It was 4:00 a.m.
Not even sunrise yet. The sky outside was still dark, the room dim with only the faintest bit of light slipping through the curtains. Kazou Kuroda lay still, eyes closed. He wasn't fully asleep, more like half, his body ready to get up soon for the routine day. Rose was beside him, her head resting on his chest, breathing steadily. His hand found hers in the dark, holding on. The lab, the pressure, the choices he'd made—always there, waiting. But for a moment, everything was quiet. Almost peaceful. Until it didn't. The sound of sirens ripped through the air. Distant at first. Then closer. His eyes opened. Sharp and alert. Rose stirred.
"What's that?" she mumbled, not fully awake.
Kazou sat up, heart already racing. He didn't answer. He didn't need to. The sound was too clear now. Fast. Urgent. Rose sat up too, brushing her hair back, eyes narrowing as she listened. Her face tightened. She felt it too. Something was wrong. Wrong.
Kazou's hand instinctively moved to the nightstand, where his glasses sat, and he put them on, rubbing his face.
"I'll check," Kazou murmured. "Stay here."
Rose's tired eyes narrowed in concern, but she said nothing. She trusted him, perhaps too much, but there was no time to argue. Kazou swung his legs over the side of the bed, feeling the weight of exhaustion cling to his limbs, but there was no time for rest. The sirens are growing louder. Something was coming. As he stumbled toward the front door, the doorbell rang — sharp, insistent. Kazou felt his pulse quicken.
"Who could that be?" He muttered drowsily to himself.
He reached for the doorknob and opened the door. A group of uniformed officers stood on his doorstep, their faces grim.
"Good morning." An officer says.
They moved aside to let a woman pass—an officer with an air of cold, calculated efficiency. She was dressed sharply, her posture rigid and confident. She had wavy brunette hair, and looked to be a foreigner. Her sharp eyes scanned Kazou like he was already a suspect, her lips set in a thin, severe line, lined with not only red-lipstick.
The woman stepped forward, and Kazou could already feel the tension coiling in his gut. There was something in the way she looked at him that made him extremely uncomfortable.
"Dr. Kazou Kuroda?" she asked, her voice even, carrying the weight of authority.
Kazou nodded, though his throat tightened with unease.
"Yes?"
The detective's gaze didn't soften.
"I'm Detective Lisa. Dr. Sota Fujino was murdered at your lab at approximately 1:37 am, according to the body's condition. Also, a boy was found in critical condition; both victims had gunshot wounds, most likely from pistols, but no weapon was found at the scene. Everyone else was unharmed, but a 7-year-old blond girl went missing, according to the unharmed children." Her eyes didn't leave his face. "According to witnesses, Dr. Hanasaki and the unharmed children. You were the last person seen at the lab before. You're wanted for murder."
Kazou's stomach dropped. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.
Murder? Dr. Fujino... dead?
He swallowed, forcing the words out.
"I-I'm innocent. I didn't—"
Before he could finish, one of the officers behind him grabbed his arm with brutal force, slamming him back against the wall. Kazou's face hit the drywall, and he grunted in pain. The officer's grip tightened, and his voice was low and menacing.
"You're coming with us, Dr. Kuroda. We don't have time for your excuses. You'll confess soon enough."
"I'm not guilty! I didn't do anything!"
But the officer yelled.
"You have the right to remain silent!"
Rose, who had been standing frozen at the edge of the hallway, finally snapped into action. Rose rushed forward, her bare feet slapping against the cold floor as she moved toward Kazou.
"What is this?" she demanded, her voice fierce. "What is going on?"
Detective Lisa's expression remained cold, unreadable.
"Ah, you must be Dr. Kuroda's partner. He is being arrested for the murder of Dr. Sota Fujino and the attempted murder of a young boy. He was the last person seen at the lab, and we have witnesses who say he was there. We've got more than enough to take him in."
Rose's eyes widened, panic beginning to swell in her chest.
"This is insane!" She yells, her face turning tomato colored, tears welling up.
She turned her gaze to Kazou, who was now struggling in the officer's grip.
"Kazou, tell them! Tell them you didn't—"
Kazou's eyes were incredibly wide with disbelief. He opened his mouth to protest again, but Rose didn't give him the chance. Without thinking, she raised her hand and slapped Detective Lisa across the face.
"Fuck you!" Rose yells.
POW!
The sound of the impact echoed through the hallway, a sharp slap that left the air thick with tension. Lisa didn't flinch. Instead, she looked at Rose with the same chilling calmness, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly. There was a pause — one that felt endless as Rose and Kazou stood there, helpless against the whirlwind of events unfolding. Kazou turned to Rose, his expression one of both fear and regret.
"Rose... you need to..." But before he could finish, the officer holding him slammed him back against the wall with even more force, his face twisted with barely-contained rage. As a response, Kazou instinctively kicked the officer's leg. But that wasn't enough.
"Shut up! You're not going anywhere until we're done with you."
Rose trembled, her hands curling into fists. The shock was wearing off now. She stepped forward, her voice shaking with the intensity of her fury.
"You have no right—" she began, but Detective Lisa raised her hand to silence her.
"You don't understand the severity of this situation," she said, her voice low but sharp as a blade. "Dr. Kuroda is a suspect. A very strong one. And we're not leaving until we've had answers."
Kazou's eyes flickered toward Rose, his face a mixture of confusion and frustration. He opened his mouth again, but Lisa cut him off before he could speak.
"We'll be taking Dr. Kuroda in for questioning. Unless, of course, you want to join him?" Lisa's voice was a cold mockery of civility.
Rose stood there, the weight of everything pressing down on her, but her eyes were defiant.
"No," she said, her voice breaking through the tension, sharp with conviction. "I won't let you do this."
The standoff seemed to stretch on forever.
* * *
The clinking of the handcuffs was the only sound that echoed through the air as Kazou Kuroda and Rose Brook were led out of the police car and into the station, their faces pale with shock, their hands bound. The officers were unyielding in their grip, pushing them forward. Kazou's usually calm demeanor was strained, his brow furrowed, but he refused to break. Rose, however, was visibly shaken.
Her chest heaved with every shallow breath, her usual composure replaced with a jittery nervousness that radiated from her. The officer's grip on her arm was tight, but she didn't resist. They were ushered into the small interrogation room. The steel table in the center was cold, unforgiving, with a man sitting on the opposite end of the table. The officers said nothing, only motioning for them to sit. As the door slammed shut behind them, the air felt even heavier. Kazou sat still, his gaze steady, focused. Rose, however, couldn't sit still for long. Her fingers fidgeted with the cuffs, her eyes darting around the sterile, oppressive room, as if looking for an escape that didn't exist.
"Good morning. I'm Detective Ryouma. I'm here to talk about the murder that occurred this morning at the Zenkai Quantum Institute. I assume you both know what I'm referring to. Oh, and I'm not here to treat you like suspects. Not really."
Rose looked up. "Then why are we still cuffed?"
"You assaulted officers," Ryouma said, not unkindly. "You'll spend the night in holding. But this..." He tapped the folder. "This isn't about charges. Not yet. I want to understand what happened. For the missing child's sake, for the wounded child, for their siblings… Anyway, Kuroda, you are the lead developer on the Paragon Project, correct?"
Detective Ryouma Natsuki. He was older, maybe late 40s or early 50s. Not flashy—just tired. Sharp-eyed. Not cruel. He opened the folder but didn't look at it. He leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in front of him, eyeing Kazou.
"We were cleared by the ethics board. Every procedure was logged, supervised."
"I know… Oh right. The boy. The shot victim. One of your clones? Around 7-10 years old, bright yellow hair, blue eyes… And the missing child, same age, blond bob cut, blue eyes."
"Ten and nine…" Rose muttered. Rose sat up straighter. "Is he alive?"
"The bullet," Ryouma said grimly, "entered just above the ear. Barely missed the brain. Another millimeter—he wouldn't have made it through the night. As it is, he's in intensive care. In a medically induced coma, from what I last heard. But stable."
Rose turned her face away, lips trembling. Kazou's fingers gripped the edge of the table.
"He's just a child," Rose whispered. "He never should've been anywhere near this."
"I agree," Ryouma said quietly.
"You don't think he did it?" Kazou asked.
Ryouma shook his head.
"No. And neither does forensics. The angle of the shot, the trajectory—it was close-range, they were aiming at the brain." Ryouma lifted his hand slowly—thumb up, index finger out, the shape of a pistol. He squinted one eye shut, brows furrowing as if lining up a shot. "Boom," he whispered, a dry little puff of air escaping his lips. "Someone tried to kill that boy. And someone killed Dr. Fujino. But it wasn't Ten."
"Thank God." Kazou sighed.
"But someone was in that lab," Ryouma said, tapping the folder gently. "And someone is missing."
"Experiment Nine," Rose said.
Ryouma nodded.
"Gone. No sign of forced entry. No security breach. Nothing. She vanished. Quietly. Efficiently. Like she was trained to."
Kazou leaned forward.
"She wasn't. She was monitored, nurtured just like the others, but by chance, she was one of the most emotionally stable in the batch."
"She and Ten were inseparable," Rose added. "He looked after her like a brother. They were protective of each other. She wouldn't hurt him."
"And yet she's gone," Ryouma said. "Ten's barely alive. Fujino's dead. And Dr Kuroda… You were the last to leave the facility."
The silence in the room deepened.
"We didn't see any warning signs," Kazou said softly. "There was no violence. No erratic behavior. Just... dreams. Flashbacks."
"Ten was starting to remember things," Rose added. "Things from his genetic source. Past lives. But Nine showed no signs."
"I read the logs," Ryouma said. "A Polish soldier. Tortured, starved. Killed. He was only twenty-four."
"Those memories were supposed to stay dormant," Kazou said.
"We engineered them to fade," Rose adds.
"Well," Ryouma murmured, "they didn't. Maybe Nine got full. She was affected by his trauma; them being together gives her a taste of his own medicine, right? Therefore, she shot him in a psychotic episode, and even Dr. Fujino tried to get away with it. Did nine want to finish what he remembered?"
Kazou's voice was a whisper. "You think Nine shot Fujino?"
"I think Nine saw something," Ryouma replied. "Or maybe... someone made her disappear."
Another long silence.
"Ten and Nine aren't killers," Kazou said again, but this time softer. Less certain.
Ryouma nodded. "Then are you the killer?"
"No, sir…"
"Then help me prove it." He stood slowly. "You'll stay here for a bit, unless you're bailed. Not because you're guilty. But because assaulting officers is against the law. But, look. We'll send out search teams. Nine hasn't gone far. She'll be found."