Prologue

Origins

The day he proposed to his girlfriend, Maruyama Juro, at that time a college student at Fukuoka University, killed a ten year old girl.

It was a hot, muggy day in late July when it happened. The city of Fukuoka had sank into its traditional stupor for the heat of summer. Salarimen discarded their suit jackets for white dress shirts that quickly became soaked with sweat under the arms and down the back. Children ran wild, all gangly and bare-limbed, catching frogs to throw down each other's shirts. They were often cruel to the little creatures, caught in the self-absorbed indifference of youth. It wasn't unusual to see frogs lying helpless on baking-hot concrete walls, divested of their limbs but still alive, bulbous eyes blinking in accusation. Some children were more imaginative than most, cutting off only the front limbs to see how the animal fared or jamming push-pins through their jaws to keep them from eating. Others were more charitable. Ojima Aiko was one of these.

"Leave them alone!" she demanded, bodily shoving two of her neighbors away from the wall where they'd been tormenting their catch. "Don't hurt him! What is WRONG with you?!"

"It's funny!" one of them, a fresh-faced eleven year old, retorted. "Can't you take a joke?"

"Joke? You think that's a joke?" Aiko snorted, scooping up the frog protectively. "You're stupid."

With that, the little girl turned and stalked off, planning to bring the frog to a nearby park where she could let it go. As a parting shot one of the kids she'd just shoved yelled "No, YOU'RE stupid" back at her as she was leaving, but she rolled her eyes and ignored it. The sun beat down as she walked, glaringly bright. She could feel sweat dripping down her face and legs. Inside her cupped palms, the frog was making occasional attempts to escape.

"Hey, calm down," she told it, feeling maternal, "You're gonna be fine."

Her neighborhood's streets were deserted, its residents driven inside by the heat and humidity. All along the street, windows had been thrown open in a futile attempt to let in the nonexistant breeze, but aside from that the area was a model of inactivity. There was something about the heavy air that leeched the energy from everyone's bones. When Aiko had wandered outside to play, even her mother had been slumped on the couch, glued to some daytime TV show.

No doubt she would never have imagined that three days later, her daughter's dismembered left hand would wash up on the shores at the edge of the city, or that law enforcement would be scouring the coasts for days afterward trying to find more body parts. She would not have imagined that the case would quickly slip into the realm of obscurity without ever being solved, or that no one would ever find anything other than that one tiny, partially decomposed hand to bury. She would not have predicted that she'd spend days afterward sitting silently in her daughter's room, on her daughter's unmade bed, feeling a silent condemnation from every toy, every piece of clothing, every drawing, every piece of schoolwork Aiko had slaved over. Why didn't you keep a closer eye on her? How could you let this happen? She would not have imagined that her marriage would fall apart soon afterward, or that she'd have to spend years on antidepressants before finally remarrying at the spinsterly age of fifty.

So Aiko continued to walk, unwittingly, towards her doom. It was nearing lunchtime, and she could smell the scent of domburi and ramen noodles drifting through the open windows. Once in awhile another soul would meander past her on the sidewalk- a little girl in schoolkid's red cap whom Aiko recognized as one of her neighbors, an older boy who pedaled his bicyce towards the convenience store with a pensive look on his face. Neither of them appeared to take note of her, and she spared little more than a glance for either of them.

The park was five blocks away- one left, one right, straight ahead, one right, one left, down a few steps, and the concrete walkway opened up into a small partially wooded area, bordered on all sides by the stone yards of different courtyards and containing a single slide and swingset. The neighborhood children normally neglected these in their play, favoring instead the dark corners and dappled shadows that lent themselves perfectly to games of streetwide hide-and-seek. For others, it happened to be a convenient quiet spot to sit and think away from other people.

Because of this, Aiko hardly took notice of the sullen college student sitting on one of the swings. Instead, she marched right past him into a grove of trees that she knew housed a small, muddy pool that was often frequented by the neighborhood frogs. "There, see?" she told the little creature as she knelt down, shifting to keep her sneakers from sinking too far into the squalid ground, and opened her hands. "This is way better, isn't it?"

She jumped when she turned around and saw the man from the swing standing directly in her path. "Oh, I-" she started uncertainly, "I didn't-" know you were there, she was going to say, but the man had lunged and closed his hands around her throat before the word could come out. Her eyes bulged. She clawed at the man's hands. Her legs skidded out from under her, leaving her on her bottom, kicking like a spastic in the mud. Her dry lips drew back until they cracked and dribbled blood down her cheeks. The man slammed her head into the ground in a maddened craze. She shoved mud in his face. He slammed her down so hard her vision blurred. Her face contorted. He didn't relent. Bile rose in her throat, but didn't come out because of the pressure from his hands. She gagged. Her vision was blotted out. The strength faded from her limbs. Her head spun, and she felt strangely detached, as though she wasn't truly present for the violence that was still occurring.

Finally, she lost consciousness.

As the girl's body went slack, Juro allowed his head to fall forwards, gasping from exertion. Mud was all over him, soaked through his pants, stuck to his teeth, and smeared all over his arms. Sweat was dripping from his shirt. All the same, a huge grin split his face as his head hung down between his shoulders. He could have laughed out loud in glee; this was just what he'd needed, this release. He felt like a spring wound too tight most of the time, an automaton that moved through society performing the actions he was prescribed to do but never truly fulfilled by any of it. He never had any close friends as a child, simply because he didn't understand the point of having one. At home, his mother was a bitter shell of a woman, thin as a stick, who alternated between reclusiveness and the kind of promiscuity that meant a new man brought home every few weeks. Her moods fluctuated wildly; some days she'd dress in her finest and shower her son with compliments, but on others she'd scream wildly, hit him, and pull his hair until he locked her in the house and stormed out to the shed.

It had been Juro's favorite haunt ever since he was thirteen years old, when he'd run out of the house to hide there during one of his mother's drunken tirades. It wasn't anything special, just a little three by three meter long space lined with shelves and pegboards, which held tools and miscellaneous things that had somehow accumulated there over the years. It had no power, but Juro had brought in a battery-powered lantern, and an extra futon which Juro had begun to use more and more over the years. Not for the past six months, though, because a female classmate, had found out about his living conditions, been suitably horrified, and convinced her parents to allow him to sleep in the family's spare room, at the opposite end of the house from her. Nonetheless, Juro had continued to visit the shed often, especially when he wanted to be alone, which was often.

Now, Juro looked at the anonymous girl whose body was still pliant and warm, and felt something stir deep within him. She was beautiful, he thought. The little red shorts she was wearing brought out the pinkness of her skin, the rosy flush of her cheeks under long, dark eyelashes. Her face was the sort that ought to be used to sell laundry detergent, round and soft without the faintest hint of a blemish. Her eyes, open and glassy, formed perfect almond shapes that were unusually large and endearing, seeming to carry a dozen unspoken promises in their depths. On impulse he hugged her body close, squeezing those shapely limbs bruisingly tight, as though pressure alone could make their bodies one, allow him to carry that stunning beauty with himself forever. Leaning down, he kissed one of the trails of blood that had trickled from her split lips, opening his mouth to lick at them, pressing his nose against her cheek.

He sat there for awhile, cuddling the dead child, until a shout from his mother brought him out of his reverie. He didn't answer- he never did, anymore- but it reminded him that the hour was getting late and something was going to have to be done with the girl's body. It was a terrible shame to have to let her go this quickly, but he couldn't risk keeping the body in the shed too long. But, luckily, he'd done this before. Regrettable as it was, the task of disposal didn't scare him.

But before he started, Juro snuck into the house to steal mother's camera, using it to snap pictures of the girl's body in different poses until the film ran out. He replaced the camera, and removed the film, hiding it under a bag of tools. Perhaps, once the freshness of memory had begun to fade, he'd find a way to develop it. At last he grabbed a tarp that had been rolled up in the back of the shed, spread it out on the floor, and lifted the dead girl onto the waterproof surface. Rigor mortis had not yet begun to set in, allowing her frame to flop like a puppet that had lost its moorings. There was always an axe kept in the corner in case it was needed, and he grabbed this now, striding back to stand above the crumpled heap on the ground. He raised it up over his head.

If she was beautiful before, she was even more beautiful then, when she came apart in a flower of flesh and blood.

***

Sachiko squeezed her eyes shut, leaning back and resting her head on the edge of the furo. It was about time for her to get out and get dressed for an evening out with her boyfriend, but her head seemed heavy and it felt as though a dragon was rhythmically beating a sledgehammer against the insides of her skull. She'd already taken twice the dose of painkiller that she normally took for headaches, but it seemed they had yet to kick in. Hopefully, they would before she had to leave; although the pain was dreadful, she would never consider canceling a big date on her boyfriend at the last second.

His mother probably would, she thought with a hint of bitterness. That is, if she ever tried to do anything with him in the first place. Unforgivable, that's what it was. What kind of mother could possibly allow her own selfish alcohol problem to affect her children like that? Her own mother, she knew, had made wrenching sacrifices in order to raise her children. Miyagi Rika was only seventeen years old when she married Sachiko's father, Noburu, giving up her job and financial independence in order to raise Sachiko and her two siblings. Every day, she arose before the sun or anyone else to get breakfast started. From then on, she seemed to be caught in a whirlwind of constant activity, cooking, cleaning, sewing, accounting, and a bevy of other tasks that came with being the female of the household. Yet, Sachiko had never once seen her complain.

"Exactly the way a woman should be," one of her uncles said approvingly. "You'd do well to remember what she has to teach you, Sachiko-chan."

Which she was trying to do. Opening her eyes, she found that they'd adjusted quite well to the dark of the bathroom; she hadn't turned the lights on because they made her headache worse. Delaying any longer would make her run the risk of being late or of having to go out without being completely ready. So she stood up slowly, dripping water, struggling to keep the change in position from aggravating the pain in her head.

"Ohhhh..."

Gingerly, she stepped out of the tub, dried off, and tugged her clothes on. Though she wouldn't put it on until she was completely dried off, for the moment opting for sweatpants and a t-shirt, she hoped a relatively formal Western-style dress that reached her calves would be good enough for the occasion: Dinner at an upscale restaurant in the downtown Tenjin district, and dancing a few blocks away immediately afterwards. There was extra ibuprofen in her purse already; she'd put them there directly before getting in the bath, thinking to the evening ahead of her and hoping that they would be enough to get her through the night. Maybe Juro would get bored early on, she thought tiredly, before mentally scolding herself for ingratitude.

The last of the water drained out of the tub with a gurgle, prompting her to grab a spray bottle of cleaning solution and a scrub brush. Holding her breath until she could feel her heartbeat pounding in her head so as to not inhale any cleaner, she quickly scrubbed the appliance to a sanitary shine, then hurriedly did a scan of the rest of the bathroom, cleaning here and there where she saw spots of dirt. After finishing- the entire session had lasted less than fifteen minutes- she replaced the cleaning supplies and wandered back to her room to lie down for another twenty, and take some more pain medication before it came time for her to get dressed.

Once those minutes had passed, luckily, the medication had started to kick in, and it was easy for Sachiko to get up. Still in the dark, she divested herself briskly of her clothes and stepped into her dress. Looking down in order to pull it up, she was suddenly struck by the awkwardness of her own body, with the narrow, bony protrusions of her ribs and hips set above cotton underwear. She looked young, which was good, but she had no figure at all, which was not. It wasn't as though people seemed to consider her unattractive, but she couldn't understand what Juro saw in her. There were plenty of other girls with better figures, and much better personalities. The zipper snagged on her bra as she was tugging it up, forcing her to stop and fiddle with the back of the teal blue affair for several minutes before getting it fixed and sitting down to style her hair.

"Sachiko!" Her mother shouted up the stairs several minutes later, as she was inserting a long, decorative pearl hairpin into the back of her bun.

"Coming!" She answered, hurrying out of the room and down the hall. Her boyfriend stood in the entry, clad scruffily in a suit with his hair evidently combed, but still windswept.

"Sachiko-san!" He exclaimed as soon as he saw her, a sunny grin splitting open his face. "You look beautiful!"

"Thank you," she responded, glowing with appreciation. "You don't think the color's too flat, do you?"

Her boyfriend snorted, putting an arm around her waist and tugging her towards him. "Of course not! I think it matches your complexion excellently." He pressed a kiss against the top of her head.

Sachiko pulled away, laughing, but threaded his fingers through hers. Juro had always been much more emotionally demonstrative with her than she'd seen him with anyone else, and although it had taken some getting used to, she now found it flattering, and comfortable. Most of her relatively conservative family, on the other hand, looked rather disapprovingly upon anything resembling a public display of affection. Of course, Sachiko also suspected that if they had their way, Juro would speak to her only in Morse code, from the other side of Japan, about the weather.

"Stop it!" she protested half-heartedly. "My dad'll kick you halfway to China if he sees you."

"Oh?" Juro winked. "Then I suppose I'll have to work on my swimming skills- AH!" With a speed rivaling that of the Shinkansen, he straightened up and stepped away from his girlfriend as her mother came back into the hallway. "Good afternoon, Miyagi-sensei! The weather's nice today, isn't it?"

"It's not as bad as it has been," Sachiko's mother agreed, "But it's still way too hot. Make sure you two aren't outside too much, and drink lots of water. Sachiko-chan, I'm going to be out of the house at a neighborhood association meeting for the next couple of hours, but if you need anything, I'll have my phone with me. I know you haven't been feeling well, so remember to take your pain medication regularly, and come straight home if you start having vision problems or feeling lightheaded."

Sachiko groaned. "Okaasan, I've been in college for a year now. You don't need to look after me."

"Of course I do, Sachiko-chan, you're my daughter. I can't help it." Miyagi-san smiled affectionately at her second oldest child. Then, to Juro, "Take care of her. Don't push anything."

"Of course not, Miyagi-sensei. I love her." Juro bowed, deeply enough that Sachiko's mother couldn't see the way his lips thinned ever so slightly- but Sachiko could, and mentally willed her mother to let them leave without saying anything more. Her boyfriend was never anything but scrupulously polite to her family, but she knew Miyagi Rika's mother hen demeanor bothered him. He would never admit it, always arguing in her mother's favor, but there were some things that Sachiko could just tell...

Luckily, the woman was satisfied, having seen Juro around enough to have begun (though she'd never admit it) to trust him with her daughter. "All right, then. Don't get home too late, Sa-chan."

"I won't."

"So," said Jurō with a puckish grin, "Shall we?"

"Of course," she replied, daintily taking his arm and stepping into her shoes. He tenderly took her other hand and pressed it gently to his lips, gaze lingering on hers. Almost imperceptibly, he reached back and opened the door, releasing her hand and putting his arm around her waist to guide them both out. Sachiko blinked owlishly as they emerged into the open sunlight, but the headache remained at bay, for which she was incomparably grateful. The seagoing breeze ruffled her hair, swept through her clothes, as Juro gallantly swung open the front passenger door of his little Toyota with a small flourish. His car had been a stroke of luck; several months earlier, he'd told her about the lady that was selling him the barely used vehicle for almost nothing while they'd been chatting outside the Law department at the university. A week later, and he showed up on her doorstep driving it.

Of course, gas was expensive, so it wasn't often that they could go out in it. Besides which, the roadways were always incredibly crowded, so the two still got around town mainly by way of the well maintained pedestrian routes and public transportation. Today, however, was special; their third year dating anniversary. So, it seemed Juro had ponied up the gas. Sachiko made a mental note to find a way to pay him back somehow.

"So," Juro asked with a cheery exhalation as they pulled out of the driveway, "How are you?"

Sachiko rolled the car window a third of the way down, leaning back comfortably in her seat. She smiled playfully at her boyfriend, gazing leisurely in his direction. "I'm great! My test results from last term just came in- straight fives across the board. I'm so glad- I swear, I was sweating blood and sleeping two hours a day by the time finals came."

When Juro didn't respond for a moment, Sachiko shot a quizzical glance at him. Seeming to notice her unspoken question, he let out a lingering sigh, fingertips tracing small circles on the steering wheel. "That's... great, Sachiko-chan. Really great. I didn't do so well, though... two ones. I found out this morning."

Sachiko's jaw fell open in dismay. "Oh, I'm... I'm so sorry." Squeezing his shoulder, she tried to find something consoling to say. "You know, I'm sure it's a fluke. You've got to be one of the smartest people I kn0w- and it's not like you're the first person to have something like that happen to them."

Jurō shrugged. He still looked like he was brooding, but not like he was about to collapse in fury or despair, which relieved his girlfriend. "I guess not. And I can always make them up, ne? I had some time to think about it earlier, and I think I know what I did wrong. Studied for the wrong areas. Besides, I had some time to work out, and it brought me time to get over it."

His girlfriend smiled encouragingly. "That's the spirit."

Predictably, the two got stuck in traffic. Jurō grumbled half-heartedly over the steering wheel, but turned and struck up a conversation with Sachiko about recent developments in a televised drama they'd both been watching. It seemed that one of the male leads had found himself a girlfriend whom he worshipped like a goddess, but she'd been two-timing him on the side; during the last episode, he'd dramatically uncovered her deception in front of the entire cast. Before long they were both laughing, as the traffic slowly but steadily allowed them to move west.

Canal City was a short distance from Kokutai Road, one of Hakata-ku's main arteries. Stylish, glamorous, and in some ways utterly confusing, it had been built a few years ago by some young American with a fascination for spirals. Tall, garishly painted buildings curved around in a semicircle around a twisted walkway, towering over visitors to the point of shutting out the outside world. Sachiko had fallen in love with its unselfconscious pretension the first time she came there, but since it was so far away, she hardly went there or mentioned it. Jurō must have asked one of her acquaintances for advice while he was deciding where to take her.

She squeezed his hand as they walked along the canal, conscious of the throngs of people that surrounded them.

"You know, I love the way the city looks at night." she sighed, a silly grin coming to her face as she hugged Juro's arm impulsively.

"It sure is," he agreed, loosely putting his arm around her shoulders.

She tilted her head back, enjoying the silky sweep of her hair across her shoulderblades. "I could almost walk around here all night, you know?"

A faint line appeared between her boyfriend's brows. "Please, don't. It's not safe."

"Oh, come on, how low's our crime rate again?" Sachiko rolled her eyes, throwing him a playful smirk. "Besides, I'll just take you along. You'd scare away any psychopaths."

"I would, would I?" He asked dryly, then seemed to trail off. To their left, a department store rose up above them, streetlights glinting off of surfaces that looked like polished obsidian. Sachiko fell quiet as her eyes followed his gaze.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Juro nodded silently.

They drove up to the bay after dinner. Sachiko rolled down the window and stuck her head halfway out, tasting the tang of salt in the air. It was dark by that time, but the city continued to glow around them, lit up by countless electric lights. The woman had noticed a long time ago that if she could see into one of these lit windows, the rooms beyond would always be visible in unnatural detail, appearing like meticulously detailed miniatures complete with tiny replicas of people who never became aware of her eyes as they went about their business. It always gave her a thrill to spy on them for a few short seconds while she was passing by, though she never saw anything more interesting than salarymen reading magazines on the job.

Even the bay, one of Kyushu's main shipping areas, did not remain completely impervious to the city's nightlife. Out on the water, Sachiko could see several ships, at this time of night visible as little more than moving clusters of lights, maneuvering their way west. Jurō parked the car in a lot overlooking the beach, and they stood together, facing the ancient, black, rippling expanse that had provided the lifeblood for the development of their home city. It was here that their ancestors had fished and traded with the Koreans and Chinese of old; it was here that in the 1200s, the great Kublai Khan's mighty fleet had been repelled, not once, but twice, by the only typhoons to ever hit the Sea of Genkai in recorded history. No such divine wind was brewing that night, but there was a pleasant breeze blowing in from the sea that kept the heat from being too oppressive. Sachiko leaned against the hood of the car, wrapped in a velvety sense of contentment, and pulled her boyfriend against her. Under his clothes, his body was hard, and she felt calluses on his hands as she threaded his fingers through her own.

"Aah..." His voice, set low in his throat, was husky, and his stubble ticked her temple as he spoke. "It's something, isn't it?"

She nodded simply. There was no need for words.

"But you know," he said softly, "I know of something far more beautiful, and she lives much closer to me than Lord Susano'o ever has."

The breath caught in her throat. She couldn't speak. He reached up and brushed the pads of his fingers over her face, her hair, sliding down to rest over the nape of her neck.

"Sachiko-san," he breathed, hands gripping her shoulders with unconscious strength, "Will you marry me?"

"Yes," she whispered, "Yes." A thousand times over.

***

Below them, the sea roiled. It was the lifeblood of those first ones who arrived in Fukuoka's bay before settling the rest of the tiny island nation. At the mercy of the inscrutable waves, the early ones had paid their tribute well. Earlier that day, Sachiko's beloved had turned in his own taxes, throwing the young girl into the sea, shrouded in granite and burlap. Yet, it seemed that the offering had not been properly secured. Jurō, anxious as he was to make sure the body could not work its way up from the bottom of the ocean, had in the end put more ballast than body in his sack; ironically, the rough-hewn edges of the rock he used cut into that bag, enough to allow a part to slip free. As Sachiko held her love, a child's hand danced on the waves, tossed mournfully about until a sudden wave threw it onto an outcropping of rocks. It lay there limply, tiny fingers stretched out in an easterly direction, until bugs landed on it and began to breed.

It was lucky, that it was discovered the next morning, before it could be eaten away.