Year 1994 - UPGRADE Incorporated

Kiuge Tanaka paced left and right throughout the Laboratory, his long brown hair glistened with sweat his own nerves. Kiuge walked towards the long, rectangular shaped table and stared at the clear vial of pure black liquid. He marveled at it because he knew that this substance could change the very way humanity would function, he continuously gazed at it and before he knew it, his hand was reaching towards the vial. A door, creaking open, woke Kiuge from his trance and he looked around quickly, his white lab coat rustling with the spontaneous movements, "Who's there!?" Kiuge called out to the trespasser. He inhaled nervously and reached for his gun underneath the same table the vial was on, 'I knew I shouldn't have stayed..' Kiuge thought as he gripped the handle of the 9mm caliber. He looked up at the clear, glass paned ceiling and saw a metal bat that was swung right in his direction. CRACK! The impact from the metal bat was easily enough to snap the poor man's neck as he fell to the side but the assailant took extra care to make sure the man was dead by repeatedly smashing his head with the blunt object. Kiuge's blood stained the cold, marble floor as the mysterious homicidal man stole the vial from the table and ran out of the Lab.

Mitsuzi Tachibana stared, utterly hypnotized, at the security monitor. He saw the pure black clothed man murder his friend, take the latest experiment from the table, and run out the door. Mitsuzi stared for a few more seconds then regained his rational thought before smashing his fist into the glass covering the emergency alarm. He flinched as the glass shards cut his skin and whimpered slightly as blood flowed freely from the wounds, but he pulled down the emergency alarm lever and waited.. And waited.. "Shit!" he shouted aloud. Mitsuzi forgot to realize that the alarm was under maintenance because someone, on complete 'accident', cut the wire that connected the alarm to the mainframe. Mitsuzi took out his 9mm Glock 18 machine pistol and ran out the door of the security office, taking one last glimpse to see the culprit approaching the terminally ill department for those who were deathly ill and offered themselves to be experimented upon for the good of humanity.

THUD! THUD! THUD! The black robed man heard the footsteps of the buildings own personal militia. He took out a small communication device and spoke quickly, "This is Nakagawa, Sir, I have retrieved Experiment X03." he heard static on the other line but soon after heard the stern voice of his commanding officer, "Your first objective is complete, make sure you do not let them reacquire X03. Do everything in your power to keep it out of their hands, do not fail me, Nakagawa." then the communication device emitted a high pitched frequency. "Ah shit." Nakagawa muttered as the device began to convulse in his hand. Just then he ran right into one of the Militia soldiers, Nakagawa knew he had little time to waste as the man began to look up so he shoved the device down the mans robe and jumped back, covering his ears.

Mitsuzi was screaming into the cell phone, "There has been a damn murder and you're sitting on your ass while were trying to protect your precious experiment!? If you weren't the bos-." He was cut off as an extremely loud explosion rocked the entire building. "What the fuck was that!?" Mitsuzi was screaming to no one and started re-dialing numbers and ordering his men to check it out.

Nakagawa patted his robes, "Geez, these explosions just get worse and worse.. I mean how does he expect us to be stealthy if he keeps wiring our equipment to explode." He said to himself. THUD! THUD! THUD! 'Shit' Nakagawa thought as he heard more footsteps closing in on him. He started dashing through the terminally ill department, passing people who were either sedated or so wired up on machines that they could not have moved if they wanted to. Nakagawa shook his head as he ran by them but couldn't help but feel watched, all of a sudden a bullet flew past his head. He stopped running and looked behind him, fear beginning to build up.

Mitsuzi stared at the man who took his friends life, he gazed at his eyes, seeing his friend Kiuge's life being ended in them. He lifted his arm, the barrel pointing at the man's head. "You son of a bitch, I don't know who you are but the only way you're getting out of here," Mitsuzi felt tears build up in his eyes as Kiuge's death was replayed in his mind over and over, "Is in a fucking body bag!" He screamed and fired the gun recklessly towards the murderer of his friend.

Nakagawa stared at the man speaking, examining him, calculating his weaknesses, and thinking of a way to survive. As soon as he saw the barrel of the gun pointed at his head, he knew he had to act. Nakagawa's ears rang as the sounds of multiple gunshots flooded the air, he threw himself on the floor and kicked at the security man's leg, causing him to become unbalanced and to fall on to the floor. Military instincts kicking in, Nakagawa grabbed the man's arm and snapped it back, easily breaking it, and grabbed the gun before standing up and over the officer. "Heh, I guess I have to kill two tonight, huh? Oh well." he sighed as he shot the officer, once in the head and twice in the chest, an efficient killing.

Mitsuzi felt the first bullet sink into his head and thought about what had just happened, this man, one mysterious man, broke into a high-tech facility to steal an experiment that has not been tested yet. He killed his best friend and basically just killed Mitsuzi himself, he couldn't help but wonder why. Blood began to leak into his eyes, blinding him. He felt his own mind becoming distant, his thoughts becoming foggy. 'My only regret,' he thought as he slowly died, 'is that I won't see this man die..'.

Nakagawa started to walk towards the exit but stopped as he felt something in his pocket twitch. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the vial, the black substance becoming somewhat solid, 'Odd' he thought to himself as he began to examine it closely. Suddenly five officers burst out of the exit door, obviously waiting for him and three more appeared at the end of the hallway behind him. Nakagawa looked both ways furiously trying to calculate an escape route and his eyes began to rest upon a window. His mind went back to the first day of training and his Commander's speech echoed in his head, "If any member of Karyuudo is put in a position where it's themselves or the mission, they choose the mission." Nakagawa sighed as he had an idea of what to do, he couldn't jump out the window with the vial, the jump would be too high and the vial would break. He had to do the next completely logical and rational step. He aimed the gun at the overhead lights and shot each one consecutively, causing half the halls to go dark and dived into the shadows, placing his night vision goggles on. Nakagawa ripped open his medical pouch and took out a syringe that was typically used for painkiller injections. He opened the vial with his teeth and quickly loaded the substance into the syringe, making sure no scraps dripped on to the floor. "It's me or the mission." Nakagawa growled as he got up and looked around until his eyes fell upon a frail and sickly woman. He crouched and silently made his way over to her and sighed, "Your time is soon," he whispered to her, "This may make it speed up, I'm doing this to help you.". Nakagawa rammed the syringe into her arm and covered her mouth so she wouldn't scream. As soon as he was finished he placed the syringe in his pocket and got up. "There he is!" he heard one of the officers scream and gun shots were sure to follow but before they could fire, Nakagawa threw himself out the window, not even bothering to open it and felt the night air embrace him as he spiraled to the ground.