Chapter 8: Where the World Ends
"The only thing lonelier than the truth… is the one who still seeks it."
---
Location: The Abandoned Mizukage Observatory
The place was forgotten by time.
Perched on the cliffs above the city, the Mizukage Observatory used to be a center of stargazing and scientific wonder. Now, it was an overgrown skeleton—rusted domes, shattered lenses, vines crawling over steel like veins.
Perfect for ghosts.
Perfect for war.
Kaito arrived just before midnight.
He moved through the silence like a phantom.
No birds. No wind. No life.
But the stars—those cold, distant eyes—watched everything.
---
A Flickering Terminal
Inside the shattered dome was a single light:
A flickering CRT monitor, wired into a power cell that shouldn't have worked.
On the screen: an ASCII skull… blinking.
> WELCOME, KAITO.
> SPECTERZERO AWAITS.
A mechanical voice echoed through the dome—genderless, fragmented.
> "You made it.
That means you didn't break. Good."
Kaito didn't flinch.
> "You knew they sent the Echo Files."
> "I made them," the voice replied. "I made them fail."
Silence.
> "Then you're not with Blue River," Kaito said.
> "I was."
> "Then what are you now?"
> "…Haunted."
---
SpecterZero's Truth
The voice grew sharper.
> "I designed the first iteration of Protocol WOLF. But I underestimated the human mind's ability to fracture and adapt. You weren't the first subject, Kaito."
A screen flashed to life—showing files.
Subject 00 – Shin Arakawa
Subject 01 – Kaiyo Nemuri
Subject 02 – S. Shiranami
Kaito stepped forward.
> "…My mother."
SpecterZero didn't respond for a moment.
Then:
> "She was one of us. Until she wasn't."
> "What did you do to her?"
> "We didn't kill her. We used her. Her brilliance. Her silence. And her guilt."
Kaito's eyes burned—not with tears, but with the promise of revenge sharpened by grief.
> "So you're telling me everything I've lost… started here."
> "No," SpecterZero said. "It started before you were born."
---
A Legacy of Experiments
SpecterZero projected a timeline on the shattered dome ceiling—glowing softly over the rusted walls.
> "Your bloodline was part of an old initiative:
Project Ashfall — the study of how trauma fragments the soul and sharpens intellect.
Your mother… was Subject 02.
You… were the backup plan."
Kaito clenched his fist.
> "So I'm just a result to them. An outcome."
> "No," SpecterZero said. "You're their mistake."
---
The Blue River Trap Closes In
Alarms suddenly flared—distant, faint.
Kaito turned to the window.
Spotlights. Drones. Climbing the cliffs.
They'd found the observatory.
SpecterZero spoke urgently now:
> "They traced you. They're coming for both of us."
> "Let them," Kaito said coldly.
He slid a data chip from his pocket.
The one from Airi.
> "You sent her the wrong files. I embedded a virus inside the drive. When she hesitated, I used it to breach their network."
SpecterZero sounded almost amused.
> "You're learning fast."
> "No," Kaito replied. "I'm just remembering who I was before they erased it."
---
The Collapse
Kaito triggered the failsafe.
Charges planted on the observatory's support beams lit up in synchronized bursts.
The dome began to collapse inwards.
He ran, slipping into the tunnels below—following the route SpecterZero uploaded to his HUD.
Behind him, the observatory fell in on itself—burying the last place where the stars had ever been seen through unfiltered glass.
Blue River would find nothing but rubble and smoke.
But in the ruins… Kaito was reborn.
---
Journal Entry – That Night
> My mother was not a victim. She was a weapon.
I was the blade forged from her grief.
SpecterZero gave me fragments. I'll forge them into fire.
Let Blue River come. Let them drown the world in lies.
Because I'll burn down every lie they ever told.
Even if I have to burn the stars next.
---