It's been twelve years since that night.
The night blood stained the white walls of the Zenkai Quantum Institute… And something we couldn't understand slipped through the cracks. A lot has changed since then. The institute is still here. Still standing. But it feels different now—emptier, somehow. Quieter. No more laughter echoing down the dormitory hallways. No little feet racing toward the mess hall. The bedrooms have been stripped clean. Most of the drawings were taken down, given to the kids. Though I think someone—Hanasaki, probably—kept a few locked in a cabinet somewhere. I still remember where they hung on the walls.
We don't create anymore. Not in the way we used to. No more children. No more. The cloning division was shuttered not long after the incident. Quietly, without press, without protest. No one wanted questions. The children were placed with families—ordinary homes, ordinary names. It was all handled quickly, quietly. But they're out there. Growing up. Trying to forget. Sometimes I wonder if they did. We don't talk about what happened that night. Not officially.
Even after all these years, the records are sealed, the testimonies clipped, and the final ruling stands: an armed intruder. A robbery gone wrong. Dr. Fujino's name is engraved in a plaque outside the neurogenetics wing. They keep it polished. His photo's still framed above the stairs—white coat, half-smile, the kind he gave when he was already thinking about three different things. He had his flaws, but he didn't deserve that ending. None of us did. One year after the shooting, Ten disappeared. From the hospital. No warning. No note. No error in the paperwork. One day he was there. The next, his bed was empty, the IV line dripping onto cold tile. Security footage from that night was corrupted. A blackout, they said. It happened to coincide with a storm. Typical. And Nine—she never resurfaced. No footprints. No witnesses. No body. She would be roughly twenty now. Wherever she is—if she's still alive—she's not the same girl we raised. And we are not the same people. Rose and I… we stayed. We endured the trials. The hearings. The nights of guilt and grief that came without sleep. We endured the silence of the lab, and the eyes that watched us with suspicion for years after. And we're still here. Still together. Somehow, though things have been slightly falling off lately. We got engaged. Quietly. There was no need for celebration. Hanasaki never left either. Sharp as ever. Methodical. She keeps her notes in neat stacks, the same way she did when the children were with us. Akane had finally gotten her doctorate.
But there's something different in her eyes these days—like she's still watching the door. Waiting for one of them to walk back in. I feel it too. You learn to live with the silence. But you never stop listening. Because the truth is… I never believed it was random. Not a break-in. Not a robbery. Someone chose that night. Someone wanted Fujino dead. There was a purpose behind it. You could feel it—cold, clinical, precise.
"The devil came." That's what one of them whispered.
A devil in the shape of someone they thought they knew. But who? I still don't have the answer. But I feel it, just beneath the surface, like a pulse. There's something we missed. And if Ten and Nine are still alive… they're the only ones who know what really happened that night. And I'm not sure I want to know the truth. But I have to. Because something is still out there.