God Only Knows
The sun reflected in the mirrors that lined the open central column of the hospital, glittering.
“…Mm,” Kisugi Makiko squinted at the sudden glare as she walked down the fourth floor hallway.
She was a young doctor, only twenty-seven. Around her, nurses hustled back and forth, and patients headed for the toilets, dragging IV stands along after them. She carefully repressed the impulse that struck her, not letting anyone know what she was thinking.
“…………”
It was all so unnecessary. Sunlight would normally never have reached all the way to the bottom of the open shaft, but one of the biggest sponsors of the hospital’s construction, Teratsuki Kyoichiro-shi, had proposed they put a garden there. Because of him, the inner walls of the smokestack-shaped hospital were lined with mirrors, bringing light to the bottom of the pit. Most of the light hit the ground, as it was supposed to, but every now and then the angles would align and send a flash into the hospital. There were sunny spots throughout the building where this was intentional, but when the beams hit her eyes anywhere else it always grated on Makiko’s nerves.
The slippers on her feet clattered a little louder than normally.
“…Him,” she whispered, so quietly no one else could hear. “…ll him.”
Despite this, she went on her way toward the hospital room where she was to do some counseling.
Her primary role as a psychiatrist was to look after the emotional well-being of patients forced to stay in the hospital for lengthy periods of time, whether from illness or surgery. Occasionally she would also see outpatients when the other doctors’ schedules were full.
She entered a private room without knocking.
There was a single man on the bed, sitting vacantly upright.
He had diabetes, and was not a mental patient, but his hollow, mindless expression looked more than a little schizophrenic.
The cold gleam in Makiko’s eyes was no less insane.
“Shinokita-san,” she called.
Slowly, stiffly, he looked in her direction.
“…………”
He did not answer.
“Did someone come to see you?”
“…………”
“Aw, nobody ever does,” she sneered.
She moved to his side and touched him. The moment Makiko put her hand on his shoulder, the man violently convulsed. No—he shuddered.
His expression changed. His eyes opened wide, his lips half-parted, quivering, and his teeth began to chatter—he was shaking with fear.
“Were you lonely, Shinokita-san?”
Moving slowly, she slid her arm around his throat.
“You worked yourself to pieces for your company, but your wife divorced you, the company demoted you, and all those years of drinking with your coworkers ruined your liver. Your company was nice enough to give you sick leave, but how long will they wait? When the insurance runs out, how will you pay your hospital bills?”
She whispered sweetly in his ear.
The man was shaking like a leaf, all the blood drained from his face, not even listening to what Makiko said.
“Augh,” he groaned.
Makiko suddenly grabbed his cheeks with both hands.
“Look at me!” she snapped, yanking his face toward her.
“Eek!” The man froze, too frightened to tremble.
“Yes, more, more, fear me more, fear me from the bottom of your heart!” Grinning, Makiko brushed the man’s lips with her right index finger.
She turned the finger, pointing at her own face.
Then she suddenly plunged her fingernail into her own left eye, stabbing it in all the way to the root.
“…………!” The man’s jaw dropped open in shock.
Makiko calmly pulled her finger out. The eyeball came with it, skewered on her finger. The nerve endings trailed along after it.
The gaping hole in her face yawned at him.
“Just a trick! A harmless little trick,” Makiko whispered breezily. But no amount of makeup could create a hole in one’s head.
No ordinary human could do this.
No ordinary human.
But if she wasn’t ordinary…
“Hee hee hee hee,” she laughed quietly, popping the eyeball back into the socket.
She closed her lid, and slowly pulled her finger out again, leaving the eyeball in place.
Her eyelid twitched back and forth a few times, and when she opened it again her eye looked just like it always had. Her iris focused—the eye was clearly still functioning, seeing.
“…Eee…eeeek……!” A kind of voiceless scream came from the man’s throat.
The IV in his arm popped out, his arm stiffening from the sheer depth of his fear. Makiko instantly clapped her lips to the wound it left behind.
She began to slurp noisily, drinking the man’s blood. Fear had secreted other elements into his blood, and it was quite bitter. But she lapped it up hungrily.
Only when she had sucked his blood for a full minute did she slowly begin to back away.
The room had filled with a new scent. The man had pissed himself.
“Aw, again, Shinokita-san?” Makiko said, sneering at him once more.
“Ah…ahhh…” The man was frozen, unable to move.
Makiko reconnected his IV.
“Whatever will we do with you?” she said, pressing the button for the nurse. In his ear, she whispered, “If you go crazy, you can come to my ward, Shinokita-san. Then I can taste you any time I want…”
The man twitched again. He had no way to escape. He had no choice but to live in fear.
The nurse arrived.
“Ah, did we have an accident?” she asked, and then began changing the sheets, muttering under her breath.
Makiko left the room as if nothing had happened.
“Whoops,” she said, wiping a drop of her own blood from her cheek. She was careful not to let anyone see.
Looking positively placid, she muttered under her breath, “…Not enough. Not nearly enough. More, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, much more powerfully destructive! I need that kind of fear! This is not nearly enough!”
There was a terrifying despair in her eyes but a gleam behind it that spoke of an awful appetite.
1
“It is a mistake to say that humans see only what lies in front of their eyes. They do not even see that.”
-Kirima Seiichi, When a Man Kills a Man
“Makiko-san, you’ve been using your father’s laboratory recently, haven’t you?” Makiko’s mother asked one day. As always, there were only the two of them at the dining room table.
“Yes, I find I can concentrate better in the lab,” she answered quietly.
“What do you do in there? Are you bringing work home?”
“A little bit. Don’t worry about it. I’m not making any noise, am I?”
Makiko was not the least bit rattled. She was absolutely confident her mother would never uncover her secret.
“But…Makiko-san, you work at the hospital until late at night, and then you bring work home on top of that?”
Her mother had a horrible habit of speaking in clichés.
“I don’t really have a choice. If I don’t work, we don’t eat.”
“But, Makiko-san…”
“You really shouldn’t worry, Mother. I am a doctor, you know. I know full well what my body can handle,” Makiko said, firmly.
“Even so, Makiko-san. It’s good to be passionate about your work, but you can’t be alone forever.”
“That old line again?” Makiko said, annoyed.
The remainder of their conversation followed well-established patterns, never getting close to anything of import.
Her mother could never have suspected that her daughter had long since given up being human.
***
Kisugi Makiko lived alone with her mother, who would turn sixty this year. The house was much too big for two. It had been built a generation before her dead father and now was just big and old.
The house no longer even belonged to them. It had long since been mortgaged to pay off their debts. But nobody had offered to buy it, and they had been allowed to continue living there, maintaining the property. They would be forced to move the moment the real estate agents managed to sell it.
Her father had been a doctor as well, and the room where he had performed his experiments was where Makiko felt most comfortable. Outside of it she was scorned, the daughter of a bankrupt family, but in the lab she was cut off from the world. In there, she felt like she had when they’d been wealthy.
So when Makiko found the “medicine” and began studying it in secret, her mother had not thought anything of it. It had never occurred to her that there was anything unusual about Makiko’s behavior.
Her mother had aged very quickly after her father’s death, but even so, if she had watched her daughter attentively, she might have noticed the change.
Her daughter was oddly cheerful, and there was a newfound gleam in her eyes.
***
It had all begun two months before, when she had found a half-used ampule of unknown origin in a patient’s room.
It was lying on the floor under a sleeping patient’s bed. It looked like nothing more than trash. It was placed there so unobtrusively, like a ball lying by the roadside outside a house.
But she had picked it up.
And hidden it away.
“…It was nothing,” she had said to the guard who came running, worried that there was an intruder.
Even now, she didn’t know just why she had kept the discovery a secret.
But directly afterward, the patient in the room where she’d found the medicine made a miraculous recovery from an unknown and incurable disease.
…Because of this?
In her home laboratory, she carefully examined the liquid in the ampule. There was very little of it, so she had to be careful not to waste any.
When she injected a rat with a very small amount of the liquid, the most surprising thing happened.
The rat’s movements doubled in speed. It demonstrated reflexes and decision-making skills three times that of an ordinary rat. And not only that—the rat’s body had become incredibly resilient, nearly immortal. She could cut off its legs and arms, and it would regrow them. The phenomenon was completely unimaginable given its physical construction. The data she recorded could cause a revolution in the medical field.
…This thing is no longer a rat.
The more she experimented, the more her conclusion was driven home.
The only thing she could think was that it had evolved into something else.
The rat only died when she cut off its head. But even then, for several seconds, the severed head was clearly capable of understanding what had happened to it. When she saw that, Makiko felt a shiver run down her spine. It was not a shiver of fear or revulsion, however. She knew full well this had been a shiver of exultation at the sheer power the new life form had displayed.
She did not tell anyone about the medicine.
If she told her superiors, they would undoubtedly claim credit for its discovery. That would’ve been unacceptable. This suspicion might have been part of her reasoning.
But she felt like it was not the real reason.
For reasons she could not fully understand, she believed this medicine was not something anyone else should know about.
Or, yes, perhaps by then she had already ceased to be human.
***
One day, Kirima Nagi, the patient who had been in the room where she found the ampule, came back to the hospital for a checkup.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Nagi-chan?” Makiko said, calmly, when she saw her sitting on the couch outside the outpatient reception desk. It was Makiko’s job to counsel patients all over the hospital, and she’d gotten to know Nagi well enough to make small talk even though she was no longer a patient.
“Yeah…you look the same,” she said, absently. Nagi was the heir to a huge fortune. She was always on guard against any adults who approached her. Though she didn’t really seem hostile—Nagi was only fourteen, after all—she was worldly and mature beyond her years.
“I have to admit, I still don’t know how you got better,” Makiko said, not bothering to beat around the bush. Nagi was much too smart to get caught by leading questions, anyway. She was better off getting right to the point, expressing her professional curiosity.
“You still think it was all in my mind, Dr. Kisugi?”
“Well…yes, to tell the truth.”
“Mm, well…I got to admit I’ve been starting to suspect as much myself.”
It was rare to hear Nagi admit anything, so Makiko pounced. “…Any grounds for that hypothesis?”
“Yeah. I…met someone. After that…it felt like a weight was taken off my shoulders, and I’ve been wondering if that was what cured me.”
She spoke calmly, peacefully. It did not seem like she was lying.
…So this girl has no idea that someone might have injected her with the medicine?
It didn’t seem like she did, which meant there was no point in questioning her. In fact, she had to be careful not to reveal her own cards.
“Heh…so, this someone…was it a boy?” she said, hiding her own desire to end the conversation.
“It was a very strange man. He’s gone now. Vanished into thin air. I looked everywhere, but…I don’t think I’ll ever find him. Not anymore.”
“Hmm…” Makiko said absently, not at all interested. “Your first love?”
Nagi chuckled. “I dunno. Wonder what my dad would have said…?”
When Nagi’s father, Kirima Seiichi, had been alive, he had struggled to define the shape of the human heart. Makiko had read some of his books. From a psychiatrist’s perspective they were fairly slapdash, but they had a fascinating habit of hitting the nail on the head in a manner she felt sure was pure instinct.
“They say first love never bears fruit and is soon forgotten,” Makiko said, hoping the cliché would free her from this conversation.
“Yeah, I know, but somehow…” Nagi looked up suddenly and stared at Makiko. “Dr. Kisugi, why did you become a psychiatrist?”
“Eh?”
“You see, I’m really not sure what to do with myself from now on. So I wondered why you chose your path.”
“…………”
The question had taken Makiko by surprise. She could not have explained why. But…
“Well…maybe I was just a coward,” she said, before she knew it.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Analysis… part of it involves taking apart indescribable fears. I was a huge coward when I was younger and always wondered why there was such a thing as fear. Maybe I ended up here in the hopes I’d be able to answer that question…”
“Hmm…then, maybe…” Nagi started to say.
But the loudspeaker came on. “Kirima-san, come to window number three.”
Nagi broke off and stood up. “They’re calling me. See you again, Doctor.”
She waved.
“Yes. Goodbye, Nagi-chan,” Makiko said, waving back.
That was the last time they ever met inside the hospital.
…The next time they met, it would be in darkness.
***
Once she knew that the medicine brought about a change in living things, Makiko lost all interest in figuring out just what it was—there was something else that preyed upon her mind.
In particular, What would happen if I injected a human?
She did not have particularly advanced facilities, so there was no way she could try it on a monkey. The basement wasn’t large enough.
So…a patient?
When she caught herself seriously considering the idea, it was enough to rattle her.
But we have some patients who are like living corpses. They show no reaction no matter what you do to them…
…No, no, no, no, no, no! How could I even think that?!
She wondered if she should just abandon her research and tell the world about the medicine.
But then there was the question of who had manufactured it. If a medicine this astonishing existed and no one knew about it…
It’s been kept a secret.
That was the only explanation. So why was it in Kirima Nagi’s room?
That question dogged her, but every time she thought about it, she always found herself thinking instead:
So if it’s a secret…then can I use this without getting caught?
And use it…on myself?
Medicine that granted immortality…to her.
The idea became steadily more intriguing.
2
“Whenever you are hiding something from other people, the world is hiding ten times that much from you.”
Kirima Seiichi, The Proliferation of ‘Dunno’
A string of grisly murders had been committed in town.
Teenage girls were being murdered, one after the other. The string of murders was noteworthy because of the manner in which they were killed.
The victims’ skulls had been torn open.
The maxilla and the mandible had been pried apart, and the spinal cord had been yanked out of the head. The skin on the face had been pulled open without being pared away from the bone. Inside the head there was nothing left; everything had been removed as though a dog had cleaned it out.
Investigators could only conclude that the contents had been sucked out through the foramen magnum and other smaller natural openings into the skull.
But how?
What reasons could anyone have to kill like this?
There were various theories regarding the method of the killings, but everyone on the case agreed that the murderer must be insane.
***
“It’s possible that the killer holds some extreme superstitious beliefs about the brain and believes he can absorb their knowledge…” droned an expert on TV.
Kisugi Makiko giggled.
“What?” asked the intern sharing the staff lounge with Makiko. Interns were generally the lowest ranking people in the hospital, constantly running errands for everyone else, but Makiko’s position was not much higher, so they were on friendly terms.
“Nothing, I just thought he looked good on TV,” she said dryly.
The doctor on screen was an associate professor at a large university. He had written a number of books and was often called to comment on cases like this one.
“Ha ha, true enough. If you’re good-looking, you don’t have to actually say anything, as far as TV’s concerned,” the intern said, laughing. Then he grew serious. “Dr. Kisugi, what’s your take on the case? I can’t even begin to understand it…”
Makiko gave him a pained smile. “The director would advise specialists not to get interested in such extreme cases,” she said.
He winced. The case was something of a taboo subject around the hospital. Partly because of their proximity to the murders—the police had come by asking if they had any patients who might be capable of such an act. It had caused quite a lot of disruption.
“I dunno, maybe the TV doctor’s right.”
“An obsession with the brain? That doesn’t sound right, somehow. Maybe I’ve seen too many brains,” he chuckled. The hospital had a number of brain samples pickled in formaldehyde. They were only about the size of two human fists, lumps of gray meat with no mystic aura around them. They were certainly nothing like the vivid objects seen in horror movies. Those props might have been able to inspire the sort of superstition they were chattering about on TV, but real brains were nothing more impressive than what you could find at a butcher’s shop. That was why most superstitions tended to revolve around the skull, instead.
“But you need fairly advanced knowledge to take apart the skull like that. The killer must be using tools. That person must also be a maniac!” His cheery tone made him sound like the maniac. Looking at the crime scene images on TV, he added, “Maybe the damage itself is his goal. Perhaps he enjoys breaking the skull open… what do you think?”
“No idea,” Makiko said, glancing sidelong at the intern. The look in her eyes was cold enough to raise goosebumps.
Her tongue cracked like a whip inside her mouth.
He’s too sweet to bother with. No matter how much I scare him, it’ll never have much taste.
She could tell exactly how mentally strong other people were, now. It was as though she could reach out and touch it. No, it was more like she could reach out and lick it.
The stronger someone was, the more “bitter” the person would taste to her; if they were weak, they seemed “sweet.”
The sensation went well beyond instinct or imagination. The knowledge was as clear and definitive as an ice cube in the hand is cold. Her skills also made it very easy to discover what a human’s weakness was.
For example, this intern…
“But if the killer turns out to be a doctor, there’ll be no end of trouble,” he said cheerily.
“Like jumping into a snake’s nest,” Makiko said absently.
The intern twitched, turning to look at her. He had gone pale. “Wh-what?!” his voice trembled.
“That’s a common expression, isn’t it? Or was it a hornet’s nest?” Makiko said, innocently.
He recovered somewhat. “Oh, right. Just a figure of speech.”
“You don’t like snakes?”
“N-not as such,” he said, breaking into a cold sweat.
Makiko could not tell if this man had ever had a traumatic encounter with a snake. But she could tell that he had experienced some sort of sexual trauma. He had been violated by something resembling a snake—like a male sexual organ. Or perhaps his encounter with that pedophile had been his first sexual experience.
Either way, to Makiko’s eyes he appeared to have a snake wrapped tightly around his lower body.
***
What Kisugi Makiko had obtained from the medicine went far beyond even healing abilities impressive enough to allow her to pull out her eyeball and put it back in.
Sensing enemy strength, perceiving their weak points…these were the most impressive of Makiko’s newfound abilities.
On a basic level, they were nothing more than the traits any animal needed to survive in the wild. They had simply been elevated to extreme proficiency.
Of course, she had already put these abilities to use. The hospital director was already incapable of saying no to her. She had had several of the snottier nurses fired but had soon tired of that. She had begun to believe this ability was not to be wasted on such trivial affairs. It would be easy to take over the hospital, but she had ultimately decided against it.
True, if she used her abilities carefully, she could do anything. But she was cautious.
She had to be wary of the medicine’s creators. They would know of her ability, or of similar abilities, and have countermeasures in place. This was one reason for her caution.
But there was another reason. A side effect—the real reason she could not use her abilities openly. If her new talents became public knowledge, the entire world would rise up against her.
***
“Bad experience with snakes?” Makiko said, still toying with the intern.
Every time she said the word, he blanched. “N-no…not really. Just… they’re creepy, that’s all.”
There was no trace of the cheer he’d displayed earlier while talking about the serial killings.
“According to the outdated theories Freud put forth, snakes are a metaphor for male genitalia,” Makiko said, blithely.
The intern went white as a sheet and started to tremble. “L-Like I said, it was not like… I’ve never…”
The tip of Makiko’s tongue could taste the sourness of his fear. It was pathetically weak.
“…………”
A violent urge rose up within her. She felt a sudden desire to shred apart the frail life form in front of her.
She wanted to scare him to the brink of madness and toy with him before tasting his blood. No, that was understating what she wanted—what she needed. She longed to stick her head right into his mouth and suck out all the chemicals in his brain.
She wanted to do to him what she did to those high school girls…
“Wh-what’s happening…?”
“This is a dream, a nightmare…it must be…”
“Nothing like this was ever meant to happen…”
“Help! Somebody help me…!”
Voiceless screams, death throes, and the delicious chemical secretions terror released into the body.
Human fear was the ultimate pleasure for her.
But…
But now was not a good time. If she killed this man here, she would leave evidence behind. And even if she drove this man to the limits of terror, she would never get any real pleasure from it. She would have to exercise forbearance.
She acknowledged the urge as one of ravenous desperation; it would eventually demand release.
But not now.
“Are you okay? You look pale,” she said, shifting her tone and looking at the intern with concern. “You’ve had so many emergency patients recently…are you drinking vegetable juice?”
“Oh, the one the assistant director keeps hyping up? Honestly, it’s just not my thing,” he said, obviously relieved that she’d changed the subject. He looked like he’d escaped within inches of his life.
Makiko, of course, knew that that was precisely true.
***
The stronger the better.
Makiko became aware of that principle shortly after she began her activities. The depth of flavor to the fear was not even comparable.
In the last three months, she had already taken apart the skulls of five people, and every one of them had appeared to have an incredibly strong will. Checking up on them later was easy since the media was reporting their information in great detail. It seemed that all of the girls had had unusual personalities. Their youth might have had something to do with their apparent fearlessness.
Makiko had little interest in pondering the matter further. It was transparent, after all. She did not need to look hard to find additional prey. She could find her victims just by wandering around town.
Almost none of them were men. She began to suspect that the kind of strength she sought might not be a male trait. Men typically started shaking with fear instantly, ruining their taste. There were scores of tall, physically imposing men who, when confronted by Makiko, were no stronger mentally than an average three-year-old. The few who were unafraid were severely lacking in mental stability.
But the nice part about the unstable ones was that they were quite easy to control.
She could toy with the long-term patients, nibbling at their fear, and none of them showed any inclination to fight back. It was so easy. However, such low-hanging fruit did little to sate her hunger. They were more like a snack—not truly satisfying.
All the weaker people did was fuel her desire to find the real thing.
But I must figure out something to do with the bodies…
She attacked when the urge drove her to it, and the aftermath was rather gruesome. If she didn’t keep a low profile, whoever had made the medicine would eventually notice.
I must do something…
There had to be a good way to dispose of them.
She had to think of something safer. She needed a technique, like the contraception methods used during sex.
And she would have to frame someone else for the earlier murders. The media and police seemed to believe the killer was male, so she could easily find an appropriate scapegoat. That would keep anyone who could threaten her from hunting her down.
She chose her course of action carefully and cleverly.
But despite her cunning, she was still unsure why the medicine had granted her new powers—along with these violent urges.
There might have been some distorted fate, a massive, unstable meaning behind the uncanny birth of Kisugi Makiko, who could have remade the world…but there was no one on Earth who knew about it.
At least, not yet.
***
“I’m home,” Kisugi Makiko announced as she walked in.
Her mother met her at the door. “You must be tired. I’ve drawn you a bath.”
“I’ll eat first.”
They sat down at the table, just as they always did. On TV, a news anchor was providing the latest updates on the Skull Dissection Murders.
“My, how terrifying. Makiko-san, you really have to be careful out there. Such a terrible thing, and only happening to girls…” Her mother shivered dramatically.
“Yeah,” Makiko said, absently.
Ironically, Makiko was the reason for her aging mother’s weakness. The idea that anything might happen to her beloved daughter was a source of unbearable fear.
It would be so easy, so very simple. All she had to do was tell her mother the truth, and it would destroy her world.
It was so easy Makiko had never bothered.
“…………”
Occasionally she would glance at her mother’s profile as they watched TV and wonder what she would taste like. But she’d never done anything more than wonder. So far.
The news shifted subjects, and the president of some other country came on screen. He was surrounded by a small army of imposing bodyguards.
“…………”
Makiko could detect every one of their weaknesses. A single threat could make them all her slaves.
Recently, Makiko’s abilities had begun operating on a greater scale, well beyond individual weaknesses.
She could now see holes in the policies of a large corporation, for example. Humans did not live in isolation, but in communities, and she had learned to detect what the weaknesses of those groups were. She used her newfound skills to place several organizations under her thumb. She began to use them to gather information for her.
Including some clues as to the medicine’s creators.
It would not be long before she’d be able to determine the weakness of an entire nation just by looking at its president.
What would it taste like when an entire nation screamed, writhing in fear?
Maybe something even larger existed, an existence beyond her imagination.
“…………”
She said nothing to betray her thoughts, simply moving her chopsticks as her mother shook her head and complained about the state of the world.
It was not yet time for action.
3
“If you are a warrior, born to fight, then the object of your life’s purpose exists only within the enemy.”
Kirima Seiichi, Isolation and Faith
Kisugi Makiko sat in the hospital examination room by herself, looking at a file concerning a certain individual. There was a headshot clipped to the side, and the file looked like a patient’s chart at first glance. However, this person was not staying at the hospital. In fact, she had never even been there.
She was just a girl Makiko had seen on the street.
She had been in a coffee shop, comforting a crying friend. It seemed her friend had just been rejected by a boy. But this girl was not comforting her friend with uncritical pity and meaningless reassurances. Instead, she patiently explained that while the boy had certainly handled it badly, her friend was partially to blame for the breakup, as well. And her friend accepted the explanation. Makiko was impressed. Most heartbroken girls were much too upset to listen to any explanations regarding why they had been rejected. A casual observer would not have noticed, but Makiko could tell this girl was extremely intelligent and very persuasive.
And very strong.
Astoundingly so.
Imagining her quivering in fear was so exciting that Makiko almost attacked her right then and there, but she managed to restrain herself.
She arranged for one of the men under her control to investigate the girl. She was surprised to discover she was still in junior high. She’s only thirteen! The youngest victim so far had been a high school junior.
This special girl’s name was Suema Kazuko. As with Makiko’s other targets, she had a reputation for being unusual.
“…………”
Makiko could feel the desire welling up inside her just from looking at the file. But if she killed someone this young, the story would be all over the news. The police and the media would go on the warpath, and whoever made the medicine would certainly notice.
She would have to be careful.
She would have to make this girl her first carefully calculated victim.
The intercom on her desk rang. “Doctor, your patient is here.”
“Okay, send them in.”
She put the file away and started playing light music, creating a relaxing atmosphere.
“Listen to me, Doctor. Everyone is saying bad things about me. All the time!”
“I think someone is following me…”
“…Er. …no, well…um.”
As her patients babbled on with the utmost seriousness about their absurd problems, she said nothing. She just sat in silence, smiling reassuringly. She was quite efficient as she handled each one. In the past she had tried to be as nice as possible, but now her counseling was brisk and businesslike. Strangely enough, her patients seemed to like it better.
One patient said to her, with bizarre cheerfulness, “Just between you and me, the world’s about to end.”
“Oh dear.”
“Yes, I agree—it’s a shame. There is a terrible evil lurking in the world, and it is starting to move,” he said with the utmost sincerity, but he was oddly upbeat.
“Hmm…but why is it going to destroy the world?”
“That’s why it was born! There’s nothing else for it to do. It’s merely following the instincts it was born with. It’s destiny!”
He didn’t seem to mind the dire fate of mankind.
“I see. How awful. I don’t suppose there’s any way we can stop it?”
“Of course not!” He shook his head happily.
“Then what should we do?”
“There’s nothing we can do. We just have to give up and wait to be wiped out, writhing in fear!”
“Fear?”
“I imagine we’ll all be very scared,” he said, his mood only improving.
Makiko chuckled. “Sounds terrible,” she said, as if it did not affect her, either.
“It will be,” the patient said, like a dog with its tongue hanging out and tail wagging.
The Beach Boys’ clear voices were singing “Surf’s Up/Aboard a Tidal Wave” over the examination room speakers.
***
The final patients for the day were a junior high school girl and a young mother. The mother was a nervous wreck. She kept looking around restlessly.
“Please take a seat, Miyashita-san,” Makiko suggested. Only then did the woman sit.
Her daughter remained standing.
“So, what brings you here today?”
“Y-yes. Um…well, um, this girl…um…”
“———”
The mother glanced at her daughter with a look that could only be described as loathing. The girl looked tense and very embarrassed. She couldn’t believe her mother had brought her here. She seemed quiet enough, though—there were no outward signs of anything unusual.
“What about her?”
“Um…Doctor…you’ve heard of multiple personality disorder?” the mother blurted.
Makiko grimaced. “Yes, of course.” That was a foolish question to ask an expert in the field.
The mother failed to notice Makiko’s tone. “Th-that’s what’s wrong with my daughter!” she almost shrieked.
“Now, now, Miyashita-san,” Makiko soothed.
“She is! I’m sure of it!” the mother insisted, stridently.
Makiko glanced at the daughter. She was absolutely mortified and had turned bright red.
“There is a very strange man’s personality inside my daughter’s mind! There is! He almost killed me!”
“Mom!”
“You be quiet!” The mother snapped, hysterical. She seemed far crazier than her daughter.
“Well, Miyashita-san, I don’t know what happened, but multiple personality disorder is, in most cases, a fraud. Particularly in this country—there are almost no recorded cases,” Makiko explained.
The mother went pale, and moaned something, but she was too worked up for Makiko to understand a word of it.
“At any rate, may I speak with your daughter in private?” Makiko said, concealing her irritation. She summoned the nurse, who led the mother out of the room.
When they were alone together, the daughter sighed.
“So, are you a split personality? Miss…uhm…” Makiko glanced down at the chart and continued “…Miyashita Touka?”
“So she says. Not that I can tell, but…” Touka shook her head.
The music stopped. The cassette had finished. Makiko absently switched it to the next one on the stack and pressed play.
Classical music. Tannhäuser.
“Do you have any idea why your mother came to believe this?”
“…I was asleep, and my mother suddenly came into the room and shouted ‘Who are you?!’ and I woke up, surprised.”
“You were asleep?”
“Yes. Lately, I’ve been wondering if I was moving around while I slept, like a sleepwalker.”
“But that doesn’t explain why she asked, ‘Who are you?’ What made her do that?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Touka sighed again.
Makiko changed tactics. “Is your mother…getting along with your father?” she asked.
Touka looked surprised. “N-not…I mean…”
“I don’t think that’s the only reason, but marital stress can sometimes lead to psychological problems,” Makiko said, watching Miyashita Touka closely. There were no signs of anything unusual. Her main source of fear seemed to be her uncle, who had once scolded her furiously but was dead now. She was neither weak nor particularly strong.
The mother, despite being married with a child, held a violent fear of men.
“Well, uhm,” Touka said, flummoxed.
“Well, I can’t say anything yet. Why don’t we test you first?”
“Huh? Test…what?”
“We can try and find out if you do have another personality,” Makiko said, half in jest. It was her last patient of the day. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to fool around a little. Besides, she was curious. She’d never met anyone who actually had MPD, just people suffering from the delusion that they did. And this girl showed no signs of having such a tiresome delusion.
“Eh…I dunno,” Touka said, awkwardly.
“Your mother said…‘a strange man?’ Try and imagine yourself being someone like that. If you really aren’t a split personality, you’ll make a mistake when you try and pretend you are.”
“But, I can’t…”
“Listen. It is perfectly natural for every human to have more than one side to their personality. It is not at all easy to figure out if that is really Multiple Personality Disorder. Every girl has masculine traits, just as every boy has their feminine side. So there’s no harm in giving it a try.”
“I-I guess not…”
“That doesn’t sound like something a man would say.”
“Oh, right. Uh, why, no,” Touka said, awkwardly switching to masculine forms of speech. She even tried to scowl in a manly fashion. Getting into it.
“Okay?”
“S-sure.”
“So, what kind of man are you? You’ve been described as strange, so you must be unusual,” Makiko said, grinning.
The music ended, and the next track came on.
It was the same composer, but the music had abruptly become very stirring. High-pitched fanfares blazed away as Makiko waited for a response.
“Man, woman…you may call me whichever you prefer,” Touka said, her expression shifting to match the music. It was a strange expression, a sort of mocking smile.
Makiko had never seen anyone look like that before.
“Oh? Your gender is ambiguous? That is strange,” Makiko said, impressed by Touka’s reaction. “So why are you inside Touka?”
“I do not know that yet,” ‘he’ said, shaking his head. “But I do know my mission.”
“Oh? And what would that be?”
“I must avert threats to the world,” he said, very seriously. There was not a trace of the smile or excitement her earlier patient had displayed when discussing the same topic. This person was calm and collected.
“So you think the world’s in danger?”
“Apparently it is. An enemy of the world has appeared near me,” he said, shrugging. “If I do nothing, the world will be destroyed. I regret causing trouble for Miyashita Touka and her mother, but I have no choice.”
“That’s quite a scale you’re working on,” Makiko said, a little nonplussed. Touka’s performance was a little too good.
But he remained unflappable.
“Not really. Threats to the world are everywhere,” he said, firmly.
His brazen manner was rattling Makiko. “Are there? But you don’t seem very scared,” she said, to cover her confusion.
“I am not scared. Not of you,” he said, staring right at Makiko.
Makiko gulped. She tried to detect Miyashita Touka’s fear again.
But for some reason, she was unable to do so.
The music around them shifted to a peaceful movement.
“…What do you mean?” Makiko said, stiffening.
Once again, he spoke with utter confidence.
“I mean…you are an enemy of the world.”
***
“…………”
The mood of the room shifted.
They had been joking around, but that sense vanished, replaced with tension as tight as a bowstring ready to loose an arrow.
“An enemy,” she said, her body tensing for flight but careful not to let him know.
This thing…
Makiko glared at him.
What is he? Is he really…no, that’s absurd.
Should she kill him?
It would not be hard. They were in a hospital, and she was dealing with a patient. A strange death could easily be covered up.
But…it might still attract more attention than she’d like. If he resisted…and their battle went beyond the privacy of the room, she couldn’t predict how many other people would get mixed up in the commotion and killed. She didn’t care about their lives, but the attention drawn by such an incident would be a problem.
What should she do?
“Yes, an enemy,” he said, so calm she could not tell if he knew what she was thinking or not. The tension mounted even higher, until it reached a level that could only be described as murderous.
Until…
“But not only you.”
The course of the conversation changed.
“To be strictly accurate, the potential to become an enemy of the world lies in every human. Humans are like fuses—they can go off at the slightest opportunity. Any human is capable of shaking the foundation of the world without a thought for the consequences…”
He sighed. His manner was nothing like Miyashita Touka’s. He seemed to be living in a much harsher reality.
“I could be described as the natural predator of that type of person.”
There was something artificial, something staged about his behavior. Makiko was relieved.
Oh…
The conversation had become very abstract. She started to relax. This was nothing but a susceptible girl’s fantasy.
“If all humans are like that, then I guess that does include me.”
“It does.”
“But is everyone that dangerous? I think most people are pretty normal.”
“Being normal is what makes them dangerous.”
“How so?”
“If you encounter something truly unique, people with a strong sense of self can deal with it calmly. But if someone is too normal, they will get swallowed by the waves, pulled along by the current. That kind of rampage is the most dangerous. People who are satisfied with being ordinary have no resistance. And…the world is not as stable as those people believe. It is always in danger. People who wish to knock down the walls have no shortage of chances.”
His speech finished, he stopped talking.
“…………”
Makiko said nothing either, not quite able to find words.
Only the music broke the silence.
“This is good music. Very beautiful,” he said.
“Yes…nothing wasted, just simple, unadorned beauty,” Makiko said, nodding. “And…it contains no trace of fear.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is too much fear in the world. It’s frustrating. How great would it be if all fear were to vanish?” Makiko was speaking just for the sake of it, but to her surprise, she found she genuinely meant the words.
Even so, she could not live without fear, not now.
“I see. That is your tendency.”
“That is what will make me an enemy of the world?”
“Everything has many sides. Even an idea like the absence of fear can be interpreted in more than one way. For example, ‘If nothing died, then there would no longer be fear.’”
He stared directly at Makiko as he spoke.
“I see,” Makiko said, meeting his gaze.
He might be right. That might be the truth.
Makiko herself had no way of telling. But she could detect the weak points of individuals and organizations and might eventually be able to detect the weak points of the world itself.
And then, would she strike at those weaknesses? There was no question about it. If she had the opportunity, she would have no choice but to ride that wave.
“So when you find an enemy of the world, what do you do?”
“Kill it.”
“…Scary.”
“I have no choice. That appears to be what I am,” he shrugged.
“And you have no remorse?”
“None. I doubt the ones who become my enemies would want that from me.”
“Ah. So you offer your foes a proper fight to the death? Like a duel?” Makiko said, chuckling.
“Of course. You don’t agree?” he asked, staring directly back at her.
“…………”
The music was rising, building to the big finish.
Makiko found herself murmuring, “When I die, I’d like to have this kind of music send me off. Not some turgid requiem or sutra.”
He nodded silently.
4
“If there is such a thing as a God, then that God would exist only in the future.”
Kirima Seiichi, VS Imaginator
“I’ll prescribe some medicine for your mother as well,” Makiko said.
The elder Miyashita looked alarmed. “Oh, I’m not…” she said, clearly rattled.
Before she could say anything else, Makiko jumped ahead of her.
“Oh, no, nothing serious. Just something to help you relax. The best way to help your daughter’s feelings stabilize is if you stay calm.”
The mother backed down without much confidence. She clearly no longer knew what was right—what was the truth.
No one could ever really be sure they were right. No one in this world could ever know everything there was to know.
“Touka-chan, try not to push yourself too hard.”
“Okay,” Touka said, with a cute, girlish smile. Not a trace of shadow anywhere.
Right here and now, Makiko thought, absently. What’s to stop me from killing this girl and everyone else in the hospital?
Their fear would be very sweet. And if she made it look like she had died as well, that would not be a bad way to conceal her identity from the world…
…But…
But it was just a thought. It would attract too much attention. She was not yet at the stage where she could act that freely.
Not yet…
“Well then.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
And that was all, for the time being.
When the world would be in danger…only God knew.
“God Only Knows” closed.