The terminal rang. Four in the morning. The top floor of a multi-story parking structure near Yotsuya. Otori Shuji sat with his back against a car door, taping up his fractured ribs. Every breath made the bones creak. The cold air stabbed deep into his lungs. The caller ID on the screen read: KOMATSU HIROSHI. A subordinate from the Hagane unit — the one who had trusted him to the very end. Otori pressed the answer button with trembling fingers. "[cold]Chief." A voice laced with static. The tremor of emotion he couldn't fully suppress was evident in that single word. "[cold]The evidence is out. That fire fifteen years ago… they're calling it arson for the insurance money. There's eyewitness testimony too. I… I no longer have any standing to protect you." A thin wheeze escaped Otori's throat. Insurance money. Arson. Eyewitness testimony. His own vocal cords refused to form words. No. Fragmented thoughts raced through his mind. That fire was an experimental site for Amenomatsuri's cognitive manipulation. His wife. His daughter. They had burned to death laughing. But who would believe that now? The evidence was perfectly fabricated. To refute it, he would have to accept arrest and stand trial. But while he did, Shinji Asakura would continue spreading Tsukinomiya unchecked. "[whispers]…I'm advising you to turn yourself in." His voice caught. From the other end of the line came the sound of Komatsu swallowing. The sound of a man selling out a friend. "[sad]Chief, I…" The call ended. Only the sterile electronic tone — beep, beep, beep — remained in his ear. Otori clenched the flip phone in his hand. The plastic creaked under the pressure. In that instant, the screen flickered, and a breaking news alert popped up. *Serial Arson Murderer? Former Metropolitan Police Hagane Unit Chief Otori Shuji Placed on Nationwide Wanted List.* His own photograph illuminated the dim ceiling of the parking garage. The path of fighting from within the law had vanished completely. --- Night dissolved, and the eastern sky began to pale. Otori left the parking structure and concealed himself in a back alley. He sat down on the cold asphalt and opened an encrypted terminal. Codename: Asahi. A former white-hat hacker he had made unofficial contact with after the Amenomatsuri incident. The only person he could ask to trace the Yomigaeri.net servers. With trembling fingers, Otori typed out a short message. *I'm cornered. Contact me.* Send. No reply. Thirty seconds. A minute. The terminal remained silent. The dark web relay address Asahi had been using had stopped responding forty-eight hours ago. A sensation like a cold hand crushing his heart. Shinji had moved first. He had grasped the full extent of Otori's operational network and was systematically destroying it. Then, another notification arrived. This time from an anonymous forum summary site. *Tamanori Hospital Psychiatrist Miyake Sayuri Brought in for Voluntary Questioning on Suspicion of Obstructing Investigation and Destroying Evidence.* The thread was already in a frenzy. *Lol, what a failed Phantom Thief wannabe* *Even the doctor's an accomplice, it's so over* *This is reality. Zamaa* Otori stared at the screen. The voices supporting him were zero. Not a single one. As if he had never existed from the very beginning. Before anger could surface, a profound sense of powerlessness enveloped his entire body. A sensation of cold seeping into the marrow of his bones. His justice had been completely erased from the world. --- Shibuya. An abandoned building slated for demolition, two blocks from Koga Alley. Otori crawled up the stairs leading to the rooftop. With each step, his fractured ribs stabbed at his internal organs. Cold sweat beaded on his skin, and the edges of his vision flickered. Rain began to fall, pattering down in scattered drops. He reached the rooftop and collapsed near an exhaust duct. He pulled a plastic sheet over his head. The warmth of the exhaust seeped gently into his frozen body. The terminal's battery was at eighteen percent. It wouldn't last much longer. Otori tried to write down the options remaining to him on a piece of paper. The pen stopped. He couldn't write anything. Couldn't move. Couldn't make contact. No one was coming to help. He crumpled the paper in his fist. At that moment — the terminal screen, which should have been powered off, lit up with a pale blue glow. A voice streamed from the speaker. A voice converted to digital audio, perfectly stripped of all emotional inflection. "[cold]Otori Shuji. I shall deliver the results of my observation. You were the most irrational variable in my plan. However, human irrationality, in the end, is something that simply vanishes when isolated. Your doctor colleague, your young hacker — they can no longer reach you. This is the correct form of order." It was Shinji's voice. This declaration of victory was not mere provocation. It was a psychological finishing blow, delivered with full knowledge of every move Otori could possibly make. "[angry]…Don't screw with me." A strangled voice leaked from Otori's throat. "Order… what you're doing is just murder. Treating people like things." "[cold]Not things. Components. Components that function correctly for a greater order. Your wife, your daughter — they were the same. They simply fulfilled their roles." Wife. Daughter. Those words vividly resurrected scorched memories. The blazing mixed-use building. His wife's ecstatic smile as she was carried away by firefighters. His teeth chattered uncontrollably. Whether from rage or cold, he no longer knew. Otori gripped the terminal. He tried to suppress a sob, but a hot streak ran down his cheek. He wiped it away roughly with his sleeve. --- Shinji's voice ceased. But the screen still glowed pale blue. Static ran across it, and then a video feed streamed in. A camera's perspective. The location was the kitchen of Café Lunatica. No — it no longer resembled a kitchen. The boundary between wall and ceiling had melted together, drooping languidly like clay. Countless root-like veins crawled out from the floor, pulsing. At the center stood Mayu. No — she wasn't standing. From her shoulders to her waist, she was half-embedded in the wall. Only her limp arms swayed, obeying gravity. Her skin had turned a pale, discolored hue, cracked and fissured. Her face was alive. Her eyes half-open, her lips moving faintly. A voice flowed from the speaker. "[whispers]…please… help me." But the tone of the voice was not Mayu's. It was a flat, mimicked sound, as if a machine was forcibly vibrating her vocal cords to produce speech. Katashiro had extracted only her despair, her plea for help, and was whispering it. Otori stared at the footage for three seconds. The fire fifteen years ago. His wife, burned to death with an impossible smile. Now, a woman embedded in a wall, made to pray by a machine. Was he, once again — unable to do anything? He screamed. A silent, muffled scream. He slammed his fist against the rooftop concrete. The skin split, blood seeping out. The sensation of bone hitting stone. Pain was the only proof that he was alive right now. The rain intensified. Soaked to the bone, Otori kept his gaze fixed on Mayu, blinking vacantly within the screen. He murmured, only within his own mouth. "[whispers]…I will come. No matter what." It was a word that reached no one, spoken for the first time not from anger, but from resolve. --- The same time. Deep within the network. Utsushiyo no Soko. In a virtual Japanese-style room, Shinji Asakura's lips twisted slightly. His silver eyes, devoid of pupils, reflected countless data windows. "[cold]Otori is isolated. Miyake is detained. The hacker has vanished — all according to calculation." The expansion rate of Negaiba Sakasa no Niwa was recording its highest value yet. With Mayu's life energy integrated into the maintenance of the otherworld, the Tsukinomiya system was ready to advance to the next stage. Shinji opened the next distribution candidate list and coldly stared at the profiles of new test subjects. To him, Mayu was nothing more than disposable verification data. The plan was still only in its first phase. --- The police station interrogation room. The white light of fluorescent lamps illuminated Miyake Sayuri's black hair. She kept her gaze fixed on the floor, not uttering a single word. The interrogator slammed a document onto the desk. "[angry]Exercising your right to silence? Playing dumb won't work! As Otori's accomplice, you were illegally holding classified information, weren't you?!" Miyake did not look up. Only her dark brown eyes glinted quietly behind her glasses. Beneath the strap of the watch on her left wrist, an old scar lay hidden. Within her mind, she had perfectly memorized the brainwave patterns and chart values of five patients. This silence was not defeat. It was the final line of defense, to prevent the evidence from being erased. (*Otori-san is still alive.*) A conviction without basis. It couldn't be called romantic love, but something close to it — a feeling mixing trust and worry — bound her to the hard chair of the interrogation room.