Through the heavy rain, he finally saw her house come into view some way down the road. He came to a sudden halt, his breath caught in his throat.
The rain was avoiding her house.
Naomi opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He looked up into the sky, disbelieving.
The Ichigyou residence was surrounded by a semi-transparent dome made of countless hexagonal panels locked tightly together, colored like a stained-glass window. Particles of light slid around their edges. Sometimes, one of the panels would flash bright red before returning to its semi-transparent state. The rain bounced right off it.
“What is this?”
With faltering, hesitant steps, he approached the surface of the dome. As he drew close, one of the hexagonal panels flashed and displayed a message in Japanese.
Major data corruption has been detected in this sector.
This area will remain inaccessible until repairs are complete.
AllTale System
Naomi furrowed his brow. It was the kind of bland error message you’d see when a computer broke down. He could understand what it meant, at least—this area was broken in some way.
But this was Ichigyou Ruri’s home. How could it be broken?
Naomi’s heart thumped painfully in his chest. Suddenly, it all felt horribly real. Sensei had told him everything months ago. He knew what this world was, and he’d thought he understood.
But he hadn’t. Not really. Not until this moment.
He could hear the man’s voice echoing in his ears.
“You are a record of Katagaki Naomi as he existed in the past.”
“So then…I’m…”
“The God Hand works by directly accessing the data AllTale uses to generate this simulation.”
Naomi’s head spun. The ground beneath him didn’t seem real anymore. He pressed a hand to his mouth, trying to hold back a wave of nausea.
I’m not real.
I’m just a piece of data in a computer. So is Ruri.
So is this entire world.
Naomi heard a splash behind him, and he spotted something on the other side of the road. It was an oddly shaped humanoid figure wearing a bright yellow belt. And of course, there was a kitsune mask covering its face.
But...why? It didn’t make sense.
Naomi reached up to touch his face. He wasn’t wearing those glasses anymore, of course, but these masked things were supposed to be invisible without them. They didn’t belong in this world, after all; they were a part of the system that controlled it.
Something clicked in his mind, and he turned back to the dome. Shouldn’t that apply to this thing, too? It was clearly part of the AllTale system, so it shouldn’t be visible to the naked eye.
Splash.
Spinning back, Naomi saw the fox-mask draw closer. As it strode through the puddles, water splashed up around its feet.
Naomi didn’t understand what was going on here, but he could tell it wasn’t good. Something had gone very wrong.
Its legs were touching the water. The fox-mask had physically manifested inside this world.
At that moment, he noticed two more approaching him. All three moved toward him at a slow, steady pace, the emotionless eyes of their masks fixed directly on him.
“Go away!” he cried fearfully, thrusting out his arms to ward them off. The hands in front of him were naked...empty. He had no tools or weapons, nothing to use to fight them. And somehow, there were twenty of them approaching now.
“Ah…” His voice trembled, and then broke.
“Aaaaah!”
Screaming, Naomi turned and fled. Driven by sheer terror, he ran without even a glance over his shoulder. He could hear countless footsteps following close behind.
There was a puddle of muddy water inches from Naomi’s face. It was nauseating, but he couldn’t lift his head away from the ground. He was lying on his stomach underneath a truck.
He’d fled to the north end of Kyoto, not far from the mountains that encircled the area. The houses were fewer and further between as he ran; there weren’t many places to hide out here. Finally cornered by the fox-masks, he had been forced to flee into a field dotted with plastic greenhouses, where he’d slipped under this truck to hide. Now he was trapped down here.
Turning his head as far as he could, he tried to scan the area. The ground was covered in puddles; raindrops rippled their surfaces. A boot slammed down into one, splashing dirty water directly into Naomi’s face. He forced himself not to cry out.
The mud around the truck was torn up by countless footprints. There weren’t just twenty or thirty of those masked things anymore; more than a hundred pairs of legs walked endlessly around the area, searching in all directions.
Every single one of them was looking for Naomi. He didn’t know why, but they’d chased him single-mindedly all the way from Ruri’s house.
They moved slowly, so at first he’d thought he could lose them if he ran. But the fox-masks kept popping up out of thin air everywhere he went. It didn’t matter how far he fled; they appeared in the middle of the street, inside the houses, and between the trees.
Now they were wandering around only a few feet from Naomi’s face. They didn’t seem to know where he was, for some reason. None of them bent down to look under the truck.
But there were just too many of them. It had to be a matter of time until they started physically ramming themselves against any nearby objects. Squeezing himself flat against the ground, Naomi quieted his breathing and tried to think. How could he escape?
The question had been running circles around his mind for a while now, but he wasn’t coming up with much of anything. No matter how hard he tried to focus, he found his thoughts moving in unproductive directions, seeking escape from this grim reality.
Why did this have to happen?
He’d worked so hard these last three months. He’d done what felt right to him. He’d even faced a challenge that felt downright impossible. He’d done it for himself, and for her...and for his mentor.
In classic Little Match Girl style, his mind pulled up the happiest memories it could find. He remembered the day he met Ichigyou Ruri, and the time they’d spent together in the library committee. He remembered sitting next to her at the front desk and reading quietly together. He remembered pulling the cart full of books along the road, sweating through his shirt.
He remembered how he’d opened up to her about the books he liked, and how she’d understood. He remembered the day they started going out.