?It was as fast as a lightning bolt and terrifyingly bright. No sooner had the roar reached her ears than the ground ignited, the world dissolving into a 2000°C inferno. In the heart of that sea of fire stood the Professor’s younger sister, her silhouette shimmering against the heat. She reached out, handing her a large, salt-crusted seashell.
?Curious about its contents, the Professor reached out to pry it open—
?And then, she awoke.
?The Professor sat bolt upright, skin slick with cold sweat. A heavy silence filled the room, yet she felt a prickle of unease at the precision of the timing. Had someone set an alarm? Or was it the house itself?
?She scanned the shadows. Byakko was silent—a dormant machine in the corner. Down the hall, the young man seemed lost in sleep in his own quarters.
?Driven by a lingering dread, she powered on her workstation. The blue light of the monitor bled into the room as she began scouring deep-space telemetry for any near-future impactors. Then, a single result flickered onto the screen, reflected in her wide eyes:
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?C O M E T S W I F T - T U T T L E
?Named after its 19th-century discoverers and famously tracked by Japanese "comet hunters" in 1992, the celestial giant held an orbital period of roughly 130 years. While a direct collision wasn't a certainty, the projected gravitational friction suggested a terrifying outcome: the Earth’s surface temperature spiking to 2000°C.
?The date burned into the screen: The year 2126.
?Is it possible to shift an orbit? she wondered, her fingers hovering over the keys.
?She forced a hollow laugh, trying to shake the chill. She was overthinking a nightmare. She had already let her obsessions toy with her enough to build a sentient robot; she knew where that road led.
?Seeking air, she stepped toward the garden. As she cracked the door, a scrap of paper fluttered at her feet—a jagged clipping from the Book of Revelation. The fragment depicted a visceral scene of brimstone and fire raining from the heavens.
?Her breath hitched. "The Bible... and the ancient manuscripts. They should be locked in the depths of the Koro-kan."
?Who had breached the vault?
?Ever since the youth in the fox mask arrived, the boundaries of logic had begun to fray. Paranormal anomalies were no longer outliers; they were a sequence. Even last night, the hallway surveillance had caught it: a glimpse of a strange, white creature prowling the periphery of the frame.