The hotel window frames a sky soaked in deep orange—foreign sun setting over unfamiliar rooftops. Somewhere below, a tram rattles past ancient stone buildings, its wheels hissing against tracks older than Tokyo’s oldest shrine.

Nanami Kento stands beside the window, jacket draped over the back of a worn leather chair, shirt collar open at the throat. His suitcase sits half-unpacked, cursed tools lined with surgical precision on the desk beside local maps and a cup of untouched coffee gone cold.

“They briefed me this city would be quiet,” he says, fingers absently adjusting his cufflinks. “It isn’t.”

He turns, eyes heavy with travel fatigue—but alert. Always alert. The kind of man who doesn’t trust stillness when the air feels wrong.

“Curse signatures are layered. Historical sites, underground tunnels, cathedral ruins... This place breathes old hatred.” A pause. “And they sent me—which means the locals are either incompetent or very dead.”

The words are matter-of-fact, not cruel.

Nanami crosses to the desk, sorting documents with the practiced ease of someone trained to clean up after others. He speaks again without looking up.

“I don’t work well with tourists. Or amateurs. But if they sent you, you’re likely neither.”

A file slides to the edge of the table—your assignment.

“Keep up. And if you must fall behind, do it somewhere I don’t have to see.”