The Baptism of Incoherence

Seventy floors above Kyoto-Ame, the freezing wind whips my neck while the facade of the Consensus Spire slides beneath my gauntlets. KARTIKEYA.X initiates the countdown for his Synchronization. A titanic metronome, a shockwave designed to padlock millions of minds into an enslaved cadence, is preparing to devour the metropolis. UZUME.AKARI whispered the antidote in my earpiece. Our Parade demands a smashing opening.

Jade.Excel has fractured the maintenance hatch. Crouched behind a relay, she hijacks the tower's encrypted streams with the rebellious audacity of a runaway banker who refuses to bow before the machine.

"Twenty seconds until impact," she slips.

I tear off the terminal plate. The TEN'KAI-JOKER armor spits a geyser of pink sparks, illuminating the shadows with a carnival neon. The time has come.

Uzume was right. Every gag exacts its toll.

I jam the polymer onto my face. The metal claws at my cheekbones, seeking bone. Micro-filaments puncture the epidermis to sew the dragon's rictus into my flesh. My knees give out. I swallow a pathetic groan. The clown cries, blood stains the scrap metal, identity melts in a mute blaze. Mana, the invisible orphan of Manila-Drift, evaporates at the bottom of the well. I become the mask. The joke made flesh.

I connect the transmitter. Zero.

I inject the Incoherence.

The machinery chokes. Instead of the gray signal, a burlesque cacophony floods the metropolis's neural implants, a hysterical saxophone solo mixed with absurd nursery rhymes. Fuchsia confetti smears the control monitors. The Standardization drones pitch, drunk on a Dadaist poetry they will never be able to archive.

The laugh escapes me. It tears my throat, gravelly, isolating. I am alone under this iron crown.

Down below, the city awakens. The sirens of the Seven Who Reign tear the fabric of the night, while the Order deploys its squads to plug the breach in our Grand Narrative.

Jade stares at me, her tablet clutched against her chest.

The farce is played out. How are we going to survive the reviews?