The sky, a bruised purple deepening into black, is suddenly sliced by a line of impossible darkness. It unspools from a single point above the Scramble, a rip in the fabric of the evening. For a heartbeat, there is only the sound of a million footsteps, the glow of a million screens, the hum of a city that does not sleep.

Then the curtain falls.

It descends not like cloth, but like a slab of obsidian, a dome of absolute negation sealing over the heart of Tokyo. The light from the giant video screens winks out. The neon signs gutter and die. The only illumination now is the cold, greenish glow of emergency exit signs and the frantic rectangles of dying phone screens, held in thousands of stunned hands.

The roar of the crowd curdles into a confused murmur, then fractures into shouts. A wave of disorientation rolls through the packed intersection. People stumble, clutch at each other, point at the seamless black dome now encasing them.