The air smelled like smoke.
When Akira opened his eyes, the world tilted sideways. The ceiling above him was cracked concrete, water dripping steadily from somewhere unseen.
His head throbbed. The floor beneath him was cold metal — not the station anymore.
He sat up, dizzy, eyes adjusting to dim light.
The walls around him were lined with monitors — all showing fragments of his life.
Him as a boy, holding his mother's hand.
Him standing over his father's body.
Him screaming in the fire.
Every memory he'd tried to forget… playing on repeat.
And in the center of the room, illuminated by a single flickering bulb — was Yumi.
She was tied to a chair, her wrists bound, her eyes covered by a black cloth.
Her breathing was shallow but steady.
Akira's chest tightened. "Yumi…"
He tried to move toward her — but his foot hit something.
A cable. Dozens of them, snaking across the floor, connecting the monitors to a large machine humming at the far end of the room.
Its screen pulsed with faint white light.
And on it, words began to appear — one by one.
"Welcome home, Akira."
He froze.
The voice came next — not from the machine, but from everywhere.
Distorted, layered — like two people speaking in perfect sync.
"We were waiting for you."
He turned — and saw the double standing in the doorway.
This time, he wasn't just a reflection. He looked… solid. Real.
The scar across his forehead glowed faintly under the light, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Akira's voice broke. "Where is she? What did you do to her?"
The double tilted his head, smiling faintly. "She's safe. For now."
"Why are you doing this?"
"Because you finally started asking the right questions."
He stepped closer, hands clasped behind his back — calm, patient, terrifying.
"You've been running from ghosts, Akira. But ghosts are only pieces of memory. You created me because you couldn't live with yours."
Akira shook his head. "You're lying."
The double raised a hand.
"Am I? Then tell me — when was the last time you actually remembered her birthday? Her voice? Her favorite song?"
Akira opened his mouth — and froze.
He couldn't.
Images flickered through his mind, but none were solid. Just echoes, fragments, blurs of laughter in a house that no longer existed.
"You see?" the double whispered. "She's not your sister, Akira. She's mine."
The words hit like a blade.
Akira's breath caught. "What…?"
The double turned toward Yumi, brushing a hand against her cheek. "She was part of the experiment too. Father didn't want just to split guilt. He wanted to split memory. Identity. Love."
He looked back at Akira, his smile turning sharp.
"You were the control. She was the anchor. And I… was the result."
Akira stumbled backward, his thoughts splintering. "No… no, that's—"
But the machine behind him roared to life.
The screens shifted — showing images of surgical rooms, data logs, symbols marked Yūgen-03, Cognitive Split Trials, Subject A / Subject B.
And then, a clip — an old recording.
His father's voice.
"Prototype succeeded. Subject A displays partial amnesia, emotional suppression. Subject B shows high aggression, adaptive intelligence. Both share genetic mirroring. The girl remains stable — synchronization possible."
Akira's throat closed.
He could barely breathe.
Subject A.
Subject B.
Him.
And the double.
Yumi wasn't just a sister.
She was the bridge that kept them tethered — the living key to whatever they were.
And now, she was caught in between.
The double turned, pulling off Yumi's blindfold gently. Her eyes opened — dazed, confused — and then filled with recognition.
"Akira…" she whispered. But when she looked between the two of them, her expression faltered. "There are two of you…"
The double crouched beside her, voice soft. "No, Yumi. There's only one. He's the echo."
Akira stepped forward, rage cutting through his confusion. "Don't touch her!"
The double stood. "Then take her. Save her. But when she wakes, she won't remember you — because you're not supposed to exist."
He gestured to the machine. "You're a fragment, Akira. The fear, the guilt — the failed half. You were meant to burn. I was meant to continue."
Akira clenched his fists. "You think I'll let you erase me?"
The double's eyes glinted. "You don't have a choice."
The lights flickered.
And then — everything happened at once.
The monitors erupted into static. Sparks flew from the cables. The double lunged forward, slamming Akira against the wall.
The air filled with dust and light, the machine roaring like a beast.
Akira fought back — instinct, desperation, rage. His fist connected, the impact jarring through his arm.
The double staggered, blood running from his lip — red, real.
He laughed. "You've learned to fight. Good. Father would be proud."
"Stop calling him that!"
Akira swung again — the double caught his wrist mid-air and slammed him into the console.
"You still don't get it," the double hissed. "You can't kill what's already inside you."
He pressed Akira's face against the screen, static burning his skin.
"Every scar, every nightmare — that's me."
The machine beeped wildly, detecting both their biometrics. A faint blue light spread from the screen, wrapping around them like mist.
"Integration sequence initiated," a mechanical voice said.
Akira's eyes widened. "What the hell—"
The double smiled. "Father's final failsafe."
Their bodies began to flicker — images overlapping, shadows merging.
Akira felt his own heartbeat sync with the double's.
Pain. Blinding, consuming pain.
"No!" he screamed.
But the double's voice overlapped his, echoing from within his skull.
"This is how it ends. One of us disappears."
The world twisted.
Flashes — the burning house, his mother's scream, his father's hands covered in blood.
Then Yumi — small, crying, clutching something shining in the dark.
The pendant. Forgive.
Akira reached for it in his mind — clinging to that one word, that one memory that felt pure.
The double's voice faltered. "What are you doing?"
Akira's voice was raw. "Remembering what you can't."
The pendant flashed in his mind — a burst of light in the storm.
The machine shrieked. The cables snapped.
Akira grabbed the double by the collar and dragged him toward the monitors. "You said I was just guilt? Then maybe it's time you felt some."
He slammed the double against the screen — and everything went white.
When the light faded, Akira was on the floor again.
The room was silent.
The monitors were dead. The machine — smoking. The cables — burned out.
And Yumi — gone.
He scrambled up, calling her name.
No answer.
Only the faint reflection on one shattered monitor — his own face, pale and shaking.
But in the reflection, his eyes flickered — two colors for a split second, one his, one the double's.
And then a voice — faint, distant, but unmistakable — whispered from the broken speaker:
"You didn't win, Akira. You just opened the door."
Outside, thunder cracked.
Somewhere beyond the facility walls, alarms began to blare.
And as Akira stumbled toward the exit, one last monitor flickered back to life behind him.
A new file opened automatically.
PROJECT YŪGEN // PHASE II: ACTIVATION
SUBJECT A: STATUS — STABLE
SUBJECT B: STATUS — MERGED
SUBJECT C: LOCATION — UNKNOWN
The screen glitched — showing a final image:
Yumi, walking through the rain, her eyes glowing faintly blue.
End of Chapter 9