Prologue

When one is asked about their childhood, they might respond with It was happy, or it was sad. honestly, there are hundreds of ways to describe it, if not thousands. One could describe a single birthday, or even a weeklong vacation. But for me, I don't have a story to tell.

Four years is the limit of my memories. When I was 12 years old, I had awoken in a hospital room with no knowledge of my past. I had for some reason remembered my name, but that was it. I couldn't say where I was, or where I was from. You could probably imagine a lost child in a crowd, who had long forgotten what his family looked like and therefore could not return to that familiar, loving warmth. That was me, a lost child, a lost child stranded to find his own way in the world.

After waking up, I spent around two months in the hospital room receiving medicine and daily checkups. I had seen many different doctors during my stay, some tall, some short, some male, and some female, but no matter which one did my many exams, the result would always end up the same. Nothing they had tried worked, and I could possibly, and most likely never regain my lost memories.

Upon my release from the hospital, I had been invited to live with an older man who had claimed to be the one who had found me. I had asked him about myself, more specifically, about my accident, about what he knew regarding the events of finding me. All the man did was give me a warm smile and respond with how he found me laying off the bank of a river near his mountain cabin.

Other than the man's mountain cabin as a location, I had not a single shred of knowledge as to what I could do to discover my lost past. That being known, I tried my best to move forward in this new life, while still keeping the search for my past in my sights.

The name of the man that came to be my guardian was Fujiwara Isahito. Fujiwara Isahito was a doctor and a professor, but he had always told me that he was a doctor first and foremost. For that reason, I started to call him Doc. I had recognized Doc before I came to live with him, as he did occasionally stop by my hospital room during the days that I had been there, and I came to think of him as a father figure.

Although I did not know how a father would act, Doc had treated me well and would tell me stories about his past. He would cheer me up and help me see the good in the future since I was unable to dwell on past memories like him. For these reasons and many more, I deemed him worthy of the title Father Figure.

I don't know the reason that Doc had decided to accept me into his household, whether because he was the one that had found me, or because he felt bad about the position I was in, or any other reason that he might have thought of, I was truly grateful.

When Doc had brought me into his home for the first time, I was extremely surprised at the residence that he had owned and lived at. Doc had said that he also owned a mountain home in Japan's rural forest region, which was where I had been found, and a few city homes in Tokyo and other cities around Japan, but he then continued to list off a couple other places around the world that he had homes at. I honestly don't know how he could remember them all, but maybe that's because of my amnesia, or the fact that I had thought about him having a large keyring with dozens of front door keys dangling.

Of all his different residences, the one that we had occupied was an ocean view mansion outside of Chiba Prefecture. Doc's grandson, Isami Fujiwara, had also lived here alongside me. Coincidentally, we were around the same age and had gotten along really well. We attended the same middle school, and eventually continued into high school, managing to be in the same classroom through it all.

During middle school, Isami had brought out an unknown talent of mine, one that I didn't know whether I should pursue or cast away. The talent that I had stumbled upon, or perhaps I had accessed a hidden memory from my past, well, I'm not sure if It was related to then, or just something I was naturally good at, anyways, the new talent I had discovered, the new skill I had added to my refreshed character's skill tree was a technique that had allowed me to be extremely sly, and surprisingly good at taking things, or in the correct language for that nature, stealing. It was not that I had randomly taken other people's stuff, I had just started with getting us free lunch passed or change for vending machine drinks.

After the discovery of this new ability of mine, I was extremely excited, mainly for the fact that it could have found out something about my past. Although that was a possibility, I had always considered that it was something new that had nothing to do with my past, and for that I hadn't gotten my hopes too high on the return of partial memories.

Now Doc had no idea of the little devils that he had living in his home, and I had never once considered taking anything of his because he had given me everything I had ever needed. If anyone had suspected us of stealing lunch passes or sneaking change from other students, I think Doc would be disappointed in what we had become. In fact, I often wondered why we even bothered doing this kind of thing when all we had to do was ask Doc for some school money, I mean the guy had so much money they I'm sure he couldn't spend it all.

Isami had told me that the point of us stealing was the thrill of it all, and I won't lie, it was exhilarating. Isami had worked on setting up his own set of skills using the premise of counterfeiting. With plenty of practice, we were finally able to make copies of paintings.

With Isami continuing to practice his counterfeit art, we had been able to switch out some of the school's paintings with his fake paintings. We did all of this just to switch the real ones back to their original place as good practice. We were truly becoming good at these bad deeds, and we were proud of it.

Eventually we had started switching art museum paintings for Isami's counterfeits. Instead of returning the original paintings, we had decided to keep the real paintings that we had stolen and thought about selling them to start our own little cash stockpile, although we didn't really need such things since we lived with someone as rich Doc.

Isami had learned to not only counterfeit, but he also had gotten good at searching the internet and breaking into government files for information on our targets and their hidden notes including their security layout.

With our skills becoming even better, Isami and I had occasionally started skipping class in our addiction to stealing paintings and replacing them with counterfeits, and recreating sculptures till there was no faults that we could find. Life was good for us, and we had managed to never get caught during our crimes, and if our counterfeits had faults, they would be found out after we were long gone.

Even with doing our crimes in the backdrop, our school life was decent since we pretty much attended by choice. Our friend circle was pretty much unchanging since didn't keep close relationships other than with each other. Isami had always flirted with girls and tried to get a date, but for some reason he had a hard time keeping conversation with the girls after the initial "Hello" and "What's your name?". The reason for his lack of communication skills was probably because he had lived most of his life as a loner until I came to live with him. I had thought about trying to get a girlfriend a few times as well, although my unknown past led me to decide against it. I had decided on my own that I wouldn't get into a personal relationship until I had found out about my past, and who I was before my amnesia.

******

Today was August 24, 2027. The end of summer break was nigh, and life was at an all-time high, well, at least it should have been. My week had been rather slow in a sense because I had not done anything in particular.

I seriously need to find another hobby. I thought, as I walked through a mall not far from where I live. The mall that I was walking through had been very busy throughout the summer, and today was no different. On boring days like this, I just randomly strolled through stores looking at books, or games, or clothing, honestly, I wasn't too picky on what to look at, as long as it gave me something to do. Right now, though, I had decided to look at some new clothing since the seasons were changing.

Isami had been trailing behind me as we walked, but I had left him behind in a bookstore when he started reading a book titled "How to Get a Girlfriend in 5 Easy Steps". He had initially wanted me to read through it with him, but I wasn't particularly intrigued by the first few sentences, and although the book said, "5 easy steps", it was as thick as a full-length novel. How is that possible? Like seriously, five easy steps explained in 250+ pages… I don't think so. That is unless they are trying to explain five easy steps to some guy with barely any brain cells. Well, with Isami's personality, that could fit the description… really, I'm not trying to be mean.

I walked into a store with a neon, illuminated sign displaying the name Fresh Fits. The store known as Fresh Fits had a large window, showcasing five or so mannequins, both male and female, wearing summer themed outfits. Summer break was ending, and it was going to start getting colder, but I guess this place hadn't decided to change their outfit selection till autumn was really near.

The inside of the store was rather small, in fact, there was probably room for no more than fifteen people to look at the clothing racks comfortably. When I had entered the store, the were maybe eight others, so it wasn't too crowded. I went past the swimsuits and to the back of the store where the casual clothing was displayed. I suppose the swimsuits were up front to catch the attention of passing shoppers with hopes that they'd stop in, and it obviously worked since the around eight other shoppers had all been looking at swimsuits, despite summer almost being over.

I let out a short sigh as I stared at two racks inside of the brightly lit store. I can't decide between this style and that one. I looked between the two racks trying to picture what I would look like in either, I mean they were both nice looking and I could see myself in either, plus I could try them on in the changing stall, but there's always something that makes the decision hard. It's sort of like picking between two girls that you could date: one being extremely attractive, but you don't have anything in common with, and the other being less attractive but you get along together like it was meant to be. That kind of choice.

I continued to stare at the two racks............…

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of contemplation between the two styles, an employee had come to help my decision further along. Or perhaps the manger was tired of me staring at two racks of clothing for who knows how long and sent an employee to help. Either way, one had arrived.

"Excuse me, sir, can I help you with something?" Asked a young female employee, who looked to be in her late teens, possibly in college.

"Uhhhh… possibly… but actually, I don't think so." I shook my head in denial. It was true that I was having trouble choosing a style to buy, but I don't think that this is something for an employee to do. Wait, actually. "Actually, you might be able to help me."

The employee girl smiled. I continued.

"I'm having trouble picking between these two styles, they're both nice, but I don't know which I want."

The employee girl picked up a shirt from each of the two racks, held them up to my chest, then switched them back and forth a few times, comparing them. The employee smiled and handed me one of the shirts. "This one matches your eyes."

I smiled and accepted the shirt that the girl had handed me, then continued to take the rest of the shirts off the rack that the employee girl had chosen for me. After taking all of the shirts off of the rack, I followed the girl to the register where I paid for the shirts that I had picked out, or more correctly, she had picked out.

The girl reached for a pen that was next to her checkout display and started to write on a receipt she had printed for me. After accepting the receipt, I looked at what she wrote. I could feel my cheeks pull into a grin as I read the words "Call Me" with a phone number written underneath. The young employee girl gave me a wink as she used her thumb and pinky finger to gesture a phone while I read the note. I smiled to the girl who had given me her number and raised my hand in a wave as I left the store.

After leaving the stores view, to where the employee could not see me, I silently apologized to the young girl and ripped up the receipt that had her phone number on it and walked off to find Isami.

******

Meanwhile, at a construction site.

The construction site was newly in the process of being developed. As of this time, there had barely been any buildings standing on the large dirt covered space, just the work machinery, and quite a few piles of rubble from what had stood there before.

What used to stand in that space was a six-story apartment building. The apartment building had not been in terrible shape, actually it was still in rather good condition for the age. Due to there being many other apartment buildings in the vicinity, it was decided that this one would be torn down and replaced with a tiny department store.

Amid the piles of rubble stood a tall man, he was of a muscular stature, and the impression he gave off was calm, yet like that of a wild beast.

He looked like someone who you wouldn't want to cross the wrong way, or you would seriously regret it, someone that would bare his teeth and tear you up just to put you back together and tear you up again. And although he gave off that impression, he had the hardened face of one who understands, one who knows justice. He was the Director of an organization known as CIMEDE.

CIMEDE was an organization whose main location was in Japan's Tokyo prefecture, yet smaller branches created by CIMEDE agents who had started their own business had popped up around the world.

The CIMEDE organization was well known for its fierce mercenaries that had been trained for all sorts of combat situations. In fact, three years prior, in the year of 2024, chaos had erupted all over the world and nearly ended in a catastrophic event that would've been known as World War III.

The war that had broken out and would've laid waste to the world, had started with a couple of the large military powers sending nuclear missiles as their first attack, this had brought panic and fear to the entire world. News broadcasts had shown footage of the missile's launch and their path of destruction, which helped produce an accurate crash site. With the warnings out, civilians had started to evacuate from the missile's path, and yet nowhere seemed far enough away, or felt like one could sleep in peace and ease.

After two countries had simultaneously sent nukes at each other, the organization that is now known as CIMEDE was brought to light. An unknown group had boarded supersonic fighter jets, and disarmed the nuclear weapons in midair, causing the large capsules to collide with the earth causing slight property damage, but no explosion of any size had erupted.

Since the paths of the missiles were being broadcasted across all news channels, and all sorts of social platforms and popular video sites were erupting with videos of the events of the upcoming war, it soon became widely known that the unknown group that had stopped the nuclear missiles and slowly helped rebuild the world's broken relations was an organization known as CIMEDE.

CIMEDE's abilities were acknowledged, and they became known as the world's leading group of military power, with weapons and technology so advanced that the rest of the world could only dream of reaching in 20-30 years. Treaties were made with many countries, and CIMEDE Academy was built. The new academy was a special school that trained their students in the necessary tactics to defend against threats to Japan itself, along with assisting other countries with dangerous threats, and keeping the world at a steady peace. Although that's what it looked like from the outside, CIMEDE had hidden the fact that they secretly fight a darkness that was unknown to the rest of the world.

Once a student graduated from CIMEDE Academy, he would receive an official certificate with a badge and ID declaring him as a Civil Mercenary Detective, or CIMEDE for short. The CIMEDE agent was then able to create his own agency branch in his chosen location where he would work to protect the civilians and areas in his jurisdiction.

The muscular director of CIMEDE had walked around the construction site for the past few hours using an advanced device that his leading professor in research had constructed for locating a particular item of unknown origin, but he was having no such luck in finding the thing in question. The director reached for his phone and called a certain number.

"Hello, this is Uemichi, it doesn't look like the Shard of Polaris is here… Yes, I'm sure… Of course… I'll bring you the results of my search when I get back to my office…" The director put his phone back in his pocket, and headed out of the construction site, and towards the red sports car that was parked in a nearby parking lot.

******

The Japanese Historical Museum of Worldwide Artifacts had opened a new exhibit the night before. A short, bald man wearing round corrective lenses, and a beige suite, opened a crate that had just been unloaded from his delivery truck.

"This thing is truly mysterious, in fact, we haven't been able to accurately pinpoint the date in which it was created. It was stolen many years ago, and even the records we have received from then don't give exact details on what this thing is. It will go perfectly in our new exhibit."

The short man stared inside the crate, and what lay inside was a cone shaped artifact of unknown origin. The artifact in question had what looked like ancient language inscribed around the base, and the cone itself almost seemed to glow.

"What is it called?" asked the truck's delivery driver noncommittally, as if just trying to make an ounce of conversation, as he took back his clipboard from the short man who had just finished writing his signature.

"It's something called the Shard of Polaris" responded the short man as he turned his gaze back to the crate.

******

After wasting a couple of hours in the mall, I had met up with Isami, who was coincidentally still inside the bookstore, and we were finally returning home, both bearing luggage from our recent travels to the land known as The Mall.

"Yoho Keisuke, I spent the last couple hours reading over these books, and they're amazing! Teehee." Said my friend Isami in an extremely cheerful mood, as he raised the shopping bag in his right hand.

When in the mall, I had left Isami in a bookstore where he started reading dating advice books or something along that line, until I had returned to the same said bookstore a couple of hours later. When I had returned, he was reading a different book, which I was relieved of, until I saw the title of the new book. "Need Help Getting a Girlfriend? I Got You." That was the name of the books Isami had been reading when I returned to the store, and apparently, it was the fifth book he had purchased. Now I had bought more than five items, but they were shirts… not dating tutorial novels, like seriously, they were novel length tutorials.

"I think I'd get more help and experience from a Rom-Com light novel, and if that didn't help with love, I'd at least enjoy my reading session." I response in turn to my friends excited statement. It's not like I'm trying to be mean to Isami or complain about his choice in books, but I think he would have more of a chance with girls if he didn't read those novel length tutorials.

I looked my friend in the face and gave him a mischievous grin. "I got a girl's number today."

"Wa…haa…wa…heeee… whaaaaattttttt...!!!" Weird noises escaped from my friend's mouth as he started to shake my shoulders. "Was she hot? Was she wearing something skimpy? Did she have a hot friend?" Isami's full burst assault of questions hit me dead on.

"Geez, quit shaking me… and quit drooling, you're old enough to not act like that. Or you should be…"

"........." Isami straightened back up, and wiped his mouth, trying to look normal again. "Dearest Mr. Saburi, Haven't you the kindest thought to share that beautiful mistress' number with such a kind gentleman as myself?"

"I threw it out…" I said, revealing the truth of the cruel deed done to the beautiful young store employee.

"............…" Isami stared into my eyes at pointblank range. "YOOUUUU SOONNNNN OOOFFF A BIIITTTCCCHHHHHH!!!!" Isami yelled as he grabbed my collar starting to shake me violently.

I started laughing, and we walked forward, continuing our childish bantering all of the way until we arrive at Doc's ocean view estate.

Me and Isami walked in the front door, still holding our shopping bags. "Doc, we're ba———" I started to shout before I was cut off by the scene that lay before me.

What I saw upon opening the front door was a complete mess. Tables and chairs were overturned, broken chips of glass and porcelain from fallen vases were showered across the front hall. Dirt and broken plant leaves and roots from inside said vases lay atop the flooring and picture frames hung limply from one corner along the walls of the hallway.

"What the hell happened here?" I mouthed the phrase, and I looked around, shocked, and mouth agape.

Isami however immediately dropped his bags with the books inside and ran for the staircase. "Grandpa!" He shouted.

I watched as Isami ran up the rounded staircase. Was this a robbery? When did this happen? Actually, why did this happen? I started to choke on my questions as I hesitatingly walked throughout the downstairs since Isami took the upstairs. Everywhere I looked was a mess, there was nothing but broken decor and overturned furniture

I was trying my best to contain my emotions, I felt like I was on the brink of tears, and it made total sense to me. Doc was the only person that could be considered a parent to me, he was the first one that had given me a place to belong, he was… he was… he was my father… I clenched my teeth enough to hear them scrape, and when I looked down, I noticed that my hands, as well, were clenched tightly. DAMN IT!

Doc's laboratory was at the basement level, and that basement also served as an underground bunker. If anything was to happen, I know that we would be safe as long as we stayed down below. Doc had created that impenetrable bunker, and I believe that if he was in trouble, he would go there. I unconsciously stumbled towards the basement door, praying that Doc was down there.

When I arrived at the basement door, I saw another figure. It was my friend, Isami, he must have come to the same conclusion as me since we both had arrived at that basement, bunker door.

Isami was restlessly trying to type in the security code with his shaking fingers, and although we both knew the basement's security pin by heart, he was pressing the wrong numbers as he tried to keep his trembling hand still.

After the third or fourth go at it, Isami had gotten the pin correct, although since he had typed in the wrong pin multiple times, Doc's security had entered a sort of autopilot mode making it even tougher to get downstairs. After passing through the multiple layers of security that we had to pass through, due to Isami having typed the wrong security pin multiple times, me and Isami had finally reached the lowest level.

"!!!!!!!!!" I stared at what was in front of me, it was the bunker's main area, but that wasn't what caught my attention. What had gotten me so shocked was the handprint that was smeared down the wall to the basement backdoor. It wasn't just any handprint, this one had reeking of iron, and was crimson in color…Doc...

I looked over and saw Isami clenching his teeth. I had never seen him like this before, but from what I had heard from Doc, his parents had died in a vehicle accident and that's how he came to live with his grandfather. That meant that Isami had considered Doc a sort of parent, same as I did. I reached my hand to Isami's shoulder, but he pushed it away.

Isami had started to look around in the exit area where the blood had been smeared, and I tried to help while keeping my distance for now. The basement's backdoor was kind of like an AC duct but was made of a very sturdy material. The duct led to some devices that Doc had never let me use before, so I wasn't sure what they were exactly, but I'm sure they are probably some form of escape pod.

I started to follow Isami inside the duct, but before I could even bring half of my body inside, Isami had abruptly stopped, causing me to slam into his rear. "Why'd you stop?"

"I'm coming out. l found something"

I followed Isami's movements and started to crawl out of the duct backwards. I brought myself out of the duct and found a place to sit at a reinforced steel table inside the basement's main area. I looked at Isami who had been staring at something in his hands.

"What is it?" I asked in curiosity.

Isami had pulled a chair up to the steel table that I was sitting on and slid what he was holding over to me. "It's the only thing we have to go on. I called Grandpa when I was upstairs, but no ring. If this has something to do with his disappearance, then we have to follow this lead." Said Isami

I looked at what Isami had slid over to me. It was paper, a torn page from something. The page almost looked like it was ripped diagonally from the top right corner to the bottom left corner, and along with the bloody fingerprints was the words "I'm okay boys, don't worry about me and don't try and find me." I looked up towards Isami, who was grinning in satisfaction.

"I don't get it; he says he's safe and we shouldn't try to find him. I don't get it, how it that a lead on where he went?" I was genuinely confused; I mean how did Isami consider this a lead?

Isami who seemed to be grinning, and no longer in a bad mood since finding out that his grandfather was still alive and kicking revealed his revelation. "That paper looks like it was torn off of something that Grandpa was carrying, probably from his journal, or a notebook. I don't know if he was in a hurry to leave the note and accidentally ripped the wrong page but look on the backside. Teehee."

I flipped the torn page over and saw what was on the other side. It was half of a rough sketch showing what looked like a cone, and some writing that I couldn't understand completely, due to it only being a half page, there was however something that I could make out from the torn page.

I looked at the words that were eligible, and then announced to my partner in crime, and best friend, with a smile of complete confidence. "Looks like we do have a lead, let's find out all we can on something called the Shard of Polaris."