The silence was almost cruel.
Charred ground. Shattered stone. A lone breeze swept through the remnants of the battlefield, brushing against the fragments of cloned flesh that still twitched unnaturally. But they were not alive anymore. Just dying slower.
Noir stood stiff, hands trembling faintly. He stared at the powdered remains of the clone that had disintegrated in his grip.
It had all happened in a blink—like the universe paused for a breath, then exhaled chaos.
He hadn't slashed. He hadn't screamed. He had just grabbed one.
And then it unraveled—cell by cell, as if reality no longer allowed it to exist.
Behind him, Cloud landed with deliberate grace, the soft thump of his clawed feet contrasting the tension in his posture. His blue-scaled tail flicked once before curling in thought.
He knelt beside the place where the clone had collapsed. Powder. Not flesh. Not bone. Gone.
No scorch marks. No energy residue.
Only… nothing.
Cloud's eyes narrowed, his voice a whisper. "That shouldn't be possible."
He turned slowly to Noir, eyes flicking over him like a scanner. No burns. No blood. No surge of ki. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Nothing—but the impossible.
Cloud's mind accelerated, leaping between theories like lightning arcs across storm clouds.
Data Point One: A clone of Kyi—a being designed to adapt infinitely—died upon simple contact with Noir.
Data Point Two: No sign of external aggression. No wounds. No visible power from Noir.
Conclusion: The death was spontaneous. Conceptual. Internal.
Cloud stood up and began pacing, speaking aloud as if assembling the pieces for the first time.
"Three possibilities."
Noir blinked. "Huh?"
Cloud held up a single claw. "First… the clone pushed its adaptive system beyond safe limits. It broke itself."
He tapped the side of his head.
"Second… there was an external force. A field. Something ambient that only became lethal when certain emotional or environmental conditions were met."
He paused.
"And third…" He turned, pointing directly at Noir. "You. You may have awakened an unknown ability."
Noir flinched. "Me? No. I didn't—Cloud, I didn't do anything. I just… felt something. And then…"
He trailed off, remembering the sound. That broken voice in his mind—Kill me.
And the helplessness he'd felt. The raw grief. The strange, hollow resolve that followed.
Cloud stared, eyes scanning even deeper now.
"If it was you," Cloud said, slowly, "then this power isn't one of aggression. It's… refusal. Denial. Maybe subconscious rejection of what they are."
He turned toward the dying wind, his pupils tightening.
"Or perhaps it's something worse."
The moment he said that, it happened.
A cracking sound—soft, brittle—like the shatter of ice underfoot.
Then another.
And another.
Noir's eyes widened as he turned toward the clones—still circling in confusion, their bodies rippling with unfinished adaptation, eyes twitching erratically.
One fell to her knees, hands trembling violently before she simply collapsed and… broke. Cracked like porcelain, her body vanishing into motes of gray.
The next screamed—a broken sound—before she too buckled and fragmented.
They began to die. All of them.
Some clutched their heads. Some tried to run. Some turned toward Kyi's distant direction in panic. But all of them shattered in their own time. No external hit. No final blow.
Only… entropy.
Noir gasped, stepping back as one clone fell directly in front of him and disintegrated into dust.
"No…" he whispered. "I didn't mean to… I didn't…"
Cloud didn't move. He was staring wide-eyed—unblinking—calculating again.
"They're linked," he said. "Clones created from a singular adaptive template. What affects one… ripples."
He clenched his claws slowly.
"And if that power of yours infected one of them—emotionally, conceptually, or biologically—then it spread."
Noir's heart pounded. "But I didn't mean to—!"
"I know," Cloud cut in. "And that's what makes it dangerous."
They stood in silence again.
Dust drifted around them like snowfall.
All the clones were dead.
All but one.
Far above them, in the orange sky of Venus, Kyi hovered—alone. Eyes wide in horror. The rage in her had cooled into something worse: confusion. Desperation. The part of her that had wanted death was now suffocating beneath the part of her that still wanted to live.
Her breath came fast, uneven.
She watched her creations die.
Her will, shattered. Her spirit, hollow.
And her body… still alive.
She turned.
She fled.
Wings erratic, she soared away from the ruins of the clone field, past the craters and twisted steel of what had once been a planetary secret.
Cloud watched her shrink in the sky.
"She's afraid," he murmured.
Noir wiped his face with a trembling hand. "So am I."
"No," Cloud corrected. "She's afraid of you."
Noir looked down at his hands, still coated with specks of dust.
"What am I?" he whispered.
Cloud didn't answer. He was already calculating again, eyes glowing faintly.
But deep down, even he didn't know.
All he knew was this:
Something ancient had awakened in that boy.
And the world was shifting in response.