“Oh, that. I’d feel bad asking for something too bulky. If you just showed me some videos you took or something…”
Or to be more accurate, video taken of you or something.
To go into further detail, high-resolution video taken of you in a bathing suit or something.
And throwing in that reward for defending our territory without our master, all this via a thirty-centimeter direct cable.
While listening to the request to which he added these mental notes, Kuroyukihime cocked her head and said, “What, that’s all you want? Okay, then. I’ll take plenty of video and mail it to you. I’ll record all the Okinawan food I eat during the trip.”
And then the morning of the next day, a Sunday, Kuroyukihime got on a flight departing Haneda Airport with 120 other Umesato Junior High School ninth graders and flew off toward the distant southern country.
Haruyuki could, of course, still contact her with a voice call or during a full dive. But when he thought about her physical coordinates being several thousand kilometers away, it in fact made him a bit anxious, and even after waking up and going back to bed, he continued to toss and turn.
Why can’t I be in the same grade as her?
If they were in the same grade, he might have been able to do things like see her in her bathing suit with his own eyes, graduate with her, and go to high school together…Although it was pretty doubtful they’d be able to go to the same high school…
These thoughts spinning freely around his brain were interrupted by the voice-mail icon flashing in the center of his field of view. As soon as he realized it was from Taku, Haruyuki sprang up and hit the icon with his fingertip.
“Morning, Haru. About Nomi, sorry to be reporting in so late. I thought I’d try and connect to his Neurolinker somehow and see whether or not he had the Brain Burst program, but I didn’t manage to find an opening. I finally got ahold of a photo at least, so I’m sending you that. I’ll be practicing with the team again this morning, so if I find out anything else, I’ll let you know. Okay, ’bye.”
The icon for the attached file started flashing as soon as the message playback finished. He furrowed his brow when he noticed that the data file was excessively large, but he soon understood why when he opened the file. Displayed was a group photo of all the new seventh graders on the kendo team.
Since Neurolinkers were equipped with built-in cameras, it was technologically possible to take a static image or video of your field of view at any time. But this also meant that peep shots could be taken with an ease that was unimaginable with the old generation’s camera-equipped cell phones.
Thus, the function was currently limited so that people within range of the photo would not appear in any screenshots unless they gave permission via the net. It was a different story, of course, if you happened to be using some doubtful means to avoid this regulation, like Kuroyukihime.
Haruyuki, and Takumu like him, was not that knowledgeable or handy with Neurolinkers, so to get a photo of Nomi’s face, their only real chance was a commemorative photo like this. Haruyuki ran his eyes over the photo filling his field of view and found the name SEIJI NOMI, GRADE SEVEN, CLASS A among the attached tags popping up and disappearing in succession.
Nomi’s visible face—he was simply a boy with no special features, features still plenty childish. Slightly brownish hair in a bowl cut hung long over his forehead. His eyes and nose were cute like a girl’s, but the mouth, with a slight smile playing on it, had the roughness you’d expect from a member of the kendo team.
“You’re…a Burst Linker…?” he murmured, but of course, the Nomi in the still image did not reply.
Haruyuki carved the face of the mysterious seventh grade student into the back of his brain, closed the photo, and got out of bed. He had been thinking about going to Shinjuku or Shibuya that afternoon to have a duel but, deciding to exchange those plans for a trip to the school, he got dressed in his uniform. If Takumu and Nomi were at kendo practice, there might be some change in the situation.
After hitting up the kitchen and there restlessly eating a couple slices of bread with some ham and cheese wedged in between them, Haruyuki left a short message for his mother, who was apparently still asleep, opened the door quietly, and went outside. As soon as he saw the ridiculously blue sky above another wing of the skyscraper condo, his vision blinked and flickered. Now that he thought about it, this was probably the first time since he had started junior high that he was going to school on a day off.
He changed his shoes at the school entrance and glanced at the clock. Getting ready and actually moving had eaten up an unexpected amount of time, and the clock was already rolling around to 12:15 PM. He thought about shooting off a mail to check if Takumu was still there but changed his mind, figuring it would be faster just to go and check himself.
The school on a Sunday afternoon was surprisingly deserted. It wasn’t as if there wasn’t anyone around. From the sports grounds, he could hear the shouts of the softball and the track and field teams, and if he had gone to the cafeteria, he would have found students from the culture club hanging around.
But the inside of the school building was dim, with the lights shut off and hallways shrouded in silence, making Haruyuki feel confused, like he had wandered into the wrong place somehow.
Quieting his breathing for no reason, he walked down the first-floor hallway and passed through to the sports wing. Slipping around the corner of the gym, which echoed with the squeak of basketball shoes, and heading toward the martial arts area—
“Sheaaah!” The sharp cry of a martial artist stopped him in his tracks.
Several other voices joined to form a chorus, but even among those harsh cries, repeated as a rhythmic chant, Haruyuki could definitely tell that this one was the high, piercing voice he had heard the other day—the voice of Nomi.
Making himself even more invisible, he descended into the graveled courtyard, advanced several meters while hugging the wall of the martial arts area, and peered in through a window.
Apparently, the full-team kendo practice was already over; only a few team members remained in the large, wooden-floored practice space. All of them seemed to be seventh graders, and they were all lined up and waving their shinai swords. Maybe an older student had ordered them to stay and practice or something. From where he was, Haruyuki could only see their backs, but given the small stature and the brownish, subdued hairstyle, the one on the right-hand end had to be Seiji Nomi.
Even through Haruyuki’s amateur eyes, Nomi’s bearing was infinitely more assured than that of his fellows, leaving no doubt about the strength of his actual abilities.
So if he has this kind of skill, why’s he going to all the trouble of accelerating during tournaments? Haruyuki bit his lip. Maybe he’s stuck in some situation where he’s totally screwed if he loses? Like the way Taku tormented himself?
Haruyuki let out a small breath and Nomi alone halted abruptly. Haruyuki shrunk into himself, worried his spying had been discovered, but that apparently was not the issue. Back still turned to him, Nomi walked briskly to the wall and put away his shinai.
“Hey! Nomi! You didn’t finish your reps yet!” one of the other seventh graders said, still brandishing his own shinai.
Nomi said nothing in response, lifted his sports bag, and started walking toward the entrance of the dojo, as if practice for him, at least, was finished. The team member who had called out clucked his tongue showily, and the student next to him raised his own voice. “Mr. Regular Team’s not like us, huh?”
Even at this flagrant barb, Nomi did not break stride. Still in his kendo uniform, he left the dojo and turned toward the gym where Haruyuki was hiding, so Haruyuki hurriedly moved away from the window and crammed his body into the shadow of some nearby shrubbery. Nomi seemed not to notice him and proceeded straight through the passage, disappearing down the stairs toward the gym basement. There was housed the facility Haruyuki had the least to do with in the entire school: the heated
swimming pool.
The idea that Nomi might actually be going for a swim baffled him, and he quickly put that guess out to pasture; the pool probably also had a shower room. Maybe he was going to get out of his kendo uniform and rinse off all the sweat he had worked up during practice.
The shower room.
“……!” Haruyuki inhaled sharply.
Given the situation, the remaining seventh grade kendo members would likely be continuing their fundamentals for the time being. And he couldn’t see any students from any other sports teams anywhere. In other words, Seiji Nomi would, for a few minutes, be completely alone.
Maybe this was his chance? His once-in-a-lifetime perfect opportunity to question Nomi about why he refused to be registered on the matching list and why he was ignoring the other Burst Linkers who went to the same school as him?
Of course, if he feigned ignorance, that’d be the end of that. But Nomi had dared to use the Physical Burst command in front of Haruyuki and Takumu, who he had to know were also Burst Linkers…Almost like he was showing himself to Takumu during the tournament. When he thought about it like that, it almost seemed like Nomi might be encouraging contact.
Still wrestling with conflicting desires, Haruyuki followed Nomi, paying attention to his surroundings. He tiptoed down the stairs, along the wall right by the gym entrance. At Umesato, swimming was an elective, and Haruyuki had never had any reason to select such a thing, so it was no exaggeration to say that this was the first time he had ever been down these stairs.
When he peered carefully around the corner to his left, Nomi was already nowhere to be seen in the short hallway. On the left-hand wall, he could see the entrance to the split shower/changing rooms. He glanced up at the ceiling, but there was no familiar black social camera dome. This passage up to the shower room interior was out of the cameras’ range.
After hesitating another ten seconds or so in the shadow of the janitorial cart around the corner, Haruyuki steadied himself and approached the locker room.
On the wall at the main entrance, the directional display signs were excessively vivid: to the left, girls, in pink; boys, to the right, in blue. He looked back at the stairs before making the expected right-hand turn, took a few steps forward, and cleared his ears. If there were any students in there besides Nomi, he would, of course, have no choice but to sadly retreat. However, there were no voices to be heard. At some point, the palms of his hands had become drenched with sweat, and he wiped them briskly on his pants.
There’s no reason to freak out here. I mean, I’m a boy who goes to this school. So if I keep going, no one can get mad at me or say anything about it. I’m just trying to spend a moment alone with Nomi here and ask him some questions about what he’s really up to. Haruyuki reprimanded himself once again and took a few clumsy steps to finally slip into the shower room.
The space was much larger than he had expected, with lockers lined up against the wall on his right. In the center was a long table, and on this was a single, school-mandated sports bag. Several shower stalls were set up along the wall to his left, hidden behind a smoke-colored plastic panel, and along with the sound of water, he could see steam rising from one stall. Otherwise, the room was completely deserted.
I’m too late? Haruyuki sighed softly. Nomi had apparently gotten into the shower while he was fretting and being indecisive. And he naturally didn’t have the guts to spring himself on someone taking a shower. He figured he would just go and come back later, and he started to quietly withdraw, but at that moment something glittered in the half-open sports bag on the long table, reflecting the light. He could only see a fraction of the object, but there was no doubt that this thing, with its smooth curve, was a Neurolinker.
Normally, if you were a security-conscious person, you would never leave this device, which was basically your second brain, anywhere out of sight. Even if you were taking a shower, you would keep it on or at least put it in a secure locker. But at school, when there’s no one but you around, you might let your guard down, not wanting the tiny hassle of turning the mechanical key on a locker.
In that case, maybe you would also not bother turning off your Neurolinker? As long as the power was off, no one would be able to touch it, since a brain-wave authentication was needed to power it back on. But if it was left in standby mode, anybody could direct with it and search the memory areas. This was exactly the same trick the Red King Scarlet Rain had used in January when she had gotten ahold of Haruyuki’s mother’s Neurolinker and set up a fake mail address in it.
Of course, this was strictly forbidden, in terms of both morals and school regulations. If a teacher found out he had secretly directed with another student’s Neurolinker without permission, he wouldn’t get off with just a reprimand.
But however pervasive the social camera net was, constantly monitoring the nation’s citizens, it didn’t cover school wash-and shower rooms. And the educational authorities did not deign to concern themselves with violations of regulations for which there was no video evidence. Like how they had so magnificently let things slide when other students had beaten and blackmailed Haruyuki outside the view of the cameras. Furthermore, if Haruyuki directed and took a peek at Nomi’s physical memory, there was a strong possibility that he would not only find out whether Nomi was a Burst Linker, but also that he would resolve the mystery of the mechanism that kept Nomi from appearing on the matching list.
After getting this far with a couple seconds’ thought, Haruyuki made his decision.
He held his breath, listening to the sound of water echoing from the shower stall, and approached the bag to pull it up slightly. Inside was a neatly folded jersey and on top of that, a pale purple Neurolinker, indicator flashing a pale blue. It was in standby.
He yanked a cable out of his pocket and promptly inserted one end into his own Neurolinker before grabbing the other end dangling in the air. Then the Neurolinker inside the bag—
No, wait.
This color. Purple-tinged satin silver. He knew this Neurolinker almost as well as he knew his own, and it wasn’t Seiji Nomi’s.
As he stood there, frozen, gripping the plug, thoughts at a standstill, he heard the sound of the shower taps being twisted shut. The sound of water was cut off. He raised a dumbfounded face as the swinging panel creaked open, and his gaze crashed into Chiyuri Kurashima stepping out, wrapping a large towel around shoulder-length hair. Two sets of eyes popped open wide.
The gears of his deactivated brain exploded with a bang, and Haruyuki simply continued to stare at Chiyuri’s face, not having the mental leeway to shift the focal points of his eyes downward—a slight saving grace in this situation. Likewise, she froze as well, still in her hair-drying pose.
“Chiyu,” Haruyuki whispered almost soundlessly, finally regaining control over his mouth somehow. “Why’re you in the boys’—”
“Haru,” Chiyuri said at the same time, after blinking hard once. “What’re you doing in the girls’ shower?”
What?
Which was when Haruyuki at last noticed that the keynote color of the space around him was not blue, but pink. The floor treated with an anti-slip finish, the smooth walls and ceiling, the table before his eyes, all of it was tied together by a light grayish-pink.
But— I mean— So stupid!! Haruyuki shouted inside, peeling back his eyelids as far as they would go. I’m sure I went down the side with the boys’ sign. And it was painted right on the wall, so there’s no way someone could have switched it as a prank. Or maybe someone just painted over it with something? No, no one would have had the time to do something as big as that.
While Haruyuki was putting his brain through furious paces, Chiyuri seemed to finally remember her current state. She glanced down at her body, and her eyes immediately turned into perfect circles, ears blooming blood red. She yanked both arms down to cover as much surface area as possible; lifted her face again; drew in a deep breath; and, right before she began shrieking and freaking out at maximum volume—
He heard the voices of several female students coming closer in the passage outside. Instantly, although quite belatedly, Haruyuki understood that this situation would not be dismissed as a joke or a simple misunderstanding. This was a genuine crisis. If the school authorities found out, he could be suspended or expelled— No, he could even be reported to the police.
As Chiyuri seemed to come to the same conclusion at the same time, the color drained abruptly from cheeks flushed bright red. While they stared at each other’s frozen faces, the girls’ voices grew steadily louder.
Chiyuri thrust out her right hand, grabbed Haruyuki’s tie and his collar along with it, yanked him forward with such force he was unable to speak, and shoved him into the shower stall she had been using until a moment ago. She got in after him, pressing Haruyuki up against the wall, and hung her towel over the top of the smoke-colored door. Grabbing the showerhead, she cranked the temperature to the maximum of sixty degrees Celsius, and then turned the tap all the way on. A stream of water gushed out against the wall to his right, and scaldingly hot water bounced back, immediately obscuring the stall in white steam.
“Don’t say anything! Don’t even move!” Chiyuri hissed, and he felt a minimum of three girls coming into the shower room, separated from them by a single panel.
“Ah, ugh! I’m covered in sweat!”
“Right? I want to pull out our summer gear already.”
“Maybe we should just change to mesh for our Linker pads?”
They were probably on the track team with Chiyuri.
The sound of zippers being pulled down followed the voices. But Haruyuki obviously did not have the luxury of imagining the scene outside as he pressed his face to the wall, closed his eyes tightly, and desperately muffled his breathing.
Panic ruled approximately 90 percent of his brain, but the remaining 10 percent continuing to consider exactly how he had ended up in this situation. He simply could not believe he had misread the signs for the boys’ and girls’ shower rooms. And physically switching the signs was impossible. In which case, there was only one trick that would explain it.
The Twilight Marauder Page 7
