberlines, here’s the first Alberline caught on tape, the footage of her that we managed to uncover."

The area around them was completely shrouded in darkness, the kind that seemed to swallow everything whole. The only source of light came from the tablet in Haruka’s hands. As she powered it on, its bright screen pierced the pitch-black void, casting a cold, bluish glow across their faces and the surrounding gloom. Though Kentaro had been bracing himself, the sudden burst of light still startled him. He instinctively shielded his eyes, squinting as they struggled to adjust. Haruka, however, didn’t wait. Without hesitation, she pressed play.

The first few seconds were a blur, due to the light, but that did not stop Kentaro hearing the screams of people when his eyes finally adjusted. He saw it.

A city broken, collapsed, the footage flickers, skipping frames showing its age.

Haruka whispered.

"This is what we believe was the first drift bloom... The source of all Alberlines."

"From what we learned, her name was Altherin. Also known as the end Alberline. She didn’t rage. Didn’t speak. She just felt... Too much"

Kentaro watched a girl in the eye of the chaos, her face obscured, her hair looking Dark.

Haruka continued to talk

"She wasn’t destroyed, she was contained. That’s what we’ve heard anyway."

Tenka leaned in, eyes fixed on the flickering footage. Her voice stayed flat... but her posture stiffened, just slightly.

"Some believe she still exists," she said, watching the screen a little too closely. "Others say... she became the Drift itself."

For a flicker of a second, her eyes widened slightly as she watched the image of the collapsing world. She blinked, looked away, then began to stare into the darkness in front of her.

Kentaro, hearing what Tenka had said, swallowed hard.

"Is that what happens i-if I fail?"

Haruka nodded, and just as she does, the floor stops lowering, with a mechanical thud. In front of Kentaro stood a massive circular chamber. The room opened like an unfolding flower, like metal petals retracting into the walls. The air was colder here. Not freezing, but clinical, like it had never been touched by sunlight. The walls were sleek, a soft matte black, laced with thin glowing lines like a nervous system vein. No visible doors. No cables. Just quiet hums vibrating through the floor.

Kentaro stepped forward into the space. The lights above adjusted instantly to follow him. He noticed a raised platform in the centre. A thin circular ring, surrounded by six curved support arms aimed inward like a crown or restraint system.

"This is the drift sync core," Haruka explained calmly. "It reads your emotional field, amplifies it, and creates a simulation from it. This isn’t a test of skill. It’s a test of feeling."

"And if I fail?" Kentaro asked, half joking, half not.

Tenka’s voice came in through the comm.

You won’t. But if you panic... We’ll pull you out."

Kentaro stepped onto the platform. A click sounded under his boots. His heart skipped. The curved arms around the circle adjusted slightly inward.

Then... nothing.

Just a low hum.

Until the world shattered.

Like glass warping into water, the black chamber melted into colour. The walls rippled out of sight. The air went heavy, like gravity had changed direction.

Around him. A fractured city, flickering like memory. Rain fell upward. Doors led nowhere. Streetlights hovered sideways.

And in the distance... a figure.

This time not Rin.

Just a woman made of static, her mouth covered, her hands trembling like she was about to pull her thoughts out. She whispered something, but the sound hit Kentaro like radio static. He staggered. The simulation twisted.

From the outside, Haruka’s hands hovered over the override switch.

"Her flux index is destabilizing."

"Let him stay," Tenka said softly.

"This is what the real ones will feel like."

Inside the drift, Kentaro clutched his head. The figure was glitching, walking without moving, staring without eyes.

Then... His voice cracked through the zone.

"I-i don’t know who you are, but I’m here."

"You’re not alone."

The static froze. The rain slowed. The figure lowered her arms.

And for just one second....

Her mouth moved.

"Do you.. want to remember me?"

Light bloomed. The simulation collapsed.

Kentaro ripped off the wiring still clinging to his arms, chest rising and falling as if he’d just run a marathon through someone’s trauma. He sat down, breathless. His body felt like his soul had been wrung out and hung to dry.

Haruka handed him a cold bottle of water without a word. He took it, drank, then muttered.

"Was that a ghost or an Alberline...? What kind of sick afterlife is this?"

"A synthetic Alberline," Haruka replied, adjusting her glasses. "Projected echoes from a failed containment field. Simulated, but based on real drift residue."

Kentaro blinked at her.

"It felt real though."

Haruka nodded.

"It’s close to real as you can get," She said. "But if you think that was intense."

"..Wait until you step into a live drift bloom and are full aware, unlike the one with Rin. You’ll feel it more then."

Tenka cut in, striding into view, arms crossed. "And with the real thing, there isn’t a reset button out there."

"You’re saying I’m supposed to walk into these emotional apocalypses and what? Offer hugs and therapy?"

Haruka began to talk while walking back to her computer.

"Not therapy." She said,

"Empathy."

Tenka walked towards the edge of the simulation ring. Her boots echoed like punctuation.

"You might have failed this time, but with Rin, you’ve proven that you’re capable of triggering an Anchor response. Which is the ability to maintain in the Bloom without getting hurt or affected."

She paused, watching his expression.

"It’s rare. And never natural."

Haruka raised her voice louder, but filled with something almost like awe.

"You’re a first. Someone who felt with the Alberline instead of resisting them. That makes you more dangerous than cradle ever expected."

Suddenly, from the corner of the chamber, Shogo leaned in like a man too large for stealth.

"Congrats, Renny. You’re officially the team’s emotional nuke. Welcome to Halcyon’s worst idea."

Everyone was watching him now.

Tenka’s voice dropped, not as a commander, but as someone who knew exactly what she was asking.

"Do you want to walk away?"

Kentaro looked at them, Haruka, Shogo, Tenka, then back at the simulation ring that had nearly crushed him.

His hands still trembled. But his voice didn’t.

"No."

"I’ll try again."

*

The hours bled together. Kentaro ran simulation after simulation, trying, failing, to sync with drifting Alberline simulations. Wrong timing, wrong emotion, wrong line. He cracked under pressure more than once.

Eventually, they called it. And now, freshly showered and dressed in Halcyon issued casuals, Kentaro found himself inside a smaller meeting room, one round table, three chairs, and an awkward silence.

He sat first. Haruka and Tenka were organizing files nearby.

Tenka, clearly overwhelmed by paperwork, sighed and barked out:

"Shogo! Get your ass to Room 141 and sort these!"

"YES, MY LADY!"

Shogo burst into the room not five seconds later like he’d been waiting behind the door all day.

Without missing a beat, he scooped the messy folders into his arms and dropped to the floor in the corner like a faithful dog. Kentaro blinked.

"Wait, shouldn’t he at least get a table or someth—"

Then paused.

No point. Tenka didn’t care. Shogo probably liked the floor.

Finally, Tenka and Haruka joined him at the table. Tenka folded her arms, then spoke with the tone of a commander, but it was gentler now.

"Based on your sync data and Haruka’s analysis... you’re cleared to return to surface life."

"You’ll go back to class. But your mic and earpiece stay on. Call it fashion. Call it survival."

Kentaro blinked.

"Sooo... I’m technically free?"

Haruka adjusted her glasses.

"Conditionally. Alberline Drift Zones don’t care about school hours. If something happens and we can’t communicate. You run. Don’t be a hero."

"Cool, cool. Just one problem, how exactly do I know when something bad happens fast enough to run?"

"You’ll know," Haruka deadpanned.

"Right then."

Shogo stood up with perfectly stacked files, and placed them on the desk, then casually walked out... only to return seconds later with a black duffel bag. He tossed it across the table.

Kentaro fumbled the catch and smacked himself in the face.

"What the hell is in here, rocks?!"

Shogo smirked. "Snacks. Sedatives. Spare pants."

Kentaro unzipped the bag and frowned.

"Wait... did you seriously pack underwear?"

Tenka and Haruka let out matching snorts.

"You’re welcome," Shogo said proudly.

Haruka quickly returned to her calm tone.

"Your resonance with Rin hasn’t faded. If she reappears, you’ll feel it. That link can’t be removed. Only contained."

Kentaro nodded, understanding. He slung the bag over his shoulder, then looked towards Tenka.

"Hey... when I see you next, can I ask you something? About all of this?"

Tenka gave him a knowing smile.

"I know what you want to ask. I’m tied up for today... but I’ll see you tomorrow."

She paused. Her smile grew wider.

"Just, wear actual clothes this time, yeah?"

Kentaro froze. His face turned red.

"That wasn’t—! It was ONE TIME—!"

Tenka couldn’t hold it.

"Ahahahaha! Don’t worry, Kenny!, I won’t tell anyone! Except maybe the cafeteria staff, and Shogo, and Haruka..."

"Hmph..."

Kentaro stomped off towards the control room’s teleporter while Shogo trailed behind, snickering like a goblin.

They reached the transfer platform.

"You sure you know how to work this thing?" Shogo asked, tilting his head.

Kentaro stepped into the circle confidently.

"Nope. But I’ve seen enough anime."

With a soft glow, his body shimmered, pixelated.

And then vanished into the ether.

Transfer complete.