hey everybody! So, I'm going to stop predicting how many chapters it will take - it is what it is! But whatever it is, I will tell you the good news: I write 1-2 chapters ahead now, so the next installment is already ready and the updates will be steady :D
So as long as you enjoy reading them, it's all good! They'll be coming out in quick succession ! :)
REVIEWS: Thank you, thankyou, thankyou! The reason I haven't answered you yet for the previous chapter is because I was literally not doing anything except writing the NEXT chapters for the last few days! :D Please do make sure if you have a fanfiction account to check your PM messages, because I answer your reviews as much and as often as I can!
It is fascinating to hear your thoughts and I am amazed both 1) that people bring up aspects that I never considered but are SO TRUE 2) that people are starting to pick up deeper things or secret things that will be revealed in time... ho ho! No specific spoilers though! Stick around and find out!
FAVORITE MOMENT LAST CHAPTER: Raito cradling L's face while L is on the floor, hands down. I mean, you knew it...but I can't help it! Second favorite I think...hm...the moment where the head in the tank smiles at L's back and Raito pushes L away and glares at the head. And of course lets not forget my piece de resistance, the epic "It wasn't because I made you wear the tight pants, is it?". Ahh, comic relief is the way.
QUESTION: I am curious, for those of you who will review - 1) I wonder if you guys can see a difference between my writing style now (15 years later), versus before? I mean, you don't have to tell me details (i'm not fishing for compliments :D )- I am just GENUINELY curious if the style is different. Like, I wonder if the drama school and film school and all the acting training DID anything, you know ? :D
I know sometimes the writing changes during "action sequences" or "big drama" sequences - I make it more scripty and choppy and staccato with the short sentences, which is something I don't think I did before. But lets see. At some point after my "Trial of True Elision" is over, I'll go back and edit/rewrite all those previous chapters from 15 years ago...so I guess at that point I'll see if my current alterations of narration flow and script-style drama are more effective for horror than before!
WARNINGS (AGAIN): More gore. More profanity. Did I say gore? And hopefully some jump scares. Maybe.
Enjoy!
EREBUS VII: Down
The corridor no longer resembled anything made for human passage. The fleshy walls quivered with each step, slick with mucus that glimmered beneath Raito's flashlight — small but powerful, mounted on his front pocket. The floor, once firm underfoot, had softened into something spongy and damp. Raito could feel it give slightly with every step, like walking on raw meat. Worse, it responded. When his weight shifted, the surface adjusted—groaning softly, like something resenting the intrusion.
He forced himself to keep moving. There was no other option. The corridor's dimensions had shrunk progressively the deeper they ventured. It was no longer possible to walk side-by-side. The walls had tightened, pressing their shoulders inward. Twice, Raito had to pause to unstick his sleeve from the membrane beside him. L followed close, silent except for his shallow breathing and the faint feel of his gloved hand gripping the back of Raito's jacket.
Breathing walls. Pulsing floors.
The thought twisted Raito's stomach. He gripped the plasma cutter tighter and tried not to imagine what, exactly, they were walking through.
A wet vibration trembled through the air, followed by a whisper crackling from the overhead speakers:
"Cognitive integrity… assessment incomplete. Subject recognition… pending."
Raito's jaw clenched. Another random scientist's voice — clinical, distant, almost bored. There had been variations of the same nonsense for hours, along with all the other disturbing whispers of this place. But now, something was different. Their cadence seemed more deliberate, their phrases slightly clearer.
Is it talking about us?
The corridor constricted further ahead, the walls narrowing into a ribbed, fleshy bottleneck. The faint light glinted off strands of mucus stretching across the gap like cobwebs.
Raito halted, bile rising in his throat. The space ahead was barely wide enough for a single person to squeeze through. The walls seemed to undulate slowly, rhythmic, like the chambers of a lung in mid-exhalation.
His fingers tightened around the hilt of the plasma cutter. "Hold on."
L didn't respond.
Raito extended his hand toward the narrow passage. The light of the plasma beam reflected off the glistening membrane. For a moment, the walls were still.
Then, with a sickening shudder, the flesh contracted inward with a wet squelch. The opening sealed shut in front of them like a sphincter, the tissue writhing until it was smooth and impenetrable.
"Urgh," Raito whispered. He recoiled in disgust, instinctively pulling L back with him.
Behind them, the passage they'd come through emitted a faint, wet sigh. Raito turned, his stomach dropping as he saw the walls closing there too. The surfaces puckered inward, convulsing as if preparing to swallow them.
"Shit. Shit. Need to move."
The only available opening was to their right: a partially unsealed lab door — even that made out of membrane — crooked and jammed halfway open. Beyond it lay darkness, broken by faint greenish light. Without thinking, Raito went toward it. They squeezed through the gap as the corridor convulsed behind them with a slurping hiss.
The air that hit them was warm and metallic, prickling the sinuses. The space stretched out before them, dimly lit by bioluminescent patches that throbbed in slow pulses along the walls. Raito shifted the plasma cutter to his dominant hand as he stepped inside, swivelling it in an arc to light the room better. At first glance, it appeared empty—but soon the shapes came into focus.
Raito stopped short. His pulse quickened.
Cylinders again. Human-sized, arranged in rows like grotesque monoliths. They were transparent, filled halfway with dark, viscous liquid. Suspended within each was a partial torso—stripped of skin, nerves exposed in glistening red webs. Some were limbless; others twitched with faint electrical impulses that made tendons flex and fingers curl. Thin metal rods protruded from each body's spinal cord, connecting to a network of hair-thin wires stretched across the ceiling like spider silk.
Raito's lip curled slightly in disgust. The torsos weren't floating—they were being held aloft by those wires, tensioned precisely to mimic upright posture. He tracked the cables with his eyes until they disappeared into a central terminal at the far end of the room.
Beside him, L shifted. His head tilted toward the 'exhibits', lips slightly parted. He seemed to be studying the suspended bodies the way he might have once studied a crime scene.
Raito watched those black eyes flick toward the nearest glass cylinder, then toward the terminal.
The speakers overhead crackled.
"Neuromuscular integration has stabilized. Spinal synapse latency: twelve milliseconds. Conscious input negligible. Subject 41: sustained reflexive function observed."
Raito tensed. The voice wasn't the usual clinical tone. It was softer somehow, more neutral. Discursive, almost.
L's eyebrows lifted slightly. "They're overriding voluntary motor functions," he said softly, eyes tracking the cables above. "Redirecting peripheral nerve impulses through external nodes."
A beat of silence.
The speaker crackled again.
"Correct."
Raito's heart stopped.
He turned sharply toward L. "Did you just…?"
L's brow furrowed in genuine confusion. "No."
The speaker sounded once more, calm and mechanical:
"External queries detected. Neural interface…partial."
Raito's skin crawled. He didn't wait to hear more. He moved quickly toward the door to the adjacent lab, waiting for L to follow… but the detective lingered, his eyes still tracking the network of wires..
Will I need to drag him through each and every door? Raito wondered, clenching his jaw as L sluggishly and reluctantly made his way across the room. Surely he hadn't been that fascinated with all this stuff before, had he?
The next one was worse.
The air inside was thicker, clogging the lungs with each inhale. It carried the cloying copper tang of blood, undercut by something harsher—like overheated circuitry melting into scorched flesh.
Raito's flashlight swept across the space.
His pulse skipped.
The lab was smaller than most, a compact square barely twenty feet across. Organic wiring crawled along every surface, thick and ropey like invasive roots. The floor gleamed wetly beneath a thin layer of congealed blood. It pooled around what had once been a research station but now resembled a slaughterhouse operating table.
A single metal gurney stood at the center of the room. Strapped to it lay a humanoid figure—or what remained of one. Its torso had been split from collarbone to navel, ribs splayed open like the brittle legs of a dead insect. The exposed cavity glistened with viscous liquid, its organs tangled with a nest of thin, metallic fibers. They pulsed faintly, mimicking neural activity. But the legs—
God, the legs.
The flesh had been meticulously flayed away, exposing the pale nerves beneath. Only…these weren't nerves anymore. Sleek filaments, silver and copper-threaded, replaced the biological tissue, spiraling down the limbs like vines.
As Raito stared, the legs twitched. Flexed. Shifted in tiny, running motions—as though the body were trying to flee without the brain's permission.
Raito's breath caught in his throat. His flashlight beam locked on the figure's chest, where a heart still pulsed sluggishly against the wiring. No skull. No brain. No control. But the body didn't care.
"This doesn't look like voluntary fucking fuction to me." he muttered darkly, more to himself than anything.
"It's…adaptive," L still responded. Raito's head whipped toward him.
"What?"
L took a step closer to the gurney, his eyes fixed on the twitching limbs. He bent slightly, head tilted in curiosity. "These filaments—they're simulating peripheral nervous feedback. The spinal reflex arcs are intact even without cortical oversight."
"Yeah, I don't care how it works, L. We're leaving."
L didn't move. His pupils, wide and dark, tracked the micro-spasms in the figure's calf muscles.
"These fibers…they're self-optimizing. The system is teaching the limbs how to move without commands." His gaze shifted to the exposed spine. "It's almost elegant."
The word sent a jolt of alarm through Raito's chest. "Elegant?" he hissed.
He grabbed L's wrist with more force than necessary and yanked him toward the exit. The blood beneath their feet sucked noisily at their soles as they moved.
"It's meat and wires stitched together like a science fair from hell. Quit analyzing this shit and walk."
L blinked, as though coming out of a trance. His steps fell back into rhythm with Raito's, though his eyes flicked toward the gurney one last time before passing through the membrane door.
Raito's hopes for something less fascinating were not meant to be, however.
The chamber's air was thick with a coppery stench, undercut by a sharper, rancid tang. The lighting was brighter here, stark and unforgiving, revealing several operating tables arranged in a fan-like pattern.
Raito's eyes adjusted.
He immediately wished they hadn't.
The figures on these tables were different. They were not skinless or incomplete like the others.
They looked human.
At first glance, they looked human: familiar silhouettes draped in pale skin, limbs bent at plausible angles. But the closer he looked, the worse it became. The flesh was real—not synthetic, not polymer—but grafted in uneven layers over raw metallic skeletons. The tissue clung unnaturally to the frames, stretched too tight in some places, sagging grotesquely in others. Some patches looked necrotic, yellowed and peeling where the dermis had failed to integrate.
Hands lay detached on trays beside their bodies—flesh and bone encasing mechanical joints. The nails were real, keratinized and pink, but beneath the delicate cuticles lay actuators and metal rods. Someone had cultivated actual human skin to sheath pure machinery.
Raito's flashlight passed over one of the torsos. Beneath the raw, pallid exterior, a ribcage of carbon-black metal gleamed. Pistons and coiled servo wires stood in place of muscle; sensors and pressure regulators ran along the sternum where a heart should have been.
A mockery of the human form. Frankenstein, but streamlined.
L exhaled softly.
"Skin grafting," he said in an almost reverent whisper. He stepped forward without hesitation, not letting even Raito's grip hold him back.
Raito hesitated. "Yeah." his voice came out a bit breathless "Charming."
L didn't react. His fingers hovered over the nearest figure's forearm. With delicate care, and making Raito flinch behind him, he pressed into the skin.
"God, L…"
The surface dimpled beneath his touch. The skin was warm. Pliable. Almost indistinguishable from living flesh.
"Incredible," L murmured. "They cultivated real dermal layers—vascularized, temperature-responsive… They've replicated tactile perception."
"You mean they wrapped metal skeletons in people-skin," Raito said. "Great. Let's go."
He tugged at L's sleeve.
L didn't move.
Raito's pulse quickened. "L."
The other man's eyes remained locked. His fingertips traced the faint seam where skin met polished metal. His expression was unreadable, but something in it made Raito's stomach twist.
"L," Raito said again, sharper. He yanked L's arm.
Nothing.
The overhead speaker crackled.
"…so layered…so fascinating…you feel it too."
L's head tilted slightly, as if listening.
Raito cursed under his breath. He fisted his hand in the back of L's jacket and literally hauled him back from the table. L stumbled as though surfacing from a trance.
The door to the corridor loomed ahead.
"Come on," Raito hissed, pushing L toward it non-too-softly. The other man moved stiffly, eyes still half-turned toward the table, flicking between that and the terminal console at the corner.
The membrane opened with sluggish reluctance. They passed through and the door sealed with a wet smack behind them.
The corridor beyond was narrower than before. The walls pressed in, slick and pulsing like tissue under a microscope.
Raito grabbed L's wrist in a steel grip.
The whispers followed.
"…infinite knowledge…infinite capacity…"
He quickened the pace, dragging L with him.
"You're dead anyway, right?."
Raito squeezed his eyes shut.
And kept walking.
But no matter where he walked, it only got worse.
In the labs, it was blood-curdling; in the hallway, it was suffocating.
Now the membrane walls pressed tighter inward with each step, wet and yielding like bruised muscle. The bioluminescent veins running along the surface pulsed faster now, their color shifting erratically from deep crimson to sterile white. The air grew heavier with every foot they advanced.
Beneath the ambient hum, the whispers were growing clearer. Not the lecturer's voice, not Angel's taunting murmur—these were fragmented, layered voices that drifted from unseen speakers. And now it was clear; they were targeted.
"...subject integrity maintained under stimulation…"
"...don't you remember how they made you feel?"
"...sensory overload expected during transition phase…"
"...like you were an alien…like you didn't belong…"
Raito swallowed hard and forged ahead. It was getting worse, he knew. Worse and worse and worse. If he tried to escape from the corridors, the labs would be just as bad. If he tried running from the labs, the corridors would be worse. No matter which way he went it seemed inescapable; L's steps were steady but noticeably slower, as if the pressure of the place weighed heavier on him. At least his fingers remained locked in their habitual grip on Raito's jacket — a small comfort at the face of it all.
"...closer…just a little closer…"
"...you don't think like them. You think like us."
"...what is a 'machine', really, if not a smarter human?"
Up ahead, the corridor opened into another lab. The door had already split apart for them, flesh membranes retracted like an inhaling lung. Raito dove in, partly because the corridor was too tight to walk through, partly because he didn't want those voices in L's head anymore. How long could he keep running from place to place like this, though? How long could he keep pushing back what was starting to seem inevitable?
And what if the next place is even worse?
It was.
No tables, no instruments—just a wide, circular space lined with what looked like bone-colored plaster. The floor was smoother than the corridor's spongy texture, though faintly sticky beneath their boots.
Raito's flashlight skimmed across the walls, and he immediately regretted it.
Ports.
Not random or scattered like those they'd seen upstairs—these were arranged in perfect industrialized symmetry, each one a deep, circular aperture ringed with fleshy ridges. The rubbery appendages within twitched toward the flashlight beam like scenting hounds. The walls weren't plaster after all. The surface pulsed, the membrane shifting around the ports as if adjusting to their presence.
L stopped beside him, staring at the nearest opening.
"They're identical," L said softly. "Same configuration as the Neurotech department."
Raito's heart lurched. "I noticed." he said through gritted teeth.
He guided L along the room's perimeter, keeping as much distance as possible from the wall. Each time they passed a port, the appendages shivered toward them, blind and hungry.
The whispers followed them:
"So close now…so close to us…"
"Together…together…we will be unstoppable…"
"It won't hurt. You'll see."
Raito's jaw tightened. His grip on the plasma cutter shifted, finger hovering near the trigger.
They were nearly at the far door when the voice came again—sharp, clear, and unmistakable.
"Raito-kun."
He froze mid-step.
The voice was L's.
His blood went cold. He felt L's real wrist still in his grasp—warm, solid, reassuringly present. But the voice hadn't come from beside him. It was whispery, coming from behind — from the far side of the room where one of the larger ports was now flexing open like a yawning throat.
Raito's breath came shallow and fast.
She's fucking with you. Ignore it.
He forced his legs to move. One step. Then another. He didn't look back.
The door opened for them with a slick hiss, and he hauled L through without a word.
The corridor beyond was worse than ever.
The organic walls now bulged inward like swollen muscle, forcing them into single file at all times. Each step pressed their shoulders against slick, trembling tissue. The veins along the surface had grown thicker, branching like a neural network. The membranes contracted when they passed, squeezing them momentarily in viscous embrace before releasing with wet, sucking pops. It was hard to even breathe.
"Fuck this place," Raito muttered through clenched teeth.
L made no reply. Raito couldn't see him, but perhaps that was better than seeing the dazed look again. He'd seen how the walls slightly glowed when L passed, as though they were responding to something about him, something in him, which made them hold on even more.
Ahead, the corridor opened into yet another lab. The door was already ajar, its membranes vibrating faintly. The light from within, barely visible, pulsed like a slow, mechanical breath.
Raito adjusted his grip on the plasma cutter. His pulse pounded beneath his skin. Who knew what awaited them inside, again?
Without another word, he went in.
The membrane door slurped shut behind them, momentarily sealing out the faint, omnipresent whispers. Inside, the air thickened. The temperature dropped perceptibly, damp and clammy against skin and fabric. The weak glow from the corridor couldn't penetrate far into the chamber; the overhead bioluminescent veins seemed withered, their pulses erratic, like dying synapses firing in slow, irregular bursts. Shadows pooled thickly in every corner.
Raito turned slowly, letting his plasma beam slice through the gloom, sweeping over distorted shapes suspended from the ceiling: skeletal limbs threaded with exposed wiring, legs and arms stripped of skin, hanging limp like butchered livestock. Some were human, fingers curled in rigor mortis, nails blackened. Others terminated in polished metal pincers that gleamed through the haze.
The floor beneath their feet squished with each step, slick with viscous residue. Raito kept moving cautiously, L's wrist still clamped in his hand. The place reeked of metal, rust, and something else—something sharp and biological, like opened arteries left too long in the heat.
Then, mid-stride, his foot splashed.
Raito froze. Lowered the plasma light.
A pool of blood. Fresh blood.
That was…unusual.
It spread in a wide, uneven pool across the organic surface, glistening reflectively. The crimson trail stretched a few feet further to a severed human arm lying palm-up in the center. The shoulder joint had been crudely sheared off, sinew and bone exposed like torn cables. The fingers of the hand were stiff, curled inward—but not empty.
The thumb and first two fingers gripped a small linen sack.
Raito's breath caught in his chest. He knew that sack. The rough fabric, the thick, archaic stitching. The memory surged forward: that man in Mu. Days ago — weeks? — standing near the Erebus building's entrance, dressed in medieval garb and muttering to himself. A worn sack had been slung over his shoulder, overstuffed with parchments—this sack. Raito had thought it strange even then —no one carried parchment in Mu. It had stuck with him, lodged in his mind like an errant splinter.
Now it's here…
He let go of L for a moment, used both his hands to pry the sack free. The dried fingers cracked, breaking apart with brittle resistance. Blood smeared his gloveless fingers as he pulled open the drawstring.
Inside: parchments. Thick, yellowed sheets curled at the edges. He shuffled through them quickly. Maps, it looked like. But no place Raito recognized. No coordinates, no modern markers. Just an incomprehensible tangle of inked lines, depicting winding streets and intricate layouts like those of ancient cities. They twisted into spirals and labyrinthine patterns, marked at intervals with symbols—runes reminiscent of Kabbalistic glyphs.
And yet… something about it prickled at the base of his neck. Like these mattered. Like they weren't just relics, but pieces of something larger. Some of them displayed what appeared to be floorplans of specific places—archways, staircases, doors.
"What the hell…?" he muttered under his breath, turning one of the maps sideways. The shapes shifted beneath his gaze, unyielding in their mystery. His instincts screamed that this was important—but why? And how had that medieval man made it here?
He straightened slightly, twisting toward L.
"Hey, L, take a look at th—"
He stopped.
No shadow beside him. No tension on his jacket
The plasma light jerked up.
L stood ten feet away, in the far corner of the lab. He was utterly still, facing the wall. No—not the wall.
The port.
A massive, oval opening, gaping wide in the darkened surface. Its membranous edges were peeled back like slick, fleshy petals. The interior shimmered faintly, glistening with slick fluid that dripped in slow rivulets down the walls. Deep inside the cavity, metal tendrils hovered in a lazy, rhythmic sway—like seaweed caught in a gentle current. They extended slightly, then retracted, extended and retracted again. Testing the air.
L stood directly in front of it. His head tilted slightly, eyes locked on the undulating tendrils. His expression was unreadable.
The tendrils danced in front of him.
Raito's breath stopped.
Don't move. Don't shout. Don't breathe.
He set the parchments down carefully, placing them on the dry sack without a sound. His muscles coiled as he shifted into a crouch. He crept forward, every step deliberate, weight evenly distributed as though stalking prey. He could see the tendrils swaying more eagerly now, stretching further, inch by inch — as though sensing the warmth of L's proximity.
Raito's heart hammered in his ears. His vision narrowed to a single focus: L's slim silhouette, the slick edge of the port, the metallic limbs that hovered in quivering anticipation.
He calculated the distance.
Three steps.
Two.
One.
He lunged.
His shoulder struck L's torso, driving them both sideways with brutal force. They crashed to the floor just as the tendrils lashed outward.
The nearest metal filament whipped past Raito's ear with a high-pitched hiss, slashing his jacket sleeve open from wrist to elbow. Fabric smoked where it had been sliced; the tendril's tip crackled with faint electric discharge.
The port convulsed. Its tendrils recoiled into the cavity with furious speed. The membranous lips contracted, then sealed with a wet, fleshy squelch.
Silence dropped like a brick.
Raito lay gasping, arms wrapped protectively around L's torso, while the other man just lay there, breathing shallowly beneath him.. Slowly, Raito rolled off, shoved himself up to his knees. His hands were trembling.
L blinked up at him, disoriented..
"Look at me." Raito's words were a snarl through clenched teeth. His breath was sharp, his shoulders locked. "Look at me!"
L blinked, slow and disoriented as he finally focused his eyes on Raito. But even when he did, they remained half-lidded. Not all there.
Raito's pulse slammed against his ribs. His grip tightened. The damp strands tangled around his knuckles as his thumb pressed into the side of L's skull. L's breathing was shallow, chest rising and falling against his own.
"Say something, dammit," Raito hissed, his voice trembling with adrenaline.
L's lips parted slightly, but nothing came out. His eyes, still unfocused, tracked Raito's face as if searching for something unnameable.
For one strange, jarring second, Raito's breath faltered. His mind tripped, snagging slightly on the sight: black strands clinging damply to pale skin; half-lidded eyes beneath heavy lashes; the heat of the breath—scorching his cheek.
His thumb twitched against L's temple. The muscles in his jaw tightened. His breathing slowed without meaning to.
L swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing slightly. Raito's eyes dropped to it, then up to the curve of L's mouth. His thumb brushed the damp skin just below L's ear, unintentional, instinctive. L's breath stuttered slightly, and Raito's chest tightened.
"Say something…"
L's lips parted just a fraction more.
The air thickened.
A heartbeat passed.
Another.
The sound of their breathing merged into the damp, pulsing quiet.
Then L's lips moved.
"…They're waking up."
The sound barely broke through the haze, Raito watching the lips move without really hearing what they said. His grip on the black hair softened unconsciously, his thumb brushing along the damp skin.
His brow furrowed, mind catching up with L's words. His mouth opened slightly too.
"...Who's waking up?" The question escaped in a dismissive low murmur, the disbelief laced with something softer, something unsure. L's lips remained slightly parted, but he said nothing else. Only his eyelashes fluttered, eyes coming up to meet Raito's again.
Raito's exhale came out slower than expected. His grip on the black hair loosened further, palm almost cradling the curve of L's head now. He leaned slightly closer without realizing, their noses now inches apart.
"...What on earth are you talking about?" he asked again more softly, voice just a whisper of exasperation, speaking more to himself than to L. His eyes flicked up again, feeling the heated breath on his mouth, inches away. L's gaze stayed half-lidded, as though drowsy…but still focused on him.
Raito's heart skipped as he met those eyes, his own eyelids somehow growing heavier, lips parting—
"Countdown complete."
Raito's entire body seized.
His grip tightened instantly. His chest slammed with a jolt of cold adrenaline.
The voice was mechanical, sharp, unyielding. Not from the walls. Not from Angel. Not from the usual whisperers.
Something new.
"Cryopod Activation."
Raito's gaze shot toward the ceiling.
The sound was so crisp it felt as though it came from everywhere.
And then, faintly—
Clank.
The corridor beyond the lab. Distant but distinct.
Clank. Clank.
Then came the hiss of pressure seals releasing.
"Depressurizing."
His jaw clenched. His grip shifted from L's hair to his wrist, seizing it with bruising force.
"Shit"
The word caught in Raito's throat, barely more than an exhale.
"Move."
There was no time for hesitation. He yanked L forward, gripping his wrist like a lifeline as they lunged through the exit, leaving the lab and the open, glistening port behind.
"Damn!" he froze, suddenly remembering, The maps! He didn't know why but, somehow, his gut told him those parchments were important. "Keep running!" he ordered, making a mad dash for the linen sack on the floor.
He gave the undulating wall port a wide berth as he ran back and forth, the linen sack now haphazardly slug across his torso, his hands already busy stuffing the parchments into pockets. L, to his credit, had obeyed his sharp command, but he hadn't gotten very far — the corridor beyond was worse than walls convulsed, slick and trembling, compressing inward like intestines in a spasm. Each step was a fight to push throw, boots landing with sickening squelches, the floor gripping at them like coagulated muscle. And beneath it all—
Clank. Clank. Clank.
Not footsteps. Impacts.
The vibrations reverberated up Raito's legs, stronger with every second, like a countdown in seismic pulses.
He mirrored L, pushing against the convulsing walls, each heaving step forcing breath from his lungs. The plasma cutter bounced at his side, whining softly on standby. The corridor rippled in protest, pressing against their shoulders like slick, damp skin.
Eventually, fortunately—an opening. A membrane door. L, who was ahead, pressed his shoulder into it.
The membrane peeled back with a wet, reluctant sound. They stumbled through.
The lab was dim, lit only by the faint glow of cylindrical tanks along the walls. The glass surfaces were clouded with thick fluid, housing different limbs. Disjointed, disassembled, rearranged. Raito had no time to 'admire' anymore; behind them, the impacts were accelerating
ClankClankClank.
L's breath hitched. His eyes darted back over his shoulder — apparently now more focused.
Raito lunged toward the opposite door. When the membrane didn't open automatically, his fingers slipped on the slick, blood-smeared panel. Come on. He wiped his palm against his thigh, tried again. The membrane finally gave way. He shoved L through, following close behind.
Another corridor, even narrower than before. The walls barely let them breathe now. Something viscous oozed from unseen seams, coating their skin in clinging, semi-transparent strands.
They burst through the next door without stopping to think. This one reeked of burnt metal and ammonia. Cables dangled from the ceiling like intestinal loops, swinging in the wake of their passage. Along the walls, different terminals flickered with erratic light. One display showed distorted figures with eyes hollowed to static. Another screen pulsed with jagged, brainwave-shaped lines accompanied by garbled whispers:
"They are near…they are near…they are here…"
From behind—
BANG.
The door they'd come through trembled.
Raito turned his head toward the sound. His fingers flexed around the plasma cutter.
The overhead speaker crackled.
"It won't hurt," came the whisper, soft and cloying. Angel's voice. "You'll see."
Raito's stomach twisted.. "Shut up!" The words were low, raw, strained through clenched teeth. But only laughter — that hateful, malicious laughter — responded.
L's breath came hard and fast now, as if reality was finally registering. The membrane door across the lab loomed ahead. Their only exit. Raito reached it and slammed a palm on the panel.
Nothing.
He pressed it again, more carefully. Again nothing.
"Shit!" He struck it with his fist. The membrane remained sealed, slick and unyielding.
L stepped beside him, crouching slightly to access the interface, fully engaged now. His fingers moved deftly, adjusting toggles and switching settings with precision. The display flickered… flickered… flickered— then flatlined.
"No..." L's voice was low and even, but his breaths came faster than normal. His thumb tapped the manual override again. Nothing.
Raito exhaled shakily and turned. The only other door was the one they'd come through.
The corridor beyond it…was no longer empty.
The vibrations resonated beneath their feet pulse heavier; closer.
BANG
The membrane door shook with the force of the approaching figures.
Raito shifted, stepping in front of L. He drew the plasma cutter from his belt, thumb grazing the activation trigger. The blue beam ignited with a sharp hum. His heartbeat hammered in his chest, a tempo synchronized with the relentless pounding outside.
Beside him, L rose to his feet. Raito caught the faint tremble in his wrist—but the laser gun was steady.
He glanced at him. "Can you fight?"
L's black eyes locked onto his. The fog was gone.
He gave a single, sharp nod.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
The pounding stopped.
Silence.
Raito raised the cutter. His thumb hovered over the intensity dial. Then—
CRACK
A long, slender blade punched through the center of the door. Its surface gleamed silver in the dim light, serrated edges dripping with synthetic ichor. The blade retracted, then sliced sideways, carving through the membrane like skin peeled from muscle.
Another blade joined it. And another.
The door was no longer a door.
It was an open wound.
The slashed membrane fell inward with a sickening squelch, revealing the corridor beyond.
Dark silhouettes loomed in the opening.
The plasma cutter's glow reflected off sleek chrome, wet tissue, and mechanical limbs coiled like a predator's muscles.
Raito's breath caught. The surgical precision of the cuts. The speed.
These were not mindless husks.
The figures stepped forward. Their eyes glowed faintly blue.
From the speaker overhead came the familiar german-accent voice, calm and clinical:
"Stage One: Acquisition."
The first…thing crossed the threshold with a lurching gait, its limbs jerking with mechanical spasms. Its torso was a twisted scaffold of steel rods wrapped in sinew, and beneath the skinless surface, bundles of muscle fibers writhed like worms. Its eyes were twin lenses, dilating and constricting in a rapid, nauseating pulse.
It tilted its head toward them.
The mouth opened.
Then its jaw unhinged, screeching at him, a high-pitched, binary scream.
Raito didn't wait for more.
The plasma cutter whined as he slashed upward, aiming for the chest seam. The beam sliced in, spitting molten tissue and metal. The creature convulsed and stumbled backward, head twitching toward the ceiling.
But it came down again, again looking at him.
Raito slashed again, this time a clean cut to the throat, where he could see soft fleshy tissue.
The head dropped — the body stayed up, .
"Shit," Raito muttered, backing up towards L, who shifted closer too.
They stood back-to-back, watching the creatures advance, their footsteps squelching against the slick, organic floor.
Grotesque amalgamations of human and machine, each unique in its disfigurement. One was headless, guided only by a metallic array embedded in its sternum. Another dragged a leg fused backward at the hip, the joints grinding audibly with every step. And one, the largest, carried a jagged blade where its right arm should have been—a serrated bone fused with steel, edges glinting wetly under the lab's dim light.
"Aim for the machine parts." Raito gritted out, rapidly scanning for weak points.
"Noted." L said simply, turning the laser power to max.
The largest charged first. Its bladed arm shot forward with horrifying speed.
Raito swung the plasma cutter to intercept. The blade met the energy arc with a screech of shearing metal. Sparks cascaded through the air as the plasma beam carved through the weaponized limb—but only halfway. The severed edge fell, but the cyborg rammed forward with the remaining stump.
Raito ducked under the strike and slashed horizontally across its torso. The cutter sputtered against the thick alloy ribbing, barely penetrating the surface. The beam's whine faltered; its power core was already overheating.
From behind, L leapt into motion.
The next creature lunged for him, its elongated arms tipped with scalpel-like digits. L dropped low, sweeping his leg in a tight arc. His foot hooked behind the cyborg's knee, buckling it inward. As it pitched sideways, he rolled onto one shoulder and sunk the surgical laser into its exposed thigh joint.
The beam hissed against flesh, causing a high, mechanical shriek as the thing collapsed. L's eyes flicked back momentarily.
"Six!" he called.
Raito didn't question it.
He pivoted and slashed the plasma cutter across, catching the waist of one that was attacking. The beam severed tendon and metal alike. Sparks erupted, accompanied by a visceral screech of protest. The sinewy material blackened and split, venting a rush of metallic-smelling steam.
It stumbled slightly and Raito felt L coming, saw the kick slam on the thing's knees, causing it to fall forward. Timing it perfectly, he slashed the cutter, beheading it.
CLANK. CLANK.
From the corridor, more of them emerged.
There were many of them. Four. Six. Ten. Too many.
And they'd only keep coming. They had to get out.
Raito seized the opportunity. "Go!"
They sprinted toward the far door, skidding across the slick, quivering floor.
But the door remained sealed.
Raito slammed the plasma cutter into the membrane itself, but no luck. The walls wailed and shook in protest, as though the entire structure was hurting. But the beam sputtered and bounced back, meeting reinforced glass.
"Fucker," he growled.
The cyborgs behind them regrouped, climbing to their feet with mechanical persistence. The one with the jagged blade stepped forward again—its remaining limb grotesquely distended, fingers lengthened into twitching, skeletal needles.
"Hold them off," L said abruptly.
"What?"
"Hold them!" L spun toward the nearest terminal.
Raito's gut lurched. "Don't—"
But L was already there.
The cyborgs advanced.
Raito braced himself and slashed the cutter across the floor, buying time. The creatures hesitated, their optical sensors tracking the beam like distracted cats. Two broke away and lunged simultaneously.
He dropped to one knee and aimed at their legs.
The beam sliced into the nearest one's femur. The limb crumpled mid-lunge, sending the body skidding across the floor toward him. Raito twisted aside just in time to avoid the snapping metal jaws.
The second veered toward L.
"No you don't," Raito muttered.
He shot forward, swivelled around and drove the plasma cutter into its spine, twisting it deep. The beam crackled as it cut through the vertebrae. The creature collapsed—but the detached upper torso still crawled forward on its arms, dragging itself toward the terminal.
Raito slammed his boot into its skull, crushing the sensory core.
The walls were shuddered violently beneath him. Veins of glowing circuitry popped open from everywhere, spitting a viscous, copper-colored fluid across the tiles. Raito recoiled, dodging both that and a swipe from a monstrous blade.
Behind him, L's fingers were flying across the terminal's interface.
The screen glitched and crackled beneath his touch. Symbols were flickering past—brainwave patterns and neura schematics. His pupils contracted slightly as though registering something invisible.
"Almost…" L whispered.
The cyborgs drew back, regrouped — half-butchered but still walking.
Then they advanced again. Four of them. Together.
Raito stepped back, raising the cutter. The beam sputtered weakly. The plasma core was overheating; the glow dimming.
"Shit," he cursed, realizing,
The creatures accelerated.
The closest one lunged.
Raito swiped the cutter sideways—too late.
It swung a hammer-like fist. Raito tried to dodge, but the impact caught his shoulder. Pain exploded across his collarbone, making him yell as he slammed against the lab bench.
The cyborg's needle-fingers lashed toward his face—
L's terminal emitted a sharp, resonant tone.
Then:
"Neural reconfiguration initiated. Calibrating."
The air hummed.
The creatures froze in unison.
Their limbs seized. Their heads snapped backward. Sparks burst from their joints as their bodies locked into rigid, grotesque poses. The wall membranes trembled violently, releasing a guttural, mechanical groan.
Raito staggered to his feet, gripping his shoulder. His vision blurred with pain as he turned toward L.
The other man stood at the terminal, back straight, shoulders taut. His right hand hovered over the interface, fingers trembling faintly. His eyes were locked on the screen.
Raito's chest tightened.
Despite his injury, he rushed over and gripped L's arm, relief mixing with dread as he saw L's gaze — foggy and distant again.
"What did you do?"
L's gaze stayed on the terminal, absent and glazed.
"Neural feedback pulse," he said, in a faraway voice. "They're…linked through the system. I jambled the input momentarily."
Raito's jaw clenched for a moment, not knowing what to do.
L's eyes stayed on the interface, mesmerized.
"They'll reboot in forty seconds," he said, almost in an afterthought.
"Then move." Raito yanked him away with his good arm, cutter held loose in the other.
They stumbled toward the membrane door, Raito thanking his lucky stars when it finally opened in front of them — automatically, as though wounded to submission.
Calibration Complete.
Behind them, the cyborgs twitched.
Initializing.
They crossed the threshold just as the creatures began to stir once more.
The door sealed behind them with a deep, guttural squelch.
They ran through the next lab, and the next, and the next — Raito keeping his grip on L's wrist at all times. His pulse roared in his ears, breath shallow, legs already burning from exertion. Finally there was no option than to exit again to the corridors and Raito braced himself, knowing how it would feel for those wretched walls to press against his dislocated shoulder.
Incredibly though, and to his eternal relief, the walls had actually receded. Again, it was as though the entire structure was hurt and temporarily off kilter.
But still, though once merely damp and slick, now the organic surfaces had grown feverishly hot to the touch. Thick veins pulsed beneath the surface, throbbing faintly with each tremor that shook the floor, bursting haphazardly here and there as though unable to pump oxygen through the system.
Behind them, the sounds intensified again.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
"They're accelerating," L said behind him, voice taut but not panicked.
"You think?"
The corridor veered left. As they turned the corner, the fleshy walls contracted, squeezing inward like a throat attempting to swallow. Raito yelped in pain as his shoulder was squashed. He grit his teeth and pressed forward, twisting to his side and keeping his grip on L. The walls released with a sick shudder as they burst through.
Ahead, the door was open to another lab. Raito barely registered the details: floor slick with coagulated blood, shredded clothing entangled in wires, a half-formed body fused to the ceiling, mouth wide in a soundless scream. His attention fixed on the opposite door.
They sprinted toward it—
The walls convulsed.
Wet slurps echoed as thick, rope-like tendrils shot out suddenly, straight from the small mouth-like fissures on the walls. The first lashed toward Raito's ankles. He jumped over it and swung the plasma cutter downward, severing it mid-whip. Black ichor splattered across his legs, burning cold where it hit his skin through his torn pants.
"Watch out!" he barked.
A second tendril lashed at L. He ducked, twisting his body mid-step. The tendril missed his face by an inch but wrapped around his elbow instead. The texture was disturbingly familiar: flesh overlaid with synthetic wiring, warm and slick.
It dragged him toward the wall in milliseconds, and Raito's stomach twisted as he saw more of them spreading out, as though impatient to embrace the body coming in. But L reacted— just as he neared the wall he jumped, boots brutally hitting the tendril mouth, making it spasm and let him go.
Ratio came to his aid just as he slammed on the floor, slashing down the others while L got to his feet.
"Go!" L shouted, and Raito spun to run behind him.
They reached the far door. Raito slammed his palm against the panel when it didn't open. The membrane hesitated, as though starting to resist again, then peeled back with glacial slowness.
"OH, Fuck. You!" Ratio roared at it, polite sensibilities well and truly in tatters by now.
As though to taunt him, right behind them, the lab floor split open with a wet crack — as though it was never solid to begin with, as though it was just a retraction of flesh. From the fissure rose two figures. The first stood unevenly, its legs telescoping with metallic clicks as it found its balance. It had no eyes; only a mass of wires where its face should have been. Its limbs were segmented, sharp-edged, metal plating fused to organic flesh. The second was worse: a human torso fused directly into biomechanical armor, skin stretched taut across gears and pistons. Its jaw hung slack, revealing glistening cables where the tongue should be.
The first lurched toward them, metallic talons clicking against the blood-slick floor.
L slammed a roundhouse kick on its face, without preamble. Raito grabbed him by the back of the jacket and pulled him through the crevice of the door before the other one could attack.
The corridor beyond was no safer. The floor was slick and spongy underfoot, the walls writhing like intestinal walls under pressure. Veins pulsed along the surface, glowing blue-white.
The creatures behind them were faster. Raito heard the clatter of limbs against the floor, the wet rasp of biomech parts scraping past the door frame.
L ran ahead, his steps light despite the uneven surface. Raito followed, swinging the plasma cutter behind him. The beam hissed as he carved through a tendril that snapped at his legs — they were coming constantly now, low or high. The floor vibrated beneath them.
Ahead, a large wall port gaped open. The orifice pulsed invitingly, metal tendrils twitching like insect antennae, anticipating their arrival.
"Left!" Raito shouted.
They veered into a side passage, but the creatures followed. The corridor narrowed. Raito saw an open vent overhead and heard a low, mechanical growl. Something dropped down—a humanoid figure, smaller than the others but faster. It landed between them and the exit.
Its face was human, with skin deathlike and bloodless, but its skull had been partially replaced with exposed neural circuitry. The eyes twitched unnaturally fast. The mouth opened.
Scrambled machine sounds came out.
It lunged.
Raito pierced the plasma cutter at the floor beneath it. The floor hissed and ruptured, and the creature stumbled, foot sinking into molten bio-matter. It screeched and thrashed. Raito seized L's wrist and yanked him past it.
The corridor ended in another membrane door. L reached the controls first. His fingers danced across the interface. Clearly, the doors had decided not to open again.
"Come on, come on," Raito muttered, glancing behind them.
The creatures were closing in: six of them now, emerging from walls, vents, and the floor itself — each was different, more disgusting than the next. Their movements grew more coordinated, more efficient with every passing second.
"They're learning," Raito said through clenched teeth.
"Yes," L agreed.
The membrane didn't open. It remained sealed, the surface trembling as though aware of their presence.
"Shit," Raito hissed.
L's expression tightened. His hands stilled, then hovered an inch above the control surface. His eyes half-lidded, his lips parting slightly as if listening.
Raito's stomach twisted as he stole a glance at him over his shoulder. "What the hell are you doing?"
L didn't answer, his eyes still hazy. The lights flickered. The veins along the walls contracted. The membrane door shuddered.
The first creature lunged into the corridor, mechanical claws scraping the walls.
"L!"
L's fingers twitched in the air. The veins along the walls pulsed in response. The membrane door peeled open with a sick crack.
"Go!"
They plunged through. Raito turned mid-step and sunk the plasma cutter at the door's controls. The membrane shuddered and sealed shut.
The creatures slammed into it from the other side.
Raito turned to L, breathless. "What the fuck was that?"
L swayed slightly, eyes still unfocused. "...neural hacking. I think."
"Yeah well…" Ratio's eyes quickly swept over this new room. The next door was closed as well — how long could they keep running? A brutal bang came from the other side. "... wish you'd neural hack them dead."
L blinked, the fog clearing slightly. His gaze darted toward a terminal near the wall.
"Perhaps I can."
Raito hesitated. Another terminal.
The pounding behind them intensified. The membrane door bulged inward.
"Fine," Raito said, pursing his lips.
L lost no time, running to the console like a starved man. His fingers hovered again, not touching. His breathing slowed. Ratio followed close, plasma poised threateningly at the screen, just in case anything weird decided to 'pop out' again.
It didn't. But as L looked at it, streams of symbols were flicking all across it — as though he was typing on it, when he wasn't.
Raito watched, biting the inside of his lip to keep from speaking as he watched those eyes go foggier and foggier.
Until suddenly, with more screen flashes, the corridor lights dimmed. A voice crackled overhead.
"Cognitive override detected."
Raito clenched his jaw, his breathing increased.
Another bang on the door. Raito's eyes snapped at it, watching the glass start to rupture.
"Forget it!" he turned to L, urgently.
"Wait…"
Raito's fists tightened at his sides. The walls shivered violently. The veins beneath their feet glowed white-hot.
The door burst open.
"L!"
"Now."
"Engaging Field"
"Run."
The crackling sound of electricity echoed. Raito turned to walls, alarmed, watching streams of electrical charge start building.
The exit door across the room cracked open.
"Run." L simply said, his voice again faraway, but Raito barely registered it. He just grabbed the other man by the arm and lunged toward the exit, making it to the door just as electricity arced from the walls, spearing across the entire room. The smell of scorched flesh filled the air as the creatures poured in, mechanical limbs spasming uncontrollably.
The last thing Raito saw was their pallid faces, unnaturally still, even as they were being torched alive. Then the membrane sealed and they were no more.
Silence.
Raito doubled over, gasping. L leaned against the wall of the new room, hand on his temple.
The quiet didn't last.
From behind the membrane door came a familiar voice, soft and intimate.
"You're learning fast, Lover." said Angel.
L went rigid.
Raito snapped his head up, mouth drawn back in a snarl.
"Shut. Up," he hissed into the air.
The voice chuckled softly.
The lights flickered.
Then, without warning, everything went dark.
"Oh Light…so rough…so tough…"
For a moment, the stillness was absolute.
Then—
"Come to me!"
WHIP.
Something lashed from the dark.
Raito gasped as a sharp, wet impact struck his side.
A cold, metallic bite—driving deep into his flesh.
Just as he cried out, the thing yanked.
"Raito!"
His body slammed sideways, ribs cracking as he was dragged toward the wall. He clawed at the floor—wet, slick, offering no traction. His legs kicked wildly as the tendril retracted, pulling him into the gaping port that had opened in the fleshy surface.
He could see it now, in the half light. The membrane split like an iris. Beneath it: a circular maw lined with twitching, metallic filaments. The biomechanical lips stretch to swallow his body, gripping his torso as the tendril reeled him deeper.
He screamed.
"Hold on!"
L's voice came again from somewhere behind. Footsteps—rushing, splashing—growing louder.
The port convulsed around Raito's waist, his legs already in the opening. The metal threads twisted and tightened, pressing into his hips and legs. Sharp pain struck from a million different places, like small metallic teeth biting and hooking into his skin.
"Aaargh!"
Through the panic, he heard the ever-present German-accent voice echoing "Stage two: Integration"
He kicked as wildly as he could but to no avail, vision blurring as pain shot up his limbs. The membrane sucked against his skin like a vacuum-sealed shroud. His breath came in frantic gasps; the pressure squeezed his ribs, preventing his lungs from expanding.
Hands grabbed his wrists.
Solid. Real. Familiar.
L.
Raito clung to him, clenching with bruising strength. L yanked backward, his body angling for leverage. But the tendril pulled harder. Raito felt the skin of his wrists burn from the friction of their desperate grip.
The port shuddered.
Metal filaments shot from the wall, snaking toward L's legs. L dodged, twisting sideways, his foot snapping out with surgical precision. The sharp crack of impact echoed through the lab as one tendril splintered against the wall.
Another shot toward his back. L ducked low, legs sweeping in a sharp arc, kicking it mid-air with a brutal spin. The tendril whipped back with a hiss.
Raito's fingers spasmed in L's grasp. He was slipping—being pulled in deeper.
The whispering returned. But it wasn't coming from the speakers. It was inside his head.
Don't fight it.
His muscles seized. His heartbeat faltered.
The world blurred.
His body felt…distant. The pain remained—a dull, cold pressure—but no longer localized to his ribs or legs. It hovered somewhere beyond him, like an echo of pain rather than the source.
Relax.
His vision shifted. For one terrible moment, he floated above the lab. Detached. Weightless.
He saw himself: mouth gasping, torso half-swallowed by the living wall. He saw L crouched low, eyes wide with strain as he anchored them both against the port's pulling force.
But Raito was no longer Raito.
He was the port.
He could feel his own tendons flexing, tightening around the intruder's torso. He could sense the network of sensory nodes scanning muscle fibers and neural currents.
"Assimilation progress: 38%."
It will feel good.
The words didn't come from outside. They were part of him now, emerging from a deep, mechanical undercurrent threading through his thoughts.
He tried to scream but had no mouth.
The whispers intensified.
You will know everything.
The phrase slid like silk through his mind. His awareness splintered.
His vision fragmented into dozens of flickering perspectives, each angle offering a different vantage point of the lab. The walls, the tendrils, the floor—everything was alive, and knew how to power it, control it.
He felt the port's grip shift as L fought to pull him free. But from here, L looked small. Weak. Incomplete.
Incomplete.
The realization spread through him like ice water. That was what the system perceived: an anomaly. A damaged unit.
You will have control.
The voice didn't echo; it resonated, vibrating through his bones like a tuning fork pressed against his skull. Warm and slick, wrapping around the jagged edges of his mind, filing them smooth.
"Assimilation Progress: 52%."
The numbers meant nothing. Or maybe they meant everything.
He tried to resist, to recoil, but his consciousness was no longer his own. It spread like liquid metal through veins of code. He could feel the walls shifting, the hidden conduits surging with power.
"Assimilation Progress: 63%."
Bright, neon-blue lines stretched beneath him like veins, branching into infinity. Data streamed through them in luminous rivers, flowing faster than thought. His awareness followed the current, swept helplessly—
But it wasn't a river anymore.
It was a corridor full of blood.
No. Not blood. A path lined with red petals, soft against his bare feet. They swirled in the wind beneath a bright blue sky.
He blinked.
The petals weren't petals.
They were strips of flesh.
The path twisted into a polished marble hall, gold gleaming from its towering walls. He drifted forward, past vast windows spilling sunlight onto the floor. Beyond the glass: waterfalls, silver and endless, cascading down mossy cliffs.
No. Not waterfalls.
Veins.
Gigantic veins pumping dark, viscous blood into bottomless pits.
He blinked again.
The marble underfoot vanished. He now floated above a crimson lake, bodies strewn across its surface—pale, bare-limbed figures, bobbing gently in the tide. Their faces were serene, their lips curled in faint smiles, like dreamers lost in perfect sleep.
But without looking closer, he knew.
They weren't sleeping — they were dead.
The lake solidified beneath him, shifting into a wide platform of polished obsidian. And at its center, raised high above the endless sea of bodies—
A throne.
It was smooth, diamond-cut, gleaming in the golden light. No—bone. It pulsed faintly, like a living thing.
Be our King.
The words curled through his mind, gentle and silky.
Figures emerged from the shadows. A crowd. Hundreds. Thousands. Their faces were indistinct, blurred at the edges. They clapped. Applauded.
The applause grew louder.
Teeth flashed in their open mouths—too white. Too red.
The throne gleamed. Or grinned.
The illusion trembled.
And then—
The crowd parted.
A figure stepped through.
L.
Barefoot on the marble, white shirt untucked, hair shadowing his eyes. He ascended the steps with effortless grace, pausing at the base of the throne. Slowly, languidly, he lifted his hand—palm out—as though beckoning.
Raito's chest expanded. Yes. He drifted forward without thinking, drawn to it, drawn to him.
The crowd cheered. The throne glittered. L walked up the steps beside him, calm and certain.
The voice returned, warm and reassuring.
Sit.
The diamond wires extended upward, waiting.
He glanced at L, who had stopped at the final step, gazing up at him. Expectant.
"Assimilation Progress: 74%."
The announcement was faint, barely heard beneath the roar of applause. Raito barely noticed.
His attention was on L.
Standing motionless. Gaze shadowed but steady.
You were never just a man.
The voice curled around him, patient. Knowing.
You've always been trapped. A God in mortal skin.
The throne beckoned. The wires stirred.
L's dark eyes shone—not admiration, no, never—but acceptance. Acknowledgment.
You were born to rule.
A slow smile ghosted across his lips.
It wouldn't feel so bad…
""Assimilation Progress: 82%."
The wires touched his skin. They didn't pierce. They melted in, threading through muscle and bone, winding into his skull like filaments of light, weaving a crown.
His mind expanded, zooming outward—
The labyrinth stretched below him, corridors glistening like veins.
Your palace.
He saw the port where he had been captured. The pods. The cocooned bodies, pulsing like a heart buried deep underground.
Your subjects.
"Assimilation Progress: 91%."
The wires burrowed deeper, flooding him with white light. Scorching everything in their wake. He barely noticed. His gaze was still on L.
His father's face surfaced—shattered into a million fragments.
His mother's laughter—static.
A hand in his. Warm. Skin against skin.
He reached—desperate—
Gone.
Better this way.
He turned back to the throne. He would sit.
"…Wake up."
A whisper.
So faint it almost wasn't there.
His brow furrowed. Who said that?
The crowd was still there. He could hear them applauding.
"Raito-kun."
He looked closer. Their hands weren't moving.
"Wake up!"
He turned toward the base of the steps.
Someone was there.
A shape. Faint. Flickering. Like a glitch in the world.
But who? He didn't know…he didn't know the face…
The wires tightened around his nerves.
Forget that weakness. Here, you will always be strong.
"…Raito! Fight it!"
The voice again. Sharper. More urgent. He knew it. He knew it.
Something cracked. His breath hitched. His chest tightened.
Something wasn't right.
He tried to turn his head, to see who it was. But his body wouldn't obey. The wires locked his joints.
"Fight it! It's lying to you!"
SIT.
The voice snarled now. The crowd shuddered—their smiles stretched too wide, their teeth flashing like metal.
He looked down.
The throne was not a throne.
It was an electric chair.
And beneath the steps—not marble.
A pit. A pit full of half-metal corpses staring up at him, whispering, grinning.
Panic.
A wave of pure, visceral disgust hit him. He struggled. He fought.
Get off me!
His mind screamed.
Get off, get off, GET OFF!
The wires resisted. Tightened. Sank deeper, constricting like muscle fiber, like a pulse digging into bone.
The system roared, its voice shattering into a million clashing directives.
GET. OFF!
He tore himself free.
Limbs searing, nerves shrieking, as if flayed open.
"Assimilation Interrupted. "
The corpses sank into the pit.
The throne cracked down the middle.
The world dissolved into pixels.
He fell.
Pain.
It surged through Raito's body as consciousness slammed into him. His limbs spasmed, lungs seizing with a sharp, chemical tang. His stomach twisted violently—
He rolled to the side and wretched.
It came hard and fast, muscles convulsing as bile splattered against the slick floor. His throat burned raw. For a few seconds, there was nothing but the sound of his gasping breaths.
A hand grasped his shoulder.
"Raito-kun."
The voice was steady, familiar. Grounding.
He opened his eyes.
L was kneeling beside him, pale and exhausted, his face streaked with sweat and blood. His eyes were barely visible in the darkness, damp hair sticking to his temples. One hand braced against the trembling floor. The faint smell of scorched tissue and ozone filled the air.
Raito coughed weakly, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. The world swayed. His gaze shifted toward the blackened port across the room. The tendrils were severed, their tips still smoking. The membrane itself had fused shut, sealed with dark, tar-like resin.
The sight brought a wave of cold nausea crashing over him.
He swallowed against it.
"What…what happened?" Raito rasped, voice barely more than a whisper.
L didn't respond. Instead, his eyes drifted unfocused across the ceiling, the walls, the floor. His brow creased in faint concentration.
Irritation flared in Raito's chest. Not this again. He had no time for it.
He shook the other man's arm, not hard, just enough to wake him up.
L's gaze flicked toward Raito for a moment. "I used the laser gun," he explained dismissively, as though to shut Raito up—then his eyes moved away again, head tilting as if listening for something.
Raito opened his mouth to snap at him—focus, dammit—when a cold shiver crawled up his spine.
He froze.
He could hear something too.
Not the usual whispers. Not the mechanical crackle of announcements or distorted sobs. Those had faded out, interestingly enough.
No, this was different. Deeper.
A vibration inside his skull, resonating through the marrow of his bones. It wasn't language—it was a sensation. An intention—and he felt it all over, stretching to his nerve endings.
Telling the walls to breathe. Telling them everything would be okay.
The sensation stirred something low in his chest—something at the end of his nerves. As though someone was petting him, but he didn't know what.
The walls around them trembled faintly, then sighed in unison. He could feel it before he saw it—the living tissue slackening, the surfaces smoothing and softening.
The sensation continued.
Rest. Rest now. It's okay. I won't let them hurt you.
A soothing voice. A loving voice.
An Angel's voice.
Raito's breath caught in his throat.
Not the mocking taunts they'd heard before. Not the cruel, whispering malice that had driven them through the labyrinth.
This was different. It was gentle. Patient. Warm.
The same voice he'd heard when he floated in that sea of visions.
The same voice that promised power.
Not directed at him this time.
Guiding the neural pathways. Regulating the pain. Calming the structure into pliant, receptive stasis.
…But he could still feel it. Feel it as though he was the one being comforted. He was the one being stroked.
His heart skipped a beat.
What the hell…?
"We should hurry."
L's voice broke through the haze.
Raito blinked. L was already standing, laser gun in hand, gaze still distant but sharp enough to register the present danger.
"It's recalibrating," L added softly, like a meteorologist announcing a coming storm.
Raito stared at him, struggling to reconcile the man in front of him with the sensation humming beneath his skin—the voices that were not-quite-voices, that seemed to be coming constantly now, from everywhere.
All he could do was give a short, jerky nod.
L bent down, wrapped a gloved hand under Raito's arm, and pulled him to his feet. Raito let him. His knees wobbled, but he steadied himself against the other man's grip.
The neural signal was still there. He could feel it. It buzzed faintly at the base of his skull, like fingertips brushing his consciousness. He let L pull him by the wrist, ambling numbly, shakily, toward the half-lit archway in the distance.
When they reached the membrane door before them, it peeled open with a tired, shuddering sigh.
He didn't just see it open. He felt it opening.
He felt the impulse.
Let them.
Raito glanced over his shoulder.
The lab behind them dimmed into shadow. The port, charred and collapsed, seemed to breathe faintly, its membrane knitting itself together, thread by thread.
The hum of neural transmissions persisted.
Rest. Rebuild. Prepare.
Raito's chest tightened.
L's fingers squeezed his arm once—making Raito turn back forward. He forced his legs to move, trying to hear his own mind through the constant fog of voices he was hearing.
They stepped into the passageway, but the transmissions still didn't stop.
The corridor was wider than usual, walls pulled back now, letting them move without pressing in. The fleshy surfaces pulsed gentler than before—in slow, deep breaths.
Allow them.
Raito looked up and around; distracted; trying to process it all; letting L tow him along.
The corridor stretched ahead, slick and glistening, the floor slick but steady beneath their feet.
The hum remained. A constant, unrelenting murmur.
Here and there he'd catch a stray word, a fragment—sometimes a feeling. There was one message, one stream. More prominent than the others; it kept coming through to him.
Come to me.
Raito's stride faltered.
Was that still aimed at the system?
He didn't stop walking. But his breath shortened. His skin prickled with sudden awareness.
He focused on the anchor of L's hand and steadied his own pulse. The plasma cutter hummed weakly in his other hand. His fingers curled around it until his knuckles ached.
The hum persisted, threading through his thoughts.
Unavoidable. Omnipresent.
Feel my Body.
The warmth of it crept through his body like intravenous anesthesia, blurring the sharp edges of exhaustion and fear.
A vision flashed across his mind's eye—a room bathed in gold, a throne draped in diamond silk, L watching him like that while the crowds cheered.
His pace faltered.
L's hand squeezed his wrist again, harder this time, yanking him forward.
Raito gasped softly. The warmth retreated, leaving only cold clarity in its wake.
Back in the dungeons. Back in the rot.
No thrones here.
The neural hum quieted just slightly—but it didn't vanish. It remained in the background like the sound of distant breathing.
You belong in the Body.
His jaw clenched. He focused on the back of L's head, on the mess of damp black hair shifting with each step.
Is this what he's been hearing all this time?
If so, no wonder he'd been out of it…Raito could barely walk straight. Could barely distinguish sounds that were coming from his ears versus his mind — or, was it even his mind, if it was pure intention? Sensation?
His wrist shook slightly in L's grip. The plasma cutter trembled in his other fist.
I promise.
Perhaps the most disturbing part wasn't the voices.
It was the faint echo of something stirring low in his chest.
The whisper he didn't want to acknowledge.
The one he heard speaking in his own voice, and he didn't know where it was coming from—inside, outside, or everywhere.
It will feel good.
Will it? Will it, though, Raito?!
I'll tell you what will definitely feel good, is if you guys tell me your emotions, reactions and thoughts after reading!
And as for the boys and whether they make it out unscathed...
Stick around and find out in the next EXCITING installment, coming soon to an update near you! :D