“One could say that only the outside knows what awaits the egg at the end, however…”

At first, she didn’t have a clue what the news report was talking about.

“—Ah, uhm, it’s…it’s happened again! It’s a repeat of that incident!” The announcer, who should have been reading their script, was stumbling over themselves .

“What in the world…?”

Honami Akiko, who was lying low inside of her cave, was irritated. The poor reception alone made it hard enough to follow, but this was further compounded by the incoherency of the broadcast’s details.

In short, the fire doors had all shut automatically, and tear gas—from wherever the hell that was coming from—was spraying out all over the place. But there was a difference: this time it was happening in an ordinary building and the emergency exits were still open, so the people inside were reportedly staggering out in fits of coughing. The police had already hurried to the scene ready to rush in, but the entrances were all narrow, and they had precedent to be wary. The external generators had already been cut, so it was only a matter of time before the facilities inside ground to a halt. As such, it seemed the police were on standby, encircling the building.

Like before, it seemed that no one had as of yet claimed responsibility for the crime, their motives remaining unclear.

[[…It’s him,]] informed Embryo, resting at her chest. [[It’s Takashiro Tooru. Betcha anything he’s the one that pulled this little stunt. He wants a showdown with Fortissimo!]]

“H-how would he pull off something on that scale?”

[[With the Towa Organization involved, anything’s possible.]]

“………”

Akiko held her breath.

Embryo had told her about it, but she still hadn’t been able to believe it. He’d predicted that because Takashiro Tooru had contacted Fortissimo—who was after Embryo—and lived, it was possible the two of them would engage in battle once again, and that it would become a major newsworthy incident that involved bystanders.

The late Sidewinder had told Embryo about the kind of person Fortissimo was, and what rank he held within the system . That he had an abnormal obsession for battle. He must have had plenty of reasons to be hung up on Takashiro Tooru, who had escaped his hand. And given that an innocent person had seemingly gotten  involved, Tooru was likely looking for a fight as well. Out for revenge, perhaps. Fortissimo didn’t know where he was, so if Tooru was to lure him in, he would have to stage something big…

Strictly speaking, this prediction wasn’t quite on the mark, for the major incident itself wasn’t to lure in Fortissimo, but something that Takashiro Tooru had intended for another purpose. They weren’t to know this, however. Nor did this detail have any bearing on their situation, so his prediction was essentially correct.

“Tooru-san…”

[[Guy’s still not gone off the deep end either. Looks like bystanders are managing to escape.]]

“This ‘Fortissimo’… Do you think he’ll show up soon?”

[[Reckon so.]]

“T-then, we have to go there right now…!”

Gripping the portable home gaming device  in which Embryo resided, she dashed down and out of the cave.

As for what would be waiting for her when she got there, she still had no idea. It would turn out to be a strange “reunion.”

The gas that had filled the area was quickly dispersing. It was never supposed to be very strong or long-lasting. The man who’d set the traps scattered across Sphere had done so as a test. It was no more than a check to determine whether or not their installment would be found out. Compared to the final product, these traps were extremely crude. And there had been one more great, equally crude trap prepared—one rather closer to its intended purpose. But the man had decided to favor more reliable methods, and so in the end abandoned this idea.

As the mist-like gas began to clear, two figures advanced. No… On closer inspection, it was apparent that the larger one was actually two people. A small figure was carrying another on their back.

The three of them had passed safely through the supposedly gas-filled space.

“…How come the gas doesn’t reach us?” asked Honami Hiroshi, who was carrying his sister on his back, to Fortissimo in front of him. His sister was in fact Pearl, but he didn’t know that.

“Because I’m cutting the space between, before the gas reaches us,” Fortissimo stated matter-of-factly.

“…I don’t get it,” grumbled Hiroshi.

Though Fortissimo had shown his true colors and incapacitated his sister, for some reason Hiroshi couldn’t bring himself to feel frustrated at the betrayal. For such a suspicious guy, Hiroshi hadn’t felt much reluctance to tag along with him all this time. In fact, he was a scaredy-cat, so it was a little odd for him, really.

“………”

Carrying his immobile sister, he followed behind Fortissimo. They’d come from their hotel hideout by car, so he’d had to carry her from the underground car park all the way here, but he didn’t feel especially exhausted or that he was carrying a heavy load. In fact, she wasn’t heavy at all. His sister was oddly light. It was as if she were a little child, even younger than him. His sister was taller than him, so he’d thought that their weight would be about the same. Bemused, he walked on, wondering if girls were actually a lot lighter than they looked.

“Though…when exactly are you going to bring Nee-chan back to normal?” asked Hiroshi.

“That depends on Takashiro Tooru,” Fortissimo chuckled. “What kind of reaction will he have when he sees our ‘Honami Akiko?’  That’s about what I’d like to know.”

“…He’ll want to save her, obviously.”

“Now wouldn’t that be fun.”

“He will!”

“Well, we’ll find out soon enough. …Hm?”

Fortissimo paused shortly before their intended destination. They were at the entrance to a theater lobby, seven floors up. There were no performances today, it seemed, and a “No Entry” sign had been hung up. The way was barred by thick, heavy doors .

“Th-that’s…” Hiroshi’s voice slipped out.

“………”

Fortissimo fell silent.

The doors were closed, all right. Perhaps they’d even been locked. But they had been rendered meaningless, for in the wall immediately to their side—four-inches  thick with soundproofing material—was a round hole. But it wasn’t that someone had smashed through it. The wall had been sliced clean out, as if a hole punch had made its way through paper.

“………”

Silently, Fortissimo observed the cross-section. It was filled with woolly soundproofing material, but there wasn’t the slightest trace of it being pushed in or sticking out. It was as if such a hole had been there from the very start.

“M-making a hole like this... That means…”

Just as Hiroshi began to cough, Fortissimo firmly grabbed the boy’s shoulder.

“…Hey, you two get back for now.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll call you later… For now, find somewhere to hide,” said Fortissimo quietly.

“B-but why?”

“I’ve changed my mind. I need to go check on something quick. There should still be time.”

The corners of his mouth had curled slightly…into a smile.

Faced with that chilling expression, Hiroshi was compelled to retreat as he was told. Shouldering his sister, he took cover in the space between a row of vending machines and a bench.

Fortissimo stood before the doors to the theater, alone.

He casually placed his hands in his pockets, and as if on cue the large doors opened all on their own with a bang!

He walked forward. Before him stood another set of doors, these ones connecting to the inner portion of the theater. But he simply walked toward them, and mere inches away—bang! Again, the doors slammed open inwards.

Rows of seats lined the interior. It was deathly silent. Under normal circumstances, the venue would be saturated with brilliant lights and sounds and filled with the audience’s cheers and applause. But now, this empty space was laid bare in the stillness.

And then something happened—something that was the complete opposite of what should happen in a place like this. Ordinarily, it was something you would only have been able to hear coming from the audience. But this time, it echoed from the stage.

Clapping.

It came from just one pair of palms atop the stage, inviting Fortissimo in.

“Welcome, Fortissimo,” he said quietly.

Fortissimo walked slowly forward, continued until they were a few meters apart, then stopped and glared.

“Takashiro Tooru… I’ll ask you just to be sure. What are you doing here?”

“………..”

Tooru didn’t answer.

“You seem to have laid traps for some reason. Creating an enclosed space, spreading gas… But do you honestly think that will achieve anything? Or are you just getting desperate?”

“………”

He was silent for a time, but eventually opened his mouth.

“I too…have something I must ask you.”

“Hm?”

“The wounds your power inflicts… Is there a way to close them? What can someone do to heal those injuries?”

Suspicion grew on Fortissimo’s face. “Don’t tell me… That’s what this is about?”

“………”

“You mean…you went out of your way to set up all this and called me here so that you could save the life of your friend who should be teetering on the brink of death? You’re fully prepared to die?”

“Answer me.”

He didn’t close in—on the contrary, his tone was gentle. Fortissimo’s expression, on the other hand, was clearly growing less and less pleased.

“I admit, it’s a noble goal, but I’m afraid there’s nothing like that …!”

“…There’s really nothing at all?”

“I’m sick of this! To me, life is like a ball of fluff caught in a web of spatial fissures. His very life was practically cut. It’s not something anyone can stop or staunch, not unless someone can add new life to his body to fill in the wounds…!”`

“So there’s no cure…” He lowered his head slightly and exhaled. A trickle of blood ran from the scar of his ruined right eye. “Then there is but one path left.”

“Path?” Fortissimo’s voice was tinged with anger. The anger of having his expectations dashed. “What other path could you possibly have…except being slaughtered  right here, Takashiro Tooru?!”

His rage was answered calmly.

“You’ve been wrong. For a while now.”

“What?”

“That name no longer holds any meaning for me.”

“Name? What name?”

“Now that I know there’s no way of saving him, it means even less.”

“Like I said, what the hell are you talking about?!”

“You were the one who named me. You told me…that all I had left was to be your opponent. That only that name  remained.”

At last, Fortissimo grasped the meaning behind his words.

“…I see.” He removed his hands from his pockets. “So you’re prepared. All right. Then how about you show me the measure of this resolve of yours…Inazuma!”

He took a step forward. And then something hitherto unseen  happened. The one with a tachi at his hip…moved back.

Fortissimo was roughly five meters apart. He did not attempt to reduce that distance.

Again, Fortissimo took a step forward.

Again, he moved back.

“…Ah!”

Fortissimo suddenly shot him a look.

“Why are you retreating?”

“You must know the answer to that far better than anyone,” he said quietly.

His manner of speaking barely resembled the impulsive-to-a-fault Takashiro Tooru that Fortissimo knew.

“Fortissimo, surely you can’t have thought I’d seen nothing in our first battle.”

He had seen, and he had thought. He’d thought of nothing else but that the entire time in the holding cell. He’d ruminated upon the events of that battle many thousands of times inside his head. He had analyzed, predicted, and imagined, over and over again.

“………”

“The reason I won’t blindly approach you is because this is your effective range. If I gain more distance, are you sure you’ll be able to launch your attacks accurately?”

Though his words stated the facts, Fortissimo’s expression was unchanged. Emotionless.

“………”

“And here’s another aspect of your power: Once you deploy it, no one—not even you—can stop it… That’s why your attacks must be precise and subtle, so that you aren’t consumed by their overwhelming destruction yourself. It’s why, at first glance, it looks like you draw up to your opponents in a state of defenselessness. But it’s not because you’ve got guts, or because you have absolute faith in your abilities… It’s because if you don’t, you won’t be able to strike.”

“………”

Fortissimo remained impassive to the one-eyed man’s words.

“…And what of it?”

To this simple response, however, his opponent shook his head lightly.

“Of course, I won’t have been the first to work out this much,” he responded calmly. “And it’s not about to make your absolute defense fall apart either. If I were to face you a thousand times in an ordinary bout on equal footing, I’d surely lose a thousand times too. However…” He put a hand on his sword. “In the right environment, under exceptional circumstances…you’d win nine-hundred-and-ninety-eight.”

“You’re saying that you can win twice? What, you think that this right here is one of those times?”

“………”

“You really think you can win? Against me? Fortissimo?”

“No. I won’t win… But you’ll lose,” he declared.

“………”

“…You think you know me?” he said, the words wrung out under his breath. “A defeated dog like you, who’s failed over and over again? I’ve never lost, not even once. And yet you claim to know me…?”

He took another step forward.

But this time, his opponent didn’t step back. Instead, he shifted to the side. The positions of their stand-off had subtly changed. And the opponent staring him down, the man named Inazuma, softly spoke.

“I don’t know you. And I doubt you know me either. So…in this sense, we are even.”

“Then we don’t need any restraint or mercy, do we?!”

Fortissimo kicked off the floor and charged. An explosion of flying matter thundered all around.

“……!”

Honami Akiko’s head jerked up. She thought she’d heard something coming from Sphere up ahead—something that sounded like a scream.

[[Mm? What’s up?]] Embryo asked.

“…N-no, it’s nothing. I probably just imagined it.”

She shook her head, and then took in the scene before her once more.

The police were there. It was the squad who’d been dispatched to encircle the building. They’d huddled together at one of its seven entrances to stop anyone coming out or trying to get in.

But they didn’t even attempt to stop Honami Akiko, who stood immediately before them. Or rather, they couldn’t.

“…B-but isn’t this… What’s going on?”

Indeed, they had, for reasons unbeknownst to her, all passed out, and were sprawled on their backs. Just to the side, what appeared to be a woman’s beret lay on the ground, but they  hadn’t noticed it.

[[Dunno what the deal is, but I know a chance when I see one,]] said Embryo quietly.

“Y-yeah. Right.”

To the side of the entrance, which was barred by shutters, stood a small emergency exit. Cautiously, Akiko pushed the door open.

There was a lingering, faintly malodorous smell of gas inside, but it seemed to have lost all potency and Akiko felt no unpleasant effects from it.

She swallowed, and slowly made her way into the midst of Sphere to look for Takashiro Tooru.

Just then, her eyes landed upon something at her feet. A cockroach.

It lay belly-up and twitching, having seemingly inhaled the gas. Though it was no longer fatal to humans, for insects it must have been like getting a dose of pesticide. Clearly it was on its way out.

Huh…?

As always, she saw “death" spilling out from the bug. She could see it, but…it seemed a little more out of focus than normal. No, it was becoming hazier, growing fainter and fainter. When at last she could see it no more, she wasn’t at all confident that it was because the bug had fully perished.

“Is this…?”

[[You think it's…starting to disappear cause your power’s weakening?]] Embryo asked. [[B-but  then that'd mean you wouldn't be able to talk to me.]]

She could hear the “voice” itself extremely clearly.

“…I don't know. I don't know, but…” said Akiko, speaking her thoughts aloud. “I don't want to make the same mistake as before. I don't know what's happening to me, or how I'll end up, but… I decided I’d find Tooru-san and that’s what I’m going to do. That's all that matters.”

She resumed walking.

“………”

Embryo said nothing to her.

“…What's up with you?” It was Akiko’s turn to ask. “Where's your ‘Well, well, ain't that brave of you ' or one of your usual jabs?”

She smiled as she spoke. If Embryo had been human, he would have let out something like a sigh.

[[…Nah, it's just… Seems you’ve turned into a real fine gal .]]

“The hell? You're being creepy now .”

[[No, I mean it. Don’t ask me where it came from, but that's the impression that hit me just now. You really have grown since those days. ]]

“What days? We've been together the whole time. That's the kind of thing you say to someone you've been apart from for years.”

[[…Guess you got a point there.]]

“Thanks, though. It kinda gives me courage, the fact that you’re praising me. Like I can do anything in the world, no matter how hard it is. Heh eh.”

[[Heh heh heh.]]

The girl and the egg, two oblivious beings, quietly enjoyed a moment of laughter within their enclosed space.

Then they felt another rumble. Something else had been destroyed. They ran in the direction of its presumed source.

Blood sprayed through the air.

“…Ngh!”

Takashiro Tooru, the tachi at his waist still sheathed, had already borne the brunt of countless flying fragments, and was head to toe in scratches. Despite that, his movements were un-blunted, and he continued keeping a fixed distance from Fortissimo as he advanced.

“What’s wrong, Inazuma? Is that sword at your waist just for show?!” challenged Fortissimo.

Most of the seats in the theater had by now been pulverized, and the stage, which was the first to have been hit, was gone without a trace.

“Besides…as you seem to be so intent on keeping away from me, how exactly do you plan on attacking?”

“………”

Still, Tooru refused to move the hand he had placed on the tachi’s hilt. Nor did his one eye stray from Fortissimo for a single moment. There was not a trace of impatience or fear on his face.

This guy…  Is he waiting for something?

Fortissimo, too, briefly paused his flurry of attacks.

It made no sense, but there was one thing that was clear: whatever he did, it would happen in an instant. And in that moment, the battle would be decided.

“………”

Seeing that Fortissimo before him had stopped moving, Tooru also fell still. Time alone crawled on at a snail’s pace.

“………”

There was a strange whooshing sound, and suddenly Tooru’s right shoulder had been slashed, spurting blood. Fortissimo had severed the space at the very edge of his reach, and the resulting vacuum had torn into Tooru.

But Tooru did not move.

Vwoosh, vwoosh! Each consecutive sound added to his wounds. Yet he remained utterly still, unflinching.

Tooru could see them.

For these vacuum attacks, he could perceive the “lines” clearly. He hadn’t taken any fatal wounds, or even any significant damage. Just light jabs. He might start to worry about such attacks if they continued to pile up, but that was all. These weren’t attempts to decide the battle.

Fortissimo, too, had been forced to realize from Tooru’s quiet, penetrating insight that he had figured out his plan of attack.

Still, you keep this up and at some point you’ll stop moving from blood loss. Or are you taking the blows on purpose to lull me into monotonous motions and catch me unawares?

All right… I’ll play your game, Fortissimo thought, and resumed his assault, never letting his guard down.

Fortissimo himself only had it half right, but he was not known as the Strongest One for relying on power alone. Inattention was something that he was instinctively—and perhaps almost on a physiological level—incapable of, a fact corroborated by his track record. This was not something he had fostered through training and experience; it was innate. It was possible that his power was a byproduct of this nature. Simply part and parcel of who he was. Though this was not necessarily something he desired.

And so, he subconsciously knew of the strength of this enemy, Inazuma. The hit that he had taken from Taniguchi Masaki, too, had been because his immediate opponent was Inazuma. If he had been facing someone else, he would have noticed Masaki approaching. That he had been so focused was likely because…

“………”

But he wasn’t ready to admit it yet.

He didn’t know why, but he feared that admitting that fact would feel tremendously painful. It wasn’t something he was keenly aware of—more a feeling that gnawed at him.

Thoughts pooled. Was it possible that the strength he had was not the only one out there? Was he, in fact, not alone…?

“…Tch.”

He lightly clicked his tongue, even as he attacked.

In Tooru’s case, his power was not something he had been born with. So yes, he would let his guard slip, lose himself to his emotions and make mistakes he could never undo. But it was for that reason that he stood here and now. If he’d let his instinct control him, he would have fled long ago. The strength found in nature is only predicated on how long you can survive, nothing more.

But he wasn’t like that.

And that was why he didn’t run.

Why he continued to fight.

Fighting…by staying still…

“………”

If he was to follow the “plan” that he had thought up after Habara Kentarou had laid the groundwork, he had only a little longer to wait. Even if he continued to let Fortissimo attack, he’d be able to get through it before the damage got too severe.

However…it was at this point that something utterly unexpected happened to Tooru.

“………?!”

For the first time, his gaze strayed from Fortissimo.

Past his enemy, towards the theater entrance, there stood a boy.

Honami Hiroshi.

He had secretly approached from the place he was told to hide. And to his eyes, it looked as if Fortissimo was one-sidedly toying with Tooru.

“T-Takashiro-san!” he cried suddenly.

But Fortissimo did not turn toward the voice. Such a thing was trivial to him. The same could not be said for Tooru. A bystander could not remain here—not here, not now.

He leapt. And he ran toward Hiroshi, attack range be damned.

What?!

Fortissimo could only interpret this as a sudden retreat. In that instant, he snapped. After all this?! he thought.

“…got to be fucking KIDDING ME!” he roared, launching an indiscriminate attack in Tooru’s direction.

The theater’s floor and ceiling were shredded to pieces, launching shockwaves that burst and scattered through the hall.

“…Wah?!”

Hiroshi, sheltered in Tooru’s arms, was blown away by the force of the blast. The two of them tensed and rolled across the floor. Immediately, Tooru rose to his feet.

“…Can you move?” he asked Hiroshi urgently, straight to the point.

Hiroshi nodded up and down. He had indeed sustained no injuries. Tooru, however… Half of his face was slick with blood. A flying splinter had hit him square in the head.

“T-Takashiro-san—“

“Listen to me. You have to get out of here! This place is about to—”

“B-but he’s kidnapped Nee-chan!” cried Hiroshi, interrupting him.

“What did you say…?”

A look of astonishment painted Tooru’s face. Just then, at his back, came the crunch of debris underfoot.

The two of them turned to see Fortissimo standing there, dangling a motionless girl by the neck.

“…Are you talking about her?” he said coldly.

“Bastard… What’s your game? ”

Tooru had been taken completely off guard by this sudden turn of events. He simply couldn’t believe that Fortissimo would stoop so low as to take prisoners.

“N-Nee-chan!” Hiroshi cried.

“You’re a gullible bunch, aren’t you? Did you really think this was Honami Akiko?” he declared at last.

“Huh?”

“What…?”

“Go on, why don’t you show us your true form…Pearl!”

Her body began to twitch and spasm. And then—and what a sight it was to behold—her hands, feet and torso all seemed to shrink before their eyes.

Tooru was dumbstruck.

Finally, she reached the size of about a seven or eight-year-old girl, even smaller than Hiroshi.

Indeed, this was the true form of the synthetic human, Pearl. Her base form had been designed to be compact to allow her to transform into any human. It isn't difficult to incorporate a mechanism that pads the skeletal structure to reinforce bones, but to actually shrink those bones was an extraordinarily challenging feat. The Manticore—the archetype upon whom Pearl and all others were based—achieved this transformation in a completely different manner, and it’s said that ultimately, none but she was ever able to succeed. Pearl’s body, therefore, could be considered something of a poor imitation. Immature.

Her face, too, perfectly resembled that of an innocent child. The only difference was her hairstyle, which matched Honami Akiko's. But even the color of her hair was fading before them, becoming a sparkling, reflective silver. Hair designed to have all kinds of colors applied to it.

“………”

Hiroshi's mouth was agape. He couldn't understand what he had just witnessed. But in some sense, he accepted it. It would explain why she was so light.

“………”

Tooru's face was growing darker by the second.

“Stop…!” he growled at last.

Fortissimo did just as he was told and cast Pearl's body aside.

Pearl rolled across the theater lobby carpeting, vomit spilling from her lips.

“Gahuck, gubbgh…!” she convulsed, the edges of her mouth foaming.

Places all across her entire central nervous system had been cut and reattached to the point that she could no longer maintain her disguise, and now she had lost consciousness.

“What's going on?” Tooru asked, his glare directed not at Pearl but Fortissimo.

“Nothing's ‘going on’. She's a fake. The real Honami Akiko’s lying low somewhere with Embryo. This one had been trying to use you by disguising herself as Akiko—up until I found her, at least. I guess when I played dumb, she thought she could bluff her way through it, since she’d stayed like that till now. Maybe I let it slide because she was hoping to strike the moment I let my guard down. Thought she might give me a little challenge for a while…but I’ve grown tired of that now too,” Fortissimo said languidly.

“You bastard…!”

An anger the likes of which Tooru had never shown smoldered in his eye  . Endeavored though he had to keep his head, his opponent’s cruel treatment of this person in the form of a young girl was about to stir fierce emotions in him again.

Fortissimo glared straight back at him.

However, the one who was really in control of the situation at that moment was neither of the two.

…It’s time!

Though her body had been all but rendered immobile, Pearl’s awareness alone was sharp and clear.

At last…after all this time! I’d been waiting for this moment!

Excretions continued to spill from her mouth in globs. Anyone would have assumed that this was undigested matter being expelled from her guts due to bodily dysfunction. In actuality, this was not the case.

Her power—one shared by the Manticore after which she was modeled—was to synthesize a special and incredibly potent drug inside her body. It was something she had been storing within her the whole time.

And its effect was plain and simple: to corrode, rot and destroy…!

Plenty of this drug  had already seeped into the carpet; you couldn’t see it from above, but it was spreading rapidly beneath the floor.

…Go on, expose my pathetic form. Humiliate me all you want. See if I care!

Pearl watched Tooru and Fortissimo from the corner of her eye. The two of them were staring each other down, their attention unfocused on her. Ever so slightly, she raised an unsteady arm.

She didn’t need strength to break the rotted floor; she only had to give it a light tap at a certain interval.

Victory, you’ll find, goes to those who survive…!

And as Pearl was on the verge of that motion, her eyes met with Honami Hiroshi. He was staring at her.

She cast a wicked grin to her “little brother.”

“…Bye now.”

Of course, her hoarse, whispered words had reached no one’s ears. The next instant, a section of the floor on which Tooru and the others were standing instantly gave way and collapsed.

“…W-what was that?!”

The sound, which had reached as far as Honami Akiko’s ears as she walked down the corridor, was many times louder than any so far.

And it wasn’t just the sound. Cracks had immediately begun spreading across the ground at her feet. The floor started to tilt.

“Wa-waaah!”

She clung to a nearby pillar—this turned out to save her life. If she’d still been standing where she was, the ceiling would have come down on top of her.

Beneath the floor that Pearl had destroyed had been the building’s mechanical fulcrum. Its collapse would start a chain reaction, pulling parts of Sphere sideways and causing them to fall apart in turn. Though the structural elements had been built to withstand vertical impact, the horizontal plane had not been adequately accounted for. Whole floors, stratified one atop the other, would soon come crashing down.

“H-hiii…!”

Certain areas were falling apart while others were not, it seemed. Like a haphazard game of dominoes, in which the occasional piece was left standing.

Things came tumbling down from holes in the ceiling. Bits of flooring, steel frames, and—from a clothing store up above, it would seem—even several limbless, dust-covered mannequins, all piling atop each other. If everything above had given way, such a number of objects wouldn’t have been falling down. The destruction did indeed seem to be sporadic.

As she listened to the sounds of this ongoing cascade of ruin , Akiko realized something strange.

“…Huh?”

The pose of one of the mannequins that had fallen was…off.

It looked like a small mannequin for displaying children’s clothes, but it was lying there on the ground as though it were sleeping. It adhered perfectly to the ground, as if it had been sculpted that way. Unless…

“Aaaiiieee!” she screamed.

It was an actual child. The body had been so caked in dust, it looked ashen, but the color of the hair beneath looked silver. It wasn’t moving.

“A-are you okay?!”

She rushed to try to help the child up. Just then, its body jerked with a start.

Crick, crack. Its entire body seemed to creak. And just when she thought it had stopped moving, it sprung up, as if an alarm clock at full blast had suddenly woken it from a deep slumber.

“………!”

The child stared at Akiko, wide-eyed.

“You…”

“W-well, you look lively enough…”

As Akiko spoke, a wide smile grew on the silver-haired girl’s lips—the lips of Pearl’s recovered body.

“Honami Akiko!” she cried. “Of all the places you could have been! So that must mean…”

And then, something that Akiko could not have believed possible happened.

Pearl’s arm grew to several times its length, and with it snatched away the game unit at her chest.

“…Finally!”

Her arm shortening at the same speed that it had extended, Pearl pushed Akiko aside and sprung up.

 “At long last, I have it! I have The Embryo—that which grants the worthy the ‘power to fight the world! ’” she declared exultantly. “Serves you damn right, Sidewinder! Fortissimo! See? In the end, it’s me who gets the last laugh!”

At the peak of her triumph, she threw her head back and cackled.

“…Huh?”

Akiko, unable to grasp the situation, was speechless.

Pearl paid her no attention, simply gazing at Embryo and laughing.

“Do I have the power? Well, if not, it’s just a case of finding someone who does…”

As Pearl spoke, something in her changed. With a look of surprise, she turned to stare at Akiko.

“…What?”

It was the look of a human who had been taken completely off-guard. Dumbfounded.

“…What is this? What the hell is this?!” she muttered incoherently.

Now that Akiko noticed, her gaze wasn’t directed at Akiko herself. She was looking at something behind her.

“You… But that’s insane… This is your ‘future?’ But that’s…”

The color was rapidly draining from her face as she spoke these cryptic words. What was she seeing? No, by touching Embryo, she’d become able to see something. So, what was it that she perceived?

“You…you’re kidding! Like hell am I getting mixed up in that!” she screeched at fever-pitch, flinging Embryo, which she had sought for so long, away. Then she turned to a wall and sprinted towards it. Just when it seemed she’d crash straight into it, a spray of chemicals erupted from her mouth and she punched straight through the weakened wall. Just like that, she was gone.

It had all happened in an instant.

“………”

Akiko was bewildered. It was impossible for her to comprehend what was going on.

But even so, one thing was clear: The silver-haired girl just now hadn’t been looking at her. She had been looking past her. Speaking to someone beyond. Which meant…

“………”

Slowly and cautiously, she turned. Lo and behold, He stood there before her, silently. She hadn’t even noticed him show up.

“We meet again, Honami Akiko.”

A black hat and a white face. Wrapped top to bottom in a black cloak.

She’d never met a strange character like this.

“You don’t remember? No, I don’t suppose you would.”

Black Hat snorted lightly through his nose and walked forward, slipped by her and picked up Embryo from the ground.

“So this is the ‘egg,’” he said, and swiftly pocketed it.

Akiko didn’t know who he was. She shouldn’t have known. If she’d met someone like this, she would most certainly have remembered. And yet…

“O-ohhh…”

And yet some instinctive fear had gripped her body in a vice.

Suddenly, she recalled a rumor one of her school friends—whoever it was—had once told her.

“I heard they appear when someone’s at the peak of their beauty, to kill them so they don’t grow any uglier. They’ve got a black hat and black cloak. And their name is…”

Yeah… That’s right.

She wondered why she hadn’t taken the story seriously. She hadn’t paid it any real mind. But as she recalled, the curious name she’d been told back then was…

“Boogiepop…”

“Hm?”

The figure turned in response. But upon seeing the pallor of her face, this “Boogiepop” character responded.

“You don’t seem to have remembered, Honami-san. Though I imagine that she would prefer it this way as well.”

“Wh…what are you?”

“Questions such as what I am are inconsequential,” stated Boogiepop plainly. “The problem at hand would be you. I’m referring to that power of yours. The one that still haunts you.”

“Huh…?”

Akiko felt like she’d been jabbed in the chest.

“Incidentally, where have you been these past few days?” he asked.

“Huh? Oh, uh, that’s…”

“It’s not just me who’s been looking for you. Kirima Nagi’s been searching too. She knows this city inside out. How did you know of a place that could elude her?”

“W-well…”

“Surely you’re not going to tell me you’re shrewder than her?”

“I…I’m…”

“You already did those sorts of things in the past. Sometimes you needed a safe, secluded space. Your memories of what you did, however, are gone. So how could you have known? Did someone tell you? You don’t even know yourself, do you?”

With a deft movement, Boogiepop presented something between pinched fingertips.

It was a bug. A scarab beetle. But it was limp and unmoving, and seemed to be either dead or on the precipice of death.

Akiko saw in it a vague form of “death.” It was the same as the other time... No, it was even hazier than before.

“Ah...”

As if having read her expression, Boogiepop nodded.

“As I thought, your power is nearly depleted. Though it comes as no surprise—there was but a fraction left to begin with.”

“A…a fraction left...?” Akiko didn't understand what she was being told. “What are you talking about? I…I used this power to save a dying person's life, and-"

As she said this, Boogiepop snorted, as if taking her for a fool.

“You used that power to do such a deed?”

“...W-what's so funny?!” Akiko said, raising her voice. She felt like she’d been treated terribly unfairly.

“Did you believe that you had the right or reason to do with life as you pleased?” Boogiepop’s voice was predictably cold.

“W-well...”

“Indeed, you had no such thing. You are, after all, just a girl. There is no way you could have a power that, used in the right manner, has the potential to rewrite the world . You merely borrowed it.”

The words were harsh. It was like telling a child struggling to understand the concept of addition that they were hopeless and slow.

“………”

Akiko was lost for words. But Boogiepop spared her no mercy.

“All you’ve done is squandered that which others  have spent blood, sweat and tears to attain . People who made every effort to harness it. ‘But it's too hard,’ you whimper. Did you not curse such power when you first discovered it? Though your anguish was surely trivial compared to the struggles of the one  who originally possessed it.”

“………”

“That power... It is not for saving lives. Quite the opposite. You had it backwards: It is the power to control death . Its original owner, my enemy Minahoshi Suiko, called it ‘Strange Days.’ You would not understand. It had accompanied her for as long as she could remember. You, on the other hand, have had it for a few days at most. So tell me, do you not find this ‘distress’ of yours presumptuous?”

Despite Akiko being unable to follow any of this, she could not hide the growing disquiet stirring within her.

“She was using you, in the past. No, perhaps she was not aware that she used you. I doubt you thought you were being used by her either, back when you were the miko, as the two of you were of one body. Back then, you would have been using each other, neither taking full command, to achieve that ‘unending dream .'”

Boogiepop sighed.

“Well, it's not as if anyone remembers at this point. All those memories, she carried with her to the grave.”

“I...I've met you before...haven't I?” said Akiko, her voice quivering. “My... This power was, uh... It belonged to the person who was your enemy, and... I was one of your enemies too, wasn't I?”

She felt tears well up in her eyes as she spoke. It was a funny thing. She didn't know why she was crying, but for some reason the tears wouldn't stop falling.

She felt that it must have been something very, very important. But now, it was no longer inside of her. That fact alone was something she could be sure of. If she'd forgotten, then she only had to recall. But her subconscious understood that it was no longer there.

“Well, consider yourself fortunate,” said Boogiepop bluntly, indifferent to her sobbing. “If a fragment of that power had remained, sooner or later it would have grown inside you, and the weight of its potential would have crushed you to death. Better for it to have left you now, while it was still immature. You have the ‘egg’ which dragged out the power to thank for that.”

“......Ah!”

Akiko snapped to her senses. That's right. There was something more important to her right now than her lost memories.

“Wh-what are you...going to do with Embryo?”

The reason he'd set out to such a place had been to acquire the egg, it seemed.

“I see. It's called Embryo, is it? What shall I do with it, indeed?” he smirked. “Shall I treat it as a dangerous object and destroy it? Or should I use it to forcibly draw out the possibilities in all sorts of people and pluck my would-be enemies before they have the chance to bloom ?”

It was a malicious and unscrupulous attitude. He was clearly enjoying himself. But Akiko hadn't had time to get angry. Her cheeks still wet from the tears, she cried,

“Please, don't kill him!”

Boogiepop raised an eyebrow.

“Killing things happens to be my job,” he said coldly.

“But...but Embryo's done nothing wrong!”

“Some of those I have killed in the past were not particularly bad. It was simply that they were not compatible with this world. In Embryo's case... I wonder.”

“T-that's...”

Embryo harbored something extremely dangerous. This had already been proven in recent days with Countdown. But even so...

“If that's your argument, is there anything in this world that’s completely harmless? Isn't anyone or anything capable of making the world a dangerous place if they take the wrong step?”

She did think she was taking it a bit too far, but it was the truth. Borrowed it may have been, but if someone like her had possessed a power that could gather all life in the world and make it one, surely there was a similar element of risk with anyone.

“You speak from your own experience?” he asked sardonically in return.

Naturally, he had seen right through her. But Akiko did not falter.

“That's right. I am ‘just a girl’ after all…! And yet look at what I became…! Doesn’t that mean it could happen to anyone? So that means… That means you can’t say Embryo’s the one to blame…!”

She was trying frantically to project her voice, but the words came out scratchy and weak. She didn’t even consider why it was that she was trying so hard to defend Embryo. Embryo himself had taken every opportunity to tell her to “kill him.” So why was she fighting so hard to save him? Even she didn’t know.

“Then whose fault do you think it is?”

While Akiko fumbled through her words, Boogiepop remained as impassive as ever.

“W-well…”

“Are you going to say it’s nobody’s fault?”

“It’s…it’s my fault!” cried Akiko, almost screaming.

….san.

….kashiro-san, Takashiro-san…!

The moment Takashiro Tooru became vaguely aware of the voice repeating in his ear, he sprang to his feet, awake.

“Haah!”

There was a mountain of rubble around him. It seemed he’d dropped several floors down as a result of the “cave-in.” Fortissimo and the fake Honami Akiko were gone. They must have fallen in a different spot. Tooru turned to Honami Hiroshi, who’d fallen along with him.

“Takashiro-san! You’re okay! I’m so glad…”

Hiroshi, who had survived the fall unscathed thanks to Tooru cradling him, looked on the verge of tears.

“How long?!” Tooru bellowed, ignoring his state.

“Huh?”

“How long have I been out for?!”

“U-uhm, about twenty seconds.”

“Then there might still be time…!” Tooru grabbed Hiroshi’s arm and pulled himself up. “Hiroshi, you need to run!”

“Huh? B-but Nee-chan… Oh, wait…”

Confusing as it was, he remembered then that his sister was a fake.

Tooru launched into a run, pulling Hiroshi along with him. Getting dragged along, Hiroshi ran too. In spite of the all the shutters that had come down and the possibility of getting lost, Tooru didn’t pause even once. It was as if he were being drawn in a line along the predetermined path he needed to take.

“Wah, wa-waah…!”

They moved at such a pace, Hiroshi nearly tripped several times, but each time the arm gripping him held so firmly in place that it simply swept him back up and he didn’t fall. It had never happened to him before, but he imagined that this was what it must be like being dragged along by a horse that had taken hold of its reins.

They reached a long, stationary escalator—essentially now just a staircase—that extended far down into the distance. Here, Tooru finally stopped and let go of Hiroshi’s arm.

“You go on your own from here. Down the stairs, there’s a big entrance right in front of you. Take the emergency exit to the side of that and you’re out. Got it?”

“…Huh?” Hiroshi looked up, still panting and gasping for breath. “A-and you?”

“There’s still something I need to do.”

He adjusted the tachi at his waist. He was still…seeing this through.

“…You can’t be serious?!”

“If you don’t run away soon, something very bad will happen in this building. So get going already!”

“B-but…”

“If anything happened to you, I’d never be able to face Akiko-san! Stop dallying!” Tooru roared.

Hiroshi quailed. By the time he opened his eyes, Tooru was already running back to the other side of the building.

“………”

Hiroshi could only watch him go. Just then, a strange sensation trembled in the innermost depths of his heart.

Wh-what was that?

He didn’t really understand it, but the way it felt to him, it was like… Like nothing was going very well yet.

That’s right. Because the most important thing here in this place had been neglected.

But what was it?

What was he thinking about this for, anyway? Didn’t he have to get out of this place before—as Tooru had put it—“something very bad” happened?

“Nghhh…?”

Hiroshi had to decide, and fast.

[1] Highly likely this refers to the incident in King of Distortion, implying that these stories take place within the same year.

[2] Tachi normally refers to a weapon similar to what people generally think of as a katana; however, the term can also refer to any weapon made in that style, including the kodachi (small tachi) and Tooru’s oodachi.

[3] Noh (or Nou to be more accurate to JPN romaji) is a type of japanese dance theater were performers wear ridged cypress masks. If you’ve seen any Japanese comedy shows, you may have seen certain characters suddenly wearing a demonic mask to represent them making a scary face. That’s a Noh mask.

[4] A Japanese sword style based on attacking from a sheathed stance. You see this played up a lot in Japanese media. The point of the stance is to be able to defend yourself and attack your opponent while being at the disadvantage of not having your weapon drawn.