“Of course not!” he shook his head happily.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Then what should we do?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“There’s nothing we can do. We just have to give up and wait to be wiped out, writhing in fear!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Fear?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I imagine we’ll all be very scared,” he said, his mood only improving.
✦ ✦ ✦
Makiko chuckled, “Sounds terrible,” as if it did not affect her either.
✦ ✦ ✦
“It will be,” the patient said, like a dog with its tongue hanging out and tail wagging.
✦ ✦ ✦
The Beach Boys’ clear voices were singing
✦ ✦ ✦
“Surf’s Up/Aboard a Tidal Wave” over the examining room speakers.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Please take a seat, Miyashita-san,” Makiko suggested. Only then did the woman sit.
✦ ✦ ✦
Her daughter remained standing.
✦ ✦ ✦
“So. What brings you here today?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Y-yes. Um. . .well, um, this girl. . .um..."
✦ ✦ ✦
"........."
✦ ✦ ✦
The mother glanced at her daughter with a look that could only be described as loathing. The girl was tense and very embarrassed. She couldn’t believe her mother had brought her here. She seemed quiet enough, though-there were no outward signs of anything unusual.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What about her?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Um. . .doctor. . .you’ve heard of multiple personality disorder?” the mother blurted.
✦ ✦ ✦
Makiko grimaced. “Yes, of course.” That was a foolish question to ask an expert in the field.
✦ ✦ ✦
The mother failed to notice Makiko’s tone. “Th-that’s what’s wrong with my daughter!” she almost shrieked.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Now, now, Miyashita-san,” Makiko soothed.
✦ ✦ ✦
“She is! I’m sure of it!” the mother insisted, stridently.
✦ ✦ ✦
Makiko glanced at the daughter. She was absolutely mortified and had turned bright red.
✦ ✦ ✦
“There is a very strange man’s personality inside my daughter’s mind! There is! He almost killed me!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Mom!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“You be quiet!” The mother snapped, hysterical.
✦ ✦ ✦
She seemed far crazier than her daughter.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Well, Miyashita-san, I don’t know what hap-
✦ ✦ ✦
pened, but multiple personality disorder is, in most cases, a fraud. Particularly in this country...there are almost no recorded cases,” Makiko explained.
✦ ✦ ✦
The mother went pale, and moaned something,
✦ ✦ ✦
but she was too worked up for Makiko to understand a word of it.
✦ ✦ ✦
“At any rate, may I speak with your daughter in private?” Makiko said, concealing her irritation. She summoned the nurse, who led the mother out of the room.
✦ ✦ ✦
When they were alone together, the daughter
✦ ✦ ✦
sighed.
✦ ✦ ✦
“So, are you a split personality? Miss. . .uhm.
✦ ✦ ✦
Makiko glanced down at the chart and continued
✦ ✦ ✦
"...Miyashita Touka?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“So she says. Not that I can tell, but...” Touka shook her head.
✦ ✦ ✦
The music stopped. The cassette had finished.
✦ ✦ ✦
Makiko absently switched it to the next one on the stack, and pressed play.
✦ ✦ ✦
Classical music. Tannhauser.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Do you have any idea why your mother came
✦ ✦ ✦
to believe this?”
✦ ✦ ✦
I was asleep, and my mother suddenly came
✦ ✦ ✦
into the room and shouted ‘Who are you?!’ and I woke up, surprised.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“You were asleep?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Yes. Lately, I’ve been wondering if I was moving around while I slept, like a sleepwalker.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“But that doesn’t explain why she asked, ‘Who are you?’ What made her do that?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Touka sighed again.
✦ ✦ ✦
Makiko changed tactics. “Is your mother. . .getting along with your father?” she asked.
✦ ✦ ✦
Touka looked surprised. “N-not. . .I mean...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I don’t think that’s the only reason, but martial stress can sometimes lead to psychological problems,”
✦ ✦ ✦
Makiko said, watching Miyashita Touka closely.
✦ ✦ ✦
There were no signs of anything unusual. Her main source of fear seemed to be her uncle, who had once scolded her furiously but was dead now. She was neither weak nor particularly strong.
✦ ✦ ✦
The mother, despite being married with a child, held a violent fear of men.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Well, uhm,” Touka said, flummoxed.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Well, I can’t say anything yet. Why don’t we test you first?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Huh? Test. . .what?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“We can try and find out if you do have another personality,” Makiko said, half in jest. It was her last patient of the day. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to fool around a little. Besides, she was curious. She’d never met anyone who actually had MPD, just people suffering from the delusion that they did. And this girl showed no signs of having such a tiresome delusion.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Eh. . .I dunno,” Touka said, awkwardly.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Your mother said...‘a strange man’? Try and imagine yourself being someone like that. If you really aren’t a split personality, you’ll make a mistake when you try and pretend you are.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“But, I can’t...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Listen. It is perfectly natural for every human to have more than one side to them. It is not at all easy to figure out if that is really Multiple Personality Disorder. Every girl has masculine traits, just as every boy has their feminine side. So there’s no harm in giving it a try.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I-I guess not...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“That doesn’t sound like something a man would say.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, right. Uh, why, no,” T ouka said, awk-
✦ ✦ ✦
wardly switching to masculine forms of speech.
✦ ✦ ✦
She even tried to scowl in a manly fashion. Getting into it.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Okay?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“S-sure.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“So, what kind of man are you? You’ve been described as strange, so you must be unusual,” Makiko said, grinning.
✦ ✦ ✦
The music ended, and the next track came on.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was the same composer, but the music had
✦ ✦ ✦
abruptly become very stirring. High pitched fanfares blazed away as Makiko waited for a. response.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Man, Woman. . .you may call me whichever
✦ ✦ ✦
you prefer,” Touka said, her expression shifting to match the music. It was a strange expression, a sort of mocking smile.
✦ ✦ ✦
Makiko had never seen anyone look like that
✦ ✦ ✦
before.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh? Your gender is ambiguous? That is strange,”
✦ ✦ ✦
Makiko said, impressed with Touka’s reaction. “So why are you inside Touka?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I do not know that yet,” ‘he’ said, shaking his head. “But I do know my mission.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh? And what would that be?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I must avert threats to the world,” he said, very serious. There was not a trace of the smile or excite-ment her earlier patient had displayed when discussing the same topic. This person was calm and collected.
✦ ✦ ✦
“So you think the world’s in danger?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Apparently it is. An enemy of the world has appeared near me,” he said, shrugging. “If I do nothing, the world will be destroyed. I regret causing trouble for Miyashita Touka and her mother, but I had no choice.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“That’s quite a scale you’re working on,” Makiko said, a little nonplussed. Touka’s performance was a little too good.
✦ ✦ ✦
But he remained unflappable.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Not really. Threats to the world are everywhere,”
✦ ✦ ✦
he said, firmly.
✦ ✦ ✦
His brazen manner was rattling Makiko. “Are
✦ ✦ ✦
there? But you don’t seem very scared,” she said, to cover her confiJsion.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I am not scared. Not of you,” he said, staring right at Makiko.
✦ ✦ ✦
Makiko gulped. She tried to detect Miyashita Touka’s fear again.
✦ ✦ ✦
But for some reason, she was unable to do so.
✦ ✦ ✦
The music around them shifted to a peaceful
✦ ✦ ✦
movement.
✦ ✦ ✦
“...what do you mean?” Makiko said, stiffen-
✦ ✦ ✦
ing.
✦ ✦ ✦
Once again, he spoke with utter confidence.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I mean. . .you are an enemy of the world.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The mood of the room shifted.
✦ ✦ ✦
They had been joking around, but that sense vanished, replaced with tension as tight as a bowstring ready to loose an arrow.
✦ ✦ ✦
“An enemy,” she said, her body tensing for flight, but careful not to let him know.
✦ ✦ ✦
This thing...
✦ ✦ ✦
Makiko glared at him.
✦ ✦ ✦
What is he? Is he really...no, thats absurd.
✦ ✦ ✦
Should she kill him?
✦ ✦ ✦
It would not be hard. They were in a hospital, and she was dealing with a patient. A strange death could easily be covered up.
✦ ✦ ✦
But...it still might attract more attention than she’d like. If he resisted. . .and their battle went beyond the privacy of the room, she couldn’t predict how many other people would get mixed up in the commotion and killed. She didn’t care about their lives, but the attention drawn by such an incident would be a problem.
✦ ✦ ✦
What should she do?
✦ ✦ ✦
“Yes, an enemy,” he said, so calm she could not tell if he knew what she was thinking or not. The tension mounted even higher, until it reached a level that could only be described as murderous.
✦ ✦ ✦
Until...
✦ ✦ ✦
“But not only you.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The course of the conversation changed.
✦ ✦ ✦
“To be strictly accurate, the potential to become the world’s enemy lies in every human. Humans are like fuses...they can break at the slightest opportunity.
✦ ✦ ✦
Any human is capable of shaking the foundation of the world without a thought for the consequences...”
✦ ✦ ✦
He sighed. His manner was nothing like Mi-
✦ ✦ ✦
yashita Touka’s. He seemed to be living in a much harsher reality.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I could be described as the natural predator of that type of person.”
✦ ✦ ✦
There was something artificial, something staged about his behavior. Makiko was relieved.
✦ ✦ ✦
Oh...
✦ ✦ ✦
The conversation had become very abstract. She started to relax. This was nothing but a susceptible girl’s fantasy.
✦ ✦ ✦
“If all humans are like that, then I guess that does include me.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“It does.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“But is everyone that dangerous? I think most people are pretty normal.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Being normal is what makes them dangerous.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“How so?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“If you encounter. something truly unique,
✦ ✦ ✦
people with a strong sense of self can accept that calmly. But if someone is too normal, they will get swallowed by the waves, pulled along by the current. That kind of rampage is the most dangerous.