Chapter 187: Who Am I?

Nobody stepped backward.

A loose piece of metal fell from the upper shelf. The men looked toward the sound.

Nobody used Zig Zag Teleportation. He disappeared.

The first man reached the container. There was nothing. "There’s no one here."

"Search properly."

They spread out.

Nobody reappeared above them on a steel beam. He watched.

They were nervous. Not trained soldiers. Not ordinary criminals either. Their movements were coordinated. Someone had trained them.

Nobody silently activated CC Eyes again. The cameras around the warehouse appeared. Four feeds. One office, one entrance. Two main-floor cameras. Then he noticed something strange. The office camera was pointing toward the wrong direction. Someone had deliberately moved it.

Nobody’s eyes narrowed. He looked toward the office.

There was something inside. He teleported.

The world shifted. Nobody appeared inside the small office without making a sound.

Dust covered the desk. Old files were stacked against the wall. A broken monitor sat in one corner. He searched quickly. There was nothing. Then he noticed a loose floorboard.

Nobody crouched. He lifted it. A small metal box was hidden underneath. "Found you."

The System immediately appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Hidden Object Detected]

Encrypted Storage Device

Origin: Daniel Cross

Condition: Damaged

Security: Unknown

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody picked it up. "So this is what they want." He looked toward the warehouse floor. The three men were still searching. Nobody smiled. "Too bad." He slipped the device into his coat.

Then he heard a voice. "Looking for something?"

Nobody froze. The voice had come from behind him. He turned. Nobody was standing in the doorway. A tall figure was leaning against the frame.

Black coat. Black gloves. Face hidden beneath a half-mask. The figure looked at Nobody calmly. "You’re not one of them."

Nobody stared. "Neither are you."

The figure smiled. "Good observation."

Nobody didn’t move. "Who are you?"

"That isn’t important."

"It usually is."

The figure stepped into the room. "You’ve been interfering with things you don’t understand."

Nobody’s eyes narrowed.

"People keep saying that to me."

"Perhaps you should listen."

"Perhaps you should stop hiding your face."

The stranger laughed quietly. "You haven’t changed."

Nobody’s expression immediately became serious. "What did you say?"

The figure seemed to realize he had revealed something. For a brief moment, silence filled the room. Then the stranger looked directly into Nobody’s eyes. "You really don’t remember, do you?"

Nobody felt something inside his chest tighten. A strange sensation passed through his mind.

A flash.

A distant road, rain. Someone calling his name. A woman’s voice. Then it vanished.

Nobody grabbed the edge of the desk. "What..."

The stranger stepped backward. "Interesting."

Nobody recovered quickly. "Wait."

The figure turned.

Nobody activated Zig Zag Teleportation. He appeared directly in front of the stranger.

The stranger reacted immediately. A black wave burst from his hand.

Nobody crossed his arms. The force pushed him backward. He slid across the floor. His boots scraped against the concrete.

"Not bad."

Nobody straightened. The stranger disappeared.

Nobody’s eyes widened. "Teleportation?"

No. Something felt different. The stranger hadn’t teleported. He had distorted the space around himself.

Nobody immediately activated CC Eyes.

Every camera feed flickered. The stranger’s presence appeared on three different cameras simultaneously. Then all three feeds went black.

Nobody stared at the darkness.

The System appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[WARNING]

External Reality Distortion detected.

Intensity: Moderate

Source: Unknown

Classification:

Higher-being interference

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody stared at the message. "Higher-being..."

Before he could finish, a loud crash came from the warehouse floor.

The three men had discovered the office. "Someone’s in here!"

Nobody looked toward the doorway. The masked figure was gone. "Damn." He jumped from the office window. As he landed on the warehouse floor, the three men spotted him.

"There!" One of them immediately charged.

Nobody ducked. A fist passed above his helmet. He grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted. The attacker stumbled. Nobody kicked his leg away and sent him crashing against a wooden crate.

The second man attacked from behind. Nobody turned. Super Reflexes activated. His body moved before his mind finished processing the attack. He avoided the punch, caught the man’s arm, and redirected his momentum. The man fell heavily onto the floor.

The third man froze.

Nobody looked at him. "Want to continue?"

The man reached for something inside his jacket.

Nobody sighed. "You really chose the wrong answer." He stepped forward.

The man’s hand came out holding a small device. Nobody’s eyes immediately locked onto it. The device wasn’t a weapon. It was a transmitter.

The man pressed a button. The warehouse lights suddenly turned off. Darkness swallowed everything.

Nobody smiled. "Night Vision." His vision changed.

The three men were moving toward the emergency exit. Nobody could have stopped them. But he didn’t.

Instead, he watched where they were going. Because he had already placed a tiny tracking mark on one of them.

The System confirmed it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Tracking Mark Applied]

Duration: 30 minutes

Target location will remain visible.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody let them escape. He had something better than three captured criminals. He had a destination. He looked down at the metal storage device in his hand. "Daniel..." He turned toward the broken office. "What exactly did you discover?"

Blossom Bunny floated beside him. "Atta ta."

Nobody glanced at her. "You want to know too?"

The bunny nodded enthusiastically. "Atta!"

Nobody sighed. "Fine."

He placed the device into his System inventory. "Let’s go."

.....

Meanwhile, across the city, Toma sat beside her bedroom window. She had been trying to sleep. But she couldn’t. She kept thinking about Nobody.

Not the notebook, not Eclipse, not even Daniel. Only about Nobody. She couldn’t understand it. Every time she looked at him, something inside her felt strangely calm. It wasn’t normal. She had known him for some time now, but the feeling seemed older than their relationship.

Toma closed her eyes. Then she saw something.

A field. Golden flowers moving beneath the wind. Someone was standing in front of her.

A young man. She couldn’t see his face clearly. But she knew him. She knew him better than anyone. Her heart suddenly tightened. "Who are you?"

The figure turned. Before she could see his face, the dream shattered. Toma woke up.

She was breathing heavily. Her room was dark. She placed a hand against her chest. "Why do I keep seeing that?"

She didn’t know. But one thing was certain. The person in her dream felt exactly like Nobody.

Nobody landed on a rooftop. The tracking mark was moving through the city. He followed.

One teleport. Then another. The marked target eventually reached an underground parking structure. Two vehicles were waiting.

Nobody crouched on a nearby building. He watched the men enter the first vehicle.

The second vehicle remained empty. Then someone stepped out from the shadows.

Nobody’s eyes narrowed. It was the same masked figure. The stranger looked directly toward the rooftop. For a moment, Nobody wondered whether he had been detected.

Then the stranger raised one hand.

A black distortion spread through the air. A voice reached Nobody despite the distance. "You’re getting closer."

Nobody stood.

The stranger continued. "But the closer you get..." His mask reflected the moonlight. "...the more you will remember."

Nobody’s expression hardened. "Remember what?"

The stranger smiled. "Who you were."

The distortion expanded.

Nobody’s vision blurred.

For a fraction of a second, the rooftop disappeared. He saw a completely different place. A young woman standing beneath a tree. Her eyes were filled with tears. Someone was holding her hand.

Then a voice whispered:

"I’ll find you again."

Nobody’s heart stopped for a moment. The vision vanished. He was back on the rooftop. The stranger was gone.

Nobody stood motionless. His hand slowly tightened.

"I’ll find you again..."

He repeated the words quietly. "Why did they feel so familiar? Why did hearing them hurt?"

The System appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Memory Disturbance Detected]

Cause: Unknown

Current memory integrity: Stable

Warning:

Do not force memory recovery.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody stared at the message.

He simply looked toward the empty street. Somewhere in this world, there was an answer.

About Daniel. About the strange reality distortion. About the masked stranger.

And perhaps...About Toma.

Nobody turned toward the moonlit skyline. "I’m going to find out."

Far away, the masked figure stood inside a dark vehicle.

One of the men from the warehouse sat across from him. "Did he take the device?"

"Yes."

The masked figure smiled. "Good."

The man looked confused. "You wanted him to take it?"

"Of course."

"Why?"

The masked figure looked out the window. "Because the device isn’t merely evidence."

He touched the side of his mask. "It was just an excuse to talk to him."

The vehicle began moving. "And I guess he remembered some part."

Above the city, Nobody stood alone. He didn’t know it yet.

But the moment he talked to that stranger...he had stepped into something that had been waiting for him long before he ever became Nobody.

The city slowly returned to its usual rhythm. Cars moved beneath the streetlights. Buildings stood quietly against the night sky. From a distance, Alkon City looked peaceful.

Nobody knew better. Nobody remained on the rooftop long after the masked figure disappeared.

The words continued to echo inside his head.

I’ll find you again.

He didn’t know where they came from. He didn’t know who had said them. And he certainly didn’t know why hearing them had caused something inside him to ache.

Nobody rubbed his forehead.

"Seriously...what is happening to my brain lately?"