[b]Night, School District 15[/b]

School District 15. The most prosperous of Academy City's twenty-three districts, it was a district geared towards [s]furthering the decadence of human youths[/s] leisure and entertainment, with shopping malls, pools, karaoke parlours and the likes all present within its boundaries. TV stations and other media facilities also called the district home. Whether it was for the sake of shopping or some simple night time fun, students from all across the city would file into the streets, eager to take in the sheer variety of goods and services that District 15 could offer them.

It was a materialist's Mecca.

Yet there was nothing about District 15 that was so unsullied. Though the common students were likely to be ignorant of what laid within the recesses of those towering buildings - the extravagant skyscrapers that seemed to amalgamate the qualities of the grand apartments of the ultrawealthy with an office complex of a multinational corporation - that spoke nothing about the misdeeds that still lurked behind prying eyes. There was much that could be reproached, but with the knowledge beyond the reach of the authorities, there was simply no way to do so.

And besides, those on the streets below needed not to worry.

Their lives were a peaceful, safe one. They could entertain themselves within District 15 for as long as they wanted, and none of the city's darkness would ever be able to touch them.

However, on this night, on some quiet streets far away from the Dianoid, that beautiful prismatic complex that was the core of District 15, a certain part of the city's underside was able to slip out. For a moment in the dim sounds of the moonlit street, there was a sound that should not have been heard. A strange utterance that simply [i]did not fit[/i] within the borders of Academy City.

And for those who walked on that street that night;

For those who heard something strange and came with curiosity;

Their discovery was a body.

Twisted and contorted, lying face-down into a street gutter in front of an aging office building that had closed for the evening. It seemed to be a woman, clad in what could once have been a beautiful black dress, now ruined by dirt and rips and rainwater. There was no blood, even though everything beneath her knees had been unnaturally rotated, her feet point up though the front of pale white thighs roughly scratched the concrete. The auburn hair of a foreigner was braided, but any attempts at taming it had failed now that it was all splayed out, obscuring any part of her face from sight. One arm was simply gone, a stump at her right shoulder where it should have been, and the other hand was reaching forward, seemingly for help that would never come.

And there was the stench.

The faint smell of faeces that was emanating from the corpse.

It had only begun to rot in earnest.