Akane Kirigiri's grin was the same as ever, a thin mask of cheer masking a storm behind her eyes.
"Oh hey! It's been ages, hasn't it? A whole month... how's life treating you?" She leaned against the doorframe, her voice bright, "It's still crazy... the lab, all of it—closed for good. After everything that went down... that damn investigation... Anyway, I'm rambling, aren't I? Come on in, come in
Akane stepped back from the door, holding it open.
Rose Brook slid off her shoes and stepped into the cramped apartment. It wasn't much—a small space crammed with papers, old textbooks, half-assembled gadgets—nothing extravagant. It was the kind of place that screamed a life in disarray, half-lived, half forgotten.
"Have a seat." Akane gestured toward the couch.
Rose perched herself on the couch, looking around, her sharp eyes catching every detail—the scattered papers, the smell of stale coffee...
"Would you like some tea, Mrs. Brook?" Akane asked, "Oh! Wait, wait—can I even call you Rose? We're not scientists anymore, right? I think I'm still stuck in that old mode... I see you more as a friend now, though... if that's okay with you?"
"Go ahead," Rose replied.
"Go ahead, as in you want tea, or... You want me to just call you Rose?" Akane blinked, her words almost tripping over each other.
"Both," Rose said dryly, letting the words hang in the air.
Akane smiled. She spun on her heel and hurried toward the kitchenette, trying to mask the tension in her movements.
"So... what brings you here after all this time, Rose-chan?" Her voice wavered slightly on the last word.
Rose leaned forward, her expression sharp, more focused.
"Kazou, how can I contact him?" she said, the name heavy between them.
Akane froze in place. The kettle hissed, steam billowing from the spout as her hand tightened around the handle. Her face went rigid, almost like the breath had been knocked out of her. Slowly, she turned to face Rose, eyes narrowing as her fingers drummed against the counter.
"Kazou?" she asked, her voice almost too casual. "Oh! Dr. Kuroda? You could always show up at his place if you need to see him, you know. You remember the way, don't you?" She spoke with an air of nonchalance, as if she was trying to convince herself that it wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
Rose's eyes darkened.
"Yes," she said, though her voice shook. "But... I don't want to just show up at his door. I hate him." She clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms, as if she could control the building storm within. "I don't want him to open that door and look at me. I don't want to see him either. I... I don't want to see those damn memories again. I want to forget."
Akane's mouth tightened, her eyes hardening for a split second. Her lips curled, a cruel smirk flashing across her face before disappearing.
"If you hate him so much, why the hell are you chasing him down like this?" she snapped, her voice rising. "Why don't you just move on?"
Rose's chest tightened, the anger and grief threatening to spill over. She stood abruptly, her voice rising like a storm.
"Remember twelve years ago, Akane?! The day you bailed us out of that police station after the massacre? The day after... after we lost the children? After we were interrogated? Remember that?!" She paused, the words crashing over her like waves. "They thought Kazou was the killer. But was he? No! No, he wasn't! But twelve years later... another gunshot. Another body. And Kazou—Kazou says someone named Casimir Bielska is behind it all! I had a detective come to see me today, and I don't know who this Casimir is! How long has Kazou known him? Why does it feel like I know him?!"
Akane went pale. Her fingers trembled as she carefully set the kettle down, the tea long forgotten as she slowly turned to face Rose, her eyes distant, like she was seeing something far beyond the room.
"Casimir Bielska..." Akane muttered, a slight frown appearing on her face as though she were trying to remember something just out of reach. "That name... It's familiar."
"What do you mean?" Rose demanded, her voice sharp, her nerves fraying at the edges.
Akane's gaze was distant now, haunted.
"Before I even joined the lab team... Someone had that name. A long time ago. Someone I—" Her voice faltered, the sudden realization hitting her like a ton of bricks. "Dr. Hanasaki. She told me something the day I was introduced to the clones. She gave me their backstories. I remember... Experiment Ten..." She trailed off, her breath catching. "He was the clone of a Polish boy. Casimir is a Polish name. Bielska... a Polish surname." She blinked, her mind whirling. "Could it be? Could it possibly be... that—"
Akane's voice broke, her breath hitching in her throat. Her face twisted in a sudden, desperate recognition. The air in the room seemed to freeze.
Akane collapsed to her knees. Her hands flew to her mouth, but no sound came out. Her eyes were wide, frozen in a terror too raw to contain. Then, the scream. It tore from her chest, loud and fractured.
"No! NO!" Akane shrieked, the sound rending the silence between them.
Rose lunged off the couch and toward her, her instincts sharp and quick. She gripped Akane's shoulder, forcing her to face her.
"Akane! What's wrong?! Speak to me, damn it! What's happening?!"
But Akane only screamed louder, her hands shaking violently as her whole body seemed to convulse with the strain of it all. Her nails bit into her palms until she was almost drawing blood. Rose's own chest tightened as she shook Akane again, desperation clawing at her throat.
Then, suddenly, their eyes met. Rose's hands held Akane's shoulders, pulling her close. The frantic cries slowed, the hysteria fading bit by bit. Akane's wild eyes softened as she stared into Rose's gaze, her breath coming in ragged, uneven gasps. Her body slowly went still.
"Ten..." Akane whispered, barely audible. "That boy... I knew it. I knew it. The devil..."
Rose stiffened, her mind already calculating, working, processing.
"The devil?" she asked flatly, her voice laced with disbelief.
Akane nodded, her face pale and contorted with some deeper, buried fear.
"Ten is a killer," she murmured, her voice breaking. She swallowed hard, her eyes glazing over as she plunged deeper into the memory. "I was there..."
She paused, trembling. Rose could feel the weight of the words, the horror clinging to every syllable.
"I felt the blood. The rain. It was on my cheek. I thought it was a mistake... a mistake... but when I touched it... it was red. Red." Akane's eyes filled with tears, the fear and disbelief still too fresh. "The ceiling... was wet with it. And then I realized... something terrible had happened. I knew. But I couldn't move. I couldn't get up. I couldn't even scream. I just called the police."
Rose's grip tightened as Akane spoke, her eyes narrowing, searching for something in the twisted narrative. "You called them, but... they didn't find a gun."
"No... No gun. Just... just the bodies." Akane's words seemed to crumble, lost in the weight of the past. "But... what if... What if Ten told her to turn the gun on him? What if he erased the evidence? What if he... what if he made her do it? To cover up... to hide everything... the truth."
***
It was late, much later than it should have been. The lab was always too quiet at night—an eerie stillness that pressed in on you, like the weight of all the secrets buried beneath its sterile surface. Akane had always felt uncomfortable in that silence, that cold, indifferent silence that seemed to absorb every sound. But this night was different. Something was wrong. She couldn't explain it, but she felt it.
She had been in her office, the fluorescent lights above flickering faintly as they buzzed like insects trapped in a glass jar. She had been working late again, on homework. She was surrounded by papers and data she was still processing—calculations, analysis, all of it meaningless in the face of the dread that was settling into her chest. The hours had passed too quickly. Her eyes were heavy with exhaustion, her mind numbed from the weight of it all. She had heard nothing from Dr. Fujino or Dr. Hanasaki. They were in their offices, she and Hansaki both in the same area, tucked away on the lower floor, underneath the main lab. Dr. Fujino, however, had his office upstairs, near the kids. But that didn't matter. She had never felt more alone.
Then the sound came.
At first, Akane didn't recognize it. It was too loud, too sudden, too real. Her eyes snapped open, and her body froze.
Bang.
The sound rang through the walls, deep and violent, like a distant thunderclap. A gunshot. She had heard that sound before, in films, in news reports, but this was different. This wasn't fiction. This was reality.
Her heart skipped a beat. She didn't know what to think. It can't be. Guns don't just go off here. Not in Japan. It can't be a gun.
She forced herself to breathe, to convince herself that it wasn't what it seemed. Maybe it was something else, something normal, something mundane. She tried to ignore it, tried to drown it out, to push it to the back of her mind. She was young, inexperienced—just a student in their eyes—and they had always been protective of her. They wouldn't let her get involved in something dangerous. They had always told her to stay in her office, to keep working, to keep out of the way. Would they want Akane to check out the sound?
But then, the second shot came.
Bang!
Louder this time, sharper, closer, echoing through the halls of the lab. The sound seemed to come from above her—she could feel the vibration in her chest, like it was coming directly from the floor above her. Her heart was racing now, thumping so loudly in her ears that she couldn't think. She forced her body to move, to get up, but her feet felt like they were glued to the floor. The panic was crawling up her spine, squeezing at her throat. She wanted to go to them, to check on what had happened, but something held her back. No. You can't. You have to stay here.
Dr. Fujino, who was always so calm, so collected, would have checked it out. He would have known what to do. Dr. Hanasaki, with her unnerving composure, would have known too. They wouldn't want her to get involved. They were the doctors, the leaders of the lab. And she—she was just the young researcher. She was still in school. What could she do? What could she possibly understand about what was happening?
But it wasn't enough to calm her. Her mind raced with horrifying thoughts. What if something happened? What if it was real?
She could hear the floorboards creak above her, faint footsteps—heavy, hurried. But no one came to check on her. No one called out, no one reassured her. It was as though the world had gone silent. Her mind refused to accept the truth. It couldn't. Guns don't exist here. Not in Japan. Not in our lab.
She lay back in her chair, forcing herself to breathe, convincing herself that it wasn't real. It couldn't be real.
But then the third shot came.
It was a different kind of shot. It wasn't just a noise—it was like a physical blow. Her body shook as the sound reverberated through her skull, shaking her out of her stupor. Her eyes snapped open, wide and panicked. This time, the sound didn't come from the floor above. It was coming from the floor just above her head—the closet.
Akane's heart pounded in her chest. This is real.
And then came the rain.
It came like a storm—sudden, unexpected. She had felt something on her face, something cold, something wet. Her hand reached up instinctively, trembling, to touch her cheek. She had expected to feel nothing more than sweat, maybe the lingering dampness of the night air. But no. What she touched was thick, viscous, the texture unmistakable.
Red.
She gasped, her fingers trembling as she turned her hand over. It was blood. Blood on my hands.
Her mind struggled to comprehend it, to deny it. But it was there, dripping onto her fingertips, staining her hands with the truth. The ceiling above her was moist with it, the red liquid dripping down in slow, steady droplets. It wasn't raining. It wasn't anything she could explain away. The lab's pipes couldn't have been that rusty. This wasn't a dream, this wasn't a mistake.
Something is wrong. Something's horribly wrong.
And then, the realization hit her like a bolt of lightning. IT WAS REAL!
She didn't even hesitate after that. She dialed the police. Her hands shook as she spoke, her voice barely steady as she told them what she had heard, what she had felt. She had said it quickly, too quickly, because she didn't want to admit it, didn't want to accept what she already knew deep down. She had called the police, told them the shots had come from the third floor of the lab. They came. They investigated.
But there was no gun. There was no weapon.
No sign of the killer.
Akane sat there in her office, staring at the unfinished homework, her entire body frozen, unable to move. She couldn't bring herself to get up, couldn't make herself go up to the third floor. She couldn't face it.
The police came, yes, but when they searched the floor, they found the body of Dr. Funjino, Ten in critical condition—blood-streaked walls, shattered glass, scattered furniture. No gun. No weapon. Nothing that could explain it. Just... the blood.
She had convinced herself that Nine—the one who had always seemed a little too quiet—was the one who had done it. Maybe she had lost control. Maybe she had snapped. But there was one thing she couldn't escape—the feeling that it wasn't that simple.
Years later... Akane finally realized. Everything began to add up. Maybe it wasn't the little girl who wen't missing who murdered Dr. Fujino... What if Ten had been the one to orchestrate it all? What if Ten had told Nine to turn the gun on him? Erase the evidence. Erase the one person who could have exposed everything. Kill the evidence, discard weapon...
Akane's voice broke as she relived it all—each moment seared into her mind, a nightmare she couldn't wake from. Her hands tightened around her mouth again, the grip desperate, as if holding on would keep the truth from swallowing her whole.
"I knew it. I knew it all along," she whispered again, the words escaping her like a confession, her face pale with horror. "It was Ten. It was always Ten! We have to see Dr. Kuorda!"