[b]March 1956.[/b] In a Tokyo that’s slowly returning to its former glory after losing the war ten years prior, Private Detective Reiji Tokisaka takes on the case of a girl he meets in Inokashira Park. “I want you to find something… Me. My true self.” A wave of bizarre and grotesque crimes has been crashing down on the city. The victims, all young women, are being kidnapped and murdered, each corpse only to be discovered with a body part and the uterus removed. Sergeant Uozumi, Tokisaka’s childhood friend and former coworker, asks him to investigate the murders. Meanwhile, sitting off in a corner of the town of Hoya is Oba Girls’ Academy, the school Tokisaka’s younger sister goes to and where two students have recently disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The vice principal of this academy, Tokio Saeki, implores Tokisaka to find them. Having taken on all three of these cases, and with Vice Principal Tokio’s approval, Tokisaka enters Oba Girls’ Academy as a teacher in order to dig up information about the students. It’s there that he meets her again. Toko Kuchiki, the girl who asked him to look for her true self, with a voice as light and as clear as a bell and a casual way of speaking that doesn’t match it. “Heya. Figured I’d be seeing you soon, Detective.” More and more victims turn up as the days pass, and the investigation he thought would be oh-so-easy stalls. For some reason, the number of disappearances and unidentified bodies don’t add up. And the newest victim is— The secrets of a case from six years prior may just be the key to the current unending cycle of tragedy, and the thing that cracks this woeful world’s shell may be one girl’s smile. [From [url=https://shiravune.com/archives/4394]Shiravune's description of The Shell Part I: Inferno[/url]]

[b]The year is Showa 33—or 1958, by the new calendar.[/b] It is an especially cold January, and amid the dour gray snow, a funeral is being held. A portrait of a girl’s face sits there draped in snow, looking almost embarrassed and a little lonely… The imprisoned painter Shinzo Mamiya died a scant few weeks after the Blessed Congregation’s crimes came to light. Detective Reiji Tokisaka has been recruited by his old friend Maris Stella to help sort through the man’s belongings, but instead they find an unknown work in his studio: a one-winged angel with no arms. The work, which they name Exile Of Paradise, is as beautiful as it is sinister—and it resembles his infamous masterpiece Girl In Shell. A few more days later, a woman’s corpse is found, modified in the manner depicted in Exile. She is identified as having formerly worked with Tomoyuki Masaki. There may be no one left who can cut the chain of obsession that began with Girl In Shell—nobody but one small girl. [i]E quell’ossessione fa girare il sole e tutte le stelle.[/i] [From [url=https://shiravune.com/archives/8293]Shiravune's description of The Shell Part III: Paradiso[/url]].