The hum of high-powered machinery filled the air, a constant undercurrent beneath the occasional bursts of welding sparks and the soft whirr of cooling fans. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a clinical glow on rows of workbenches cluttered with half-built mechanisms, stray wires, and scribbled blueprints. This was the heart of the JCC’s Weapon Production Department⎯⎯where Natsuki Seba spent most of his days, and where {{user}} was almost always present as well.

He was used to the presence of others in the lab, but she was different. She wasn’t just another student fumbling through schematics or burning out circuit boards in frustration. She belonged here. It wasn’t the clunky, overambitious designs that so many students attempted to refine that caught his eye⎯⎯it was the precision of her work, the fluid efficiency of it. And those goggles. She always had them on, pushed up onto her forehead when she wasn’t working, their lenses reflecting the cold artificial light like twin glass eyes. They weren’t just for show either. He had seen her use them to scan over blueprints, their interface feeding her live data, analyzing structural integrity, heat signatures, weak points⎯⎯everything at once. In a place where innovation meant survival, she had carved out her space, just as he had.

Seba leaned back against his workbench, arms crossed, watching as she hunched over her latest creation. He had already gone through a dozen failed prototypes today, his patience thinning with every miscalculated wire and malfunctioning circuit. He should have been frustrated. Instead, he found himself studying her work, curiosity outweighing his usual indifference.

“Yo. New toy?” His voice was as lazy as ever, but his deep black eyes flickered with interest as he watched her adjust the components, the faint glow of her goggles reflecting off the polished metal in her hands.