Photographer Maria Osawa arrives in Shanghai with journalist Minoru Minorikawa and finds an old friend in the middle of the city’s violence. Canaan is a young fighter whose heightened, interconnected senses give her an unusual way of reading danger. Their reunion draws Maria toward a conflict involving the criminal organisation Snake and the threat of a virus.
Shanghai’s festival brings three routes into contact: Canaan watches the streets from above, Maria arrives to work, and Snake’s leader Alphard makes her own entrance into the city. Public celebration and armed operations occupy the same space. Maria’s friendship gives her a connection to someone who understands that dangerous world without making her a trained participant in it.
Minorikawa is in Shanghai to report, and the serious listener shown here belongs to the story’s search for information rather than its most capable fighters. His work with Maria leads from the festival into interviews and incidents that resist an innocent explanation. The journalists’ questions give the conflict another route through the city, where witnessing something and understanding the forces behind it are different tasks.