As Mizuki breaks down, Aoba is pulled into a Rhyme Field and meets Toue. Toue addresses the baffled Aoba with familiarity, and encourages him to discover who he truly is before disappearing. Aoba awakens in the real world, but quickly collapses after spotting an unconscious Mizuki. At Oval Tower, Takahashi reports to Toue about the data they received on Aoba's powers, and that he had sent the police to apprehend him. Later that night at their house, Tae informs Aoba that Mizuki and the rest of Dry Juice were taken to a hospital, but all of them are in a comatose state. She explains that Mizuki was being controlled by Morphine, who works for Toue, and how she was once a neuroplasticity researcher for Toue's labs twenty years ago. Tae quit once she learned that her research was being abused for Toue's brainwashing experiments, but upon her recent refusal to come back to the research labs, Toue used Mizuki to force her to cooperate.
