His vision spun like he'd faceplanted into a shattered kaleidoscope. Silver-blue sparks danced everywhere with glitching frames that reminded him of a busted VHS tape. Voices echoed...but backwards, like someone counting down through static.
"Did someone use my skull as a soccer ball?"
Hayate's cheek twitched as he pushed up. The wall behind him had crumbled halfway, steel rods jutting out like poorly trimmed nerve endings. A dangling wire spat sparks like a drunk grandpa's cigar. The air reeked of burnt caramel and engine grease—that artificial stench always made his nose itch.
His modified navy flight jacket clung intact. The stardust conduit on his right sleeve pulsed like a panic attack. Testing his right eye—damn, still cooking like an egg on a hotplate.
Stumbling up, his boot crushed a charred cult emblem. Blackened metal with stardust goo clinging to the edges—that static-glass sensation made his teeth ache.
His right eye spasmed. Reality glitched.
A figure walked beyond the rubble—posture rigid, cape fluttering to reveal that damned cracked crest from the Sakuragi bloodline.
"I know that symbol...so why can't I remember his face?"
His chest hollowed out like ripped circuitry. Gagging against the wall, his brain screamed with colliding timelines—glass shattering in surround sound.
Red text materialized: [CRISIS PROTOCOL].
"You kidding me?" He groaned. "Mandatory overtime during reboot?"
His hand found the rusted wrench at his hip—"SEVER FATE" engraving still legible. Couldn't recall breakfast, but this old friend remembered him.
Standing tall, he exhaled. "As long as you're here...I'm still me."
**BZZZZRT—**a hornet swarm screech erupted.
Cult drones emerged through smoke. Glowing red eyes locked on him. The payload under its wings flickered...wrong color.
His eye auto-translated the glyphs: [STATUS: DECEASED. INITIATE PURGE.]
"Dead?" He barked laughter. "I skipped breakfast but not my funeral! Cult promotion perks getting weird, huh?"
Dodging falling debris, he smacked sparks off his collar. "Delivery Rule #1: Don't let enemies sign for your corpse before the client does."
His battered delivery case snapped open—gears grinding like popcorn kernels. The hybrid wrench-rocket launcher unfolded with a CLACK.
"Little Boom Express Special," he grinned as blue flames roared from the stardust core. That kettle-whistle BEEEP always made his ears pop.
Stardust swirled around his boots—tiny electric tornados pricking his skin.
"Whoever signs first," he cocked the weapon, "gets the return-to-sender special."
The delivery case's back panel flipped open—improvised railgun whined to life. His eye auto-aimed as nebula-colored plasma screamed toward the drone.
Plasma blast tore through the first drone like lightning through a tin roof. Shrapnel shredded the wall behind him—concrete rained down harder than my ex's texts. The shockwave made his ears pop, rubble bruising his toes. "Gah! My foot's gonna sue me for workplace hazards!"
Two new drones materialized with targeting lasers brighter than a Vegas billboard. "Yo! I didn't order kamikaze delivery!" He dove behind scrap metal, tasting blood and engine coolant.
One drone's wings snapped open like pissed-off mechanical cicadas. That "krrkt-krkt" sound effect? Straight outta bad sci-fi. Stardust radar lit up, swirling dust into glitter tornadoes.
His right eye glitched into 3D scans—alien coordinates scrolling like crypto charts. "Since when did my eyeball get software updates?"
"Priority Express Mode!" He slammed the delivery case. A silver disc launched, unfolding into a force field that blinded him worse than sunrise after all-nighter.
Laser impact rattled his bones. The wall behind him groaned like Grandpa after Taco Tuesday. Rubble grazed his arm—"Screw this! I'm billing the cult for dry cleaning!"
Sliding behind broken concrete, he triggered blue smoke bombs. Choked on ashes like it's 2020 wildfire season. Third drone emerged—sleek obsidian shell with "OBSERVATION UNIT" stamped on its butt.
"They're moving like TikTok buffering..." Hayate squinted. The drone's lens focused with creepy paparazzi energy. "You filming this?! Who's gonna binge-watch my near-death highlights?"
Cold sweat trickled down his spine. His eye pulsed with error messages shaped like spider legs. "This ain't combat…" He spat blood. "This is some sick lab experiment."
Hayate slumped against the wall, delivery case clutched like a lifeline. His right eye burned with glitching holograms—ice-blue static and stardust confetti trying to short-circuit his brain.
"Not cool, eyeball. I didn't order VR torture!" He gritted through the soul-cramp sensation. Memories slammed into him like spam pop-ups.
A scorched wall etched with star-runes. Ancient navigation logs he somehow understood—dude, when did I become Google Translate for space hieroglyphics? Wind whipped sand into his eyes...but the rest? Blank. Like deleted browser history.
A figure stood there, long hair whipping like live wires in a hurricane. His chest tightened—that name on the tip of his tongue, stuck like gum under a desk.
Reality popped like soap bubbles. A star chart exploded in his skull—edges burnt and scratched off like a drunk tattoo artist's sketch. One landmark screamed familiarity...redacted with black marker thicker than government secrets.
"This ain't any federation-approved flight path..." Starbursts connected with vein-like trails. The map pointed to deadspace—officially nuked by the Iron Sect decades ago.
Error messages jackhammered his skull. Memory fragments flickered:
Some silver-haired kid grinning like a broken vending machine
A dagger dripping liquid that definitely wasn't water
A whisper in his ear: "Not born—chosen."
"Make it stop!" He gripped the delivery case, vertigo hitting harder than cheap tequila.
Then—a resonance hum.
Air molecules froze. Metal vibrations buzzed up his spine. "I didn't even touch the—"
The auxiliary compartment on Little Boom's side glowed cyan. Not system lights.
A blade singing.
"...Rin?"
He got gut-punched by the name. No face. No context. Just heartburn from emotional whiplash.
Hayate's right eye went supernova. Star charts vomited into his retinas—glitching footage of some cyberpunk acid trip. The delivery case snapped open armor plates—autopilot engaged.
"Did my wrench just tattle to your katana?!" He ducked as concrete exploded.
Across the ruins, Rin rose like a pissed-off phoenix. Her blade's stardust patterns synced perfectly with Hayate's eye—copy-paste cheat codes activated.
"Who hacked my brain? Half your memories are bootleg versions!" Hayate panted. Rin's afterimage flickered—younger, softer, wrong.
Rin's blade hummed. "You're their glitch...a corrupted backup file."
Memories detonated in stereo. Hayate saw:
Rusty war mechs stacked like rotten teeth
Someone kneeling in lightbeam purgatory
His own silhouette—photoshopped out of existence
Rin froze mid-swing—vision flooded with her younger self hesitating at broken aqueducts.
"You swing like a hurricane then wiggle like swatting flies—make up your mind!" Hayate rolled as blades clashed.
Their weapons synced again. Rin lunged—Hayate's eye previewed her move...then glitched.
White room. His body on a slab. Eyes blacker than VPN-less internet.
He flinched. Rin's blade seared his shoulder—pain hotter than McDonalds coffee.
[BETA-NULL PREDICTION ACTIVE｜TARGET: RIN] flashed in his eye.
"Who installed this crap?!" He scrambled up. "At least leave the damn Wi-Fi password!"
Rin's blade shrieked in stereo with his wrench. Stardust swirled into a quantum entanglement halo. Two blocks away, Iron Sect surveillance drones short-circuited from the feedback.
"This isn't fighting..." Rin hissed as their blades locked. "It's debugging with fireworks."
Hayate grinned through bloodied teeth. "Welcome to my software update, princess."
Hayate's right eye fried like bacon on a Tesla coil. Vision dissolved into TV static soup with bonus underwater subwoofer rage.
Then—her face.
Silver-haired girl floating in zero-G. Background walls cracked like poorly iced cake. Her lips moved—silent movie with broken subtitles.
"Who the—"
The vision imploded. He backflipped mentally into reality—right eye rebooting like cheap android. Flames still danced, but that creepy twin-blade harmony? Gone.
Rin stood frozen—glitching NPC energy.
"Yo! You get that weird Netflix preview too?"
No response. Her blade hung limp—entire existence buffering.
He rubbed his eye. "How many backdoor apps you got in here?!"
Behind him, navigation maps autocorrected like possessed GPS. "Hell no! I didn't approve this software update!"
Rin shuddered.
When she looked up—those weren't her eyes. Pupils dilated into black holes sucking in starlight.
"Uh oh." Hayate backpedaled. "That's not your 'I forgot my keys' face."
Her blade ignited—neon green this time. The ground cracked with earthquake belches.
"Rin?" He gripped Little Boom. "You in there or..."
She spoke with voice layered like corrupted audio files:
"Wrong question, delivery boy."
[BETA-NULL PREDICTION: 87% MATCH — TARGET ID: [REDACTED]] burned his retina.
"Screw percentages!" He charged. "I want refunds on these visions!"
Their collision birthed a blacklight supernova—nearby Iron Sect drones melted into glowstick goo. When the blast cleared...
Empty crater.
No Rin.
No answers.
Just charred concrete and his wrench singing funeral dirges in C# minor.