Asougi City, on the Seto Inland Sea, is dominated by the corporation whose name it now shares. The Asougi Group ordains every aspect of the citizens’ lives, but as those everyday lives are peaceful, few people object or question it at all. Only one thing disturbs the city’s harmonic order: the activities of the “Anti-Aso” hunting clans, who snatch people off the streets by force and then hustle their bodies on those same streets to customers. The Anti-Aso struggle, the suits plot their removal, and all the while the impending Founder’s Birthday Ceremony accelerates tensions everywhere. And the balance in the city begins to shift, grinding people to dust in its motion…