The Binary Stars of Destiny

by Reki Kawahara

“Yeah…that’s true.” The enormous anxiety blocking his chest receded just a little as Haruyuki smiled a light, wry smile. “Well, it wasn’t like I had any real reason for hating it, either, you know. I dunno, I’ve always thought the song had ‘wishes that won’t come true’ as its basic premise.”

  Looking out the corner of his eye at Takumu wordlessly encouraging him to continue, Haruyuki added, “It’s also because I’m pretty cynical, right? I always felt like right before the first line of the song—‘If I could have one wish come true right now, I’d ask for wings’—there was actually another line: ‘I know that I can’t, but…’ And, like, that was just too close to how I actually felt. So I could never manage to like that song.”

  He turned his gaze back to the ceiling and gently raised his right hand. With his fingertips, he caressed the sky that lay beyond the wallpaper and concrete.

  “But, like, when I listened to it again in the reference sound files we got for homework last week, I could kinda think…maybe not, you know? Umm…Umm…”

  Explaining his own mental state in words was the thing Haruyuki was worst at in all the world. But as he moved his upturned palm like a bird, he worked to get it all out. “That song, maybe it’s not so important whether it comes true or not. I was thinking it’s maybe a song about wanting to go there sometime. ‘Up into the free sky, where there is no sadness,’ while always walking along on the ground one step at a time. I mean, like, what’s important is…”

  Here, his language-processing faculties ran up against their limit, and he was stuck simply opening and closing his mouth.

  “Not the result, but the process,” Takumu muttered softly, on his behalf. “The really important thing is that ongoing process.”

  “R-right. That’s it.” Haruyuki clenched his right hand, still up in the air, and passionately said, “Like, Kuroyukihime is always telling me strength’s not a word that’s just about winning. And Shinomiya said so, too. True strength is moving forward without giving up, no matter if you lose, or fall down, or fail…And when I started thinking that maybe that song’s trying to say the same thing, I felt kinda bad for hating it all this time. Or, you know, maybe it’s just because I can fly in the Accelerated World that I can forgive it now.”

  As he pulled down his arm and stuck it behind his head, Haruyuki added with a wry smile, “Either way, my singing was really awful. Thank God recording’s not allowed at school.”

  “It wasn’t that bad, Haru.”

  Haruyuki turned his head then and saw Takumu smiling as he stared up at the ceiling.

  Takumu closed his eyes gently. “You probably didn’t notice, but Chii was secretly crying,” he murmured, as if remembering the lesson the day before. “While listening to you singing your heart out with that piece.”

  “Huh.” Haruyuki was speechless.

  His friend continued gently, smile still in place. “The me of a little while ago would have probably been torn up with jealousy and self-loathing seeing Chii like that. But…but, you know, I was happy then, too. I was happy watching you sing that song so proudly and Chii crying while she listened to it. That moment…In just that moment…the circle of the three of us…was like it used to be…” Takumu’s voice suddenly trembled, and from his tightly closed eyelids, transparent droplets once again flowed silently.

  Struck with emotion, Haruyuki clenched his teeth. But he soon turned over toward Takumu, propping himself up on one elbow as he started speaking. “Not ‘like it used to be.’ Like it is. This is us now. Taku, Chiyu and I need you now just as ever!”

  For a moment, Takumu turned his face away, as though trying to escape from the declaration.

  But Haruyuki was certain his words would reach his best friend’s heart. They had gone up against each other with everything they had in the Accelerated World, and, fist on fist, they had spoken.

  A few seconds later, Takumu turned back to him with damp eyes. “Haru,” he whispered in a shaky voice. “I…Maybe I can change like you. Maybe I can keep fighting the black emotions in my heart and aim for the ‘sky.’ Maybe I can keep walking forward.”

  “O-of course you can, Taku! I mean, you’re always changing. The way you shot yourself with that Lightning Spike at the end of the battle just now is proof of that.”

  Haruyuki inched a little closer to Takumu and gripped his friend’s shoulder. He looked hard past the blue glasses, damp with tears. “Taku, give me just a little more time. Tomorrow, Thursday…at seven tomorrow night, I’m definitely coming back alive from the Castle with Shinomiya. She should be able to purify your ISS kit, too. One more day. Hold on against the temptation of the kit for one more day, Taku.”

  Takumu lowered his eyes against Haruyuki’s earnest plea without immediately responding. “Last night, I got the kit from Magenta Scissor in the Setagaya area,” he finally squeezed out in a strained voice. “It was still in the sealed card state. But…after I got home and ate and took a bath, when I was falling asleep in bed…it started talking to me. Not in words—in feelings. Rage, hatred, jealousy, all kinds of negative emotions poured into me. And when this was happening, I wasn’t wearing my Neurolinker. All night, I had this long, long nightmare. When I woke up, my heart was full of black things…”

  Haruyuki could feel through the palm of his hand Takumu’s sturdy frame shaking.

  “Haru,” his friend whispered weakly, lowering his face even farther, as if he were a child again. “I’m scared. It’s not in the realm of Neurolinker memory anymore, it’s inside my head. Now that I’ve broken the seal, what will it show me tonight? Can I make it to tomorrow morning as the same me I am now? I’m so scared of it, I can hardly stand it. I mean, already—I didn’t even hesitate to hurt you so badly in the battle.”

  Interference from the Accelerated World even when his Neurolinker was not equipped. In principle, it was impossible. However, it was a phenomenon that Haruyuki himself had experienced. He had, more than once in the past, heard the voice of the Armor of Catastrophe in an unaccelerated state or when he wasn’t wearing his Neurolinker.

  But thinking about it, the acceleration of thought the Brain Burst program pulled off as a matter of course was itself an extraordinary phenomenon. And that wasn’t all. Two months earlier, Haruyuki had witnessed an actual Burst Linker lose Brain Burst and have his memory tinkered with therein, to the point that memory of the program was ultimately erased.

  Which meant the program had the power to interfere with human consciousness—with the soul itself. In which case, anything could happen. Accept it and fight. That was all they could do.

  “So then, Taku, come stay at my place today,” Haruyuki said, gripping Takumu’s trembling shoulder even more tightly.

  “…What?”

  It was quite unexpected, after all. Faced with the dumbfounded expression on Takumu’s face, Haruyuki began rattling on at high speed.

  “If we fall asleep in a heap, playing games like we used to, you won’t have time for scary dreams or anything. Although I guess you can’t call it a heap with only two people. So then let’s get Chiyu to come, too. If we say the three of us are gonna do homework or something, her parents’ll let her. And I mean, we actually do have math and Japanese homework, right? So then, you take care of the math, Chiyu does the Japanese, and I’ll get the tea. And did you know? If you open homework files in the initial accelerated space, that stupid stingy protection doesn’t work, so you can copy-paste answers!”

  As the tidal wave of Haruyuki’s argument crashing over him, Takumu opened both eyes wide and stared. But finally, after staring at his friend’s chattering mouth for a while, Takumu sighed in resignation, a wry smile crossing his lips.

  “You always used to do this to me: get so carried away that I get caught up, too, and then you’d convince me to do all sorts of things. I used to get into so much trouble, you know.”

  “Did I? I don’t remember that.” Releasing the shoulder he had been clutching, Haruyuki scratched his own head pointedly.

  The wryness
gradually disappeared from the smile on his face, though, and Takumu soon removed his glasses and wiped his eyes roughly. “I guess that’s that, then. I can’t let exhaustion from doing homework affect the Castle escape mission tomorrow. I’ll come over and help you. But as senior Burst Linker here, I can’t let you use a point and accelerate just to copy-paste homework answers. I’ll teach you the concepts, but you have to do the calculations yourself.”

  “Whaaat…” Pursing his lips, Haruyuki blinked several times and cleared away what threatened to blur his vision.

  The ISS kit lodged inside Takumu still existed. Even as they lay there, it was watching vigilantly for its next chance. Just like the Armor of Catastrophe inside Haruyuki.

  But Haruyuki had been able to push back against the armor’s control and summon the original Destiny, albeit just once and only one arm of it. But it was proof that Takumu should be able to do it, too. To keep resisting the temptation of the kit for just another twenty-four hours, until Ardor Maiden, the “purifying shrine maiden,” came back alive from within the Castle walls. Because Takumu had already stepped back from the brink of despair once and was trying to walk away from it.

  “Okay! Now that that’s decided, let’s head over to my place! On the way, we can stop at the mall downstairs for food. Or no, wait. If we call Chiyu, maybe she’ll come with a bonus item.”

  Haruyuki fell into thought, and Takumu lightly jabbed at his chest, laughing.

  “You don’t want to call Chii. What you really want is to invite the dinner her mom’ll make us.”

  “N-no! I mean, the two are just kind of indivisible. Like, mention Chiyu, you get provisions. Mention provisions, get Chiyu.”

  “Uh-huh. Go ahead and try saying that to Chii.”

  “N-no way! O-okay, I’m gonna mail her, so you go get your mom to say yes.”

  Making like he hadn’t said the offending line in the first place, Haruyuki stood up from the bed.

  Just when he was about to casually pull out the XSB cable still plugged into his Neurolinker, the faintest neurovoice reverberated gently, deep within his brain, like a droplet falling on the surface of a pond.

  “Thanks, Haru. I’m so glad…we can still be friends.”

  Back still turned to his good friend, Haruyuki reflected heavily on this before returning in the same tender neurospeak:

  “Me too, Taku.”

  2

  Naturally, there were a few hurdles in making this impromptu sleepover actually happen.

  Getting permission from Takumu’s parents, who definitely did not harbor any particular goodwill toward Haruyuki.

  The right and wrong of Chiyu staying at the Arita house when they would be fourteen that year, regardless of the fact that they were childhood friends.

  And, of course, Haruyuki’s mother.

  Unexpectedly, the easiest of the three to take care of was the last. Haruyuki timidly typed out a brief mail to his mother, who was still at work, asking if it would be okay if he had two friends stay over. The response he got was brief: “If you make a mess, clean it up. I won’t be home tonight, so take care of things.”

  It wasn’t clear if she had already planned not to be home or if she was taking the opportunity to go out on the town herself, or if she was actually being considerate of her son and clearing out of the house when his friends stayed over, but if his mother wasn’t going to be home, they could use the living room the whole night.

  The next hurdle cleared was the first one: permission from Takumu’s parents. The simple sentence “we’re going to do homework” worked wonders.

  The issue was the second hurdle. Wondering exactly how Chiyu herself and her parents would come down on the matter, Takumu and Haruyuki crossed the connecting bridge on the twentieth floor of the condo and rang the bell of the Kurashima home at 2108 of B wing. But…

  “My goodness, Haru! And Taku! It’s been ages. Oh, Taku, you’ve gotten so big! How tall are you now…Oh my! A hundred and seventy-five centimeters?! You’re taller than my dear hubby now. You kids these days are really something! So why are the three of you going to do the tough homework? Oh, that’s right, you’re all in the same class this year, for the first time, hmm? When I heard you transferred to Umesato, Taku, honey, I was pleased as punch! But now things are going to be tougher for our Chiyu finally. If only both of you could marry her…”

  It had been a while, and so Haruyuki and Takumu simply listened, baffled, at the stream-of-consciousness chatter that was Chiyuri’s mother’s specialty. However, here the lone daughter in question poked her head out from the kitchen and shouted, her face a raging conflagration, “Mom! You don’t have to say everything in your head! The pot’s boiling over!”

  “Ooh! Goodness! Don’t let it! Turn it off! No, don’t turn it off, turn the heat down! Down!” As Chiyuri’s mother hurried into the kitchen, Chiyuri strode out into the hallway to take her place and glared down at them from the entryway’s step.

  “Those faces aren’t we’re going to get up to something. Those faces say you’ve already gotten up to it,” she remarked. She did have a keen eye. And as two boys who had already gotten up to one fight, all they could do was cock their heads with a half laugh.

  The mail Haruyuki sent before they came over had simply said, “Would you like to stay over tonight with Taku?” but Chiyuri was quick to whip aside that curtain in no time flat and see through to the heart of things. She had apparently showered at school after practice; her hair was half-dried as she stood there in a plain T-shirt, hands planted on her hips as she glared at them.

  But eventually, she snorted softly. “Well, whatever. I’ll hang out,” she said quickly.

  “Huh? R-really?” Without thinking, Haruyuki went for confirmation…stupidly.

  “Weren’t you the one who invited me?!” As the corners of her eyes turned up sharply once more in irritation, he hurried to bow deeply along with Takumu.

  Twenty minutes later, with a basket full of supper forced on them by Chiyuri’s mother, Haruyuki and his friends moved to the Arita home. He could never come home alone to the large, deserted, sparsely furnished three-bedroom condo in the evenings without feeling a chill, but returning with his two childhood friends, he didn’t have the time to think about things like that.

  He went and dropped his bag in his bedroom, and after changing into more comfortable clothes, he launched his mailer before heading back out into the living room.

  Fuko Kurasaki and Utai Shinomiya had told him about Takumu (Cyan Pile) being attacked by and then turning the tables on the PK group Supernova Remnant in the Unlimited Neutral Field, but Kuroyukihime probably also knew by now. No doubt they were all worried deeply, too. He needed to update them on the situation, but he’d never be able to explain in a mail the full details of the ISS kit and the fight between them.

  So he simply wrote, “Takumu is okay. I’ll explain everything during the Castle escape mission tomorrow,” and sent the message. All three quickly responded that they understood, and in those concise replies, Haruyuki felt keenly their thoughtfulness.

  Kuroyukihime, Fuko, and Utai had to have sensed long ago that something momentous, something that couldn’t be neatly tied up in the word okay had happened. However, there wasn’t the slightest hint of question in their replies. Kuroyukihime and the others implicitly communicated their intention to leave everything to the judgment of Haruyuki and Takumu.

  But at the same time, if something Haruyuki and Takumu couldn’t take back happened, the responsibility would also sit squarely on their shoulders.

  Twenty-four more hours. The two of them—no, three of them with Chiyuri—had to make it through this one night so that Takumu didn’t lose himself again in the interference from the ISS kit. They could do it. The three of them had been on countless adventures together since they were little.

  Having thought things through this far, Haruyuki suddenly realized something and his fingers froze.

  He hadn’t had any specific purpose in inviting Chiyuri to th
eir impromptu sleepover party. It had been simply the expectation, the near conviction that the three of them could get through it somehow.

  However. A certain power Chiyuri possessed…If they used that, then could they maybe remove through the system itself the parasite causing Takumu so much agony? Given the utter irregularity of the situation, he couldn’t even count on the possibility, but still, it was worth a try.

  “Kuroyukihime, Master, Mei…” Haruyuki softly called to his three missing companions. “I know, I just know we’ll manage something. Because Taku and Chiyu…they’re my best friends.”

  Taking large strides, Haruyuki yanked open the door to the living room, where something smelled delicious.

  What Chiyuri’s mother had prepared for them in a mere half hour was a soupy curry with plenty of summer vegetables. All they had to do was heat up some of the rice stockpiled in the Arita freezer and set out some iced jasmine tea, and then, just like that, a splendid, ample dining table appeared before them.

  After a hearty “Let’s eat!” the threesome chowed down wordlessly. Even Takumu, who hadn’t eaten anything since the morning, seemed to have managed to get back some of his appetite somehow. Or maybe it was the power of Chiyuri’s mother’s cooking, which was impossible to resist, especially when you were carrying around a heavy emotional burden.

  “Aah! Eggplant’s totally different when you fry it up,” Haruyuki proclaimed, a blissful expression on his face as he stuffed his cheeks full with eggplant slices that had been fried in olive oil before being gently simmered in the curry sauce.

  “Fried and boiled eggplant’s always delicious!” Chiyuri cried out in reprimand.

  “No, but unfried eggplant’s basically a sponge you can eat. Deep-fried eggplant, though, that’s the food of the gods.”

  “Oh, come on! You have the taste of a child! You don’t even get the magical delight of eggplant roasted and peeled and then eaten with some ginger and soy sauce!”

  After watching the back-and-forth between his friends, Takumu cleared his throat. “Okay, okay, you two. Fried eggplant and roasted eggplant are both delicious, but the best is when it’s pickled. That bright blue, pickled in brine—that is the taste of summer.”