The rain followed them back, a shroud of grey that matched the mood in the safehouse. Ren and Kaito dripped onto the concrete floor, the only sounds the hiss of the steam from their clothes and the low, angry hum of the servers.
Aoi was on her feet instantly, a blanket in her hands. She didn't go to Ren first. She went to Kaito, wrapping it around his shoulders. The freelancer flinched, startled by the kindness, his usual smirk nowhere to be found. He just stared at the floor, his mind clearly replaying the garden, the shadow, the choice.
He's not just a mercenary, Ren thought. He's a witness who's seen a ghost he thought was a myth.
Rain stood by the central table, his arms crossed. Genrou was a brooding silhouette in the corner, his silence more accusing than any shout.
"Report," Rain said, the word a blade.
Ren told them. The garden. Silas's desperate plea. Ione's frozen conflict. And Rai—the absolute, terrifying control he wielded, the way the shadows themselves obeyed him not as a part of him, but as subordinates.
"He didn't just use shadows," Ren finished, his voice hollow. "He commanded them. It was like watching a king pass judgment. Silas called him 'the Hive's will made flesh.'"
The name 'Rai' landed in the room like a stone in a still pond.
Genrou stirred from the shadows, his face etched with a grimace of old pain. "Rai," he repeated, the name ash in his mouth. "I had hoped he was a specter. A story the Hive used to frighten its children."
"You know him," Ren said, not a question.
"I know of him," Genrou corrected, his gaze distant. "He is not a hybrid. Not like you. He is… something older. A relic from the Hive's first attempts to engineer a perfect vessel for the Yuno energy. They called it the 'Sovereign Strain.' The project was a catastrophic failure. The subjects couldn't handle the psychic load of controlling raw Yuno energy; their minds shattered. They were all supposed to have been decommissioned."
Rain picked up the thread, his voice low. "Rai was the only one who survived. But he didn't just survive. He subsumed the energy. He doesn't have a Yuno Organ; his entire nervous system is a conduit. He doesn't generate shadows, Ren. He negotiates with the darkness. He gives it purpose, and in return, it gives him absolute authority over any shadow it touches—including yours."
The revelation hit Ren with the force of a physical blow. That was the source of the hum in his blood, the "open door" he'd felt after the Lily of the Valley scan. It wasn't just a tag. It was a handshake. An introduction from one master of the dark to another. His Hunger wasn't just stirring; it was recognizing a rival king.
"He felt me in the garden," Ren whispered. "He looked right at me. He knew."
"Of course he knew," Kaito spoke for the first time, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. He was staring at his hands as if he could still see the ghost of Rai's power on them. "He wasn't just taking Silas. He was sending you a message. 'Your power is a dialect of a language I invented.'" Kaito looked up, his amber eyes sharp. "He's not just hunting you, Soji. He's auditioning you."
A new, chilling layer to the threat. Ren wasn't just a resource or a threat. He was a potential peer. A successor. The thought made the Oni mask beneath his skin writhe with a mixture of revulsion and a terrifying, primal curiosity.
It was Aoi who asked the question that shifted the axis of the room. She had been listening quietly, her hands folded in her lap, but her eyes were alight with a fierce, analytical light.
"Silas said he needed Ren's cells to save Luna because they 'merge' and 'learn'," she said. "But why? What's special about them? And why would a 'Sovereign' like Rai need them?"
She walked to the main screen, pulling up the genetic data from the Lily of the Valley. "The Hive has harvested from countless hybrids. But Ren's template is the only one labeled 'universal.'" She turned to face them, her expression one of dawning horror. "What if it's not about biology? What if it's about memory?"
The room went still.
"The Yuno Organ… we've always treated it like a muscle or a weapon," Aoi continued, her voice gaining conviction. "But what if it's more like a… library? A record of every adaptation, every mutation, every instinct of every hybrid that came before? Ren's cells are unique because they don't just adapt; they remember. They contain the collective evolutionary history of the Yuno strain."
She looked at Ren, her eyes wide. "Ren, your 'Hunger' isn't just a drive to consume energy. It's the Organ's instinct to acquire new data. To add to the library. That's why you're the universal template. You're the living archive."
The pieces began to snap into place with terrifying clarity.
"And Rai…" Ren said, the truth settling like a lead weight in his gut. "A Sovereign who commands the source energy… but his original form was a failure. He's powerful, but static. He can't evolve." He met Aoi's gaze. "He doesn't need my cells to save Luna. He needs the data inside them. He needs to download the entire evolutionary history of the Yuno Organ to complete himself. To become… perfect."
Luna wasn't just a vessel for a cure. She was the flash drive. Silas was building her to be a compatible system to receive the data-dump from Ren. And once Rai had it…
"He wouldn't just be a king," Genrou breathed, the color draining from his face. "He would be a god."
The strategic meeting that followed was unlike any before. The goal was no longer just rescue or sabotage. It was a race to prevent an apocalypse.
"We can't just destroy the lab," Rain stated, his tactical mind already shifting. "If Luna is the only viable vessel, destroying her might be the only way to stop this."
"No," Ren and Aoi said in unison.
"There has to be another way," Ren insisted, the shadow at his feet coiling protectively. The idea of destroying a girl, a victim in all this, to win felt like something Rei would do. It was a line he wouldn't cross. "We get to her first. We use my cells on our terms."
"And how do you propose we do that?" Rain challenged. "Rai now has Silas. The facility will be on maximum alert. We have no location, no layout, no—"
Thump.
A small, damp object hit the reinforced window from the outside. A bird, a common sparrow, lay on the ledge, twitched once, and was still. Tied to its leg was a tiny, rolled piece of plant fiber.
Kaito was at the window in a flash, retrieving it. He unrolled it. Inside, drawn in what looked like charcoal, was a single, complex symbol—a molecule, or a twisted strand of DNA. Below it was a sequence of numbers.
"A frequency," Kaito murmured, his eyes wide with something akin to reverence. "And a molecular marker. It's a key. A biochemical signature that would bypass certain organic security systems."
Ren recognized the style. The precision. The use of nature as a weapon and a tool.
"Ione," he said.
She wasn't just a guide. She was providing them with the keys to the castle. Her function had been redefined: Protect Luna. And to do that, she was betraying the Hive that made her.
Ren looked around at his team—the weary uncle, the haunted grandfather, the empathetic spore-user, the cynical mercenary now shaken to his core, and the poisonous flower reaching out from the dark.
The board was set. The stakes were cosmic. They had a key, a target, and a ticking clock.
Ren's golden eye glowed in the dim safehouse.
"Then we don't assault the fortress," he said, his voice quiet but absolute. "We use her key. We walk right through the front door."