Agonizing pain surged through every fiber of Watari’s being. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t scream. The air was thick with the acrid scent of burning flesh as beams of energy shot into him from the four floating cores. His Tamashkii pulsed violently, but he had no control over it—not now. Not here.
His breath hitched.
When was the st time I felt pain like this?
Then it hit him. Ancient.
The second the thought crossed his mind, the world around him shattered. A new memory flooded in, unbidden, raw, real.
——INSIDE MEMORY
The room was different. Luxurious. Pristine.
The Oval Office.
But this wasn’t Watari’s world.
This was Ancient’s memory.
Ancient stood before a man—Sato, still the President of the United States then, his fingers pressed tightly against his temple as he listened. Ancient’s voice was unusually grave, a weight behind his words that cut through the usual heroism he embodied.
“I never should have mentioned the Chūkan Yūrei to Kuroda.” His voice was low, but edged with regret. “Ever since then, that man has been obsessed. He wants to reach it, Sato. He wants to open the door permanently, and he thinks I’m just some key to get there.”
Sato leaned back in his chair, sighing heavily. “I’ve seen the reports. His research, the experiments—it’s not just obsession. It’s destruction. He’s gone off the grid. We can’t track him.”
Ancient’s fingers curled into fists. “Then we have to stop him before he drags the rest of the world down with him. Tamashkii is special, it’s not something just everybody ha—”
A sound in the distance. Ancient stiffened, his enhanced hearing picking it up.
Faint murmurs outside the window.
A gathering crowd.
“Is she really gonna jump?”
Ancient’s head snapped toward the sound.
That’s in Japan.
Is it the girl I visited the other day?
Sato barely had time to register his movement before Ancient’s body blurred—gone, streaking toward Japan.
Then, it all unfolded.
The high school rooftop.
The girl standing on the edge.
The explosion.
Ancient moved faster than anyone else. He reached the rooftop in a fraction of a second. But just before the burst engulfed him—
He saw him.
Standing amidst the stunned crowd below, watching.
Kuroda.
The explosion swallowed everything.
The st thing Ancient saw was Kuroda’s unreadable expression fading into the smoke.
Watari’s body jerked violently, gasping as reality came rushing back. His mind was a storm, but one thought rose above the chaos.
Kuroda was there.
He was there when it all happened.
Kuroda’s sharp eyes studied Watari as his body convulsed.
Tenzan smirked. “Hah. Kid passed out for a bit.”
Kuroda didn’t react immediately. His fingers curled against the desk, his gaze locked on Watari. Then, with an almost reverent whisper—
“No.”
His lips twitched.
“He was in the holy pce.”
A moment of silence.
Then—
BOOM.
The doors to the b burst open.
Ren. Sato. Kaito. Yumi.
They had arrived.
Kuroda’s fist smmed against the desk, his expression darkening. “They shouldn’t have made it this far. Where is Mori when you need him?”
Tenzan chuckled, tilting his head. “Actually… now that I think about it, I haven’t seen the old man in a while.”
Kuroda’s eyes flickered with something unreadable, but the moment passed as he exhaled sharply. “Enough. Take care of it.”
Tenzan’s smirk widened. “Gdly.”
He stepped forward, slow, casual, cpping his hands together as if appuding their efforts. “Man… I gotta give it to you all. Really. I didn’t think you’d make it this far.”
His tone was light, almost pyful.
But his eyes held something sharp.
Something lethal.
Yumi barely heard him.
Her entire body was tense, eyes locked on Watari’s form, writhing under the relentless assault of the cores.
Her fists clenched against the metal bars separating them.
This pce. This setup. The experiments.
It’s all the same.
Her breathing was ragged. Her knuckles turned white. The memories cwed at the back of her mind.
The screams. The helplessness.
Tenzan didn’t care.
He just smiled. “Well? You made it this far. Now what?”
His aura fred.
He lifted his arm, the bracelet glistening under the light of the room.
“Take Form—”
The energy erupted around him, shifting, twisting into something monstrous.
”—Kagutsuchi.”
A cascade of molten steel formed around his arms, burning like liquid fire, shifting between solid and liquid at will. The heat alone made the air ripple.
He rolled his shoulders, letting the fmes dance around him.
Then, with a smirk, he beckoned forward.
“Come on, then.”
Ren and Yumi exchanged a gnce.
Then, without hesitation—
They attacked.
—Meanwhile, inside the b…
Sato’s grip tightened as he advanced toward Kuroda. “This ends today.”
Kuroda barely gnced at him, eyes still on Watari’s convulsing form. “You’re too te.”
His voice was dismissive.
“If you wanted to talk, you should have done it years ago.”
Sato’s breath hitched.
The words were almost identical to what Ren had once told him.
The weight of his failures pressed against his chest.
His jaw clenched.
No.
No more mistakes.
“I told myself,” Sato muttered. “Back then, I wanted to make one right choice as president.”
He exhaled, eyes hardening.
“And that choice should have been killing you.”
Kuroda’s lips curled slightly.
“Oh?”
—Across the room…
Kaito stood frozen.
The chaos around him blurred—the fight raging, the argument escating, and Watari’s suffering in the center of it all.
He was sweating.
“I’m just an Okachi. What am I even supposed to do?”
Then—
His eyes caught something.
A flickering light under one of the b tables.
A core.
Pulsing faintly.
Alive.
His fingers twitched.
His breath was shallow.
He had wanted a core for so long…
But was now really the time to be greedy?
Hesitantly, he crouched down, reaching for it.
His fingers traced over the surface, feeling the energy hum beneath his touch.
“How do I…?”
A nervous chuckle. “Man, if only these things just had, like, a voice command or something. ‘Core activate.’”
The second the words left his mouth—
The core pulsed.
A blinding light erupted, forcing everyone’s attention toward him.
The energy swirled, crackling, condensing.
And then, the glow faded.
Dangling from Kaito’s wrist—
A bracelet.
Silence.
Ren’s breath caught.
Yumi’s eyes widened.
Sato’s lips parted slightly.
And Kuroda?
Kuroda grinned.
“Well now…”
The air was thick with the lingering hum of Tamashkii energy, the walls of the boratory trembling under the weight of the battle that raged just outside.
Kaito’s breath was uneven, his newly-formed bracelet pulsing with unstable energy. But there was no time to dwell on it.
Watari was still screaming.
The four cores floating above him continued their relentless assault, beams of raw energy piercing into his body, each strike forcing another agonized cry from his lips.
Kaito’s hands clenched into fists.
His mind raced.
He had to do something. Now.
A pulse.
A flicker of power.
His bracelet surged.
Take Form—
A fsh of searing light.
Kaito moved before he even registered what he was doing.
In a single motion, he cleaved through all four cores, his weapon—whatever it was—moving faster than thought. The beams vanished. The assault stopped. And in the sudden, deafening silence, Watari exhaled a ragged breath, body still trembling from the pain.
He turned to Kaito, forcing a smirk. “Always stealing the show huh? About time you did something cool.”
Kaito, looking back at him, puts on the biggest of grins. “Yeah yeah. We can talk about how awesome I am ter, let’s get you out of here first.”
Kaito nodded, reaching up and slicing through the restraints that bound Watari to the table. As soon as they snapped, he pulled his friend onto his shoulder, steadying him. “You’re heavier than you look.”
Watari coughed weakly. “You’re just weak.”
Kaito rolled his eyes and turned toward the exit. That was when he stopped.
A figure stood in their path.
Kuroda.
His eyes glowed with something unreadable, his lips curled into a slow, patient smile. “Where do you think you’re taking my subject?”
Kaito’s breath hitched. He took an instinctive step back. But before he could react further—
“You’re going to let these boys leave, Kuroda.”
Sato’s voice cut through the air like a bde.
The old man stepped forward, positioning himself between them and Kuroda. His expression was firm, unwavering, but there was something almost… lighter about him. Like for the first time in years, he had crity.
Kuroda’s gaze flickered with mild amusement. Then—something else. His eyes narrowed slightly as he regarded Sato, and then, after a pause, he let out a soft chuckle. “In truth, I had hoped that boy Ren would take you out. But the AUDACITY! I can’t believe a corpse has the audacity to talk to ME like that.”
Then, without hesitation, he raised his hand.
From his palm, a core shifted, clicking into pce like an engine revving to life. It was as if the core was installed into his hands personally. The glow intensified, forming into a precise beam of light—distorted, wrong.
The moment it fired, Sato didn’t move.
The beam tore through his chest.
His body jerked violently, staggering backward. The sound of his breath hitching was deafening in the silence.
Ren whipped his head toward him, eyes wide with horror. “SATO—”
Before he could move, a crushing force smmed into his side.
Tenzan.
Ren hit the ground hard, the air forced from his lungs. Tenzan loomed over him, his smirk sharp. “I can’t believe you thought you could afford to look away from me.”
Yumi’s voice rang out at him, sharp and cold. “Old man, focus. We fight now, grieve ter.”
Ren clenched his teeth, fury and grief cshing inside him. But she was right.
Sato, gasping for air, stumbled toward Ren. His bloodied hand gripped Ren’s wrist, pulling him close. His voice was faint, nearly drowned by the chaos.
“Yamato…”
Ren’s heart pounded. “Sato—just hang on, we can—”
The old man gave a small smile. A whisper.
Words only Ren could hear.
And then, his grip loosened.
His body fell.
Ren’s breath hitched. His eyes were wide. Unblinking.
Then Kuroda’s voice cut through the haze. “Now, as I was saying… where do you think you’re taking my subject?”
Kaito’s grip on Watari tightened.
But before he could move, Watari forced himself off his shoulder, stumbling forward. “It’s alright… Kaito… run. I’ll take care of him.”
Kaito’s jaw clenched. He knew what he had to do but did he have the courage to do it?
Slowly, he lowered Watari to the ground.
Then he turned back to Kuroda, stepping forward. He took a stance. “I won’t let you hurt my proud Heishi.”
Kuroda let out a slow exhale. Then, his lips curled into something cruel. “First, we have corpses talking… and now we have experiments talking. What a peculiar day.”
Kaito smirks—Then goes for a lunge.
Kuroda raised a hand. “Initiate.”
The word barely left his lips before Kaito convulsed. A searing pain erupted from his core, his body locking up, limbs trembling violently. He gasped, a strangled sound, his knees buckling beneath him.
His bracelet—the stolen core—fred erratically, energy crackling wildly around him.
Yumi, on the other side of the battlefield, froze. Her pupils shrank. Her breath caught in her throat.
She knew that word.
In fact, that word felt like it had been engraved into her tamashkii itself.
Without thinking, she bolted. “KURODA—”
A fsh of distorted light. A surge of energy.
And when the transformation ended—
Kaito was no longer Kaito.
His eyes were hollow, his body moving unnaturally.
The Kuroda Core had taken over.
Kuroda let out a soft, mocking sigh. “Kids should really learn not to pick up things they find on the floor.”
Then—
Cut to bck.
