'On the Way to a Smile' is a series of short stories taking place between the time of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Mitsuhiro Matsunaga is an investor relations manager at a large development firm that's currently in the process of constructing a new high-rise building. After claims surface online of fires breaking out, illness spreading, and human bones unearthed at the site, he ventures there himself to find out whether there's any truth to the rumors. During his search, he detects an eerie dryness and the distinct smell of a person burned completely to ash, bones and all. Eventually, Mitsuhiro stumbles across a mysterious ritual space with a huge hole not on any blueprints—and inside it, a man in chains. Mitsuhiro flees aboveground in a panic, only to quickly learn it is but a taste of the terror that has begun to plague him and his family! Source: Yen Press