Chapter 2

Shinjuku District, Tokyo Japan March 3, 2031

Nariko shivered and tried to burrow deeper into her jacket. It was too thin to protect her from the sharp wind that whipped down the Shomben Yokocho and threatened to tear the hood from her head. Even in early March, the street reeked of stale, spilled beer, raw fish, and unwashed salarymen overlaid with the ammonia-laden smell that gave the street the nickname "Piss Alley."

Once she stepped out of the circle of light around Shinjuku Station, Nariko lurked in the darkest shadows. The alley was unlit, but the half-moon gave enough light that anyone walking down the center of the street cast a shadow so long that you could see it long before you could see them.

Nariko stepped carefully as she passed in front of the dark, ramshackle stalls that leaned against each other and sometimes over the street. Tomorrow morning, someone would be along to clean the street, but it wouldn't do to trip over a discarded bottle or slip on a patch of ice tonight.

A girl alone on the Shomben took a lot of risks, especially this late at night. Groups of salarymen clustered together on their way to the strip clubs and hostess bars of Kabukicho and walked home from them alone. Either way, Nariko knew better than to let them get their hands on her.

Every few steps, she glanced up at the towering Odakyu department store, which stayed lit all night and helped her keep her bearings. The buildings at street level were different from the last time she'd been here, but her father's restaurant would be in the same place.

Every time she saw the tower, she tried to imagine Tokyo as it had been in her mother's time—a vibrant city packed cheek-to-jowl with all kinds of people. That was before the Qiin had come. In the intervening years, anyone who could afford to had moved out of Tokyo. It was ironic. Japan had capitulated to the Qiin's demands immediately and escaped the massive, city-destroying retribution so many other countries had suffered. Unfortunately, Tokyo was such an obvious target if the Qiin ever did attack. The city felt as good as lost anyway.

She moved as swiftly as she could without breaking her neck, avoiding possible watching eyes. By the time she had to step into the light outside her father's restaurant, she lowered her head and shoved her hands in her pockets, hoping her shape would be too indistinct to draw attention right away.

Even though the restaurant was made almost entirely of corrugated metal, it was warm and well-lit inside. The customers, mostly old men and first-year salarymen, sat on long, rough benches. Some ate noodles. Nearly all drank the cheap, watery beer or sake that were the restaurant's primary appeal. Sad-looking rent-girls shuffled from table to table. Most of the men looking to bring one of them home would have already done so, taking the best girls with them. What was left were the dregs of the dregs.

Nariko barely spared anyone a glance. She made her way through the smoke, staying to the edge of the room, to the counter where her father worked. The men clustered around were slightly better dressed than the rest of the room, but that didn't keep one of them from reaching for her, glassy-eyed as soon as she'd pulled the hood of her coat back.

"Papa-san," she said sharply. The man drew his hand back quickly and shot a worried glance at Nariko's father.

Her father didn't seem to notice that man. His own eyes took a second to focus on his daughter. "Nariko," he said sharply, "I told you never to come here when I'm working. Go home."

She shook her head, "It's Mama. She's ... she had to go to the hospital. The baby's coming wrong. You have to come."

Her father shook his head, sounding more tired than angry, "Go home, Nariko. I can't afford to come running every time your hysterical mother..."

Nariko grabbed his upper arm and tugged ineffectively, "She's not hysterical. I saw the blood."

His father shrugged her off and swept back his hand to strike her. Now, he was shouting, "Go home, Nariko. There's nothing I can do. It won't help anyone if I leave and lose my job."

Nariko couldn't believe what her father was saying. She'd come all this way, risked the Shomben Yokocho at night, risked breaking her neck on the ice, and her father wouldn't come? How many times had she and her mother gone without because her father was too drunk to work? She looked around for anything that might help. Her eyes lit on the one thing she knew her father valued. His sushi knives, the ones he'd used when he'd been sober enough to have a good job, lay sharp and gleaming on the counter in front of him. Her father's eyes followed hers a second too late. He dove just as she scooped them up with a clatter. Before he could get a grip on her, she fled straight down the aisle between the benches.

Maybe someone groped her and she didn't notice. Or maybe the sight of a crying girl with a double fistful of knives was enough to penetrate even the most alcohol-soaked brain and no one tried. Either way, she was outside seconds later. As she turned towards the subway station, one foot slipped on ice and she stumbled forward. She caught herself enough to lurch into the darker part of the Shomben and past a few stalls closed for the night before another patch of ice sent her flying.

She reached down with her hands to cushion her fall and had an immediate vision of landing on a pile of knives. At the last moment, she flung her hands out and saw the gleaming fan of knives spread out in front of her, scattering everywhere. Even as they flew, she tried to catch them again. Why had she taken them? Her father couldn't even hold his hand steady enough to make sushi anymore. But, they were the only beautiful things left in their house that they hadn't been allowed to sell for food, which even he hadn't been willing to sell for drink.

Nariko's chin smashed into the pavement. The world filled up with light, then darkness.

Someone had a firm grip on Nariko's shoulder and was turning her over. Her face was sticky and her cheek swollen. She saw her father's silhouette, half-outlined against the half moon. He seemed to be smiling. He must have recovered his knives.

"Papa-san."

The man laughed, his breath reeking of cheap beer. Nariko realized her mistake. He pinned her to the ground and tore open her coat. Nariko laughed. Only an idiot would rob her. She clearly had nothing worth taking.

When his hand groped painfully at her breast, Nariko remembered where she was and that she always had something worth taking. She kicked and thrashed, but the man had her pinned down. She twisted her head around and saw that he wasn't the only man nearby and that there was another woman struggling nearby. She was fighting and yelling, but pinned down as well. Nariko kept silent. There was no point in adding to the noise.

The men spoke to each other in eager, hushed voices. Most of what they said was unintelligible, but she heard one say in an injured whine, "You promised I could go first this time."

She froze and, for a moment, her mind threatened to go somewhere far away and leave her body to its own devices. Then, she remembered where she was. She remembered her mother on a stretcher with blood seeping through the sheet the paramedics had thrown over her. She saw her father, who was probably still only a few hundred yards away, telling her to go home. She remembered the knives flying away from her. Her mother and unborn little brother were probably dead. The thought made her numb. Her father would disown her for what she'd done. She had no future. Whatever she did from here on out, it didn't matter.

She raised her head enough that her lips were next to her attacker's ear and let out a shriek that drew all the air out of her lungs. It went on until she had black spots in front of her eyes. It was a sound no proper Japanese girl would ever make. It didn't even sound human. The man on top of her reeled back with one hand on his ear and the other held up as if to ward off an attack. After a second, he reached back to slap her into silence, but it was enough time for her to free the knife she felt pinned under her shoulder. It was the biggest of the knives, the one her father used for cutting through bone.