The DHC medical wing didn't feel like a hospital. It felt like a high-end electronics factory. Everything was brushed steel, white LED strips, and the faint, constant hum of heavy-duty air filtration.
There were no patients in the hallways, no smell of antiseptic—just the clinical silence of a place where humanity was a secondary concern to the data it provided.
Masaru was a dead weight on the stretcher. His blood was leaving a trail of dark, sticky spots on the pristine floor, much to the annoyance of the automated cleaning drones that scurried behind the guards.
Alex walked beside the stretcher, his hands still shaking. Every time his boots hit the floor, he felt like he was going to vomit.
Behind them, Yuki had tried to follow, but her eyes were still unfocused, her mouth moving in a silent, terrified prayer.
"Go home, Yuki," Alex had snapped at the entrance of the facility. "Go back to the apartment. Lock the door. If you stay here, you're just going to have a bloody stroke."
Yuki hadn't argued. She had just turned around and walked back into the night, a small, shivering ghost.
Now, Alex watched as the guards shoved open a set of heavy double doors labeled R&D - BIOLOGICAL DEVIATION UNIT.
The office inside was a disaster zone. Tablet screens were mounted to every available inch of wall space, scrolling through complex energy wave charts and chemical formulas.
In the center of the room sat a man who looked like he had been plugged directly into a wall socket.
He looked about twenty-three, with hair the color of a summer sky and thick-rimmed glasses that were sliding down his nose.
He was hunched over a keyboard, his fingers moving so fast they were a blur.
"Boring," the man muttered, not looking up. "The Roppongi data is boring. It's just mass and hunger. Give me something with a pulse. Give me a variable."
"Ren," the lead guard said. "We have the 2nd Deviation. He's in critical condition."
Ren finally looked up. He blinked, his blue eyes darting toward Masaru's mangled body.
He sighed, leaning back in his ergonomic chair. "A 2nd? You brought me a grunt? I'm the Lead Scientist of the DHC's biological wing, not a battlefield medic. Put a bandage on him and let him bleed out in the hall. I'm busy."
"Heal him."
The voice came from the doorway. It was cold, sharp, and carried the weight of a death sentence.
Sakura stepped into the room. She was still wearing the grey hoodie, which was now more red than grey.
The holes in her stomach and chest were still there, oozing blood with every step she took. She looked like a corpse that had forgotten it was supposed to stop moving.
Alex jumped back, his back hitting a desk. "Bloody hell! How are you still standing? You've got half a dozen holes in your lungs! You're a demon. You've got to be a demon."
Ren's boredom evaporated instantly. He lunged out of his chair, nearly tripping over a stack of hard drives. A manic grin spread across his face, his glasses reflecting the blue light of the monitors.
"Sakura! You're a mess! Absolute carnage!" Ren shouted, his voice a high-pitched spike of energy. "I'm surprised you showed up personally. Usually, you just send a courier with a thumb drive and a bill. This is much better. Look at that laceration on your face! The symmetry is fascinating!"
"Heal him first," Sakura said, ignoring Ren's excitement. She gestured toward Masaru.
Ren pouted, looking like a disappointed child. "Fine, fine. The grunt lives. But I want a blood sample from you afterward. A fresh one, before the coagulation kicks in."
Ren turned to Masaru. He didn't use a stethoscope. He didn't check for a pulse.
He reached into a refrigerated drawer and pulled out a heavy glass syringe. It was filled with a thick, pulsating red liquid that looked like liquid rubies.
"What's that?" Alex asked, his voice low and suspicious. "That doesn't look like medicine. That looks like... more of them."
"It's too complex for your brain, Goldilocks," Ren said, flicking the side of the syringe. "You wouldn't understand the math, and the biology would give you nightmares."
"Tell me," Alex demanded, his anger flaring up again. "After what she did to him, I want to know what you're putting in his veins."
Ren paused, a condescending smile playing on his lips. "Fine. A little education for the immigrant. Since you work for Sakura, I suppose you're technically cleared for the basics."
Ren held the syringe up to the light.
"The DHC tells the public that demons are just monsters. But there are actually two distinct classifications," Ren explained, his voice speeding up as he got into his element. "The first type is Influenced. Those are the ones you usually see. They don't have a will. They're connected to a higher source of power—think of them as biological puppets. They act on a script written by something much bigger and much hungrier."
Ren moved toward Masaru, prepping a spot on his neck.
"Then, there are the Non-influenced types," Ren continued. "They act on their own will. They have personalities, desires, and self-preservation. They're much rarer, and much more dangerous."
"What does that have to do with the red juice?" Alex asked.
"Demonic energy is naturally unstable and destructive," Ren said. "If I injected pure energy into this boy, he'd turn into a puddle of grey sludge in three seconds. But, if you harvest the energy from 'Mother' types—like the one you just fought—and mix it in a precise 2.3:1 proportion with a stabilizing agent, the energy changes. It stops being a weapon and becomes a builder."
Ren slammed the needle into Masaru's carotid artery.
"It doesn't destroy matter," Ren whispered, his eyes wide with excitement. "It creates it. It stitches the cells back together by forcing them to replicate at a thousand times their normal speed. It heals the matter itself."
As the red liquid entered Masaru's system, the effect was instantaneous.
The holes in Masaru's shoulder and hip began to hiss.
Steam—foul-smelling and thick—rose from the wounds. Underneath the gore, the flesh began to knit itself back together. It looked like thousands of tiny, red threads were sewing his skin shut.
The shattered bone clicked back into place, and the bruised, purple skin faded into a healthy, albeit pale, tone.
Masaru's eyes snapped open.
He let out a violent, lung-bursting gasp, his back arching off the stretcher. He clawed at the air, his vision swimming with blue hair, violet eyes, and the bright lights of the lab.
"Easy, easy," Ren laughed, patting Masaru on the head like a stray dog. "You're back from the brink, 2nd Deviation. Try not to puke on my floor."
Masaru rolled onto his side, coughing violently. He felt... strange. He didn't feel weak; he felt like his body was humming with a vibration that wasn't his own.
He looked down at his chest. His shirt was shredded and soaked in blood, but the skin underneath was smooth. Not even a scar.
He looked around the room, his eyes settling on Sakura.
"You," Masaru rasped. He remembered the chains. He remembered the freezing cold metal punching through his heart. "I thought... I thought you killed me. I thought it was over."
"It almost was," Sakura said. She was leaning against a steel table, her face pale, but her voice steady.
"Why?" Masaru demanded, struggling to sit up. "You saw me jumping. You knew the limit. Why did you fire those things? You hit everyone. You hit yourself."
"The 6th Deviation was going to consume you," Sakura said simply. "It was faster than your reaction time, and faster than my primary chains. To kill it, I had to use a Non-Discriminatory Void. It is an attack that doesn't care about foes, allies, or even the user."
"You shredded your own team just to get the kill?" Alex shouted from the corner. "You almost killed Masaru just to stop a demon that you probably could have handled differently!"
"There was no 'differently,'" Sakura said, her violet eyes locking onto Alex. "There was only 'done' and 'not done.' The job is done."
Masaru stared at her. He looked at the holes in her hoodie, the blood that was still dripping onto her sneakers.
She was standing there with injuries that would have killed a normal human three times over, yet she was talking about "jobs" and "variables."
"Why are you just standing there?" Masaru asked, his voice shaking with a mix of anger and genuine confusion. "You're bleeding out. Ren, heal her. Use the red stuff on her."
Ren let out a sharp, barking laugh. "Heal her? With this? My boy, you really don't know who you're working for, do you?"
Sakura looked down at the blood on her hands, then back at Masaru.
A faint, hollow smile touched her lips—the first one Masaru had seen that didn't feel like a mask.
"It's fine for me," she said.