“The suffering of the freezing man. He was cold, and he felt pain and abandonment.”

“The best way to torture him was not to increase the severity of the cold, but to invite the man into a loving household. A safe space where he would be greeted with a campfire, hot food, and a pair of loving arms that would tell him all will be alright.”

“And once his heart was warm, it would all be ripped away from him, and he would be thrown back into the deep, dark cold.”

“I felt like I had taken a painkiller.”

“The parts of my soul that resided deep in the abyss were expunged and forgotten.”

“But now, that effect has worn off.”

1 - Withdrawal

“So, how’s his condition?”

The girl, who looked rather short, walked with great excitement - her mood a stark contrast to the gray and dimly lit dungeon-like maze she was exploring. The walls were made from large stone bricks, they were cracked and mossy. From a few spots on the ceilings of the dire hallways, cold drops of water slowly dripped down, bringing the cobbled paths below to a state of frenzy.

She had short blonde hair neatly assembled into a wolf cut and two small pigtails on the sides, and black make-up outlined her light blue eyes. She had clear, pale skin. Her dark gray hoodie faded in well with the environment.

“Lady Aizawa said that we should deploy him now.” The peer accompanying her said, his voice tired and drowsy. “She treats this as some type of experiment.”

The peer in question had a rather unique appearance - a black blindfold was sewn into his face. There were no signs of blood or any nasty scars, it looked as if he was born that way. And despite that, he could move around just fine. His slightly parted dark brown hair was victim to one of the cold droplets of water bombarding him from above. He wore basic dark clothes, neither he nor his comrade were required to carry combat clothing at that time.

“Because it’ll come into contact with him, right?” Katya laughed, finally reaching her destination. She reached into her hoodie’s pocket and grabbed a small silver key. With one swift motion, the intimidating dark blue gate was opened.

“He looks ready.” Nightseer said, although he sounded a little hesitant, even guilty.

“Lady Aizawa’s living the dream after the second global soul event.” Katya said, approaching the experiment.

“And yet, this one is the one she’s excited the most about.” Nightfall sighed.

“Of course.” Katya smiled, bringing her palm to the experiment’s face. “Not even she can predict what will happen. That tells a lot.”

So what was this experiment? It was a male, likely in his late teens. He had regular brown hair, if his eyelids were open, a pair of innocent brown eyes would reveal themselves. His lips were thin, and his ears looked a little small. That experiment was chained to the cold wall and rendered unconscious, his body was attached to all sorts of machinery, which looked very out of place in the dungeon-like environment.

At last, Katya decided to unlock the chains.

“Are you sure he won’t instantly attack us?” Nightseer asked.

“Oh come on, as if you won’t be able to deal with it.” Katya complained.

“It’s something we cannot control.”

“It is what it is.” Katya said. “Lady Aizawa’s orders. If he was a threat, she would unseal him herself.”

Nightseer sighed and operated the console, which made a few clicking and beeping sounds. The experiment opened its eyes. It was about to fall down, but Katya held it in place.

“Hey, hey..” She said, sounding a little scared. She had no idea what to expect. “You’ve been asleep for a while.”

“It says here that your name is Nacht.”

[OCTOBER 18TH, 2024. MOSCOW]

“Another rainy day...”

“At least it sounds nice.”

“I don’t like sunny weather. Not at all. What if I don’t want to be hot? The sun is necessary, but what if I don’t want it? I just get sweaty for no reason and it’s disgusting.”

The war’s end signaled the beginning of strange times. The first sign was the weather, cloudy days were getting cloudier, sunny days grew sunnier, and the night sky was more often pitch black. Perhaps it was a coincidence, and it most definitely was, but the fearful soulless masses ironically enough turned to superstition to find comfort.

After Dyeman’s excessively brutal execution, Kaito Kamiki was now in charge of the world. He installed his own regime and let his puppets do all the work related to the global economy or the many small-scale conflicts taking place. His attention was allocated to his personal goals.

The Heisei’s second division was resting, scattered around Europe. The spearhead was the same. It was widely accepted before the war that the Heisei was the strongest soulful combat group, but after recent events, it was cemented as an absolute powerhouse, a nigh unstoppable team.

The world had entered a strange calm phase. It didn’t feel calm, though, more like...it was imbued with an onslaught of emptiness and confusion. No one had acclimatized themselves with the new systems yet. For the average soulless, life didn’t change much. For the average soulful, however, which were the dormant soulfuls who were now significantly more common, things changed tremendously. Firstly, they were no longer being hunted down by the rest of the human population. Secondly, their opportunities, recognition and societal value increased drastically. Kaito began architecting a system that would favor those like him, while leaving the soulless behind, in the same predicament in which the soulless tried to trap the soulfuls in before the war.

But despite the peace in the world, there was a soul which was still at war. A soulful who had finally sobered up from an excruciatingly powerful painkiller...

“No idea why Mr. Kamiki even positioned me here...” Sakuto said to himself, resting on the windowsill of his modest but well-designed and comfortable hotel room. He lived in the heart of the city, per Kaito’s special request. He was to receive further information later, and it seemed that the time had finally come.

“It’s cold as-”

Sakuto’s phone rang. He grew a little anxious at first, but seemed relieved and careless when he realized it was only the most powerful soulful alive contacting him.

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“Sakuto Hitori? Can I discuss mission details with you?” Kaito said.

“Yes, I’m listening.” Sakuto yawned. He was picking his nails with his other hand, so much so that a few wounds emerged by his fingertips. It was just a small habit of his. He glanced at the roughly folded Heisei uniform hanging on a small wooden chair across the room, and glanced back out of the window, admiring the late night view with his empty eye. The colors were no more.

“It has to do with the Eura stronghold.” Kaito calmly explained. “During the war, it was taken by force by the Soulful Research Institute’s combat forces.”

“Interesting.” Sakuto said. “So who do I have to kill this time?”

“Be patient. Your task isn’t to kill, it’s to locate, and to take appropriate action. There is a person lurking around linked with an...entity of some sorts.”

“Right. Find and then kill. Got it.” Sakuto said.

“Please be patient.” Kaito repeated, a little annoyed. Still, his voice held that understanding and caring undertone, one he used while talking to all of his soulful comrades. “It is nigh impossible to get an agent into the stronghold, that is why we must resort to stealing information from them directly. Thankfully, one of my agents managed to deliver me special information at the expense of his life.”

“There is a soulful in your city that is believed to be some type of experiment. Your job is to locate the soulful. Keep into consideration that the soulful might not even be aware that they are a special threat.”

“Huh? That’s like finding a needle in a haystack-”

“There’s a university not far from where you are. There were reports of unusual, almost creepy soul presences sometimes sparking up there. I’ve enrolled you there, I picked the mathematical studies course since I thought you’d be sharp at numbers. You’ve been sent the schedule.”

“Wait, what?!” Sakuto was taken aback. “You’re...making me go to class? To uni?! I...I haven’t even finished high school yet...”

“That has been taken care of.” Kaito explained. ”You need to be just as well-disguised as he is. And that means you have to mimic a student as perfectly as you can.”

“Can’t I just lurk around the university and sniff him out that way?”

“Won’t work.” Kaito said. “The security there is strict, and there’s a chance that the stronghold’s own personnel will be monitoring the place.”

“No, you’re actually joking. You’ve...you’ve got to be joking. I’m not going to class. I’m not doing it.” Sakuto said in rapid succession.

“You’re a soldier, and a soldier must be ready to undertake any task.”

“Yeah, but...I...” Sakuto was at a loss of words.

“Besides, you’re the only one capable of carrying this out smoothly.” Kaito added. “You may be second to Jian Fang in your rank, but you are, without a doubt, the strongest fighter in the Heisei.”

“I understand...”

“Sakuto, I’m sorry if this proves to be painful to you personally.” Kaito said, and added before hanging up. “The target's name or codename is ‘Nacht’. I wish you the best of luck.”

Sakuto stared at his phone, put it away, and locked his eye onto the ceiling.

“Fuck...”

“Mathematics as well?” Sakuto thought, opening the schedule. “I guess I was good at it in school...in the earlier grades, at least. I aced everything without studying until I realized school wasn’t about grades, it was about the...”

“...people.”

He slowly got up and walked towards his closet, opening its dark brown wooden doors.

“I’m already feeling nauseous...”

“I guess I’ll figure something out to wear...and I’m joining halfway through the semester too, do I really gotta study? If I find the target fast enough, I shouldn’t be there for too long.” He said, skimming through his clothes which all looked very similar.

He then took a few steps back and slowly walked towards his bed, the pale white covers of which were roughly folded and crumbled, they looked as if they'd been chewed and spat out.

“The last fucking thing that I needed right now...and the first class starts early tomorrow. I better get some sleep...”

After quickly taking off his clothes, he decided to take a shower. He hadn’t done so in the past week, he was repulsed by his own lack of hygiene, but he didn’t really care about it. His body looked good, but some scars were still there. Some from the war, some from his fight with Jackal, and most importantly, his taste of ‘death’ - the stitched up scar on his chest. It hurt a little when he tried to wash them, but he had to nonetheless - it’d be an ugly sight if those wounds got infected. At least his eyepatch was good enough to protect his largest wound.

“Going to uni without an eye.”

“What now? What is everyone gonna laugh at me for?”

“Being a pirate? A cyclops? A broke loser who sold his eye for crack?”

The warm water caressed his body, but it wasn’t warm enough to stop Sakuto from experiencing a few shivers at times. Eventually, he’d gotten tired of it. He turned it off and went to bed, climbing into the bedsheets. He dried his hair and lay on his back, trying to fall asleep. After an hour or so of scrolling social media on his phone and getting disappointed by his lack of discipline, he finally fell asleep.

Despite it being a dream, he saw everything vividly, and even felt everything.

There were no longer any colors thrown over a grayscale canvas, there was the disappointing, colorless real world that was filled with colors but wasn’t colorful at all. It was night again, he couldn’t tell if he was in a dream or not. He was on a road, in between a half-destroyed building and a convenience store. He glanced at the road, feeling that something was missing.

He looked over and saw someone in the distance. The setting seemed familiar to him, but he reacted as if it were completely alien, as if it’s his first time watching a movie or reading a manga. He looked at that mysterious silhouette, hesitantly taking a step towards it.

“Oskar?”

He approached him more. He couldn’t make out anything in the background, but he felt the night, and the road, and the cold, the awful cold that devoured his body. His friend held a gun.

“There’s no point...” Oskar uttered, raising the weapon. He aimed it at Sakuto and fired it. The bullet went through, but Sakuto felt as if it phased through him.

“Oskar? Dude, what are you doing?” Sakuto approached him, but the distance didn’t change.

Oskar pointed the gun into his own mouth.

“There’s no point...”

“Oskar!” Sakuto yelled, the distance remained the same, his motions were rendered null and void by the road, and frozen by the night, and intimidated by the cold. He watched the bullet destroy his friend’s head, ripping through it like a sharpened nail rips through a flimsy wood plank. With perfect derail, just like what happened back then.

And he woke up. He didn’t scream or lose his breath, he just woke up. His eyes slowly opened, he even looked a little disappointed.

“No, Oskar is still alive. He’s alive and well. I talked to him today too.”

“But Stella and Ryan...”

He sat up on the bed.

“If my brain wants to forget about that shit so much, why does it keep showing me whatever that was?”

It was only now that he realized he’d gotten a little sweaty. He laid back down, holding onto his forehead with his hand. The ceiling looked a little blurry.

“And I gotta go to university tomorrow, for...classes...”

“Yeah...”

He chuckled a little, and soon, it evolved into a brief and tired laughter.

“Of course I do.”

“And of course I can’t get proper sleep. Of course I have to see that scenery again. And right now, I should’ve been next to Ichika, holding her in my arms, or maybe she’d hold me instead...yeah, I’d like the second option more...”

“Of course none of that is gonna happen.”

“I’ll go to class instead. I’ll have to be around people instead.”

“Yeah. Me, in a classroom full of other people.”

He laughed to himself until he eventually got tired and fell asleep.