Of course, my real goal was to broaden the area I could movd in. I wanted to see and know all kinds of things, and this feelin was driving me onwards.
✦ ✦ ✦
"......Um?"
✦ ✦ ✦
I stopped for a moment. There was a motorcycle abandoned; by the side of the road.
✦ ✦ ✦
I put my hand on it, and felt the engine was still warm.
✦ ✦ ✦
It looked like it had just run out of gas and been abandoned?
✦ ✦ ✦
And the way it was lying on its side suggested that the driver had been in quite a hurry.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Something’s definitely going on,” I said, swallowing.
✦ ✦ ✦
Just as I got back on my scooter to drive on, I heard music from up ahead.
✦ ✦ ✦
".........?" I listened closely.
✦ ✦ ✦
I’d heard the music somewhere before. I don’t know a lot: about music, but this music was famous enough that even I’d heard it. It had been used in some kind of commercial or something.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Was it Wagner...?"
✦ ✦ ✦
It was playing on every speaker they’d installed in the half-finished park.
✦ ✦ ✦
There should have been no power, but the music thundered onwards anyway.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What’s going on?!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Asukai dialed his phone, trying to figure out what was going on.
✦ ✦ ✦
But nobody answered.
✦ ✦ ✦
Presumably the electricity had been left connected, the break-crs shut off. But someone had clearly flipped the breakers back on again.
✦ ✦ ✦
There should have been watchmen posted throughout the park. Yet......
✦ ✦ ✦
".........?"
✦ ✦ ✦
Orihata Aya blinked her eyes at the bizarrely lively flood of sound.
✦ ✦ ✦
The composer was known for extremely long, tempestuous music, and one of his loudest and most flamboyant pieces seemed to be trying to bring this dying park back to life.
✦ ✦ ✦
The needle. A quarter of the contents had entered my blood-stream. Presumably, it was an anesthetic.
✦ ✦ ✦
(Unh......)
✦ ✦ ✦
The scenery seemed to be swaying.
✦ ✦ ✦
Events unfolded around me like an illusion.
✦ ✦ ✦
The clowns rushed at the cloaked figure......
✦ ✦ ✦
Who waved a hand, and with that, all the clowns started‘
✦ ✦ ✦
falling over......
✦ ✦ ✦
And as they fell over, they slid across the ground, moving: into one big pile, freezing into place like some sort of mosh; pit.
✦ ✦ ✦
Like magic......
✦ ✦ ✦
The cloaked figure started moving.
✦ ✦ ✦
The guy in the dinosaur costume leapt toward him.
✦ ✦ ✦
The cloaked figure moved his hand again, not even touching‘.
✦ ✦ ✦
the dinosaur, but knocking him over all the same.
✦ ✦ ✦
...... There was a trick to it.
✦ ✦ ✦
He was using thread. An extremely strong, extremely thin wire.
✦ ✦ ✦
I knew this, but. . .but he was barely moving, standing bolt upright, yet the way he was grabbing their legs, knocking them over, and tying them up despite their huge advantage in numbers could only be Viewed as the work of a magician.
✦ ✦ ✦
No, not a magician.
✦ ✦ ✦
A shinigami......
✦ ✦ ✦
Unlike me, he wasn’t bothered by the gender of his opponents. He never held back.
✦ ✦ ✦
And that music roared around him like madness itself.
✦ ✦ ✦
The people holding me down, seeing their companions being mowed down, jumped up. But they were met with the same fate.
✦ ✦ ✦
The cloaked figure stopped in front of me.
✦ ✦ ✦
“So now we meet,” he said, making a strange, asymmetrical expression. Was he smiling? Was he mocking me? “I didn’t plan to come out, but if I didn’t settle things quickly, a certain nosy someone was going to get herself mixed up in it.”
✦ ✦ ✦
"........." I couldn’t answer.
✦ ✦ ✦
A few more clowns and a lion attacked, but the cloaked figure dispensed with them without even swaying.
✦ ✦ ✦
He was moving with the melody and rhythm of the music, like a conductor.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Music is extremely effective in stirring people’s emotions.
✦ ✦ ✦
Much like makeup. But music can create a response in a great number of people simultaneously. It rattles them, robs them of their rational judgment,” he explained quietly, like a clergyman.
✦ ✦ ✦
I could do nothing but stare back at him, reacting exactly as he spoke.
✦ ✦ ✦
The drugs kept me from standing. But even so, I was so be-fuddled I would have toppled over of my own accord.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Th-this is...” I could hear my own teeth chattering. “This is what I. . . pretended to be?”
✦ ✦ ✦
Talk about completely out of my league; talk about nerve.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, that wasn’t your fault,” the ‘real’ one nodded. “You’d been brainwashed.”
✦ ✦ ✦
He said it so easily that I couldn’t grasp his meaning for a moment.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I’d what...?"
✦ ✦ ✦
“There should be at least one moment during your activities with Orihata Aya where your memories become indistinct. That is when Spooky E paralyzed your ‘fear,”’ he said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
✦ ✦ ✦
"............!"
✦ ✦ ✦
Leaving me stunned, the ‘real’ one moved past me, heading back into the fray.
✦ ✦ ✦
A moment later, everyone who had attacked him was lying on the ground, no longer moving. They were all unconscious.
✦ ✦ ✦
The ‘real’ one came back to me. Not even out of breath. He really. . .didn’t seem human.
✦ ✦ ✦
“You should probably take that needle out. You can move that much, right?” he said.
✦ ✦ ✦
I noticed that half the needle was still jammed into my arm.
✦ ✦ ✦
But the hell with that.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What do you mean?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Mm?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Brainwashed? How?”
✦ ✦ ✦
The ‘real’ one shrugged beneath the cloak. “The usual fashion.”
✦ ✦ ✦
"But that’s...!"
✦ ✦ ✦
“You know I’m right,” he said, calmly.
✦ ✦ ✦
That was true. ‘3'
✦ ✦ ✦
But...
✦ ✦ ✦
"But. . .then. . .then. . .I."
✦ ✦ ✦
I wasn’t acting of my own free will?
✦ ✦ ✦
My feelings were lies?
✦ ✦ ✦
“I...thought I was in love with Orihata...was that a lie as well. . .?” I was stunned, my mind completely blank.
✦ ✦ ✦
The music thundered on around me.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What have you ever thought about?” he suddenly asked.
✦ ✦ ✦
I raised my head, dazed.
✦ ✦ ✦
He was wavering right and left, probably because of the drugs.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Have you ever done anything that you are totally sure was of your own free will?”
✦ ✦ ✦
"............"
✦ ✦ ✦
“Adapting yourself to society is essentially being brainwashed to match societal requirements. The only difference from your situation is that the source of it is not clearly defined. There are no humans who have not been brainwashed.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Now the problem: within that context-within your brainwashed, restrained psyche-what do you value the most? Bound tightly by the world, what do you still desire?”
✦ ✦ ✦
"............"
✦ ✦ ✦
(I’m...)
✦ ✦ ✦
(I want...)
✦ ✦ ✦
The music grew even louder......
✦ ✦ ✦
(Wh-what was it...?)
✦ ✦ ✦
Asukai Jin had a pair of binoculars out, and was scanning the park below from atop The Ladder.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was almost dark, so he could barely see-but he found; several people lying on the ground.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What...?!”
✦ ✦ ✦
That ‘Boogiepop’ could not be this good, surely?
✦ ✦ ✦
Then. . .he was coming here.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What’s happening?” Orihata Aya asked. She was tied to a pillar in the center of the roof.
✦ ✦ ✦
“We can’t waste anymore time,” Asukai said, his back to her.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I have to deal with you right away.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Even now, Aya’s expression failed to change.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh. . .then get it over with,” she said, peacefully.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Okay-” and Asukai turned to head over to her. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks. ".........!"
✦ ✦ ✦
He was too late.
✦ ✦ ✦
There was a shadow standing directly behind Orihata Aya.
✦ ✦ ✦
But. . .something was strange.
✦ ✦ ✦
The shadow was shorter than Taniguchi Masaki.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Who are you. . .?!” Asukai cried.
✦ ✦ ✦
Aya turned to look behind her.
✦ ✦ ✦
Her face stiffened. “N-no. . . . . . !”
✦ ✦ ✦
The shadow looked like it had risen directly out of the darkness. Its mouth opened. “Don’t be so surprised, Camille-kun.
✦ ✦ ✦
You’ve been looking for me, haven’t you?”
✦ ✦ ✦
"....................."
✦ ✦ ✦
“Wh-what?” Asukai looked at Aya, and realized that this figure I; was hardly her ally. “Th-then who are you?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“You already know who I am,” the shadow said quietly.
✦ ✦ ✦
Asukai’s head was spinning.
✦ ✦ ✦
What in the name of god was going on? He couldn’t get a grip on anything.
✦ ✦ ✦
But. . .after all he’d done, he wasn’t about to let anyone stop him.
✦ ✦ ✦
“......Right!” Asukai whipped out the gun he had hidden in his pocket, the one he’d stolen from Kinukawa Kotoe.
✦ ✦ ✦
He fired without hesitation.
✦ ✦ ✦
The shadowy figure dodged it with ease.
✦ ✦ ✦
But by this time, Asukai had raced to Aya’s side. “St-stay still, and I won’t have to kill you!” Asukai said, one hand around Aya, the other aimed at the shadow.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Quite the philanthropist, Imaginator,” the shadow said.
✦ ✦ ✦
Asukai frowned. “If you know that name...!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Then what? You won’t let me live?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“...............?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“That’s unimportant. Go ahead, do what you’re going to do,”
✦ ✦ ✦
the shadow said unexpectedly.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I mean it. Do whatever you like, see if I care.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“...............?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“If you even can,” the shadow said, with a trace of derision.
✦ ✦ ✦
Asukai glanced sideways at Aya.
✦ ✦ ✦
Her face was white with fear. She clearly viewed the shadow as an enemy.
✦ ✦ ✦
(What the hell is he...?!)
✦ ✦ ✦
He’d never seen anyone like this...even worse: (Th-there’s no ‘vision’ at his chest. . . !) This being was beyond the scope of Asukai’s power.
✦ ✦ ✦
(I’ve never seen him. . .I’ve never seen him before. . .so why?
✦ ✦ ✦
Why do I feel like I already know him?)
✦ ✦ ✦
It was like he’d met something similar before. . .but ho could he?
✦ ✦ ✦
“What? Why hesitate now?” The shadow nagged. “Go on; get a move on.”
✦ ✦ ✦
It was as if he was looking forward to some great joke. . .but underneath, fundamentally not laughing at all.