Rumors must have started about it, because young people and urban explorers would come from time to time to see. He performed for them. Sometimes they beat him, but he didn’t care. He needed animus. Animus...
His mind was growing foggy. He couldn’t remember who he was anymore. There was a face, reflected in a pail of water with dead bugs floating in it. A grubby face with a ragged beard... almost like that old man...
× × ×
The vision granted by Bacross’s watch ended there.
“......” Seiya collapsed onto the ground. He felt nauseous. He dry-heaved a few times, then gulped.
“Shocking, eh, baku? It made me a little sick too, baku.”
“That was... me?” Seiya asked, horrified.
“Seems so, baku. And this is almost completely locked in, baku.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Seiya burst out. “That... that helplessness... I’m not that incompetent! This is ridiculous!”
Bacross slumped over as he yelled at him. “I don’t know what you want me to say, baku. This future is yours, baku. It’s the way it is because you chose for it to be that way.”
“That can’t be true,” Seiya protested. “If the new park’s business was that bad, I would have gotten out of there earlier.”
“You think that now... but you don’t know what you’d think years from now,” Bacross pointed out. “Maybe there were other circumstances in play that the vision didn’t show you.”
“It can’t be a money issue! If I put my magic on the task, I could turn around the entire Japanese economy!” That statement wasn’t just a bluff; it might really be true. Seiya knew what his powers could do: he had the power to read the thoughts of others. He could also compel replies, and do this as many times as he wanted. He could read the mind of the Minister of Finance or the president of the Bank of Japan, if he wanted to. And even without going that far, he could make a killing in the stock market; he’d planned it all out, and was ready to put it into practice if the park’s finances ever began to suffer.
For now, though, he hadn’t used his magic to make money. It was strictly a matter of conscience and pride. Well... and one more thing.
“I don’t know the nature of your magic, baku,” Bacross told him. “But are you sure it’ll always be available to you?”
“I...” Seiya wasn’t sure what to say. Bacross was right; he had no guarantee that he’d be able to use his magic forever. Would it be with him all his life? Or would it be gone tomorrow? He had no way of knowing.
Seiya had asked Isuzu about it before, but the records didn’t offer much insight. Some lost their powers in just a few weeks, while others kept them for a decade or more. There were almost no cases of such magic remaining for life, though. It might even have a set number of uses...
That was a possibility he’d begun to consider lately. Ever since he’d learned that he could force people into responding, he’d started wondering if there might be some other price to his magic’s use. That was why he had grown more cautious about using his magic lately, and it was the other reason he wasn’t using his magic to make money. Of course, he fully intended to use it if he had to...
“It’s true that I don’t... know how long I’ll be able to use it,” Seiya admitted with some difficulty.
“Maybe it turns out that in the future, you can’t rely on your magic anymore, baku.”
“Even then, I wouldn’t be that stupid! If my business was failing, I’d take better care of things!” Seiya insisted. “I wouldn’t work Moffle to death! I’d go to work myself, and make sure that at least Latifah and Isuzu could live comfortably! If I couldn’t do that out here, I’d just move back to the city! It makes no sense!” He could just rent out a storefront in the city and open a club. He’d bring in people; they’d all be happy. He’d get lots of animus that way, too. He’d need just a few staff, but they’d run shows every day and the people would love it. That should be enough to keep Latifah in good health. Seiya had always filed that plan away as a last resort.
But Bacross spoke to Seiya with quiet eyes. “You really are a mortal, baku.”
“What?”
“Do you know what animus is, baku?”
“I think so,” Seiya replied. “It’s human feelings of joy, right? You fairy-types feed on that, and it sustains you.”
“Yes, but it’s not as simple as that, baku. There are many different kinds of animus. You know that?”
“Yeah, I know a little...” It seemed, at least, that there were many forms of joy: the joy of watching a love story and the joy of watching a horror movie were similar, but not identical.
“There are many kinds of animus, baku. As many kinds as there are nutritional elements like protein, carbohydrates, fat, minerals, vitamins, iron, and sodium in food, baku.”
“That makes sense,” Seiya said.
“Which means that there are also requirements to the animus—the nutrition, that is—which your princess needs. It’s the ager that you’ve been trying to keep in business that produces it, right? Which means...”
“......” It was easy for Seiya to see what Bacross was getting at, and he felt a chill run up his spine. A club wouldn’t work; it had to be an amusement park. It had to be the joy of guests coming through the gate, seeing something truly wondrous, eyes going wide, crying out in joy. It had to be the kind of feeling that could make even a cynical young man—yes, a young man like Seiya—look up in awe when he entered. That’s what was needed.
He didn’t know what that feeling was, in terms of animus. Was it protein? Carbohydrates? Well, it didn’t matter... clubs, arcades, movie theaters, batting cages—those all brought joy, but they weren’t the same. The animus that Latifah needed had to come from an amusement park.
That’s why the old man stayed there, right? Seiya wondered. Why he stuck around, helplessly locked into that future? “No,” he denied out loud, continuing to argue. “That’s no reason why I’d spend decades just wandering aimlessly, without a plan! “I’d have tons of options! I could start another amusement park somewhere else! I’d find a way to get money, too! I’m an extremely resourceful person—”
“You are now, baku,” Bacross said in a voice that seemed to have aged decades in an instant. “The seventeen year old Seiya. The Seiya who’s fine with only four hours of sleep. The Seiya who can easily grasp how new apps work. The Seiya who can eat convenience store meals daily with no adverse effects.”
“......” Seiya hadn’t considered these factors.
“The Seiya who believes that no matter what happens, tomorrow can be better than today,” Bacross went on. “The Seiya with a sound body and mind, with a world that’s always been on his side, who has never known serious injury or illness... that Seiya.” There was no mockery in Bacross’s voice, and gradually, it came to sound as though he was reading from a script. “Some day, his powers, too, will decline. You don’t know how long you’ll be able to use your magic. And in time, you’ll lose all of the allies you’ve come to rely upon, baku.”
Seiya thought back on the “old timer” grumblings of Moffle and the others: they’d sleep all night and still wake up tired. They had a hard time memorizing a script. They couldn’t eat fatty things, like Korean barbecue, the way they used to... and other things. He’d dismissed it all as irrelevant to him assuming that they were just pathetic and inferior. But where was the guarantee that he wouldn’t end up that way, himself?
“There’s no way...” Seiya muttered, feeling sick. His head was swimming. He took a deep breath, but it didn’t help much; his breathing was still ragged.