But for Sako Hido...

Nothing felt normal anymore.

The words Subject 0, Specimen XIII, and the whisper he had heard in the darkness remained trapped inside his mind.

And yet, he had no time to think about them.

The next morning, a new mission order arrived.

---

Sako walked through an abandoned building alongside three P.S.A. operatives.

The mission appeared simple:

Find a group of infected people hiding inside the building and determine whether they had turned into monsters.

One of the operatives pointed toward the upper floor.

"There's movement up there."

Sako raised his gun.

"Stay here."

"Sako, wait—"

But he had already moved.

One step...

Then another...

Suddenly—

CRASH!

The ceiling collapsed.

A massive creature landed directly in front of him.

Sako quickly stepped back, but the creature's claw struck his side.

One blow.

His shirt was torn apart, revealing a deep wound across his abdomen.

Sako dropped to one knee.

"Sako!"

One of his teammates rushed toward him and opened fire on the monster.

But the creature didn't stop.

Sako slowly forced himself back onto his feet.

Blood began dripping onto the floor.

He looked down at the wound.

For a moment...

He felt nothing.

Then the pain began.

A sharp sensation spread throughout his entire body.

For the first time, Sako's expression changed.

"What... is this...?"

The wound began to close.

Slowly.

The blood vessels reconnected.

The torn flesh began to heal.

Even the bleeding stopped.

One of the operatives stared at him in shock.

"Your wound..."

Sako looked down at his abdomen.

The wound had completely disappeared.

But the pain...

It hadn't disappeared.

It became worse.

Sako collapsed onto one knee, clutching his chest.

His breathing became ragged.

Regeneration wasn't a blessing.

It felt as though his body was being forced to rebuild itself from within a fire that could never be described.

Then...

The pain suddenly vanished.

Sako slowly raised his head.

The monster was charging toward him.

Gunfire erupted.

The creature collapsed.

Silence filled the building.

One of the operatives cautiously approached him.

"Sako... what just happened to you?"

Sako slowly stood.

"I don't know."

But he knew one thing.

This had never happened to him before.

---

After the mission ended, Sako returned to P.S.A. headquarters.

Inside the monitoring room, Maya Asaski was reviewing the mission reports.

Sako's report appeared on her screen.

«Severe injury — Complete recovery within minutes.»

She froze for a moment.

Then slowly raised her eyes toward the door.

"Sako..."

Before she could finish—

A voice came from behind her.

"Maya."

She stopped.

Then turned around.

A man she had rarely seen before stood behind her.

A black suit.

Short gray hair.

And calm eyes that carried an unmistakable weight.

It was—

Muzaski Ushadi.

The head of the P.S.A.

His eyes moved toward the report in front of her.

"Give me the report."

Maya handed it to him.

He read it for several seconds.

Then said:

"Don't tell Sako what you read."

Maya's expression changed.

"Why?"

Muzaski closed the file.

"Because some things..."

He paused.

"...are better left unremembered."

Then he walked away.

Maya remained standing in the room.

She couldn't understand why the organization's leader was so interested in Sako's injury.

---

That evening.

Sako returned home.

He took off his jacket and placed his gun on the table.

Then he opened the refrigerator.

He stared inside for several moments.

"...Pizza."

Less than an hour later, he was sitting in front of the television, eating pizza while watching the news.

The news anchor was talking about the increasing number of infections in one of the surrounding regions.

Sako wasn't particularly interested.

Until an image appeared on the screen.

A P.S.A. laboratory had been suddenly shut down.

Sako stopped eating.

Then he remembered something.

The laboratory he had entered with Haro...

It carried the same symbol shown in the report.

But there was something else.

When he had been inside the laboratory, he had noticed a small number written on one of the walls.

00

Back then, he had assumed it was just an old number.

But now...

Everything was beginning to make sense.

Subject 0.

Specimen XIII.

His old experiments.

His regeneration.

Sako slowly lifted his eyes from the television.

"...Did they know?"

Silence filled the room.

Then he placed the slice of pizza back on the plate.

For the first time...

The question was no longer:

"What happened to me?"

It had become:

"How long have they known that I can regenerate?"

---

Somewhere else in the city...

Muzaski Ushadi stood in front of a screen displaying an old file.

A name appeared on it:

«SUBJECT 0 — SAKO HIDO»

And beneath the name...

A single line:

«REGENERATION CONFIRMED.»

Muzaski's lips curved into a faint smile.

"His body has begun to remember."