If I'm a prodigy, then Nakajima must be a bona-fide genius. Takai nodded to himself as his gaze turned back to the scenery passing by outside the window.

"Demons, eh...?" The words tumbled out of Nakajima's mouth suddenly.

"Eh?"

"No, never mind."

"Did you just..."

Just as Takai pursed his lips as if to say something, the train arrived at Nishi-Ogikubo station.

"See you."

Nakajima started to walk down the station stairs with his shoulders hunched and a brooding expression on his face.

"Geez, what is he thinking?" Turning away from Nakajima, Takai plopped himself down on the two now-empty seats of the train.

Prologue: Chapter 2

Behind the shopping district, a banner reading "Lots for Sale" hung from a newly-built apartment building. Nakamjima walked ahead, looking downwards while continuously moving his lips. To any passerby, he might have appeared like an ordinary high school student, deep in concentration trying to memorize something for a test. But those few people that caught a fragment of the words he was speaking turned around and gave him suspicious looks. That was because they sounded like the low and hostile muttering of a dark spell, and not at all something that you would expect to hear from a high school student. A cherry blossom fell from the nearby concrete wall and hit Nakajima's cheek, but he ignored it and kept walking, his eyes cast down to the ground. When he finally looked up, he was standing in front of a conspicuously tall apartment building. Placing his electronic key into the keyhole, the solid plate-glass automatic doors slid open with a heavy sound. The entrance to the building was made from extravagant imported Canadian marble, but still seemed somewhat artificial. Stepping inside, Nakajima took a deep breath and straightened up.

Nakajima entered the elevator and pressed the button to the thirteenth floor. With the change in air pressure, his body started to hurt, reminding him of the unpleasant events of the afternoon. A copper plaque with the word "NAKAJIMA" engraved on it was affixed to the door to apartment 1302. Nakajima pressed the doorbell, but there was no response. Sighing, he unlocked the door.

Opening the door and going inside, Nakajima took off his shoes, threw them aside randomly, and headed to the bathroom. The injured lip of the face looking back at him in the mirror had swollen up like a balloon, and was quite unpleasant to look at. His left cheek had a yellowish bruise on it as well. After looking at himself in the mirror for a bit, Nakajima abruptly turned on the faucet and splashed his face with the water that came pouring out. Returning to the living room and collapsing on the sofa, he noticed a memo on the side table.

"I'm going to be late at a meeting. Heat up your dinner in the microwave...."

Nakajima crumpled up the note without reading it to the end.

"If you're just going to write the same old excuse, you might as well just photocopy the thing..."

After Nakajima's father was transferred to the branch office in Los Angeles, his mother had become more and more involved in her job as a designer. Sometimes she wouldn't get home until the middle of the night. Picturing his mother's face, Nakajima's smoldering anger suddenly flared up. Right at that moment, the telephone rang. Of course, it was probably for his mother. Glaring at the ringing phone, Nakajima opened the door to his room.

Nakajima's room was quite dreary, without a single poster or decoration. With the exception of the one with the window, the walls were filled with large steel bookshelves that stretched to the ceiling. The bookshelves had anime magazines and comic books, much like one would expect to find in a high school student's room, but one corner seemed starkly out of place. That shelf was filled with books on magic and sorcery with titles like "The Book of the Dead" and "Pnakotic Manuscripts." On top of his steel desk sat a fully decked-out computer, and sitting next to it was a general-purpose book on magic called "The New Golden Dawn Theory." From the look of the wear on the leather cover, it was clear that the book had seen a lot use.

Nakajima pulled his chair out from the desk and sat down in front of the display. Turning on the switch on the side of his speakers, the vocals of David Coverdale filled the room. Nakajima's fingers started flying over the keyboard.

> LIST

Entering the command, a very long program scrolled down the screen. Following the program list with sharp eyes, Nakajima started tapping the keys with a flowing rythm.

Nakajima first became interested in magic when he had the opportunity to read "The New Golden Dawn Theory." While the book was poorly written, and the interpretation therein was clumsy and unskillful, Nakajima read through the whole thing regardless; while the world of magic held an appeal that hid a dark and sinister side, it also showed a rational and scientific realism to it as well. While re-reading passages that seemed to unusual to him two or three times over, Nakajima had made a sudden realization that was almost like an epiphany.

Magical theory and computer theory were surprisingly similar.

At first glance, the two worlds did not seem to have any connection to each other. However, the similiarities between them had been discovered by both magic and information technology researchers long before Nakajima. Charles Feed, a professor at MIT, a school famous for its study of artificial intelligence, was one of those researchers. Nakajima had immediately become a member of his group, ISG. (International Satanist Garden) And for the past few months, Nakajima had been immersed in writing a program to summon demons, the idea for which he had thought up himslf.