In the isolated coastal town of Kurohane, eerie spiral patterns begin appearing everywhere—on walls, in trees, even in people’s reflections. When Renji Kisaragi, a skeptical high school journalist, returns home after hearing about his brother Shun’s sudden and mysterious death, he finds himself trapped in a nightmarish time loop.

Every time he dies, time rewinds—resetting two days earlier. But with each reset, reality twists further: people disappear, time fractures, and his own body begins to change. As he searches for the cause, he discovers his estranged father, Kaoru Kisaragi, may have been the one who triggered the loop.

Aided by his childhood friend Aoi Tsukimura, who holds secrets of her own, Renji must uncover the mystery of The Spiral Gate before it consumes everything. But some truths are worse than death. And the entity behind the spirals does not want to be stopped.

Renji must make an impossible choice: sacrifice himself to break the loop—or risk losing his humanity to escape.

The old woman's words sank like ice into Renji's mind.


> "The spiral is watching through you."


He didn't know what terrified him more: the idea that he was now a window for some ancient force… or that others before him had carried this same burden—and failed to survive it.


The woman introduced herself as Suma Yashiro, once a shrine maiden in the outskirts of Kyokami village, where the spiral curse first began to whisper centuries ago.


"I was marked when I was sixteen," she said, sipping weak green tea Aoi had prepared. Her voice was quiet but carried weight. "The spiral came to me in dreams. I thought I was chosen… but I was only opened."


She pulled back her sleeve, revealing a faded, silvery spiral on her upper arm—like Renji's, but dormant.


"I buried the mark," she said. "I sealed it in the forest with blood and fire. But every few decades, it finds someone else. Like it found you."


Kaito leaned forward. "How many have there been?"


Suma's eyes were unreadable. "Too many to count. Only a few return. Even fewer… remember."


"They either go mad," she said, "or become something else."


Suma took them into the woods behind the motel that night.


Under silver moonlight, she led them to a hidden clearing—overgrown with weeds and thick with moss-covered stones.


"They were like you," she said, brushing aside vines from one of the stones. Beneath the greenery, spiral carvings ran across its face like veins in marble. "People who returned from the Spiral Realm. Changed. Watching."


Renji stepped closer, his palm burning faintly again.


Each stone pulsed slightly with energy—as if breathing.


Suma shook her head. "Not rest. Watch. Remember. The spiral uses them to anchor itself here. Without them, it can't stay in our world."


Renji frowned. "Then we destroy the anchors."


Suma smiled sadly. "It's not that simple. You destroy the stones, the spiral scatters. Then it looks for something new to hold on to."


Renji stepped toward one of the stones.


As his hand grazed it, images flooded his mind:


A boy drowning in a pond filled with spiraled eels.


A mother slicing spirals into her child's skin, whispering "perfection."


Aoi grabbed his shoulders. "Renji! What did you see?"


"Memories," he choked. "Horrible ones. But they weren't mine."


"They're the echoes," Suma said. "Remnants of those who bore the mark. Pieces of their unraveling."


Back at the motel, Renji couldn't sleep.


But unlike them, he had friends. He had Aoi. Kaito. His family.


Maybe… just maybe… he could end the spiral's hold.


Even if it meant confronting the origin of it all.


Chapter 44 - Those Who Remember