The noise didn't disappear.
But it changed.
Less scattered.
More focused.
"There they are."
"Finally…"
"Is it them?"
A uniformed officer spotted them.
His posture straightened before his mind fully processed why.
A reflex.
An unspoken recognition of a different kind of authority.
He stepped forward.
"Agents."
The tone was controlled. Professional.
But underneath—clear relief.
Sakuya pulled out his badge without slowing down.
The motion was smooth.
Habitual—even if it was his first time.
The officer looked at it.
Then back up.
Then down again.
A second too long.
His gaze moved from the badge to Sakuya's face. From his face to his hair. From his hair to his green eyes. Then back to the badge.
"It's…"
He hesitated.
Reframed.
"Is this your first field mission?"
His voice had lost a fraction of its initial steadiness.
Nothing dramatic.
But noticeable.
Sakuya held his gaze.
"Yes."
A brief silence settled.
Then, without detour:
"Do you have any witnesses available?"
The officer led them to an improvised triage area, set slightly apart from the main perimeter.
A few folding chairs had been hastily pulled from a command vehicle. A mobile floodlight, mounted on an unstable tripod, cast a cold, clinical white light that flattened faces and amplified every detail—dark circles, tremors, distant stares.
An artificial island of clarity in a night that refused to quiet down.
Five witnesses.
Sakuya scanned them.
Not long.
Not deeply.
Just enough to understand.
It had become instinctive—this quick, almost invisible reading he'd developed since joining the N.A.S.C. A way of entering a situation before physically engaging with it.
Not conscious analysis.
An imprint.
A man in his fifties. Slouched shoulders, hands resting on his knees—unstable. A residual tremor, not violent, but constant.
A teenager. Backpack still on, as if he'd never had time to take it off. Eyes fixed. Too fixed.
Two women sitting side by side. Their fingers intertwined with a force that spoke more of fear than comfort. One whispered. The other didn't respond.
And the fifth.
Separate.
Slightly apart from the group, as if an invisible distance had formed on its own.
Sakuya slowed.
Then stopped.
Something caught.
Not recognition.
Not certainty.
An impression.
A familiar dissonance.
Like recognizing a note… without placing the song.
She was in her forties.
Short black hair.
A work jacket still on her shoulders despite the heavy warmth of the night—a small detail, but telling. People don't hold onto things like that without reason.
She was looking at the ground.
Not empty.
Focused.
Like someone replaying a scene over and over—not to understand it… but to confirm it really happened.
Sakuya stepped closer.
"Ma'am."
His voice reached for nothing.
No softness. No hardness.
Just clean neutrality.
She looked up at him.
No reaction.
No flicker.
No doubt.
Nothing.
She looked at him the way she would look at any N.A.S.C agent—with that precise mix of relief and restraint. A trust imposed by the role, tempered by an intimidation she didn't fully control.
Her gaze slipped briefly.
The hair.
The eyes.
A fraction of a second too long.
Then back to his face, adjusting her expression—as if consciously choosing not to ask certain questions.
"Were you inside the building when it happened?"
"Yes."
Immediate. Steady.
Not rigid—controlled.
"I was on the third floor. Appliance section."
Precise.
Direct.
Sakuya registered it.
And that's when it happened.
Not through the face.
Through the voice.
That slightly fast rhythm. That way of answering without searching for words, without hesitation, without unnecessary buildup.
A signature.
Something distinct.
The memory surfaced.
Mrs. Inoue.
Ryo Inoue's wife.
Ryo.
Two years working together on renovation sites in Namba. A reliable guy. Always on time. Always too much food in his lunchbox. Always insisting on sharing, even when no one was hungry.
She had come once.
Just once.
An insignificant detail at the time.
A secondary memory.
Sakuya, on a scaffold, had raised a hand.
She had returned the gesture briefly.
Without really looking at him.
Her attention entirely on her husband.
Normal.
There was no reason for her to remember him now.
And yet—
That wasn't the point.
It wasn't the absence of recognition.
It was its nature.
Total.
Absolute.
No hesitation.
No flicker of familiarity.
No moment of unconscious searching.
Nothing.
She didn't see someone she had crossed paths with.
She saw an agent.
Nothing else.
And in that exact moment, Sakuya understood something he had never fully articulated before.
He was no longer recognizable.
Not just physically.
Yes—the hair.
Yes—the eyes.
But that was surface.
Something deeper had changed.
His presence.
The way he occupied space.
The way he existed in front of others.
Someone from his old life could look him straight in the eyes…
And see nothing.
The electrician from Osaka wasn't fading.
He was already gone.
Completely.
Sakuya registered the information without resistance.
Without reaction.
Like noting data.
(Logical.)
(He no longer resembles that man.)
(He is probably no longer that man.)
No pain.
No nostalgia.
Not even a trace of regret.
That kind of feeling might have existed once.
Not anymore.
It was a fact.
Nothing more.
He filed it away.
And moved on.
"Can you describe exactly what you saw?"