Tokyo, 11:43 p.m.
The city was a graveyard of lights. Every droplet that fell from the clouded sky struck the asphalt like a broken promise, refracting the reflection of a thousand neon signs into a trembling kaleidoscope. Amid the rain, a lone figure staggered down the narrow road of District Twelve — the sector no one spoke about unless they owed Yaka money.
Yasahute Yakanuke, twenty-one years old, the once-proud prodigy of the Yasahute family and a rising medical student, walked through the storm like a being already erased from the world. His white coat — once a symbol of a bright, clean future — now dragged in the gutter water behind him.
He didn't even flinch when a passing car splashed through a puddle, soaking him further. His mind was far too loud for that.
"If I had just… chosen the mayor. If I hadn't fed her first. If I had just listened."
The words looped endlessly. His breath fogged in the night air, trembling as he whispered them again — not because he believed them, but because he couldn't stop punishing himself.
Nine Years Earlier
When he was twelve, Yakanuke wanted to be a doctor like his grandfather — the kind of person who saved lives and never asked for thanks. His mother would tell him, "Your hands are gentle, Yaka. Keep them that way." But she and his father were taken too early — a drunk driver at a crossing — leaving him with his cousin Rei, a shy, sickly kid barely eight at the time.
Rei became his world.
They lived together under their grandfather's care, and Yakanuke swore he'd become a great surgeon. He believed in fairness — that every life mattered equally. It was the kind of naive morality that made him loved by his classmates, admired by his professors, and envied by the higher-ups at the hospital.
By twenty-one, he was already assisting in major surgeries. "A miracle student," they called him. "Yasahute the Pure." But purity is fragile in a system built on corruption.
The Night Everything Fell Apart
It began with a phone call.
He was prepping for a simple emergency procedure — a brain clot in a laborer. The person had no insurance, no name in the registry, just a collapsed body brought in by paramedics who didn't care if he lived or died.
Then came the director's voice over the intercom.
"Yasahute. Change of patient. You're operating on the performer from Shibuya — VIP treatment. The worker will be reassigned."
Yakanuke hesitated, scalpel trembling between his fingers.
"Director, the worker's hemorrhaging. He won't survive the delay." Yasahute yelled back at the director's intercom. "You want to throw away your career for a nobody?" The director yelled back to. "Every life—" Yasahute was cut off. "This is an order." The director barked.
He obeyed. He saved the performer. And the person died.
That night, his colleagues applauded him. The press praised his composure. But Yakanuke didn't sleep. Not that night, nor the next. Not after seeing the body bag carried out under flickering hallway lights.
He attended the funeral in secret. No one from the hospital came. The persons son stood alone, crying beside the coffin. Yakanuke stood in the rain, gripping his umbrella so tightly his knuckles turned white.
That was the first time he wondered if his "gentle hands" had become murder weapons.
The Second Choice
Two years later, history repeated itself.
A mayor was rushed into the emergency ward after an assassination attempt. Another patient — a young mother — arrived minutes later, brain bleeding, no name, no family. "Save the mayor," came the order again.
And Yakanuke said no. He had no other choice. She was the easy option in the decisions that lead to being a surgeon in the end. Because that's how he worked. And Yasahute hated it.
He turned off his comms and went straight into the mother's operation. The surgery lasted nine hours. When it was over, the mother lived. The mayor didn't.
When he exited the OR, security was already waiting. He didn't plead, didn't explain. The moment he saw his cousin Rei waiting at home, pale and hungry because he'd missed her meal again, the guilt broke him in two.
She died that same night — malnutrition, the report said. And his world collapsed completely.
Exile
They removed his license, revoked his degree, and expelled him from the hospital network. The tabloids spun him as a reckless, arrogant doctor who "let a mayor die out of pride. "He vanished from the headlines as quickly as he appeared.
For the next nine years, Yakanuke lived in cheap hostels and alley apartments, working as a janitor, then a part-time journalist for underground tabloids. His words were sharp, bitter, cynical — a far cry from the hopeful kid who once believed in healing.
But he never stopped writing.
Every article he published was a scream disguised as a sentence: about corruption, hospitals, power, and human decay. He signed his pieces under a pseudonym, "The White Coat Ghost."
And the people who ran the Yaka Laboratories noticed.
The Call from Yaka
It came on a night like any other. A damp, neon-lit Tokyo, the air thick with rain.
Yakanuke sat in his ten-tatami apartment, surrounded by old medical journals and a broken radio that only played static. The power had gone out again. He was finishing an article titled "The Price of Mercy", when his phone buzzed with an unknown number.
"Yasahute Yakanuke," said a voice smooth as polished steel. "Who's asking?" "Someone who reads your work. Someone who thinks you deserve a second chance." "You've got the wrong person. I don't do miracles anymore." "No. But you observe them."
The line went dead. An email appeared seconds later: "Yaka Research Facility, Building 9. Midnight. Come alone."
He didn't plan to go. But when he looked around his room — the empty instant noodle cups, the unpaid bills, Rei's photo on the wall — he realized there was nothing left to lose.
So he went.
The White Corridors
The Yaka Lab didn't look like a hospital. It looked like a cathedral built for machines. Silver walls, blue emergency lights, a smell of antiseptic that clung to the skin.
A figure in a black coat greeted him. She didn't introduce herself — just led him down a long hallway where faint heart monitors beeped like distant thunder.
Behind glass panels, Yakanuke saw them — subjects. people, children, lying in pods filled with a translucent blue fluid. Their vitals blinked on digital screens: age, height, and one strange metric labeled "Regression Ratio."
"What is this?" he asked. "Rebirth," she replied. "We call it the Age Regression Surume. A compound that rewinds biological age while preserving cognitive data. We study what happens to the human mind when forced to relive its youth." "That's impossible." "You of all people should know," she said with a smile, "that the impossible is only expensive."
She stopped at a door labeled 'Observation Chamber B-7809'. Inside: a kid, dead on a hospital bed, pale light shining through the glass. The nameplate read: MINAZURI HIGIKATA – Subject 7809.
Yakanuke's pulse froze.
"Why show me this?" "Because this will change everything. We need someone to document a certain persons development — his emotions, habits, and potential anomalies. You're a journalist. You observe." "You want me to be some kind of stupid spy?" "Not a spy. To observe a prototype. A failed adult given another chance. This child is just an example of are age experiments, from the famous Higikata rich family. Luckily we've turned the daughter Marina into capable asset of are protection force. I want to observe a subject called. Akio Hukitaske."
He wanted to walk away. Every instinct screamed at him to. But then the worker whispered:
"Do this, and we'll restore your license. We can even bring back your cousin's records — her life, her death, her data. Everything."
He didn't answer. Not then. But that night, Yakanuke signed the contract.
Two Years Later
The rooftop wind was cold that evening.
Yakanuke adjusted the small observation scope fixed beside him, eyes locked on the lit window of a small Tokyo apartment below. Inside, the kid — fifteen, messy hair, kind smile — was talking with his mother over dinner. Akio Hukitaske. Subject 9764.
"He's adjusting faster than expected," Yakanuke murmured into the recorder. "Emotional stability: rising. Memory fragments: unknown. Regression ratio remains consistent."
He pressed the earpiece closer, listening to the laughter echo faintly through the glass.
Something twisted in his heart — something he hadn't felt in years.
Akio was just an experiment for Yaka, but there was something familiar in the way he carried himself. The calm before speaking, the softness in his tone when he thanked his mother. It reminded Yakanuke of himself — before the blood, before the regret.
He remembered the figure's words: "Observe him. Don't interfere."
But he couldn't help it. He found himself watching every day. From rooftops, cafes, shadows. When Akio joined school, Yakanuke followed from afar, writing secret reports for the Yaka Lab.
Yet, with every report he sent, he wrote a second version — one for himself. Lines no one would read.
"He smiled today. I didn't realize how rare that is in this city." "He helped an old granny carry groceries. I almost called out to him." "He's… everything I wish I could've been."
Weeks passed. He gradually transformed—becoming younger, around Akio's age—and soon became one of Akio's closest companions. His mission was to observe Akio on behalf of Yaka, but beneath his bright smile and easygoing demeanor, he hid the weight of a torment only he knew. Akio never suspected the pain behind the mask.
Sometimes, in the quiet moments between jokes, he wondered, "Is someone as useless as me really allowed to feel this way?"
As time went on, his bond with Akio deepened. Akio became someone he could genuinely trust—perhaps the first person he'd ever trusted. Yet, with every laugh they shared, he also sank deeper into self-doubt. To maintain his cover, he even adopted the persona of a clingy high school kid around Rumane, playing the fool if it kept suspicion off him. His role for Yaka meant everything… or at least, that's what he used to believe.
But somewhere along the way, protecting Akio became his real mission. Even if it meant betraying Yaka. Even if it meant destroying himself.
He knew the cost: one day, Akio would be killed be killed.
So he didn't choose betrayal—not out of duty, but out of care. And it cost him everything.
The Breaking Point
The memo came one winter morning:
"Subject 9764 has exceeded experimental expectations. Terminate surveillance and prepare for neutralization protocol."
He read it three times. Then a fourth. Terminate. Not observe. Yaka wanted him gone.
He confronted his superior — a faceless executive in a white mask.
"You can't do this," Yakanuke said. "He's still a person." "He's a variable. A danger to our data integrity." The masked figure said back. "He's human." Yakanuke barked back. "He's yours now, is that it?" The figure grunted.
The silence that followed said everything.
He left the meeting, trembling. That night, he stood outside Akio's pharmacy — watching from across the street as the lights flickered within. Akio was laughing with his friends, unaware of the quiet war already forming behind the scenes.
Yakanuke touched the comm device in his ear.
"Subject 9764: Awakening successful," he whispered. "Name: Akio Hukitaske."
He paused, his voice trembling against the cold.
"Now… let's see what you'll become, my dear pharmacist."
He cut the feed, erasing himself from Akio's mind and Akio from his own completely. Then he vanished into the rain. Never to be seen by Akio Hukitaske again.
The Recruitment
Hours later, the city was silent. Yakanuke wandered aimlessly through the streets, his umbrella broken, his heart heavier than ever. He thought of Rei. Of the hospital. Of the thousands of little choices that had turned him into this — a ghost haunting a kid who didn't even know his name.
He reached the crosswalk. Red light. Rain falling harder now .Across the street, a car's headlights swayed in the storm. He didn't care.
But before he could take that final step, a black umbrella extended beside him. A gloved hand gripped his shoulder.
"Not yet, Yakanuke," a voice said — calm, commanding. "You… who are you?" "Yaka. The real one."
He turned. The figure's voice and eyes were sharp, almost elderly and ancient, unreadable — the same shade of steel as the laboratories' walls.
"You observed well," Yaka continued. "But you've forgotten your purpose. We don't need your conscience. We need your loyalty. Come with me, and I'll show you what true rebirth looks like."
The light turned green. Yakanuke looked at the wet road, then back at the figure. Somewhere deep inside, something cracked — not a decision, but surrender.
He followed.
The two disappeared into the rain, leaving only the echo of their footsteps and the faint hum of passing cars.
Above them, the billboard for a local pharmacy flickered — "Hukitaske Family: Healing for Every Heart."
TO BE CONTINUED...