The rain had stopped by the time Nagisa and Hakumura made it back to the apartment — but the silence that followed was worse than any storm.
The building stood crooked and scarred from the earlier attack weeks ago with the enemys surveillance devices laying on the ground in bits that Nagisa had destroyed weeks ago when he first found out about them watching him and he did it through sheer effort and small troubles overall, the building was patched up in uneven repairs. Hakumura had done what he could: new bolts on the hinges, reinforced windows, fresh plaster where the walls had cracked. But even now, the faint burn marks from the old explosion still traced the corner of the living room like a scar that refused to heal.
Inside, the two sat in silence.
A small table lamp illuminated the clutter of papers, cracked USB drives, and old photographs spread out before them. Outside, Tokyo's distant hum sounded hollow — as though the city itself had moved on, leaving them behind.
Nagisa leaned back against the couch, eyes fixed on the ceiling. His hand still ached from the fight in Osaka, faintly bruised where he'd gripped the knife too tightly. Every time he blinked, he saw flashes of Takaoka — that smirk, that stare, that lingering question: "They're still experimenting."
He didn't know which part haunted him more — that it was true, or that he might be a part of it.
Hakumura sat across from him, elbows on knees, staring at the floor. The silence between them wasn't hostile — it was heavy. The kind of silence that builds when two people run out of strength to lie to themselves.
Finally, Nagisa broke it. "We have nothing," he said quietly. "No files. No location. No names. Just… ghosts."
Hakumura didn't answer. His face was half-hidden by his hair, his expression unreadable.
Nagisa turned toward him. "You okay?"
"Am I?" Hakumura muttered. He exhaled sharply, rubbing his temples. "I don't even know what I am anymore. You saw it too — my file. Subject 04. Experimented on. Built. Modified. If that's true, then maybe I was never meant to live past their purpose."
Nagisa's eyes softened. "You're not an experiment anymore."
Hakumura gave a bitter laugh. "Then what am I, Shiota? A ghost? A copy of someone they broke and rewired?"
Nagisa didn't answer. Instead, he looked at the cracked picture frame on the shelf beside him — a photo of his old students smiling, arms around each other, years ago. That one moment of warmth felt impossibly far away now.
"I used to tell my students," Nagisa said finally, "that failure is just part of learning. That if you trip, you stand up again because the lesson isn't over. But…" He smiled faintly, eyes tired. "This feels different. It's like the world just keeps failing us."
For a long while, neither spoke.
The clock ticked slowly. Midnight approached.
Then — three knocks.
Sharp. Slow. Deliberate.
Nagisa and Hakumura froze. Their eyes met. The rhythm wasn't random; it was a pattern — three, pause, two, pause, one. Military cadence.
Hakumura stood, hand reaching instinctively for his sidearm. Nagisa motioned for silence. The knock came again, louder.
This time, something in the air shifted. The light flickered. The faint scent of gasoline crept under the door.
"Back," Nagisa whispered.
Hakumura took a step, but before he could move further—
BOOM.
The door shattered inward in a blast of fire and smoke.
Nagisa was thrown against the couch, shielding his face as shards of wood and metal flew across the room. The air filled with heat and laughter — a sound sharp and manic, echoing through the haze.
Through the smoke, a figure stepped forward.
Tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a tactical suit laced with strange, vein-like tubing that pulsed faintly beneath her skin — glowing red. Her eyes, a searing orange, reflected the flames she carried. Her hair, black streaked with crimson, was tied in a wild braid that swung with each movement.
She dragged a massive flamethrower across the floor, its nozzle hissing like a beast about to breathe fire.
"Hah! The infamous Shiota Nagisa," she said, grinning wide enough to show her sharpened teeth. "Retired teacher. Failed assassin. I almost thought the stories were exaggerations. But look at you now—just a person sitting in his ashes."
Nagisa slowly got to his feet, eyes narrowing. "Who are you?"
She slammed her boot through the remains of the door and laughed, loud and cruel. "Agent 2907, Hozuku Ranei — top enforcer of UMA's upper division. Division Seven, specifically. You burned our facility. You cost us years of data."
Her voice dropped into a hiss. "And now… I get to burn you."
Without warning, she pulled the trigger.
A jet of fire roared through the apartment, consuming everything in its path — curtains, furniture, walls. Nagisa dove sideways, rolling across the floor as the flames chased him. Hakumura fired several rounds, but the bullets melted mid-air before they reached her.
"Armor plating," Nagisa shouted. "She's modified — those tubes are temperature regulators!"
"Good observation!" Ranei barked, grinning as she twisted her wrist. The flamethrower's core expanded, releasing another plume of orange fire that carved across the ceiling. "They said you were observant, teacher!"
Nagisa grabbed a chair and hurled it at her. The flames caught it mid-flight, incinerating it instantly.
He thought quickly — kitchen. Water lines. Gas valves. He sprinted toward the corner of the room, sliding across debris. Hakumura provided cover, firing blindly to distract her.
"Running already?" Ranei mocked, advancing through the inferno. "How disappointing! I was hoping you'd make this fun."
Nagisa ripped a metal pipe from under the sink and ducked behind the counter. The pipe burst, spraying water in every direction. He redirected the stream toward the flames, buying a few seconds. Steam filled the air.
"Fun enough for you?" he muttered, kicking open the drawer. Knives. He grabbed two.
Hakumura coughed through the smoke. "She's burning everything — she's not even aiming!"
"She doesn't need to," Nagisa said. "She's burning us out."
Ranei stepped into the kitchen doorway, smirking through the rising steam. "Clever, clever, sensei. But clever won't save you from hellfire."
She fired again — but this time, Nagisa didn't run.
He slid under the counter, low and fast, the flames licking just inches above his head. Then he surged upward, smashing one of the knives into the flamethrower's pressure valve. Sparks exploded, sending both of them flying backward.
The weapon sputtered.
For a moment, silence — then a sharp metallic hiss.
Ranei's grin widened. "Ah. You found my core. Good."
Before Nagisa could move, the tubes in her arms began to glow brighter — the same molten color as her eyes. The flamethrower wasn't her weapon anymore. She was.
She charged.
Nagisa barely dodged as she slammed her fist into the wall, molten cracks spreading across the plaster. The smell of burning concrete filled the air. Hakumura moved in, swinging a metal rod like a spear, but Ranei caught it mid-swing and yanked him forward, headbutting him hard enough to send him crashing into the table.
"You think bullets and sticks can stop progress?" she yelled. "Our bodies are evolution, Shiota! UMA's gift! We don't run out — we burn forever!"
Nagisa darted behind her, throwing one of his knives at the exposed tubing on her shoulder. It pierced through, releasing a burst of glowing liquid. She screamed, spinning with fury.
"Not bad!" she shouted, laughing even as the substance hissed against her armor. "You hit a vein. But now you'll see what happens when the flame turns inward!"
Her laughter broke into a shriek as her body began to shake violently. The fire within her pulsed faster, stronger — consuming her from inside, but somehow fueling her more. The air pressure spiked; the whole room trembled.
Nagisa's instincts screamed run, but there was no time.
He grabbed Hakumura by the collar and dove through the broken window as the apartment erupted behind them.
They hit the alley below hard — rolling across the wet asphalt as fire burst from the windows above, raining debris and light.
Hakumura groaned, coughing. "Tell me that was your plan."
"Improvised," Nagisa said, standing and scanning the flames. "She's not dead. Move."
Sure enough, a silhouette stepped through the inferno above, walking straight through the flames.
Ranei leapt down from the third floor, landing in a shower of sparks, her skin charred but regenerating — the tubes re-fusing together with a hiss.
"You can't kill what burns forever," she said, her grin now wild and cracked.
Nagisa's mind raced. The liquid — it wasn't fuel. It was self-replicating tissue infused with heat-reactive nanites. That's why she never ran out of ammo.
But that meant if he could overload it—
"Ranei!" he shouted. "You call that evolution? You're just a puppet that forgot she's burning herself alive!"
Her laughter faltered. Just for a second.
Then she screamed and charged again.
Nagisa sidestepped, using his smaller frame to slip behind her. He slashed at the base of her neck — the connection point for the tubes he had noticed from the cuts he caused earlier. Sparks. Fluid. Fire. She spun, hitting him across the face with a backhand that sent him crashing into the streetlight.
Hakumura staggered up, aiming his gun again. "Move!"
Nagisa didn't. Instead, he reached for the knife still embedded in her shoulder. He yanked it out — twisting it as he pulled. The fluid gushed.
Ranei screamed. Her body convulsed — the glow beneath her skin flickering violently. The nanites were unstable now, the feedback loop collapsing.
She stumbled backward, clutching her arm, flames erupting from the seams of her armor. "You— you think this— stops me—?"
Nagisa, battered and bleeding, stood over her. "No," he said softly. "But maybe it stops the next you."
And with that, he kicked the valve of her flamethrower into her core. The resulting detonation lit up the alley like a sunrise — blinding, furious, final.
When the light faded, only ash remained.
Later that night, rain began to fall again — washing away the soot.
Nagisa sat against the curb, breathing heavily, soaked and trembling. Hakumura limped beside him, clutching his ribs.
"She said 'Division Seven,'" Hakumura muttered. "That means there are more like her."
Nagisa nodded. "And we just got their attention."
He looked down at his burned hands, then at the faintly glowing ember left from her explosion. The nanite residue still pulsed faintly, like a dying heartbeat.
"Whatever UMA 8907 is doing," Nagisa said quietly, "it's no longer just human experimentation. They're creating something else."
Hakumura looked at him. "Something like her?"
Nagisa's eyes darkened. "Something proabably worser."
He stood, wiping blood from his chin, staring at the city's horizon — the towers of Tokyo glimmering faintly through the storm.
"Get some rest," he said. "Tomorrow, we start again."
Hakumura gave a tired grin. "You always say that."
Nagisa looked back at the burning ruins of his apartment, the last piece of his quiet life gone. "Because it's true," he said softly. "The lesson isn't over yet."
The camera lingered on the glowing ember in the rain — still burning faintly despite the water.
Then, from a distance, a voice over static:
"Agent 2907 is confirmed neutralized. Initiate the next sequence. Deploy Division Seven-B — codename: Erebus. Target: Shiota Nagisa."
The screen faded to black.
To Be Continued...