Steel sang as the wind moved through it.
Not like a bridge — sharper, thinner, more fragmented. A thousand high, fractured notes woven together into a single, mournful chord that vibrated through the air around Tokyo Tower. Up close, the structure was less a monument and more a skeleton: latticework of rusted beams, jagged breaks where metal had torn, whole segments sagging under their own weight.
Karl stood at the tower's base and craned his neck.
From here, the top vanished into low, drifting cloud.
The plaza around the tower was cracked and cratered, strewn with collapsed railings, shattered glass, and the half-buried remains of what had once been shops and viewing areas. Nature had tried to reclaim it — weeds breaking through concrete, creeping vines climbing broken pillars — but even that felt tired, half-hearted, as if the earth itself wasn't sure what to do with something this large and this dead.
Agnes hovered beside him, hands resting lightly at her sides, glow dim enough that she didn't starkly illuminate the ruin around them.
Her gaze moved from the tower… to Karl… then back to the tower.
"…You're staring," she said flatly.
"I'm assessing," Karl replied, still looking up.
"Your pupils are dilated."
"Structural analysis requires focus."
Agnes turned her head slowly toward him, deadpan. "You are not analyzing load distribution. You are reliving Kamen Rider Kabuto in real time."
Karl cleared his throat.
Silence stretched.
Then, without warning, he stepped forward — toward the tower.
Agnes drifted after him, eyebrow raising. "Karl."
He placed his hand on one of the lower beams.
Cold. Rough. Pitted with rust.
His fingers traced the metal like he was trying to memorize its texture.
"…It's really here," he murmured.
Agnes watched him carefully. "Yes. Tragically. Decayed. Structurally compromised. Extremely climbable, if you are, for example, a suicidal child in a genius's body."
Karl glanced at her, then — very deliberately — took another step closer.
Agnes's glow brightened. "Do not tell me you're considering—"
Karl bent his knees.
Then jumped.
His fingers caught a diagonal beam, boots finding a narrow cross-brace almost instinctively. His body moved with practiced efficiency, weight shifting smoothly as he pulled himself up onto the lattice.
Agnes froze mid-air.
Her face — for the first time in a while — was pure, unfiltered disbelief.
"…Karl."
He looked down at her from about two meters up, hair fluttering in the wind, expression utterly unapologetic.
"Higher vantage point," he said calmly. "Better visual sweep of the city."
Her eyes narrowed into a razor-thin line.
"You are in your human body. No frame. No armor. No redundancies. No nanite cushioning. Just flesh, bone, and your tendency to make terrible decisions."
Karl adjusted his footing, climbing another few rungs like this was the most natural thing in the world. "It's structurally stable enough at this height."
"It is not 'structurally stable enough' — it is 'has not collapsed yet.' There is a difference."
He reached for another beam.
Agnes shot upward beside him, hovering at eye level, crossing her arms so tightly her projection almost flickered. "You are not doing this for 'strategic observation.'"
Karl paused mid-reach.
"…It would be strategically useful," he said after a beat.
Agnes stared.
He sighed.
"…Fine. I want to see Tokyo from the top."
Her expression didn't soften.
It didn't harden either.
It just… settled into that familiar, exasperated resignation she only ever used with him.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Of course you do."
Wind howled through the lattice again, rattling loose metal. Somewhere above them, a beam creaked ominously.
Karl climbed another level.
His hands were steady. His breathing slow. His body remembered things he hadn't done in decades — climbing scaffolding, scaling ruined structures, pulling himself upward by sheer will during his vigilante years.
Agnes floated beside him, tracking every movement with frightening precision.
"You are aware," she said coolly, "that if you slip, I cannot simply 'catch' you. I have no physical form here. I cannot manipulate your body. I cannot deploy nanites around you unless you transform."
"I know."
Another climb.
Wind tugged at his coat.
Agnes drifted slightly closer, her voice dropping in intensity but sharpening in focus. "If your grip fails — even for half a second — your odds of survival are… unfavorable."
Karl glanced at her briefly. "Noted."
She let out a slow, controlled exhale, the kind of breath an AI took when simulating patience.
"…You really are impossible."
He smirked faintly.
They climbed.
Step by step, rung by rung, beam by beam.
The city began to unfold beneath them in layers. Cracked streets like veins. Collapsed overpasses like broken ribs. Distant towers leaning against the sky like tired giants. The bay glimmered faintly to the south, dark and vast.
Agnes stayed close, never more than an arm's length away, eyes locked on Karl at all times.
At around twenty meters up, Karl paused.
His breath fogged slightly in the cooler air.
He looked out over Tokyo.
For a moment, the world seemed to narrow to just him, the tower, and the city stretching out below like a frozen, sleeping beast.
"…I used to imagine this view," he said quietly.
Agnes didn't interrupt.
"I'd lie in that hospital bed, staring at the ceiling tiles, and picture standing somewhere high. Somewhere real. Somewhere alive."
He shifted his grip, climbing again.
"And now… it's actually here."
Agnes drifted closer, her tone softer than before. "You could have seen it without risking a broken spine."
Karl snorted lightly. "You don't get the same feeling from a drone feed."
She studied his profile, something flickering behind her eyes — not irritation, not logic, something quieter.
He climbed higher.
Thirty meters.
Forty.
Fifty.
The wind grew stronger, whipping around the lattice, making loose metal shudder.
Agnes hovered directly in front of him now, deadpan returning full force. "This is your last warning delivered in a tone that suggests I have already prepared five contingency plans."
Karl paused, one hand gripping a beam, the other braced against a vertical support. "Which are?"
"Plan A: You slip, you scream, I scream internally, and you transform mid-fall."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Plan B: You refuse to transform out of stubbornness, and I forcibly initiate Rider Frame ignition."
His expression twitched.
"Plan C: You black out from exertion, and I override your systems anyway."
"Reassuring."
"Plan D: You break something minor and insist you are 'fine,' which I will ignore."
He huffed a quiet laugh.
"And Plan E?"
Agnes's gaze softened just slightly. "I watch you reach the top… and pretend I wasn't terrified the entire time."
Karl stilled.
He met her eyes.
For a heartbeat, the wind seemed to quiet.
Then he smiled — small, genuine, almost boyish.
"…Thanks, Agnes."
Her glow flickered, just a touch brighter. "Do not sentimentalize my anxiety."
He climbed again.
The tower's midsection came into view — shattered observation deck remains jutting out like broken ribs, twisted metal forming jagged platforms that creaked under the strain of their own weight.
Karl slowed, testing each handhold carefully now.
Agnes moved closer, her voice sharpening again. "Careful. That beam is compromised on the left side."
He adjusted his grip immediately.
"You're shifting your weight too far forward."
He corrected.
"Your right boot is slipping."
He repositioned.
They moved like this — Karl climbing, Agnes guiding — a strange, silent choreography of trust and control.
At around a hundred meters up, Karl paused again.
The city lay far below now, stretched out like a cracked mosaic. Clouds drifted lazily across the skyline, casting slow-moving shadows over the ruins.
Karl let out a slow breath.
"…It's bigger than I thought."
Agnes floated beside him, arms crossed but no longer truly annoyed. "The city or your ego?"
"Both."
She rolled her eyes.
He continued upward.
The final ascent toward the broken apex was the hardest. Beams were thinner, more twisted, more unstable. Whole sections of the tower were missing, forcing Karl to improvise his path, stretching across gaps, swinging carefully from one support to another.
Agnes hovered directly above him now, watching like a hawk.
"If you fall," she said evenly, "you will transform. I do not care if you wanted the 'authentic climbing experience.'"
Karl glanced up at her. "Understood."
A final stretch.
A last set of beams.
Then — he pulled himself up onto what remained of the upper observation platform.
It wasn't a platform anymore. Just a jagged ring of metal, half-collapsed, open to the sky. Wind whipped across it without mercy, tearing at Karl's coat and hair.
He stood there, breathing steadily, hands resting on a twisted railing.
Tokyo stretched out beneath him.
Every direction.
Every ruin.
Every shadow.
For a long moment, Karl said nothing.
Agnes hovered beside him, her glow reflecting faintly off the broken steel.
"…Worth it?" she asked quietly.
Karl didn't answer immediately.
He looked out over the city he had dreamed of for centuries.
Over the place he had never thought he'd truly stand in.
Over the world he had survived long enough to see.
A slow breath left his lungs.
"…Yeah."
Agnes watched him — not as a mission asset, not as a pilot, not as her charge.
Just as Karl.
Then she sighed — not in frustration this time, but in something closer to fond resignation.
"…Do not fall," she said simply.
He glanced at her, faint smile still on his face.
"I won't."
Wind roared around them.
Below, the compass in his HUD pulsed faintly, waiting.
But for now — Karl stood atop Tokyo Tower, at the edge of a broken world, exactly where he had always wanted to be.