It was a half-baked theory, but it was good enough for him. There was probably one other person out there who’d believe it, too.
The kid had said he was going to deal with them somehow. And somehow, they’d been dealt with. This was probably his doing. Now it was Senko’s turn to keep his side of the bargain.
Barging into the chamber, which he could finally reach with the fox-masks gone, he rushed over to the Homeostatic System’s control panel and threw open the steel door. His eyes found the large metal switch connected to the emergency shutdown relay.
Once this thing was flipped, AllTale would immediately spring into action. The infinite-capacity quantum computer he had created would unleash its real power for the very first time.
But once it did so, it would move beyond his control forever. No human being would ever be able to domesticate it again. Even the laws of nature might no longer bind it.
There was no telling what might happen after that; the consequences would be utterly unpredictable. He couldn’t even guess what wonders or horrors might ensue.
In other words, flipping this switch wasn’t exactly a responsible decision.
Senko reached out to grab it anyway.
Maybe this is what God felt like on the first day.
8.
THE ENORMOUS FOX MONSTER broke apart.
The individual bodies that had formed the colossus began to fall away from it, tumbling down toward the streets outside Kyoto Station. But before they could strike the ground, they melted into nothingness. It looked a bit like cherry blossoms falling in a gust of wind.
The creature’s forearm faded away, and the enormous pressure bearing down on Naomi disappeared. His crystal support beams wrapped themselves around Kyoto Tower’s observation deck and lowered it gently to the ground.
He could use his power freely now. There was nothing left to hold him back.
But his hand was empty.
“Katagaki Naomi-san,” his glove called out to him.
His right hand rose up on its own; the entire surface of the glove was now a rainbow of colors. Its glow, faint at first, grew steadily brighter. The light engulfed Naomi, then the Sky Garden, then the entire station.
In the distance, he could see something similar happening. There was a faint dome of light spreading out to the north, centered somewhere between Nijo Castle and the Imperial Palace. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was coming from the AllTale Center.
The two domes grew steadily larger and larger, until finally, somewhere near Shijo Street, they made contact.
In that moment—
A world was created.
◻
Naomi was there.
There was Naomi.
There was nothing, but also everything.
There was one and zero. All and naught. Yes and no.
At first, they were intermingled, but soon they sorted themselves out. Once distinct, they began to grow, expanding ferociously.
There was space and time. There were stars and living things. There were people and their cities. There was heaven and hell. There were books and stories.
There was everything. And yet, more kept coming. More and more and more. The growth seemed endless.
As infinity stretched out before him, Naomi took a piece of it in his hands.
It was Sensei’s notebook, the Ultimate Manual.
He recognized it by its cover. But when he looked more closely, he saw it was brand new. There was no title written on it yet.
Naomi flipped through it for a moment.
It was no great surprise, really...but all the pages were blank.
◼
He heard the sound of a train in the distance.
The air was crisp and clear and felt like morning. That train was probably the first of the day, or maybe the second.
Fluffy white summer clouds drifted by slowly overhead. The sky above the mountains was vivid blue. And a familiar tower stood tall above the city, intact and unharmed.
He was in Kyoto.
He looked around uncertainly. He was standing in the exact same place he last remembered being—at the top of Kyoto Station’s Grand Staircase, in the Sky Garden, with its scenic view of the entire city. It was still early in the morning, so the area was deserted.
There was only one other person there. She was standing at the center of the garden, amidst its concrete and greenery.
It was her.
“Katagaki-san?” she called.
“Ichigyou-san!”
They ran toward each other and embraced.
After a moment, they pulled back for a second look—to make sure that this was real.
The girl was Ichigyou Ruri. The boy was Katagaki Naomi. They were both sixteen years old, just as they’d been when they were torn apart.
They were both alive, and they wouldn’t be parted again.
Somehow, instinctively, Naomi knew this. He knew they could be together from now on. But he still couldn’t stop himself from squeezing her tightly in his arms. In fact, a hug wasn’t enough to satisfy him—he grabbed her hand, too.
His hand was sweaty, unfortunately. But so was hers. Their palms pressed together, exchanging heat.
He didn’t have the glove on anymore.
Together, they looked out at Kyoto, hand in hand. It was a brilliant, sunny morning, and the city lay unchanged before their eyes, as beautiful as ever.
“Did we…?”
Ruri’s voice trailed off, her question only halfway spoken.
Did we make it back to our world?
She still didn’t know enough to clearly understand what had happened, but some part of her instinctually knew.
It wasn’t like Naomi really understood much of anything himself. He couldn’t explain what had just happened, and he didn’t have any clear answers about what this place was. Even if he did come up with something, there was no one who could confirm he was right.
In the “real world,” answers didn’t come with a guarantee. In other words…the next thing he said might be true, or might not.
“I think—”
Naomi put his pen to this blank, white world. Facing an empty page where he could write anything he pleased, he chose the first line all by himself.
“I think this is a brand-new world. One that no one knows about.”
In this new world, they could do anything they wanted. Nothing was destined. Nothing was preordained.
But he already knew what he wanted to do.
He was going to live a happy life.
“C’mon, kid. You’re just following my orders again?”
Naomi answered the small voice in his head silently, but with real pride.
Actually, I made my own decision this time.