January 4th, 2044
05:03 PM
Central Ward
Sunset District
Deputy Inspector Atarashi Shin
Shin crept forward beneath the flashing red lights, the young man holding a black claymore in his hands. A sinister wail echoed through the building, a staccato cry that seemed to pierce through the walls and floors and ceiling. The sound of buzzing filled Shin’s ears, and the floor seemed to pulse beneath his feet. The air was hot and getting hotter, and with red lights on him, Shin felt as though he’d been thrust into an oven.
He crept across the black speckled tile floors; his sword held up and at the ready. He moved slowly, remaining on high alert, his eyes keen to every movement in his field of vision. There was a tightness in his chest, and his muscles were tense, ready to spring into motion at the first sign of danger. The power of Exigency flooded through him, ready to be used at his discretion.
Floor thirty-four seemed to be some kind of recreational area or fitness center. The doorway through which he’d entered had been blocked off by a length of broken catwalk, preventing the numerous nerves that filled the stairwell from following him, but it left Shin equally unable to follow his mentor back down to the ground floor. He had no idea what happened to Takeyoshi after they’d been separated, but he could only pray that the more seasoned Inspector was alright. Now alone, Shin pressed forward, leaving behind the blocked doorway.
The inside walls of the gymnasium were made of a semi-transparent dark glass, and Shin found himself standing in the middle of a intersection with four corridors all heading in different directions. Arrows of different colors were painted onto the wall with words like “sauna,” “pool,” “private courts,” and “gymnasium.” Shin paused at the juncture, trying to decide what to do.
“Should I wait for Takeyoshi?” he questioned himself, looking down either hallway for some kind of sign. However, Shin knew he didn’t have time to waste; he could hear the sound of something moving in the ceiling above him and the pain in his chest intensified. He needed to keep moving, but to where?
“Hey, you,” Shin started forward again, moving down the hallway to his right. He looked back and forth between his sword and his surroundings, trying not to let his guard down. “Hey!”
“Oh?” the Omen sword in Shin’s hand answered. “Are you talking to moi?”
“Who else would I be talking to?” Shin demanded, hefting the sword in one hand to awkwardly speak into the hilt.
“I’ve learned not to try and make sense of your behavior,” the Omen replied, haughtily, producing a fiery orange eye from the crossguard which it rolled in irritation. “Honestly, I’m halfway convinced your stupidity might be contagious.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Shin sneered at the blade, falling into the AI’s trap.
“And whose genius move was it that separated us from Takeyoshi?” the Omen wondered aloud, and Shin instantly felt the sting of its superior digital wit.
“I-uh,” Shin was taken aback, momentarily at a loss for words, but he chose to push through it. “That’s not important right now!”
“Oh, it isn’t?”
“Right now, we need to figure out how to get to floor thirty-five,” Shin ignored the Omen’s aside. “Ink said there was another stairwell we could take; where is it?”
“On the other side of the gymnasium,” the Omen answered, momentarily shifting itself back into the form of a compact device. Streams of orange light weaved a replica of Tower 5, which then zoomed in on floor twenty-nine. Countless rooms and spaces filled the horizontal slice of the Tower, and after mapping the entire floor around him, the Omen zoomed in on Shin’s location, represented by a tiny red dot, then created a long line connecting the dot to the far side of the building.
“How big is this place?” Shin wondered aloud, looking up at the walls around him, which belied the enormity of the single floor. “It feels like getting to floor thirty-five is going to take an hour.”
“Shouldn’t you be focused on heading downward?” the Omen asked him.
“I need to get to Fubuki Kamui and stop all of this,” Shin answered automatically, leaning around the corner at the end of the hallway, not entirely certain what he was looking for.
“You should be trying to get back to Takeyoshi,” the Omen corrected him. “Besides, if the first stairwell was blocked off, I’d put good odds on the second one being blocked as well. With the power cutting in and out, I can’t access any of the building’s surveillance systems to see what’s above you. How are you even going to get upstairs to begin with?”
“We’ll figure out what to do next when we get there,” Shin assured the device, trying to sound confident.
“It’s best to have a plan before you take action, but that wisdom is lost on you,” the AI sneered, reminding Shin why he didn’t like it.
“Shut up,” he kept his eyes fixed on the map, glancing up around him at intermittent intervals. The sound of buzzing through the walls never stopped, but the horrid wailing seemed to have died away. Sliding doors hissed open as Shin approached them, then slammed themselves shut with force, almost like open mouths struggling to bite him. He noticed cameras on the walls following him as he went by, like eyes tracking his progress. The lights abruptly cut out, leaving Shin alone in the darkness, but the buzzing continued, and the red emergency lamps still flashed. He held his Omen outward, using it as a flashlight to guide him in the pitch black.
“Are you tired of feeling tired?” a woman’s voice suddenly blared from Shin’s left, and he impulsively leapt away as a screen lit up along the side of the hallway. “Is exhaustion stopping you from achieving your—”
The screen flashed and buzzed in the dark hallway, switching between shots of generic men and women rubbing their foreheads or dramatically yawning as the commercial played, before it was interrupted by chaotic static that flashed over the entire screen. From out of the hissing static, there came a snarling sound, a vicious staccato scream that sounded monstruous, but also human.
Shin flicked his wrist and the Omen in his hand responded, changing shape. It once more took the form of a black sword, and Shin dragged it across the screen with a one-handed slash, and the display exploded outward. Somewhere in the building above him, the staccato scream continued, its fury still palpable through the distance that separated them. Without waiting for the demonic wailing to stop, Shin decided to keep moving.
Hastened by Exigency, the interior of Tower 5 was reduced to a blur of colors as Shin charged through it. He moved, half remembering the layout of the building he’d been shown, and guiding himself the rest of the way through instinct. The only parts of the building that Shin could make out in detail were dangerous pieces of the structure that his senses automatically homed in on: broken walls with exposed electrical wires or passages covered by fleshy wires that hung like grotesque tapestry. Every door he passed continued to snap at him, but none were fast enough to catch him on the occasion he did need to pass through them.
He slowed as he heard a new sound coming from somewhere in the halls ahead of him. He knew he was close to the gym; the arrows on the wall all pointed in this direction. He came around a corner and spotted the interior doors to the fitness center ahead of him on his left. The automatic double doors of the building were opening and closing constantly, slamming themselves together with force. Each time they opened, the red emergency lights inside the gym briefly shined into the hallway, and when they closed, they did so with a stomach-churning squelch, as they hit something Shin couldn’t see until he came closer.
A human body lay in the entrance of the gym; what had once been a grown man had been diced to pieces between the slamming doors. He seemed to have been just another resident of the tower and, judging by his black sweatshirt and grey sweatpants, he was probably in the gym for his daily workout. The doors appeared to have slammed shut on his shoulders, severing his head and upper body, and when his lower half collapsed in the doorway, the doors had continued to bite into him, tearing what was left of his body in half above the waist.
Without any regard for his own safety, Shin reached out as the doors opened and placed his arms in the gap. The pair of reinforced doors that had split a grown man apart tried to sever Shin’s hands, but they collided with his forearms and dented inward, unable to harm Shin. Ignoring the feel of the dead man’s blood beneath his fingers, Shin pressed his hands against the metal doors and forced them backwards. The metal doors groaned as they crumpled beneath the pressure while the motor mechanisms in the doorway squealed as they were broken beyond repair.
“I’m sorry, but this is all I can do for you,” Shin thought to himself as he looked down at the mutilated remains of an innocent man. “I should have been here sooner.” He carefully stepped over the dead man’s body and into the gymnasium. Beneath the flashing emergency lights, Shin could see that the man in the doorway was not the only victim.
The ceiling of the spacious gym had collapsed inward, and numerous pulsing nerves hung down to hook themselves to the floor and walls which formed a tangled growth of gently pulsing tendrils that made it impossible to see the other side of the room. Caught in the clutches of the wire-like nerves, alongside various weights and pieces of exercise equipment, were human remains; at least a half a dozen human shapes were suspended above the floor, their bodies blackened and burned from electrocution far beyond recognition. Some of them still danced and twitched in the grasp of the fleshy wires, but they were all clearly beyond saving.
“What happened here?” Shin asked, looking at the bodies dangling beneath the red lights.
“I’m guessing some people were already in here when Fubuki transformed,” the Omen ventured. “Looks like some of them might have been internal security for the Tower, too. Maybe they thought the gym’s reinforced doors meant it was safer than trying to get to the nearest shelter.”
“That shelter: is it still transmitting?” Shin demanded, looking down at his Omen. “Is it safe?”
“All the shelters on the ten nearest floors are under lockdown and still broadcasting their emergency beacons,” the Omen assured him. “All the people inside are safe.”
“For now, maybe,” Shin agreed, but he didn’t let the Omen’s words blind him to the threat of the situation. “But there’s no telling how long they’ll stay safe if the Casualty keeps attacking them. And if anyone else has been left in the halls outside the shelters. . .,”
A glance at the six dead bodies made Shin’s fears painfully clear. He stepped forward, motivated by that thought alone as he brandished his Omen again. The nerves dangling towards the floor formed a net that made crossing to the other end of the room impossible, but that didn’t deter Shin for even a moment. He hefted his sword and slashed through them, carving through a dozen or more fleshy wires as though he was chopping through vines in the jungle, and the reaction was immediate.
The scream tore through the building again. The ground shifted beneath his feet, and the nerves flinched and writhed in the air, glowing hot as electrical signals sent waves of pain across the entire overgrown nervous system. The air filled with the smell of ozone and burning meat, but Shin didn’t stop hacking at the nerves as he advanced.
“Are you crazy?” the Omen demanded as Shin carved a path.
“No,” Shin answered, knowing exactly what he was doing.
“Did you even stop and think about what would happen when you sank me into a live wire?” the AI demanded, but Shin remained unflappable.
“I’m not worried about myself right now,” Shin didn’t even pause, immediately lifting his sword for another strike.
“Tough talk, Mr. Cool,” the AI balked. “Fortunately for you, one of us has a functioning brain, so listen up. I can use my nanite make up to soak in the electrical discharge from the wires, but that only goes so far even with modern technology.”
The AI produced a holographic reading that floated near the hilt of the weapon which displayed the words “Battery Capacity: 103%.”
“Once that number hits the big two-zero-zero, that’s as much as I can do for you,” the AI warned. “After that, you’ll need to find some kind of outlet to discharge me into. Otherwise, I could explode.”
“I suppose I should thank you,” Shin considered.
“You should,” the AI agreed.
“But I won’t.”
“Tch.”
With each pass of Shin’s blade, more and more nerves fell like rows of twisted wheat, and the screaming from somewhere above grew louder still. The nerves grew hot and intense with surges of electricity, and the battery of the smart-metal blade drank in the energy as the reading climbed by several digits. The nerves still hanging around Shin tensed and then slackened, dropping the assortment of gym equipment and human bodies to the floor, but the vines didn’t release them. Instead, they writhed, and Shin raised his weapon, sensing an imminent attack.
The nerves came first, coiling and striking like the countless heads of a hydra from all sides, and Shin sheared through them with each pass of his sword, littering the polished floor with fleshy, writhing worms. He danced among the groping, electrified appendages, cutting them apart as they reached for him. A tense pain in his chest warned him of another attack, and Shin turned about just in time to see a fifty-pound weight being whipped towards his head. He evaded the blow, though he wondered if such pedestrian means could even harm him, and then cut the nerve holding it, letting the heavy iron weight smash into the black tile floor and roll away. When an entire exercise bike was hurled his way, Shin carved through it with ease, letting its pieces fall to either side of him. Then, from the corner of his eye, something black lunged at Shin and he turned to face it, then froze.
Held up by one of the nerves growing through the ceiling was a human body; though it was blackened and burned, with its eyeballs burst out of its head and its mouth a lipless smiling grin, it moved. Compelled by the signals sent by the nerve holding it, the dead body danced in posthumous agony, and a death rattle sounded from between its teeth. It charged at Shin, seizing chaotically while spread its spasming arms and opened its mouth wide while the Inspector stared gormlessly back at it.
“Shin!” the Omen in Shin’s hands shouted his name and he remembered himself.
He darted around the clumsy attempt to tackle him by the reanimated corpse and countered with a swing of his sword. He couldn’t bring himself to actually strike the dead body; to him, it felt too much like he was punishing an innocent victim. Instead, he used his sword to cut the tendon holding the body aloft and let it collapse to the ground. No sooner had he done that than more nerves crowded around him, holding more improvised weapons to use against him, including more bodies. Even the dismembered man in the doorway had been picked up by the nerves and his parts were being carried around. Something inside Shin snapped at the sight of the grizzly display.
He reached into himself, drawing out a form of the trauma that made him what he was. He coiled his left hand into a fist, and black particulates flowed from between his fingers. He thrust his hand upward towards the ceiling, and the Black Powder spread out like a curtain in all directions. With his right hand, Shin thrust his sword upward into the cloud and squeezed the trigger. The hammers sprang up from the crossguard and they struck the blade, making sparks fly.
The Black Powder erupted into a fiery orange explosive, blasting away the nerves that crowded the ceiling. Beneath the thunder of the explosion, the electric wail from above rose to a fever pitch. The force of the blast had torn several dozen nerves from their moorings, and they’d fallen away like burning fuses while those further from the blast danced and writhed as they were consumed by fire. Flames danced across the ceiling, casting the gymnasium in an orange light.
“What are you trying to do?” the sword in Shin’s hands spoke. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”
“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
Shin leapt into the air, throwing himself towards the pit in the ceiling still belching smoke and fiery embers. He thrust his sword into the roof ahead of him, using it to break through whatever remained of the division between the gym and the floor above. He burst onto floor-thirty-five, but to Shin’s eye, it was as though he’d found himself in the stomach of some beast. Sparking nerves descended from the ceiling of the building, and when they had no further room to grow out, they burst through the walls and coiled around the floor. Only the vaguely rectangular shape of the passage told Shin that he was in some kind of hallway, although whether it was a residential floor or something else, Shin couldn’t tell.
He landed atop the nerves that had stretched across the floor, and their reaction was immediate. Blue lights spread from the nerves beneath Shin’s feet, rippling outward through each fleshy cord to their nearest cousins, filling the entire passage with bright blue light. The heat in the room grew sweltering, and unseen pins and needles danced on Shin’s skin. The entire passageway came alive in a split second, and Shin burst into motion.
His blade danced in his hands as he tore through the hall of nerves like a hurricane through a propaganda village. Raw nerves still crackled with electricity even after Shin carved through them, and they fell to the wayside in scores as Shin charged through. Monitors in the halls clicked on, and the Casualty screamed at Shin through static in the short moments they were active before Shin shattered them. The cameras weren’t spared, either: feeling the Casualty’s digital eyes on him, Shin gouged them out with the darting tip of his claymore.
He raced through the corridor directed only by adrenaline and instinct, the urge to fight and slay whatever threatened him dominating his actions. He had no idea where he was, or where the Casualty was in relation to him, so he focused on only what was ahead of him. In that state of mind, the world seemed to slow down, except for Shin, who almost felt like a passenger in his own body, watching as he laid about him with abandon. It was then, in that moment, Shin saw something to give him direction.
The moment he made contact with one of the nerves, there was a flash of lightning. The sensation traveled away, bleeding into the nearest nerves as it fled, and then it returned a microsecond later, more vibrant. The nerves, obviously, were communicating not only with one another, but with their source, and that rudimentary epiphany told Shin exactly what he needed to do.
Raising his blade with greater purpose, Shin plunged the sword into a nerve pulsing against the wall to his left. It cringed and flashed blue, and Shin sped forward, following the transmission of pain. He soared down hallways and rounded corners as he chased the surge of electricity; even with the speed Exigency gave him, he wasn’t able to keep up with the transmission, but each and every step he took crushed more nerves beneath his feet, sending more flashing blue pulses outward like ripples in a luminescent pool.
Ahead of him, he saw a doorway: the entire portal was crowded with nerves flooding out of it, to the point that the frame was splintered outward. The waves of electric blue sensation flowed into the tangled growth, which left no space for Shin to follow, but he didn’t plan on letting that momentary barrier stop him. As he charged forward, screams echoed out through the building again, so close that it was painful, and the walls came alive. Shin’s black sword cleaved through the countless nerves throwing themselves into his path and carved through the cluster of nervous roots that blocked the doorway, emerging into an open space among a shower of blood and severed nerves.
It took Shin a moment to realize where he was: he was in a penthouse with a sixteen foot high ceiling that sloped away from him towards the back of the room, with the far wall being replaced by a convex window that looked out on the Heights’ silver towers and the countless rails connecting them. What had once been polished hardwood floors and rose-colored walls were torn apart, and countless writhing nerves had spread across the apartment, with fragments of broken furniture sticking out from the tangle.
Dominating the room was a massive nerve cluster larger than Shin was tall, suspended between floor and ceiling by numerous organic tethers. The grotesque vines flowed into and out of the cluster, extending down through the floor and up through the ceiling, tearing through whatever stood in the way of their explosive growth. Blue light washed over the room as electrical pulses flowed into and out of the mass, communicating sensation.
Shin’s eyes strayed from the bloated luminescent vines down towards his sword and the holographic battery monitor that still hung over it. “148%.” His Omen was halfway to exploding, but he still had more than enough wiggle room to do what needed to be done: he’d found Fubuki Kamui.
Shin stood in the shadow of the massive growth, momentarily dropping his guard as the convulsing cluster began to glow, filling the room with a blue corona. He reflexively held his hand up to block the intense light and saw the shadows of his bones through his fingers. With the flash, came intense heat, and the sound of buzzing filled his ears while static danced across his skin. A scream tore through the apartment; the terrible staccato wail that spoke of surpassing agony.
The soundwave hit Shin, threatening to bowl him over even as it pounded against his eardrums. The entire tower shook as the agonized cry spread through its infrastructure, shaking every floor with its power, spreading the sound of its pain through every electronic device that could connect to its nervous system. The electric blue light of the nerve cluster continued to burn, and electricity danced across the organic wires spreading in every direction, burning and melting whatever they touched. In the terrible cry, Shin could feel the pain and anger of the monster, but also, a certain sorrow. Though he was blinded and deafened, Shin raised his sword, determined to end the sound of anguish in his ears.
Guided by instinct and the half-remembered shape of the nerve cluster, Shin leapt into the air, plunging into the sound and the light. He swung his sword through the air ahead of him, reflexively gauging the speed of his own leap and the approximate distance between himself and his target. As the blade arced forward, Shin felt the slightest pressure push back against his hand, the tell-tale sign that the impossibly thin edge had struck home. A microsecond later, and heat rushed through the Omen, along with a static buzz across the surface of the weapon, which vanished almost instantly as the device drew in the electrical charge.
The thundering scream and the bright corona died as Shin landed on the floor. He blinked for several seconds, trying to discern his surroundings, momentarily blinded by the intense light that had shined in his eyes. He shook his head from side to side, as if trying to dislodge some kind of phantom blindfold, but his vision returned only in part. Everything was bright and stars filled his eyes; he could barely make out shapes in the world around him. His hearing returned more quickly, and from behind him, he heard the sound of movement.
“Uhh, Shin?” the AI in Shin’s sword noticed that something was wrong at the same time he did, and the Deputy turned about. He could barely make out the shape of the nerve cluster: severed in half by Shin’s sword, its lower portion had come untangled and pooled across the floor like fraying rope, while the upper half dangled limply from the ceiling. He could hear the sound of something squelching among the dead nerves; a wet smacking sound. Then, he heard vocalizations, breathing, and a groan.
Something crawled out of the rope-like nerves that sprawled across the floor, though it was hard for Shin to discern what it was at first. A nude woman, or the upper half of one, crawled across the floor, untangling herself from the knot of nerves that spread across the room. The fingers of her hands were long with jagged metallic nails which she used to drag herself across the floor. Over her pale body she’d grown patches of black course skin that resembled the texture of an electrical cable. Five long serpentine wires extended out of her body; one protruding from the base of her skull and four more growing out of her back. The bizarre creature crawled across the floor unsteadily, her breathing ragged, while her internal organs slipped out of her chest cavity behind her. Though her face was concealed by a head of dark matted hair, Shin instantly realized what he was looking at.
“Fubuki Kamui.”
In his haste to cut down the nerve cluster that was weaving its threads throughout the building, Shin had forgotten what he was dealing with. The Casualty that Fubuki Kamui had become was more than simply a mass of overgrown nerves, and although he’d cut the tendrils that connected her to the building, he hadn’t destroyed her brain, and nothing less would kill her. The creature seemed to move with some difficulty, continuing to wheeze and groan as it pulled itself along. So weak and pathetic seemed the former Fubuki Kamui that when Shin took a reluctant step forward, he found himself reminded once again of what he was dealing with.
Shin’s tentative approach caught Fubuki’s eye, and the slightest motion seemed to awaken some kind of predatory instinct in the Casualty. Digging her hands into the wooden floors, Fubuki Kamui lifted herself up, arching her back as she screamed. The pale skin that coated her nude upper torso shined with blue light from the inside out, and electricity danced across her skin. No sooner than she let loose her terrible cry, than Fubuki raced across the floor, half-crawling on her hands, half-slithering on her ropey innards.
Operating on an instinct of his own, Shin raised his sword and brought it down on the skittering monstrosity, intent on cleaving the crawling Casualty in half. The luminescent creature squirmed away from Shin’s blade faster than he could adjust his swing, circling around to his right. He turned, trying to track the creature with his faltering eyesight, but the Casualty was a step ahead of him.
Two sparking wires arced over Fubuki’s back and thrust themselves toward Shin like a pair of scorpion tails. He swiped the first tendril away with his sword, and the fleshy wire writhed in the air, half-severed by the Omen blade. The second nerve plunged towards Shin’s face, and he raised his sword defensively, holding it horizontally. Still, it struck with surprising force, sending Shin skidding back along the floor to collide with the wall behind him.
Plaster rained down around Shin as he cratered the wall. He struggled to keep to his feet as the wire continued trying to push against him, to force him to submit. Even as he held the blade over his head, sparks hissed and snapped at the sword in his hand, and pulses of heat flowed through the black smart-metal.
“163% capacity and rising,” the Omen reported, alarm tainting its synthetic voice. “Do something!”
“Great idea!” Shin growled, his voice a grunt of annoyance and exertion.
Shin’s eyes were fixated on the wire of bundled nerves that was pressing against his weapon while also trying to squirm around it. However, out of the corner of his eyes, he could see two more of Fubuki’s wires lift into the air, ready to strike at him. Knowing he had only moments, Shin reached into himself and drew forth his Crisis.
The Black Powder swirled around Shin’s left hand, which was braced against the flat of his Omen. The particles swirled around the blade, traveling down where the sword met the sparking wires, and the electricity ignited them. A fiery orange explosion blossomed around the sword, and Shin’s eyes were filled with smoke and fire. The heat and smoke washed over Shin, but he didn’t wait for his vision to clear before he began to move.
Fubuki screamed from her spot on the floor, while the wire that had been pressed against Shin’s blade was smoking and burning as she waved it through the air. At the same time, two more nerves whipped into the small smoke cloud where Shin had been standing. He ducked and darted past the slashing nerves, choosing to avoid slashing at them to focus on getting back toward open ground. He clambered over the grotesque mound of frayed axons from the shorn nerve cluster, and Fubuki whipped around to face him, extending more gruesome wires from her body to continue her attack
“168%!” the Omen called out as the sparking axons collided with the black blade, one after another. “172%!”
Turning aside each blow, Shin keenly felt the need to push his advantage, and he brazenly rushed forward. He leapt from atop the grisly nerve pile, intent on crashing down on Fubuki with all his strength and the Casualty moved to counter, extending two wires up to snatch him from the air. Shin raised his blade, gauging the moment of approach as the pair of black cables approached, and then swung his blade in an arc, intercepting both serpentine lashes at the same time.
“178%!” the Omen called out as Shin deflected the wires, but Shin pressed on regardless. The tips of the wiry nerves were severed by the Omen, but they continued to extend, trying to enfold around Shin as he fell towards the Casualty, and Shin swept the sword two more times to prevent the nerves from enfolding him.
“183%! 186%!” the Omen continued its report, and Shin crashed down on the floor, once again bringing the blade down on Fubuki. The Casualty skittered away across the floor, evading the Omen sword again, slithering and sliding away as Shin pursued. The Deputy guided his sword in low arcs, aiming to decapitate the crawling Calamity to avoid his prior mistake, but the creature was always a step ahead, bending and slithering to evade the dark sword. Frustration mounted and became desperation, and Shin thrust and stabbed with his weapon, abandoning any hopes of disabling the beast in a single blow, instead fixated on taking an arm, or even wounding the elusive creature at all.
Across the apartment, Shin chased the Casualty that was once Fubuki Kamui as it slipped away from him. The black sword tore through the floors beneath Shin’s feet as he hacked downward, and then through walls after Fubuki clambered across them, and even furniture that the Casualty hid behind. Nothing could withstand the Omen’s sword’s bite, but the weapon never once found its target. Using all the strength and agility that Exigency afforded him, Shin slashed with his blade, but no matter how precise he was, or how near the edge of the weapon came to cutting through Fubuki’s flesh, she always seemed to react at the last moment and contort herself to evade him.
Fubuki slapped her hands against the floor, vaulting her torn body into the air to evade a low sweep of Shin’s blade. As the black sword passed beneath her, the Casualty launched a counterattack, extending all five cables out from her body towards Shin. The fastest of the extending wires whipped around Shin’s guard and collided with his left shoulder. The force of the blow caused Shin to stumble backwards, and pain shot through his arm such as he’d never felt before. The fire that ran through his sinews raced from his shoulder down to his fingertips, and his muscles spasmed and lost coordination, causing his left arm to fall to his side.
Punished for his recklessness, Shin backpedaled, using his right hand to deflect the remaining wires striking at him with the Omen sword. The black sword burned in Shin’s hand, becoming hot enough that he couldn’t ignore it, even with the pain-dampening power of Exigency. He stumbled back towards the penthouse window, forced into a retreat under a flurry of blows from Fubuki’s axons. Another tendril whipped towards Shin’s face, and he ducked to the side, letting the nerve lash over his right shoulder, and strike the glass behind him.
The Casualty’s whipping nerve smashed through the window, sending shards of glass scattering across the floor. Fubuki’s single strike wasn’t enough to shatter the entire portal, seeing as it was made to withstand violent forces, but it was enough to crack a fist sized hole in the surface. Fubuki’s sparking nerve broke through the pane and momentarily passed through to the outside, but she quickly withdrew it, howling in her stuttering, staccato voice. Fubuki whipped her sparking tentacle through the air, giving Shin a momentary reprieve while she was distracted.
“I’m at 204%,” the Omen reported, its synthetic voice stretching and distorting. “I can’t handle any more! You’ve got to finish this now!”
“I’m trying!” Shin protested, sounding more defensive than he’d like. “But she’s too fast! I can’t even touch her.”
“It’s her nervous system; you see that?” the Omen explained, and Shin looked at the bifurcated creature, noticing the blue lights that flashed through her skin. “Her Crisis has overstimulated her senses: every sensation she feels is likely a thousand times stronger and more acute. She can practically see your every move before it happens.”
“If that’s true, then she must be in intolerable pain,” the Deputy considered, unable to ignore the rigors of the transformation the young woman had undergone.
“Now really isn’t the time to be a bleeding heart,” Shin could practically hear the AI rolling a pair of nonexistent eyes. “You need to find a way to slow her down and end this before I overload.”
“Is there any way to bleed off the extra energy?”
“By myself? No. It’ll take me a week to burn off the amount of electricity I’ve absorbed. I need something else to discharge the energy into: something that conducts electricity.”
“What about the building’s electrical network?” Shin’s eyes strayed to the walls that had been torn apart by Fubuki’s transformation, exposing the naked wires and insulation behind them.
“That could work if we had time,” the Omen answered. “But it would take a few minutes to safely dump the charge without frying the wires, and I don’t think the former Fubuki-san is going to wait patiently while you do that.”
There was a bright flash of light, and thunder boomed a few seconds later. Wind whistled through the small hole punched in the glass behind Shin’s head, and the sound of rain pouring down tickled his ears, and with it came an idea.
“What about water?” Shin asked, another reckless thought forming in his mind.
“Water?” the Omen repeated, not yet following Shin’s line of thought. “That could work, but you’d need a lot of it. You’d have to go back down a floor to find the pool.”
“As it happens, there’s a lot of water nearby,” Shin smiled and held his sword out in front of him again, steeling himself for whatever happened next.
“Well, you need to be careful; there’s a chance you could get elec—,” the Omen paused, and the advanced artificial intelligence born of twenty-first century technology finally caught up with Shin’s idiotic plan. “You aren’t going to—?”
Shin took a step forward, breaking the momentary deadlock, and Fubuki didn’t disappoint him, but rose to the provocation. A black electrical wire launched itself towards Shin, crossing the room in a fraction of a second. Switching the Omen into his left hand, Shin reached up and caught the tendril with his right, stopping the fleshy lash before it hit his face. Even touching the exterior of the organic wire sending painful surges of electricity through Shin’s hand, he dug his fingers into the grotesque cable and refused to let go. Crackling axons extended from the wire made of human flesh, probing for Shin’s eyes, while Fubuki began to drag herself backward on her hands, trying to escape the Deputy’s grasp, but it was too late. Shin turned towards the window and swept his sword through it, cutting through the hardened glass without resistance.
Throwing himself into the glass, the window burst apart, and Shin felt his stomach drop as he hurled himself into the void beyond the window. Behind him, he dragged Fubuki into the howling storm even as she tried to cling to floor of the apartment. While she was agile enough to keep ahead of Shin, she wasn’t strong enough to win a contest of strength, and the force of his leap dislodged her from her perch and brought her screaming into the hurricane outside.
Free from the humid confines of the tower, the howling wind and torrential rain almost felt nostalgic for Shin as he fell through the air, but Fubuki didn’t seem to take it quite so well. The Casualty shrieked as the rain hit it, its luminescent skin producing whisps of steam and an aura of electricity. The surge of electricity flowing through Shin’s right hand increased, and he was forced to release his hold on the creature as they fell.
Together, both Inspector and Calamity plunged through the air. Below them, one of the Heights’ rails spanned between Tower 5 and one of its neighbors. Shin didn’t hit the rails themselves; instead, he struck the glass tube that sheltered the tracks from the rain. He spread his hands and feet out to his sides as he tried to balance himself on the slick surface, a feat made all the more difficult by the rain that ran across the glass. The Casualty landed with far less elegance; smashing into the surface of the barrier with all of her weight, sending cracks zigzagging in all directions.
The Casualty howled in agony, raising her head to scream at the wind and rain. The nerves threaded through her pale skin were alive with electricity, flashing erratically as they tried to process the countless sensations that the overwhelming hurricane threw down. The rain drops striking her body were vaporized from the intense electricity in her body, and the energy spread across the exterior of the tube, creating a wall of scalding steam.
“She’s panicking!” Shin managed to climb to his feet as the Casualty whipped around, screaming and flailing as she lashed out at the overwhelming barrage of sensations from the storm. “This is my chance!”
“Or this might be a good opportunity to tag out and let Inspector Asahi take it from here,” the Omen advised as whispers of steam erupted from the dark blade with each drop of rain that hit it. “It’ll take me a solid minute or two before I’m able to offload this charge.”
“Well, Takeyoshi isn’t here, and I’m not about to wait,” Shin observed, advancing on the Casualty, moving slowly to avoid slipping. His fingers still burned with the pain of being electrified, but they obeyed Shin as he lifted the sword upward, keeping the weapon poised to strike.
The Casualty, Fubuki Kamui, whipped around in Shin’s direction, focusing her attention on him as he approached. Still able to discern his approach among the sensory barrage, the Casualty hissed in a low warning growl, but in Shin’s eyes, the Casualty was smaller and weaker than it had been moments before. As Fubuki Kamui growled in a warped, halting voice, Shin hardened his heart and advanced.
In response, Fubuki raised the numerous skin-covered nerves that extended from her body. The growths swayed and convulsed with each rain drop that hit them, but the Casualty forced them to remain at the ready, showing no sign of fear. Step by step, Shin moved closer and the Casualty tensed, her clawed fingers digging into the translucent surface beneath her. When Shin showed no sign of slowing, the Casualty snarled at Shin like a feral animal, contorting what was left of Fubuki Kamui’s features into a bare-toothed grimace, saliva dribbling across her lips. When he was less than ten feet away, Shin finally came to a stop.
He slowly and carefully widened his stance, making sure his footing was firm while he measured the distance between them, preparing for an offensive charge. Fubuki arched her back and lifted herself up on her hands, then began whipping the sides of the tunnel with her tendrils in a warning display, each strike sending up plumes of steam. Her attempts at intimidation did nothing to dissuade Shin from his course of action, and the young man lifted his sword over his head and bent his knees preparing to charge. Shin met Fubuki’s frenzied eyes, and they both stared at each other as they waited for some kind of signal.
Rain poured down on them and the wind howled, but they still waited. Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed. The wind carried the sounds of engines, car tires sloshing on wet roads, and honking horns to Shin’s ears, but he ignored them, tuning out the entire world save for the monster crouching three yards ahead of him. The seconds continued to mount, but Shin still waited. Then, lightning flashed in the sky, and he lunged.
Shin moved with all the speed and fury he could afford, but Fubuki reacted faster. The wires extending from her launched themselves like stingers, aiming to drive their naked sparking axons into the Inspector. Resisting the impulse to strike them from the air with his sword, Shin ducked and dodged the oncoming tendrils as he closed ranks. While Shin lacked strong footing and space to maneuver on the rain-slicked tube, the Casualty’s attacks were wild and desperate, their accuracy clouded by the sensory overload of the storm. Before Shin reached Fubuki, the Casualty began scrambling backwards on its palms, once again trying to evade him. This time, however, Fubuki was also deprived of the ability to move freely, and her movements lacked the agility she had before.
The chase inside the apartment repeated itself, but Shin now had the advantage. Fubuki retreated as Shin advanced, a shriek escaping her lips as the rain continued to fall down on her. She evaded the first few strokes of Shin’s sword by the smallest of margins, but the fourth slashed through the Casualty’s left shoulder. The Casualty shrieked in pain as blood spurted onto the glass, mixing with the rain. Galvanized by the momentary victory, Shin pressed his attack, but he stepped unwisely and his right foot slipped on the wet glass.
He was off balance for a fraction of a second, but the Casualty leapt on the chance to counter. A wire lashed itself around Shin’s left leg, filling his limb with intense pain. He was yanked off his feet, and he fell backward onto the glass tunnel. He instinctively braced himself with his left hand and struck out with his sword, cutting the wire of flesh attached to his leg. Although he was freed, lances of electrical pain continued to surge through Shin’s leg and his muscles spasmed in agony, hobbling his ability to stand. The wounded Casualty pounced like a cat, slapping her palms against the translucent glass to launch herself into the air, using the wires protruding from her body to throw herself into the air with greater force.
She came down atop Shin, screaming at the top of her lungs, claws extended. Shin had just enough time to raise his sword up to skewer the Casualty through her abdomen as she descended, but the beast didn’t appear to care. She collided with the fallen Inspector, and the force of her dive forced the glass tunnel to give way. Within a downpour of shattered glass, the pair fell onto the metal tracks inside the tunnel, both grappling for their own survival.
Shin landed on his back, the force sending all the air from his lungs, while the Casualty landed on his chest. Fubuki hooked her claws into his shoulders, and their jagged tips punched through his suit and dug into his flesh, sending a painful current into his body. Not content with that, the Casualty brought her wires to bear, coiling them around Shin and hooking them into the metal rails beneath them to electrify the steel tracks.
The nerves tied themselves around Shin’s arms and legs, sending waves of anguish through his body that he never dreamed he could have ever felt. He tried to struggle, but the electrified bonds held his limbs tight, preventing him from breaking free. Fubuki Kamui screamed in her deafening staccato voice, unhinging her lower jaw in the process. Her tongue extended from her mouth, reshaped into a malevolent proboscis of muscle, blackened skin and sparking nerves. The tongue hovered over Shin’s face, dripping saliva and blood as Fubuki prepared to give Shin a deadly kiss.
He struggled to think, to see, to hear, to survive. He could feel nothing but pain and heat, and he couldn’t hear anything except the sound of thunder. The sparks from Fubuki’s malformed tongue flashed in his eyes, and he could only see white lights and stars. Faintly, at the edge of his consciousness, he imagined he could hear his Omen saying something, but it didn’t matter. Inside the tumult of pain, thunder, and blinding light, there was a memory.
He was somewhere dark; it was in the middle of the night, and he was standing in an alley between two buildings. The emergency exit from the building on his left emptied into the alley, and Shin had run towards the street, remembering the feeling of two people holding his hands. He ran slow, for their sake, but he forced them to stop when he saw the man standing at the street waiting for them.
He was a head taller than Shin, and broader, too, with a muscular frame, and he wore a black sweater along with equally dark pants and laced up boots. His hair was cut short, trimmed nearly down to the scalp with methodical precision, and he had a thin beard across his jawline. He’d been looking away when the trio had entered the alley, but when they got closer, he looked at them, allowing Shin to see the dark, lifeless eyes of the stranger and the burn scar that covered his right cheek and warped his right ear. Meeting the stranger’s eyes only for a moment, Shin’s eyes traveled down to the object tied around his waist: a block of what appeared to be black clay was crudely mounted on a wide belt, and there were a number of wires and cords spreading out of it.
The man stood in front of Shin, holding a lighter in his right hand, which he absent-mindedly flipped open and closed, while he held an Augur in his left hand. The man seemed almost relaxed, and he barely looked at Shin, turning his attention back to the lighter. For a moment, Shin considered trying to tackle the man, but he rejected the notion when he glanced at the man’s left hand. The phone was gently splayed across his open fingers, making it seem as though the device was an afterthought, but Shin wasn’t fooled. The man’s thumb was poised over the screen like a scorpion’s stinger and his muscles were tense, ready to surge into motion in a split second. Shin knew that if he tried anything, he would be dooming them all to a quick death.
Through the haze of recollection, Shin’s memory blurred. His surroundings shifted as his brain struggled to recall exactly what they were like from moment to moment, and words were exchanged between himself and the stranger, though they were faded and distant, as if they were recorded on a broken microphone. However, the tail end of the conversation suddenly became clear.
“It’s Atarashi, isn’t it?” the man looked at Shin with a light in his dark eyes. “That’s who you are? Looks like Hide fucked up.”
“Please,” Shin heard himself speak in a wavering voice. “Please don’t do this.”
“That’s the way it goes,” the stranger spoke in a deep rough voice that was weary and reluctant. After that, there was a ringing sound; the cap of a metal lighter flipping closed, and the man raised his left hand.
“I’m sorry, but this isn’t personal,” the stranger informed him.
Shin turned away, adrenaline surging through him. He wrapped his arms around the pair standing on either side of him, using himself a human shield as he threw himself to the ground. A brilliant light erupted behind him, and a wave of heat and pressure flowed across his back. Thunder erupted, the likes of which Shin had never heard before.
Suddenly, his vision cleared, and Shin found himself staring up at Fubuki Kamui, her prehensile electrified tongue still dangling over his face. The stars that had clouded his vision disappeared, and the pain that had been coursing through his body seemed to vanish. He could still feel the heat and energy of the Casualty flowing into his body, but the agony it brought was gone.
Power surged through him; desperate, mad power that demanded to be used. He struggled against Fubuki’s bonds, and the Casualty fought to keep him pinned, managing to hold Shin down only through the leverage of her position. Unable to force himself to his feet, Shin released his grip on his sword and pulled his arms up even as Fubuki’s serpentine tendrils fought to keep them still.
Growling through his teeth like a frenzied animal, Shin pulled at and grappled with the bonds that held him down. His fingers dug through the fleshy wires, spurting blood as he pulled apart the ropey tendrils that held him down. Fubuki howled in mad rage, desperately clawing at Shin’s face, but her nails crossed his features without leaving any marks. Shin tore apart tendril after tendril, casting them aside to writhe in pain along the tracks. Desperate to maintain her advantage, the Casualty clung tightly to Shin with all her strength and what grip her bleeding wires could find. In response, Shin reached into himself, drawing out the Black Powder.
Explosive particulates flowed from his body, from head to toe, and they were instantly ignited by the electrical charge surging from Fubuki Kamui. The explosion was immediate; orange flames flowed through the glass tunnel, spreading as far as they could in either direction until they hit the silver towers in either direction. Then, the explosion blasted the glass column apart, sending translucent shards flying in all directions.
A cloud of smoke obscured everything after the explosion, but Shin heard metal groan and snap, and the world gave way beneath him. He felt the familiar vertigo again as he fell, and he emerged from beneath the cloud, falling towards the street along with a hail of shattered steel from the rails above him. He landed on his feet and scrambled around on the glass covered street, avoiding chunks of metal that slammed into the asphalt from above.
He stood to the side and stared up at the burning and broken tracks above him, feeling his heart beating in his chest. The entire tube had shattered, and the tracks were burnt and melted at the epicenter of the explosion, leaving the two halves of the metal railing to bend and lilt to the side. The smoke from the initial blast was quickly dissipating in the wind and the rain poured out by Izumi, but small plumes trailed up into the sky from the ends of the rails, where the explosion had torn into the joined towers and ignited small fires in the rail stations within each building.
“Did I do this?” Shin asked himself, feeling as though he’d just woken up from a nightmare. He looked down at his hands, covered in blood and soot. He remembered the desperate, violent fury that he’d used to tear Fubuki Kamui apart, and his stomach twisted. Feeling unclean, Shin brushed his hands against the sleeves of his uniform, but the sense of sickness he felt didn’t disappear.
Sirens wailed from around the building; no doubt the Civil Services had heard the blast and were wheeling their vehicles around to investigate. Shin simply stood in the rain, frozen, uncertain about what he was supposed to do. His Exigency was gone, and he felt tired and drained, but he wasn’t hurt. He experimentally reached up to where Fubuki Kamui had slashed through his shoulder and found that there was no pain. He didn’t even have any burns from the several times he was electrocuted. The world felt surreal, and Shin’s head seemed like it was trapped in a fog. Then, a beeping sound caught Shin’s attention.
He raised his head, his eyes trying to discern what was making the noise, and he looked over the sea of broken glass and blasted steel girders that lay strewn across the street. Unable to see what the noise was, Shin tentatively stepped forward, picking his way through the rubble. Hidden behind a blackened hunk of metal, Shin found what he was looking for.
Laying in the middle of the street was a body, broken and burnt beyond all recognition. Less than a quarter of Fubuki Kamui had survived the explosion, and that any trace of her remained beyond a black smear was no doubt due to her hardiness as a Human Calamity. The Casualty’s right arm and the right side of her chest had been torn away, leaving her chest cavity open and exposed. Her lower jaw and the right side of her face had been blown apart, leaving only a small trace of hair and skin clinging to the left side of her face. Her left hand had lost all its fingers, and the cables protruding from her back had been burnt down to nothing.
Wedged in what was left of her carcass was a black sword, whose hilt flashed an orange light as it chirped. Shin reached out and took hold of the hilt, feeling the heat of the blast lingering in the smart-metal grip. He pulled the blade free, and it slid out with a stomach-turning combination of sounds; the squelching of the blade against Fubuki’s soft innards, and the crunch of the sword flaking away the burnt skin.
“Well, you’ve really managed to screw this one up,” the Omen wasted no time in choosing to berate Shin, but the Deputy didn’t have the heart to tell him any different. “You nearly died up there, you know?”
“I can barely believe I survived,” Shin murmured, looking down at the sword.
“Are you feeling alright?” the Omen asked, showing a modicum of concern. “Your biometrics went crazy, and then, well, you went crazy.”
What was he supposed to say to that? “I’m fine?” He didn’t feel fine.
“Huuurgghh,” a soft wheeze came from the ground at Shin’s feet and he looked downward as the Casualty began to shift and move. Fubuki Kamui’s burnt tongue lolled around in her mouth as she turned her head to look at him, her one remaining eye glaring up at Shin in mad rage. The Casualty shuddered as it tried to move, but it was a fruitless endeavor. The creature was truly crippled, lacking any functioning limbs. Even its nervous system was gone; all of Fubuki’s organs had been blown out and burnt away. She couldn’t breathe, and her heart couldn’t beat, but the uncontrollable surge of Hazard Energy in her brain kept her alive, even when the rest of her body was ruined beyond function.
Shin looked down at the Human Calamity with pity. They were two different kinds of the same mutation; for some reason, fate had allowed Shin to retain his humanity, while this entirely ordinary woman had been deprived of it. She’d lost her identity, her form, her sanity. She’d even lost the ability to die, in a sense.
Shin lowered the tip of the sword, aiming the black blade towards Fubuki’s face. He stared into the woman’s dark eye, trying to understand what thoughts raced through her tormented mind before he thrust the blade forward. To kill her now was a mercy, he told himself, but the thought didn’t comfort him.
“I’m sorry,” were the last words Fubuki Kamui ever heard.
Autopsy Report
January 4th, 2044
Subject Name: Fubuki Kamui
A real shame, this one. A young beauty recently married, who lived in the richest, safest chunk of the island. She had her whole life ahead of her, only to be cut down by the cruel hand of fate, and the blade of an Inspector. That’s life in Yōgai-shima. Apparently, despite the best protections that money could buy, Mrs. Fubuki was brought down by something as pedestrian as faulty wiring.
Her transformation into a Casualty seemed to be primarily internal, altering her nervous system. Her axons appeared to enter a state of “hyper-stimulation,” transforming the gentlest touch into excruciating agony. Her primary form of attack appeared to be through a series of nerves and pseudopods that grew out of her body.
Fubuki Kamui’s body has been determined to be of no further use for scientific analysis and research, and following the conclusion of her autopsy, her remains have been marked for carbonization and will be released to her next of kin.
Crisis Abilities
Electrocution Emergency, Nervous Network
Through her nerves, Fubuki Kamui could expel electrical discharges at lethal voltages, enough to cause second and third-degree burns in those that made contact with her axons. In addition to this, her Crisis seemingly enabled her to hijack electrical equipment and human bodies, though the ultimate potential of this ability is unclear due to Fubuki’s short-lived transformation.
Parameters
Exigency: 3
Fubuki Kamui was less powerful than most Human Calamities, but the hyper-sensitivity of her nerves granted her incredible reflexes and agility.
Runaway: (Unknown)
As a Human Calamity, Fubuki Kamui survived less than an hour, meaning that the rate at which she absorbs Hazard Energy and her ultimate potential will remain mysteries.
Forecasting: 3
Fubuki Kamui displayed no prescience or ability to perceive Hazard Energy beyond the most basic capabilities of Human Calamities.
Account: 1
The remains of Fubuki Kamui contains nothing more than the standard level of Hazard Energy, and she displayed no overt or skilled use of Karma before her death.
Precision: 5
Fubuki Kamui’s ability allowed her to extend her Crisis only through contact with her nerves, however, the overstimulation of her senses caused her to lash out at everything around her, showing even less restraint than most Casualties.
Karma: 6
The energy in Fubuki Kamui’s body is tilted towards positivity.
Shibusawa Harumi, Human Disaster Response Bureau, Corpse Disposal Unit
Soon, the World Will End 