The hospital lights buzzed overhead in that soft, too-clean way.
Hidesuke stared at the blank ceiling as if it might rearrange itself into a better answer.
He had no clue what was going on.
He remembered… a name. A man. A dying breath.
But then he blinked, and his body was not his own.
Beneath the dull whir of machinery and the automated voice of the robotic nurse beside him, something deeper scratched at his thoughts.
It wasn't a voice. More like an itch behind his teeth. A presence adjusting its tie.
And then, it spoke.
[ ! ] Commencing Synchronization
[ ! ] Sensory Alignment & Bio-memory Overlay Initiating…
[ ≫ ] System Accessing: "Shinohara, Hidesuke" — [ Status: Accepted ]
His eyes widened. He sat up abruptly, scanning his surroundings.
"What the—?"
The voice hadn't come from any speaker. It didn't echo in the room. It was inside him. Under the skin. Woven into the marrow like a thread being tugged through a needle.
He twisted toward the nurse. "Did you—did you hear that just now?"
She was still talking. Still droning in that sterile, monotone way about blood pressure and cellular recovery rates. She didn't even glance at him.
Hidesuke's gaze swept the room, pulse beginning to rise. The other patients were still. Machines beeped. Nothing seemed off. Nothing felt real.
He opened his mouth to speak again but it hit.
The pain.
Like falling into fire with every nerve exposed. A scream tried to leave his throat but only strangled gasps made it out. His back arched off the bed as if someone had hooked a wire through his spine and yanked.
Flashes of memory—not his—crashed behind his eyelids.
A hand squeezing a trigger. Blood on a rooftop. Laughter from someone he never remembered knowing. A little girl screaming. A name said in a voice that cracked from trying to stay calm.
His lungs seized. His fingers trembled. Every part of his body screamed at once.
The robotic nurse finally looked over. Her head tilted. A small click sounded as her hand split open along an unseen seam. Her index finger rotated, the tip revealing a thin steel needle filled with shimmering, amber fluid.
Without hesitation, she injected it straight into the vein running along his neck.
Hidesuke flinched but was too far gone to resist.
Heat bloomed beneath his skin, a wildfire racing through his bloodstream. His pulse spiked. His vision whitewashed for a moment. His muscles twitched like they were trying to escape his own body.
And then…
Relief.
The pain drained like water from a cracked bowl. The tension melted in strange, aching waves. All that was left was breath—shaky, shallow, but his.
He collapsed against the pillow, sweat soaking through the hospital gown, his chest rising and falling with the desperate rhythm of someone remembering how to be alive.
The nurse watched him for three full seconds before stepping back.
"Curious," she said, voice even. "Upon regaining consciousness, you displayed no indicators of pain response. Pulse was steady. No vocal distress. No motion sensitivity. I had presumed neural disassociation. But this—"
She gestured to the vial now retracted into her hand.
"This is more consistent with post-traumatic synchrony."
He blinked slowly, mouth dry. "W—What does that e...ven mean?"
She tilted her head. "When you were brought in by the rescue team… you were clinically non-responsive. Severally wounded. Vitals fading. Cardiac cessation was projected. We logged resuscitation parameters but did not initiate." A pause. "Because your heart stopped before we had time."
He stared at her.
"So I... died?"
"For 4.6 seconds, yes." She nodded once. "Then you stabilized. Impossible. But fortunate."
Hidesuke sank deeper into the bed.
His brain felt like it had been filed into, rearranged, and zip-tied back together.
He blinked slowly, the soft blue-white glow of the vitals monitor reflecting faintly in his crimson pupils.
The robotic nurse continued to drone on.
"…news is that your vitals are now stabilized. An automated data packet has been submitted to the attending physician. He has acknowledged receipt and is en route. In the meantime, should you experience any physical discomfort, you may activate a secondary assist protocol by double-tapping the biometric ring on your right index finger."
He didn't answer at first. His face was unreadable, his body strangely still.
But inside? It was loud. Unbearably loud.
Each word she spoke hit like a metal shard buried deeper into the skin.
This body had flatlined. Hidesuke Shinohara… died. Just like he did. And now he was here, awake, threaded into someone else's flesh like a parasite behind the eyes.
His attention drifted downward.
There were tubes in his arms. Bands strapped across his chest. Fine threads wired into the crook of his elbow. A dull ache throbbed in his leg.
The source of that relentless mechanical humming became clear—it came from the monitor perched beside his bed, blank screen pulsing with a quiet green heart.
He took in a shallow breath.
This body had died.
Not from illness.
Not from some quiet, accidental tragedy that could be softened by condolences or explained by chance.
But from the looks of it… Physical assault.
He'd been beaten without mercy. Dragged to the edge of death and left there like something discarded.
He tried to make sense of it.
Who had done this to him?
Had it happened during a mission? Was it tied to his role as a hero—if you could even call what he'd been a hero at all?
Had he crossed the path of someone dangerous? A villain, maybe?
He swallowed, though the motion hurt.
His throat felt tight, raw in a way that went deeper than dryness. It was the kind of discomfort born from a body struggling to keep up with its own panic.
His thoughts spiraled, reaching into the empty space where answers should have been, finding only shadows.
It was terrifying. Not the pain, not the injury, but the absence. The gaping blank where the attacker's identity should have lived.
Just what kind of person would go this far?
What level of cruelty did it take to beat someone into oblivion?
Suddenly—a whisper of memory rose inside him like smoke from a dying fire, and the world around him shifted.
He was no longer in a sterile hospital room.
He was somewhere dark. Unlit. Claustrophobic. The air was stale and thick, pressing against his lungs.
There was blood on the floor, smeared and sticky. His own, he assumed. The bitter taste of bile clawed at the back of his throat.
His ribs ached with every breath, sharp and constant. His arms refused to move. He could not even feel his fingers.
And standing above him was a figure. Not just large or shadowy, but entirely without definition. There was no voice, no face, just the sickening repetition of fists crashing down on him.
Every blow landed like a hammer. His body stopped keeping count. The pain had stopped being separate from him. It was him.
He tried to remember who the figure was, but the face refused to form. It shifted like a corrupted file, a distortion that never resolved. It felt intentional, as though someone or something had erased that part of the memory before he could see it.
Then the memory broke apart, vanishing like shattered glass in his mind, and he was back in the hospital room.
His hands gripped the edges of the bed before he even realized what he was doing.
There was heat pooling in his chest. But for some bizarre reason, it wasn't fear or paranoia. It was rage. Slow and hot and impossible to ignore.
He did not know where it came from. The vessel, perhaps? It settled beneath his skin and curled around his heart, tightening his jaw and sharpening the edge of his thoughts.
He needed to remember. He wanted to know who had done that and why. But he could not recall the face, and that blankness hurt more than the memory itself.
Then a mechanical voice sliced through the turbulence in his head.
"The assigned physician has acknowledged your condition. Estimated arrival in four minutes. If you are experiencing discomfort, activate assistance through your biomarker ring."
He glanced down at his right hand. A thin silver ring encircled the base of his index finger. It was barely wider than thread. He tapped it once, more curious than hopeful. Nothing happened.
He did not try again. His thoughts had already moved on.
This place was not safe. Not just because of the threats it might hold, but because of what it seemed to represent.
He was in the body of someone disposable. A background-tier hero. Someone meant to lose and disappear.
Whoever had done this to Hidesuke had known it. And worse, they had gotten away with it.
He could not even remember their face.
Maybe that was mercy.
Or maybe it was something else entirely.
He sucked in a breath and for a fleeting moment let himself imagine it was just a dream.
Maybe he would wake up soon in his apartment. Lucy would be there.
She would climb onto his chest like she always did, purring and waiting for her morning meal, her eyes wide and curious.
The thought pierced straight through him.
Lucy.
The name alone hurt. It carved through the numbness like a blade.
His hands trembled, and he did not try to stop them.
If this was real, if he was truly stuck here, then she was alone. Maybe curled up in the bathroom, the only place she felt safe when it rained. Maybe crying the way she did when he was gone too long.
Was anyone feeding her? Would the neighbors check?
Or was she still waiting… curled up by the towels, staring at the tub, thinking he'd get up soon?
The thought sent something sharp through his chest. He let out a shaky breath. The pain that followed was not the pain of broken ribs or bruised flesh. It was quieter. Deeper.
It was grief.
It did not belong to Hidesuke. It belonged to Nathan. But right now, that distinction no longer mattered.
He tried to speak, but nothing came. Only a sound escaped. The sound someone makes when they are trying not to fall apart.
His shoulders folded in slightly, his spine bowing inward like his body was curling around the ache.
He pressed one hand to his face.
No one should be left behind like that. Not a boy. Not a cat. Not anyone.