Chapter 4: The Memory That Shouldn't Exist

Rooftop Warehouse Hideout – Tokyo Outskirts – 4:17 AM

The rain had softened into a delicate drizzle, like the dying breath of the storm. Each droplet clung to the rusted rooftop, slipping quietly down through holes in the structure to patter against the concrete floor in a slow, solemn rhythm. Outside, the pulse of Tokyo had faded into the hush of pre-dawn stillness. But within the walls of the warehouse, silence pulsed like a living presence—dense, suffocating, echoing with all the truths that hadn't yet been spoken.

Yuiri Aisaka sat curled against the cold wall, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Her hoodie, soaked from their escape, stuck to her like damp armor. Her brown hair clung to her cheeks in tangled strands, matted with sweat, dirt, and tears that seemed to rise and fall with the rhythm of her own ragged breathing. Her eyes, hollow and uncertain, traced the cracks in the concrete floor. It was as if she were trying to solve a puzzle only she could see—a question without an answer, or an answer too painful to acknowledge.

Arata crouched several feet away, the shadow of his figure painted in dull greys by the faint light filtering through a cracked window. His eyes were sharp, focused beyond the glass at a world still cloaked in secrets. A strip of fabric wrapped tightly around his arm had already darkened with blood. Though his jaw remained set, and his shoulders square, the wound throbbed beneath his silence. But pain was not new to him. It simply lived in his body now, like memory.

Yuiri's voice came like a whisper over water. "He wasn't one of them."

Arata didn't turn. "No," he replied quietly. "He wasn't NOKRA."

She looked at him, her voice trembling. "He said I'm important. That I'm part of something... something after NOKRA fails. What does that mean? What am I?"

A long pause stretched between them. Arata closed his eyes for a moment, gathering thoughts he had buried under years of silence. When he finally looked at her, something in his face had changed—a softness beneath the steel, the weight of old truths rising to the surface.

"There's something you deserve to know," he said. "Something I've kept from you... not because I wanted to lie, but because I didn't think you were ready to carry it."

Yuiri's breath quickened. "Tell me," she whispered. "I want to know everything."

Flashback: 3 Years Ago – NOKRA Experimental Research Facility

Cold. The corridors of the NOKRA experimental lab felt more like a mausoleum than a scientific hub. White fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, their sterile glow bouncing off metal walls and glass chambers. The air was too still, too clean, scrubbed of every trace of warmth.

Arata, just seventeen then, walked those halls in silence. He wore the dark trainee uniform of NOKRA's internal development program, the one reserved for those considered 'useful.' But even then, the fire in his eyes wasn't the fire they had hoped to mold—it was the fire of rebellion, quiet and watching.

Rows upon rows of pods lined the corridor, their contents bathed in blue light. Inside them, teenagers and children floated in silent slumber. Fluid suspended them like broken angels, their expressions peaceful but devoid of true rest. Each pod bore a label: no names, just codes.

One pod stopped him cold.

YU-7.

He stared.

Inside floated a girl—fifteen, maybe sixteen. Her features were soft, almost serene. Her chest rose and fell faintly, a steady rhythm in a place where everything else was wrong. Arata leaned closer, his breath fogging the glass.

A white-coated scientist approached from behind. "Subject YU-7. Part of the Memory Seed program," he said, as if he were discussing lab equipment. "All of her memories are synthetic. Family, schooling, trauma, emotional events—none of it real. Entirely constructed."

Arata's hands clenched.

"Why?"

"To see if identity can be created from lies. If a false past can make a real person."

Arata didn't move. He watched the girl's face, so still, so unknowingly lost.

"She seems... real," he said.

"She is," the scientist replied. "Because emotions, reactions—they can't be programmed. Even when memory is false, emotion is truth."

Arata pressed a hand to the glass. Something stirred in him that day. Not just anger. Not just defiance. A promise.

To find her.

To free her.

To never let her be just another number.

Present – 4:43 AM

Yuiri's face had gone pale. Her lips parted, but the words struggled to form.

"My memories... my life. It's not real?" she asked, each syllable cracking like ice under pressure.

Arata stood slowly. "They were implanted. But your emotions—your soul—that's yours. No one can take that from you."

Her chest rose sharply. "And you knew this? All this time?"

"I found you after you escaped during a lab breach. You were living like any normal girl. I didn't want to destroy that."

Yuiri stood up so suddenly the movement nearly threw her off balance. Her fists were clenched at her sides.

"So you let me live a lie," she said. "All this time, I've been clinging to a fake life!"

"I let you live," Arata replied, voice unwavering. "You were free. And you smiled. That wasn't a lie."

The air between them thickened. She looked away, biting her lip to suppress a scream. "Then who am I now?"

Arata took a step forward. "You're Yuiri. The person you've become is real. The strength you showed—the way you feel, the way you question—all of that is yours."

Tears blurred her vision. She let them fall.

"But it hurts," she whispered.

He looked at her with rare softness. "That's proof it matters."

And without warning, she walked toward him and wrapped her arms around his chest. It wasn't practiced. It wasn't romantic. It was human. Desperate. Real.

Arata stood frozen at first, then gently placed a hand on her back. Her sobs were quiet, but they shook him to the core.

Morning – 6:00 AM

Light filtered through the broken ceiling now. It wasn't bright—it was shy, a timid golden veil that gently brushed against the warehouse's scars.

Yuiri stood at the edge of the rooftop, her hands gripping rusted railing as she stared at the city below. Tokyo looked different—colder, more distant, like a city reflected in broken glass.

Arata joined her. He didn't speak. Didn't need to.

"I want to know everything," Yuiri said finally. "No more shadows."

Arata pulled out a worn map, the edges curling with age. He unfolded it and pointed to a location circled in red.

"There's a place," he said. "Sector E. The Origin Cradle."

Her eyes widened as she read the faded letters.

"Where I was made?" she asked.

He nodded. "And where we might find the answers that matter."

Unknown Location – Same Time

Deep beneath the earth, in a steel chamber lined with glowing data screens, a man stood bathed in electric light. Blood streaked his face. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Behind him, a shadowed figure watched.

"She's reacting?"

"Yes," the bloodied man said. "She's starting to remember."

"And Arata?"

"He interfered," the man replied. "But now… he belongs to the story too."

The figure stepped forward, eyes fixed on the pulsing red dot on the screen. The target: YU7.

"Then begin Phase Seven," the voice said.

The screen zoomed in. The heartbeat quickened. Somewhere in the vastness of Tokyo, two souls were walking toward the truth—and toward a storm far darker than either had imagined.

The rain had only just begun.

Chapter 4 ends.