User:The Koromo/Corporis Dentata

Further out from Tokyo, where the great mountains triumph high and the crystalline streams flow quietly in dark woods, there exists a miniature city lying just fifteen miles south of Iida. Its mountainside absolute location can grant difficult access from the big city, though several mainstream roads and highways wind toward and from it. Remote as it is small and young, and surrounded by the towering mountains on all sides, the chemistry between townsfolk remains stable and powerful due to sheer proximity. Deeper into the forest there were the occasional shinto shrine, and closer to the town itself there was a manor, occupied by a man in his dying days. In the town proper there were streets and avenues and apartments, but never often did this town stay up past the midnight hours.

One blistering summer day, bordering the woodland's edge where rural farms outnumber that of city-like buildings, Mineko of the Shiroma family sat upon her house porch, beneath the looming canopies of the trees. The only sounds in the summer day's stillness were the buzz of unseen insects in the brush, the whistle of a light stream out somewhere in the woods with them, and the soft flip of a page every minute or so. Mineko, with a copy of an outdated World War II novel in her hand, had surpassed the eighth chapter, nearing the end of the short book.