Josh: Setting The Stakes

In addition to the cell phone issue, I want to talk to your uncles personally, Yoshida. We're going to need their help, and it's time to see what forces we can rally.

Here's our State of the Union, so to speak (painting from ralphbakshi.com):

The Magician is coming to Japan. When he gets here, he'll perform some kind of "trick" that will- as far as we can gather- end the world as we know it. With what we've seen of his power so far, it seems reasonable to assume that he can actually do it. Why it has to be in Japan, I don't know, but he will come, and I imagine he'll bring friends.

We are not without weapons. The Magician's knife can actually hurt his people as opposed to other, more conventional arms. The bingo charms have the power to kill as well, at least against the animals he controls.

We need to know where in Japan he's going. Can he perform his trick anywhere in Japan? If so, we've got a hell of a lot of ground to cover. From Leopold's post we know this:

"...he will perform a trick. He will use the charms, his knife, a rabbit and his own blood, though his body contains no blood any longer, if it ever did. It is quite probably too late to stop the charms, but the knife and his blood may yet be within your grasp. Keep them separate and failing that, use Yoshida's formula."

Well, we've already decided not to separate the knife and the charms because we don't want to let them out of our sight, and if we use the knife in combination with the charms it's a very effective weapon. And we've destroyed the Calicivirus formula already so that's not an option (killing virtually everyone in the world? Yeah, didn't seem like that great of an idea). He can get a rabbit anywhere, but the blood part is still a mystery. I suppose there's a good chance he has a vial of it saved or something, but there's not much we can do about that at this point.

So we need help. The Magician has already shown that he prefers to travel by sea (and with the whales doing his bidding I don't blame him) so we need to watch the ports. For that we need Yoshida's uncles. Beyond that, we need to somehow find out where in particular he's going in Japan, but one thing at a time.

Japan is our last stand. Everything rests on this final battle. He's coming, and I intend to be ready.