7 Tsuji Nozomi - Automatic

7
Tsuji Nozomi - Automatic

 

Tsuji Nozomi did not actually have any powers. No ‘talent’ like the others had. Her ‘Automatic,’ in which she sketched visions of the future, was entirely fictional. A performance. Like Tenjiki Yuu, she just made up stuff that seemed convincing.

And she did it all because she had loved Koumoto Kouji for years.

She’d started liking him back in elementary school. Everyone around her gossiped about him. “Koumoto? He’s like… you know…” She always thought, “But he isn’t!” She never said anything, but it angered her. She could tell Koumoto was always fighting something. He always looked so uncomfortable, but he never let it get the best of him; the way he always faced it head-on really impressed her. When no one was looking, she started talking to him. It was always Kouji who made sure no one caught them talking. He was afraid if anyone noticed, Nozomi would be ostracized, too. Even as a little kid, he always thought of things like that. Nozomi was sometimes frustrated by this, but she also knew he did it for her, and that only intensified her feelings for him.

But if that was all it was, her first love might well have faded without her ever realizing it was love. Koumoto Kouji would have taken over from his parents, and Tsuji Nozomi would definitely not have followed him there. They’d have lost contact once junior high started, and even if they ran into each other decades later, Kouji would have adjusted to life as a cult leader; sure of himself, but the struggle to retain his dignity long since lost. Meanwhile, the compromises any ‘grown-up’ woman faces would have left Nozomi out of touch with her feelings. They’d have had no means of finding that connection again.

But fate had other things in store for them.

When Koumoto Kouji’s ‘talent’ first activated, Nozomi was the only one with him. When Kouji told her not to tell anyone else, she knew he’d made up his mind.

This actual miracle would force Kouji to break off contact with his parents.

When that happened, Nozomi thought, he’d cut her off, too. To keep her out of whatever trouble it caused him.

This realization led her to lie impulsively. “You’re not the only one, Kouji. I can do the same thing,” she’d said. And she’d kept the act up for a decade.

They’d become partners. Even after they went to different junior high schools, even after he left home, even after Nozomi’s parents divorced and she followed neither, electing instead to enter an art school and rent an apartment of her own.

The whole time, their relationship continued.

It was always a very distant relationship; they’d spent years together and barely even held hands. They were just two people with similar powers, who’d become friends because of that.

Even so, Nozomi enjoyed what she had. Yet she was always anxious. Would he figure it out some day? Part of her wanted to know what Kouji would do if he did. Would he forgive her? Would he realize at last how she felt, why she’d followed him all this time? Hope and anxiety mingled, leaving her desperate to tell him, but unable to risk it. While not the life she’d hoped for, it was certainly one that kept her heart beating.

But now—

 

“Kouji! Kouji!”

In the darkness underground, Nozomi sobbed, clinging to Koumoto Kouji’s unmoving body.

“Come on! Answer me! Say something, Kouji!”

There was no sign of the calm, collected girl her friends knew. Tears were gushing down her cheeks, her face twisted with despair.

Koumoto Kouji’s body was unbelievably heavy. The puddle they’d landed in had soaked his clothes through. And Nozomi’s arms were the only thing supporting the full weight of his limp body.

She could hear the creatures that had been coming after them getting closer.

But she kept on dragging Kouji further and further in.

“Kouji, Kouji! This isn’t happening! This can’t be true! Kouji!”

Words flooded out of her, barely making sense. She could see he wasn’t breathing. But she couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Her brain refused to accept it.

“Kouji! Say something! Kouji…!”

She heard splashes as their pursuers landed in the puddle.

She pulled Koumoto Kouji’s body harder, desperate.

But he was too heavy for her, and slipped out of her hands. She stumbled, tripped over him and fell face first into a puddle.

She sat up gasping, and the enemy was right in front of her.

Nozomi didn’t try to back away. She just threw her arms around Koumoto Kouji, clinging to him.

His body was already cold. The chill of the water had robbed him of his warmth. And whatever functions generated body heat had almost completely ceased.

But Nozomi didn’t let him go. She held him tight.

“Kouji…!”

She closed her eyes.

 

Then…

Then she heard a sound. Far away, yet close by. It was hard to judge the distance.

At first she thought it was the wind.

But it grew louder.

A bizarre hissing whistle, like no other sound on earth.

The sound instinctively put the fiends on guard. They stopped, keeping their distance.

The sound was coming from the corpse in Nozomi’s arms.

Nozomi opened her eyes.

She knew this sound. She’d heard it more often than anyone else.

It was the sound of Whispering activating.

But Kouji’s body no longer lived. His mouth hung open, not moving. And yet, from within it came a shrill whine, like wind escaping.

 

“…rroooooobbbssssssgggrrrrrrooooaaaaaaaaar…..!!”

 

It did not form any recognizable words. These were words from a world not yet born, that did not yet exist. Words from the far distant future, words that were, as yet, only a possibility. These words were the scream of someone putting their life on the line in whatever world it was they lived in.

It was a shout. A roar. The desperate, throat-ripping shriek of someone protecting the thing most precious to them.

Modern man could not possibly understand the meaning of these words, yet they were thrown through time, into the distant past, echoing from the throat of a boy no longer able to move.

The sound shook the air, filling this underground room.

Nozomi stared down at Kouji’s lifeless face, dazed.

She had no idea what was happening.

At last the scream faded, and the cave was silent again.

The fiends waited, on guard, making sure whatever it was had passed.

Then they began moving closer to her.

Nozomi stayed still, not moving.

One of the fiends leapt, grabbing her shoulder, trying to rip her apart.

In that instant, there was a soft sound, like something slicing through the air, and the arm pulling Nozomi’s shoulder…was suddenly severed with a sickeningly wet sound.

The fiend lost its balance, and fell over. The beasts backed away, observing.

Nozomi looked down at the severed arm on her shoulder. It slid off, landing in the water with a splash. Nozomi felt no surprise. She looked up at the fiends, then followed their gaze.

A figure stood in the shadows. It spoke to her, softly. “I heard his scream. It led me here.” A strange voice, androgynous; it could be read as either male or female.

Nozomi was not surprised. She just assumed she’d gone mad. She knew the shadow standing before her. Not just her; all the girls who lived around here knew who this was.

A black hat and a black cape. A white face with black lipstick. Everyone knew the shinigami.

Everyone knew Boogiepop.

The fiends screamed wordlessly and threw themselves at their new foe.

Something in the air around Boogiepop glinted, like thread catching the light. A moment later, the creatures in the lead fell apart, their bodies sliced to pieces. Was that monofilament?

To Nozomi, it looked like something as fine as thread had been quickly wrapped around the fiends, and then yanked tight so fast it cut right through them. Certain she’d gone mad, she watched, perfectly calm.

The fiends were long past fear, but for the first time, they looked surprised. They took a step back.

Boogiepop was right in front of them, instantly moving closer.

Three more fiends fell to pieces, bits of their bodies splashing into the water around them.

Boogiepop was so fast, so precise, its motions so refined that Nozomi was sure it must be a machine. Nozomi’s own power was a fake, but this was real, an automatic thing moving with no mind of its own. There was a hiss as something sped past her and the liquid it flung off landed on her cheek.

It was blood. The heat of it shook her. The feel of the blood was so real she could not believe it was the product of a mind gone mad.

She gasped and looked around her.

It had been less than a minute. Mere seconds!

There were no fiends left anywhere. Just a black shadow standing quietly nearby. Boogiepop looked down at her. The shinigami’s eyes were cold, like ice. The light of them transfixed Nozomi. She couldn’t move.

Boogiepop glanced down at Koumoto Kouji’s unmoving body. It spoke. “That is gone,” it said, coldly. “You may cling to it if you wish, but that voice… that scream did not belong to this world. It coming here was…a miracle. A miracle that gave you a path to live, and if you choose to cling to the body of the one who performed a miracle to save you… well, that is up to you.”

Nozomi stiffened like she’d been struck by lightning.

Her lips shook. But no words came out.

Boogiepop glared silently down at her.

“B-but…but…” she said. She couldn’t talk.

“I know not whose will brought that scream here. But if you waste the life it has given you, then you rob that will of meaning, too, without ever knowing why you survived.”

Boogiepop’s words overpowered her, echoing through the darkness, without mercy, without emotion.

Unable to bear it, Nozomi looked down. For a brief instant, she thought she saw a smile on Koumoto Kouji’s lifeless face.

It was just an illusion. He was long past moving.

But Nozomi was sure she’d seen it. She was sure Kouji had smiled at her.

There was only one thing that that could mean. Kouji had been so damn serious. He’d never been one to understand complex feelings. She knew exactly what he’d say to her now.

“Nozomi, you always give up so fast. That ain’t good. No matter how hard things get, you gotta push forward.”

That sort of self-help-book bullshit was all he ever said.

“Kouji.”

She slowly let her hands fall from his corpse, and looked up.

She blinked, surprised.

The cloaked figure was gone.