THE UNTOUCHABLES

THE NIGHTMARE OF AD 2062

Miya Yotsuba, eldest daughter of the Yotsuba, sat in her room, looking out at the western skies with a sour expression clouding her pretty face. She was currently twelve. She’d just started middle school that April, but the grievous expression on her face didn’t suit her age.

She was worried about her missing twin sister, Maya Yotsuba. Three days ago, she had been visiting Taipei to attend a magicraft children exchange hosted by the Asian branch of the International Magic Association when she’d been kidnapped. It was clear to everyone it had been a violent kidnapping, rather than an abduction for reasons unknown. After all, Kouichi Saegusa, who had gone to Taipei with Maya, had suffered lacerations to his right hand and left leg, as well as broken bones and a wound severe enough to his right eye that he had lost it.

She was worried about Kouichi’s health, too. Whatever the case may have been, Kouichi was her sister’s boyfriend and fiancé. But it was only natural she’d be far more concerned over Maya, who had been taken away by the kidnappers, than Kouichi, who had escaped them, albeit with major wounds. And to be honest, she felt more anger and resentment toward Kouichi than worry. Over how useless he was, having crawled back by himself after her sister had been taken away.

She knew it wasn’t Kouichi’s fault. It was too cruel to expect that much out of a boy of only fourteen, and judging by the situation, she thought the kidnappers were more after Maya in the first place. In fact, you could say that Kouichi was entangled in her kidnapping and ended up losing an eye for it. But Miya wasn’t old enough to let logic persuade her emotions. They still hadn’t learned the kidnappers’ identities, so if she didn’t vent her anger on someone, she’d go crazy.

Suddenly, she felt a hurried presence in the hallway. Miya turned to the door before anyone knocked.

“Excuse me!”

The housemaid assigned to Miya called from the other side, her voice flustered. She’d been hearing voices of dismay, voices of panic, all over the mansion for these three days, but this one was subtly different from those—something like hope was mixed in.

“Please come in.”

The door opened not a moment after the words had left her mouth. Nevertheless, a servant employed by the Yotsuba main family would never do something so discourteous as barge into her room. The woman stopped dead in front of the doorframe and looked down. But as she looked back up, impatience evident on her face, she ran over to Miya.

“We’ve gotten word that Lady Maya has been rescued!”

As soon as Miya heard that, her mind bleached white. She had no later recollection of what she did after that. When she came to, she was approaching her father, Genzou Yotsuba, current family head.

“Father! Is it true that Maya has been found?!”

In the lounge they used for conferences for the main family members, amid the careful gazes of her uncles, aunts, and equally aged relatives, she demanded this from her father.

“It’s true. Juuzou just contacted us about it.”

“Uncle Kuroba?”

Hearing that made her troubled expression dissolve into relief. The Kuroba were a family of the Yotsuba clan, responsible for intelligence activities. Juuzou Kuroba was the branch family’s leader, as well as Genzou’s younger brother-in-law. If those were Juuzou’s words, they left no room for doubt.

But Miya soon remembered the reason for her rage and once again flared up at her father.

“Why did you not tell me about this?!”

“I don’t understand. Didn’t I just tell you?”

“Please don’t lie to me! If Maya was rescued today, then we must have known the culprits yesterday, at the very least! Why did you not tell me that?!”

“Because it wouldn’t have meant anything.”

“What…?!”

“There was no point in telling you. Or could you have helped save Maya?”

“I…”

Miya bit her lip, frustrated. She was still a child. She knew that well enough herself. She couldn’t have done anything even if they’d told her where Maya was being held captive. But still, she was family—was it wrong for her to feel like she wanted him to tell her where her sister was? Those were the complaints swirling within Miya’s mind.

“I didn’t tell you because I thought it would be better that way.”

But with her father’s next words, her displeasure was suppressed by dark clouds under the name ominous premonition.

“But not anymore. Miya, I need you to be strong.”

He was trying to tell her something bad. Something had happened to Maya. It wasn’t an omen now, it was conviction, and it rattled her mind. She was assailed by an impulse to cover her ears, but she did as her father said and rallied her nerves, waiting for his next words.

“Maya was found in Quanzhou.”

“In Dahan…?”

Dahan was a country built after the southern half of China became independent, soon after the outbreak of the world war. The Great Asian Alliance, which controlled the northern half of the Chinese mainland as well as the Korean Peninsula, had occupied Tsushima for six months two years ago, too, and ever since then, even if Japan and Dahan weren’t allied, they were cooperating militarily as common enemies of the GAA.

“She was being held captive in a Kunlun Institute branch laboratory in Quanzhou.”

Miya’s face went white. The Kunlun Institute was a Dahan magician development agency. The bad rumors about that place never ended—different rumors than Lab Four, to which the Yotsuba still belonged and which was still virtually their master. Those rumors were of the sort that women especially couldn’t bear to look at head-on.

“Her wounds are grave—her physical wounds—but more worrying are her mental scars…”

Genzou’s tone, which had, until that point, been collected, began to break. Sounds like his teeth clenching, like holding back sobs, mixed into his words. Anger enough that teeth clenching was irresistible, and sadness such that sobs made their way up. That made Miya predict the worst.

“Maya was made into a human research specimen at the Kunlun Institute.”

“No!”

“Magician manufacturing experiments. Not only medicinal tests but actual—”

“I don’t need to hear any more!”

It didn’t matter how prepared she tried to make herself—she couldn’t bear any more than this. It was too painful to hear any more of what they’d done to her sister.

She turned a sharp, teary-eyed glare on her father. Then she suddenly opened her eyes wide, and tears immediately began to fall.

Her father’s hands were clenched so tightly they were bleeding.

She looked away. Her uncle was there. A wrath burned in his eyes like a blaze. She looked the other way. The eyes of her father’s younger cousin were erupting with the flames of hatred.

“Miya, this is something only you can do.”

“…Yes.”

Miya took several deep breaths to calm down. Everyone was angry for her sister. That was a tiny bit of salvation for her, and she just barely managed to clamp down on her sanity.

“Her mind is shut down right now. Her eyes are open, but she doesn’t respond to anyone. She hasn’t tried to do anything herself—she’s only letting them heal her wounds.”

Miya clenched her back teeth. That was the only way she prevented the cry from coming out.

“Miya, steal her mental sensations from these past three days using your magic.”

Miya’s eyes went wide, and she took a very deep breath.

“I would be glad to—if I could.”

Her voice was level, emotion sparse. By suppressing her emotions, she eventually gave her answer.

“But my magic is mental construction interference. I interfere with the makeup of people’s minds—I can’t take memories away.”

Her answer: that she didn’t have the power to steal memories.

“I’m not asking you to take her memories. If you did and she ever remembered what happened to her, I’m not sure she would stay sane. It would be like holding on to a bomb, never knowing when it will explode.”

But Genzou understood she didn’t have the power to manipulate memories. He was ordering her to do this anyway.

“Don’t steal her memories—separate them from her emotions. Convert her experiential memory into semantic memory so that she can’t link raw emotion to her memories of being used as a human test subject.”

Ordering her not to steal her memories but the sense of realism attached to them.

“Father, I can’t do something that precise. Even if I could convert all her experiential memory into semantic memory, doing it only to her memories for the past three days is… I can’t interfere with the memories themselves, so I can’t do it.”

Miya answered with eyes averted. With her insight—which was sharp beyond her years—she knew how effective her father’s order would be. That was exactly why she felt frustrated with herself, with her own powerlessness.

“Then, change all her experience into knowledge.”

“What?!”

She stared at him in utter disbelief. But the maximum criticism in his daughter’s eyes didn’t make him waver at all.

“Miya, I understand how you feel. We both feel regret and guilt about stealing her memories. But at this rate, Maya’s heart will break for good.”

“……”

“Maya will arrive at this mansion tomorrow. Miya, I want you to look at her when she returns and then make your own choice. Whatever conclusion you come to, I will take all the blame for it.”

Miya bowed silently and took her leave from her father.

After his daughter had left, Genzou looked around at the rest of the clan gathered in the lounge.

Everyone returned his gaze with a nod.

“We’re up against the main magical headquarters of Dahan. We’re merely the product of Lab Four, one of several laboratories. We’re vastly outnumbered.”

First, Genzou explained the horribly disadvantageous conditions of their situation. The Kunlun Institute was the center of the mainland’s magical research from before the north-south split. Because the institute was placed in Dahan, the GAA had lost most of their modern magic know-how. Because of that, despite Dahan’s critical lack of resources, they were still holding out against the GAA. In a way, the Kunlun Institute was the core of Dahan’s military strength.

“But I cannot overlook this act of savagery toward us. We may be weapons, but we are not slaves. And we’re certainly not livestock. That was why we made this lab, which created us, into our own possession,” declared Genzou, garnering another nod from everyone present.

“This is a personal grudge. Necessary retribution for the parent of a soiled daughter to get even. But that’s not all it is. I want to show our pride as magicians to the foolish nation that considers us slaves and livestock.”

“Lord Genzou…”

The one who opened his mouth belonged to the oldest generation in attendance—Genzou’s uncle.

“I don’t consider this Maya’s tragedy alone. The entire Yotsuba family has been humiliated and our dignity trampled.”

“Cousin…”

The next to seek permission to speak was a female cousin of Genzou’s, ten years younger than him.

“I have a daughter, too. I can’t think of this as someone else’s problem. She hasn’t even gone to school yet, but when I think about her future, I can’t overlook such an unjust tragedy.”

“We are weapons. We are assassins.”

A voice rose from the back seats.

“Perhaps it’s absurd for us to preach humanity. I have no doubt those we have killed sit at the bottom of hell, laughing at us for our selfishness. But who the hell cares?!”

The eyes of all present were filled with understanding and consent.

“Give me the order, my lord! Allow me to avenge your daughter!”

“Stand aside, fledgling.”

That voice came from beside Genzou.

“Someone as inexperienced as you would only die a dog’s death. Please give this foolish brother of yours the order. I will show those mainland bastards no less than hell.”

“Lord Genzou, we all feel as you do.”

“Death to all those involved in Maya’s kidnapping!”

“Ruin to the mainland magicians, the pawns of her disgrace!”

“Please leave the Japanese government to me. I will see to it that any who would crow about diplomacy or military cooperation are silenced at once.”

Genzou bowed deeply to all those gathered here.

And then he brought his face back up and declared:

“Our enemy is the Kunlun Institute—and the government of Dahan. With all the forces of the Yotsuba at our disposal, we will annihilate them.”

“…Maya? …Maya?”

A voice called to her. She felt as though she hadn’t heard this voice in a long time—but for some reason, she felt no nostalgia connected to it.

She opened her eyes. There stood a sickroom she long knew and the face of a twin sister, whom she’d known ever since she could remember.

“Miya… Is this the sickroom in Lab Four?”

The first words out of Maya’s mouth both relieved Miya and made her want to cry.

“Yes, Miya. How do you feel? Do you have a headache?”

Asked by her older sister, Maya gave her a dubious expression.

“No… No headache. I’m fully awake, and my memories are clear.”

At Maya’s one word, memories, Miya’s expression hardened.

Maya looked up, face confused, at Miya, who was gazing at her with frightened eyes.

“Miya, I was… I was raped.”

Miya turned away from Maya, who spoke detachedly.

“And they tinkered in my body. They messed everything up, even inside me. Not a single part of my body hasn’t been soiled by their hands.”

Miya pushed her hands onto her knees. As though making it impossible for her body, about to stand up and run away, to flee from atop the stool upon which she sat.

“I remember all of it. So why don’t I feel anything about it? All I can think is how it’s terrible or sad, like I saw a movie. Even though it all happened to me.”

Miya couldn’t look up at her.

“Miya…”

But Maya wouldn’t look away from her sister.

“What did you do to me?”

“……”

“Miya?”

“…I converted your memories.”

As though finally resigned, Miya began to talk, head down.

“There are a bunch of different ways your mind stores memory. It’s not all just one piece. The part that remembers experiences and the memories that turn into knowledge of things like words and images have different containers.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine that… But if you say so, Miya, then I’m sure that’s true.”

Even in the Yotsuba clan, only Miya possessed this magic of mental construction interference. Miya, who could change a person’s mental makeup, could also perceive mental makeup. That was something only Miya knew how to do, but it was clear that Maya understood.

“I can’t look inside those containers. I don’t know what memories are inside them. All I can know is whether the memory in the container is an experience or knowledge.”

“…And?”

At this stage, Maya had a dim guess of what her sister wanted to say. But she let Miya say it.

“Maya, I didn’t know what you had experienced. But I knew without magic that your heart was about to break for good. So I…”

“So you what?”

Miya stammered because it was hard to endure putting it into words. Still, Maya wanted her sister to explain what she did from her own mouth.

“…I changed your experiences into knowledge. I remade your memories… I turned the container storing your experiences into a container storing your memories.”

“I see…”

That was all Maya said.

She didn’t criticize her sister.

Miya nervously started to glance up and saw Maya looking at the opposite wall.

“Everything about me is just data now, huh?”

The girl’s words plunged into Miya’s heart.

“My happiness, anger, the things I had fun doing, the things that made me sad, all data…”

And still, Miya couldn’t let herself run away from here.

“You’re right—I wouldn’t have been able to endure the memories of my kidnapping. At that rate, my heart would have died.”

“Maya…”

“So before the memories of my disgrace could kill me, you did it instead, didn’t you?”

“?!”

Miya caught her breath.

Maya once again turned to look at Miya.

“Well, that’s what happened, isn’t it? People are made by their experiences. I had a past self, and now I have a current self.”

Miya tried to avert her eyes. But her sister’s gaze wouldn’t allow it.

“Changing experiences into simple knowledge is the same as turning the past into data. Everything about me from before today has vanished, changed into something that isn’t me, right?”

Maya’s eyes stabbed deep into Miya’s heart.

“You killed who I was before today, didn’t you?”

Miya rose from her stool. She turned on her heels, then ran for the door as fast as her legs could carry her.

She ran away from Maya.

Without being able to apologize.

Without being thanked.

Without being able to even share tears.

…There would never again come a chance for them to regain the bond between them that was broken this day.

Six months later: The nightmarish days of the Kunlun Institute and the Dahan government continued.

A certain laboratory had been wiped out, all of its staff and attached magicians gone in a night.

At the base, which had an army, people started killing one another suddenly, and the last one had put a bullet in his own head and died.

The buildings that the government’s military/government-related agencies occupied were plowed into by jet fighters from their own forces and destroyed. There were zero survivors.

Everyone inside some of the research facilities died, having suffocated from oxygen deprivation. In one case, everyone had been stabbed to death before anyone noticed it. That incident had occurred in a secret salon that government officials used, and on that day, it just so happened that many of the important figures in the Dahan government were gathered there.

They hadn’t a single clue of the culprit. In some cases where they investigated a suspect, the investigators vanished, not even leaving corpses behind. Their remains, without exception, vanished.

It was indeed a nightmare.

And exactly six months after the first mystery occurred, the nightmare showed its face, finally.

With all its support branches and local agencies crushed, the only thing that remained was the Kunlun Institute headquarters. Three magicians had attacked the fortress defended by Dahan magicians.

Just three. In contrast, the magicians stationed at Kunlun Institute were three hundred. Once boasting a staff of three thousand people, the Dahan magic regiment, through deaths and desertion, had whittled down to just one-tenth of that.

“My name is Genzou Yotsuba.”

A man in his early middle age, who had slashed the magicians guarding the front gate in the blink of an eye, gave his name in Japanese.

The scientists and magicians gathered at the headquarters, plus the influential persons who had evacuated here, all watched Genzou on the screen.

“In order to satisfy a grudge, you will all die. This is revenge for my daughter, whose future you stole.”

Thus did Genzou declare, swinging a knife horizontally toward the camera.

All five hundred people watching the screen grabbed at their necks at once. They were attacked by illusions of their own heads being cut off, and when they found them still attached, they breathed sighs of relief. With relaxed hearts, they looked back to see that the screen was empty.

The research theme of Lab Four, which spawned the Yotsuba clan, was “the bestowal and improvement of magical abilities from mental reconstruction, using mental interference magic.” For that goal, Lab Four first gathered people with unique mental interference–type abilities. If some among them were the real thing who could change entire personalities, others were like street magicians who could do nothing but show phantomlike illusions. They strengthened the minds of those mental interference ability specialists, weeded them out, and directly reconstructed the magic-calculation regions of the magicians who had become the elements with those abilities. That was the magician development process adopted by Lab Four.

The Yotsuba, born as a result of that, necessarily connoted two types of magicians. The first were those whose mental interference–type abilities were strengthened at birth. The second were those born equipped with powerful, distorted magic-calculation regions. These two types stood side by side, mingled, and formed the Yotsuba. Even in directly related family members, these two properties would manifest at random. For example, Miya strongly inherited the characteristics of the former, able to control mental interference magic that was only hers. Meanwhile, Maya was a typical instance of the latter, who in exchange for not possessing mental interference–type abilities was born possessing extremely nonstandard magic.

Right now, the three attacking the Kunlun Institute were all users of strong, unique mental interference magic.

One was a user of magic who could immobilize a person’s awareness. His magic, using five sense–based awareness as a medium, could implant a fixed notion of a certain state being maintained. The effects lasted nine minutes. For example, say somebody witnessed him hiding somewhere. It didn’t matter if it was with physical eyes or on video, nor if it was one person or a thousand. He used their visual information of having seen him as a medium to cast his magic on them, and for nine minutes, they would never doubt that he’d moved away from behind cover. Even if he left the shadows and walked slowly in front of them, anyone trapped by his spell would continue to think he was hiding there. Even if a loud alarm rang, they would never connect that sound to him.

Another was a user of magic who could dominate someone’s willpower. It lasted a maximum of one minute, could target up to seven people, and had an effective area of up to sixty-six feet. Although it had the restriction of not working against those possessing magic interference powers that were better than his, and he was unable to order them to hurt themselves, once a person fell under the spell’s effects, they would never be able to disobey his commands. Because the commands were sent as ideas with psionic waves, they could even travel through thick walls, and language barriers didn’t pose a problem, either. It lasted anywhere from a few seconds to one minute. This spell, which could surely make someone execute an order, had been reported in two other cases outside Japan and was called One Command.

With those two spells together, the invaders were easily able to break into the fortresslike laboratory interior. They purposely let themselves be caught on the surveillance cameras, immediately pretending to flee. By doing that, out of the three invaders, it would make them think the two aside from Genzou were still outside. Then they would deliver a One Command to the security from across the door and have them open it. Of course, once it was open, the security officers had outlived their usefulness. Through a sequence of suggestion and cleanup, they arrived within nine minutes at their destination—the security control room.

The pair got to work right away. In exchange for having talent in powerful mental interference magic, they had only average magic power when it came to typed magic for interfering with physical phenomena. If the nine minutes’ spell ran out and the magicians guarding the laboratory forced their way in, they would be greatly outnumbered and taken out for sure. Going by the book, which had been directly written into their brains—more precisely, the data was sent directly to their mind via electric signals to the brain, and they were conditioned so that they could refer to that data at any time through electric impulses—they shut down all the laboratory’s security systems.

They did it right in the nick of time, too. Not a few seconds after they finished their work they were attacked by over ten Dahanese magicians, all wearing matching, dully shining metal bands around their heads. There was an intense exchange of gunfire and magic that lasted just a few moments—and then the control room was rendered unusable by a fierce wave of heat and explosions.

Genzou realized his comrades had blown themselves up after crossing two of the bulkheads left wide open by the security systems going down. It was self-immolation through a conditional activation spell engraved into their bodies beforehand, so that they wouldn’t leave any proof or give them any genetic samples. His magic sense had informed him that the spell had activated.

…I’m sorry.

He gave a short, two-word apology to them in his mind. As he’d made clear himself, this battle had started with his own personal grudge. But those in the clan had come with him of their own accord. Perhaps apologizing to the sacrifices made a mockery of their determination—but even knowing that, he couldn’t help feeling sorry for his comrades who had gone before him.

The number of dead in the Yotsuba clan from this battle numbered twenty-nine. That was half of the combat magicians the Yotsuba had. However, the enemy’s dead, including magicians, numbered three thousand five hundred. It wasn’t worth it, thought Genzou. The Yotsuba magicians weren’t cheap enough that burying just 120 times their number in enemies would net them any change. Genzou resolved himself—he had to balance the account himself.

Meanwhile, as he thought, his body kept moving. The Kunlun Institute’s head director—he was today’s target. He kept running and running toward the center of the labs, making his way down the hallways, now silent from the security systems going down. All who stood in his way, both magicians and non-magicians, lost their lives at a single swing of his blade. Normally magic-calculation regions couldn’t be felt consciously, but Genzou could tell his was overheating, reaching its limit. If he kept on going, his mind would burn out. But he couldn’t stop here.

When he came to the final door, he didn’t stop; he accelerated farther.

The presence of magic swelled within the room.

There were probably four inside who rivaled him in magical ability: the head director and his confederates in power. With the true enemies Genzou sought in front, their bodyguards’ tried to fire their magic at Genzou.

But their spells didn’t complete.

Genzou’s spell was faster.

The skill of the four magicians and Genzou was about equal. Despite that, though, Genzou was one if not two steps ahead of them—because his spell was already being activated.

Genzou held his knife horizontally. The next expected motion would be a quick snap, mowing across. Before the blade was swung, the four enemy magicians fell, blood spurting from their necks.

Genzou’s spell: Grim Reaper. It was a mental interference spell that triggered a specific image in an opponent’s mind. That image was death. A spell that applied strong suggestion by displaying that image’s symbol to an opponent he’d already given the image of death to. He could simply show the initial image one-sidedly; either was fine. It didn’t matter whether it was direct or indirect—neither distance nor time was an obstacle. As long as the opponent simply carried that image in their mind, he would amplify it by hundreds of times and change it into a suggestion that even affected the flesh.

Because the suggestion was something brought on by their own memories, no form of defense meant anything. Anyone who confronted Genzou would be killed, twice, by themselves. However, to activate this magic, Grim Reaper, it was necessary to directly meet the opponent. The spell formed only when Genzou perceived an enemy and the enemy perceived Genzou. It was a spell that exhibited effects only after he himself jumped into the jaws of death.

Without wasting time making sure the four magicians had died, Genzou again swiped his knife horizontally. The Kunlun Institute’s head director, the Dahanese government’s military director, and the other Dahanese politicians trembling in the room all crumpled to the floor, blood spurting from their necks.

“This is disappointing,” muttered Genzou, looking down on the mess of dead bodies spread before him. For the past six months, they’d been closing in slowly from the outside. He was confident they’d given them enough fear. But finally finishing everything up like this made him feel like they should have waited to kill them until they’d suffered a little more.

Then, suddenly—

Feeling vertigo, he fell to a knee.

His head hurt like it was going to split open.

No…

In his agony, Genzou realized this pain wasn’t something brought on by his physical body but something backflowing from his mind. It had passed its limit after repetitive usage of Grim Reaper.

Genzou realized it was time for him to die.

I can no longer return to Japan.

There was no proof. Nobody had yet objectively observed the limits of a magic-calculation region. But Genzou knew it for sure. He controlled images of death, and now he felt closer to it than ever before.

He put his weight on his quivering knee and stood up. Over a hundred core research personnel and magicians still remained in this laboratory.

Suppose I’ll take some of them as fare across the Sanzu River.

Genzou smirked, revealing his teeth.

Miya, Maya…I’m sorry.

Apologizing in his heart to the two beloved daughters he’d never see again, he ran off in search of his next prey.

That was how the Yotsuba family’s revenge ended. Only tragedy remained in its wake.

Maya Yotsuba, due to the wounds she had sustained, lost her reproductive capabilities. Even regenerative medicine, which had advanced to the point of creating limbs for transplants, was unable to recover lost reproductive functions.

The Yotsuba family proposed to the Saegusa an annulment of Maya and Kouichi’s engagement. Kouichi Saegusa had forever lost his right eye and his beloved at the same time. For his part, he could have had a new eye constructed for himself using cloning technology. But he refused, saying he couldn’t live on unharmed alone, as though nothing had ever happened.

After this incident, Miya used her mental interference magic frequently and excessively, as if to punish herself, and before she was twenty, her body failed her. She spent ten years in and out of hospitals, recuperating from it.

The Yotsuba decided to place exclusive bodyguards with all those in the clan with especially great magical gifts, lest they see a repeat of the tragedy that had befallen Maya. Instead of hiring temporary guards with money to do the job, they created the Guardians—beings who would spend their entire lives as bodyguards, risking themselves for that duty.

Thirty died on the Yotsuba side during their shadow fight with Dahan. They had lost half of their combat forces, as well as their leader.

On the other hand, approximately four thousand Dahanese died. For just thirty sacrifices, the Yotsuba clan had assassinated four thousand ministers, senior government officials, commissioned officers, magicians, and scientists. They had wiped out the Chinese mainland’s research into modern magic.

Due to the damage, Dahan internally collapsed one year later, and the GAA reunified the Chinese mainland.

The end of the north-south conflict in East Asia was tied to the end of the worldwide war outbreaks covering the northern hemisphere.

The great war had ended.

And those who knew the truth behind Dahan’s ruination now feared the Yotsuba as the Untouchables.