The safehouse smelled of cold metal and faint ozone, the hum of servers cutting through the silence. Lines of stolen Lily of the Valley data glowed across screens like tiny, cruel constellations.
Rain's finger jabbed at a hidden subdirectory. PROJECT: LUMINOUS VESSEL — STATUS: STABLE. SUBJECT: LUME.
Ren froze. The memory returned like a ghost, sharp and liquid: the dinner, the shimmering oil, the girl who moved like smoke through the room, fingers sharp as glass.
"The disciple," Rain said, voice low, tight. "The one who poisoned you. She wasn't just an agent. She was a prototype."
Ren's stomach churned. "Drayven said the food had 'truth' in it," he murmured. "He wasn't just talking about the poison. He was feeding me… parts of her."
Aoi stiffened beside him, realization dawning. The faint hum in Ren's blood after the first dose, the way his system had "accepted" the later injection—it was all precise, deliberate, tailored. Lume was the first step. A living primer.
Rain's eyes darkened as he scrolled. "And the other daughter…" He hesitated, reading a second sub-file. PROJECT: SERENITY WISP — SUBJECT: LUNA. "Frozen.
Cryogenic. Artificial Yuno Organ. She's the reason all this exists. The ultimate goal of Silas Vex's work."
Ren's hands clenched into fists, shadows coiling at his feet. "Two daughters…" he whispered. "One in a container… one in the field."
"The one in the lab," Rain said, voice steady, lethal, "is the vessel. The girl who poisoned you… Lume… is the proof-of-concept. Both were necessary for his twisted design. One to refine the primer, one to be perfected. And now… under Rei's control, they'll be used together."
Ren's shadow surged, a living thing eager to strike. The truth landed heavy: he wasn't just a target. He was a donor. The only known hybrid whose cells could stabilize a synthetic Yuno Organ without annihilating the host. Lume had already proven what could go wrong.
"They're coming," Rain said. "Not with poison. Not with hybrids. This time… surgical. Direct. They'll take you alive to the lab. They'll harvest you."
Ren's golden eye gleamed. The calm, cold fury of a predator settled over him. "Then we don't wait. We go to them first."
Aoi's voice was quiet, barely a thread of sound. "And Lume?"
Ren didn't answer immediately. His shadows wrapped around the small spore in his palm, coiling like a living promise. "She's the key. If we find her… she can lead us to the lab. Or we face her as a weapon. Either way, she's part of this now."
Kaito's fingers hovered over his knife. "We take the fight to them?"
Ren's voice was quiet but absolute. "We destroy the lab. We stop the harvesting. We end this. And we do it before they make Luna suffer any longer."
The safehouse fell silent. The hum of servers was no longer comforting. It was a countdown.
The ghost of the past—Lume, shimmered in their minds, the daughter in the lab, the primer in Ren's veins—had converged on the present.
And now, the hunters were about to become the hunted.
Ren's shadow stretched, the air thick with dark promise. For the first time, he didn't flinch.
"We bring our family back," he said. "Even if it's from the other side of the shadows."