Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

 

1.

 

“WHAT?” Naomi choked out.

The thing was staring in at them from the hospital’s hallway. It was instantly recognizable, with its oddly shaped humanoid body, road construction outfit, yellow safety vest, black boots...and the kitsune mask.

It was an avatar of the Homeostatic System, an entity from the AllTale’s quantum-record world.

These things only existed inside the simulation. It wasn’t possible for it to be present in the real world.

In the bed beside him, Ruri screamed.

He could hear more footsteps in the hallway, and a second fox-mask appeared behind the first, followed quickly by two more. In only a few moments, there was a swarm of them.

A strange shadow fell across the room. Naomi’s head jerked around to the window.

One of the masked things was clinging to the glass from the outside like a lizard. A moment later, there were four of them, then eight, then sixteen. Within seconds, they had covered every inch of the enormous window.

This can’t be happening, Naomi thought. They can’t be here. It makes no sense! It’s insane!

But even as he tried to deny what he was seeing, the scientist inside him was steadily, inexorably piecing the facts together.

“This world is a complete, perfect copy of reality, preserved inside the AllTale system.”

“Since this world is your reality, you can’t tell it’s simulated.”

His own words guided him to the truth.

“Oh my God…is this...?”

He couldn’t believe it...but it didn’t matter what he believed.

The lead fox-mask began to sway slightly back and forth. Then, all at once, they poured into the hospital room. The first made a beeline for Ruri’s bed, ignoring Naomi completely.

“Stop it!”

Naomi lashed out, sending it sprawling off to one side. But the second thing in line followed close behind, aiming for Ruri as well.

Grabbing his cane, Naomi punched the second attacker before it could reach her. But as he turned toward the third, a great gloved hand smacked into the side of his face and sent him tumbling to the ground.

One of the bulky fox-masks landed on top of him, pressing him against the cold tile floor with enormous force. The damn thing was heavy. He thrashed, trying to knock it off him. But it was larger and heavier than him, and one of his legs was disabled—it only took one of those creatures to keep him pinned.

Having dealt with their only obstacle, the fox-masks returned to their task. The first in line leapt up onto Ruri’s bed, straddling her slender body.

Naomi struggled frantically, but it was no use.

More of the fox-masks gathered around the bed, seizing her limbs and holding them down. As she lay there, totally immobilized, the one above her reached down and gripped her slender neck.

Naomi instantly realized what was happening. If this world itself was a simulation…then anything that wasn’t present in the quantum records would be deleted. The Homeostatic System would destroy anything that didn’t belong.

Ichigyou Ruri was a normal part of this world. But if the system detected her consciousness, her sixteen-year-old mind, as something brought here from outside…

Naomi could faintly hear her gasp as the thing’s hands closed around her neck. She was going to be erased right in front of him. Those things were going to kill her.

“Stop!” he screamed wildly. “Stop it! Get off her, you bastard!”

The fox-mask ignored his cries. Its thick arms flexed as it pressed down on Ruri’s neck.

She was going to die. There was nothing he could do to save her. He was just going to lie here on the floor and watch the woman he loved disappear forever.

This was what all his plans had come to.

“Katagaki…san…”

Her last, feeble words faded into silence.

“Aaah…”

His answer was a cry of absolute despair.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!”

In that moment, Katagaki Naomi went completely mad.

A bizarre series of images streamed past his eyes. He saw Ruri being murdered, countless fox-masks, his city ripped apart and turned upside down.

He saw a hole that swallowed everything into its maw.

What? Wait. No. Is this…

He saw a shrine. A bird. A glove. A string. A rainbow tunnel.

Unfamiliar images spun through his mind...but he recognized them. They were memories of the past. Memories that belonged to a different Naomi.

Suddenly, his field of vision opened up again, and one final memory flashed before his eyes.

He was in Ruri’s hospital room, and the fox-masks flew through the air.

From his spot on the floor, Naomi watched the masked thing that had been strangling Ruri get smashed against the far wall. Twenty others went soaring off in all directions, smashing hard into the ceiling and the walls.

They were pinned in place where they hit, bear traps materializing, clutching their limbs and holding them fast to the walls.

“Hcck! Haah!” Ruri coughed loudly and painfully, trying to catch her breath.

She was still alive.

Somehow, Katagaki Naomi was standing at her side.

 

2.

 

NAOMI LOOKED AROUND.

He’d taken care of all the fox-masks in the room itself, but there were still many of them in the hallway. The mass of bodies latched on to the window were still wriggling around like a ball of insects.

Naomi raised his right hand.

First, he waved a finger gently toward the hallway. A rainbow-colored crystalline wall rose up out of the floor, sealing the entrance shut.

Next, he raised his arm a little higher, then swept it to the side, as if wiping the dust off the top of a bookshelf. A wave of liquid crystal swept past outside the window, tossing the fox-masks away. The wave then solidified into another solid defensive wall.

He closed his hand into a fist, testing the feeling of the glove against his skin.

He hadn’t been capable of anything like this before. He’d never managed to create something his glove wasn’t touching, and summoning up objects this big had been an enormous strain on his mind.

But now, it wasn’t a problem. He felt like he could do almost anything. With this new glove, he was ready to try some things he’d never risked doing before.

“Katagaki…san…”

He turned to face Ruri, and their eyes met. She was struggling to sit up in bed, wincing in pain.

He hurried over to her, reaching out with both hands. She reached out to him, too.

They ended up in each other’s arms.

The warmth he felt was real. She was real. This was the first time he’d seen her at age twenty-six, and her body was painfully thin and fragile—it was clear how much of a toll those ten years in the coma had taken. But even that felt insignificant right now.

She was here.

He’d thought he would never see her again, but now he held her in his arms. She was alive and smiling. That was enough for him. He had to resist the urge to break down into tears right then and there.

He pulled back and looked her in the eyes. “Those masked things are after you specifically, Ichigyou-san.”

“They are?”

“Yeah. But don’t worry. I’ll deal with them.” Naomi squeezed her hand, trying to reassure her at least a little.

“Naomi…”

Naomi turned to see Sensei standing there.

He’d pulled himself up to his feet, using the windowsill and a nearby shelf to support his weight. He stared at Naomi in shock, like he’d just witnessed something impossible.

That was fair. It wasn’t like Naomi had any idea how he’d gotten here, either.

Looking down, he spoke the one thing that might have some answers. “Could you come off for a second?” His glove slipped off his hand and transformed into a crow. He didn’t need it for the moment—in fact, he wanted to be bare-handed.

Naomi walked over to Sensei and punched him in the face as hard as he could. With a grunt of pain, the man fell right back down to the floor.

Looking down at him, Naomi flapped his smarting hand in the air. He hadn’t expected that to hurt so much. It had been worth it, though.

It feels a little weird to punch yourself.

Over the course of his journey here, when his memories merged with Sensei’s, he saw everything. He experienced those ten long years like they were his own. He understood.

He understood far too well.

If I’d been in his shoes, I would have done the exact same thing.

It wouldn’t have mattered how difficult or painful that path was, he would have followed it. He would give up his leg. He would give up his whole life for any chance to get her back. There was no doubt in his mind.

That was why he’d punched Sensei. The man would have done the same to him.

The crow returned to Naomi’s hand and transformed back into his glove. With a small motion, Naomi opened a hole in the floor and created a simple escape chute to take them out of the hospital. Their destination went without saying.

He walked over to the bed and carefully took Ruri in his arms. He was a little nervous at first, but he managed to lift her without staggering.

Trying his very best not to let the strain show on his face, he smiled down at her. “Let’s go back to where we belong.”

Naomi carried Ruri to the escape chute, and they slid down together.

As quietly as he could, he asked the glove if it had any way to make the bridal-carry a little easier.

 

3.

 

IT WAS SUDDENLY VERY QUIET.

The hospital room that had been so frantic was almost empty. Katagaki Naomi had vanished as quickly as he appeared. Ichigyou Ruri, who’d spent the last ten years here, had gone with him. And the countless fox-masks had all disappeared, too.

There was only one person who still lingered here—a man with a bum leg and a bruise on his face, sitting quietly on the floor.

In the silence, Naomi was asking himself the hard questions.

What just happened?

How did it happen?

Where did I go so wrong?

Eventually, the shrill beeping of his cell phone brought him out of his reverie. The name Senko Tsunehisa appeared on the screen; he answered.

“Naomiiii!” There were shouts and frantic activity in the background of the call. “Where are you right now?!”

“The hospital.”

“Well, take a look out the window!”

Picking up his cane, Naomi rose to his feet. The crystal structure that had covered the window earlier had disappeared when the other Katagaki Naomi left the area.

Opening the fourth-floor window, Naomi leaned out to look down at Kamanza Street. His breath caught in his throat.

There was a river running down the road. But it wasn’t made of water; instead, it was a single enormous mass of humanoid bodies. There were tens of thousands of the fox-masks down there, flooding the streets completely.

It looked like the “river” was flowing south. Naomi looked in the opposite direction and soon found its source—the masked things were streaming out of the Chronicle Kyoto Project building, in other words, the AllTale Center.

“I see them.”

“The AllTale’s quantum-record bits are caught in a loop!” Senko shouted. The language was technical, but Naomi understood. “The amount of data in the system is multiplying rapidly—the logical boundary’s been broken! I don’t know what could have caused this, but it’s not good!”

Naomi knew what had caused it. He was probably the only person with enough information to know. He also knew what had to be done.

“Senko-san.”

“Yeah?”

“Can you suspend the Homeostatic System?”

“What? No!” Senko protested. “I mean, these people with the fox masks are popping out of the room where it’s housed—it won’t respond to external commands at all, so we’d need to get rid of them first. And, I mean…you know it’s not a good idea, Naomi.”

There was a brief pause. When Senko continued, his voice was noticeably quieter.

“The Homeostatic System is AllTale’s equivalent of a control rod. The only reason we can use the damn thing is because it’s there, suppressing the quantum-record output to an absolute minimum. If we shut it down, well…uh…” Senko paused again, like he was thinking it over. “Wait. Seriously?” His voice returned to normal—it sounded like he’d arrived at the same conclusion.

“Its true capacity is infinite, if I recall,” said Naomi.

“Heh heh, so it is! Now isn’t that an idea. Let’s give it a shot!”

“Please do. As for these fox-mask things…I’ll deal with them somehow.” Naomi spoke those words with all the conviction he could muster.

Ending the phone call, he reached out and grabbed hold of his cane.

 

4.

 

THE BICYCLE SPED DOWN Karasuma Street. Naomi pedaled in the front seat, with Ruri seated behind him, hanging on to his waist.

The bike moved along at a very decent clip, faster than even the average racing cycle could manage. Naomi had created it with his glove with speed in mind, so it worked like a souped-up e-bike with its speed limiter removed.

A motorcycle or car might’ve been faster choices, but just because he could make one of those didn’t mean he knew how to drive them. The last thing he needed was to get them in an accident. The bike was the best option he could think of on the spur of the moment.

He guessed they were going about forty kilometers per hour, much faster than anyone, or anything, on foot could normally keep up with.

Unfortunately, their pursuers were far from normal.

Naomi shot a quick look over his shoulder. He could see a great mass of the fox-masks chasing after them, but they were pretty far behind. He was at least a little faster than them on this thing, so the gap was growing steadily.

A moment later, though, more masked things appeared out of nowhere just behind the bicycle. They lunged, and Naomi yanked the handlebars sharply to one side, heading for a side road—but a new group of fox-masks appeared there and lunged for them again.

They were starting to appear out of thin air now. That was new.

“The AllTale’s region of influence is steadily expanding,” explained his glove calmly. “In any region under its direct control, they can spawn at any coordinates.”

“That’s just cheating!” Naomi shouted, weaving his way around the newest group of enemies. Who ever heard of a game of tag where you were allowed to teleport on top of people?

Pedaling fiercely down the city’s narrow side streets, he turned at every intersection he came to, avoiding the fox-masks as best he could. He’d been heading steadily down Karasuma Street at first, but they seemed to be herding him away from it at an angle.

Eventually, he found himself barreling toward a wide-open area—Horikawa-Gojo, a great swath of asphalt surrounded by a square pedestrian bridge.

Two major thoroughfares met here, one five lanes wide, the other six. This was one of Kyoto’s single biggest intersections. On an ordinary afternoon, there should be dozens of cars crossing it constantly, but right now there wasn’t a single one on the road.

There were, however, a truly massive number of fox-masks standing on the far side.

Naomi squeezed his handbrake with all his might, and the bicycle slid to a halt in the very center of the intersection. Turning in his seat, he looked around. The west, east, and south roads were all packed solid with walls of masked bodies. When he turned back to the north, he saw that the group pursuing him was closing in quickly.

There was nowhere left to run.

Naomi swallowed nervously and looked at the palm of his glove, hoping for some kind of hint. Was there any chance he could win this fight? He just didn’t know.

Given his current capabilities, dispatching ten or twenty of these things wasn’t much of a challenge. He felt confident he could take fifty at once, or even a hundred. But fifty thousand? A hundred thousand? He wasn’t so sure about that.

He needed to keep Ruri safe no matter what. That made the situation considerably more dangerous. Even if he destroyed 99,999 of them, if a single one got through, that might be all it took. There was just no guarantee he’d catch every trick they pulled and wipe them out completely.

That was why he’d hoped to outrun the fox-masks and escape. Stopping to fight just meant more risk.

Naomi could feel his stomach clenching.

Ruri sat quietly behind him on the bicycle, her arms still wrapped around his chest. He didn’t need to see her face to know that she was terrified.

Naomi squeezed his gloved hand into a fist. He had to do this. He’d destroy all 100,000 if he had to.

Just as he prepared to make his first attack, he heard a series of dull thumps in the distance. He turned toward the north side of the intersection as the sound grew louder.

Within the massive crowd of bodies, Naomi saw a bunch of them suddenly thrown into the air. Something was cutting directly through the fox-mask army, sending them flying as it went.

It broke free from the phalanx of fox-masks, and Naomi saw what it was—a car. The tires screeched loudly as it entered the intersection, and it came to a skidding halt just in front of Naomi’s bicycle.

The driver’s-side window slid open.

“Get in!”

Naomi froze just for a moment.

“Hurry up, damn it!”

Snapping out of his daze, Naomi quickly hopped down, took Ruri in his arms, and jumped into the back seat with her. The car accelerated fast, pressing them both against the leather.

Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!

A series of dull impacts rocked the car, and dozens of fox-masks went flying by the windows. It was honestly a horrific sight. This wasn’t something anyone could do if they thought those things were human.

Lucky for them, the driver knew they weren’t.

“Sensei?” Naomi called tentatively from the back seat. He had so many questions on the tip of his tongue, but somehow they all fit inside one word.

Why?

Why was he here? Why was he helping them? Why should they trust him after what he’d done?

Why, Sensei?

“We’ll take her back to the world where she belongs.”

Naomi’s eyes went wide. He wished he could see the look on Sensei’s face. He tried to see in the rearview mirror, but the angle was all wrong.

“It’s my fault things turned out this way, you know?” Sensei continued, without any of the usual confidence in his voice. “This isn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to put her through this. I just…” He paused, then spit out all at once, “I just wanted to see her smile again.”

It was the same reason he’d given Naomi right after they’d met, up on the rooftop. The very same.

“I just want one smile.”

“Just once, I want to see her really, truly happy.”

He’d been telling the truth.

When he’d first said it, Naomi could only understand the surface meaning of his words. But now, he knew everything. He knew how desperately Sensei wanted to see that smile, and how much of himself he’d give up for a chance; he’d worked and plotted for ten whole years, burned his body and paralyzed his leg. And he’d never regretted it for a moment. There was nothing more precious to him in the entire world. Nothing. And he was going to give it back.

Not for his sake, of course. For hers. He wanted her to be happy.

“I’ll make it up to you as best I can.” Sensei turned back to look at them with his old focused, intense gaze. Those were the eyes of a man with no more doubts.

Naomi smiled.

“Just tell me where you want to go, Naomi!”

Naomi nodded. The crow on his hand had told him where to go next. It was the one place where the two of them could return to their own world. The final station, quite literally, where their three-month journey would reach its conclusion.

“The Grand Staircase at Kyoto Station!”

 

5.

 

LIGHT SHINED IN THROUGH the lattice of metal beams and glass panels that made up the main concourse at Kyoto Station. The ceiling of the main concourse was extremely high, with a large open space at its center—and that space opened up into the towering, broad steps of the famous Grand Staircase.

This massive staircase took people from the concourse all the way to the Sky Garden on the fifteenth floor, but it seemed much taller and grander than that, like it led straight to heaven. It was sixteen meters wide and over thirty meters tall, with a total of 171 steps. Many people found climbing the whole thing too challenging, so an escalator ran alongside it. If you looked up as you stepped onto these stairs, you’d see a dramatically arched glass roof and a long, suspended Skyway tunnel that hung diagonally in the air above you. It looked more like a movie set than an ordinary train station.

A car skidded to a halt in the Sky Garden at its summit, seventy meters above the ground.

The sightseers in the main concourse stared up at it, wide-eyed in shock. The ramp this car had driven up, which appeared to be made of rainbow-colored crystal, melted before their eyes into particles of light.

The onlookers were still frozen in shock when the car’s doors swung open.

“We’re here!”

Katagaki Naomi leapt out of the back seat, followed closely by Sensei and Ruri. Ruri was moving slowly, even slower than Sensei despite his disability—the years she’d spent unconscious had weakened her body severely.

Sensei saw her struggling and started to reach out to her, but he made himself stop. He couldn’t let himself touch her. He needed to keep his distance.

He had no right to go anywhere near her.

“So, what are we doing here?” he asked, turning to Naomi, but the boy was busy talking to his glove. Sensei didn’t know what the deal was with this new crow—the one he’d created hadn’t been able to talk.

“We must make some preparations,” the glove said, its tone calm. “Please clear the area.”

“What?” Naomi said. “How am I supposed to do that?”

“Use your hand.”

A bit uncertainly, Naomi pressed his hand to the ground in front of the staircase.

There was a railing running down the center of the stairs—the top of it bulged up out of the floor, creating strange balloons that covered the stairs to either side in a wall that traveled downward. It grew slowly larger, forming a speckled yellow-black barrier that looked almost alive.

The people on the stairs scurried down in panic at the bizarre sight; those who didn’t escape in time were pushed along and deposited gently at the bottom.

When the staircase was completely covered in the odd, spotted balloons, they swelled up in unison and burst, then faded away into nothingness. In the aftermath of this magic trick, the Grand Staircase was left totally deserted.

“Converter,” Naomi’s glove chirped. A flash of light ran from his hand across the ground, and something new took shape on the first stair leading downward.

It wasn’t immediately clear what it was—a large, geometrical object slowly pieced itself together out of colored triangles that looked like stained glass. As it came together, the surreal spectacle arranged itself into the familiar shape of an arched doorway.

“We’ll make these at regular intervals on the entire staircase,” the glove explained helpfully. “With each one that Ichigyou Ruri passes through, her quantum conversion will progress slightly. When she reaches the bottom of the staircase, the quantization process will be complete, and she can return to her original world.”

Sensei listened closely, his mind running at full speed. The technique this thing was describing sounded much more advanced than the method he’d used to enter AllTale’s quantum-record world. He could barely follow it.

“We will convert Ichigyou Ruri first,” the glove continued, “then Katagaki Naomi.”

Sensei turned to look at Ruri. She was trembling, and not just because of her physical condition.

There were 171 steps on this staircase.

It was the equivalent of ten flights of stairs. Even a perfectly healthy person might hesitate at the sight of that descent; in her weakened state, she couldn’t possibly walk down these stairs alone. She needed someone to help her or she’d never make it, but Naomi would be busy creating the doorways.

Could he help her somehow?

“Don’t worry, Ichigyou-san,” said Naomi, his tone almost cheerful. “You can do this. Just take it nice and slow, one step at a time.”

Ruri nodded seriously. With visible effort of will, she stopped her hands from trembling. She took a deep breath and clutched them into fists.

“Let’s do this,” she said at last.

At that instant, Sensei finally understood. These two were different. Naomi wasn’t him, and this girl wasn’t the Ruri he had known.

His mind was pulled back to decade-old memories.

That fire had destroyed all the books they’d gathered. Ruri had been heartbroken, and he’d tried his best to comfort her. They’d learned, together, the pain of accepting failure. And in enduring it together, they’d grown closer.

But these two were different.

Their books had burned as well, but they’d seen that as a challenge. They’d thrown themselves at it, and they’d overcome it. They’d made the book sale a success. And that moment of triumph had changed them both.

Sensei chuckled softly, derisively, at himself. He’d intended to make it up to them as best he could, but he clearly wasn’t good for much. His only use so far was his driving skills.

Well, so be it. That’s fine by me.

“Please hurry,” the talking glove chirped. “The system’s area of influence will reach this location shortly.”

With a quick nod, Naomi hurried down the stairs and began creating the second door, then a third and a fourth, each as colorful as the last. The path was growing, bit by bit.

As he worked, the first door opened invitingly.

“Go ahead,” the glove called from below.

Apparently this “conversion” process was already starting, even though the doors themselves were still a work in progress. Naomi had just finished off his sixth; it brought him past the first landing.

Ruri stood in front of the first door. Screwing up her courage, maybe?

“Get moving,” Sensei said as coldly as he could manage. “You need to hurry.” It felt cruel to speak to her that way, but they didn’t have much time to waste. Someone had to push her forward.

For some reason, though, she paused to look at him. There was a familiar strength in her eyes—it didn’t look like she was hesitating out of fear.

“What’s wrong?”

“Are you Katagaki-san?” she asked him quietly.

Sensei’s eyes went wide. It wasn’t a question he’d expected, but he could certainly understand why she might be confused. Unlike he and Naomi, there was a lot she didn’t understand yet. She didn’t know her world was a simulation, or how the two of them were connected.

But at this point, she didn’t need to know the whole truth. She understood the things that mattered.

“No,” Sensei replied.

He looked over at the stairs. Naomi was still hard at work, frantically creating one door after another.

“That’s Katagaki Naomi over there.”

And I…

“I’m just a minor character.”

I’m not Katagaki Naomi anymore. He’s the protagonist of this story.

“Go on, now.” He urged her on once again, reaching out to gently push her forward.

Instead, she turned around and embraced him.

It was so sudden. His mind went blank; all he could manage was staring stupidly down at the top of her head. Her arms were wrapped all the way around him, squeezing gently.

She said something, mumbling into his chest.

“You did love me, didn’t you?”

The words sank in slowly, permeating his empty mind. She didn’t know anything. She wasn’t supposed to know anything. She’d fallen unconscious at age sixteen, then woken up suddenly only a few days ago. There was no possible way she could know about the real nature of this world, or the events of the last decade, or the reasons he’d lied.

And yet, she’d cut right through it all and found the one essential truth under the countless lies.

Ruri separated her hands and pulled back slowly. She looked up at him with a smile on her face.

“Thank you.”

There was strength in her eyes. Turning, she took her first step forward.

“And goodbye!”

She passed through the first door. It interacted with her, and the boundary between her body and the world grew less distinct. The lines of her physical form seemed a little blurrier; a small part of her was reduced to particles of light, which faded quickly into the air.

She was leaving this world.

“Ichigyou-san…” Sensei replied, his words too quiet to reach her, “you’re right.”

She was going to disappear. He was never going to see her again.

The tears running down his face were the only thing that made it feel real.

“I…”

As she faded into the light, Sensei spoke his final words to her. For once, they were the whole, simple truth.

“I loved you so, so much.”

 

6.

 

“IT’S DONE!”

The final door pieced itself together. The moment it was complete, it swung open to accept a mysterious stream of light that flowed into it from above.

The glove had told him what it was—Ruri, now converted into quantum particles.

“Naomi!” Sensei shouted from above. “It’s your turn now! Get a move on!”

“Right!”

Naomi ran up the stairs as fast as he could. Ruri’s conversion had gone more quickly than he expected; at this rate, he might be able to follow her before the fox-masks showed up inside the station.

But just as he let himself think it could be an easy victory, something above him moved alarmingly.

“Wha…”

The Skyway, the large tunnel walkway suspended high above the Grand Staircase, creaked dangerously. A moment later, it started to fall—right on top of Naomi and his gateways.

Naomi swung his glove up on sheer reflex, summoning a crude crystal roof some distance above him. But the Skyway was just too massive; when it struck the roof, both were smashed to pieces, sending countless chunks of rubble right down at him.

He swung his glove again, as forcefully as he could. A long crystalline rod extended from his hand like the Monkey King’s staff, launching Naomi into the air as it hit the floor. He flew clear of the rubble a split second before it rained down on the staircase.

Naomi hit the ground of the Sky Garden hard, tumbling backward until Sensei stopped him.

Sensei stared down at the staircase and the clouds of dust rising from it with a grimace. Naomi turned to follow his gaze and made the same face.

The Grand Staircase had been crushed.

Most of its surface was buried under broken remnants of the Skyway and the glass roof above it. The steps that had been hit directly were completely destroyed, and the rest was buried under a huge mound of rubble.

The series of doors that Naomi had just created had disappeared under gray chunks of concrete.

“Oh no…”

Naomi stared down at the destruction, overwhelmed with anguish. He could see now just what had happened—there was a yawning hole in the north wall of the station, and a giant ball, several meters across, was embedded in the southern wall.

The surface of the ball was pulsing in a strange, nauseating way, and after a moment, Naomi realized it was entirely made up of fox-masked figures. Dozens of them had clumped together tightly to form an enormous bullet, which had struck the station and destroyed the Skyway.

As Naomi watched, another thought occurred to him—if that thing was a bullet, something must have fired it.

Naomi and Sensei both turned to the north. From their viewpoint on the Sky Garden, the two of them looked out at the city, past Kyoto Tower and beyond.

First, they saw what looked like a bizarre string—thick, white and massive, taller than Kyoto Tower—undulating in the distance. The next moment, more of them rose up one by one, wriggling like worms as they grew steadily taller, until there were nine great squirming strings.

It was only then that Naomi realized they were the tails of an enormous animal. The body of the thing came into view, white with black stripes and clearly made of the same stuff as the “bullet” embedded in the station’s wall... So, a colossal monster made up of the fox-masks.

“Monster” was the only term that felt appropriate. It walked through the city like a living thing, but it was taller than Kyoto Tower. Its arms, or forelegs, grabbed the buildings in its path like they were toy blocks.

It looked like a fox forcing itself to walk on two legs, or maybe a human trying to walk on all fours. It looked wrong. It didn’t belong in this world.

Naomi exhaled sharply. His mind, which had shut down from shock, finally started working again.

“Sensei, are you—”

“I’m fine.”

They were both uninjured, at least. They each gave the other a quick look, then turned back to the enormous monster.

“We’ve got to do something about that thing…”

Naomi looked down at his glove and focused as hard as he could. He needed to create something that could get rid of that behemoth.

For some reason, that was as far as his train of thought would carry him.

Uh…how am I supposed to do that?!

His thoughts ran in circles, but his overwhelmed, panicky mind couldn’t come up with a plan that could work. The God Hand could do anything, in theory. Anything he could imagine would become real in this world. He knew that.

Only problem was, his imagination couldn’t keep up with this.

Suddenly, the world grew dark as a shadow was cast over the area. Naomi and Sensei jerked their heads up toward the sky.

The top of Kyoto Tower was tumbling through the air straight at them.

“Aaaaaah!”

Naomi swung his hand into the air reflexively, unsure what he was even trying to create. An odd, stringy crystal beam shot up off the ground and hit the tower’s observation deck, catching it in midair. But it wasn’t enough to hold it there for long; the deck’s enormous weight bore down on the structure and it began to crumble away.

Naomi threw another support beam at the deck, then another and another in quick succession, fighting to halt its fall. In the end, he just barely got the upper hand—the observation deck came to a halt directly above the Sky Garden. It was a surreal spectacle, but Naomi couldn’t step back to admire it. It took all concentration just to keep the thing where it was.

This is insane. This is insane!

“Naomi!” Sensei shouted from behind him.

Naomi knew they were in trouble the moment he heard that cry. An instant later, the shadow they stood in turned even darker.

Above the suspended observation deck, a foreleg even larger than the top of the tower swung down.

The colossal leg stepped down onto the very top of the broken Kyoto Tower, forcing it downward with impossible force. Naomi’s support beams shuddered.

“Gaaah!”

He fought back with everything he had. His glove groaned with exertion as it brought forth more and more support beams every second. Naomi’s head burned with exhaustion, a sensation he hadn’t felt yet with this new glove. It reminded him of his training sessions, and of creating that black hole on the bridge.

His brain was reaching its limit.

But he couldn’t let up now. If he flinched, it would all be over. That enormous leg would crush him and Sensei into paste in an instant.

He had to do this, but he couldn’t. Those two conflicting facts filled his brain; pure blackness spread across his mind like a pool of ink.

Oh crap. Oh God. Somebody, please—

“Naomi,” said Sensei, “we’re going to beat that thing.”

A ray of light cut through the blackness.

Naomi looked over his shoulder. Sensei was still sitting on the ground, unable to rise, his cane lost somewhere in the chaos. But he had a bold smile on his face. He was suddenly the fearless, cocky man Naomi had spent so much time with back in his world.

If Sensei said they were going to take that monster down, it was all going to be fine. Sensei knew just what to do—he always had the perfect idea ready and waiting.

He was Naomi’s Sensei, after all.

“Use the God Hand to erase me,” Sensei said, “right now.”

“What?”

Naomi stopped. I don’t get it, he told himself. That doesn’t make sense. He tried to convince himself that was true, violently suppressed the part of him that understood.

“You don’t need me to explain, do you?”

“But that’s…that’s just...” No matter how hard he tried to push it down, the truth wormed its way back into his mind.

He didn’t want to understand, but he knew exactly what Sensei was thinking. The fox-masks had been after Ichigyou Ruri. They had wanted to erase her because they’d identified her as a foreign object, something alien to this world.

But now that she’d left it, the masked things were clearly targeting them.

“The System’s highest-priority repair operation is the elimination of duplicate addresses,” Sensei began, explaining the technical aspect on purpose to give Naomi the necessary background. “Any duplicate records have to be trimmed. Two versions of the same object can’t coexist in a single world. In other words…” Sensei pointed at Naomi. “Once one of us is erased, those things will stop.”

And then, he pointed at himself.

“The answer should be obvious.”

“No. No way!” Naomi shouted. He wouldn’t accept this—it was just too horrible. He needed another solution.

Maybe he could just recreate that line of doors. He could go back home, and Sensei wouldn’t be a duplicate anymore. That made sense, right? He just had to take this big thing down first.

“It’ll be all right. I can do this!” Naomi focused his mind and forced more power out of his glove.

Sweat was dripping down his face.

“I’ll just take this thing down real quick.”

He forced more power out. The veins in his arm bulged with the strain. Something fell to the ground with a small plip—it was blood, dripping from his nose.

“Then I’ll make that Converter again, and—”

“Naomi.”

“I won’t do it!” he shouted, more fiercely than before. How many times did he have to repeat himself? He was kind of busy at the moment, he didn’t have time for irrelevant arguments.

But irrelevant thoughts just kept coming.

“I know what you’re thinking... You want a girlfriend.”

“You and Ichigyou Ruri will be dating three months from today.”

“You can call me Sensei, then.”

“Your romance is just getting started.”

“Tell yourself you’re a wizard from a fantasy novel.”

“You’re going to do the same.”

“Don’t be an idiot!”

“I’ll give that a passing grade.”

“I know you, Naomi.”

“You can do this.”

Tears streamed down Naomi’s face. Three months’ worth of memories played on a loop inside his head, the three months they’d spent together, working toward the same goal.

“I won’t do it…”

He couldn’t stop crying. His face was a total mess, but there was still strength in his arms. He remembered everything Sensei had taught him.

“You’re the one who told me I can do anything, Sensei! You’re the one who taught me to believe I can!”

He’d turned back to look Sensei in the eyes and scream his heart out, “I’m going to beat this thing! We’re both going to survive!”

“Nao—”

Sensei’s voice cut off abruptly. Naomi turned back, following his gaze into the sky.

Suddenly, there were small flashes somewhere very far away, and something headed toward him almost faster than his eyes could follow. He couldn’t tell what it was at first, but then he recognized it as the fox-monster’s nine “tails,” all rushing right toward him.

In less than a second, they were going to pierce right through him, and he was going to die. He didn’t have time to move—

Blood splattered into the air, confirming his death. More and more rained down to the ground like water pouring from an open faucet. But something was wrong...Naomi raised his head.

Sensei was in standing of him. All nine tails had skewered him.

He had shielded Naomi with his body.

“Ah…” Naomi shook his head. “Aah…” He didn’t understand. How was Sensei standing there? How had he even gotten to his feet?

“It’s…true,” Sensei said, smiling that familiar fearless smile. “You can do anything…you believe you can.”

He gave Naomi one more lesson. Like a mentor. Like a teacher.

“Sensei…” Naomi called out his title. “Sensei!” It was all he could think of to do, even if, in that moment, he felt like the world’s most useless, incompetent student.

His teacher reached out his trembling right hand. Naomi understood. He wasn’t much of a pupil, but he knew how to respond to this, at least.

He took Sensei’s hand in his own and squeezed it tightly.

This was a ritual, the same one they’d performed at the very beginning. It was an echo of the promise they’d made each other on that rooftop, all those months ago.

Back then, they hadn’t been able to touch each other, so they’d gone through the motions awkwardly, as a formality. But now, at long last…Naomi could take his hand.

Through that hand, everything flowed into him. Sensei’s feelings were his own. For just a moment, they were a single person, with a single answer.

This was the end.

“Katagaki…” Sensei choked out, “Naomi.” He spoke his pupil’s name, one last time, then he smiled more gently than he ever had before.

“Go live a happy life.”

Naomi simply squeezed his hand. They’d made their decision, together.

His glove let out a burst of brilliant rainbow light and opened the path that led to God.

 

For the first time, he could feel the boy’s warmth against his hand. Even through the glove, he could still feel it clearly. He idly thought that maybe the kid’s body temperature was higher than his, but that didn’t make much sense, did it?

His body grew lighter. The pain had disappeared; he was breathing much easier now. It was a big relief. His only real regret was that he couldn’t say thanks.

He didn’t fight the feeling—he just relaxed and let it wash over him. The power coursing into him through his right hand spread across his body and out his back. He couldn’t see it happening, but he was probably vanishing from back to front.

He had a little time before his head disappeared, then. Not much, but a little. He used it to reminisce.

He saw her face.

Memories from ten years ago flitted through his mind. He’d told her how he felt a few weeks after the fire. When she agreed to go out with him, he’d nearly passed out on the spot.

He’d always been an indecisive person. But for the first time, he chose someone.

On the day of her accident, he’d lost his future. She was the only one for him. She was everything to him. And so, he’d vowed to do whatever it took to get her back.

He’d vowed to make a future for both of them.

Yes…for both of them.

“I read it there every month, too.”

“I’m not good with heights.”

“Let’s do everything we can.”

“Are you Katagaki-san?”

“You did love me, didn’t you?”

“Uh, not really…”

“If that’s all true, why are you here?”

“So what am I supposed to call you, anyway? I mean, you’re me.”

“What was excellent about that?!”

“But right now, she’s miserable.”

“Thank you so much!”

“I won’t do it!”

“We’re both going to survive!”

“Sensei…”

“Sensei?”

He let himself imagine their future. And at the very end, he murmured to himself, “I’m a happy man.”

The words faded into light…and he disappeared into the heavens.

 

 

7.

 

THE FOX-MASKS BROKE APART and disappeared.

It barely took any time at all. The masked things abruptly stopped moving, then dissolved into dust; the particles quickly grew smaller, then vanished without a trace.

The world’s mass decreased as the weight and volume of thousands upon thousands of real, physical bodies disappeared like they had never existed in the first place.

The first thought that passed through Senko Tsunehisa’s mind was that it would probably take way too much time and effort to develop any coherent, logical explanation for this phenomenon. But as long as he didn’t have to explain it, he already had a pretty good idea of what had happened.

It was a half-baked theory, but it was good enough for him. There was probably one other person out there who’d believe it, too.

The kid had said he was going to deal with them somehow. And somehow, they’d been dealt with. This was probably his doing. Now it was Senko’s turn to keep his side of the bargain.

Barging into the chamber, which he could finally reach with the fox-masks gone, he rushed over to the Homeostatic System’s control panel and threw open the steel door. His eyes found the large metal switch connected to the emergency shutdown relay.

Once this thing was flipped, AllTale would immediately spring into action. The infinite-capacity quantum computer he had created would unleash its real power for the very first time.

But once it did so, it would move beyond his control forever. No human being would ever be able to domesticate it again. Even the laws of nature might no longer bind it.

There was no telling what might happen after that; the consequences would be utterly unpredictable. He couldn’t even guess what wonders or horrors might ensue.

In other words, flipping this switch wasn’t exactly a responsible decision.

Senko reached out to grab it anyway.

Maybe this is what God felt like on the first day.

 

8.

 

THE ENORMOUS FOX MONSTER broke apart.

The individual bodies that had formed the colossus began to fall away from it, tumbling down toward the streets outside Kyoto Station. But before they could strike the ground, they melted into nothingness. It looked a bit like cherry blossoms falling in a gust of wind.

The creature’s forearm faded away, and the enormous pressure bearing down on Naomi disappeared. His crystal support beams wrapped themselves around Kyoto Tower’s observation deck and lowered it gently to the ground.

He could use his power freely now. There was nothing left to hold him back.

But his hand was empty.

“Katagaki Naomi-san,” his glove called out to him.

His right hand rose up on its own; the entire surface of the glove was now a rainbow of colors. Its glow, faint at first, grew steadily brighter. The light engulfed Naomi, then the Sky Garden, then the entire station.

In the distance, he could see something similar happening. There was a faint dome of light spreading out to the north, centered somewhere between Nijo Castle and the Imperial Palace. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was coming from the AllTale Center.

The two domes grew steadily larger and larger, until finally, somewhere near Shijo Street, they made contact.

In that moment—

A world was created.

 

◻

 

Naomi was there.

There was Naomi.

There was nothing, but also everything.

There was one and zero. All and naught. Yes and no.

At first, they were intermingled, but soon they sorted themselves out. Once distinct, they began to grow, expanding ferociously.

There was space and time. There were stars and living things. There were people and their cities. There was heaven and hell. There were books and stories.

There was everything. And yet, more kept coming. More and more and more. The growth seemed endless.

As infinity stretched out before him, Naomi took a piece of it in his hands.

It was Sensei’s notebook, the Ultimate Manual.

He recognized it by its cover. But when he looked more closely, he saw it was brand new. There was no title written on it yet.

Naomi flipped through it for a moment.

It was no great surprise, really...but all the pages were blank.

 

◼

 

He heard the sound of a train in the distance.

The air was crisp and clear and felt like morning. That train was probably the first of the day, or maybe the second.

Fluffy white summer clouds drifted by slowly overhead. The sky above the mountains was vivid blue. And a familiar tower stood tall above the city, intact and unharmed.

He was in Kyoto.

He looked around uncertainly. He was standing in the exact same place he last remembered being—at the top of Kyoto Station’s Grand Staircase, in the Sky Garden, with its scenic view of the entire city. It was still early in the morning, so the area was deserted.

There was only one other person there. She was standing at the center of the garden, amidst its concrete and greenery.

It was her.

“Katagaki-san?” she called.

“Ichigyou-san!”

They ran toward each other and embraced.

After a moment, they pulled back for a second look—to make sure that this was real.

The girl was Ichigyou Ruri. The boy was Katagaki Naomi. They were both sixteen years old, just as they’d been when they were torn apart.

They were both alive, and they wouldn’t be parted again.

Somehow, instinctively, Naomi knew this. He knew they could be together from now on. But he still couldn’t stop himself from squeezing her tightly in his arms. In fact, a hug wasn’t enough to satisfy him—he grabbed her hand, too.

His hand was sweaty, unfortunately. But so was hers. Their palms pressed together, exchanging heat.

He didn’t have the glove on anymore.

Together, they looked out at Kyoto, hand in hand. It was a brilliant, sunny morning, and the city lay unchanged before their eyes, as beautiful as ever.

“Did we…?”

Ruri’s voice trailed off, her question only halfway spoken.

Did we make it back to our world?

She still didn’t know enough to clearly understand what had happened, but some part of her instinctually knew.

It wasn’t like Naomi really understood much of anything himself. He couldn’t explain what had just happened, and he didn’t have any clear answers about what this place was. Even if he did come up with something, there was no one who could confirm he was right.

In the “real world,” answers didn’t come with a guarantee. In other words…the next thing he said might be true, or might not.

“I think—”

Naomi put his pen to this blank, white world. Facing an empty page where he could write anything he pleased, he chose the first line all by himself.

“I think this is a brand-new world. One that no one knows about.”

 

In this new world, they could do anything they wanted. Nothing was destined. Nothing was preordained.

But he already knew what he wanted to do.

He was going to live a happy life.

“C’mon, kid. You’re just following my orders again?”

Naomi answered the small voice in his head silently, but with real pride.

Actually, I made my own decision this time.