The envelope was wedged deep in the mailbox among other pieces of post, haphazardly stacked. The address read: Kirishima Wataru. That much was certain. In the sender's field, written in difficult-to-read handwriting, were a place name—"Nishiki Village"—and a name so smudged it was nearly illegible. Wataru had no recollection of anyone by that name. Yet for some reason, he could not bring himself to discard it. --- The six-mat one-room apartment in Tokyo was always impassable—books and documents and empty cans scattered across every surface. Wataru sat before his computer, staring at the manuscript on the screen. The character counter displayed "1487 characters." His target was 1500. Thirteen characters short. (*...A city councilman's infidelity scandal, then.*) Would the man he had been three years ago laugh at this? Or would he rage? Once, Wataru had worked in the social affairs division of a major newspaper. He pursued cases, pursued those in power, pursued truth. He would conduct interviews deep into the night, write his articles in the morning, then dash out again into the darkness—he had loved that life. Or rather, he had known no other way to live. He still remembered vividly the article he had written three years ago. He had spent half a year investigating the misconduct of a certain powerful figure. Gathering evidence. Meeting with those involved. Enduring fear. And yet he had written it. But the day before publication, his editor had called him in. "It's being shelved." Five characters. That was all. Wataru had protested. They had fought bitterly. He thought he had struck the table. But nothing changed. The article vanished. Wataru left the company. The frustration of that moment remained in the depths of his belly even now. Like sediment, it went nowhere. Now he sold articles to weekly magazines and web media as a freelancer. On good months he made three hundred thousand yen; on bad ones, one hundred fifty thousand. No organizational backing. He was turned away at the gates of interview subjects more often than not. "...If this doesn't sell, how am I paying rent this month?" He muttered the words and stepped on an empty can on the floor. It clattered and rolled. He kicked it into the corner of the room. He did not bother to clean it up. More cans would accumulate soon enough anyway. That was the life he lived. He added text until the manuscript reached "1503 characters," then stood. It was then that he remembered the mailbox. --- When he opened the envelope, there was a single sheet of stationery inside. The handwriting trembled. He recognized it at once—the weak, faded script of an elderly hand. Yet despite this, a single line was written with unmistakable clarity: *The children have disappeared again.* Wataru went still at the sight of those characters. Three seconds passed. Then he opened his computer and searched for Nishiki Village. Almost nothing appeared. There was no official municipal website. There were only a handful of social media posts, their content limited to remarks like "the mountains are beautiful" or "stopped by while passing through." What he could barely discern was this: a village in a basin at approximately six hundred twenty meters elevation in the mountainous region of central Japan, with a population of roughly one hundred twenty, located about two hours by car from the nearest city of Tooka. (*A place where one hundred twenty people live, and this is all that comes up?*) Wataru stared at the screen. It was wrong. Even the smallest village in this day and age would have more information. Administrative documents. Local blogs. Photographs taken by someone. For there to be almost nothing meant—it was being kept deliberately hidden from the outside. "The absence of information is itself information." The words of a senior reporter from long ago escaped his lips unbidden. Yes. It had been the same three years ago. What no one reported, what no one investigated—that "blank space" itself was a sign that something existed. Wataru looked at the stationery once more. The trembling characters. The word *again*. If it said "again," then it had happened before. The next morning, he packed his things. --- He left Tokyo, took the expressway, and after exiting, drove along prefectural roads. At first they were ordinary country roads. Pastoral rice paddies, small convenience stores, local supermarkets. But after passing through Tooka—a town of roughly seventy thousand with a JR station—the road changed abruptly. It narrowed. Curves multiplied. Sections along cliffs without guardrails appeared repeatedly. Driving his used compact car, he could feel the tires treading the thin edge of the pavement. His smartphone's navigation changed its display. "Entering an area with weak signal." The antenna dropped to a single bar. Shortly after, it vanished entirely. Wataru pulled the car to the roadside. He took his phone and checked. No signal. The map application would not function. He could not send messages. (*From here on, it cuts off completely.*) That sensation seeped into his body. This was not merely "inconvenient communication." It meant being unable to contact the outside world. If something happened, he could tell no one. Wataru placed his phone on the dashboard and pressed the accelerator. When he crossed Mitsuse Pass—the only road connecting the village and Tooka—the view suddenly opened before him. A basin spread out below. A small settlement surrounded on three sides by mountains. In the autumn afternoon light, roofs were scattered like points. The Kasane mountain range—the peaks that enclosed the village from north, east, and west—appeared blue and hazy. That sense of pressure weighed heavily upon him. The phrase *a place cut off from the world* rose in his mind. "...It's closed off." Speaking to himself, he descended the slope. As he approached the village entrance, a decayed bench caught his eye. At what had once been a bus stop, an old timetable remained affixed to a rusted pole. It was the remnant of a bus route discontinued thirty years ago. Wataru stopped his car there and got out. The mountain air entered his lungs. Cool and slightly damp. About two hundred meters north of the abandoned bus stop, a stone wall appeared beside the road. It was at least two meters high. A mansion with white walls and black tile roof—entirely different in stature from the surrounding homes. A nameplate hung on the gate pillar. Miyauchi. Wataru looked at that nameplate for one second, then looked away. Yet his body remained naturally oriented toward the mansion. --- He walked through the village. The settlement was scattered along the Nishiki River—a small stream flowing through the village center—and residents were sparse. The occasional elderly person he passed glanced at him. But when their eyes met, they looked away immediately. They seemed frightened. Or perhaps appraising. It was a gaze that could be read either way. What struck Wataru was something else. (*There are no children. Not a single one.*) It was afternoon. If school had ended, there should be children playing somewhere. Yet nowhere in the village were there young faces. Only the elderly moved quietly. Wataru filed that dissonance away and found a shop with a noren curtain reading "Takase Store." It appeared to be the village's only shop. When he opened the door, a small bell chimed. Shelves held daily necessities and foodstuffs. Plastic containers of kerosene were stacked in a corner. In the back of the shop stood a woman who appeared to be in her late seventies. Small-framed, with white-streaked hair. She wore a cooking apron and was rearranging items on the shelves. "Excuse me." Wataru called out. The woman—Takase Setsuko—looked up. Her gaze fixed on him. For just a moment. "I'm a writer. I heard that children have disappeared in Nishiki Village, and I came to investigate." Setsuko said nothing. Then she resumed organizing the shelves. Without looking at Wataru, she spoke over her shoulder. "[cold]Children disappearing...well, I wouldn't know anything about that." Their eyes did not meet. Wataru tried to continue. But Setsuko said, "[cold]I'm busy." And turned completely away. Wataru hesitated for a moment, then picked up a canned coffee from the shelf in front of him. He carried it to the register. Setsuko took it without a word and rang it up. "Sixty yen." When Wataru produced coins, she even printed a receipt. No name was written—only "¥60" printed on the slip. No information given. But business conducted nonetheless. Wataru took the canned coffee and left the shop. (*Zero information, then.*) But it was not zero. Setsuko had looked at him for just one moment. In that moment, something dwelt in her eyes. Fear, perhaps. Or wariness. Either way—not the eyes of someone who knew nothing. A person who looks away knows something. Wataru's instinct as a reporter told him so. --- Tsukimi Lodge, the village's only inn, stood on the east bank of the Nishiki River. It was a five-minute walk from the elementary school—an old wooden two-story building. When he opened the door, a woman in her late fifties appeared. Yamamoto Rie. She seemed to be the inn's proprietor. Round-faced, wearing a white apron. Not unfriendly. Yet there was caution in her eyes. "One night with two meals included—is that acceptable?" "Yes. I may be staying for a while. I'm a writer, and I've come for research." The moment the word "research" left his lips, Rie's expression hardened slightly. The change was unmistakable. Not hostility. But not welcome either. A door opened halfway, the other half remaining closed—that was the distance she maintained. "One night with two meals is five thousand five hundred yen." With only that, she led him to a room. She asked no further questions. The second-floor guest room was small. Six tatami mats in area. One window. Wataru set down his luggage and opened that window. The cool evening mountain air flowed in. It carried the scent of cedar. The transparent air of autumn's end. Wataru rested his elbows on the windowsill and gazed out. About a hundred meters away, he could see a stone wall. The Miyauchi mansion. The same wall he had seen at the village entrance was clearly visible from here. The roof peeked above it. The tiles caught the evening sun, tinged slightly red. (*Only that mansion exists in a different era.*) The surrounding homes were all old and small. But that mansion alone was of a different order. A wooden two-story structure that appeared to be over a century old, with considerable floor space. The grounds were extensive. Wataru opened the pull-tab on his canned coffee. It had grown lukewarm. The one he had bought at Takase Store. As he drank, he gazed absently at the mansion. Then, in the second-floor window of the main building, he thought he saw something. A human figure, perhaps. Wataru narrowed his eyes. In the fading light of dusk, he stared intently at the window. There was definitely something there. The next instant, the curtain was drawn swiftly shut. From inside, the motion was quick. It took less than a second. Something pulsed violently in Wataru's chest. It might have been his imagination. In the dimming light of dusk, he might have mistaken a shadow for something else. But. (*It was not my imagination.*) Wataru stared at the closed curtain for a long time. Someone had been watching him. And upon realizing they were being watched, they had hidden. If that was correct—then someone in that mansion knew that Wataru had come. He took another sip of the lukewarm coffee. It was bitter. "[serious]There is absolutely something here." He spoke the words aloud. Not to anyone else, but to himself, as if to confirm it. The evening mountains darkened quietly. The ridgeline of the Kasane range floated black against the sky. The village was