The preface.

"Everyone knows that before the dawn there was only water on Earth, and life originated in it. Someone believes in God, and someone else believes in the evolution of the equinox. Everyone is dependent on one opinion and challenges it against another. As if competing for priority is like the animal world? That's the main difference between a person and everything else - his animal. It is an undeniable fact that somewhere in the past, monkeys crossed certain stages, which helped them to begin to develop and become more intelligent beings. No matter what kind of person you are, you can't help but call yourself a beast, as you are. So why is nature refuting us, why is it so harsh on us? After all, we are also the most terrifying human demon."

***

Kodakа Kazutaka. Ryohgo Narita.

Carnivorous.

Act 0. The preface.

I was there that day when the sky turned a bloody color, people's bodies were smashed to pieces from the roof of the academy, and painful groans, screams and the clang of weapons spread through the corridors. The "incident of despair" is what people called this event, the time when the mass attack and suicide of reserve year students took place. Maybe we were lucky, but all the classes were in a dormitory, in a separate building, but the "consumer revolution" had already touched us. A small group from our class stayed in the lower floors, hiding from the student council, while I tried to escape from the academy through the subways built for future transitions to the reserve building. Their construction was just beginning, there was no floor, no walls, only some damp and quiet catacombs. Maybe the moral compass was trying to find me back then, running around and asking everyone: "Have you seen Leon?" — at least, that's what I thought, while the sound of footsteps on concrete echoed through the corridors. To some extent, I was ashamed that I had left him with the others, had not invited him with me, but, alas, now everyone was on their own. I was scared, and I didn't want to stay at the Peak of Hope until everything calmed down...My mind felt weak and cowardly, but at that moment, all my actions could have cost me my life....Everything depended on me.

***

"Two days before the Despair Incident. Japan. Hokkaido. Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies at Hokkaido University."

The sounds of camera flashes and blinding light filled the small room, drearily diluting the sparse surroundings. In this corner of Japan, all the major "armadas" of industries, mayors, judges gathered, their bill was incomparable with passenger seats on an airplane. Pulling up his trademark leather gloves on his thick fingers, the head of the committee continued his monologue: "This will concern our country — I will be personally ready to destroy each of them if it is necessary to restore order and tranquility among the citizens. After hitting the smooth wooden surface with his fist, the slaps of his hands from the claps scattered. Surprised by the speech, the audience stood up from their chairs, praising God as if he were in front of them. Sakhi Maizono smiled triumphantly, already realizing that the government, and others, were approving the joint venture. Glancing at his offspring at a distance from him, he beamed with happiness. His son and daughter looked at him, clapping in time with the others, filling their beloved daddy with fatherly pride. Adjusting the collar of his jacket, the man bowed goodbye and left the stage. He was immediately embraced by loving children, supporting him. Maizono knew that his project would be an excellent solution not only for the country, but also for himself personally. Finally, parting from the tight embrace, the man headed out of the hall into the outer hall, gently holding his daughter's hand. On the girl's wrist hung a luxurious bracelet made of braided wires of pure gold, oh, how it matched the color of her eyes. Once upon a time, his late wife wore the same jewelry, but not for beauty or status, but to hide her scar on her wrist, left after a serious fracture. As a father, he saw Sayaka as an exact replica of her mother, with the same voice and face, ironically, right? Anyway, he will be ready to protect his children at all costs, especially in connection with the latest situation. He is supremacy, he is justice. *** "Evening. Japan. Tokyo. The hostel of the academy "Peak of Hope"."I won't hide it, brutal experiments on prisoners of war have been taking place on the territory of our academy since the days of Kamakura's directorship. Once upon a time, he wanted to create the most talented person on Earth to contribute to the better development of our country's future, but he took risks. The purpose of the experiments was to transplant individual lobes of the human brain to animals, as well as replace similar ones in order to change the cell structures and strands of the DNA chain. As a result, Izuru Kamakura bred a new species of intelligent man from chimpanzee monkeys, through artificial evolution — Platonos amei, or literally "Humanoid", which became known as Uchipanarians, and after the Ainu. All species were moved to a separate reservation on an island near Iriomote —Uchipanari. They were watching their development, because perhaps Izuru could even achieve the desired result. These creatures behaved like us, grew up, developed their politics and economy as well as we did, but one thing distinguished them from us — they are not people and will never be. The project was then carried out on other animal species and more and more "Humanoid" ones were bred, but after Kamakura's death, the project was closed. All the documents and rights to it were transferred further to other directors of the academy, as a result, all the data ended up with us — the "Academy Steering Committee". This folder contains all the secrets of experiments, photos and their sequences. Each of you is already ready to ask yourself the question: what am I leading up to? But no, I'm not going to resume the project, I'm going to destroy it along with everything that the founder of the academy created. Maybe my decision will seem absurd to someone, but we have been watching the Uchipanarians for a long time, since my youth, and at the moment there are about 48% of them in the city, which is quite a large number for our population. Every day, some of them attack citizens in aggression, arrange skirmishes in areas, harm the environment, commit crimes ranging from illegal trade to murder. The Uchipanarians were not destined to appear, we have all played a cruel joke with nature for many years, the time has come to "eradicate" the current Ainu. If this continues, Japan will be occupied by these mutants, and people may even die out under the onslaught, so I and other members of the committee concluded to get rid of them. Every day, the military and labor forces will capture these migrants and transport them to separate territories, where they will be disposed of in the future. Regular residents will also be checked so that fake ones can be identified. For the capture of each Uthipanarian, the state will allocate 500,000 to one million yen to citizens as a reward, and for complicity in the shelter of migrants will be severely judged. We also thought that among these mutants there may be both peaceful policemen and deputies, so we also compiled a separate list of those who may not be in danger-"

A fingertip abruptly hit the phone screen, stopping the recording of the broadcast while cold breath blew over the phone screen. Clutching his gadget between his palms, the owner began to scroll the site's feed down the list, trying to make out the hieroglyph "kuwa" in stress. — No, no, no, no....His fingers were shaking in panic, his lips and eyelids were swollen from tears and snot, and his eyes began to dart around the screen, switching to the hieroglyph "Ishi", but in vain, even in this section there was neither his name nor his last name. — How...how...How so...It can't be, no....Why am I not here?...Why, tell me? Why?!....