The outskirts of Mizuhara looked like the city had stopped breathing halfway through construction.
Cracked roads. Broken streetlights. A subway line that ended in a bricked-up wall. Nature hadn't reclaimed it — just avoided it, like everything else did.
Kouji stepped off the transport van in silence, adjusting the cuffs of his gloves as Yuusuke dropped down beside him.
"Spooky," Yuusuke muttered, glancing around. "This is one of those aura-dead zones, right?"
"Mostly." Kouji scanned the skyline. "But there's movement in the map data."
Yuusuke tapped his belt holster. "Nightmares?"
Kouji shook his head. "Too consistent. This looks like patrol cycles."
They exchanged a glance, then moved forward. Hanzo had given them little to go on — just a grid reference, minimal briefing, and the instruction to "verify and log any structural irregularities." No explanation for the lab symbols marked on the map.
But something in Kouji's chest told him this wasn't a simple recon.
The building was half-collapsed and buried under vines, but still standing — or rather, still waiting. It was rectangular, concrete, and distinctly not from the Association's construction database.
As they entered through a broken side door, dust filled the air like smoke.
Yuusuke pulled a mask from his belt and slipped it on.
"Smells like burnt oil and old blood."
Kouji didn't respond. He walked toward the elevator shaft, now a hollow chute full of debris.
But the door next to it — basement access — was slightly open.
That wasn't natural.
The basement lab was dead.
Walls blackened by fire. Glass melted in jagged patterns. Filing cabinets charred and bent. The smell of something chemical and long-dried clung to the air like regret.
"This wasn't abandoned," Kouji said.
Yuusuke crouched next to a twisted metal rack. "This was covered up."
Kouji knelt near a scorched computer terminal and pressed his hand against the base plate. His aura slipped through the metal, searching for something intact.
His vision sparked.
A buried fragment — a folder, nearly destroyed, but still partially alive.
The text was unreadable.
Kouji's hand froze.
Yuusuke stepped behind him. "…Hey. That look on your face—"
"Nothing." Kouji snapped the folder away. "Let's take it back. Ryo needs to see this."
Yuusuke didn't push. But as they turned to leave, he glanced once more at the flickering wall monitor, still half-melted. Something had been recorded here. Something alive.
And then erased.
They returned to HQ just past nightfall, the air between them tense but quiet.
When they handed the data to Ryo in his office, he said nothing at first. Just looked at the folder like it might scream.
He nodded once. "I'll handle this."
Kouji hesitated. "Are you going to tell the Association?"
Ryo's answer was immediate. "No."
Yuusuke frowned. "Why?"
Ryo met Kouji's eyes. "Because the Association might already know."
He added, "I'll be off for some days" and left.
The next morning, a knock echoed through Kouji's room.
When he opened it, a figure stood leaning against the doorframe — lean, with black hair, a faded scar on his temple, and a jacket slung carelessly over one shoulder.
"You Kouji?"
"…Yeah."
The man smiled. "I'm Ketsu. Ryo told me to stick to you for a while. Hope you don't mind company."
Kouji crossed his arms. "I don't need a babysitter."
Ketsu shrugged. "I'm not a babysitter. I'm a leash. Just not sure if it's on you or the people following you."
He winked, then walked past Kouji into the room uninvited.
Ketsu raised a hand in greeting. "Room for one more?"
Kouji watched him, unsure whether to be irritated or relieved.
Maybe both.