Heavy curtains strangled the daylight before it could reach the conference room, turning noon into something closer to dusk. Two flags stood side by side near the far wall—bright cloth made solemn by still air—while the window behind them remained a black suggestion of glass. The air conditioner hummed with bureaucratic persistence, pushing cool air that never quite won against the stale warmth of cigarette smoke ground into carpet and upholstery.

  The mahogany table held too many small truths: water glasses untouched, a silver pen set aligned with the papers, an ashtray that had been emptied and refilled often enough to stain its rim. Everything in the room was arranged to look neutral. Nothing in the room felt neutral.

  “One of our satellites has gone missing.” Ambassador’s voice cut clean through the hum, polite in shape and sharp in intent. He didn’t raise his volume. He didn’t need to.

  “Losing a satellite… it won’t reach the public news cycles.” Minister barely looked up from the documents in his hands, tone measured as if he were discussing a delayed shipment. “With the amount of space debris these days, it’s hardly unusual. A collision, perhaps?”

  “Yes. Hardly unusual.” Ambassador smiled, the kind of smile that belonged in cameras and press releases, not in closed rooms. His eyes did not smile. They stayed cold, fixed, calculating. “Tell me, Minister… are you familiar with a streaming service called EWS?”

  “I’ve heard the name.” Minister finally lifted his gaze, not quite meeting the Ambassador’s eyes, landing instead on a margin note in his own file like it held the more interesting story. “My wife won’t stop watching it. Some sort of fantasy drama, isn’t it?”

  “Fantasy.” Ambassador let the word rest on the table between them, then reached into his jacket with deliberate calm. He produced a single photograph—thicker paper, sharper printing than the kind you got from casual offices—and slid it across the polished wood. The photograph scraped softly, the sound absurdly loud.

  “Well, unofficially, that lost satellite was… weaponized.” Ambassador’s voice remained even. That was the trick. Never let urgency show first. “And this appeared on an EWS stream yesterday.”

  Minister took the photograph between two fingers, as if it might stain him. He turned it once, angled it toward the dim light, and the image caught the overhead glow: a kinetic warhead wreathed in fire, frozen at the precise moment of impact in a desert. The sand in the shot looked like it had turned to glass. The plume looked too real to be special effects and too impossible to be accidental. For a heartbeat, the Minister’s expression did not change. Then his eyelids narrowed a fraction.

  “That is identical to our country’s long-range ballistic missile model.” Ambassador words were careful, clipped. Not denial. Not acceptance. Recognition.

  “Indeed.”Minister folded his hands, the picture of diplomatic patience. “You expect me to believe this is real? It could be a deepfake.” Minister’s tone tipped toward faint scorn, as if he were bored by amateur theatrics. “AI generation is quite advanced these days.”

  “I want it to be a deepfake.” Ambassador’s smile thinned. “But the timing is too perfect. The satellite vanishes from our sensors, and few days later, this impacts the other world.” The words other world did not echo. The room swallowed them. Minister placed his documents aside, interlacing his fingers atop the table. The motion was slow, a minor display of authority: nothing rushed in this room unless someone forced it.

  “If we assume, for discussion’s sake, that all of this is true—what exactly does your government want?” Minister’s eyes flicked once to the photograph, then back to Ambassador.

  “Return of the satellite.” Ambassador answered immediately, as if the response had been rehearsed a hundred times on the flight over. “And disclosure of all related information regarding EWS technology.”

  “You know EWS is merely a corporation, yes? A fast-growing IT firm in Japan. If they wanted a satellite, they could easily fund one legally. Hardly a reason to steal a military asset.” Minister gave a small, thin smile, the kind that acknowledged a request without granting it.

  “If they refuse to return it, then we will retrieve it ourselves.” Ambassador’s polite mask didn’t crack, but pressure surfaced beneath every syllable. “Which means we require one thing—access to the other world.”

  Silence dropped, heavy and clean. The air conditioner hummed on, indifferent. Smoke clung in a thin veil near the ceiling.

  Minister lowered his gaze, hiding whatever sharpened there behind lashes and the angle of his head. So that’s the real intent. The thought slid through him without surprise, more tired than shocked. They don’t just want the hardware. They want territory.

  “And?” Ambassador’s voice returned, calm as a sealed envelope. “Will you cooperate, Minister?”

  “We have reports on EWS, yes.” Minister leaned back a fraction in his chair, as if settling in for a longer conversation. “But technology capable of physically crossing worlds does not exist. We are treating it as a broadcasting anomaly.”

  The Ambassador’s composure finally snapped—not into shouting, but into motion. “Then why did our satellite cross worlds!?” His palm slammed the table, and the water in both glasses shivered into trembling rings. The sharp clap startled the flags into a faint flutter.

  “Our nation has no knowledge of your satellite’s weaponization.” The Minister didn’t flinch. His voice remained almost bored, as though he were reading a prewritten statement. “Nor do we acknowledge the existence of any ‘other world’ to begin with.”

  “Minister—!” The Ambassador’s chair legs scraped as he leaned forward, anger tightening his jaw.

  “And that warhead in the image.” The Minister tapped the photograph with one finger, not hard enough to damage it, just enough to claim it. “Is there proof it was manufactured by any of your defense contractors?”

  “You understand what you are implying.” The Ambassador’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Diplomacy forced his voice down into a controlled line.

  “I’m implying nothing.” The Minister’s thin smile returned, a blade wrapped in velvet. “Look at the bright side.” His shoulders lifted in a faint shrug. “Your nation has managed to demonstrate its weapons capability to the world, without earning a single accusation from the UN on Earth.” He nodded toward the photograph, toward the impossible impact. “A free live-fire exercise.”

  Ambassador shot to his feet so quickly his chair groaned in protest. His face reddened, but the anger in his eyes was colder than his skin.

  “I will take my leave for today.” The words came out tight, each one placed with care so they could not be quoted as a threat. “But we will speak again.” Ambassador turned, walked to the heavy door, and left without another glance. The door shut behind him with a soft, final thud that sounded like a verdict being filed away.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “A troublesome mess.” The phrase was for no one, a sigh made audible. Minister waited a full breath after the latch clicked, then exhaled deeply and slumped back into his chair as if the room’s weight had increased.

  In the shadows near the wall, a secretary stood so still she might have been part of the furniture. The Minister turned his head slightly.

  “Call in anyone who can explain EWS technically.” Minister tone hardened into directive. “I don’t care about rank or title.” He paused, fingers tightening once on the table edge. “And notify the Joint Staff.” His eyes stayed on the black curtain as if he could see through it to the city beyond. “I want their best personnel on this immediately.”

  ?

  “What the hell is this… what is this!?” The operator’s voice cracked, and the control floor answered with a ripple of panic that bounced from desk to desk.

  The EWS Operations Floor was the opposite of the embassy room—bright, cold, relentless. Rows of monitors washed faces in blue-white light. Fans spun inside server towers behind glass panels. The air smelled of ozone and coffee and the faint metallic tang of overheated electronics, like the building itself ran on nervous sweat.

  On the main screen, the desert streamed in brutal clarity: sky too blue, light too harsh, sand too bright to stare at for long. Then a spear of light tore through that sky, trailing fire, and the feed stuttered for half a frame as if even the system flinched.

  “Is that some kind of… new magic?” Another operator pressed fingers to his temple like he could squeeze an answer out. His eyes were wide enough to catch the monitor’s glare.

  “Roll it back!” Someone snapped, chair wheels squealing. “Slow it down! Frame by frame!” Keys clattered. The timeline scrubbed backward. The spear of light replayed again, impossible and clean, a line drawn from orbit to sand. The plume at impact didn’t bloom like mana—there was no shimmering spell circle, no chant, no visible casting. It was force. It was physics.

  “No way… what even is that?” A woman at the next station raised a hand to her mouth, knuckles white.

  “It’s a missile.” The words came out in a flat whisper, as if saying them louder would make them true in a way she couldn’t bear. “That’s a kinetic missile.”

  “Impossible… and yet there it is.” Another voice, shaky but stubborn, answered from behind a bank of screens. “If it’s on-camera, it happened.”

  “Active channels?” A sharp voice cut through the chaos like a whip. The words were clean, clipped, and carried authority that didn’t need volume. Heads snapped around.

  Kaori Mamiya stood at the entrance, lab coat draped over her shoulders like a cape she refused to admit was dramatic. Her hair was pinned back, her glasses catching the ceiling lights in two thin rectangles. Her face was composed in the way only people who had already accepted catastrophe could be composed.

  “Approximately 1,200, Ma’am!” The closest operator answered too fast, as if fear could be outpaced by obedience.

  “Force-control all outdoor lenses.” Mamiya walked in, each step measured, eyes scanning the screen wall and absorbing the situation in seconds. “Tilt every camera to the sky.”

  “Won’t that look suspicious to viewers—?” Someone started, the practical fear of customer perception rising even here.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Mamiya didn’t slow. “We are tracking that missile’s trajectory.” She leaned over a terminal, fingers moving with practiced speed, pulling overlays and telemetry maps that weren’t meant to be used like this. “Simulate the path and pinpoint the launch origin.” Her voice sharpened. “Now.”

  “Right!” A dozen acknowledgments collided.

  Dozens of monitors shifted at once, showing nothing but the alien blue sky above different landscapes—desert, plains, a distant ridge line. The sudden uniformity was eerie, like a thousand eyes forced to stare upward in unison.

  Operators hammered at their terminals. Lines of code and vector plots blossomed across screens. The system’s usual friendly UI—icons, chat overlays, viewer reactions—was shoved aside, buried under raw data. The floor’s hum rose as if the servers sensed urgency.

  “Simulation complete!” A shout cut through the clatter. “This origin point is—” The operator hesitated, staring at their own screen as if it had insulted them. “Outer orbit?”

  A stunned murmur rolled through the room, the sound of disbelief turning into dread.

  “Eliminate possibilities one by one.” Mamiya’s voice stayed controlled, but sweat glimmered at her temple, sliding down in a thin line. “Generate observation nodes in that region. There should be enough mana to open them.” Mamiya didn’t blink.

  The main display flickered, then resolved into a new image that made the entire floor go still. A massive artificial construct drifted through orbital space—too sharp, too clean, too human. Solar panels fanned out like black wings. Antenna arrays bristled from its spine. A barrel—no, a railgun-like structure—jutted from its frame with a blunt, predatory confidence. Against the starless void, it looked like a piece of Earth had been torn free and armed.

  “A satellite…?” Someone whispered, then corrected themselves as the details sank in. “No—an Orbital Weapons Platform!” Someone’s Gasp erupted, quick and involuntary.

  “If this stays in the other world, it’s beyond an OOPArt—it’s a catastrophe!” Another voice climbed into panic. “It’ll rewrite their entire tech curve overnight!”

  Mamiya stared at the image until the light etched it into her retina. Her throat tightened, and her pulse thudded hard enough to feel in her teeth. This isn’t a corporation’s stunt. The thought came swift and cold. This is a theft from orbit. This is war potential.

  And she knew—she knew with the awful certainty of connecting too many dots—that there was only one person she had seen bend rules like paper and then pretend the fold was inevitable. Yu… what have you done?

  “Preserve every frame of this.” Mamiya’s voice didn’t rise, but it nailed everyone in place. “Do not lose it.” She leaned closer, eyes reflecting the weapon platform on-screen like a ghost. “Encrypt the data immediately.”

  ?

  “Dr. Mamiya.” The voice came from the far end of the EWS Executive Meeting Room, and it carried the weight of decisions made behind closed doors.

  The room was quieter than Operations, heavier, decorated to reassure money. Thick carpet. Framed certificates. A long table polished so clean it reflected the ceiling lights without distortion. Outside the wide window, Tokyo stretched in glittering grids—office towers, traffic arteries, neon signs still faint in daylight. The city looked endless, confident, invincible.

  Mamiya entered stiffly. Her hands were steady at her sides, but her shoulders held tension like a brace. The board members rose in practiced unison, not out of respect for her, but out of respect for the emergency she represented.

  “We’ve received an official summons from the government.” One director spoke first, grim enough that his usual corporate smile was absent. “We want you to go to Kasumigaseki.”

  “Me, sir?” The words came out before Mamiya could smooth them. The question wasn’t about unwillingness. It was about scale. Kasumigaseki wasn’t a meeting. It was a gravitational well.

  “You are the only one who understands the current technical situation.” Another director nodded, fingers pressed together as if praying to spreadsheets. “They don’t want a title. They don’t want a bureaucrat.” He swallowed once, throat working. “They want—someone who can explain EWS.”

  Silence held for a beat, thick and pressurized. Mamiya could hear her own breathing, the faint buzz of the window’s seal against city noise. She could almost feel the weapon platform image still burning behind her eyes, the railgun barrel floating in black. If I speak too clearly, I invite control. The thought slid through her with clinical honesty. If I speak too vaguely, I invite panic. Either way, she would be the one holding the match over dry grass.

  “Understood.” Mamiya’s voice was quiet, but it didn’t shake. “I’ll go.” Mamiya adjusted her glasses with two fingers, a small ritual of composure, then bowed slightly.

  Outside the window, Tokyo glittered with polished arrogance, unaware of the thread tightening around it. In the center of that sprawl stood the government district—Kasumigaseki—where power gathered and secrets were processed into policy.

  Mamiya stared toward it, feeling responsibility settle in her chest like a weight that didn’t care about bones. That place was about to swallow every spark, every secret, every danger. And all of it—satellite, stream, observation, mana, the other world—was about to converge.