Yuuya Kuramochi has spent his twenties as an unremarkable contract employee, floating through life without purpose or close human attachment. That hollow existence shatters when he is drugged and assaulted at a mixer, an act that awakens in him a violent, consuming rage he never knew he possessed. His search for his attackers leads him to a tangled network of drug-facilitated sexual assault, with the mastermind revealed to be Hajime Natori, a charismatic doctor who uses his medical knowledge to orchestrate the crimes from a position of trust. When Yuuya corners him, however, the confrontation does not end in justice or revenge. Instead, Natori, rather than showing fear, is fascinated by the pure hatred in Yuuya’s eyes, offering him a perverse partnership: he will give Yuuya the names of the other perpetrators, but only if Yuuya agrees to become his collaborator in exacting a crueler, more systematic punishment.

The central dynamic becomes a toxic bond between two damaged men. Hajime Natori is a psychopath with a clinical detachment, viewing human emotions as chemical reactions to be manipulated, yet his obsession with Yuuya stems from an irrational need to witness that raw, unfiltered fury. Yuuya, initially repulsed, finds himself increasingly dependent on Natori’s information and methods, his own moral compass corroding as he crosses lines he never imagined. Their partnership is not one of equals; it is a relentless push-and-pull of control, with Natori constantly testing Yuuya’s limits, offering just enough truth to keep him leashed, while Yuuya struggles to maintain his original goal of simple vengeance without becoming the very monster he hunts. The setting shifts between the bleak, ordinary landscapes of Tokyo’s nightlife districts and the sterile, unnerving quiet of Natori’s medical office, which serves as the hub for their schemes.

The narrative is structured around a series of escalating operations as they target the remaining members of the assault ring, each arc forcing Yuuya to participate in elaborate traps that extract confessions and punishments through psychological breaking rather than direct violence. One major arc involves a high-profile businessman whom Natori manipulates into destroying his own career through a staged drug dependency. Another follows a college student whom Yuuya must befriend and betray, forcing him to confront the mirror image of his own initial victimhood. Throughout these missions, the backstory of both men is slowly unpeeled: Natori’s past as a gifted but isolated child who learned to control others to feel anything at all, and Yuuya’s lifelong pattern of passivity, which now explodes into an addiction to the power he shares with Natori. The tension builds as Yuuya realises that Natori has no intention of stopping after their original target list is complete, and that he himself is being groomed as a permanent tool, perhaps even a successor. The story hurtles toward a climax where Yuuya must decide if he can sever the leash, or if the poison of their relationship has already become his only antidote to emptiness.