In a near-future Tokyo where everyone lives part of their lives in the metaverse, the popular sport 'Hollow Clearer' allows players to battle as fantastical avatars. The scene is split between idol-type and Vtuber-type competitors. Asuka Mahiro is a high school student who fights as the most hated villain avatar in Japan: 'Blackwall Orcus.' Only his teacher, Kozue Ritsuko, knows his true identity.
Meanwhile, the brilliant and elegant young lady Asogi Miu is secretly celebrated in the underworld
Persona Non Grata - The true face beneath the mask
White mist drifted in the darkness.
Deep within the Virtual Commons. The Deep Layer—a back stratum absent from any official map—was a chaotic space like a colorless back alley. At its center, the mist avatar slowly coalesced into form.
A white cloak. Beneath the hood, only shadow was visible.
This was the vigilante hacker, Shroud. No one knew their true identity. Only their acts of exposing wrongdoing were real.
Shroud traced a fingertip through the void. Cracks ran through the darkness, and countless windows unfolded. It was a forced simultaneous broadcast to the entire Deep Layer. The image of the white mist burned itself into the retinas of the roughly three thousand hackers present.
"...Listen. Tonight, my target is a single Cleararter. Kurokabe no Orcus. I will banish his existence from this world."
The voice was a girl's—low and clear. From beneath the hood, brown eyes quietly burned with heat.
"Unlawful hunting of the defeated, exaggerated displays of brutality, a fighting style that mocks the boundaries of regulation. None of it should be permitted under the name of competition. I will expose every one of his misdeeds to the light of day."
Within the windows, footage of Orcus's matches appeared one after another. Jet-black armor. A massive wall-type shield. The sight of him crushing opponents and riling up the crowd. The Deep Layer's timeline swelled with fervor.
—Shroud is serious.
—Kurokabe no Orcus is finished.
The broadcast was reposted to the Commons Plaza's giant bulletin board as well. Simultaneous viewership numbers skyrocketed across both the surface and the Deep Layer.
The vigilante hacker would bury the most hated villain in Japan. That alone was more than enough of a spectacle.
When the broadcast ended, Shroud's mist quietly dissolved.
Her name was Asougi Miyu. In a corner of the server room in the information science building of the private Hermitage Academy. In the dark room, Miyu removed her headgear and let out a deep breath.
"...With this, finally."
Long black hair clung to her forehead with sweat. She brushed it aside with her hand and smiled faintly. Alone in the empty room, quietly.
The need for recognition. Loneliness. The certain feeling of being needed.
Only her time as Shroud fulfilled her.
Her time as the perfect young lady was nothing but a mask. To avoid staining her father's pride. To avoid standing out at school. To avoid being pitied.
Miyu stood, and with the blinking server lights at her back, erased all expression from her face.
—School again, huh.
A sigh was swallowed by the dark room.
Sector North. A twenty-five-year-old 2LDK apartment in the Itabashi area.
Mahiro's room was six tatami mats. Deep in the closet, past the pushed-aside clothes, a compact server and competition-grade full-dive gear lay hidden.
The moment he removed the headgear, Mahiro felt a slight wave of nausea.
"...Hah."
Cold sweat on his back. His throat was strangely parched.
Until just moments ago, another personality had existed inside him. Kurokabe no Orcus. A twenty-year-old nightmare given form by the darkness at the bottom of his heart.
While immersed in full-dive, Orcus could freely surface. Mahiro himself could only recall those memories in fragments. But this time, he remembered clearly.
Orcus had answered Shroud's declaration of targeting.
The virtual arena, Ground Zero. Before hundreds of thousands of simultaneous viewers, the jet-black armor had laughed.
"I'll take your billion yen. The bounty's so cheap it makes me yawn. But in exchange, I'll shatter that justice of yours into dust."
The thrill of the crowd's hatred turning to cheers in an instant. The exhilaration of anti-fans' abuse mixing with the screams of fervent supporters.
That had definitely been Mahiro's own emotion.
And then, the sensation of not being himself. The unpleasant tingling, like something crawling beneath his skin, when the other personality rose to the surface.
Mahiro closed the closet and collapsed onto his bed. He stared at the ceiling. A single stain. The same stain since he was a child.
"...What the hell am I doing?"
A masculine first-person pronoun. His voice was small, sinking into the room.
Asuka Mahiro. Seventeen years old. 168 centimeters tall. Average build, slightly hunched. His somewhat unkempt black hair fell over his eyes just a little. His dark brown eyes looked black depending on the light. A small mole behind his ear.
The collar of his worn school uniform's white shirt was frayed, his necktie loose. His fingertips were pale.
He had a habit of walking as if erasing his own presence.
His mother worked night shifts as a caregiver. No one was home. In the quiet room, Mahiro was alone.
Loneliness was terrifying.
But he could only feel himself through being hated.
...Like that bastard Orcus.
Mahiro closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids, the white mist flickered.
Shroud, huh.
An existence that held up true justice. Someone on the side of light—the complete opposite of himself.
When he'd heard that voice, something had ached deep in his chest. It wasn't his imagination.
Several hours later.
Shibuya Sector West. The public library, Shibuya Central Library.
A five-story building above ground. Approximately 420,000 books in its collection, 1.8 million e-books. On a weekday, the third-floor reading room was filled with a soft quiet.
Mahiro walked between the shelves, searching for philosophy books. His target was Kierkegaard's *The Sickness Unto Death*. He'd long been interested in views of life and death. Why live, why die, why suffer. He wanted to know.
Besides, he loved the smell of books. The scent of paper and ink. A texture e-books didn't have.
Suddenly, something glinted at the edge of his vision.
In the shadow of a bookshelf diagonally ahead. A middle-aged man crouched low, holding a smartphone angled downward. The lens pointed further down the aisle—toward a girl in a skirt.
Mahiro started walking. Quietly, but surely.
The man sensed his presence and turned. Mahiro silently grabbed the man's arm.
"Wh-what are you doing!"
The man thrashed. Mahiro threw his weight into it and pinned the man against the bookshelf. Even with a slender frame, if you locked the joints, an adult couldn't move. Orcus's combat data was ingrained in his body.
"...Please stay still."
A quiet voice. The man flinched instantly.
But then.
"Step away from that person, please."
A cold voice pierced Mahiro's back. He turned to see a girl with long black hair standing there.
Her lustrous black hair reached her waist, her bangs trimmed neatly above her brows. A single strand fell by her ear. Her large brown eyes, trembling with anger, gleamed amber. She stood 155 centimeters tall. Slender, but her posture was full of grace.
She wore the uniform of the private Hermitage Academy—a navy blazer with an elegant silhouette.
Miyu glared at Mahiro.
"Taking pictures of people with a camera is despicable. Hand over your smartphone right now."
A misunderstanding.
Mahiro blinked.
"...Do you think I'm the one taking creepshots?"
"Is that not the case?"
"It's not. I was helping you. The culprit is this guy."
Mahiro gestured with his chin toward the man he had pinned. The smartphone slipped from the man's hand. The screen was in camera mode. Several photos at unnatural angles remained.
Miyu stepped closer and peered at the screen. Then she gasped.
"...That's... yes, it is."
She pressed her fingertips to her lips, her gaze wandering. The anger faded, replaced by shame and regret coloring her cheeks.
Security guards rushed over and took the man away. Mahiro dusted off his hands.
"Thank you for explaining. But how did you know I wasn't the culprit?"
"Your uniform isn't disheveled, right? That guy was filming up your skirt. The person being filmed doesn't notice. If he'd gotten close to you at the moment of filming, he'd have been in your line of sight. So the one I had pinned down had to be the culprit."
Miyu's eyes widened, and then she laughed softly.
"...You're quite rational, aren't you?"
It was the first real conversation they'd had. Her smile was just a little innocent.
Mahiro felt a small warmth deep in his chest.
"I'm Asuka Mahiro. You?"
"I'm Asougi Miyu. ...I'm sorry about earlier."
She bowed her head. Her long black hair flowed smoothly.
Mahiro hesitated for just a moment.
Would this girl like that shop?
"If you'd like... want to talk for a bit?"
Twelve minutes on foot from Shibuya Station. Just before the top of the hill in Shinsencho, at the end of a narrow alley.
A renovated two-story wooden folk house. A hideaway with no network connection of any kind—a place beyond the reach of electronics.
Café Noir.
Founded in 1987. Twelve seats. At this hour, there were no other customers.
The interior was dim, filled with the aroma of coffee beans.
"Welcome. Oh, Mahiro-kun, you've brought company today."
The owner, Kurosawa Genichirou, was in his seventies. Wearing a white apron, he smiled gently.
Mahiro guided Miyu to a table by the window.
"The coffee here is good. No electronic noise, right?"
"Yes. It's quiet... and a little mysterious."
Miyu looked around the shop. A wooden counter. A well-worn wall clock. Old photographs hanging on the walls.
Their order of house-roasted coffee arrived. Steam and aroma slowly drifted between them.
Miyu wrapped both hands around the cup and took a sip. Then she narrowed her eyes.
"...Delicious."
"Right?"
Mahiro took a sip too. Bitterness and acidity, and a faint sweetness.
Silence continued for a while. But it wasn't unpleasant.
"Um, Asuka-kun, why were you so calm back there?"
"No reason. I'm just used to it."
"You say it like you're used to fighting."
"Well, something like that."
Miyu gazed steadily at Mahiro. Her brown eyes absorbed the light and swayed softly.
"I've never had tea with someone like this before."
Mahiro set down his cup.
"Me neither. I always came to this shop alone."
"At home, there's no one to really talk to. At school, I always have to be perfect."
Miyu's voice grew quieter and quieter.
"...I often think that I'm lonely."
Mahiro looked at her fingertips. Her pale, slender fingers trembled slightly, as if testing the heat of the cup.
"Me too. My family's not home at night. And at school, it's like I'm there but not there."
His voice carried self-deprecation. But more than that, loneliness seeped through.
Miyu looked up.
"Asuka-kun, are you afraid of dying?"
An abrupt question. Mahiro was a little surprised.
"I guess I am. But what scares me more is disappearing without anyone remembering me."
That was his true feeling.
Being swallowed by the darkness of solitude and ending as no one at all. That was what he feared most.
Miyu nodded quietly.
"Me too... I don't want to be forgotten. That's why Shroud—"
She caught herself and clamped her mouth shut. An expression of *oh no*.
Mahiro let it pass. No—he pretended not to have heard.
This girl was carrying something too. He wouldn't touch it now.
Dusk was approaching. The wall clock struck five.
The two left the shop. They walked down the hill side by side. Their shoulders almost touched.
"Will we meet again?"
"If you come here, probably."
"Promise me."
Miyu stopped and looked straight up at Mahiro. On her face, there was no mask of the perfect young lady. Just a girlish, faint hope.
Mahiro's chest suddenly quickened.
It's nothing.
He tried to think that, but her smile wouldn't leave him.
Night.
Mahiro sat on the bed in his room, staring at the headgear.
He wanted to full-dive. He wanted to fight again as Orcus.
Impulses swirled in his head.
But tonight, he'd stop.
The time he'd spent with Miyu lingered in his chest as a warm afterglow. He didn't want to paint over that feeling with Orcus's pleasure.
At that moment.
—The more you're drawn to her, the stronger I become.
A voice echoed from within.
"...Orcus."
—In your place, I'll get dirty. You can just stay i
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