7.

How many lights and machines ran inside New Edo? The solar fields seemed to stretch forever across the landscape.

Unpaved access roads ran alongside long rows of solar collectors. Near the holodome, the equipment looked clean and well-maintained, but conditions worsened the farther I traveled. Panels leaned at odd angles, some coated in grime, others stripped of parts. The gaps between rows shrank until the roads felt more like overgrown corridors than planned routes.

Out here, nature pressed in from every side. Wind lashed the waist-high grasses, flashing the silver undersides of their broad, knifelike blades. Saplings rose around the bases of forgotten units, and flowering vines snaked through rusted housings, choking their blackened frames in tangled green.

Hillocks and fallen equipment blocked the way. I turned and maneuvered the bike as needed, wrestling its weight through tight spots. My frame made the task harder, and one wrong skid could trap me underneath.

Light continued to fade. I slowed to a crawl, unwilling to damage the TerraCycle this far out.

The foul weather had one benefit: fewer people around to witness my mistakes. I barely knew how to handle the all-terrain bike and had to learn as I went, doing my best to look like I knew what I was doing. My hands, stiff from the cold, slipped on the grips and fought the controls, cracking the illusion of control I tried to project.

Get it together, I told myself through chattering teeth. Out here, hesitation got you marked. With monsoon season in full swing and crowds pressing toward the holodome to beg or barter for shelter, I couldn’t afford to look uncertain.

The holodomes hadn’t always belonged to the elite. During the first wave of nokuru, authorities built them as public safety enclaves, not private fortresses. But time made forgetfulness easy. Back then, thousands of smaller holodomes dotted the map. Now only seven remained.

The naginata kept would-be thieves at bay. The few travelers I passed, crouched in makeshift lean-tos or curled beneath shared blankets, took one look and looked away.

Maybe they mistook me for one of Mazawa’s goons. Or a field tech. The TerraCycle’s former rider raised questions. Had his situation triggered the shouts from the surveillance wall? If so, why hadn’t his squad helped? Sentries carried beam launchers—full-sized versions of the one I took—strong enough to cut through solid metal. Their goggles matched mine. They would’ve seen everything.

So why hadn’t any of them fired on the kufugaki?

A spot at the back of my neck twitched. After distancing myself from others, I slowed again to test it with a frigid hand. The skin, though swollen from the seed’s implantation, wasn’t bleeding or oozing. Mazawa or Kei could track my location with the seed, but my discovery of the dead soldier suggested that location might be all they could pinpoint. Or perhaps the weather disrupted their tracking system.

The thought offered possibilities, but testing that theory could wait. Right now, food and shelter were my top priorities. Killing kufugaki always gave me a raging appetite.

Much later, the storm let up. Hard pack—the remains of an old road—replaced mud and weeds. Vines crept across the cracked pavement, and thick hedges of itadori closed in on either side. Beyond them, trees tangled together in a dense canopy that stretched into the distance.

I wasn’t a fan of knotweed, but the itadori looked tender enough to eat. I stuffed the anorak pouch until it bulged. The bitter shoots would need to be steamed over rocks. Not much, but better than whatever I’d find in the pack if Squaddie Hiro’s ration skills matched his gear prep. Pity Mazawa hadn’t seeded that brat instead. How was I supposed to do this with no food?

The narrow tracks lining the gaps in the pavement looked like a match for my tires. I considered following them, but caution took over. Soldiers, like kufugaki, moved in packs, and a young woman alone was always an easy target. I could handle myself, but finishing the day without another confrontation sounded better. Still, if I kept going, a village might lie ahead. I’d need more than knotweed to reach Aokigahara, and the TerraCycle wouldn’t last the night.

Hassle or not, I aimed the bike toward the tracks and took my chances.

I pushed off down the narrow track, riding for what felt like days instead of hours, with signs of crushed vegetation and bark torn from fallen trees as my sole guideposts. In places, entire sections of the old road had collapsed, forcing me to wheel the bike down steep embankments or over narrow paths littered with rocks and rotting logs.

By the time the first rooftops appeared, shadows had already swallowed what little light remained. If luck stayed with me, I had maybe an hour before dark. But riding into town on a stolen bike with soldiers around invited trouble.

I raised the field glasses. Was this a ghost town? Sagging rooftops leaned under the weight of ivy. Charred walls cracked and split, the buildings hollow and vacant. Fissures etched the street in a jagged mosaic, ending at a crater near the center. A scrawny cat pounced in the witchgrass that lined the sides of the road.

Further in, past the worst of the destruction, a few smaller buildings still stood. Pale light flickered behind a boarded window, and a thin spiral of smoke curled into the darkening sky. But I saw no all-terrain bikes, hovercraft, or Edo sigils on walls or machinery, only tamped grass and narrow tracks leading deeper into town.

I followed the would-be path into a weed-choked lot behind several large buildings. Shattered windows stared out from their buckled walls.

My presence did not go unnoticed, however...