Monday mornings always felt stagnant, somehow. The Metropolitan Police Department's Public Security Bureau, Special Phenomena Countermeasures Unit — known informally as the Hagane Unit — had its office on the second basement floor of an old government building. No windows. The ventilation fan droned low, a hollow *uuun*, and the worn-out fluorescent lights flickered irregularly, on and off, on and off. The air was cold, dusty. It felt like being inside a grave. Otori Shuji finished reading a single report, then slowly leaned back in his chair. The cheap chair creaked, *gishiri*. Forty-seven years old. His black hair, parted seven-three, was streaked with gray and stiff with pomade, though it had come slightly undone after last night's all-nighter. His narrow eyes were sharp, and a long, thin scar ran from his right temple down to his jaw. On the ring finger of his left hand, the pale mark of a wedding band remained, clear as ever. "...Seventy-two hours, and reports have tripled." His voice was low and hoarse. The report in his hand had come up from the police box in Koga Alley, Shibuya. Its contents: a surge in reports of electronic device malfunctions and abnormally agitated states among residents over the past seventy-two hours. The data, presented in a dry, lifeless string of numbers, showed the figures spiking sharply from late Friday night onward. *(Same as three years ago.)* Otori pulled an old photograph from the back of his drawer. Faded, its edges scorched — a family photo. His smiling wife, and in her arms, their daughter sleeping innocently. A summer day, fifteen years ago now. That summer, a fire of unknown origin had broken out in a multi-tenant building in Shibuya. His wife and daughter, unable to escape in time, were found burned to death. He, investigating the fire's point of origin, had seen a pale, bluish light leaking through a gap in the charred wall. Not moonlight. Not the embers of the flames. An eerie radiance, as if the boundary between this world and the next had been torn open. Then, three years ago, the Amenomatsuri Incident. An unprecedented case in which a massive IT corporation had manipulated people's cognition, attempting to rule the world from the shadows. Officially, it was handled as a large-scale cybercrime, but Otori had been on the scene. He had seen that same light then, too. And he had learned of the existence of a technology called "Cognitive Otherworlds" — distortions of the human heart that encroach upon reality — and the madman who commanded it: a man named Asakura Shinji. The mastermind, Shinji, was officially declared dead, but Otori didn't believe it. His personality had been digitized and fled into the depths of the network. This information was sealed tight as a state secret, but he knew. And precisely because he knew better than anyone, he was the most isolated man in the entire organization. "The truth is only ever on the scene." He muttered it. A habit. Just then, the internal line on his desk rang shrilly. "Yes, Hagane Unit." *'Yo, Occult Section Chief.'* From the receiver came the flippant voice of Yamanaka, the liaison from the local station. Behind him, Otori could sense someone snickering. *'That ruckus in Koga Alley? We looked into it on our end. Turns out it's just mass hysteria. No need for a dead-end unit like yours to make an appearance.'* "You saw that data and you're still saying that?" *'Data? Oh, those numbers. Just machine malfunctions and some dumb kids getting reeled in by online rumors. C'mon, Chief, isn't it about time you graduated from ghost stories?'* The line went dead. *Beep... beep...* Only the hollow electronic tone remained in his ear. Otori set the receiver down in silence and stood. From a grimy locker, he grabbed a worn-out trench coat. His service pistol, he left in the desk drawer. This wasn't an investigation. He couldn't move as part of the organization. "What a pain... but I'm going." He straddled his old, privately-owned moped and headed for the scene, avoiding public transportation. If a Cognitive Otherworld was involved, he wanted to steer clear of routes with too many eyes. He didn't have certainty yet. But his intuition was sounding an alarm. --- Arriving at Koga Alley, Otori stopped in his tracks at the sight before him. In the narrow lane, a line of over fifty people stretched out. Despite it being a weekday morning, salarymen, students, housewives, the elderly — a disordered crowd, as if time had been carved out of this city alone — stood queued in front of a single shop. The sign read "Café Lunatica" in gentle, handwritten letters. But the line itself was grotesque. Every person wore an ecstatic smile on their lips, their pupils unnaturally dilated. Unfocused. Like sleepwalkers, they shuffled forward slowly, yet mechanically. No conversation. No one looking at a smartphone. Just silent, smiling. Otori turned up his coat collar and spoke to an old man at the very back of the line. "Is the coffee here really that good?" The old man slowly turned his head. His eyes, still vacant, answered. "[gentle]The stuff here... when you drink it, how do I put it... everything just stops mattering. It's warm, and gentle... like being held by your mother." Saying this, the old man faced forward again, continuing to smile, *nikoniko*. *(This is bad.)* Otori left the line and, pretending to be a customer, entered the shop. *Karan-koron*, chimed the bell. Instantly, a cloyingly sweet air clung to his skin. Not so much the aroma of coffee as the sickly sweetness of overripe fruit just beginning to rot. Inside, customers hunched over their coffee filled the chairs in silence. Everyone had ordered the same thing — the morning set — and with the same motions, the same smiles on their faces, they lifted their cups to their lips. "[gentle]Welcome. Party of one?" A soft voice came from behind the register. Hoshino Mayu. Her dark chestnut hair was tied back in a single bunch. Hair that must have once been glossy now looked lifeless and dry. Her large brown eyes formed the shape of a smile, yet they were somehow hollow, the light within them fading. And her hands. The fingers tapping the register were thin, the bones prominent. As if, over these past few weeks, her body alone had been rapidly drained by something. *(This woman.)* Otori knew it instinctively. The center of this anomaly was, without a doubt, this shopkeeper. "Yeah. The morning set." "Certainly." As Mayu entered the order, she suddenly stopped moving, perfectly still. For a few seconds, she simply stared into empty space, standing frozen as if she had lost consciousness. "...Hey, you alright?" "[surprised]Eh... Ah, yes! I'm sorry, I just spaced out for a moment. I'll bring it right out." Flustered, she disappeared into the kitchen. Otori sat down at the counter and casually surveyed the interior. The sign out front, the faint cracks in the wall, the unnatural behavior of the customers. And the door leading to the kitchen. Through the gap, a pale, bluish light was leaking out. His breath stopped. Fifteen years ago, the fire scene in the multi-tenant building where his wife and daughter had burned to death. Three years ago, the top floor of Amatsukaze Tower, transformed into an otherworld. The exact same wavelength of light he had felt then was now pulsing beyond that door. A radiance not of this world, as if moonlight had been transmuted into something pale and blue. His fingers trembled. Cold sweat beaded on his palms. His heart pounded, as if forcing the inside of his ribcage apart. Desperately, Otori pulled his smartphone from his pocket and started recording video to preserve evidence. But the screen was filled with violent static, showing nothing. All the data he tried to save was painted over white, corrupted. "...Tch." Mayu returned. She placed a coffee cup on a tray before him. Steam rose in wavering ribbons, the sickly sweet scent growing even denser. "[gentle]If you'd like, please have these as well." She added two small cookies on a tiny plate. "On the house, is it?" "Yes, just a little something, always. You seem rather tired, sir." She smiled, just a little. Her eyes didn't narrow into crescents; they simply remained open, vacant. Otori reached for a cookie — and seized her wrist. Thin. Like a dried branch, as if it might snap with just a little more force. "Ah, um...?" "...How long have you been using this?" He spoke low, intimidating. Inside the pocket of Mayu's apron, a smartphone glowed with an eerie light. *Tsukinomiya*. He had an inkling. A new form of the technology Asakura Shinji had once developed to create Cognitive Otherworlds. A cursed app that materializes a person's deepest wishes — in exchange for slowly shaving away the user's life. For the first time, Mayu's face twisted in fear. "[scared]Wha— what do you mean... Please let go..." The moment she tried to pull her arm back, from deep within the kitchen came a sound: low, wet, multiple breaths. Otori released her hand and stood up swiftly. "Sorry to bother you. I'll leave money for the coffee." He slapped a thousand-yen bill onto the counter and walked briskly out of the shop. --- Back at the police station, Otori compiled a detailed report and submitted it to the Chief of Public Security. The abnormal situation on the ground, the physical deterioration of the victims, the light leaking from the kitchen. He wrote down every piece of information he could think of, but all the attached video data was corrupted, and physical evidence was zero. "Look, Otori." The Security Chief didn't even glance at the report, just let out a deep, deep sigh. "I'll process this as a relapse of your occult delusions." "Chief, but this is—" "All records from three years ago are classified." The Chief spoke coldly. "No matter how much you shout that it's similar to that incident, you have no proof. Only the memories inside your head. That sort of thing won't substitute for a report, and it won't substitute for a warrant. Enough is enough. The investigation into Koga Alley is suspended. The security camera footage was all wiped out by a system glitch — that was just a coincidence, too. Don't get any deeper into this." Otori turned on his heel in silence. Out in the hallway, the stares of his colleagues stung. Everyone looked at him, a thin sneer on their lips, or else made a show of averting their eyes. "Make way for the Occult Section Chief." Someone said it under their breath, and snickering laughter leaked from the surroundings. But Otori paid it no mind. His head was full of other things. *(How much longer does that woman have?)* *(That light is the same as three years ago. No mistake.)* *(But the law, the authority, everything — it's not enough.)* Midnight. Otori left his police badge and his pistol on his desk. He threw on a black civilian jacket and slipped out of the station without telling anyone. At night, Koga Alley was eerily silent, as if the daytime's feverish energy had been a lie. Only the orange light of the streetlamps illuminated the damp asphalt. He circled around to the back of the now-closed Café Lunatica, picked the lock on the service entrance, and slipped inside. In that instant, a chill crawled up his spine. It was at least ten degrees colder than outside. His exhaled breath turned white and cloudy. In the silence, he could hear a faint, rhythmic sound. — *Tap.* — *Tap, tap.* — *Tap, tap, tap.* It came from far down the stairs leading to the basement. Otori placed a hand on the wall and descended, one step at a time, into the darkness. The sound grew clearer as he approached. Footsteps. But not a human rhythm. They echoed with mechanical precision, at fixed intervals, orderly. And through the gaps in those footsteps, he caught a thin, reedy voice leaking out. "[whispers]...I'm... still fine. If it makes everyone happy... I can try harder...