Yui didn't look at him, not directly. Her fingers rested on the folder—black leather now smudged with tears and dust—and her voice came soft, broken, almost like she didn't mean to say it aloud.
"Tell me everything."
Ren didn't move for a long time. Just sat there, hunched beside her on the cold floor, fingers curled into his knees like he was bracing against a storm no one could see but him.
Then, slowly, his voice came.
Like smoke from a crater that never stopped burning.
"I was nineteen when the GHU made me head of three classified programs. I thought I was saving the world. Maybe I just wanted to be a god."
His voice shook, but not with regret. With the bitter ache of remembering what you'd tried to bury inside your own bones.
"Project Gamma. Project Eclipse. Project Argwan. Each one designed to push the body and mind beyond anything natural. Each one more desperate than the last."
He closed his eyes, and the room seemed to darken with the weight of memory.
"It started with Gamma. They told me it was voluntary. That the kids we were taking in were 'orphans,' 'refugees,' 'unwanted.' Most of them were ten. Eleven. Maybe twelve. Black skin, small limbs, hollow eyes from war and starvation. Easy to forget. Easy to use."
Yui's breath caught.
Ren didn't stop.
"We injected them with neuro-serums that were never meant for humans. Watched their muscles rupture from the inside, eyes turn white as the brain tried to adapt. Some screamed until their throats split. Others just… went silent. Like their souls left before the body caught on."
He swallowed. There was no tremble in his voice now. Just the dull cadence of someone cataloguing a graveyard.
"We tested emotional suppression—made them watch their bunkmates suffer without reacting. If they flinched, they failed. If they didn't, we cut deeper."
Yui turned away, hand covering her mouth, but Ren kept going. The flashback had consumed him now. Time unraveling like a thread around his throat.
"Project Eclipse was worse. Mind control. We triggered pain centers in the brain until the subject broke. Then we rewired the reward system to associate obedience with relief. Eventually, some of them started begging to obey. Just to make the hurting stop."
He ran a hand down his face.
"Takeda was my partner back then. My best friend. We grew up in labs, both of us. Raised by war. He believed the kids were weapons. Thought I was weak because I hesitated. But I didn't care. We weren't getting results. None of them survived Stage Five. So I let him push harder. Let him burn through them."
Yui was crying again. This time not hiding it. Her shoulders curled in like she wanted to vanish.
But Ren had more. God help him, there was more.
"Then came Argwan. We tried to rewrite biology. Mix virus and instinct, make humans evolve faster than the Hollowing could consume us. We succeeded. For a moment."
He looked at her then. And in his gaze was the reflection of something monstrous.
"Mei was the first survivor. A hybrid. Stronger. Smarter. Hungrier. But something in her broke. She started… multiplying. Spreading. And we realized we'd made something worse than the disease."
His hands gripped his own skull now, knuckles pale.
"I wanted to quit. I almost did. Then I met your mother."
The shift in his voice wasn't soft. It was sharp. Like hope had once existed there, and remembering it now only hurt more.
"She was part of the logistics team. Not a test subject. Not at first. She was beautiful. God, she was alive. She made the labs feel human. She brought food to the test wards and stayed behind to read to the dying."
He looked at the ceiling, as if her memory hovered there.
"I loved her the moment I saw her. But GHU had other plans. They needed a control subject for the last Gamma experiment. I begged for time. I told them she wasn't viable. That her blood was wrong. I lied."
Yui's breath hitched.
"They gave me one year."
Ren's voice dropped to a whisper.
"But the staff didn't wait. They started harassing her. Touching her. Laughing about what they'd do when the order came. I snapped. Broke a man's jaw with a scalpel. Pinned another to a cryo-tank until his eye burst."
Yui flinched.
Ren didn't stop.
"They demoted me. Said I had one day to prove Argwan could work or I was finished. That's when I brought in Mei."
He paused. A crack, finally, in his armor. One that bled regret.
"I knew she was too far gone. I knew she'd spread. But I let it happen. Because I wanted out. I wanted it all to end."
The silence returned, heavy and absolute.
"And it did."
He looked at Yui. Really looked.
"The Argwans broke containment. The labs fell in hours. Takeda vanished. Mei escaped into the jungle. I took your mother and ran."
Yui stared at him, eyes wide with something beyond horror.
"She didn't remember?" she whispered.
"I wiped her mind," he said, voice brittle. "I used a neural flash eraser. Made her forget the projects. The labs. Me."
"And you married her?"
He nodded. "I told myself it was mercy. That she'd be happier not knowing."
"But she remembered."
"Six months later," he said. "She woke up screaming in the middle of the night. She remembered the children. Remembered me. She tried to kill herself. Then tried to kill you."
Yui gasped.
Ren's eyes glistened now.
"I stopped her. Held her hands while she screamed and begged me to let her die. I cried. I begged too. Promised I would bury everything. That we'd start over. I never touched a lab again."
He looked at her then. Just a man. Not a monster. Not a scientist. Just a man begging a ghost to forgive him.
"I loved her. And I love you. Not as subjects. Not as tools. Just… as my family."
Yui couldn't speak. The folder in her lap felt like a coffin. Her hands had stopped shaking, but only because something colder had taken root.
Ren looked down.
"I don't expect forgiveness," he said. "But I had to tell you. Before Takeda finds us. Before the Argwans find us. Before this ends again."
And in that moment—deep underground, in a forgotten room buried with horrors—Yui realized something terrifying.
There would never be peace. Not for her. Not for him.
But there could still be choice.
And maybe—maybe—that was enough
. Yui's sobs were soft, but they scraped something raw inside Ren. She knelt on the cold floor, her fingers still clutching that cursed folder—the past—as if letting go would tear her apart.
"I hate you," she whispered through her tears. "I hate that you're my father…"
Ren stood there, trembling. His shadow swallowed her in silence.
He closed his eyes.
"I know."
Then he moved.
It was fast.
A blur of motion, a fist clenched tighter than his chest ever had been. The dull thud of knuckles meeting skull echoed in the room like a cruel punctuation mark to everything unsaid.
Yui collapsed, her body limp, eyes wide for a moment in confusion before darkness claimed her.
Ren caught her before she hit the ground, cradling her as if that made any of it forgivable. His hand shook as he pulled a small black device from his coat pocket—smooth, metallic, embedded with a red-glowing dial.
He set it to -30 min, then pressed it to the base of her neck.
A soft hiss. A flicker of light.
Gone.
The memories of discovery, confrontation, and pain—evaporated like mist under sun.
Ren held her close for a moment, whispering into her hair like a man begging God for a second chance he didn't deserve.
"I'm sorry, Yui."
His voice broke.
"I wasn't strong enough to let you keep hating me…"