The news of the masked man's capture spread quickly through underground channels. Seta, once thought lost to the state, was now exposed as a key agent of the elusive Kōkai no Me. But his arrest brought no comfort—it only served as a spark.
The cycle hadn't broken. It had only paused.
---
Haratu stood in the darkened conference room, arms crossed, eyes fixed on a corkboard filled with photographs, string lines, police reports, and symbols.
Ryoko entered, carrying two cups of coffee.
"You haven't slept," she said.
"I dream better when I'm awake," Haratu replied.
She set the cup beside him. "You really believe there are more of them?"
"Yes." His voice was low, certain. "Seta wasn't their leader. He was a node. There's something bigger. Something older."
Ryoko took a slow sip. "You think this is a cult?"
Haratu tapped one of the photos on the board—an old black-and-white image of a ritual circle discovered during a decades-old serial murder investigation. At its center was a symbol eerily similar to the spiral.
"I think this group has existed longer than we realize. And they've evolved."
He turned to her. "We're not fighting killers anymore. We're fighting a belief."
---
In a dark study somewhere in the city, a woman in a long black dress watched the news report showing Seta's masked face.
She turned to a man seated beside her.
"So... he revealed himself."
The man nodded. "And he was caught. Predictable."
The woman lit a cigarette, the glow momentarily illuminating her pale, sharp features.
"Then the eye shifts," she said. "Phase Two begins."
The man leaned forward. "Are the others in position?"
"They will be." She took a drag. "It's time the detective was tested… personally."
---
Back at headquarters, Haratu received an envelope with no return address.
Inside was a photograph—an image of his mentor, Detective Arakawa, now retired, standing outside a temple.
On the back, scribbled in jagged handwriting:
"He remembers. But for how long?"
Haratu stiffened.
Ryoko leaned over his shoulder. "Who's that?"
"Arakawa," he said. "He trained me. Retired after a breakdown… but he was one of the first to investigate the cycle."
"You think he's in danger?"
"No." Haratu narrowed his eyes. "I think he's the next key."
---
The temple was nestled in the woods beyond the city. Ryoko and Haratu made the journey at dusk, shadows long across the old stone paths.
They found Arakawa sweeping the leaves outside the gate.
He looked up, and despite the wrinkles and gray in his beard, his eyes were alert.
"Haratu," he greeted with a faint smile. "You finally came."
Haratu stepped forward. "You were expecting me?"
Arakawa nodded. "The spiral never stops turning. Only some of us see the center."
Ryoko stepped beside Haratu. "Do you know about Kōkai no Me?"
"I knew them before they had a name," Arakawa said. "When they were just angry children playing gods in the shadows."
They moved inside the temple, now his home. It was filled with scrolls, photographs, and a large mural on the back wall—an intricate spiral of painted eyes.
"I tried to stop it," Arakawa said. "But the cycle feeds on silence. And fear."
Haratu asked, "What do they want?"
Arakawa stared into a flickering candle. "They want what we all want. Meaning. But they've built theirs from blood."
---
Back in the city, the woman in black stood before a group in a candlelit basement.
Her voice was smooth, controlled.
"Seta was a signal," she said. "Now the detective looks deeper. We must guide his gaze."
From the shadows, a young girl stepped forward. Her eyes gleamed gold in the candlelight.
She couldn't have been older than sixteen.
"She's ready," the woman said. "Send her into the cycle."
Rain drizzled over the city as Haratu and Ryoko drove back from the temple. Neither spoke for a long time, each lost in thoughts that twisted like the spiral they'd sworn to unravel.
Ryoko finally broke the silence. "What did he mean by 'built from blood'?"
Haratu's hands tightened on the wheel. "I think... he meant the cycle is more than symbolic. It's ritualistic. Sacrifice fuels it."
"Then that girl—Shino—"
"—wasn't a coincidence," Haratu finished grimly. "She was chosen."
They parked in front of headquarters and hurried through the rain. Inside, they were met by Natsuki, the young analyst.
"We just got this," she said, handing over a small envelope. "No prints. No surveillance caught the drop."
Inside was a USB.
Haratu plugged it into the secure system. A single file opened: a grainy video.
In it, an empty alley at night. A man walking alone.
Suddenly, a girl stepped out of the shadows.
She raised her hand—no weapon. Just silence. Then the man collapsed, as if invisible strings cut him down.
Haratu froze the video. Zoomed in.
The girl had golden eyes.
"She's the same one," Ryoko whispered. "The one from the basement."
"But how?" Natsuki asked. "There was no contact. No visible cause of death."
Haratu didn't answer.
---
Elsewhere, the girl stood atop a building, wind fluttering her cloak. She stared down at the city—not with malice, but with quiet sadness.
"Do you remember who you were?" the woman in black asked behind her.
"No," the girl said. "Only who I'm meant to be."
"Then you are ready."
She handed the girl a photograph. It was of Ryoko.
"She's the next link. Do not kill her. Just deliver the message."
---
The next morning, Ryoko was alone in her apartment when she heard a knock. No one ever came without calling first.
She peered through the peephole.
No one.
Cautiously, she opened the door. On her welcome mat was a single origami crane—and beneath it, a small envelope.
Inside: a drawing. A spiral, like a fingerprint, and a single sentence:
"You are remembered. You are chosen."
Ryoko's heart pounded. She locked the door, drew her gun, and called Haratu.
---
They met in his office, the drawing between them.
"She's toying with us," Ryoko said. "No attack. Just a message."
"She wants you afraid," Haratu replied. "But she also wants you alert."
"To what?"
Haratu stared at the spiral. "To your place in the cycle."
---
That night, they returned to Arakawa's temple. The old detective was already waiting.
"She reached out, didn't she?" he asked Ryoko.
"How did you know?"
"She reached out to me the same way years ago," he said. "But she wasn't a girl then. She was a voice. A dream."
He lit incense and gestured for them to sit.
"There's something you don't know," he said, eyes glinting. "The cycle isn't just murder begetting murder. It's memory passed through blood. A legacy of silence."
Haratu leaned forward. "You mean... reincarnation?"
"Not in the mystical sense," Arakawa said. "But in the psychological. Every victim's pain becomes the next killer's burden. Through guilt. Through fear. Through obsession."
He looked at Ryoko.
"She's not just delivering a message. She's awakening something in you."
---
Far away, the girl sat in a candle-lit room filled with books and scrolls.
She whispered, almost in prayer: "Ryoko Tanaka. Daughter of vigilance. Heart of the second eye."
The candles flickered.
And Ryoko, asleep in her apartment that night, dreamed of spiral towers, of eyes in the dark, and of a voice calling her name from the mirror.
Ryoko's eyes snapped open.
The dream still clung to her—eyes watching from behind mirrors, towers built like spirals into the heavens, and a voice whispering her name like it knew her.
She stumbled out of bed and splashed cold water on her face. The spiral symbol still haunted her mind. Not just as a shape—but a sensation. A pull.
A calling.
---
At headquarters, Haratu reviewed old case files. Dozens of them.
Victims murdered in sequences. All with one thing in common—each murderer had been a witness, a loved one, or an investigator of a prior victim.
The pattern had been ignored. Dismissed. Lost in bureaucratic oversight.
Until now.
Natsuki entered, her face pale.
"Sir... there's something strange. I ran a deep background check on Ryoko, like you asked—"
Haratu turned sharply. "You what?"
"You said you wanted to see if she had any past ties to the cycle," she said carefully. "And I think she does."
She handed him a sealed file.
Haratu flipped it open—and froze.
It was an old newspaper clipping. A house fire from twenty years ago. Arson suspected. One child survivor.
The child's name: Ryoko Tanaka.
The article mentioned her family: her parents and a younger sister. All presumed dead.
Haratu leaned back slowly. "She never told me this."
"She may not even remember it clearly," Natsuki said. "She was only five."
"But why would someone burn down a house and spare one child?"
Natsuki hesitated, then added, "That's not the only thing."
She showed him a photo. It had been mailed anonymously to a regional station last week. It showed Ryoko—as a child—standing beside another girl.
The girl had golden eyes.
---
Meanwhile, Ryoko sat with Arakawa again. The old man handed her an old journal.
It belonged to his late partner—a detective named Morita who had died mysteriously while investigating the first known cycle case.
The journal entries were unhinged. Words scratched violently across pages.
> "The Eye returns. It chooses one from the blood. The Watcher walks among the flames."
> "The girl... she is not born. She is repeated. Again and again. Until the Cycle breaks or consumes."
Ryoko's hands trembled.
"Your dreams," Arakawa said gently, "are not hallucinations. They're memories. Trapped inside you. Not from this life. But inherited."
"Inherited?"
"You survived the fire because you were never meant to die. You were chosen. Just like she was."
Ryoko stood. "Then I have to find her."
---
Haratu found her first.
She was standing in the alley where the first murder occurred, staring at a wall painted with a fresh spiral symbol.
He approached quietly. "You okay?"
"No," Ryoko admitted. "But I'm done being afraid."
Haratu handed her the file Natsuki uncovered.
Ryoko stared at the clipping. The article. The girl beside her.
"I remember," she whispered.
"She was my sister."
---
Back in the candle-lit room, the golden-eyed girl—Shino—sat in silence.
Her mentor, the woman in black, entered and said softly, "She's beginning to awaken."
Shino nodded. "She's close. But still trapped in the illusion."
"Then it's time," the woman said. "Reveal her final memory."
Shino opened her hand. A flame flickered above her palm.
In it danced a child's scream, a burning house, and a girl dragged from the flames by someone unseen.
And behind the fire, stood a spiral burning in the sky.
---
That night, Ryoko returned home and sat before the mirror.
Something shimmered in the glass.
The reflection smiled—before she did.
And whispered: "Welcome back, twin."