Cutscene: Opening FMV
Two voices stood apart in their own little world, watching.
"How long has it been since it began?"
"Not yet enough that you can have your conclusion yet."
A young man with one eye obscured underneath blue hair overlooks a mysterious youth in a pinstripe suit, a parchment and quill set in front of him. A youth with silver hair stares out the window of their train as he is met with a landscape yet unfamiliar to him, wearily bracing himself for the times that are to soon follow. A man in a blue suit on the first day of his job holds a cup of coffee in his left hand, scowling as the doorknob to an office resists him... and promptly spills the cup all over the floor when someone on the other side opens it.
"All this is their initiative, their desire to change."
"With just a little push. Yet you're still content to sit there."
An energetic young girl cheerfully runs through a walkway not yet cleared to pedestrians to a chorus of screaming horns as she makes her way to a fast food restaurant. A youth in a hat and the faintest hint of facial hair lazily ambles along in front of a train station, staring at a flier for a baseball team before ultimately continuing along his way with a shrug. A young man wearing headphones races down through the front of a department store before a bunch of young women wearing aprons, yelling something before he starts rolling back some shopping carts. A fortune teller flips the sign before a door declaring her business to be open, coyly looking out to the deserted streets of that part of town.
"I need not reach out to witness them. I can see clearly, even like this."
"You are quietly weeping at what you see!"
A studious girl sits in a darker corner of the classroom, shaking her head at some others in silence as she looks through a book on hand, slowly hiding her face behind it. A green haired girl gasps in an understating manner as she looks up from a laptop computer towards some smoke, coughing in an equally flat manner. A young girl with long black hair and a kimono hides her face behind a raised fan as several individuals head inside a building or one another, her eyes slowly looking downward.
"No, I believe there is certainly a joy to be found from here."
"In such a flawed existence, what happiness are you finding?"
A young woman in a gray school uniform with a very long skirt looks disapprovingly upon a number of young women smoking within the restroom. Another young woman in a gray school uniform stands before a troop of like-minded sorts and a particularly pudgy boy leave an entire hallway barren of passer-bys. A red-haired senior student crosses her arms from the top of a dormitory building late into the night, looking into a brightly illuminated city defiant of its darkness.
"They have the firm hand to lead themselves."
"But yet they cannot depend on one another, can they?"
A bleached haired youth in a black denim jacket throws punches at unseen dark figures, a sour look on his face as he throws yet another towards whatever's looking at him. Another youth with white hair leans back as a referee steps in and shoos him to his corner as the other struggles to get up, frustration on his face even when he appears a clear victor.
"Their societies, their gatherings... this is proof otherwise."
"They merely conform for lack of any other direction!"
A man with a coat slung over his shoulder groggily eyes a mess on the floor just in front of him, yelling something as he walks back over his desk and shuffles a manilla folder over the picture of a woman around his age.
"They make their choice day by day. Can you not see this?"
"They cannot know their own importance in this process, can they?"
A silhouette of a young girl with pigtails and hardly much on dives towards the viewer on a TV screen, where one of identical appearance looking towards said screen sighs and looks away. A student wearing a pink sweater sits on the floor of a washroom with running water, sobbing as she lets a gun-shaped object drop against the floor with a clatter. A blonde foreigner snubs a beautiful yukata laid before her window and picks up a videotape nearby, looking out a nearby window into a mid-morning sky.
"They follow their paths however they will... forward. That is my belief."
"Forward, blindly into their contradictions and failings."
A girl in a green coat practices kicks out in an open park, striking her foot against a tree so hard that she is showered in leaves, grinning cautiously to staring faces. Something that seems to aspire to blonde hair with strange circular discs around her ears walks in a most mechanical manner, the barrel of a gun pointed out at some mass of inky black. A fearless young lady treks down a dark alley with a baseball bat in hand, striking a trash can hard enough to chase away a few rats.
"They have the capability to reason. I see no reason to feel otherwise."
"Only when they are not the one scrutinized by those who 'reason.'"
A man in a gray suit and red tinted glasses stands in a strong breeze before a bridge within an area closed off in yellow tape, looking out towards the ocean as though it holds all the answers.
"But yet, they can reason to look at oneself, in forging this direction."
"All the better for them to chase away those who cannot share their experience!"
A female foreigner with a staff walks along a path in the city, going the opposite direction of the crowd the entire way with no glances given to her and none given back in turn.
"The element of chance is unavoidable. But I do not feel they are bound to it."
"They'll just find more and more means and excuses to blame it all on that!"
A youth stops their bike as he stands before an apartment building with a package under his arm, looking over his shoulder as a man yells about something while holding up part of a mangled fencepost. A woman quietly watches a convenience store, tapping her fingers as the time goes by until a younger girl comes and strikes up a conversation with her. An individual wearing a strange blue hat stands in a darkened room alongside men in suits, running a finger across something on a desk before pointing an accusing finger at something or another. A pale, shirtless young man cracks an insincere smile among a landscape of blood and strangely colored skies, throwing his hands up towards the oddly colored night sky before a large crowd of obsidian coffins.
"The spirit should be able to persevere even the worst."
"It can only last so long, friend. It can ony last so long. You can see it."
A simple country boy ambles through the city, helping an old lady through a corner only for her to snap at him and hobble off on her own.
"Time does march forward... and so will they, in time."
"Such baggage they collect cannot be so easily removed."
A young lady in a black uniform arranges some flowers interposed between herself and a doorway, shuffling a flower to block out a face from her point of view. A man with one eye grasps his eyepatch as a handful of youths start to spray bizarrely colored messages on a nearby wall, soon slamming one of them up against the brick wall as the others look on aghast. A student in a black school uniform stands before a shrine in deep prayer shortly before a bird flies overhead, moments later causing him to flinch and shake a fist to the heavens. A boy plays an acoustic guitar in a mostly isolated area underneath a dreary gray sky giving way to drizzle, but the boy continues playing even as some walk by in the distance with umbrellas. A man in shades and a yellow suit smirks with a live cigarette in his mouth as monitors full of sensitive information reflect against the lens.
"Humanity displays the capacity for change and progress, even at cost to the old."
"The drama remains the same all the way to its bitter end."
A Mexican man looks over a watch as he stands next to a horse out in a parking lot, moving past two corpses on the road - one snake, and one rabbit. A younger American man stands before a broken window, balancing a brick up and down in one of his hands with a grim look on his face as he looks at a baseball uniform proudly displayed.
"Their needs and wants, disparate as may be, are not irreconcilable."
"Excess and lack... indeed, they often fail both ways."
A privileged girl skips along outside of a darkened pathway that shows a bed inside, cheerfully addressing a number of other girls who look at her with odd looks.
"Desire is not in itself a condemner."
"Ah, but how often do they beget more, and more, and more... they do not realize."
A Christian missionary stares into a glass stained window, holding onto a cross as blood drips out of a sleeve onto a floor shown to be no such stranger to the concept of grime. A tired youth walks home with a fistful of money in hand, carefully counting the amount he has earned with a tired grunt with a bill in the other hand, lifting his face up as he sees someone running past traffic.
"To avoid tragedy and change in these circumstances is impossible, but it need not be destructive."
"This facade will not last forever. Perhaps I will see you crumble all the same."
A stocky girl hammers away at a metal creation of some sort in a forge, the nearly molten mass slowly taking shape as one of her tools falls off a table. A scarred Shinto priestess sweeps away leaves with her broom as shady looking men step up to a shrine holding lots of money as she casts a wary glance. A black-haired man of a strange, domineering aura looks over an electric readout across a bunch of monitors detailing a young child as his smile grows slowly wider.
"Even at their darkest, a light remains that they will chase."
"Yet, those fade all too often..."
A barren yellow landscape meets contrast only through the presence of what seems to be a bipedal plush bear in a bright red suit, walking along the yellow world in a dainty manner before tripping onto its face.
"Their belief in the better is the seed."
"Excuses, lies, ignorance... that is what they will cling to, to the withered end."
An eccentric reporter waves around banners in one hand and holds a megaphone in the other, promoting some sort of URL while making a bunch of claims that seem to only earn the could shoulder of some passers-by. A young boy at the gymnasium leans an ear out to a crowd of people, one book in his hand to hide his face while a thumb expertly marks down syllables as they come to his ears. A troubled youth stands within a lonely home as he looks over a family portrait as an older woman lays a hand on his shoulder while witnessing the same.
"There is greatness to be had towards the end of the path. They strive for this."
"They are too blinded by what they cannot hope to achieve."
A high school gymnast leaps and vaults about a gymnasium as if in ignorance of the setting sun coloring the room through the windows, facing away from the outside world. A yong man stands inside a garage that slowly opens in which to welcome the day, mounting his motorcycle as if willing to race the rising sun en route to his destination.
"There will be an end. There is much to go before then."
"I can only see the regrets as they look back, unable to face what comes forward."
The two disembodied voices stand upon either edge of a cage-like space, suspended before all of absolutely nothing. Whether a past regret or a bright new future, they awaited to see the appearance this world before them would take.
