Nightmare Detective

A middle-aged Mitake sits with a beer when Kagenuma bursts out from beneath the floor, a startling intrusion that signals deeper matters. Mitake is revealed to be a former teacher of Kagenuma’s father, hinting at grudges and leverage that will haunt the inheritance dispute. The moment sets a tense, foreboding mood that threads through both waking and dream realms.

Kagenuma is tormented by the memory of a daughter his wife had aborted without his knowledge. The guilt haunts him, tainting his sense of self and foreshadowing the emotional stakes behind the inheritance case. This personal burden hints that the case will probe not just finances but the hidden motives and losses driving the characters.

Kagenuma wakes in a hospital room, surrounded by Mitake's children, and learns that he had been inside Mitake's dream. He cannot provide answers about the inheritance, deepening the mystery. The scene suggests his unusual ability to access dream space is part of the puzzle.

As he leaves the hospital, Kagenuma discovers he can hear the selfish thoughts of Mitake's children. The ability hints at a new layer of leverage for the inheritance dispute and foreshadows the police's investigation. The moment makes clear that the dream-walking power will complicate the case.

Lieutenant Keiko Kirishima transfers to a district station and clashes with her new team, including Ishida and Wakamiya, over professionalism and approach. Her prickly temperament sets the tone for the division at the precinct and the push for a bigger, more unsettling explanation. Her arrival signals that the investigation will test both rational and uncanny approaches.

A young woman's body is found in her apartment, slashed, with a blade in her hand and the door locked from inside. Ishida and Wakamiya quickly conclude suicide, but Kirishima remains unconvinced, sensing foul play. The case introduces a strange pattern that will drive the team toward nontraditional explanations.

A husband slashes himself to death in his sleep, echoing the prior homicide and deepening the sense that something orchestrates these acts. Kirishima notices a pattern connecting both victims to the same unregistered number and a whispered call for help. The unfolding pattern pushes the team toward a broader, possibly supernatural theory.

The investigators discover both victims had dialed the same unregistered number, and a recording reveals a young woman whispering 'help me'. The recordings hint at mind influence or hypnotic suggestion behind the deaths rather than ordinary crime. This clue bridges the gap between rational investigation and an inexplicable power the team cannot ignore.

The chief divides the investigators into two groups: a standard procedure team led by Ishida and a second squad led by Kirishima that pursues supernatural explanations. Kirishima's rational approach is challenged by the possibility that unseen forces are at play. The setup ensures the investigation will test both method and belief.

Wakamiya is dragged into the dream realm after contacting the mysterious number and is killed in the dream. Kagenuma, entering the dream to confront O, is left injured and desperate to escape. The real-world team races to follow while Kirishima senses something dangerous about the dream-spirit.

Kirishima edges toward sleep and enters her own dream with Kagenuma, seeking to understand how O invades minds. She warns him that he must save her, or she will die, and he reluctantly agrees to try. The dream sequence tightens the tension as the boundaries between consciousness and nightmare begin to fracture.

In the dream, O confesses that his urge to kill grows from the first victim and the thrill of the act itself. A buried memory surfaces: as a child, a teacher locked him in a furnace with his sister who dies trying to escape. The revelation ties O’s predation to a childhood trauma that feeds his compulsion.

The little girl who keeps whispering 'help me' is revealed to be O's sister, the victim who died in the furnace. This memory crystallizes the origin of the predator’s drive and links past abuse to present violence. The scene redefines the killer's hunger as a cycle tied to unresolved trauma.

Kagenuma unlocks the repressed memory, and the confrontation between the dream-walker and the waking world escalates toward a perilous climax. Kirishima confronts her own psyche as the line between dream and reality becomes unreliable. The film delivers a slow-burn showdown that merges investigation with internal guilt and memory.

The truth about Mitake's past and the inheritance is gradually revealed, alongside the nature of O's compulsion. The case resolves with a somber reflection on guilt, memory, and the uneasy alliance between empirical police work and dream forces. The final image leaves the audience with a sustained sense of ambiguity about what is real.