Editing Twilight Requiem (section)

== Setting Overview ==

Hisashiro City is a suburban city that faces the Pacific Ocean, and has a population of about 200,000. It takes about 90 minutes to get from here to Tokyo via Japan Rail. The city boasts an excellent fishing harbor, but modernization has turned the harbor into a major port that brings cargo ships with goods from overseas. The city has a fairly robust transportation system, and most people get around by bus or train.

Because of the numerous leylines Hisashiro City has, it's privy to various strange happenings that are supernatural in nature. As such, the city is also host to several organizations and groups that are well-aware of this, all of which have their own reasons for constantly monitoring the city from behind the scenes.

The most significant event in the city's history was the Scouring which occurred on November 1st, 16 years ago. People witnessed a massive pillar of flame in the mountain district to the north. The catastrophic event was not only localized to Hisashiro City. A sound resonated through the skies all across Japan and every shrine, temple, archaeological site, and burial mound was engulfed in a massive conflagration, a disaster that destroyed them utterly. They called this mysterious event the "Japanese Synchronous Inferno," or more commonly, the Scouring.

Investigations at the time recorded accounts of a sound like beasts roaring just before the disaster and ripples witnessed in the skies. This explosive conflagration phenomenon seemed capable of tearing Japanese society apart.

And yet, the damage done was strangely limited, focused almost entirely on shrines and temples. Fortunately, this happened in the middle of the night, so very few visitors or tourists were harmed. However, everything within a certain radius of each shrine and temple was totally immolated, obliterating many homes so thoroughly that it wasn't even possible to recover the bodies.

Today, people have rebuilt the burned shrines and temples and constructed new houses to replace those lost, so that there's scarcely any sign of the disaster. The Scouring is nonetheless a singularly ghastly event in the history of Japan and for that matter the world, and it left a deep impression on the memories of mankind. The government launched a thorough investigation at the time, but found no useful clues. The investigation thus continues to this day.

'''Itsutsunomiya Tech High School'''
This is Hisashiro City's only technical high school. It doesn't have a very good reputation around the city, but the school's sports clubs have brought home national championships. Also, the school uses gakuran and sailor fuku. There are old private homes around here. There were a series of unexplained, possibly magical crimes here, and the culprit was never caught.

'''St. Martha Institute'''
This school for girls is renowned even outside the city. It's a missionary school with lavish dormitories. The school's distinctive black and white uniforms are popular among the boys in town.

'''Nanamori Academy'''
This public high school in central Hisashiro is the result of a recent consolidation of other schools. The new school buildings are beautiful, and while the campus is pretty typical overall, it does have nice dorms close by, so that it attracts new students from outside the city.

'''Hisashiro University'''
This national university's campus is not just here on the mainland, but includes facilities by Taihaku Station and on Hisashiro Island and Inayama Island. The university's Film Club has been shooting movies around the city, and the rumors swirling around them have made the club famous.

'''Hisashiro University Academy'''
This is the city's leading prep school. It's famous for high scores and being hard to get into. However, ouija boards became a fad among the students here for a while, and it's rumored that the boards were the cause of an outbreak of madness among them.