His new sister, Misaki, yells that he is going to be late for school, since it is already seven thirty. He apologizes and says he will get ready, because for some reason he now lives as a student.
Misaki then stares at him with a worried look and calls him out for a serious talk. She says he has been acting weird ever since he fell down the stairs and hit his head. The girl also mentions that he came home late the day before, smelling like smoke. In his thoughts, he remembers burning the car to destroy the evidence.
His sister asks if he is hanging out with a bad crowd, and he starts panicking. Nervous, he makes up an excuse about a barbecue at a friend's house that ran until midnight, but she points out that he hates vegetables. He claims his tastes changed after the accident. He tries to talk his way out of it with a fake scientific explanation about his brain rewiring itself.
His sister stays silent, just staring at him with a very suspicious look. Not wanting to argue anymore, she tells him to come down for breakfast before it gets cold. As soon as she leaves, he sighs in relief and thinks his sister is way too smart.
He then reflects that, on the outside, his life seems perfectly normal now. But looking at the picture of his new family, he admits that none of it feels real. He wonders why his consciousness from seventeen years ago ended up in this body. He picks up the picture frame to get a better look at Kei's family, and concludes that he did not simply take over the body, because Kei's memories still live inside him.
It all started with a fall, ten days ago. Or at least that is what everyone says. He wonders whether the hit to his head brought back the memories of his past life.
In his room, the young man hears a notification sound coming from his computer. He decides to leave those questions for later, since he has something more important to do now. With a serious, focused look, he gets ready for the next phase of his plan.
Sitting at his desk, he puts on his headphones and starts working on his laptop. On a voice call, someone says the data analysis is complete.
The kid remembers the chip he took from Dahlia's coat after their fight. He recovered the item before getting rid of the evidence from that clash. In the operative's coat pocket he found something very unexpected. It was an antique pocket watch, hiding a data chip right inside it.
He praises how fast his contact worked, and the contact says he used all his resources. His hacker friend reveals that he was shocked to be contacted after more than ten years. But now that he knows Nightshade is around, and that Nightshade took out Dahlia, there is no doubt left.
Before handing over the data, the hacker asks him to answer a few questions. He recalls that seventeen years ago, Nightshade defied an order to eliminate a target and fell. So he asks how the legendary mercenary is still walking around after all this time, and also why he is showing his fangs to the organization once again.
Then the contact asks if all of this is because of the girl named Lily.
He reveals that after his defeat, the garden organization took the little girl. She was raised inside the syndicate as some sort of symbol. For seventeen years she was kept around as a showpiece for everyone. But behind the scenes she had absolutely no freedom, and lived like a captive. The hacker also mentions that he has heard rumors she was treated very poorly.
So he concludes that the reason for his return is to rescue Lily from the garden's grip.
With a sad look, the main character remembers the promise he made to that girl. Lily's innocent smile is the only thing that still pushes him to keep fighting. The hacker wonders aloud why an emotionless machine would do something like that, but he gets cut off. Nightshade reminds him of the rule about not sticking his nose where it does not belong, and the contact goes quiet.
The hacker gets the message and finally agrees to send the data he managed to pull. He reveals that the chip contained a list of Dahlia's next targets, and that one of the names was a young girl's.
With the intel in hand, Kei gets ready to move and put his plan into action.