Chapter 84

22 The alliance quickly fell apart in the absence of the unifying threat of Tokyo, and following Pawoo’s triumphant return to Imihama, the ever-feuding powers were at one another’s throats once more. Though saying that, pretty much everyone had suffered heavy losses in the war, and so a small peace did reign as prefectures looked to repair the damage done to their lands. In Hyogo Prefecture, the chairman of Matoba Heavy Industries was initially overjoyed to find that the urbanization had actually improved the realm’s productivity. His happiness was short-lived, however, as the engineers who understood the technology objected to the weapons program and splintered off to form other firms centered on medicine and transport infrastructure. Thus, did Matoba quickly fall from market leadership and the land of Hyogo become home once more to a vast number of competing industries. As for Kyoto, former seat of the Japanese central government and first to fall at the hands of the White Apollos, once it became clear the war was over, the politicians came scuttling out of their hiding places and returned to work, choosing the new urbanized prefectural bureau as their base of operations. The badgers who had taken up residence in the area had more than a few choice words for these opportunistic scoundrels, but the government paid them a hefty sum of money to kindly take their business elsewhere, and so they did. Every now and then, however, you would hear tales of civil servants going missing in the hallways, or of elevators swallowing up an intern or two, never to be seen again. Once the government was reinstated, persecution against the Mushroom Keepers came back in full force. However, everyone had now fought alongside them and knew them to be trustworthy folk. Still, they were an unsociable people by nature, so their lifestyle ended up being not too dissimilar from persecution anyway. The freedom to come and go as they pleased, however, proved great comfort to the Mushroom Keepers, who eagerly traded with the cities for comics, films, game consoles, and other diversions of the old world. And all across the land, people were starting to realize that something very strange had happened. The scattered showers of rainbow dust that had occurred all over the country the day Tokyo fell never became more than a passing comment about the weather to most people, soon falling out of the collective public psyche beyond a rather vocal minority who took it as a sign the world was ending. But a few days later, people noticed a steady decline in the number of people catching the Rust, and there were even reports of patients recovering under their own power. It was happening slowly, but the spores of the rainbowshrooms were allowing mankind to coexist with the Rust, elevating them to the next step in their evolution. Of course, it was not only humans who benefited from this blessing, but all living creatures, some of which mutated into ever more dangerous variants. But the mushrooms do not play favorites to humanity. That is simply life. No one could predict what the future held, now that the shackles of the Rust had fallen away. But there was sure to be no good or evil there. Humanity, and indeed life itself, had been set upon a new path, with only one another’s beating hearts for company. And I would have liked to end this tale there. However, there is one more story that must be told. A story of two boys, somewhere in this vast and thriving world. Two boys who tore down the walls obstructing humanity, walls that no one even knew were there. Like a bow and arrow. Like a meteor. We go now to these two boys, to see what fate awaits them at the end of it all. “…There. Got it out. Now we just have to disinfect it. Wash your mouth out with this, please.” “Is that the end, Dr. Panda?” “All done! If it bleeds, chew on one of these cottonshrooms, okay?” “Maw! Mah bad tooth’s all gone!” “Say thank you to the lovely doctor, sweetie. Here, your fee.” “Oh, no, I couldn’t take so much. It was only a simple procedure.” “Really? Well, you oughtta take half, all the same.” Somewhere in the north of Tagakushi Prefecture, the badgers had set up a new camp in the ruins of a large shopping mall brought down by the Nagano air force. Bisco and Milo were here to obtain a replacement for Bisco’s beloved cat-eye goggles, which Milo had let burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. As far as Milo was concerned, his partner ought to be off enjoying the perks of married life, but Bisco seemed to find the constant hair in his eyes quite distracting, and after all, it was Milo himself who had caused the goggles to meet their untimely demise in the first place. So in the end, he had agreed to help. “Hey, what the hell’re you tryin’ to pull? Who’s gonna pay fifty sols for this old model?!” Milo looked up from his sink at the sound of Bisco’s angry voice. “Listen, son. Goggles like these are a rarity these days. This here’s a vintage item, and ya won’t find workmanship this solid comin’ outta the factories, I tell ya.” “I know, but the price…” “Well, I suppose it’s a little outside of a young man’s budget. Pity they reset the bounty system, wouldn’t ya say?” “Why’s that? I ain’t got no interest in tradin’ heads for scraps.” “You wouldn’t need to, Akaboshi. Just turn yerself in an’ pocket the three mil.” Milo poked his head outside the tent that read TRAVELING PANDA CLINIC to see Bisco rolling about with laughter at the heavily armored badger’s awful joke. “Oh, Milo,” he said when he noticed his partner’s arrival. “Gimme fifty sols, will ya?” “Whaaat?! I have to pay?!” “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be here in the first place, you dumb panda!” But just as the two boys launched into another of their farcical spats… “Waaaah!” …a scream erupted from the far side of the ruins. Bisco and Milo spun around to see a large white reptile clinging to the side of one of the buildings. “What the hell? A chameleon?!” “It’s a buildingchanger! It disguised itself in the ruins!” The mutated reptilian creature with a window-like pattern on its back had snatched up a crowd of people in its long tongue and was just about to swallow them whole. “I fear it’s already too late to save ’em. We gotta get the hell outta here!” “Hey, badger! How much of a discount will you give me if I take that thing down?” “You can’t be serious, pal!” “Milo!” Bisco yelled, and immediately a great orange meteorite landed at his side, his blue-haired partner atop the saddle. “Get on, Bisco!” Bisco leaped atop the crab as well, and Milo lashed the reins, spurring Actagawa on. Just before they disappeared, Bisco turned to the badger and yelled, “If I take that thing down, you gotta give me those goggles for free. Deal?” As Actagawa raced toward the foe, Milo flashed his bow, and his arrow embedded itself at the base of the buildingchanger’s tongue. His blue oyster mushrooms burst into being, freeing the trapped civilians. But Bisco just stared with his big green eyes. “It didn’t feel a thing. I knew it; the creatures round here are a lot tougher than before!” “Don’t do anything too reckless, Bisco! We’re not immortal like we were before!” “Maybe not in body, but we are in spirit!” Bisco pulled his bow tight, preparing the deadly finishing blow. The Rust-Eater spores, their part in this story apparently concluded, lay dormant in the Mushroom Keepers’ blood, never again appearing when they fired their bows. Still, their mantle was taken up by the flames of life that burned within them, and which ignited Bisco’s eyes with a fiery spark. “I’m sensing some strong Rust power from that creature! Are you sure you can handle it, Bisco?!” “Who the hell do you think I am?!” As the buildingchanger lashed its long tongue, Milo cried out, “Actagawa!” and the giant steelcrab leaped up into the air. The lizard creature peered up into the blinding light and saw a pair of piercing green eyes and red hair silhouetted against the sun. “I’m Rust-Eater Bisco! I help kids grow up big and strong!” Pchew! Thud! Gaboom! With a rumble of the earth, a gigantic King Trumpet mushroom pushed through the soil and erupted high into the sky, as if to touch the clouds. Then it shed a rain of glittering spores, emitting a warm and welcoming light. A light on all things. Good, evil. Faith, doubt. Humans, animals, plants. The past, the future, and today. And all living creatures, great and small. And all things that will one day meet their end saw in that light a new beginning. A light of blessing. A light of hope. For a few beautiful moments, all who saw it stood petrified with wonder. And then, once the moment passed, they each returned to their own lives.