My return became a blessing in the middle of the misfortune that had just befallen them. I could still feel the way my mother's body trembled as she held me, as if she needed to make sure I was real— not another nightmare. Her embrace was tight, soft, warm. For the first time in a very long while, something close to the feeling of home returned to me.
Beside her, the young girl—my little sister—stared at me with wide eyes that wavered between confusion and fear. I looked back, searching for fragments of the past in her face. Her hair was longer now, but the gentle smile at the corner of her lips… it was exactly the same.
[Facial match: 87% with national records. Name: Inoue Yuriko, age 15. Blood relation: younger sister.]
I gave a faint smile. "Yuri-chan?"
Her eyes widened, tears forming instantly. "Nii-san…?" Her voice was hoarse, disbelieving.Then, without hesitation, she threw her arms around me. Her hands clutched my shirt tightly, as if terrified I would disappear again.
"Waaa…" Her sob burst out. My mother began crying too, wrapping both of us in her arms.
For a moment, the world was peaceful.
But that peace shattered with a low groan from the corner of the room. I turned. The bastard—the one who'd tried to hurt them—was trying to get up, groaning.
I stood slowly, slipping out of their embrace. My expression shifted—cold and lethal."Yuri, Mom… step back."
I patted Yuriko's head gently, then walked toward the man. Our eyes met; his were filled with pure terror."As much as I want to kill you," I said quietly, "unfortunately, my family is watching. Consider yourself lucky… your life still has value today."
I grabbed his collar and slammed him into the floor with controlled force. His bones cracked against the impact, and his body collapsed, limp and unmoving. Something rolled out of his pocket—a red-wrapped piece of candy, looking ordinary.
I scoffed, dismissing it, and crushed it under my heel.
But Kai's whisper echoed in my mind.
[Host, that object contains traces of synthetic chemicals—composition similar to a nano-tech compound.]
I froze for a fraction of a second. Before I could process it, my mother had already called the police, and minutes later the sound of sirens filled the street.
Officers arrived, neighbors gathered outside the gate. Some whispered, staring at me strangely—probably confused about the "stranger" inside the Inoue house. The police asked a few questions, but my mother quickly covered everything up.
"He… he's just a family friend. He happened to be nearby and helped us," she said quickly, her eyes trembling a little.
I knew she understood exactly how dangerous it would be if my identity were revealed. Kai had already warned me:[Any official report can be accessed by international surveillance systems. Tracking risk: high.]
After the officers left and the night settled again, we sat together in the now-clean living room. The scent of green tea filled the air. Yuriko sat beside me, hugging a pillow, curiosity written plainly across her face.
"Nii-san…" she whispered. "Where have you been all this time? And why has your body changed like that?"
A simple question—yet hard to answer. I glanced at the window, catching my reflection in the glass—a face I barely recognized myself.
[Host, you have been missing for 379 days since your last entry in the civilian database.]
I let out a long breath. "So… a year, huh."A faint, bitter smile touched my lips. "If I said I don't know, you probably wouldn't believe me."
Yuriko bit her lip, but she nodded. My mother looked at me, her eyes soft but full of worry."What matters is that you're home, Hikaru…"
I nodded slowly.
This was a momentary peace—one I earned after a long, exhausting day.
At last… I was home.
...
The night in Nerima looked ordinary—shop lights had dimmed, and the sound of passing vehicles blended with the chatter of teenagers who hadn't gone home yet. In a narrow alley behind a karaoke building, a group of delinquents burst into loud laughter.
There were five of them, wearing messy school uniforms, their hair dyed red and pale blonde. They circled around a skinny boy with cracked glasses, clutching his bag to his chest like a shield.
"Hey, did you know?" one of them jeered, shoving the boy's shoulder. "His mom works at a night bar!"
Their laughter exploded again.
"Yeah, that's why this sissy's always broke! All the money goes to his mom's makeup!"
The boy lowered his head, holding back tears. He knew fighting back would only make things worse. But when one of them started talking about his older sister—the one person he admired the most—he froze.
"Your sister's not any better, right? Heard She ran away from home because hhe was ashamed of having trash like you for a family!"
"Stop…" His voice trembled, weak.
But they only laughed harder.
"What? Gonna cry? Go on, cry! What a failure!"
Something inside him snapped.
The world suddenly went quiet.
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small pack of red candies—the wrapper torn on one side, just like the one Hikaru had crushed earlier.
"What's this? Candy to calm your nerves?" one mocked.
The boy didn't answer.
He tore open the wrapper and swallowed the candy whole.
For a few seconds, nothing happened—until his body began to shake violently.
"Oi… hey, what's wrong with you?"
Then—crack! crack! crack!
The sound of bones shifting echoed grotesquely. Veins bulged beneath his skin like black serpents, the cords in his neck tightened, and his eyes turned white with red fractures crawling from his temples. His breathing hitched—and suddenly stopped.
Everyone froze.
Without warning—BAM!
A single punch blasted straight into the chest of the main bully. His body flew back, slammed into the concrete wall, and fell limp, blood spilling from his mouth.
"H-Hey! Holy shit, he killed—"
The sentence never finished.
The boy they had bullied was now standing in the middle of them, his face blank, his pupils no longer human.
Panic set in.
One swung a metal pipe at his head—clang! The metal bent, crushed in the grip of a once-skinny hand that now felt like solid steel. Another swung a baseball bat, but it snapped on impact and ricocheted back, smashing into the attacker's own face.
The alley turned into a nightmare.
Screams, blood, and the sound of flesh meeting brutal force filled the narrow space.The boy—once the victim—had become a mindless monster, tearing through anyone trying to run.
When it was over, only silence remained.
Three of them lay in critical condition.
One didn't breathe at all.
And in the middle of the blood-soaked concrete, the boy stood trembling, his eyes slowly returning to normal.
"I-I… what did… I just do…?" His voice quivered, edging into hysteria.
But before he could understand anything, a thin red smoke seeped from his body—followed by a glowing, unfamiliar sigil appearing on his neck.
...
Far beneath a major corporate building in central Tokyo, the hum of cooling machines mixed with the steady click-click of keyboards. Light from dozens of holographic screens illuminated the face of a thin, silver-gray-haired man in glasses.
He sat in a metal chair surrounded by softly vibrating servers. Each screen displayed a map of Japan marked with growing clusters of red—biotechnological anomalies.
"So it's begun…" he murmured, leaning back. "The Purification Project."
His gaze shifted to the main screen showing the Nerima incident: blurred CCTV shots, the bodies of young delinquents, and the face of a single boy now listed as missing.
Then the screen changed.
Digital letters appeared one by one, accompanied by a deep electric hum:
DARK LINK — RECONNECTION