Chapter 78

17 The corridor was sterile and white. The scent of pharmaceuticals hung in the air, and the Clack-Clack of high heels rang down the hallway. Milo stopped in front of a door that looked as if it didn’t see much use. He flashed a mischievous grin and burst into the room. “Boo!” “Whaaah?!” The person within fell out of his chair in shock. Milo laughed and extended a hand to help the young man up. “O-ow…,” the man on the floor groaned. “You could at least knock… Oh, it’s you, Nekoyanagi.” “I told you not to call me that,” replied Milo. “It’s such a mouthful! Domino’s fine.” “…O-okay, Domino…” “You were up all night again, weren’t you, Akaboshi? You should see the bags under your eyes. They’re insane!” Then Milo leaned over and peered into the man’s face. Red hair and red eyes. There was no doubt about it; this man was the very same Apollo with whom Milo and his partner had been locked in a mortal struggle just a few minutes earlier. But at the same time, he looked different somehow. Younger, certainly, but also his nervousness, plain to see on his face, was a far cry from the ruthless and emotionless Apollo whom Milo had met. “My god, look at your trash can! It’s full of Red Bull cans! Have you been drinking all these? You’ll have a heart attack!” “Hey…Domino… Don’t look through my…” “So?” said Milo, swiveling around and swishing his long sky-blue hair. “You didn’t pull an all-nighter for nothing, right? The look on your face tells me you’re in a good mood. Bags aside, of course.” “…!” Apollo’s face immediately brightened. “You want to…see my research?” “Don’t I always? Don’t act so surprised.” “Look at this, Domino!” Apollo turned to a cylindrical glass tank containing a floating cube, its surface constantly shifting. “It looks just like before. Did something happen?” “Okay, keep looking at it…and think of a shape. Anything you like.” “A shape?” Milo looked at the cube and frowned in concentration, drawing a shape in his mind. As he did, the particles in the tank re-formed, changing shape as if bending to his will. “W-w-w-whoa! That’s insane!” “Um, Domino. What shape is that?” “A mushroom.” Apollo looked back at the floating shape and nodded appreciatively. Milo took his hand, pulled him up out of his chair, and started hopping up and down in excitement. “This is amazing! You did it, Apollo! Nobody’s been able to isolate the particles that can record what people are thinking before!” “W-wait, Domino. They don’t just record thought; these particles can be completely controlled by the mind. Think about the possibilities. We could have robot bodies for the disabled…high-precision medical tools… You can make anything you want out of them!” Though Apollo spoke falteringly, Milo was stunned by the scale of what he was saying. “That’s insane… Really?” “Domino! I need your help. When my research is complete, I need to get it out there… But I’m awkward, and nobody knows my name. You’re much better than me at that sort of thing, and I want to know it’ll be in safe hands, so… I want us to pretend you’re the one who made the discovery.” Bonk! “Ow! Not the corner!” “You moron,” said Milo, wielding a hefty book. “If that’s the only problem, then we’ve just got to make you more sociable. I bet it’s because you spend all your time in here. The isolation is getting to your head!” Milo looked Apollo up and down before nodding in understanding and crossing his arms proudly. “Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll make the introductions for you. Some big company… Let’s say, Matoba. But you have to take care of the rest! First things first, we need to get you out of that geeky lab coat and do something about that hunch. We’ll make a socialite out of you yet, Apollo!” “A socialite? M-me? Th-that’s impossible!” “You’ve already done one impossible thing today. What’s one more? Starting today, you’re Apollo Akaboshi, world-famous inventor!” Milo stopped and scratched his chin. “That’s right, we’ll need to print business cards. Say, what did you call them anyway?” “Th-the particles? I haven’t thought of a name yet…,” said Apollo, wringing his hands and looking up meekly at Milo. “Besides, y-you’re much more creative than me… What do you think we should call them?” “Hmm. How about, ‘Apollo Particles’?” “A-Apollo Particles?! I can’t name them after me!” “Why not? That’s what all the great scientists do.” Milo checked his wristwatch and muttered, “Wuh-oh!” before rushing to the door. “Akaboshi, you have tomorrow off, right? Let’s go and buy you a suit. We’ll meet here tomorrow morning at ten, okay?” “D-Domino!” Apollo called out after him. “…Thank you, Domino. This is all thanks to you.” “…” Milo turned back, walked over to Apollo, and wrapped his arms around him in a hug. His spiky hair was a little painful on his cheek, but he chose to ignore it. “I’m proud of you, Apollo. Even if nobody else understands you, I do. And I’ll be with you forever if that’s what you want…” Milo continued to embrace Apollo for a few seconds before letting go and returning to the door, walking briskly down the hall. He was embarrassed because he knew Apollo had seen how much he was blushing. What was that? Milo fell out of the memory and into a sheer-white expanse. For a while, it was hard to remember who he was. Even when he did, it was vague, as if he shared his existence with another. Their emotions blanketed his mind, soft and warm like a down quilt. It’s so comforting… One of those emotions was one that Milo knew well. Love. It came as an odd relief to know that the stranger invading his mind knew of love as well. Then Milo continued to fall, into the new memory that awaited him below. “Slow down, Akaboshi! We’re here today to teach you table manners, not to watch you gorge yourself!” “Table manners?” “That’s right. Think of this as your next topic of research. Etiquette. You must not breach etiquette! Can you promise me that?” “Um…sure. I promise. If you say so.” “Good. Now then, with cutlery, you start from the outside…” “Hey, where are you going?! This is your friend’s wedding!” “O-oh, I just got a call from the lab. It might be about the particles…” “Turn off your phone! Only the bride and groom, and the father of the bride, can cross the aisle! That’s the rules!” “Domino, take a look at these particles! These are what the Matoba CEO requested.” “…These are Apollo Particles…? They look all brown, like rust. And they’re all wiggly.” “I commanded the particles to replicate themselves. Once they turn this color, they’ll devour anything they can find and keep multiplying.” “What…? But, Apollo, that’s dangerous! Why did you…?” “Listen to me, Domino. We need the world to see what we’ve done here. If we can’t get the arms manufacturers at Matoba to accept our research, it’ll never leave this room. If we want to make people’s lives better, then this is a necessary step. Do you understand?” “This is…a ring! For me…?” “Well, um… It is proper etiquette for the man to propose to the woman, is it not…?” “Oh, Apollo!” “Waaah! D-Domino! It’s bad manners to display affection in public!” “You big dummy! Who cares about that?!” A zoetrope of memories flashed through Milo’s mind as he fell. Though he knew not where he was anymore, he felt no fear. He was aware that something was guiding him, leading him to some discovery that lurked just around the corner… …As he entered the next memory, Milo felt a sharp pain in his heart. This was the end of the line, and Milo steeled his nerves to face whatever he was about to witness. “It’s a coup! Matoba is attacking the capital!” “Stop Tetsujin! It’s about to crush the Imperial Palace!” Milo pushed through the streets of Tokyo, fighting a current of fleeing people. He clung to the barbed-wire fortifications hastily erected by the JSDF and looked up to the sky, where a formation of fighter jets soared overhead and off toward Tetsujin, unleashing a salvo of missiles. Tetsujin, however, brand-new and with the Matoba crest on its breastplate, swung one of its titanic arms and knocked the missiles out of the sky. “Stoppp! Stop attacking it!” “Who let that woman in? Civilians are under evacuation orders! It’s dangerous here!” “You don’t understand! Tetsujin is powered by the Apollo Engine! If it explodes mid-operation, the brown Apollo Particles will be scattered across the land!” “What the hell are you talking about?! Someone take her away!” “Please stop attacking! Somebody call a scientist!” Milo screamed as several strong men dragged him away. Then, right before his eyes, he watched as a cascade of armor-piercing missiles swept across the sky. Like a scene from a monster movie, the missiles slammed into the rampaging Tetsujin with a barrage of explosions. “Confirmed deactivation of Tetsujin! Ground troops, advance! Fan out and search for survivors!” “Ahhh… No…! No…!” Milo watched in horror as a thin wisp of brown particles spilled from the hole in Tetsujin’s torso, clinging to the outside of its frame. “…Run…” “What are you doing, woman? Come with me!” “No! We have to run! Everyone, run!” Boooom! The tremendous shock wave wiped out all sound, and a ring-shaped cloud of brown particles swept over the city. In a single breath, all that lived was transformed into brown dust. The fighter jets overhead became nothing more than airborne clods of rusty metal as the blast wave passed over them, and they fell to earth in a fiery streak. “Ah. Ahhh… Ahhh…” Milo sifted his hands through the brown sand at his feet, all that remained of the soldiers who detained him. He looked up to the sky in despair. A tenth of a second was all it had taken for the world to end. “…Cough…” The blood spilled from his lungs, and Milo felt the moist puddles at his knees. He devoted his mind to willing the Apollo Particles away, ordering them to leave him alone, but the rust-colored wind was far too strong to resist. A fierce gale swept up the Apollo Particles, and with each gust, Milo coughed up another lungful of blood, and a building behind him corroded away into dust. “Domino!” “A…pollo…” A figure with red hair walked steadily through the Rust Wind. Milo summoned up all the courage in his heart and gave one final smile for Domino’s beloved Apollo. “Thank…goodness…you’re safe…” “Domino… No, this can’t be happening!” Apollo took the dying Milo into his arms, trembling with fear. Only their creator, Apollo Akaboshi, had such command over the particles that he could subconsciously protect himself from the destructive winds. “Forgive me…Apollo. I shouldn’t have handed over your research to those maniacs. I knew how powerful the particles would be in the wrong hands…and yet…” “Don’t speak, Domino. Oh god, the blood…!” “This wind…the Rust Wind…has been ordered to replicate. Nobody can stop the Apollo Particles now. They’ll devour all of Japan…and it’s all my fault…” “I won’t let that happen!” roared Apollo as he held his dying love in his arms. “I’ll bring it all back from the ashes! I’ll bring you back, no matter how long it takes! Ten years! A hundred years! I’ll rewind the world, back to the way it was before!” “Apollo…” “So please…!” He looked down at his beloved’s face and gave an awkward smile. “…Just rest, sweet Domino. We’ll meet again.” “…Yeah. I’ll be waiting. However long it takes…Apollo…” With the last of his strength, Milo pulled himself up off the ground and brought Domino’s lips close to Apollo’s. The feeling of their kiss was so powerful, he couldn’t even feel the pain as the rest of his body dissolved away into nothing. Pop! “Wha-waaah?!” There was a strange sensation, like falling through a wall of cotton candy, and Milo was himself again. He landed on an unimaginably soft and springy floor that bounced him back up into the air so many times that he started to feel quite sick. …Wh-where am I? Milo looked around, but it was pure white as far as he could see. He tried to drag himself to his feet, but the ground beneath him was so soft, his legs almost fell right through it. Then there was a voice. “Ta-daaa!” “Whaa?!” “Congratulations! You’ve reached the core of the server!” A pair of high heels landed on the floor before him, and Milo looked up to see a beautiful woman with long sky-blue hair, dressed in a white lab coat. She leaned over and peered into Milo’s surprised face, scrutinizing him for a moment, before nodding in satisfaction. “Hmm! You’re super cute! And handsome! That’s my genetics at work!” “…You’re…Domino! Our ancestor!” “You’ve done very well, Milo. You stopped the server; it can’t handle two people being in the admin room at once,” said the blue-haired woman, Domino Nekoyanagi, as she gave a bright smile so similar to Milo’s own. “The restoration has stopped. You’ve won, Milo! It’s game over for Apollo!” “The restoration…has stopped? Th-thank goodness!” Milo breathed a deep sigh of relief, then suddenly lifted his face once more. Domino’s smile was right there, as if she had been waiting for him. “I know,” she said. “You want to go back, don’t you? To save Bisco.” “…Will you let me? I mean, you loved Apollo, didn’t you?” “Oh, gosh…! Yes, but I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I think I died in such a romantic way that Apollo just got carried away…” “…” “He cut out his emotions. All to bring back the year 2028… No, not even that… It was all to bring me back… I didn’t ask for any of this. My children were always free to grow up without me. I never needed to be there…” Domino brushed her hand gently against Milo’s cheek and smiled, her eyes wet with tears. “I’m happy that Apollo would go so far for my sake, but it’s not right. We’re just ghosts living in a world that doesn’t need us. The future belongs to you. Isn’t that right, Milo?” “Domino…” “Milo, go help Bisco. And stop Apollo for me. Please.” Milo stared into her face, so similar to his own. He took her hands, soft like his, and gave her a determined nod. The light in his eyes showed her just how powerfully life had flourished in all those years Domino had spent in the void. “…Good. I’ll entrust the rest of my power to you, Milo.” “Your…power?” “And tell them both…I love them. I’ve always been watching…” From their clasped hands, Milo felt a power unlike anything he had ever experienced flowing into him. As she took Milo into her arms, Domino began to glow, her whole body shining like an aurora in the seven colors of the rainbow.