The air was unnaturally silent in the city morgue, a silence that clung to Haratu Sota's thoughts like fog. The fluorescent lights above buzzed faintly, as if struggling to stay alive under the weight of the deaths they illuminated. Before him lay the latest victim—unidentifiable, even by the forensics team. There were no fingerprints, no dental records. Even the face had been destroyed beyond recognition.
Yet there was something eerily familiar about the wound. Sota's trained eyes noted the precise cut across the throat—a mirror of the very first victim.
"This isn't just a cycle," he murmured. "It's a spiral."
"Come again?" Detective Ryoko Tanaka looked up from her notes.
Haratu stepped back, crossing his arms. "The sequence of murders… it's not looping—it's expanding. Each new murder mimics an older one, but shifts slightly in timing and method. It's like someone is drawing a spiral around us. Pulling us into the center."
"Are you saying the killer is evolving?" Ryoko asked, eyes narrowing.
Haratu didn't answer. Instead, he turned and walked toward the hallway. Something had been gnawing at the back of his mind. A name. A word. Something that had surfaced briefly during his last visit to the old library archives.
Kōkai no Me.
The Eye of Regret.
It had appeared scrawled on the back of an old police file from thirteen years ago—a cold case involving a cult-like group that vanished after a string of suicides.
He had dismissed it before. Now he wasn't so sure.
Ding.
The morgue's elevator opened with a metallic chime. A young man stepped out, tall, sharp-eyed, wearing a long charcoal coat and leather gloves. His hair was snow-white, an unusual color for someone in his mid-twenties. A thin scar ran from his left temple to his cheek. He moved with precision and confidence, like someone trained to operate in shadows.
Haratu's eyes locked onto him immediately.
Ryoko looked puzzled. "Can I help you?"
The man gave a small bow. "My name is Rei Makihara. I'm an independent criminal profiler. I've been following the pattern of these murders for a while now."
"Uninvited, I presume," Haratu said coolly.
"Only because I'm interested in the truth, not the politics." Rei's smile was unsettling. "And I think you and I are after the same thing, Haratu Sota."
Ryoko blinked. "You two know each other?"
Haratu shook his head. "No. But his name has crossed my path. You did work on the 'Black Chamber' serials three years ago, didn't you?"
"I did," Rei replied. "And you solved the 'Clockwork Murders' in Osaka. We were... indirect rivals."
Haratu eyed him. "Then why are you here?"
Rei reached into his coat and pulled out a small plastic evidence bag. Inside was a coin—ancient, rusted, with a strange spiral symbol etched onto its face.
"This," Rei said, "was found in the shoe of the second victim. Your people missed it. It took me a while to trace the symbol, but it's connected to Kōkai no Me."
At the mention of the name, Ryoko stiffened. "The Eye of Regret? That's an urban legend."
"No," Haratu said softly. "It was real. I found it in the case files. They vanished after a series of ritual deaths."
Rei nodded. "Their doctrine was built around reversing the past. They believed that only through unmaking choices could one reach salvation. They thought death could reverse fate."
Ryoko frowned. "What does that have to do with our case?"
Rei's eyes glittered. "Everything. The victims are part of a sequence. But the murderers… they're chosen not randomly, but as echoes. Reflections of sins reversed."
"What are you saying?" Ryoko asked. "That someone is choosing killers based on some philosophical revenge spiral?"
Haratu interrupted. "No. He's saying the murderer isn't a person."
Both Ryoko and Rei stared.
Haratu walked to the window, where the city lights shimmered like a broken mirror. "Think about it. Every killer ends up dead. But before that, they commit a murder that matches the one before them. That means they had knowledge—intimate knowledge—of the previous murder. And somehow, the next killer has knowledge of theirs, and so on."
Rei picked up the thought. "Which means there must be something—or someone—linking all of them. A puppet master. Or…"
Ryoko whispered it: "A curse?"
Silence again. The kind of silence that only happens when everyone in the room feels the ground shift beneath their feet.
Just then, Haratu's phone buzzed. A message.
From: Unknown
Subject: You're close.
Text:
"Look into the third cycle.
March 3rd, 10:03 PM.
She never screamed."
Attached was a photo.
It was a girl—young, perhaps eighteen. Pale skin. Short black hair. A soft smile frozen in time. But the background—
Haratu zoomed in.
It was a room he knew well.
His own childhood home.
His fingers tightened around the phone. Rei noticed the change.
"Who is she?"
Haratu didn't answer.
Because the girl in the photo was his sister.
Akane Sota.
Dead for over ten years.
Ryoko gasped. "Haratu... is this—?"
"She died in an accident," he said flatly. "I found her. Alone. No suspects."
Rei stepped closer. "What if it wasn't an accident?"
Haratu's eyes narrowed. "Then someone just made this personal."
---
They drove through the night, heading to the outskirts of the city. Haratu's old family home stood like a ghost from another era. Weeds crept up the driveway. The mailbox was missing its lid. Yet the windows… were spotless.
Ryoko shivered. "Has anyone been here recently?"
"No," Haratu replied. "Not since the funeral."
They entered. Dust coated everything. But as they moved into the hallway, a trail of recent footprints became visible. Muddy. Unmistakable.
Someone had been here.
They followed the trail to Akane's old bedroom. It was untouched—the posters still on the wall, her books still on the shelf.
And in the center of the bed, laid carefully like a ritual offering, was a spiral coin.
Rei picked it up with a gloved hand. "Another one."
Beneath it, a note.
"Cycle 3. Initiated."
Suddenly, the air turned cold. A low hum began to fill the room, like static crawling into their bones.
Haratu turned sharply. "We're not alone."
A figure stepped from the shadows in the corner—no taller than a child, wearing a featureless white mask. Their voice was distorted, genderless.
"You've seen the spiral. You've stepped into the eye."
Ryoko drew her gun. "Hands where I can see them!"
The figure didn't move. "You can't stop the cycle. It began before your lives, and it will end after your deaths."
Haratu stepped forward. "Why my sister?"
"She was the first mirror. The one who broke fate. Her death was the catalyst."
Rei stared. "You're saying she started this?"
The masked figure nodded. "Not by choice. But by deviation. The spiral forms around choices not taken."
Haratu clenched his fists. "What do you want?"
"Understanding," the figure said. "Before the center is reached."
With that, they threw down a smoke bomb. The room filled with choking black fog.
By the time it cleared, they were gone.
---
Back in the car, Ryoko was shaking. "That wasn't just some cultist. That was someone who knows us."
Haratu remained silent, staring at the coin.
Rei broke the silence. "If we've reached Cycle 3, then we're at the halfway point. But the message said she never screamed. What does that mean?"
Haratu looked at him, eyes heavy with old grief. "It means whoever did this was in the room with her. And she trusted them enough not to be afraid."
Ryoko turned in her seat. "You think someone you know killed her?"
"I think," Haratu said slowly, "that the spiral wants me to find out. And now… I think it's my turn in the cycle."