Set across an alternate Earth, the story unfolds in a fractured reality where eras collide—where futuristic megacities hum with neon veins and holographic gods, while fog-draped coastal towns cling to centuries-old traditions as if time forgot to move forward. This world is a mosaic of Neo-Tokyo skylines, the towering hyperdensity of East Asia’s techno-cities, and isolated border villages still governed by oral myth and rusted wind chimes. Monorails pass over rice paddies. Drones circle wooden shrines. The sacred and synthetic exist side by side.

The setting shifts to Kurokawa, a once-thriving fishing village turned industrial ghost town, tucked along the salt-beaten edges of the Akatsuki Peninsula. Crumbling sea walls struggle against rising tides, and rust-coated scaffolding creaks in the endless wind. The town, half-sunk into disrepair, is haunted by old war sirens and the fading pulse of abandoned tech. A place forgotten by government maps but alive in superstition, whispered about in the undercurrents of forums and folklore. Kurokawa is not dead—it dreams in ruins.

A storm gathers over its skeletal skyline. Thunder cracks over crooked rooftops. Rain slices through power lines. Amid the tempest, a young child stands paralyzed beneath a collapsing telecom tower—struck by fear, too late to run. And then—he appears.

From the shadows of a shattered alleyway, a man cloaked in ragged synth-fiber, his face obscured beneath the shadow of a low-slung hood, rushes forward. Without hesitation, he snatches the child from the path of the falling debris, shielding them with his own body. The moment passes in an instant. The wreckage crashes. Dust blooms. Sirens approach.

But by the time the townspeople arrive—gathering with gasps and frantic voices—the man is gone. No footprints. No trace. Only the child, dazed but unharmed, clutching a folded paper talisman with a strange sigil drawn in red ink.

Hours later, a grainy image from a malfunctioning surveillance drone is uploaded to a forgotten thread in an urban myth forum. The image, smeared by rain and digital noise, captures only a vague silhouette: a tall figure in a tattered coat, walking alone into the storm, light glinting off something metallic at his hip. No name. No identity. Only a caption left by an anonymous poster:

"The man with no name. The one who grants unfulfilled wishes. He's real. Kurokawa is proof."

The post goes viral in occult circles. Some claim he’s a spirit displaced by time. Others say he’s a fugitive scientist testing dreamtech on the dead. A few believe he is punishment incarnate—karma given form.

But all agree on one thing:

Where tragedy looms and the forgotten cry out, he appears—only once—and disappears like a ghost in the storm.

In a forest valley where the old wounds of the world once festered, there now stands a place of stillness and strange peace—a compound of glass and stone, soundproof walls humming with gentle frequencies, dreams suspended in amber. It is not a hospital. Nor a temple. It is called the House of Echoes.


And at its heart is Yuna, now seventeen.


Silent as always, she walks its halls with calm certainty, her presence like rainfall after drought. Her eyes are older than her face, and when she touches a child's wrist to initiate a memory drift, even the most restless trauma falls quiet.


She doesn't speak—not because she cannot, but because she chooses not to. Her music does the speaking. Her drawings remain vivid, catalogued in the institute's archives under a single, anonymous tag:


The House of Echoes is no ordinary place. It is a sanctuary for the children of the war-torn, the lost, the never-known. Through a technique Yuna refined from Kaito's early work, their dreams are mapped, their inherited fears charted, and their emotional echoes—grief, abandonment, rage—are given shape.


Sometimes, it's a simulation of a farewell never given.


Sometimes, it's a song tailored from a loved one's memories.


Sometimes, it's silence itself—a curated stillness that wraps around a child like a lullaby.


The world watches from afar, unsure whether to fear or worship the institute. But one truth holds:


In the main lab, there is a wall filled with fragments—drawings, voiceprint captures, old music boxes. But above it all hangs a single, faded photograph:


A man in a kimono, smiling despite everything, and beside him a young girl wearing headphones, her hand reaching out to catch a firework mid-burst. Their silhouettes are soft, backlit by memory and celebration.


Yuna looks at the photo every morning before the sessions begin.


She never touches it. She never has to.


Because everyone who enters this place already knows its meaning.


Chapter 6 - The House of Echoes