The night after Caius's exposure was unnervingly silent.
Too silent.
Reo sat alone in his high-rise office, the lights of Tokyo flickering beneath him. The thunderstorm brewing outside cast brief flashes of white light across the floor-to-ceiling glass. The headlines were still spinning, the news cycle bleeding with talk of corruption, bribery, and unethical media influence. Caius's name was everywhere—for all the wrong reasons.
But Reo couldn't shake the feeling in his gut.
Caius hadn't retaliated.
Not yet.
And a snake like him? He wouldn't go down screaming. He'd slither into the dark, strike when it hurt most.
Kaito entered the room without knocking, eyes tense behind his thin-framed glasses. "We've got something."
Reo turned, instantly alert. "Talk."
"Not Caius, at least not directly. But one of our financial networks just suffered a breach."
Reo's eyes narrowed. "Which one?"
"Azure Vault."
Reo stood up sharply.
Azure Vault was one of his private financial storage accounts—deep offshore, hidden behind layers of corporate smokescreens and AI-managed dummy firms. The only people who even knew about its existence were Reo and two trusted financial architects in his inner circle.
"I want the trace logs," Reo said.
"Already sent to your tablet."
Within seconds, Reo was scrolling through the data. The breach hadn't targeted the funds themselves—it had been a probe. A sophisticated one, not brute force. More like a message.
Someone was looking for a weakness.
Reo's jaw clenched. "He's not striking my company anymore. He's going for me."
---
The next morning, a firestorm ignited.
Social media exploded with documents that appeared to be leaked chat logs and transaction records—ones that falsely painted Reo as a manipulator of financial systems, using AI bots and insider trading to rig the game. Fabricated, no doubt. But convincing enough to spark outrage.
The story spread faster than truth ever could.
#CancelReo trended worldwide.
His PR team scrambled, news outlets were hounding his headquarters, and investors who had just begun to regain confidence were now turning pale with fear.
"Caius is framing you," Kaito muttered, watching one of the broadcasts.
Reo was silent, eyes locked on the screen. "He's not trying to destroy me."
Kaito looked at him. "What do you mean?"
Reo turned. His voice was like steel.
"He's trying to isolate me. Turn everyone against me. Discredit me so thoroughly that no matter how much truth I hold, no one listens."
Aika entered the room, holding a folder. "We confirmed the source of the leaks—someone posing as an ex-employee. They planted fake internal memos. But here's the twist—this person doesn't exist in any of our databases. Facial scans from the press conference match a girl who died five years ago in Hokkaido."
Reo's eyes sharpened.
"A ghost."
"No..." he whispered. "A phantom."
Caius had leveled up his game.
---
For days, Reo became a walking target. Old classmates from Nobita's life—Dekisugi, Gian, Suneo—whispered behind his back. Even Doraemon, while loyal, looked uncertain as rumors reached even their school corridors.
"You really didn't do it, right?" Doraemon asked quietly one day in the attic.
Reo didn't get angry.
He just sat down beside the robotic cat and said, "You know me better than that."
Doraemon looked at him, his big blue eyes filled with concern. "I've never seen Nobita like this before. Strong, determined… but lately, it feels like the world's turning on you."
Reo chuckled bitterly. "It's because I'm not Nobita."
"I know."
They sat in silence.
---
But while Caius attacked from the shadows, Reo prepared a shadow of his own.
He began making secret visits—at night, under aliases, using gadgets from Doraemon that bent perception and altered voice. With Kaito and Aika's help, he traced the source of the phantom identity used to discredit him: a black market data forge known as The Mirror District.
Hidden beneath the veneer of an abandoned mall, The Mirror District was a rogue AI marketplace, where identities were created, altered, erased—for the right price.
Reo infiltrated it himself.
He walked through rows of terminals humming with illegal code, past men and women with synthetic implants and voices like shattered glass.
And at the end, he found her.
Not a phantom.
Not a ghost.
But a girl.
Real. Alive. And very much dangerous.
"You're the one who claimed to be my employee," Reo said, removing the cloaking lens from his eyes.
The girl smirked, lips painted in digital chrome. "I'm whoever Caius pays me to be."
"You're destroying innocent lives."
She shrugged. "Everyone's innocent until the money hits the wire."
Reo leaned in. "Then you'll be the first domino."
Before she could react, Aika disabled the surveillance system. Kaito locked the door.
And Reo began recording.
Everything.
---
The video dropped 24 hours later.
It showed the girl confessing the fabrication, her ties to Caius's offshore handlers, the Mirror District's operation—and even the full list of names on Caius's personal payroll.
It was a digital nuke.
The internet turned again.
#JusticeForReo trended.
But Reo didn't smile.
He knew Caius wasn't done.
You don't kill a ghost in the light.
You chase it into the dark.
---