Kaoru Futami is a particularly brilliant boy who, already at the age of ten, wonders about the origins of the universe and discovers a strange relationship between the points on Earth where gravitational anomalies exist and those where longevity sites are reported, that is, where it has been found that the inhabitants live longer than average. In particular, he is intrigued by an area in the Arizona desert, and convinces his father Hideyuki, a computer researcher who years before had worked on a virtual reality program called Loop ' to organize a trip there with the whole family. Shortly before leaving, however, the father is diagnosed with a malignant tumor of unknown origin? Ten years pass and Hideyuki is now forced to stay in hospital: the metastases have affected all of his vital organs and his fate seems sealed. However, Hideyuki is not the only victim of that strange form of tumor. Similar cases are found all over the world and the doctors come to the conclusion that it is a new virus. But Kaoru, who is now studying medicine at university, cannot explain why the technicians who worked on Loop are the ones most exposed to the infection and decides to go to Arizona, to the longevity site he identified when he was a child. That's where the creator of Loop lives, the virtual universe where a mysterious virus developed: Ring.