Chapter 1

Opening Act Prologue Yahiro rolled on the ground, a powerful shock and scorching pain racking his whole body. Fresh blood gushed from his lungs, and the taste of death filled his mouth. He could hear the searing wind blowing through the gaps of the decayed steel frames of the structure. It was summer. The fourth one since the disaster. Not a trace of human life lingered in the ruins of the city. There was nothing but the calls of the cicadas. Only they did not rest as they cried endlessly to announce the twilight. What a fierce obsession with life. This species full of such vitality. Dreadful destruction had changed the shape of the land, eradicating any and all human inhabitants, and yet the boisterous insects kept on living as though nothing had happened. It was as moving as it was repugnant. All these thoughts flooded Yahiro’s mind as he stared at the twilight sky visible through the cracked ceiling. A scarlet afterglow charred the heavens. It was this same red sky that brought to mind those four-year-old memories. On a summer day like this one, crimson rain, thick as mist, had dyed the world the color of flames. There were collapsed skyscrapers as far as the eye could see. Wreckage and debris. Trains warped and twisted into gray lumps of metal. Fallen bridges and caved-in roads—not even the earth maintained its form. It was like looking at some foreign land. Rain fell consistently. Rusty-red rain. Nothing else moved. Not a single person had survived. Millions of citizens, wiped out of existence. Devoured so completely that not even corpses remained. The only one left behind was Yahiro Narusawa—age thirteen, his bloody fists clenched. “Su…i…!” His voice rang hollow throughout the silent ruins. The warmth of his sister’s small hand lingered in his own, her young, innocent smile still on his mind. But she was nowhere to be found. There was only the fresh blood that drenched Yahiro’s whole body. “Where are you…Sui…?!” No voice answered his yells; the quiet wind just increased in intensity. Yahiro had climbed rubble-strewn stairs to get a better view from a higher vantage point. It was like a poorly crafted diorama. A ravaged ghost town drenched in crimson rain. Fires burned all over the city and gave the morning sky an evening glow. The cataclysm cavorted in the sky. A giant shadow that enveloped the whole world. A rainbow-colored monster swimming through the clouds in a spiral, looking down at the ground with contempt. “Thank goodness…you’re alive, Dear Brother.” He heard a clear, cheerful voice. The soaring monster had pranced behind the girl as she looked down at Yahiro; chills ran along his spine. Sui Narusawa had smiled softly amid the crimson rain. “…Or was it that you just could not die?” It would not leave. He could not get away from that memory, even now. The memory of her clear eyes reflecting the world in ruins and that beautiful, atrocious dragon behind her. “…Tsk!” His consciousness faded for just a moment. Yahiro frantically awoke, irate, and rolled over before jumping back up. The fangs of the beast grazed the top of his head. The ferocious Moujuu stood three meters tall. It rushed him with unnecessary momentum and crashed into the concrete. Yahiro used the opportunity to pick his knife back up and regain his footing. His wound was ridiculously deep. One of his lungs was crushed, and his right shoulder blade was pulverized. His arm was barely connected to his body. A human’s frail body couldn’t withstand even the lightest hit from a Moujuu’s forelimb. Pain burned endlessly through Yahiro’s nerves. The beast crushed the concrete in its jaws and turned back to him. The smell of burned sulfur prickled Yahiro’s nose. The Moujuu was shaped like a jet-black dog. The army guys would have gladly named it Black Dog or Hellhound had they found it first, but Yahiro had no interest in naming these things. Moujuu were just that. Beasts. Monsters that had to be exterminated as soon as they attacked him. The black Moujuu let out a sulfuric breath as it lowered its body. It was as large as a bison. As agile and intelligent as a hound. They existed well outside the laws of nature; a single human wasn’t enough against their unearthly combat prowess. Yahiro’s watchmen had already escaped or might have even been killed. In any event the guys made no effort to hide their contempt toward the young Japanese man. They would never have helped him, even if they were still alive. It was nothing short of a miracle that Yahiro could still move with those wounds, and his only weapon was a knife. No problem, he thought as the corner of his mouth curled up. He dug the knife into his own wound, coating it in fresh blood. The black Moujuu growled as it launched itself at him. Rather than flee, he met the beast head-on. The two silhouettes collided in the darkness. The Moujuu tried to dig its giant fangs into Yahiro’s left arm, but it could not bite through it. His arm stopped the jaws—capable of biting through concrete—in their tracks. The fresh blood on his skin had hardened like armor. Yahiro already had the knife in his right hand. “It’s time for revenge!” he called to the bloody knife before stabbing the Moujuu in its side. The blade was not even fifteen centimeters long—too small for his enormous opponent. Burying it all the way in just barely penetrated its thick skin. Still, the effect on its body was dramatic. Cracks ran from the stab wound across its jet-black body. They extended across its entire mass through its blood vessels, the poison inside Yahiro’s blood inflicting destruction. The beast roared in pain. Rage and hate burned in its eyes as it glared at Yahiro. But its resistance ended there. Its limbs could no longer support its crumbling body, and it collapsed like a fragile plaster figure. The Moujuu crumbled into dust as Yahiro watched, emotionless. He put the knife back into its sheath, then touched his bloody right shoulder. His crushed lung, his pulverized shoulder, and his torn arm had already regenerated. There was no visible wound. The only remaining evidence of all that had transpired was the blood on his tattered clothes. That his arm was nearly ripped from his body only accelerated the process, but with or without an arm, regeneration was more than possible. Yahiro would not die. He could not. Even if he was to suffer a lethal wound, so long as half his body remained, the curse would not let him die; all his organs would be reconstructed. This was why only he had made it out of the ruins on that rainy day four years ago. Yahiro grabbed what he was there for and left the building. The desolate ruined city spread out under the twilight far toward the horizon. All the giant half-destroyed towers looked fossilized—steel towers such as the Tokyo Skytree. It was summer. The fourth summer since the Japanese had gone extinct. Nevertheless, Yahiro wandered through this city.