Superhuman Phantasmagoria: Shinka 36 (ConRevo prequel by Sho Aikawa)

[not_sophie]

Last Update: December 31, 2025 (Added Chapter 6/7/8/9. From here you can expect be to slow down again, though hopefully not quite as slow as I was going at the start, now that things are happening in the story. But I do have to go back to work on the fifth, so bleh. Enjoy what you go, for now. As usually, don't get unset at me over Japanese names or words -- the words probably have wikipedia articles and the names are, uh. names. So I'm not into those types of complaints unless they're well thought out.

It's time! October 4th (which is already now in Japan) is the tenth anniversary of Concrete Revolutio's first episode premiere. Now it's not just old in spirit, it is old in existence itself! There's a prequel novel called Superhuman Phantasmagoria Shinka 36, written by Sho Aikawa (who wrote the anime's story in the first place). I've had it for a bit. I was hoping to get more translated before posting anything, but when I realized the tenth anniversary was coming up, I figured I'd better just get as far as I can and post what's ready and leave it at that. You shouldn't expect updates to come fast, since this is certainly above my reading level and longer than anything else I've done.


Prologue
This scene will be used every week on the episodes broadcast on Sundays.

(The ninja girl Tokimaru is in a field of silvergrass. Suddenly, a group of enemy ninja appear together.)

Enemy Ninja: We've been waiting, Tokimaru. This place will be your grave!

(The enemy ninja attack.)

Tokimaru: Damn it! Alright... now!

(In Tokimaru's hand is a secret pocket watch. Its face has a large "3" on it.)

Tokimaru: Time! Turn back!

(The screen becomes a huge vortex. Eventually the vortex disappears, leaving us back at the beginning of the scene. Tokimaru advances through the field of silvergrass.)

Tokimaru: Good...

(Looking at the watch, the number now says "2.")

Tokimaru: I have two left... Let's do this.

(Then, just like before, a group of enemy ninja appear together. However, Tokimaru jumps up high into a tree.)

Enemy Ninja: We've been waiting, Tokimaru... huh?

Tokimaru: Hahaha! I've been waiting!

(The enemy ninja look up.)

Enemy Ninja: T-Tokimaru! When did you get up there?!

Tokimaru: This place will be your grave!

Enemy Ninja: Hey, wait! I wanted to say that! That's not fair!

Tokimaru: Shinobi Tokimaru, at your service!

(Tokimaru swoops down, and with a flash, the enemy ninja are instantly defeated!)


"Shinobi Tokimaru, Episode 1"

Screenplay by Katsuma Kisara



Chapter 1
The English word "hero" wasn't used much, at least when I was young.

The Japanese word for it wasn't, either.

No matter how hard I try to remember what they were called, I'm surprised to find that I can't, now that the time has passed.

Not as many people use the term "thriller" over "mystery" these days, either. Even mystery novels aren't really called that; they're detective stories. With SF, it'd probably be best for people to mistake it for the car company, Service Factory. But most of the time, no matter how much I explain, people will hear SM instead and react with suspicion (perhaps this means SM has always been an abbreviation for sadomasochism, though I still don't recall ever hearing terms like sadomasochism novel or bondage novel).

That's all in the distant past already. So how should I explain that era that allows you to imagine it?

Tokyo Tower had already been built.

Streetside televisions came even earlier than that.

The scorched battlefields of loss were even further away still. To someone like me, who was born in a less urban area and only moved to Tokyo after graduating college, Tokyo had always been a big city lined with tall buildings, right from the start.

The clothes young people wore? Insurance. About ten years after the end of the war, traditional Japanese clothes became a rarity, but the suits and hairstyles often seen now must have looked quite unfashionable. Not to mention the worn-out military uniforms you could see disabled veterans wearing around Ueno...

Mm, yeah, that's right. You probably don't know any disabled veterans in the first place.

Then maybe we'll start with... the tram.

Transportation around the time of Shinka 30~ could not be discussed without mention of the tram. Of course, by that point it was already called the Tokyo Prefectural Railway, but many people simply continued to call it the tram. Somehow "prefectural railway" just sounded silly. Kids preferred to call it the dick train, and there were some who simply called them streetcars.

They ran from Shinjuku to Hanzoumon Gate, from Shibuya to Awajichou, and from Shinbashi to Kanda Station.

Only one of those lines still exists now.

Originally, in the Meiji era, the iron railways were laid along the Tokyo Horsecar routes, gradually transitioning that system into the Tokyo Electric Railway system. In the blink of an eye, the space in the air above the route was filled with electric cables.

But then, from the time the second Tokyo Olympics were held, around Shinka 42, the discontinuation of the tram system accelerated. There are still trams in the urban parts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki today, so if you go there you can understand once you see those huge things clunking slowly through the main roads. To ride the tram, you also have to cross the line of cars to reach the platform, which is of course in the middle of the street. The rails buried in the road are uncomfortable to cross for car passengers even though it's paved, and during peak times, the trams cause traffic congestion without fail.

Needless to say, it's harder to see reasons why they haven't been completely discontinued.

Still, I haven't come to dislike them...



Chapter 2
"Excuse me, Professor Kisara. Professor?"

After I called his name who knows how many times, the professor finally stopped his rambling monologue and looked my way. In his left hand, he had a glass of watered-down whiskey with a paper napkin wrapped around it. I picked up the glass as if to swap it out for a second serving, and then softly placed it at the other end of the table.

The professor had already gone down this train of thought countless times. A train of thought, for a story about trams? That's a good one. Wait, that's not the point. I had to find a way to get him back on track.

"Going back to the question I had about the Shinka era..."

"Ah, yes."

Professor Kisara nodded as if he understood, but he probably forgot where this had even started.

It was already loud in the area around them. At the end of the year, parties are held at hotels around the prefecture to forget the difficulties of the previous year and welcome in the new one. Major publishing companies will compete using compilations of their major works for the right to reserve banquet halls, and it's typical for authors to gather at them for just this one day every year. At the end of the party, everyone participates in a huge game of rock paper scissors. It's not something that's limited to this industry, but since the time I debuted, it's been a regular thing.

After the host calls for the game of rock paper scissors, the winner receives a prize. Some of the popular prizes are home appliances and travel vouchers, but lately there have also been a lot of time where large donations have been made in the winner's name, or patronage to support young authors is prepared.

The era known as the Shinka era ended. It's already been over 25 years since the era switched over. During this time, Japan was able to keep away the worst effects of the worldwide recession at the end of the last century and develop despite also suffering hardship. I've heard that it's even become popular for the young generations to freely sponsor the activities of foreign artists thanks to recent tax overhauls regarding donations and financial backing. Though, honestly speaking, part of me thinks we need to give support to creators within the country before we worry about overseas ones. In recent days, an extremely standardized Japanese style has become popular among those overseas artists because it's easier to receive instruction from Japan. That isn't something to laugh off. It's completely different from the time of artists like van Gogh or Renoir.

"Alright! From here, we'll play rock paper scissors the American way," shouted a man who looked to be an associate editor, pointing with one finger as he stood on the stage after winning multiple rounds.

There is a theory that the version of rock paper scissors with three choices originated in Japan, but there are similar games all over the world. In one region of the US, they have the usual rock, paper, and scissors gestures, but there is also a fourth option you can choose with just the index finger extended. That gesture is "pencil," and its rules are that pencil beats paper because it can write all over it, and it loses to both rock and scissors. Of course, pencil and paper have a lower chance to win compared to the other two options in this variation, but it's not like they can't ever win.

Since these types of rules somewhat complicate the chance of winning, some parties like this will adopt them. In particular, people we call "golden eggs," who graduated junior high and then studied abroad in America, seem to like playing rock paper pencil scissors out of nostalgia. Other than this, there's also variants with six different ways to put out your fingers, though there are of course people who insist on only playing the traditional way. The reason that rock paper scissors has stayed popular at these sorts of events for decades is probably because of the wife variety of rules you can play by.

Professor Kisara was the oldest person present at the party, but from the start, he never showed any signs of joining in on the rock paper scissors game, and just kept lapping up his whiskey.

I was barely acquainted with the professor until then, but there were some things I really wanted to ask him about, as a person from a generation that often gets bothered by other people.

I don't know if it was because he was drunk, or because he was dodging my question, but the conversation had gone in the wrong direction. I wasn't looking to find out more about the traffic situation 50 years ago, so I started thinking about how I could cut this short. But the rock paper scissors games were heating up, and so many people were gathering around the stage that before I knew it, only the professor and I were separate from the crowd. If I just said, "Well then, thank you" from here and leave, the silence would get awkward and it'd look like I'm running away. It would be a bad look no matter what. I was the one who started the conversation in the first place, wasn't I?

(Find a topic. Some kind of harmless thing to say...)

Whenever I'd get my brain going with those orders, it'd shut down almost immediately after, like a hard disk that was being insufficiently air-cooled in the middle of summer.

Before I realized it, I'd blurted out, "People have been playing rock paper scissors for a long time, huh?"

I'm such a stupid idiot. It was such a pointless thing to bring up that it was clear I was just trying to say literally anything.

"I feel like they used to play something called bingo," Professor Kisara replied unexpectedly. He seemed to pay no mind to the sweat on my hands or the color that had filled my face.

Still... Bingo...? The former province of Japan? No, I must have somehow misheard him saying he was once a beggar. That's probably it.

"I've heard a lot of older authors talk about how everyone's life was really hard. The poverty was apparently so bad they used to get rice or miso as prizes."

"To play, we'd deal out cards, and put holes in them."

Cards? With holes in them? I was getting more and more lost. But I felt like he hadn't really gotten away from the word beggar. I kept thinking about how in old Japanese TV shows, they'd have paper sliding doors in such bad shape, they'd have holes all over them.

"If you got a full line, you'd yell out 'Bingo.'"

"Uh huh..."

They'd yell out "beggar"? It sounded like some kind of punishment game. He moved closer to the stage with the posture of a shrimp. Or could he have actually said limbo? That sounds a bit closer...

Either way, imagining people at a party wandering around holding pieces of paper full of holes didn't seem like a good time. Those places probably got complaints from the hotel they were hosted at, so they don't happen anymore.

"I don't know if it was all that popular. It was quickly replaced with rock paper scissors." Yeah, it had to have been the hotel... The professor continued, "Oh yeah, there was a brief period where people played strip rock paper scissors instead. If I remember right, there was originally a superhuman who had that kind of power. They showed it on TV on the New Years broadcast, and it caught on unexpectedly. Well, it wasn't something that was talked about openly much. It's always been that way."

The subject seemed to change so suddenly, I just blinked, unable to keep up.

"What you wanted to hear about was the superhumans of the Shinka era."

I couldn't stop blinking.

"Apparently, over 40 years ago, beings called 'superhumans' were recognized by corporations, but I haven't been able to find much about it."

That was my question to the professor. But I thought he'd avoided the question, and then long since forgotten about it.

The huge riot of Shinka 43, the explosive evolution of supernatural abilities, or maybe one of the incidents that shook the world in the 30s of the Shinka era. When researching those topics, you'd see the word "superhuman" again and again. But it's not even just there. You also see that word even in the sports and entertainment worlds; for example, those who stood out prominently from the crowd were sometimes called "superhuman."

But as far as I could tell from what's written, these topics are written about only in sports newspapers that sold on sensational headlines, as well as one-line "articles" in magazines. As far as I know, there aren't any special feature articles with two-page spreads or any academic research articles covering the topic. It was almost as if people from that era would intentionally write fragments of impossible information, just to fool those of us in later generations for a quick laugh.

At least in the current time we live in, nobody thinks there are actually superhero-like beings with powers that surpass humans. If something like that ever came to exist, it would no doubt cause a huge uproar.

Wanting to ease the discomfort that caused me, I had thrown my doubts at the professor.

"The reality of superhumans, huh? It's pretty difficult, to explain it on a fundamental level. Plus, because of old habits, I feel like I really shouldn't talk about it too loudly."

I finally realized it then.

Professor Kisara had been looking for an answer to my question for a long time.

"Having trams running straight through the middle of Tokyo's main streets was completely normal in that time. However, to people from other generations, it would almost seem like a different world entirely. ... yes, and of course, we understand that superhumans existed even from childhood."

"From childhood..."

It wasn't until the 30s of the Shinka era that articles about heroes -- superhumans -- began to appear, though. The professor should have already been old enough to be looking for a job by then.

"During the war it was expressly kept secret, and it was basically never reported after, either. That's why we also didn't really talk about it. Until those riots in 43, that is."

In Shinka 43, young people's energy suddenly swelled up, and like a balloon, it burst, turning it into a period of uproar. How superhumans were involved is something I was just unable to look into.

"Still, before the war, we had stories that told of superhuman beings as fiction. The genius judo practitioner who was said to be an apparition, or the adventuring soldier who infiltrated a continent, even the rumors about a phantom thief superhuman who was said to have stopped a military coup in Shinka 11 -- they are all written about as featured stories in somewhat questionable magazines."

"W-wait just a second!" What made me unintentionally interrupt him wasn't just the sensational covers of those "questionable magazines" or the characteristic ink smell on them. "Those examples you brought up just now are stories from novels, right? They weren't about superhumans that actually existed."

"Huh?"

The professor looked back at me through the strong lenses of his round glasses. For a moment, I thought a light had flashed there. It wasn't what we'd call insanity. But that would mean...

(Maybe... Maybe the professor's memories had become so jumbled, he started to mix up fact and fiction.)

"...ways... ...ound..." I couldn't quite hear those words the professor had breathed out with a sigh. "It's all an illusion. Just scenes reflected on the walls of kids' rooms."

And then, the professor turned his back to me, and yelled out suddenly, "Shoot!"

He was raising his index finger into the air with his right hand.

On the stage, the editor from before had frozen into the "paper" gesture.

"Alright, Professor Kisara got a coupon to a hot spring trip in just one try!" The youth leading the tournament announced youthfully.

"I'm very good at single round matches, compared to tournaments."

Having said that, the professor went towards the stage with confident steps.



Chapter 3
Shinka 36, March...

The time when Katsuma Kisara was dragged into the battle surrounding superhumans was when he was busier than ever. Katsuma Kisara was, of course, not his real name. It was a pen name he used when writing scripts part-time while he worked at TTB (Tokyo TV Broadcasting). It was completely different from his real name, and nobody knew the right way to say it, so it was often asked about. When that happened, he would say, "The truth is, I met a girl in Kisarazu a long time ago. But I like to keep that sort of thing private." And, thinking they'd been let in on a secret, the other person would usually leave it at that. Some would even pat him on the shoulder with a satisfied look on their face, and say, "Don't worry, I won't tell your wife." That's just the type of industry television is.

So nobody had ever been able to guess at the actual source of the pen name.

Well, actually, someone did. In over fifty years of using the name, a single person figured it out.


At the time, TTB's office building was located in Hibiya. There was a tram stop nearby called "Tamurachou 1-choume," which most people just called "Tamurachou." That office building in Tamurachou was called the Broadcast Assembly Hall, and it was where TV programs were created for broadcast. In Shinka 15, the first time the Tokyo Olympics were held, TV broadcasting was still in an experimental phase, but was brought out early, making live broadcasts between the Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka areas possible. TTB was established for this purpose, hence the use of the word "television" in its name.

The times were already shifting away from film, towards television. Katsuma and the others were keenly aware of that. Though film was once considered the king of entertainment, even looking down on TV as little more than "electronic slideshows," they had clearly seen in the past two to three years how they had been losing customers, and even the number of movie theaters had started to decrease.

It goes without saying that the popular genres in film at the time were sports and musical theater. In the Meiji period, "Katsureki," which were kabuki performances that were as historically accurate as possible, became very trendy. Historical dramas like this also became a staple in film, and continued to be very popular long after.

TV, on the other hand, could not catch up to them.

(I guess there was no avoiding it...)

Katsuma sighed as he witnessed the chaotic scene in front of him.

The TV studio was created before the war to give news reports, so compared to a film studio, it was unfortunately very small, and had a low ceiling, too.

Of course, for a sports film, recreating famous sports venues is of the utmost importance, but that was very much beyond the scale of what this studio could do. Originally, one of the selling points of TV was that you could watch live broadcasts of sports games, so there was no need to go out of the way to have the capacity for dramatic reenactments.

Musical theater was the same. Considering it was required to have a large studio space and huge cameras for recording these sorts of works, it was quite the adventure to try producing them for TV rather than film at the time.

However, those conditions also gave TV productions unique characteristics. One example of that lies with Tales From the Tram, which Katsuma became involved with as director in the previous fiscal year.

This TV series was broadcast at the same time, Monday through Friday, making it a pioneer of so-called "daily TV shows." As for the story of the series, it followed passengers who were riding a certain tram together, making small talk, sharing trivial problems of theirs, and having those problems get solved by the other passengers, who they'd never met before... There was almost nothing dramatic or exciting about it. But that was good. The regulars in the series rode the same tram together every day without getting tired of it. The audience would watch over them almost as if they were family. TV wasn't something that made you long for faraway, fantastical worlds like movies were. It was something you woul dlook to as a mirror to your own life, to enjoy the daily lives of people who felt like they lived in your neighborhood. That was what TTB's management concluded was behind Tales From the Tram's success.

(Still, it would be unbearable if that's what everything turned into.)

A TV program announcement from a newspaper floats its way into Katsuma's mind. Other than TTB's usual fare, there are now many works at the TV office. One of the most popular just happens to be Tram Tales, which, once again showed their audience a daily life.

If one were to ask Katsuma, Tram Tales's success was in its minute, every day annoyances. It is indeed true that Tram's first proposal was a set full of young people riding in that same tram together and the stories they would tell their fellow passengers. However, what Katsuma had in mind was a closed-room mystery drama in which a dead body is found on a tram, or someone's wallet goes missing. He commissioned the scriptwriter with that exact intention in mind.

"Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the various characters would explain their theories about the mystery. Then, on the Friday broadcast, we would finally find out who was right." When Katsuma explained that enthusiastically, the scriptwriter, who had been writing for radio dramas a long time, simply blinked at him.

And then, the day of the premiere finally arrived. Of course, there wasn't enough budget for expensive VTRs or the use of film, so Tram Tales was broadcast live. Katsuma soon came to know the horrors of live broadcast.

Even though the pre-broadcast test runs encountered no problems, when it came time for the real broadcast, small accidents happened one after the other. The actors forget their lines, passengers who were supposed to ride were nowhere to be seen, and the sound effect timing for sudden brakes would come too late... Since each one was only a small mistake, and the viewers were used to watching live broadcasts, they didn't seem to mind it. It wasn't the first experience for Katsuma, either, and he thought he would adjust the running time by skipping some lines. From a monitor room that was created to overlook the entire studio, called the sub-control room, Katsuma gave orders to the Floor Director inside the studio using his headset, and the lines were successfully cut. And then, at last, one of the seats would come off, revealing a corpse that had been concealed there, and bringing on the climax of the first day.

"Hey, what's she doing?"

Katsuma unconsciously had a suspicious look in his eyes. The plan was for the heroine, who noticed something out of place, to remove the seat on the chair she had been sitting in; but she had just put her hands on the seat and stayed there, unmoving, as if she was completely frozen.

"Huh? Can't she take off the seat?" A veteran switcher asked quietly. Katsuma left his own seat and looked out of the huge glass window that looked into the studio.

That was certainly the case. The set's chair was designed so it was easy to remove the seat, but for some reason, even though the heroine was putting her strength into it, it wouldn't budge.

Later, they would learn that actors had been claiming the seat was rickety and falling apart, so the stagehand staff had responded to those concerns by fixing up the chairs so they won't come apart easily. The result being that, of course, when they wanted to remove the seat, it couldn't be done easily. It was truly absurd.

"Floor, do something about it!" Katsuma ordered, fighting back the urge to cry.

However, the heroine with the chair was still solidly reflected back by the camera. Even if the staff wanted to help, they would appear on camera if they got close. Of course, in this age of live broadcasts, the staff showing up on screen wasn't a rare occurrence. When he worked in production, Katsuma had once brazenly walked in front of the camera during a broadcast. He had mistakenly thought the broadcast was coming from only one of the cameras. That said, it was unusual how slow the other actors were to go and help with the chair after noticing.

Since the broadcast time ended, the entire country had already seen the show's end mark go by from their living rooms.


"Hey, people are really liking Tram Tales a lot!" A higher-up from the comedy department rushed over and announced to Katsuma, who had turned to the cafeteria to take refuge in. Tram Tales was supposed to be a serial mystery drama, but the first episode ended without the corpse making its appearance. They considered having the corpse be found at the beginning of the next day, but that would have slowed down the story progression.

Although the number of people tuning in to TV was steadily increasing, it was an age when there was no way to get a real grasp on any individual program's popularity and reception. But this time was different. Surprisingly, shortly after the broadcast ended, the office started to get one phone call after the other. Almost all of them were inquiring about the next episode's broadcast and when the first episode would be rerun.

"I'm glad to hear that, but why in the world would it be popular? There's only been one episode, and there's barely anything resembling a story."

"According to my boss," he started (the comedy department being part of the literary entertainment department meant his boss belonged to that department), "That's actually what's good about it. The fact that nothing happens. The passengers just happen to be riding the same train, and talk about their idle complaints of their personal life. The viewers saw that and felt an immediate affinity with them. It made them feel like even their own lives, where nothing exciting happens, are not without meaning. You've tapped into something people never voiced. People dying early or being afflicted with serious illnesses is nonsense!"

His superior went on, even inserting a popular phrase, without once stopping to take a breath. What he said sounded so light-hearted and flippant, but then, with him being from the comedy department it was probably fitting.

"W-wait just a second! Haven't you read the scenario? Tales From the Tram is supposed to be a mystery show where each episode introduces a new closed-room mystery. Tonight we just ran into some trouble, so the corpse didn't show up, but we're going to have it be discovered right away in tomorrow's--"

"You can't be serious." His superior blew large amounts of tobacco smoke from his nose. "A heartwarming series showing the uneventful daily lives of people like a young girl, tradesman, elderly person -- people you could meet anywhere -- that's what Tales From the Tram is. I just described it that way to the department chief!"

"But that's not what it is."

However, Katsuma's protests were not accepted, and the scriptwriter had already been invited to a traditional Japanese inn that was located in Sangenjaya, which was not too far from his house. Compared to the constantly regretful Katsuma, the scriptwriter was in good spirits throughout. He'd say, "It's no problem. Since they're saying it was well-received, we just have to do our best." And then, Tuesday through Friday, including all-nighters, he rewrote the entire script. Of course, the corpse under the seat that didn't end up discovered on Monday remained undiscovered. The story instead changed into a slightly heartwarming one where three girls meet an elderly couple on the tram and accompany them safely to Nijubashi Bridge. From the second week, this course was well-established, and over the span of three years of being broadcast following that, it developed into an extremely popular series. For some time after, Kisara had heard rumors that the scriptwriter was actually not well-versed in the mystery genre to begin with, and it was thanks to the change towards this very human storyline that he was able to demonstrate his talent.

It's all done now, so it doesn't really matter anyway. Katsuma suddenly rose to fame as the star director of the extremely popular program. But with it broadcasting every day, Monday through Friday, they needed to have meetings to prepare the script, as well as various other things. There were no weekends. Though he would sometimes be relieved with a substitute director for a week, he spent a year almost never having the time to think about anything other than the program. The show was supposed to continue with some of the actors replaced, but Katsuma requested to be transferred to a different program. There were countless directors who were interested in being in charge of the highly popular Tales From the Tram, so Katsuma got his wish and was transferred. At the same time, he became treated like quite the odd one for letting go of the series he himself had started.

(But that's not MY Tram Tales.)


For Katsuma, getting a job at TTB was almost like destiny.

In Shinka 15, when he was an elementary school student, there was a scene that was burned clearly into his mind.

Installed into the gym building, a gigantic reception device.

And reflected on that screen, the form of a man wearing a judo robe.

At the time, judo wasn't an officially recognized sport, so, like baseball it had open matches. The adults that were around were the most enthusiastic about it. That was to be expected. Although it was decided that Japan would host the Olympics, it was in a situation where there were no existing teams within the country or any experience of participating in international sports that were required such as the modern pentathlon, fencing, canoeing, shooting, and weight lifting. They managed to set everything up to look good, but to nearly all Japanese citizens, judo, which they were deeply familiar with, as well as competitions where their expectations for winning a medal were high, such as swimming and long distance running, was where all of their attention was focused.

But that wasn't all.

Once a single judo fighter, who could not be said to have a large build by any means, stepped foot on the fresh tatami mat, the excitement in the surroundings reached its peak. The enthusiasm of the adults that filled the gym closed in on Katsuma, and his mouth went dry in an instant.

To make sure that at least Katsuma could see clearly, his mother lifted him up high and quietly recited the Buddhist nenbutsu phrase. Her arms trembled slightly, but that wasn't just because of Katsuma's weight.

The match began. But Katsuma didn't remember what the result was at all.

The video transmitted from the venue in Tokyo via coaxial cable had 441 scan lines and 25 frames every second. This was not at all inferior to the standard of 480 lines and 30 frames per second that was adopted by TTB and other commercial TV broadcasts after the war. However, the hastily constructed electronic reception devices were still unstable, so there was a lot of noise and distortions in the onscreen image. When the Olympics were hosted in Berlin four years earlier, the video broadcast on TV apparently only showed the most vague outlines. This was very much an improvement over that, but making out the faces of the athletes was still difficult, to the point where it was honestly difficult to tell which athletes were Japanese.

The reason Katsuma didn't remember wasn't because the image was unclear, though. If anything, it was the opposite. He was extremely excited. He was just on the border of being eight years old, but he understood that the scene he was seeing on the screen was in Tokyo, a place far away from him. And that demonstrated to him just how amazing science and technology were.

And the person reflected on the screen, to Katsuma, was not just an ordinary human. That man was a superhuman.

TV was different from reality -- it was something that could depict superhumans. That belief solidified itself in Katsuma's mind in that moment.



Chapter 4
"That's right, I was the last person to talk to him before he hit the wall and died."

A child's voice, sticking out like a sore thumb in the tense atmosphere, rang out in the sub-control room of Studio C, where preparations were underway for a live broadcast.

"Wait, you mean that incident from last month, when..." The surprised voice came from a female reporter who worked for a TV guide magazine that was soon to begin publication.

It wouldn't be wrong to say that the number of subscribers to TTB could give you a rough estimate of the general number of TV viewers at any given time. This year, Shinka 36, that number had surpassed 8 million. Taking lessons from TV pioneers in America, they were looking to publish magazines with TV guides that included a list of the next week's upcoming programming. Katsuma and the others chattered about it if would really work out as they watched the female reporter wander into the studio in her flashy "business girl" fashion outfit, which was very much different from how the studio staff dressed. As it would happen, the number of subscribers would reach 18 million just four years later, in Shinka 40. The TV station staff, simply put, had long been underestimating their own work.

The reporter, Keiko Ikebukuro, looked almost as if she had been pulled straight from the cover of a girls' magazine. Her eyes were large, her curled black hair was wrapped in a scarf, she wore a black suit that at first glance seemed plain but had an aggressively short skirt, and her fashionable seamless stockings covered her pure white legs, standing out sharply against the floor.

"You're really still on about that, Toshimaru?" The voice of the switcher, Kaneko, called out.

The child called Toshimaru just kept on smiling and replied, using a trendy phrase, "Well, it's true. Can't stop, won't stop."*

This child of the times -- whoops, that's a trendy phrase too, now -- was named Toshiyuki Shimada. He had the appearance of an ordinary elementary school kid, wearing shorts and having his hair parted perfectly into a 7:3 hairstyle, but right now he was a popular child actor who was in big demand by magazines and TV stations. The person in the highest position out of everyone in the sub-control room was the director, Katsuma, but really, the person with the most influence was this kid. He was called Toshimaru as a play on his real name and the fact that he was playing the role of the protagonist, Tokimaru, but the staff all called him Prince Toshimaru behind his back.

There probably weren't many people who had nostalgic memories of Shinobi Tokimaru. It was a show that Katsuma started up just after his voluntary resignation from Tales From the Tram. It began broadcasting at the start of the year, and was already in its ninth week. Like Tram Tales, it was broadcast Monday through Friday, but it was a puppet show rather than a live action drama. A miniature set was created in the studio, and in a space the camera did not capture, the puppeteers would be hidden, moving the puppets around with thin rods that protruded from them. Although they weren't as labor-intensive as marionettes that are controlled with strings from above, the feeling of tension from broadcasting it live was the same.

In TTB's puppet shows, the puppeteers were not the ones producing the voices of the characters. The voice performances of the actors were recorded in advance (this was open-reel recording, of course), then the recording would be played along with music, and the puppets would be controlled to match the timing of the audio. The advantages of this were that you could edit it down to fit the time slot perfectly, and even if the puppeteers ran into some trouble, the viewers rarely ever noticed it. It allowed each episode to reach its end reliably by matching the allotted broadcasting time.

Every Saturday, all of the actors get together and record five days' worth of lines all at once; this meant that there was no need for Toshimaru to be present for the broadcast today. However, he was also there for a magazine interview. They had come all the way to the studio so the magazine could snap of a photo of the smiling, oh-so-popular child actor holding the puppet of the show's protagonist, Tokimaru.

The photo shoot and interview had ended quite some time ago, but since Toshimaru had attracted the attention of the reporter, Keiko, he had intentionally come up to the sub-control room that overlooked the studio, and kept talking about an incident he had personally been involved in. it was a story Katsuma and the others had already heard millions of times.

"How long is Prince Toshimaru going to be here?" Kaneko asked Katsuma quietly so only he could hear.

"His assistant, Yoshimura, hasn't come back. He probably got a call from someone asking about scheduling something."

"Yeah, he really is in demand right now. But the broadcast is about to start. People won't know what's what if they hear the real Prince Toshimaru talking at the same time as the tape."

"I know, I know," Katsuma said, though he hadn't exactly come up with a solution. He simply hoped that Yoshimura would return before then and they would both leave.

Toshiyuki Shimada's first role was in a different drama, and at that time, his mother had been acting as his assistant. The man named Yoshimura had only recently been hired as his assistant, but it's said that, compared to when it was his mother, the child actor had become a lot more independent -- a success of Yoshimura's in its own right.

"I wonder where Yoshimura went," Katsuma forced a smile as he addressed Toshimaru, who was completely absorbed in telling the story to Keiko and didn't notice.

"Yeah, that's right, it was a go-kart. During a break from the shoot, the kart's makers brought one in. Then he asked me if I wanted to ride in it with him."

"So, if you had taken him up on his offer, you would have..."

What Toshimaru was talking about was an incident from last month, where an actor had a fatal collision with the wall of a film studio. It was an end that was far too shocking for such a young actor to meet. He had been playing around with a foreign-made kart that was brought in during a film shoot's break time, and that's when the incident happened. Toshimaru happened to be present at the time.

"I didn't know it could go that fast. Someone told me later that those karts are used in professional races in other countries."

The story about how Toshimaru had narrowly avoided dying in that kart was something Katsuma and the others were very familiar with, but if Keiko already knew about it, she didn't show it at all. The reporter was taking down notes, seemingly very interested.

"You really are luck, Toshiyuki. But why did you turn down his invitation? You two must have been close, right?"

The actor who passed away had played a leading role in many series, and in a number of them, Toshimaru was cast as his younger partner.

"They stopped me."

"Stopped you?"

"Yeah. I was told not to because it's dangerous. I really, really wanted to ride in it. But I'm glad I didn't."

There were already only a few minutes left until the broadcast would start. The young staff of the Hitogataza Puppetry Troupe were already below the set, finishing setting up the puppets.

Suddenly, the technical director made a gesture covering both ears and called out to Katsuma.

"Hey, Kisara."

The technical director is in charge of the technical side of video and audio, and is someone who had been fiddling with cameras since long before Katsuma was hired. Even now, Katsuma couldn't really put into words how images ended up on TV, so the TD was someone he couldn't help but look up to. Of course, in reality, he had called Katsuma by his real name, but let's keep things simple and stick with "Kisara."

Thinking he might have gotten angered by something, Katsuma followed the TD's gesture and put on his headset. Normally it was used to give instructions to the floor director, but since it was still before broadcast, the headphones were just putting out noise picked up by the studio mic.

"Did something happen?" Katsuma started to worry as he asked the question. Maybe the staff had found out about some kind of issue from the troupe's conversations. There wasn't enough time left before broadcast to deal with that.

"Shh. Can you hear it?"

The TD had a serious expression as he focused on what could be heard from the headphones. Katsuma listened closely once more, but he couldn't hear anything unusual over the noise. Even just before the performance, staff wouldn't suddenly go quiet. They would be giving and receiving instructions, and the puppetry troupe had all kinds of puppet mechanisms they need to ensure were functioning as expected. Katsuma was about to say that all he could hear was their conversations, that there was nothing strange, but he stopped just before he started speaking.

Beyond all the expected footsteps and voices chattering, he could hear, faintly but clearly, a very unusual sound.

"What is this?" He muttered, nodding his recognition of the problem to the TD.

"So even our little Kisara can hear it."

"Y-yeah. What exactly is this? It almost sounds like wind rumbling through a cave, or something."

"Wonderful. Even if we wanted to do something like that as part of a regular puppet show, I'd never think of adding sound effects to it on the spot like this."

"Yeah. If there were people in the troupe who were sick, I don't think the troupe would let them perform until they could stop from making unintentional growl-like noises, since it would interfere with their work."

A growl. That's certainly an accurate way to describe it. It was a low, muffled sound that almost seemed like it was reverberating from underground, and could be faintly heard over the voices of the staff.

"So the source of the sound isn't human, in other words. It's... well, you know. That."

Once the TD said those words, Katsuma remembered it, too. It's something that had become a bit of a running joke within TTB. A cat had been prepared for a certain program, but it ran away, and went into a different drama's studio. The sets aren't built directly on the floor, they're actually made one level higher, so none of the staff were able to notice a cat had snuck in. And once the actors began to perform, it upset the cat and it suddenly started meowing up a storm. It could be heard, but not seen. And it's not like the staff could go looking for it in the middle of a live broadcast. Ultimately, that show was broadcast feeling almost like it was in the horror genre, with the eerie sound of a cat's meow coming from somewhere the entire time...

Of course, what they had just heard wasn't actually a cat. But it could have been a large dog, or maybe some other kind of strange animal's vocalization.

"Are you hearing this, Kisara? You don't think this could be a wolf or a bear, do you?"

"I don't know. But quiz shows often have people guess what's in a box, so it wouldn't be unheard of for them to bring some weird animals in."

All of a sudden, the two became aware that the sound had actually gotten louder.

"I can hear it, too," the switcher Kaneko said after craning his neck to listen in from the TD's headphones. "Hmm. it doesn't sound like it's a draft or anything. But I feel like..."

"What is it?"

"It's weird, but I just feel like I've heard this sound somewhere before."

Then, Toshimaru started pulling on Katsuma's sleeve. "Is there some kind of trouble? What is it? Can I hear?"

He'd asked it in a tone that was uncharacteristic of a child, but clearly expecting to hear all the details.

"It's nothing."

Katsuma wasn't about to carelessly talk about issues with the TV guide reporter standing right in front of them. He put on a smile and then opened the door to the metal staircase that led directly below the studio.


There was almost no time left. Looking at the clock hanging from the studio wall, Katsuma rushed downstairs and found his assistant. If this were film, she would be called either the second, or maybe third assistant director. Since the only one in the studio with headphones was the floor director, she hadn't heard the sound.

"What's wrong?"

"There was a sound I was curious about."

"Sound?"

"Could you call over all the Hitogataza folks? Also, who's in charge of the set art?"

"Come on, the broadcast is about to start. You're the director, you can't be down here right now. You know that."

Though her position is third assistant director, Hisako was almost the same age as Katsuma, and spoke to him almost as if he were her little brother. of course he knew he shouldn't have been there. Once the broadcast started, as the director, he needed to be in the sub-control room to give directions, such as switching the broadcast feed between the two orthicon cameras (which were around the same size and weight as a motorcycle) and giving cues for each of the various puppets' movements. Even though the audio for the puppet shows was recorded beforehand and needed to be followed closely, it was just like how an orchestra can't perform without a conductor. All the staff were waiting on the director's cues. There wasn't a single reason for the director to be on the studio floor right before the live broadcast. But there was precious little time to explain.

"What happened, Kisara?"

The person who had spoken from behind him was Toshimaru's assistant, Yoshimura. He wore plastic-framed glasses that looked unrefined, a suit with obvious wrinkles, and his hair was a little unkempt. The only thing impressive about his appearance was his height, since he was extremely tall.

"Why are you on the floor?"

"In the photoshoot today, Toshiyuki handled one of the puppets roughly, so I came to apologize to the troupe."

Compared to the accusatory tone Katsuma had used, Yoshimura's remained humble. In the photoshoot, Toshimaru was moving the poles that controlled the Tokimaru doll around at random, so they ended up bending, giving the young staff of Hitogataza extra work. The fact that this assistant went out of his way to give an apology really showed how excellent he was.

"The broadcast is about to begin. Can the director come down?"

"Yes, but..." Katsuma looked up at the clock once more. Then, from the open door to the sub-control room, he noticed Toshimaru and Keiko looking their way.

"Yoshimura, keep Toshimaru -- I mean, keep Shimada safe."

With that, Katsuma rushed to the center of the studio. As he went around the opposite side of the set, the studio director and lighting staff were looking at him like they were shocked. But after a full lap of the studio, he couldn't hear the sound he'd heard from the headphones before.

The only other place he hadn't looked was the interior of the set. Once he found a gap big enough for a human and tried to squeeze through, Hisako caught up to him.

"What in the world are you doing?!"

"There was a weird sound."

"But there's a ton of Hitogataza people in there!"

When she said that, it finally sank in. In the anecdote about the cat, it had been beneath the set, where nobody could see it. But inside the set for a puppet show, the troupe's staff were all standing by beneath the set to control the puppets. If there was an unusual sound, they would be the first ones to notice.

Had it all been their imagination?


[TL note time about the line with the asterisk (*) woo! The "can't stop, won't stop" part, in the original Japanese, is a reference to the lyrics of a song by Hajime Hana and the Crazy Cats. It's a line that shows up after various verses that translates to: "I know that well, but I can't stop." I replaced it in-story with a memey song reference English speakers would get (which also made some sense in the context Toshimaru was saying it in) because there was no way anyone was going to catch the actual reference if I translated it literally. But I also felt it was important to point it out with this note since Hajime Hana and the Crazy Cats were directly mentioned in the Concrete Revolutio columns (and were probably referenced in the anime in ways I never caught because of my lack of familiarity). I want to deliver the memes you dislike but deserve, and I want to do that without totally erasing the pop culture of the specific time period of Japan that this franchise loves so much just to get the vibes to match with the culture of the people I expect to read an English translation of a book. So you get a liberal translation AND a TL note.]




Chapter 5
"Hurry and get up to the sub-control room," Hisako urged.

But when Katsuma went to go back upstairs, something unbelievable happened. The front door to Studio C, which absolutely nobody should have opened this close to broadcast time, was violently thrown open, and a group of men dressed in costumes with coats and fedoras poured in. It was clear they were not TTB employees. The man with the largest build among them was wearing sunglasses, and he had a muffler wrapped around him that covered his mouth. You really couldn't see his face at all.

"Who are you people?"

Katsuma, who had gotten half way up the stairs, jumped back down to block their path. Of course, he didn't forget to check the clock on the wall one more time before doing so. It was 6:34 PM. One minute until broadcast. There was no way he'd be back in the sub-control room on time, now.

Out of the corner of his eye, he found the floor director, Funamura, and pointed at him. With just that, Funamura, who had been in charge of the floor even through Tram Tales, understood Katsuma's intention, and started talking through his headset. Most likely he was contacting the TD in the sub-control room and telling him something like, "for today's broadcast, you can direct it using your own judgement." For staff in this age where live broadcasts were common, the most terrifying thing wasn't being seen on camera by accident, or having their speech get picked up, it was having nothing at all to broadcast during that time. Of course, the studio had a number of signs that said "Please wait a moment" which had been prepared for this exact situation, and they could be sent to the broadcast from the master control room (which actually happened quite often). But the staff all had the professional mindset that, even if it was just a 15 minute puppet show, they needed to get it sent to viewers' living rooms no matter what.

50 years from now, people might wonder if the staff ever felt embarrassed over those broadcasting bungles. However, at the time, even new movies were being released every week. The creators didn't have the awareness that people might watch their works over and over again in future years. In the case of TV, ti was rare for people to have a VTR to record the programs that were broadcast live, so it was natural they would be thinking only of the people who were sitting down to watch in real time. A majority wouldn't have even given that kind of evaluation a thought after the fact.

Because of these priorities, the staff only had one thing on mind as the intruders burst into the studio just before broadcast: being able to start the program on time. However -- no, because Katsuma was a relatively new director, he simply trusted in the determination of the staff and tried to do what he could in the moment.

"I need you people to leave the studio. Come on, hurry."

Katsuma attempted to push the frontmost man back, but he got pushed aside instead. Almost immediately after, a number of the men came at him from his left and right sides, took him by the arms and legs, and put him face-down on the floor. He was completely robbed of his bodily freedom, and his shoulder joints were screaming at the way they'd been twisted. If this had been pro wrestling, he'd be hitting the mat to give up. One fo them was peering at Katsuma's face with a squint while he was frantic from the pain. He was no referee, of course. That man was the only one who didn't wear a coat or fedora, but he still wore clothes that didn't fit TTB: his large body was garbed in a British style three-piece suit.

"You're... uh... if I remember right..."

Katsuma certainly felt he had a memory of that man, and tried to think of his name, but it didn't immediately come to mind.

"Senda. Franklin Shouzou Senda. I greeted you when you were hired here. Remember me?"

Although they were speaking Japanese, he frivolously threw in English words and spoke in an accent in a way that seemed forced. But that finally got Katsuma to remember that this was a man one absolutely could not let their guard down around.


After being defeated in the Pacific War, Japan was ruled by GHQ, General Headquarters of the Allied Forces. Among GHQ's organizations, the CIE (Civil Information and Education Section), which oversaw the Japanese citizens' education and religion, officially ended the practice of censorship. However, in reality, the body within GHQ called the CCD (Civil Censorship Detachment) censored discussion relating to the atomic bomb, and the CCD's headquarters were placed within TTB's broadcasting assembly hall. Viewing Japanese broadcasts and newspapers as "the most effective weapon for promoting democracy," they had initially attempted to take over the entirety of TTB, but the staff opposed it, ultimately leading to a sort of coexistence. However, that quickly lead to them having influence over TTB's TV and radio programs. Documentary programs that showed the cruel conduct of the Japanese military during the war and the incompetence of Imperial General Headquarters which conducted it, were effectively written and produced by the CIE. And it's sad that the man at the heart of it back then was this man called Senda.

Senda was involved in wartime broadcasts in his home country, America, and ironically, at the time he had the most cutting-edge knowledge on production out of everyone at TTB at the time. In spite of his motives and circumstances, his abilities were useful, and even when GHQ's occupation of Japan in Shinka 27 ended, and the peculiar relationship between TTB and the CIE was dissolved, he remained as an unofficial observer of TTB's programming. He hadn't been given an official position at the time Katsuma was hired; however, there was a tradition where all new employees would be gathered up into one place so they could be interviewed by him and receive a whole warning spiel. Right now, he had the same perfect business suit, and the same way of speaking with few words, creating tension as Katsuma and the others watched him. Later on, Katsuma had heard a rumor that the tradition was there to observe the ideological tendencies of the time, which seemed like a plausible explanation.

After that, Katsuma hardly ever saw his face again. But there was one thing Katsuma couldn't forget.

TTB's office building had a history of expansions being built on to it since before the war. If needed, they would demolish walls to connect the existing building to new construction. It was precisely because they had expanded on the original grounds that so much could be done here, but as a result of that, there were connecting corridors and unfinished staircases, and iron doors (the purpose of which was unclear) all over the place. Entrances were no exception: east, west, south, north, front, back -- there were any number of entrances all around the building. You couldn't get an accurate grasp of where everything was or where places would lead to. It was so bad it was just short of having been transformed into a full-on labyrinth.

Katsuma was original employed by TTB's Nagoya office, and though he was hoping to work in the entertainment office, he transferred almost immediately to the Tokyo office. Of course, that wasn't because he had become experienced in directing or production. He had been put to work as an assistant for art staff, but figuring out how to navigate that maze gave him more trouble than anything. The conference room and the rehearsal room were in separate buildings, and he'd have to go back and forth between them and the art storehouse countless times a day for things like stage props and such. Whenever he'd tried to find a shortcut, he would end up in a place he'd never seen before and get lost.

The day in question went the same way. He ended up going into an underground passage he'd never seen before. By the time he realized he was lost, he wasn't sure if he should keep going, or turn back. It was a passage that very much felt like the pre-war era. Posters had been ripped off the walls without care to any marks they left behind, and the mortar was even coming off in places here and there, too. The flooring was uneven, there were a lot of lightbulbs that hadn't been replaced with incandescent ones, and it was just gloomy in general.

There wasn't a sign of any other human. And as for doors, he couldn't find even one. Was there no room behind the wall, leaving this place as just a tunnel to connect to a building? If that were the case, it was still excessively long...

When Katsuma continued on cautiously, a strong voice suddenly came from behind him. "Hey. Who are you?" Katsuma turned around, and there stood Senda, with his stern expression. He had been wearing a button-up shirt with thick suspenders, and his sleeves only covered his upper arms. Katsuma had realized immediately that the person in front of him was the enigmatic "nisei" he had been interviewed by when he came to Tokyo.

Senda had given off a different impression from the interview, though. His face had been stern, but he had some kind of dirt or residue on his fingers and the back of his hand. He seemed to have been aware of it himself, and kept wiping the back of his hand on his pants.

What was the most suspicious was the question of where he had come from. Katsuma and Senda had been standing in the middle of the long passage, so Katsuma would have heard his footsteps and noticed before he called out to him if he'd been following him. He didn't see any corners or doors the entire time he'd been walking through, either. Katsuma couldn't help but think that Senda had been hanging on to the ceiling, and then softly swooped down and called out to him, or something along those lines.

"Ah. Kisara, was it?"

Senda seemed to remember Katsuma, too. As if ashamed by his use of an interrogative tone, he had scratched his nose, then went on to ask what Katsuma was doing there.

Katsuma had been flustered, and explained the situation in a simple fashion. He told Senda that he had gotten lost going to the art department's storehouse. Without asking for any further details than that, Senda pointed towards his own back.

"You're going the wrong way. Go back and take the stairs up. From there, go up the left staircase, and you'll be on the floor with the storehouse."

Senda's expression had calmed, but there was no sign he was willing to hear any questions. Though it felt very different from the wildness of the art and lighting staff, who seemed like they would send mallets and lights flying at any given moment, Katsuma was clearly afraid of the man who had stood in front of him that day.

He mumbled his thanks, and then weaved around Senda to go in the direction of the staircase. Without stopping, Katsuma turned back, and there was already no sign of anyone other than himself in the corridor. It was just like when Senda had appeared out of nowhere.

But the truly shocking thing had come after that.

Katsuma finally returned to the studio, having forgotten to stop by the art storehouse. The prop staff who had given him the errand in the first place greeted him with a strange face. When Katsuma saw his face, he realized he'd messed up.

"Ah, I'm sorry, I'll go and get it right away. It was a pistol you needed, right?"

What Katsuma had gone to get from the storehouse was a small prop pistol. It was an indispensable prop for anything with soldiers or gangs, so the art storehouse had a ton lying around. Of course, they were just made out of lead pipes with some other parts attached, but since they were made to be used with gunpowder once and then break, they didn't need to look all that accurate.

"No. Here, look."

Atop the staff member's palm was a gun. One way to describe a gun's appearance could be glossy black, and this automatic pistol, with its notable weight, had a finish that fit that description perfectly.

"Did someone else go and get that?"

"Didn't you ask him to?" The staff asked in return, still with the strange expression on his face. "He came. You know, that nisei who became a consultant..."

"Franklin Senda?"

"Yeah, him. He came in and said something like, 'The props department must be very busy. You can use this. Take it to the consulting office when you're done.' What were you thinking, asking someone that important to do you a favor?"

"I didn't ask him to do anything, he just called out ot me out of nowhere when I'd gotten lost."

Then Katsuma realized it. In that mazelike passage, he had never once said what he was going to get. Just that he was trying to get to the art storehouse. Had Senda looked up which program Katsuma was working with after their meeting, and then figured out what prop they were short on, and showed up with it at the studio faster than Katsuma could get back?

It seemed the individual called Senda was demonstrating that, at least within this part of the company, there was nothing he did not know. That terrified Katsuma. At the same time, he also got the sense that it could be a silent message to him to not speak a word of that underground passage.

"Someone that high up would never have brought something like this without someone asking for it."

"Wh-where did he even bring it from?" Katsuma tried to change the subject, peering at the gun, "Its quality is on another level from our usual toy guns."

"Of course it is, it's the real thing."

After saying that, the staff member pulled back the pistol's slide, and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell with precise movement. It was certainly far more real than the stage guns used for filming.

"Th-this must be a joke."

The smile that had showed on Katsuma's face completely froze over at what the staff member said next.

"Like hell it is. He took out the bullets himself right in front of our eyes. He seemed pretty experienced with it, too."


After that incident, Katsuma heard that Senda had gone back to his home country of America, so why was he here? Katsuma was so confused, he forgot how to speak. A faint smile appeared on Senda's face.

"You look like you want to know why I'm in Japan. Since last year, I've been working here again as a consultant for TTB's relocation analysis office."

The broadcast facilities here at Tamurachou had deteriorated, and there was very little space, so the announcement had already been made that TTB would be relocated bit by bit to Yoyogi. But for Katsuma and the other people present, that would be a ways down the line, so they could continue to do their daily broadcast without having to worry about suspending the program.

"Oh, now that I think about it, the place where TTB is relocating is a former army training site, and ended up being turned into housing for the occupying forces for a while. it would be useful in all kinds of ways if a former GHQ person like yourself could put in a few good words for us."

Trying to encourage himself in a situation where he felt like an insect stopped by a pin, Katsuma intentionally spoke as if he had seen through his plan. However, Senda seemed to be completely unfazed.

"The reason I'm here today has no connection to my work as a consultant. It's an emergency. Everyone must leave the studio. Immediately."

"Emergency? But our broadcast is starting."

Katsuma wanted to get up, but as long as they were pressing down on his back, it would just make him cry out in pain.

"There's no way around it. Put up the usual sign that says 'Please wait a moment.'"

At that moment, Funamura's voice echoed loudly from inside the studio: "Five seconds to broadcast. Four seconds, three seconds..."

And then, right on cue, the title letters that had been written on the board saying "Shinobi Tokimaru, Episode 44" were displayed by Camera B. Already the puppets could be seen on the set, waiting to move with the timing of the next cue.

The live broadcast had begun. From here, the absolute only thing Katsuma and the staff cared about was getting the episode broadcast to viewers without incident.

Senda didn't seem to understand what had happened for a moment, since it was unthinkable that a broadcast would be started on its own with the director restrained on the floor.

Katsuma ignored the screaming pain from his back, and forcefully tried to stand up. His bones creaked painfully. It brought back a painful memory of a huge adult leaned over him, and being told, "What's wrong? Go ahead and move," and being unable to move even a single finger, right there on the fresh tatami mat. "There's no way you can't. You're my son, after all. Come on, what's wrong?" "But I really can't, Dad, please, let me go. I want to read manga in my room. i want to go to the movie theater. I can't be like you."

To drive away the voices from his childhood that were echoing in his head, Katsuma had no choice but to endure the pain and push off the men who were holding him down.

After putting so much effort into it, and finally standing back up again, Katsuma grabbed Senda by the collar of his shirt. When he'd been a child on that tatami mat, he clung to his father's judo uniform. The action came to him instantly after the sparring he'd done back then.

"Mr. Senda. The broadcast is starting. I don't know what it is you're planning to do here, but please wait until the broadcast ends."

"You must stop the broadcast at once. This is an emergency, do you understand? This studio is in danger."

Hearing the word "danger" reminded him of the growling sound they had heard over the headphones not long ago. But right now, Katsuma was angry at the behavior of Senda and the others who had suddenly forced their way into the studio and nearly ruined the broadcast.

"Don't look down on us. Even if it's digital kamishibai or a puppet show, we take it seriously. This 15 minutes belongs to us. If you want us to leave, you'll have to drag us out by force. But it'll be broadcast live to living rooms all over Japan if you do."

The pre-recorded voices and music began to play, and the dolls moved to match that audio. of course, they didn't move exactly as if they were alive. Being controlled from below, they hopped up and down in froglike movements. It was unnatural movement for humans. But at times it could feel more real and earnest than if an actual human had acted it out. It was the same with animation. They're things that are created completely from scratch by humans, so there's something that we project onto them.

"Then I suppose I will have to suspend the broadcast from the master control room," Senda breathed out, and began to leave. However, the men in coats went in the opposite direction from Senda -- they went on towards the center of the studio.

Senda yelled something. It was English. Were these men foreigners?

No doubt they were headed towards the live broadcasting Camera A, to peel the cameraman away from it. Hisako tried to stop them, causing a scuffle.

"What's going on? Humans aren't gonna fight the puppets today, right?" Toshimaru asked Katsuma, having come down at some point. Half of the reason was because he thought it was amusing to see the adults fighting here and there in the studio, but Katsuma could tell that the other half was because Toshimaru was afraid.

Keiko was beside Toshimaru, trying to snap pictures of the chaos with a small camera.

"Please stop taking photos. Yoshimura!"

When called, Toshimaru's assistant came running and held him securely in his arms.

"Kisara, it would be best to stop the broadcast. We're not going to be able to finish the episode either way."

What Yoshimura was saying made sense. The men in coats had already surrounded the front of Camera A, and were starting to wildly rotate the turret there. The turret was fitted with four lenses with different characteristics, so they could be exchanged between cuts. Messing with it without switching cameras meant that right about now, viewers would probably be seeing out of focus video, sudden close-ups, and all kinds of other nonsense.

However, Katsuma didn't have the heart to stop the broadcast. The reason wasn't just that he didn't want to deal with writing an apologetic letter to his supervisor to explain it. There was a maelstrom inside of him. The pain from wrenching his spine to force himself to stand up had resurrected memories from his childhood. Memories of the similar pain from being held down on the tatami mat, and even pain in his chest from when he was made to run hard despite being unathletic. That wasn't all, though. There was also the pain of being told to give up on Tram Tales being a mystery, and having to accept it himself, even though that was a pain he should have long left behind. No, there was something much deeper...

(If I stop the broadcast now, it means losing to all that pain.)

That was the thought that abruptly came to his mind.

Humans can't bear pain. Especially those like Katsuma, who had disliked violence from his childhood, was always unathletic, and was the type who got the status of being the neighborhood bully's follower by being good at drawing manga. Forget real violence, even just the threat of it would make him imagine the pain and give in.

If there was someone who could truly endure pain and move past it, then they wouldn't be a weak human, they would be called a "superhuman."

Katsuma wasn't a superhuman. He knew that better than anyone.

But that was exactly why...

While he hesitated, a number of the men had finally infiltrated the inside of the set. The primarily female staff of the puppet troupe screamed ou. Floor Director Funamura couldn't just look on. He left his post to head in as well.

Suddenly, all of the puppets disappeared from the set at the same time.

Obviously, they hadn't been directed to. That could only mean the troupe staff were unable to keep holding the puppets in their place. Before Katsuma could collect his thoughts, screams echoed out again. But they were much louder and more intense than the women screaming just a moment ago had been.

One of the men in coats flew out of the set, and rolled over the floor. He hadn't done that of his own volition. It was like someone had used a pro wrestling move to grab him and hurl him out, or maybe a car had hit him and sent his body flying there. His fedora was gone, and the sunglasses he wore were broken. And blood was gushing out from his chest.

He was a middle-aged white man.

The screaming just continued from there.

Slowly, a figure emerged from below the set. What appeared, pushing past the miniature forest setting, was a beast. Katsuma thought it resembled a feline predator.

He had hardly been to the zoo up until this point in his life, but he had seen animals like jaguars and cougars, and also cheetahs.

Still, calling this four-legged beast a large feline felt wrong, too. Its back legs were awfully long, and its face was far more like an ape's than a cat's -- to put it plainly, it looked like a human face with hair growing out of it, and a mouth that could open very wide.

(Come to think of it, there were stories that popped up in the Heian period about a creature called the Nue, which had the face of a monkey and the body of a tiger, weren't there?)

This useless information popped into Katsuma's head. He would research further later on, and find that the Nue that appeared in The Tale of the Heike had the limbs of a tiger and the body of a tanuki, but this beast had no parts that could make one think of a tanuki. No, in a sense, it may have actually matched the description of a tanuki perfectly. But at the time, Katsuma did not have the time or composure to think about it too much.

Another one of the men in coats was held inside of the beast's fang-lined mouth. His front faced the ceiling, and from his chest to his abdomen, the beast's fangs held him. Blood flowed from those countless bite wounds, trickling down the beast's jaws to the floor. The man seemed to already be virtually unconscious, and foamy blood was running down his own mouth.

Katsuma had lost nearly all of his ability to think properly at the completely unreal sight. All he could muster was the sense that they needed to get rid of the beast.

(I'm going to lose another one of my TV shows...)

The recordings of the actors for the puppet show continued playing in the studio.

"Tokimaru, you must deliver that mechanism you possess to the great feudal lords of Edo without fail."

"No! I won't hand this over to anyone, not even them. If those in power use it, then people's blood will surely be spilled yet again. Just as with that Amakusa fellow."

"Then we must fight!"

"No, Himaru. Crossing swords with you, who I was raised with like a sibling, is unthinkable."

"No more talk! Edo Ninja Art, Great Eagle Formation!"

Tokimaru was voiced by the child actor Toshimaru, while the elder of the two ninja, Himaru, was voiced by an older stage actor. Both of their passionate performances could still be heard. As if spurred on by those voices, Katsuma removed the loosely-woven jumper he wore and wrapped it around his right arm. It was the only thing he could think of to protect him in the moment.

He heard a sound like wet lumber being snapped in two.

The beast had completely ripped off the side of the prey it had been holding in its mouth. The rest of the man's body fell tot he floor, and didn't move from that spot.

And then a growl came from the beast's throat. A low sound that felt as if it came from the bottom of the earth. That was definitely the strange sound he had heard from the headphones.

But if this creature had been hiding in the set from back then, there's no way the troupe members would have been safe. Besides, this beast was no cat. He didn't know how big tigers could get, but this creature was clearly as tall as an orthicon camera, and from head to tail, it was as long as a car. When had something this big slipped into the set?

While he thought about it, the troupe staff dashed out of the set one after the other. A lot of them still held puppets in their hands. Whether they had already been attacked by the beast themselves, or if it was blood from the men who were attacked, everyone's faces and clothes had spots of red on them. Some were crying, some couldn't walk and crawled out using their hands, and some were even falling onto the floor, slapping both of their own cheeks to try to psych themselves up. All ten or so of the troupe staff were desperately trying to escape.

Funamura was pulling at a troupe member's hand, trying to pull them along. They must have looked like suitable prey to the beast. In one moment, it turned its body, and in the next, Funamura's head was severed from his body and tumbled to the floor. Without any loss of strength, the beast's fangs sank deep into the arm of the troupe member, who had fallen to the floor.

The screaming rang out loudly.

Was this scene playing out on TV all over the country? If so, then...

(It's my responsibility.)

Katsuma couldn't help but think that way.

Funamura was dead. Hisako, who had collapsed along with the troupe staff, would be too. So would Yoshimura, and Toshimaru, who had let Yoshimura wrap his arms around him. Even Senda, who was frozen in front of the door. Everyone here was going to die.

"Don't do it, Kisara!"

Yoshimura started to run over. He must have understood what Katsuma was about to try when he saw the color of his face.

But Katsuma ran even faster. He picked up a folding chair on the way, and with all his might, slammed it into the back of the beast that had turned to face him.

"Get out of here, monster!"

The beast looked at him. It didn't seem like it had felt the chair hit it in the slightest. But those eyes were definitely not the eyes of a feline beast of prey. They just looked like the eyes of a human.

Those eyes that had found Katsuma suddenly rose up into the air. The beast's face rose up higher than Katsuma's head, and reached such a height that Katsuma had to look up as high as he possibly could to see it.

The beast was standing on its hind legs.

With the ceiling's light at its back, Katsuma saw its silhouetted mouth move.

"I am not a monster. I am Duma. King of the forests, of the beasts."

The beast was speaking human words?

And then the beast used its left foreleg to slam into Katsuma from the side.

He had a hunch his skull had been broken right above his ear.

(Is this also being broadcast to people's TVs?)

That was Katsuma's final thought.




Chapter 6
"Huh? When did you go down there?"

Katsuma looked up to the source of the voice.

Kaneko's face poked out from the sub-control room doorway, his hand cupped in front of his mouth to help his voice carry.

"When...?"

"You were just suddenly gone. We were worried up here."

"What are you saying? What about the broadcast? Are we still live?"

"Live? Now?"

Katsuma surveyed his surroundings, not understanding what was happening.

It was the same Studio C he had been in before. The set for Shinobi Tokimaru was built up, and the troupe members and staff were rehearsing there.

Wait, rehearsing?

That couldn't be the case. Those men had broken in, and the broadcast started, and then that beast appeared.

"Kisara, you'll get in the way you just stand there." The stage director Hisako had bumped into him from behind.

"Hisako... Everyone... You're all okay?"

"We're not okay!"

"Huh?"

"Why would they schedule an interview with a magazine so close to the broadcast?"

What Hisako pointed at, in front of the overgrown trees and plants of the forest-themed set, was Toshiyuki Shimada being showered with the flash of cameras. Prince Toshimaru. The reported named Keiko Ikebukuro was holding a camera, keeping her perfectly manufactured smile as she spoke with him.

"I'm sorry for all the trouble, but he truly is still a child."

Yoshimura had heard what Hisako said, and scratched his head as he walked towards them.

"That's all well and good, but Prince Toshimaru has been holding on to the Tokimaru puppet this whole time. At this rate, we won't be able to rehearse." Something seemed amiss with Hisako, compared to how she usually was with Katsuma. After bluntly saying only those words to Yoshimura, she got back to her own work.

Katsuma just kept standing there absentmindedly.

"Is something wrong, Kisara? Um, Toshiyuki didn't do anything, did he?" Yoshimura asked Katsuma, seemingly worried about him.

"No, it's nothing like that. But... I feel like everything that's happening right now has already happened, just like this."

"Have you been reading about Freud?"

"Freud..."

The unexpected name pulled him back to reality. He knew the name, since Freud was famous for his psychoanalysis, but Katsuma wasn't interested in psychology, so he had never read any of his writings.

"Oh, am I mistaken? Well, Freud apparently wasn't the one who came up with the term deja vu, anyway. Deja vu is the same thing that we call 'kishikan' in Japanese. It's the phenomenon where we feel like we've already experienced something before."

"This is the first time I've heard the term. What did Freud say about it?"

"He said it's something you've already seen, but that it's just a forgotten dream. So don't you think it's probably just that, Kisara? Even in your dreams, you probably just think about this place, so it feels like you've already experienced all this before."

Yoshimura gave him a smile, and then left in Toshimaru's direction, since it seemed like the shoot was coming to an end.

(A forgotten dream...)

That must be it. But Katsuma had definitely seen all of this before. The photo shoot of Toshiyuki Shimada for the interview conducted by Keiko Ikebukuro. Toshiyuki/Prince Toshimaru being rough with the puppet of Tokimaru, the character he gives his voice to, all of it. But in Katsuma's memory, he himself was overlooking all of this from the sub-control room, impatiently hoping for the interview and photo shoot to come to an end. Afterwards, Toshimaru and Keiko would come up to the sub-control room, too, and then Toshimaru would start to talk about the movie star who died.

Though, maybe smaller details like that could differ with deja vu. That wouldn't be strange if it really was the memory of a dream. Katsuma combed a hand through his hair, and suddenly felt pain.

There was a tiny bit of blood on his fingertips.

He put his hand through his hair again, slowly feeling around. And right above his ear, there was a wound. It was so small it seemed like it would close up any minute, but it felt like it was only just starting to bleed, as if he'd just gotten cut now.

Katsuma looked up at the clock on the wall. 5:55. There were 40 minutes left until Shinobi Tokimaru's broadcast would begin.




Chapter 7
From the script of Shinobi Tokimaru Episode 2

Daimaru: Hmm, so this is the mechanism you found in Shimabara.

(Tokimaru is prostrating herself before Daimaru. A nightingale can be heard singing from the garden.)

Tokimaru: Yes, Chief.

Daimaru: Is it true you picked this up in the scorched ruins of Hara Castle after they all succumbed to death?

Tokimaru: Y-yes.


Tokimaru's Memory (Previous Episode)

(Tokimaru tightly grasps the hand of the beautiful girl who had fallen. Her outfit is different from a kimono.)

Tokimaru: Wawawawa.

Beautiful Girl: Tetetete.

Tokimaru: Nananana.

Beautiful Girl: Wa? Te? Na? That's a problem; it doesn't seem like we're communicating. I guess there's still a lot more I need to research about this era's Japanese. Let's see... Do... you... understand... me...?

Tokimaru: Wawawawa.

Beautiful Girl: Oh my. This is hopeless after all...

Tokimaru: Wa, I understand.

Beautiful Girl: Wawa!

Tokimaru: Huh?

Beautiful Girl: No, this is wonderful, wa.

Tokimaru: Wonderful?

Beautiful Girl: Yes. I've finally met someone who's alive. But it's unfortunate that I'm running out of time to be here.

Tokimaru: Time? What is "time"?

Beautiful Girl: I see. Freedom, economics, peace, romance... None of these are words in this era. (Begins to sing) Time, time is life's flow, its change~ Yesterday is not tomorrow, today won't always be now~ That is our mysterious tiiime~

Tokimaru: You're not making any sense. Poor girl, you must have seen such awful things.

Beautiful Girl: Ah, there's no more time. Here.

(The Beautiful Girl takes the "watch" out from her clothes. It resembles a present-day pocketwatch, but has many different buttons. A large number "3" is written in the center of the watch's face.)

Tokimaru: This is some sort of mechanism.

Beautiful Girl: I'll give it to you.

Tokimaru: No, I don't want it.

Beautiful Girl: What? Why not?

Tokimaru: You'll surely send a frighteningly large bill to me later. I know this happens.

Beautiful Girl: You only know things that aren't useful. I won't do that. This is my thanks to you for helping me after I fell. but this will be a secret between just the two of us, okay? What's your name?

Tokimaru: I am Tokimaru, a shinobi of Edo.

Beautiful Girl: Tokimaru... Ah, "toki"... Your name has a word that means "time" in it. Then this must be fate. Tokimaru, please, take this, and...

(The girl's body gently floats up into the air, and then disappears. Tokimaru, looking up, has the watch in her hand.)


Inside the Edo Shinobi Estate

Tokimaru: Y-yes, I picked it up off of the ground.

Daimaru: Did you? Your eyes wavered. What have you been scheming, looking at me with those eyes?

Tokimaru: I-I have schemed nothing. Um, Chief, please give it back to me now.

(Tokimaru puts her hand out.)

Daimaru: Give it back? Didn't you give it to me?

Tokimaru: No. It's mine.

Daimaru: Fool. A shinobi's possession is my possession. I want to take a closer look at it. I'll start by disassembling it.

Tokimaru: Don't. Please give it back to me!

Daimaru: Argh, would you stop that?!

(The two get into a scuffle over the device. By chance, Tokimaru's hand touches the switch. When she does, the sound of a tape rewinding plays suddenly, and the screen is covered by a vortex.)


Inside the Edo Shinobi Estate (A Few Minutes Before)

(Tokimaru and Daimaru face each other the same as before. Tokimaru is holding the watch.)

Daimaru: Hmm. Is that the mechanism you said you found in Shimabara? Let me take a look.

Tokimaru: Huh?

(The watch in Tokimaru's hand as the number "2" on it.)

Tokimaru: But... I just showed it to you.

Daimaru: What are you saying? You only just sat down there. Come on, let me see. Hurry it up.

(A nightingale can be heard singing from the garden.)

Tokimaru: What's going on? This is almost exactly like before. Time... I see, time is repeating itself!




Chapter 8
Katsuma rushed up the stairs and burst into the sub-control room. Ignoring the confused looks from Kaneko and the other staff, he glared at the chair behind and a little to the side from the Technical Director. That chair was Katsuma's usual spot, and was currently unoccupied.

Not knowing what he should do, he grabbed a script that was within reach. It was for Episode 44.

"Wh-what's wrong? You look pale." The TD, who was the oldest person there, spoke for everyone when he asked that. Katsuma pushed down the anxiety and confusion that made him want to yell, but couldn't stop his response from coming out with a brusque tone.

"Today is Thursday, huh? March 2nd of Shinka 36."

He knew that everyone would exchange a glance after that. It was only natural people would worry about a mental breakdown if anyone started saying the date out of nowhere the way Katsuma just did. Eventually, Kaneko opened his mouth. He had been working at the company for the longest, but he had specifically worked with Katsuma as his switcher for a long time, so he was probably the closest to him out of everyone there.

"Yeah. Tokimaru is broadcast five times a week, so Episode 44 would have to be on a Thursday. If it were Friday, that would mean we fell behind schedule."

Katsuma understood he was trying to ease the tension in the room, but he didn't have the composure to respond. He had all kinds of questions and hypotheses whirling around in his head like a stew, and to make things worse, he hadn't come up with a single answer.

When he had looked at the clock in the studio a moment ago, his first thought, which was also the most irrational theory, was that he himself had become Tokimaru.

There is no original creator credited for the serial puppet show Shinobi Tokimaru. It's a rare case where one of Katsuma's proposals was accepted without changes. The setting is the Kan'ei era, during the reign of the shogun Iemitsu. A ninja named Tokimaru is deployed to the Amakusa islands in Kyushu when a group of Christians revolt in the historical event that came to be called the Shimabara Rebellion. There, Tokimaru obtains a mysterious watch. That watch has the ability to turn back time.

Due to the nature of her work as a ninja, Tokimaru meets with dangerous situations one after the other. Some examples are being surrounded by enemy ninja, falling into a pit full of venomous snakes, or having a huge boulder suddenly fall from above. but as long as Tokimaru has the watch, she can rewind time about one minute back. By doing that, Tokimaru is able to learn everything that's about to happen, and avoid danger. However, there are situations where the problem can't be dealt with in only one minute, and times when avoiding one danger brings about a new one. In those cases, she can use the watch a second time to rewind time back to the same point as the previous time. However, there is a plot device where this can only be done up to three times.

If Katsuma were Tokimaru, there is no way he wouldn't rewind time to avoid the crisis of the mysterious men and the beast named Duma appearing in the middle of the broadcast, and his own resulting death.

For an instant, Katsuma had thought along those lines. That he had, with his own will, reversed time. It was an idea that would only be thought up by Katsuma, who loved SF novels, and other like-minded people who shared those interests.

(But thinking about it more, it's different from Tokimaru's case. For starters, I don't have a watch like that. I've also gone back over 40 minutes in time.)

Anxiety had suddenly welled up in him. Before, Katsuma had been in the sub-control room at 5:55. But this time he was in the studio. That being the case, wouldn't there be another Katsuma -- no, a "real" Katsuma leaning back in the director's chair?

That thought is what had spurred him to rush up those iron stairs, but there wasn't another Katsuma sitting in the chair. If this were really an event from Shinobi Tokimaru, there wouldn't be a second Tokimaru (because it's akin to rewinding a video recording to a specific point), so this was how it should be in that case. However, he was not Tokimaru, and because the Katsuma of that moment knew that best, his confusion only grew.

Of course, there was still the more realistic theory, which is that it had been a dream. It could even be called the most valid theory. All of the things Katsuma had experienced before were just from a dream he had. This was just that deja vu phenomenon Yoshimura mentioned not long ago.

The clock was about to hit 6:00. He didn't have time to be thinking about all these things. He needed to forget all of it and get back to preparing for the day's broadcast. He gave a weak smile to the concerned staff, and was about to sit in his chair, when...

"You've never had pizza? Really?"

That loud voice belonged to Prince Toshimaru, who was on his way up the stairs. Following behind him was Keiko Ikebukuro, the reporter for the TV magazine.

"Really. It's because nobody would ever take me to places like Azabu. You seem to know about about everything, though, Toshiyuki. That's amazing."

"Pizza tastes pretty good, though it does get your hands messy. But you can just wipe them off anywhere like this."

After saying that, Prince Toshimaru rubbed his hand on Keiko's hip. He probably was trying to demonstrate how to wipe your hands off, but there was enough reason to suspect he had other motives as well. Keiko forced a laugh.

"Sorry, but Toshiyuki really is interesting. Could we stay here and talk a little longer? Keiko asked Katsuma.

From Katsuma's perspective, this wasn't the first time she'd asked him that. He remembered it clearly. From here, Keiko and Prince Toshimaru would keep talking about pointless things in the sub-control room, Kaneko would complain about it, and the TD would hear the strange noise over his headphones. Then, the tragedy would happen.

It had to have all just been deja vu. In Katsuma's memory, Prince Toshimaru would invite her to stay on his own, without waiting for Katsuma's permission, saying, "It's totally fine. We won't get in the way up here."

"It's totally fine." Prince Toshimaru's voice cut right through his thoughts. It was perfectly in line with Katsuma's memory. "We won't get in the way up here. Right?"

Prince Toshimaru took Keiko's hand to move closer to the wall, and then he started talking about the filming he did last month. That would lead to the story about the star who died by crashing a go-kart into a wall.

Katsuma was trying from the start to conclude it was just a dream, but again he could feel the restless anxiety boiling up inside of him.

He softly grabbed the headphones and put them over his ears. He could hear the usual noises from inside the studio: Funamura giving instructions, Hisako Yanase complaining, the art staff and Hitogataza members talking. He tried to make out the growling sound that existed in his memory. But if everything was a product of a dream, that unusual growling sound he heard, like wind blowing through a cave, absolutely would not be audible.

(Please don't hear it...)

He sent out a wish, trying hard to listen.

But Katsuma's wish would not be granted. One of the microphones hanging directly above the set started to pick up that strange sound.

When the TD noticed Katsuma's serious expression, he put on his own headphones. Almost as soon as he asked Katsuma what he heard, it seemed he noticed it himself. "What's this sound?" he asked.

Katsuma took off his headphones, and raised his voice.

"Excuse me, everyone! I need everyone to step outside!"

There were 13 minutes left until the scheduled broadcast time. Everyone's expressions changed as if to say, "What is this crazy guy doing?" But Katsuma simply repeated himself.

"I need to make sure the studio is safe! Everyone, please step outside!"




Chapter 9
Katsuma gave the order not just to the staff who were in the sub-control room, but also to everyone in Studio C. Naturally, not a single person was happy to receive those orders. They had finally finished setting up the lighting, and were starting the camera test when he told everyone to leave. All of the staff were seething, and even people like Funamura and Hisako, who normally would have taken his side, tried to get a detailed explanation and didn't leave the studio readily.

Katsuma shut himself up in the sub-control room, and did not go down to the studio. He wasn't confident he could explain his decision to the angered staff in a logical way. It was clear to him that, if anything, he would be adding fuel to the fire. He wasn't certain at all that his decision was the right one, anyway.

He still didn't have any proof that what he saw before wasn't a dream. But at the same time, he couldn't ignore that Prince Toshimaru's words were the same, and above all, that growl that echoed from the set. Katsuma always considered himself to have a gentle demeanor, and wasn't the confrontational type. When the opinions of other staff would clash, he would try to direct in a way that respected the others on a fundamental level. He didn't particularly excel at anything or stand out. He just quietly broadcasted a puppet show five days a week without any trouble. That's what he felt was his duty.

That's exactly why, even if there was only the tiniest probability of the tragedy he saw before happening, he wanted to make absolutely sure it didn't. Katsuma thought that decision was caused by his own timidness, and that if he was with other staff, he might quickly change his mind. That's how timidity is.

(I absolutely can't come down from the sub-control room.)

Whether they knew about Katsuma's resolution or not, the staff gradually began to move from the studio to the hallway. The first ones to leave seemed to be the Hitogataza puppeteers. From where Katsuma was, he could see the female troupe members carefully holding up the puppets they were in charge of, and calling out to the staff. This was a little unexpected. The troupe members who actually controlled puppets were always repeating their rehearsal countless times until just before the start of the broadcast to fine-tune their timing. Despite that fact, it was common for their to be complaints that they don't have enough time. Nevertheless, there were many part-timers in Hitogataza, so it shouldn't be surprising if they didn't feel any sense of belonging towards TTB. Katsuma's prediction had been that they would be the least accepting of temporarily leaving.

With the troupe having taken the initiative, the rest of the staff started to head for the door as well, their dissatisfaction plain in their expressions. The troupe members were holding the puppets up to the height of their heads so as to not damage them, so to Katsuma's eyes, it looked like the Tokimaru and Himaru puppets were leading the experienced staff out. He saw Keiko among them as well. Next to her was a man carrying a camera around his neck. The magazine's cameraman would just get in the way if they tried to shoot anything in the commotion, so he and Keiko went straight towards the door.

When Studio C was at last devoid of people, Katsuma headed down. Looking at the clock, it had passed 6:20. He couldn't postpone things much longer. He bent down to peer below the set. The lighting was kept low so the puppets could be controlled properly, so while it wasn't pitch black, there were still a lot of places that were just shadows.

The form of the beast that had so easily severed Funamura's neck appeared in his mind.

If that creature had been hiding somewhere in the studio from the start, this would be a likely place. There were portable paintings used as the background scenery standing against the studio's wall, but since many of the staff go behind there, it wouldn't have been blind spot. First and foremost, that growling sound they heard through the headphones definitely came from inside of this set.

Katsuma hadn't thought far enough ahead to what he would do if he found it. He wondered if TTB's security guards could deal with that ferocious beast. Either way, he didn't want that kind of tragedy to happen.

(In the middle of my show--)

Yes, the single thought that still occupied Katsuma's mind was safely getting through to the end of today's live broadcast. For that reason, whether it was a dream or not, he needed to confirm if the beast was there.

He adjusted the angle of the light that pointed at the floor, illuminating further within, and focused his eyes. He waited to hear that growling.


When Katsuma left to the hall, he wound up in the middle of Hisako, Kaneko, and the others clashing with Senda and his men.

"Please move aside. Everyone, form a line!"

The order from Senda was oppressive, and the staff resisted, causing chaos to ensue. The narrow hall had all of the staff and troupe members gathered in it, so it turned into something a bit like a shoving match, and hardly anyone could move.

When Senda spotted Katsuma's face, he said something, but Katsuma had spoken faster.

"Your'e here early."

"What do you mean by that?"

In Katsuma's memory, Senda and his men had forced their way into Studio C just before the broadcast started. Compared to that, Senda was about ten minutes early. But there's no way Senda could understand that.

"Nevermind. The people here are all the staff and cast for my program. Now that everyone's identity has been established, please stop acting like this is some kind of interrogation."

Senda's eyes narrowed slightly.

"It seems you know the reason I came here. You don't seem surprised that I'm in Japan, either."

"I just got a call from higher up," Katsuma immediately lied. He didn't believe he had the talent to be an actor, but he had gotten the words out so smoothly he almost wanted to give himself a round of applause. "They told me there's a possibility someone dangerous might have gotten into the studio, so there might be an investigation, and that the one in charge would be the recently-reinstated consultant, Senda."

"I kept it strictly secret, but I suppose it doesn't matter now."

Senda's suspicion seemed to dissipate. Knowing his ability to gather info that he'd shown off before, though, he would find out about Katsuma's lies by tomorrow.

"As you can see from the fact that everyone is out of the studio, I'm trying to cooperate in my own way. What kind of person is this dangerous individual? Is it a student the police are after?"

In recent years, the Public Security Forces, unlike the Japan Self-Defense Force, had a secret agreement that let them cooperate freely with the US military. Students who opposed that were the heart of numerous protests that were taking place. The area around TTB had felt the effects of the demonstrations, too. Sometimes teams that left to shoot on-location weren't able to return on time. There were many real harms that came as a result of it.

Because of TTB's opposition to being put under GHQ's control for so many years after the war, and because many of its staff were related to cultural figures, it had an anti-establishment spirit to it. Few employees participated in the demonstrations themselves, but it was a regular occurrence for them to turn a blind eye to students who fled into the office building to hide from police. Knowing this, Katsuma intentionally asked if it was a student despite knowing it wasn't in an attempt to get the surrounding staff to go along with the situation.

Senda nodded ambiguously, and then gave instructions to the men in coats and fedoras he brought with him. The men brushed Katsuma aside and pushed their way into the studio.

But this was after Katsuma had already thoroughly searched it, so the men wouldn't be able to find anything. Katsuma himself was unsatisfied with that fact. The owner of the growling noise had vanished like mist the moment the staff exited to the hallway. There was no indication that anything had been hidden in there, not even in the sub-control room. Plus, the staff and cast all knew each other, so if that kind of human-faced carnivorous beast of a monster were mixed in with them, it would be absolute mayhem.

The time was now 6:30.

"How is it, Senda? Is there anyone suspicious?"

Senda ignored Katsuma's question and went into the studio himself, yelling out something in English. The men in coats responded to whatever he had said. It seemed like they were giving up on the search. Only one of the men, the tall one with the muffler and sunglasses that covered every remaining inch of his skin, was still walking around the edge of the set.

"Hey!" Senda called out to him. The man in the muffler reluctantly came back, seemingly dissatisfied.

"He has to be here," he replied in clear Japanese. That was a surprise to Katsuma, as he had thought they were all foreigners. "It's different from the Shikano situation. Dumas is definitely..."

That's when the man noticed Katsuma watching from the doorway. He angrily pulled down his muffler and yelled, "What are you looking at?!"

His lips looked like they had an unusual texture akin to mud that had dried and cracked. While Katsuma was thinking about what he was seeing, Senda put the man's muffler back in place and urged them all out of the studio.

Hisako barged in to replace them immediately.

"Five minutes left!"

That was just enough.

The staff and troupe members rushed back into the studio as if it were a competition. The men moved the set back to how it had been before, and the puppets and lighting were all put back in place.

On that day, Shinobi Tokimaru Episode 44 began its broadcast safely and on schedule.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hnn, while there's definitely a lot of ideas which would come into play in ConRevo, a lot of the worldbuilding here is....completely non-applicable with how it's written? Very strictly an alt-continuity thing, from the looks of it.