Chapter 14_ Aftermath and Algorithms

The van didn’t slow down until they were three districts over, the frantic energy inside settling into a heavy, breathless quiet. Mizuki finally pulled into the secluded parking garage of a DA safe house, a nondescript apartment building, and killed the engine. For a moment, the only sound was the ticking of the cooling engine and their own ragged breathing.
Chisato was the first to move, holding up the tiny data card from her camera like a sacred artifact. “We need to get this to Kurumi. Now.”
The safe house was sterile and quiet, a temporary bubble of security. Kurumi had already set up a mobile workstation. She took the card with reverence, her fingers flying as she uploaded the footage. Moments later, the damning image filled her screen: the Syndicate server room, the guards, and the glowing ‘AEGIS – PHOENIX PROTOCOL’ schematic.
A collective wave of disgust and triumph washed over them.
“That’s it,” Mika said, his voice a low growl of satisfaction. “That’s all the justification the DA will ever need for a full-scale, sanctioned assault. No more deniability for the Syndicate on Japanese soil.”
But the triumph was brittle. Takina, ever the pragmatist, shattered it. “They know we have it. They saw us. Stalker will not wait for the DA to mobilize. He will act. Immediately.”
As if summoned by her words, the secure line from DA headquarters buzzed. Commander Kusunoki’s face appeared on the monitor, her expression granite.
“The Arashiyama Tower is in full lockdown. Police are reporting a ‘drill.’ The Syndicate is covering their tracks as we speak,” she said without preamble. “Your evidence has been received and verified. Analysis is underway. However, mobilizing a force of sufficient strength to assault that tower without causing a mass panic or civilian casualties will take a minimum of forty-eight hours for planning and approval.”
“Forty-eight hours?” Mizuki exploded from the back of the room. “They could be gone in forty-eight minutes! Or coming right for us!”
“That is the reality of sanctioned action,” Kusunoki replied coolly, though a flicker of frustration crossed her features. “Your mission parameters are now changed. You have initiated hostilities. Your new objective is survival and containment. Keep the Syndicate focused on you. Harass them, distract them, make them believe the threat is here, with you, and not preparing at DA headquarters. Buy the clock time.”
The screen went dark. The order was clear: they were the bait, again. But this time, the hook was already in the predator’s mouth.
A profound exhaustion settled over Raze. It wasn’t physical. It was the weight of the image on the screen—the cold, digital dissection of his own mind. He retreated to the safe house’s small balcony, needing air that didn’t taste like recycled fear.
He heard the door slide open behind him. He expected K-1, or maybe Takina with a tactical update. It was Chisato. She leaned on the railing beside him, her usual vibrant energy subdued into something thoughtful and steady.
“Pretty creepy, huh?” she said softly, staring out at the city lights. “Seeing yourself up on a screen like that.”
“It’s what I am to them,” Raze replied, his voice flat. “A schematic. A set of capabilities. The ‘Phoenix Protocol.’ They don’t see a person. They see a machine that needs to be rebooted and reclaimed.”
“Well, they’re stupid,” Chisato stated, as if it were the simplest fact in the world. “They had all your data on that screen, but they didn’t have the most important variable.” She poked him gently in the chest. “The guy who chose tea with his team over becoming a weapon. The guy who got bored in Shinjuku station. The one Mizuki yells at for having bad posture. That’s not in their protocol.”
Her words were a balm, but they couldn’t erase the chill. “They’ll come for that variable now. Harder than ever. Because I’m not just a prize anymore. I’m a witness who stole the test answers.”
“Let them come,” Chisato said, and for the first time, Raze heard a thread of steel in her voice that had nothing to do with playful competition. It was the voice of the First Lycoris. “They think they’re hunting a component. They’re walking into a family. And we protect our own.”
Inside, the team was already adapting. Kurumi and K-1 were in a deep, rapid-fire dialogue, comparing the stolen data against K-1’s own architecture.
“The Phoenix Protocol is an attempt to bypass your ethical inhibitors,” Kurumi summarized, her eyes wide behind her glasses. “It’s a brute-force code designed to trigger a full-system override, turning your autonomic functions over to the combat chip. They don’t want to capture you and study you slowly. They want to send a remote signal and repossess you.”
“A kill-switch for my free will,” Raze murmured, the horror of it settling in his bones.
“More of a ‘puppet-switch,’” K-1 corrected grimly. “However, their model is incomplete. It is based on early AEGIS schematics. It does not account for the synaptic adaptations that have occurred through your lived experience, nor for my… nuanced modifications to your base code.”
“You modified me?” Raze asked, stunned.
“Minor optimizations. Error corrections. Dr. Kiri’s work was elegant but rushed. I have been… tidying up. It appears my housekeeping has accidentally built a firewall. The Phoenix Protocol, as it exists, has an estimated 67% failure rate against your current neural signature.”
It was a reprieve, but a fragile one. They now knew the endgame: the Syndicate wanted to turn him into a remote-controlled weapon.
Mika gathered them. “Kusunoki needs forty-eight hours. Our job is to make those hours expensive for the Syndicate. We don’t have the strength for a direct fight, so we fight like ghosts. Like they do.”
A new, asymmetric battle plan emerged. Kurumi, with K-1’s help, would wage digital war. They would hack and release benign but embarrassing fragments of the stolen data—inventory lists, payroll for shell companies—to public leak sites, forcing the Syndicate’s lawyers and PR teams into a panic. They would spam their communication channels with garbage data, creating noise and confusion.
Chisato, Takina, and Mizuki would be physical ghosts. They would stage sightings of themselves at DA facilities across the city, using disguised vehicles and Kurumi’s forged electronic trails, making the Syndicate believe the entire LycoReco cell was preparing to defend DA assets, not hiding.
And Raze? He was to become a silent shadow. His mission was the most dangerous: to be the ghost of a ghost. Using the urban camouflage skills he’d learned, he would covertly surveil the periphery of the Arashiyama Tower and other suspected sites, watching for their reaction, looking for weaknesses, and staying completely off the grid. He was the one piece Stalker truly wanted, so he would dangle just out of sight, a frustrating phantom.
“It’s a risk,” Takina said, her eyes meeting his. “You’ll be alone.”
“Not entirely,” K-1 chimed in. “I will, of course, be accompanying him to critique his stealth techniques and provide sarcastic commentary. Standard operating procedure.”
The hint of a smile touched Takina’s lips. “Then you are in good hands.”
As they prepared to disperse into the night, Mizuki stopped Raze by the door. She shoved a small, wrapped onigiri into his hand. “Eat. Can’t save the world on an empty stomach.” Her tone was rough, but her eyes were serious. “Don’t do anything stupid and heroic. Just be a good little ghost and watch. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said, the simple rice ball feeling like a potent charm.
Standing on a rooftop later that night, watching the distant, lit spire of the Arashiyama Tower, Raze felt the strange calm of a decision made. The fear was still there, a cold companion. But it was joined by a fierce, burning certainty.
They weren’t just hiding, and they weren’t just bait. They were pulling the threads of the Syndicate’s own organization, forcing Stalker to react to them. The hunter was being circled.
K-1 hovered silently beside him, his sensors passively drinking in data. “The city is quiet. For now.”
“It won’t stay that way,” Raze said. “He’ll come. He has to.”
“Undoubtedly,” K-1 replied. Then, after a moment, his lights pulsed softly. “For the record, my analysis concludes that Miss Nishikigi’s assessment was correct. Their algorithm for you is fundamentally flawed. It cannot account for the loyalty variable. Or, as she so poetically put it, the ‘family’ one.”
Raze looked from the tower to the glowing lights of the LycoReco district in the distance. He wasn’t a schematic. He wasn’t Subject Zero. He was Ren. He was Black Cheetah. He was the variable Stalker couldn’t solve.
And he was ready to prove it.
End of Chapter 14