5 - Incarnation

5 - Incarnation

Our minds are infected by a virus called “stories” that someone injected into our brains. That’s what I said. We must abandon stories. I said that too. And I’ve seen the first humans, and the birth of stories, too.

The result of all that is the person I am now. The writer of this story.

But as I said at the beginning, it took me until the death of my ex-girlfriend to realize my destiny. Living in a world with a low story density had given me what amounted to amnesia. Perhaps I needed an event that was like an overdose of stories to remember.

After my memories came back, I spent a fairly long time writing about the life of Akuto Sai. This, I believe, is the end of that process.

But it wasn’t easy.

Around 2010, when the story began to reach its end, it took courage to start writing. I had no ideas in my brain, just a dull headache. It was like I was being slowly strangled by an invisible noose around my throat. There was a strange, unpleasant feeling, a weight that made it hard to move, or hard to even stand up. This unpleasant feeling only grew as my desire to write down these words increased.

I knew what writers had always called this. A slump. Writer’s block.

Someone of a more traditional literary bent might’ve called it a devouring mold, or a stalking black dog. But I gave it a stupider name: the crazy monster. The crazy monster sat in the corner of the room, and whenever I stared at it, it would leap on my shoulders.

If I slept, or did something to distract myself that involved no mental work whatsoever, it would eventually vanish. But during the times when that wasn’t possible, I would have to do a little exercise to get the unpleasantness off my shoulders.

The problem was, I would have to exercise to the point where it put a serious strain on me for it to have any effect, and this was also a bit of a gamble. Sometimes it would help, and other times, it created a pain in my shoulders that made me want to throw up. The pain got to the point where it was devouring my life.

By the time I realized that I couldn’t defeat it, or tame it, it finally occurred to me what it was. It was lightness. The lighter I tried to make what I was writing, the harder it became to write.

I need to elaborate more about what I mean by “lightness”.

Normally, the word would refer to something superficial. Something that didn’t make you think. But in this case, I mean something virtual.

First, the main characters had left their physical bodies behind. By this I mean that they were capable of surviving physical shocks that would kill an ordinary human, and sometimes would display superhuman powers. For this reason, the characters had personalities that were extremely slanted in one direction or another, and seemed inhuman.

The story was written to have a happy ending, and even if there was some unhappiness, it was there for a reason. Sometimes, to avoid an unhappy story, the characters wouldn’t age, and their minds wouldn’t mature. When I tried to write these “light” stories, the unpleasant feeling was always there.

So what if I tried to write a “heavy” story? I tried it, just to get my mind off things, and the more “virtual” it became (that is, even if the characters seemed real, if the story was still fictional) the more the “crazy monster” would be waiting for me.

It was clear that this was an obstacle set by the stories themselves.

I felt like I’d seen the core essence of stories. This was a story written to destroy stories, and it was clear that the stories were fighting back. Looking back, there had been many obstacles in my way up until this point, but all of them were caused by the stories controlling my memories and actions. This goes for how books sell, too.

People are ashamed of “light” stories. But the lightest stories are the ones they love. Many people buy light stories in secret, stories that satisfy their base urges. The heavy stories, on the other hand, are the ones that are said to capture the essence of humanity, and those who write them are praised and called “intellectuals”. And even the most impossible stories are allowed to be believed if they become the text of a religion.

Are stories like gravity? Do they pin us to the Earth with their weight, and make us avoid lightness? And if the true nature of humans is to seek lightness...

I heard a sound of some kind, in my mind. I knew exactly what I had to do to complete my mission.

This world was created by the Demon King. And it was my job to lead the Demon King, and his sunken thoughts, to “lightness”.

The method immediately occured to me.

The Law of Identity would have access to this world. That much was clear from how Keena tried to stop the Demon King. The Law of Identity wanted a real ending. So I would show her the story’s destruction.

Looking back at the way this world was created, it was clear that the Law of Identity must be hiding, unseen by the Demon King. The Demon King was omnipresent in this world, but without the characters’ identities, that is, in the mathematical sense, unless the characters were themselves, the stories couldn’t exist.

But the Demon King had failed to find the Law of Identity in this world. Most likely, this was because of his preconceived notion that Keena was asleep.

Put another way, my goal was to bring the Demon King and the Law of Identity together. And to do it, I would need “a story that denies stories.” And the search for it would be the last story.

“I have no idea what any of the things you just said meant.”

A rather foul-mouthed Junko Hattori said to me, as we sat in a cafe in Kamata station. I’d called her here to explain this. Or try to explain it, at least.

Hattori was sharp, but she could be stubborn and prone to reject anything she saw as a flight of fancy. I’ll probably have to explain to you who Junko is. When the Demon King rolled back the story to around the year 2000, we were given different personalities and lives.

The world was created from nothing in 1990, and we were all given false memories of the past. So in this world, Junko Hattori was an old co-worker of mine. Her old appearance, and her old story, had been taken from her, and now she was a thin, and to be honest, plain-looking girl.

“In other words, this world was just made a bit ago... Well, about ten years ago, in fact. And what I want you to do is bring back your old memories as that character,” I continued. She may not know what I was talking about, but if I kept appealing to her memories, maybe I could get through somehow.

“I remember that from an old manga. A past life, isn’t that what they call it?”

Junko seemed interested. Before my memories came back, I would come talk to her about my novels and writing work, so this wasn’t the first bizarre thing I’d told her. Another person might’ve thought I was crazy, but she was used to it. But that also meant that she was making a division between fiction and reality. It was difficult for her to recognize that her own story was “light”. If she did, after all, it would mean she was going crazy.

“...Well, you can think of it as something like a past life, sure. A game we’re playing. But I’m seriously looking for it... So um, play along. Is there anybody that we both remember, in our past memories?”

“There’s no way that I can remember every single person I’ve ever met.” Junko said, stirring her iced coffee with a straw and looking vaguely annoyed.

“For now, let’s just say the people that helped you become a writer.”

“Okay, well...”

Junko took out a notebook, and began to sift through page after page of bookmarked notes. Between two of the pages was sandwiched a little folder, from which she removed a folded up sheet of copy paper. It was a list of names and addresses in tiny font.

“This is the list of people from my gaming group. Her. Her.”

Junko pointed to a strange looking name.

“That’s not her real name, is it? It’s pretty ridiculous.”

“We were young, after all. It’s a pen name. But that’s all anybody ever called her. Thanks to her, I got big into video games. And that’s how I became a writer.”

Junko laughed, thinking back on the memories. I copied down the address.

“What’s her real name?”

“Oh, what was it? ... I forget. Hmm, I used to remember it...”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. So, she’s someone you knew from a game?”

Junko folded up the old, worn paper like it was a treasured memory.

The gaming group she was referring to was a tabletop gaming RPG, where players gathered around a table and participated in a shared story. Part of the fun was enjoying watching the “story” come to life through shared conversation.

“I’d love to play again sometime, but I don’t have the time these days. Are you going to go looking for her? If you find her tell her I said ‘Hi,’” Junko said with a smile.

I understood well that she’d become a writer because she once enjoyed creating stories. I went to the address I’d copied down, but it wasn’t a residential address. A new building was standing there instead. The apartments that had been there before had been torn down.

I remembered that Junko said she’d been into tabletop RPGs in college. Her friend with the strange pen name must’ve lived in a run-down apartment, like many poor college students. It would be a pain to try and track down someone who once lived in a torn-down building. Instead, it would be faster to track down my reincarnated (?) companions first. The next person I was able to get in touch with was Yoshie.

“You want to know why I got into the writing business? Man, you always ask me the weirdest shit.”

She was several times nastier than Junko. Sometimes she went beyond “sarcastic” and crossed the line into “bitch”. She was small, and her build was frail, but her limbs were fast and her voice was loud. She wasn’t a genius, unfortunately, but she was still an oddball with glasses.

She worked for an editing production department in Shibuya, and I’d worked with her once in the past. I’d gotten an appointment to meet her at her office, claiming it was for work. She lacked the ability to listen to anything anybody else said, so I wasn’t going to tell her about memories from past lives, or anything of that sort.

“Stop living in a fantasy world,” she’d said.

But she’d more than happily tell you stories about her favorite idol group, so it was hard to say if she didn’t live in a fantasy world herself. To be honest, it was impossible to understand how she’d gotten into the story business.

“I’m doing research into relationships writers have. Sometimes when writers are the same age, they get influenced by the same things,” I said, lying to her to change the subject.

“Well, for me it was because a friend told me it was an easy way to make money,” Yoshie said.

She had no writing experience, and no interest in books or movies. But a friend of hers, a professional writer, had introduced her to the job.

“There was nothing I really wanted to do, after all. When I got the job, though, it was all office grunt work. Tell the company to raise my salary.”

“I’m just a contractor.”

“Then tell them I’m a hard worker. Also, buy me dinner.”

Conversations with Yoshie always went this way. She never thought too hard about anything, and was always looking for an easy way out. I wanted to end the conversation as fast as possible, so I asked for the name of the person who’d gotten her into the business.

“They live in Yokohama. I think they’re still an editing production writer.”

She gave me the name of the company and I wrote it down.

“Anyway, why’s a writer like you asking something so pointless?” she asked.

Of course, she had no writing talent at all even though she’d originally been hired as a writer. Instead of being fired, she was reassigned to the editorial department (Maybe the person who’d introduced her had some pull?). So normally, her job was to boss around writers, at least according to her, and she was constantly complaining about everything writers did.

“You wouldn’t understand,” I said, without the slightest doubt in my voice. I couldn’t expect the same brilliance that the old Yoshie had. Right now she was only interested in personal advancement. Or more specifically, money.

She had a man, somewhere, it seemed, but most of her interest was in money. It was a happy thing, in its own way.

“But since you’re in this business, you must’ve been influenced by something a writer wrote, at least once. Or maybe not?”

I asked. Her answer was immediate.

“I watch the drama TV shows on Fridays. I always wonder what’s coming in the next episode, you know? There’s this one side character who’s super cool...”

Yoshie began to chatter on. I waited for her to finally pause, and then ended the conversation. Thinking about it, though... This Yoshie seemed far too uninterested in stories. Or perhaps you could say she was unaware of them.

She responded to “light” stories, but she didn’t realize that the love of money that controlled her was a story itself, and that’s why she hadn’t even succeeded in getting any money. Unless you were greedy enough to know you were greedy, or capable of controlling your greed, saving money was impossible.

But she wasn’t as unlucky as she always said. Someday she would get married to someone, and live a fairly happy life. Well, if this world lasted forever, that is. In the end, stories had saved her, too. “Light” stories brought her rest from the toils of her everyday life, and her mind was simple enough to ensure that she unconsciously obeyed the “heavy” stories.

The stories were her master.

Suddenly, that thought came to me. But when the thought became language, at the same time, I felt myself feeling doubt. If this world was completely real, and the things in my mind were a delusion, then the idea that stories were a virus, and that I, the only man aware of this, had a special role to play, was no different than arrogant madness.

In the end, I had no choice but to believe that I would know at the end of my journey whether what I was doing was right or not. I managed to get in touch with the editing production company that Yoshie had introduced me to. All I had to do was ask if the person Yoshie had mentioned was still there, so a single call was sufficient.

The answer was simple.

“The person you’re referring to did work here, yes. But they quit last year,” the CEO of the company told me directly.

I asked the name.

“Um... the name was... XXXX... No, Soga.”

The first name the CEO gave me was a pen name. Surprisingly, it matched the pen name that Junko had given me, too. And her name was Soga, too... I tried to hide the excitement in my voice, as I simply asked them to call me if they had any work, and then hung up. It was the same person who’d altered the course of each of our lives, and that person was the Law of Identity. The whole thing began to seem much more real.

The CEO had given me the address. Now I just had to go there.

Between Yokohama station and old Takashimacho station, I found it: a room in a condo building. The surrounding area was strange: neither residential nor commercial. Just rows of paved, but empty, lots and trees planted to hide the empty spaces under the bridges. I was only a few minutes from the hustle and bustle of Yokohama, but it felt strange, like it was inside a void. The condo building was a big one, and fancy too, but it felt strangely run-down. I felt the strange lack of light and eerie emptiness that you always feel in places where it’s not safe.

I looked at the name outside the door.

It didn’t say “Soga”. Maybe this wasn’t the right place, but it was worth a try. Even if someone else lived here now, if she’d moved somewhere close, they might be able to tell me where her mail was forwarded to. I rang the bell and asked for “Soga.” The door opened, and someone I knew well came out.

“You finally made it!”

It was Fujiko. Of course, in this world she had a different name. She was pretty, with long black hair, but that was the only thing she’d retained from her fictional counterpart. She was married, and not even my type, but I always felt nervous around her.

When it was just the two of us, the people around us would often stare out of curiosity. But everything else about her was normal, and she was far friendlier than she looked. She was an unsuccessful horoscope writer, married to a public servant. She and I often talked because of our jobs.

“You? Live here?” I asked, so shocked I couldn’t even form a coherent sentence.

“You’re here about Soga, right? Come in.”

Fujiko slipped on her sandals and opened wide the door. I could see a wooden table, a shelf for dishes, and white wallpaper behind her. Nothing out of the ordinary. But this didn’t seem like where she lived with her husband. From the number of dishes and the slippers on the floor, however, it was clear this room belonged to a single person.

“I’ve got a lot of questions, but...”

I said, and Fujiko pointed at me with a dazzling smile.

“Your memories came back, right? Wow, that was incredible, wasn’t it?”

“You mean, of Constant Magical Academy?”

I said, stammeringly.

“Right! That was amazing! Like a fantasy book!”

She was so excited she forgot to tell me to sit down. I’d finally hit the jackpot. I was feeling a little dizzy.

“I’d thought it turned into something a little more serious,” I said, a little sadly.

That calmed her down a bit, but since there was no one in this world who remembered her, she had a lot she wanted to say. So we started to talk about old times, to help bring back my memories and to make sure that hers were correct. Her memories and mine matched.

What was strange was that both of us had our own personalities here, and it seemed to us like the whole thing had been a dream. Even as we spoke about our old world, our personalities remained the same as they were. I didn’t forget that I was an author, and Fujiko remained a friendly fortune-teller, instead of dreaming of world conquest.

“It’s strange thinking that those people were us, isn’t it?” Fujiko said.

“But there’s no other way to explain why we both remember the same things.”

“I never read them before, but I’ll check out your novels.”

“You didn’t read them?”

My shoulders slumped.

“...If I did, I would’ve doubted my memories.”

“That’s true. At first, when I was writing, I didn’t really know what I was doing myself.”

“So, about Soga...” Fujiko began.”

“That’s it. Soga lives here, right?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, lowering her voice.

“Why are you making that face?”

“Oh, I was told to keep it a secret.”

“A secret?”

“Well... my memories came back a little sooner than yours. You know how sometimes you can do fortune telling based on your past life? I was doing that when I remembered.”

“And how did you reach Soga?”

“Well, the first thing I did was doubt my memories. I mean, the ones from before 1990.”

“Yeah. Those were all fake memories that we were implanted with.”

“I went thinking back through those memories, my first memories from when I arrived in this world. And Soga was there.”

“I see. So I was on the right track too. Both Junko and Yoshie got into this line of work because of Soga.”

“But you’re different from the rest of us.”

“I am?”

“Yup. She only sent you a letter, she says.”

“A letter?”

“Yeah. She said... she couldn’t meet you in person.”

“Why?”

“Hmm... she explained it to me, but I didn’t really understand it,” Fujiko said. “I think it’s because Akuto sees the world through your eyes. So you can’t be allowed to meet the Law of Identity.”

For some reason, she sounded like she was apologizing. I began to get worried.

“But I can still talk to her, just not in person, right?”

“You can talk to her online, she says.”

Fujiko brought over a memo pad that was next to the dish shelf. It had a string of letters that looked like an internet phone address.

“That’s pretty cold. It’s a lot... lighter... than what I was looking for. But ‘light’ is what I was seeking, so maybe it’s perfect for the end of this journey.”

“You’re in no hurry, right?” Fujiko said. There was probably still something she hadn’t said.

“Yeah,” I answered.

She was enjoying the memories, I could tell. To me, those days were “heavy”, but to her they were fun. It was late at night by the time I got home. I booted up my computer and the internet dialing software. If I could talk to her, the sooner the better. I called. The answer was immediate.

“I’ve been waiting.”

The voice was calm and cold. There was no video.

“Soga?”

“That name is correct.”

If my memories were right, Keena Soga didn’t talk like this. It was the Law of Identity.

“The letter I got wasn’t from Soga, though.”

I remembered the letter that Fujiko had mentioned. It was the letter that caused me to become an author. A letter from a childhood friend. Of course, now I knew that that memory was a fake. At the time, the letter had been strangely moving. It was a memory that I didn’t want to believe was faked, even if I knew it was.

“I’m sorry to say this, because it feels like I was deceiving you, but I’m the one who wrote that letter.”

“Hearing that makes me feel better. Well, maybe it doesn’t, actually... Do you have records of being alive in this world, too?”

“Yes. As you found out, after that, I got to know everyone, married someone you don’t know, and had a family.”

I felt insulted. Of course, I’d had no memories of meeting my childhood friend after that, but obviously I’d always felt a bit of an attraction to the person who’d told me I had so much talent, and even secretly written me a letter.

“That’s a shitty way to end a story. Especially since I can’t even see you.”

“From your perspective, I’m just a story too, after all,” the Law of Identity said.

She was right. I was just talking to her over the internet. If I wanted to start doubting things, I could do it easily. Fujiko knew Junko, so she might have found out that I’d been asking weird questions. And if she read the book I published, she’d be able to play along with my conversation. It would be simple to pretend to be the Law of Identity.

“Is this your way of telling me that even if you’re a fake, it doesn’t matter?”

“Even if it’s all a lie, what’s important is that the ending satisfies him.”

“By him, you mean the Demon King. I thought the goal was to satisfy you, the Law of Identity. You’re going to save everyone, right?”

“No. Or I guess you could say, it’s both of us. You recorded the story of the Demon King. Which means that you understood the true nature of this world. So if you’re satisfied, that means he’s satisfied. And of course, I have to be satisfied too.”

The Law of Identity’s voice was strangely flat, like it was being altered by a machine.

“So we all need to be satisfied with the ending, is what you’re saying.”

“Yes. So please, show me. Show me the records you wrote.”

I did as I was asked, and sent my final file, that is, the last volume of my novel, over the internet. I heard the sound that indicated it had been received. And for a while, I waited. I couldn’t say a word until she spoke first.

The records were simply that, records. It was impossible to find meaning in them. But the “stories”, got involved whether you wanted them to or not. Right now, “heaviness” was winning.

“Do you think it was the mind that was infected by the virus? Or the body?”

That was the first thing the Law of Identity asked. I thought it was my duty to answer, even if I didn’t understand.

“Both... right? I think it was the body that was infected first, but it’s the mind that’s being controlled.”

There was a silence, and then another question.

“You believed that the truth he needed to know was the end of the story, and that by knowing it, people could be saved. Is that right?”

It was a strange question. What was she trying to learn from that?

“I can’t be sure, but... that’s what I was thinking. He tried to save the world. No, I think I believed that if the afterlife existed, and the Law of Identity existed, then there must be some salvation.”

“Since you know that much, I’ll share with you my last words.”

“Go ahead.”

I waited. But there was a silence like she was hesitating.

“What’s wrong?”

“No, I’ll tell them to you.”

The Law of Identity said.

“You have been made incarnate, and are trapped here. That is the role of the hero. The world will be saved, and those who lived there, and those who were able to entrust themselves to the lightness of stories, will someday come unto me.”

And then there were no more words.

“Hey! Hey!” I shouted. But there was no answer. Instead, her account had been deleted.

Maybe this was all a setup. Or maybe I’d really gone insane.

These words, and the despair they brought with them, echoed in my mind.

Something had ended, probably. No, not probably. Certainly. That much I knew. For sure. But I didn’t know what had ended. It felt like I knew for certain that tomorrow would come. The sun would come up, and before long, it would be deadline time.

But it was over. His story was over. What Akuto Sai wanted, the salvation of the people, was over.

Dawn came without me getting any sleep. I went outside. The town was the same as it ever was. I was able to go to the coffee shop and order a hot dog and coffee. The clerk at the counter was real.

I called Fujiko around noon. She didn’t remember what had happened yesterday, but she seemed very happy. Yes, just like when she’d been talking about her old memories.

Junko contacted me, asking me to join her gaming group. She’d gotten back in the mood to play. I didn’t bother trying to contact Yoshie.

No, all three of them were no longer Fujiko, Junko, or Yoshie. From now on I should call them by their names from this world. I started to walk to work. I felt something clink at my footsteps, and heard a metallic sound.

It was a ball and chain wrapped around my legs.

I could feel the heavy chains around me... at least, that’s how it felt. It was the “heavy” story. We believe these heavy stories that bind us are worthy of our praise, but sometimes, the “light” stories help us forget them, if only for a second. But they lack bodies, and so they “lightly” flew away from us, leaving just a hint as to how to escape from stories.

We, the ones with bodies, are the ones who circle endlessly. We fill this place, simply wandering forever.