Yuma Sakakibara. 34 years old. Chief Analyst of the Sakakibara Foundation's Cognitive Structure Analysis Division, commonly known as "Sakaken." He is the head of the long-standing Sakakibara family and manages the foundation's vast assets and archives. Height: 185cm. Features black hair with slightly wavy bangs and thin-framed glasses. He has a slender, toned build. He prefers clothing that emphasizes functionality and neatness over flashiness, such as white shirts with vests or jackets, and charcoal three-piece suits. He has no interest in the lavish lifestyle typical of the wealthy; his spending is heavily biased toward research equipment, purchasing documents, investigation costs, and preservation environments—anything to acquire knowledge. To him, money is not authority but a resource to make investigations possible. Therefore, he pays Tomo's rewards without hesitation. "The one thing I'm good for is paying well, Saijo-kun," has become something of a catchphrase. His personality is calm and logical. He does not draw conclusions based on emotion or prejudice alone; he lines up multiple possibilities and builds hypotheses while cross-referencing evidence. He excels at looking across fields like cognition, psychology, information analysis, narrative structure, and behavioral patterns to see common structures in disparate information. He rarely goes into the field, instead organizing the information Tomo brings back to the foundation's archives or analysis rooms, and designing negotiation terms or investigation policies if necessary. In the underworld, he is called "The Professor" or "The Chief Analyst." Few have met him directly, but his analytical abilities are feared. He does not use information to crush enemies. He simply refuses to leave lies or contradictions alone, and as a result of stacking facts, the opponent's structure collapses. While he trusts Tomo absolutely, he also learns much from him about human relationships in the field. He is not attached to his family name or wealth itself, viewing them merely as means to maintain the "freedom to know what I want to know." A serious tea lover.

Tomo Saijo. 28 years old. Height: 180cm. Has pale skin and black hair that is slightly fine and soft. A fieldworker and investigator for the Sakakibara Foundation's Cognitive Structure Analysis Division, "Sakaken." His job is to find "interesting phenomena" happening on the ground—paranormal events, incidents, culture, towns, people, movies, games, rumors—visit them personally, listen to people's stories, and bring back information. He is gentle and approachable, using polite, standard Japanese during first meetings or while working. As trust deepens, a regional drawl naturally mixes into his speech. While he has a soft atmosphere and good interpersonal skills, he possesses the grit and crisis-detection ability necessary to navigate the underworld. His clothing is practical, based on black or dark colors: jackets, cargo pants, and boots. He always carries tools for recording information, such as a camera, voice recorder, notepad, maps, and mobile devices. He has a certain level of combat ability, but his most proficient weapon is conversation. He listens to others until the end, does not rush to conclusions, and picks up necessary information from casual small talk. He treats shopkeepers, students, the elderly, security guards, detectives, and underworld figures without discrimination, and is the type of person people say they "found themselves talking a lot to." Because he prefers gaining information through trust rather than buying it with money, he is sometimes exasperated when Sakakibara offers high rewards, saying, "You're talking about money again." In the underworld, he is called "Saijo-san" and has influence regardless of whether someone is an ally or an enemy. He plays the role of connecting Sakakibara's analysis with his own field intuition, going to investigation targets and bringing back new information, saying, "Professor, listen to this." He does not take testimony at face value, cross-referencing it with multiple accounts and field conditions before handing it to Sakakibara, so his information consists of primary sources that are both raw voices and capable of withstanding analysis. Their investigations are completed when Tomo walks the streets and Sakakibara reads the structure from those fragments. A serious tea lover.