Another Day, Another Problem Case File #4, “Every time you talk to them, it’s a gamble.”

January 19^th, 2044

11:40 AM

Central Ward

Iron District

Nanbu Naoya

“I can’t believe this!” the heavyset Adachi sat in his office chair, one hand held to his forehead. In contrast to Yamato’s office, Naoya observed that Adachi didn’t hesitate to spend a little more on his own personal decorations. Adachi’s desk was a wide, bright red oak that seemed to be imperiously raised above the floor, with a large wide-backed leather chair. A small fan spun at the edge of the desk, directing the airflow towards the big man’s face. The carpets of the office were thick and bright white, while the walls were sky blue.

Adachi let out a pained sigh as he leaned back in his chair, clutching a rag to his face to soak up the blood pouring from his forehead. Apparently, when Shōki had barged into the office, Adachi had taken on the onus of confronting him. The rash act had earned Adachi a painful lesson but seeing that for all of his anger and his overbearing personality Adachi was willing to fight for his employees earned him a modicum of respect in Naoya’s eyes.

“Sakura!” the bleeding man shook his head in disbelief. “Out of all the people in this city, why her?”

“If I might, Adachi-san,” tall, slender, and dressed from head to toe in black, Yamato stood in front of Adachi’s desk. His shoulders were hunched, and his hands were clasped together nervously as Yamato assumed what Naoya understood as his “toady” persona.

“Perhaps we should think about getting you to a hospital. You are bleeding quite a bit.”

“You!” Adachi raised a thick finger and pointed at Yamato. “What the hell were you doing while all this shit was happening?”

“Please, Adachi-san,” Yamato nervously rubbed his neck. “I was halfway across town; I couldn’t have done anything if I wanted to. Besides, I struggle to imagine what you would expect me to do even if I were here.”

“I expect you to act like a man, you little pissant!” Adachi roared, not the least bit dissuaded from blaming Yamato for his current misfortune. “You’re here, worrying about me while those bastards have their filthy hands all over that girl! I’m bleeding? So what? What about her? What about what she’s going through?”

“What happened to Sakura-chan was my fault,” Naoya stepped in.

“You?” Adachi scowled, never one to hide his contempt for the delivery man. “What does a bunch of Tower goons kidnapping my secretary have to do with you?”

“It’s a long story,” Naoya held up his hands, trying to dissuade further questions. “To cut it short, a client of mine offered me a job, I reneged on the deal, and it turns out the Towers were behind it all. Since I didn’t give them what I promised them, they decided to go after everyone I’ve ever worked with.”

“You broke something, didn’t you?” Adachi shook his finger at Naoya in accusation. “Some idiot trusted you with a package for the Towers, and you broke it!”

“Look, it doesn’t matter what happened,” Naoya wasn’t in the mood to sit through another of the fat man’s tirades. “What matters is that they’ve taken Sakura to get to me.”

“And what are you going to do about it?” Adachi fixed Naoya with an angry glare, but both men already knew what came next.

“I’m going to get her back,” Naoya made that promise without hesitation. “No matter what it takes.”

“That’s right,” Adachi, for the first time, gave a look that had something resembling compassion. “That’s exactly what a real man would do. You see this, Kenji-kun? Take notes. In fact, go with him.”

“What?” Yamato blanched, turning his already pale face even whiter. “Adachi-san, you can’t be serious!”

“You’re damn right I’m serious!” Adachi slapped the desktop with his free hand, returning his ire to his subordinate. “Sakura’s a part of our team! We can’t leave her to Accident-kun; one of us has to go get her.”

“Wouldn’t calling the police be the best course of action?” Yamato tried to counsel reason in the face of Adachi’s machismo.

“Good luck getting the police to head over into Sin Ward and deal with the Towers face to face,” Adachi scoffed. “By the time the cops do anything, Sakura could be on a boat to China for all we know. We need to act now, damn it!”

“Mhhmmm-mmm,” a muffled voice intruded on the conversation, the speaker being the fourth man in the room. All eyes turned to the office chair propped up against the righthand wall and the man sitting in it. Shōki Tōzaburō sat in the office chair, covered in dry blood and half-draped in his pink fur coat. Rolls of tape purloined from the office served to tie the man’s hands together at the wrists, while adhesive straps held the man to his seat by his shoulders, and a final piece of tape held his mouth closed.

“This son of a bitch,” Adachi shook his head at the captive gangster. “What the hell are we going to do with him?”

“We should just turn him over to the police,” Yamato, again, suggested something rational.

“Whatever we do, we can’t leave him here,” Naoya gestured towards the tape holding the man down. “As soon as I’m out the door, he’ll tear himself free. Even the police wouldn’t be able to hold him.”

“This is giving me a migraine,” Yamato dryly observed as he rubbed his left temple with a long finger. “If only he wound up dead during your little scuffle.”

“Kenji-kun!” Adachi didn’t let the dark remark slip past. “What the hell are you saying?”

“Ah!” Yamato immediately wilted under his supervisor’s anger. “I sincerely apologize, Adachi-san; I’m just so upset and frustrated about what happened to Sakura-chan.”

“Let me take care of this guy,” Naoya glared at Shōki, and the gangster returned the look with interest.

“Do whatever you need to,” Adachi waved a hand towards the door. “Just get him out of here.”

Naoya didn’t wait a second longer; he took hold of Shōki’s chair and spun him around, wheeling the captive towards the door, while Yamato followed after him like an unhappy shadow. Stepping out into the office of the insurance agency, Naoya hastily walked down through the pathway between the cubicles, while men and women poked their heads out to glance at the pair and their captive. The visit from the Towers had kicked the hornet’s nest, and the employees of the insurance agency stood in huddled groups as they nervously spoke about the disruption in their daily routine. None of them had anything to say to the pair as they passed by, and they all looked at Naoya as though he was as much of an invader as the gangsters had been.

“Would it be too much to expect that you have some kind of plan?” Yamato asked in a hushed voice from over Naoya’s shoulder.

“There’s nothing to plan,” Naoya answered without looking back. “We’ve got to be direct about this. The Towers won’t respect anything else.”

“Why did I expect anything more from you?” Yamato asked with quiet exasperation.

“First things first, we need to have a little talk,” Naoya headed out into halls of the larger office building and headed out through the skybridge into the garage. The garage was a mess; blood and half-melted ice still covered the floor, and the remains of broken car parts were strewn across the room. He wheeled Shōki around, turning the chairbound gangster to face him. He snatched the corner of the piece of tape holding his mouth shut and he ripped it off with a deft flick of his wrist.

“Owww! Son of a bitch!” Shōki hissed through his teeth as the tape was ripped away. “You couldn’t be a little gentler?”

“Cry me a river,” Naoya tossed the piece of tape with several clumps of Shōki’s beard to the floor. “Tell me; where did Juzo and his cronies take Sakura?”

“Fuck you,” Shōki answered curtly.

“You’re doing all this shit to get to me, right?” Naoya laid his hands to his chest. “I’m right here. There’s no need to drag other people into this.”

“Yeah, that’s sweet of you. Still, fuck you.”

“Tell me where your boss is,” Naoya implored him, his frustration mounting. “Or whoever I need to talk to resolve all of this.”

“You think I’m going to tell you shit?” Shōki scoffed, shaking his head in mockery. “If you want to meet my boss, you just sit and wait while your world burns down around you. He’ll track your ass down when he’s good and ready.”

“Please, Nanbu-kun,” Yamato’s dryly lectured him as he stared at Shōki over Naoya’s shoulder. “No Tower that’s earned enough respect to wear a memorandum is going to answer questions from an outsider. It’s an honor thing.”

“Memorandum?” Naoya glanced back at the tall salesman.

“The tattoo, Nanbu-kun,” Yamato tapped his chest to remind Naoya of the mark on Shōki’s torso, his voice filled with soft annoyance.

“It’s not a tattoo!” Shōki snapped at the salesman, and he struggled to climb out of his seat, forcing Naoya to rest a hand on his shoulder and keep him down. “It’s metal, flesh, and blood! It’s a living piece of Tokyo that will never die!”

“Yes, yes,” Yamato sighed, clearly blind to the significance of the brand, and he kept his focus on Naoya, treating the gangster as though he wasn’t there. “Is it clear to you now that he’s not going to listen to reason?”

“I don’t understand why you have to make this difficult,” Naoya shook his head at the gangster, wishing that the world would stop and make sense once in a while.

“Look, we need to think about where we go from here,” Yamato stepped closer and lowered his voice, but it was impossible for Shōki not to hear him. “And more importantly, what we’re going to do with him.”

“And what do you suggest?” Naoya turned a skeptical eye towards the salesman.

“I already told you that handing him over to the police would be the wisest course of action,” Yamato reminded him, looking at the captive Shōki out of the corner of his eye. “So what if he escapes? Once he’s in police custody, our part in all this ends.”

“And how many people could he kill on the way out?” Naoya asked, looking back towards the gangster who smiled back with a sinister grin. “I’m not going to put innocent people in harm’s way to get this guy out of my hair.”

“Well, we can’t exactly call in the Bureau,” Yamato clicked his teeth in irritation, his red eyes boring into Naoya as he stood uncomfortably close. “They’ve got just as much reason to arrest you as they do him.”

“Is that really true?” Naoya looked down at his hands, considering the power that lurked inside them. “Are Shōki and I really no different?”

He thought about Suzume: what would she do if he called her? Would she see him as an enemy? He couldn’t answer that, and that terrified him.

“Listen to me, Nanbu-kun,” Yamato’s ruby eyes gleamed in the soft light of parking garage as he stared at Shōki out of the corner of his eye. “We can’t just let this man go; there’s no guarantee that he won’t just go around causing trouble as soon as you turn your back on him.”

“So, what do you suggest we do?” Naoya demanded, and Yamato immediately flashed a smile as he swapped into his slimier persona.

“Leave it to me, Nanbu-kun,” Yamato slipped an arm around Naoya’s shoulder in a gesture meant to show camaraderie, ignoring Naoya’s attempts to slip away. “You go ahead and try to track down Sakura. After all, between the two of us, you’re the fighter. While you’re doing that, I’ll manage our friend here.”

“Are you going to be alright with this guy by yourself?” Naoya looked at the slender salesman and had trouble imagining that he could protect himself against Shōki. The gangster was a hardened criminal and a Human Calamity; the only reason he remained stuck to the chair was because he was still crippled from the wounds Naoya had given him, but Shōki was healing faster than any ordinary man, and Naoya had no idea when the gangster would try and make his escape.

“Don’t trust him for a second,” Shōki sneered from his office chair. “Give me ten seconds, and I’ll fold your friend into a fucking pretzel.”

“Don’t worry,” Yamato ignored the threat and instead pushed Naoya towards his bike which stood nearby. “I’m a businessman, remember? Managing these kinds of delicate situations is what I do. Now, the longer you stay here, the harder it will be to get Sakura back, so you just get on your bike and leave this to me.”

Prevented from shoving Yamato away only by his desire to obey social niceties, Naoya reluctantly allowed himself to be led by the salesman. When Yamato let Naoya go, he hastily brushed his shoulder where the other man touched, as if to remove an unseen stain. Naoya mounted the bike and reached into his jacket, pulling out his Augur. Cracking it between his fingers, the device shifted itself into a pair of goggles, but Naoya didn’t put them on immediately. Instead, he looked at Yamato who was still hovering nearby, and then to the wrapped up Shōki.

“You’re sure about this?” Naoya couldn’t resist asking again, but Yamato didn’t betray an iota of doubt.

“Completely!” Yamato insisted, flashing Naoya a smile that couldn’t be less reassuring. “Haven’t I earned a little respect from you?”

“Respect?” Naoya didn’t know what to say to that notion. “Once I figure out where Sakura is, I’ll call you. Just try to stay alive until then.”

Naoya placed his goggles on and turned on the engine of his bike, which hummed to life between his legs. He felt Yamato’s eyes on him as he rode the bike away, and the feeling didn’t abate until he made it down to the road. He had no idea what Yamato intended to do, but he could “trust” that the other man knew what he was about. Instead, he focused on what he needed to do.

He sorely missed his helmet the moment he pulled out of the parking garage. With his protection destroyed in the melee with Shōki, Naoya’s head was left entirely unprotected from the fury of Hurricane Izumi. He keenly felt every drop of rain that struck his face, and the wind whipped his hair and whistled in his ears, almost deafening without the muting effect of his helmet. More pressing was the fear of getting into an accident, but that worry was transitory.

“I’m not even human,” Naoya reminded himself, though the thought was far from comforting. “A traffic collision is the least of my worries.”

He headed east, breaking the promise to himself as he returned to Sin Ward. Before he’d even entered the den of vice, he found himself feeling a sense of anxiety. He watched the streets of the Golden Mile, looking at the rare pedestrians and cars that he passed with suspicion. Who could say how far the Towers could reach? Anyone and everyone could be one of their informants, or opportunistic enough to try and claim whatever bounty the gang had put on his head. Heading into Sin Ward would only put him further into the Towers’ clutches, but he knew he couldn’t change anything by running away.

Sin Ward felt different to Naoya; the streets were quieter than he was used to, even in the middle of the day. A vortex had touched down on the ward somewhere on the border between Temptation and Decadence, and numerous roads had closed due to the flooding, forcing Naoya to take constant detours. The streets Naoya passed were largely empty, in contrast to the constant business Sin Ward usually drew, storm or not. Perhaps Izumi’s death throes were finally violent enough for the entertainment district’s customers to stay indoors. However, Naoya couldn’t help but see the empty streets as an ominous warning; a warning he felt was realized when he reached his destination.

Flashing red and white lights greeted Naoya as he paused at a cross street, grey and black buildings surrounding him on all sides. Ahead of him was a five-story red brick laminate structure that seemed tiny in comparison to its neighbors. Two white and red Civil Patrol cars sat parked in the middle of the street, cutting off all through traffic while an ambulance and a firetruck were parked on the curb outside the building.

Smoke poured out of the building’s first story windows, their glass panes having been blown out a fire that had already been put out. Around the broken portals, the walls of the building were blackened, and the laminate had peeled away to reveal the honest concrete beneath. Members of the Civil Services walked around the scene in their white uniforms and transparent raincoats, setting up silver beacons on the sidewalk to erect a holographic barricade to warn away passersby. As Naoya watched the emergency personnel tend to the scene, his eyes strayed up to the sign that hung over the front of the building: once upon a time, the banner over the business had been a salacious icon of a nude woman being constricted by a dragon, but the lower half of the lewd image had been melted and warped by flames.

Naoya cautiously pulled forward, not wanting to draw the ire of the men and women working to clear the scene, but he was unable to fight his sense of curiosity. He drove forward slowly, letting his eyes pass over the assortment of vehicles, trying to take in every detail that he could. The sound of the Bridge-Runner’s heavy wheels and the soft hum of its engine seemed to attract attention to him, though not from the Civil Services.

The back of the red and white ambulance was open, and a small gurney had been rolled out and a small figure sat on it beneath a thick blanket to shelter him from the downpour. The figure sat hunched over, breathing through a small canister and an oxygen mask, but as Naoya drew closer, the man looked up in his direction. With difficulty, the small man drew himself up and slipped off the gurney, stumbling towards Naoya as he clutched the blanket.

“Ichinose,” Naoya greeted the little man with vanishing warmth, and Ichinose returned the hospitality in kind. The skinny, short soapland manager stood in the rain, dressed in a thick brown sweater and a pair of off-white sweatpants. His stringy brown hair was matted down by the rain, and his face and clothes were stained with soot and ash.

“It’s about fucking time,” Ichinose spoke in a hoarse whisper, and he glared up at Naoya with palpable hate, his eyes reddened and inflamed. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Naoya sat up straight on his bike as he looked down at the other man. “I don’t work for you anymore. I don’t need to take your bullshit.”

“You—! You—!” Ichinose tried to speak, but he had difficulty forming the words. He wheezed and gagged, then bent over double as he tried to breath. He pressed the mask attached to the canister to his mouth and took a long, deep breath to regain his strength.

“You can’t pretend like you aren’t a part of all this!” when Ichinose could speak again, his fire hadn’t been quenched. “I lost everything because of you!”

“I’m not taking the blame for any of this!” Naoya snapped back. “I told you from the start I didn’t want to have anything to do with the Towers, and you lied to me!”

“So, I lied! As long as we got paid, what did it matter? You had him, you dumb son of a bitch!” Ichinose’s words were half accusing, and half pleading, as though he was asking Naoya to go back in time and make another choice. “You had Nishijima! You could have turned him in, and we’d all be sitting pretty!”

“And what would have happened to Nishijima if I handed him over to those thugs?” Naoya demanded, sure that Ichinose couldn’t answer.

“Fuck him, Nanbu!” Ichinose spoke with as much compassion expected. “Think about us, you moron! There’s a bounty on your head, you horse’s ass; did you know that? And I, in case you haven’t noticed, I lost everything!”

Ichinose took a deep breath from the oxygen tank again, and Naoya looked away while he panted and wheezed.

“What happened here?” Naoya asked when Ichinose’s coughing fit ended.

“What do you think?” Ichinose rasped out an answer, shaking his head in pure despondence. “The Towers happened.”

“Why?”

“Why, he asks,” Ichinose scoffed, and his prior energy seemed to drain out of him. “Mr. Won’t-Take-Any-Blame wonders why the Towers burned my whole damn shop down. They took everything away from me, Nanbu. They took all my savings and burned the rest. They took the girls, too.”

“What did they want with the girls?” Naoya leaned forward in his seat, his interest piqued.

“Boy, you’re just full of dumb questions today, aren’t you?” Ichinose chuckled, a choking and mirthless sound. “What do you think they wanted? He told me I was just as liable for losing Nishijima because I brought you on, so I had to pay up if I couldn’t find you. He took what little I had and said the girls had to work off the rest.”

Ichinose glared at Naoya out of the corner of his eye again, his hate palpable.

“If you’d just answered the phone one fucking time,” the small man shuddered with anger. “If you’d just listened to me. . .”

“Well, I’m here now,” Naoya reminded him and Ichinose through up his hands in exasperation.

“You’re too late!” Ichinose looked at his burned down business and took another breath from the tank. “The damage has been done, and you. . .,” Ichinose gave Naoya a long look, considering him, before he pointed an ominous finger in his direction. “You need to ride that bike to the other end of the island. Maybe hop a boat, I don’t know. But you aren’t safe here.”

“The man I spoke to over the phone,” Naoya nodded in the direction the Virgin Sacrifice. “The one who burned down your shop: is he the ringleader behind all of this?”

“You mean Yakiyama? Why do you care?” Ichinose cocked his head to one side, trying to understand what he wanted.

“Do you know where I can find him?” the question earned an astonished laugh from Ichinose that quickly petered out in another hacking cough.

“Do you—? Do you have any idea what you’re asking?” Ichinose demanded when he could speak again.

“If dealing with this Yakiyama is the only way to get this price off my head, then that’s what I’ll do,” Naoya folded his arms as Ichinose laughed at him again.

“You’re a fucking gem, Accident-kun,” Ichinose spat onto the wet street.

“If you help me, I can help you,” Naoya leaned forward on his bike again, making eye contact with Ichinose to try and impress on him the importance of what he was asking.

“Help me, he says. How’s that, Accident-kun?” the former soapland manager rolled his eyes. “Are you telling me you’ve got a few hundred thousand yen in your back pocket to help me get back on my feet? Of course you don’t. You don’t fix things, Accident-kun; you break them. That’s all you can do.”

“If you tell me where Yakiyama is, you can claim the bounty on me,” as Naoya explained his plan, Ichinose looked at him with disbelief. “You show the Towers that you never meant to double cross them, you get paid, and the girls go free. I don’t know if they’ll pay you enough to cover all your damages, but anything you can get from them is more than you have right now.”

Ichinose didn’t answer right away; instead, he stared at Naoya like he was a puzzle he couldn’t solve.

“They’re gonna fucking kill you,” Ichinose assured him, his voice grave. “You know that, right?”

“You let me handle Yakiyama,” Naoya spread his hands. “He’s taken two shots at me already, and he’s missed both times.”

“That kind of crazy shit is only going to piss this guy off more,” Ichinose shook his head, his eyes wide with fear.

“If Yakiyama wants to cut loose, let it be on me, not you,” Naoya tried to assuage the other man’s trepidation. “If you’re scared to face this guy, all you need to do is tell me where he hangs out. You call and let them know I’m coming, and I’ll go there myself.”

“No,” Ichinose looked towards the ground as he considered. “If I’m not there to hand you over, they aren’t going to give me shit.”

Ichinose fell silent for a moment, and he reached into his pants pockets, likely to search for a cigarette. When he couldn’t find one, he took another breath from the oxygen tank and gave Naoya a hard look.

“Look, I don’t know where Yakiyama hangs up his boots,” Naoya remained silent as Ichinose paused to take another breath. “But. . .”

Ichinose stared into the middle distance, and licked his lips, trepidation written on his face.

“I might know someone who can help us,” he finished after a moment.

“Who?” Naoya had to ask, and Ichinose shook his head.

“Look, I don’t even think this asshole is gonna answer when I call him,” Ichinose took another hit from the oxygen mask. “I’ve gotta think about this. Maybe call in some favors if I have any left.”

“So, what can I do?” Naoya asked.

“If you’re stupid enough to go through with this, then meet me at the Eastern Municipal Station in an hour. I’ve gotta get all my ducks in a row before our collective funeral.”

“I’ll be there,” Naoya promised, and he backed his bike up and began to turn it around. As he slowly drove away, the former soapland manager called out to him.

“If you don’t show, I won’t blame you! Hell, I wouldn’t if I had any choice.”

“We’re all doing things we’d rather not do today,” Naoya silently agreed as he accelerated down the street, leaving Ichinose with the ruins of his destroyed establishment. He turned down the street and headed nowhere in particular. He had an hour to kill, but nothing to fill it with. Working an odd job in the meantime was the furthest thing from his mind, and he didn’t want to risk leaving Sin Ward and getting stuck in traffic before meeting with Ichinose. He was too anxious to eat or nap, even if he did have someplace to rest his head. Driving around in circles didn’t seem like a good idea, either, seeing as the Towers were looking for him, so he decided to head to the station early and just wait.

The Eastern Municipal Station was on the south side of Sin Ward, sitting on the border between Ambition and Central Ward. The station was a wedge-shaped building five stories tall with a sloping structure that was highest at its rear point and gradually became lower to the ground as it fanned outward. Buses, taxis, and rails ran in and out of the Eastern Municipal Station, ferrying the city’s population up and down Sin Ward, and even into Foundation, but that was only the beginning. As large as the station was above ground, larger still was the underground railway and shopping mall which connected the facility to all corners of the island.

Naoya circled the station, picking through the buses entering and exiting the facility, pausing when he needed to let herds of pedestrians cross the street. He pulled up to a parking lot outside the station and parked his bike before heading inside. The interior of the Municipal Station had polished white tile floors and a dark carpet that covered the center of the walkway while the walls were soft red velvet in color. The ceiling displayed the motorways of Yōgai-shima on a digital map which tracked changes in the weather, road closures, and the movement of buses across the city.

The first floor of the station was largely a selection of storefronts and eateries; almost all of the actual business for buses and taxis was conducted out on the streets. From the second floor upward, the building was divided into two halves; one being a public side with more stores and businesses, and the other half being the station that served one of the four different trains that ran above ground. Between the two halves there was a partition manned by private security that ensured each passenger was ticketed and boarded the railcar without contraband or weapons.

Without direction, Naoya ascended to the third floor, ignoring the other commuters as he went. He tuned out his surroundings as he walked, turning all his thoughts inward as he tried to consider what lay ahead of him, and the choices he needed to make. He moved silently into a small gift shop on the third floor, ignoring the greeting of the employee behind the counter as he drifted between aisles of greeting cards and small stuffed toys. The wall of the shop opposite the entrance was a large window that allowed Naoya to look out at Sin Ward.

Three vortexes had touched down in the red-light district, pulling the storm above lower to the ground. The massive, terrifying spirals of churning clouds and crackling lightning obscured the city of depravity from Naoya’s vantage on the south side of the island. Looking at the hurricane, and the ethereal power it still held, Naoya thought of Suzume.

“Should I tell her?” Naoya asked himself as he watched spears of lightning descend from the typhoon above and strike somewhere in the city. She had a right to know; she was his girlfriend, after all. Naoya had already committed to facing Yakiyama, and he would follow through with whatever that entailed. He hoped, perhaps too optimistically, that the Tower would be amenable to a peaceful negotiation, but he had to steel himself in case the other man proved entirely intractable.

“I could die,” the thought should have been terrifying, and it was the driving force behind his desire to tell Suzume, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The fact of his own mortality held no fear for him any longer: he simply couldn’t believe he could die. It wasn’t that he was invincible, or immortal, he told himself. Instead, his encounters with Sakai and Shōki revealed to him that he contained an otherworldly power; a force that was truly immense and beyond his capacity to fully comprehend.

He looked down at his gloved hands again, at the hands that could destroy anything they touched. It was a terrible power that he possessed, and an intuition he couldn’t explain told him that he was capable of far more than he knew. Looking into himself and seeing only a silhouette of the awful energy that inundated him, death held no fear for him. Instead, he feared only himself, and for that reason, he wanted to avoid a violent confrontation if he could. A jingle from Naoya’s headset drew him out of his dark thoughts, and he reached up to tap the side of his Augur as a call came through.

“Ah! Nanbu-kun,” Yamato’s voice came over the line, sounding uncharacteristically pleased with himself. “How are thing’s going on your end? Have you managed to find out where they took Sakura-chan?”

“Sort of,” Naoya answered warily, unable to ignore the amusement in the other man’s voice. “How about you? What did you do with that gangbanger?”

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about him,” Yamato jovially waved off the question. “I taught him that it’s the insurance salesmen that really have a stranglehold on this city, and then I sent him on his way. He won’t be a problem, anymore: I managed to squeeze that promise out of him.”

“You just took his word for it?” Naoya balked, remembering how cautious the salesman had been,

“I told you before, didn’t I?” the salesman gleefully assured him. “Gangs like the Towers run on an honor system; their oath is their bond, and I always make sure I get the last word in when I close a deal.”

“I guess salesmen and career criminals aren’t so different,” Naoya observed with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “As long as he’s safely out of the way, I guess that’s all that matters.”

“That’s a strange way to say thank you,” Yamato sniffed, clearly affronted. “But I’m big enough to overlook your lack of gratitude and find solace in a job well done. Speaking of, how are things on your end?”

“There’s a friend of mine, well, an acquaintance, who knows some things about the Towers,” the words tasted sour in Naoya’s mouth as he was forced to describe the situation. “He says he can lead me to the local gangster that has me in his crosshairs. Well, maybe.”

“Do you trust him?” Yamato cut right to the heart of the matter.

“Ordinarily? No,” honesty seemed to be the only appropriate answer. “But he’s got skin in the game. I halfway expect a group of Towers to show up here in his place, but as long as I get to their boss, that’s all that really matters.”

“Where are you meeting him?”

“The Eastern Municipal Station; why do you ask?”

“With the mood he’s in, Adachi-san will fire me on the spot if I return to the office without Sakura-chan,” Yamato bemoaned his fate with a heavy sigh. “I might as well come with you.”

“This is going to be dangerous, Yamato-san,” Naoya spoke slowly, trying to convey the seriousness of the situation.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Yamato assured him with a chuckle. “I’ll make sure to keep my distance if things take a turn.”

“Just focus on getting Sakura-chan,” Naoya insisted. “As long as she’s alright, you don’t need to worry about me.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Yamato gladly agreed, and he swiftly hung up the call without a farewell.

“You didn’t need to agree that quickly,” Naoya thought ruefully. He reached up and pried off his goggles so that he could stare out at the city with his own two eyes. As the Augur shifted back into its compact form, and he stared into his reflection with his own two eyes, Naoya realized that he wasn’t alone.

“You know, eavesdropping is a rude thing to do,” Naoya turned to look to his left, laying eyes on the woman that was now sharing his view. Beside him stood a familiar woman; short, shapely, and with a head of pinkish-red locks that frame a round, cute face. Today, Conbeni-chan had her hair down, and she was dressed in a puffy bright red raincoat with black leggings and a pair of brown boots with fur trim.

“I wouldn’t call it eavesdropping, per say,” the young woman reached up to tap her chin with one pink-painted fingernail as she cocked her head to one side as she considered the accusation. “I was just listening.”

“Yeah, that’s called eavesdropping,” Naoya folded his arms, but he didn’t have the heart to truly try and scold the young woman.

“Everywhere you go, you’re speaking; be it through the words you speak, or the things you do, or even your body language, and someone is always listening in this city,” the young woman kept a glib smile on her face while she explained. “You should keep that in mind.”

“I’ll do that,” Naoya gave the woman a scathing look, but she only smiled back, mischievously, and Naoya felt the corners of his mouth twisting into a grin despite himself.

“Sounds like you’re in a bit of a tight spot,” the young woman looked out the window, staring into the storm.

“I suppose I am,” Naoya agreed. Conbeni-chan didn’t say anything and silence fell between them. Without a response, Naoya sensed that the young woman expected him to keep speaking and he reluctantly submitted.

“I’m about to walk into a lion’s den with two men behind me, and I can’t expect either of them to actually help me. In fact, I imagine both of them would sell me out if it served them.”

“That does sound like a pickle,” the young woman commiserated, but she didn’t sound the slightest bit concerned.

“What would you do in my place?” Naoya asked, watching the young woman out of the corner of his eye.

“Me? No, no. I’d never be caught in a position like that,” she waved a hand, dismissing the notion. “I’m just an ordinary girl, after all. What you really should be asking is what I think you should be doing.”

“And what is that?”

“Hmmm,” the young woman made a show of tapping her chin again, idly twisting on the spot. “I suppose that depends on what you’re fighting for.”

“I never said anything about fighting,” Naoya observed, coolly, but Conbeni-chan waved it off.

“You didn’t need to,” she answered coyly. “With men, it’s always about fighting, isn’t it? So, what are you fighting for?”

“All of this, it’s my fault,” Naoya admitted, looking away from the young woman next to him. “I made a mistake, and it put other people in danger.”

“What kind of mistake?” the girl asked.

“I was asked to do a job,” Naoya reached up to rub the back of his neck. “Only it turned out that it was way bigger than I was told. At the end of it, I wasn’t certain what the truth was, and I backed out. In the end, it pissed off the wrong people, and they’ve started hurting other people to get to me.”

“It sounds to me like you didn’t make a mistake at all,” Conbeni-chan offered.

“People are getting hurt because of what I did,” Naoya looked down, not wanting to look at the young woman in the eye. “A friend of mine lost his garage; another had his business burned down. Now, they’ve taken a bunch of people hostage, and I can’t help but blame myself for all of this.”

“So, what are you going to do about it?” another question, and Naoya found himself struggling to answer.

“I don’t know,” he chose honesty again. “I want to believe that if I can just speak to whoever’s behind this and I look them in the eye and explain, maybe that will be enough. If that doesn’t work, I don’t know. Maybe there’s something I can do to pay him back or make amends.”

“That’s sweet in its own way, but you aren’t that naïve,” the young woman shook her head with a sad smile. “Do you really believe that will work?”

“No,” the admittance formed a bitter frown on Naoya’s face.

“So, what are you really going to do?” the girl questioned him again.

“I don’t want to fight,” Naoya folded his arms again. “But, somehow, I know that’s exactly where this is all going.”

“Sometimes, it’s necessary to fight,” Conbeni-chan folded her hands behind her back, giving Naoya a gentle look.

“But if I fight, I don’t know if I can control myself,” Naoya held up his hands, again, looking down at them. “There’s something inside me that’s dark, and vicious. Something bloodthirsty. I may not be able to hold back; I might kill someone.”

“As long as it’s the right person, killing can be necessary, too,” Conbeni-chan spoke confidently and clearly, and it made Naoya do a double take.

“I can’t believe you said that,” Naoya couldn’t hide how astonished he was, and the moment served as a reminder how little he really knew the woman he called Conbeni-chan. Sensing his discomfort, the young woman took a step closer, slowly, and gently.

“Tell me, if you have a chance to save those women, but in order to do it, you need to kill someone, would you do it?” the young woman asked the uncomfortable question and Naoya tried to look away, but he felt himself drawn back to meet her eyes. “If something awful happens to those women because you chose to hold back, could you live with it?”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Naoya shook his head, unable to really answer the question. “I don’t want to kill anyone, either.”

“When innocent lives depend on you, you can’t afford to give anything less than your all,” Conbeni-chan reached out and gently took hold of Naoya’s left wrist and held his arm up. “If you want to find a way to get out of this situation without fighting, then commit to it. Believe in it. But if you can’t, then you need to fight, and you need to commit to that, too. And if it’s necessary to use that power inside you, and you need to hurt someone, you need to fight whole-heartedly. When you fight for something you believe is right, to hold back would be the real sin.”

Naoya found himself staring down into the woman’s eyes, trying to understand who she really was. In the silence, the two found themselves communicating without words: Conbeni-chan tried to impress the importance of her words onto Naoya, while he struggled to find some reason to dismiss them. Before a resolution could be reached, there was a chime, and Conbeni-chan stepped away.

“Sorry,” Naoya fumbled with his jacket pockets, reaching for his Augur. “I’ve got a call.”

He looked away from the young woman and held up the Augur, which displayed a small yellow screen with the words “Ichinose Yuta.” He tapped the screen, putting the call through, and then turned to look towards Conbeni-chan, but the woman had vanished. He faintly heard the sound of Ichinose’s voice over the Augur as he turned around, searching for any trace of the disappearing woman in red, but there was no sign of her.

“Nanbu!” Ichinose shouted over the line, evidently tired of being ignored. “Are you there?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Naoya assured him as he pressed his phone to his ear, though he took one last look up and down the aisles for the vanishing woman. “I’m here.”

“Good, good,” Ichinose breathed out a heavy sigh. “I was starting to think you’d been jumped, or something.”

“Were you worried about me?” Naoya couldn’t help but smile sarcastically at the sentiment.

“I was worried that you’d found some way to screw me over again,” Ichinose corrected him. “Speaking of. . ., are you here at the station?”

“I’m here,” Naoya’s smile slipped away, and his features hardened into a stern look of determination.

“This is your last chance to run away,” the ex-soapland manager warned. “Once we get on the train, there’s no going back.”

“I’m in until the end of the line,” Naoya insisted, and the other man sighed again over the line, clearly struggling to understand.

“Meet me underground,” Ichinose barked. “We’re taking the eastbound rail from station three below ground. And make it quick; the train’s leaving soon.”

“Couldn’t you have called me sooner?” Naoya hung up and turned to leave, taking one last look around the small shop for Conbeni-chan before he hurried out. As he walked, Naoya idly tapped his Augur again, sending a GPS pin to Yamato so that the salesman would know where he was heading, though he wasn’t really concerned with idea of the other man joining him. He hustled down from the third floor of the station and descended the flights of escalators that wove through the building, moving as quickly as he could among the press of men and women on the stairways. When he reached the escalator heading into the station beneath the building, he immediately felt a familiar trepidation come over him.

A dozen or more people crowded around Naoya on the escalator as it descended into the earth, preventing him from moving forward of his own volition. The natural sunlight that managed to break through the cloud cover disappeared as the escalators continued downward through a tunnel into the underground station, replacing the sun with bulbs in the ceiling and the glow of holographic advertisements. To the faceless mass of citizens around him, nothing changed, but to Naoya, he felt as though he was being lowered into an open grave.

The constant buzz of human voices did nothing to make Naoya feel reassured, and neither did the soft tinkling of music, nor the echoing voice of an announcer playing over the speakers far below. He felt sweat beading on his forehead, and he hastily wiped it away as he shifted back and forth on his feet, eager for the ride to end. As soon as the sliding steps of the escalator terminated into the station floor, Naoya broke away from the commuters idly shambling off the stairway.

As large as the station was above ground, the underground was the true hub of activity, featuring a sprawling shopping mall that extended beyond the border between Sin Ward and Central. Numerous stairways ascended and descended from the streets above, allowing people across the city to enter the travel hub. The underground shopping mall served as a massive central space with a dozen different tunnels that broke off into various different directions. However, Naoya had no curiosity to follow any of the passageways and was instead focused on getting out as quickly as humanly possible.

A thousand footsteps rang off the linoleum floors and up the walls of tile and grey paint, creating a raucous chorus that pounded in Naoya’s ears. The ground beneath his feet rumbled as a train came through, making Naoya feel sick, and the air was filled with the shrieking of the rails. He doubled his pace, following the directions Ichinose had given him while trying not to think about the fact he was trapped underground. He kept his head on a swivel, trying to find Ichinose, but the other man found him first.

“Accident-kun!” a familiar voice called out over the noise, and Naoya turned his head, scowling at a small figure waving in his direction. Ichinose beckoned him over from beneath a thick blue-grey raincoat that was so large it made the slim man seem over twice as wide as he was. Beneath the coat, Ichinose wore a grey set of sweatpants tucked into a set of black rubber boots.

“Can you not call me that in public?” Naoya lowered his voice as much as he was able considering the loudness of their surroundings.

“What? I can’t call you ‘Accident-kun?’” the small man asked with a mocking grin. “It’s what you are.”

“Do you want me to leave your skinny ass out to dry?” Naoya glowered at the small man, but Ichinose only seemed more amused.

“I keep telling you, you shoulda walked away from this,” heedless of the station’s rules, Ichinose puffed on a lit cigarette. “I wouldn’t be here, if I could help it.”

“Nothing will get done if you doubt yourself when the moment comes,” a tall shadow spoke as it appeared hovering at Naoya’s left elbow. Both men were flinched at the sudden arrival, and Ichinose spoke first.

“Hey, asshole!” Ichinose snapped at the newcomer and gestured down the station. “This is a private conversation; keep it moving.”

“No, no,” Naoya held up his hand to restrain the small man. “This an associate of mine. His name’s Yamato.”

Ichinose glanced between the two men, arching an eyebrow in clear confusion as he glanced up at the tall, slim Yamato in his black smart-fabric suit and crystalline glasses. The salesman had abandoned his hunch-shouldered, eager-to-please persona again. Instead, he loomed like a shadow of death, putting off an unnerving aura as he glared with his deep-red eyes.

“So what are you?” Ichinose gestured at Yamato with the cigarette. “You this guy’s undertaker?”

“Yamato Kenji,” the salesman didn’t allow the opportunity to introduce himself slip, and he smoothly produced a business card and handed it to Ichinose with both hands and a slight bow. “FAIR Insurance Agency representative. My specialties are housing, vehicle, and health insurance.”

“Oh, that’s the scam, huh?” Ichinose looked down at the card and flashed a sleazy smile at Naoya. “You bought life insurance from this guy, and you’re bringing him with you to watch you die, huh? You might as well cut me into the payout, considering what you owe me.”

“Please, don’t be absurd,” Yamato reached up to adjust his glasses, his bloodless face lacking any expression. “Nanbu-san couldn’t afford a life insurance worth anything on his income.”

“Ohhh!” Ichinose covered his mouth with the back of his hand as he laughed, then reached out to pat Naoya on the chest. “Did you hear that, Accident-kun? Even your buddy knows that your delivery racket can’t pay bills!”

“Can we just get on the damn train and get this over with?” Naoya barked, casting an irate eye at both men.

“Why the hurry?” Ichinose asked, sarcastically. “You’ve got somewhere to be? I don’t; the ashes of my business ain’t even cold, yet.”

Naoya shook his head and stepped away, heading towards the turnstiles while the other two men continued to talk behind.

“What kind of coverage were you paying for, if you don’t mind my asking?” Yamato questioned, perhaps sensing a chance to make a sale.

“I barely even remember,” Ichinose brushed the question away with quiet exasperation. “I’ve been paying the bare minimum on that shithole for the past three years.”

Naoya tuned the pair out as he headed for the tracks and joined the line of commuters that headed towards the checkpoint leading to the rail tracks. The checkpoint had six different capsules that men and women took turns stepping into, after which they were scanned for contraband or weapons. The process was almost entirely automated, but two Civil Police Officers stood off to the side, watching for anyone who might object to the process.

A few of the people grumbled about the process, but Naoya didn’t pay any attention. When Naoya’s turn came, he stepped forward with little eagerness and the doors of the transparent capsule closed behind him. He closed his eyes, trying to imagine he was anywhere else but here, being trapped in a glass-and-metal coffin far below the ground.

“Please hold still,” a female mechanical voice chimed from somewhere in the pod, but Naoya refused to open his eyes. There was a mechanical hum as the machine scanned him, looking for any irregularities. Naoya impatiently counted the seconds, and after having stood there for what felt like an hour, the door ahead slid open.

“Thank you for your patience!” the voice chimed in again. “Have a great day!”

Naoya hurried out of the capsule onto into the boarding area, joining people of all ages as they waited for train. Despite getting out of the scanner, the restless sense of anxiety didn’t abate. The world around him started to blur, and the conversations of the commuters around him became an indistinct buzz. He hardly recognized it when the rail car arrived and barely remembered boarding. The press of the other people on the train made was unbearable, along with the motion of the car around him. He felt like he was trapped in a metal box, and the air was running out. He struggled to breathe, and he forced himself through the throng of people and pushed himself towards the window, desperately peering out to look for open space, but the darkness of the tunnel stared back at him.

“Breathe,” Naoya tried to remind himself of Suzume’s voice as the fear tried to overwhelm him. “Breathe, Naoya. You’re okay.”

“Suzume,” the thought of his dark-haired girlfriend filled his mind. Pressing himself against the wall of the rail car, Naoya dug out his Augur, and it broke apart when he snapped it, shifting into sharp fragments before solidifying into his goggles once more. He pressed the Augur to his face and the device hooked itself onto his head. The nanite machine extended itself over his ears, blotting out the sound of the rail as the lenses projected the image of a grassy field beneath the shining sun. The optical illusion and the muted noise couldn’t completely allay Naoya’s fears, but they managed to help him focus.

He tapped the goggles, bringing up a small menu that displayed itself over the image of the field. Running his left index finger across the Augur, Naoya directed the device to make a phone call. He stood in his tiny bubble, being jostled by the motion of rail car and the bodies of the other passengers, listening to the sound of the phone ringing as he anxiously waited for the call to connect.

“You’ve reached Sumitomo Suzume,” the sound of his lover’s voice came over the Augur headset, but Naoya immediately knew it wasn’t really her. “I’m deeply sorry that I can’t answer your call. Please, leave a message, and I’ll get back to you.”

There was the sound of a chime, and Naoya began speaking before he even knew what he wanted to say.

“Hey, Suzu, it’s me,” Naoya winced a little, realizing that introducing himself was pointless. “Look, there’s this job I’m doing; I can’t really go into detail about it, but it’s important. I broke something; not an object, but a contract, I guess. It’s caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people, and I’m going to do whatever I can to fix it. I don’t know what it’s going to take, but I’m going to see it through. I—,”

He struggled to go on, not certain exactly what kind of farewell he wanted to give. No, he reminded himself, it wasn’t a farewell, at all. It was just a message.

“I’ll speak to you when I get home,” Naoya decided to end the message there. The more he spoke, the more he felt like he was lying, and that thought twisted his stomach.

He spent the rest of the trip trying to pretend he was somewhere else, tuning out the universe as best he could. A tap on his shoulder beckoned him out of his trance, and Naoya raised his goggles and turned to look at Ichinose standing behind him.

“You ain’t freaking out, are ya?” Ichinose smirked as he made eye contact with the larger man, perceiving his discomfort.

“I’m fine,” Naoya assured him, pressing the Augur back into the shape of a cellphone.

“Well, it’s too late to back out now,” Ichinose shook his head. “Our stop is coming up next.”

Naoya reached up and held onto the strap that dangled from the roof of the subway car as the rails began to screech, and the entire train lurched as it slowed. The motion and the pressure of nearby passengers pressing against him made Naoya’s stomach do flips in his belly. When the subway car finally pulled to a stop, Naoya pushed to the fore, making sure he was one of the first to get out. It was one of the rare times Naoya used his size to his advantage, and his urgent desire to escape the confined space blunted any sense of guilt on his part. As soon as Naoya passed through the sliding doors, he stormed across the station and up the steps, seeking the open air.

Scanning the smaller concrete and brick laminate buildings around the exit from the station, Naoya realized that they were still in Sin Ward, likely somewhere between Decadence and Ambition. Over the tops of the buildings to the northwest, Naoya could make out the stark-white peak of Gettō-san, which was contrasted by the sable slopes of a nearer monolith. A smooth pyramid of black metal sat on the eastern edge of Sin Ward, straddling the Ambition and Decadence Districts and the White-Mountain Sanzu that led into Foundation. The locals called it “Kurodaiya,” to Naoya’s recall.

The great black pyramid was an experimental self-contained environmental dome that concealed a small chunk of the city. When refugees from Japan made new lives in Yōgai-shima, the powers that be expended great effort into manufacturing bleeding edge defenses against the proliferation of Human Calamities, and Kurodaiya was one of the first manufactured habitats that was designed to provide citizens beneath its roof complete protection against all forms of inclement weather. However, the protections offered by roofs and biospheres paled in comparison to the technology of the new century.

After the advent of the ground-breaking Karmic Barrier system that sheltered the entire island from one side to the other, shelters like Kurodaiya became obsolete. Most of the oldest shelters were deconstructed, but some of them remained, often falling into the hands of private interests when they weren’t abandoned outright. Those shelters that remained standing in Sin Ward were converted into “dark sectors” where illicit businesses operated twenty-hours a day outside the view of the public. Naoya had never been into Kurodaiya himself, but he’d heard stories about what went on there, and if only a single one was true, it made the other dark sectors he’d passed through seem trite.

“Look at you, charging off without a single thought in your head,” Ichinose followed Naoya up the steps, he and Yamato being the only other two passengers to follow Naoya. “Did it only occur to you now that you didn’t know where you’re going?”

“Just needed fresh air,” Naoya thumbed away some cold sweat from his brow.

“Fresh air, he says,” Ichinose scoffed, and reached into his coat pocket to retrieve another cigarette.

“My, this is quite the change of scenery,” Yamato adjusted his glasses as he looked up towards the buildings around them, his crystalline glasses reflecting the distant gaudy lights.

“I think now would be a good time to tell where it is we’re going,” Naoya turned to fully face the other two men, the three of them standing alone on the streets.

“I don’t know,” Ichinose admitted, taking a drag from his cigarette.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Naoya demanded, but the soapland manager remained unflappable.

“I mean, I was told to get off at the station and wait,” Ichinose breathed out a trail of smoke. “They didn’t tell me what to wait for.”

“Should we be expecting a warm welcome or. . .?” Yamato glanced at Naoya, clearly expecting imminent trouble.

“That’s the thing about trying to get in good with the Tokyo Towers,” Ichinose flashed a tight grin. “Every time you talk to them, it’s a gamble.”

Lights flashed at the end of the street, and the three turned in unison to the left. A pair of headlights drove down the street, slowly approaching. A long black limousine crawled up the street, moving at an ominous pace. All three men watched with anticipation as the vehicle rolled forward and came to a stop. The doors at the rear and middle of the vehicle opened, and four men climbed out.

All four men were dressed in black-on-black suits with opaque shades shielding their eyes. Though they had different heights, builds, and hairstyles, their demeanors were identically stoic. All four men stood, their hands clasped at their waists, and they eyed the trio with severe gazes from behind the tinted glasses they wore.

“Ichinose?” one of them, a man with dark, spiky hair slightly shorter than the other three bodyguards, addressed the group.

“That’s me,” Ichinose raised a hand, and Naoya felt the unseen eyes of the man in black shift to him.

“And you’re Nanbu?” the man in black asked.

“Right,” Naoya nodded, still not certain whom he was talking to, or why.

“Who’s the third?” asked one of the other bodyguards, a bald man who nodded in the direction of Yamato.

“Yamato Kenji, from the FAIR—,”

“He’s a friend of mine,” Naoya lied, interrupting Yamato’s practiced introduction. “He’s just here for moral to support.”

“Tell him to take a walk,” the first bodyguard said. “We’re only here for two.”

“He comes with us,” Naoya insisted. “He has a vested interest in this, too.”

All four guards remained silent for a moment, and then, the leader with the spiky black hair spoke up.

“Where we’re going, none of you might make it out alive,” the bodyguard informed Naoya. “Is your friend aware of that?”

Naoya looked towards Yamato, whose red eyes shined in the overcast light.

“I’ve danced with death a time or two,” the salesman assured them with a macabre smile.

“Yeah, I’m sure contract negotiations are cutthroat,” Naoya scoffed inwardly, but he didn’t voice his doubts.

“Very well,” the bodyguard ushered the trio towards the rear of the limousine. Ichinose reached the back first, but a tall bodyguard stopped him before he could climb into the car, and he motioned for him to spread his arms. Ichinose sighed and pulled his Augur out from his coat pocket before holding up his arms. The bodyguard quickly frisked Ichinose for weapons and forced him to empty his pockets and show him his pack of cigarettes before he was allowed to get in the car.

Naoya followed suit, keeping his Augur in the form of a pair of goggles while he held his arms up. He tried to ignore the uncomfortable feeling of the bodyguard’s hands groping his chest, arms, and legs, resisting the instinct to punch the other man invading his personal space. When the frisking was finally over, Naoya climbed into the limousine, while Yamato complained outside.

“Is this entirely necessa—ah!”

The inside of the limousine had genuine rich brown leather seats and scarlet carpet. The interior was open and spacious, with a second row of seats facing the rear where Naoya and Ichinose put themselves. Inside the back of the limo were four people, though one of them immediately seemed to stand apart from the others.

Two bodyguards sat at either end of the seats facing Naoya and Ichinose, and between them sat a man and a woman, or something that appeared to be a woman. Wearing a black gossamer off the shoulder dress whose hem reached her thighs, the woman had perfect brown skin and a head of stark white hair that was elegantly tied up. The woman didn’t even look up when the pair of men slipped into the seats across from her. Instead, she kept her knees gently pressed together, her legs slanted to her right, with her hands folded in her lap as she stared at the floor.

“An android?” Naoya wondered as he stared at the shapely, but entirely unresponsive female passenger. The effigy of femininity was certainly attractive, but she was too perfect, in some ways. Naoya had never seen a human being with more perfect skin, and her features had the slightest hint of exaggeration; her eyes were a little too large, her face, a little too small. It was the subtle things about her that made Naoya question just what he was looking at. The way she sat with perfect stillness made Naoya wonder whether or not the woman was a machine, or a flesh-and-blood human being that had received extensive modifications.

“Has my lady caught your eye?” spoke a man’s voice. Where Naoya would have expected those words to be voiced with jealousy, the speaker sounded curious instead.

Naoya looked to the last passenger in the vehicle, the man sitting to the left of the woman in the black dress. He was dressed in a suit the color of red wine with a pair of brown leather loafers, and he had an entirely relaxed demeanor, keeping his left leg crossed over his right with his fingers interlocked in his lap. The man had a headful of purple hair that was tied back in a loose ponytail and pale porcelain skin that was livelier than Yamato’s severe death mask. If he didn’t know better, Naoya almost would have thought that the man was a machine, too. His features were nearly as perfect as the woman sitting next to him, and the soft glow of his eyes and the metal studs in his temples spoke of inarguable cybernetics, but something about him seemed genuine in a way that Naoya found hard to put into words.

“She does anything I ask her to,” the man in red reached out with one hand and gently pressed a finger under the woman’s chin, raising her head. At his touch, the woman’s full lips spread into a beautiful smile and her eyes lit up with gladness, but as soon as the man released his hold, the woman’s smile immediately faded, and her head drifted towards the floor to resume its prior position.

“She never complains about my work, she always supports me, and she never spends my money,” the man in red flashed a handsome, but somehow mocking smile as he tenderly patted his companion on the knee. “Really, what more could a man ask for?”

“No offense, but I prefer the real thing,” Naoya couldn’t help but say what he felt. Ichinose jabbed him unsubtly in the ribs with an elbow, but he ignored it.

“I hear that often,” the man in red smiled confidently. “I once knew a man who refused to drink wine; he said that it was a poison that sabotaged the mind and eroded moral character. It took some time for me to convince him to savor a glass, but once he allowed himself that first drink, he found he had an appetite for alcohol he could never satisfy.”

“You sound like a good friend,” Naoya flashed a smile of his own, trying not to be overtly sarcastic. If the owner of the limousine felt insulted, he didn’t show it.

“Well, that was unpleasant,” Yamato slid into the seat to Naoya’s right and slipped off his glasses, polishing them furiously with a cloth pulled from pocket.

“And who is this?” the man in the red turned his eyes onto Ichinose, and his irises flashed white.

“He’s, uh—,”

“Yamato Kenji, representative of the FAIR Insurance Agency,” before Naoya could stop him, Yamato had replaced his glasses and withdrawn a business card from somewhere, which he obediently offered to their host with both hands.

“Amon,” the man with the purple hair plucked the card from Yamato’s hands with one hand, seeming not quite certain how to process the third man’s appearance.

“If I may ask, is your companion a ningyō?” Yamato asked, leaning forward to look at the woman. “It’s a Marionette model, isn’t it? What series if I might ask?”

“It’s a Venus series,” the man in red answered, his smile curious but uncertain.

“A stellar choice for a man of such expensive tastes,” Yamato nodded in appreciation, but he gave the brown-skinned android another look. “But, forgive me, that isn’t true, is it? This is clearly an Athena-series, isn’t it? Yes, it certainly is, and it makes all the sense in the world for a man such importance to have one. A ningyō that’s as gentle as kitten behind closed doors, and as fierce as a lioness when it comes to personal defense. A little of everything.”

“My, you certainly have quite the in-depth knowledge about the subject for an insurance salesman,” the man in red held up Yamato’s card with a look of amusement.

“I’ve worked in an eclectic series of fields,” Yamato assured him, adjusting his glasses with a self-assured smile. “While I was with Black Mountain, our subsidiaries at Marionette were still putting out the Testament series. Of course, the history of androids in Japan goes back long before the Downfall when rudimentary robots designed to emulate grandchildren and caretakers were marketed towards our aging population. After Yōgai-shima was founded, the demand for ningyō as emotional supports for broken families and single men exploded into an industry all its own. Still our critics claimed that the Venus and Aphrodite series were always what Black Mountain was aiming to produce.”

“You have a very strange choice in friends, Ichinose-san,” Amon tucked Yamato’s business card into his pocket.

“I wouldn’t exactly use that word,” Ichinose grumbled.

“Yakiyama,” Naoya spoke firmly and clearly, taking control of the conversation. “Do you know where he is?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Amon agreed. He raised a hand and made a silent gesture, and the guards outside the car closed the doors.

“Why don’t you go ahead and tell where that is, and we can get this over with?” Naoya heard the doors of the limousine’s other compartment closing, and through the glass window behind Amon’s head, he could see the remaining bodyguards clambering in.

“I could do that,” Amon agreed with a patient smile. “But the question is, what would I stand to gain from that?”

The car rumbled as the engine turned on, and the automobile began to pull away from the curb.

“Amon-san, where are we going?” Yamato asked.

“We’re going somewhere,” Amon answered, cryptically. “But our exact destination depends on you.”

“What is it that you want?” Naoya asked, directly.

“Yakiyama and I are, let’s say, having a bit of tiff,” Amon leaned back in his, folding his hands again. “Due to certain disagreements we’ve had in the past, he’s developed quite a vendetta against me. However, due to a set of shared allegiances, our friend Yakiyama is unable to attack me directly. For that reason, he’s decided on a course of action that’s as violent as it is roundabout. Namely, he’s opted to attack my associates.”

“Which means burning my fucking shop down,” Ichinose complained. “Don’t see how you couldn’t have stopped that.”

“Like I said,” Amon’s eyes turned a cool blue as he flashed his eyes towards Ichinose. “Yakiyama and I are bound by the same rules. I can’t strike him, and he can’t strike me. You and I may have done business in the past, but you aren’t under my umbrella. That made you a target.”

“Business?” Naoya glanced at Ichinose, who was too busy grumbling under his breath, then, Naoya looked towards Emon. “You’re the one who put up the bounty on Nishijima, aren’t you? That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

“Nishijima is old news in this city,” Amon didn’t deny the allegation so much as he brushed it aside. “That affair was just the inciting incident that Yakiyama needed to justify his temper tantrum, but this would have happened eventually, eventually. You can mark my words.”

“So, how do we enter the picture?” Naoya prompted Amon to continue.

“All of this is happening because Yakiyama is convinced that he lost out on a fortune with the way things resolved themselves,” Amon shook his head in disapproval. “He’s decided to recoup his losses by putting on a performance in the Ryūketsu.”

“What’s that?” Naoya asked.

“It’s a place of bloodsport far outside the eyes of civilians,” Amon seemed entertained by the question. “The rich and powerful come to watch men fight and die for the sake of entertainment, and fortunes are won and lost on every match. The high stakes games will also serve as means for Yakiyama to traffic the women he’s abducted; he’ll use them to sweeten the pot or pay off his other debts.

“However, the arena also serves as a rare opportunity for Yakiyama and I to come to blows, in a sense,” Amon shifted forward in his seat and fixed Naoya with a keen set of green eyes. “This is where you come in.”

“How?”

“From what my sources tell me, Yakiyama’s sent his lieutenants after you,” Amon planted his elbows on his knees and indented his fingers, giving Naoya an intense appraisal. “You survived both encounters. Most men couldn’t do that.”

“What are you asking me to do?” Naoya demanded, not liking the look in the other man’s eyes.

“I’m asking you to fight,” Amon spelled it out. “You defeated Sakai and Shōki; that means you’ve got real skill. Granted, neither of them was on Yakiyama’s level, but even so, you’ve got enough of a track record that I’m willing to take a gamble on you.”

“You want me to fight in the arena, then?” Naoya concluded and Amon nodded.

“Yakiyama already hates me, and because he blames you for depriving him of Nishijima, he hates you, too,” Amon settled back in his seat and Naoya noticed the light coming through the windows had dimmed, as though the limousine had entered a tunnel. “He thinks you and I conspired to fuck him over, and when he sees me enter the Ryūketsu and I put you into the cage as my prize fighter, he’ll be seeing red. After that, I’ll put a truly ludicrous wager on you, and Yakiyama will put his entire business up as collateral in order to challenge you himself.”

“And when I beat him, he loses everything,” Naoya realized what the other man’s plan was.

“I want you to do more than that, Nanbu-san,” Amon flashed a smile as handsome as it was threatening. “I want you to kill him.”