In the year 2066, the world was at war with itself. Particularly in the milling streets of Tokyo, the cold fear and bitter anticipation of a dark future we could not possibly escape hung over the heads of everyone, of me, of my family.

The fear began in 2040, when Japanese scientists in an organization known as Sector X began experimenting with cloning in hopes of creating something new. A third gender. A perfect gender. A people not tethered by the limitations of the other two sexes. By genetically altering the DNA during the cloning process, they were able to create people with specific characteristics. White-blonde hair, almost colorless. Eyes that ranged from completely transparent (red albino eyes) to a pale blue. Complete lack of sexual organs. Lacking the ability to feel any emotion, the ability to feel pain. They called their new creations ‘perfect’, but as time went on, as they became used less and less for the purpose of super-soldiers as they were intended and more for our own person battles, our own lives, we came to know them as “Shiyounin”. Servants. Slaves.

As time passed, scientists worked further on the project, trying to develop something more advanced. Because the Shiyounin had one major flaw; their bodies failed to create blood, due to the ability of the blood to thicken and stop bleeding almost instantly. They required frequent transfusions to stay alive, and it became more expensive than it was worth. Many Shiyounin were allowed to die. Others were experimented on. In the end, when the new version of the Shiyounin were created, the ones we called Chuusei, the Shiyounin became obsolete. Many called for their destruction. Others called for the release of the Shiyounin from the Sector X facility.

In the end, many of the scientists chose to set the Shiyounin they had created free. There, they attempted normal lives. Dyed their hair. Wore contacts. Got tattoos to cover the identification marks on their bodies. The Sector X scientists involved in creating the Chuusei destroyed their Shiyounin. Others kept them in the facility, kept experimenting, struggling to solve the problems in their genetic structure. But the general public had been taught to fear the strange, logical beings we called Shiyounin. No one wanted them among us, and the public fought a war for their complete destruction. A dangerous time, when many lives were in jeopardy. I had no way of knowing mine was one of them.

At the darkest moment of all, when a terror I had never imagined was unfolding, my uncle, one of the original Sector X scientists, sent me a weapon. One of his first creations, a Shiyounin known only as V, was assigned to stop my death. Shiyounin acted under strict orders from Sector X, and as hard as I tried to keep away from V, there was nothing I could do about it. I was in the war now.

This was my life.