“Never mind. The point is, you have nothing to feel responsible for,” she said roughly. Her tone seemed to imply that she had been joking a moment before, evading my question.
“But I...”
“Please, I don't want to talk about it,” she said, and bit her lower lip.
And so we walked on, without my having said the most crucial thing.
***
As third period began, Nagi was still asleep.
I found myself staring vacantly at the curve of her back.
She looked so isolated, so lonely.
I imagined saying so much to her. Stuff like, ’Kirima-san, all I wanted to do was thank you. Thank you for saving me. If you can't repay the person who saved your life, then there's something wrong with the world. Right?’
Sadly, I couldn't imagine how she would respond.
Her body twisted on her desk. As she did this, she moaned aloud.
The teacher finally lost it and shouted, “Kirima!”
Nagi’s head rose slowly from her desk. “Wha?”
“What did I just say? On second thought, prove this formula!” The teacher slapped the blackboard behind me. His handwriting wasn't legible at the best of times, and having it rubbed away in places didn’t help matters. All this made it next to impossible to read the whole equation if you hadn't taken notes during his lecture.
Nagi narrowed her eyes, staring at the board for a moment. “a
The teacher's face turned beet red. She was right.
We all giggled, but Nagi ignored us and went right back to sleep.
It was just another typical school day.
Her oddball behavior might be her way of preparing for her next fight, but to the casual onlooker, she just seemed insolent.
She stirred in her sleep again, moaning. The moan sounded oddly girlish, and I stifled a laugh.
After all, the Fire Witch had finished her suspension, and was back among us.
Interlude
Echoes wandered the town. The clothes he'd procured a week before were now mere rags, and the police had nearly arrested him as a suspicious character, when all he'd really done was just walk down the street. He'd been saved by some mysterious boy in a black hat, and managed to escape without hurting a soul. On the way here from the mountains, he had already been forced to seriously injure six people.
He knew the Manticore was near.
But human towns were built too close together, and the people living in them all seemed to congregate together. He had no idea how to find the Manticore here.
“............”
As the sky grew darker, he found himself in a back alley, and once more, he collapsed on the ground.
This time, there were no people around. The alley smelled of rancid water.
“............”
He looked up at the evening sky, but he couldn't see the stars here. In the mountains, he had been able to see them even in broad daylight.
But he couldn't cry any longer. The boy in the black hat had told him, “You're chasing something. Cry when you have found it.”
This was true.
He could not rest here.
He had to stop the Manticore's slaughter. The Manticore was made from him. It was his child.
She had the power of communication that even he lacked, not to mention the powers that let him blend in with this planet's ecological system. This “transformation power” in particular could do untold damage to the environmental balance of this planet's primarily human civilization and prevent him from carrying out his main objective.
His objective --
He had to fulfill it. That was why he had been created. But the Manticore's existence was a hindrance to his objective, to his decision.
He had to make a decision, one way or the other.
That decision had to be rigorously balanced. Like him, the Manticore was alien to this planet and should not exist here. He had to dispose of her.
“............”
He staggered to his feet.
There was a scream. A young women had come into the alley and caught sight of him.
He waved his hands trying to show that he meant no harm. But he didn't need to.
“What are you doing here?” the woman asked, coming towards him. It had not been a scream of terror, but simply surprise. “Oh no, you're hurt! How did this happen?”
On closer inspection, the woman was still a girl.
Without any reluctance, she wiped the blood from the wound on his head with an expensive looking designer handkerchief. The wound itself had long since healed, and he felt no pain from it, but the blood was still there, dried to his skin.
“H-hurt...” he said, trying to explain that it did not need tending. But there were few words in her speech for him to return and he could not produce a phrase with meaning.
“What should I do? Call the police?”
“P-police... “ was all he could say.
But somehow the girl understood what he meant from this.
“No police, hunh? Okay. Where's your house? Nearby?”
He picked some words from her speech, forcing a sentence. “No-hou-house.” When he spoke to people, he could only return words they had spoken, so as to not provide them with information beyond the limits of their understanding.
“Homeless? Looks like you're in some kind of trouble.”
He nodded. He waved his hands, telling her to back away from him.
She patted him gently on the shoulder. Body language for “calm down.”
“No way, Jose. I leave you here and I won't be able to sleep at night.”
Somehow, she seemed to understand what he wanted to say, even though he could not speak directly.
“Hmm, let me see... for the moment, let's put you in school. There's a card reader at the gate to get in, but I think I know a back way in.”
“Sch-school...”
“Yeah, I live in an apartment building, but there are prying eyes everywhere. See? You aren't the only one with problems,” she said jokingly, and grabbed his arm, pulling him forcibly to his feet. Then she dragged him after her.
He didn't know what else to do, so he followed her.
‘Who was she?’ he thought, and almost instantly she answered, “Me? My name's Kamikishiro. Kamikishiro Naoko. I'm a senior at Shinyo Academy. You?”
“Ah... oooh...” he couldn't answer. He was not allowed to provide humans with information about himself.
“You can't talk?”
“Can't... ta-talk.”
“You're talking now. Hmm... they call you Echoes? Strange name. Almost like it was made for me to call you by.”
Kamikishiro giggled. She had not yet noticed that she was understanding things that he had not said.
She smiled at him. “Don't worry. I know this kooky girl named Nagi. Anytime there's trouble, we talk to her and she usually takes care of it. Assuming you aren't a bad guy, Echoes,” she finished with a wink.
She pulled out a cell phone, thumb flying over the keys, dialing this Nagi person with a practiced motion.
Chapter Three
No One Lives Forever
Saotome Masami
first year, class D
1.
First year student Saotome Masami first fell in love when he was fifteen. Until that point, he had never opened his heart to anyone and simply remained a ’nice guy’ to the people around him. Needless to say, this was a major turning point in his life.
***
“Saotome-kun, you free Sunday?” asked his classmate Kusatsu Akiko, shortly after the start of the second term as they were performing their after-school cleaning duties.
“No plans to speak of.”
“See, Sachiko has some free movie tickets, and she said we should all go together.” Akiko had dark skin and high cheekbones. She looked at Masami, waiting for an answer.
“We?” Masami asked, l
eaning on his broom. This lowered his face to her line of sight. He was tall, with a face that had just enough charm to get him compared to pop idols. But it was always a different person every time, never fixing on one resemblance.
“You know Sakamoto-kun from class F? He made a pass at Sachiko and got the tickets, but she’s a little nervous about going it alone.”
“So, you need a discipline committee member as an escort? I know Sakamoto pretty well, and I don't want to drag his feet.”
“Oh, you don’t need to... well, maybe you do,” Kusatsu Akiko said, smiling weakly at him. She was pretty forthright with everyone else but Masami, but she couldn't contradict him directly, because she was in love. Masami was well aware of this, and privately, he was annoyed by it. Until now.
But today, he simply smiled back at her instead.
“But if you just want me to tag along, fine. Not like I've got anything better to do. If we run into the guidance teacher on patrol, I can probably talk us out of trouble.”
Kusatsu Akiko’s face brightened. “Really? Well, the truth is, Sachiko’s secretly pleased that Sakamoto-kun asked her, so I don't think you’ll need to intervene.”
“Whatever.”
They both laughed.
You could never call Kusatsu Akiko a good-looking girl, but when she smiled next to the far more evenly-featured Masami, she gleamed like a still image from a soap opera.
***
When the four of them met at the station, they appeared to be a very close-knit group. They ran into Masami's sempai on the discipline committee, Takeda Keiji, and he took one look at them and asked if they were “double dating.” So, there was clearly a hint of romance in the air.
The movie was a big Hollywood action movie, part three in a series, neither harming anyone nor doing anyone any good. The only part that Masami enjoyed was a bit where a minor villain was shot in the chest and knocked over backwards. His arms were flung out to the sides, and he slid backwards like a figure skater. In Masami’s eyes, he looked light and free.
They left the theater, and a passing group of teenagers glared at them murderously. Walking quickly, faces grim, they all carried bags with large square lumps inside.
“Cram school?” asked Noguchi Sachiko, this evening's instigator. “I hope we never end up like that.”
“Yeah,” Kusatsu Akiko nodded. Masami remembered her letting it slip that she couldn't go to college, because her father's company was about to go bankrupt.
“That's a long time from now. We ought to enjoy ourselves while we can,” Sakamoto Jun said, trying to distract Noguchi Sachiko.
“Yeah, just forget about it. Just live your life. Not like you can live forever,” Masami said breezily.
“Oh look, it's Yurihara from our school,” Noguchi Sachiko said, pointing.
Yurihara Minako, second year, class D, one of the best students in the school, and legend had it that she consistently beat out the best students at other cram schools on their practice tests. But she didn't look at all like the brainy type. Heck, she didn't even wear glasses. Instead, she had long straight hair with the kind of shine that no amount of treatment could ever give. It matched her slender face, giving the impression of a Heian era princess.
Yurihara Minako passed by them as they whispered, walking at a slower pace than the other students, and vanished into the cram school.
“She’s so relaxed. You can just see the aura of her genius.”
“You know she was scouted by some prep schools, right?” Sakamoto said with a knowledgeable expression.
“Really? They can do that?”
From the fuss that they made, you would never have thought that they were talking about a sempai.
All the while, Masami remained quiet, smiling to himself. He didn't even glance at Yurihara Minako.
They had promised not to let their eyes meet in public.
“Anyone up for karaoke? There's a place near here with a great track list,” Kusatsu Akiko said brightly. She was in a good mood, now that she was out with her beloved Masami.
In the karaoke box, Masami sang easy pop songs, ones that had been all the rage up until recently, but had passed their peak, and everyone was starting to get sick of them now. He almost always sang that sort of song at karaoke. He preferred an American band called The Doors, which had broken up ages ago (long before he was even born) when the lead singer died of a drug overdose. But he never told anybody. The Doors weren't in a lot of karaoke machines, but he never sang them even if they were.
He had a good voice, but since everyone was a little tired of his selections, they never really seemed all that interested.
He always applauded other people's performances, never forgetting to keep up appearances. He never stuck out, was occasionally a little scorned, but he never made anyone jealous, and no one ever realized that he was keeping them at a distance.
He bought drinks for everybody. He took them directly from the tray when the waiter brought them and even passed them around himself.
He put Kusatsu Akiko's drink in her hands. Nobody saw him drop a small tablet, about five millimeters across, into her cup before he handed it over. Yurihara Minako had ’synthesized’ the tablet, and as promised, it quickly dissolved into the diet cola. Kusatsu Akiko never noticed a thing.
2.
The first girl that Saotome Masami fell in love with was a second year student, Kirima Nagi. He told her this in May. She rejected him quite harshly.
“Sorry, but I don't have the time,” was all she said.
“Is...is it because I'm younger?”
“No, not really... you're normal, right? Me? I'm nothing but trouble. Thanks, but sorry.”
“O-okay.” He was far less hurt by this than he'd expected. Quite the opposite; he found himself rather relieved to be brushed off coldly.
It was two months before he identified the source of those feelings.
***
“Hey, Saotome, you take Kusatsu home. I'll take care of Noguchi,” Sakamoto whispered in Masami’s ear as their time in the karaoke box ran low.
“Sure. Good luck,” Masami whispered back.
As the four of them left the shop, Kusatsu Akiko suddenly proclaimed, “I... I don’t feel so good.” Her face was white as a sheet.
“That's too bad. I'd better take you home, “ Masami said, putting his arm around her shoulders.
“Uh, hang on! Saotome-kun!” Noguchi Sachiko cried, all flustered. She was about to be left alone with Sakamoto.
“You two have fun. Don't worry, I'll look after her.”
“Er, but...”
“You heard the man. Let him go,” Sakamoto said, cajoling. As the men had planned, they split off into two pairs. Noguchi Sachiko was steamrolled under Sakamoto's promises that he wouldn’t “try anything.”
Afterwards, he did get her to a hotel, where they had relations, but Noguchi Sachiko’s parents found out and her old-fashioned father stormed the school, tracked Sakamoto down, and cursed him out in front of everyone. But in all the fuss, the two of them never had a moment to notice the events that followed. They had completely forgotten they were ever with Saotome Masami that night.
“Bye!”
“Yeah,” Masami replied, as the four became two.
“I feel sick...” Kusatsu Akiko’s voice grew gradually weaker in Masami’s arms.
Masami never spoke a word. He simply hauled her along as if she were a piece of luggage. The silence was deafening.
Kusatsu Akiko was in no condition to be insulted. Her face was well beyond pale; you could see the blood vessels under her skin.
Not caring, Masami dragged her into the backroads. All they did was leave the lights and noise of the main drag for a narrow back road, but it was as silent as a graveyard, seemingly light years from the bustle of the city.
Before them was a giant parking garage that had failed in its bid to reopen and been abandoned. The land was intended to become an office building, but the owner had been unable to find any clients,
and he had no other choice but to make it into a parking garage. As luck would have it, the owner had then gone bankrupt, and it was now just another of the country's forgotten bad debts.
Masami slipped between the railings of the surrounding fence, holding Akiko under his arm. She said nothing. She had already stopped breathing.
He dragged her up to the seventh floor of the parking lot. This far up, there was no chance of them being disturbed by thrill seekers.
Leaving Kusatsu Akiko on the ground, Masami stuck his face outside. It was pitch black all around them. Even if a normal human on the ground had been looking upwards, they could never have seen him.
He looked at his watch. It was a digital watch with a backlit screen. Unlike radial watches, it had the advantage of not making a sound.
The time confirmed, he nodded to himself.
Staring into the blackness below him, he waved his hands.
There was a small noise from far below him, like someone pushing a tack into a board.
Within an instant, a human shape appeared in the air in front of Masami.
It was a girl.
The shape slid past Masami, entering the parking lot. It landed right at the top of its arc, and there was no sound as its feet touched the floor.
The girl had jumped all the way to the seventh floor.
The girl turned towards Masami. She had long, bountiful, black hair plastered to her head. She had a cram school bag in her hand.
It was Yurihara Minako.
“Were you successful?” she asked.
Masami nodded. “Over there,” he said, pointing to Kusatsu Akiko’s corpse, which lay on its side, no longer moving.
“That one? The other girl was better,” Yurihara said, frowning. Agitation could not be farther from her mind.
“Not really. This girl has friends all over. Lots of friends from Junior High,” Masami replied, voice devoid of warmth.
“Does she? Then fine. You know more than I do, Saotome-kun.” Yurihara handed her bag to Masami. He took it like an obedient little hotel bellboy whose only job is to serve.
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