Chapter V

Chapter V

 

Trying not to puke from the lingering effects of the stun gun my sister had zapped me with, I boarded a bus and headed straight for Orihata’s apartment building.

(Urp…)

The more you try to suppress the urge, the more attention you attract. I barely managed to look normal.

I had lost the Boogiepop outfit Orihata had made me.

That felt strange.

I felt like that had been the link between us, and without it, I couldn’t settle down.

But I could no longer rely on it. Either way, Kinukawa Kotoe had been taken into custody, and there was no way for me to ask her where Orihata was.

I got off the bus, and walked the route to Orihata’s apartment, which I had followed countless times before (though I always turned back at the entrance).

I was a little worried that someone would stop me, but no one did, and I was soon standing outside the door to her apartment.

I rang the bell, my heart pounding.

There was no answer…

I rang it again.

Still nothing…

I grit my teeth, pulled out the key, and unlocked the door.

Now that I thought about it, Orihata had never once actually come over to my home—and this was my first time ever entering hers. Yeah, all things considered, we had had a rather strange relationship.

“Hello?” I whispered, stepping in.

My feet stopped almost instantly.

“Uh…?!”

The room was empty.

There wasn’t a trace of anyone living here.

“W-wait a minute,” I said, flustered.

This was absurd. I had dropped her off here almost every day, and the key was the right key, so… Feeling myself beginning to panic, I looked around the apartment again, and found a sleeping bag lying in the corner of the empty living room.

I gulped.

I crept over to it and picked it up by the corner.

I sniffed—I know, kinda creepy—and it smelled like her hair did whenever she leaned in close to powder my face in makeup.

(Orihata—slept here?)

I dropped the sleeping bag and peered around the room.

Her Shinyo Academy uniform was hanging on the wall.

I opened the closet, and found the rest of her clothes. I’d seen everything in there. It was all of the clothes she’d ever worn on our dates.

And that was it…

Nothing casual, nothing for around the house. No sweatshirts, no jerseys, no pajamas. Nothing.

“…………”

Hesitantly, I opened what I assumed was her underwear drawer.

Only one type, and they were all lined up. It was as if she’d bought them on sale somewhere.

“…………”

I glanced back towards her clothes.

I had seen all of them…but one set was missing.

“Where are the clothes she was wearing the last time I saw her…?” I said, unease gnawing at my gut.

I went into the kitchen. The stove looked barely even used, so I looked in her garbage. It was filled with empty convenience store bento. I flipped through each of them.

No recent dates…

The most recent one was the day before I last saw her.

“………” I felt suddenly dizzy and fell over on the floor.

(What does this mean—?)

Where was Orihata?

I felt like I was overlooking something important.

But what?

What was I forgetting?

 

***

 

Meanwhile, in an abandoned, half-finished, suburban amusement park near the city, another man was equally confused.

(What’s going on?)

Spooky E was furiously dialing one number after another, his always pasty features even paler, trying to contact the ‘terminals’ he’d brainwashed.

But not one of them would respond. Every phone was turned off.

(Shit! How did this happen?)

Blood spurted out of the wounds where his right ear had been. His teeth chattered away.

His hair had gone from simply graying to completely gray.

Fear.

It was the one thing tormenting him now.

If his terminals did not respond, then his power over them had been lifted.

Which (to him) meant he had lost all proof of his existence.

This had happened before—a boy had somehow slipped out from under his control, but he had convinced himself this was an isolated occurrence and merely coincidental.

No, he had tried to convince himself.

Without his power, he was in the same position as the object of his abuse and scorn, Orihata Aya—if not worse.

Orihata Aya would be able to carry on somehow, testing to see if cross breeding were possible, but he had no chance of anything like that.

He would be completely useless.

And, probably, disposed of.

(This can’t be happening!)

He opened his hands, and let electricity crackle across his palms. He could see the sparks, hear the sound of air burning.

(It’s still working—I’m not finished yet! So why——?)

He forced power into his jaw, and managed to stop his teeth from dancing.

Normally, this would be no time to be holed up in an abandoned, half-finished amusement park like this. He should be down in town, trying to work out what was wrong. But…

“D-d-d-damn you…”

He couldn’t do that.

He was too scared, too frightened to see things with his own eyes.

“Damn it… Damn it!”

What worried him the most was the lack of response from Kinukawa Kotoe, who he had spent so much time on. Even if the others fizzled out, she had been a virtual copy of himself, so how could she possibly escape his control?

“Impossible! It’s completely impossible!”

Blood glurped out of his ear wound again.

He sat trembling in the darkness a while longer, but at last he got control of himself and stood up.

He walked slowly to the top of the tower he was hiding in.

The roof of the half-finished tower was covered in building materials, and he made a b-line for one particularly innocuous-looking pile.

“If it’s come to this…”

There were seven canisters, none especially large.

Each one contained enough bioweaponry to wipe out every living person in the area.

Specifically, it was a toxic virus genetically engineered to dissipate and die within three hours of being released into the air—or thirty minutes in daylight.

But during that time, the virus would multiply explosively, infect every living thing it came into contact with, and melt every cell in their body. Eventually, the virus would begin to cannibalize itself, leaving nothing untouched in its wake.

It was described as the ultimate “antibiotic”—one so powerful that it could disinfect life itself.

But Spooky E was hardly concerned about such details. His body already had immunities to the virus—so no matter how much ‘death’ he spread, he would never feel so much as a sniffle.

“I could use this…”

If he killed everyone, he might be able to hide the fact that his ability had failed…!

He reached his hand towards the valve on top of one of the canisters.

“Then…!” There was a gleam in his big eyes.

But his hand suddenly froze, like something was pulling it back.

He raised his head, and stared around him.

“What…?!”

He heard footsteps. Someone was here.

Quite a lot of people were here.

He looked over the edge of the tower at the ground below.

His expression stiffened.

“………”

There was a crowd of people staring up at him.

He recognized at least half of them.

Naturally, they were the people he had brainwashed.

“Wh-what the hell?!” he roared.

But none of them made any response. It was as if they hadn’t even heard him.

They simply stared calmly up at him, in silence.

“A-answer me! What the hell are—!” he shouted hysterically.

A voice from behind him said, “At last we meet, Spooky Electric-kun.”

It was a young man’s voice. Spooky E twitched like he’d been jolted with electricity, then spun around.

A man in white clothes—Asukai Jin—was standing at the entrance to the roof.

“Wh-who are you?!” Spooky E screamed.

Asukai Jin did not answer. He stared at the canister behind Spooky E.

“Oh, I see. The ‘disinfectant.’ You were going to use that? Cut it close then.”

“What the hell are you?!” Spooky E shrieked, and at last Asukai met his gaze.

“That’s a strange question.”

“Wh-what?!”

“I thought you were looking for me. Was I wrong?” Asukai said, shrugging. “If you must say something, it should be, ‘I guess the time has come,’ or something like that.”

“Th-then…y-you are……” Spooky E took a step backwards. He bumped against the canister.

“You know me as ‘The Imaginator,’” Asukai said, grinning.

Spooky E gasped. “What…did you do? How—?!”

He knew the man in front of him was his greatest threat.

“I’m just better than you,” Asukai said quietly and with utter confidence.

“Guh…!”

“The Towa Organization, was it? Your syndicate—no, system?” Asukai trilled.

“Y-you know…?”

“Not any specifics. Just that this system is…“observing” things. I must say, you’ve got quite some people working for you.”

Spooky E made another choking sound.

“What are you observing? What conditions are you searching for?” Asukai asked, peacefully. “I’ve thought of many things, but have only been able to come up with one working theory.”

Spooky E was shaking like a leaf.

“‘Transformation.’ What else? Anything that changes? That’s what you’re watching, correct? You give ordinary, innocent humans drugs and observe their reactions, and then you investigate how much they change…am I right?”

“Unh…”

“From which we can determine that the Towa Organization operates on a scale much too grand to be referred to as a mere syndicate. Essentially, everything in the ‘present’—whether they hate all things new and different, or whether they are trying to bend these new things to their will—has collectively produced what is known as the Towa Organization. Obviously, this means their power is incredibly vast. However…” Asukai shot Spooky E another grin. “In this area, at the moment, there is only you. Correct?”

He smiled with only his eyes, his eyes declaring that Spooky E would not be saved, would not be able to escape.

“Grrraagh…!” Spooky E ground his teeth, blood spraying out of his missing ear again. “Y-you… you know that much…but do you have any idea what that means?”

“Mm?”

“No matter what you do to me, you have no future!” Spooky E bellowed. “You can’t survive long with the Towa Organization as your enemy! When you end my life—you end yours!” His shrill voice was almost completely swept away by the high wind blowing across the tower roof.

“…………” Asukai Jin just kept on smiling, staring at Spooky E. “My enemy?” He nodded to himself. Then his mouth twisted into a smirk. “My enemy!”

“What’s so funny?”

“Speaking of enemies… Do you have any idea?”

“Of what?”

“How many people died because of the ‘experiments’ you’ve been conducting? People who coincidentally had an allergic reaction to the drugs you fed them…or who went into shock. Here’s a hint, it’s no small number.”

“So what? They aren’t important!”

“True. They aren’t,” Asukai agreed, calmly. “The percentage of deaths is much lower than traffic accidents, or disease. You could certainly say that anyone that happened to die that way was simply unlucky…nothing more. But every human has someone who depends on them. Don’t you understand? They have friends…family.”

“…?” Spooky E frowned, unable to figure out what Asukai was driving at.

“He certainly was unlucky. He always did have bad luck,” Asukai said, his gaze drifting marginally skywards. “He had no ‘roots,’ you see. Everything he tried, he did timidly. Yet his ‘flower’ was gigantic, which meant he’d jump on board any fool’s dream, get tricked again, and just wind up in trouble. I had to cover for him so many times.” A self-deprecating grin passed across his face. “But that was all in vain. No matter how hard I worked, I could not make up for his utter lack of fortune.”

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

“I suppose it was he who gave me The Little Prince.” Asukai sighed and fixed his gaze on Spooky E again. “Enemy? No, this is revenge. This is the irony of fate.”

“So tell me what you mean!”

“Just a little history,” Asukai said suddenly.

“What…?”

“Have you ever considered who it is who ultimately wins? Is it the strongest? Is it the one who kept everyone under his thumb? What do you think happens to people like that in the end? I’ll tell you…nothing. When they win, they use too much power, and collapse. Their victory is snatched away from them by someone else. When you face your enemy, you must make a more intelligent choice.”

Asukai’s smile vanished.

“The second option is to carefully surrender. You have plenty of power, but not enough to take on your opponent, so surrender is the best way to stay alive. But the first option—”

Unsmiling, his gaze was so pointed it seemed to pierce the other man’s skin.

“Turn your enemy into your ally. This is the wisest, most effective method.”

Spooky E’s big eyes opened even wider. “Wh-what…?!”

“You and I are a lot alike. We’re almost exactly the same. We have the same kind of power. Our abilities compliment each other.”

Asukai spread his hands.

“In other words, as long as I keep doing the same kind of things, then as far as the Towa Organization is concerned, there is no real difference from when you did them.”

“…………!” Spooky E’s expression twisted. “Y-you can’t mean…!”

“Yes, I can. I’m going to use you as cover while I take over the Towa Organization. Through you, I shall spread the Imaginator throughout the Towa Organization—at least, that’s the plan.”

Asukai took a step towards Spooky E.

Spooky E slid sideways past the canister at his back, trying to keep his distance. “B-but that’s…”

“Forget can or can’t. I have to. If I want to make snow fall in April everywhere in the world, I absolutely need a vast organization backing me.”

“S-snow…?”

To any sensible human being, Spooky E was a monstrous being of unfathomable mystery…yet now he faced something far more inscrutable than himself for the first time since he had come into this world.

“Simply put, I plan to standardize humanity’s psyche—putting an end to all the sadness, all the disconnections, all the misunderstandings that arise between us.”

“Y-you’re insane! You’ve completely lost your mind!”

“So what if I have? If you think yourself sane, then do something about this madman before you start insisting you are,” Asukai said, grinning.

“Ah…rraaaaaaaaah!” Spooky E bellowed as leapt at Asukai, electricity sparking from both hands.

Asukai…did not dodge.

Spooky E’s electric palms slapped him on the head like a sumo wrestler, knocking him over backwards.

(What—?!)

After all the confident speeches, Spooky E was completely thrown by his enemy’s extreme weakness.

But he couldn’t hesitate now. He attacked again.

Grabbing Asukai’s head between both hands, he sent electricity—

Or at least, he tried to, but Asukai suddenly sprang forward, and Spooky E reflexively shrank backwards.

“Unh…” Big drops of battle sweat rolled down his fat cheeks and forehead.

“Pretty intense,” Asukai said, shaking his head. Something fell off it.

Something that made Spooky E’s eyes bulge out of his head.

A wig, with smoke pouring off of it. The inside was covered in strips of something.

It was a glossless texture that Spooky E knew very well.

“A-anti-magnetic sheets?”

These were stickers designed to shield floppy discs from the magnets in purse latches and the like by halting all electromagnetic waves. Piling these on top of each other had effectively left Asukai’s head wrapped into a sort of papier-mâché helmet.

“Exactly! I had surmised that your ability was based on electromagnetic waves, so I came prepared,” Asukai taunted. Without the wig, his hair looked exactly the same. He was busy shaking debris out of it, fragments fallen from the anti-magnetic sheets.

“………” Spooky E stared at the wig for a moment, but at last snorted loudly, then broke into a wild guffaw. “Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!”

“Is it funny?” Asukai asked.

Spooky E went right on laughing. “Ha ha! You were nothing more than a fraud all along! How can I not laugh? You had me running scared!”

“Am I?”

“Without that little trick of yours, you can’t block my attack. We may be equally matched in the brainwashing department, but you’re not even in the ballpark when it comes to fighting!”

“Ah, you could put it that way. Yes.” Asukai hung his head.

“Give it up! You can never…” he started to say, but…

(……?)

Spooky E noticed something odd.

In Asukai Jin’s right hand was a single rose. Held delicately in his fingertips.

(Where’d that come from?)

The rose had no roots. But it had not been cut; instead, the stem grew steadily smaller, tapering off to nothing. It was like an artificial flower, but was too realistic, too fresh.

“Other people may not be able to see my ‘visions,’ but I imagine you can,” Asukai said, twirling the rose around in his fingertips. “After all, this…is your ‘psyche.’”

“More magic tricks?” Spooky E bellowed, and lunged at Asukai again.

Again, Asukai did not try to dodge. This time there was nothing on his head to protect him.

(Don’t need to hold back! Full storm power, fry every cell in his stupid brain!)

Spooky E reached out with both hands.

Asukai stood there, waiting for the blow to fall—

 

***

 

=But just before it did, Spooky E’s body froze in place.

(Wh-what the—?)

He was right in front of Asukai Jin. His hands were just centimeters away from grabbing onto him…but he couldn’t close that gap.

“Gr…rrrrr…?”

Clearly, it wasn’t some invisible wall between them. It was more like Spooky E’s body had become incredibly, amazingly heavy—too heavy to continue moving.

“M-my body…it… it won’t move…!”

“Not your body. Your mind,” Asukai said quietly, the rose still in his hand.

“Wh-what did you do to me?”

“Right now, no matter what, you will not be able to work up the motivation to attack me. That’s all. The only thing stopping you from moving is your own will. Your own unconscious will.”

“H-how…?!”

“I removed the ‘thorns’ from your ‘flower.’ That’s all.”

“…………?!”

“But that seems to have removed your very capacity for aggression.”

Asukai spun the rose in his hand again. There were no thorns anywhere on the rose’s stem.

“Th-that’s impossible…” But even as he spoke, Spooky E toppled feebly over and with a thump, he was sitting on the floor of the roof.

“Unh…” He couldn’t even roar.

Now he got it.

He knew why Asukai had used another cheap trick like those anti-magnetic sheets… It was so he couldn’t run away.

First, he needed to make him attack, and then stop that attack. But he only needed to stop it once. If he managed to get close enough to Spooky E even for a moment, then he could take his ‘rose.’

“Your power—this thing where you control a person’s brain with electric shocks—is incredibly backwards,” Asukai said, glaring down at Spooky E. “It lacks the concept of the ‘soul.’ You pay no attention to the principle force driving human behavior. You just jam a bit of information down on top of their minds, without ever really changing them in any real sense of the word. Compared to the Imaginator, you’re just second rate.”

“Unh…”

“You never thought to even do what I can—to perceive the flaws in human hearts and discover how to repair them. Your method is like striking water with a hammer. The key point is to change your method depending on who you are working with.”

“Uuuuunh…”

“Told you I was better,” Asukai said.

“Uuuuuuuunh,” Spooky E moaned, reeling. It was just as Asukai said; he had no urge to attac, and no strength anywhere in his body.

“Yet…I should admit that I do have to do much the same thing as you do with your lightning. There are just too many humans in this world.”

“Wh-what have you done…? What are you going to do now…?” Spooky E managed, listlessly.

“Grafting. You know the word? Where you take two similar plants, touch the parts that bear fruit together, and create an entirely new plant. Same principle. I have been taking groups of two or more and using them to plant a small piece of what each of them lacked. Everyone I’ve done this for has been very happy, since their hearts are now perfect. And naturally, all of them have become my allies.”

Asukai smiled gently.

“I can do the same thing for you. As soon as you find a partner, I can give you the ‘roots’ you lack. In return, I will take just a little sliver of your ‘stem.’ Of course, it’ll cut down that strong mental power…but you’ll hardly even notice. Not with the joy you’ll be feeling once your flaw is healed.”

“……………” Spooky E looked dazed. “I don’t…understand.”

“Even you will understand soon.”

Spooky E looked up at Asukai, his eyes unfocused. “What I don’t understand is how you can be enjoying this. I, at least, was acting on orders from the Towa Organazation—but you…”

Asukai frowned, sharply.

Spooky E ignored him, dropping his gaze again. “Nah… Well, that’s really not important… There’s only one thing left for me to look forward to.”

He held his hands up in front of his face, staring at them.

“What’s that?”

“Something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” he muttered. “But my hatred for them was too strong, so I never could. I couldn’t do it while they were still living. But now those feelings are gone. Maybe because you took my ‘thorns.’ So for that, I guess I’m grateful to you…”

“What are you talking about?” Asukai asked, puzzled.

“Let me give you one warning…Imaginator! Boogiepop is after you,” he said, and then Spooky E grabbed his own face.

Sparks flew.

“——!”

By the time a flustered Asukai reached his side, Spooky E had already burned out all the cells in his brain with his own electricity. Blood poured out of his eyes and nose. Smoke trailed from the wound on his right ear.

He was dead.

 

***

 

“………Ah,” Orihata Aya moaned, opening her eyes. She thought she had heard faint screaming coming from somewhere.

The world around her was still pitch black. There were no windows or lamps in the room she was imprisoned in.

She was sprawled out on the dust-covered floor, her hands and feet handcuffed from behind. Spooky E had put her here.

She could no longer tell how long she had been sleeping. Despair seemed ready to tear her open.

“Mmph,” she mumbled, twisting herself upright.

Dust flew, and she coughed.

“I have to… I have to get away…”

It might already be too late. The thought made her teeth chatter violently.

“I have to go… I have to tell him…”

Tormented by anxiety and fear, she moved like an inchworm, looking for the door.

But it wasn’t that simple. The door was locked, and there was no other way in or out.

“Augh…!”

She was shivering violently. It was cold, she was exhausted, and she was powerless.

But she kept on moving despite the handcuffs, frantically searching for a way out.

As her body twisted, something fell out of her jacket pocket.

Her cell phone.

Spooky E had forgotten to take it away from her, but regardless of how brightly the low battery light was shining…there was still hope.

(Aaah…!)

Aya quickly planted her face next to the phone. With this, she could tell him…!

She prayed there would be a signal.

(P-please……!)

Using the tip of her tongue—the only part of her she could move—she tried to push the buttons.

Suddenly, there was a click from the door.

Aya’s face jerked.

“……!”

It was no good. She had no time. She couldn’t hide the phone in time…!

The handle turned, and the door swung open.

Light poured into the dark room.

But the silhouette standing before her was not Spooky E.

“Wh-who are…?” Aya thought she had seen this tall man in white clothes before.

“We’ve met before,” the man said, agreeing.

“You are—!” she remembered.

The man who had saved them the day she first met Masaki.

“Why are you…?” she murmured, then her head jerked up. “P-please! Help me!”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,” the man said quietly.

“Eh…?”

“I need you to be a sacrifice,” he said, sounding very lonely.

“Wh-what do you…mean?”

“I don’t have much time…I didn’t expect Spooky E to die. Sooner or later, another Towa Organization agent will come here. I need to be ready for them. I have at least brought ‘lightning’ to this town.”

Aya couldn’t understand most of what the man said, except for one thing…

(He’s dead…?)

She was sure he’d said that.

The man who had bound her like this was dead?

Then that meant… that meant he was…

“Um, excuse me…!” Ignoring the man’s sinister promise to sacrifice her, Aya tried to ask for the one thing she cared about.

And then the phone in front of her lit up and began to ring.

“……!”

Aya knew instantly.

Only two people ever called her phone number, and one of them was Spooky E.

The man in white reached out, and picked up the phone.

He answered the phone—and just like when headphones are yanked from a stereo, it got really loud, and a boy’s frantic voice filled the room.

“Orihata! Orihata, is that you?!”

It was Taniguchi Masaki.

(Ahhhhh……)

Relief stole all the strength in Aya’s body.

 

***

 

“………”

Asukai had heard the voice that came gushing out of the phone before.

(That boy…)

He looked back at Orihata Aya.

She looked completely and utterly relieved.

(She had been about to ask me if the boy was safe.)

He nodded. That was more important to the girl than her own safety.

“Hello…? Hello! Orihata?! Say something, please?!”

“…………”

Asukai listened wordlessly, and at last held the phone out…to Aya’s ear.

“…?”

She looked surprised. Whoever this man was, he didn’t seem like he planned to forgive her. So why was he giving her the phone?

Asukai gazed down at her coldly. No trace of pity or pride.

“Orihata?! Orihata?!!” the boy’s voice continued, nearly shrieking.

Asukai Jin and Orihata Aya looked at each other as the voice between them rang out——