Occultic;Nine

Yuta Gamon, a second-year high school student at Seimei High who refers to himself as the “NEET God,” operates an occult aggregation blog called “Kirikiri Basara,” through which he attempts to generate income via affiliate links while personally dismissing paranormal claims as fraudulent. On February 24, he visits Seimei University to interview Professor Isayuki Hashigami, a physicist whose research into electromagnetic soul theory had generated both media attention and criticism from the mainstream scientific community. Hashigami's work proposed that human consciousness and memory function as electromagnetic data patterns—a theory dismissed by skeptics as pseudoscience but which carried implications regarding the existence of the soul.

Upon arrival, Yuta discovers Hashigami's murdered body. The professor had been tortured prior to death, with his scalp removed and evidence of violent struggle present throughout the laboratory. Written on the floor in the victim's blood is the word “CODE.” While Yuta remains at the scene, a female voice emanates from his late father's antique “Skysensor” radio, instructing him to remove a gold tooth from Hashigami's jaw and leave the premises. Yuta complies, securing a key piece of evidence. Shortly afterward, Sarai Hashigami, the professor's son, arrives and finds Yuta standing over the body with blood on his hands, leading him to suspect Yuta's involvement in the murder.