The CLAMP Project: Episode 15: Tokyo Babylon volume 3

The 1990's Tokyo presented in Tokyo Babylon is a pretty terrible place. The world is going to hell shortly before its inevitable destruction. The environment is falling apart and even conscientious people like Hokuto embrace the hypocrisy of  using destructive products simply because everyone else is. It's a place where people are accosted on the street, where people struggle to find even the tiniest happiness or connection with others. 

With so little joy and happiness in the world, it's no wonder that the three antagonists of volume 3 embrace a fantasy of being special and different. They convince themselves over a chat line that they alone will be able to fight against an unknown enemy, and begin to do so through the phone lines. Subaru is hired to investigate them because they've been calling phone numbers that end in 1999 and casting magical spells over the phone.

Subaru's usual friendliness gets him nowhere - these girls are too far lost in their own delusions to listen to him - but he struggles on to save them for two reasons. First, he's a professional and is being paid to stop the girls. Second, he knows that if they continue to cast magical spells without the proper protection, they'll be hurt. But because he doesn't want to hurt the girls, he can't really fight back against them. He ends up getting knocked out on the floor.

Seishiro steps in to help, but in that incredibly creepy way that is Seishiro's trademark. He does something to make Hokuto pass out, and then steps up to the phone to fight back at the girls in the way that Subaru wasn't willing to do. The girls end up suffering some heavy psychological damage, and Subaru is depressed that he failed to save them.

Though Seishiro keeps professing his love for Subaru, I'm not sure that I believe it. He clearly wants Subaru alive, but I think that's more for the "bargain" that Seishiro brings up on the last page of this volume. Because Subaru's death belongs to Seishiro, his life does, as well. This is where I wish I remember more about exactly what happens. I know how the series ends, but I can't remember the details of why. I'd read ahead, but I only have four short volumes to go before I'll be reminded.