Chapter 28: One Bad Exit

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"The track doesn't care about your ego. One bad exit and you're a meme. And the worst part? The crowd loves it."

The stale air of the storage deck was thick with dust and old rubber. It was the only shield he had left.

The older boy crouched behind a wall of stacked wooden crates, back flat against the brick, knuckles white. He tried to breathe—four counts in, four counts out. It wasn't working.

His orange hair was slick with cold sweat beneath his school cap. His hands shook as he smoothed his blazer collar—a pointless habit, but it gave him something to do.

This was supposed to be routine. A quiet scan of biometric frequencies in the lower gym. Nothing more.

Instead, he'd arrived just in time to see the aftermath of a massacre.

Through the narrow gap between crates, his wide eyes stayed locked on the basketball court below.

The gym was freezing. His breath came out in faint clouds. The smell of blood and old sweat hung in the air—thick, metallic, suffocating. He could hear the faint drip of something liquid hitting the hardwood. He didn't want to know what it was.

Below, Kyle's body was still. His face was pale, almost grey. The jagged scales had receded, but the damage was done—his uniform torn, his skin raw where the plates had erupted. Blythe's blood was everywhere.

Kyle was down. Unconscious. His body limp.

And she was holding him—sobbing, her face and forearms shredded, blood smearing across his white uniform.

Near the iron bleachers, a crumpled figure lay motionless—face-down, expensive blazer soaked in crimson. The boy didn't recognize him. But the way his limbs were splayed, boneless and broken, told him everything he needed to know: someone had already done what he was too scared to even imagine.

Between the center court and the bleachers, a shattered phone lay in pieces—diamond dust glittering under the dim light. Whatever had been on it, it wasn't on it anymore.

Two figures knelt beside Kyle—one tall, one stocky—trying to lift his limp body. Their hands were trembling. Their faces were pale. They looked like they'd just survived a hurricane.

At the entrance, a boy with dark hair stood motionless, a terminal clutched in his shaking hands. Near him, two girls stood frozen—one with sharp green eyes that had lost their usual composure, the other with her hands clamped over her mouth, her body trembling so hard the boy could see it from here.

And by the stone wall, the silver-haired one had his arms wrapped around a shorter girl, shielding her face from the horror.

The older boy's stomach lurched.

He'd seen how she stopped him. Not with words. By throwing herself into a biological grinder—letting those jagged black scales tear her own skin apart just to pull him back.

His analytical mind, usually so quick, was short-circuiting.

She's completely drenched in blood, he thought.

And that guy... he could rip my armour into tinfoil...

He'd shred me like a cheap soda can.

His pulse hammered in his ears. His breathing went shallow.

I'm in way over my head.

What the hell am I doing here?

He'd come for a simple scan. Baseline biometrics. A quiet afternoon of data collection. That was the plan.

Instead, he'd watched a junior turn into a monster. A girl shred herself open. And now? Trapped.

This was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission. Not a front-row seat to a massacre.

Zip.

From the backpack between his feet, a quiet sound. The zipper slid open.

A chrome-silver serpent head emerged—neon-green circuits along its jaw, red optic lenses blinking once before fixing on his face.

"Calm your pulse, Takuya Ciel Amano."

Coluber's voice was low, direct—stripped of its usual racing-game energy.

"Your adrenaline spike is leaking thermal signature."

A pause.

"Also, your calculations about the Viper host's shredding capability are accurate. Did you see what those plates did to the girl's skin?"

"Ba-hah! I'm okay!"

"Pulse has risen by thirty-five bpm. Control your breathing."

Takuya's throat tightened.

"I'm not scared," he hissed, smoothing his blazer with trembling hands. "This is a tactical assessment."

"Listen—"

"Besides, my suit has a second gear. He's an organic accident—brute force. No aerodynamics. No aesthetics."

Coluber's visors shifted from red to green.

"Your coping mechanisms are mathematically unimpressive, partner."

A small holographic radar grid flickered to life between them.

The grid pulsed with soft blue light, mapping the gym below in wireframe. Three signatures glowed—bright, unmistakable.

Takuya's heart dropped.

"Three?" he breathed. "That's—the Viper, the Elap, and... who?"

Coluber's visor flickered.

"Count again."

Takuya squinted. His eyes moved across the grid.

One crimson. One amber. One flickering white.

Three signatures.

But his own signature wasn't on the grid.

"...Wait."

He felt his stomach drop.

"That's not me."

"You're my host, you idiot! Of course it wasn't recorded."

"Oh..."

"Brilliant deduction, " Coluber said dryly. "Your mathematical and logical prowess continues to astound."

Takuya opened his mouth—closed it.

"The crimson is the Viper host," Coluber continued. "The amber is the Elap carrier. The silver-haired one."

Takuya leaned closer. "But the white one?"

A pause.

Coluber's circuits hummed—uncertainty.

"I can't identify it," Coluber said, its voice quieter now. "It's not in any Caelum database. Not Colubridae. Not Elapidae. Not Viperidae."

Takuya stared at the flickering white dot.

"Then what is it?"

"I said, I don't know. No data."

A pause. Cold. Heavy.

"And that's what concerns me."

The cognitive overload of finding two known Co-Bios—plus one completely unknown—in a single high school gymnasium hit him all at once. He shifted his weight too quickly to get a better look at the radar.

His left foot caught the nylon strap of his own backpack.

His centre of gravity vanished.

Thud.

Takuya lay flat on his stomach and did not move. Did not breathe.

From the far end of the corridor beyond the secondary doors came the sharp, unmistakable rhythm of tactical boots—heavy, authorised, fast.

"Movement detected," Coluber hissed, visors flashing red as it retreated rapidly into the bag. "Aborting scan. Retracting signatures. We need to clear the track immediately."

"Right! Strategic retreat! I haven't even authorized yet! If they catch me like this, my heroic debut is history!"

"Then, move!"

Takuya scrambled upright, threw the backpack over his shoulders, and abandoned all pretence of moving quietly. He bolted down the short wooden staircase toward the nearest exit.

The stairs groaned under his feet. He took them two at a time, nearly tripping on the third step.

"You're shaking the whole staircase, you idiot," Coluber muffled-hissed from deep inside the backpack. "And stop bouncing my visor against your math textbook!"

"I'm running, okay?!" Takuya whisper-shouted, catching himself on the railing. 

His ankle throbbed. He ignored it.

"By the blood way, did you see that boy? His skin moved. It shredded her—"

"I saw. Keep moving."

Takuya hit the landing. Stopped. Breathed.

The corridor stretched before him—long, fluorescent-lit, empty.

His sneakers squeaked against the polished floor. Too loud. Everything was too loud.

Left foot. Right foot. Breathe. Left foot—

The boots behind him weren't just loud anymore. They had rhythm. Purpose. The sound of people who knew exactly where they were going.

Takuya's peripheral vision caught the faded signage on the walls as he passed.

STORE ROOM. MAINTENANCE. BOILER ROOM - AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Nothing helpful. Just the relics of a building that had been repurposed too many times.

His backpack bounced against his spine with every stride. Coluber was silent. That was somehow worse than the commentary.

"You're not saying anything," Takuya panted.

"I'm conserving hydrogen," Coluber replied flatly. "And dignity. One of us should."

"Shut up and find me a shortcut, you supercomputer!"

"I'm a Co-Bios!"

"That’s exactly why!" His jaw tightened as he rounded the corner.

The gym doors. Almost there.

His lungs burned. His ankle screamed.

But He didn't slow down.

At the far end, the massive exit loomed—closed and silent. Between him and salvation stood nothing but exposed floor and bad decisions.

Behind him, the boots grew louder from outside the corridor. Closer. They were already circling the building.

"Back door?" he whispered.

"Locked."

"Fire escape?"

"Fifty metres the wrong way."

"So the gym's our only way out."

Coluber's lens flickered green.

"Statistically? Yes."

Takuya closed his eyes. Counted to three. Opened them.

Just get through the doors. Pretend you belong. Don't look back.

A terrible plan. The only plan.

He pushed through the gym doors—and immediately regretted every life choice that had led him here.

The door was heavier than he'd calculated. His hand hit the push-bar, his shoe caught the freshly waxed floor at the threshold, and his momentum carried him forward—

BANG.

The sound echoed through the entire gym. Takuya went down face-first onto the hardwood. His school cap rolled away toward centre court.

A muffled voice came from the backpack.

"...I don't know you."

Slowly, Takuya lifted his head.

Every single eye in the room was on him.

Jay and Kendl had stopped trying to lift Kyle's limp body. Blythe raised her swollen, blood-streaked eyes for a fraction of a second—enough to make Takuya flinch. Near the threshold, Yve and Tessa had frozen mid-stride.

By the stone wall, Hiroto's head snapped up. He didn't let go of Conny, keeping one arm anchored around her waist to shield her, but his gaze shifted—slowly, precisely—in Takuya's direction. Not the usual lazy smirk. A sharp, quiet assessment.

Stuart's attention had already arrived. Cold. Ghost-like. The exact expression of someone who had just detected a very loud anomaly in a system that was supposed to be controlled.

From the backpack, Coluber's voice came again—barely a whisper.

"Your alibi is terrible. Improve it."

Takuya's brain short-circuited.

"Ah..." Takuya raised a trembling hand in a weak wave. "Hi. Just... looking for the Year 11 form room? The architecture in the West Wing is very... asymmetric."

Coluber's voice, microscopic.

"...That's worse."

Takuya scrambled backward on his hands and knees, pulling at the backpack, angling for the door handle.

His fingers brushed the metal—so close—

A shadow fell over him.

Takuya froze.

He didn't need to look up. He already knew.

Stuart's voice came from above, quiet and unhurried.

"Form time was at eight-fifteen."

A pause.

"Try again, senior."

Takuya's hand slipped off the door handle.

Stuart's fingers closed around the collar of his blazer—not rough, not angry. Just... efficient. Like he was picking up a misplaced object and returning it to its proper place.

He dragged Takuya backward into the dark corner of the gym, away from the door, away from the light.

"Let's have a chat," Stuart said softly.

Takuya didn't know if that was better or worse.

From the backpack, Coluber's voice came one last time, barely audible.

"...I'm turning off my visors. Good luck."