FOR A WHILE, NO ONE said a word.
Ureshino’s eyes had popped wide open, like those of a startled cat. Aki looked down, pouting grouchily.
‘So why were we all brought here anyway?’ Fuka asked, breaking the silence. The others looked at her mutely. Fuka was staring into space. She seemed to be thinking aloud, trying to gather her thoughts.
‘So each of us is in a different parallel world at Yukishina No. 5 Junior High, none of us are actually going to school, and we can only meet in this castle through the mirrors. That’s the scenario, right?’
‘That’s about the size of it,’ Masamune said.
‘That does make sense,’ Kokoro said. She looked at the others. ‘When I realized we were all students at Yukishina No. 5 Junior High, I had my doubts about whether there could be so many kids from one school who had dropped out. Yukishina’s huge, but still, I was thinking, that’s a lot. But if our worlds are different, then I can understand it. If there’s one of us per year.’
‘But we don’t know if it’s one per year,’ Masamune said, letting out a big breath, still a little disgusted. He glared at Kokoro. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me if there’re other kids besides me who aren’t going.
‘It’s like, if there’s a lot of absenteeism, teachers will leap in, and try to assess what’s going wrong in a certain year or class. But really, a couple of kids might have their own issues and decide they want to take time off. I hate that trend – when teachers study school refusal and bullying, and put things into categories like generation and social background.’
‘I agree. If you and I were in the same class, Masamune, we’d have had our own personal reasons for not going to school,’ said Subaru.
He spoke lightly, and shot a pleasant smile at Kokoro. She felt she’d irritated Masamune, who was standing silently now, shoulders hunched.
‘But doesn’t that make sense? Each of us is from the same school, we’ve representative school dropouts from different years.’
‘And the only place we can all come together is in this castle. It’s like there are seven people’s worlds – with this castle at its centre. Something like that.’ Aki’s words spurred on an image in Kokoro’s head.
‘But then why is it we can only meet here? What’s the point?’ Aki asked.
Masamune’s expression changed. ‘It’s just that,’ he began, looking serious, ‘in most sci-fi and anime about parallel worlds, some of these worlds branch off, then vanish.’
‘Vanish?’
‘It’s easier if you think of it as a thick tree,’ Masamune said. ‘Actually, in lots of manga that’s how it’s illustrated. Anybody got a pencil?’
Fuka took out a notebook and pencil from her bag. Masamune started drawing on a blank sheet of paper.
‘OK, so you start off with the world as one big tree.’
Masamune drew a large trunk, and labelled it The World.
‘And our worlds now branch off.’
He drew branches coming out of either side of the trunk. Seven in all.
‘Each of these is one of our worlds – the world I’m in, in Minami Tokyo City, the world Rion’s in, the one Ureshino’s in. And if there’re too many of these worlds, it’s better that some disappear.’
‘But why?’ Ureshino and Kokoro said in unison. Disappear – vanish – neither one sounded good.
‘If it disappears, then what happens to the people in it? Do they die?’
‘It might be a little different from – dying. But they do disappear. It’s as if they were never there to begin with.’
‘But who decides if one is going to disappear? Whose choice is it?’
‘It’s different, depending on the set-up of the novel or manga. Most of the time it’s like the will of the world. Or the will of God.’
Masamune pointed his pencil at the drawing.
‘The trunk part decides that the branches are too heavy, and needs to get rid of some. Most of the time they use the term weed out. It’s like in nature, where those who adapt to the environment survive, and the others die out.’
Masamune looked up. ‘Anyhow, most fictional parallel worlds have that set-up, with worlds being weeded out and selected. Gate W’s like that too, no?’
‘Gate what?’
‘You know it, don’t you? I mean Gateworld. Nagahisa’s mega bestselling game at the moment? You seriously haven’t heard of it? No way.’
‘Nagahisa …?’ Subaru asked dubiously. Masamune looked irritated.
‘Laughlin Nagahisa, guys! The genius director of that video game development company.’ As he spoke, he seemed to give up. ‘Jeez – do I have to start from scratch?’ He scratched his head. ‘Do you actually need me to explain the famous parallel world story? You people don’t even know the most basic things.’
‘I know it. They made it into a movie too, didn’t they?’ Ureshino said.
‘No, they didn’t. Forget it. If you don’t know, then just keep quiet.’ Masamune shook his head as if they were getting nowhere.
‘In Gateworld,’ he went on, ‘the representatives from each of the parallel worlds get together to fight it out. The ones who lose, their worlds vanish, so it’s a story about which world survives. The winning world becomes the sole trunk left. So they all fight to the death so their world can continue. That’s the kind of game it is.’
‘Are you saying that’s what’s happening to us?’ Subaru asked.
Masamune shrugged. ‘I thought it was a possibility. It’s pretty unique, don’t you think, for us to gather here? If we’re representatives of seven worlds, then this is like a world summit or something. There’s gotta be something they want us representatives to do. And then I remembered – the quest for the key.’
Masamune waited a moment. ‘I feel like the Wishing Key that grants wishes is suggestive of something. Only the world of the person who finds the key survives, and the rest all vanish. I was thinking maybe this is how our game plays out.’
‘All worlds except one disappear?’
Disappear – the idea didn’t seem quite real, and Kokoro had her doubts.
Kokoro’s home, waiting for her when she went back through the mirror. Her parents, her school; like it or not, the real class with Miori Sanada and Tojo-san.
How could they all vanish?
I can’t bear to think about it. And then another emotion welled up inside her, which felt unexpected. Actually – it might be OK after all. It might be OK if they all somehow disappear. She wasn’t planning on going back to school. And she couldn’t picture herself starting at some other school.
A hope had always burned inside her: the possibility that she could meet these kids outside the castle. Thinking that the others existed somewhere out there had been like the beam from a lighthouse, shining in the dark sea of her heart.
How had the others understood it? She didn’t know. The one thing they did seem to share, though, was a sense of bewilderment. Kokoro hadn’t thought about it in ages – this Wishing Key they’d once falteringly searched for but never found. Masamune’s story seemed even more believable.
Apart from the world of the person who located the key, everyone else’s worlds would vanish.
‘The Wolf Queen told us, didn’t she?’ Masamune said. ‘That if a wish is granted then all of our memories will disappear. But if the key isn’t found, and a wish isn’t granted, our memories remain. Even when the castle has closed for good, we will never forget what happened here.’
‘Right.’
‘The Wolf Queen’s told us that many times. We’re here in order to weed out people’s worlds other than our own.’
‘That sounds right,’ Subaru said.
‘If that’s true, then isn’t it better not to find the Wishing Key?’ Fuka asked. A trace of sadness – and terror at the alternative outcome Masamune was suggesting – showed in her eyes.
Hearing this stated so baldly left them all stunned. Fuka stared fixedly downwards. ‘And it’s already February,’ she said. ‘We have less than two months. All we’ll have left is the memory of having been here, right? If that’s true, then I want to hold on to that memory.’ Fuka’s voice seemed to resonate within their silent circle.
Whenever they’d discussed the vanishing of their memories, Aki had said she didn’t really care, but now she was silent. Kokoro herself felt close to tears.
All we’ll have left are these memories.
We won’t be able to help each other.
‘It would be ideal if none of our worlds vanished,’ Subaru said, ‘but if, like Masamune said, all our worlds disappear, what does that actually mean?’
Kokoro gasped, and she heard Fuka – and the rest of them – do the same.
‘If no one finds the key, all our worlds will disappear. And the castle won’t be here any more for any of us to escape to. So it would be better to look for the key and let at least one person’s world survive.’
‘Shouldn’t we be putting all this directly to the Wolf Queen? I mean, so she can explain the logic of it?’ Rion asked. ‘You’re listening, aren’t you, Wolf Queen?’ He raised his voice towards the ceiling. Then he looked towards the empty hall through the doorway. ‘You heard everything we said, didn’t you? So come on out, Wolf Queen!’
The air suddenly seemed to be stirred by an unseen force, and Kokoro sensed a gust of wind like a tiny tornado graze her face.
‘What a dismal racket you make!’
From an opening in that soft twist of air, a little girl in a wolf mask finally materialized.