Chapter 3 - Operation Erasure Begins
Tokyo slept uneasily that night. Beneath the city's gleaming towers and humming rail lines, far below the neon arteries that gave the metropolis its pulse, something cold and methodical stirred. The world above believed in progress—pharmaceutical miracles, new cures, new beginnings—but beneath it all lay the bones of an experiment that had never truly ended.
In the lowest level of a sealed compound—disguised as a "Pharmaceutical Research Center"—fluorescent lights buzzed faintly over steel corridors. The air smelled of antiseptic and metal, as if the walls themselves had been disinfected of all human warmth. Monitors blinked with biometric data. Rows of glass chambers stood in silence, some empty, others occupied by shadowy forms submerged in pale fluid.
This was the birthplace of Operation Erasure.
It was not an experiment. It was a cleanup.
A tall figure in a slate-gray coat stood before a wall of digital profiles—faces, names, and old data entries scrolling one by one. A single line repeated on the monitor above her head:
"Target Status: Uncontained."
"Subject Nine," she said, voice calm but sharp enough to cut through static. "Hukitaske, Akio. Former Category-A Pharmacological Prototype. Escaped test zone following the Tokyo breach. Established post-failure identity as a community pharmacist. Currently rebuilding localized social network."
The person beside her, older and weary-eyed, adjusted his glasses. "Rebuilding. That's one word for it. He's creating sympathy. People listen to him. They look at him like a survivor, not a mistake. That kind of story spreads."
The persons eyes narrowed. "And stories like that lead to exposure."
The Director, a pale figure half-lit by the monitor's glow, leaned forward from his seat at the end of the table. "Then we end the story before it's finished."
A hush fell across the room.
He clasped his hands together. "Activate the Erasure Teams. Full authorization. Target all subjects refusing surveillance, those attempting to reconstruct civilian stability. Start with Hukitaske."
A ripple of quiet acknowledgment passed through the operatives. No ceremony, no moral debate. They had done this before.
"Begin Operation Erasure," the Director said. "And make sure it looks... accidental."
The Rain Before the Fire
The next morning, rain whispered against the windows of Hukitaske Pharmacy, a familiar rhythm that had once meant comfort. The sky was the color of old ash—muted, watchful. Akio stirred awake before dawn, his breath clouding faintly in the chill air of early winter.
He turned on the kettle, watching the small red light flicker to life. Steam coiled upward. The scent of green tea filled the quiet.
Routine. That was what he had built his fragile peace upon.
He checked the stockroom, adjusting a few labels that had peeled from humidity. He wiped down the counter, watered the single surviving plant in the corner. The normalcy of it all felt almost artificial—like painting a smile on a ghost.
By the time Raka arrived, the clock had barely struck seven. She pushed through the door with her usual reckless energy, coat half-zipped, hair slightly damp from the drizzle.
"Morning, boss," she said, dropping her bag and smirking. "Rain makes people grumpy. We'll probably sell out of cough syrup again."
Akio smiled faintly, rolling up his sleeves. "Then let's make sure we've got enough stock to drown Tokyo in it."
Raka chuckled, tugging on her gloves. "Drown Tokyo? Sounds like your old experiments talking again."
"Just efficiency," he said. But his tone lacked its usual warmth.
As the morning passed, the team trickled in. Misaki brewed her herbal blends, Hikata teased Yamataro about the way he restocked painkillers upside down, and Akazuchi remained his quiet self near the back room, organizing deliveries with surgical precision.
It all felt... normal.
Yet beneath that fragile peace, something gnawed at Akio. His senses, sharpened by years of surviving under surveillance, were whispering warnings his mind didn't want to hear.
A person across the street lingered too long under an umbrella, pretending to scroll through his phone. A delivery truck passed three times, each time slower than the last. A black van, unmarked, was parked two buildings down.
At noon, Akazuchi approached him silently. "You see it too?"
Akio didn't look up. He was pretending to fill a prescription form, his pen moving automatically. "Yes."
"They've been watching since last night," Akazuchi said. "Same van. Same people rotating shifts."
Akio's eyes flicked toward the window. Raindrops streaked down the glass, distorting the world outside. "They're early," he murmured. "I thought we'd have more time."
"Time for what?" Akazuchi asked quietly.
"To pretend we were free," Akio said.
The Envelope
The day passed under uneasy silence. By closing time, the others had noticed something off. Misaki double-checked the door lock twice. Raka stopped cracking jokes. Even Hikata, normally loud enough to drown out paranoia, kept glancing over his shoulder.
When night fell, thunder rolled across the city. The power flickered once, twice, then steadied.
Then came the sound—a soft thump against the door.
An envelope slid under the crack, its paper damp from the rain.
No return address. No seal. Just that familiar sterile weight, as if it had been handled by gloved hands in a lab.
Akio knelt, hesitating before he picked it up. The edges were uneven, too deliberate.
He laid it on the counter under the fluorescent light. The others gathered close.
"Should I open it?" Raka asked.
Akio's fingers twitched, but his voice stayed steady. "I'll do it."
The paper peeled back slowly. Inside was a series of photographs—grainy, timestamped.
One of Akio locking the pharmacy door last night. Another of Misaki laughing inside, mid-conversation. One of Hikata sweeping snow off the steps. Raka reaching for the shelf. Akazuchi glancing toward the window.
Every one of them had been watched.
Akio's heart tightened.
There was a final page beneath the photos. A single typed sentence in red ink:
YOU WERE NEVER MEANT TO KEEP THIS LIFE.
The Blast
The air changed in an instant.
A hiss.
A click.
Then light.
The explosion ripped through the back wall, tearing through glass and metal. Shelves buckled. The counter split in two. Akio barely had time to react—he grabbed Raka by the shoulder, throwing her down as the blast wave tore across the room.
Hikata's scream was swallowed by the roar. Misaki shielded her head, coughing through smoke and debris. Akazuchi lunged to cover the emergency cabinet, pushing through shards of falling glass.
Then silence. Only the hiss of burning insulation.
Akio's vision swam. His ears rang like struck metal. But his first thought wasn't for himself.
He pushed himself up on shaking arms. "Everyone—sound off!"
Coughs. Groans. Movement.
Raka's voice came first. "Alive—barely."
Misaki next. "Broken shelves. Not bones."
Hikata wheezed. "That... was too close."
Akio exhaled shakily, relief flooding him with a sudden ache. He turned toward the flickering remains of the front counter. Smoke coiled upward through the shattered window, curling into the rain outside.
They were alive.
But barely.
The air reeked of chemicals. Not gasoline—something cleaner, sharper. Lab-made. Meant to burn fast but not spread. A surgical strike.
Raka spat onto the floor. "So that's it, huh? No warning, no message—just 'boom'?"
Akio reached into the debris, picking up the burned edge of the envelope. "The message was already written," he said, voice flat.
The Weight of Fire
They gathered in the half-destroyed room. Rain poured through the fractured window, sizzling as it met faint sparks on the floor.
Yamataro emerged from the back room, holding a fire extinguisher. "It's done. No secondary charges. Whoever did this wanted us scared, not dead."
"They miscalculated," Akio murmured.
Raka frowned. "You're awfully calm for someone whose shop just exploded."
"Calm," he repeated. His eyes reflected the faint glow of the fire outside. "No. Just... familiar."
He had seen this kind of message before—back when his body had been monitored through glass, when his blood was a product and not his own. Back when people in white coats had spoken of him as "Subject Nine," not a being with a name.
He closed his fist around the edge of the burnt paper until it crumbled to ash.
Raka crossed her arms. "So what's the plan, boss? Because if this is who I think it is, they won't stop at one scare."
"They won't," Akio said. "That's why we prepare."
Akazuchi finally spoke, his voice low. "You mean... fight back?"
Akio looked up, his eyes hardening with something cold and deliberate. "They want to erase me. But they forgot something."
He stood, his silhouette framed by the flickering light. "They didn't create me to obey. They created me to survive."
The Oath in the Rain
Hours later, the storm outside began to thin. Police sirens echoed faintly in the distance, but Akio didn't call them.
He stood beneath the awning outside the ruined pharmacy, watching as water dripped from the fractured sign above. The word Hukitaske was half-charred, but still legible.
Behind him, the others worked quietly—salvaging what they could, cleaning burns, taping plastic sheets over shattered windows.
Misaki approached him, her hands trembling slightly from adrenaline. "You know what this means, right? They're not going to stop. You'll have to tell us what's really going on."
He nodded slowly. "Soon. But not tonight."
"Then when?" she pressed.
"When the next fire starts," he said, voice low.
Raka stepped outside, lighting a cigarette despite the rain. "You sound like a person planning a war."
Akio met her gaze. "No. I'm planning a cure."
She tilted her head. "For what?"
"For what made us this way."
The rain slowed to a drizzle. Streetlights glimmered on puddles, reflecting the ghost of their broken shop.
Inside, Hikata found the old chalkboard they used for patient notes. He wiped it clean, chalk dust mixing with soot. Across the surface, in broad strokes, he wrote:
Operation Erasure — Counterplan Initiated.
Akio looked at it for a long time, then smiled faintly. "Let them come," he said softly. "We've rebuilt from ashes once. We can do it again."
Raka exhaled a plume of smoke, smirking. "Guess the lab forgot—ashes can still burn."
Outside, thunder rolled again, but this time it didn't sound like warning. It sounded like an answer.
The storm had come.
And for the first time in a long time, Akio wasn't running from it.
He was walking into it.
Because Operation Erasure had begun.
But so had something else—something the lab hadn't accounted for:
a rebellion born not from rage, but from resilience.
[Next: Chapter 4 — The Fire at Block 9]