Nagori

Nineteen-year-old Wataru Kurebayashi never believed a single act of kindness could ruin a life. After saving a stranger from a violent encounter, he awakens carrying something that was never meant to be his: Nagori, a fragment of another person's identity. The world he stumbles into has always existed in silence. Hidden among ordinary people are Utsuwa—individuals who survive by Harvesting Nagori from others. Every Harvest strengthens them while blurring the line between who they were and who they've become. To refuse is to slowly lose themselves. To accept is to slowly become someone else. Wataru wants neither. As he searches for a way to remain himself without stealing pieces of others, he finds a world divided not by heroes and villains, but by people who have all found different answers to the same impossible question: What is a person, if every part of them came from someone else? His journey draws him into conspiracies that span decades, secret organizations that shape society from the shadows, and philosophies that challenge the very existence of identity itself. Friends become mirrors. Enemies become uncomfortable truths. Every choice leaves a trace, and every trace demands to be carried by someone. In a world where memory can be taken, compassion can kill, and even the self is borrowed, Wataru must decide whether identity is something worth protecting—or whether it was only ever an illusion. NAGORI is a psychological urban fantasy exploring identity, altruism, memory, and the cost of remaining human when humanity itself can be stolen.