“Ready, Sora?” she asked, her voice half‑laughing, half‑prayer.

“ You can fly, ” Sora intoned, the words reverberating through Mizuno’s helmet like a mantra. “ With me, the sky is no longer a limit. ”

She thought of the old saying her grandfather used to mutter: “If you want to see the world, you must first learn to lift your eyes.” Today, Mizuno lifted both her eyes and her body.

Mizuno’s heart pounded. She had spent countless nights at the university’s rooftop, watching birds carve arcs across clouds, dreaming of a day when humanity could join them. The project’s codename—ICDV, short for —was meant to be a proof that consciousness could be merged with a machine, that a human could fly without the heavy weight of physical wings.