The air in Osaka carried a stillness unlike Tokyo's constant rhythm — a stillness that felt older, heavier, as if the city remembered too much. The neon lights flickered between alleyways as Nagisa and Hakumura stepped through the cracked glass doors of the abandoned government archive. The once-proud building, labeled Ministry of Civil Data Regulation, now stood hollow — its sign eaten away by rust and time.
A storm had passed hours earlier, leaving the streets wet and the night glistening under pale moonlight. Rainwater dripped from Nagisa's hood, landing softly on the old linoleum floor as he adjusted the strap of his shoulder bag. Inside were the remnants of the stolen drive, still sparking with faint life — fragments of UMA 8907's truth, barely holding together.
The two moved in silence.
The corridors were long and echoing, walls covered in peeling government posters about "Order, Security, and Obedience." Nagisa's eyes traced the slogans as he passed them, each word cutting through memory like a quiet knife.
It wasn't the slogans that bothered him. It was how familiar they felt.
Hakumura walked slightly ahead, flashlight trembling in his hand. His breathing was shallow. He wasn't the same reckless assassin who'd once broken into Nagisa's apartment — there was hesitation now, fear threaded between his movements. He paused occasionally, glancing at doors as if he recognized something.
"You've been here before," Nagisa said softly.
Hakumura stopped, his flashlight freezing against a nameplate on a wall: Division 0-A: Psychological Indoctrination Records.
"I... don't know," he muttered. "But my body does."
Nagisa stepped beside him, eyes narrowing. There was a faint trembling in Hakumura's left hand — an involuntary shake, the kind that came not from nerves but from recognition buried too deep to articulate.
"Let's keep moving," Nagisa said. "We find what's left of the Ghostline data, we get out. Just incase there's still some more of this rubbled building."
They descended further.
The lower levels smelled of mold and metal — an undercurrent of old chemicals and burned circuitry. The flashlight beams swept across filing cabinets overturned in chaos, shattered computers, and piles of paper scattered like the remnants of a destroyed soul.
When they reached the central archive chamber, Hakumura stopped again — this time with visible distress.
Nagisa noticed his pupils dilate, his breathing quicken. "Hakumura," he said quietly, "what do you see?"
Hakumura's voice shook. "A room… a cold room. I was—" he stopped, clutching his head. "I was one of them!"
Nagisa approached him, lowering his voice into that calm, teacher-like tone he once used to disarm chaos. "Listen. Whatever they did, it's not who you are now."
Hakumura's eyes glimmered under the weak light. "Then why does it feel like my memories are screaming?"
Before Nagisa could answer, a faint noise echoed from behind — a single metallic clink. Nagisa turned instantly, hand reaching for the knife strapped under his coat. The shadow stretched across the wall.
Then a voice — deep, smooth, too familiar to be real.
"Well... if it isn't my star pupil."
Nagisa froze. His heart stilled before racing again with disbelief. The voice had aged, broken by bitterness — but its rhythm was unmistakable.
From the darkness, a figure emerged.
Akira Takaoka.
His once bulky frame was leaner now, scarred and wiry like a wolf that had survived too many winters. His face bore deep claw marks, self-inflicted. His gray hair was slicked back, but his eyes burned with the same deranged gleam — sharpened by age, not dulled. He wore a tattered military coat with the insignia of an unknown unit crossed out in red paint.
Nagisa's hand tightened on his knife. Hakumura stepped back, startled.
"Takaoka…" Nagisa's voice was almost a whisper. "You were—"
"Supposed to be a ghost?" Takaoka finished for him, smirking. "Oh, I was. But ghosts don't fade, Shiota. They remember. They rot inside your head until you see them again."
He stepped closer, boots echoing against the marble. "You were my failure, Nagisa. My shame. The reason I was laughed out of every corridor I once owned."
Hakumura drew a blade, but Nagisa raised his hand slightly. "Don't," he said quietly.
Takaoka laughed — a low, broken sound that carried both madness and intelligence. "Oh, so now you have an accomplice. Another lost dog following your leash, hm?" He leaned forward, his tone sharpening. "You're still the same. Always trying to save people who don't deserve it."
Nagisa's expression darkened. "People deserve a chance. Even you once did."
Takaoka grinned, tilting his head. "Then let's call this... my redemption."
He pulled a small black device from his pocket and tossed it across the floor. It slid, blinking red. A proximity mine — simple, elegant, and deadly.
Nagisa reacted instantly, pulling Hakumura back as the device detonated. The explosion shattered the archive glass, sending papers and sparks into the air.
Through the smoke, Takaoka moved fast. He was older but no less lethal — his movements still sharp, calculated.
Nagisa ducked behind a column, knife drawn. Hakumura covered his flank, coughing through the dust.
"Takaoka!" Nagisa shouted. "Why are you here? What is UMA 8907 doing in Osaka?"
The older freaks laughter echoed. "They're cleaning up the mess you made in Kyoto. Division Thirteen was a distraction. The real operation began here — under this archive. You think those files are just records?"
He emerged again, gun raised — but not at Nagisa. At Hakumura.
"This one," Takaoka said, his tone dripping with amusement, "was my creation."
Hakumura froze.
Nagisa's eyes widened. "What are you talking about?"
Takaoka's smile stretched unnaturally. "The Ghostline project wasn't just data, Shiota. It was memory grafting — the art of reconstructing human obedience through trauma and suggestion. Your little partner there was one of our test subjects. A sleeper. We gave him pain, purpose, and a name he could hold on to. Yoku Hakumura... a child built to kill and then question why. But we never made it further and gave up on him and just let him continue being an agent as his only purpose."
Hakumura's breathing grew erratic. "He's lying," he muttered, shaking his head. "He's lying, Nagisa—he has to be."
Nagisa's knife trembled in his grip, not from fear, but from the weight of truth pressing down on him.
Takaoka stepped forward, voice lowering into a dangerous calm. "You of all people should understand, Shiota. You break someone enough times, they'll cling to whoever gives them meaning." His gaze sharpened. "Just like you did with Korosensei."
That name hit Nagisa like a ghost's whisper.
For a moment, the entire room seemed to fade. The rain outside. The smell of smoke. The echoes of explosions. All gone — replaced by that bright classroom on the mountain. Laughter. Chalk dust. The faint, soft hum of a being who had taught him everything about life and death.
Korosensei's smile. The promise he left behind. Use your killing intent... to protect, not destroy.
Nagisa's hand steadied.
He stepped from behind the column, eyes clear. "You're right," he said. "Pain shapes people. But what we do with that pain — that's what separates us from monsters."
Takaoka tilted his head, grin twitching. "Monsters? Oh, you still think you're human after what you did to me?"
Nagisa's gaze didn't waver. "If I weren't, you wouldn't still be haunted by that smile."
For a split second, Takaoka flinched — just enough for Nagisa to move.
He darted forward, knife grazing Takaoka's coat as sparks flew from a ricocheted bullet. Hakumura joined the fray, using the environment — kicking up debris, disarming traps, moving with trained precision that seemed almost... sleek and smooth.
The fight was brutal, raw — not a dance of assassins, but a clash of philosophies. Takaoka fought with hate; Nagisa fought with conviction.
When Nagisa finally pinned him, the older man's laughter returned — softer now, almost sorrowful.
"Still the same… calm little demon," Takaoka whispered, blood running down his chin. "You think you're saving him," — he glanced at Hakumura — "but he's just another project. When you see the files from that stollen drive I can see, you'll understand."
Nagisa hesitated — the final strike hovering at his throat.
But he didn't finish it.
Instead, he pulled the drive from his bag and pressed it against Takaoka's wrist communicator. "If you're telling the truth, then prove it."
The device flickered. Then, to their shock, the drive unlocked.
A single folder appeared.PROJECT GHOSTLINE: EXPERIMENTAL SUBJECT 04 — YOKU HAKUMURA.
Hakumura stepped closer, trembling. "That's... that's not me…"
But it was. His photo. His DNA record. Dates. Locations. Psychological conditioning logs.
And beside it — another folder labeled PROJECT ZERO: SHIOTA.
Nagisa froze.
Takaoka smiled faintly through the blood. "You thought you were free of them, Shiota… but they never stopped watching. UMA 8907 is just the name they use now."
Then he leaned forward, voice breaking into a whisper. "They're still experimenting. They're still looking for the perfect killer with a teacher's heart for their purposes."
Nagisa's eyes darkened — something inside him snapping like a silent scream.
Before he could respond, Takaoka's final words cut through the silence. "Lesson number three, Shiota... ghosts don't die. They just change classrooms."
He triggered the grenade at his belt. Nagisa breathed heavily and yelled at the same time with a steady breath. "Damn why do all these facility members have to blow themselfs up, as some kind of final act of defience It's sickening!" But he continued to observe his surroundings for plans.
Nagisa barely had time to grab Hakumura before the blast engulfed the chamber in white fire.
When the smoke cleared, the archive was gone — reduced to rubble and memory.
Nagisa opened his eyes slowly, coughing through the dust. He was alive. So was Hakumura, lying unconscious beside him. But Takaoka was nowhere to be seen — only his scorched insignia melted into the floor.
Nagisa stared at the drive, cracked but still blinking faintly. The two folders remained.
He whispered to himself, voice trembling but steady:"Then I'll learn the truth… even if it kills me."
The camera panned out — the ruins of Osaka glowing beneath the storm clouds, and a faint silhouette of someone watching from the rooftops.
A persons voice echoed softly through the radio static. "Subject Shiota has made contact. Phase Two begins."
To Be Continued...