January 19th, 2044
2:47 PM
Sin Ward
Decadence District
Nanbu Naoya
Before Naoya opened his eyes, before he even realized that he was awake, he felt the rumbling. The world shook and heaved violently beneath Naoya, filling his ears with the clamor of the earth tearing apart. The violent tremors flowed through him, rattling his bones together with furious force. As the shaking continued, Naoya felt a heavy pressure settle on his chest, as though an invisible hand was pressing down on him and he woke, thrust back into conscious reality by imaginary fear.
“You have to be shitting me!” a distant voice complained, but Naoya paid it no heed.
He took a deep breath as he came to and sat up, finding himself sitting on a slab of concrete sidewalk. Pain flared in his skull; a dull pain that pulsed in rhythm with his heart. Placing a hand to his chest to calm the fury in his breast, Naoya panted as he looked around, trying to get his bearings.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, Nanbu-kun,” a familiar voice greeted him from his left and Naoya struggled to blink the fog from his eyes to see who was talking to him.
When his vision finally cleared, he realized he was sitting on a curb somewhere in Sin Ward. Around him, five to eight story buildings crowded in every direction, all of them covered in a variety of garish flashing signs preventing him from seeing anything beyond his immediate surroundings. The restaurants stores and shops around him ran the gamut of bare plain concrete walls, weathered white chipped plaster, or brick laminate coatings.
Fractures as thin as hairs spread across the two-lane road and up the sides of buildings, some of them so fine that the breakages couldn’t be seen unless Naoya forced his bleary eyes to focus. The web of fractures spread across cement sidewalks, the asphalt paved road, and through the metal streetlights, and the world seemed poised to break apart at the slightest touch. Already, the rain and wind were flaking small pieces away from the fractured span of the city, carrying chips of paint and laminate down into the flooded street where they were soon sucked into storm drains.
Tracing the small lines running through the road around him, Naoya followed their course back up the street, as if they were ripples spreading from a distant epicenter, but Naoya could not see their source as the fractures disappeared behind the row of buildings. Luminescent signs flashed and blinked in the windows, flickering through the constant veil of falling reign.
“And what are we supposed to do?” an argument continued somewhere off to Naoya’s right, but he looked in the other direction, beckoned by the nearer voice.
To his left, Naoya saw two figures: one of them was a young woman with long dark hair dressed in a violet qipao who lay on the concrete. Her glasses were gone and her face was unhealthily pale and her breathing was shallow. Leaning over her was a dark shadow with shining eyes, like the very specter of Death himself. A surge of alarm passed through Naoya, but any fear of the wraith was overshadowed by concern for the young woman when he spotted a trail of blood leaking onto the concrete from the back of her head.
“Sakura-chan!” Naoya crawled towards the young woman. “Is she—?”
Naoya’s words came out of his throat in a coarse croak, and he clutched at his neck with his left hand. His fingers found inflamed skin across his windpipe, a discovery that served to explain why his throat burned, though he had no idea where the contusion had come from. The pain in his neck forced Naoya to pause and he struggled to form words; even the act of breathing was agony.
“Alive?” the shadow finished Naoya’s question for him. “Yes, she’s alive, though a little worse for wear.”
The dark figure seemed to take on form and Naoya realized that it was Yamato, dressed in his black suit with the lower half of his face hidden behind his mask. In the dreary light Yamato’s crystalline glasses shined, reflecting the stormy sky above. The insurance salesman seemed just the same as the last time Naoya had seen him; the chaos and the rain hadn’t so much as diluted the pomade in his hair. The same couldn’t be said for Sakura, whom Yamato crouched over, pressing a blood-soaked cloth to the side of her head while he sheltered her from the downpour with his body.
“What happened?” Naoya asked, hoarsely, staring down at the young woman’s face.
“Well, you and Yakiyama really went beyond the pale back in the diamond,” Yamato sighed, glancing up at Naoya before returning his attention to Sakura. “Once the two of you started bringing the whole city down, the ‘main course’ proved to be a little too much for the customers to finish.”
Yamato looked at Naoya and allowed himself a small smile, fancying that he said something witty, but Naoya didn’t return the look and Yamato’s grin quickly faded.
“Parts of the city began to crumble, and half of the Ryūketsu abandoned ship and left their shelters. I think Sakura-chan got hit with some debris as it fell. She’s lucky she’s so hard-headed; most people wouldn’t survive getting something like this. Fortunately, I was able to find her not long after I found you.”
“You brought me here?” Naoya gave the lean salesman a skeptical look, but Yamato simply flashed another smile.
“It wasn’t easy dragging you out of there,” Yamato’s observation came with a pointed intonation that suggested he was expecting some gratitude. “There was fire everywhere and buildings collapsing; it was like the Downfall all over again. By the time I arrived, Yakiyama was already gone. I suspect that one of his own cronies must have dragged him to safety, otherwise, he’d have killed you.”
Naoya tried to mull over what Yamato said; a small voice at the back of his head told him that Yamato’s summary only invited more questions, but he had trouble wrapping his mind around them. His thoughts were slow and hard to hold onto for a few seconds while the throbbing in his temples persisted, so he chose to focus on the most important thing in the moment and that was Sakura.
“We need to get her to a hospital,” Naoya couldn’t take his eyes away from the blood piece of cloth pressed against the young woman’s head. Despite Yamato’s best efforts, a small stream of blood trickled from behind Sakura’s head which mixed with the rainwater and flowed down the sidewalk into the street.
“I’m afraid we’ll have little luck on that front,” Yamato raised his head, looking down the street. “The Civil Services are all going to be converging on the diamond, first and foremost. They’ll be too busy with that to send an ambulance our way.”
“Then we need to take her to them,” Naoya countered, not willing to sit on his hands.
“That’s not going to happen,” Yamato shot that idea down. “The area’s going to be crawling with Inspectors, too. The little show you and Yakiyama put on was too big for them to ignore, I’d imagine. Going back there would be a death sentence.”
“We can’t sit and wait for someone else to save her!” Naoya protested, though a jolt of pain flashed through his throat.
“Don’t worry about Sakura-chan,” Yamato flashed a knowing smile. “I have an old family remedy that will help her.”
“You have an old family poultice that can alleviate traumatic head wounds?” Naoya couldn’t hide his disbelief, but Yamato continued to smile.
“Of course I do,” Yamato agreed. “All I need is a quiet little space to work my magic. Once we’re out of here, I’ll take care of Sakura-chan, don’t you worry.”
“And how exactly are we going to do that?”
“Ichinose-san is hoping he can convince Amon to send us a vehicle,” Yamato nodded past Naoya and Naoya followed his motion, looking to his right. Standing in the middle of the abandoned street was Ichinose, still dressed in his overlarge raincoat, gesturing with animated fury while he pressed an Augur to his ear, his every action being watched by the dozen or so soapgirls that huddled beneath awnings to shelter themselves from the rain.
All of the women were wearing red cocktail dresses after the décor of the Ryūketsu, and each dress showed ample cleavage and had short hems which were hardly practical for the cruel weather they’d been thrust into. The assortment of women were of different ages, heights, skin colors, and weights with just as many different haircuts and style. However, they all stared at their former manager with a universal contempt.
“I thought you two were with Amon?” Naoya turned to look back at Yamato.
“We were,” Yamato scowled. “But once the battle grew too hectic and the other patrons started abandoning their shelters, Amon decided it was time to step out. I was busy looking for Sakura-chan and Ichinose went to look for his girls. By the time we found them, Amon had brushed us off like dirt on his sleeve.”
“Come on, you can’t do this to me!” Ichinose distantly whined in a voice that Naoya recognized as a tone of desperation; he’d heard it often enough.
He listened to Ichinose continue to beg and plead powerlessly from down the street and Naoya could only consider it a small miracle that Amon hadn’t hung up yet. It was clear though that divine providence wasn’t going to extend any further; there was nothing Ichinose could say to make the gangster change his mind. Whether Ichinose had realized it or not, he continued to beg and plead, while blood continued to trickle from Sakura’s dark hair and down into the street.
“You need to do something, Naoya,” he told himself, unable to take his eyes away from the unconscious girl. “You need to fix this.”
Still rubbing his tender throat, Naoya forced himself to his feet. He reached into himself, calling out the monster’s power and he felt the cold of the wind and rain pass away. The pain in Naoya’s throat disappeared in an instant as power seemed to flow through him. As he stepped forward, Naoya felt that dull throb in his brain flare and pain tore through his skull. He grimaced but pushed through the unpleasant sensation.
“Listen to me, just listen!” Ichinose implored, ignorant of Naoya’s approach. “I can—!”
“Give me the phone,” Naoya interrupted. Ichinose had only a moment to turn and look in Naoya’s direction before the larger man pried the Augur from his hand.
“What the fuck asshole?” Ichinose swore, but he kept his voice so low that it was nearly a whisper, as if fear was greater than his outrage. Ignoring Ichinose, Naoya raised the phone to his ear, but he spoke in a stranger’s voice.
“Amon, this is Nanbu,” Naoya asked, his tone severe and words clipped. “We need a vehicle.”
“Ah, Nanbu-san,” Amon put on a tone of forced cheer which scarcely hid mounting frustration. “As I’ve been telling Ichinose, I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
“You’re reneging on our deal?” Naoya asked, a sharp edge to his voice.
“Reneging? Me?” Amon sneered, his false joviality vanishing in a heartbeat. “I asked you to kill Yakiyama, and you couldn’t even get that right! Instead, you tore down half of Kurodaiya!”
“Yakiyama was willing to burn the whole island down to kill me, and I needed to use a level of force commensurate with the threat he posed to deal with him,” Naoya defended his actions with a stern, clinical tone foreign to him. “Nevertheless, Yakiyama is crippled and his own ineptitude has destroyed his powerbase. You’ve gotten everything you wanted: Yakiyama is out of the picture, humiliated by your hand, and his remaining territory is up for grabs if you’ve got the capital to invest in taking it.
“Honestly, this situation couldn’t have turned out better for you,” Naoya went on. “You said yourself that your organization kept the two of you from killing each other. If I had killed Yakiyama on your orders, you’d undoubtedly get no small amount of scrutiny from your superiors whether or not it was a death match he’d agreed to. With the way things played out, though, Yakiyama put his self-destructive tendencies on full display, putting his own drives ahead of good business. The fact that he’s alive means that he’ll be the one made to answer for letting things get out of hand, not you.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you planned things out this way?” Amon laughed, mockingly. “Forgive me, but I don’t see you as a strategist.”
“Think whatever you like of me,” Naoya returned without skipping a beat. “The situation is what it is. The fact that you’re running away from a winning hand with your tail between your legs tells me a great deal about you.”
“What did you just say to me?” Amon seemed a little stupefied that anyone talked to him that way, but Naoya pressed forward; he wasn’t about to treat Amon any kinder than he had Yakiyama.
“I thought you came here today to gamble, Amon, but you’re leaving the table when the odds are in your favor,” Naoya observed with a cool tone that somehow reminded him of Suzume. “It takes balls to place a real wager, Amon, and I’m beginning to think you don’t have any. Maybe Yakiyama had your measure in that regard.”
“You think you can call me up and insult me?” Amon demanded, his voice filled with quiet fury.
“From where I’m standing, it’s the truth,” Naoya assured him with quiet conviction. “And I’ll tell you something else: this conversation ends in only one of two ways: we remain friends, or we become enemies. Either you send a car and get Ichinose and Yamato out of here or I do to you what I did to Yakiyama.”
“You’re no one,” Amon reminded him, his tone incredulous. “You’re a delivery boy out of Central. You’re nothing. You can’t threaten me.”
“I’m a nobody that just destroyed Yakiyama,” Naoya reminded him. “Cross me, and I won’t have any reason not to do the same to you.”
“The Inspectors will deal with you, Nanbu,” the gangster scoffed over the line, but Naoya sensed uncertainty. “You’re odds of living through the day plunged the moment Yakiyama let the fight spill out of the diamond. You won’t live to hurt me.”
“We’ve already established that you’re not a betting man,” despite the warning, Naoya remained unflappable. “Are you really willing to risk everything you own on the off chance that you’re wrong when giving me what I want is so much simpler? I just need to have Ichinose, Yamato, and the girls picked up. Give me that and we shake hands and walk away.”
“There’ll be a dozen checkpoints out of Sin Ward after what you and Yakiyama did,” Amon protested. “If the Bureau catches you in one of my vehicles, I’m the one getting hit for trafficking Human Calamities.”
“You aren’t listening,” Naoya cut in. “Only Ichinose, Yamato, and the girls are getting picked up. I can handle myself.”
“You think you can just slip through the Bureau’s dragnet on foot?” Amon challenged over the phone, a sadistic mirth evident in his voice. “You really are a fool.”
“You leave betting to the men who have the stomach for it,” Naoya reprimanded the gangster. “Just get me a car.”
“Alright, Nanbu, alright,” Amon agreed, though his words carried a venom. “You’ll get your car. You get your ass down to Ambition and make for the docks on the east side of Rakuen. The car will be there in ten minutes.”
“Thank you,” Naoya gave his gratitude facetiously. “Was that so hard?”
“You’ve got what you want, Nanbu,” Amon went on. “But after today, I don’t—.”
“Don’t say another word, Amon,” Nanbu interrupted him and held the phone away from his ear. “We’re ending this as friends, remember?”
Naoya got the last word and ended the call with the tap of his thumb. He looked up at Ichinose, who’d been listening to the conversation, and the small man’s face was completely pale and his eyes were wide with shock. It took him several seconds to find words, but when he did, he expressed himself in his usual way.
“You have got to be the stupidest most idiotic dipshit I’ve ever met,” Ichinose pressed his hands to the side of his head, trying to fight a stress migraine. “Who the fuck do you think you are talking to a guy like Amon like that?”
“Relax,” Naoya growled, using an underhanded toss to send the Augur back to its owner. “I got us a ride, didn’t I?”
“I was handling it!” Ichinose caught the phone against his chest, outrage evident in his voice.
“You were drowning,” Naoya shot back, reaching up to cradle his own pounding head.
“I would’ve gotten us the fucking car!” Ichinose insisted, his voice shrill with anger. “I had everything under control until you swaggered in like you own the place! Now, you’ve burned the last big player I had in my corner and I’ve got nothing!”
“You got the girls back,” Naoya looked over Ichinose to the group of women waiting at the edge of the street. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“The girls are just the product,” Ichinose snapped, fumbling in his pockets for a smoke to calm himself down, heedless of the rain. “They aren’t the business. Amon is the business. Everyone who wants to make it big in this town needs to go through him, and that goes double now that Yakiyama is out of the picture. Amon’s star is rising, Nanbu, and half of that’s thanks to you.
“I could have been hitched to that star,” Ichinose tapped his chest with frenzied anger. “I could have been on the up, Nanbu! You know how hard it is to stay afloat on this side of town working freelance? Every single street tough up and down Sin is looking to shake down guys like me. If I had Kabuki in my corner, I wouldn’t just have protection: I’d be in the big leagues! That’s how today was supposed to end! Instead, you’ve swaggered in and bungled every fucking thing up again!”
“Everything that has happened today was because of you,” anger flashed in Naoya’s mind and he stepped forward and he shoved Ichinose to the ground with one hand, sending the smaller man splashing into the rain-slicked road. Ichinose tried to rise but Naoya held out an accusatory finger in his direction and the soapland manager froze as if he was pinned in place.
“Nishijima, the Towers, and all the bullshit that happened after is because of you,” Nanbu felt his head pound with renewed fury and small cracks appeared in the world as the monster inside pushed at the bars of its mental prison. “You’re a fucking leech, Ichinose. You exploit your girls, you exploit your customers, you suck the life out of everyone you meet and don’t give a single fucking thing back. You can’t earn your own money, you can’t fight your own battles, and you can’t do a single thing for yourself.”
“I think that’s enough, gentlemen,” Yamato cut in, casting a tall disquieting shadow over the pair as he intruded on the conversation. In his arms, the lean man held the unconscious Sakura, cradling her with ease despite his slender appearance. “It’s past time we got moving.”
Naoya opened his mouth to argue, but a distant sound caught his attention. The whine of a siren sounded out over the tops of the buildings around them and echoed between the tight walls. The piercing wail was far away, but moving steadily closer, auguring new arrivals to the scene of the disaster.
“It could be EMTs,” Naoya offered, still thinking of Sakura.
“It could be the cops,” Ichinose bitterly countered as he picked himself up.
“Or the Bureau,” Yamato finished, his crystalline glasses flashing in the light of a thunderbolt overhead. “Whatever the case may be, I find it preferable to stay one step ahead of the first responders.”
“Right,” Naoya exchanged glowers with Ichinose and then looked to the group of women still watching them who were struggling to stay dry and warm. “Let’s get out of here.”
Ichinose spent a few moments hopelessly brushing water from his drenched clothing and gave Naoya a disdainful side-eye before he turned around to face the women behind him.
“Alright ladies,” Ichinose waved a hand towards them. “Let’s move those cheeks. We’re getting out of here.”
“Can’t the car pick us up here?” asked one of the girls who had a dark bob. “I really don’t want to walk in these heels.”
“No, it can’t,” Ichinose snapped as though he was talking to a disobedient child. “You don’t like the heels? Ditch ‘em.”
“And walk through the rain barefoot?” Another woman with braided hair and a red cocktail dress scoffed.
“We haven’t got time for your bitching ladies,” Ichinose grumbled and waved a hand through the air in front of his face. “Either you get moving, or you get left behind.”
Naoya didn’t risk waiting any longer, feeling that Sakura’s need was pressing. He strode down to the end of the street, Yamato on his heels, still carrying Sakura. Behind them, Ichinose followed, his group of soapgirls trailing behind. As Naoya walked, well engrained reflex had him search through his pockets and clothes for his Augur and then realized that his clothes had been burnt to cinders.
His pants were burned down to a pair of blackened, soot covered sleeves that scarcely reached his knees. His right boot was completely gone, and his left was only partially intact, being half-melted. His gloves were entirely gone, and his smart-fabric jacket had attempted to repair the damage done to it by spreading its material out to patch the holes burnt in its surface, but the grey long-sleeved shirt beneath it wasn’t so lucky. Through the holes in his clothes, Naoya keenly felt the fury of the storm which was an uncomfortable sensation that had been kept at bay due to the fog clouding Naoya’s brain, but now that he was aware of it, he couldn’t return to ignorance.
Despite his thorough search, Naoya couldn’t find the slightest sliver of his Augur left behind. Either he’d lost it during the battle, or Yakiyama’s flames had proved hot enough to melt the nanite into dust. Whatever the reason, Naoya was left without his Augur and he felt truly naked, the damage to his clothes paling in comparison.
“I’m fine,” he tried to reassure himself. “I’ve been up and down this city a thousand times; I don’t need a map. I just need to find a landmark, and I can find my way.”
The street ended in a T-junction, extending to Naoya’s left and right. He raised his head, scanning the buildings around him, looking for something familiar to orient himself. High and in the distance, Naoya’s eyes landed on something he recognized.
To his left, Naoya could see the peak of Kurodaiya’s black pyramid on the distant horizon. From the slopes of the sleek smart metal structure, plumes of smoke rose into the sky from a gap in its side large enough to swallow a city block. The bore in the side of the superstructure was still ringed with red hot melting metal, resisting the efforts of the rain to cool it.
“Which way are we heading?” Yamato asked, stopping to join Naoya in staring upward.
“South,” Naoya turned away, not wanting to look at the damage any longer.
“It’s this way,” Yamato inclined his head to the right and he took the lead, leaving Naoya to follow.
As they wound their way towards Sin Ward’s southern reaches, the streets became busier. Cars were backed up going in all directions from a combination of the storm and the recent devastation. Entire roads were closed off thanks to fissures running through the concrete and up the walls of nearby buildings, putting cars and pedestrians at risk of being hit by collapsing debris.
“Did I do this?” Naoya asked himself, reminded of Hideki’s garage collapsing to the ground.
The group attracted no shortage of stares from the many drivers and pedestrians they passed, seeing that Naoya was more or less half-naked and being followed by a dozen different women in party dresses. Naoya paid the gaping stares of the onlookers no mind, keeping his eyes squarely ahead of him. With each step, his head seemed to pound more and more, and cracks formed in the world around him, bleeding into the real fissures that had been put there.
Sirens seemed to hound the group as they ventured south, always on their heels, but their source never appeared. When they reached the southern coast of the island, Naoya led the rest of the way to the docks. The sound of horns bellowed in the distance and Naoya looked over the turgid waves to see a number of cargo ships and private vessels had retreated out to sea in response to the emergency situation. The dockyards and its sprawling warehouses, which spanned out between the White-Mountain Sanzu and the floating silver dome of Rakuen, were left almost entirely abandoned.
Despite the odd scene Naoya and Ichinose’s girls made, the eyes of the city were locked on the burning Kurodaiya, allowing Naoya to walk onto the pier and lean against the railing without fear of drawing too much attention. He felt tired; tired and confused. His head pounded without relief and his vision blurred while cracks flickered in the water beyond the docks. Resting all his weight against the boundary, Naoya struggled to think coherently, losing all sensation beneath the pouring rain. He faintly heard the sound of Ichinose and Yamato talking and the chirping of female voices, but he could scarcely pay attention. It was only when the sound of tires rolling across wet concrete approached that Naoya stood straight and turned.
A limousine like the one Amon had arrived in rolled to a halt in front of the pier, though Naoya imagined the gang boss wasn’t in attendance this time. The doors opened and men in jet black suits and sunglasses stepped out, giving Naoya hard stares from behind their opaque lenses. There was a moment of tense silence and then, a black suited man with short, feathered hair gestured towards the limousine, inviting the assembly in. Yamato stepped towards the vehicle but Naoya tapped him on the shoulder, getting his attention.
“Are you sure she’s going to be okay?” Naoya asked, his eyes traveling down to the unconscious Sakura in his arms.
“A little trust goes along way, Nanbu-kun,” the salesman flashed a confident smile, but it faded as the other man scrutinized Naoya’s face. “What about you? Are you going to be alright by yourself?”
“I’m the last person you need to be worrying about,” despite his desire to appear confident, Naoya’s voice was strained by the mounting pressure in his head.
“Very well,” Yamato agreed, though he hardly sounded convinced.
Ichinose climbed through the open door of the limousine first, showering Amon’s flunky with praises and gratitude before he disappeared into the cabin. Yamato lingered outside while the soapgirls climbed in, one by one. One of them, a woman with bleach blonde hair and dark roots, gave Naoya a kiss on the cheek before she climbed in. Yamato slid Sakura into the vehicle and slipped in after her and the shaded Tower closed the door behind him, still glaring at Naoya from behind his glasses. Without speaking a word, the men in black climbed back into the vehicle and started it up, leaving Naoya behind on the pier as it cruised away down the street.
Now alone, Naoya headed west, following the same direction as the car, but he wasn’t heading for the same destination. The Eastern Municipal Station was all that Naoya thought of; he needed to reach his bike. From there, he’d go home and he’d put this entire day behind him. That was the plan, but the pounding in his head magnified with each footfall. Cracks continued to form in the world despite his fervent desire to suppress them. The beast in his mind, the aggregate sum of his fears, anger, and his instinct to survive, pressed against the bars of its prison even though there was no threat to Naoya in sight.
Cradling his head in his hands, Naoya’s pace slowed as the pounding in his brain continued to build. Every moment, it felt as though an invisible fist was knocking against the inside of his skull, eager to burst out, and with each powerful jolt, Naoya found himself sweltering despite the endless rain falling down on top of him. Unable to force himself to keep moving, Naoya slouched down on the curb, trying to wait out the painful spell.
A fog rolled over the highways of his mind and Naoya lost track of time, wrestling with the pain in his head. Lacking any motivation or impetus, the beast retreated to the back of Naoya’s mind, but its fervent hunger couldn’t be forgotten, as a dull pulsing throb lingered. He remained in the fugue state, forgetting the world outside himself for a short time until the sound of voices beckoned him back to reality.
“What’s your name?” a woman’s voice asked the question. “Can you remember that?”
Someone had joined Naoya, hovering over him where he sat on the curb. He couldn’t say how long they’d been standing over him as his sense of time felt distorted. He wanted to raise his head to look at his interrogator, but the act threatened to provoke the beast again, so he kept his head down on the asphalt between his feet. He had to think about the question he’d been asked 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.
“You wanna tell me what you’re doing here, Nanbu?” the woman asked confrontationally.
“I was just out for a walk,” Naoya offered the stranger, trying to seem flippant, but a surge of pain made him cradle the left side of his head.
“In those clothes?” his interrogator pressed, unable to ignore the rags on his shoulders.
“It’s, uh…, It’s—,” Naoya struggled to answer, the pain in his head nearly overwhelming.
“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 was dressed in a dark suit, although it had the strangest additions: small metal studs ran across the collar, and a chain was looped around his left shoulder, and 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 amygdala 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.
“Exigency?” 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, but 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 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 returned to 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 at something, 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.”
Whatever the caller said, it made the woman in black smiled broadly.
“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 hairband. 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 the 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 and began to walk.
With the fog coming and going from Naoya’s mind, his bike was left forgotten and he made the trip homeward on foot, retracing his steps automatically. Once he was far enough away from the devastation in Sin Ward, the eyes of passersby were no longer blind to Naoya’s shabby dress, but the people of the city did nothing to interact with him, though they did give him a wide berth. Naoya, barely cognizant of the people around him, didn’t react at all. Instead, he was fixated on getting somewhere safe and quiet.
He didn’t remember entering the Dawn Spires, the quartet of massive super towers where Naoya and Suzume lived. Instincts made him eschew the elevator and he instead soldiered up the stairs some thirty odd floors, blind to fatigue. He had a brief moment of lucidity when he paused in front of his apartment door. Ordinarily, the door would have reacted to his ID or his Augur, but both had been lost in his battle with Yakiyama, so the door remained closed and Naoya simply hovered in front of it, waiting for a response that wasn’t coming. Eventually, he realized that he needed to do something and he reached out with one hand, pressing his right index finger onto a small flat surface on top of the door handle. An electric hum followed and, with the sound of the metal bolt shifting, the door slid open and Naoya shuffled into his apartment.
Sensing that he was home, the smart fibers of the sterile white carpet changed color and shifted to a rusty red as he walked over them and the apartment’s lights automatically clicked on in response to motion. Naoya tugged off his melted boot and threw it aside, leaving it on the walkway near the door and continued to peel off his melted, burnt clothes and cast them aside. When he reached the bedroom, his hand probed the wall to his left to immediately turn off the lights inside and then threw himself face down on his bed. His head continued to pound, even in the silence and the dark, but somehow, Naoya was able to fall asleep.
An electric jolt brought Naoya back to consciousness. It wasn’t a painful sensation; instead, he felt a warm current run through his body from head to toe, making every hair stand on end. He started awake as the energy flowed through him and he felt something pressing against the back of his left shoulder. He rolled over and found himself staring up at a woman dressed in a black suit. Suzume stood next to the bed, her gloved right hand touching Naoya’s naked back. Tall and statuesque, Suzume’s porcelain features were soft with concern and worry filled her blue eyes.
“Naoya,” she said his name even as her dark eyes scanned his face, probing his features for injury or blemish.
“Suzu?” Naoya rolled onto his back and Suzume withdrew her hand. “When did you get home?”
“Just now,” she answered and raised a hand to touch his cheek. “It’s after eight.”
“Is it?” Naoya looked towards the bedside table, seeking his Augur, but it wasn’t there. Of course it wasn’t. The days events came back to him in a tumble of memories and sensations, and he sat up on the bed as he tried to piece everything together. He stared at the floor as he tried to recall his battle with Yakiyama and the events in the Ryūketsu. Everything felt surreal, as though it was a dream he’d just woken up from.
“Something happened today, didn’t it?” Suzume asked, taking a seat next to Naoya on the bed. “You left me that message this afternoon; I’m sorry, I should’ve called back, but I was in the middle of something. I didn’t actually listen to it until I was on my way home.”
Naoya glanced at her and then returned to looking at the floor, still trying to get his bearings. The fog that clouded his thoughts hadn’t fully lifted, but the pain in his head was mercifully absent.
“Are you going to talk to me about it?” Suzume prompted him, gently pressing her right shoulder against his left.
“Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin,” Naoya admitted, matching a gentle shake of his head with a shrug of his shoulders. “It’s all too much.”
“Start small, then,” Suzume advised, reaching up to gently brush the hair away from his left ear. “Think of the simplest, most important detail you can think of and then build on it. Put one piece with another, and another, until you’ve put the whole picture together.”
“Is that what you do at work?” Naoya asked with a soft smile.
“It helps, sometimes,” Suzume agreed.
“What’s the most important detail?” Naoya asked himself and he held his palms up as he scoured his hands.
“I can destroy anything that I touch,” Naoya confessed the secret he’d been hiding for the past week, admitting each word slowly and carefully. “I don’t know how to describe it, really. If I work myself up, I can find this weird headspace, and as long as I focus on it, I can break things. I mean, it’s not just that. I’m stronger. Faster. I can do things I never thought I could do before.
“The more I think about it, the more it all makes sense, you know?” Naoya closed his hands into fists, feeling more certain with each word he spoke. “I’ve always felt out of place in Yōgai-shima. It’s like something’s been missing all my life, like I’ve been looking for a puzzle piece that makes the rest of the world make sense. I have it now, and everything’s become so much clearer. All the bad luck I’ve had, the things around me that end up broken, how I survived that accident with the truck: it’s this power that’s been inside me all along.”
Naoya opened his hands and looked at Suzume who stared back with reserve. Her earlier gentle concern had vanished behind her icy mask and her eyes had hardened, clinically analyzing Naoya’s every motion.
“Is this what you called me about?” Suzume asked, her tone entirely neutral, betraying no surprise or disbelief in anything he said.
“No, not just that,” Naoya made another admission as he made eye contact with Suzume, staring as deeply into her she did into him. If she was upset, or confused, or in denial, he would understand, but her complete lack of reaction baffled him. He tried to understand what thoughts she hid behind those expressionless features and cold eyes but, not for the first time, he found himself unable to comprehend the rationale of his lover.
“Tell me,” she pressed him to continue, her voice gentle, but her cold appraising eyes remain fixed on him.
“You remember what happened last week?” Naoya asked and Suzume nodded. “I was working for Ichinose out in Sin Ward; he wanted me to find someone. I had a chance to grab him, but I let him go.”
“And? What else happened?”
“It turns out Ichinose passed me the job on behalf of the Tokyo Towers,” Naoya held up his hands placatively. “To cut a long story short, they weren’t too happy that I cost them the chance to grab the man they were looking for. They wanted me to answer for what I did, and they weren’t afraid to hurt whoever they had to get it done.
“They put a bounty on my head,” Naoya returned to staring at the floor, feeling his sense of indignation return. “They burned down Ichinose’s store. They hurt friends of mine. All because of me.”
Suzume sighed and looked away, assuming that Naoya had reached the end of his story. She took a deep breath, trying to collect her thoughts.
“I’ll reach out to the Bureau office over in Sin Ward,” she announced and gently reached out her hand to touch his shoulder. “They’ll make sure whatever grudge the Towers have against you is forgotten.”
“It’s already over,” Naoya answered, his tone quiet and sober.
“What do you mean?” Suzume asked, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
“You heard about the destruction that happened in Sin Ward today?” Naoya asked, his voice heavy with remorse. “The explosion that happened in the black diamond eco-sphere? That was me.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Suzume gave a sharp shake of her head, denying Naoya’s admission with cold detachment. “You couldn’t have done that.”
“I did!” Naoya insisted, turning to face Suzume. “I was there! I had to fight with the Towers to get them off my back and I nearly tore half the city down!”
“Are you listening to yourself right now?” Suzume folded her arms and gave Naoya a withering look.
“It’s true!” Naoya felt frustration build as he collided with Suzume’s wall of disbelief.
Suzume looked away and sighed, clearly overwhelmed by Naoya’s story. She stared at the wall across from her and placed her hands in her lap. She didn’t say anything for several long moments, and Naoya realized she was steeling herself for something.
“Naoya, I appreciate that you’ve chosen to be honest with me,” Suzume turned soft eyes on Naoya again, and she reached out to place a hand on his knee, trying to communicate her feelings through touch. “But what you think happened today wasn’t real.”
“What?” Naoya could scarcely hide his skepticism.
“There’s something I haven’t told you,” Suzume spoke slowly and gently. “I’ve kept something from you because I was worried that it would upset you but, I can’t hide it from you any longer. Let me tell you the truth.”
“The truth?” Naoya stared at his paramour, wondering what she could possibly tell him. He’d suspected that Suzume had kept things from him, but the idea that she would ever share her secrets with him was chimeric, or so he’d thought. Now that Suzume was poised to reveal something, Naoya was speechless.
“You don’t remember much about life before Yōgai-shima, do you?” Suzume asked him the question gently, looking deeply into his eyes.
“No, I never have,” Naoya admitted in a small voice, caught off guard by the question.
“You don’t remember your parents? The school you went to? The town you grew up in?” Suzume plied him with more questions, but she asked each one slowly and softly.
“No,” Naoya shook his head. “You know that I don’t.”
“And that’s never bothered you?” Suzume asked the pointed question. “You’ve never wondered why that is?”
“Of course I have,” Naoya protested, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. “It’s just that worrying about questions I can’t answer won’t solve anything.”
“I know why you don’t remember life before Yōgai-shima,” Suzume said it plainly, but the words sounded like gibberish to Naoya.
“What?” Naoya could only balk at what had been said, unable to understand.
“I know why you don’t remember the rest of your life,” Suzume said it again, and this time Naoya couldn’t ignore it.
“Why?” Naoya asked, breathlessly. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s not something that’s easy to talk about,” Suzume gently squeezed Naoya’s knee. “Honestly, I hoped it was something that would never come up again and we could just move on, but it’s clear it’s something we can’t just ignore.”
“What aren’t you saying?” Naoya reached down and placed his hand on top of Suzume’s.
“During the Downfall, you were injured,” Suzume explained, still looking into Naoya’s eyes.
“I was in Tokyo?” Naoya looked at her sideways, confused by the revelation.
“Near enough,” Suzume answered. “The destruction spread for miles and miles. Millions of people were affected. You, Naoya, were struck by a piece of shrapnel. It hit you right up here.”
Suzume gently pulled her hand out of Naoya’s grip and lifted it to delicately place her hand against the side of Naoya’s head.
“So, I have amnesia?” Naoya tried to rationalize what he was being told in the safest way possible, but something told him he was wrong.
“It’s not that simple,” Suzume offered a sad smile. “What happened to you wasn’t just some bump on the head; you suffered a traumatic brain injury. You may not remember it, but you were in intensive care for a very long time. The hit you took deprived you of so many things we take for granted. You needed to learn how to walk again, and how to read and how to speak.”
“Why didn’t you ever mention any of this?” Naoya was aware that he was asking a question he was afraid to have answered.
“It’s not as though you can just go back to normal after something like what you endured,” Suzume took a deep breath, seeming to steady herself again. “Parts of your brain were permanently damaged, and although you relearned so many things, you’re brain still isn’t functioning normally.”
“So, what are you saying?” Naoya asked, feeling a sense of indignation burn in his chest. “That I’m mentally ill? That I’m crippled for life?”
“No, Naoya, that’s not what I’m saying,” Suzume softened her tone, reacting to Naoya’s discomfort. “What I’m saying is that, sometimes, your brain doesn’t process information in a normal way.”
“That’s not true,” Naoya shook his head and pulled away.
“Your brain loses touch with reality when put under duress,” Suzume pressed, but it made Naoya put more distance between them.
“No,” Naoya shook his head, finally understanding fully what Suzume was saying.
“You hallucinate—,”
“No!”
Naoya couldn’t listen anymore. He was up, off the bed and striding down the hallway of the apartment back into the living room, but there was no escape from the four walls of his cage. He walked across the carpet, pacing the small area between the kitchen and the living room, his mind racing endlessly.
“Naoya, please calm down,” Suzume followed him from the bedroom and stood at the mouth of the hallway.
“How can I calm down, Suzu?” Naoya demanded, still pacing back and forth. “You’re sitting there telling me that I’m crazy like it’s the most normal thing in the world.”
“You aren’t crazy, Naoya,” Suzume took a slow step forward, entering Naoya’s space carefully. “You just have trouble parsing reality sometimes. Honestly, you haven’t had an episode like this in nearly ten years, and I’d hoped that your mind had learned to cope at some point. I never wanted you to find out like this, so I kept everything hidden. I’m sorry, Naoya, but you need to listen to me.”
Naoya struggled to speak, but the words fled from his mouth, leaving him to stammer for several long seconds before he could string a sentence together.
“What I went through today—,” Naoya protested gracelessly. “It happened! It all happened! I was burned! Punched! Kicked! I lost—! I lost my arm!”
Naoya took hold of his left arm and held it up as though the intact limb was proof of his claim.
“Naoya,” Suzume spoke gently, trying to continue to appeal to him, but Naoya didn’t want to hear another word.
“It all happened!” he repeated himself desperately. “Check the TV! Go look at the news reports! Everything that happened at Kurodaiya was real! I was there! People died!”
“Naoya, I believe that you were there,” Suzume took another step forward. “Something happened to you today, but not exactly as you think it did. When you feel anxious or overwhelmed, your mind exaggerates your perceptions as it copes with the overload. Maybe you were in Kurodaiya, and maybe you met with the Towers, but you’re not some kind of superhero. You’re a normal person, Naoya.”
“I’ll show you,” Naoya promised, his lips pressed together into a determined line.
“Show me what?” Suzume sighed, looking at Naoya sadly.
“Proof!” Naoya shook a finger at her. “Proof that I’m not crazy!”
“Naoya, please,” she motioned for him to take a seat on the couch, but Naoya turned his back on her. He left her standing in the middle of the living room and turned around to go into the kitchen. In a nervous frenzy, he pulled open drawers and threw open cupboards, seeking a small object. When he returned to the living room, he held a small enamel cup in his hands like it was a trophy.
“Watch this,” Naoya held up the cup for Suzume to see.
“Watch what?” Suzume folded her arms, giving the cup a scrutinizing look.
“I’m going to break this just by touching it,” Naoya insisted. “I’ll show you my power.”
“Naoya…,” Suzume shook her head and looked away.
“Watch! Please!” Naoya shook the cup in front of Suzume. “Give me a chance to show you that I’m telling the truth.”
“Fine,” Suzume accepted the proposition and looked up, her eyes cold.
Naoya reached into himself, seeking the power that had redefined his life throughout the past week. He clutched for the monster, the beast of survival, trying to draw out its esoteric power for nothing more than a moment. However, the beast didn’t show itself.
“Naoya…” Suzume softly intruded on his concentration.
“Just wait! I…,” in his mind’s eye, the world splintered into a kaleidoscope again, revealing dark gaps between imaginary fissures but the golden light of destruction didn’t respond to him.
“Naoya,” Suzume spoke again, more insistent.
“I can do this!” Naoya wrapped his fingers around the cup, trying to will his power to come forth. He squeezed the piece of enamelware with such tightness that he worried it would break apart in his hands, but he refused to stop.
“Naoya!” Suzume called him out of his mad display, her tone sharp and her patience thoroughly exhausted.
Naoya looked up at her, the grip on the cup slackening. Seeing his indecision, Suzume stepped forward, wrapping her hands around his. Gently, she pulled the cup from his hands and set it down on the living room table.
“I don’t understand,” Naoya confessed, despondent.
“It’s alright,” Suzume reached up and stroked the side of his face. She guided Naoya to the living room couch and sat him down, then took a seat beside him. The two sat in silence for a few moments as Naoya tried to regain his composure.
“I’m sorry, Naoya,” Suzume apologized when the silence became too much to bear.
“For what?” Naoya leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees as he struggled with the weight of everything that happened.
“For pushing you too hard,” Suzume explained, affectionately patting Naoya on the shoulder. “The last year or two haven’t been easy, but that’s no excuse for how I’ve been treating you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with treating me like an adult,” Naoya protested, his voice filled with bitter despair. “Except for the fact that I’m fucked up in the head.”
“Don’t think of things that way,” Suzume tried to encourage him. “You aren’t crazy, Naoya, and you’re not mentally ill. You have a health condition that needs to be treated seriously.”
“I should’ve known,” Naoya hung his head, crushed by the revelation. “You should’ve told me.”
The morose accusation stabbed Suzume like a knife, and she opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. After a moment, she seemed to accept the charge and bowed her head in acknowledgement.
“I only wanted to protect you, Naoya,” she explained, patting him on the back.
Silence fell between them again for a moment.
“Starting tomorrow, things will be different,” Suzume slid closer to Naoya and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, embracing him. “Don’t worry about rent or jobs for a while; just focus on getting some rest and finding your footing. Things will go back to normal soon. I promise.”
“Normal?” Naoya asked himself, looking down at his hands as though they were a stranger’s hands, no longer able to discern if anything he saw or felt was real. “What is normal?”
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)
<Warning! Data corruption detected in the file you are attempting to access!>
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 