The day was hot and humid enough already. When the torrid wind kicked up the fine dust in small whirlwinds, it made a man regret having gotten up that morning.
Theologians and psychics and necromancers had all reached a consensus that the entirety of Shinjuku was wrapped in a demonic miasma, as if trapped beneath a bell jar.
A research team studying supernatural and psychological phenomena made up of scientists from Great Britain, the U.S. and The Netherlands had determined that distortions in this dome of ghostly auras covering Shinjuku arose from irregularities in the line drawn by the fissure at the epicenter of the Devil Quake.
The crown of that dome was measured at exactly 7.94 meters south-south west from the Shinto gate on the grounds of Nukebenten in Yochomachi, at an altitude of 666.66 meters.
The seven-thousand page final report to the mayor of Shinjuku and the prime minister concluded that the dome was composed of parapsychological elements that current scientific methods were at a loss to explain.
In particular frustrating the ability of criminologists and psychologists to analyze and comprehend were the outbreak of heinous crimes in Shinjuku; the violent alterations of personality; the appearance of strange life forms that could not be accounted to the mutations of a few genetic specimens; the observed devolution of human physiology; and many more examples.
They were forced to conclude that unknown factors trapped beneath the dome were inexorably accelerating the violent nature of all organic and inorganic things. It was, the report stated, something other than the simple manifestation of malice that every piece of matter emitted in some form.
According to a “pseudoscience analyzer,” a remarkable recent achievement in the field of parapsychology, these factors derived from still extant supernatural phenomena in the past and were not the product of the natural world or natural processes. Call them malevolent elements, or “these dark materials.”
This darkness existed, the report went on, but could not be properly investigated, spontaneously appearing as it did from outside of the moral realms. At the same time, the selective mental and physical destruction directed at the human world seemed to arise out of an active will.
Who or what was at the root of this will was anybody’s guess.
As if insisting that the supernatural phenomena appearing here and there in the human realm must remain mysteries, and would go unsolved forever. But if by chance that will acted against the human world, no matter how well-intentioned it might be, human beings must annihilate it.
Unfortunately, the report concluded pessimistically, that would probably be impossible. Even now, people were hardly willing to accept that this demonic zone existed, despite Shinjuku’s undeniable existence.
And the fact that it influenced even the laws of science. During the summer, Shinjuku’s average temperature was three degrees Celsius higher than the twenty-two other wards in Tokyo, and two degrees lower in the winter. Yet every year, people froze to death in the middle of the broiling summer and puddles froze over.
Beginning with the Government Freezer, the sunlight streaming down on the city brought about all sorts of strange phenomena. In an extreme case, the profusion of plant life in one neighborhood would completely change from week to week.
As if afraid of the sun, stalks drooped, petals closed. The next day, brown splotches discolored the green stems, the white flowers tinged with red.
Two days later, the listless light filling the magical streets brought forth from the earth flowers with brown stems and crimson petals, scattering their pollen on the wind. One night in Totsuka, over seven hundred people succumbed in ecstasy to the bloodsucking flowers blooming inside them.
That was hardly the end of it. Even stranger were those who didn’t die and lived on, while cultivating the white and purple flowers sprouting from their ears and mouth. The biological designation of these literal “flower children”—flora or fauna—was a matter of vigorous debate.
This was but one of the strange phenomena in this city that made a hot day all the hotter. At high noon, the stirred-up dust dug into the skin like birdshot and left burns behind.
So it might be comforting to know that a fall-down drunk could be lured to sleep by the cool embrace of the earth in the arms of those who cared for him. A place like the grounds of the former Suwa Shrine in Takada no Baba.
The faded red torii gates, almost lost in the dusty clouds of earthen yellow, rose above the ruined steps. Beyond it squatted the skeletal remains of the shrine office.
Setsura Aki brushed away the hot grit stinging his cheeks, not so much sand as small stones.
It was eleven in the morning, the time of day when the hot winds blew the hardest. The time and the place indicated by his foes—but that wasn’t what weighed on his mind. There was no point trying to guess which way a fight would go in this city. A grade school student could come up with ten more alternatives on the spot.
The enemy hadn’t placed any restriction on the kind of heat he could bring to this fight. All they needed was Mina as a bargaining chip.
Setsura stared up at the sky, at the oppressive, lead-colored sea of clouds. He stood there, his back turned to the wind, the hems of his slicker and his long hair fluttering impatiently.
“Yeah, pretty as a picture as always,” came an amiable voice behind him.
Setsura didn’t move. His eyes watched the two figures mounting the steps in front of him. One was a naked woman. Mina. The other was wearing a leather vest and jeans. He was about five-eleven, the same height as Setsura, though as the video made clear, he was a big enough man to fit another Setsura inside him.
Mina had a dog collar wrapped around her neck. The big man behind her was holding the leash. He had nothing in his other hand.
“Don’t go forgetting me behind you,” came the friendly warning.