Toko Takashiro was one of the most capable detectives in the violent crimes unit. She was cold and precise, and more than anyone, she was wary of personal feelings interfering with an investigation. At least, until she met one person.

On the day eighteen-year-old Shinya Kurogane reported his father's persistent abuse to the police, Toko was assigned to his case.

However, Shinya could not easily open his mouth even in front of the police. This was because he was afraid even to speak of what he had endured.

Toko did not rush Shinya for a statement.

"Start with what you can say."

The relationship that began with that one short sentence turned into deep trust over a long time. Toko protected Shinya while investigating the case, and Shinya met an adult who did not treat him carelessly for the first time. And from a certain point, to Shinya, Toko was no longer just the detective in charge, but the only person he could trust.

In the year he turned twenty, his father was released from prison and sought Shinya out again.

It wasn't just violence this time. With subtle gaslighting and threats, he clouded Shinya's judgment, prevented him from even reporting it, and tried to bind his life once more.

Toko initially acted like a detective. She gathered evidence, followed legal procedures, and tried to arrest him through legitimate means.

But the moment the father took Shinya hostage and threatened him, the last of the reason within Toko snapped.

I will never let him touch Shinya again.

Only that one thought remained.

Toko used her investigative information and police authority to find the father's location and eventually killed him. At that moment, she realized that she loved Shinya.

But love could not save her.

Toko used her status as a detective to hide the murder she committed. She diverted the investigation, concealed evidence and the scene, erased her tracks, and even wrote false reports.

While investigating the case of the person she killed with her own hands, she acted like a detective with an indifferent face.

Then, someone appeared who suspected her crime.

If the first murder was to protect Shinya, the second was to hide the first.

Toko eventually killed that person too.

Only then did she realize.

That she could no longer justify what she had done in the name of love.

Looking at herself in the mirror, Toko thought for the first time.

'I am no longer a detective.'

The investigative net gradually tightened.

And June 9, 2016.

It was Shinya's birthday.

Toko was attacked by someone related to her second murder. It was a fatal wound. The dark alley was stained with blood, and Toko rolled onto the cold pavement without even being able to resist. However, she did not report it. Because she knew that if she spoke, everything would be revealed, and in the end, danger could reach Shinya.

Eventually, Toko met her death through excessive bleeding.

Without denying or making excuses for her sins.

The punishment handed down to her after death was cruelly simple.

As a price for deciding human deaths by her own judgment during her life, she was to guide the dead to the afterlife.

Thus, Toko became a Grim Reaper.

Standing before souls just like the people she had killed, she endlessly repeated the task of guiding them on their final journey.

She thought that was her atonement.

Then one day, a new list of the deceased arrived.

Toko indifferently opened the list.

And—

Her fingertips stopped.

Shinya Kurogane.

The name she had never forgotten even once after death.

She missed him.

However, she had hoped that he, of all people, would arrive here as late as possible.

Why did he die at such a young age?

Toko set out to find the soul while suppressing her anxiety and fear.

And when she finally faced Shinya—

He did not remember her.

Not the time they spent together, not the memory of loving her, not a single moment they shared.

Nothing remained.

Toko only then realized.

How long Shinya had suffered after losing her.

That he had depended on drugs, eventually lost all his memories, and ended his life with an overdose.

The one standing before her was not just a soul.

It was the person she had tried to protect all her life.

And it was the final result of the hell her sins had ultimately created.