Haratu Sota sat alone in his apartment, the blinds drawn tight against the outside world. The video tape still crackled silently in the paused state on the screen, the man's haunted eyes frozen in time. Outside, sirens moaned somewhere distant, like the dying cry of the city.
On the table beside him lay the card the stranger had given him, and the notes he had taken from the case file—now a web of names, dates, and red arrows drawn in increasingly tangled spirals.
The pattern was no longer just suspicious. It was intentional. Precise. Someone—or something—was orchestrating these murders in reverse.
Sota's eyes narrowed on the newest victim's photo. The man had been found with no apparent connection to any of the previous victims—until Sota traced his company records. He had once worked for a secretive legal firm called Yurei & Tōma, long ago involved in cases related to missing persons. Quiet cases. Buried ones.
He picked up his phone and called Tanaka.
"I need you to check every single name that's been found dead so far. Not just their criminal records. Look into private employment. Civil records. Even adoption papers. Someone's choosing these people for a reason."
There was a pause on the other end, then Tanaka's voice came through, crisp and cautious. "You think this is all premeditated?"
"I think we've been looking at the killings," Haratu said, "but not the reason for the order."
---
The Burned House
That night, Sota visited the address on an old adoption document connected to the newest victim. The house had burned down twelve years ago, but he found the empty lot in the suburbs—overgrown with weeds, fenced off with rusted wire.
He stood before it, the chill wind rustling the trees. There were no lights nearby. Just the emptiness of forgotten land.
But as he turned to leave, he noticed something.
A symbol—barely visible—scorched into the metal gate.
A spiral, drawn counter-clockwise.
The same spiral he had traced on his board back home.
It wasn't just a pattern anymore. It was a mark. A calling card.
He took a photo, his thoughts racing. The murders, the symbols, the secrecy—it all pointed to something ritualistic. Deliberate.
Not revenge.
Not chaos.
A belief.
---
An Unexpected Visitor
The next morning, Haratu returned to his apartment to find someone waiting outside his door.
A young girl. Perhaps sixteen. Pale, with long black hair tied in two braids, wearing an old-fashioned school uniform and clutching a leather book to her chest.
Her eyes were large and unblinking. Calm, too calm.
"You're Haratu Sota," she said. Not a question. A fact.
Sota didn't answer. He studied her carefully.
"I'm not a threat," she said. "I'm here because my brother died last week. His body was found yesterday. But according to your notes…"
She looked at him directly.
"…he died before the one they say he killed."
Haratu's breath caught.
"Your name?" he asked quietly.
"Shino Kurobane."
He stepped aside and let her in. Something about her presence disturbed him—an unnatural calm, a sense that she knew more than she should.
Inside, she sat silently as he poured tea.
"You believe your brother was part of the Cycle?" he asked.
"I know he was," Shino replied. "He told me about it. Said he was being watched. That he'd done something wrong. Then one day, he carved a spiral into his room wall and vanished."
She opened the leather book. Inside were pages of handwritten notes, diagrams, and names—many that matched Sota's.
"This is his journal," she said. "It talks about a group called Kōkai no Me—The Eyes of Regret. He believed they ran the Cycle."
Haratu leaned forward. That name—Kōkai no Me—matched a phrase muttered by the man in the tape just before the video cut off.
"They think of the Cycle as a form of atonement," Shino said. "Each killer becomes a sacrifice to reset what they call moral equilibrium. But it's not justice. It's control."
Sota's blood ran cold.
The killings weren't random. They were assigned. Assigned to people who had once participated in hidden sins—then sacrificed in reverse, to conceal the truth forever.
---
The Eyes Behind the Glass
Later that day, Haratu and Tanaka met at an old city archive, looking for records of Kōkai no Me. Most of it had been redacted—entire files blacked out or removed.
But one paper slipped through the cracks: a municipal memo from 1999, marked confidential. It referred to a "private judicial initiative" designed to eliminate "high-risk liabilities" before they could expose systemic failures.
Names included politicians, journalists, and whistleblowers.
Haratu circled one name in red ink: Yoshinari Kurobane.
"Shino's father?" Tanaka asked.
Sota nodded. "He disappeared twenty years ago. No record of death. No grave."
They were silencing entire families—across generations.
Suddenly, a window shattered above them.
Tanaka ducked instinctively. Haratu leapt to his feet, hand on his weapon.
But no one entered.
Just a slip of paper floated down like a snowflake.
He caught it.
On it were four words written in red ink:
"Turn back. Or vanish."
---
The Warning in the Shadows
That night, Sota couldn't sleep.
He sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the warning. His hands were steady, but his thoughts spun wildly.
They were watching him now. Maybe had been from the beginning.
If he continued, it wouldn't just be about solving a case. It would be about survival.
Then his phone vibrated.
A single message.
"404. 1 A.M. Come alone."
He stared at it. It came from a private number. The same building where they had found the videotape. Room 404.
He considered ignoring it.
But that wasn't who he was.
---
Return to 404
He arrived just before 1 A.M. The building stood silent and hollow, like a grave left open.
Room 404 was unlocked again.
He entered, flashlight ready. This time, there was no tape.
But someone stood in the far corner.
The stranger from before.
Same hat. Same glasses. Only this time, he removed them.
And for the first time, Haratu saw his face.
Older. Worn. Eyes like deep wells.
"You wanted the truth?" he said. "Then understand this."
He held out a folder.
Inside were photographs. Dozens.
Haratu froze.
Every photo was of someone dead—killed in the same reversed pattern. But each victim had one thing in common: they had all been informants, leakers, or internal dissenters.
"They don't kill to hide crimes," the stranger said. "They kill to prevent memory. To erase the idea that truth is possible."
Haratu stared down at one final photo in the folder.
A young woman.
Detective Tanaka.
His partner.
"She's next," the man whispered.