LOST DAYS · 8 Today, August 15, was a perfectly average day. It was a good one, I thought. The news this morning said it’d be an easygoing kind of day. Completely normal temperatures for this season. They were absolutely right. So I had nothing to complain about. If I had to come up with something, I guess I’d like to see the sunset just one more time, right at the end. Oh, and if I could add something else, joining that tournament would’ve been nice. But there’s no reason to be greedy. …Life, I figured, was just kind of short like that. I heard the ambulance siren and felt some light bumping below me. I heard Takane’s voice as I fell in and out of consciousness. Probably stuff like “It’s all right” and “Hang in there” and so on. Earlier, I was in so much pain that I was incapable of focusing on anything else. Now, though, I couldn’t feel anything at all. It was funny. It didn’t feel like I was cured. It was weird, but it felt more like it all just disappeared. If I had to guess, the part of me that feels pain was probably dead. I had no way of confirming this, but thinking about it made me feel a little lonely. The sounds around me seemed to echo mindlessly in my ears, and soon I could only pick up on the barest nuances of Takane’s words. What did she say? I didn’t know. She sounded real sad, though. Ahhh, I’m sorry, Takane. I’m really sorry. I’ve received so much from you, but I couldn’t give anything in return. I bet you’re angry about it. Well, you can be, if you want. You can punch me, even. If it helps you get over it, you can do anything you like. Oh, but don’t take it out too much on people besides me. You might run into all kinds of wonderful people later on in life. You need to treat them with the care they’ll deserve. Yeah. That’s right. You’re a kind, gentle girl, Takane. You need to keep on smiling. You need to be happy. So please, Takane. Stop crying… Once the final echoes faded away, I no longer felt anything. This was exactly the kind of silence I feared the most, but now that I was faced with the full brunt of it, it was nothing. So this was “dying”? No. If I was still thinking about stuff like this, I guess I wasn’t quite there yet. I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes, or any other handy guidepost showing where I was in the process. In fact, I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on. But I suppose my thoughts would disappear before too long. I wouldn’t be able to think about anything else, and then… …No. I just can’t accept this. I don’t want to die. What’s going to happen to me now? Hey, Takane, are you still near me? If you are, tell me. Come on. Tell me… Takane, Shintaro, Ayano, Mr. Tateyama… I wanted to be together with all of you for longer. I wanted to play around with you guys so much more. I didn’t want to be born in this weak, broken body. If I was stronger…as strong as the hero of a video game, I could’ve been with all of you forever… Forever…with all of you…
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“Is that what you want, foolish human?” Where did that come from? Those words that so suddenly filled the darkness? I tried to think about it, but then my consciousness shut off, like somebody unplugged the cord. —My life is over, my senses have disappeared, but I am still here. What am I? The pure white space spread out around me in all directions. I was surrounded by a dizzyingly large array of IV drips. I was on a bed. I was there. I couldn’t move. It was like someone had stitched me right into the bed. All I felt there was my consciousness. This wasn’t “reality.” I was dead. It didn’t take long for that to dawn on me. But no matter how I tried to justify it, this didn’t seem like “heaven.” So what was it…? “I have heard your wish, human.” The voice boomed from nowhere in particular. It sounded like human speech, but it wasn’t. It was a low guttural tone, one that made me sick. And yet, I was still able to interpret it as human language. “My wish? Who are you…?” The moment I tried to ask, I noticed someone familiar standing beside my bed. My voice froze. “It is your own body. Why are you so surprised? This is exactly what you always wanted. Your ideal body.” The white hair. The black collar. This was Konoha, the game avatar I created for myself. “Wh-why is Konoha here…? What do you mean, this is my body?” Konoha’s lifeless eyes stared at me. Then, inside my head, I suddenly saw my own form on the bed, as seen through Konoha’s eyes. My mind was forced to comprehend it. This…is me. “Something” had entered my body, and I had been forced out of it. “Is this not what you hoped for? You wanted a strong body. Now your wish is granted. A shame that it seems to have rejected your meager ‘spirit.’” My body has become “Konoha”? “Konoha” kicked me out? That’s insane. That wasn’t what I’d “wished” for at all. “N-no! That’s not it!! My wish was to be with everyone. With all my friends!” “Ah. Yes. You’re right.” The voice droned, a hint of supreme self-satisfaction behind it. “Let me do this, then.” The next moment, the ground Konoha stood on turned black, rose up, and started to swallow him. Konoha did nothing to defend himself. “Wh-what’re you doing?! Stop…! Stop it!!” “He is going to your ‘friends.’ And let me say, I am very glad that was your wish for me. Even a pile of ‘embers’ like you has a ‘master.’ If you do not wish for anything, I cannot ‘fulfill’ anything.” Konoha’s eyes continued to look at me. My face, as seen in my head, was transformed into a mask of wild desperation. Oh. So that was it. The owner of this voice, under the pretense of granting me a wish, had snatched away my body. And now he was trying to take it to the real world. “What’re you gonna do with it? Over in the real world?” “Oh, this is just a ‘trait’ of the system. We are being called by the ‘goddess,’ and it is your wishes that set the whole system into motion. What I do with it depends entirely on you.” “…That’s terrible.” “How could you say that? There are many far more terrible than me. Wasn’t one of them the main reason you came here?” By the time the voice stopped, “Konoha” was completely swallowed by the black. The main reason? There couldn’t have been any “main” cause of death besides my illness. What was the voice talking about? After a few moments of silence, a sound rang out in my mind. I instinctively realized this was what “Konoha” was hearing. It was muffled, like he was underwater, and it sounded like some kind of machine humming along. Then: someone’s sneering laugh. The tone of voice was completely off-kilter, so I didn’t understand who it was for a second, but then I realized in the next instant. “Mr. Tateyama…?” That voice definitely belonged to my teacher. But why? “…You did want it, didn’t you? A stronger body.” Mr. Tateyama’s voice wasn’t the laid-back, friendly one I remembered. It was cold, calculating, like the guttural drone from before. “That’s why I chose you. Good thing ‘Awakening’ just waltzed right in for me, too…Phase One looks like a success, anyway.” Whether he knew I was hearing him, I couldn’t say. “Ha-ha! I wasn’t expecting results like this on the first try. The year I spent preparing for this certainly seems worth it now…But let me tell you, it was rough! I mean, someone who can’t stop sleeping and someone with a weakened body? Throwing both of you in there at the same time…What a pain in the ass that was.” Just then, images came back into my mind. Konoha must have opened his eyes. It was dark, but I could see a large array of monitors, of all different sizes. It looked like some kind of lab. Just as I’d surmised, Mr. Tateyama was there, and behind him was…No, it couldn’t be…! “Oh, are you awake, Konoha? Well, sorry. I know you’re here to see your friends and all, but…” The body of Takane, laid down behind my teacher, shocked me into silence. “Sad to say, the friend you want to ‘play around’ with so much…Well, she’s dead.”