Tena Sorimura

Tena Sorimura (雪車村 天鵶 Sorimura Tena), nicknamed the Phantom Solitaire (怪人 ソリティア Kaijin Soritia) by Tsubaki Iwanome, is one of several troublemakers in Shinjuku who fall under the jurisdiction of Materials Compiling Group No.3.

He is currently haunted by the spirit of a wheelchair-bound girl, as visible to those who possess the Evil Eye. The girl appears to be worried about the path Sorimura is traveling down.

Appearance
Sorimura has dark, wavy hair and long bangs, a pencil mustache, and dark circles underneath his eyes. While in the police's custody, his arms are restrained with a white straitjacket worn over a prisoner's uniform; somehow, he manages to free himself from this straitjacket when he makes his escape.

Outside of prison, Sorimura is often seen wearing a shoulder cape over a business suit and keeps his hair slicked back so his eyes are visible. He occasionally dons disguises for stealth purposes.

Personality
To be added.

Chronology
Three years prior to the start of the series, Sorimura commits his first crime: he steals a painting from a certain museum and leaves it on the doorstep of Shinjuku's Studio Alta, placing it in an air-conditioned, curtained case so as to keep it undamaged. In his public statement, he claims his motive for the theft was "to give the Youtubers of Shinjuku something to talk about."

For his second crime, Sorimura manages to camouflage the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building's outer walls so that they match the sky and cityscape—an optical illusion which convinces many onlookers that the buildings have vanished overnight. His self-professed motive: "I wanted to prove that the Tokyo sky is much larger than we give it credit for."

Among the other crimes Sorimura commits in this three-year period are the "jumbo jet teleport," the "case of the Shinjuku Imperial Garden Dream Fireworks," and the kidnapping of Prime Minister Yumenosuke and every opposing party leader. The political kidnappings, all of which took place in the span of one day, resulted in Sorimura's name becoming known worldwide.

Despite his skyrocketing infamy, Tena turns himself in to Shinjuku police at some point before the reincarnation of the Corpse God on account of being unable to take the "lackluster response" to his crimes. When Comps-3 manager Tsubaki Iwanome points out that Tena is the subject of global discussion, Tena clarifies that he is disappointed by the radio silence from the "real deal."

According to Sorimura, he performs tricks and sleight of hand in an attempt to attract the attention of those who are 'real' magicians and are truly supernatural, whom he regards as the 'key' to becoming a real magician in his own right. Moreover, he wants to prove to the world that real magic exists. He embraces Iwanome's accusation of him carrying out a "middle-school fantasy" rather than deny it, and Iwanome has him arrested on the spot.

He is subsequently kept in a straitjacket, in an attempt to either prevent or make it more difficult for him to escape. However, Iwanome notes that Sorimura "clearly wanted to be arrested" and put up a resistance more for show rather than anything else. By this time, Tena has also nicknamed him 'Phantom Solitaire' as it sounds similar to Tena's real name.

After Lemmings appears at Youtoukorou, Iwanome visits Tena with Kōzaburō Arase as backup and, from his seat on the other side of an interrogation window, fills him in on the fire at Shakuzawa Building and the strange skeletal figures which saved the children trapped inside. Iwanome believes that the fire was caused by the Fire-breathing Bug, his theory being that the Bug always poses as an insider at the locations he targets and spends a long time methodically planting gunpowder and detonators around the area. However, to do so, the Bug would need to excel and disguises and be able to come and go as the please—just like Sorimura.

Sorimura accuses Iwanome of testing him by withholding information, correctly guessing that the true culprit behind the incident is "The Know"—an average criminal who appears to be posing as the real Fire-breathing Bug. When Iwanome had recalled the real Fire-breathing Bug's calling card to Sorimura—"This world is a buggy program"—he had left out the second part that only law enforcement is aware of, and listed only the arson locations the media had been made privy to. Iwanome asks how Sorimura knows all this, but Tena refuses to 'spoil the fun' by answering.

Iwanome exits the room to take a call from the Bureau and, upon returning, says that the real Fire-breathing Bug attacked a patrol car transporting a pyromaniac. Sorimura dismissively concludes that the Bug was 'feeding on its impostor', far more interested in the skeletons in the photographs Iwanome had earlier showed him. He asks if Iwanome will let him "watch one last cartoon," likely referring to the photographs, but Iwanome refuses on the grounds that he and Arase need more information from him.

Sorimura replies that he will have to "watch one elsewhere," and the room's lights switch off. When Arase turns a lit flashlight on Sorimura's chair, he and Iwanome find it empty and Sorimura's straitjacket draped over its back. Outside Tokyo Penitentiary, having successfully escaped its walls and his straitjacket at around 5:30 PM, Sorimura announces his 'comeback tour' to the sky.

By that evening, Sorimura has traded his prisoner's uniform for a business suit and cape and pays the Grocer thirty million yen to buy out the broadcasting rights for Tokyo (at minimum) or otherwise hijack its radio waves so that he can broadcast a message on all local television and radio channels. Broadcasting live from a rooftop under the night sky, he announces he is making his comeback as "Phantom Solitaire" and that—as a grace period for the police—his comeback performance will be in one week.

Once the broadcast is over, Sorimura acknowledges the presence of Fire-breathing Bug and admits he did not expect the Bug to so 'readily' answer his summons. His ringtone interrupts him; remarking on how 'surprisingly' few people do not know the name of such a famous tune and wondering if the Bug is one such person, he puts the phone to his ear assuming the Grocer is calling to make sure the burner phone works. It is the Bug, not the Grocer, whom he hears speak, identifying the ringtone as Paul Mariat's "El Bimbo."

The Bug accuses Sorimura of wasting his life and demands to know how Sorimura found out about it and 'the computer'. Sensing something amiss, Sorimura throws out a card which promptly catches fire and asks if the Bug intends to burn him just like it did its "pitiful, pathetic impostor." The two proceed to duel, with Sorimura mostly playing defense against the Bug's offensive fire attacks and keeping up a constant stream of chatter.

Eventually Sorimura alights on the Bug's umbrella and laments the Bug's fire being neither magic nor supernatural—unlike the extraordinary phenomena seen in the Shakuzawa fire, which he is curious to know whether the Bug will deem a 'bug' to be erased or not. The Bug asks what Sorimura will do should it decide the phenomena is a pest to be 'incinerated', but Sorimura says he will decide when the two of them arrive.

The next day, Sorimura spends some time in Shinjuku's VR Zone, exits the building satisfied, and is immediately recognized by people outside. After posing for several cellphone photos, he says he must resume working on the program for his show in six days and that he looks forward to the police's moves in the meantime—privately hopeful that their actions might "show [him] the way to an illusion." Two patrolmen promptly recognize him and give chase.

At a later point, Sorimura arrives at a building which the Bug—its figure larger and thus different to when Sorimura last met with it—is busy setting ablaze in addition to several people affiliated with the Yougangami. One of those people was a man who took a small scroll of parchment from a fireproofed safe. Sorimura peeks out behind tall stacks of bills in the saferoom and twirls over to pick up the scroll—which he realizes is not made of parchment, but potentially human skin—and then dives through a closed window to make his escape.

Once Sorimura reaches a rooftop some distance away, he holds the unfurled roll up to the moonlight and decides the strange symbol written upon it will be the material for his comeback performance.

Thus decided, Sorimura returns to Tokyo Penitentiary in the guise of a security guard and opens the door to the younger Gator Sister's rooms for distraction purposes on his way to The Grocer's cell. He says he will buy any information Grocer has on the strange mark, babbling trivia about his playing cards and paper cuts in proffered exchange, but the Grocer rejects both as worthless. Still, the Grocer is willing to disclose that the mark is a simplified version of a more complex symbol, and that one of its lines represents a sword.

The Grocer says further information will cost three trillion yen, a price he has calculated based on the fact he knows Sorimura could earn that much in his lifetime and on his reasoning that the symbol is worth half of Sorimura's life: he believes information on the symbol will change Sorimura's destiny—though he admits it could also be a 'toxin' which destroys his life.

Sorimura decides to put the deal on hold in favor of arriving at the answers he seeks by his own methods; however, not eschewing Grocer's help entirely, he proceeds to ask how much it would cost him to fly a dirigible fleet over Shinjuku next week. The Grocer warns him to be careful, insisting he was serious about calling the knowledge a potential toxin.

Comeback Performance
On the day of Sorimura's comeback performance, a fleet of dirigibles saturates Tokyo's airspace. On the sides of each dirigible is painted the strange symbol, albeit with an additional horizontal line crossed through its center—a deliberate choice on Sorimura's part. He reads a magazine for a little while on top of one of the dirigibles until, fifty-eight minutes after the dirigibles go up, a sniper takes aim and shoots—only, the bullet hits a dummy in Sorimura's place.

Sorimura is quick to film another live broadcast somewhere else, where he shares footage of the shot dummy and suggests a secret organization "capable of infiltrating a hit on [him]" has infiltrated the police. Pointing out that the organization tried to silence him the moment the symbol was made public, he offers a 300 million yen prize to anyone who can give him information on the organization affiliated with the symbol before signing off.

Later, Sorimura phones someone he calls "Granny" for information on police movement while walking in Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. "Granny" says multiple people have tried hacking into the police bureau following his stunt, with one hacker—Takumi Kuruya, affiliated with a new fortuneteller in Shinjuku—appearing to have a clear objective in mind. Sorimura decides to have his fortune read.

The next day, Sorimura disguises himself as "Shouta Yamanoura"—a real citizen with nothing to do with Solitaire—using Hollywood stage makeup and waits in line to have his fortune read. Ahead of him are Mikoto Saimyouji and a pair of teenage girls. Saimyouji's glowing praise of the fortuneteller as the "real deal" make Sorimura all the more excited to meet him.

During his fortune reading, Corpse God—in Polka Shinoyama's body—warns him he is on a sinking vessel. This is an allusion to the still-secret accounting fraud at Yamanoura's company, hot reading work which Sorimura assumes is Takumi's doing. While he is majorly disappointed at the thought the fortuneteller might be ordinary after all, he asks regardless if the Corpse God has any information on the symbol "that Solitaire guy" was talking about. The Corpse God says his eyesight does not extend 'that far'—but he can tell there is something off about the symbol, and declares he will borrow power to shed light on what the symbol does not need.

The pencil on the table autonomously begins drawing something on a piece of paper. Sorimura is initially more fascinated by the pencil then any of the 'divinations' so far, but his eyes go wide at the sight of the pen drawing the original simplified symbol, which Corpse God declares has no horizontal line. Sorimura's heart-rate skyrockets as he wonders whether a mysterious organization would 'so readily' disclose this information to him and whether he is being tested.

Sorimura stands to leave once he has calmed down, but the Corpse God stops him to ask whether he remembers a girl with braided hair sitting in a wheelchair; although the Corpse God cannot tell what the girl is saying, she seems to be plainly worried about the path 'Yamanoura' is taking. Sorimura exits into the corridor certain that the Corpse God is no fraud, as the girl is tied to his personal past, and he walks away all the more curious about the fortuneteller's knowledge.

Outside the building, Sorimura finds the two high school girls about to be caught in the rain. The brunette offers her friend her umbrella while she puts on her raincoat, upon the back of which is the phrase, "Watch out for fires." Sorimura leaves the premises thus aware that Fire-breathing Bug has 'zeroed in' on the place as well.

At 3:00 AM, Sorimura arrives on the rooftop of the building housing the fortunetelling shop and attempts to open the door to the stairway. Xiaoyu Lei—by all appearances, a child—intercepts him by throwing three kunai his way, all of which Sorimura blocks with his playing cards. Sorimura asks "Corpse God—or should I say, Polka Shinoyama-kun" what organization he is with and what meaning has the symbol, but is thoroughly taken aback when Xiaoyu coldly demands he not confuse him for 'that weakling.'

Though at a loss as to who the 'kiddo' is, Sorimura tries to deceive Xiaoyu by acting as if he is still on top of the situation. Xiaoyu, retorting that he is nineteen, slashes three more blades at Sorimura's throat in the blink of an eye. Sorimura dodges away unscathed, but is flabbergasted when Xiaoyu's fingers extend into sharp binding cords which he lashes in Sorimura's direction

After Sorimura continues to dodge his attacks, Xiaoyu stops and asks him whether he is looking for someone named Hosorogi. Although Sorimura does not recognize the name, he bluffs that he owes Hosorogi a debt; Xiaoyu asks why a wanted criminal would owe a debt to a police inspector, and then muses whether Sorimura orchestrated the sniper shooting from the get-go. Sorimura insists that was someone else's doing. Bemused, Xiaoyu shifts into a fighting stance once more and charges forward despite Sorimura's warning that he will be in for a 'shock'; in the next moment, Lemmings drops down between the two interlocutors.

Xiaoyu instantly retreats at the sight of Lemmings, and Sorimura—who has heard of Lemmings in more vague terms—pretends he intended Lemmings to be the 'shock' from the start. Lemmings looks at him and he freezes, giving Xiaoyu the opportunity to throw more kunai at Lemmings' back. Lemmings lets the blades make contact, but shrugs them off easily; he lets Xiaoyu bind him with his electric cords, and breaks through those as well.

As Lemmings advances towards Sorimura and Sorimura boggles at how Lemmings is still walking, Xiaoyu realizes Lemmings and Sorimura were not in cahoots after all. Angered, he prepares to attack both of them—but the hot, humid air abruptly turns cold, and all three cautiously look around.

Sorimura attributes the phenomenon to a 'bad feeling' and tosses a card at Lemmings while Lemmings is distracted, only for the card to crumple midair. Both Lemmings and Xiaoyu deny having anything to do with it, and Lemmings advances toward Sorimura only for invisible forces to grab at him, ripping tears in his clothing when he tears himself free. Sorimura is enacted upon by similar invisible forces in turn, though he notices that Xiaoyu appears to be the only one unaffected.

Deciding it is time to make a getaway, Sorimura unleashes a huge quantity of smoke and balloons, clinging onto a hot-air balloon with no basket (an idea from the magazine he read on the dirigible) so that he too may soar to freedom. As he rises into the clear night sky, a writhing mass of gigantic black hands chases after him from the rooftop—a sight which to him is one of hope.

While fleeing from the arms (by bouncing off his own balloons), he wonders if the arms are one and the same from the bones in the Shakuzawa fire and swears to "get to the bottom of this" and meet the one responsible again. Lemmings lunges at him without warning from a plume of smoke, but fails to grab him and falls back down; with a forbidding look, Sorimura says he never wants to see Lemmings again if he can help it.

Two days later, Sorimura infiltrates the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department headquarters and accesses the office of Superintendent General Jirotarou Takanosu. He then waits for the man himself to return, making himself comfortable in Jirotarou's desk chair in the meantime. When Jirotarou arrives, Sorimura delivers a monologue comparing people to playing cards, an analogy he then uses to consider 'the players'; when all players have hands full of bad or 'wicked' cards, Sorimura muses, the higher-level players will scrutinize each other's poker faces.

Jirotarou asks if Sorimura believes he is some sort of 'mastermind' before arguing that everyone is a player; eventually, he asks what Sorimura wants. The trouble is that Sorimura did not plan anything beyond breaking into Jirotarou's office, driven by the vague expectation to see whether Jirotarou would admit to ordering the hit on his life. With Jirotarou doing nothing of the sort, however, Sorimura must improvise.

Sorimura is saved by the ringtone that unexpectedly goes off somewhere nearby. A quick inspection of the chair's right armrest reveals a secret compartment, which Sorimura opens and procures from within a small mobile phone. Privately wondering if the caller might be the assassin who tried to snipe him, he declares, "Looks like my hunch was right." Jirotarou interprets this to mean Sorimura came here without evidence or a plan to his name.

He then invites Sorimura to press the phone's red button and answer the call. When Sorimura does, the Grocer's voice crackles through to ask if he has mishandled the delivery. Jirotarou says he has not and requests the Grocer relay his information to both of them.

Grocer's first piece of information is that Iwanome appears to have communicated with one former inspector Hosorogi, a name that takes Sorimura by surprise; he recalls namedropping it during his rooftop visit to the Abandoned Building. Grocer's second piece of information is that Chief Superintendent Habaki has received a number of incoming calls from a middleman in Shibuya; where Jirotarou was taken aback by the Hosorogi news, he was expecting this.

After the call ends, Sorimura asks for and is denied a direct line to the Grocer. Undeterred, he observes that a Superintendent General personally instructing a criminal to wiretap others has all the makings of a scandal—implying that he might just spill the scandal to the press unless Jirotarou is open to striking a bargain. Jirotarou asks what he wants—the mastermind's identity, "whatever lies 'beyond'," or something else—and, after a moment's consideration, Sorimura replies he wants Iwanome's cell phone number.

As soon as he has it, Sorimura calls Iwanome and says he has information on the 'mastermind' about whom Iwanome was just speaking with Officer Horosogi; surely, he wheedles, Iwanome must want some 'hard evidence'. Once the call ends, Sorimura turns to Jirotarou and offers to repay him for all this fascination information—provided 'repayment' is not 'returning to jail'. Without a fully functional right leg and without backup, Jirotarou has no choice but to agree; thus, he asks Sorimura to explain how Fire-breathing Bug causes fires. After initial weak resistance, Sorimura hints that Fire-breathing Bug is "one person, but not one person" who is as close as anyone can be to having supernatural powers; they are the "personification of 'the fruits of technology'.

A blackout courtesy of Bug engulfs the building not long thereafter, providing Sorimura the opportunity to escape police custody. He soon receives a summons from Fire-breathing Bug to a certain location; as this is the first time Fire-breathing Bug has ever summoned him, he obeys with great excitement. Upon arriving at the destination, he parts a crowd of umbrella-carrying Bugs to confront their newly-taken captive, remarking "I see you're finally awake" as he approaches.

Upon finally seeing the captive—a young, seemingly ordinary man by the name of Kuon Higuro—he exclaims, "Who is this?", takes one of the Bugs aside, and asks if Fire-breathing Bug is attempting to get him arrested for kidnapping charges. After rambling at length about what might happen if he were to kidnap someone that possesses 'truly terrifying' supernatural powers, Solitaire trades his levity for sobriety and asks Higuro if he has perhaps discovered Fire-breathing Bug's identity—or if he is perhaps acquainted with "Habaki from the precinct." In other words—here he procures the parchment skin he stole—Higuro must be concerned with the symbol.

Sorimura then jokes that Fire-breathing Bug intends to use his—Solitaire's—abilities in a quest to stamp out the roots of the organization to which the likes of Habaki and Higuro belong. His joke happens to be entirely accurate, much to his surprise and Bug's lack thereof. Higuro finally interjects with a request for freedom, but Solitaire clasps his shoulders and says he can tell Higuro is involved with 'the troublemakers'—for Higuro has the smell of someone who has killed countless people. Higuro's appeal to the possibility he really is just an 'ordinary citizen' fails to influence Sorimura, as Sorimura professes he is a "bother" to ordinary citizens by trade.

As Sorimura takes a photo of Higuro with his smartphone, Fire-breathing Bug opines that their collaboration will be to Sorimura's benefit, since Sorimura craves the supernatural. By this, Bug means that the organization's 'ancestor' is a "bastard child who came from the other side of the sky" and now "[eats] away at this world." Though Bug knows not what the other side of the sky is, nor whom exactly lurks therein, they seem to believe Sorimura is 'one step closer'; Sorimura surmises that Bug is implying his dirigibles stunt was the catalyst for everything that has been in recent motion, and that everything is interconnected.

Etymology

 * His family name, Sorimura (雪車村) means 'snow car village'. The first part of his surname, Ten (天) means 'heaven'; the last part, a (鵶) appears to be an archaic or otherwise uncommon character for the bird 'crow'.

Trivia

 * While the Yen Press translation translates his moniker as "Mystery Solitaire" up to Chapter 18, it begins using the more accurate translation "Phantom Solitaire" from Chapter 19 onward. The digital edition of Volume 2 has been updated to use "Phantom Solitaire."
 * Sorimura's weapon of choice is his custom playing cards, which are made out of a special alloy which makes them razor-sharp and rather heavy despite being paper-thin.
 * The Grocer considers Sorimura to be one of his best customers.
 * A running joke in the series consists of Sorimura continuously failing to decide on a sign-off catchphrase.
 * The prototype character of Sorimura was originally set to appear in Narita’s Weekly Shonen Jump manga, Stealth Symphony, however the series was canceled before the character’s debut.