Her voice was heavy with sorrow. She was terrified that her very mind didn’t belong to her. That her feelings were predetermined, making her another slave to fate.
“But I still don’t want him to die! That might mean there’s something wrong with me, but I don’t care!”
Karamori more than understood the reason for her despair. But that was exactly why…
“Let’s interrogate him directly,” he said.
“Huh?”
Karamori stood up from the bed and grabbed Fujinaka’s hands.
“I won’t kill your dad. I promise. So let’s go talk to him. We’ll ask him why he made you, together. I’ll make sure to capture your dad alive.”
Those words were a vow. The light in his eyes was genuine and unwavering in the face of the fate he carried.
“But if you find Dad, you’ll kill Archive. How can you be so sure you want to go?” Fujinaka asked.
“Because I want to fight. If I’m fated to die today, I’ll fight to go out with a smile. If I’m fated to die with tears on my cheeks, I’ll fight to make sure they’re tears of joy. And if fate decides that I can’t save Archive, I’ll fight to make sure she can be saved in the future.”
Karamori gripped her hands more tightly.
“Fujinaka. Live the life you want to live. It doesn’t matter who or what you are. Don’t you have questions for your dad?”
He had a strong resolve to not let fate rule his life. He was probably on a long losing streak in that battle. Even so, he was marching on. That was the fight he had chosen for himself.
“I do, but…if he really did make me just to serve him, I’m not sure how I’ll react… I’m scared to talk to him for that reason…”
Karamori looked Fujinaka in the eyes and smiled.
“If you don’t like his answers, I’ll be there to cheer you up. We can go out to eat again. All three of us!”
Fujinaka looked at Karamori. All three of us. He probably knew better than her how hard achieving that would be. And yet, he was able to declare that with a smile on his face.
He meant it as another vow.
Fujinaka felt her hands grow strangely warm in his. That warmth spread from her hands to her chest.
She nodded and squeezed his hands back.
“Okay… I believe you.”
An hour later.
“Excuse me, sir. Can you angle us a little more to the north?” Fujinaka asked.
Karamori and Fujinaka were traveling in a small helicopter. It had a simple interior with gray cushioning and upholstered seats with faded yellow cloth on the walls. The ladder and plastic boxes fixed to the walls vibrated along with the helicopter.
Dawn was approaching, creating a purple gradient in the sky.
They were pursuing Asahi Fujinaka by having Fujinaka sense Untitled’s location. She had been less than confident she would be able to do that, but she actually seemed to be able to sense its general direction over a long distance. That might have been due to the training Archive put her through.
She couldn’t manage it without deep concentration. She was currently furrowing her brow and closing her eyes. The most she could sense was a vague direction, which was why she was here guiding the pilot in real time.
Untitled—as well as Archive and Asahi Fujinaka—awaited at the location she was guiding them to.
As the sound of the spinning rotor echoed within the helicopter’s interior, Karamori stared into space with a hand to his chin.
“Is something on your mind?” Fujinaka asked after returning from the pilot’s seat.
Karamori looked up. “Yeah, I was thinking about Archive. Something… feels off.”
“What do you mean?”
“Archive said that in five hours, she would be killed by me. She said it was her fate. If you flip that, it means I am fated to kill her… And as far as I know, Archive’s book only details her own actions. I was wondering if it can determine the fates of other people, too.”
Tyrfing already held the reins on Karamori’s fate. Could The Archive really influence his actions, too?
He could think of many possibilities to explain her wording, of course. For example, if the book said, “You will be killed by Tyrfing,” then it would almost certainly be Karamori who delivered the killing blow.
“Are you saying Archive might be lying?” Fujinaka asked.
“That would be a relief,” Karamori said.
He felt like it wasn’t that simple. Archive said that while ignoring her fate. That meant she chose those words of her own will. He couldn’t imagine she would go out of her way to tell him a meaningless lie.
“I think she had a reason for choosing those exact words. They’re the reason I decided to go after her so quickly, in fact. If not for what she said, I would have spent a little more time preparing and building a team, and I wouldn’t have taken you… I think Archive has a plan,” Karamori said.
She was fighting within the fate that was decided for her. That much was certain.
“That means the key…is probably you,” he said.
“Huh? Me?” Fujinaka asked.
Nanba contacted Karamori after they left. One of the two remaining tracking methods activated, revealing Archive’s likely location with high precision. He shared the information, saying there was no point in withholding it if Karamori was acting on his own.
The location was in the same direction they were heading now. Karamori would have been able to find Archive even without Fujinaka’s help.
“You’re only here because of what Archive said. She’s also the one who taught you how to control Untitled. If she was acting only to feed your dad Noary intel and help him obtain the Duplicator Trees and Untitled, she wouldn’t have needed to do that,” Karamori said.
“But what does she want me to do? She never told me anything. I’m just as clueless as you are,” Fujinaka said.
“Yeah… We have to think about that.”
The aircraft swayed slightly, likely due to a strong wind. The equipment fixed to the floor and walls rattled.
They both fell silent for a moment. Fujinaka was the next to speak.
“…What does Dad want to make? What has him going this far?”
“Both The Archive and the girl named Third have a Compilation ability,” Karamori said. The Archive could Compile concepts while Third could likely Compile physical objects. Untitled, meanwhile, could Compile words and the things they referred to. “There’s little doubt he’s trying to make something else that can Compile something.”
But what did he want to collect? The Compilation abilities of his existing books were already quite powerful.
No amount of thought would lead them to an answer now.
Drops of sweat formed on Karamori’s forehead. They came not from the pain of his injuries, but rather from his rising impatience. However, the light in his eyes did not waver.
Nothing could disrupt his desire—his conviction.
He might be a slave to fate, but he would not yield.
Karamori looked out the window. The light of dawn had sliced through the horizon and was spilling out to the rest of the sky.
The day was just beginning. This day that would decide all of their fates.
Two birds soared through the sunlit sky. Their wings gave them a freedom that would inspire jealousy in most. Karamori burned their image into his mind.
Fujinaka, who was sitting next to him, scratched the corners of her eyes.
“Haaah… My eyes itch… I’ve been crying way too much since I met you.”
Karamori certainly had seen Fujinaka cry a lot over the last few days. She didn’t come off as a crybaby, though.
“I don’t think anyone could blame you for that, considering what you’ve been through,” he told her.
“I know, but still. It’s embarrassing crying in front of people so much.”
“Well, flush your tears out while you can. We’ll be all smiles once we’re done here today!”
“You’re way too good at cheering people up,” Fujinaka said with a carefree smile.
Shortly afterward, her posture went rigid.
“It’s close…”
Ignoring Karamori’s surprised expression, she unfastened her seatbelt and hurried to the cockpit. When she reached it, she looked at the scenery below with concern on her face. Karamori followed her.
Expansive fields unfolded below them. Buildings and field crops intermingled, the latter of which decreased in frequency as the buildings got taller and closer together. It looked like a typical Japanese rural town. Mountains crawled from the town and reached for the sky, covered by deep forestation interrupted by patches of bare land that made it look like they had been nibbled on by some kind of giant.
Fujinaka pointed at one of the patches of bare land.
“Over there! That’s where I sense Untitled! I feel it much more strongly than before! It’s definitely there!” she said.
It looked like an old mining site. Rusty buildings and machinery were visible from a distance.