"The steel beneath the skin"

February 4th, 2026

Sankai Private Medical - 1:45 PM

The air in the hospital was sharp with antiseptic and silence. The hallway to the private ward was eerily quiet, save for the occasional distant beeping of medical monitors and the soft scuffing of Ray's boots on the polished floor.

Ray carried himself with the same poise he did on the battlefield, shoulders firm, eyes cold. But beneath that hard exterior, something uneasy coiled inside him. He hadn't seen his father in five years.

He reached the door with a number on it: 317 and a nameplate read: Shinjo Shigeyoshi

Ray stared at it.

He took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped inside.

The man on the hospital bed was older, grayer, a little more withered, but still sharp-eyed. A hard face weathered by years of discipline and war. Shinjo slowly turned his head, locking eyes with Ray.

The first words out of Shinjo's mouth weren't greetings. No warm embrace.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Ray wasn't surprised.

"Good to see you too, old man," he said dryly.

Shinjo sat up slightly, pain visibly twitching at the corner of his eyes. Still, he wore his pride like armor. "Who the hell told you to visit me?"

Ray sighed, rubbed his neck. "Your doctor called me."

"So?" Shinjo snapped.

"You're dying."

Shinjo looked away, jaw tightening. He stared out the window, the Tokyo skyline a blur beyond the glass.

"I know," he muttered. "And I have no regrets in this life."

Ray approached the bed but didn't sit. They both preferred to stand on edge.

"You haven't changed," Ray said. "Still grumpy as ever."

Shinjo smirked faintly. "And you've grown colder. Guess the military did that to you."

"US Delta."

Shinjo laughed. It was a dry, hard laugh. The kind that came from a man too used to swallowing sorrow.

"So you are following your old man's footsteps after all," he said. "Foolish boy. You could've been anything. And you chose a life of killing."

"Didn't fall far from the tree, huh?"

A pause hung between them. Tension, years of silence, unspoken wounds.

"You ever find her?" Shinjo asked, eyes now more tired.

Ray's face hardened.

"I told you," he said coldly. "She's dead to me."

Shinjo shut his mouth. He had no right to press. It was his fault.

He had torn Ray from Risa - the woman Ray adored more than anything. The marriage had broken under pressure, and suspicion. Shinjo had made sure Ray would never see her again.

"I did what I had to," Shinjo whispered, a rare crack in his tone.

Ray didn't respond. He just stared at his father. The man who raised him with a soldier's code. No softness. No warmth. Just orders and discipline.

"You ask me to forgive you?" Ray finally said.

"No," Shinjo said. "I wouldn't forgive me either."

They fell into silence again, the kind only a broken family knew how to share.

"You met the Himura family?" Shinjo asked, changing the topic.

Ray nodded. "I did."

"What do you think of them?"

Ray paused. He looked at his hands. The same hands that had taken lives. The same hands that had trembled earlier, standing in his childhood home.

"Honestly?" Ray said. "I don't know. There's something off."

Shinjo chuckled bitterly. "You're sharp. Good. Keep it that way."

Ray's eyes narrowed. "Where did you even meet Sakura?"

"Long story," Shinjo said with a wave of his hand. "And you don't want to know, boy."

Ray rubbed his temple. "That's not suspicious at all."

Shinjo looked up at his son, seeing the skepticism, the discipline, the razor-sharp instinct. All things he had once tried to hammer into the boy. Now that boy had become something far more dangerous.

"You turned out strong," Shinjo said after a while. "Colder than I hoped. But strong."

"Takes one to raise one," Ray replied.

Another pause.

"I'm proud," Shinjo said.

Ray looked at him. That word hit him like a strike to the chest.

Shinjo had never said it before. Never once.

But now, facing death, he said it like a quiet confession. No apology. Just a single truth.

"Took you long enough," Ray murmured.

The room dimmed as the sun outside dipped below the skyline.

Shinjo laid back, exhaustion setting in. He closed his eyes.

Ray sat beside him, not speaking, just watching the rise and fall of the man's chest. Memories floated in. Riding bikes down the alley. The smell of breakfast. Getting hit for sneaking out. All the things that made up a childhood.

He didn't know how to feel. Was it resentment? Grief? Longing?

Maybe all of it.

The soldier in him stayed silent.

But the son inside just stared at his father.

And remembered.