Subject 36 was silent as always, just hanging harnessed, or rather bound, in the glass tank, tubes feeding in through his nose supplying 36 with nutrients and oxygen to keep him alive at a bare minimum. He was covered in head to toe in bandages, in order to suppress his powers. The giant vault was dark, and empty except for the glass tank where he was kept like a specimen in alcohol, to be examined.

The steel doors to the vault slid open and two security guards entered. The light from outside the vault illuminated 36. The sight was eerie. They approached the tank; neither of them looked worried about nearing the Diclonius this close. Why would they? 36 hadn't moved in months, not ever since he had been delivered to the research facility. The two stared at the suspended body, their sub-machine guns hanging over their shoulder, nowhere near enough to quickly fire.

"Nothing out of the ordinary, as usual." One remarked lazily.
"Expecting anything else?"
"With these things you never know..." he muttered darkly.
"His companion dismissed the statement with a wave of his hand.
"Don't be so paranoid; thirty-six is the most complacent of all of them."
"Yeah, I'm glad that we've been assigned here, have you heard what one of the others did when she escaped?"
"Killed twenty-two of our colleagues in just five minutes, I know."
"Luckily for us most of them are dead now."
The second guard checked 36's vital signs.
"All normal. You were saying?"
He turned away from the monitor.
"Our life expectancy rose a lot since the death of seven, three, and thirty-five. Especially three..."
The two turned and walked back in the direction of the exit again. Their routine check-up had once again proved fruitless.
"I heard some pretty odd stuff about her you know?"
"Like what?"
"Well, that she was special in some way, like some kind of prized possession, you know, a leading personality."
"Like a queen?"
"Well... I guess you could call her that."
In the tank, 36 stirred.

He had slept for months, although sleep was not the right word for it. He had been in a self-induced coma ever since director Kakuzawa and the special assault team had captured him. He had not made it easy for them at all; otherwise they might have gotten suspicious. They had no knowledge of his powers whatsoever, not having been able to test him, and all attempts to revive him had been unsuccessful. If they had managed to note the extent of his abilities, they would have found that he had eight vectors, each with an unusually high range of seventeen meters. It had taken him months to get where he was now...months of planning, months of preparation. He had travelled far, he had run away from home, following his instincts, following the call of his sisters, of his queen, and after a very long and hard journey he reached Kamakura. His queen was now dead; he had felt the connection to her break just days after he had been brought here. Ever since he had been pondering. His original purpose was defeated, and the fate of his entire race now rested on his shoulders. The execution of his plan was vital. And now his time had come. His restraints broke, the tube feeding him snapped, and the glass tank exploded spilling the nutrient-saturated liquid over the floor. Immediately the alarm sounded, and 36 smiled. Time to begin phase one.

The two guards who had almost reached the exit turned around at the noise. They were taken completely by surprise; neither of them was reaching for his weapon.
"Wha-what's that?"
"There hasn't been an emergency in months, is this a drill?"
They noticed the slim, undernourished figure of 36 walking unsteadily towards them. He threatened to fall over, but instead was lifted off the ground, and floated towards them through the air.

During the time in stasis, his muscle structure had declined rapidly, and he now walked only with the use of two of his vectors. Even if that hadn't been enough, his general appearance was frightening. Malnourishment had left him bony and skeletal. His skin was very white from not having seen daylight for such a long time, and wrinkled in places from the prolonged exposition to the liquid. His hair was bright white and his eyes icy-blue. He used to be mistaken for an albino, except that he had a far more sinister mutation than just the lack of the pigment melanin in his skin and retina.

The guards finally realized what was going on.
"Shit! Fire! Fire! Kill him!"
Bullets flew from their sub-machine guns at him, but they were deflected to hit the walls. "What the hell? He shouldn't be able to do that! They told us he didn't have any of those arms!
"Shut up and fire!"
The guns chattered away again, but 36 just stood there and waited, waited until they ran out of ammunition.
"Oh...we're screwed."
"RUN!"
They turned, but before taking a single step, fountains of blood exploded from their chests and they collapsed. 36 walked towards the two men he had slain. His bandages were slowly unraveling. He didn't like being this exposed, it made him feel weak and vulnerable. Before long he would need proper clothes. It was unsightly for him to walk around nude. He was the prince after all.


In his office, the director stood, looking out at the ocean through the large window. He had heard the alarm go off, and wondered which one it was this time. A distraught voice emanated from the speaker on his desk.
"Director Kakuzawa, we have a problem."
Kakuzawa turned.
"What is it?"
"Our most recent acquisition is escaping. He just broke out of the container and killed his two guards."
"Where is he now?"
"Unclear sir, he seems to have disappeared, but he's not yet off the island."
"Then see to it that he never leaves! We must not allow another Lucy, and thirty-six is just as important and potentially dangerous. I'm taking no chances here. He'll break our defenses, but we'll catch him before he reaches the mainland. Assemble the SAT; they know how to deal with him."
"Yes sir."
36 must not be allowed to escape, or humanity would be in more danger than if Lucy was still alive.


He walked through the brightly lit hallway, encountering no resistance, just a about two dozen guards whom he slaughtered with his vectors. He had given the inside of the facility a new paint coating in red, and it was all-natural. He felt the power humming through the walls and floor, and he knew where he had to go. He wasn't trying to escape, at least not yet; there was a different task to be completed, one that would benefit him greatly in the future. A door in front of him hissed and slid open, allowing a scientist to pass through. The man took one look up from his clipboard before his head twisted and tumbled onto the floor. The doors were about to close, and he wouldn't have any of it. The lifeless body smashed into the door control panel, making it come to a stop. He stepped through a gap and knew immediately that his senses had not let him down. It was the control room, the walls lined with monitors that were supervising the facility's different functions. And it was full of people. The security guards drew their pistols immediately and fired at him, but his vectors caught the bullets in mid-air and sent them right back to their owners. Each one penetrated the head of one of the guards perfectly, some taking away half the brain and skull when exiting, undoubtedly large caliber rounds like a .38. He approached a terminal and one of his vectors penetrated the machinery. Different text and schematics flashed up in fast sequence. All the scientists were frozen with shock, until one tried to push an alarm button concealed under a desk. His hand was bent in a way which it never should have and broke, the same happened to his forearm and upper arm and eventually his spine. Satisfied, he shorted out the machinery and parted, but he left a little gift behind. Several hand grenades rose from the bodies of the guards. The pins flew out and through four of the survivors, then the grenades were tossed into different directions. The door closed behind him only to be ripped off its rails and slammed against the opposite wall. Completed. Now for an escape.


"Go go go go!"
The whole troop of SAT members ran down the hallway to get to the landing pad and the chopper. Their plan was to intercept the escapee before he disappeared into the city. One member of the team was trailing behind the others.
"Wait! My shoelace-!" he tripped and fell headlong onto the floor. He suddenly found that the bottom section of his leg was missing.
"OW FUCK! Help me goddammit! He's here! He's here!"
But no one heard him.
36 approached the man lying on the floor. He needed his uniform to proceed, but no blood on it. His vector penetrated the man's head and broke and artery. Immediate death was the consequence, and no blood spilled. It was not entertaining, it did not satisfy his natural need for witnessing the pain of a human, but it was necessary. The soldier was stripped of his armor, helmet, and facemask, and camo gear. 36 put all of it on, noticing a tag on the inside collar of the shirt. 'Ageno' it said. Soon enough, 36 was the exact replica of the dead man at his feet. He may have been undernourished, the bulk of his uniform concealed it, and the facemask kept his identity hidden. He would find a way off the island which no one expected him to take. He hurried along the corridor where the rest of the SAT had gone, and came to the exit. Outside was a helicopter, ready for takeoff. 36 sprinted towards it. He saw the other soldiers sitting inside; many of them were giving him angry stares.
"Where the hell have you been you idiot? Get over here right now! There's not time to lose!" one of them shouted over the noise of the spinning blades.
36 was silent. He sat down on a free space in the hold, and tried to act inconspicuous. A bald man stood up and addressed them.
"Listen up! This time we might just be able to do everything right. Anyone screws up and I'll kill him personally. The Intel we've got on the target is not as much as I want. We're searching for a male this time, grey hair, blue eyes. He is armed with the same kind of weapon that all the others have been, but to the extent of those weapons they didn't tell me anything."
36 was pleased. This would make everything much easier for him.
"All we have to do is kill him, not capture!"
Oh. That was not so much fun.
"Avoid contact. Once you find him, contact the rest of the team. Do not engage him on your own!"
They had learned from previous mistakes presumably.
"We'll be patrolling along the coast in groups of two. You find him unconscious on the beach; put a bullet through his head. You find anyone else, dispose of them. We don't want any civilian involvement. Understood?"
"Sir, yes sir!"
36 stayed silent.
The bald man put a hand to his earpiece. He seemed to be getting more information form headquarters.
36 saw his eyes darting around at the soldiers. He was checking them. He turned white all of a sudden, and his hand began to shake ad he lowered it from the earpiece.
"Who came in last?" he asked in a shaking voice.
Oops. Very bad.
The bald man's eyes fell directly on him. He reached for his pistol, but before he could touch it, 36 sliced them off with one of his vectors. Before the rest of the SAT could react, eight more burst apart in fountains of blood, spattering their comrades and the interior of the hold. None of them ever got to fire. 36 ripped two torsos off and at the same time sliced through four necks and ripped open the ribcages of one more. One of his vectors snaked its way into the cockpit, where it decapitated the pilot. The helicopter careened in the air, now flying without any guidance. The few men who were still alive clung on as hard as they could. 36 regretted not being able to kill them all like they deserved, but he knew he had made sure that they were going to die anyway. He allowed himself to be catapulted out of the back of the helicopter, where he began to fall. They had been over the ocean, but in the distance 36 could already see the lights of the city. That was his destination. He broke the surface of the water with tremendous force, surfaced, and watched as the copter spiraled downwards, hitting the sea, and exploding into a million fragments.

Now he needed to reach the coast, and his vectors would help him. They hoisted him up over the water, and soon enough he was speeding in the direction of Kamakura, the victorious prince in all his glory.