After everything had settled, Tenka rose from her chair, slightly larger than the others, and walked over to the small table on her right. She picked up the mocha latte Haruka had prepared for her and began sipping it calmly.
Kentaro avoided making eye contact. What he had just witnessed gave him the unsettling impression that one wrong move around this different version of Tenka could mean instant death. It was hard to reconcile this side of her with the Tenka he knew, the kind, gentle girl who never raised a hand to anyone, let alone deliver what should have been a finishing move, capable of killing someone.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at her. She was now standing beside him, silently watching the large screen ahead. Despite her calm demeanour, Kentaro couldn't shake the feeling of unease. It was as if he were meeting her for the first time.
"Ken."
She leaned in, her voice barely above a whisper, which startled him.
"I know you've got a ton of questions, but don't forget, I'm still Tenka." Her eyes flicked downward before a sideways glance. "So maybe… Hold off on giving me that look you give around girls."
He didn't answer right away; he stood frozen, brain short-circuiting. Then the meaning hit.
Kentaro snapped his head toward her, frustration flaring. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'AROUND GIRLS'?! ARE YOU SAYING I CAN'T TALK TO WOMEN?!" He thundered.
The hum of keyboards and murmurs in the room stopped instantly. Every head turned toward them. Kentaro's face burned hot as he realised how outlandish his outburst sounded, especially directed at the commander.
"What the…" He muttered under his breath.
Then, out of nowhere, Tenka burst into laughter, deep, unstoppable laughter that filled the room. His embarrassment only grew.
"W-what's so funny, Tenka?" He stammered, voice shaky.
She was doubled over, wiping tears from her cheeks between giggles. "Oh my God… Your face?!" She shook her head, still smiling. "You're hopeless, Ken."
He sank into himself, cheeks crimson, while Tenka's laughter echoed around the room, lightening the tension in the air. Still, he couldn't help but smile faintly. If making her laugh that hard meant being the joke, maybe it wasn't so bad.
"I'll let you guys laugh this time, but wait for my amazing revenge," he said, puffing his chest, though his voice betrayed him.
Before Tenka could even respond, one of the soldiers came up to her.
"Commander, I believe we have everything you requested," said a blonde woman in a uniform similar to Shogo's. As her eyes flickered through the data, Tenka's entire presence shifted, like a light dimming into shadow.
Back to her commander mode.
"Yes, thank you. Just what we needed." The soldier handed over a stack of papers. Kentaro caught a glimpse, a bar chart, numbers stacked like falling dominoes. He had no idea what it meant, but Tenka scanned it once, and her smile vanished.
The air shattered.
Gone was the playful grin. Gone was the teasing glint.
"Haruka. Bring up the projection."
Haruka didn't speak. She simply nodded and tapped a sequence of keys. The control room dimmed, and from the floor rose a faint blue cylinder of light. It flickered, static dancing across its surface, before stabilising into a floating silhouette, a blurred figure, outline fractured and pulsating like a heartbeat skipping rhythm.
Kentaro's breath caught in his throat.
Even if it was distorted, even half erased…
He knew that shape. That hair.
"…Rin…" He whispered, so softly it barely left his lips.
Tenka turned, catching his voice. Her tone sharpened. "I presume the girl's name is Rin."
Kentaro nodded. "That's her name. At least, that's what she said. No last name. J-just… Rin. Like it was the only thing she had left of her."
His voice cracked near the end, quieter than he meant. Tenka's gaze lingered on him a moment longer than usual. When she spoke again, something heavy undercut her authority.
"I see… Well. There's more to this Rin than you think, Kentaro."
That last word hit different.
She rarely called him by his full name. Not Ken. Not Ren. Kentaro. It was one of those rare moments when the room seemed to vanish, leaving only her voice and the pulse of his chest.
He nodded. "Go on."
Tenka drew a steady breath. "Rin is what you call an Alberline."
Kentaro's gaze returned to the screen, to the half-erased outline of the girl he'd met. "Alberline… Huh." He swallowed. "Figures my first friend in weeks turns out to be some kind of mystery."
"From what we knew before," Tenka continued, "Alberlines were thought to be creatures taking the form of women, wreaking havoc on our world, causing disasters, death, disappearances…"
Her voice trailed, a flicker of hesitation. She blinked it away.
"But the main problem is that they can make people forget. We don't know how far this power goes, but everyone caught inside one of the Blooms… Forgets."
Kentaro frowned. "Then how the hell do you guys remember any of this?"
Tenka smiled slightly, the kind of smile that meant she had him now.
"Well," she said, drawing out the word like a teacher before a quiz, "we at Halcyon are protected by something called NAS."
"…NAS?"
"Neural Anchor System," she explained, almost too casually. "Experimental tech developed by our division. It stops the drift from rewriting our memories, and lets us get close to an Alberline."
Haruka chimed in, her voice low but clear. "When someone's exposed to a Fracture Bloom, reality breaks. Not just space and time, perception itself. The mind edits it out like a corrupted file."
"So that's why civilians forget," Kentaro muttered. "Their brains just… Erase it?"
Haruka nodded. "Exactly. Not mercy. A trauma response. The mind's last defence."
She hesitated, then added quietly, "And if it fails, they die. Painfully."
A video blinked to life. Buildings twisting inward like paper. Cars folding. People vanishing. Kentaro felt his stomach lurch. His hands trembled, but he didn't even realise it until he clenched them into fists.
"This is a Drift Bloom collapse," Haruka said, her calmness almost mechanical.
Kentaro's breath hitched. "So reality just… Gives up?"
"No," Haruka replied. "It tries to heal. But sometimes it heals wrong."
He could barely breathe. The idea that a girl's emotions could undo existence—it was terrifying and… Heartbreaking.
Tenka finally spoke again, her voice quiet but firm. "If they're lucky, they forget. If not, the memories break them. No amount of tech can fix that."
Kentaro stood there, throat dry. "So… What do you do, Tenka? D-do you… Kill them?"
Silence. The room seemed to hold its breath.
Tenka's eyes stayed on the projection. "…We used to think they were monsters. Aberrations of space. Code errors in the emotional structure of the world."
"But," Haruka added softly, "one of them spoke a name. And cried. And bled."
The words hung there like a ghost.
"That's when we realised," Tenka said. "Alberlines are people. Shattered people. Fragments of life pushed too far."
Kentaro's chest ached. "Then… You save them?"
"We try," Tenka replied. "By anchoring them, pulling them back from that edge."
She bit her lip. Just once. It was gone in a second, but Kentaro saw it.
Then her voice hardened again.
"But we're not the only organisation that knows about them."
"Cradle," Haruka said. Her tone alone made Kentaro's pulse quicken.
The hum of the room dimmed. Kentaro felt the air grow colder. "C-Cradle? What's that?"
Tenka folded her arms, back to the screen. "Cognitive Rift Anomaly Disposal, Lockdown Enforcement. On paper, they're like us. But they don't stabilise, they erase."
Haruka brought up another feed. Red visors. Black armour. A girl crying. Then light, gone.
Kentaro's heart stopped for a beat.
Tenka's voice was soft, almost a whisper. "They know Alberlines are human. They just don't care. To them, emotion is a virus."
Haruka glanced away. "They don't think they're villains. They think they're saving the world."
The room fell silent again.
And as the door to the command room creaked open, Kentaro found himself thinking...
If Rin really was an Alberline… Then who would reach her first?