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himetsuri · 4 years ago

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Observer

[Takechi Yuusuke's story from the second novel. He’s the detective who appears in chapter 87, after Ageha and the others return from the future after rescuing #07 from Usui, questioning Ageha about his and Oboro’s disappearance.]

It was three years after the war, that is, one year later after Kabuto Kirisaki came to this land. Since it's pretty close to the equator, this land doesn't have winter. But it definitely had the war going on and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a warning against travel there. One side was claiming for "Peace" and the other was claiming for "Freedom."

"You're Kirisaki Kabuto, aren't you?"

Kabuto, having finished work, was at his usual place at the counter of a worn-down bar named “Breakdown” by the locals, due to the large hole in the wall on the outskirts of the slums that allowed view of the main street. He was about to down his usual cup of sake, good for nothing but its low price, really, when that man called out to him. "Japanese?" That was the first thing to come to his mind. It had been three years since that battle–––and almost a year since Kirisaki Kabuto had come to this place. This country, which was close to the equator and had no winter, was currently caught in a crossfire between two sides: one side pushed for “peace,” while the other brandished support for “freedom.” As a result, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had issued a travel advisory. Kirisaki Kabuto had come to this land to be a war photographer and had earned the nickname of ��Miracle Man” for all the times he’d returned from dangerous battlefields without so much as a scratch, due to his ability of "Menace" that allowed him to sense death several seconds beforehand. In this bar that was in the city closest to the frontline, even Kabuto himself didn't speak Japanese much. "Uhh…who are you? And aren't you hot?" "I've regretted not changing into something more appropriate since I touched down at the airport…" This country was in the tropics, making the temperature and humidity far higher than in Japan. The black suit the man was wearing must've been like a torture device. “Figured as much…so, who are you? Someone from the government? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs…the embassy?" There wasn’t a soul who would come to this country unless it was work-related. And there wasn’t anything of value here whatsoever, unless you were someone from the government. "Yeah…temporarily working for the government…I'm with the police." "Haah? Again, really…I’m not a part of some worldwide crime ring or anything, alright?" "Be at ease…I haven't come to arrest you. I just have a few things I'd like to ask…quite frankly, this doesn't even have to do with my job." For a moment, a sudden self-mocking smile arose on the man's face. "Things you wanna ask…? Also, it seems you already know my name, so maybe you could find it in you to tell me yours…otherwise, it just seems like a regular old interrogation, y'know?“ "Haha…that is true. My name is Takechi Yuusuke, a detective from Aichi's Shirataki police station."

July 2008–––actor Mochizuki Oboro had somehow managed to vanish into thin air in broad daylight. Contrary to the mass media’s frenzied uproar, Takechi, who had been put in charge of the incident, kept his composure. Mochizuki Oboro had last been seen on surveillance camera in the airport's parking lot. With him was a fifteen year old boy, who had also gone missing–––Yoshina Ageha, who apparently was reasonably well-known around his neighborhood as a delinquent. Though it was mostly for getting into fights, not for theft or reckless rampages. Takechi merely assumed that the eccentric TV star had gotten into some “mischief” with his poorly-behaved friend and wound up kidnapped and locked away somewhere, or something along those lines. Yoshina Ageha returned home several days later, so he immediately went over to investigate. All he had to do was raise his voice, grab him by his lapels, and shout at him; he would get his answers, even to questions he hadn't asked, and there would be his neat and tidy case closed–––or so he thought. The boy named Yoshina Ageha was not, by any means, what one would call "normal." In Takechi's experience, anyone would start to grow weary after a ten-hour long interrogation, no matter how tough they acted or how much of a professional they were. But that boy simply yawned, as if this wasn’t even worth his time––– "Me and Amamiya eloped. We split up with Oboro at the airport, I dunno what he did after." –––and tried to end things off with such a blatant lie. He said this right to a full-fledged detective’s face, with eyes that practically ordered, “We’re gonna leave it at that, got it?" If this had been anyone else, he would’ve wasted no time in yelling at them, "Don't play dumb!" or "You're lying!" But he couldn't. Instead, he let the cigarette between his lips fall and let Ageha go back home. The reason behind this was truly quite simple. It was because "he had been afraid." He–––a full-fledged detective who knew both judo and kendo, who knew how to safely apprehend a target, and who had experience capturing culprits in possession of deadly weapons–––felt "he would be killed" by a fifteen year old boy. There were those who'd laugh at Takechi upon hearing that. But the feeling he had gotten from being before Yoshina Ageha was strong enough to silence those voices. This wasn’t comparable to the “kill or be killed” life that an average hoodlum or delinquent would speak of. Yoshina Ageha had an air that only one who'd truly survived a battlefield, one in which death was certain unless one killed first, possessed. And, if he so felt like it, he had the power to make killing Takechi mere child's play. Even if Takechi were to confront him with a readied handgun, he wouldn't be able to win. He truly believed that. Takechi had no idea if this was what one would call a detective's intuition or not. At this point, no thoughts about "Mochizuki Oboro's disappearance" were left in his head. His objective had now changed to ripping off this boy's mask.

"I started by thoroughly reexamining Yoshina Ageha and those connected to him…many interesting things came to light as a result…first was the fact that Asaga Hiryuu also went missing on that same day. Additionally, Asaga Hiryuu's friend, Mana Tatsuo, had also been missing for an extended period of time.” "Uwaa…you sure did your homework, huh…" "Hmph. A detective requires a sense of duty and a sense of justice; however, what he requires most, above all else…is an unyielding persistence." Takechi gave a snort and downed some cheap sake full of impurities. He wanted to wet his lips before spinning more of his tale.

There was definitely something more lurking behind all this––––– At the very least, it wasn't just some cut-and-dried case of high schoolers eloping and an intentional disappearance, as Yoshina Ageha had asserted. There was something deeper to it, he thought, but right when he was about press further with his investigation, he received abrupt orders to call off the whole thing. It hadn't been from a chief or prefectural manager. It had been from much farther up. But that wasn't nearly enough the extinguish the flame of Takechi's persistence. After receiving the orders to cease, he'd requested a paid vacation, something he’d been painstakingly building up and hadn't even taken for his daughter's birthday–––if he couldn’t continue this investigation officially, Takechi would do it himself. And so the investigation continued, slow and steady, until at last it led him to one key word that would become the crux of the matter. It was what Mochizuki Oboro had attempted to talk about on a live show before collapsing, unconscious, halfway through; what Tenjuin Elmore, who was currently sheltering Yoshina Ageha from the mass media's inflamed reach, had even gone so far as to place a monetary reward of five hundred million yen on for anyone who could pinpoint its truth. That word was "PSYREN"––– For the past several years, or at the bare minimum the past two years, a large number of those involved with it had gone missing. Semitani Kouji, Sugita Nozomi…the list went on. Far too many to attribute to mere coincidence. According to a worker who routinely visited Elmore's mansion, there was no longer any trace of Yoshina Ageha on the grounds. "Maybe he's been 'erased' once again–––" By now, Takechi had begun to feel a strange sense of kinship with this boy. Perhaps there was a reason he couldn't say anything to his parents or to the police, a reason such as he was being held hostage or something had been done to him. Among those who had passed away after involvement with PSYREN, there were many for whom the cause of death was still unknown.

"However, I've been forced to suspend my investigation here…" "Why's that? Vacation days run out?" "…Well, there's that. Though there's more to it." Here, Takechi took a quick turn from chatty to tight-lipped. “Now that I think of it…Kirisaki? It appears you also went missing for a year or so around the same time Yoshina Ageha did…where'd you go off to?" "Uh, well…funny story, that~…I kinda went away from Japan for a bit, see…" Takechi, seeing how Kabuto had started speaking vaguely, shot him a slightly pointed look before continuing on as if to say, "Well, whatever." "Then…you weren't directly involved in W.I.S.E's all-out acts of destruction in 2009…"

It was the first time in human history there'd been an organized string of destruction caused by those with supernatural powers. Just one of them wielded power equivalent to that of an entire army; when tried-and-true strategies and maneuvers failed, the military resorted to human wave attacks and unbridled assaults–––to attempting retaliation with brute force and sheer numbers. It was a showdown between no more than ten Psychicers with tremendous powers and a military of over ten million lacking in strength. Strangely enough, it depicted the current state of the world where antagonism ran rampant between those with power and those without. As a result, it was the military, and not W.I.S.E, who caused more damage during urban warfare and a proportionate amount of human injuries and casualties. But that wasn’t the end of it. There were those with abnormal powers among the humans––– Those who saw those supernatural abilities with their own eyes grew incredibly agitated and fell into a panic. What if their own neighbor was a monster? The ones enslaved to their fear and paranoia began carrying out what could be called modern-day witch hunts. You could have different colored hair, eyes, or skin. You could be aggressive by nature, you could try to avoid interactions with others as much as possible–––if there was anything at all that set you apart from “those who were normal,” you would be labeled as “abnormal,” condemned, and sentenced to trial by the masses. Any attempts to deny being one with power would invite demands for the “devil’s proof”–––“Well then, show us proof that we’re wrong!”–––and incite many acts of violence without any opportunities to put in any words otherwise. This tendency was especially strong in urban areas, where mobs formed and houses were burned down. ‘This world is teeming with piles of refuse that feign sainthood. It is a world brimming with prejudice towards those who are different.’ The words of W.I.S.E's leader, Amagi Miroku, had proven to be true in the most ironic form.

For the sake of maintaining peace, the police were forced to work overtime for far more than 24 hours; miraculously enough, Takechi was assigned to Tenjuin Elmore’s mansion, the very same place he’d been looking into himself. It would’ve been out of his jurisdiction under normal circumstances, but apparently it was impossible to assign anyone from the local police in Shizuoka due to a fear of leaking information. Takechi was not informed of how dangerous those inside the mansion actually were. However, every so often it would be children, not much older than his own daughter, who would come peek over the wall. They had been called from out of jurisdiction to create such a tight watch, set up some of the military’s fully automatic rocket launchers a few kilometers in front, all due to these children. If anything happened, they were to bring an end to both the humans they were keeping watch over and the mansion. “Must seem laughable…a bunch of full-grown adults, quivering in their boots because of an old woman and her five kids…kukuku.” It was around midnight, several days into the watch, when a strange man tasked with monitoring the mansion grounds called out to Takechi. The police, as mentioned previously, were assigned to the outside of the mansion; there was a separate group of men assigned to the inside. Takechi had no clue who they were. He wasn’t permitted to try and find out. The one assumed to be directing them, a man with an eyepatch and an almost reptilian–––snake-like air to him, continued by asking, “Do you, perhaps, have a light?” “My apologies. My subordinates are all non-smokers…” “Well, I know you yourself are quite the smoker…” Takechi’s first impression of the man: truly disconcerting. “Oh, you just had that smell about you…my nose is quite sharp, you see. …Fufu, please don’t think so poorly of me.” The man had the most unsettling smile creep its way onto his face as he spoke, with eyes that seemed to see deep into one’s innermost thoughts. “Are you…aware of who exactly it is…that resides within this mansion?” “Tenjuin Elmore…right? She’s a famous fortune-teller, I believe, who also has some connections in both politics and business…” “You sure are well-informed…but, you are only partially correct. Elmore is hardly a simple ‘fortune-teller.’ She’s one who possesses supernatural powers…a Psychicer.” “Wh…!?” Psychicer…that was what those living in this country, after seeing the destruction brought about by W.I.S.E with their very own eyes, had labeled the ones carrying out such evil deeds. “Ah, now don’t get the wrong idea. Elmore is not a part of W.I.S.E. That old woman holds the power of ‘future vision,’ and she knew these current events would, someday, happen. As such, it appears she had set out on gathering children yet untainted by Amagi Miroku’s poison in order to form a resistance…quite honestly, they are Psychicers who fight on the side of you humans.” The way he said this gave off the subtle implication that he did not count himself on the “side of humans.” “Then…why are they…why are those children being treated like this!? Are they not our allies?” Takechi’s words only made the man more amused, and he laughed mockingly. “Why? Why, you ask, Takechi-kun? Surely you must understand… Those without power fear those with it…that is a simple fact of life. Say there is a lion before you, able to tear a human to pieces, its mouth open wide and fangs bared. Even should you know ‘it will not bite me, ever,’ you would not offer your neck to it…the same applies here.” “…So the government doesn’t believe them…doesn’t trust them?” And, most likely, truly wanted to just “put an end” to them already. Elmore’s connections made that impossible, but above all was probably a more twisted logic holding them back: should worst come to worst, they would still have one means of retaliation to utilize against W.I.S.E. “Is it not foolish, Takechi-kun…so foolish, in fact, it becomes laughable…though, if I do say myself, that old woman is quite laughable in her own right, knowing this would happen yet struggling to change it all the same…” After saying so much, the cigarette held between the man’s fingertips was more than half gone. “Everything has been preordained…it is impossible to change. Everything…is proceeding according to PSYREN’s wishes…” “–––!?” “PSYREN.” The word that had been avoiding Takechi for half a year now fell suddenly from this man’s mouth. He started and looked up, but the man had already tossed his cigarette to the ground, crushed it beneath his heel, and was walking off towards the mansion courtyard where Takechi and the other members of the police force were prohibited from entering. “Wait! Just who in the world are–––!?” “Takechi-kun? You are a very splendid officer…should you survive the coming several years, pay a visit to Shimabara…it’s a wonderful place…a very, very wonderful place, beaming with sunlight.” Leaving those words behind, the man departed without ever turning back to Takechi again.

“I don’t give a damn about that man’s identity. What matters is that PSYREN was even somehow involved with all that devastation W.I.S.E caused!” Takechi, thoroughly worked up, slammed his fist down onto the counter with a thud. The glass resting there nearly toppled over as a result, which caused Kabuto to scramble to keep it upright. When the other customers took notice, he shot them a stiff smile and explained, in local tongue, “Sorry for the ruckus. Nothing’s wrong, so don’t worry.” “After that…October 2009. Amagi Miroku and the rest of W.I.S.E had perished after a fierce onslaught by the military, they declared…peace had finally returned to us…and then, as if on cue, Yoshina Ageha also made his return. Along with Mochizuki Oboro, Asaga Hiryuu…and you. Isn’t that right, Kirisaki?” “…” “But right as I was going to begin my investigation anew again, the unthinkable happened!” Takechi pulled out a stack of pure white paper from his suit’s inner pocket. It looked like regular copy paper, but there wasn’t a single sentence or character or anything at all on it. It was just a stack of white paper, held together by an ordinary clip on the lefthand side. Nothing more, nothing less. “What’s…that?” Kabuto was clearly confused, and Takechi answered him bitterly. “My investigation report. I wrote everything I uncovered about PSYREN in it.” “You wrote…but there’s nothing here…oh, it’s in invisible ink!” “No!”

It was about half a year since November of 2009, when the government had lifted the state of emergency–––Takechi had felt it was finally time to start up his investigation once more when something unbelievably strange occurred. Every single bit of data he had gathered up until that point had vanished. But it wasn’t that someone had deleted it. It extended even to the backups he’d created on other devices in order to stay on the safe side. It had all just vanished, like it never existed in the first place. And it went even further. Even the data he’d printed out on paper had turned back into blank sheets. The attached photos, too, had been whited out. At first he thought someone had done this to impede the investigation…and for a moment, that man he’d met at Elmore’s mansion rose up in his thoughts. But he quickly concluded that couldn’t have been the case. If someone truly wanted to obstruct his investigation, they would’ve just destroyed everything. There was no reason to instead go through such convoluted means. Additionally––– From what Takechi remembered, something strange happened among those involved with PSYREN. Those who had gone missing, or supposedly died, had slotted back into their normal lives. Neither they nor those close to them had any recollection of them disappearing, and there were no records of it occurring either. It was as if an entire portion of the world had been rewritten: that whole event had simply “never happened.” “What the hell is going on?” Takechi went so far as to wonder if he was losing it. But there was one piece of undeniable truth that tethered him. “Mochizuki Oboro’s disappearance” and his subsequent “interrogation of Yoshina Ageha” were both events that still verifiably happened, indisputably. Yoshina Ageha and the others had reappeared after October 2009. He’d wanted to go and ask them about the truth of the matter as soon as possible, but once again the upper management brought its foot down and forbade any and all involvement or contact with the matter. But Takechi couldn’t give up on his investigation. Though he was looking into “something that no longer existed”–––on a wild goose chase, one might say–––he persisted, going over his findings over and over again. In doing so, he found, from the day when Mochizuki Oboro had disappeared, security footage from a service area that featured Asaga Hiryuu and Amamiya Sakurako. And it was here that he discovered Kirisaki Kabuto, riding with them in the rental car.

~~~~~~ [Notes: *While the service area (or SA in Japan) Amamiya and co visit is probably nothing too extravagant, some of them can be far more than a simple ‘drive in, drive out’ area. The part where they go to this service area is actually depicted in the manga, in chapter 59.]

| Part 2 →

#Psyren #takechi yuusuke #kirisaki kabuto

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himetsuri · 4 years ago

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Observer

Takechi, having finished his long tale, held up his now-empty glass to the bartender and ordered more of the same sake. “I gotta say it again…you’re one persistent guy…” “I’ll say it again, as well: what’s most essential to a detective is an unyielding persistence…” Kabuto was unable to fully hide how near-astounded he was, and Takechi’s lips curled unnervingly upwards in response as he leaned in. “Now…it’s about time you get to talking, wouldn’t you say? I took flight after flight after flight, crossed three international borders to get into this country with its restricted entry status, just for this… What the hell is ‘PSYREN’!?” As Takechi closed in, Kabuto shrunk back in an attempt to avoid him. Takechi, however, grabbed his arm to keep him in place. “Er~rm…” Kabuto had a very reluctant, conflicted expression on his face. It read less like fear of harm to himself should he talk and more like something much more simple. “Uh, well…sure, I can tell you, I guess. All the rules are gone now, I think…but…” “But what?” “I can tell you. Buuut, I’m not sure you’re gonna believe me, is all.”

Nothing would happen anymore if he talked about it. In truth, Kabuto and the others had already told the whole story to their friends–––to Tenjuin Elmore and Ian and everyone else after they’d returned to the present one whole year later than when they’d departed, and Nemesis Q’s “punishment” program hadn’t activated. #07 had, most likely, lifted all of her restrictions on the Psyren Drifters before sending them back to the present, after that final battle in Astral Nava, or so Yagumo Matsuri hypothesized. At this point, it was more inconvenient not to explain it. Even Kabuto understood this. The detective before him was practically persistence personified. There was no way he’d ever budge on this. “Okay…I’ll talk. But…I’m gonna make a bet. You’re gonna say, ‘I can’t believe that.’ 100%.” “Hmph…go ahead, lay it on me! Nothing you say will be able to surprise me.” “Well, now I won’t let you take it back. I want some food when I win, okay?” “Fine, just hurry and spit it out!” I’ve just scored myself a free meal, Kabuto thought to himself before opening his mouth to speak. In the span of about ten minutes, Kabuto explained everything clearly and precisely. About how they’d traveled forward in time to a world ten years into the future, about how that world had been destroyed and ruled by W.I.S.E. About Uroboros and how they then traveled back into the present, defeated Mithra, and prevented “The Day of Rebirth” from occurring. “–––Aaaand that’s about it.” “That’s ridiculous…I can’t believe that…huh!?” “To~ld you.” Kabuto could only shrug in response to Takechi’s outburst. He knew there was no way Takechi would believe him. After all, everything had already been “undone.” Getting someone to believe in things that never happened, with no proof whatsoever, was impossible. “Then…the reason all my papers turned blank is…” “Because Ageha and the others rescued #07 before she created Nemesis Q, see?” Something similar had happened before. There had been a DVD that they’d brought back with them from the future; when they began intervening with things in the present based on what they learned in the future, the contents of the DVD would change or the dates of certain events would change. If the PSYREN game never started in the first place, then obviously history would reshape accordingly. For those who had been tossed into the future and died, turning to ash, that fate had been completely clipped at the roots. And with that fate gone, a new flow of time would be reconstructed, which would lead to a different outcome. That, too, was something Kabuto and the others had personally experienced. “But…then…explain, then: why do the lot of you still remember everything? And still have these superpowers that awakened or whatever in that future world, at that?” “Ah~…you can’t really be asking me that…” “Huh!? Don’t you start trying to tell me now that you can’t–––” “No, I mean, I don’t really get it myself.” Takechi’s shoulders dropped. “Come on, now…” “I mean it! Yagumo-san started talkin’ about all sorts of stuff after it all…but it was nothing but gobbledygook! I didn’t understand a lick of it! She said…something about shredding a cat…we were like a shredded cat, or something.” “A cat…do you mean ‘Schrödinger's cat’?” When the word came out of Takechi’s mouth, Kabuto slapped his knee and pointed a finger and replied, “Yeah, that!”

“It might be that Nemesis Q…that #07’s ability was to alter probability…” Yagumo Matsuri started thinking this after nothing had changed for them, the Psyren Drifters, even after all the fighting had ended and they’d released #07 from Mukurojima. “Matter, at its most basic level, is better described as ‘possibility’ and ‘probability’ than as ‘matter’…Nemesis Q might’ve sent us to the future by altering that probability, making the time in which we exist undetermined…” What supported this hypothesis was the fact that the Psyren Drifters, Yagumo Matsuri included, had never once encountered ‘themselves’ in the future. No matter which point in time they were sent forward into, there was only ever one of each of them. “However…it doesn’t appear the same can be said for those released from Nemesis Q’s ‘restrictions,’ such as those who died in that future world and…Usui, was it?” And, she went on, the reason they all retained their powers and memories might’ve been because the timeline had split into two, leaving them in an “undetermined position.” “Like Schrödinger's cat…we exist both in the PSYREN world and this new timeline we’ve created at the same time.” Yagumo Matsuri ended off by saying that, in the end, this was nothing more than a hypothesis at best.

“Schrödinger's cat, roughly, is a concept that goes as follows: ‘You left a cat inside a box that, at some point, will fill with poison gas. So, how is the cat doing now?’” “Well…all you have to do is open it up and check, right?” “That’s just it…this is before you’ve opened it up. The answer is, ‘you don’t know if it’s dead or alive.’ Therefore, ‘both of those outcomes exist simultaneously.’ You all came to exist in two completely different timelines simultaneously, and as a result, even if you release this ‘Nemesis Q’ in the present, you won’t be affected by any changes as long as Nemesis Q exists in that other timeline.” Truthfully, Takechi didn’t know if this interpretation was correct or not. If he was to believe everything Kabuto had told him, this was just the way to make sense of it. As a detective, quantum mechanics and the like were way out of Takechi’s league and anything he know about the subject was what he’d read in science fiction novels in college. But, assuming this was how it worked, a new problem arose. “Oi…that all might explain why you guys remember everything…but why do I still remember ‘PSYREN’? It’s a word that everyone else has forgotten, removed from both memories and records–––” He wasn’t a Psychicer or a Psyren Drifter. He was just a normal member of society. Was it because he got involved with Yoshina Ageha? There were too many others in the same position who didn’t remember for that to be it. “I hope you’re not expecting an answer from me for that~…” Kabuto had thrown in the towel, forsaken even thinking any further about it. He acted so flippantly about it, despite being one of the key people involved, that it riled Takechi up enough to want to start screaming. “It doesn’t really matter, anyways, it’s not like it’s causing any problems or anything…this is why everyone says most officials were raised by mules.” “Shut it, if those in power don’t uphold the laws, then who–––” Halfway through, Takechi slid a hand over his mouth. “That’s right…it has to make sense…” In the Schrödinger's cat example from earlier, you didn’t know if the cat in the box was dead or alive. And, without attempting to “open” the box and “see,” those two outcomes weren’t determined. Someone would have to open it, but what if they “wanted the cat to live”? If there was a person who had “observed the cat alive,” then the cat inside the box would be determined to be “alive.” Yoshina Ageha and the others were in a state where “two possibilities overlapped” due to changes in the timeline. There was “a destroyed future” and “an undestroyed future”: In order for them to stay in “an undestroyed future,” there would need to be a third party who observed them in “the world that led to the undestroyed future.” Could he have been chosen to be that observer–––? “That’s ridiculous…that…that would mean everything gets turned on its head…” This was comparable to something an official would put on paper solely to make ends meet. It wasn’t a hypothesis or an educated guess; if anything, it was closer to a crackpot theory. But having thought about it to this point, a cold sweat trailed down Takechi’s back. “Chosen…by who? No, if everything really had been predetermined from the beginning…” Nemesis Q, W.I.S.E, Amagi Miroku, Yoshina Ageha, the Psyren Drifters, Uroboros–––could it not be that everything had been predetermined from the beginning solely for the sake of reaching this conclusion, the element of “history changing” included as well? Clank–––clank-clunk… It was as if he could hear the sound of an enormous gear turning. Something so enormous as to even encapsulate the entire universe–––the sound of what one might call “fate.” “Kirisaki…? What’s going to happen with the world going forward…?” Despite being in the tropics, in a stuffy humid bar without any air conditioning, Takechi couldn’t stop the chill that shuddered through his whole body. He was terrified by the mere thought that everything they had ever done of their own free wills had actually been proceeding on a preordained track set up by something far bigger than them. “Oi, Kirisaki…?” But Kabuto didn’t answer Takechi’s question; he was staring outside, through the hole in the wall that gave the bar its name of “Breakdown.” His gaze was aimed towards a parked jeep, owned by the army stationed here, where a bunch of unruly-looking soldiers were chatting loudly with beer bottles in hand. More specifically, his gaze was trained on a young boy. “Hold on a sec.” That was all Kabuto said before he got up and jogged over to where the boy was. “Yo?” Kabuto spoke out to him casually, brightly, with the most disarming and carefree smile. “…” The boy didn’t reply. Rather, it might’ve been more accurate to say he couldn’t bring himself to reply. He was focused solely on the soldiers in the jeep, as if everything would end and his hardened resolve would crumble if he wasn’t. “I think you should reconsider. It’s no fun dying, y’know? If an explosion gets you, it really hurts like heck.” “–––!?” Upon hearing what Kabuto had to say, the boy flinched and looked back. But Kabuto was grinning goofily and without an ounce of nervousness as usual. “If you catch on fire? Your throat starts burning first, because of how hot the air is, and then your lungs start getting cooked from the inside. That’s not enough to kill you, but that’s what makes it worse. And when you leap into blazing hot flames, you can tell…when your body starts twisting like a piece of plastic and you lose to the heat bit by bit, you can tell that your body’s dying…it’s super scary, see?” He wasn’t trying to frighten the boy, and he wasn’t making things up on the fly. Everything he said was from firsthand experience. “So reconsider this.” As he said this, he lifted the boy’s tattered shirt, which was bulging out abnormally. What greeted him were several bundles of C4–––plastic explosives that the boy had found who-knows-where. “Shut it…I…I won’t run…I’m gonna get my revenge, I swear…” The boy’s father or mother, or maybe even both, had most likely been killed by those soldiers or the army they served. And the boy was now attempting to bolster his resolve to take himself down with them in order to enact his revenge. Kabuto’s ability was “Menace”–––he was able to see the “threat of death” many seconds beforehand. “Yeah…I hear ya…a long time ago, I would turn tail from anything I didn’t like, too. And because of that, I’ve got a lotta things I regret now…that’s why–––I’m telling you not to run.” Kabuto pointed over the boy’s shoulder, where two children even younger than the boy were watching intently from the shadows. Second thoughts bloomed across the boy’s features. “I…I told them not to come…” They were his younger brother and sister. With his parents dead and left behind with his two young siblings, the boy probably had no idea what to do. And what he’d decided on wasn’t to “live on, even despite the pain,” but to run away and “die while fulfilling his vengeance.” Kabuto had no way of knowing if this was the actual truth of the matter. But he knew, as someone more cowardly than anyone else, that constantly running away always begot the same thing: a crushing regret that would make anyone feel like death would’ve been the more preferable option. It was precisely because he spent so much of his life running away that he learned there were things you couldn’t afford to run away from. He understood how the boy felt more than anyone–––more than anything. “Uu…ugh…uwaaaaaa!!!” Kabuto had seen through him, his plans to abandon his siblings and run; the boy, filled with shame, broke down and bawled. Kabuto, still with a smile on his face, patted the boy’s head with one hand while taking the switch to detonating the explosives from the boy’s grip with the other. “The~re we go, let it out, let it out. And once you’re spent, why not come get some food with me? Oi, you guys get over here too! Let’s get you some grub! Right, Takechi-san?” Kabuto immediately turned towards Takechi’s direction. “Hey, now! I’m paying for it?” “You did lose our bet.” “Christ…” Despite his bitter smile, Takechi beckoned the kids over as if to say, “Of course.”

The boy and his siblings sat at a corner table in the bar, stuffing food into their mouths as if their lives depended on it. Just how many days had they gone without eating? Dishes lined the table, filled with potatoes, the staple food of this region, and a thin soup with only a few chunks of meat floating in it. It was the typical meal around these parts, but any Japanese child of the same age would’ve turned their nose up at it. Takechi almost couldn’t help shooting them a sympathetic glance. “You can’t do that, Takechi-san. Stuff like that gets conveyed even without words.” Pity and condescension went hand in hand at times. As he pulled the camera he used for war photography out of his bag, Kabuto issued this quiet warning. “Hey guys! I’m gonna snap a photo so look over here!” He called out to them like they were lifelong friends, and the kids beamed in turn, their faces full of smiles and food scraps stuck around their mouths. They were grinning so innocently that one would never guess they’d been considering death only a few moments ago. “Well…Takechi-san…I’m not too bright a guy, so I don’t really get timelines or altering history or boxing cats or the like.” Kabuto began speaking as he peered through his camera’s viewfinder. “But it’s better to be alive than dead. It’s more fun to laugh than cry. Even someone like me can understand that much…so I’d say to hell with whatever God or fate or whatever sort of high-and-mighty powers that be think.” “…Kirisaki.” “You know, I’ve killed a person, once.” His focus was fully on the children, a smile still lingering at his lips, but the light shining across his eyes was tinged with sorrow.* “Though it happened in the future…” W.I.S.E’s combat unit “Scourge” had invaded “Root.” One member in particular had been the lowest of the low, brutal and merciless, enjoying every kill. Kabuto, under direct threat of being killed as well, had fought him in order to save the lives of many innocents. His ability, “Paradigm of the Chicken Soul,” took the threat of death from whoever was emitting it and threw it back at them in full. For this reason, it was a power centered on self-defense to the utmost: “it could not kill unless he was about to be killed.” That man had died after being hit with it, which meant he had irrefutably attacked Kabuto with all intentions to kill. Therefore, there was nothing wrong with Kabuto striking back. That was how he’d rationalized it to himself. “But…it was the worst experience I’ve ever had…I never want to feel that way again…it was the shittiest, sickest thing I’ve ever felt, and nothing can compare…” The reason Kabuto became a war photographer was because he “wanted to see them.” He wanted to see the faces of the fools who enjoyed such an awful feeling and relished in it even now. “I can think up many reasons to do it. For land, religion, freedom, justice, money and your daily bread…but still, I can’t understand it. For there to be something you wanna get your hands on so badly that that’s what you come up with…there’s gotta be a way it’d work out without having to think like that, right…” Yoshina Ageha, Amagi Miroku–––both of them wanted to protect the world, to change the world. They clashed, each wielding powers of destruction. Though the two of them were on opposing sides, if there was one point they had in common, it was that they had both chosen to fight on the path that meant they had to accept the burden of “killing others.” Ageha had chosen the path of the protector, even if it meant shouldering the title of “murderer.” Miroku had chosen the path of the reformer, even if it meant being called “the Devil.” Maybe it was because he’d witnessed the two of them, but Kabuto couldn’t for the life of himself believe that the people at war here were truly aware that they were killing other people. “So I…thought I’d become their ‘eyes.’ Show them that, ‘hey, what you’re doing is killing people…humans with feelings and desires just like you, for whatever reasons you may have…’ That, ‘if you’re still so determined to kill each other, then do it with the full understanding that you’re killing someone…’” Kabuto set the camera down and took a scrap of paper out from his breast pocket. “This is…my good luck charm.” It was a tattered lottery ticket. “It’s a lottery ticket that was a shoo-in win, but still ended up losing… Just goes to show you what ‘fate’ really amounts to in the end, huh. When I saw that this turned into a losing ticket, I was super bummed…but at the same time, I was kinda glad…it was like it was telling me, ‘nothing’s been set in stone, so why not just do whatever you want?’” After finishing off with a teasing, “Is that a good enough answer for you?” Kirisaki Kabuto let out a childlike laugh.

After parting ways with Kabuto, Takechi checked into a room at a hotel near the airport. The documents that had turned blank and that he’d shown Kabuto sat on the table. “The world underwent a massive change…and that changed everything that should’ve happened into having ‘never happened’…and so, where exactly will this world go now, after branching off…” Takechi mumbled to himself. Out of nowhere, he felt a sudden urge to hear his family’s voices. He was the perfect workhorse, a man who continued working even on his daughter’s birthday and his wedding anniversary, yet for some reason at this very moment he found himself yearning to hear his daughter’s voice. He punched in the international code, and after waiting a bit through the ringtone his wife picked up. She was surprised, of course, since he’d told her he was going off on a business trip and he rarely ever called while on the job. “Is Nozomi asleep…?” “It’s eleven o’clock at night…she went to bed hours ago…oh!” He heard his young daughter’s half-asleep voice come on over the phone. “Papa…?” “Yeah…were you awake–––I mean, did I wake you?” He realized, after asking that, that he didn’t really know what to say next. He’d been so engrossed in his work that he’d never once had a proper conversation with his kindergarten-aged daughter. “Ah…hmm…are you doing okay?” “Yeah…” “Um…Papa will be home soon, and…” “Yeah…” Suddenly, the stack of white papers on the table crept into his vision. “…Nozomi? You wanna go out with Papa once he gets back?” “Huh?” “I’ll take you wherever you want to go…can you pick out a place before I come home?” “Uh…um…yeah!” His daughter was both hesitant and excited upon hearing something so unexpected from her father, and she replied in a much louder voice than before. They spoke for a bit longer, and then Takechi hung up and picked up the stack of papers once more. “–––Maybe the answer had already been given to me.” He took a cigarette from his breast pocket, lit it, and inhaled a deep breath of smoke. The world should’ve perished once already. In all likelihood, he and his wife and daughter had probably died with it. But a single boy had connected with the resolves of many others, crossed time and space, and opened the way to a shining future. That was probably what Kirisaki Kabuto had been speaking of when he said, “do whatever you want.” Even if fate did exist, it was something so pliable that even a fifteen-year-old brat could bend it, in the end. “Hah…guess no one’s getting this report.” Takechi let out a short, unintended laugh, smoke billowing from his mouth.

~~~~~~ [Notes: *The word used in Japanese (悲壮) refers to being sad but being strong/courageous despite it.

Paradigm of the Chicken Soul has an alternative reading of “Paradigm of the Weak.”

In the original text, Kabuto mistakes Schrödinger's cat as a “cream puff cat,” but unfortunately ‘cream puff’ isn’t close enough to Schrödinger for anyone to mix them up in English.]

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#psyren #kirisaki kabuto #takechi yuusuke

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