Ch. 1201Zero-Sum Game—Ninth Seat—Kushu
Chapter Summary: “Zero-Sum Game—Ninth Seat—Kushu”
Key Plot Points and Events
- Su Wen reflects that Old Constance likely left to identify the force orchestrating the Tokyo crisis. After seeing the ruined Saint Mourning Hughie Fal, Constance would have understood the danger and issued an early warning.
- Su Wen decides not to pursue the matter, instead holding the sleeping girl more tightly as Tokyo remains blanketed by concealed Deep-Space Rays. The agreement between his other “self” and the mysterious forces behind the crisis is nearing activation.
- Beneath Tokyo, the immense underground array operated by Zero-Sum Game is revealed. It combines Selen’s artificial crystalline system, Sephidolos, with advanced machinery and computational systems.
- The commander of the Tokyo operation is introduced as Kushu, the Ninth Seat of Zero-Sum Game, also known as the Tokyo Region’s “Zeroing Commander.”
- Kushu reviews the organization’s plans:
- Brain-computer interfaces connected to tens of thousands of civilians will act as relay nodes, spreading Abyssal contamination once the spatial barrier collapses.
- Fissure anchors have been planted across Tokyo’s twenty-three wards and near important shrines and locations. Their staged activation will progressively tear apart the boundary between the surface world and the lower realm.
- The resulting spatial collapse will destroy infrastructure, disrupt gravity, and force hidden supernatural entities to unleash their sealed powers—energy that the Weaving Thread can absorb.
- The operation has encountered an unexpected complication: the Weaving Thread independently cultivated by Deep Tokyo appears far more conscious than anticipated. The “Weaver” may not be compatible with information supplied by Slumber, and Selen may have prepared a countermeasure.
- Kushu dismisses the problem as manageable and orders the plan to continue.
- Professor Fujiwara Masaharu, secretly Kushu’s son, is revealed to be developing a defensive “Barrier Plan” against spatial collapse. Although he is in contact with the American military and likely only pretending to cooperate with Zero-Sum Game, Kushu orders his research to be preserved and monitored.
- Rather than destroy or protect the Barrier Plan, Kushu intends to use it as a measuring instrument. If the barrier withstands the crisis, Zero-Sum Game will increase the disaster’s intensity or redirect contamination around the defenses.
- Numerous supernatural and international factions have begun converging on Tokyo, including the Night Watch, Constance’s Lorenz Riel organization, Chinese sequence factions, American associations, Russian powers, Leis Angton, Slumber, Blood Moon, and the mysterious Miko.
Character Developments
- Su Wen remains emotionally restrained but shows protectiveness toward the sleeping girl, drawing her closer while awaiting the crisis’s imminent beginning.
- Kushu is established as cold, calculating, and utterly committed to Zero-Sum Game’s plan. He treats the impending catastrophe as a controlled experiment rather than a human tragedy.
- Kushu’s relationship with Fujiwara Masaharu adds a rare emotional note. Kushu acknowledges that his son considers him effectively dead, suggesting a deep estrangement and personal sacrifice behind his current identity.
- Fujiwara Masaharu is portrayed as an ordinary but highly capable researcher whose defensive work may become crucial to determining the disaster’s true scale. His apparent cooperation with Zero-Sum Game is probably deceptive.
- Old Constance is shown to be actively investigating the conspiracy and attempting to determine its hidden mastermind.
Significant Themes
- Disaster as experimentation: Zero-Sum Game deliberately engineers a catastrophe and treats Tokyo, its people, and its defenses as test data.
- The weaponization of humanity: Ordinary civilians are reduced to biological and neurological conduits for Abyssal contamination through the brain-computer network.
- Control versus unpredictability: Although Kushu believes the crisis is carefully designed, the independent consciousness of the Weaver suggests that Deep Tokyo may not remain controllable.
- Family and emotional alienation: Kushu’s statement about his son reveals the personal cost of his allegiance to the organization.
- Science and supernatural forces: Advanced technology, urban engineering, ancient relics, and divine aberrations are all intertwined in the coming collapse.
- Tokyo as a battlefield: Multiple global factions are converging on the city, turning the crisis into an international supernatural confrontation.
Character Interactions
- Su Wen silently cares for the sleeping girl while contemplating the actions of Old Constance and the approaching activation.
- Kushu gives precise instructions to his executors, directing every stage of the brain-computer, fissure, and contamination plans.
- His subordinates report the unexpected consciousness of the Weaver and the activities of rival factions, but Kushu remains calm and orders them to proceed.
- Kushu discusses Fujiwara Masaharu with his officers, revealing their father-son relationship while treating Masaharu’s research primarily as a useful measurement tool.
- The many factions entering Tokyo—Night Watch, Lorenz Riel, Chinese and American organizations, Russian powers, Slumber, Blood Moon, and others—are positioned for an imminent clash.