Rain glazed the streets of Kazegaoka like a mourning veil, draping the city in a cold, grey melancholy. Detective Haratu Sota stared out the window of his dimly lit apartment, cigarette burning untouched in the ashtray. The murder pattern had grown more convoluted — almost ritualistic. Victims connected not by enmity or desire, but by time. By an unseen thread winding backward through their deaths.
His phone vibrated once.
Unknown Number:
Meet me at the Aogiri Clocktower. Midnight. Come alone.
Sota narrowed his eyes. The Aogiri Clocktower had long been abandoned, a crumbling remnant of Kazegaoka's forgotten industrial age. There had been whispers that it once belonged to a family of horologists — artisans obsessed with time.
He crushed the cigarette and grabbed his coat.
---
The Clocktower's rusted doors groaned open under his touch. Dust choked the air inside. The once grand clock face loomed above like a god's blind eye. Beneath it stood a girl in a black cloak, her silver-white hair reflecting the moonlight through shattered glass panes.
"You came," she said, without turning.
"You're the one who sent the message?"
The girl nodded. "You've been chasing a pattern with no beginning. A cycle with no origin. That's why you can't break it."
Haratu stepped closer, keeping one hand near his concealed pistol. "Who are you?"
She turned, revealing eyes the color of antique brass. "My name is Kureha Saimura. But I'm better known by a different name — The Clockmaker's Daughter."
---
Kureha Saimura.
That name hadn't surfaced in police databases. But Sota's mind ticked through older memories — stories from a decade ago about the Saimura family, a clan of prodigies in mechanical engineering. Rumors said they had once created a prototype capable of measuring time not linearly, but in loops. A time-map.
"You're connected to this," Haratu said.
"I'm bound to it," she replied. "My father, Aoto Saimura, was part of a secret group — Kōkai no Me. The Eye of Regret. He built something terrible. Something that distorted death itself."
She lifted her sleeve, revealing a circular device embedded into her forearm — like a mechanical heart fused with skin. It ticked, faintly, in rhythm with her pulse.
"He made this for me. A chrono-core. He said it could let me observe time without being bound by it. But he lied. It doesn't show time... it anchors me to it."
Sota frowned. "Are you saying you're... stuck?"
"In a way. My memories aren't sequential. I remember tomorrow more clearly than yesterday. That's how I knew to call you tonight."
Sota took a slow breath. "How does this connect to the murders?"
She walked over to an old control panel beneath the clock face and flicked a few switches. Old gears groaned to life.
"This tower was once used to test the time-map. The theory was that every death left an echo — and if you mapped those echoes backward, you could trace not the killer, but the cause of the killing before it happened."
"You're talking nonsense," Sota muttered. "People don't die from the future."
"No," Kureha said. "But their motives are born there."
---
Sota watched as the clock hands spun in reverse. Beneath them, a hidden compartment clicked open, revealing a series of dusty blueprints.
She handed one to him. It was a schematic — a spiral with dots marked in blood-red ink.
"Each dot is a victim. Each line is the connection backward — not from victim to killer, but killer to their killer. It isn't just a chain... it's a spiral collapsing inward. And at the center—"
"—is the origin."
She nodded. "I believe it's someone called Kanzaki Ryo. A name buried in the Eye of Regret's early records. My father feared him. Said he was the one who took the time-map and turned it into a death spiral."
Sota committed the name to memory. "So what do you want from me?"
Kureha's voice cracked. "To stop it. To find Kanzaki. Before the spiral consumes everyone."
---
Flashback: Twelve Years Ago
Young Kureha sat in the tower, legs dangling from a balcony ledge. Her father, Aoto Saimura, crouched beside a large device pulsing with light. He never smiled anymore. Not since the machine started working.
"Kureha," he whispered. "You must never enter the spiral."
"Why?"
"Because time doesn't care about good or evil. Once you step inside, it won't let you go. You'll become part of it."
"But you made it."
"I made a map. Kanzaki made a prison."
The machine buzzed, lights blinking erratically. Aoto backed away, horrified.
"She's dead," he muttered. "Again. The spiral won't stop until it eats us all."
---
Back in the present, Haratu stared at Kureha. She looked barely twenty, but her eyes were far older — eyes that had seen years out of order.
"I'll help you," he said. "But I need access to everything you have on Kanzaki Ryo."
Kureha hesitated. "There's one problem. If we go after him, he'll know. The spiral responds to interference. Each time you disrupt it, you become part of it."
"I don't believe in curses."
She looked at him with something between pity and admiration. "Then you're already lost."
---
Three days later, Haratu received a file from Kureha. Inside were fragmented documents, handwritten notes, and a blurry photo of Kanzaki Ryo.
He was tall. Sharp-eyed. Standing beside a woman with a striking resemblance to Kureha — perhaps her mother.
But one thing stood out. The timestamp on the photo read: March 3rd, 2026. The future.
Haratu's breath caught.
It was still February.
---
Elsewhere, deep underground, a man in a sterile white coat watched several monitors. On one screen, Haratu was pacing his office. On another, Kureha stared blankly at the cracked ceiling of her clocktower.
"Haratu Sota," the man whispered. "The spiral draws you in."
Behind him, a wall of photos — all victims in the murder cycle — stared back, their eyes scratched out.
He reached for a piece of chalk and added a new name.
KUREHA SAIMURA.
Then, beneath it:
STATUS: TO BE ACTIVATED.