Beika District, 2-Chome, 22-Banchi.
A young boy, about six or seven years old, stared blankly at the address plate in front of him.
"Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?"
Everything before his eyes felt like a dream, yet the boy had a vague feeling he had heard of this place before.
"Why do I feel like I came here to do something?"
It wasn't until a portly, white-haired old man walked out of the house that the boy's eyes suddenly lit up.
That day, a child with no known background appeared in Dr. Agasa's home.
The Doctor told everyone he was a distant relative's child.
But his neighbor, Yusaku Kudo, often teased the Doctor about his "wild youth," joking that he finally had a son.
However, the adopted child didn't take Dr. Agasa's surname. Instead, he gave himself a somewhat Western, peculiar name.
Luca.
Unlike other boys his age, Luca didn't care for playing outside, games, socializing, or sports. None of it interested him.
Only when he was exposed to Dr. Agasa's bizarre scientific experiments did a spark of curiosity appear in his eyes.
Naturally, this made Luca somewhat of a loner. Only the neighbor's son, Shinichi Kudo, occasionally managed to exchange a few words with him.
But in the world of geniuses, perhaps one doesn't need many companions.
At seven, he began assisting Dr. Agasa with experiments.
On his first day, he assembled a radio from spare parts capable of intercepting multiple encrypted pay channels.
At eight, he fabricated his own micro-circuit boards. At ten, he upgraded an engine, cutting its size in half while boosting its output.
Solar skateboards, elastic suspenders, power-enhancing shoes, soccer ball-dispensing belts... young Luca's inventions were always strange, whimsical, and brilliant.
Until one day, young Luca walked out of the lab carrying a spherical, intelligent robot to show Dr. Agasa.
"Doctor, this is Haro."
From that day on, school could no longer satisfy the needs of this prodigy.
While Shinichi Kudo was still playing at being a high school detective, Luca's fame had already spread across the globe.
Interviews, investments, recruitment offers—invitations piled up like snowflakes in front of the boy.
But Luca didn't care. He chose to stay in Dr. Agasa's old house, working day and night on his research, as if nothing mattered more than the project in front of him.
However, the world of capital is not as pure as the world of science.
When you refuse the olive branch, the goodwill turns into malice.
And among these malicious forces, the first to lose patience and make a move was a mysterious organization whose members were codenamed after alcoholic beverages.
On the rainy night of Luca's 16th birthday, over twenty men in black, armed to the teeth, silently surrounded the ordinary old house.
Among these men in black, nearly half were high-ranking code-named members.
Deploying so many operatives to kidnap a physically defenseless teenage genius felt like overkill, even to Gin, the team leader. He wondered if "That Person" was being overly paranoid.
However, when these highly trained operatives breached the house...
They weren't met by a scared lamb.
They were met by countless automated machine gun turrets and dozens of fully armed, black-and-white combat robots.
The massacre began.
And it didn't last long.
It was so short that by the time Shinichi Kudo, who lived next door, heard the gunshots and rushed over, only broken bodies remained in the yard.
Overnight, news of the incident reached the ears of every major power in the world.
Mainly because among the twenty-plus dead Black Organization members, nearly half were actually undercover agents from various intelligence agencies.
FBI, CIA, KGB, MI6, PSB.
Suddenly, every spy agency re-evaluated the boy genius they had been watching, frantically discussing their next move.
But before they could decide anything...
The night wasn't over.
Just before the first rays of dawn, countless black-and-white combat robots launched into the sky in perfect unison, piercing the clouds.
Leaving Beika District behind, they split up.
One squad of six robots flew toward a small island near the continental United States. The rest scattered, each with a specific target.
In less than 24 hours, Black Organization strongholds hidden across the globe were eradicated. Some were known to intelligence agencies but left alone for political reasons; others were secret safe houses unknown even to the Organization's own executives.
And the squad of six that flew to the island? Their target was the military base where the reclusive boss, Renya Karasuma, had been hiding for years.
A mysterious organization that spanned the world for half a century was dismantled—simply, efficiently, and brutally.
The remaining global powers chose silence.
Because no one knew if those robots were all of them.
And no one wanted to find out what the remaining programs would do if their master was killed.
Yet, the instigator of all this chaos remained secluded, never once stepping out of his lab.
Until one of the robots returned, carrying a young woman with auburn hair and disheveled clothes.
Well, she couldn't help being disheveled. Being flown through the air at high speed tends to ruin one's hair. Standing upright was the last bit of dignity the genius girl had left.
At the lab bench, Luca stopped his work. He turned to the auburn-haired girl, a flicker of a smile in his eyes.
"APTX-4869? Sounds like an interesting project."
The moment he spoke, the world seemed to tremble.
Everything in front of him shattered like a mirror, dissolving into nothingness.
Memories wove together, dreams faded like mist.
When he opened his eyes again, Luca found himself back in the Aurantius Estate, in his own underground laboratory.
In front of him sat the [Solar Skateboard] he had just finished synthesizing.
Everything before felt like a fleeting dream.
But the memories—nearly nine years of experimental research and life experience—were deeply branded into his mind.
But before he could even process the flood of new memories...
The illusory bubble appeared again.
This time, it didn't dissipate.
Instead... it condensed!