The view from Rain's apartment in Nishi Nippori. “It offered a view, to use that term loosely, of the Yamanote train tracks below, which were in the process of being expanded to handle Tokyo's ever-burgeoning population. I parked Thanatos in front and looked down. The tableau, bleached to harsh white by overhead klieg lights, was a forbidding mass of concrete blocks, giant transformers, and steel rails. Beyond it all, more gray buildings and a sky the color of ashes against the neon glow of the city beneath.”