ASTRA
Chapter 3 — The Fourth Eye
The sky had stopped behaving like sky.
Clouds spiraled inward toward the battlefield as if gravity itself had changed its mind. Lightning crawled sideways. The ocean several kilometers away rose in unnatural waves, pulled by forces without name.
In the center of it—
Two Angels faced each other.
One born from heaven.
One born from defiance.
Seraphiel stared at the transformed Astra.
Four eyes.
Three across the face.
And a fourth embedded along its chest — glowing with unstable, golden intensity.
Her own three eyes narrowed.
"…Eh?"
The word slipped out before she could stop it.
Her head tilted.
"Did you… fuse with an Angel?"
Inside the merged consciousness, Reina and Kazuo felt the question like a tremor.
Angel? Reina's thoughts echoed through their shared mind.
That's impossible.
We killed them. We dissected them. We—
Seraphiel stepped closer, circling them mid-air.
Her third eye focused entirely on Kazuo's essence within the fusion.
Not the mech.
Not Reina.
Him.
And then—
Her expression changed.
Recognition.
And then understanding.
And then—
She burst into laughter.
It wasn't mocking.
It wasn't cruel.
It was delighted.
"Oh," she breathed, wiping a tear of light from beneath one eye. "Oh this is beautiful."
Reina's voice rang out from the fused form.
"What are you talking about?"
Seraphiel clasped her hands behind her back.
"Thirty years ago," she said casually, "one of us volunteered."
The battlefield seemed to still.
"A Rank One descended intentionally. Alone. He allowed your species to capture him."
Reina's mind flickered.
UK Astra records.
Project METRE ASTRA.
The world's strongest mech.
Developed after a mysterious intact Angel core was acquired under unknown circumstances.
Classified beyond Level Black.
Seraphiel smiled softly.
"He was curious about you."
Kazuo's presence within the fusion flared.
"That Angel," Seraphiel continued, "was not dissected against his will."
Her middle eye gleamed.
"He cooperated."
Reina felt something cold enter her thoughts.
"No…"
Seraphiel leaned forward.
"And before he was fully integrated into your machine… he experienced your species."
Silence.
Then—
"He slept with a human."
The words detonated in Reina's mind.
Kazuo's consciousness spasmed.
"That human," Seraphiel continued, eyes locked onto him, "survived. Carried something."
Her smile widened slowly.
"You."
The sky cracked with a sonic boom as the fused Astra instinctively recoiled.
"That's not possible," Reina whispered inside their shared mind.
But Kazuo…
Kazuo went quiet.
Memories flickered through the fusion.
His medical records.
Unusual neural readings as a child.
Doctors unable to explain how his body recovered from injuries too quickly.
Why he never became sick.
Why he sometimes dreamed of stars that didn't exist.
Seraphiel's laughter softened into fascination.
"You are not fully human."
Her third eye pulsed.
"You are half."
Reina felt it then.
The resonance.
The reason their sync reached 100%.
The reason the fourth eye opened.
It wasn't just perfect compatibility.
It was biological inheritance.
Angel blood.
Seraphiel's tone shifted.
No longer playful.
No longer entertained.
Cold.
Focused.
"This changes things."
Her eyes sharpened.
"This is no longer about conquest."
Her lips curved into something predatory.
"I must kill this shell—"
She pointed at Reina.
"—and take the boy."
Reina's entire being flared violently.
"You'll do nothing."
Seraphiel's voice dropped to a whisper that shook the clouds.
"I will breed with him."
The air exploded outward.
"To create Four-Eyed Angels."
Silence.
Then—
The fight truly began.
---
Combat Simulation — True Angel Form vs Rank One
Seraphiel moved first this time.
The distance between them vanished.
Her palm struck the fused Astra's wing — shattering half its fractal membrane.
Reina and Kazuo felt it as shared pain.
Not transferred.
Shared.
They countered instantly.
Astra's four eyes flared simultaneously.
A gravitational implosion detonated point-blank.
Seraphiel was driven into the earth hard enough to split tectonic plates.
Shockwaves traveled for kilometers.
She emerged from the crater laughing breathlessly.
"Yes. YES."
She attacked again.
Their movements were evenly matched.
For the first time in recorded history, a human-made entity fought a Rank One on equal ground.
They exchanged blows that bent atmosphere.
Wings clashed like colliding galaxies.
Energy constructs carved through mountains.
The ocean was forced back twenty meters from pressure alone.
Reina and Kazuo fought as one.
No hesitation.
No delay.
Her precision.
His instinct.
Perfect.
Seraphiel grinned through the carnage.
"But you are inexperienced."
She spun, dodging a spear of condensed singularity by millimeters.
"You have power."
She shattered one of Astra's wings with a rotational strike.
"But no eternity."
And that was the difference.
She had fought for centuries.
Across planets.
Across species.
She understood Angel physiology fully.
They did not.
Astra's time limit alarm triggered.
TRUE ANGEL FORM — STABILITY: 41%
Neural overload accelerating.
Kazuo felt it first.
Their fusion beginning to strain.
Reina felt his pulse destabilizing.
"No—"
Seraphiel noticed.
Her smile widened slowly.
"There it is."
She drove her knee into Astra's core, sending them crashing through the earth's crust and into molten rock.
They burst back into the sky seconds later.
But slower.
Sync destabilizing: 96%.
94%.
The fourth eye flickered.
Seraphiel floated calmly now.
"You cannot sustain this form."
Her third eye locked onto Kazuo's essence again.
"But you…"
She extended her hand.
"You will come with me."
Astra lunged one final time.
All remaining energy concentrated into a piercing beam from the fourth eye.
Seraphiel didn't dodge.
She redirected.
Angling the blast upward into orbit.
The beam tore a hole through the clouds and continued into space.
Silence.
Then—
She appeared behind them.
Hand pressed against Astra's back.
"Sleep."
She discharged a controlled neural disruption.
Not lethal.
Precise.
The fusion shattered.
Reina and Kazuo were forcibly separated.
True Angel Form collapsed.
Astra-1 reverted violently to damaged mech state.
They plummeted.
Reina barely managed emergency thrusters before impact.
Seraphiel hovered above them, untouched.
Uninjured.
Victorious.
But not triumphant.
She looked down at Kazuo through fractured armor.
Not with hatred.
With hunger.
"I will return," she said calmly.
Her eyes softened slightly.
"You belong to heaven."
The sky split open behind her.
A circular rift formed.
Before disappearing, she smiled at Reina.
"Prepare him."
And she was gone.
---
Emergency alarms screamed across all Astra networks worldwide.
Reina pulled Kazuo from the cockpit manually.
He was unconscious.
But alive.
Barely.
She held him against her chest as medics rushed forward.
Her mind echoed with Seraphiel's words.
Half Angel.
Four-Eyed potential.
Breeding.
Heaven.
The war had changed.
This was no longer invasion.
This was evolution.
And Reina realized something terrifying.
The Angels weren't trying to conquer Earth.
They were experimenting.
The end....