CHILDREN RECORD SIDE -NO. 7- If you can’t “forget” something unless you made the memory in the first place, then what should the memories you’ve forgotten be called? I thought over the memories that I had almost let fall out of my head before I could share them with anyone: the separations that burned themselves into my chest; the reunions that felt like miracles to me; the future that I all but risked my life to reach out to. No matter how preciously I treated them, it wouldn’t be enough if I just forgot about them in the end. Forget about something, and not even loneliness remains afterward. Things you’ve forgotten about lose their titles as “memories”; they’re wiped clean from your mind, as if they never existed in the first place. Really, it’s the most absurd thing ever. You can love something with all your heart, but you can’t build fences around your memories. If you’ve truly forgotten about them, you’ll forget even to be motivated enough to try to recall them. It’s really true. We’re here because we’ve kept on forgetting about things. We’ve stepped over the corpses of the memories we can no longer remember, wending our way ahead. That, I would hope, I don’t have to forget. “…Helloooo? You awake?” A disinterested voice filled the classroom, stained with an amber-red sort of light. I was in the far back seat by the windows, looking at the darkened cityscape on the other side, presenting itself a bit like a georama. Turning my eyes toward the voice, I saw Ayano one desk ahead of me, face peering into mine as it was bathed in the glow of the sunset. In this world, where the whole concept of life and death starts to become vague, I wasn’t entirely sure if “sleeping” was something I could do, really. Maybe she was just joking with me—but then again, I couldn’t be sure that she was thinking that deeply about it. “How would I sleep with my eyes open?” I curtly asked as I turned back toward the view out the window. I noticed Ayano shrinking down a bit in her seat. She must have begun to pick up on my point. I didn’t mean to bully her or anything, but I couldn’t deny it: I was a little pissed. “Um,” she began, stirring a bit timidly as she looked up at me. “Are you angry that I didn’t speak to you first, maybe?” “…About what?” “Like, how I went over here by myself. You know, without saying anything to you, Shintaro.” She looked down at the floor, stealing glances at my face to judge my reaction. …Yeah, she just about had it right. I should say, at the very least, that I didn’t hate her. It seemed like she really had a thing for me, through everything that happened. I had helped out with her homework on more than one occasion. And, you know, I’m a guy, she’s a girl; we probably both had things we thought it was better to keep secret from each other. But even beyond that, we were friends. We counted on each other when adversity came our way. That was how I saw the thing we had. So imagine how it felt when those guys in the Mekakushi-dan told me all that stuff about her. I mean, man! Going around, investigating what “clearing” is all about, then trying to dive into the Kagerou Daze all by herself. The more we dug into it, the more it turned into a, like, clearance sale of new stories about her. I mean, her having this crazy secret life didn’t bother me, really. I wasn’t really keen on trying to uncover every single aspect of her life or anything. Not at all. It’s just, as her friend, the way she rashly did all this stuff without thinking about herself for a single moment… It really set me off. I gave Ayano a glance. She fidgeted a bit, cowering even more in her chair. Ugh. I hate when she gives me this stupid puppy-dog act. She can try to appeal to my conscience all she wants; it’s not gonna work. Does she have any idea how much agony my heart’s been through over the past couple years? Maybe some random dude would be willing to forgive her on a moment’s notice, but Shintaro here isn’t enough of a wuss to bow to her just like that. Not Shintaro. He’s not the kinda guy to just let things slide. “…Well, I know how things are. There’s no point raking you over the coals about it now.” Pathetic. All it takes is a couple of simpering looks from a girl, and Shintaro just rolls right over, doesn’t he? Ayano, perhaps having expected me to blow up, stared blankly at me for a few moments, then let out a quick little awkward laugh. “Aw, you’re always so kind to me like that. See, this is exactly why I went over here in the first place, Shintaro.” “Ah, shut up. You aren’t too different from me, you know.” I tried to act bitchy at her, dispelling the awkwardness of it all with the act. It felt like about a day since I had been taken by the Kagerou Daze. I hadn’t gotten sleepy at all, though, or hungry, so I supposed I shouldn’t rely on my sense of time too much. As Haruka put it, time passed a lot differently here than it did over there. I had anticipated that, given Hibiya’s talk about experiencing the same day over and over again—and, indeed, the standard rules of logic didn’t seem to apply. It was definitely a world beyond all common sense. “I gotta say, Shintaro, this was a big surprise to me. Like, you fighting alongside everyone else.” “Yeah, I was the most surprised of all, actually. Giving a crap about someone else like that. Totally out of character.” “Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t know why, but I’ve always kinda had a feeling it’d turn out like this. Like, you’d step up and try to keep all of us safe.” She blushed a bit. “I guess that’s why I couldn’t talk about it.” She’d expected me to fight? I mean, since Momo had one of those abilities, too, I guess it’d be expected that I would get involved eventually. But she couldn’t have had any way of knowing about Momo. To Ayano, I didn’t have a single thing to do with any of this, but she’d still predicted this would happen? It was hard to swallow. Hmm. Wait a sec… Ha! No way. “Are you just trying to make me feel better? Because I’m not an ability user?” Regardless of how it had happened, my social circle in high school had been pretty well stocked with people like her and Momo. And yet here I was, totally oblivious to it all. I wasn’t jealous or anything, but I was the only one out of four friends without one of those things. Maybe she took pity on me for it. But Ayano shook her head briskly at my sardonic accusation. “No, I’m telling the truth! I even saw you fighting in my dreams, Shintaro!” “Ohhh? What kind of dreams?” “Um, like, you were standing in front of all of us, looking all cool and stuff, and you did this really heroic pose. You had on this red spandex outfit, the sun was setting behind you, and you were all, ‘Behold! I am the greatest superhero of the age!’ Then you swung this giant mace all around, and…” “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! What kind of freak do you think I am?! There’s nothing even remotely related to your abilities in there! And what about that has ever come true, huh?” Ayano, still lost in the dream of me going all medieval on our enemies’ asses, snapped out of it. “Yeah,” she muttered. “Maybe that was a different dream…” “Dude, how much are you dreaming about me?” I pictured multiple versions of myself in her mind, each wearing a different piece of fetish gear. It repulsed me, but not as badly as when Ayano blushed a bit more and said: “Um, maybe a lot, I guess? But, I mean, you know how many eye abilities there are. It wouldn’t be too weird if one of them let you see the future, right?” “And you think you might have that one? I mean, nothing’s gonna surprise me at this point, but…” “Oh, no way! Mine’s totally not like that!” She made a big X with her arms to drive home the point. “Then none of what you’re saying even makes sense! Quit trying to justify all those weird visions of me in your mind. At least strip the spandex off my body.” “Awww! But if I do that, then you wouldn’t look cool and heroic at all!” “Huh? So what do you even need me for, then?” This was tiring me out. …Ugh, and now I’m remembering my conversations with Ene. Ayano utterly exhausted me sometimes. It was like she constantly talked just for the sake of talking. None of it ever bore any fruit…and even now, when I was dead and all, this kind of arguing made me shiver in fear. At least now, we weren’t talking total nonsense to each other. Even over here, this girl was shouldering a huge role in the fight over on the other world. In fact, something she’d said just now stuck in my mind a bit. I tentatively opened my mouth, praying this topic would actually go somewhere. “Hey, you said that your ability doesn’t let you see the future or anything, right?” “Um, yeah. Correct.” “So what kind of ability did you get?” …Silence. “…Ohh! Right! I need to tell you about that!” Suddenly Ayano shot to her feet, almost sending her chair flying to the floor. “Hyah!” I spat out in surprise as the sheer momentum of her movement made me fall backward. My head beat against the ground. Seriously, if we weren’t in the Kagerou Daze already, she’d be guilty of involuntary manslaughter. “Ahh! Sorry, sorry! So about my ability…” “W-wait a second! You’re going too fast! At least let me put my seat back up.” I scrambled back to my feet and put my desk back in order. Here I was, just trying to have a decent conversation, and already I was out of gas. “Okay now?” “Yeah,” I said, composing myself. “So, um, it’s probably better if I start by telling you what happened when I first got in here. The Kagerou Daze.” “Sure. Can you tell it to me so it’ll make sense?” “N-not really…but I’ll try.” Great. That’s the spirit. Let’s hear it. “So up on that roof that day… You know, when I kinda did that…” “…Whoa. Don’t just put it like that. It’s not like you were having lunch up there.” “Oh, come on, I was trying to be nice with this! Just shut up and let me talk!” She gave a light slap on the desk to emphasize her point. Oops. Made her angry. Better keep quiet for now. “So, like, right after I entered the Kagerou Daze…I ran into this girl named Azami.” …Azami. The woman who had created all these abilities in the first place—and the first victim of “clearing” and its schemes. I didn’t know what had happened to Azami herself once her abilities got caught by everyone else; was she still conscious and staying here in the Kagerou Daze? I couldn’t imagine Ayano was lying about it—if she said she had met her, I figured she really had. “She was in, like, really bad shape. She managed to keep her spirit alive in the world with the power of ‘opening eyes,’ which she wound up giving to Takane, but with that gone, it was like the end of her rope.” “Yeah… So that’s when Enomoto became Ene, huh?” “Right, right. And, man, Takane, you know… She’s, like, this total ball of energy now, isn’t she?” I don’t know if it was out of respect for her or whatever, but Ayano seemed to be choosing her words as carefully as possible. Still, she couldn’t hide the nervous twitching around her lips too well. Don’t worry, Enomoto. Your underclassman friend’s still being considerate toward you. “…But anyway!” she said, spotting my grin. “Azami lost her body and her spirit, but she still had one ability left.” She brought a finger to her eyes. “That’s the one I got.” “The last one? I don’t know about that one.” The ten abilities recorded in Azami’s diary had already been pretty well named and described. All except one. She’d only covered nine in that text—the ones that had been spread around to people in the outside world. In other words, Ayano had the tenth ability. The one the diary didn’t mention. She tapped her finger against her head a few times. “This ability is kind of a weird one,” she gingerly began. “It works, like, a little differently from the others…or I guess you could say it comes straight from Azami’s heart. Like, it was created by her desire to…you know, bring something across? You see what I mean?” “No. Not at all.” “…Yeah, I’ll bet.” Ayano sighed deeply—but if anything, this was a better effort than usual for her. “But… Oh! How about I just do this?” The next moment, Ayano’s dark-brown eyes began to take on a deep shade of orange, as if sucking up the evening sunlight. She was activating something, which I had seen many times before, but there was none of the intimidation I tended to feel from the other abilities. “This is probably the easiest way to explain it to you, I think…but hopefully you’ll be willing to accept it.” Her words, the movement of her lips, made me nod and press her for more. “…All right. Thanks. I’m gonna pass it on to you, okay?” The sun-like hue dancing in her eyes began to burn more intensely. I left my body to them and their innate attraction. “She called these…‘favoring eyes.’” …I was in a dark place. There was no left or right, no up or down. There was no cold, nor any heat I could feel. It was that kind of place. “…You’re going to disappear, Azami.” The voice rang out in the darkness. I chased after it, but couldn’t see whom it belonged to. Then, another voice. It crept up to me, getting close, and the words began to pile on top of each other. “Yeah. I’m glad I got to speak to someone like you, in the end. I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything for any of you. I really am.” “Oh, stop crying. I’m trying to hold back right now, too…” “I-I’m not crying. I just have a runny nose. Besides…my memories have already reached your heart.” “…Yeah. They sure have. I’ve received them all, Azami. So I’m not lonely here anymore.” “Oh? I am relieved to hear that. Perhaps these memories may serve to help you in the future. My memories are not everything about myself, but…they represent everything I have lived through. They are precious to me.” “They really are. Your memories… I feel like I understand them. Like I made them myself. You’ve really lived for a long time, Azami. You tried so hard.” “…Ngh…snif…” “Ahh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make you cry…” “No, no. I… I just never even dreamed that someone would ever say that about me.” “Aw, you’re such a crybaby, Azami. Don’t worry! I… I swear I won’t forget about them…” “Look at you. You are crying now, too, aren’t you?” “Hee…hee-hee-hee. Guess we’re together on this.” “We are. Together.” “……” “…It’s almost time. Before I go…I will give this to you.” “…Nph…” “This is my heart…my ‘favoring’ ability. The power to convey thoughts, and memories, to other people. I know you can make use of it…” “…All right… I’ll try to. And I’ll make sure I can convey it all to her, too. So…sleep well, Azami.” “……” “……” “……” “…Ngh…wehhhhh…” “…You back with me? Did all that make it to you?” “…Yeah, it did.” The crimson shades of the classroom softly took me in again as my consciousness sprang back to life. I now had the clear memory of Ayano and Azami talking to each other. It hadn’t been shown to me; she hadn’t told me about it—but it was there, as if I had been hanging out with them in the scene. “…Are you crying, Shintaro?” “No. I just have a runny nose.” Ayano studied my face for a little bit. Then, realizing what I was referring to, she smiled, a little embarrassed. …Ayano. The environment she’d been exposed to during her life had been so impossibly tough, it made me want to puke. She’d lost her poor mother; she’d had her father, the only blood relation she had left, transform the way he did; her siblings and high school classmates had been taken hostage. It just made your stomach churn. So she threw herself off that roof and ended her life to plunge into the Kagerou Daze. As Kano had conjectured, she did it because she had connected her mother’s notes with “clearing’s” plan to collect the abilities and make a Medusa for itself. As she saw it, if she could obtain one of the ten abilities, she’d be able to put a stop to it. When I’d run into the Mekakushi-dan, when I’d talked with them and gone over all their pasts, I finally knew what was motivating Ayano’s behavior. And it filled me with an anger I felt helpless to do anything about. So I fought, using that anger to drive me. I wanted to take this crappy world—treating us like idiots when we’re just trying to live; pushing all this absurd nonsense upon us; trying to take away our futures—and beat the shit out of it. And now, here we are. I haven’t saved anybody. I haven’t engineered any miracles. The strategy I somehow whipped up out of nowhere wound up rescuing none of them. The only thing I did accomplish was becoming a conversational partner to one of my dead friends. It was all so pointless. Still, though. Dying like this—letting my flesh rot—still wouldn’t let me escape from the truth. In the other world, outside the Kagerou Daze, the Mekakushi-dan was still fighting against its foes. Just because I was dead didn’t mean I could just declare it to be over. And it looked like I wasn’t the only one with that thought. Ayano and I looked at each other, trying to affirm that we were of the same mind. “…We gotta carry this out to the end, don’t we?” she said. “Yeah. This sure ain’t over yet.” The resolve in Ayano’s voice confirmed something with me. I suppose both of us were predicting the exact same ending to this battle. From the very start, this fight had come with some preconditions. The enemy was an ability in itself, and therefore immortal. Only a Medusa could rule over it, and none of those existed in this world. With an undefeatable foe like that, as long as Marie didn’t become that Medusa and neutralize the threat, our fates were sealed. We could run and buy as much time as we wanted; sooner or later, all the ability holders would be massacred. But if we wanted Marie to play that Medusa role, we had to pluck all the abilities from their current homes. And that meant taking their lives. In other words, from the get-go, there was absolutely no way this fight could ever have involved all of us surviving. It was a hopelessly cruel story, but that was the truth behind this battle. The only way we could step up and declare that we’d won was by ensuring none of us survived. Everyone in the Mekakushi-dan understood that, and they threw themselves into the fight anyway. …If only I could have known about this faster. Earlier than I did. It was just too late to gnash my teeth over it now. By this point, we were just a few inches away from the end of it all. But there was one way. Just a single step we could take. Maybe. And as long as that existed, no matter how meaningless it was, we had to fight. Because if that one thing was still in our hands, there might not be any winning this—but there wouldn’t be any losing, either. After all, “winning” wasn’t even the goal here. “…There’s one thing I left on the other side,” I said as I took my phone out of my hoodie pocket and put it on the desk. Ayano gave it an odd look. “I don’t think that’s going to work from here…” “Yeah. It wouldn’t, normally. But we got someone on the other side who ain’t normal at all.” It was way beyond a do-or-die bet. Maybe not even a one-in-a-million chance. But it was still there. Even if it paid off, it didn’t mean our enemy was a goner. All I hoped for, as I played my final hopes upon her, was that we could take it into overtime. “You know, even if I had thought about that, I’d never try it, normally.” Ayano, picking up on my plan, gave me a wry grin. “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I’m getting too abnormal for my own good.” This wasn’t so we could live, or fight, or whatever. Wagering our lives on simply having this choice to work with must seem crazy to the outside observer. I ruminated over the silly goal we’d put up for ourselves back at the hideout. That childish, stupid goal of never giving up on our future.
Chapter 125
19 min read