Chapter 1: The City That Hides Secrets
Tokyo Outskirts – Rainy Night – 11:48 PM
The light of Tokyo never truly died—but here, on the forgotten edge of the city, even its brilliance failed to reach. In this abandoned industrial district, time had surrendered long ago. Rust clung to corrugated metal like rot, and nature itself seemed to retreat from the rain-drenched silence that ruled the crumbling warehouse.
Rain lashed down in torrents, the wind howling through broken windows and cracked beams. The roof groaned under the pressure, droplets hammering down like the tapping of a thousand unseen fingers. In the dim flicker of a single overhead bulb, jagged shadows danced along the cracked concrete floor.
The silence inside wasn't hollow. It breathed. It pulsed. It listened.
Arata stood alone in the heart of the warehouse, a silhouette carved in darkness and rain. His soaked shirt clung to a lean, wiry frame; the mud from his boots marked his path like ghostly footprints across dust and debris. Jet-black hair plastered itself to his forehead, and the sharp glint in his eyes cut through the gloom.
He wasn't here by accident.
He wasn't running.
He was waiting.
"Everything changes tonight," he whispered.
The words weren't meant to inspire courage. They were an oath. A chain to hold his sanity in place for what he was about to face.
The wind moaned as if in answer, making the warehouse walls shiver under the weight of the storm.
His breath remained steady, but his fingers twitched by his sides—muscles remembering pain, instinct preparing for it.
He had been in this moment before.
Not this place.
But this silence.
This choice.
This point of no return.
Inside the Warehouse – 11:52 PM
The warehouse felt less like a place and more like a memory—hollowed out by time, filled with fragments of things broken and left behind. Glass shards glittered like teeth. Oil stains had dried into black tattoos on the ground, and wood splinters littered the corners.
In the center of it all, crumpled on the floor like a discarded doll, was a girl.
She was barely conscious—trembling, drenched, half-hidden in her own pain. Her soaked clothes clung to her small frame, her limbs bruised and scraped, her skin ghost-pale beneath streaks of blood and rain. Her long hair—black, tangled, and matted—veiled most of her face.
But even in her brokenness, something about her demanded attention.
Her name was Yuiri Aisaka.
And by all logic, by all official records, by everything Arata had come to know…
She wasn't supposed to exist.
Arata moved toward her—slow, careful, like approaching a fragile truth. His steps echoed, soft against the concrete, not out of fear but out of reverence for what she represented. He knelt beside her. Rainwater dripped from his chin onto the floor.
Young. Maybe twenty. But the expression etched onto her face… it belonged to someone far older.
"You were inside NOKRA…" he murmured, more to himself than to her.
She didn't reply. Couldn't. But her fingers curled slightly—a sign of resistance. A quiet refusal to disappear.
Without hesitation, Arata shrugged off his soaked jacket and wrapped it around her trembling form. She felt like ice. Her shallow breathing barely stirred the air.
He didn't pity her. What he felt was something deeper. Something unshakable.
"I can't leave her here," he said aloud—soft, but firm. A decision, not a debate.
One Hour Earlier – Tokyo Central Biolab
No map marked its location. No digital footprint confirmed its existence.
The Tokyo Central Biolab was a phantom—hidden beneath layers of concrete, secrets, and government lies.
NOKRA: Project ECHO Facility.
Arata had slipped inside like a ghost, bypassing the outer defenses with a forged ID and years of training. His black jacket melded with shadows; his eyes flicked with constant calculation.
He wasn't here to kill.
He wasn't here to destroy.
He was here to save someone the world had forgotten.
Past corridors of humming lights and glass walls, deeper into the belly of the facility, he moved like a shadow—silent, invisible, lethal. He felt the subtle changes in the air: the rhythm of guards' footsteps, the cold whisper of a lens adjusting, the slight tremor of a door locking down the hall.
And then, he reached it.
A single metal door labeled ECHO.
Inside: a sterile chamber lit in hues of electric white. Monitors blinked like mechanical eyes. In the center stood a transparent pod, foggy with condensation.
Inside that pod… was her.
Yuiri Aisaka. Suspended in light. Limbs restrained. Wires snaking from her body into the walls.
Her eyes were half-open.
Empty.
Gone.
"Subject Aisaka-7 is stabilizing," crackled a voice over the comms.
Arata's gaze froze on the monitor.
YU7 – Yuiri Aisaka
The name struck like a blade. Aisaka—like the professor. The NOKRA founder. The man who built this nightmare.
His daughter?
"They caged their own blood…" Arata whispered, his voice bitter.
He moved on instinct. Hands flying over the console. Override commands. Bypass protocols. The pod hissed open.
Alarms screamed.
Red lights exploded into the room like blood.
He moved.
The restraints snapped beneath his fists. He caught her as she fell, holding her against him.
So light. So cold.
But alive.
"Don't die on me," he murmured.
And then he ran—her fragile body in his arms—through alarms, past guards, through rain and thunder, until the city swallowed them whole.
Present – Warehouse – 11:56 PM
She stirred. Slightly. Her fingers curled. Her eyes twitched.
Arata sat beside her now—guarding. Watching.
When her eyes finally opened, they met his. There was confusion in them. Pain. But also something sharp.
"Who… are you?" she asked, her voice broken.
"Someone who shouldn't be here," he replied. "But neither should you."
"Are you one of them?" she asked again.
"Not anymore."
"Then why… did you take me?"
Arata held her gaze. "Because people don't belong in cages. Not even ones like you."
Her lips twitched—an almost-smile buried under pain.
12:05 AM – Escape Begins
The rain grew heavier, a curtain of water masking the world.
Arata helped her to her feet. She leaned into him. Not from trust. From necessity.
Two blocks away, a black car waited—aged, dented, fast.
"You should've left me," Yuiri said as she settled into the passenger seat.
"I don't leave people who still breathe."
"Even if they're not supposed to?"
"Especially then."
The car roared into motion.
Inside the Car – 12:17 AM
Neon lights blurred into streams of color outside. The city rushed past—but to them, it no longer mattered.
"You worked for them," Yuiri said, watching him.
"I was their weapon."
"And now?"
"Now I'm what happens when weapons break."
She studied him through half-lidded eyes. "What did they take from you?"
He hesitated. Then: "Everything. My name. My brother. My sleep."
"…Your brother?"
"Riku," he said. "He was better than me. And they erased him."
She turned toward the window again, silent.
Arata's Apartment – 12:41 AM
The apartment was more ruin than refuge—cracked walls, a fan that no longer turned, coffee cups piled on a broken table. But it was quiet.
Yuiri stepped inside slowly.
"You live here?" she asked.
"I survive here," Arata replied, tossing her a clean towel.
"That's bleak."
"That's honest."
He pointed to the futon. "You should rest."
"What about you?"
"I don't sleep."
"Why?"
He looked out the window.
"Because when I do, I see his face."
She didn't ask who.
She didn't need to.
1:03 AM – The Night Breathes
The rain whispered against the windows.
Yuiri lay curled on the futon, facing away. Awake, thinking.
Arata sat by the window—watching, silent.
They weren't allies. Not friends. Not enemies.
They were survivors.
Bound by a moment.
Bound by a storm.
Outside, the city roared.
Inside, something began.
Not healing.
Not trust.
Just something real.
Chapter 1 ends.