In a closed, dark room, a faint blue light from various holographic screens shone. On those screens were countless videos playing at the same time, all showing footage of a certain pair of teenage boys going through a slew of different activities – revving their motorcycles as they chased the ball; crossing deserts, blizzards, and jungles; even hopping through stars and asteroids. Meanwhile, sitting in front of the screens was but a single young man with a note and pen on his right and an empty can of energy drink on his left, his eyes glued to the events that transpired on the digital plane, scouring for any detail he could find.

The door to the room creaked open, sending the boy to a shock. As the lights in the room were turned on, a large figure of a burly man appeared.

“Cadet Fuuma?” Bruce asked in surprise. “What are you doing here this late at night? Aren’t you supposed to be in your school dorm or something?”

“I asked for a week off,” answered Yusei, still fixated on the series of screens.

“But… why?”

“Do you think that guy would leave me alone if he saw me at school?” Yusei grunted. “I need to prepare for the next time I fight him.”

Bruce could only widen his eyes in shock at the behavior of his temporary subordinate. Having fought with Zain for the longest time, this was the first time that he had seen anyone having such a burning fixation on him like so, not even himself. Looking at Yusei’s eyes, he knew. That was a gaze of borderline obsession, something that he could never hope, nor want, to achieve.

And it pissed him off.

In the end, the warden could do nothing but spit out a provocative taunt. “Are you that scared of him?”

“Of course I am.” Contrary to his expectations, Yusei simply nodded, his face as calm as a still river. “I said that I could best him, but it doesn’t mean that I would always win against him. And considering his abnormal growth, I could only imagine how much stronger he could get.”

Without anything to retort, Bruce could only click his tongue in annoyance. “Tch… Make sure to turn things off when you’re done! And don’t sleep in the monitor room! Use the rest lounge instead!”

“Duly noted,” nodded Yusei as his superior stormed out of the room with quaking stomps. However, as soon as the door was shut, the young man breathed out a sigh of relief:

“Okay, he’s gone…”

With a flick of his wrist, all of the screens disappeared, and another series of holograms took their place. Instead of the various video clips, the information shown was a plethora of files and logs, depicting the development of a certain humanoid project of the prison – one shrouded in secrets so much that it was kept away from most staff except for highly confidential roles.

“Project R.E.X…” Skimming through the log files, Yusei mumbled. “These logs are fine on their own, and the training regime is nothing out of the ordinary, at least according to his standards… But why? Dimensional ruptures can’t be the only reason…”

Going through another set of files, this time showing a giant map of the world along with various red spots, indicating their respective heatmap locations. Yusei flicked towards the right side of the map, then zoomed in their outer edge.

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“Aside from one big rift in England 8 years ago, there has only been a single other case for the last 10 years. Northeastern China, last year… the same day as the Infinite Prison breakout incident…”

Flicking back and forth through the series of incidents once more, Yusei continued to mutter:

“But if that’s the case, then even the biggest rift still would nowhere be near enough to cause any harm… The proof is that nine years have passed already, and there have been no other accidents than some rifts that can only be detected by specialized equipment, while only two of them were observable to the naked eye…”

Yusei switched to another log file with a swipe of his hand, this time revealing the mysterious individual from the first incident. However, there was no clear portrait, just a blurry image hastily taken and processed from a security robot’s hidden camera.

“Codename: Defect, the only criminal that we’ve failed to catch in the history of the World Government. And yet, the only one that we have no information about, aside from some basic features of their look. The World President himself gave this person their codename, and this is the only case where he would personally do so…”

As his mind wandered, Yusei reminisced about his past, when he was still a small child nine years of age. At a tranquil house in the depths of Japan’s mountainous regions resided a boy, whose talents were so stellar that he attracted the eyes of the one and only World President.

Yusei could still vividly remember that day, when he, for the first time in his years of training, was distracted. As the bamboo pole before him broke into pieces, the young boy failed to deliver the finishing blow, for he felt a choking presence behind him as if all the air in his body was squeezed out of his lungs. There he stood, a young man in his teens, whose half-and-half hairstyle of black and white only served to point him towards the position of a jester. However, his deep gaze straight into the young ninja-in-training’s heart was something that the latter could never get comfortable with.

As the boy gazed towards the teenager, the latter spoke:

“Keep going. Don’t mind me.”

“A bit late for that,” the boy annoyedly answered. As a candidate for the future heir of Fuuma, he was not supposed to be exposed to the outside world just yet. And so, he was not taught the most basic of manners, but the fact did not deter the young man one bit.

“Is this fun for you?” The young man continued.

“Fun?” asked the boy. “Why would I feel fun?”

“Then why are you doing this training?”

“Because it’s my duty,” answered the boy.

“But from what I know, your clan can have another one as heir, no? It’s not set in stone, after all.”

“That…” the boy hesitated. Even Yusei himself, even to this day, didn’t know why he would tell the young man what he told him, but there was a mysterious air to him that was… enchanting, to say the least. With just a word, the young shinobi, who had trained his whole life to be untrusting of others, ended up revealing just a tiny bit of his heart.

It was not much. Just a glance towards another house further away from the enclosed space, no less than a second’s glance. But it was plenty for the young man to notice, as a light grin formed on his face when he replied:

“I see, I see.” The young man gave out a nod of understanding. “Someone important, perhaps? A family member? A friend?”

“…None of your business,” the young Yusei scoffed, but within him arose a fear unlike any other. With just a look, the young man had already figured out almost all of his innermost thoughts, after all. But luckily for the boy, he stopped there.

“It’s okay. Having someone to fight for is a noble cause,” the young man, this time, let out a gentle smile, the kind that no one could think of as anything but an utmost pure heart.

Pausing for a second, he took a step forward and patted little Yusei’s head, to the slight dismay of the latter, and continued:

“As for me, I also have people I’d like to fight for.”

“Really? Who?” asked the boy. And to his surprise, the young man spread out his arms wide, as if to hold the entire sky:

“Everyone! A world without suffering, without conflict… A perfect world! That is my wish!”

When his mind returned to the present, Yusei let out a sigh:

“A ‘perfect world’… That’s what he said all those years ago. Even now, I still believe every word he said, even if he is no longer the lord I serve… Then this must be a ‘defect’ to his world; something, someone that’s not supposed to exist here. And there’s only one way for me to find out.”

Going through the files once more, Yusei finally copied the ones regarding the Course to another portable device in his hand.

It’s time to kick-start it once more.