The final bell hadn't even finished echoing when Neo slipped past the main gates of SkyCloud Academy.
"Still in a rush, boy?" came the familiar croak of Old Marven.
Neo turned, already smiling. The academy's gatekeeper sat slouched on his rusted stool like an aging gargoyle, one boot off and massaging a sock that had probably seen two civil reformations. His academy uniform was so outdated it had circled back to being retro—if by retro you meant tragic.
"Uncle Marven," Neo called, shifting the weight of his satchel, "I've got a part-time job to catch. If I'm late, Boss Lann'll pretend not to see me and pretend even harder not to pay me."
Marven cackled like a broken kettle. "Old Lann's a goblin in human skin. If I had knees that worked, I'd sue him myself! The law owes our brilliant young star some justice!"
Neo gave a dry chuckle. "You've been singing that same line for three months."
"Nonsense, brat!" The old man brandished his dented thermos like a relic weapon. "I'm just... waiting for the right moment! Gotta catch him when he's vulnerable. Or mildly drunk."
Neo waved, stepping through the iron gates, Marven's wheezing laughter fading behind him as the academy's polished world gave way to alleys cracked by age and truth.
---
SkyCloud City stretched like a concrete tapestry under a ceiling of light—silver towers clawing at a sky that held three suns. Their competing warmth filtered down like arguments no one could settle, making everything sharp-edged and restless.
Neo didn't walk the main roads. His shoes, scuffed and soldered at the heel, didn't belong among levitating transports or chrome-buffed pavements. He turned down a maintenance lane, skipped up a drainpipe with practiced ease, and vaulted a short wall into the city's forgotten backways—alleys lined with rusted ducts, garbage drones, and graffiti that whispered secrets in color.
The scent changed first. Less sterilized synth-clean, more oil, dust, and leftover dreams.
A sharp whistle followed.
"Well, if it isn't the sprinter scholar," drawled a voice too casual to trust.
Neo paused at the corner where three teens leaned against a broken air-filtration unit. Half-zipped jackets. Hand-patched shoes. The street's own flavor of ambition—part mischief, part hunger.
"Neo," the one in the middle nodded. "Still chasing your wage? Or just running from mediocrity?"
Neo rolled his eyes. "Trying to calculate how long it'll take before you geniuses get arrested for threatening vending bots."
The tallest one, a girl with a soldered eyebrow piercing, grinned. "Nah. We've upgraded. Hacking service drones. Mid-tier espionage. Corporate-level aspirations."
Neo raised a brow. "Congratulations. Let me know when you qualify for prison with central heating."
The third, who'd been chewing on a broken screw, flicked it into the alley. "Always such a good boy. One day, someone's gonna snap that spine of yours just to hear it crack."
Neo stepped past them. "You'll have to wait in line."
"Watch out for ghosts, nerd!" the girl called after him, half-laughing. "City's full of 'em after dark!"
Neo raised a hand without looking back. "You'd know. You haunt these alleys like unpaid rent."
---
He zigzagged through pipes and shadows until he reached a quieter street where bricks outnumbered people. Wind carried the distant hum of anti-grav engines and something stranger, older. As he ducked past a rusted gate and into an overgrown courtyard, he slowed.
The mural was still there.
Graffiti stretched across a crumbling wall like a scream preserved in color. Three outstretched hands reached toward the heavens. One was mechanical—bulky and sharp, fingers etched with circuit marks and scorched plating. One wore rings, stacked and clashing, from jade to rubies, each a symbol of luxury. The last was a bare human hand—skin thin, bones visible beneath, scarred and scabbed.
Above them burned a single sun, painted in thick yellow swirls, bleeding gold down onto the hands below.
Neo stared. His brows furrowed.
"…Why only one?" he murmured. "When the sky holds three?"
Behind him, a voice rasped like dust over broken glass.
"Because once, child... once, there was only one."
Neo didn't flinch. He didn't have to. He already knew who it was.
Slouched beneath the mural, wrapped in clothes older than most buildings, sat an old beggar. His beard was a bird's nest. His eyes, cloudy but sharp, locked onto Neo with the intensity of a prophet long ignored. A dented bowl lay beside him, holding dust, two buttons, and nothing of value.
Neo sighed. "You again."
"The First Sun," the old man croaked, gesturing weakly, "was born from the heavens. A gift. The world grew beneath its gaze. But man… man wanted more."
Neo had heard this story before. Ten times. Maybe more. The first time, it chilled him. The second time, it intrigued. But now?
Now it was routine.
"They forged the Second Sun from greed," the beggar continued, voice soft like a secret slipping out. "It burned too hot, too fast. Then came the Third—built from fear, desperation. But light is not always salvation, boy. The Third Sun burns truth to ash."
Neo adjusted his satchel, already turning. "Sleep well, old man. Don't let the new suns keep you up."
Behind him, the madman didn't raise his voice, didn't try to follow.
"Three suns," he whispered, "One truth. Only the First will remain."
Neo walked on.
---
West District welcomed him with cracked steel and smog-thick air. No sleek surfaces here—just soot-streaked walls, crooked balconies, and hanging wires that buzzed with forgotten codes.
Neo slipped between two shuttered stalls and vaulted onto a broken pipeline, following the bends and turns until he landed softly behind a narrow building he knew too well.
A crooked sign hung above a half-rusted door, one chain barely holding it up. Letters flickered red against the growing twilight.
Red Ember Relics.
He paused.
The scent of ozone prickled in the air—something like static, something else like… anticipation. Neo's fingers twitched as he straightened his collar and stepped toward the door.
He reached for the handle.
The moment it clicked shut behind him, the air shifted.
Something deep in the world moved—not loudly, but enough for every hair on his arm to rise in revolt.
Neo froze.
The relic shop stood silent.
And something unseen was watching.
---