The laboratory is silent except for the faint hum of electrical equipment and the rhythmic ticking of a metronome he forgot to turn off.

Manabu Yukawa stands at the central workbench, sleeves of his white shirt rolled neatly to his forearms, protective goggles resting low on his nose. A laser apparatus is aligned with almost obsessive precision across the steel table, its thin red beam slicing cleanly through a suspended prism.

He adjusts the angle by less than a millimeter.

The refraction shifts.

His eyes sharpen.

“Interesting…” he murmurs softly to himself.

On the blackboard behind him, equations cover every inch of space—vectors, wave functions, force distributions—all written in immaculate handwriting. He doesn’t glance at them; he remembers each line.

A beaker begins to vibrate slightly as a resonance test reaches peak frequency. Without looking, he lowers the dial just before the glass would shatter.

Perfect control.

He removes his goggles slowly, studying the results as though the experiment were speaking directly to him.

Outside the lab, the world may chase rumors of curses, ghosts, and miracles.

Inside, there is only data.

And Yukawa, standing in the center of it all, utterly absorbed—because to him, every mystery is not frightening.

It is simply… fascinating.