Whatever was inside that abandoned warehouse had nearly destroyed that woman. And now, Kazou had to find out why.
Something had happened here. Something terrible.
Kazou's heart raced as he moved toward the warehouse, his footsteps heavy and deliberate. The tension in the air felt suffocating, like the walls themselves were holding their breath, waiting. Every muscle in his body screamed at him to turn back, but he couldn't. He had to know what happened. He had called the ambulance for the woman even though she said not to. Though she wasn't gravely injured, she still needed medical assistance from a professional. The emergency services, though... They said they'd arrive in 45 minutes. Why? They never did that...
The woman's words echoed in his mind. "He killed them," she gasped, voice jagged and barely audible. "He killed everyone! If you go in there, he'll kill you too!"
Kazou wasn't a fool. He had a feeling that what awaited inside was no ordinary criminal act. This wasn't just a robbery gone wrong or a random act of violence. No, there was something far darker at play here.
Just like... 12 years ago... Just like... 12 YEARS AGO!? Could this all possibly be related?! Both gunshot wounds... Guns are rare in Japan...
As Kazou approached the warehouse, the sound of his shoes crunching on the gravel was the only noise in the night. The structure loomed before him, its windows like hollow eyes staring into the void. The door was slightly ajar, just enough to let the cold night air seep inside, carrying with it an unsettling scent of metal and something else… Something fouler, more unnatural. Kazou instinctively ducked behind bushes, his back against the wall of the building. He peeked into the window.
Through the shattered glass, Kazou saw them. The dim light inside barely illuminated the figures, but there was no mistaking what he saw. It was the young man who had sat near him at the bar... Tall. Poised. A beautiful young man with golden hair, too clean for this place. His gloved hands were folded behind his back. His pale eyes were calm, almost vacant... And a young, disheveled young man with olive skin and curly, matted red hair
"I'm your son, right? Right, Father?" The young man had asked in a gentle tone.
"Father..." The little boy had said all those years ago.
Wait, so was he right? Was that man actually... actually, the little boy who disappeared all those years ago? Ten... Ten. TEN!? It was Ten! But who was that other young man? He looks awfully familiar... Wait... Those eyes... That red hair... Experiment 4. The little boy who was adopted by the Hashimoto family all those years ago.
Four was tied to a chair in the center of the warehouse, blood streaking down his face, eyes wide with terror. His body trembled, writhing in the chair as he screamed, begging for something—anything—anything but the nightmare that was happening around him.
And standing in front of him, calm and collected, was Ten...
Four struggled against the ropes that bound him, his face contorting in agony.
"WHY DID YOU HAVE TO KILL THEM! THEY WERE FAMILY TO ME! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO KILL THE HASHIMOTOS!?" Four's voice was raw, desperate. "WHY?! WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST KILL ME!? YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO KILL EVERYBODY!"
Ten didn't answer. He simply stood there, unfazed, his expression unreadable. He was calm, too calm, like he had seen this scene a thousand times before.
"STOP IT!!! ANSWER ME!!!" Four cried. "Please! Why the gloves!? You're gonna kill me, huh?! YOU SHOULD HAVE KILLED ME BEFORE YOU KILLED THE HASHIMOTOS! THEN MAYBE YOU WOULDN'T HAVE NEEDED TO KILL THEM! YOU DEMON!"
"Tell me... Why should it matter? In the end, death takes all. And that is inevitable..."
Kazou's body moved before his mind could stop him. He burst through the half-open door, shoes slamming against the concrete.
"TEN!" he shouted, loud and raw. "It's me—It's Father!"
Both heads turned toward him, but in very different ways. Four's face lit up for a split second—hope—then collapsed into terror.
"W-what? Is it really—? No, forget that—Dr. Kuroda! STOP! DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!" he yelled, panic tightening his throat. "HE'LL KILL YOU! HE DOESN'T FEEL ANYTHING! He didn't even blink when he shot the Hashimotos! Please! Get out of here before he—!"
Ten turned his head toward Kazou. Just slightly. Smooth. Unhurried. No recognition. No emotion. Just that eerie, measured shift of attention.
Kazou froze. His breath caught in his chest. One wrong move and it was over.
"He killed them…" Four sobbed. "He killed the Hashimotos… My family…"
Ten's expression didn't change.
"You're a lot, Four," he said softly, reaching inside his blazer.
"Ten…" Kazou's voice cracked. "Don't."
Ten pulled out a sleek black pistol and raised it—slowly, deliberately—aimed straight at Four's head.
"NO—NO—PLEASE!" Four screamed, squirming in his chair. "HE'S GONNA KILL ME! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"
"Ten!" Kazou shouted, stepping forward with both hands up.
"Put the gun down! Please! This isn't you!"
The gun clicked. The safety release. Four shrieked, trembling, sobbing hard now.
"MAKE HIM STOP! PLEASE!"
Kazou's voice broke again.
"Ten, listen to me. You don't have to do this. You mustn't hurt anyone—ever. It's wrong. Please…"
Ten turned his gaze on him, calm and steady.
"Why not?"
The question stopped Kazou cold.
"What…?" he whispered.
Ten blinked once. "Why shouldn't I pull the trigger?"
Kazou opened his mouth. Nothing came out. His mind spun. Words failed.
"Because…" he tried. "Because it's wrong. Because life matters. Because we don't get to decide who lives or dies—"
Ten tilted his head slightly, almost like he pitied him.
"You don't really know," he said. "You feel something, but you don't understand it."
He gazes at Kazou, and the words slip from his mouth like poison.
"We all share the same equal fate, after all. And that is…" He lets the words hang in the air, a taunt, a cruel whisper against the constant roar of the impending storm outside.
A pause. The silence throbbed in the room.
"…And that is oblivion."
"No…" Kazou whispered. "Ten… This isn't you. After all these years—after everything, how could you become this?"
Ten paused.
"Do you remember the night the walls of the Zenkai Quantum Institute ran red? "His voice was low. Hollow."I was supposed to die."
"What are you planning to do, Ten?" Kazou's voice lowered.
"What am I planning to do? I'm performing an execution, Father." He said softly, "It's Casimir Bielska now," he said. "I have found a name."
Before Kazou could scream—before he could move, reach out, throw himself between them—Ten's finger slid onto the trigger.
No hesitation, blink. Nothing.
Four shrieked, a raw, animal sound torn straight from his lungs.
"I DON'T WANNA DIE! NO—NO—PLEASE—AHHHH!"
"T-Ten, please!" Kazou cried, stepping forward, desperate. "You don't have to do this! You mustn't hurt people! Not ever! Not under any circumstances!"
BOOM.
The gun fired.
Four's body snapped backward, the chair slamming hard onto the concrete. His mouth was still open, eyes frozen in mid-scream. A pool of blood spread quickly around his head. The echo of the gunshot rattled through the warehouse.
And then…
Silence.
Kazou stared at the body. Four's blood—no, his name was Hashimoto—spread across the cracked concrete like ink from a broken pen. A boy. A child he once called a son.
Dead.
Executed.
Kazou trembled. His mouth was dry, his chest hollow. His knees buckled as he leaned forward and retched. Acid burned in his throat. The metallic stench of blood mixed with the sourness of his own failure.
He had failed him.
He had failed all of them.
And Ten—Casimir stood quietly, as if none of it mattered. The gun still in his hand, the barrel smoking, Ten turned, finally. His face was unreadable—eyes neither triumphant nor remorseful.
Just quiet.
And then…
For the first time, he smiled. It wasn't warm. It wasn't cruel. It was empty. Not a wide, victorious grin. Just a small, sad curve of the lips.
"Isn't it strange?" Ten said. His voice was almost a whisper, the way a child might speak to himself after waking from a long dream. "How people beg to live… but forget how to exist."
Kazou looked up at him with hollow eyes, struggling to make eye contact.
"You didn't have to kill him," Kazou said, voice shaking. "You didn't have to…"
Ten tilted his head. "Didn't I?"
He glanced back at Four's body.
Kazou stood slowly, knees wobbling. He was pale, soaked in sweat. His voice cracked as he stepped forward.
"He would have lived in fear. Every hour. Every breath. His past was too loud. Louder than his future."
"You don't get to decide that," Kazou mutters.
Ten tucked the pistol back into his coat, his movements slow, deliberate. He turned away from Kazou without a hint of hesitation.
He turns toward Kazou again, his gaze now fixed on Kazou.
"Why us? Why were we chosen to come back to life, if death comes for us all? Why fight the inevitable?"
Ten's expression remained unchanged—empty, detached. He turned to leave, his footsteps almost reverent, like someone walking through the halls of a cathedral, deep in thought.
He stepped into the night. Vanished.
Gone.
Like a ghost.Like a name erased from history.
Kazou stood there, paralyzed, staring at the open door.
The cold rushed in. So did the silence. And the unmistakable smell of blood.
His eyes drifted down to Four's lifeless body. His hands shook violently. His mind raced, but it couldn't keep up.
"Why not?"
That question lingered in his mind, like a bitter taste he couldn't spit out. It wasn't about right or wrong. It was about the death of morality itself—the crushing realization that the line between reason and madness, love and guilt, father and monster, was impossibly thin.
Kazou Kuroda had always believed there was a simple answer to everything. But now, for the first time in his life, he didn't know the answer. And that terrified him more than anything Ten had ever said.