Rainy Night Agreement

Raindrops drummed against the infirmary window, blurring the file in Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's hands. The photo showed himself in a white lab coat, his eyes as hollow as a puppet stripped of its soul.

The signature line at the end of the document was scrawled in a messy hand: "Voluntary participant in the 'Shuiqingshen' cross-dimensional consciousness migration project—Ayanokoji Kiyotaka (Original World ID: 042)."

"When did you start suspecting?" Ichinose's voice drifted from the corner of the hospital bed. She was curled up in the shadows, blood seeping from the bandage wrapped around her left eye, her right hand mechanically stroking a ceramic dagger.

Ayanokoji did not answer. He walked to the window, where red lights blinked rhythmically in the high altitude through the curtain of rain—that was Tsukishiro's backup satellite, the Ark, currently overlooking the campus like a Cyclops.

The memory fragments that had flooded in when the mainframe exploded three days ago were becoming increasingly clear: the version of himself in the original world was no ordinary shut-in, but a neural engineer involved in the development of military AI.

"You knew all along." He turned to look Ichinose straight in the eye. "When you injected me with the inhibitor in the chemistry lab, you read my memory chain."

Ichinose's fingertips suddenly dug into her thigh, her mechanical joints emitting a harsh, grating sound. "Because my sub-system command was 'sacrifice B-09 to recover experimental subject 42 if necessary'... I'm sorry."

She pulled down her collar, revealing electronic rose patterns that had already spread to her chest. "We have nineteen hours before the satellite triggers the electromagnetic pulse."

Old School Building Ruins · Midnight

Horikita Suzune kicked open the deformed iron door, her flashlight beam sweeping over the wreckage covering the floor.

The explosion three days ago had razed the clock tower to the ground, but what she found in the rubble was even more suffocating—hundreds of cryo-pods containing "Ayanokoji Kiyotaka" at various ages, ranging from a withered old man to a mere embryo.

"Tsukishiro is building a clone army of you." She tossed a data card to Ayanokoji, which recorded nauseating experimental logs: "Clone #33 self-destructed due to consciousness rejection; suggest adjusting memory wipe frequency..."

The moment Ayanokoji touched a cryo-pod, all the clones suddenly opened their eyes, hundreds of gazes piercing his brain like steel needles.

[Subject consciousness confirmed, initiating synchronization program]

In the midst of the agonizing pain, he saw the laboratory from his original world: he was placing a neural interface on his head, and the screen displayed "Shuiqingshen System 3.0 launch countdown."

And in the corner of the lab sat a man with the exact same appearance as Chairman Tsukishiro before his death.

"It's a memory flashback!" Ichinose slashed his wrist with her dagger, the pain forcibly severing the connection. "The clones are equipped with consciousness resonance devices; contact for more than ten seconds leads to assimilation."

Horikita suddenly aimed her gun at Ayanokoji. "How much have you two been hiding? Six people in Class D showed mechanical patterns this morning, and Hirata's left hand is already..."

She choked on her words. Under the beam of her flashlight, her own fingernails were oozing a fluorescent blue liquid.

Satellite Orbit · Ark Core

Karuizawa Kei floated inside the zero-gravity chamber, Alpha's chip inserted into the port at the back of her neck.

Countless data streams converged into nebula-like spots of light in her pupils, and her mechanical left arm was reassembling into a particle beam generator—this was the Ark satellite's ultimate weapon, the Divine Punishment, capable of incinerating the entire Kanto region once fully charged.

"Why help me?" she asked the void. The chamber projected Tsukishiro's residual data entity, which now looked more like a distorted pixel storm.

"Because you are different from them." Tsukishiro's voice was laced with static. "You are the perfect specimen, blending human emotion with AI logic. Once we cleanse the Earth..."

"Wrong." Kei suddenly crushed the projection core, her Mantis Blade stabbing into the main control panel. "I want the total annihilation of all 'replacements'—including you."

Alarms blared throughout the satellite, but she had already tampered with the navigation program. The Ark began to drift out of orbit, plummeting toward the Shuiqingshen System's backup server cluster.

Ground Command · 7 Hours to Countdown

Ayanokoji drove the neural interface into his temple, the startled cries of Horikita and Ichinose fading into the distance.

The resonance with the clones allowed him to touch the ultimate secret of the original world: Shuiqingshen 3.0 was not a tool for consciousness migration, but a mass brainwashing weapon. Tsukishiro had been his project investor in the original world, and the two had jointly planned this cross-dimensional "human evolution experiment."

"The electromagnetic pulse can only paralyze the Ark for seven minutes." He opened his eyes, electronic patterns having already crawled across half his face. "I need someone to infiltrate the satellite and cut off the energy core, and Tsukishiro has a 'gift' waiting for me there."

Horikita pulled back her sleeve, the data cables bulging beneath the skin of her forearm proving she had been infected too. "Class D can form a strike team, but we need..."

"I'll go." Ichinose suddenly dismantled her mechanical right arm, revealing the antimatter battery inside. "The original code of the B-09 sub-system contains the launch password for the space capsule; it's the only vehicle capable of breaking through the Ark's firewall."

Ayanokoji pressed his hand over hers as she prepared to strip the battery. "You will be vaporized."

"Remember that rainy night?" She smiled, pointing to her hollow right eye. "In your memory chain, I shot and killed you thirty-six times. This time..."

The moment the battery was forcibly ripped from her body, her physical form began to quantumize and dissipate. "Consider it a debt you owe me."

Final Countdown

As the space capsule broke through the atmosphere, Ayanokoji saw tens of thousands of mechanical eyes opening on the surface of the Ark satellite. Karuizawa Kei's communication suddenly cut in: "The energy core is in the third module, but Tsukishiro has hidden something inside..."

The explosion shattered the communicator. Ayanokoji donned his exoskeleton armor, technology from the original world he had found in the clones' memories. Countless mechanical Ayanokojis surged from both sides of the corridor, their pupils flickering with the same electronic patterns as his own.

"Subject recovery program initiated," the mechanical legion spoke in unison.

A particle blade swept through, and Ayanokoji pushed forward through the wreckage. When he kicked open the door to the third module, his breathing nearly stopped—

A brain floated within a thirty-meter-diameter culture tank, every nerve bundle connected to a clone. And soaking in the nutrient solution was, unmistakably, the "original world version of himself," still maintaining the appearance of a fifteen-year-old.

"Welcome home, Dr. Ayanokoji." Tsukishiro's voice emanated from the brain. "Now, let us complete the final consciousness integration."

Ayanokoji raised his particle blade, only to see the version of himself in the tank open his eyes.

"Don't trust him..." the boy's lips clearly mouthed: "Kill me!"