The city of Kuroyume doesn’t sleep. People stroll its endless digital streets, facedown in the bright fog of their phones. Sometimes I wonder if we’re the only ones awake. I’m Akira Myojin. Today, I turn seventeen. But that’s not why I’m skipping school.
‘Akira, the club will close without you,’ said Natsuki, blinking like I’d dropped her backpack in the river. But I can’t drop this. I got the text at 2:08am: “Look beneath Wire 17. Come if you want to know who killed your brother.” Enough to make me walk to Kitano Bridge before dawn, in the rain, without my mask or coat.
This is a story about hidden hands. About ‘Shadow Branch’, the group no student believes is real. It’s said they watch through every lens. You ever feel that?
‘Did you know they’d use a neural cipher?’ Tsubasa adjusted her glasses when I asked. She’s the smartest coder at Blue Star High, technically part of my support team, but tonight, she pretends not to care. ‘If it’s one of their codes, you shouldn’t touch it. They’ll know who cracked it.’
I thought about saying I didn’t care. But I do. I’ve lost too much already, and Kaito’s gone because someone wanted him quiet. Why now, after nearly a year of silence?
Wire 17 is older than the bridge, a twist of metal forgotten over the river walk. I duck underground and palm the moss. The metal face barely creaks. There’s a dull click, and out slides an old cell wrapped in black tape. My hands almost shake. Why here? The message only boots when I wipe the side in one sleek move.
“Are you sure you want this?” says a voice, cool and smug, from the old cell. It sounds like it knows me. Male, maybe late teens, mechanical hiss at the ends. ‘Who are you?’ I whisper.
He laughs. Not cold, but familiar. Or is it mock?
We’re watching who watches, Akira,’ he says. ‘Tell Natsuki that everything she thinks she knows is a lie. If you want your truth, come to Toji Data Gardens after sunset. Bring no one. Or bring everyone. It’s your move.’
Why do we trust voices we can’t see? What would you do? Take the dare?
At lunch, Natsuki sits with her students, hiding old bruises from last week’s gym trials. She wants to crack jokes about my allergy to eggs, but when she sees my face, her own darkens. ‘Again?’ she says. ‘You’re still chasing him.’
‘He was your friend, too. You loved Kaito as much as I did.’ The table fades around us. Standing behind her, Tsubasa starts folding paper notes, the same way she’d fold black hats in code class each spring. She looks at me. ‘You aren’t thinking straight,’ she scoffs. ‘Branch leaves nobody alive, Akira. If you try this, don’t rely on luck.’ At her tone, It feels like the cold after thunder.
I don’t sleep that night. I let the worry in, lean into the blue glow of my single desk lamp and scan the coded recording seventy times. It’s full of layers. Old city ghost lines run in the sound, more complex string taps appearing between seconds, blending words into shapes: Tower, Gate, Sleeping Red, Heiwa 8th.
Natsuki calls at 3:24. ‘We go together,’ she breathes. ‘No way you’re dying where Kaito went.’ Tsubasa refuses, at first, but by 5am she’s mapping data lines through the streetlights outside my window.
Maybe you think we’re being reckless. Maybe you don’t. Have you ever staked your life on a mystery that made fewer lies feel possible?
We wait till dusk. The Toji Data Gardens are less gardens than frozen hallways of glass, striped in blue light, with not a weed anywhere in reach. People call this place sterile but full of ghosts. I tie my red shoes twice. Tsubasa wears gloves, for luck or for sensors.
‘If it turns sour, we split and run,’ says Natsuki. Her hands fit quick into her tracksuit. Tsubasa rolls her eyes but sidles near, clinging to a tiny dark USB key like it’s a magical relic.
Rows of terminals hum with stored memories. A light clicks pine green for ok, red for system trip. We enter slow, mapped by hidden eyes. Maybe you’re watching /maybe nobody is. Would you check for traps under each empty bench? We do, and Zip—out from behind a pillar comes the voice.
‘Late already,’ says a young man. His mask is antique. Eyes dim, combing all over us. Behind him shuffles a girl in white, smile older than the school itself, gaze locked on me.
‘You stayed alive this far,’ man’s voice. ‘Means two things—you learned, or we lured you.’
I want the truth,’ I tell him with more sting than sense. He doesn’t move.
‘You want Kaito’s secret.’
Natsuki says, ‘He wasn’t who you thought.’
My heart pulls, but words pour. ‘I don’t care. I need to know.’ Silence like static. This moment could break lives, and we all know it.
Behind us, something buzzes. Wall screens shift. Archive video in black and red flickers—Kaito, or a ghost who wears his face, hacking what looks like school system files. The girl in white mouths, ‘Not everything can be undone.’
Tsubasa jabs at a console, rips out a file. Lights swerve to violet. Alarms yawn but don’t growl. For a full second no one moves. In this space, breath dies—choices hang. ‘Come with us,’ the masked boy taunts, ‘Or walk out as targets. We don’t care as much as you do. But we never lose sleep.’
I step inch forward, voice gone breath thin. ‘Show me how Kaito died.’
Natsuki sinks beside me. Tsubasa starts silent sobbing behind her mask. The city hum crowds us. The masked girl turns, blue irises grey with memory. Old secrets tumble, written only in shadows and half-blind faith. Will we trade all for yawning truth? Before the air can break, screens cut to pure blank.
Cut: Next episode—Only passwords hang in cold air, the last flickering word on screen: “Next.” Who will step into the dark? Is knowing worth dying for? End arc cliffhanger.
