January 19th, 2044
2:47 PM
Sin Ward
Decadence District
Nanbu Naoya
“What’s your name?” a woman’s voice asked the question. “Can you remember that?”
He had to think about that for a few seconds, being not entirely sure who he was, or even where he was.
“Nanbu Naoya,” the name felt strange on his tongue, but after he’d spoken it, it sounded right, for the lack of a better word.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” the woman asking the question sounded familiar, although he couldn’t recall her name.
Naoya sat on the sidewalk in the middle of the pouring rain. His clothes were torn and burnt rags that hung loosely around his body, and he keenly felt the fury of the storm as the wind whipped at him, but somehow, his brain didn’t think that was important. Around him, five-to-ten story buildings crowded around him, most of them either having a red-brick laminate or they proudly revealed their naked concrete. Flashing neon signs and holographic advertisements flickered in the rain, all of them promising food, beer, and women.
Sirens wailed, and ambulances raced down the street, splashing rainwater in all directions, pursued by patrol cars and firetrucks. Over the rooftops of the building across from him, Naoya could see a massive black smoke cloud rising into the air out of the side of a dark pyramid. Looking at the dark billowing cloud, Naoya was reminded of something, but the memory vanished before it could take shape.
“I was somewhere dark,” Naoya offered the answer with a shrug.
“Where?” the woman asked immediately and Naoya shook his head.
A dull throb pounded in Naoya’s temples, and he reached up to rub the side of his head. He cast his thoughts backward, trying to retrace the day’s events to remember how he got here. The more he thought about it, the more his head hurt, but he was able to conjure a few images from his mind’s eye.
“It was the middle of the night, I think,” Naoya’s voice was strained, even to his own ears. “I remember seeing the full moon, and stars. There were tall buildings all around me. And then, there was fire.”
Orange flames flashed in his mind’s eye, and then blue fire danced. He saw a man falling through the air, and then, there was a brilliant flash of white flame. After that, he couldn’t remember anything, no matter how much he wracked his brain.
“It sounds to me like he has a concussion,” a man’s voice commented, though he kept his voice low, as though Naoya wasn’t intended to hear him.
Naoya looked up at the pair standing over him. Both of them were dressed in black, making them stand out from the rest of the street, and the look of them made Naoya feel a distinct apprehension, but he couldn’t explain why. The woman addressing him was short with ruddy skin and wild hair tied back into a loose ponytail. She was dressed in a skintight rider suit made of a glossy material underneath a cropped suit jacket with rolled back sleeves. In her hands, she held a pink Omen, which matched the color of her eyes. Despite her short stature and cute, girlish face, the woman kept her brows furrowed fiercely as she glanced between her digital assistant and Naoya.
Standing on her left was a man Naoya felt certain he’d never seen before. He was taller than his compatriot, but the way he hunched made him look smaller. The man had shoulder length black hair that was parted around a gaunt, pale face. The stranger’s unhealthy pallor and the pair of glasses perched on his nose reminded Naoya of someone else, but that thought managed to disappear, too. The awkward, furtive man in black was dressed in a dark suit, although it had the strangest additions: small metal studs ran across the shoulders, and a chain was looped around his left arm. He wore a pair of leather driving gloves with metal spikes across the knuckles. It seemed to Naoya that the bashful man was trying to dress as equal parts office worker and biker, which was an impossible combination to pull off.
“It’s not a concussion,” the woman explained, sounding resigned. “At least, not a normal one.”
The woman leaned over Naoya and held up her Omen, shining it towards his face. When Naoya reflexively turned his head away, the young woman cupped his chin and forced him to look into the light.
“Hold still,” she ordered, using a pair of fingers to hold his left eye open. There was a clicking sound as the Omen took a photo and the woman straightened.
“What do you mean?” the young man looked at Naoya with curiosity.
“Bloodshot eyes, confusion, loss of short-term memory,” the woman counted off symptoms with a matter-of-fact air. “All symptoms of brain swelling. Probably caused by a lapse into Exigency, which made his Adharma swell and put pressure on the rest of his brain.”
Listening to the pair, Naoya struggled to understand what they were talking about, and he reached up to rub his eye.
“An Adharma?” the young man blanched and took an involuntary step away. “You mean he’s. . . ?”
“Yeah,” the young woman folded her arms and frowned, looking down at Naoya with disappointment.
“So,” the man looked up and down the street with clear nervousness. “Does that mean we’ll have to—?”
“Not here,” his partner cut him off. “We can’t afford start a fight out here and risk him leveling half the city.”
The young woman leaned over again, planting her hands on her knees as she gave Naoya a firm look.
“You’re going to have to come with us,” the woman spoke slowly and clearly to make sure Naoya understood what she was saying.
“Where are we going?” Naoya asked and the woman stood back up again.
“We’ll just be going down to the Bureau Headquarters,” she explained, giving Naoya a soft smile. “We just need to have you get checked out, and answer a few more questions, and you’ll be free to go.”
Naoya knew that wasn’t true; some part of his brain understood what had been said about him by the pair of black-clad strangers, and another part understood who they were, but it was a shame that neither chunk of his grey matter was able to communicate properly. Unable to crystallize a justification to resist, Naoya placed a hand on the curb to begin trying to stand up, the Omen in the young woman’s hand rang and she looked down at the display. She stared at it for a moment, her brow furrowing in confusion, and then she reluctantly accepted the call.
“Who is this?” the young woman demanded testily as she raised the phone to her ear. The caller said something, and the woman in black lowered the phone to check the caller ID, before raising it back up again. “Why are you calling me at this number?”
“Who is it, Ayame-san?” the young man asked, quietly, but his inquiry earned him a stern look from his partner.
“Go take a walk,” the young woman, Ayame, placed to the phone against the lapel of her jacket as she brushed the young man off.
“What?” the young man blanched, unable to understand.
“Go take a walk!” the young woman repeated, motioning for him to go away. “Now!”
“Alright, alright,” the young man shrank back, glancing furtively at Ayame, and then Naoya, before finally turning his back. When the other man was far enough away, the brown-skinned young woman allowed an amused smile to cross her face as she raised the phone up again.
“Okay, what’s this all about?” Ayame asked, folding her left arm across her chest as she listened. Her eyes wandered around as the caller spoke words Naoya couldn’t hear, and then, her pink eyes fell on Naoya.
“Yeah, I see him,” the woman answered a question, curiosity written on her face. “Are you watching me right now?”
Ayame raised her eyes and looked around, craning her neck to search for street cameras.
“You want me to what?” Ayame laughed, partially out of surprise. “No way!”
Ayame sauntered away, still on the phone, putting her back to Naoya as she walked into the middle of the road.
“Do you have any idea what kind of damage this guy can do?” Ayame demanded of the caller as he looked up at the smoke cloud in the distance. “You think it’s a good idea to just let him wander around?”
There was another pause in the conversation as the caller said something Naoya couldn’t hear.
“You can’t be serious,” the young woman scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Look, there’s got to be a reason you want this guy on the streets. Spill it.”
The young woman’s coy smile soured as she was apparently given an answer she didn’t like.
“You really think I’m just going to do what you say and not ask any questions?” Ayame asked, and then, her smile slowly returned. “Oh really? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to bribe me.”
Ayame placed a hand on her hip, and stared into the middle distance for a moment, considering.
“No, I won’t do it,” the young woman rejected her caller’s offer. “No, it’s not that. Your bribe is just too cheap, that’s all. Make it two, and we have a deal.”
Another pause.
“Well, that’s my price. If you can’t afford it, that’s your problem.”
Ayame immediately hung up, but rather than try and apprehend Naoya, she remained standing in the street. She tossed her pink Omen into the air, letting it spiral end over end, and then caught it and tossed it again. After three rounds of playing catch, the phone rang again, and Ayame immediately answered.
“Who is it?” Ayame asked with mock sweetness. “Oh, really? It feels like we just spoke. No, no. I want three, now. My price just went up.”
The woman in back smiled broadly, savoring the power she held in the situation.
“Good,” the young woman nodded. “Have those on my desk by tomorrow.”
Ayame hung up again, and she promptly flicked her wrist, transforming her Omen into a pink smart-metal horned headband. She looked back towards Naoya and walked across the street in his direction, clearly pleased with herself.
“Alright, big guy,” the woman addressed him cheerily. “There’s been a change of plans.”
“What’s going on?” Naoya asked, struggling to think.
“You’re not coming with me to the HQ,” Ayame explained, once more talking slowly. “Instead, you’re going home.”
“Really?” Naoya knew that something was wrong with the situation, but he couldn’t explain why.
“That’s right,” the woman reached down and patted his head like he was a child. “Let’s get you up so you can be on your way, alright?”
Ayame reached down and took hold of Naoya’s left arm with both hands. With her help, Naoya was pulled to his feet, though Ayame was doing most of heavy lifting. Although she was a foot shorter than Naoya and likely weighed half as much, she was incredibly strong for her size. Naoya swayed a little from side to side when he was pulled to his feet, but after a few moments, he was able to remain steady.
“Let’s get going,” Ayame placed a hand in the center of Naoya’s back and pushed him forward and he stumbled for a few steps. He walked haltingly down the street, still dressed in his tattered rags. As he walked, his thoughts drifted in and out, and it was hard for him to measure the passage of time. After some time, he found himself standing at a bridge that crossed the southwestern border between Central and Sin Ward. Past the bridge, there were signs that marked a construction area and holographic barriers arranged around a recently patched section of the road. The sight of it made Naoya hesitate, but he couldn’t say why.
“This is as far as I go,” Ayame called out from over his shoulder, and Naoya turned to look at her. She was no longer standing behind him but was instead sitting on the back of a sleek motorcycle. He didn’t remember her getting onto the vehicle, but the sight of her perched on the back of the machine brought a memory to his mind.
He remembered seeing her sitting on that same bike. The rain fell around her, like the storm was scared to touch her. Then, he remembered what she was.
“An Inspector.”
“You go straight home from here, yeah?” the woman on the bike still spoke as though she was talking to an idiot, but Naoya’s sluggish thoughts began to race.
“Yeah, I can find my own way,” Naoya jerked a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing towards the bridge that would lead him over to Central.
“Good,” Ayame smiled, and seemed to recognize that Naoya’s faculties were returning. “And do me a favor, would ya?”
“What’s that?” Naoya asked, sensing a certain malice in the Inspector’s expression.
“Don’t let me catch you in Sin Ward ever again.”
“Or else?” Naoya challenged the statement, and the young woman chuckled.
“I’ll kill you.”
Naoya watched as the Inspector reached up to yank on her pink headband, which unfurled into a pink mask made to resemble an oni. The Inspector wheeled her bike around and sped off, her bike accelerating like a missile. In less than a second, she was just a black streak to Naoya’s eyes. When she disappeared from sight, Naoya looked back towards Central, a thought occurring to him.
“Where the hell is my bike?”
He searched through his tattered clothes and found his Augur, or a piece of it, wrapped around his ear. Whatever he’d been through had worn down Slate to little more than a nub of smart-metal, but it was enough for Naoya to do what he needed to do. Holding the tiny chunk of nanite in his hand, the piece of black metal shifted into a small stick which formed a projector from the tip.
“Locate bike,” Naoya gave a simple verbal command, and the Augur answered him with a digital map of the city. He saw himself represented as a red dot on the map, standing near the border between Central and Sin, and the Bridge-Runner pinged not far away at the Eastern Municipal Station.
“That’s right,” more recent memories came to life in Naoya’s mind. “I met Ichinose there.”
“Call bike,” Naoya gave another order and the Augur sprang into action. A few miles away, the Bridge-Runner came to life, and the machine began to pilot itself, leaving the station under the Augur’s direction. Naoya waited in the side of the street, looking down at his tattered clothes, feeling very cold, wet, and exposed. Whenever pedestrians walked by, or he caught a driver staring at him, Naoya responded with an awkward smile and a wave. The people of Sin Ward were no strangers to garish display, and most men and women simply scanned Naoya with a curious eye and then moved on, but Naoya felt the bite of embarrassment more keenly than the cold.
It took three minutes before the Bridge-Runner arrived. Naoya watched the bike round the corner at the end of the street with a flood of relief, and he hastily clambered onto the motorcycle and sped off, heading west into Central. The traffic across the city was still a chaotic flow thanks to Hurricane Izumi, and Naoya’s journey back home was slow going. He weaved in and out of traffic, using alleys and back roads to avoid not only traffic, but any Civil Police officers that might’ve taken exception to a man riding across town half-naked now that he was back in a more civilized region of the city.
When he finally reached the Dawn Spires, Naoya raced down the ramp that led into the underground garage and parked his bike. As he made the journey up the side of the building in the elevator, he was too distracted to take notice of the close confines of his surroundings. Instead, he was trapped in his own head, reliving the day’s events as best he was able.
He remembered this morning, meeting with Yamato and helping him defraud a landlord. The memory wasn’t at all comforting to recall; it made him sick to his stomach, in fact. He had more than enough to pay his rent, but his own ill-gotten gains did little to mollify his sense of guilt.
“What the hell kind of deal did I make to get myself into this mess?” Naoya reached up to his throat, unconsciously tracing a line across his neck with a finger and thumb.
After that, Naoya’s memories became more frantic and scattershot. He remembered leaving Yamato and going about his business, and then something happened. A phone call. Try as he might, Naoya couldn’t remember the words, but he felt himself tense up as he relived the sense of danger. A scratchy, rasping voice sneered at him through his Augur, and when the demonic voice laughed, it was accompanied by the sound of crackling flames.
From there, he remembered fighting a man with a pair of buildings engraved in his chest, though the memories made Naoya’s head hurt. From there, he raced across town to meet Ichinose, who sat in the ashes of his burnt down brothel. His memories only became further entangled and harder to piece together.
Visions of a city in the night appeared in his mind, tangled together with flashes of violence. He remembered being surrounded by men in bright colors and the sound of countless people roaring in his ears. Then, a small man wearing a city skyline on his arms lunged out from Naoya’s recall. After that, Naoya’s memories became nearly indiscernible.
The tumble of memories frustrated and confused Naoya, building a powerful pressure in his temples. A dull throb ran through Naoya’s skull as the doors of the elevator opened, and cracks broke through the hallway beyond. Walls of polished oak and floors of carpeted red broke apart, revealing gaps in the world. In those open fissures, Naoya witnessed shining particles leaking out from gaps in the floor and walls, while dark particles dripped down from holes in the ceiling.
Naoya blinked furiously, banishing the esoteric vision and returning the world to its whole and intact appearance. He strode down the halls to his apartment, and the door separating him from his refuge slid open to welcome him inside. Stepping inside, Naoya paused in the small hallway that led into living room. Closing the door behind him, Naoya leaned against the entryway and breathed out a deep, tired sigh. Being home, being safe, seemed to take away a strangling tension that Naoya wasn’t entirely aware he was carrying.
As he stepped into the living room, he tore at his tattered jacket and threw it down on the table in front of the two-seater couch before he collapsed into the third chair. He planted his elbows on his knees and slumped forward in his seat, his eyes turned downward towards the floor. He sat there for a moment, trying to corral his racing thoughts, but he found the effort more difficult than ever before. With each second, it became harder and harder to think of anything at all.
A chime rang out, a deep rumbling noise, and Naoya started awake. He sat up in his seat, remembering where he was. Searching for the source of the sound, Naoya patted down his tattered jacket and withdrew the rodlike remnants of his Augur. He held it up in front of his face and the projector turned on as the call came through.
“Nanbu-kun?” a familiar voice asked.
“Yamato-san,” Naoya rubbed his eyes with his free hand.
“Ah, it’s good to hear from you,” the salesman sounded genuinely relieved. “I’m sorry I had to abandon you, but things were getting quite hectic, and I needed to make myself scarce before the authorities. I assume you got out alright?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Naoya slumped back into the chair and sighed, wanting to fall back asleep. “I’m at home now.”
“That’s wonderful,” Yamato paused for a second, clearly considering something. “Tell me, though; did you happen to run into any Inspectors on your way out of Sin Ward?”
“A couple,” Naoya made an honest admittance.
“How did you get away from them, if I might ask?” the salesman’s voice was soft and trying too hard to conversational, but his keen interest was unmistakable.
“Oh, you know, I just smiled and nodded, and said yes sir, no sir, where appropriate,” Naoya supplied a glib response, but chose to give a more honest report. “It’s all kind of a blur. I just kind of remember running into them on the streets. They asked me a few questions, and then. . .,”
“And?” Yamato prompted him after Naoya lapsed into silence.
“I think they exiled me from the ward under penalty of death,” Naoya answered slowly, staring into space as he tried to digest the strange meeting. “Not sure if that’s legal.”
“Well, they say that the Bureau is a law unto itself,” Yamato chuckled. “It’s best that you count your lucky stars and avoid Sin Ward in the meantime.”
“Maybe,” Naoya agreed, and fell silent for a moment. Then, his tired mind stumbled onto an important thought, and a surge of adrenaline brought Naoya to his feet. “What about Sakura!? Where is she? Is she alright!?”
“Nanbu-kun, please calm down,” Yamato’s voice was muffled, telling Naoya he’d pulled the phone away from his face. “Don’t worry, don’t worry. Sakura-chan is safe. I managed to find her amongst all the chaos down in the Ryūketsu.”
“Where is she?” Naoya breathed out a sigh of relief. “Did they hurt her?”
“No, no,” Yamato insisted. “She’s absolutely fine. A bit rattled, though, but I sent her home. She just needs time, that’s all.”
“Shouldn’t we contact the police now?” Nanbu asked, perturbed by the salesman’s desire to simply smooth the issue over. “I should come down to the office, and you can call the Civil Services. That way I can make a statement—”
“Nanbu-kun, please!” Yamato ushered the other man into silence. “It’s all over now. Involving the police at this point would be a bit redundant now, wouldn’t it?”
“But—!”
“Besides, Nanbu-kun,” Yamato spoke over Naoya’s objections. “The Civil Police are a little bit busy with everything happening in Sin Ward. You made quite a mess if you remember.”
“Wait, I did?” Naoya asked, confused by the accusation.
He didn’t wait for Yamato to go on; instead, he gestured towards the monitor that hung over the living room wall, and the Augur interpreted his desire, turning the display on. Using the holographic controls on his Augur, Naoya cycled through different channels until he hit the local news. His eyes went wide as he looked at an aerial view of Sin Ward.
Hurricane Izumi continued to pound down on the city, which made the image of Yōgai-shima’s entertainment district blurry as the camera was wracked with wind and rain. However, Naoya was still able to make out a dozen different landmarks through the storm. On the upper left side of the screen, Naoya could make out Temptation and the gaudy towers of Gambler’s Row forever dominated by the unmistakable silhouette of Tsukuyomi. On the lower right were the smaller, humbler buildings of Ambition and the eastern roads that lead to the White-Mountain Sanzu. It was Decadence Ward in center of the screen, however, that was the focal point of the newscast.
On the southeastern side of Decadence, sharing a border with Ambition District and Foundation Ward, was a large, sheltered structure shaped like a pyramid of the old world, but instead of stone, the sharp architecture was formed of sleek, black metal. The structure was large enough to engulf several city blocks, being among the largest of the biodomes that were dotted across the district. In his trips across the city, Naoya had likely seen the bizarre obelisk a hundred times and never paid it any mind but today was different: a smoking hole was burned in the side of the pyramid.
The bore in the sloping side of the building was ringed with the molten orange glow of melted metal while black smoke was belted into the sky. That, however, was the least of the damage. As the camera’s focus went in and out, Naoya was able to spot cracks running through the building from top to bottom, spiderwebbing through the metal surface. Chunks of the roof had fallen inward, and the walls looked as though they were ready to collapse. Outside of the pyramid, the destruction was even worse.
The concrete roads outside the building looked like they’d been chewed up and turned to gravel, creating rivers of jagged cement shards that surrounded the pyramid. Around the pyramid in all directions, several blocks of the city had been reduced to slag, leaving only heaps of concrete and metal to testify that apartments and businesses had once stood there. Among the devastation, flashing red and white lights could be seen from the aerial view as Civil Services swarmed the scene of the catastrophe, and holographic barriers were being set up to cordon off the scene.
“For right now, it seems like Civil’s put the onus of everything that happened today on the Towers,” Yamato evaluated the situation with complete neutrality. “Still, I think it’s best that you avoid the office for the mean time. The less you’re seen around the FAIR Office, the better.”
Naoya didn’t say anything, but he simply stared at the screen displaying the devastation.
“Nanbu-kun?” Yamato called out, but Naoya didn’t answer. “Can you hear me?”
Naoya hung up the call, turning his attention entirely over to the news broadcast.
“I can’t have done this,” Naoya whispered to himself, as he stared at the scene with wide, horrified eyes. “It can’t be me.”
“I was down in Ambition when it happened,” the news switched to a ground level camera, which showed a reporter holding up a microphone to a young man dressed in a heavy puffy blue coat and an orange knit cap. “Everything was totally normal; I mean, there wasn’t even a hint that something weird was about to happen.”
The man turned and gestured towards the skyline behind him, where the peak of the pyramid poked up.
“Then, there was this bright flash,” the man shook his head, still clearly shocked at the recall. “After that, the whole city seemed to turn black. I almost thought that a bomb had gone off, and I’d been blinded by the flash. It was crazy.”
“And after that, there was the earthquake, correct?” asked the female reporter and the man nodded vigorously.
“The ground just started shaking,” the man agreed. “I was still half-blind at the time, and I was rubbing my eyes like crazy, trying to get my vision back. I tell you, it was like 2042 all over again. I thought half of the city was about to fall into the ocean.”
Naoya kept his eyes on the screen, watching as the broadcast went on. The camera switched to the studio, showing a pair of news anchors talking amongst themselves, as well as occasional cuts to reporters out in the city. Seeing they had no immediate information, Naoya tuned out their conversation and kept his eyes fixed on the line of text scrolling across the bottom of the screen.
“Explosion in Sin Ward linked to criminal activity; situation still developing.”
“Fiery conflagration broke through the roof of Biosphere #3, AKA, the ‘“Kurodaiya’ at 2:39 PM.”
“Data analysis places the flames in hundreds of thousands of degrees.”
“Correspondence from the Cabinet credits the Karmic Barrier system’s activation as being instrumental in protecting the city from severe damage; analysts claim that without the barrier system damage would have been ‘catastrophic.’”
“The Human Calamity Response Bureau has issued an Emergency Alert throughout eastern Decadence and Ambition Districts; involvement of Human Calamities has not been confirmed.”
“No casualties reported from Civil Services. Authorities credit Emergency Alert broadcast ten minutes before the explosion for preventing deaths.”
“8.2 earthquake registered in Ambition District, lasting approximately five seconds, causing moderate damage to Biosphere #03 and its surroundings.”
“Aftershocks are expected.”
The last three words stuck in Naoya’s mind as the image on the screen returned to the shot of the Kurodaiya laying in ruins. He stared at the destruction as he tried to rationalize his own involvement, but there was no getting away from it. He’d helped to tear down a chunk of the city, and he’d done it in seconds.
“What was it all for?”
The question reminded Naoya of another party in the affair he’d overlooked until now, and he glanced down at his phone again.
“Dial Ichinose,” Naoya ordered with a certain sense of reluctance. The phone rang three times before it picked up.
“Well, well, look who it is,” the former soapland owner answered with no small amount of disdain. “If it ain’t the walking disaster that left me high and dry in the thick of things. Where the hell did you go?”
“I’m at home now,” Naoya admitted, feeling a certain sense of guilt that the other man had been abandoned, but he tried to quash the sentiment. “Where are you?”
“Where am I?’ Ichinose demanded, clearly affronted. “‘Where am I,’ he asks? I’m still in the thick of this shit. Boy, you and that snake oil salesman buddy of yours really bugged out quick.”
“Are you alright?” Naoya asked, feeling a small concern. “Do you need help?”
“Oh no, don’t worry about me, your highness,” Ichinose bit back bitterly. “Don’t bother reaching out to help me. Besides, I’m not sure I want your help; I always knew you were a freak, Nanbu-kun, but you’ve gone beyond the pale.”
“Should I even bother reminding you that I’m knee deep in this because of you?” Naoya shot back, his sympathy vanishing like a raindrop in a desert.
“And how’d that work out for me? Ichinose scoffed.
“What about your soapgirls?” Naoya demanded, turning his attention to the true victims in the situation. “Did you get them out?”
“Oh, they got out alright,” the former manager chuckled, ruefully. “Once the two of you really got into the thick of, everyone started running for the nearest shelters. No one was paying any attention to half a dozen bath attendants caught in the mix. The girls took off the moment they could get away.”
“So, they’re out, then? I guess that means you can reopen your shop, now,” Naoya tried to see that as a victory, but it was a struggle.
“Not a chance in hell of that happening,” Ichinose sighed.
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t exactly have any property to run my business out of. Besides, the girls weren’t exactly happy to see me.”
“Oh, I can’t imagine why,” Naoya struggled to stop from smiling.
“Oh, don’t you start with me, delivery boy!” Ichinose snapped, never one to enjoy being the subject of ridicule. “How was I supposed to know that all this shit was gonna turn out this way? It’s not like I planned on them getting kidnapped!”
“Maybe there’s a lesson in all this,” Naoya wondered aloud, his smile broadening.
“Yeah, and that lesson is not to trust you with anything halfway important,” Ichinose sneered from the other end of the line.
“I was thinking more along the lines of ‘respect for other people,’ and ‘being honest,’ myself,” Naoya mused.
“Being honest? That’s what you think the lesson is about?” Ichinose demanded, growing audibly more irritated with each second. “I tried being honest with the girls, Nanbu, and guess what it got me: a slap across the face.”
“Ouch,” Naoya chuckled. “What did you tell them?”
“The truth, Mr. Honesty!” Ichinose snapped. “I told them that it was all your fault, and they got upset! Can you believe that? They like you more than me! After everything I’ve done for them.”
“There’s no accounting for taste, I guess,” Naoya mused.
“How do you do it?” the soapland manager descended into a tirade of pure envy. “How does someone like you have any friends? It’s because you’re tall, isn’t it? I tell you, tall people like you have it so easy—.”
Naoya tapped the face of the Augur with his thumb and ended the call with a dull beep.
“Block Ichinose,” Naoya gave the order and he tossed the Augur onto the table and settled back in his seat. His eyes returned to the news broadcast, which replayed footage from the moment Yakiyama launched his final attack. A street camera captured a pillar of white flame that shot through the roof of the Kurodaiya and surged into the sky, bursting through the cloud layer above as if the Earth had launched a reprisal for the thousands of lightning bolts it had endured for eons. At the exact moment the flame appeared, the city turned as black as night. Every single building and street was as dark as pitch, as though the entire metropolis was sculpted from shadow. The umbral mirage vanished as quickly as it had appeared, fading away with the flash of the brilliant flame.
Naoya scanned the footage with his eyes, trying to find himself in the video as he fell back towards the ground. He remembered the fall: he plunged down from the heavens after Yakiyama’s final attack launched him into the storm. Perhaps fortunately, there was still far too much smoke and ash being belted into the air from the fiery orifice in the side of the pyramid for Naoya to be seen dropping back into the structure. After a few moments of watching the burning building, the camera began to shake as the earthquake began.
Naoya settled back in his seat, tormented by a thousand different feelings. He was anxious, glad, and regretful, and relieved all at once. Trying to process everything was difficult.
The girls were safe. Sakura was home, and Ichinose’s ladies had finally kicked him to the curb. Naoya tried to let that stand as a decisive conclusion, but he couldn’t help but feel like something was still unresolved, and it didn’t take much effort for him to pinpoint the cause of his anxiety. Yakiyama.
The last he could recall of the lean, brutal gangster, Yakiyama was still alive. One arm was missing, and the rest of his body was bent and broken, but he was alive, and that was what worried Naoya. Yakiyama had already shown that he was willing to go to any length to get back at his enemies. What would he do next?
If it came to it, Naoya would fight him again, but earnest desire for the fight had vanished, and an internal voice reminded him that people could die if another battle broke out between them. It had taken only three seconds for him to lose control, and there was no telling how many people had been affected. People could already be dead because of him, and that thought turned his stomach.
“If I hurt someone, what do I do about it?” Naoya wondered, looking into himself. “Do I turn myself in? That would be the right thing to do, wouldn’t it? But what would happen to me? Would I go to jail? Would I get a trial? Is there a prison for Human Calamities somewhere? I’ve never heard of one. Even if I wanted to stand trial, I don’t think Suzume would ever allow that.”
He thought of Suzume, who was likely somewhere else in Central at this time of day, pursuing the Bureau’s esoteric mission. Was she watching the broadcast of the earthquake from her office? What was she thinking?
“She knows,” the accusatory thought wormed its way back into his head and he remembered the talismans that she often plied him with.
“Don’t let me catch you in Sin Ward ever again.”
“Or else?”
“I’ll kill you.”
Naoya considered those words and the dangerous look in the Inspector’s eye when she gave him that warning.
“She knows, too,” Naoya understood, now, the significance of that exchange. “But if she knew I’m a Human Calamity, why let me go?”
Naoya leaned back in his chair, settling into his seat as he closed his eyes.
“There’s so many questions I can’t answer,” Naoya admitted to himself. “I’ll have to ask Suzume when she gets home. She has to know something. Just as soon as she gets home.”
Naoya raised his hand to stifle a yawn and no sooner than he laid it down again, than he fell asleep.
Dossier
01010101 01101110 01100001 01100010 01101100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110100 01110010 01101001 01100101 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101001 01101100 01100101
Subject Name: ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■ (三菱 満)
Subject Status: Human Calamity (Unknown)
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Subject is considered a high-priority target marked for immediate elimination. The risk of collateral damage should the target be allowed to roam free cannot be understated. An Inspector should not attempt to apprehend the subject singlehandedly and should monitor the target from a safe distance until reinforcements arrive. Elimination should be handled by no less than three Senior Inspectors in the field.
01000001 01101110 01101111 01101101 01100001 01101100 01101111 01110101 01110011 00100000 01100100 01100001 01110100 01100001 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110100 01100101 01100011 01110100 01100101 01100100
■■■■■■■■■■ should be eliminated at the earliest opportunity. The 01100011 01100001 01110000 01110100 01100001 01101001 01101110 must be exterminated obeyed as a threat to Yōgai-shima superior officer.
Crisis Abilities
Tremor-Type Emergency, “Fracture”
■■■■■■■■■■ possesses the ability to break apart matter on the molecular level. The energy released through his Crisis manifests as golden light which further breaks the targeted object apart. There is no known alloy on Earth capable of resisting the influence of Fracture, regardless of its material strength. However, Fracture is only able to work through solid objects, or tightly packed sediment, soil, and sand, but liquids and vapors cannot be affected by this ability.
Karma Visualization
■■■■■■■■■■ perceives the flow of Hazard Energy through a series of fissures and cracks in the world around him. Through gaps in solid objects and persons, ■■■■■■■■■■ can see the polarity of their Karma and evaluate their Account.
Parameters
Exigency: 10
■■■■■■■■■■ possesses the uttermost power that a Human Calamity can ever attain to. No conventional weapon devised by mankind is capable of harming him, and the power he wields in Exigency is a threat to the world in and of itself. The upper limits possessed of such a being are unknown and the rank of 10 assigned to him is equal parts an acknowledgment of his power as it is given to represent that he’s beyond the ability of the Bureau to fully categorize.
Runaway: 10
■■■■■■■■■■’s body continuously absorbs Hazard Energy for as long as he maintains Exigency, causing his power to rapidly escalate and multiply. There is no known upper limit to his Runaway and the excess energy drawn into his body bleeds away at an exceedingly slow rate between uses of Exigency.
Forecasting: 5
■■■■■■■■■■ can see Hazard Energy and its polarities, but he has little ability to sense the motion of Karma and predict future events.
Account: 300%
■■■■■■■■■■’s body contains a large amount of Hazard Energy, beyond the minimum threshold of a Senior Inspector.
Precision: 5
The ability of the Human Disaster to control his Crisis Ability
Karma: 1
The subject possesses an overwhelmingly Negative Karma which constantly leaks out of his body.
Soon, the World Will End 