Remote-controlled prosthetic bodies try to kill Shinra Mikomoto, a politician who champions cyberization, in the middle of a speech, and Togusa gets her out alive. At the other end of Japan, dozens of illegally dumped artificial bodies turn up near the compound of Aterui, a sect opposed to cyberization, and one of the empty shells once belonged to Motoko Kusanagi, the Major who left Section 9 and disappeared. Chief Aramaki keeps the case inside Section 9, sending Batou undercover to the southern islands and Togusa north with Tsunagi, a new recruit from the Psychic Division. The story is set after Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human-Error Processor.