**When the flames licked the sky, Xu Wu vanished.**
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The molten giant's fingers pierced through the ruins like divine retribution, the heatwave tearing the air apart. My vision flooded with violent orange-red, my ears filled with nothing but the roar of fire. My skin registered no pain—this body was immune to scorching heat—but something deeper burned inside my chest.
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For the first time, I understood what it meant to *lose*.
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*Why?* I wondered.
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*We barely knew each other for a few days.*
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The ruins crumbled beneath me. Before darkness swallowed my consciousness, the shape of Xu Wu’s final words lingered on my retinas:
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*"This time… take my hand."*
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But I hadn’t.
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---
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When I woke, the world was silent as a grave.
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The fires still burned in the distance, reduced to faint red flickers on the horizon. I lay sprawled across cracked earth, my silver hair caked in ash. Raising my hand, I found a twisted shard of metal lodged between my fingers—a fragment of Xu Wu’s sickle, its edges stained with dried blood.
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*"Survive."*
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The command echoed again, not from outside, but from some awakened protocol deep within my consciousness.
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I staggered to my feet and found three charred corpses fanned out nearby. They wore fire-patterned robes, each with a fatal wound in their chest—the edges of their injuries laced with faint blue crystals. The mark of Xu Wu’s sickle.
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She had been here.
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And then she was gone.
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The night wind carried a faint tremor. Following the sound, I spotted a figure perched on a broken wall a hundred meters away. Gray cloak, silver-white hair—but slimmer than Xu Wu. When she turned, her face was eerily similar, except for her right eye, replaced by a mechanical one, its gear-like pupil glowing faint red.
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"Purifier A-09," she announced, her voice like two old radios speaking in unison. "Assigned to retrieve the Prime Construct."
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My throat spasmed—not from fear, but from my body resisting some hidden directive.
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"Where is Xu Wu?"
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The mechanical eye whirred as it focused. *"The deserter has been marked KIA."* She raised her wrist-guard, projecting an image of Xu Wu collapsing in a sea of blue flames. *"You’ve been reassigned to me."*
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In the projection, Xu Wu’s lips moved. Through the silent words, I read:
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*"The Water Nation."*
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---
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The border of Isia was shrouded in damp mist. Unlike the scorching heat of the Fire Nation, breathing here felt like swallowing liquid. I followed A-09 through the reeds, our steps sinking into mud where translucent, jellyfish-like creatures floated, their bodies pulsing with fluorescent blue blood.
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"Memory Jellies," A-09 said, lifting one with her sickle. *"They feed on human memories. The people of Isia call them ‘God’s Blessing.’"*
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When the jelly burst, my vision flooded with unfamiliar images—
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A little girl crouched on a beach, writing in the sand, only for the waves to erase her words. Over and over, she wrote the same name:
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*"Xu Wu!"*
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A-09’s mechanical eye contracted violently. She seized my throat and slammed me into the swamp. *"What did you see?!"*
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Before the mud could fill my lungs, three silver streaks shot from the reeds. A-09’s mechanical arm was severed at the root, green coolant spraying from the stump. A figure cloaked in waterweeds lunged from the marsh, sickle carving a familiar azure arc.
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Xu Wu was alive.
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Her left arm hung limp, a fresh gash split her brow, but her gaze was as sharp as ever. As A-09 stumbled back, she stepped onto a cluster of Memory Jellies—the shockwave of a hundred exploding memories froze her for a single second—
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Long enough for Xu Wu’s sickle to kiss her throat.
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*"You took someone else’s hand."*
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Xu Wu crouched beside A-09’s corpse, prying out the mechanical eye with her blade. When she looked up at me, blood from her wound dyed half her vision red.
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I didn’t answer. A strange emotion swelled in my chest, like rusted gears finally locking into place. I reached for her injury, but she caught my wrist mid-air.
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*"We leave. Now."* She shoved me away, pointing into the mist. *"Isia’s High Priestess monitors the entire territory through the jellies. We need to—"*
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The swamp erupted.
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Thousands of Memory Jellies surged upward, coalescing into a humanoid shape. As the water curtain fell away, a woman in a flowing liquid robe emerged, her face hidden behind a crystal mask. Droplets of memory fragments fell from her sleeves with every step.
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*"Welcome home, Xu Wu,"* the priestess said, her voice like a million whispers. *"And welcome… Prime Construct Zero."*
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Xu Wu’s sickle hummed with high-frequency vibrations. *"High Priestess of Isia… You stopped being human long ago."*
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*"Of course."* The mask cracked into a smile. *"I am the incarnation of memory—the last vessel of Water God Isia."* She pointed at me. *"And he was made to kill me."*
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The water’s surface rippled, revealing a grotesque vision—me driving a sickle through the priestess’s ches
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and then Add to home screen.