Fragile Hope

The junk zone was falling apart.

Eito could see it in the way the static drifted heavier in the air, clinging like smoke. The ground beneath them shimmered with fractures of corrupted code, pieces of forgotten memory sectors collapsing into themselves. Overhead, the sky - if it could still be called that - warped and twisted like glass about to shatter.

They had no time left.

"We need to move," Hina said softly beside him.

The urgency pressed in from all sides, but even now, they kept their pace steady. Rushing meant mistakes. Mistakes meant the system finding them.

They picked their way through the skeletal remains of discarded programs, fragments of buildings and objects left behind by forgotten loops. Half-formed advertisements flickered on broken walls, distorted voices whispering nonsense about static, the sky, and memory layers from shattered speakers. It was a graveyard of the system's failures.

They searched for hours before this, weaving through the decaying underbelly of the junk zone. Hina led him through places half-remembered from their wandering days: crumbling subway platforms choked with data static, forgotten rooftops clinging to fragments of corrupted sky, underground sectors so deep even the system's light couldn't reach.

Shattered prototypes, stripped parts, and the aftermath of others' failed escapes littered every hiding spot. Nothing salvageable or fixable to help.

The disappointment weighed heavier with each false lead, but neither spoke of giving up. The wings had to exist - the second pair.

But it was also their only chance.

"There," Hina pointed, her gaze sharp.

Ahead, partially buried beneath twisted metal and fractured glass, stood what remained of an old observatory structure. Its domed roof had long since caved in, but the rusted framework still reached skyward, stubborn and defiant. Static crackled along its edges.

They approached cautiously, weaving through collapsed scaffolding and rubble. Inside, the floor was littered with fragments: old data consoles, corrupted records, and broken terminals half-swallowed by the decay. But among the detritus, Eito spotted it.

A half-finished wing. No - not one, but pieces of a second pair.

His breath caught. It was real.

The "Children of the Sky" - the stories whispered in discarded sectors, the faint memories etched into walls - they hadn't all failed.

"We can make this work," Eito said, crouching beside the fragments.

Hina's expression was unreadable as she knelt beside him, fingers trailing along the pieces. "They're damaged," she murmured.

"Better than nothing."

The truth hung unspoken between them. These wings - imperfect, patched together from those before them - were their only hope. Maybe they wouldn't survive the strain.

But they were better than nothing.

Static hummed through the broken observatory as they worked together: fitting pieces together, rewiring circuits, and salvaging what remained.

Above them, the sky fractured further. Shards of false clouds peeled away, revealing the jagged, incomplete layers beyond.

Feathers like Hina's - some real, some artificial - drifted down like ash.

Warnings of what will happen to them if they failed.

Eito tightened the last fastener on the second wing. His hands trembled slightly, whether from fear or anticipation, he couldn't tell.

"It's not perfect," Hina said quietly while putting a hand on his, calming his tremors.

He met her eyes, the unspoken weight lingering between them. They had both known all along - it was never truly enough for both of them. But now, if they divided the wings, maybe...

The final purge crackled across the horizon, the world groaning as the system's last failsafe engaged.