“Is there? Really?” Akuto asked. Hiroshi’s response was immediate.
“If you feel bad, it means you feel some degree of responsibility. The people within you are pawns, but you don’t think of them as pawns.”
Akuto gasped.
“I see. I’ve got a responsibility not just towards you, but to the ghosts who were once personalities too, don’t I? When it comes down to it, I’m the king of the ghosts.” He nibbled his peach in contemplation. “Humanity went extinct, and everyone became data, you could say. But even in the past, people’s actions were digitized.”
“If you became digitized, boss, it means you had a real soul. That’s something Boichiro told me.”
“A real soul? In other words, something that makes me what I am. That was the concept that took root in Zero. And also the meaning of the Law of Identity.”
“Correct. It can’t be called anything but a ‘concept’, but we still need to treat it as something real. We need to assume that anything under the Law of Identity’s influence has a soul.”
“I see. So if we assume that a soul is real, that means there’s a difference between ghosts and data. The black mages always did say that necromancy was an incomplete field.”
“And that’s why you can summon ghosts.”
“Ghosts, huh?” Akuto mused, “And if I can do that, I can figure out what my mistake is, and maybe understand the nature of this world, huh?”
Akuto tossed the peach he’d been eating into the air. When it landed, a long table appeared. There were four chairs there. Before long, someone appeared from beyond the horizon. The image of them seemed to be wavering like a mirage, but as they approached, they became clearer and more distinct. It was a young girl.
Perhaps he hadn’t expected to see her, or perhaps Boichiro’s memories held some degree of influence over him, because Hiroshi gasped in surprise.
“Eiko Teruya!”
A slim, well-proportioned body, with long hair tied behind her back. It was indeed the girl who’d once used a complicated conspiracy to get Akuto to agree to her deal.
“My memories are an absolute mess,” she said, complaining to Akuto as if it had only happened yesterday. She pushed her way past Hiroshi, casting a pridefully indignant expression toward Akuto.
“I understand. You lived in a prison. But if you grow used to introspection, there’s no place easier to live in than a prison. Anyway, sit down. I prepared a table and chairs so we could have a long chat.” Akuto spoke gently to the new arrival.
“Hah! You’re a nasty one, aren’t you? Fine, I will. I’m going to hate you so much that you’ll eventually go crazy from it.”
She went around to the other side of the table, before sitting down in the middle chair and crossing her long legs, as if to show them off. Her underwear was showing, but that seemed entirely deliberate.
“Well, I was never able to come to like you, you know,” Akuto began.
Eiko snorted.
“Sometimes things between men and women don’t go well regardless of whether you like somebody or not. You’ve lived thousands of years, and yet you’re still just a child, Akuto Sai.”
“You’re not even 20 yet,” Hiroshi interrupted. Eiko gave him a scathing glare.
“Age isn’t everything. Before, you seemed like the adult to me.”
“When I was trying to find the Law of Identity, you betrayed me.”
Eiko just grinned.
“We’re not all here to talk about what a bitch I am, are we? And anyway, I did what was right.”
“Right?” Akuto raised an eyebrow. “How were you right? All you did was do what the computer gods told you, and try to raise your status in the real world.”
Eiko smiled.
“I don’t think that’s wrong. Whether the world ended up destroyed or not, that would happen long after my generation. Have fun while you’re alive, and leave a good society for the next generation. If the end of the world only comes a long time after that, what else can you do? You and I, or maybe Boichiro and I, depending on who I’m talking to, could’ve gone to the future together.”
“You tried to take control of society, didn’t you? By altering the gods’ data to deceive people.”
“And what’s wrong with that? You’re so arrogant. Here, you’re trying people as a collective. The citizenry. The masses. The people. The mob. The crowd. It doesn’t matter what word you use. They’ve all sunk into the background, if nothing else. You should’ve figured this out after the end of the world. You did something stupid to try and control people. You tried to give them a religion.”
Akuto fell silent.
“You and I are the same. Maybe I didn’t know the truth about what was coming in the distant future, but if you had infinite time, you would’ve done the same thing I did.”
“That’s right. It’s the same thing.” Akuto was practically choking on the admission.
“Just like you, I didn’t believe in religion. Just like you, I looked down on people who acted without thinking. But the reason you didn’t come with me was that at your core, you believed in eschatology and the creator of the world. You were actually a believer, in something that was illogical.”
Eiko mocked him. There was nothing in her words that he could dispute, though, so he simply slumped into his chair. Both Akuto and Boichiro were believers in the Law of Identity. Eiko’s face warped into a victorious grin.
“I haven’t felt this satisfied since I died,” she said. But Hiroshi cut her off.
“Normally, when you die you don’t get a chance to defend yourself. And the imprisoned are not facing justice, either.”
Hiroshi’s tone suddenly changed. He stepped away from the small table Akuto was sitting at and went around to the longer one.
“Maybe this is to be expected, since you’re the Demon King, but you shouldn’t need that kind of forgiveness. You don’t want to claim that you are the Demon King, I’m sure.”
Hiroshi’s face had, at some point, turned into Boichiro’s.