The stairs down to the old Shinjuku spur were slick with condensation, the kind that made every breath taste faintly of rust. Seigi's footsteps echoed in threes—step, drip, hum—until the station opened before him like a mouth.
It was colder than he expected. Dust hung in the beams of a few surviving fluorescents, turning the air into slow-falling snow. Old election posters had bubbled and peeled on the tiled walls. A cracked timetable still promised trains that hadn't run in twenty years. The tracks themselves were twin strips of darkness, rails dull as dead silver snakes. Somewhere, water tapped steadily from a cracked pipe, ticking time.
He scanned the platform the way a detective scans a scene. Two exits—one back up the stairs he'd come from, one a maintenance door with a rusted chain. Broken benches made islands of shadow. If this was a trap, the kill box was obvious: a shooter on the mezzanine could own the length of the platform.
He steadied his breath and let his palm hover near his holster.
Instead of an ambush, he found Hana.
She stood near the far end beneath a sputtering light, simple indigo jacket tied at the waist, hair loose against her shoulders. No lab coat, no clipboard. Here, the stillness she wore at the precinct read differently—less careful, more claimed. She belonged to the hush.
"You came," she said. Her voice didn't need to rise; the station carried it to him.
"I want answers," Seigi replied, jaw tight.
"You'll have them," she said. A small flicker moved behind her eyes—relief, maybe. "But not all at once."
A rustle from the dark. Seigi shifted his feet. Two figures stepped out from behind a support pillar.
The first was lean and sharp-featured, messy brown hair tucked under a beanie, jacket open despite the cold. His grin arrived before the rest of him did.
"Riku," he announced, giving a theatrical bow. "And you must be the detective who thinks he's a hero."
Seigi arched a brow. "And you must be the comedian who thinks he's helpful."
"Oh, I'm extremely helpful," Riku said, straightening. "I punch the problems. If they're still problems, I punch harder."
The second figure moved with the opposite energy—soft, small, composed. She was petite, fine-boned, with warm brown eyes and a neat bob that framed her face. A pale cardigan fell over a simple dress, out of place in the ruin but right on her. Where Riku sharpened the air, she gentled it.
"Aya," she said, voice smooth and kind. "Don't mind him. He's loud when he's nervous."
"I'm never nervous," Riku muttered.
"You talk more when you are," Aya said, the faintest smile warming her mouth. To Seigi: "It's good you came."
Some of the coil in his shoulders loosened without his permission. He clocked details—Riku bounced subtly on the balls of his feet, weight ready to explode; Aya's hands were steady, open; Hana's attention was everywhere without seeming to look. Old instincts catalogued each of them like case notes.
"And what are you supposed to be?" Seigi asked. "The welcoming committee?"
"Roles, then," Riku said, spreading his hands. "I'm your favourite sparring partner and worst critic. I make you faster by insulting you, stronger by trying to hit you, and smarter by succeeding."
Aya's laugh was soft. "He'll say 'oops' when he breaks you. I'm the one who puts you back together. Healing. Stabilizing. You'll hate me sometimes because I'll tell you to stop."
Hana stepped closer, a bridge between them. "And I keep you from getting killed while you learn. I read ahead—just a breath. It looks like luck; it isn't." Her eyes held his. "We fill the gaps you can't see yet."
"I didn't ask for teachers," Seigi said.
"No," Hana said gently. "You asked for answers. This is what answers look like."
He was about to reply when the air itself seemed to shift—no sudden sound, just a new weight dropping into the room. Riku's grin cooled by a few degrees. Aya's posture became even more precise, like a note being tuned. Hana dipped her chin the slightest fraction.
Footsteps, measured and unhurried, floated from the tunnel mouth.
"Welcome, Seigi. I've been waiting for you."
The man who stepped into the light wore black like it was a birthright. His coat fell clean to the knee, cutting his silhouette into a deliberate line. A faint scar tracked down one cheek, more accent than injury. His hair was dark, threaded at the temples with premature grey, and his eyes—sharp, steady, assessing—found Seigi as if they'd known where he'd stand before he chose to stand there.
Kurogami.
The name arrived the same way his presence did—quietly, absolutely. Seigi felt it like a change in barometric pressure. Not fear, not awe exactly. Gravity.
"This is the Circle," Kurogami said, spreading his hands as if presenting a stage. His voice was a low instrument, resonant even under concrete. "Those who see beyond the veil of the ordinary. Those who understand that strength is not an anomaly, but a law unmet by timid minds."
He came closer. He didn't rush, and that was somehow worse. "You've touched the thread," he went on. "Most spend their lives deaf to it. A few hear it and go mad. Fewer still—" his gaze flicked to Hana, then Aya, then Riku "—learn to listen."
Seigi held his ground. "And you… teach people to listen?"
"We teach people to decide," Kurogami said. "Belief is a vector. Direction and magnitude. You've had plenty of the first, not enough of the second. You burn hot. Useful—but wasteful."
Riku coughed. "Translation: you're dramatic and sloppy."
"Coming from you," Seigi said, "that's rich."
"Oh, that tie says you rehearse your reflection," Riku shot back. "We'll fix that."
Aya stepped between their barbs with a look that gentled edges. "You both deflect when you're scared."
"I'm not scared," Riku and Seigi said at once, which made Aya's smile widen and, annoyingly, made Hana's eyes soften for a heartbeat.
Kurogami let the moment hang, then cut it clean. "You deleted a piece of truth from your precinct," he said to Seigi. "You stepped off the path you swore to walk. You did it because you believed a bigger truth was at stake. Courage… and arrogance." He inclined his head a fraction. "Both will be required."
Seigi's mouth went dry. "You don't know me."
"I know you as well as you know yourself," Kurogami said, not unkindly. "Which is to say: not nearly enough yet."
Hana touched Seigi's sleeve—brief, grounding. "You're not being recruited into a cult," she said, a tiny smile ghosting at the edge of her mouth like she knew that exact word had flared in his mind. "You're being invited into context. The thing in you has a language. We'll teach you to speak it before it speaks you."
Aya lifted a hand, showing her palm. Light pooled there—no theatrics, no blinding flare, just a soft wash that made the cold recede a step. The ache in Seigi's knuckles eased as if remembering how to be less painful. The glow faded.
"It's not magic," Aya said. "Not the way stories tell it. It's insistence. You insist gently enough, for long enough, and the world yields."
Riku rolled his neck until it cracked. "And sometimes you insist loudly." He jabbed his thumb toward a dented steel maintenance cabinet. "You'll like that part."
Seigi looked from face to face, the detective in him stacking profiles against risk. Riku carried damage like a dare. Aya wore steadiness like a uniform. Hana was a set of unreadable footnotes he wanted to annotate. And Kurogami… Kurogami was a thesis that expected to be believed.
"What do you want from me?" Seigi asked finally.
"Less than the world will," Kurogami said. "More than your precinct can understand."
"Specifics," Seigi said.
Kurogami nodded once, as if pleased by the demand. "Three things. Secrecy—we do not exist to those who would weaponize us crudely. Discipline—your body and your will will be carved into an instrument; you will not like the process. And obedience—during training, you will do as you are told. Later, you may argue with me all you like." The faintest curve touched his mouth. "You'll enjoy that."
"And if I walk away?" Seigi asked.
Hana answered before Kurogami could. "Then we pretend this meeting never happened," she said, echoing last night's bridge. "And we post shadows on the streets you walk, because the Veil will not be as polite."
"The Veil," Seigi repeated.
Riku's grin thinned. "The other club. Fewer jokes."
Aya's voice softened. "They cut threads to make ropes."
Kurogami let their answers sit. "Your choices have already attracted attention," he said. "The question is whether you arrive at the inevitable prepared… or devoured."
Silence followed, filled with the drip and hum and the small, traitorous sound of Seigi's own heart.
He thought of the mirror spiderwebbed with cracks. He thought of his mother's voice on the phone, the way it had carried warning without words. He thought of Sato's hand heavy on his shoulder and Renji's strained laugh and the schoolyard where a boy bled and would not stay down.
He looked back at Hana. She didn't nod, didn't plead. She only met his gaze and let him see that she had already done the calculus and decided he was worth the risk.
Seigi exhaled, slow. "What happens first?"
Riku clapped, startling the dust. "Finally."
"First," Hana said, the tiniest relief threading her tone, "you listen more than you move."
"Second," Aya added, "you learn how not to break."
"And third," Kurogami said, stepping close enough that Seigi could see the fine white line of the scar on his cheek, "you accept a truth most spend their lives fleeing: from this moment, you are inside the Circle." His eyes held Seigi's without blinking. "And inside, there is no leaving."
The drip counted one more second. Seigi felt the weight of the station settle onto his shoulders—and then, somehow, slide into place.
He nodded once.
The Circle closed.