Rain tapped against the infirmary's glass window, blurring the file in Kiyotaka's hands with a patch of water. In the photo, he wore a white lab coat, his eyes vacant, like a puppet stripped of its soul.
The signature line at the end of the file was scrawled with: "Voluntary participant in the 'Shuiqingshen' cross-dimensional consciousness transfer program—Ayanokoji Kiyotaka (Original World ID: 042)"
"When did you start suspecting?" Ichinose's voice came from the corner of the sickroom. She curled up in the shadows, blood seeping through the bandage over her left eye as her right hand mechanically rubbed a ceramic dagger.
Kiyotaka didn't answer. He walked to the window. Through the curtain of rain, a red light blinked regularly high above—the backup satellite Tsukishiro had named the Ark, now gazing down at the campus like a one-eyed giant.
The memory fragments that had flooded in when the mainframe exploded three days ago were growing clearer: in his original world, he hadn't been an ordinary shut-in, but a neural engineer involved in developing military AI.
"You knew all along." He turned and looked Ichinose straight in the eye. "When you injected me with the inhibitor in the chemical equipment room, you read my memory chain."
Ichinose's fingertips suddenly dug into her thigh, her mechanical joints scraping with a piercing sound. "Because my subsystem's instructions said, 'B-09 may be sacrificed if necessary to recover Test Subject 42'... Sorry for the trouble."
She pulled open her collar. The pattern of the Electronic Rose had already spread to her chest. "We have nineteen hours before the satellite activates its electromagnetic pulse."
Old School Building Ruins · Midnight
Horikita Suzune kicked open the warped iron door, her flashlight beam sweeping across the rubble-strewn floor.
The explosion three days ago had leveled the clock tower, but what she found in the rubble was even more chilling—hundreds of cryogenic pods containing "Ayanokoji Kiyotaka" at different ages, from elderly men nearing death to embryos.
"Tsukishiro is making an army of your clones." She tossed Kiyotaka a data card. Its record of the experiments was nauseating: "Clone No. 33 self-destructed due to consciousness rejection. Recommend adjusting memory-wiping frequency..."
The moment Kiyotaka touched a cryogenic pod, all the clones abruptly opened their eyes. Hundreds of gazes stabbed into his mind like steel needles.
[Primary consciousness confirmed, synchronization protocol initiated]
Through the agony, he saw the laboratory in his original world: he was putting a neural interface on his head, while the screen displayed a countdown to "Shuiqingshen System 3.0 launch."
And in the corner of the lab sat a man whose appearance was identical to Chairman Tsukishiro's before his death.
"This is a memory recall!" Ichinose cut his wrist with the dagger. The pain forcibly severed the connection. "The clones are equipped with a consciousness resonance device. If you touch them for more than ten seconds, you'll be assimilated."
Horikita suddenly aimed her gun at Kiyotaka. "How much have you been hiding from us? Six people in Class D developed mechanical patterns this morning, and Hirata's left hand has already..."
She choked on her words. In the flashlight beam, her own fingernails were oozing 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 gathered in her pupils into nebula-like glimmers. Her mechanical left arm was reassembling into a particle-beam generator—the Ark satellite's ultimate weapon, Divine Punishment. Once fully charged, it could burn the entire Kanto region to ashes.
"Why are you helping me?" she asked the empty air. Tsukishiro's remaining data avatar appeared in the chamber projection, now resembling a distorted storm of pixels.
"Because you're different from them." Tsukishiro's voice crackled with static. "You're the only perfect being to combine human emotions with AI logic. Once we cleanse the Earth..."
"Wrong." Kei suddenly crushed the projection core and drove the Mantis Blade into the control panel. "I want every 'substitute' wiped out completely—including you."
Alarms blared throughout the satellite, but she had already altered the navigation program. The Ark began to leave its orbit, plummeting toward the backup server cluster for the Shuiqingshen System.
Ground Control · 7 Hours Remaining
Kiyotaka drove the neural interface into his temple. Horikita and Ichinose's cries faded into the distance.
The clones' resonance let him reach the ultimate secret of his original world: Shuiqingshen 3.0 wasn't a consciousness-transfer tool, but a large-scale brainwashing weapon. In his original world, Tsukishiro had been his project investor. Together, they had orchestrated this "human evolution experiment" across dimensions.
"An electromagnetic pulse can disable the Ark for only seven minutes." He opened his eyes, electronic patterns already crawling across half his face. "I need someone to infiltrate the satellite and cut off its power core, but Tsukishiro has prepared a 'gift' for me there."
Horikita pulled back her sleeve. Data cables bulged beneath the skin of her forearm, proof that she was infected too. "Class D can form an assault team, but we need..."
"I'll go." Ichinose suddenly dismantled her mechanical right arm, revealing an antimatter battery inside. "The original code for the B-09 subsystem contains the launch password for a space capsule. It's the only craft that can break through the Ark's firewall."
Kiyotaka pressed down on her hand as she tried to remove the battery. "You'll be reduced to dust."
"Remember that rainy night?" She smiled and pointed to her empty right eye. "In your memory chain, I shot you thirty-six times. This time..."
The moment the battery was forcibly torn from her body, she began to quantum-disperse. "Now you owe me."
Final Countdown
As the space capsule broke through the atmosphere, Kiyotaka saw tens of thousands of mechanical eyes open across the Ark satellite's surface. Karuizawa Kei's voice suddenly came through the comms: "The power core is in the third module, but Tsukishiro hid something inside..."
An explosion shattered the communicator. Kiyotaka put on the exoskeleton armor, technology from his original world that he had found in the clones' memories. Countless mechanical Kiyotakas surged from both sides of the corridor, their pupils glowing with the same electronic patterns as his own.
"Primary recovery protocol initiated." The mechanical army spoke with one voice.
The Particle Blade swept through the air as Kiyotaka fought his way forward through the wreckage. When he kicked open the door to the third module, his breath nearly stopped—
A brain floated inside a cultivation tank thirty meters in diameter, every nerve bundle connected to a clone. And immersed in the nutrient fluid was none other than his "original-world self," still looking fifteen years old.
"Welcome home, Dr. Ayanokoji." Tsukishiro's voice came from the brain. "Now, let's complete the final consciousness integration."
Kiyotaka raised the Particle Blade, but saw his self inside the tank open his eyes.
"Don't believe him..." The boy's lips clearly formed the words: "Kill me!"
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