The lock on his apartment had splintered clean through, the wood still clinging stubbornly to its frame like it hadn't yet realized it was broken. Seigi stood in the doorway longer than he meant to, scanning every shadow, every shelf. Nothing major was missing. No cash, no files. Not even the cheap TV.
Just a single note on his desk.
The paper was folded once, sharp and deliberate, as though whoever left it had taken their time. The handwriting was elegant, angular, almost beautiful—someone who cared as much about how words looked as what they said.
Every thread is paid for. With hope, or with hurt. Decide what you're willing to spend.
The words sank into him like splinters. His first instinct was to tear the note apart, burn it, erase it. Instead, he folded it with equal precision, slid it into his pocket, and carried it to the Guild.
---
The Guild's Response
The meeting room vibrated with different energies the moment he laid the note on the table.
Riku's reaction was immediate and loud. "Those bastards," he snarled, slamming his palm down hard enough to rattle the fixtures. "Breaking into your place just to leave poetry? Cowards." He leaned closer to the note, squinting. "What's next? Carving haikus into our doors?"
Aya pressed a hand over her mouth, as if the words themselves were poison. "The phrasing is old. The Veil uses riddles because riddles can't be disproved. They want you questioning yourself."
Hana read it once, then again, her expression carefully blank—but the twitch in her jaw betrayed her anger. "This isn't random," she said quietly. "This hand… I've seen it before in old case files. Same loops on the tails. Same precision. They recycle their words the way they recycle fear."
Seigi felt every gaze flick toward him, waiting.
Kurogami was last to speak. He lifted the note delicately, as if weighing it for substance, and studied it longer than anyone else dared. His silence stretched until it felt like the air itself bent toward him. Finally, he spoke.
"They're testing you," he said. His voice filled the room, soft but inexorable. "The Veil rarely wastes words. They cut. Always. They want you to wonder whether your gift came from the bright side of the thread… or the dark."
Seigi's throat felt tight. "Do they want me to run?"
Kurogami's gaze was surgical. "They want you to choose wrong. If you chase only hope, you will break when it fails you. If you cling only to hurt, you'll burn yourself to ash. Either way, they win."
From the corner, Sato's gravelly voice carried like a fault line opening. He stood apart, his profile caught in the half-light of a flickering lamp. "They want to write your story for you before you've had the chance to."
The words cut deeper than the note itself.
---
Balcony
That night, Seigi stood on the Guild's safehouse balcony, the note folded between his fingers like a blade. The city sprawled below in fractured constellations of neon and exhaust haze.
Hana found him there. She didn't ask permission, just leaned against the railing beside him, her presence steady.
"They think they can tell you who you are," she said.
"And what if they're right?" His voice was lower than he intended, almost swallowed by the hum of traffic. "What if everything I've done—the thread, the fights—it's only worked because I've been too stubborn to let the pain stop me? What if hurt's the only thing I've ever really had?"
Hana turned her head, studying him. The streetlight caught her eyes, dark and luminous. "Then maybe the hurt was just the door," she said softly. "Not the house."
For the first time that night, his grip on the note eased.
---
Sato's Warning
Later, on his way back inside, Seigi found Sato waiting in the hall. The older detective's trench coat hung loose, his cigarette unlit between his fingers.
"You didn't tell me the lock was broken," Sato said without preamble.
Seigi blinked. "Would it have changed anything?"
Sato's jaw worked, but no words came. Finally, he said, "Locks don't stop the Veil. But people still need to know when theirs is broken." His eyes searched Seigi's face. "Especially people like you. Especially now."
The words sounded like more than advice. Like warning. Like regret.
---
The River
Sleep refused him, so he walked. The river's surface was a mirror cracked into a thousand glimmering shards, city lights shattering themselves in the current. He traced the bank slowly, practicing tiny shifts of air—just enough to make the gulls stir, never enough to scatter them.
Halfway down, a figure appeared on the far side. Hooded. Distant. Pacing him step for step.
They walked together like that for twenty minutes, mirrored by the current. Seigi's hand twitched toward his holster, then stilled. The figure neither approached nor retreated.
Finally, it stopped. A small object glinted in its hand—too far to see clearly, but the moonlight caught the curve of metal. The figure placed it on a stone at the water's edge, then dissolved into the dark, vanishing like a thought too dangerous to finish.
Seigi crossed to the far bank only when the night was silent again.
On the stone sat a single coin, etched with the same jagged circle he'd seen in files before. The Veil's mark.
He pocketed it without a word.
And walked on, heart tight, the city pressing close around him.