*Haiji

  I walked to the subway station, but the train wasn’t there yet. No surprise there. The early morning crowd was anything but small. The rainfall yesterday and its chilling wind had chased most of the hobos and beggars away, but like cockroaches, they were all back now. Could even see one hobo was currently getting her head bashed in by some thug; she’d probably tried to pickpocket the wrong person.

  I took a spot, resting against the dirty wall of the waiting area and scanning the room. I recognized a few faces, as usual—some were Mercenary-Guards like me, while I didn’t know what the others did and couldn’t care less. I just saw them here most morning. Whenever I take it this early.

  Like always, everyone was worked up about the morning delay. When the train finally screeched into the station, it became a hassle to board. It was a freakin' frenzy, everyone attempting to shove their way in first. I was part of the mob, fighting my way through the press of bodies until I secured a lousy seat. While others were still making heads and tails of where to sit, I waited for the train to start moving, simply looking out the window.

  After a few seconds, the train finally lurched forward.

  I stared out the cracked window as the train exited the underground rails and climbed onto the railway bridge. We dwarfed the clustered-up, small apartment buildings, giving me a clearer view of this side of Osaka.

  I sat there, looking at the ghettos overrun with both functioning and abandoned industrial pipes. Wrecked buildings, blocked drainages, old electric poles with wrapped wires like yarn on a bobbin, and heavily damaged roads scrolled past. Hills of trash were piled everywhere. Old, busted-up billboards and signboards had been redesigned with amateur graffiti, and a few drones flew high enough to avoid anyone on the ground knocking them down.

  The most intense sight was the people. Even from up here, they all looked pitiful, diseased, and hopeless—worth no more than a dog’s skin. They went about their day with no prospect of escaping this place. This part of Osaka was an extremely pitiful sight; the degree of poverty, misery, and lawlessness was etched into every building, every road, and every person right before my eyes.

  The train wasn’t all that fast, so I could capture every miserable detail of the activity on ground.

  *

  The cities of Japan are divided into three section based status, worth and power, though there is no actual wall as proof of this division, and is not official by the system, but it’s there. Everyone see it, smell it and feel it… One has to just look around.

  This ‘wall of division’ is determined primarily by sphere of protection by the Guardian Towers and the Federal government; the farther one is from the centre of these authority in each city, the less you are in society.

  Everyone knows the Federal government built Japan, from sticks and straws, to what it is now. They are the righteous law of the land but the Guardians Towers came when Guardians appeared.

  The Guardian Towers themselves are paramilitary bases that holds and nuture the best Evolve warriors called Guards, moulded in the art of war and conquest to ensure the continuality of the nation.

  A single Tower is a highly sophisticated fortress equipped with mounted high-powered artilleries, energy-based defense units, and heavy-duty automated interception arrays; all powered by mostly Arcane energy. Its primary purpose is to withstand or pushback the invading vanguard of an Aggressor army within a certain geographic area.

  So it is known as the safest place to be during an outbreak or something for anyone that’s not a Guard of the Tower.

  Even though civilians can’t live in the Tower itself; homes, banks, businesses and other important infrastructure of human society are built around it.

  The infrastructures erected at close proximity to the Towers are there to serve the ‘rich and privilege’, they cling to the Towers’ protective range, making access to the lands a distant dream for simpler folks.

  This system - along with the traditional remnants of the Japanese society before The Unknown War - lead to the unrulying division of cities into 3 districts– The City central district, the Silver and Conquest district, the lands beyond the Conquest district are basically neglected by the government and the Towers.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  The bare minimum is given to places like that, making heinous crime activities the precipice of each day; the degree of death, disease and anarchy is like an immortal plague, tactical responds to manifestation of Gates or outbreaks from the Gates isn’t reliable (people in the slums are basically made to fend for themselves) and if they do arrive, they aren’t there to save lives but to close the Gate.

  *

  The slum of Osaka is where I was born and where I likely to die (That is if I don’t die in a Gate first).

  The train made a few stops to drop and pick up passengers and all through the journey I just stared out the window but after several minutes, my attention was caught to the train’s TV.

  It is usually on, but the early morning programs mostly show old records of the years of The War and other very old documentary.

  It’s way past 6 am now, so the channel automatically changes to the usual single channel that either talks about news related to recent Battles in Gates, current government actions and policy, political debates, international wars against Aggressors, Arcane-being and their purpose or celebrity talk shows.

  Being the official local TV channel of Japan we see what they want us to see; I heard there are TVs which have many channels and one can actually choose which one to see, but not this one. You can't do shit.

  This is the only TV channel I and anyone around here have access to, so I don’t know much about other magical TV channels and their content, but one thing is clear – The TV channel always highly focus on only informing us in the slums on political, military and Guard- related news.

  Don’t know why, and don’t want to know.

  “… At 11:25 pm last night there was an outbreak in Nantan, Kyoto at one of military depot causes not only the confirmed death of more 183 military personnel and Guards, and multiple seriously injured. The mayhem continues with the destruction of a robust amount of a newly developed, field-tested weapons, equipments and approximately 50,000 tons of Refined Arcane Artificed-Container (R.A.A.C). That-That attack is reported by experts to have left a significant blow to the primary defense of Kyoto against a large scale attack by the Aggressors and will that months to replenish the amount of resources destroyed” A man who seems to be the current guest of the current show said.

  “This just came… we are being informed that the devastating Gate outbreak occurred in Kyoto yesterday night, wasn’t the only one. They also occurred in Yamagata, and Kobe; all almost at the same time, which overwhelmed the Towers. Eventually leading to the destruction of humungous tanker of R.A.A.C in Kyoto, an unfortunate collateral damage as the Guards of Thor Tower and the Army tried to contain the situation.

  This is very… very sad news indeed, but the question being asked is - What do we think the Black Dragon Tower or the Ministry of Defense will do to mend this sudden figurative hole punctured into our defenses by the latest large scale Aggressors outbreak?” the host asked with a tensed tone.

  Apparently, the news caught the attention of some passengers, however many just kept their heads down and disregarded the news.

  I am not overly interested on how major cities were fairing but whenever shit like this happen, price of shit sky-rocket in both the Conquest district and the ghettos outside it, especially the ghettos.

  “The mayors of each of city confirmed that there will be an official announcement soon by Governor Koji Nakamura himself, about the incident and the measures they in cooperation with Thor Towers and Army to - rapidly recuperate the losses and counter a likely large scale Aggressor invasion. Still our sources say, that particular unfortunate calamity is a major setback and will lead Japan likely acquire the same amount (if not more) R.A.A.C from allied nations overseas, so Japan will be able to proper defend and sustain herself in the ongoing widespread Aggressors’ invasion.” The guest said, as he tightens the knot of his tie.

  “Amen to that, Satoru-san. So let’s talk a bit more rational about the particular invasion of Kyoto yesterday, and it’s timing to the other cities? Do you think this was a coordinated attack? Because I am told there are R.A.A.C reserves in those cities too but nowhere as ample as the one in Kyoto.” Another anchor of the news asked.

  “How do you think the Towers - Thor Tower and Dragon Tower will handle the aftermath? because we all can assume the outbreak Gate cannot mend anytime soon and the potential threat that looms over the head of the good people around the area by the ever-spawning Gates is a real debacle.” The other anchor poured out those frightening issues and questions surrounding the incident in Kyoto and what it really meant for those that reside there.

  The show continued, my mind had already trailed off from the screen to the possible action the government of Japan will take and how bad it might be for me.

  The train stopped at another terminal again, letting passengers to exit and enter it, a teenager with earpiece in his ears walked in and sat right beside me. My thoughts were this far, until the kid sat beside me, prompting me turn my head slightly to see his face better.

  His face is very familiar, then it dawned on me that we were at Nishinari 3rd Terminal Public train station – a within in the body of the Conquest district, as this is where the kid always jumps aboard and get off, but it also means we are about to be patted down by Enforcers.

  We crossed the proverbial boundary between the Conquest district and ghettos few minutes ago and the ‘train-search’ is mainly for gutter punks like me to know we aren’t welcomed here.

  Two men could be seen from here the cabin in front - in grey and black armour-plated tactical uniform on a grey helmet with black tilted visor glass, attached to some kind of gas mask that covered their entire lower face – from their nose to their lower jaw.

  So you can’t see their face and their voice is all muffled up.

  It took a minute before they reached this cabin, verbally questioning everyone and inspecting their belongings one at a time, and as they did all that, the train did not move and all the doors were closed; to avoid anyone from fleeing or entering the train without being inspected.

  They finally reached my side; first inspecting the kid on my right, they didn’t waste time since the kid obviously stays within the Conquest district (even if it is the downtown area) and quickly moved to me.

  These guys are known as Enforcers; they are policing-units for Evolves and the main reason they patrol places like this train is to monitor the movement of Evolves from the ghettos of Osaka.

  A human train inspector can’t handle the punks from the slums, much less Evolves from there. So the government fixed that with a more violent policing force.