Kyoto, Year 2050 – The Rise of The Depth
Seventeen years ago, the world changed.
A virulent extraterrestrial fungal species—called The Depth—descended from space in a green storm of parasitic spores. It didn't crash or explode. It simply landed... and grew.
Now, in Kyoto 2050, like in many megacities across the globe, the skyline is the only thing left untouched. The Depth has overrun everything below 600 meters (roughly the 150th floor of a skyscraper), climbing city walls, burying streets, parks, vehicles, and history in layers of thick, bioluminescent fungal mass that pulses like it's alive—because it is.
Above 600 meters, life still clings on. Barely.
Skyscrapers—once office towers and commercial hubs—have been converted into vertical cities, connected by steel and wire lines for couriers and runners. These towering sanctuaries stand isolated like islands in a fungal ocean. Bridges sway between buildings. Zip-lines run between rooftops. Drones and runners transport supplies. Solar farms buzz. And society, barely holding together, survives on rooftops and upper floors.
Beneath the safe zone lies the Black Veil—an impenetrable, churning layer of toxic smog and fungal gas. Visibility is zero. Sound is swallowed. No one knows exactly what happens inside, but every now and then, someone too close to the edge is snatched away by lash-like fungal tendrils that burst from the fog, feeding the Depth further.
Worse, these tendrils aren't dumb—they seek, they listen, they react. Any movement near the border of the Depth stirs them, drawing them upward in search of living things to devour.
In some parts of the upper atmosphere, gravity is unstable, distorted by the volatile gases released by the Depth. Runners have learned to navigate these shifts, using them for impossible stunts or getting caught in midair hazards. The wind at this height is thin and sharp. The rules of Earth no longer apply.
Humanity adapts—but it doesn't thrive. Supplies are scarce. Children are born never having touched the ground. Drones fail. Communication is patchy. Society is cracked.
And yet, among the chaos, a culture of free runners, corporate runners, and black-market scavengers has emerged—those brave enough to leap from tower to tower, to deliver life-saving cargo, to steal from corporations, or to dive into the blackness to retrieve things no one else dares to.
This is Kyoto.
This is the age of The Depth.
And for Shoguichi Rensa,
it is the beginning of a second fall.