•August 18th•
•Infinite Zone Base, New Earth Force JHQ•
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"Mr. Prime Minister, Commander Ace of the New Earth Force is here."
The room was a fortress of polished steel and reinforced glass, the kind of space designed not for comfort but for control. The walls bore no unnecessary adornments; no paintings, no plaques, only the gleaming insignia of the New Earth Force and the H.T.A, and a strategic display of global defense networks hovering in holographic stillness.
Ace had been in this office before, but never like this. Never summoned. Never asked to report in person. And especially not the Head Quarters.
The Prime Minister sat at the far end of the room, hands folded over the console in front of him. The man, playing most roles than the King himself, had ruled Japan through war, through the fall of Old Earth, and into this new age of fragile alliances and empty skies.
His gaze, sharp as ever, locked onto Ace the moment he stepped forward.
"You've done well," the Prime Minister said, but his voice carried instead the weight of unspoken expectations. "I read your reports. The situation in the 17 Zones is… contained."
Contained. A polite way of saying Ace had turned an escalating disaster into something tolerable… for now.
"I did what was necessary," Ace replied. His tone was measured, his posture as perfect as his looks. He knew how this worked. The New Earth Force operated with autonomy, but only as long as they continued to deliver results.
The Prime Minister tapped something on his console. A section of the room darkened, and a new projection appeared: classified footage, captured from reconnaissance units. It played in silence.
Ace watched as a mass of humans with machinery parts all out; Mecha Jins, moved like phantoms through the wreckage of a fallen city. They weren't attacking. They were searching.
Then the footage shifted. A second image, different. A containment facility. Heavy doors forced open from the inside. The camera trembled before cutting out entirely.
Ace recognized it instantly. Mizai's cell.
"You assured me the situation was contained," the Prime Minister said, voice colder now. "Explain this."
Ace didn't flinch. "It wasn't an escape," he said. "It was a retrieval."
"By whom?"
Ace hesitated.
The silence was enough. The Prime Minister leaned back. "You don't know."
Ace clenched his jaw. He didn't; Mizai had been locked away in an underground sector so secure it didn't officially exist. Whoever had taken her had done it cleanly. No alarms. No bodies. Only the emptiness left behind.
And most especially, he blamed himself for spending the whole of fifteen days trying to figure out what Ten Shaw really is and where he is, he forgot he had a case: The Mecha Jins. Turns out there's more than three of them.
"This is unacceptable," the Prime Minister continued. "The H.T.A. is already watching us closely. If they suspect we've lost control over such a huge asset, they'll come visiting. And we cannot afford their tea."
Ace understood the weight behind those words. The H.T.A. didn't send warnings. They sent annihilation. It wasn't just High Tech Advanced, they had a body that dominated even the United Nations.
"I'll find her," Ace said. "And I'll bring her back."
The Prime Minister exhaled. He studied Ace for a moment longer before nodding.
"You will," he agreed. "Because I'm giving you full clearance. No restrictions. No oversight. You do whatever is necessary. And Ace….."
Ace waited.
The Prime Minister's gaze darkened. "If you can't retrieve her, you eliminate her. Understood?"
Ace nodded once. "Understood."
The conversation was over. The projection faded. The lights returned to their usual cold brilliance.
As Ace turned to leave, the Prime Minister spoke again.
"One more thing."
Ace stopped.
"The boy," the Prime Minister said. "The one classified as CODE GRAY. What's your assessment?"
Ten Shaw.
Ace had read the reports. The footage from his interrogations after he awoke from the coma. The weirdness of his existence. And now…. now he had disappeared, taken in a separate incident that no one could fully explain.
"He's a variable," Ace said carefully. "An unknown factor."
The Prime Minister's lips pressed into a thin line. "Then find a way to make him known."
Ace gave a final nod and walked out. The door sealed behind him.
As he walked on, he barely acknowledged the guards stationed at the doors. His thoughts were already elsewhere.
With a flick of his wrist, he brought up his own HTA-ID band— it wasn't just for the schoolers, it is a standard device embedded and meant to be embedded in the hands of everyone. The moment it activated, a holographic display flickered to life, replicating the classified footage the Prime Minister had shown him inside.
He watched in silence as the screen projected the familiar underground facility: the containment zone, Mizai's cell. It was Empty. And then the scene of the mass Mecha Jins.
Ace's gaze sharpened. He let the hologram run through again and again as he walked on, this time focusing on the mass Mecha Jins that were 27 in total.
And then….
He swiped the feed forward, moving past the empty cell, and now checking the camera angles leading up to the moment Mizai vanished.
The underground zone was like that of an abandoned old world rail station repurposed into a covert prison. The walls were reinforced, the lighting was dim, and in front of the train-like structure was the entrance to Station Zero.
No one walked out of Station Zero once in.
It wasn't a prison, but a boundary where those who rejected HTA civilization remained. Mostly the Christians who thought advanced technology and the HTA civilization as a whole was the mark of the antichrists. They weren't restrained though; they were simply left to their fate. And few lasted long.
But there in the clip, standing in the shadows and barely visible, was a figure. A teenager. Ace narrowed his eyes.
The camera's angle wasn't clear, but the haircut… it was familiar. He knew that style, that silhouette.
It was the same boy he had seen on the day of the arrest when they had come to arrest Ten Shaw.
His stomach twisted.
He had handled that boy's case once before; the boy was found in the border line of old Tokyo and Yokohama and he had no guardian. Ace put him in school, ensured he had a future. So, he could very much recognize the style and silhouette. That was Rod Aokimoto.
Ace exhaled slowly, closing the band. Maybe the kid just lost his way. Or was having a mood for it, Ace knew Rod Aokimoto was quite the lonely, quiet soul.
His mind shifted to Ten Shaw. He had not told the Prime Minister the truth.
For the past 15 days, he had been working, digging into where Ten was. What Ten was. He had met with scientists, geneticists, cybernetic experts. He had even reached beyond Japan's borders, contacting HTA America for their analysis. A foreign specialist had come, conducted tests, and left him with results.
Results he didn't yet understand.
Before he could tell the Prime Minister anything, before he could tell anyone anything and draw a conclusion about Ten Shaw… he needed to figure it out himself first.
Especially, he needed to figure out how Ten Shaw's HTA-ID band went off him so easily and why it had three perchlorates molecules.... in it.