January 19th, 2044
09:20 AM
Central Ward
Sunset District
Nanbu Naoya
“And what time were you planning on getting here, Nanbu-kun?” Yamato’s soft and sharp voice was loud in Naoya’s ear despite the storm overhead. There was a hint of annoyance in his tone, which he wasn’t trying very hard to hide.
“I’m on my way,” Naoya growled back, already annoyed; this was the third time the salesman had called him this morning. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes,” mild incredulity filled the other man’s voice. “I did tell you to be here on the hour, didn’t I?”
“Nagging me isn’t going to reopen flooded roads or help me get through traffic any quicker,” Naoya shot back, being careful to avoid the question the other man asked.
“In business, a customer is always given grace should they deign to arrive late,” Yamato clicked his teeth, a habit that Naoya had learned meant the other man was trying to share some time-honored wisdom. “But the employee never can, especially not a contractor. It creates a penumbra of unreliability and slovenliness. Being late—,”
“Is something you’re going to have to live with today,” Naoya cut off Yamato’s lengthy complaining by tapping on the side of his goggles with his right hand, ending the call. The salesman’s voice was abruptly terminated, leaving Naoya to the welcome sound of the wailing wind and thunder.
He sat on the back of his bike, dressed in his typical black jacket, and mounted on his Bridge-Runner, his beaten brown helmet atop his head and his Augur pressed against his face in the form of goggles. Despite his earnest desire to get moving, the Bridge-Runner remained in place, hemmed in by traffic on all sides. A river of private vehicles, buses, and taxis formed a metal stream that extended up the street as far as Naoya could see, contained only by the buildings of Sunset Ward on either side. The sky above Naoya roiled with an endless curtain of grey clouds which whipped with greater furor than they had since Hurricane Izumi had perched over Yōgai-shima, and that primordial fury brought with it a downpour of rain and wind that made its prior thunderings pale in comparison. Yet, Naoya knew it to be the anger of a natural disaster in its death throes.
“Just two or three more days, right?” Naoya looked up at the roof of grey clouds in the sky above him, pondering the news. Yōgai-shima had entered the final stage of its weeks long feast, and the typhoon that had been anchored in the skies above was soon to disappear, or so Naoya had heard, and he was eager to see the blue sky again. The storm, however, wasn’t going to humbly bow out.
Izumi let loose her wrath in one final display, determined to leave her mark on the manmade island from one end to the other. The last surge of lightning and storm winds were blunted by Yōgai-shima’s numerous protections, preventing the hurricane from knocking the city flat, but, to Naoya’s chagrin, the calamity had a profound effect on the traffic. Streets up and down Central were closed off to prevent flooding, which led to numerous roads being forced to merge together, creating congestion of truly epic proportions.
Naoya felt the rain pounding down on his helmet, and each and every drop felt like someone was drumming their fingers on it, as though the weather was determined to annoy him personally. Frustration mounted as the wait dragged on, and the traffic moved inches at a time, never breaking from the monotonous stop-and-start cycle. Inwardly, he cursed himself for not better planning the morning ahead, blaming himself for getting caught in the vehicular mire.
He’d tried to get in a few jobs in the early morning, trying to diversify his income and make a few yen elsewhere, but that had cost him dearly when he tried to cross from Horizon into Sunset and found every road was backed up for miles. Once he’d ridden into the crush of cars, turning around wasn’t an option. Going north into the Iron District wasn’t possible, as the corporate center had closed itself to through traffic. To the south was the Lunar District, hidden behind its black walls. He idly wondered at the thought of breaking from the flow and trying to cut through the Bureau’s territory, but he couldn’t imagine he’d be allowed through the checkpoint, even if he dropped Suzume’s name.
Drawn by that thought, Naoya found his eyes drifting south in the direction of the Bureau’s private city. His eyes scanned the surface of the buildings to his left, wishing he could see through them to look at the Eclipse Tower on the southern border of Central. He tried to imagine what Suzume was doing at that moment, but his imagination was ill-suited to conjuring up any notion of what an Inspector did there. All that was brought to mind was paperwork and suitably bureaucratic office work, none of which seemed remotely appropriate for her. The sound of his Augur ringing drew Naoya back to reality, and he reached up to tap the side of his goggles to accept the call.
“Yamato-san?” Naoya’s voice was thick with annoyance.
“Um, excuse me?” a young woman’s voice answered instead, and Naoya paused in surprise.
“Uh, sorry about that,” he hastily apologized, looking at the caller’s information displayed in his goggles. There was no name listed with the number, but something about the woman’s voice was familiar to Naoya. “Who is this?”
“You don’t know my name?” the woman asked, though there was something coquettish in her tone.
“No, I don’t,” surprise quickly vanished, and in its place, suspicion bloomed in Naoya’s mind. “What’s your name?”
“Mmmm, take a guess,” the girl on the line grew a little more teasing, and Naoya felt his suspicion increase.
“Look, I’m busy,” Naoya tried to disentangle himself from the conversation, not entirely certain if the woman on the line was even a real person.
“Oh, don’t be like that,” the caller continued trying to reel him in. “Let me give you a hint; I’m blonde, I’m five foot six, and I weigh one hundred and ten pounds. If you ask nicely, I can give you my measurements.”
“You’re from the Virgin Sacrifice,” it suddenly clicked in his mind, and Naoya raised a hand up, preparing to hang up the call.
“You remembered your little Miyako-chan,” despite her flirtatious tone, it became increasingly clear to Naoya that it was a put-on thing. He’d never even been told the girl’s name, and she likely knew that.
“Why are you calling me?” Naoya demanded in a flat voice.
“Well, you haven’t come around recently, and I was wondering if I’d get to see you again,” the soapgirl’s voice slowly lost some of its charm, and beneath it was something Naoya couldn’t place. A sense of urgency, maybe?
“I don’t know you, and I don’t how you got this number,” Naoya’s rebuff caused the girl on the line to give a nervous chuckle. “Did Ichinose give it to you? Is he there with you?”
“Listen, I’d be very, very grateful if you’d just—,” the woman was borderline pleading, but before she could say anything more, she was interrupted. Muffled noise came over the line, and no one spoke for several seconds. Distantly, Naoya vaguely thought he could hear Ichinose’s voice, but he couldn’t make out a single word. Several voices responded to him: all of them male and harsh, but equally indiscernible.
“What’s going on?” Naoya raised his voice, trying to be heard. “Is anyone there?”
“Hey, hey, hey!” a nervous voice came over the line, and Naoya’s face twisted into a frown as he recognized the caller. “Hey, Nanbu-san! How’ve you been? Look, look, look, I really, really need you to come by the store because there’s just a little bit of important business you and I need to—,”
“Stop calling me.”
“Wait, wait! Please, just—,” Ichinose’s words were cut off with a sharp beep as Naoya tapped his goggles and the Augur ended the call.
“Block number,” Naoya ordered the device with a tired sigh, once more cutting off another avenue of communication between himself and Ichinose. He didn’t bother even trying to comprehend why the soapland manager was trying to call him; ever since they’d met, Ichinose had been trying to rope Naoya into strange business ventures, and the one time he’d indulged him, things had gone poorly. As he turned his attention away from Ichinose, Naoya ironically realized that he’d gone from helping one sleazy businessman to another.
It was 9:45 when Naoya finally made it. He pulled up outside a large, concrete apartment building on the south side of Sunset, and Yamato was there to meet him. The tall, lean man stood stock still like a scarecrow on the sidewalk outside the gate, using a wide red, umbrella to shelter himself from the rain. He was dressed in his black smart fabric business with gloves and shoes that merged seamlessly with his sleeves. Yamato had removed his silk mask, something that Naoya had noticed whenever the salesman needed to interact with a customer. Beneath, Yamato was an “almost” handsome man with a sharp nose and a rounded chin, but his nearly corpselike pallor and red eyes made him unnerving in Naoya’s eyes.
Naoya drew up to the sidewalk and brought the Bridge-Runner to a halt against the curb in front of Yamato. Lightning flashed, causing the salesman’s glasses to glow with menace as Naoya came to a halt in front of him. The light faded, and Yamato peered at Naoya with a neutral expression, but Naoya had learned that Yamato’s stoic features only masked a cold anger.
“You couldn’t have arrived a little sooner?” Yamato asked in a low clipped tone as he moved to loom over Naoya still seated on his bike.
“Did you lose the sale?” Naoya asked, ignoring the other man’s irritated demeanor.
“Not yet,” Yamato answered, clearly unamused.
“Then I guess being late didn’t matter,” Naoya shrugged off the salesman’s ire, and removed his goggles, which switched back into the compact form of an Augur before he slid it into his pocket. He switched off the bike’s engine and climbed off. Yamato turned about, leading Naoya through the gate outside the building onto the grounds.
“Here he is,” Yamato’s face immediately split into the most affable smile Naoya had ever seen with a friendly voice that seemed just as genuine. “This is my esteemed associate, Nanbu Naoya. He’s an expert in architecture, building appraisal, and demolition.”
Naoya gave Yamato a side-eye at the last remark, but he wasn’t the only one to recognize the odd introduction.
“Demolition?” asked Yamato’s newest mark, a middle-aged man with a wiry, lean build, and a receding hairline, dressed in a loose red track jacket and sweatpants. He wore a translucent raincoat that whipped in the wind and clung to an umbrella of his own for dear life. The small man looked back and forth between the two visitors with confusion.
“He’s kidding,” Naoya stepped in, giving a small bow as he addressed the landlord. “I apologize for being late. Things are a little bit hectic today, as you can imagine.”
“Honestly, I—,” thunder boomed in the distance, and Ichioka looked up to the sky as he quaked at the thunder. “I really think that we should reschedule this for another day. It’s madness out here.”
“Oh, no, Ichioka-san,” Yamato stepped forward, affecting a disappointed tone. “That just won’t do. Do you have any idea how much damage is being done to your property at right this second? If we sit and wait until the storm passes, I’m afraid we could be looking at irreversible harm to your building.”
“Irreversible?” Ichioka repeated the word with naked uncertainty, and Yamato immediately seized on it to direct the conversation away from the subject of canceling the appointment.
“Absolutely,” Yamato stepped forward, closing his umbrella with a smooth motion as he closed ranks with Ichioka. He guided the landlord with an outstretched hand, using the pretense of taking shelter beneath his smaller umbrella in order to invade his personal space and cow the weaker man.
“Let’s take a tour of the grounds,” Yamato suggested, turning Ichioka around. “It will give us a chance to talk while Nanbu-san inspects the structure.”
The landlord scarcely had a chance to respond, instead muttering something as Yamato assumed completed control over the conversation. Ichioka-san walked with stooped, submissive shoulders, occasionally mumbling a response to whatever Yamato said. The salesman had taken the lead from the inception of the conversation and walked tall with his chin held high. Gone was the looming, surly, quiet man that Naoya remembered the day they first met, and there was no trace of the quiet anger written on Yamato’s face moments before. Instead, Yamato had become bolder, more outspoken, and confident. The way he gestured with his folded umbrella as though it were a cane added a certain staginess to the way the salesman held himself, but if Ichioka found it ingenuine, he was too cowed to say anything.
“Let me guess: you have a lot of problems with maintenance on this property, don’t you, Ichioka-san?”
“Well,” Ichioka rubbed the back of his head, clearly reticent to agree. “I do my best to stay on top of things around here. Never had a situation I couldn’t handle.”
“That’s the mark of an attentive man,” Yamato gave away compliments as freely as candy, though the way he paired it with his austere demeanor made it seem as though Ichioka had earned it, somehow. “But the simple fact of the matter is, no one man can keep an entire building standing, no matter how attentive he might be.
“These prefabricated buildings,” Yamato used his umbrella to gesture up at the square, five-foot apartment building that stood over the trio, its lifeless grey construction blending with the dour storm clouds in the sky above. “They really aren’t built to last. Nothing in Yōgai-shima is, really.”
“Is that right?” Ichioka followed Yamato’s eyes upward to the roof.
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Yamato fixed the landlord with his gaze, his crystal glasses momentarily shining in the dim light. “I know I was when I realized it. We like to think we’re living in the city of the future with the absolute best of everything. The truth is, so much of the city was thrown together at the last minute. The citizen ID cards, the city’s surveillance system, the very walls that surround us: all of them, so easily undermined. Everything in this city is so much more fragile than we give it credit for. Isn’t that right, Nanbu-kun?”
It took a moment for Naoya to realize that he’d been included in the conversation again.
“Uh, yeah,” Naoya gave a non-committal shrug as the eyes of the other two men fell on him. “Just the other day—,”
“There are nearly a hundred buildings just like this one in Yōgai-shima,” Yamato returned to ignoring Naoya again as he glanced back up the side of the building. “All of their blueprints were generated by a computer and then put together by a combination of machines and unskilled labor using the exact same materials. I lived in an apartment just like this one, myself. The walls were very weak, and the ceiling was prone to collapse from water damage. All of these buildings have the exact same flaws, Ichioka-san. Yours included.”
“Well, I’ve had no trouble with broken walls from my tenants,” the landlord replied, pushing back a little. “And the only leaks I’ve had were from broken pipes, not rain damage.”
“That may be true for the present, Ichioka-san,” Yamato held up his hand in a momentary, conciliatory gesture that vanished as quickly as it appeared. “But you must understand: these buildings weren’t made to be inhabited for as long as they have been. Two years, maybe three. Five, at the most. But it’s been ten years. A decade of typhoons, lightning storms, earthquakes. Yōgai-shima may still be standing now, but the city is far from unscathed.”
Yamato raised his umbrella, tapping the concrete wall with the handle. With his back to Ichioka, Yamato didn’t see the man scowl as though he thought the salesman was treating the block of cement too roughly.
“I noticed you didn’t invest in laminate for your property, Ichioka-san,” Yamato allowed a sliver of disappointment to creep into his voice but pointedly didn’t elaborate as to why.
“I didn’t see the need,” the man answered, frankly. “I’d have to pay out the nose for it! And what does something like that even get me?”
“Setting aside the issues the rest of Yōgai-shima’s construction has, Ichioka-san,” Yamato turned around, a friendly smile beneath his black silk mask. “Let me be the first to inform you that nanomaterials truly are a modern mechanical marvel. A laminate coating, even a transparent one, can protect a building from wind, weather, and water damage when nothing else can. They’re also getting cheaper, day by day. It would be my pleasure to help you invest in one.”
“I’m confused,” Ichioka ran a hand over his head, glancing back and forth between Yamato and Naoya. “I thought you were trying to sell me insurance. What’s this about a laminate?”
“Ichioka-san,” Yamato adjusted his glasses and stepped forward, hooking his umbrella over his left wrist by the handle. “I’m not trying to sell you anything.”
Naoya arched an eyebrow, wondering what tactic the other man was taking. Ichioka, too, didn’t seem to believe what he was hearing. For a moment, Naoya braced himself, expecting the landlord to shoo them off his property. Yamato, however, never lost control of the situation. The black-clad man raised his right hand, as if to lay it on Ichioka’s shoulder and lead him around, but the salesman was careful to never actually touch him. Instead, Yamato’s hand hovered over Ichioka’s shoulder by half an inch.
“This way,” Yamato continued to smile behind his mask, gesturing with his left arm down toward the end of the building. Ichioka glanced at Naoya again, though Naoya wasn’t sure why. He felt certain that the landlord wanted them to leave, but he said nothing. At length, he allowed himself to be led.
Yamato walked side by side with Ichioka while Naoya followed several paces behind, his hands tucked into his pockets. Even after the landlord began moving, Yamato didn’t lower his arm, instead letting it loom behind Ichioka’s back in parody of a friendly gesture. From Naoya’s perspective, it almost appeared comical, but he imagined Ichioka was keenly aware of Yamato’s hand and the constant near invasion of his personal space.
“Are you aware of the Municipal Sustainment Act?” Yamato asked as they walked.
“Uh, vaguely,” Ichioka answered, though it was clear to Naoya that he was lying.
“The Cabinet is far from blind to the issues facing our fair city,” Yamato launched into his explanation. “Steps have to be taken, because Yōgai-shima is going to be our home for a very long time. The Municipal Sustainment Act is an initiative spearheaded by the government to make sure that the businesses, factories, and living spaces of Yōgai-shima remain functional.”
As they rounded the corner, Yamato stepped away from Ichioka and moved to a door at the rear of the building. He opened it and gestured for the landlord to step inside, as though Yamato was a host inviting a guest into his own home. As soon as Ichioka stepped through, Yamato followed him in, letting the door start to swing shut behind him and Naoya had to dart forward before he got left behind.
“In response to the Municipal Sustainment Act, businesses all across the island have banded together to form the Metropolitan Restoration Coalition,” Yamato’s voice echoed off the walls of the building, the world momentarily going dark as Naoya’s eyes adjusted to the dim light indoors. When he could see again, he realized the three men were standing at an interior stairwell at the corner of the apartment.
“The Coalition is dedicated to providing a comprehensive suite of services to businessmen and property owners across the city, just like you, to ensure that our island remains pristine and livable for years to come. Our company,” Yamato gestured to himself and then to Naoya, briefly remembering that he existed. “FAIR Insurance Agency, is a member of the Coalition.”
“Who are you currently insured with? Tenki? Umbrella Protections?” at mention of the latter name, Ichioka scowled, giving Yamato exactly what he needed. “Forgive me for saying so, but neither company is particularly, ‘forward-thinking,’ if you’ll allow it. Whatever protections you’ve had up to now aren’t going to last into next year. The Municipal Restoration Act is going to come with a bushel of rewrites to the city’s building codes, stricter inspections, and harsher penalties.
“Soon, the amenities that you thought you could go without, like that exterior laminate? Those will be mandatory,” Yamato slipped off his crystal-clear glasses and made a show of slowly cleaning them with a black cloth produced from the inside of his coat. “Demand is already causing laminate costs to go up, and they look poised to double before the year is out. Insurance premiums for buildings not already compliant with the Restoration Act are going to start increasing steadily, as well. It’s thought of as a little financial incentive for property holders to get their ducks in a row ahead of time.”
“They can’t do that!” Ichioka objected, as though Yamato were capable of doing anything about it. “The Act isn’t even law, yet!”
“It’s already started,” Yamato replaced his glasses and spread his hands. “Of course, I’m sure your current insurance provider has already informed you of all this, scheduled an inspection, and provided an estimate for a laminate cover for your building.”
The landlord stared into the middle distance, his eyes vacant, while sweat beaded out on his forehead. Yamato had him scared. There was no other way to describe it.
“Of course,” Yamato spoke up after allowing Ichioka to stew for several seconds and drew the man’s attention back to him. “Customers of FAIR Insurance receive many benefits as members of the Coalition. Through us, you’ll have access to a laminate installation at a discount, along with whatever groundskeeping and construction services you’ll need to stay ahead of the city’s shifting demands. As an exclusive offer, if you choose to entrust your property to us, we’ll even pay out the early cancellation fee from your current insurance provider.”
Ichioka wrung his hands, clearly uncertain what to do. He’d been informed of a stick he’d never seen, one that was poised to strike him in the back of his head, and Yamato stood before him, dangling a carrot he desperately and suddenly needed. Whenever Yamato made a sale, he always chose a slightly different persona, something he told Naoya was critical to catering his services to his clients, but his pitch always ended in the same place: fear. Fear always ended up the lynchpin of Yamato’s strategy.
“Allow me to demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods,” Yamato spoke abruptly, glancing in Naoya’s direction. Naoya could only look back, wondering what the other man was thinking.
“Why are you complicating this?” Naoya asked himself. “You already have this in the bag.”
“Now, Ichioka-san,” Yamato once more placed his hand over the other man’s shoulder to begin herding him up the stairwell. “I have a proposition for you. Give us a single chance to show you our expertise. If we can’t find a single flaw in your well-kept foundation, we won’t waste a single second more of your time. But if we can, well, then we talk business.”
“How did I get roped into this sideshow act?” Naoya wondered as he followed the two men up the stairwell.
“The damage a roof can take during stormy seasons like this can often go unnoticed until it’s too late to do anything about it,” at the top of the stairs, Yamato once again opened the door that led them out onto the flat roof of the building. This time, Yamato held the door for Naoya, giving him a pointed look as he stepped out onto the roof.
Despite the return of the howling wind and pouring rain, Naoya felt a sense of relief as he left behind the cloistered, noisy confines of the stairwell and stepped back out into the open. The grey curtain of Izumi’s clouds seemed so close to the city that Naoya almost felt like he could reach a hand over his head to touch them. North of Ichioka’s humble apartment, near the border of Arcade, a vortex of wind had touched down into the city.
The column of whirling winds was contained by motes of black and white sparks that somehow constrained the high winds. Turning around, Naoya was able to see at least five more such whirlwinds touching down across the city, including in the Lunar District. Though the sight appeared apocalyptic, the columns of wind marked Yōgai-shima’s endurance as the city drank up the last of the hurricane’s power. Entire stretches of the city had been blocked off in order to accommodate the cloudy pillars, referred to as Jacob’s Ladders, but life continued regardless. Life in Yōgai-shima couldn’t afford to stop.
Sunset was the marketplace of Central Ward: the road that ran from east to west that connected Central to Arcade was like a mighty river, with countless smaller one-way roads branching north and south. Across the breadth of the road, and its many tributaries, there were countless shops and markets, which mutually formed the Magic Hour Shopping Arcade that served as the major attraction of Central’s western fraction.
“Buildings like this can deceive you,” Yamato raised his voice, calling Naoya out of his daydream. “They’re made to hide damage rather than endure it. It takes a skilled hand to reveal wear and tear that’s hiding in plain sight.”
Yamato had given Naoya his cue, and he gave a soft sigh to the wind, bemoaning his part in things. He slowly pried off his gloves and looked down at his hands. He flexed his fingers, trying to find a way to understand the strange power that inundated them. Over the past few days, he’d had the opportunity to practice his little talent, gaining a firmer hold on it.
Yamato had promised him that once he mastered his gift, he’d appreciate it. It would be “liberating;” that was the word he used, but Naoya didn’t feel free, or empowered by the Crisis he called on. Just the opposite: he hated it.
Naoya turned, watching as Yamato led Ichioka across the southern edge of the roof, the salesman pointed down at the gutters, keeping the landlord turned away. Yamato was clearly distracting their mark for a precious few moments, giving Naoya an opportunity to do whatever he needed to. When he stepped toward the middle of the roof and laid his hand against the concrete beneath him, he wasn’t certain precisely why he was doing it. Was it for the money? Was it to learn to control his power? Was it out of a sense of obligation? He couldn’t say, but he couldn’t hide from the fact he didn’t like this, either.
Naoya breathed out through his mouth, emptying his lungs, and closed his eyes. He refused to breathe, fixating on thoughts of closed spaces, falling buildings, and being smothered; the exact opposite of what he’d been taught to do to calm himself. The mental image of being crushed in a deep, dark, lightless place sent a jolt through Naoya and he opened his eyes, watching as strands of golden fissures snaked across the concrete. They spread outward, creating an oblong fifteen-foot patch of cracks in the cement that spread outward from where Naoya touched it. A moment after they’d appeared, the light vanished, leaving only rudimentary fractures across the roof of the building.
“What did you do!?” Ichioka’s voice caught Naoya’s attention, and he looked up to see the landlord standing across the patch of crumbling concrete, looking at the fractures with a mixture of disbelief and outrage. Naoya hadn’t said anything after he’d sent the fractures tunneling through the rooftop. Rather, he simply stood and withdrew his gloves, tugging them on over his hands.
“Careful, Ichioka-san,” Yamato took hold of the landlord’s right elbow when he might try and walk across the broken cement. “We can’t have you falling through the roof, now.”
“Look at all this!” the man pointed at the bed of broken concrete. “This wasn’t here just a minute ago!”
“Oh, it was,” Yamato assured him, a wide smile behind his mask. “Didn’t I tell you water damage was insidious?”
The salesman poked at the cracked roof with the tip of his umbrella, testing it.
“It seems to me your roof has a slight dip in the center,” Yamato went on, bundling up Ichioka in lie after lie. “It’s probably less than a millimeter, but it’s just deep enough that it could serve as a pool for rainwater. There was a pool here last night and well into the early morning, slowly seeping into the cement, eroding it all the while. That kind of damage can be hard to spot unless you have the skills to reveal it. Nanbu-kun has a talent for that; didn’t I tell you? Now, while we obviously can’t cover you for this damage, as it happened before you signed, we can refer you to a business partner that specializes in—.”
It took an hour. From the moment they stepped onto Ichioka’s property to the moment the man signed the contract; it had only taken an hour. Naoya sat in silence, feeling a sense of guilt, as he watched the equally quiet Ichioka sign his life away on every dotted line. In contrast, Yamato couldn’t have seemed more pleased.
A few minutes later, Naoya and Yamato were standing on the street outside, Naoya once more mounted on his bike. Yamato stood beneath the red wing of his umbrella, idly scrolling through the insurance contract on his phone. Naoya, on the other hand, scrolled through the Yōgai-shima Maverick, desperately looking for another job.
Across Central, most of Naoya’s regulars had nothing to offer. There were only a few courier jobs on offer, and nothing regarding maintenance, or manual labor. On the digital display of the island, there were numerous gig jobs down in Sin Ward, but Naoya didn’t dare venture west after what happened with the Towers. His eyes instead ventured west, towards Arcade Ward, looking for new opportunities there.
“The contract’s all signed and sealed,” Yamato intoned in a dry voice as he tucked away his Augur. “The commission should be in before the day’s over. Honestly, I should cut your pay, though, considering how late you are.”
Naoya glanced up at Yamato, prepared to argue with him, but the objection died in his throat.
“What is it?” Yamato asked, noticing the lack of response on Naoya’s part.
“Is everything you said about the Municipal Restoration Act true?” Naoya asked.
“More or less,” Yamato gave a slight shrug. “I stretched the truth where necessary.”
“So, what was the point of involving me?” Naoya demanded, feeling a sense of guilt for his part in the fraud.
“Are you objecting to getting paid, Nanbu-kun?” Yamato cocked his head to one side as he tried to understand what provoked Naoya.
“I’m objecting to being used,” Naoya corrected him. “I’m objecting to scamming people.”
“I don’t like that word, Nanbu-kun,” Yamato’s lowered his voice in a warning tone, but Naoya didn’t heed it.
“Why?” Naoya challenged him. “Because that’s what we did.”
“Take a look at that building, Nanbu-kun,” Yamato turned and gestured towards the square brick of concrete behind them. “What do you see?”
“You tell me,” Naoya shook his head, seeing no need to humor the other man.
“You’re looking at a deathtrap that’s been given the bare minimum of maintenance for the last ten years,” Yamato took a half-step to his right, so that he could share Naoya’s perspective on the apartment. “The only reason that this building is still standing is because of the infrastructure around it. It’s a miracle, really.”
“And that’s supposed to mean what to me?” Naoya folded his arms, unable to understand.
“It means we’ve done this city a service,” when Naoy scoffed, Yamato only pressed his point. “That man was never going to pay for anything but the bare minimum for upkeep. Do you have any idea how many faults there could be in that building right now? And that man would have contently turned a blind eye until it all came down like a house of cards. People could have died if we didn’t act today.”
“All because you sold him the Ultra Deluxe Plan,” Naoya rolled his eyes.
“Not just because of me, Nanbu-kun,” Yamato corrected him, his keen, sly voice creeping in again. “But because of you. The thing you need to understand, Nanbu-kun; people are stagnant. Even in Yōgai-shima, even after everything that happened to Japan, human beings can’t resist the allure of inertia. They give up, they stop changing, become complacent. People need a little fear in order to provoke them to move. That’s how evolution works. Fear is the source of change, and by scaring Ichioka-san, you’ve given him a wakeup call. Everyone benefits from this, Nanbu-kun.”
“You should use that speech in your next sales pitch,” Naoya flicked his wrist and transformed his Augur into a pair of goggles and put them on. He reached down and switched on the engine, and the machine whined to life. “That makes three: I’ve more than paid you back for our deal. I’m done.”
“Is this supposed to be some kind of negotiation tactic?” Yamato adjusted his glasses, peering at Naoya as though he was an unknown organism under a microscope. “Are you not getting paid enough?”
“I’ve got what I need,” Naoya insisted, but Yamato merely flashed a mocking smile.
“So, what are you going to do then?” the salesman stepped forward, standing over Naoya as he lowered his voice. “Go back to fast food deliveries? Don’t be ridiculous; there’s no future down that road for you, Nanbu-kun. If you want to make real money, you should be putting that talent of yours to use. That’s where your future lies.”
“I’ll make that decision for myself,” Naoya cast a wary glance in the salesman’s direction. “You enjoy. . . whatever the hell it is you do.”
“When the money runs out, you’ll be back,” Yamato assured him with a glad smile, stepping away from the street. “I’ll be waiting.”
“Keep waiting, asshole,” Naoya hastily spurred the Bridge-Runner into motion and took off.
In the past hour, traffic had gotten better, as new routes had opened up after the early morning traffic jam, easing some of the congestion. That was good for Naoya; he was able to build up a modicum of speed, and the sense of momentum made it feel as though his tension was peeling off of him. Being on his bike, riding through the streets made him feel more liberated than any power he might have possessed.
His Crisis: the power to break whatever he touched; the reality of it haunted Naoya with more spite than any dark specter. For as long as he could remember, things just happened to break when he was around. He took it as a fact of his life and rationalized it as some kind of curse or perennial bad luck foisted on him by the universe itself. It made things easier when he pushed his problems outside of himself.
But that was a lie. He was the source of everything.
In the back of his mind, every time someone accused him of ineptly breaking something, he was forced to admit they’d been right. He wracked his brain, trying to think of how many things that had been shattered, broken, and pulverized at his hands, and the scope was beyond his comprehension. Beyond the destruction he knew of, he morbidly pondered how many things he’d left in ruins without knowing it.
Could his Crisis have destroyed something precious without him noticing it? What couldn’t he destroy? He thought back to the night when he met Nishijima, when he was driving home from Sin Ward: he remembered the fear and the panic when the truck collided with him, and he remembered the scene afterward. Both his bike and the truck were shredded in the aftermath of the collision and shattered like glass. The damage spread across the street, as well, creating a massive sinkhole that had swallowed the two vehicles. At the time, Naoya couldn’t explain the devastation, but now he could, and he found ignorance more inviting than the truth.
He found his breathing becoming heavier, and his heart began to beat powerfully in his chest. Realizing that his anxiety was getting the better of him, Naoya slowed the bike, pulling off to the side of the road to give himself a chance to calm down, not wanting his bike to fall apart under him. In the shadow of a five-story building, Naoya parked his bike, trying to imagine that he was somewhere without walls to close him in, or a storm to pelt rain down on top of him. Before he could find that calm place in his psyche, the ringing of his Augur interrupted him.
“Who is it?” Naoya reflexively tapped his goggles, answering the call with a brusque tone. The caller answered with a sound that reminded Naoya of a throaty hiss, which he supposed was a chuckle. It was man’s voice, one Naoya didn’t recognize.
“Hello? Ichinose?”
“This is Nanbu, right?” the caller asked, his voice a soft rasp.
Naoya immediately wanted to hang up, but something, some premonition stopped him from ending the call.
“Speaking,” Naoya answered, slowly. “Who am I speaking with?”
“Someone you fucked over,” the other man sneered with palpable contempt.
“Did I break something that belonged to you?” Naoya ventured.
“Something like that,” the other man audibly smiled, and Naoya could only imagine the caller had a cruel grin on his face. “You broke a contract; you owed me Nishijima.”
“Nishijima?” Naoya’s thoughts turned to the week before, and the confrontation with the dark-suited man. “This shit again.”
“Yeah,” the caller hissed. “Thought that’d ring a bell.”
“Listen, just listen: I wasn’t told anything about Nishijima, or who he was, or who wanted him. All I did was—,”
“Shut the fuck up,” the caller barked, forcing Naoya to lapse into silence. The caller was quiet for a minute, pausing to breathe out an irate sigh. “I gotta say, I’m pretty fuckin’ disappointed. The way I heard it, you were supposed to be a certified ass-kicker, but I say two words and you’re pissing yourself.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” Naoya shot back, his irritation surpassing his caution. “If you’re such a badass, you should have tried to catch Nishijima yourself. Instead, you relied on bottom-feeders like Ichinose to handle shit for you. How’d that turn out? You want to complain, go talk to him.”
“Oh, I already did,” as he spoke, Naoya sensed the cruelty creeping into the other man’s voice. “We had a very animated conversation, he and I.”
“What did you do to him?” Naoya demanded.
“He’s still alive, if that’s what you’re worried about,” the caller answered nonchalantly. “His business prospects went up in smoke, though.”
“Why are you doing this?” Naoya felt a surge of some kind of emotion that he couldn’t explain. He had no love for Ichinose, but he didn’t want the other man to get hurt, either.
“It’s called making an example of people who cross me,” the man spit the words with genuine ire. “You fucked me, Nanbu, and no one gets away with that. You want this to stop? You tell me who paid you off.”
“What?” Naoya couldn’t hide his confusion. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“A hired gun with the balls to take down a Dealer out of Tsukuyomi doesn’t just fall out of the fucking sky in this town,” the caller seethed, and Naoya heard a crackling noise like static over the phone line. “And he sure as hell doesn’t let a fat bounty like Nishijima walk away clean for no reason. I’m gonna give you one chance, asshole, then, things get ugly. I’ve been patient, and that’s not a virtue I hold dear, so you’d better listen up. I want to know who hired you to let Nishijima to walk. Who’s pulling your fucking strings?”
Dealer. Tsukuyomi. Nishijima. They were all words Naoya had heard before, but he couldn’t piece the relation between them together. Confusion collided with indignation and Naoya cut loose before he could stop himself.
“I let that man go because everything about that fucking job stank,” Naoya shouted back, not caring if anyone on the street overhead him. “It stank of Sin Ward bullshit like Ichinose and fucking creeps like you. You slapped a price tag on that man’s head and had me chasing him around, but I couldn’t even tell you what was wrong or right at the end of the day. I walked away out of principle.”
“Principle,” the caller sneered back, the crackling rising again. “What the fuck does a delivery boy know about principle?”
“More than a piece of shit yakuza-wannabe gangster,” as the words left Naoya’s mouth, he knew he said something he couldn’t take back to a man he already understood wouldn’t accept apologies. He’d be lying if he told himself he wasn’t afraid, but he also experienced a kind of thrill. To his surprise, the man on the other end of the line openly laughed in a harsh, barking voice.
“You know what this means?” the caller seemed genuinely amused, but the malevolent undercurrent remained. “It means you’re a dead man. Everyone you know is getting what Ichinose got. You’re poison to everyone you love. You got family? My boys will be paying them a visit. You got a girl? We’ll be seeing her, too.”
“I’d almost pay to see that,” Naoya scoffed back, a smile forming on his face.
“If you hurry, you just might,” the caller’s malevolence increased, and there was clear mockery in the way spoke. “I hope your friends have insurance.”
The caller abruptly hung up, leaving Naoya with a head full of anger and confusion. He sat on his bike for a moment, trying to discern what his next course of action should be. The Towers had already paid a visit to Ichinose, so who else would they go after? Suzume, he imagined, could take on the whole gang. Who else did Naoya have to call friend? He had acquaintances across the city from a dozen different short-term jobs, but Naoya couldn’t imagine the Towers could have dug up his ill-fated job history so quickly. But something about the caller’s last words remained with Naoya.
“Insurance?” once Naoya repeated the word aloud, it was all too obvious what was happening. “Dial Sakura.”
At his command, the Augur immediately began calling, and Naoya sat on his bike, anxiously waiting for her to pick up.
“Hi, this is Sakura!” the young woman’s voice came over the phone, as bright and cheerful as the genuine article. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to answer—.”
The voice mail greeting was cut off by a sharp beep as Naoya tapped the side of his goggles, ending the call. Naoya revved his bike, and the engine howled sharply as he whipped it around and took off. Buildings wrapped in red and grey brick skins passed by as Naoya returned to the streets of Horizon and turned northward, weaving his way through traffic. Holographic barriers blocked off flooded streets, and large monitors affixed to the sides of buildings flashed warnings about the worsening weather, showing blocked off streets on a map of the city.
A similar map was displayed in the corner of Naoya’s vision. His Augur displayed an up-to-date readout of the city’s streets, showing closed routes and traffic congestion all across the island. His eyes darted back and forth between the digital display and the road ahead of him, trying to determine the best route between himself and FAIR Insurance. North of him, traffic was backed up across the Golden Mile, as most of the routes into and out of Sin Ward were swamped with the early morning downpour. Instead of sitting and suffering through the slowdown, Naoya took a turn to his left, passing through a flickering barrier that was intended to discourage commuters from traveling down flooded roads.
The Bridge-Runner, fortunately, was built for endurance under adverse conditions, and Naoya drove it through the flooded roads and alleyways of the city, sending up cascading walls of water that splashed in all directions. Moving against the pouring rain and howling wind, Naoya circumvented the worst of the traffic as he wove through Sunset, but he had to slow as he made numerous twists and turns down side-alleys just to keep moving. Every time he had to break from the most direct route, it cost him precious seconds.
“Yamato,” at the mention of the name, Naoya’s Augur immediately began to dial. The phone rang twice before the salesman picked up.
“Nanbu-kun? I must say, I’m surprised. I didn’t think I’d be hearing about you so soon,” Yamato played at being professional, but there was a certain smugness in his voice that was unmistakable.
“Yamato!” Naoya had to nearly shout over the whine of the engine and the wind whipping in his ears. “Can you call the office?”
“I can. . .,” Yamato answered with slow wariness. “What’s the matter?”
“I think there’s trouble at FAIR,” Naoya shouted back. “Can you call Sakura or Adachi?”
“What kind of trouble?” it was an entirely reasonable question, but Naoya couldn’t stop to explain.
“Just call someone at the office and warn them that someone might be coming by,” Naoya insisted.
“Who? What are you talking about?” the salesman asked with clear incredulity and confusion.
“The Towers, Yamato!” Naoya barked, his voice ragged with frustration. “The Towers! Some of their men might be heading to FAIR!”
“The Towers?” the salesman scoffed, completely lost. “Why?”
“Just call someone at the office and tell them to expect trouble,” Naoya didn’t explain any further; how could he? The situation was entirely insane, and Naoya could only hope that he was mistaken. “Tell them to call the police if anyone shows up asking about me.”
“Wait—,” before Yamato could ask any more questions, Naoya hung up.
For the next ten minutes, he took the winding way as he wound north, heading into the Iron District as he carefully avoided being caught in traffic. When the grey office towers rose up around him like exaggerated gravestones, Naoya fell a tightness in his chest. He turned down the dizzying twists of the Iron District’s defensive perimeter, eager to reach his destination, convinced he’d turn a corner and witness a building collapse. Instead, as he turned right onto an intersection, he witnessed a towering parking garage come into view, connected to the various office buildings around it. It was the closest thing to a landmark he could use to remember the location of the FAIR office among its countless identical siblings.
Naoya drove up the concrete ramp, circling his way up through the dark concrete passage, heading up towards the fifth floor. The garage was deathly quiet, save for the sound of the Bridge-runner’s powerful wheels and whining engine, which blended with the constant wailing of the hurricane winds. As he rounded the ramps and ascended the structure, Naoya took the relative quiet as a signal that everything was fine, and for a fleeting moment, he thought himself foolish. Then, another sound echoed off the walls.
Music echoed off the concrete walls of the garage; it was a techno beat not created with ordinary instruments. The rhythm was fast, and aggressive, punctuated by a series of powerful hits that sounded as rapid as machinegun fire. A human voice, synthesized and altered beyond recognition, spoke rhymes faster than the ear could comprehend as is shifted between a feminine and masculine tone. The foreign sound spurred Naoya to rev the engine and finish making his climb all the faster.
The fifth floor of the parking garage was bathed in a collage of red and pink lights, all of them coming from the same source. A large SUV was parked in the center of the garage, conspicuously avoiding all the other spaces while shining its headlights toward the entrance ramp. The car itself was bright red in color, and it had luminescent red, pink, and orange flames painted around the wheels. The machine thumped with the bass of the music, which was so loud and overpowering that it pounded in Naoya’s ears. Leaning casually against the hood of the vehicle were two men dressed in raincoats. One of them was short, and dressed in a pink parka, his hood pulled back to reveal a head of damp, oily black hair and a narrow, rat-like face. The other man was tall, rivaling Naoya’s height, with a green parka and a bucket hat, with a wide acne scarred face, with a set of black and purple bruises across the left side of his jaw.
As soon as he laid eyes on them, Naoya immediately knew who they were. He drove forward, letting the whine of his engine challenge the storm and the pounding music. As soon as he arrived, the two men stood up at attention. Something primal inside Naoya wanted to run the two men down, but he resisted the dark impulse and slid his bike to a halt in front of them. The smaller of the two, the wild Juzo, sneered at Naoya with a knowing grin, seeming to intuit that the other man had retreated from a more violent course of action, while his comrade blanched in palpable fear.
“What the hell are you two doing here?” Naoya’s voice rebounded off the walls, his tone course with anger.
“Us?” Juzo laid a hand to his chest and glanced towards his taller lackey, his mocking smile never faltering. “We’re just earning some extra cash, delivery boy. Although, we’re here to pick up, not drop off.”
“And what is that?” Naoya demanded, looking back and forth between the two men. As soon Naoya laid eyes on Hibiki, the tall skinny man held up his hands and took several steps backward, flashing a smile that revealed several broken teeth.
“Is that really the question you should be asking right now?” Juzo asked, stepping forward to glare at Naoya. “I’d be more concerned about us paying you back for the ass-kicking the other day. You think that hole I put in your hand hurt? That’s just the start, bitch.”
“Yo, Juzo, man,” Hibiki continued to retreat, even though Naoya scarcely noticed his presence. “I’m not looking to end up in the ICU, bro. Let’s just take a step back, here, man.”
“You should listen to your friend,” Naoya leaned forward, lowering his voice to make his threat. “You’re not the only one who’s just getting started.”
“Ain’t no one’s starting the party without me!” another voice, one Naoya didn’t recognize, and he turned to his left to look towards the garage’s skybridge to see two more men approaching them, coming from the office building. Leading the way was man in an ostentatious pink fur coat, and he strode forward with exaggerated confidence. The stranger had a head of short, shaved hair that was bleached blond, with a matching bleached chinstrap beard. His mouth was twisted into a smile that revealed a number of golden teeth.
Walking behind him was a wide man in a green parka who Naoya recognized as the third member of Juzo’s trio. The heavily built man had a woman slung over one shoulder, dressed in a dark skirt and a white blouse with a head of black hair hanging down from her limp form.
“Sakura-chan!” Naoya instantly recognized the woman being carried by Kubo, he stepped forward, intent on prying Sakura away out of the gangster’s hands.
“This your girl?” the stranger in the pink coat stepped into Naoya’s path, intercepting him before he could apprehend Kubo. “I figured pinching her would get your attention.”
“She has nothing to do with this,” Naoya glared down at the man in the pink fur coat who was half a head shorter than he was, but the gangster didn’t seem remotely intimidated. “If you have a problem with me, you deal with me. Leave her out of this.”
“She’s involved in this because of the shit you pulled,” the gangster reached up to jab a finger into Naoya’s chest. “You fucked with us, you ran and hid like a bitch, and now your girlfriend’s in the crosshairs. That’s on you, delivery boy.”
“She’s not my girlfriend!” Naoya gestured towards the unconscious woman. “She’s the most innocent person I’ve ever met! She has nothing to do with any of this!”
“Whether you’re hitting that or not, it doesn’t matter,” the gangster in the fur coat flashed his golden smile, though the expression was mocking and cruel. “If she’s someone you want to protect, she’s a target.”
“Do you think I’m just going to let you hurt her?” Naoya stood over the man in the fur coat, trembling with rage.
“Bro, what do you think I’m here for?” the gangster’s smile widened, becoming positively vicious. Before Naoya could even say another word, he felt something collide with his helmet. Pain shot through his skull, and he felt his feet leave the ground. He sailed through the air as lights flashed in Naoya’s vision. He struck the concrete, partially blinded, and he rolled with the excess momentum, his already battered helmet falling to pieces across the floor of the garage.
Naoya struggled to climb to his feet, reflexively reaching up to brush something cold out of his hair. Holding up his right hand, Naoya saw a bit of melting ice clinging to his fingers. Glancing around in confusion, Naoya spotted his fractured helmet laying nearby, which was covered in a sheen of melting ice.
“Put the bitch in the car,” lectured the man in the pink coat, who stood staring in Naoya’s direction as he massaged the knuckles of his left hand. “I’ll handle this.”
Juzo scurried around to the side of the car and opened the door, assisting Kubo in putting the captive woman inside. As Naoya straightened up, the man in pink reached up and took hold of his lapels, peeling away his fur coat to reveal his pair chest beneath. On his chest, a pair of nanite sculpted towers rose up across the right side of his chest, extending from his waistline up to his collarbone. Beneath his bare chest, the gangster wore a pair of white pinstripe pants and brown leather loafers.
“Shōki Tōzaburō,” the gangster reached down to his stomach with both hands and slowly traced the buildings melded with his flesh from bottom to top. “Repping the Nishi-Shinjuku Towers.”
As soon as Shōki slipped off his coat, Naoya felt the temperature in the room shift. A chill tickled across Naoya’s skin, causing goosebumps to erupt across his body. Shōki bounced back and forth on the balls of his feet, smiling confidently as the music continued to pound and throb. The gangster breathed out a long stream of mist, despite the fact that air around them wasn’t nearly cold enough for that, and trails of vapor began to stream off his body.
Shōki stopped bouncing and dropped into a guarded boxing stance and began to dart from side to side, shadow-boxing a flurry of rapid punches with commendable speed. As he did, Naoya noticed his arms began to change. It was hard to make out in the night club lights flashing from the SUV, but the skin across the back of Shōki’s arms lost its color and texture, replaced instead by a glossy metal finish.
The metal skin pulled away in rows and slid into the flesh of his arms, revealing metal components that ran from his hands up to his shoulders. Sharp metal knuckles emerged from the back of his fingers and rows of metal rails extended up his forearms, while a pair of metal pistons extended from his elbows. A cocky grin spread across Shōki’s face as he slammed his two fists together and went for another practice flurry to show off his augmented hands.
“You know those kinds of modifications are illegal, right?” Naoya observed as the other man continued to showboat.
“You got a problem with that, delivery boy?” Shōki demanded. “Come do something about it.”
Shōki raised his right hand and breathed out a mouthful of mist onto his knuckles. Frost formed across the back of his hand, and then, he looked towards Naoya with a smug smile. A moment later, the gangster threw a punch in Naoya’s direction, the piston in his elbow extending with the motion. The mist frothing around his knuckles followed the motion of his arm, and when he completed his punch, the mist shot forward through the air, freezing into a flying dagger.
Naoya was surprised by the frozen spike that flew through the air, but that feeling lasted less than a second. Adrenaline surged, and Naoya raised his left arm and backhanded the frost spike, shattering it into pieces. For a moment, Shōki’s smile soured, becoming a grimace, but the lapse in his cocky demeanor was transitory. The smile returned and a thrusting fist sent another frozen projectile in Naoya’s direction.
Naoya deflected the second projectile with as much ease as the first, but the third was already on its way. A barrage of flying frozen knives flew through the air towards Naoya, and he advanced steadily through them, ducking some and deflecting others. Shōki maintained the constant downpour of flying icicles until Naoya forced himself into close quarters. As soon as Naoya came within arm’s reach, Shōki didn’t hesitate to meet him with fists flying.
The two men fought as pugilists, keeping their hands curled into fists and their guard up at all times. Naoya moved in like a juggernaut, throwing fast heavy strikes as he advanced, powering through Shōki’s guard with vicious strikes. Shōki, by contrast, remained loose and mobile, bobbing and weaving around Naoya’s strikes to avoid a haymaker that would have laid him out cold. As he slipped around Naoya’s fists, Shōki conjured blue ice across his hands to reinforce his knuckles while the pistons in his arms added the force of a jackhammer into his every jab and punch. He slammed his fists into Naoya’s sides as he slipped around his offense, but Naoya paid the counterstrikes no heed. In fact, he barely felt them.
The gangster was all but forced to run away as Naoya barreled through his blows like a bull elephant, tearing apart whatever got in his way. Shōki ducked around concrete pylons thicker than his entire body and Naoya smashed through them like they were made of sand. When that didn’t work, the Tower tried slipping around parked cars to catch a transitory breath, but Naoya kicked them aside, filling the tight space with the sound of shrieking metal and bellowing car horns.
When Shōki ran out of obstacles to place between himself and Naoya, the only outcome was a brutal pummeling. Shōki tried to keep his hands up to blunt the power of Naoya’s punches and protect his head, but each strike was devastating in its force. The metal rails protruding from Shōki’s arm bent and fractured, while his flesh became bruised and purple. With each strike, Naoya felt bones splinter in Shōki’s body, and the sound of cartilage being crushed added a grotesque percussion to the beat of the music playing in the background. Despite the punishment that he endured, Shōki didn’t seem any nearer to giving up.
“Quit running, boss!” one of the three spectators called out from the thumping SUV.
“Shut the fu—” Shōki turned an irate eye towards the vehicle, and the distraction earned him a punch across the jaw. The gangster stumbled across the floor and Naoya pursued, but he paused when Shōki fell atop the Bridge-Runner. Shōki used the motorcycle to balance himself, barely staying on his feet. The gangster spit out a mouthful of blood and turned to glare at Naoya.
“You mind getting your hands off my bike?” Naoya dropped his guard and stood up straight, nodding in the direction of his motorcycle.
“What?” Shōki looked down at the bike and realized what he was leaning against. “Right, right. Sorry, bro. You never mess with a man’s ride.”
Shōki held his hands up and stepped around the bike, putting distance between himself and the vehicle. Naoya moved in parallel, keeping ten feet between himself and the gangster. After putting enough distance between their respective vehicles, the two men squared off again, and Naoya took the lead once more.
Unable to make headway against Naoya, Shōki changed strategies. Ducking a right cross aimed towards his head, Shōki extended his left leg forward, planting it between Naoya’s feet. A stream of frost rushed down along his leg until it reached the concrete floor. Naoya felt a blast of chilly air along his legs, and he looked down to see a pool of ice had formed along the ground and trapped his forelegs in sleeves of ice.
Momentarily distracted, Shōki took the opportunity to try and turn the tables. Shōki threw a barrage of ice-cold punches into the mobilized Naoya, and ice blossomed across his body with each impact. In a matter of moments, Naoya was trapped in a sheet of ice that clung to his upper body.
“How’s that, you big son of a bitch?” Shōki asked, wiping away a trail of blood that dripped down his lip to his chin. “Didn’t expect your smart-ass to be turned into an ice-sculpture today, did you?”
Naoya flexed his muscles and he could feel the hard-as-steel ice giving away, but not quickly enough for his liking. In response, he reached into himself, feeling for the power of the monster that lurked in his mind. Golden fractures split the cast of ice and the frozen restraints burst apart. Shōki barely had a chance to realize his gambit had failed before Naoya’s left boot caught him in the sternum.
The gangster was sent sprawling across the garage from the force of the blow and he collapsed into a heap as the back of his head collided with the front of a parked truck. The gangster’s skull dented the aluminum bumper of the truck and the vehicle’s alarm went off, adding a loud and bright disruption to the staccato music blaring from the red vehicle in the middle of the garage. Shōki tried to climb to his feet while he rubbed the back of his head with one hand, but he was too slow to move out of the way when Naoya charged in to continue the attack.
Naoya’s right foot slammed into Shōki’s face like a lance, powered by the full force of his sprint. The gangster’s head was forced backward through the grill of the truck, and the entire front end was crumpled inward. The headlights flickered out and the vehicle’s horn petered out. Shōki lay still, his head and shoulders forced into the crumpled metal fragments of the vehicle, but Naoya was still unsatisfied.
He yanked his boot free of the shredded machine and began laying into the prone gangster with his fists. Shōki lay still, doing nothing to defend himself as Naoya pounded on his chest, and Naoya realized that it must have meant that he was either too stunned to move, or dead. The realization didn’t do anything to restrain Naoya, who continued to batter and beat the fallen man.
Somehow, Naoya’s rational mind realized that he’d lost control, and the monster within him had forced itself to the fore. Beyond all concept of morality or restraint, the monster was a state of mind that embodied the reality of Yōgai-shima: a being that struggled to survive, casting aside all notions of honor in doing so. As such, the beating continued until the primal part of Naoya’s mind decided that it was finished.
With each blow, the entire parking garage shook. Hundreds of tons of concrete and iron shuddered from the force of Naoya’s fists, as though the power of an earthquake resided in each hand. Trucks, sedans, and jeeps leapt into the air from the force, setting off every car alarm in the building, and concrete dust rained down from the ceiling. Over the tumult, Naoya faintly perceived the sound of human voices, and the noise drew the attention of the monster.
“Oh my god!” spoke Kubo, who leaned out the window of the SUV to watch the fight. “Delivery boy’s ripping him apart!”
Naoya turned around, seeing the garage around him as a cracked, ruinous assortment of broken shards. His eyes landed on the red SUV with its blaring lights and thumping music, and the collage of human glass inside. The sights and sounds riled the monster inside him up and he started in their direction.
“Go! Go!” one of the voices of the human piles called out from within, and the engine began to rev. The lights of the van filled Naoya’s eyes the van bore down on him, and the three riders in Shōki’s car were about to run him down, but the machine veered to the right at the last second, passing Naoya by.
Operating on instinct, Naoya whipped around to give chase, but he felt a flash of heat in his chest, and all the hairs on his body began to rise. The intense fire in his bosom distracted him, and he paused to clutch at his breast as electricity crackled in his ears. Azure bolts of electricity began to swirl around him, and the tethers of electricity began to tie themselves around him. The lightning was accompanied by powerful pressure that weighed him down, making it difficult to move. At the same time, the heat and pain drew Naoya back to himself, allowing him to regain control.
“Sakura!” Naoya cried out in alarm and clawed at his coat, ripping the jacket off before throwing it aside, leaving Naoya in his grey sweater while his coat lay against the floor of the garage, sending out tethers of electricity in all directions. He lunged towards the rear of the van as it pulled away, heading for the exit ramp as the three men inside tried to ride to safety.
Naoya’s grasping hands tore into the rear of the vehicle like metal hooks, digging through the chassis with the sound of groaning metal. The power of the SUV dragged Naoya across the floor even as he struggled to stay on his feet. Naoya reached into himself on instinct and the beast inside provided: black particles flowed from Naoya’s feet, making it harder to remove him from the spot he was standing on.
A tug of war ensued as the vehicle struggled against Naoya’s grip while he remained rooted to the ground through the esoteric power within him. The automobile couldn’t make any progress with Naoya holding it down, but his tight grip on the machine was tearing the red painted metal apart. The engine whined and the wheels spewed white smoke as they spun helplessly against the ground, filling the air with an acrid stink. Clinging to the left side of the machine, Naoya risked letting go with his right hand to raise his fist and punch in the back window, hoping to find a better purchase. Before he could swing, he felt someone else’s hand catch his right arm from behind.
“Thought I told you to never mess with a man’s ride,” Naoya turned to see Shōki holding back his arm. The gangster was bruised and beaten, his face swollen and smeared with leaking engine oil, but he was somehow still standing. Holding Naoya’s right arm with his own right hand, Shōki laid into him with his left fist, pummeling Naoya across the back. The icy blows to his ribs, kidneys, and the back of his head failed to garner much reaction out of Naoya, but it did force him to divide his attention.
Struggling between the pull of the van, the force that kept him rooted to the ground, and the barrage of fists striking him from behind, Naoya couldn’t keep a hold on the car. The fingers of his hand finally tore through the metal siding of the vehicle and the car sped away with eager speed, the lights and pounding music fading away as it made its escape.
“No!” Naoya watched as the machine roared out of sight with a sense of failure, which quickly became a feeling of rage aimed at the man trying to hold him back. The power rooting him to the ground faded away and he turned about, tearing his right arm free to unleash a spinning backhand across Shōki’s jaw. Blood poured from Shōki’s mouth as his head whipped to the left, and he stumbled backward, but still refused to admit defeat.
The gangster threw a wild punch with his right hand and Naoya caught it with his left and then caught Shōki’s next punch with his other hand when the Tower tried for another attack. Wrapping both of Shōki’s fists in his hands, Naoya channeled the monster’s power through his arms and into his opponent. The Tower’s fists burst apart, spilling blood across the floor of the garage. The gangster cried out, though he seemed more surprised than anything, and Naoya slammed the tip of his forehead directly into the bridge of Shōki’s nose.
The monster inside Naoya urged him to unleash his Crisis again and use it to smash the Tower’s head into bloody fragments with a decisive final blow, but Naoya remained in control enough to prevent that outcome. He settled for blunt force trauma and the force of the headbutt smashed Shōki’s nose, causing blood to torrent down from his nostrils. However, Naoya’s mercy may have been misplaced; the gangster stumbled backward, swaying on the spot, but he still remained standing.
“It’s over,” Naoya glared at the barely conscious criminal, wanting nothing more than the fight to end. “You don’t stand a chance against me. Tell me where those assholes are taking Sakura and I’ll let you go.”
“Fuck you,” Shōki turned his head and spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth.
“I’ve already won,” Naoya insisted. “It’s the law of the jungle with you people, isn’t that right? That means you’ve got to listen to me.”
“I take orders from three men in my life and one woman,” Shōki corrected him. “And you’re none of the above. Besides, this isn’t even close to over.”
Another blast of freezing air filled the room and mist swirled around Shōki’s body. As the whirlwind of hoarfrost wrapped around him, ice congealed across his limbs, freezing his bleeding arms over. Red and white ice formed across his face and torso, a mixture of frozen vapor and blood. As Naoya watched, imaginary cracks in Shōki’s body bled a familiar stream of black particles, which seemed to fuse with the red and white frost armor. A mask of ice covered the right half of Shōki’s face, but his left eye was wide, and his mouth was twisted in a mad grin.
Naoya reluctantly raised his hands as he prepared to do battle again and Shōki did the same. The two men squared off one last time while the lightning around Naoya’s coat continued to flash and spark where it lay on the floor of the garage, creating a backdrop of strobing blue light and the snap of crackling electricity. Naoya made the first move this time, galvanized by the thought of Sakura getting further and further away by the second.
He rushed towards Shōki, who remained stock still as the larger man bore down on him. A flurry of punches bounced off the ice armor, unable to even chip the smooth surface of the frozen air and blood. Shōki stumbled backwards as the pressure of Naoya’s assault, but the armor blunted Naoya’s offense.
“What happens when you run into something you can’t break, tough guy?” Shōki caught Naoya’s right hand, intercepting an attempted punch. “You’re the one who gets broken.”
Shōki returned Naoya’s earlier headbutt, smashing his frozen mask against Naoya’s forehead. The blow caused stars to explode in Naoya’s eyes, and he took a step backward as he momentarily lost his bearings. The meeting of the minds split open a gash on Naoya’s forehead, but the wound sealed itself shut before Naoya had even reached up to wipe the blood away. He glowered at the ice-armored gangster, who held up his hands, inviting more punishment.
“Come on, asshole!” Shōki encouraged him. “Show me what you’ve got!”
Naoya didn’t wait for another invitation; he clenched his right hand into a fist again and raised it up. He took a large step forward, gathering all of his strength before he threw the hardest haymaker he could. Every pound of weight he could muster was put behind the punch as he twisted his hips, adding as much torque as possible to the blow. Naoya aimed the punch at the unprotected side of Shōki’s face, but the gangster raised up his frozen arms to protect his head.
Naoya’s punch created a shockwave of air that roared like thunder and the entire building shook again. The recoil of the punch sent Naoya sliding backward and Shōki sprouted ice from his ankles in order to root himself to the ground. Pain lanced momentarily through Naoya’s hand, evidence that his reckless use of force had only backfired, but Naoya didn’t even have the opportunity to so much as look at his hand before the monster stole the sensation away. Shōki, by contrast, wasn’t even momentarily stunned.
“You can’t hurt me, asswipe!” Shōki loudly slammed his frozen gauntlets against icy chest. “I’m unbreakable!”
Shōki stepped forward, shedding the ice holding his feet to the floor as opposed to breaking it. Undeterred, Naoya met him halfway, reaching for a different sort of power inside himself. He snapped a jab with his left hand, driving his knuckles into the shielded part of Shōki’s face. As his hand made contact with the ice shell, Naoya channeled the power to break from within himself and sent it into the gangster’s frozen armor. Gold energy rippled outward from where Naoya touched the frozen mask, but no fractures formed.
“It didn’t work?” Naoya’s eyes widened in shock as the dark particles encased in the ice swallowed up his power, leaving the frozen carapace without blemish.
“Having a little trouble?” Shōki asked, his eyes alive with delight. “You might try listening for a change.”
Refusing to give up, Naoya unleashed another flurry as Shōki laughed, pounding the gangster with blows to the face and chest while his hands flashed with a golden radiance that could shred through anything, but he made no headway. When the power of his Crisis failed, Naoya reached for the other power inside him, the darkness of negativity. Black particles oozed out of fissures in Naoya’s knuckles, and he thrust his hand into the ice to no effect. The darkness of negativity couldn’t banish the misfortune held inside Shōki’s armor, and Naoya’s offensive was brought to an end, while Shōki’s counterattack began.
Shōki began throwing a mix of jabs, hooks, and uppercuts, forcing Naoya onto the backfoot. Naoya swayed and dipped away from the hands flying in his direction, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid them all. Shōki’s blows weren’t strong enough to cause Naoya any pain, but each strike caused ice to blossom across Naoya’s body. A punch to the ribs formed a sleeve of ice to wrap around Naoya’s right side, while another punch caught Naoya across the left shoulder, and a frozen vice formed around his arm. A third punch hit Naoya across the left side of his face, and an icy mask flowed up his cheek and covered his eye. Desperate, Naoya kicked Shōki in the chest and sent the other man sprawling backwards.
“Where’s that confidence you had, bitch-boy?” the gangster laughed as he saw Naoya begin to retreat. Naoya kept his hands up as he retreated across the floor of the garage, putting distance between himself and the indestructible gangster. The ice on his right side made it hard to move and the frost hugging his left shoulder made it nearly impossible for him to lift his arm. The ice stuck to the side of his face left him half-blind and stung his skin with its chill.
In this situation, Naoya had to reconsider his options. He was stronger and faster than his opponent, but his own inexperience was showing. He had no idea how to circumvent the esoteric strategy that had made Shōki invincible, and now that same unbreakable ice was spreading over his own body. It only took Naoya a moment to test the icy bonds, and he immediately concluded that the same ice shielding Shōki was coating his body, meaning every new exchange was to Naoya’s disadvantage. What choices did he have?
Retreat? No, he couldn’t do that. Escaping would mean losing any hope of rescuing Sakura, and if Shōki decided to head back into the FAIR Office, there would be no one to protect the remaining employees. Running away simply wasn’t an option.
Naoya felt hot sweat running down his face, and then, a drop of ice-cold water descended from his left chin down across his chin. The sensation surprised him, and it brought an idea with it. A smile spread across his face, which didn’t go unnoticed by his opponent.
“What are you smiling about, asshole?” the gangster demanded.
“Just thinking about how much of a coward you are,” Naoya chuckled, raising his voice to be heard over the constant hum and crackle of the lightning still coursing through his abandoned jacket. “Too afraid to fight me without your armor?”
“You really think that kind of playground bullshit’s gonna work on me?” Shōki spat. “You think I’m that fucking stupid?”
Insulted, the gangster renewed his attack, charging across the garage to end the fight. Naoya slipped the first wild punch that Shōki threw and he backed away, luring the gangster across the room. Shōki swung with wild abandon, casting aside all form of defense in hopes of making contact. Naoya scuttled away, avoiding Shōki’s fists at all costs, and ducked another swing, dropping down to the floor.
He reached across the concrete ground beneath him and his fingers wrapped around his jacket. As soon as Naoya touched it, he felt the electricity surge up his arms, and a heavy weight fell on his shoulders, trying to pin him down. Shōki stood over him, raising his left hand to strike the kneeling Naoya. Naoya took hold of the nanite jacket with both hands and swept it upward.
The crackling, sparking jacket was whipped over the gangster’s head, and the lightning went to immediate work. The coursing blue lightning surged through Shōki’s body, and he danced on the spot, letting out a staccato scream. The ice covering his body, though unbreakable, could still be melted, and the frozen armor began to slough away, spilling water and chunks of ice to the floor.
Naoya held the electrified coat onto Shōki’s body with his left hand and kept his pulled down over his face to keep him from seeing. As Shōki struggled to escape, Naoya repeatedly pounded him with right-handed uppercuts, unleashing everything he had to bring the fight to an end. Eventually, the power inside Suzume’s talisman dissipated, and Naoya threw the gangster to the floor. Before the Tower could rise, Naoya planted a foot on the side of his face, pressing him to the ground with the treads of his boots. Pinned beneath Naoya’s weight and beaten nearly beyond recognition, the battered and electrocuted gangster held up hands, signifying his defeat.
“Now,” Naoya slowly lifted his foot away and glared down at the crushed Tower. “Where did they take Sakura?”
Dossier
Subject Name: Shōki Tōzaburō (笑喜 冬三郎)
Subject Status: Human Calamity (Survivor)
Another one Yakiyama’s subordinates, Shōki Tōzaburō has been a confirmed Human Calamity since the mid 2030’s and has remained under discrete surveillance by the Bureau since then. The subject has a long track record of violent crime, but his connection with the Towers has enabled him to avoid capture and elimination. Shōki’s observed lack of intelligence, his commitment to the Towers, and the lackluster nature of his abilities have deemed him unfit for duty as an Inspector.
If apprehended, the subject is marked for immediate termination.
Crisis Abilities
Freezing Type Emergency, Ice Sculpture
Shōki possesses the ability to rapidly cool the air around him in order to form solid ice. Using this ability, Shōki can create patches of ice to trap foes, create frozen projectiles, and form armor. The power of Shōki’s Crisis can create sleeves of ice as strong as steel, however, against the blades of an Omen or the raw power of many Human Calamities, such attributes are lackluster.
Parameters
Exigency: 7
Shōki has an above average Exigency, but he’s far from the strongest of Human Calamities.
Runaway: 5
When maintaining Exigency, Shōki can expand the radius of which things freeze around him over time but little more.
Forecasting: 1
The subject has a history of short-sighted and ill-fated decisions which suggest a complete lack of precognition.
Account: 100%
Shōki has an aptitude for using Karma, but his ingenuity for using it is limited by his intelligence.
Precision: 6
Shōki’s Crisis, over time, can expand its area of effect and create widespread cold spots, but the destructive potential of his Crisis is very limited.
Karma: 3
The subject possesses Negative Karma.
Soon, the World Will End 