The Foxfire Saga

Raya wasn't moving.

That was the first, last, only thought in Akiko's head as she dug through the shattered corridor. Her claws ripped twisted metal aside like foil. Foxfire snarled along her arms, searing frost from every surface, steam rising in frantic plumes that stung her eyes.

Move. Breathe. Open your eyes.

Raya lay sprawled in a half-collapsed pocket of the floor, one arm pinned under rubble. Her pressure suit was torn in two places along the thigh and ribs, dark with spreading patches of blood that seeped into the insulation. Her breath rasped shallow and thin over the suit's external pickups, each cycle a tiny mechanical gasp.

Akiko dropped to her knees, hands hovering over Raya, unsure what she could touch. The suit's fabric was slick with half-frozen blood.

"Takuto," she rasped. Her voice broke in the neural link. "Vitals. Now."

There was a pause, then her HUD flickered, stuttering as Takuto pulled what he could from the shredded suit's remaining telemetry.

"Basic heart rhythm detected. Respiration shallow. Warning: data incomplete. Suit medical sensors compromised."

Akiko's breath hitched, rage and terror twisting together in her chest.

"That's it? That's all you've got?"

"The suit is too damaged. I can't pull internal data."

Akiko's vision narrowed. Her tails lashed behind her, foxfire snapping bright and angry across the shattered corridor.

Alive. She's alive. That's enough. That has to be enough.

"Hold on. I've got you," she breathed, half to herself, half to Raya. Her claws retracted, fingertips bare and trembling as she pressed gently along Raya's side, seeking any sign of more damage.

I promised you I'd keep you safe. I promised.

Her mind refused to reach back to the rest of the corridor. To the blast, to the fight, to Skadi's accusing eyes. Nothing existed but this moment, and the fragile, precious shape of Raya still fighting to breathe.

Her hand darted to the pouch at Raya's hip, fumbling until her claws found the small kit tucked there. She ripped it open, breath coming quick and ragged, and began slapping patch seals over the worst of the tears. The polymer hissed as it activated, trying to bond over blood-slick fabric. Not perfect. Not nearly enough. But it would have to hold.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, the Skill Layer stirred, it still wasn't the cool detachment she expected, and it wasn't even the lazy shrug it had given her in the geothermal plant. This time it felt… clumsy. A half-beat behind her hands, mirroring her movements with its own faltering grasp, like it was fumbling through this with her.

Skill Layer Initialized.

Category: Field Medicine

Status: Novice (0.00% milestone achieved).

Subskill Acquisition (Field Medicine): Trauma Seal Stabilization – 5.0% milestone achieved.

She shook her head, clearing the notifications. There wasn't time to worry over her Skill Layer misfiring or whatever it was doing.

They couldn't stay here, exposed where prying eyes might follow. Not where Haven or the Red Stripes or even that ice-bitten bitch might come sniffing after them.

Akiko's gaze flicked toward the distant exit hatch, then settled on Raya again, jaw clenching so hard it hurt.

"There's only one place I trust right now," she whispered, voice rough with promise. To Raya, to herself, to whatever gods might still be listening out in the frost. "And that's back in the cold, where no one can touch us."

The micro-fusion core, the mining laser, the precious salvage. All of it could rot in that transport for all she cared. Let them keep it. Let the whole damned Hold tear itself apart over scraps.

Right now, there was only one thing that mattered. Getting Raya out. And getting gone.

Akiko slid her arms under Raya, careful of the damage, her breath hitching when Raya made a small, broken sound over the comms. Then she lifted, cradling her close, careful to keep Raya's head tucked against her shoulder, her tails wrapping protectively around them both like living scarves.

Raya was so light. Too light. It made something raw twist in Akiko's gut.

She didn't linger. Couldn't.

Akiko pushed toward the end of the corridor, each step jarring pain through her own battered frame, her suit still weeping faint streams of foxfire where the scales hadn't fully re-knit. At the airlock she paused only long enough to slap the cycle, impatient as the systems wheezed and shuddered through their motions.

Then the doors opened, and the cold hit her like a revelation.

Zephara's winds tore past, biting through even her suit's protections, howling around them in mournful spirals. Above, Erythraea loomed impossibly vast, its rust-and-rose bands painted across the night, heavy with the silent gravity of uncaring gods. The stars around it burned sharp and pitiless.

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Akiko shifted her grip on Raya. Drew her closer. Took one step. Then another.

The world beyond the Hold stretched out in unbroken desolation. Ridges of fractured ice, faint glints of wreckage half-buried in drifts. Every breath steamed around Akiko's face, freezing into delicate whorls on her lips. Her suit's HUD flickered with warnings she ignored, focus narrowed to the slight rise and fall of Raya's chest against hers.

It was a long walk back to the hollow where the mech lay waiting. Longer still with the weight of her entire world held tight in her arms.

She set her jaw, shoulders bowing under more than just Raya's fragile body.

She didn't know how long she walked. Time blurred into the crunch of ice under her boots, the steady rasp of her breath, the distant shriek of shifting plates somewhere under the frost.

The razor wind slicing through every crack in her suit. The fractures in the ice that could open without warning. The entity still lurking above, its shadow clawing across orbit like a promise of ruin.

Skadi's face flared behind her eyes, twisted with grief and guilt and rage. That same twisted knot that lived in Akiko's own chest, only Skadi had let hers harden into a weapon. Akiko wondered, in the jagged hollow between heartbeats, how close she'd come to doing the same.

All of it trying to kill us.

Skadi. The terrain itself. The entity in orbit. The memory of Haven, claws still sunk deep. Even the moon's surface still bore scars from the battles weeks ago, gouges where weapons fire had melted and refrozen the surface.

And maybe…maybe she was part of it, too.

The foreign thing in this place, dragging new horrors in her wake. A flame in a world that only ever wanted to be still and cold.

Akiko squeezed Raya a little tighter, felt the faint catch of her breathing against her chest. No. None of that mattered. Not right now. Not when every step brought her closer to the only place she still dared to trust.

Up ahead, the ice dropped away into a shallow basin, a jagged hollow shadowed by shards of broken plating. The mech waited there, half-buried in drifted snow, its once-sleek lines fractured by impact, its looming shape still and silent as a grave marker.

Or at least a hole to crawl into where no one else could reach them.

Akiko took the last few steps carefully, knees almost buckling as she sank into the lee of the wreck, shielded at last from the biting wind. Her foxfire dimmed to trembling embers, enough to keep Raya warm but no more. The rest she needed to save. There were still too many ways this moon might try to take them before dawn.

Akiko ducked inside the mech's cockpit, careful not to jostle Raya more than necessary. The compartment was cramped, all jagged angles and half-integrated conduits, a hollow meant for something other than human life.

She had wondered, more than once, why the entity had built it this way. Why carve out a space shaped like a pilot's cradle in a machine that had never borne one? Was it always meant to be her seat? A throne for the moment she broke and offered herself up?

Akiko pushed the thought aside, mouth twisting. Useless to dwell on it. There were more important things. Like the shallow hitch of Raya's breath. Like the faint tremor in her pulse.

She eased Raya down, propping her carefully against the angled backplate. For a moment, she just stayed there, hands braced on either side of Raya's shoulders, her head bowed so low their foreheads almost touched.

Still breathing. Still here.

Her eyes snagged on the medkit. It lay just inside the hatch where they'd dropped it weeks ago, back when they'd thought Raya's healing would be enough for anything this wretched moon threw at them.

She popped the case open. Gauze, sealant patches, a few auto-injectors blinking with tiny diagnostic lights. All of it seemed to blur under the rush of panic.

What if she missed something? What if she couldn't fix it?

"Takuto," she whispered, voice cracking. "Help me."

"Of course. Focus on your hands. I will handle the sequence. Begin by scanning her for internal bleeds."

Akiko fumbled the slim scanner wand free, guided by Takuto's calm instructions. Her fingers were clumsy against the controls, tips still faintly scorched from the foxfire she'd channeled hours before. The device hummed, lights flickering across its surface.

"Minor fractures. Internal bruising. Lacerations along her left side. Begin with the sealant on the external wounds. We will address stabilization after."

She obeyed, fingers slick with blood that was too warm on her gloves, too stark against the cold that still clung to her aura. Each hiss of the sealant made her stomach twist. If only Raya would wake up. If only she could just...laugh it off. Tell Akiko she was fussing over nothing.

"Good. Now the injector, upper thigh. Anticoag. That will keep the swelling down."

Akiko pressed it in, thumbed the activator. The faint click-hiss was louder than it had any right to be. Then nothing. Just Raya, still too still, her breaths shallow.

Subskill Acquisition (Field Medicine): Triage and Stabilization Protocol – 23.5% milestone achieved.

It felt like holding her breath, only to realize it wasn't just her. Somewhere deep in the lattice of her Skill Layer, that same taut focus eased, as if it too had been waiting for the moment to let go.

Akiko lowered herself until she sat curled against the cockpit's side, one hand resting on Raya's knee. Letting the warmth seep through, reminding herself it was still there. Still hers to hold.

"Don't you dare leave me," she whispered, breath shaking. "Not now. Not after everything."

"She will not," Takuto said, gentle even through the flattened distortion of his synthetic timbre. "I will alert you at any sign of change."

Akiko leaned back, head tipping against the cold plating. Outside, the wind scoured against the mech's battered hull, muffled by the metal walls that made this place feel like a tomb, or a confessional. And inside, her world had shrunk to this fragile patch of breath and pulse, and the faint golden threads of Raya's mana still pulsing low in her chest.

Time thinned.

Akiko didn't know how long she sat there, curled half against Raya's side in the cockpit's cramped confines, head nodding now and again before snapping back up. Every tiny shift of her weight drew a faint groan from the battered metal beneath them. Outside, Zephara's winds whispered and scratched, but inside it was too quiet.

She tried to close her eyes, tried to drift. But her mind wouldn't let her.

Defenses? she wondered. Barricades? A perimeter?

A low, humorless laugh almost slipped past her lips. With what? The micro-fusion core that was supposed to power her rebuild was probably still tucked in a crate on Vashri's transport, if he hadn't already pawned it off somewhere. Her mining laser, the carefully hoarded scrap, all of it gone.

Even if she'd kept it, what then? Dig a little foxhole in the frost, wait out the world? Pretend they could be happy in the shell of this mech, cold steel for walls and every breath a whisper of frost?

It wasn't the homestead she'd once let herself dream of. That impossible little cottage on the edge of nowhere, golden light spilling from the windows, Raya's laughter carrying out across green fields that didn't exist. Another world, she thought, throat tight. One that was impossible the moment she'd set foot on this frozen rock.

Raya stirred faintly under her hand, a tiny hitch of breath. Akiko tensed, pulse jumping, but then Raya settled again, her face still slack, lashes damp against too-pale cheeks.

Akiko let out a long, shuddering breath.

No home here. No warm fields. Just this… the cold, and what she could cling to in it.

Akiko curled closer, her forehead resting lightly against Raya's shoulder, the faintest swirl of golden mana answering her through the veil of unconsciousness.

She let her eyes drift shut, her mind a haze of half-formed plans and ghost-memories of a world that wasn't theirs. And slowly, only because exhaustion demanded it, she dozed, held there by nothing more than fragile hope and the hollow echo of her own promise:

Never again. Never lose her again.