Rescue

“No…” Haruto muttered.

Kusaragi’s body was lumped against the far wall, head bowed unnaturally. Blood pooled around him like a leaking halo. His chest was a mess of ruptured bone and torn cloth. Ribs shattered outward like broken glass beneath a force far too quick to react. His arms were slicked with jagged wounds, defensive marks that spoke of a melee struggle. His fingernails were caked with skin and black blood.

His face…

Half of it was gone. A portion of his skull had caved in. One eye remained, open wide in horror.

Haruto stumbled forward, kneeling.

“This… wasn’t supposed to happen.”

He ran his hand over Kusaragi’s shoulder. No signs of gunfire. No bullet wounds. It had been brutal… and deliberate.

He swallowed and reached up with his trembling fingers to gently close the man’s one remaining eye.

Whatever hatred or suspicion he’d once held for Kusaragi had faded in that moment.

Haruto’s gaze caught on the man’s right hand, clenched so tightly around something that the fingers had stiffened in rigor mortis.

With effort, Haruto pried them apart.

It was a silver locket. Old and dented.

He flicked it open.

Haruto’s breath hitched.

He couldn’t believe what he saw.

“…”

He snapped the locket shut and shoved it into his pocket. Later. He would deal with this later.

Everything else in the room was pristine. The floor was polished and the lights were working. No alarms, no wreckage. Just a single, violent death.

He pushed onward.

Corridor after corridor, all sterile and silent. The kind of silence that gnaws. No sign of Kurosawa. No guards. Just echoing steps and Haruto’s mounting dread.

Despite the urgency, his mind kept drifting to Ren.

He hadn’t expected to care this much. The boy had once just been a variable.

But now…

Now he was something else.

When Haruto finally reached Lab 3C, he didn’t hesitate. He yanked out Kusaragi’s ID card and slammed it against the scanner.

“Access Denied.”

“WHAT?!”

He cursed, jamming it in again.

Still red.

He took a step back as he scanned for weaknesses. A keypad. A seam in the frame.

Screw this.

He raised his boot, ready to kick –

The door clicked.

Then slowly, it opened.

He froze.

No alarms. No voice commands.

Just that smooth mechanical hiss, as though something, or someone, had decided to let him in.

Cautious, Haruto stepped through.

The room was cold and empty. Blue-lit. Lined with humming machinery and a half-circle of glass pods filled with pale light. Every breath he took felt like inhaling frost.

At the far end of the room, a giant screen flickered to life.

“Subject-R 3C: Unauthorized Entry.

Locking Access Points.”

The door behind him slammed shut with a loud metallic clang. Haruto spun around. Now, there was no way out.

But something else caught his eye. At the center, suspended in a tank of thick fluid, was Ren.

Haruto’s heart dropped.

The boy was submerged in a tank of viscous blue fluid. Tubes were threaded through the boy’s arms, his chest and even burrowed cruelly into the back of his skull. Wires spiraled around his temple. Electrodes blinked in slow patterns across a panel above his head.

Ren floated limply, unconscious. Pale. Eyes closed. His fingers twitched every so often, but whether from dreams or pain, Haruto couldn’t tell.

“Ren…”

Haruto rushed forward as he slammed his fists against the glass.

Nothing.

“Wake up!” he shouted as his voice started to crack. He struck the pod again, harder this time, enough to send a shiver, but it didn’t budge. Not a crack.

“Please… not like this. Not again…”

Then, the screen overhead flickered once again.

“Aborting Relocation Procedure…

Emergency Manual Release Activated.”

A hiss filled the air.

Locks disengaged with a cascade of clicks. The fluid began draining, bubbling away from Ren’s limbs.

Hydraulic latches unlocked and the wires retracted. The pod depressurized and its glass sides split open with a soft exhale, unfolding like a blooming mechanical flower.

Ren slumped forward.

Haruto lunged and caught the boy before he could hit the floor. The scent of antiseptic and something acrid – burnt wiring? – filled his nostrils.

He was warm, barely breathing, but alive.

“Come on, Ren…” Haruto muttered as he crushed the boy’s damp hair. “Not now. Not after all this.”

He pressed a hand to Ren’s cheek.

Still no response.

But Haruto didn’t let go.

A crackling voice broke over a wall-mounted speaker.

“Haruto! This is Kurosawa.”

Haruto turned toward it.

“I released the boy from my end. You have to move. Exit Bridge 4C is still active. They haven’t locked it yet. Go!”

Haruto opened his mouth to respond, but the speaker burst into static.

There were thuds in the background. Yelling.

A gasp.

“Don’t stop. Keep going,” Kurosawa said through a strained voice.

A final groan. What followed then, was silence.

Haruto stared the speaker. “Kurosawa…?”

Nothing.

He shifted Ren’s weight in his arms and ran towards the hallway. Because really, what else was he good at — except running away? He always had.

The exit bridge… what had he said? 4C?

No – 4E. He said four-E, right?

Haruto didn’t have time to second-guess himself.

He charged down the corridor, sprinting bass sealed doors and motionless panels.

Everything was strangely untouched.

But as he turned the final corner –

He stopped cold.

There, at the far end of the hallway, stood a man.

The cold eyes. The faint hum in the air around him. He hadn’t aged a day.

It was him – the same one who had killed Asahi, the one who had plunged both Haruto and Ren into this nightmare.

His coat billowed from some unnatural wind.

Ren stirred in Haruto’s arms.

Behind them, the lights dimmed.

Haruto didn’t move.

Not yet.

The man raised one hand, and stretched his fingers like claws.