“That unhatched egg trembles in fear as it stirs, dreaming of something even now...”

Since his usual cabinet was occupied, Honami Hiroshi was forced to sit on an empty chair and wait.

“………”

It had been about ten days since his last visit.

A week had passed since those events. He’d been severely scolded when his parents discovered upon returning from their business trip that the inside of his house had been turned upside-down. And during his absence from school, it had been decided unilaterally that he was to be in charge of some annoying tasks, too. A lot had happened, but at least his life had returned to peaceful normality.

He didn’t know what the people he’d gotten involved with were up to now. Takashiro Tooru had apparently gone missing. The police hadn’t finished their previous inquiries and were trying to locate him, it seemed. He wasn’t even sure whether Lee Maisaka and the child who’d turned into his sister had even escaped the fire with their lives. Given that they hadn’t found any bodies, he was hopeful that they were alive somewhere. As for Segawa Kazami, he still caught her on TV.

His sister was having more moments of slight absent-mindedness too, but she’d started going back to school again and living her daily life as normal. He heard the delinquent girl who’d saved them before, Kirima Nagi, had asked all sorts of questions, but it didn’t seem to amount to much of an issue in the end.

Everything was back to how it was.

When all was said and done, Honami Hiroshi had made it out surprisingly unscathed. It had been Tooru and Lee who’d fought, after all, and his sister had been the one wandering around with Embryo. The building that had caught fire had no bearing on him, his family or his friends.

Then why was it exactly that he’d come here again?

Why was he sitting around waiting in front of the cabinet he’d been sitting at back then?

Back then…at the place he’d received Embryo right at the start of it all.

“Why…?”

“Why did nothing happen? Is that what you’re wondering?” said a voice from above him.

He looked up to see a man standing there. A man with a gray coat. Indeed, everything about him was gray.

“Sidewinder… So that’s your name, huh?”

It was the name that Lee Maisaka had told him. The man nodded.

“So it would seem.”

“You’ve caused a whole lotta trouble, y’know,” Hiroshi said with a sigh.

“Oh? Have I?”

“Yeah, like this arcade. The police showed up and stuff ‘cause you died in this place, and they haven’t been able to open until today ‘cause of that. That’s why it took me so long to come here.”

“Well, to be precise, I didn’t exactly die here. I’d already been killed before that. I made a salaryman believe I was his co-worker and had him carry my body,” Sidewinder chuckled.

A passer-by overlapped him and passed straight through. Sidewinder had no corporeal form.

“That was the power that Embryo drew out of you, wasn’t it…? You used it to bring Embryo to me.” Hiroshi sighed. “It was all too convenient, really… You just happened to have the same game as me and could exchange data? Coincidences like that don’t happen. In the end, I just fell for some illusion you’d made.”

“Actually, that’s not quite right.”

Was he a ghost or a hallucination? Either way, Sidewinder, whom only Hiroshi could see, shook his head.

“I was passive to the end. The one single thing I did…was to bring Embryo to you, nothing more,” he giggled. “The one who created the illusion wasn’t me. That was all you, Honami Hiroshi-kun.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was so that you wouldn’t come to realize it yourself, of course. You’re still just an immature child, and your ‘power’ is far too huge.”

“………”

“That’s right. Surely you didn’t think that you were the only one who’d be completely unaffected by Embryo? You were able to talk to me—even take something from me—right at the very beginning, although I was already dead. How could you not be involved? You had awakened sooner than anyone else.”

“………”

Hiroshi didn’t answer. Sidewinder continued on regardless.

“Not even Embryo itself realized that it had awakened you, so the awakening must have been instantaneous. You must have immediately activated it at the same time. It began to assemble all the conditions as was its directive—the earliest of which, of course, was camouflaging itself from you. To remove any case that would place too much of a mental burden upon you. A split personality, you might say.”

“…So I subconsciously believed that I got the game from you, and I carried Embryo around…?”

“So it would appear, given that my power was simply to deliver Embryo to whoever reacted, like a homing missile. The rest was your job.”

“I can’t believe Embryo wouldn’t know itself.”

“It only perceives the outside through the senses of humans it resonates with. The moment I died, it lost the ability to understand anything of the outside world. Until it made contact with Honami Akiko, that is.”

“…Couldn’t it have been Nee-chan that you reacted to?”

“No, it’s the exact opposite. You were the one who reacted to your sister. You already knew from a past incident that there was a power bound to her. I don’t know how your power budded, exactly. Perhaps you realized it subconsciously, or maybe it was latent within you… Perhaps it’s because you were in close proximity to your sister’s power. As for why… It’s because you were also well aware of just how dangerous hers was.”

“………”

“…So what, this ‘power’ I’ve got made Takashiro Tooru and Lee Maisaka fight and caused a building to burn down? I didn’t even know about that place!”

“It doesn’t matter that you didn’t know. You simply influenced those things, and the rest just happened as it would. Think back carefully.”

“………”

Hiroshi didn’t even have to think about it.

Every time he’d spoken to someone, whether it was his sister or Lee Maisaka, they would always react decisively. Be it leaving the apartment, or chasing after Tooru’s gang…

Had he, on a subconscious level, used his power to ever so slightly influence their minds when he did?

“It’s a godlike power, but it doesn’t mean that anything is possible with it. After all, your objective was extremely simple.”

“………”

“Of course, you already know what that is, don’t you?”

“…It’s to help Nee-chan?”

His sister had been possessed by a ghost from the past, and Embryo had freed her from its curse. And what’s more, she’d been isolated and kept in a safe place until that ghost disappeared…

Had everything around him during this chain of events been set up for that purpose?

“For one like you who has yet to experience first love, saving your sister is an extremely clear motive. And I’d imagine that the power can only be used to help others besides yourself. Since no one in the world has the mental fortitude to fully determine their own fate.”

If one truly could have everything in their life the way they willed it, they would in all likelihood lose sight of their reason to live. Lee Maisaka came to Hiroshi’s mind. The man who, in spite of all his strength, had somewhat of an irresponsible side.

But there was something more important than that.

“…Then, doesn’t this mean my power’s pretty much done its thing already?”

It was a power that had been created from being by his sister’s side. Now that he’d saved her, it had become meaningless.

“It seems that might be the case for now, yes. Although…you never know. Maybe it’ll activate again for someone else. Of course, you’d never realize it yourself…”

“So it really is pointless!” Hiroshi sighed. “Well, I’m happy about it saving Nee-chan, but… it doesn’t really matter whether I have this power or not. Actually, that doesn’t just go for me. Everyone who got wrapped up in this incident wasn’t exactly fighting and stuff all because of it. Takashiro-san, and even Lee… They were all just doing what they thought was right, weren’t they? So it’s irrelevant.”

“It probably doesn’t mean much to anyone, no.”

“You apparently even risked your life to get Embryo to the outside world, but there wasn’t really much point, huh? If you hadn’t given it to me, you might’ve found someone a lot better,” bemoaned Hiroshi.

But Sidewinder remained impassive.

“It’s true that Tightrope has only acted independently of people and the world thus far. But you see,” he said, smirking, “that’s exactly what makes it possibility. It’s because you don’t know what form it will take and what it connects to, because it seems trivial enough to elude even the shinigami, that it is possibility in the truest sense. If it wasn’t irrelevant to this world, it could never attain something new.”

“…What if it leads down a bad path?”

“Good and evil are concepts that can only ever be used in relation to an established past.”

“I don’t get it.”

Seeing Hiroshi’s lament, Sidewinder patted him on the shoulder. Though he had no physical form, it really did feel as if Hiroshi was being patted.

“For now, you don’t. You don’t get it right now… You, like everyone else, are still young. All things in this world are still inside of their shell, struggling on down different paths in order to one day hatch.”

“But you… You’re already dead. Are you okay with that? If you hadn’t gotten involved with Embryo, you might’ve been able to join one of those ‘paths.’”

“…I know. But I had good reason to do what I did.”

“Yeah?”

“Embryo had an original. A man named Mo’ Murder was the one who actually killed him, but I was the one who reported him as a ‘threat.’”

“…Huh?”

Hiroshi was confused about what that had to do with anything. But Sidewinder didn’t try to explain and carried on.

“That’s why I swore I would make it up to Embryo. Not that he had any clue himself,” he said with a self-derisive smile. “I had cut off one great path. Death was the only way for me to join it. I’m no Takashiro Tooru, but it’s one of the things you need to be prepared for to become a samurai, isn’t it? Indeed… Bushido is realized in the presence of death.”

“…Yeah, I really don’t get what you’re talking about.”

Hiroshi already knew. No, he’d known from the beginning.

This Sidewinder wasn’t even a ghost.

His emotions were not lingering in that place, or anything like that. It was merely the remnants of Sidewinder’s “homing” power that remained within Hiroshi.

It wasn’t that he lacked physical form in this world. Rather, he existed only within Hiroshi’s awareness.

But unlike what had been within his sister, it was already powerless. The mere act of speaking with him like this was pushing its meagre strength. And Hiroshi wouldn’t have even been aware of this, had it not been for the “logic” that they were in the place they’d first met.

“It’s already over for me. But for you—for all of you—things have only just begun,” Sidewinder’s phantom said, then regarded Hiroshi with a slightly stern look. “Did you know? For every thousand people who are born into this world, there are a trillion who couldn’t be. You must live for them. Such is the curse placed upon all living things in this world. It is inescapable for you all.”

“…I don’t like the sound of that.” Hiroshi made a sour face and looked away.

When he turned back, Sidewinder was nowhere to be seen.

“………”

Hiroshi sighed.

The lively, yet somehow lonely clamor of the game center rang out around him.

After all that had been said about possibility, in the end they were nothing but embryos, staying put like this within the shell of their everyday lives. It was possible that they were fostering something, but they didn’t know themselves what that could be.

“…Yeah, I really don’t like this.”

It didn’t look like any of the seats would be free no matter how long he waited, so he gave up on playing games and stood up from his chair. He had an English test tomorrow. After taking time off, his teacher didn’t think too well of him. He had to earn a decent score. He’d have to bone up on the subject once he got home.

Even his reluctant mood might have been caused by the power to save someone. But then again, in being able to do so, it made no difference whatsoever.

* * * * *

The wind was blowing.

In that derelict site, so quiet and empty that the very concept of bustle could well have been swept from the world, the wind was blowing.

It was a bitter-cold wind.

The time was just before dawn, the hour in which the crisp air seems to cut right through you.

The buildings at this site were virtually all just scaffolding. Each and every one of them formed curious shapes—it was clear at least that this was not a place intended for human habitation. There was an enormous wheel, rails that ran through the sky…

As these things cast their long shadows onto the world in the growing light, a man stood.

“………”

He was not so tall, but long-limbed, and wore form-fitting clothes of pale purple well-suited to his stature. His face was boyish. At his chest hung a pendant in the form of an ankh.

He stood there silently, doing nothing. Looking at nothing. Simply standing.

As the wind swept up around him, he remained still.

Time marched on. Shadows began to march visibly across the ground from the rising sun.

“………”

The man was alone. And yet, without a soul around him, there came a strange voice.

[[Think you might be wastin’ your time here, pal. What’cha think?]] It was a horribly unpleasant voice.

“………”

The man didn’t respond.

[[No two ways about it by this point, eh?]]

“………”

The sun had now fully risen, and the peaceful chirping of birds had begun in the sky.

It was the start of a new day. A pleasant, refreshing dawn.

“………”

But the man’s expression was anything but refreshing. In fact, his cheek was twitching slightly.

The man was sure that at some point, somewhere, a certain someone had told him this:

“On this day, one week from now, at the stroke of dawn. I believe you know the abandoned amusement park on the outskirts of the city. I’ll be waiting there.”

…He distinctly remembered the words.

“…God-FUCKING-dammit…!”

He gnashed his teeth in fury.

“You may not think it, but one of the few things I pride myself on is that I have never once told a lie.”

“…W-what the fuck kind of pride is that…?!”

Shaking all over, he kicked a large nearby rock with all his strength. The rock instantly shattered into tiny fragments and blew apart.

But it did nothing to quell the man’s anger. Again, he roared.

“…Th-that hat bastard…!” he howled into the heavens. “That lying piece of shit!!!”

[[Keh heh heh heh!]]

As someone somewhere burst once more into an openly wicked cackle, all that blew across the scene was the healthy, early morning breeze.

“The EMBRYO” 2nd half -Eruption- closed.

A sleeping egg does not know that it is inside a shell.

It learns of sound by the beat of its heart and the flow of its blood.

That premonition of what lies outside—a world it cannot possibly imagine—makes it stir.

Yet, there is no certainty that it will ever hatch

All it can do is struggle within its shell—now the only evidence of the life granted to it

With half-formed thoughts and desires, it can’t even recognize its own form.

The egg is lost in all of its parts as they continue to swell without purpose.

Then, amidst the chaos, it sees a ray of light

This is but one brief stage of growth within its shell.

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

There’s also no way to see what could be outside from inside the shell.

That unhatched egg trembles in fear as it stirs, dreaming of something even now.

Its dream indistinguishable from each and every moment of our lives.

[1] Original JPN here was “Medal Games,” refers to a type of arcade game where a machine would push coins towards a cliff of sorts. The idea is that the more people who play, the better chance of someone winning a bunch of coins, especially if they start stacking.

[2] My best guess is that this is a reference to a 1976 Electric Light Orchestra song of the same name.