Tokyo Incident

The **Tokyo Incident** is a major magical disaster that occurred in the city of Tokyo, Japan, on 30 July 1945. The Japanese magical organization Yatagarasu was tasked with utilizing a Class A ritual to protect the nation. The ritual was believed to be able to recreate the *kamikaze*, the divine wind that protected Japan from foreign invasion in the past. However the ritual failed and caused a catastrophic backlash that caused the deaths of nearly 35,000 people and the severe magical contamination of large portions of the city.

The Tokyo Incident is considered the sole trigger for the exposure of magic to the rest of the world. Once the details of the Tokyo Incident became public, the governments of the world began taking account of the magicians within their borders and the roles that those magicians may play in society.

## Background

By the end of 1944, Japan was alone against the Allies on the Pacific Theater. The situation facing the Empire of Japan was bleak: the Japanese Imperial Navy had been decimated in recent confrontations with the rebuilt American Navy, and there were rumors of an imminent invasion of the home islands on both the streets of Tokyo as well as the military headquarters.

Tokyo had been the target of firebombing campaigns by the American Air Force, and much of the city had been severely damaged as a result. Despite the severe damage caused by the firebombing campaigns, the city was being rebuilt at a steady rate, though the population remained reduced. The Imperial Princes Akihito and Masahito had been evacuated from the city, while Emperor Hirohito remained at the Imperial Palace.

### Potsdam Declaration

The Allied powers met on 26 July 1945 to discuss the conditions for Japan's surrender. The leaders of the United States, United Kingdom, and China issued the Potsdam Declaration, calling for the unconditional surrender of Japan though with seemingly acceptable terms of surrender. The declaration was backed up with a threat of utter destruction, a thin allegation towards the American possession of the atomic bomb, which had been successfully tested in New Mexico just 10 days earlier. Although the declaration was hotly debated within the Japanese government, the ambiguity of the role of the Japanese Emperor following any occupation of the country made the declaration unacceptable.

The Japanese government stated that the Japanese policy towards the declaration was considered one of *mokusatsu* or "killing with silence". The United States considered the policy to be a "rejection by ignoring" and made the decision to utilize the atomic bomb on a Japanese city.

### Preparations of the Ritual

Yatagarasu had been gathering materials for high-class rituals throughout the war, and their knowledge of rituals and magic was amongst the highest in the eastern hemisphere. A suitable ritual was identified from a tome of ancient magic, though many of the exact details had been lost due to damage to the book.

They began their preparations for casting the ritual at the Imperial Palace. The magicians of Yatagarasu hoped to utilize the naturally large amounts of ether that existed at the Imperial Palace to enhance the probability of the ritual succeeding, and they could not overlook the symbolic nature of the location where the nation's salvation would come from.

## Disaster

The disaster began in the early morning of 30 July 1945 as magicians of Yatagarasu attempted to activate the ritual. The Class A ritual failed, causing a dangerous backlash to emerge. The magicians were immediately killed by the backlash, and their bodied are believed to have been incinerated either by the backlash or as a result of the severe magical contamination that blanketed the area of the Imperial Palace. All of the residents of the Imperial Palace, including Emperor Hirohito and his wife Empress-Consort Nagako, were killed.

The disaster spread throughout the area, killing most of the residents and transforming the survivors into horrendous beasts.

## Immediate Responses

The first responders of the disaster were units of the Tokyo police and firefighters. The members of these units were wholly unprepared to face any sort of magical disaster, let alone one on the scale of the Tokyo Incident. Almost all of the police and firefighters that encountered the corrupted beasts that were created from the few survivors were killed or severely injured.

Armed units of the Japanese military had a slightly better time confronting the corrupted beasts. The corrupted beasts were susceptible to firearms and swords, and while the military suffered high rates of casualties in its first efforts, the soldiers were successful in killing a number of corrupted beasts.

## Impact

Tokyo suffered heavy magical contamination following the failure of the spell, and the level of magical contamination is still high even to the modern day. The area around the Imperial Palace is completely uninhabitable, and often corrupted beasts emerge from the thick miasma that inhabits the area.