Rain poured over Neonspire, drowning the streets in rivers of neon light. Signs flickered. Hover-cars glided above the crowded avenues.
The city was alive with electricity—yet beneath all the noise, there was silence.
Not the silence of peace.
The silence of a world that believed mystery no longer existed.
---
At the top of the government tower, Detective Aya Hoshino stood before the door of Senator Takeda's office.
A glowing hologram floated in the air. The judgment of Oracle, the city's all-seeing AI:
> NO CRIME DETECTED.
CAUSE OF DEATH: NATURAL.
CASE CLOSED.
Aya's jaw tightened. Her instincts told her otherwise.
---
The office was too clean. Too quiet. The senator slumped lifeless in his chair, eyes wide open as if frozen in fear.
But what caught Aya's attention wasn't the body.
It was what the senator was holding.
A sheet of paper.
Real paper. A rarity in Neonspire. Words were scratched across it in jagged ink:
> "When silence screams, even gods must listen.
The Oracle is blind.
—The Whisperer."
Aya's breath caught.
Paper no longer existed. Handwriting no longer existed.
And the words… they were a challenge.
---
"You said it out loud."
Aya spun around.
A boy leaned against the doorway, his black hoodie dripping from the rain. His eyes—sharp, calculating—locked with hers.
Riku Kisaragi.
Seventeen. Hacker genius. The only one who had ever broken into Oracle's hidden systems.
"This is a restricted area," Aya said, hand hovering near her holster. "You shouldn't be here."
Riku smirked.
"Oracle didn't stop me, did it? That means technically… I didn't break any rules."
Aya's eyes narrowed. He was right. No alarms. No alerts. Oracle hadn't noticed him at all.
---
"Why are you here?" she demanded.
His smirk faded. His voice dropped low.
"Because I've seen that handwriting before. When I hacked Oracle, I found fragments—messages hidden deep inside its system. Handwritten. Like this."
He glanced at the paper in Aya's hand.
"Someone is inside Oracle. Someone who wants to play."
Aya's pulse quickened.
The senator's dead eyes. The impossible message. And this boy who knew secrets no human should know.
For the first time in decades… Oracle had no answer.
The Whisperer had returned.
And now, Aya and Riku were caught in its game.