The Shibuya Station Disappearance – Amanat Mann’s First Case in Tokyo

Tokyo is a city that thrives on movement. Neon lights, packed trains, and streets that pulse like arteries in a living, breathing machine. But beneath the energy and order, there are places that the locals avoid. Places where whispers travel faster than the trains and where shadows seem to breathe.

This is where my work begins.

My name is Amanat Mann, and these are my Investigative Police Stories (IPS) — case files pulled from the corners of Japan that most people pretend don’t exist.

The Call

It was just past midnight when I got the call.
A university student, Miyu Kato, had gone missing inside Shibuya Station. On the surface, it looked like another case of a young woman running from her life — maybe debt, maybe a secret relationship. But the details didn’t line up.

The station’s cameras captured her stepping off the Ginza Line platform at 9:42 p.m. She walks toward the connecting corridor, glancing over her shoulder as if someone is following her. Then, for exactly 44 seconds, every camera in the corridor flickers to static. When the feed resumes, Miyu is gone.

The last audio from the station’s service mic is chilling — a faint whisper, almost melodic, in an ancient Japanese dialect. A language that, according to the linguist I spoke with later, hasn’t been spoken in nearly four hundred years.

The Corridor

Shibuya’s underground is a maze. Layers of old tunnels sealed off as new tracks were built. Most are inaccessible to the public — but I managed to gain entry to the corridor where the cameras failed.

The first thing I noticed was the temperature drop. Despite being underground, the air was unnaturally cold, and my breath fogged in front of me. The corridor walls were covered with faint scratches, almost like claw marks, though the metal showed no signs of rust or decay.

Halfway through, my flashlight caught something strange — a red paper talisman tucked between the panels, its ink smeared as if burned. The characters were a warning, an old onmyōji charm used to seal malevolent spirits. But it was broken. Torn clean through the center.

The Witness

On my way out, I found a witness. A janitor, old enough to remember when Shibuya’s abandoned sections were still used. He refused to speak at first but eventually whispered a single name:
“Aka-Manto.”

In Japanese folklore, Aka-Manto is a spirit said to haunt public restrooms and underground passages, offering victims a choice between a red or blue cloak before killing them. Most dismiss it as urban legend. But the janitor swore that in the nights leading up to Miyu’s disappearance, he heard the same whispering — and saw a figure in a long red cloak vanish into the locked corridor.

The Disturbance

The following night, I returned alone, just before the last train. The corridor was silent except for the low hum of electrical wiring. I placed a recorder on the ground and waited, the talisman in my hand as a precaution.

At 12:14 a.m., the corridor lights flickered, and the temperature plummeted again. My recorder picked up the same chant as before — clearer this time, as if it were circling around me. A red glow began to pulse from the end of the corridor, faint but unmistakable.

Then came the footsteps.
Slow, deliberate, echoing against the metal walls.

A figure emerged — not entirely solid, but enough for me to see the flowing red cloak and the featureless, mask-like face. It stopped about twenty feet away, tilting its head as if studying me. My instincts screamed to leave, but I stood my ground.

Holding the broken talisman forward, I recited the sealing phrase I had learned from an onmyōji contact earlier that day. The glow flickered, the figure froze, and a piercing screech filled the corridor before the lights snapped back to full power. When my vision cleared, the figure was gone.

The Aftermath

The next morning, security reported something unusual. The corridor’s cameras had stopped recording for exactly 44 seconds, at the same moment I encountered the figure. But this time, nothing disappeared — except for the broken talisman, which was no longer in my pocket when I left.

Miyu Kato’s whereabouts remain unknown. Her case is officially marked as unresolved, but off the record, I know what took her.

Not all things can be explained by logic or forensics. Some cases — the ones I find myself drawn to — belong to a world where urban legends aren’t just stories.

This is the first entry in the Tokyo Files.
If you’re reading this, consider it a warning: some tunnels beneath this city aren’t meant to be walked.

And some whispers should never be answered.

---

Follow this blog for the next case file: “The Vanishing Bride of Kyoto.”