Motoko and Batou work to try to stop a terrorist organization whose symbol is the Scylla. Meanwhile, Togusa investigates a murder of a man who possessed a prosthetic leg manufactured by the Mermaid's Leg corporation.

In this prequel set one year after the fourth World War, cyborg and hacker extraordinaire Motoko Kusanagi from the military's 501st Secret Unit finds herself wrapped up in the investigation of a devastating bombing.

Freed of her responsibilities with the 501 Organization, Motoko Kusanagi must now learn how to take orders from Aramaki. Someone hacks the Logicomas, and Batou enlists the help of former army intelligence officer Ishikawa and former air artillery expert Borma. Kusanagi also seeks to enlist ace sniper Saito and undercover cop Paz into the new Public Security Section 9.

The anime's story is set in 2027, one year after the end of the fourth non-nuclear war. New Port City is still reeling from the war's aftermath when it suffers a bombing caused by a self-propelled mine. Then, a military member implicated in arms-dealing bribes is gunned down. During the investigation, Public Security Section's Daisuke Aramaki encounters Motoko Kusanagi, the cyborg wizard-level hacker assigned to the military's 501st Secret Unit. Batou, a man with the "eye that does not sleep," suspects that Kusanagi is the one behind the bombing. The Niihama Prefectural Police detective Togusa is pursuing his own dual cases of the shooting death and a prostitute's murder. Motoko herself is being watched by the 501st Secret Unit's head Kurutsu and cyborg agents. Written by Jiilo_Kim

Defeating numerous villains in the abandoned area in Z-City but still having problems with rent money (and continued harassment from the landlady who says he's 3 months overdue), Saitama speaks with a shop owner who is being forced by a local gang to surrender his store's deed. Several other shops have gone out of business and his store is the last one; a conversation between the gang boss and one of his stooges reveal that the boss has had an impulse to buy out all the stores in the area to destroy them.