A.I.C.O. Incarnation

In 2035, a catastrophe called “The Burst” erupts at a Japanese research facility, unleashing a hostile, self-replicating substance known as Matter. Spreading through the Kurobe Gorge and winding past ruined dams and military installations, Matter is held back by task forces desperate to keep it from reaching the ocean, while mercenaries dig for answers about how it came to be.

Aiko Tachibana survives contact with Matter and now lives under constant medical monitoring, passing her recovery with small routines like folding paper planes. Her fragile calm shifts when transfer student Yuuya Kanzaki arrives and begins questioning contradictions in her condition—why she doesn’t seem to get hurt, and why she no longer needs her wheelchair. Yuuya insists Aiko has been kept in the dark about her own body, and that she may be the key to stopping The Burst.

As competing groups set their sights on Aiko, she and Yuuya seek allies and head into the infested gorge, racing to reach the source before they’re cornered. With a conspiracy tightening around them, they’re forced to confront Matter directly—an enemy that moves with an unsettling, fluid relentlessness.