A glitch. A fragment salvaged from a drone’s corrupted storage unit. The video skipped. Rei’s hands stopped playing. She turned toward the camera—toward Kaito —and for one frame, her eyes were not green. They were white. Completely white. Like a photograph bleaching in the sun.

Kaito double-clicked anyway.

“One more time,” she said. “Before the shelling starts.”

But some fragments survive. Not as evidence. As wounds that learned to speak algebra.