Archived Report
The Last City, Yo?gai-shima, the Sea of Japan,
Population: 23,000,000 (Approximately)
January 4th, 2044
06:40 AM
Central Ward
Sunset District
Danger.
The premonition echoed in Takeyoshi’s mind, reverberating in his temples as a painful ringing that slowly faded into the back of his head. He startled awake, placing his hand to his forehead as the sensation subsided, only to be blinded by a brief flash of light. Lightning flashed through the windows of Takeyoshi’s car, chased by the rumbling sound of thunder. Rain poured down in a flood as dark clouds swirled in the early morning sky, blotting out all traces of the rising sun.
Takeyoshi’s car, a Bureau-issued “Survivalist,” was a large, jet-black vehicle with a wide, square frame and a sleek finish. Takeyoshi had leaned his leather seat as far back as it could go, though the inside of the car was tight, despite the quality of its construction. The Survivalist, true to its name, was built for endurance and performance, and that meant storage space had to be cut. What little room Takeyoshi had was taken up with old wrappers, half empty coffee cups and various receipts.
Takeyoshi reclined in his seat, which had been pushed back as far as it could go. He fought with the idea of waking up, keeping his arms folded over his chest. At length, he rubbed his eyes with one hand and reached up to the visor, folding it down and looking at himself in the mirror, a long-standing habit. The man looking back at him was a sorry sight: a short man with unruly black hair that stuck up in all directions. His eyes were dark brown, the whites bloodshot, and carrying heavy dark bags beneath them. His nose was wide and flat, hung over a mouth with thin lips and an unshaven square jaw that was practically begging for a razor.
He wore a dark green nano-laminate jacket, an article of clothing that was water-tight, stain-proof, and tear-resistant. It could change its color, texture, open up a nearly endless supply of pockets or even alter its shape to a degree. The interior of the jacket was padded and designed to keep in heat. A small mechanical touchpad was integrated into the jacket alongside the left collar which allowed Takeyoshi to alter the appearance of the coat at a moment’s notice.
The black suit, tie, and dress shirt he wore beneath the jacket were no less a modern marvel, despite how plain the Bureau uniform was. He could alter their appearance as well, though only to a small extent: it wouldn’t do to have an Inspector looking like an ordinary civilian. Takeyoshi idly brushed some crumbs from the collar of his shirt, the remains of a long-forgotten meal. Though the uniform had the exact same protections as his jacket, Takeyoshi had spent the last week in the same change of clothes, pressing the wrinkle and stain-proof material to its limit.
As the sound of thunder faded, another noise softly chimed in the cabin of Takeyoshi’s car. Still half awake, Takeyoshi patted down the pockets of the dark green, nano-laminate jacket he wore over his Bureau suit, looking for the Omen that he used to communicate. He spent several long moments drifting in and out of consciousness as he searched for a phone sized object in his pockets, only realizing at length that the Omen was still attached to his right wrist, in the form of a wristwatch. Feeling the face of it with his left hand, Takeyoshi held it up and forced his eyes open with great effort.
The Omen sprang to life, and the dark grey surface of the smooth, shifting material broke apart and a green light shined out of it. The rays of light settled into a holographic projection, forming a list of luminescent words. Unread messages and missed calls were projected onto the air, mixed with an hourly warning about the sea-storm that was already pounding down around Takeyoshi’s ears. His weary eyes scanned the list, trying to discern who’d been trying to contact him, when his eyes focused on the name of the most recent caller: Kazuma Iori.
Danger.
The premonition pounded in the Inspector’s head, warning Takeyoshi of another distant bolt of lightning. He peeled the Omen from his wrist and the nanomaterial reshaped itself, returning to its default form that mimicked the appearance of a cellphone. Glaring down at the name projected on the call list, Takeyoshi didn’t hesitate to tap the projection, ignoring the hurricane overhead as though it wasn’t there.
Danger.
The call got through two and a half rings before it was picked up.
“Hello?” came a voice through the Omen, young, male, and quiet. “Are you there?”
The holographic display didn’t reveal the young man’s face, instead changing to a banner with the words: “IMAGE CANNOT BE DISPLAYED.’
“Kazuma-san?” Takeyoshi’s voice was rough and hoarse, and he took a moment to clear his throat before going on. “I’m here. What’s the matter?”
“I’ve been trying to call you,” the young man insisted, his voice barely above an audible whisper. “Where’ve you been?”
“Drinking,” Takeyoshi answered wearily, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “Why’ve you been calling me?”
“You told me to call you if I heard anything from Jinta-kun,” the other man replied. The answer made Takeyoshi immediately sit up straight in his seat.
“You’ve spoken to him? Today?” Takeyoshi demanded, fumbling for the car’s ignition, though he wasn’t certain where he was even going yet.
“This evening,” the young man seemed distraught. “I tried to call you, but—”
“Never mind that,” Takeyoshi snapped. “Where is he now? Did he say where he was going?”
“That’s the thing,” came the furtive reply, sounding like the speaker had a dirty secret he was reluctant to share. “He’s here.”
A million questions ran through Takeyoshi’s mind, along with a trickle of adrenaline further pushing him awake.
“How long has he been there? What has he said? Are you alright?”
Instead of a question, Takeyoshi made a demand.
“You need to leave your apartment,” he told Kazuma. “Right now. But don’t let him know that you’re leaving, if possible.”
“I can’t go outside,” the young man protested, raising his voice in disbelief. “You want me to walk out into the middle of a storm?”
Takeyoshi leaned to his right, looking out the driver’s side window at the swirling black clouds overhead.
“Between the two, Jinta is more dangerous,” Takeyoshi assured him. “Believe me.”
“That’s insane,” was the response. “You can’t mean that.”
“I absolutely mean it,” Takeyoshi went on. “He’s more dangerous than you could ever know.”
“I don’t know what to do. . .” the man’s voice fell quiet again, barely audible to Takeyoshi’s ears.
“Look,” Takeyoshi finally found the ignition on the car and the powerful machine roared to life. “I’m on my way. Keep your distance from Jinta for now. Don’t let him know I’m coming. If he tries to leave. . .” Takeyoshi paused, hanging the other man’s life in the balance. “Let him.”
“Alright.”
“Everything is going to be alright,” the Inspector assured him. “I’m going to hang up, now. We can’t risk letting him catch you talking to me. I’m all the way in Sunset, so it will take me about twenty minutes to get there.”
“Please, hurry,” the young man implored.
Takeyoshi tapped the holographic menu, ending the call with a grim frown on his face. He wrapped the Omen back around his wrist and reached down to the gearshift as he placed his foot on the brake. As the machine shifted gears, the sudden rumbling of the powerful engine and the motion of the vehicle made his head swim. He pressed his head against the wheel, fighting against the nausea of his lingering hangover.
“Ink,” Takeyoshi called aloud and the Omen on his wrist lit up again.
“How can I help?” the AI in the machine asked, its voice young and girlish.
“Drive,” Takeyoshi let go of the wheel and returned to reclining in his seat. “Kazuma Iori, Horizon District. Take me there.”
“This is about the Black Envoy, isn’t it?” the machine asked as it took control of the vehicle. “Protocol dictates that I place a call for backup with the Bureau.”
Ink made a simple statement of fact, but Takeyoshi knew that there was a question in her words.
“Not yet,” Takeyoshi ordered. “Don’t put the call in before I get there.”
“Understood,” Ink responded, though there was trepidation in the manufactured voice.
The Survivalist roared to life and Ink guided the car out of the parking lot, ignoring the walls of water that sprayed out from either side. In Takeyoshi’s mind, the car could likely still run even on the sea floor. Leaning back against the heated seats, Takeyoshi felt his eyelids begin to droop.
Danger.
Takeyoshi started up in his seat as the word, or rather, the sensation flashed through his mind. He reached up to rub his eyes, the palm of his right hand sliding across his rough, unshaven cheek. Lightning flashed somewhere in the distance, briefly illuminating the windshield and the hail of rain vainly falling against it. Takeyoshi placed his right hand on the wheel as if to guide the car, ignoring the fact that it was currently driving itself, and fished around the cup holders. His hand found the lip of an old coffee cup and he picked it up without looking and lightly shook it, checking to see if there was anything inside. Empty, he slid the coffee cup back into its place and reached for the cup next to it. There was a little left in this one and Takeyoshi knocked back the last mouthful of black coffee which had long since gone cold.
He felt exhausted and mentally chided himself for choosing not to sleep the night before, though he also knew he wouldn’t have done anything differently were he given the chance. There were too many things that needed to be done. He took his eyes away from the road and glanced down at the passenger seat to his left, desperately hoping there might be something in the car that could help keep him awake. Of course, he wasn’t that lucky. With a quiet sigh, he reached toward the console and flicked the radio on. Maybe that would keep his attention.
“-has some strong arguments, I confess, but perhaps it’s time for the opposition party to get a word in edgewise?” a man’s voice filled the cabin, deep and melodious. “Kenichi-san?”
“Thank you, Okumura-san,” a second speaker took over. This man had a sharper voice and a certain aggressive tone that made Takeyoshi prematurely scowl. “What my opponent fails to understand is that her high-minded, humanitarian ideals are the product of a much safer society than we have now.”
There was the sound of an irritated huff, likely from the insulted third party, and the first speaker interjected.
“So, you’re saying that your position is one of utilitarianism?”
“It is and always has been,” the second man agreed. “Despite the technological advances that have allowed us to live in comfort these past ten years, it should remain abundantly clear to all of us that we are still not the nation we once were. Much of our homeland remains uninhabitable and it was not so long ago, as I think you’ll recall, that this entire city was nearly burned down by rioters.
“It goes without saying that our position here in Yo?gai-shima is still very unstable,” the man went on. “Rather than focusing on expansion, our primary concern should be on shoring up our foundations. This very city may be the final hope of the Japanese people, and its future must be guaranteed before anything else.”
“And how would you go about ensuring that future?” the first man asked.
“Mass deportations?” a third voice answered for him. The third speaker was a woman whose voice was tinged with indignation and scorn. “Purging of the elderly? Replacement of the lower classes with automation? Bringing back the food rations while the Minister and his Cabinet throw feasts every night?”
“Those are straw men you’re fighting, Masamori-san,” the second speaker answered, sounding flustered. “I’ve never advocated for those things.”
“Deny it all you want; those are your positions.”
“When?” the second man demanded. “When did I say anything like that?”
“Two years ago, in your address to the Cabinet, you argued for the deportation of foreign nationals from the city, did you not?”
“Masamori-san, I advocated for the removal of foreign-born criminals, which I’m sure most of the city is in agreement with.”
“Define that word.”
“Sorry?”
“Criminals; what does that mean in this context?”
“Well,” Takeyoshi could hear the sound of the second man shifting in his seat. “By that, of course, I mean the gangs that have taken over the eastern harbor.”
“So, you would deport only them?”
“I would deport them, primarily.”
“Primarily,” the woman repeated the word. “And what about the homeless? Or those people who’ve had their citizenship revoked because they couldn’t pay the Cabinet’s ridiculous taxes?”
“It’s the duty of every citizen of Yo?gai-shima to provide for its upkeep,” the man answered, sternly. “Those who don’t work should neither be allowed to eat or live here.”
“So, your true position is that the Cabinet should have the authority to deport not just foreign criminals, but also foreign nationals? Are you just going to ignore that without the help of countless foreign-born men and women, this city wouldn’t have been built in the first place? What about the numerous Japanese citizens that have been rendered homeless? You want them deported, too?”
“I want our leaders to use every tool at their disposal to make this city safer for everyone. The Cabinet already has the power they need to do just that, Masamori-san. I simply advocate that they exercise said power.”
“Well, my ‘high-minded, humanitarian ideals’ say otherwise,” the woman’s voice was drenched in contempt. “You can claim that your position is grounded on the ends justifying the means, but the truth is that you’re a product of xenophobic, elitist, nationalist thinking that should have died out in the twentieth century.
“The future of the Japanese people is as important to me as it is to you, but the future of mankind as a whole is even more important. Those of us living in Yo?gai-shima can find ourselves falling into complacency while our people still living on Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku struggle to live each day. We do nothing to help even our countrymen, to say nothing of the millions still alive across Asia, Europe, and the Americas that could use our help. Expanding Yo?gai-shima and opening our borders to refugees isn’t just in the interest of the Japanese people, but the human race as a whole.”
“And what other interests would ride that human wave into our city?” the second man asked, sounding just as indignant and heated as his opponent. “Opening our borders means opening communications with the Chinese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese. Potentially even what remains of the United States, from the sound of it. How many of their spies and agents could slip into our defenses and begin stirring up trouble? It’s been less than a century since Japan suffered under the heel of a military occupation and less than twenty since the death of the American hegemony that allowed us to fully reclaim our sovereignty, and your proposed course of action would invite the rest of the world, desperate and clawing as they are, to feast on Japan once more.”
Applause rang out from the debate’s audience, even as the smooth-voiced moderator tried to regain control. Takeyoshi didn’t wait, instead hitting a button on the car’s console to turn off the radio. Politics was a chore. Just thinking about it made the scar on his chest ache and the muscles under his skin tensed and constricted, remembering the pain of an old stab wound. He leaned back in his seat, struggling to stay awake.
As the car continued on its course from west to east, traveling along the highway south of Yo?gai-shima’s Government District, Takeyoshi looked out at the city. Between the rain pouring endlessly down on the windshield and the wipers struggling desperately to fight back, Takeyoshi could only see glimpses of Japan’s youngest and last metropolis, but he knew it well, besides. After all, it’d been his home for the last ten years.
Anchored in the midst of the Sea of Japan, Yo?gai-shima was the name of the massive artificial island and the city built atop it. It stretched from east to west amidst the always churning waters, curving to form a crescent shape. A manufactured mountain of eerie white stone had been drawn up from the seafloor, and the crescent city clutched at its southern slopes.
Takeyoshi’s car drove across the Central Ward, the heart of the city. The skyscrapers that clustered together in Central were almost alien in their design, being smooth and organic to look on from a distance. In those spires, the city’s businessmen and politicians conspired, choosing what course to guide the populace down next, unaware they were potentially dictating the fate of all of Japan and the world beyond.
High above the technological marvel of a city, a storm pelted down rain and wind in the hopes of burying the affront to nature. Even so, Yo?gai-shima’s levees worked to drain away the downpour and the salt-water waves faster than the storm could throw them, and no wall of wind or lightning bolt could conspire to make a single one of the last city’s towers bow down. But Yo?gai-shima did not simply endure the storm; instead, it devoured it.
Tall and thin spears were raised from the streets high into the sky above, dwarfing even the buildings around them. The rods probed the storm, pulling down the clouds, drawing in the water, the air, the lightning. The countless drains throughout the city greedily gulped down the flood waters that tried to drown it, cycling the water through the miles upon miles of metal intestines that ran through the bowels of the artificial island. But it wasn’t hydroelectric power, wind power, or even fresh water the city was after. Instead, it wanted something more primal.
Hazard Energy, the energy that dictated the flow of causality, allowing the impossible to occur. Through their interactions, positive and negative particles of Hazard Energy created either the miraculous or the disastrous. The storm itself was nothing more than an accumulation of wind and rain that had been provoked into a disaster by a glut of negative energy. In truth, that’s what all disasters were: natural forces spurred into movement by an until recently unseen inciting element. Once mankind understood that notion, it was only natural they would learn to harvest the power that tried to doom them. And so it was that Yo?gai-shima was born out of countless disasters and survived to this day by eating them.
Danger.
Another peal of thunder started Takeyoshi awake.
“We all know the world is ending,” spoke a voice over the radio and Takeyoshi blinked furiously and sat up in his seat. He was exhausted and his brain was trying to shut down. Still, Takeyoshi couldn’t rest. Not now. Not yet.
“We’re not as stupid as the politicians think we are,” the man on the radio continued, getting a scattered response of agreement from the crowd he was speaking to. “We see the signs. We have eyes. Honestly, the way things are going, I’d be surprised if we made it another year.”
The man on the radio sounded young, confident, and slick. Slimy, even. Looking at the dashboard, Takeyoshi tried to remember when he’d turned the radio back on and found that he didn’t know.
“We’ve always known what was coming,” the preacher proselytized to his flock. “The Norse called it Ragnar?k. The Christians called it Armageddon. Us? Well, we just call it Yo?gai-shima.” The bleating sheep made oohs and ahhs as though the preacher had said something important or profound. “Because this is what all the holy men all over the world have been predicting and looking forward to. Don’t you get it? This is the end. Right here and right now.”
Ignoring the radio, Takeyoshi peered out the car window. He’d traveled to the east end of the Central Ward, past the dizzying heights of its towers to one of the residential districts on its fringes. Apartments rose up in row after row, contrasting the elaborate edifices of the city center with their bland uniformity. These buildings weren’t made for art, but as a result of Japan’s desperate need for living space as Tokyo burned.
“Now, you might wanna ask me; ‘Papa Matsunaga, what’s the point of living, then? Should I just blow all my savings on one last party?’” the preacher scoffed, and his audience laughed in response to some unseen gesture or expression. “Just because this world is ending doesn’t mean there’s no hope. There’s another world coming, you see. Once this little dirtball burns up, a better world will replace it, and we’re all going to be there. So, what should we be doing? I’ll tell you the answer in one word: prepare.”
Takeyoshi clapped himself on the cheeks, resisting the micro-sleep as he sat up in the driver’s seat. Anticipation for his arrival managed to squeeze out a few drops of adrenaline from his tired brain, keeping him awake.
“You’ve gotta store up your treasures,” the preacher went on. “When the Buddha tried telling us that we need to abandon our attachments to the things of this world, he was looking forward to the next one. Any money you spend in this life, you can’t keep, and trusting in a bank isn’t going to do you any good, either. Anything you want to keep; you need to devote. Give it away in this life to receive it back in the next. That’s how it works, people. There’s no point in holding onto anything when the world could stop turning in the next ten minutes. So, devote it.
“Your house, your money, your children, your time,” the preacher demanded. “Devote it all. Leave this world naked and poor but proud. Sure, people will laugh at you and mock you, but I guarantee they won’t be laughing when the end comes. When the next world comes and everything resets, they’re the ones that are going to be naked. They’re the ones that are going to be poor. They’re the ones that are going to be alone. But you?
“Those who sow in this life, will reap in the next. What you give away will come back to you. While all those scoffers are fighting and killing and struggling to survive the bloody birth of the new world, you’ll be prepared, just like I told you. You’ll have a home. You’ll have a family. You’ll have friends. And if you need money in the new world? Well, you can just demand it! All you need to do is raise one hand and decree and declare, saying: ‘Money! Cometh to-”
Takeyoshi flicked the radio off, the preacher’s sermon giving him a headache. He was just another madman, he decided. Another madman looking to profit off the end of the world. Yo?gai-shima seemed to be a magnet for people like that.
“Ink, hand control over to me,” Takeyoshi ordered. The trip was taking too long, he decided. Even if he couldn’t get there faster, Takeyoshi decided he would feel better having a modicum of control.
Laying his right hand on the wheel, Takeyoshi curled his left hand into a fist and stuck his thumb out at a sharp angle. With sudden swiftness, he jammed his thumb into a scar on his chest, reenacting the stabbing that nearly took his life a decade prior. There was a momentary pain which gave way to a surge of adrenaline. Takeyoshi let anxiety course through his mind and body, exciting the flow of Hazard Energy that inundated his very being. He ceased being human and became a calamity. All his aches, his pains, and his exhaustion faded away. In their place was a restless energy; a pins and needles readiness that demanded action.
The highways of Yo?gai-shima were built to be large and versatile with reversible lanes and offramps that could be used to seamlessly redirect traffic in case of emergencies. Holographic boundaries marked lanes, and physical barriers could rise up out of the concrete at a moment’s notice to separate traffic. However, public transportation became the popular means of travel in the city of the future and personal vehicles went out of style, save for those that had the status or money to acquire one. Instead, the streets were dominated by autonomous vehicles, carrying passengers to and fro, or shipping cargo from one end of the island to another. Takeyoshi’s car sped down the road, and the highway changed to accommodate the Survivalist, allowing the Inspector to exit through an on-ramp as the city rerouted its nonexistent traffic.
In moments, Takeyoshi was off the highway and down into the streets below. His heart pounded in his chest as he drove, daring to take his eyes from the road for only the slightest of seconds in order to check the holographic display from the dashboard. It showed his destination marked ahead as a foreboding blood red dot only moments away from the rapidly moving blue dot that represented his car.
Danger.
Lightning flashed somewhere in the sky again, preceded by the supernatural warning that shouted into Takeyoshi’s mind. He took his left hand off the wheel and briefly massaged his temple. The constant sense of danger had its way of wearing on his senses. With his free hand, he fished around in his jacket and slipped out a small, metal flask. He sandwiched it between his knees as he fumbled with the cap for a moment before raising it back up to his lips to take a swig. A bitter mouthful helped to stave off the buzz in the man’s brain.
A little liquor had no impact on Takeyoshi’s senses. As he sped down the road, his eyes perceived the motion of the particles that inundated everything. Positive energy flowed across the street and through the air like pure clouds, while negativity pooled like dark slime. Each cluster represented a different possibility for good or ill: clogged up drains that caused standing pools of water that could cause his car to lose traction with the road, or momentary breaches in the heavy downpour where the wind and rain let up for a fraction of a moment. With elegant precision, Takeyoshi guided the Survivalist back and forth across the road, casually evading every misfortune the weather placed in his path as he approached his destination.
At length, Takeyoshi pulled to a stop alongside the street, looking out the passenger side window on his left towards an apartment building. It was a five-story building surrounded by a six-foot high wall that separated it from the nearly identical structures around it. Takeyoshi checked the address on the map and looked back up toward the apartment, his eyes scanning the top floor with its outside facing doors.
“I’ve sent a call to the Bureau,” Ink reported from the car’s console. “Patrol 06 and 07 are being rerouted to your position. ETA ten minutes. HQ has advised you to hold your position until backup arrives.”
“No can do,” Takeyoshi grunted. In the next ten minutes, someone could be dead. Kazuma, maybe, if he waited. Takeyoshi, himself, if he chose to go in alone, but that didn’t matter to him.
Looking out at the storm hurling down cascades of water, Takeyoshi reached into himself, grasping for positivity to protect himself from the typhoon outside the Survivalist’s doors. In his mind’s eye, Takeyoshi saw two pages laid out before him, symbolizing the balance of positive and negative energy within his body. The top third of the lefthand page was a normal piece of white stationary with black, smudged and indecipherable letters, but as it tapered down, the bottom two-thirds turned jet-black with luminescent and equally indiscernible white script. The righthand page was equally dark, like a photographic negative of a handwritten letter.
The small, untarnished white fragment of the first page indicated the amount of good fortune Takeyoshi had at that exact moment. Called “Positive Karma,” it was the energy that dictated sudden change, beneficial accidents, and miraculous outcomes. But Takeyoshi had little of that power inside him at that moment. He’d drawn heavily on his Positive Karma over the last week, using it to stimulate his tired brain to overcome the effects of sleep deprivation.
In its place, Negative Karma had crept in, staining the pages black with the element that represented stillness, misfortune, and tragic denouements. Takeyoshi’s internal balance was inherently slanted toward negativity, and as a result, it was easier for him to garner misfortune rather than the opposite. Even so, Negative Karma had its uses.
Opening the driver’s side door, Takeyoshi stepped out into the rain, pulling on the energy from the dark pages inside his mind. He wrapped himself in a shawl of black ribbons decorated with bright white letters, using the cloak of negativity to tell the universe that it was exceedingly unlikely he was going to get wet as he walked through the hurricane. Of the thousands of raindrops that fell from the sky, maybe only a few dozen actually managed to strike him, and his feet picked their way across the flooded road, automatically finding the least rain-slicked purchases possible.
Looking at it through the entrance gate that faced the street, the square-shaped, five-story apartment building had two spiraling staircases on opposite ends that gave access to the upper floors, but Takeyoshi headed for the staircase on his left, spotting an elevator next to the steps. He felt his stomach tighten into a fist as he hit the elevator button and tried to steel himself as he heard the mechanisms spur into motion. He checked his pockets, starting with his pants, then his dark black Bureau jacket, then the green jacket he wore over it. He had at least ten pens, and a broken pencil or two. He wondered if that would be enough. The metal doors slid open and Takeyoshi stepped in as an automated warning chimed.
“Please be warned, a sea-storm is expected to pass the city early this morning,” a male, but notably artificial voice played back its outdated message, and a screen to the right of the elevator doors turned on, displaying a weather map. “There may be some scattered showers and light rain.”
“You don’t say,” Takeyoshi scoffed as the doors shut and the elevator rose upward.
He let go of the shroud of misfortune he held around himself, and the constant pair of pages in Takeyoshi’s mind altered slightly. The Positive and Negative energy in Takeyoshi’s body never really left him, no matter how much he used it. Instead, they remained in a perpetual contest, the balances shifting in Takeyoshi’s mind. As a result, the white portion of the lefthand page grew, his Positive Karma expanding its foothold in response to Takeyoshi’s usage of its negative counterpart. Of course, it was never tit for tat. The Turnover gave Takeyoshi just a small amount of Positivity, content to leave the lefthand page still majority black.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Have you been in an accident recently?” a new message played as a screen to Takeyoshi’s left lit up, though he only glanced at it. “The Office of National Health would like to hear about it. Accidents in the workplace, vehicle collisions, or even brief exposure to our city’s revolutionary energy technologies can have long-lasting effects on the human body. These sudden changes can cause depression, anxiety, and permanently alter your mood and behavior. Don’t let life catch you by surprise. Get yourself checked out by a medical professional sponsored by the Office of National Health.”
Takeyoshi ignored the message, one he’d heard a thousand times. Instead, he focused on what waited ahead of him. The sliding doors pulled open and Takeyoshi stepped out. Starting at the left end of the building, Takeyoshi stared at the doors as he passed them by, scanning the numbers as he went. One by one, he counted up until he stopped in front of one particular door. Apartment 510.
Danger.
Lightning flashed as Takeyoshi had a hand raised to knock, but before his hand was even halfway to the door, someone moved on the other side. The nob twisted and the brown door swung inward, revealing a young man standing in the doorway. He was half a foot taller than Takeyoshi, with jet black hair and a handsome face with rich, reddish-brown eyes over weary lines on his cheeks. Dressed in a loose dark grey t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of socks, Kazuma stepped cautiously out onto the balcony, leaving the door partially closed behind him.
“Is it just you?” he asked, his voice a low whisper.
“For now,” Takeyoshi leaned slightly to his left to try and peer into what little of the apartment he could see from his position. “He still here?”
“Yeah,” Kazuma awkwardly brushed the back of his head, looking back toward the door. “He’s sleeping.”
“Really?” that surprised Takeyoshi. It was unlike his quarry to let his guard down.
“He was—, I don’t know,” Kazuma looked back toward Takeyoshi with a shrug. “He was exhausted. Looked like he’d been out on the streets for a few days.”
“How long has he been here?” Takeyoshi reached into the pocket of his slacks, pulling out a black, bronze tipped pen, which he tucked into the chest pocket of his jacket for easier reach.
“He arrived around ten, I guess?” Kazuma ran a hand through his hair, watching Takeyoshi tuck the pen into his pocket.
“Ten? Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“I didn’t know what to do,” Kazuma spread his hands with an awkward smile. “Maybe I was just hoping things could go back to normal.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“Jinta-kun,” Kazuma looked down at his feet, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. His voice was small, uncertain. “He’s not himself. He’s changed.”
“I’m going to have to ask you to wait out here,” Takeyoshi motioned for Kazuma to step aside, but the young man held his ground.
“I can’t let you hurt him,” the young man looked up, his expression one of troubled consternation.
“Things are about to get very dangerous, Kazuma-san,” Takeyoshi insisted, carefully choosing his words.
“I don’t care. Whatever happens, he’s still my friend,” Kazuma reached backward and slowly cracked the door open. “Promise me you’ll just talk to him. No violence.”
“I’ll let him decide that,” Takeyoshi answered, coolly, knowing how tonight was going to play out. Kazuma looked down, a tight grimace crossing his face as he accepted the Inspector’s answer. The young man stepped inside and Takeyoshi followed suit.
Danger.
Thunder rumbled outside. The inside of Kazuma’s apartment was a small and cramped space, but even that was considered a luxury for a middle-class worker this close to the city center. From the front door there was one large room split in half by a countertop which jutted from the left wall, beyond which was a tiny kitchen with a sink and a refrigerator next to a set of cupboards. The living room had a small, low table with a TV against the wall to the right of the front door. Opposite the counter that divided the living room from the kitchen, there was a small alcove with three doors, leading to the shower, toilet, and the bedroom.
Danger.
Lightning flashed through the front door, still left ajar. Kazuma walked tentatively toward the bedroom door and stopped next to it. Takeyoshi followed, walking over the carpet of the apartment without taking his shoes off, trailing a set of wet footprints. He traded looks with Kazuma, nodding toward the door and the young man nodded back, silently confirming that Jinta was inside. Takeyoshi stepped forward, slowly wrapping his hand around the door handle. He slowly and quietly twisted the knob and swung the door open. As he opened the door into the dark room beyond, Takeyoshi slipped inside and swept his hand across the inside wall, hitting the light switch.
Danger.
A nude man hung from the rotary fan suspended from the ceiling. His hands were tied around his back by long, thin, smokey cords that entwined his upper body. The man’s throat was squeezed by countless loops of black threads, so numerous and tight that his head and throat seem to have been completely dislocated, stretching his neck nearly three times its proper length. The face was unrecognizable, the features bright red from the crushing pressure that forced his blood up his throat and into his skull. The mouth was trapped in a perpetual twisted bare-toothed grimace with spittle and blood dribbling down the chin and his eyes had popped from their sockets, blood red from the bursting arteries in the sclera.
“You were right, Inspector,” a hissing voice spoke in Takeyoshi’s ear. “I am more dangerous than he knew.”
The Inspector felt something tighten around his throat. Something long and thin. Instinctively, his hands went to his neck, finding something as thin as a wire already digging into his flesh and splitting open his skin. He tried to reach down and grab for the pen in his right pocket, but the garrote around his throat grew more tendrils to lash at his hands. While Takeyoshi managed to pull his left hand away, his right hand was caught in the tangling wires, leaving him awkwardly standing with one hand attached to his throat as he was strangled.
“You should have left me well alone, Inspector,” the killer mocked him, laying his hands on Takeyoshi’s shoulders as he whispered in his ear. With a sudden swift motion, the killer reached down and plucked the pen from Takeyoshi’s chest pocket. “There’s a price to pay for being a busybody.”
Takeyoshi launched himself backwards in an attempt to knock his attacker over, but the other man simply stepped around to his left, letting the Inspector collide with the closed bathroom door opposite the bedroom entrance. The door burst inward as Takeyoshi hit it and he fell to the cold linoleum floor of the bathroom as the stranger chuckled. Takeyoshi struggled to rise, tied up as he was, feeling the pressure on his throat tighten with each second. Blood poured down from his throat, blossoming across his white dress shirt beneath his two jackets. With his left hand, Takeyoshi plunged it into his coat again, reaching for something. He reached passed his Omen, which had begun to buzz in response to an incoming call.
“It’s no use,” the killer spread his hands as he crouched down to Takeyoshi’s level, his melancholy tone at odds with his crimson eyes, which were alive with cruelty.
Out from his jacket, Takeyoshi awkwardly pulled his Bureau issued service pistol with his left hand. The killer cocked his head to one side as the Inspector aimed the weapon at him, amusement playing across his face. Takeyoshi squeezed the trigger three times, eliciting a bright flash and a thunderclap in imitation of the storm outside. The first bullet caught the man above his left eye and the next two shots dropped and hit him in the chest, causing him to fall backward into the bedroom behind him.
Takeyoshi wasted no time in standing up, dropping his gun while stumbling out into the living room and colliding with the countertop that separated it from the kitchen. He leaned against the counters as he entered the cooking area, desperately tearing out kitchen drawers and throwing them to the floor. The first two drawers were filled with potholders, hand towels, or spices, but the third rewarded Takeyoshi with silverware and cutlery as it collided with the ground.
Takeyoshi swiftly scooped up a blunt knife and held it up to his throat. The black cords had torn through his windpipe and arteries, tightening around the back of his spine. In moments, he would be completely decapitated. Hefting the knife, Takeyoshi sent his Crisis through it, filling it with the power that had been imprinted on his body since the day he nearly died. The flow of particles altered the small knife in his hand, changing its form to become a longer weapon; thin, sharp, and esoteric to represent its amplified cutting power. No sooner than he pressed the blade against the black strings trying to saw off his head, however, than the blade snapped.
Ignoring the animal instinct and desperation that tried to take over his mind, Takeyoshi wracked his brain to understand what had gone wrong. Negativity: the power to create misfortune and smother possibility. That was a power Takeyoshi and his enemy had in common. Perhaps he’d made it so these cords couldn’t be cut, even by a blade enhanced by Takeyoshi’s Crisis. Of course, that strategy could be countered.
Takeyoshi reached for the pages in his mind, pulling a length of prized white paper decorated with black text and he wrapped it around the half-broken knife in his hand. The good fortune insisted that the blade would cut through the black strings this time and the Inspector wasted no time in hewing at the self-tightening garrote. With a sense of relief, the cords were severed, freeing Takeyoshi’s right hand and neck, leaving him with a wound that would have killed a normal man.
“You’re hard to kill, it seems,” the killer noted, standing in the bedroom doorway, his wounds having vanished in moments, leaving only red smears of blood on his shirt and face. “But not as hard to kill as I am.”
“Stupid,” Takeyoshi told himself, staring up at the man as he leaned against the counter. “How could you let yourself be taken in like this?”
He didn’t dare to speak aloud or even breathe, fearing his mostly severed head would fall off. Instead, he let the particles in his body sow his throat back together. If he’d been a normal person, Takeyoshi would’ve been dead by now. But he wasn’t human, not now. He was a calamity in human form, no less a disaster than the storm outside. Then again, so was the man standing less than five feet away from him.
“I’m going to pull off your limbs, one by one, and then, I’ll tear off your head. Can you survive that, Inspector?” the killer wondered aloud as he reached up toward his throat, pinching the air around his neck with his right forefinger and thumb. As he drew his hand away, swirling black threads appeared pinched between his digits.
Takeyoshi reached into his pockets, withdrawing whatever he found on hand. He slipped a pen out of his left pants’ pocket. He channeled the near-fatal stabbing that had been permanently imprinted on his body, his Crisis, turning the ordinary writing utensil into a sharpened blade, more dangerous than any manmade weapon. The Inspector flung the pen-blade through the air, striking the other man in the left eye, causing his head to whip backward as he retreated a step. Takeyoshi quickly fished his remaining pens out of his pockets, flinging them through the air as a deadly hail of projectiles, causing the other man to fall back against the far wall and become nailed to it by the pens.
“Positive Karma,” Takeyoshi reached into the Hazard Energy in his body, divided unequally between two polarities. He needed more positive energy. He’d planned for this moment. Meditated on it. But despite his best laid plans, in the moment of truth, he found himself empty. He cursed himself. He’d used up his Positive Karma, using it to keep himself awake, to stave off a hangover after a night of drinking, or a thousand other things. In response to his desperate attempt to save his own life, the balance of Karma in Takeyoshi’s body had once more shifted, and now both pages were nearly jet black.
“You idiot,” Takeyoshi cursed himself again as the killer pulled himself forward, letting the blades slide through his body seemingly without noticing them.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” the killer marveled as he pulled out the pen in his eye, ignoring the blood and ocular juices running down his face as a new eye grew in to replace the old. “I’m like a god, now.”
He reached his hand out and the black thread flew from his fingers. Takeyoshi leapt away from the tiny string as it rippled through the air, rolling to his left and coming up in a crouch between the killer and the front door. The black string forcibly threaded itself through the countertop before bursting outward, creating a black spiderweb that hooked itself on the walls, floors and ceilings.
As more threads began to probe across the floor towards him, Takeyoshi reached into his pockets and pulled out nothing more than a paper receipt. He hastily folded it in half, forming a sharp edge as he channeled his Crisis into it. He swept the paper blade through the air, though it was unable to cut through the black strands reinforced by the killer’s Negativity, it was enough to prevent them from finding purchase on his clothes or skin. Even so, the threads spread along the wall like growing veins, getting behind Takeyoshi and weaving themselves into a net over the front door. All his senses were on the black net being woven around him, so he barely realized he was being called again.
“Senior Inspector Asahi, this is HQ,” a voice spoke from Takeyoshi’s pocket, prompting him to draw out his Omen. “Be advised, Patrol 06 is closing on your position.”
“What now?” Takeyoshi asked as he glanced at his would-be killer, his voice a rasp that he barely recognized. “You’re running out of time.”
“Your friends won’t get here in time to save you,” the killer assured him, raising one hand over his head. In response, the web of threads that formed across the walls reached outward, dancing around Takeyoshi on all sides as though he’d fallen into a pit of vipers.
“I don’t need saving,” Takeyoshi assured him, his voice sounding more like himself. He reached into himself, finding that flow of Karma inside his body that remembered his near fatal stabbing and he agitated it, intensifying the feeling. He felt energy flow through his body as the pain that had made him more than human began to overflow.
“Ink, I’m exercising my privileges as a Senior Inspector,” he informed the AI in the device and small cracks formed in the Omen as green lights strobed through it. The nanometal machine shifted in Takeyoshi’s hands, reshaping itself into a thin, dark grey spear as long as Takeyoshi was tall, emerald-green lights dancing up and down the haft. “Disaster Level. Spread the word.”
“Warning, warning,” Ink’s voice filled the room as the television between the two men turned itself on, the sound of it echoing as the Omen repeated the broadcast to every electronic device in the building. The television screen revealed a white pyramid on a green background. Within the pyramid was a white skull flanked by two blades, with the word “DANGER!” imprinted above the triangle and the word “SHARP!” beneath it. The screen then swapped to a map of the local area with a large red dot projected over the apartment complex.
“A Serial-Stabbing Disaster has been detected in the Horizon District of Central Ward. I repeat, a Serial-Stabbing Disaster has been detected in Horizon District. If this warning is being broadcasted to your personal device, you are registered as being within the affected area. All citizens are advised to follow the map relayed to their devices to evacuate to a safe distance, or report to the nearest Beta class emergency shelter. Please avoid and dispose of all knives, razors, or any other sharp objects at this time to minimize danger to yourself and others. Please be advised that the Human Calamity Response Bureau has been notified of the situation and emergency personnel are enroute.”
Bathed in the emerald light of the television set, the killer paused, momentarily questioning his prior sense of invulnerability. Takeyoshi didn’t let the opening pass him by. Pointing the spearhead toward the floor, Takeyoshi jabbed it through the carpet and into the boards beneath, letting the Hazard Energy in his body flow through the floor, the walls, the ceiling.
The room itself became a sea of blades, sharp objects forming from every kind of material, be it wood, plaster, iron, or copper. The blades stretched from every corner of the apartment, shearing through the net of black threads, and converging on the immortal man that stood in its center. Every inch of Kazuma, or whatever he called himself, was skewered through with blades. He danced on the spot as knife after knife plunged through his body, rudely thrust from side to side as each weapon forced itself through flesh and bone.
In moments, the killer stood suspended in a new kind of net, a tangle of swords that hugged him tighter and more painfully than any iron maiden could. The blades had pierced through every square inch of the man’s body, shredding his clothes into a tapestry of bloodied cloth. His left leg and right arm were little more than red, boney mulch, held to the rest of the body by the impaling spikes. Despite his head and body being absolutely riddled with thorns of every possible size and make, the other man refused to die. He couldn’t.
Takeyoshi pulled the righthand page from his mind’s eye, taking the entire black letter and channeling all the Negativity it represented before sending it through the blades his Crisis had made moments before. Imaginary strips of black paper with shining white text weaved their way through the killer’s body, infecting his body with misfortune. By using up an entire black page, Takeyoshi could smother possibilities completely, making sure what was once guaranteed was now thoroughly impossible. Using that power, Takeyoshi made it so that the killer’s ability to heal was completely suppressed, leaving him entirely unable to repair the damage to his body. The black page returned to Takeyoshi’s mind a moment later, the lefthand page once gaining another chunk of pure white parchment.
The ragged, torn body suspended within the blades couldn’t breathe with its ravaged lungs or speak with its ripped-out throat. Frankly, Takeyoshi was at a loss as to how the killer could even think with his brains thoroughly pierced. Yet, somehow, the tangled mass of flesh writhed. A low, rasping moan whispered from the dangling corpse, an emotional, wordless cry that spoke volumes on the subjects of pain and anger.
In response, black threads spiraled out of the numerous perforations in the killer’s body, weaving themselves along the bladed shafts that impaled him. A perverse hiss broke the silence, the sound born of the countless strings running along the lengths of a thousand needles. The sound swelled to a fever pitch, imitating the fury of a thousand vengeful locusts, punctuated by the snapping of blades. Dark hands and grasping pseudopods, woven from black thread, began wrapping themselves around the blades, snapping them with vicious force. As the killer disappeared beneath a cocoon of his own fatal garrotes, countless more black hands slithered their way through the many blades, reaching for Takeyoshi.
A ring of overlapping blades sprung up around Takeyoshi, reaching from floor to ceiling to momentarily block the grasping wires. The Inspector bent down, raising his right hand and slamming it down onto the floor, casually shattering it and descending into the apartment below amidst a hail of debris. The room below was identical in structure to the one above, though it was much nicer in terms of decorum. The living room had potted plants decorating its corners and paintings on the walls. Out of the bedroom came a man and woman, both of them middle-aged and half dressed, eyes wide with shock.
“Who are you?” the man demanded, standing between the Inspector and the woman with him.
“Senior Inspector Asahi Takeyoshi,” he introduced himself, whipping out his badge with practiced smoothness. Writhing tendrils darkened the hole through which the Inspector had made his entrance, and, with a moment of thought, his Crisis created another overlapping ring of blades out of the ceiling plaster to close the hole, preventing the black threads from following him down.
“You’re being evacuated,” the Inspector told them, bluntly.
“In the middle of a storm?” the woman asked.
“It’s safer than staying here,” he assured her as the walls of their apartment began to bulge and distort like a thousand serpents were nesting in the walls. He ushered the pair toward the front door, but by then, black wires had begun sprouting through plaster all around them like hairs. A cluster of black wires reached for the woman’s left arm as she and her husband scrambled for the door and no sooner than the cords tightened around her flesh than blood spurted.
The woman screamed and Takeyoshi cursed himself, reaching for the positive energy inside him. He tore off a stanza of white paper from the left-hand page, enhancing the cutting probability of his spear as he swept it through the sable tendrils. Though he tried to use as little Positive Energy as he could, darkness crept up the left-hand page, as the infection of Negativity regained ground.
The threads that had attached to the woman’s arm disintegrated, while the severed strands coming out of the wall lurched forward, this time grabbing for Takeyoshi. The Inspector danced away from the grasping threads as the ceiling buckled. The husband-and-wife duo screamed in alarm as their domicile collapsed, before dashing out into the storm when they laid eyes on the monstrosity descending into the room.
More plaster and insulation rained from the ceiling as a bundle of black cords thicker than Takeyoshi’s body broke through the floor of the apartment above. Like a dancing snake, the tendril whipped around to face the Inspector, revealing a semi-human face sticking out of the front. The killer’s face, much like the rest of his body, was torn and bloody, his flesh refusing to heal as it had done before. Unable to even walk, “Kazuma” used the countless threads flowing from his throat, weaving them through his own flesh to hold himself together while simultaneously riding on a sea of flowing wires.
Takeyoshi thrust his grey spear into the chest of the bound-up killer, channeling his Crisis through the weapon. Blades erupted from the killer’s chest, some of them small thorns formed from the same nanomaterial as the Omen, others formed from the immortal man’s own bones. Baring his teeth as he pressed the weapon deeper into the other man’s body, Takeyoshi roared.
Everything in the range of Takeyoshi’s voice was cut as even the sounds he made had become blades. The walls, ceiling, and floor tore open as though they were instantly rent by great unseen claws, while all the furniture broke apart into dust as invisible blades sheared through them. The killer’s upper body ripped apart from the sound of Takeyoshi’s ravaged throat, though an army of black threads tightly wove themselves through his pale flesh and struggled to hold him together.
Before he could infest the new wounds with more misfortune, Takeyoshi spotted a tiny garrote of black thread, almost too thin to see, weave itself around his left hand. In the smallest fraction of a second, the loop tightened and Takeyoshi dimly felt a flash of pain as his left hand was cleanly cut off at the wrist. His spear clattered away, his severed hand still clutching it, as something took hold of the back of his jacket, and he was flung backwards. He hit the wall behind him and smashed through, the momentum carrying him across several different rooms in the apartment building.
He found himself lying on a tile floor among the remains of a smashed toilet, water spilling in all directions as it mixed with the blood pouring from the stump of his left hand. He wasn’t sure whether he’d passed out from the impact, or he’d hit another bout of micro-sleep, but either way, it didn’t matter. He struggled to stand; the simple task complicated by Takeyoshi’s newly absent left hand.
He looked down at the stump, watching as it continued to gush blood across the floor with experienced disinterest. Blood loss alone couldn’t kill him; as long as he held onto his Exigency, the anxious state of mind that existed between flight and fight, nothing could kill him short of brain death. But that same power that made him stronger and faster than an ordinary human being should have stopped the blood loss in moments. Instead, the red current ran on without ceasing.
In his mind’s eye, Takeyoshi could see black veins running up the stump of his wrist, visible even through his left sleeve as they travelled up his arm. Negativity coursed through his arm, inhibiting his ability to heal the wound. It seemed as though Kazuma had learned something from him.
All was not lost, however: what could be done with one polarity could be undone with another. It was a simple matter for Takeyoshi to slowly feed Positive Energy into the wound and gently unwind the killer’s grasp on it, but it would have to wait. He didn’t want Kazuma to learn how to fix his own wounds through mimicry, nor did he have much Positive Energy to spare. Perhaps more importantly, he simply didn’t have time.
The building shuddered as a wave of black tendrils surged through it, chasing Takeyoshi through several apartments, visible to him from the hole in the wall which he’d been hurled through. He hastened to his feet, cradling his left arm as he stood. Once more, he sent his Crisis flowing through the world around him.
“I have to be careful about how much of the building I change,” he reminded himself. “There’s no telling how many people have evacuated yet.”
Particles flowed into the floor through his feet, then up into the bathroom wall behind him. Spears of concrete and iron pipes shot outward, racing forward to meet the squirming pool of black ropes like a wall of pikes facing a cavalry charge. They plunged deep into the tumultuous orgy of shifting threads, but apparently struck nothing and the wave continued to roll over them, knocking down walls and smashing through furniture as it came.
With no natural means of escape, Takeyoshi had to use a supernatural method. He took hold of the black page in his mind, debating with himself in the scant few moments he had left before the rushing wave of black serpents overran him. How much should he use? Fifty percent? Seventy-five? Now wasn’t the time to be squeamish, he decided.
He pulled the entire page once more, shrouding himself in impossibility to tell the world that he wouldn’t be touched by anything. It was a desperate move. Instead of any sense of invincibility such a power might give someone else, Takeyoshi was instead made keenly aware of how vulnerable he was. Any ordinary threat would be stymied by Takeyoshi’s strategy, but his foe was far from being rudimentary. The Inspector gambled on gaining a few precious seconds before his opponent devised the means of a counterattack.
Takeyoshi scooped up a fallen shard of the shattered toilet bowl and with a flick of his wrist and the flash of his Crisis, the porcelain turned into a ceramic blade as long as his arm. He leapt forward through the hole in the wall, radiating impossible misfortune. The wiggling black threads reached from floor to ceiling and were so tightly woven they seemed to form a solid wall, yet Takeyoshi stepped around and through them without the cords so much as brushing him.
Out of the sea of threads, Kazuma came, his head, torso, and arms a bloodied mass of flesh desperately held in a human shape by the countless black sutures that threaded through him while his lower body was still engulfed in a long tail of coiled wires. Threads reached out from the killer’s entangled body to bind the Inspector, but they touched only empty air despite the fact that the black-suited man made only a token attempt to evade them. Hands made of sable wires clutched the ceiling and pulled down chunks of rubble over Takeyoshi’s head, but the debris fell away from him. Though they stood only ten feet from each other, it was as though there was an expanse between the two men that couldn’t be crossed.
Takeyoshi flicked his wrist, channeling his Crisis through the ceramic blade, shifting it into a bone-white chakram. At the same time, the killer thrust his left hand forward, releasing five threads from his fingertips. The five wires weaved their way through the air with exaggerated slowness, appearing to Takeyoshi as a quintet of gleaming white nerves charged with Positive Energy that enhanced their ability to ensnare the otherwise untouchable Inspector.
Instantly recognizing the threat, Takeyoshi released the shroud of impossibility that hung around him. He felt the polarities inside him shift and almost two thirds of the lefthand page turned white in response. It wasn’t enough, but he only needed just a little more. As the pulsing threads reached for him, Takeyoshi pulled out an extra length of Negativity and wrapped it around the chakram in his hand, endowing it with the ability to evade interception, gambling on his enemy’s reaction.
The white discus flew from Takeyoshi’s hand, arcing toward the killer bound up in his threads. Instinctively, the killer adjusted his target, directing his tendrils to snatch the oncoming projectile out of the air. The discus, which negative probability dictated couldn’t be touched, collided with the threads, whose positive probability dictated they could grasp anything. As the two opposing forces collided, reality was forced to wrestle with the outcome, producing a bright flash as equal Positivity and Negativity annihilated one another.
Takeyoshi instinctively leapt backward as the room was bathed in an explosion of white rays and streaking black particles, evading the unstable Hazard Energy that dissolved anything it touched. His enemy wasn’t so fortunate, being too inexperienced to avoid the rush of energy heading toward him. Blinded by the flash, Takeyoshi fell into the net of thin black threads that had covered the room, feeling them lose their tension and go slack.
He fought back to his feet, flailing his arms to get clear of the cords that had fallen over him. As he stood and blinked his eyes to clear his vision, Takeyoshi’s gaze fell on what was left of the man that had tried to kill him. The explosion had burst through the ceiling and up through the roof of the floor above, exposing the stormy night sky and allowing the rain to fall in.
While Takeyoshi had been wise enough, or lucky enough, to avoid the wave of destruction, the other man hadn’t been so fortunate. The blast had disintegrated most of the threads near where the killer had been standing, including the long tail that the killer had used to move himself around. His mutilated legs were left somehow standing while his head and the left half of his torso had been burned away entirely, revealing his open chest cavity and spine.
Takeyoshi ignored the instinct to let his guard down, instead cupping his hand in front of him as he reached for the two pages in his head. The lefthand page was at least seventy percent Positive, just what he needed. Takeyoshi grabbed seventy percent of Positivity and thirty percent of Negativity, weaving the uneven ratio of darkness and light together, the combination proving more stable than the energetic explosion moments before.
As this was happening, the standing corpse began to writhe on its feet, the mutilated fingers of its remaining hand groping the air. Takeyoshi grit his teeth, sweat pouring down his face as he tried to draw his trump card, while watching the new bones and organs forming in the open ribcage of the man standing across the room from him. It would be mere seconds before Takeyoshi was ready to continue his attack, but it was clear to him the killer’s regeneration would win the race.
In moments, new veins, arteries, organs, bones, and muscles filled in the empty gaps in “Kazuma’s” flesh, followed a microsecond later by a veneer of pale skin. While his legs and right side remained scored with the unhealing wounds given to him by Takeyoshi’s blades, the killer’s newly regenerated left side and head appeared pristine and unmarred. Fortunately for Takeyoshi, Kazuma didn’t renew his attack. Instead, he held up his new hand in front of his face, his scarlet eyes alive with mad delight as he peered at it. A manic grin crossed the murderer’s face as rain ran down his features, clearly taken with his undeath.
“Amazing,” the murderer murmured, his voice low and thick with audible wonder. Then, he turned his grin on Takeyoshi, the toothy smile splitting his face from ear to ear. “It’s amazing, isn’t it, Inspector!?”
“Disgusting,” Takeyoshi curled his upper lip into a snarl. “That’s the only word to describe you.”
“You’re never any fun,” the killer pouted, his expression falling into a disdainful scowl as he swept his new hand through his rain slicked hair.
“Really?” Takeyoshi panted, struggling to hold onto his Exigency. Even so, he managed a wry smile. “Well, I’ve got a new toy for you to play with.”
Takeyoshi thrust his right hand forward and ribbons of black and white unfurled, spreading through the air before tangling together into a tangible form. In the spur of the moment, Takeyoshi decided on a broadsword, and the flows of polarity emulated the shape pictured in the Inspector’s mind. Scrolls of black and white luminescent paper shaped into a broad-bladed sword with a wide cross-guard, indecipherable white and black text flowing across the weapon’s surface.
“That is new,” the killer considered the esoteric weapon in Takeyoshi’s hand, uncertain what to make of it.
“Do you like it?” Takeyoshi smiled through the mask of sweat on his face, an eager, hungry smile. “I made it for you.”
“You shouldn’t have,” the killer raised his left hand and shot forth another wave of black webbing, seeking to engulf Takeyoshi in the tide of razor-sharp wires. The Inspector didn’t flinch, instead hefting his new weapon and lunging forward. He swung the sword into the oncoming cloud of snapping, hissing threads and the blade split apart. Seven ribbons of luminescent paper formed countless stretching blades that lashed through the black web without resistance. The white blades continuously swept through the air to beat back the groping cords while Takeyoshi was left with a insubstantial sword of black paper and white letters in his remaining hand.
Breaking through the wall of cords, Takeyoshi advanced on Kazuma, swinging the sword toward him as he continued to charge. The killer raised his new left hand into the path of the Karmic Blade, perhaps instinctively trying to protect himself for all the good it did him. Takeyoshi took the killer’s left arm, shearing it off just above the wrist, and watched with satisfaction as the stump of the severed limb bloated and twisted, producing a cancerous growth of malformed fingers rather than grow a new hand. The killer retreated on his stitched together legs, but Takeyoshi advanced, taking the man’s right arm at the elbow, sending the severed limb hurtling across the apartment in an arc. A victorious smile spread across Takeyoshi’s face as he pressed the tip of his blade up under the killer’s throat.
“What have you done to me?” the killer held up his misshapen left arm, looking back and forth from it to the Inspector.
“Much as I’d like to, I can’t kill you, so I’ve done the next best thing,” Takeyoshi answered. “I’ve hurt you and healed you. Only I’ve done it in the worst way possible.”
“Such a wicked invention, that sword,” the killer observed. “But it can’t stop me. Nothing can.”
“Say that again after I’ve chopped all your arms and legs off,” Takeyoshi dared, pressing the blade further against the killer’s throat. “Or maybe I’ll just have your head. You’re going to be a mutilated corpse decorating a vault beneath the Bureau HQ for the next thousand years. You’ll have an eternity to go mad, you son of a bitch. That’s the closest place to Hell I can send you.”
“You really hate me, don’t you?” Kazuma cocked his head to one side, appraising Takeyoshi despite the weapon pointed at his throat.
“Don’t even pretend like you don’t know why,” Takeyoshi snarled.
“Hm?” the killer seemed momentarily nonplussed, but then a realization spread across his face. “Oh, is this about that woman?”
For a moment, Takeyoshi had enjoyed watching the other man squirm, relishing in his victory, but in the span of an instant, that changed. White-hot anger that Takeyoshi told himself he’d buried erupted to the surface of his mind, demanding a bloody, brutal end to the confrontation. He swept the sword back over his shoulder, aiming for a decapitating blow as the killer smiled back at him.
Danger.
The warning echoed in Takeyoshi’s mind, but he was too committed, too tired, and too slow to listen. A surge of pain shot through Takeyoshi’s lower back and radiated through his body. He’d been played. Distracted. Stalled by the killer’s provocations until a counterattack was readied. It was an amateur move Takeyoshi would have seen through on any other day against any other opponent.
He fell forward, knocked off balance, and reflexively turned to look over his shoulder, taking his eyes off the enemy in front of him to see what had hit him from behind. The killer’s severed right arm had impaled Takeyoshi through his lower left side, tearing through his left kidney in the process. Takeyoshi could feel the twisted hand still digging and clawing at his innards as it was puppeteered by black wires.
Takeyoshi’s right knee hit the ground, and he struggled to rise, sweeping his sword defensively upward toward the killer. Before the blow could land, Kazuma’s left arm bulged as though there were countless worms writhing beneath his skin. The twisted stump erupted in a fountain of blood and bone as a new three-fingered hand with serpentine digits made from black cords bound together replaced the growth Takeyoshi’s sword had left him with.
The new hand of black cords caught Takeyoshi’s right wrist, stopping his attack short. The boneless limb wrapped around Takeyoshi’s forearm and twisted, whipping itself in a corkscrew several times. Takeyoshi felt the bones in his wrist snap, followed by his radius and ulna, and he screamed, the pain burning through his Exigency. Even so, Takeyoshi refused to release the grip on his sword, clutching the hilt in a death grip.
Takeyoshi looked up at Jinta, or Kazuma, still not knowing who he was, not even caring to know the answer. The killer stared down at him, a perverse smile on his face, his red eyes almost seeming to glow. Rain poured down on the both of them from the hole in the roof. Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, and the wind howled, but the sound of sirens drowned them all out.
“It’s over,” Takeyoshi promised, breathlessly, sweat and blood pouring down into a pool beneath him. “You have nowhere to go, and no one left to hide behind.”
“You think so?” the killer seemed unperturbed.
“Kill me,” Takeyoshi demanded under his breath.
“What was that?” the killer asked.
“Kill me!” Takeyoshi snarled. “I know your face. I know how you think. You’ll never be safe as long as I’m alive.”
The stranger leered down at Takeyoshi with his red eyes, refusing to blink for several long seconds. Takeyoshi lost his grip on his sword, letting the weapon of Karma fade away. He saw the pages of white and black reappear in his mind and he took hold of them with all the willpower he had left. He wasn’t sure how he was going to spend them, except that he intended to do whatever he could to hold his killer in place in his last few moments. Two patrols were coming. At least two Senior Inspectors, maybe four. They could definitely finish what he’d started, though he hated to think of it that way.
“No,” the stranger answered, taking a step backward as he released his grip on Takeyoshi. The Inspector fell forward, trying to take hold of the killer’s foot with his shattered right arm, but it was no use.
“Do it!” Takeyoshi snarled up from the floor. “Do it now, or you’ll never be rid of me!”
“Soon, Inspector,” the killer assured him as the sirens blared their imminent arrival. “But you got lucky today.”
“As soon as I lay eyes on you again,” Takeyoshi promised, his voice breaking from rage and frustration. “As soon as I see your face—!”
“If you like it so much,” the stranger smiled and raised his left arm, allowing the serpentine fingers to engulf his entire head. There came a squelching, tearing sound and blood poured down the man’s neck, running across his chest. The hand of black cords pulled away and opened, dropping a bloody, flesh colored rag onto the wet apartment floor.
“Keep it,” the stranger hissed, his face a skinless, lipless bloody skull covered in black threads that wriggled like a nest of vipers. Half a second later and the stranger had leapt upward, disappearing through the hole in the roof and vanishing into the storm. Takeyoshi stared upward listening to the sound of approaching sirens, struggling to form coherent thoughts.
He fought to get to his feet, screaming out in agony as he pressed his bloody limbs against the apartment floor to prop himself up. He’d lost his Exigency, that delicate state of mind that made him more than human. He was weak and vulnerable. Mortal. Even worse, he was losing too much blood. He knelt in a sea of his own plasma, which was gradually being watered down by the rain. He numbly felt the agony of the hand continuing to claw at his gullet, even though its owner had abandoned it.
He tried to stand. He tried to summon his fear, his anger, his pain, anything that would squeeze out a few more drops of adrenaline. If he could just take hold of his Exigency, he could stem the bleeding. He could use his positive Karma to accelerate the healing process. It would only take a moment. But he was tired.
Very tired.
