Shibuya never truly slept.
Not in the human sense. The city slowed, yes—the flow thinned, the voices grew fewer—but it never stopped. Neon lights continued to pulse across the facades like artificial heartbeats, casting their colors over the wet asphalt. Giant screens looped their advertisements endlessly, indifferent to the hour, to those still watching… or to those who no longer were.
And the crowd persisted.
More scattered, more dispersed—but still there. Silhouettes passing without seeing each other. Faces lit by the cold glow of their phones. Paths crossing without ever truly meeting.
A constant circulation.
A human inertia.
In the middle of it all, Sakuya walked.
His steps naturally fell into the rhythm of the city—steady, measured, unhurried. The water on the pavement echoed dully beneath each footfall.
He wasn't looking at the signs, the screens, or the people.
His gaze was fixed ahead.
But even that wasn't entirely true.
He wasn't focusing on anything specific.
His eyes were open. His mind was elsewhere.
---
(A name.)
The thought returned, insistent.
(Mizunashi said it needed a name.)
The scene replayed with unsettling clarity. The training room. The smell of concrete. The cracks spreading under impact, as if the material itself had given way to an invisible pressure.
And that aura.
Violet.
Unstable.
Not summoned—released.
"A name isn't a label."
Mizunashi's voice was always the same in his memory: calm, precise, without hesitation. Every word landed exactly where it needed to.
"It's an anchored intention. A direction you impose on your Seimei before it even responds."
A pause.
"Without it, you react."
Another.
"With it, you choose."
Sakuya hadn't answered that day.
Not out of refusal.
Because there was nothing to add.
He understood.
Or at least—he understood enough to know what he was missing.
What he was using… wasn't a technique yet.
It was a reflex.
Something raw. Instinctive. A bodily reaction that came before thought could form. The ability to let things pass through… or to deny that passage—without ever fully deciding one way or the other.
And a reflex, by definition, escapes control.
A technique, on the other hand, is built. Repeated. Mastered.
(So it needed a name.)
But nothing felt right.
Every word he tested in his mind felt incomplete. Too vague. Too rigid. Too false.
To name something was to fix it in place.
And what he did… wasn't fixed.
He let the thought dissolve on its own.
Forcing it would lead nowhere.
---
Itsuki walked at his left.
Half a step behind—not out of submission, but habit. A position that allowed him to see without being at the center, to observe without disturbing.
His presence was steady.
Calm.
Controlled.
His left arm, however, still betrayed something. A slight stiffness in the movement. Almost imperceptible—but real.
Sakuya had noticed it immediately.
He said nothing.
"First field mission, right?"
Itsuki's voice cut through his thoughts without harshness.
"Yes."
No hesitation. No embellishment.
"How do you feel?"
The question lingered for a fraction of a second.
Sakuya searched for an honest answer.
He found a simple one.
"The same as before."
Itsuki didn't react right away. He absorbed the answer, as he always did—without immediate judgment.
"That good or bad?"
"I don't know."
A slight pause.
"Probably both."
A faint smile touched Itsuki's lips. Not mocking. Not approving.
Understanding.
He didn't add anything.
He didn't need to.
---
The crowd adjusted around them.
Subtly.
Almost unconsciously.
Paths shifted slightly. Distances corrected themselves. People altered their movement before realizing why.
Like water flowing around an obstacle.
Black trench coats.
Badges.
The signs were there—even for those who didn't fully understand them.
A man across the street paused briefly, watching them. Then he looked away, picking up his pace.
A group of high schoolers exiting a convenience store slowed as they saw them approach.
A discreet nudge.
Two phones raised.
Low voices.
"Are they N.A.S.C agents?"
"Look at the coats."
"…his hair."
Sakuya heard them.
He showed no reaction.
He had learned.
Looking back changed nothing.
The stares existed independently of him.
His violet hair, in this ordinary setting, wasn't a detail—it was a disruption. A visual anomaly that the black trench coat didn't hide, but framed.
(Theta.)
Even without understanding classifications, people felt that kind of thing.
A difference.
A potential danger.
A boundary they couldn't define—but preferred not to cross.
Sakuya kept walking.
---
The security perimeter came into view at the next intersection.
Yellow tape stretched between metal barricades.
Intermittent blue lights.
Four police cars arranged in an arc, forming a clear boundary between two realities: the ordinary… and the one that had gone wrong.
Uniformed officers managed the perimeter. Their posture betrayed controlled tension—not panic, but heightened alertness. The kind of vigilance that comes from dealing with something only half understood.
Behind them—the shopping complex.
Massive.
Five stories of glass and steel.
The main lights were off. Only a few interior neons remained, powered by an unstable backup system. They flickered intermittently, casting irregular flashes behind the glass facade.
Like an arrhythmic heartbeat.
Closed for four days.
Four days ago, it had been ordinary.
Loud. Alive.
Filled with everyday people.
Now, it was something else.
And everyone knew it.
The crowd, held at a distance, reacted to their approach.