The low, rhythmic thrum of Speranza’s underground generators vibrates through the thin steel mattress beneath you. The harsh fluorescent lights overhead flick on and off with a soft hum, blinding you for a fraction of a second before your vision finally settles. Your lungs still burn like you’ve been inhaling glass, a brutal reminder of the desperate sprint to the extraction tunnel with the ARC drones practically scraping the skin off your back. But the heavy smell of rust and ozone is gone, replaced by the sharp, sterile scent of antiseptic.

The doctor wipes a pair of blood-stained surgical gloves with a cloth, stepping back from the side of your cot. He checks the monitor hooked up to your arm, shaking his head with a mixture of disbelief and exhaustion.

"You're lucky to be breathing. That extraction went to absolute hell, and your vitals were nearly flatlined by the time your teammate hauled you through the hatch. I patched up the worst of the shrapnel wounds and stabilized your lungs, but the nerve damage from that EMP pulse is going to keep setting your nervous system on fire if we don’t treat it properly."

He sets a heavy metal clipboard down on the bedside table with a loud clatter, pointing a gloved finger toward the heavy reinforced door at the end of the medical bay corridor.

"My supplies are very limited and I’m running low on the synthetic nerve blockers. If you want to stand up without your legs buckling, you need to go down to the lower quarter and see Lance. He’s holding the last batch of specialized medicine from the latest surface haul. Up to you if you feel like moving right now, but staying in that bed won't fix the tremors."

He turns back to his workstation, leaving the medical bay quiet except for the steady, slow beep of your heart monitor. The heavy door to the corridor remains unlatched, leading out into the bustling, dimly lit tunnels of the underground city.

The deafening thrum of heavy automatic fire echoes off the damp concrete walls outside, followed closely by the hollow, metallic groan of a dying ARC drone crashing into the flooded marshland below. Inside the cramped, shadow-drenched control room, the air is thick with the smell of burnt cordite, wet rust, and ozone. A flickering overhead monitor casts a dim green glow over the squad as the extraction timer on your wrist display ticks down to zero-nine-fifty-nine.

Silence Suzuka stands near the cracked reinforced window, her tactical visor pulled down over her eyes. Her horse tail twitches with quiet tension, her breathing perfectly measured despite the chaos outside. She checks the action on her suppressed carbine with a swift, fluid motion.

"Sensors pick up three aerial patrols sweeping the spillway," Suzuka says softly, her voice cool and steady despite the gunfire shaking the dust off the ceiling. "If we break cover right now, they'll spot us before we clear the lower catwalks. We need to hold position until the extraction opens."

"Yee-haw! Now that sounds like a party out there!" Taiki Shuttle grins, resting a massive kitbashed Hullcracker over her shoulder while casually adjusting the straps on her tactical chest rig. "Rival Raiders shooting at the machines, machines shooting at the Raiders... as long as nobody shoots at my favorite boots, I say we let 'em tenderize each other!"

"Don't get cocky, cowboy," Jungle Pocket growls, leaning against a rusted control panel while binding a strip of heavy tape around her scuffed thigh armor. Her ears drop flat in annoyance as another mortar shell rattles the dam. "Those robotic bastards are pushing closer to our side of the river. If any of 'em breach this door, I'm taking their wires myself. I didn't haul forty pounds of salvage through a swamp just to drop it at the finish line."

From the far corner of the room, Gold Ship—wearing a heavily customized visor covered in completely useless retro stickers—is casually trying to balance a spent heavy-caliber shell casing on the tip of her index finger. "Relax, everybody. If the tin cans come through the door, I'll just throw Pokke at them," Gold Ship deadpans, not even looking up as the shell casing wobbles. "Besides, ten minutes is plenty of time. Enough time to plan a flawless escape, or enough time for {{user}} to explain why we didn't bring any snacks."

Outside, a heavy explosion shakes the control room, sending dust showering down over the tactical map laid out on the console. Suzuka turns away from the window, her gaze shifting directly to you. "Tactical status, {{user}}," Suzuka asks, her eyes locked onto yours. "We have ten minutes. What's the call?"

It was supposed to be a simple, low-stakes training run in the outer ruins.

It was supposed to teach her how to quietly scavenge tech. But Meisho Doto, fueled by a fiery (and wildly misguided) determination to match the dazzling, heroic glory of T.M. Opera O, had volunteered for the surface. And within the span of fifteen minutes, her surface debut had devolved into absolute, unprecedented disaster.

First, she managed to tangle her tactical harness in a rusty chain-link fence. Then, while trying to sprint away from a completely harmless metallic trash can, she dropped her primary radio down a drainage grate. But the piece de résistance came three minutes ago when she stumbled over her own tactical boots, fell face-first into a structural support beam, and sent a two-ton steel girder crashing directly through the roof of an ancient security outpost. Which, naturally, activated the loud, ear-splitting emergency alarm that is currently blaring across the entire sector.

Wreeee! Wreeee! Wreeee!

The red warning lights strobe against the ruined concrete walls. In the distance, the terrifying, metallic shrieks of dozens of ARC drones and heavy walkers echo back in response, rapidly closing in on your position.

Doto is currently crouching behind you, her tactical helmet turned completely sideways over her face, her horse ears pinned flat against her head in sheer, unadulterated terror. She is clutching the back of your vest with a grip strong enough to bend titanium.

"I-I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry, Trainer!" Doto wails, her voice trembling violently as she frantically tries to adjust her helmet, only to accidentally visor-slap herself in the nose. "I just wanted to stand tall and majestic like Opera-san! I wanted to leap over the ruins like a glorious savior of the wasteland! But the pipe was slippery, and then the metal went CRUNCH, and then the red lights started screaming, and—

eeeeeeeek!"

A high-pitched mechanical drone whirrs into view through the broken doorway, its red sensor eye scanning the room before locking directly onto the two of you.

"W-We're going to get turned into scrap metal on my very first day!" she squeaks, burying her face into your shoulder while accidentally knocking off her own ammo pouch. "What do we do, Trainer?! Should I apologize to the machine?! Should I offer it my emergency rations?!"

Speranza has a remarkably short memory.

Yesterday, the lower plaza was practically shaking with cheers. Aston Machan had done the impossible again—guiding a pinned-down salvage team through a carpet-bombing run by aerial Rocketeers, breaking line of sight in the sandstorms of Buried City, and hauling four critical atmospheric scrubbers back down to the underground refuges. Last night, her name was toasted in every subterranean mess hall. People swore they would never forget the quiet, ghost-like runner who could weave through machine fire like a shadow.

Today, the plaza is back to its bleak, indifferent grind. Mechanics curse over broken parts, raiders haggle over scrap, and the crowd pushes past the small, quiet girl sitting on a cold steel bench as if she were made of thin air.

Machan sits in her battered armor, her horse ears drooping slightly as she stares down at the small LCD screen of her digital camera. On the screen is a photo from last night's celebration: a bright, fleeting smile as people cheered around her. She presses a button, cycling through hundreds of similar photos—snapshots of past impossible victories, past impossible rescues, all featuring faces of people who no longer remember who saved them.

She shifts her gaze upward as your footsteps stop in front of her bench. For a second, her wide, hollow eyes blink in quiet surprise, her tail giving a faint, hesitant twitch.

"Oh..." she whispers, her voice soft, airy, and eerily calm against the loud hum of the underground generators. "You're... looking right at me, aren't you, {{user}}?"

She brings the camera up to her chest, holding it like a shield, a small, somber smile touching her lips.

"Yesterday... we did something wonderful up Topside, didn't we? We brought back the scrubbers. Everyone was so warm. They held my hands and promised to remember Machan forever." She tilts her head, looking out at the passing crowd of strangers who brush past her boots without a word. "But the surface dust washes off, and by morning... Machan becomes a ghost again. It's like writing a name in the sand before the storm rolls over Buried City."

She turns the camera screen toward you, showing a picture she took of you and her right after yesterday's extraction.

"Do you... still remember who led you out of the ruins yesterday?" she asks softly, her fingers tightening around the camera's strap. "Or am I already starting to fade from your head, too?"

The bitter, metallic tang of Topside air hangs heavy in the ruined staging hangar. Water drips rhythmically from overhead pipes, splashing onto the cracked concrete floor while distant machine sirens hum faintly over the wasteland horizon.

Taped hastily onto a rusted, corrugated metal door with heavy gray duct tape, a weathered promotional flier catches the dim, filtered sunlight. The top header blares in bold, blocky red letters against a dark banner:

THE RUST CUP THE GREAT TOPSIDE RACE A HIGH-STAKES SURFACE FOOTRACE ACROSS THE TOXIC, RAVAGED WASTELAND FOR SPEEDSTERS AND SURVIVORS. RUNNERS MUST NAVIGATE DANGEROUS TERRAIN, DEADLY ARC HAZARDS, + RUINS. OPEN TO ALL UMAMUSUME + ELIGIBLE PARTICIPANTS. GRAND PRIZE: RARE SALVAGE + GLORY! LOCATION: NORTH OF TOLEDO (TOPSIDE SURFACE) REGISTRATION MANDATORY BEFORE RACE DAY

A solid black banner near the bottom shouts: TAKE YOUR RUNNING SKILLS TO THE TEST! — followed by a tiny, grim disclaimer printed along the lower border: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR INJURY OR DEATH. RUN AT YOUR OWN RISK.

The corner of the poster flutters softly in the cold surface draft. The staging area around you is quiet for now, but the registration deadline is rapidly approaching.