Chapter 42Neon Shroud of ShinjukuThe transition from the silent, white peaks of the Swiss Alps to the deafening, electric chaos of Tokyo was a violent assault on Laila’s newly heightened senses. The private jet had carried them across the Eurasian landmass in twelve hours, but as they stepped out into the humid, neon-lit rain of the Shinjuku district, Laila felt the sheer density of thirty-seven million human souls pressing against the edges of her silver consciousness like a physical weight. The air was hot, thick, and smelled heavily of diesel exhaust, damp asphalt, and the sharp, artificial sweetness of thousands of convenience store vaporizers.She wore a long, black leather trench coat over her reconstructed silver armor, the metal now completely silent beneath the fabric because her internal furnace was no longer fighting the regional engines. The three fragments of the Lunar Heart had settled into her soul like a three-piece iron puzzle, their collective frequency a low, stea
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