Book 2 (4): Winter’s Distant Thunder — Chapter 6: |
Chapter 6
The sky was just beginning to brighten when I awoke.
The guest house was made of bamboo posts covered by animal skin, more like a tent than an actual house, so once the sun came up, light started filtering in through the skin.
Satoru was already up and getting dressed.
“‘Morning,” I said.
Satoru nodded. “Can you be ready soon? It looks like they’re all prepared to go. I’ve been hearing them moving around for a while now.”
Sure enough, a large number of queerats were bustling around busily outside.
“Okay.”
I rushed around getting ready. It took less than two minutes for me to put on my winter clothes, lace up my boots, and check my backpack to make sure everything was there.
Looking down, I saw a queerat taking down what looked like dried food hanging from a nearby tree. It was white, about a meter long, too big to be a fish. I looked closer and saw that it was a dried minoshiro.
Satoru and I glanced at each other.
“I can’t believe they eat minoshiro.”
Minoshiro are considered sacred creatures in Kamisu 66, and it gave me an unspeakably ominous feeling to see them being used as food.
“…minoshiro should be hibernating now. The queerats probably dug them out intentionally to turn them into jerky.”
Satoru looked like he had swallowed something sour. I decided not to tell him that the unknown dried thing we had for dinner last night might have been minoshiro.
I saw Yakomaru coming towards us.
“Good morning, gods. We will be departing soon, but would you like to have breakfast first?”
The thought of having to eat minoshiro jerky made me lose my appetite.
“What about you guys?”
“We can eat while we travel. It’s just military rations, so it doesn’t taste too good.”
“That’s fine, we’ll do the same.”
“As you wish.”
Yakomaru was wearing a hooded fur coat and riveted leather armor. His bureaucratic air from two years ago was still present, but now he looked much more like a general. He blew a whistle that hung around his neck and two hundred queerats lined up in formation.
“Hey, is it really necessary to send out this many soldiers?” Satoru asked, frowning.
“There might be unexpected dangers on the road. We are prepared to do anything to protect the gods,” Yakomaru said reverently.
We joined him in the middle of the formation. Apparently being in the rear was just as dangerous as being at the very front. Muscular guards bearing large shields surrounded us on all sides.
Most of the snow around the colony had been cleared away and bits of frost crunched under our feet as we walked. As we made our way onto the snowy plains, Satoru and I put on our skis. The soldiers also wore shoes that resembled simple skis, and their short legs worked rapidly to propel them forward. Since we were able to move so much faster with cantus, Satoru was starting to get annoyed at their slow pace.
“Can’t we go any faster? If you tell us where it is, we can go on ahead.”
“I’m very sorry. We cannot move as swiftly as the gods. But the Goat Moth colony is not much farther, so please bear with us. If you went ahead, I would not be able to reach you in time should anything happen.”
So we had no choice but to follow their pace. As we moved slowly over the plain, the queerats distributed their food rations. They were round, like pills or sweet dumplings, and a little bit sweet. They appeared to be made of rice flour, with honey, dried plums, and nuts rolled together. As Yakomaru said, it wasn’t anything delicious, but at least there wasn’t minoshiro in it.
As we left the plain, we started climbing a series of hills. I wondered why the area was so hilly, but it was impossible to see what was buried under the snow. All I could tell was that the hills were made of a different type of dirt. Even the plants growing on it were different from the norm.
A strange image floated through my mind.
It was the remnants of a battle between cantus users, where one side had attempted to annihilate the other in one stroke. They had fired an gigantic boulder and its impact had caused more destruction than even the nuclear weapons of the ancient civilization. It was like what had wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, a meteor over ten kilometers in diameter.
I was being ridiculous. Common sense told me something like that was impossible. Of course, in theory, cantus was an unlimited amount of energy. But in reality, there are a lot of restrictions that control how that energy could be activated. In order to affect something, you needed to have a perfect image of how that object would be changed. So with something as large and complex as a meteor strike, the mind was its own limiter. It was as impossible as trying to create a realistic image of the earth being split in half.
But… I looked over the hills overlapping each other like a mountain range. Even novice cantus users like us were able to start landslides and throw fairly large rocks. It might not be out of the question for geniuses like Shisei Kaburagi to move entire hills.
“We will arrive soon,” Yakomaru said. “Around the next bend you will see the Goat Moth colony’s stronghold built halfway up the hill.”
What appeared wasn’t so much a hill as a monolith. It was 150 meters tall and 300 meters wide. The rock face was so sheer that no snow accumulated on it, and so smooth that scaling it seemed to be virtually impossible.
“It’s just a wall…I don’t see a stronghold anywhere,” Satoru said, squinting.
“Over there. Can you see it? There is a hidden cave entrance where that pine tree is growing out from the rock.”
I couldn’t see it even following the direction he was pointing. Nothing moved, and there was only silence around us.
“The Goat Moth colony has dug far and deep into the rock over the years, turning the entire cliff into their stronghold.”
“But where do they go in from?” I still couldn’t see it.
“I don’t know. They must have tunnels extending underground as well, cleverly hiding the entrance. But usually, they drop a rope ladder from the cave entrance up there to get in and out. We can’t see it now because they must have retracted it after learning of our approach. They refuse to communicate with the other colonies, and hide if strangers approach. …but they must know that won’t work this time around.”
Yakomaru called out to a soldiers a the rear of the formation. It wasn’t as strange looking as the Ground Spider mutants, but this soldier had bulging chest muscles, and carried a large tube shaped like a megaphone.
The soldier listened to Yakomaru for a minute, then turned toward the Goat Moth stronghold and started shouting its message. It was so loud I thought my eardrums would burst. Satoru and I clapped our hands over our ears, looking in disbelief as the queerats stood listening as if nothing were wrong.
The shouting continued at such volume that I thought it would start an avalanche. The Goat Moths did not respond.
“Well, it appears we will have to show that we are here in earnest.”
At Yakomaru’s command, the archers formed up and raised their bows.
“Wait, we’re not here to fight!” Satoru objected.
“I agree. But you can clearly see that they are ignoring our summons. In order get these lazy, arrogant creatures to obey, you must scare them into submission.”
Yakomaru gave the order.
Instantly, dozens of arrows flew toward the pine tree on the cliff in a beautiful arc. Most of them bounced off the cliff, but a few stuck to the tree, and one embedded itself in a crack between the stone.
Still no response. At Yakomaru’s command, the archers lined up to shoot again. This time, they wrapped oil-soaked cloth to the head of the arrows and set them alight.
Dozens of flaming arrows cut through the air.
The pine tree soon started to burn and give off black smoke. Finally, there was movement. I saw a spray of snow. It looked like they were trying to put out the fire from the other side of the tree.
“I’m sure they understand the situation now. I will try to summon them again.”
Yakomaru raised his right hand. The soldier with the megaphone started its earsplitting shriek again. Although I couldn’t understand what it was saying, its tone was surprisingly aggressive. Was this really just a summons?
Finally, the answer came in the form of a volley of arrows.
All around the pine tree, countless arrowslits had opened in the rock, allowing them to send out waves of arrows.
The enemy arrows came from above in a straight line, traveling at considerable speed. Having no shields, Yakomaru’s archers and the megaphone soldier were about to become pincushions.
The next instant, the swarm of arrows were parted by an invisible force and flew away in all directions.
Satoru and I had changed the course of the arrows in the same way we had parted the avalanche. I thought it was impressive how we had sprung into action at the same time. I guess we had known each other for so long that we could almost read each other’s mind.
There followed what seemed to be a confused silence from the Goat Moths. A strong wind could blow arrows off course, but having them suddenly part in different directions mere feet from the target was not something that happened naturally.
“You have my heartfelt thanks! I am overwhelmed with gratitude, for you saved the lives of my soldiers!” Yakomaru bowed deeply. “But as you can see, the Goat Moths are a colony of godless heathens. I will advise them to respond to our summons once more, but if they continue to ignore it, more forceful methods may be necessary.”
Without waiting for us to respond, Yakomaru positioned the megaphone soldier at the front of the troop again. I still couldn’t understand the words, but its tone of voice was even more overbearing and malicious than before. I didn’t think it was a simple message of ceasefire and parley. No doubt it was some sort of ultimatum.
The Goat Moths seemed to be struggling to respond to this unexpected situation. But just as I expected, the Robber Fly’s message had provoked some of the soldiers. A single arrow came flying toward the megaphone soldier.
This time, Satoru and I did not synchronize our movements as well. We both tried to stop the arrow. Space seemed to warp and in the shimmering light, a strange rainbow appeared. It was the interference pattern of two cantus coming in contact. The result of such contact could be unimaginably devastating. We both stopped immediately. The arrow vanished along with the light.
It was an exaggerated defense against a single arrow, but to the Goat Moths, it probably appeared to be a deliberate show of force.
“Gods! The Goat Moths have fired an arrow knowing you are among us. It is blasphemy! Please bring down divine punishment upon them.”
“…but it was just a single arrow. Maybe it was an accident.” I was reluctant to do as Yakomaru said.
“Just one arrow is enough! Just drawing a bow on a god is a crime serious enough to bring annihilation to the entire colony. …furthermore, we have reached a stalemate. If the Goat Moths will not listen to us, we have no way of finding your friends.”
“All right, I understand.” Satoru came to a decision first.
“Don’t be too harsh.” I said to Satoru.
After all, Squonk had rescued Mamoru. To deal his colony a killing blow would be poor repayment for the deed.
“I know.” Satoru turned to face the stronghold and muttered his cantus.
The pine tree growing at the mouth of the cave gave a dry snap and fell away.
The soldier hiding behind it stood petrified.
Then, with a deep boom, the stone cracked as if punched by a giant fist. Shards of stone went flying. Another punch. …and another. The stone around arrowslits crumbled and giant hole opened.
“That’s enough! Stop it!” I shouted.
As I looked around, high pitched shouting came from above us. Although it sounded the same as the megaphone soldier’s screams, these were somehow more piteous.
The megaphone soldier responded harshly. Then a couple of queerats appeared at the mouth of the cave. Over half of them wore scale armor, and I assumed they were high ranking officers. The one in the center wore a cape. I later learned that he was the regent of the Goat Moth colony, Quichy. The other queerats lowered a rope to the ground.
Glancing to the side, I noticed Yakomaru standing silently with a strange expression on his face. It seemed to be anger mixed with uncontainable joy.
There’s probably no point writing down every detail of Yakomaru and Quichy’s meeting. Basically, Yakomaru treated him just as a victor lords over the loser. I couldn’t understand their conversation, but Yakomaru appeared to be making a number of one-sided demands. No matter how unreasonable the demands were, Quichy was in no position to refuse.
Growing impatient, Satoru interrupted their talk and, finally, was able to ask about Maria and Mamoru’s whereabouts. At Quichy’s command, Squonk was brought before us.
Squonk cringed as he came, but seemed to perk up a little when he saw us.
“Squonk, do you remember us?”
“Kikikiki… yes, gods.”
“Where did Maria and Mamoru go?” Satoru got right to the point.
“I do’t know, gods.”
“You don’t know? Weren’t you with them?”
“Yes. But they went far away.”
I closed my eyes, unable to resist the despair flooding my heart.
“Far away? Where?”
“I do’t know.”
“Don’t you at least know the direction?”
“I do’t know. K-gods. But I have a ledder.”
From inside his tattered shirt, Squonk took out an envelope and handed it to me. I opened the envelope quickly. The letter inside was written in Maria’s handwriting.
To Saki, my love.
By the time you read this letter, Mamoru and I are probably somewhere very far away.
I never would have thought I’d have to write such a farewell letter to my dearest friend and lover. I’m really, really sorry.
Please don’t look for us.
Writing this makes me strangely sad. I remember we were so angry when Mamoru left us a letter with these very same words. But I’m afraid I’m not eloquent enough to say it any other way.
I’m really happy that you are so worried about us. And I understand how you feel. If our places had been reversed, I would be worried as well. However, there is no other way.
We can’t live in Kamisu 66 any longer. The town would not allow it. If it were just me, that might have been alright, but Mamoru has already been branded as one unfit to live. There’s no turning back once you’re branded. Don’t you think we’re treated more like objects to be disposed of if found defective than like human beings? Once the kiln is opened and the pottery examined, all that are found to be warped or cracked are fated to be smashed. If all that awaited us was destruction, then we decided we would rather run away in hopes of finding a different future.
To be honest, I wanted to go with you. That’s the absolute truth. But you’re different from us. I’ve told you before, that you’re an incredibly strong person. I don’t mean physically, or in terms of will or spirit. Rather, you’re easily moved to tears and quickly discouraged. I loved that part about you too. But no matter what difficulties you face, even if every fiber of your being is consumed by grief, you always recover. You don’t break easily.
I’m certain you can continue to live and become a valuable member of the community.
The same doesn’t go for Mamoru. And if I let him out of my sight, he will not live long. Please understand.
Once I left town, one thing became clear to me.
The towns are twisted.
Don’t you think so? Can towns that kill their children to maintain peace and order be considered a normal human society? According to the false minoshiro, our history is one filled with bloodshed. However, I don’t think our current society is any better than the dark ages of the past. Looking back on what happened in the towns, I am beginning to see what it is that warps it.
It is the adults’ deep fear of all children.
Perhaps this has always been this case. It’s obvious that seeing the next generation tear down everything you have struggled to build is difficult to accept, especially if it’s your own children.
The way the adults of Kamisu 66 look upon their children is different, however. It’s as if they are watching a row of eggs hatching, waiting anxiously to see if it is an angel, or, in a one in a million chance, a demon.
Based on intuition and premonition, hundreds upon thousands of eggs are smashed and discarded, and I refuse to be one of them.
When I decided that I had to leave the home I was born and raised in, I was overcome by sadness and loneliness. But when I thought about how everyone else would feel, it gave me pause. If I were to be eliminated by the town, my parents would be devastated at first, but forget about me in time. Just as your parents did with your sister.
I believe that our relationship is different. If I were to be disposed of, I’m sure you wouldn’t leave me to die. If you were in danger, Satoru or I would do anything to save you.
We had another friend. One whose name we aren’t even allowed to remember. He, X, would have come to our aid too, right?
That’s why I have to help Mamoru now.
But being separated from you and Satoru is so incredibly painful.
Luckily, we have our cantus, a powerful tool that will probably help us survive even if we are cast out into the wilderness. That is the one thing for which I am deeply grateful to the town and to Sage Academy.
From now on, Mamoru and I will create a new life together.
To that end, I have a request. If the town asks about us, I want you to tell them that we have died. We are planning to go far away to escape the eye of the townspeople, but if they could forget about us, it would help me sleep much better at night.
I hope from the bottom of my heart that there will come a day when we will meet again.
With love, Maria.
My tears continued to fall long after I had finished the letter.
Inside the envelope was a sketch by Mamoru of Maria and me, smiling together.
As Satoru took the letter and began reading it silently, he put his arm around my shoulder. I tried to stifle my sobs, but the tears just wouldn’t stop. The feeling that I would never see Maria again seemed to be turning into reality.
After the snow hut was destroyed, the only clue we had to go on was Squonk. So that was what we ordered the Robber Fly colony to look for. Even though we didn’t completely trust Yakomaru, the situation was dangerous enough that we needed all the help we could get.
But in the end, we were the ones that had been used. To the cunning queerat, tricking a couple of blindly desperate kids was child’s play.
The robber flies from which the colony gets their name are so called because of the vicious way they trap and suck out the innards of other insects. The characters in the name, 塩屋, come from the white tip at the end of the male fly’s body. Another species with the same characteristic is called the great birdcatcher fly.14 There are no records of this species in the ancient encyclopedias, so they must have appeared only in the past millennium. Even now they are rarely seen, apart from a small area outside the Holy Barrier. Compared to robber flies, they are much larger, between thirteen and eighteen centimeters in length, with long, thin bodies like a dragonfly’s, lined with numerous spiracles for efficient oxygen exchange. Because of this, we used to call them thousand-eyed dragonflies when we were younger.
Great birdcatcher flies tend to lurk behind tree branches, waiting for sparrows, thrushes, white-eyes, Japanese tits, shrikes, starlings and other small birds to pass by before attacking from behind and killing the bird by severing its medulla oblongata with its sword like mouth. Then it would gorge itself on the birds blood until it was so fat it could no longer fly. They have even been known to attack crows.
While the Robber Fly colony may symbolize the bottom of the food chain in name, their penchant for overthrowing their superiors make them more predators, like the great birdcatcher, than prey.
After somehow following the trail to the Goat Moth colony, further clues as to Maria’s whereabouts stopped abruptly.
Despite Yakomaru’s promise to put forth every effort in the search, we had no idea exactly how much we could rely on him, and there was no way he would be able to do it in time. My promise to Tomiko, to find and bring Maria and Mamoru back by tomorrow, was looking more and more hopeless.
Satoru and I discussed for a while, and came up with an alternative plan.
“As you wish! Leave it all your servant Yakomaru.”
There was no choice but to follow Maria’s instructions in the letter and report to the town that they were dead. When I asked Yakomaru to corroborate with our story, he promised to do so without a second of hesitation. I had thought for sure that he would disapprove of lying to the Ethics Committee, but he agreed so readily it made me suspicious.
“I think the best story will be to say that they were swept away by an avalanche. Since no one knows where they were buried, it’ll be difficult to find the bodies.”
True, that was the most plausible story. For someone with cantus to fall to their death was unusual, but saying that Maria had fallen trying to save Mamoru as he fell from his sled would probably work.
“It might take a bit of time, but I believe we will be able to produce some bones. If those are presented to the committee, it might help the story.”
We started.
“What do you mean, bones? Where are you thinking of getting them?” Satoru asked, his tone severe.
Yakomaru went pale and stammered, “…no, that is not what I meant! You misunderstand! Of course, procuring a god’s bones would be impossible. Forgive me for saying so, but some of our bones are visually similar to yours. An exceptionally tall queerat is about the same height as a young god. So, if we carefully scrape those bones against rocks…”
“Enough! I get it. I’ll leave you to deal with it,” I said quickly to shut him up.
Listening to Yakomaru made me feel like we were really going to desecrate their corpses.
“As you wish. Please leave everything to me.”
I didn’t know whether Yakomaru understood my feelings or not, but he bowed respectfully.
Our two-day trip up the river had been for naught. I couldn’t help but sigh. We refused Yakomaru’s offer to stay another night at with the colony and set out for our return. To the place where the snow huts had been. According to Squonk’s story, that would have been the place where Maria parted with him.
We strapped on our skis and pointed in the direction where we had left the speedboats.
Judging from the sun’s position, it was just past noon. But I didn’t feel hungry at all. And it wasn’t because running on adrenaline. Even though I could feel impatience burning inside my chest, my emotions were as cold as the snowy hills around me.
There was no way to find out where Maria and Mamoru had gone. And even if I did know, I couldn’t go after her.
I was like an athlete in a competition against an opponent with an overwhelming lead. Even if victory was impossible, I would continue my futile struggle until the match was over.
What, or who, in the world was I trying to deceive? Was I trying to preserve, for my own sake, the image of myself as someone who would never abandon a dear friend? Or was it simply because Satoru was there?
I looked ahead at Satoru. He seemed so calm, but I had no way of knowing how he really felt. Was he, like me, trying desperately to avoid the looming pit of despair? Or was he thinking about something else entirely?
When I noticed it was just the two of us skiing side by side, I realized what I had truly been afraid of.
Excluding my parents, Sage Academy was my entire world. And within it, the only people I could call my true friends were those in team one. One by one, those friends had disappeared until only Satoru and I were left.
No, I thought wildly, I don’t want to lose any more friends.
I don’t want to lose anyone else I love.
Satoru’s figure blurred and became someone else’s.
Without thinking, I stretched out my hand. For a second, a familiar figure that had been sealed in the graveyard of my mind appeared before my eyes. But it was nothing more than an illusion, and vanished as quickly as it had come.
I was forced back into cold, hard reality. In this world, it was just the two of us.
Perhaps Maria was feeling just as lonely. No, I couldn’t even come close to how she felt. She had thrown away everything and run.
Unlike yesterday, today the sky was clear and the sun reflected so brightly off the snow I could barely see. But despite the cheery weather, I couldn’t shake off the feeling of gloom that covered me like a cloud.
Thanks to Satoru’s uncanny sense of direction, we soon found the speedboats. As I took off my skis, Satoru pushed the boats out onto the water.
“I’ll steer, so you can rest a bit,” he said, turning toward me.
“Why? Aren’t you tired?” I asked, but only out of habit.
“It’s fine.” He pushed me away gently.
With that, I lost all will to resist and collapsed against the boat after muttering a quick, “Thanks.”
I dozed off almost instantly. It was as if I were falling through the boat and into the hands of the kappa waiting to take me to the bottom of the river.
I dreamt. At first, they were only incoherent nightmares caused by my stress and fatigue, but soon, strange monsters started appearing from the depth of my subconscious.
There were demons waving long, insect antennae, circling blindly around and around on the ground. A group of one-eyed goblins flew overhead, trailing dust from their moth-like wings.
The souls of the damned shamble along, chained to each other. Large cow sacs clung to their abdomen and controlled them so thoroughly that even though they wanted to escape, they could only stare and moan.
Half-transparent, pink minoshiro twisted their bodies seductively. Their feelers were erect penises, and the clitorises at their base opened and closed like sea anemones.
On the other side, the god of death, appearing as the shadow of a giant cat, glided past on silent feet.
Queerats sniffed their air with their ugly snouts. Their faces were completely smooth and featureless, but in exchange, the folds of their skin held numerous eyes that swiveled about unceasingly and flashed razor-sharp teeth.
But scariest were the fiends, children whose faces were gradually covered with sprays of blood, their eyes rolling back until only the whites were showing in the ecstasy of slaughter.
The monstrous creatures seethed and writhed. And there he was, at the far end of it all.
Half hidden in shadow, the figure of a boy. Everything from his feet to his torso, and most of his neck was visible, but his face was hidden in darkness.
The faceless boy. I tried desperately to call out to him, but his name just wouldn’t come.
He seemed to recognize me, but said nothing. Last time, I could hear him but not see him. This time, it was the opposite.
But I could understand the message he was trying to send–anxiety and concern.
“How can I find Maria?”
The faceless boy shook his head slightly.
“I don’t understand. What should I do?”
He didn’t respond.
“Tell me, please. What in the world should I do?”
He didn’t say a word, and I couldn’t see his lips, but somehow, I knew what he said.
Bewildered, I stood rooted to the spot. I couldn’t understand why he would say something like that. Then his next words hit me like a bolt of lightning.
No. It can’t be. What are you saying? That’s so cruel…
I tried to protest, but no words came out.
“Saki. Saki!”
A voice was calling me.
I suddenly awoke.
“Saki, were you having a nightmare?”
I opened my eyes and saw Satoru’s worried face peering into mine.
“…yeah, kind of.”
I was drenched in sweat. I tried to smile, but it probably just looked like an unnatural grimace.
“We’re here. We’ll have to use our skis from here on out.” He looked concerned. “Do you want to wait here? I think I’ll be alright by myself.”
I shook my head firmly. “I’ll come too.”
“…okay. Got it.”
He seemed to realize it was pointless to try to talk me out of it.
Our tracks were still clearly visible around the area where the snow huts had been. This was the place we had set out from yesterday. All we had accomplished in the past day was to circle back right where we had started.
No, it was even worse than that. The day before, we had known we were in for a difficult journey, but we also felt certain that we would be able to find Maria. Now, there was nothing to go on.
Still, we strapped on our skis and pushed off, hoping for a stroke of good luck.
The second search yielded no results.
Maria and Mamoru seemed to have managed to unearth the sled and take it with them. But even after scouring the area within a ten-meter radius, we couldn’t find a single sled track. Maria probably anticipated that the town would search the immediate area and levitated it out. Once they were a good distance away, she could set it down and erase its tracks in the snow as they traveled.
As I watched the sun sink behind the mountains to the west, quiet despair and resignation welled up inside me.
“Saki.” Satoru put his arms around me from behind. “Don’t cry. …we did all we could.”
That was when I realized I was crying. Somehow, I hadn’t even noticed the warmth of my tears as they rolled down my cheeks.
“We still have time tomorrow before the deadline. Once it’s light out, let’s go northwest. Maybe we’ll find some trace of their tracks there.”
I knew he was just trying to console me, but unless we were the Three Princes of Serendip1, we’d never find them.
Still, his words were comforting.
We prepared to spend the night out in the snow-covered fields. Although we had brought tents with us in the boat, we decided to take a leaf out of Squonk’s book and build a snow hut.
We piled the snow around us into a hard, compact dome then hollowed out the inside. Since we had cantus, I thought we’d do a better job at it than Squonk had, but it was surprisingly difficult. Packing snow was actually easier with a shovel than with cantus. But the real problem was that neither of us were really focused on building the hut.
Once we had shelter, it was time to make dinner. I had no appetite, but we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so I had to force myself to eat no matter what.
Satoru carved a nice stone pot, filled it with snow, and put it over the fire. He added miso and rice to make gruel.
We ate in silence.
Satoru tried to draw me into a conversation, but I just couldn’t find the energy to answer. He continued talking anyway.
“…so I want to capture a false minoshiro and see exactly how much of what the book says is accurate.”
I wasn’t trying to ignore him on purpose, but only parts of his sentences made their way into my mind.
“…isn’t it obvious that something as powerful as cantus can’t be powered by the tiny amount of energy released when glucose is metabolized? So the author proposed two hypotheses about where the energy comes from. The first was that all cantus used in the solar system drew its energy from the sun. I don’t understand how exactly the sun’s energy is harnessed, but by this theory, you wouldn’t be able to use cantus if you were outside the solar system. Or at the very least, the method of activating your power would be completely different. Isn’t that interesting? Though of course, since it’s impossible to prove or disprove this hypothesis, he could just be making it all up.”
“…so using psychokinesis, cantus in other words, steals energy from the sun and decreases its entropy, making it age faster. The sun’s lifetime is supposed to be around five hundred thousand years, but if we keep using our cantus, its death might come much sooner.”
“…the second theory is even harder to understand. In quantum mechanics, the observer effect states that simply observing a phenomenon alters it. This occurs on everything from the microscopic to macroscopic scale. It’s like the false minoshiro said, the existence of cantus was first proven in an experiment by that one scientist.”
“…in short, time, space, physical substances, were all reduced to information. Cantus has the unbelievable power to rewrite the very information that creates the universe. So if you take this idea all the way, it’s possible to completely change the universe. That’s a huge, circular notion. First the building blocks of the universe are created, starting from quarks and building up to the elements, organic matter, and life itself. Then species evolve and develop a complex brain with which they use to transform the universe…”
“…the most fascinating thing is that psychological mechanisms behind cantus are almost exactly the same as those used in shamanism in undeveloped societies. A social anthropologist named Frazer put magic in two categories, contagious magic and sympathetic magic. The latter one is especially…”
“Hey, Satoru,” I interrupted. “Will we forget about Maria and Mamoru too?”
His expression hardened. “Not even if I’m dead.”
“But what if the Board of Education alters our…”
“I won’t let them do it again,” he said. “They’re dead wrong if they think they can control my thoughts and memories forever. If they try to force something on us again, we’ll just leave town.”
“We?”
“You’re coming with me, aren’t you?” He looked a little worried.
I smiled. “It’s the other way around.”
“What?”
“I will leave the town. And you’ll follow me.”
Satoru looked dumbstruck for a few moments, then finally smiled in defeat.
“Fine. That works too.”
“Hey, if we do leave, let’s look for Maria and Mamoru and live with them.”
“Yeah, of course. Four are better than two.”
“Exactly! And when we find them…” I stopped. I couldn’t speak, as if something were stuck in my throat. My body began to shake, and I burst into tears.
When I finally found my voice, all I could do was wail.
Satoru held me as I cried.
That night we slept together in the snow hut.
It was my first time being penetrated, and more painful than I had imagined. Maria and I had experimented with each other quite a bit, but intercourse between male and female was totally different, and it hurt.
“Are you okay? Does it hurt?” Satoru asked, stopping in mid-motion.
“Mhmm. Wait a little. I’ll get used to it soon,” I answered through gritted teeth.
Why was life so unfair to women? I complained mentally. In addition to the inconvenience of forty weeks of pregnancy, we also have to go through pain that a man could never endure in order to give birth. So why does sex have to hurt too?
“Don’t push yourself.”
“It’s fine. …doesn’t it hurt for you?”
“Not at all.”
I suddenly realized that although Satoru knew full well I was in pain, he was too aroused to stop. And far from empathizing with me, he was probably getting off on it. What an asshole.
But soon the pain disappeared. I felt myself growing wet. Instead of feeling like I was being forced into something unpleasant, pleasure began to take hold.
I moaned and Satoru asked, “Does it feel good?”
“You idiot.”
It was an unneeded question. Instead of answering, I raked his back hungrily.
So I was no longer a virgin. And now I was forced to think about how I would pass our next physical exam. Once again, it was the woman who had to deal with it.
Satoru’s movements grew more intense. Even as I felt my pleasure mounting, I had a moment of panic. If I got pregnant, things would get really complicated.
But before I could stop him, Satoru froze.
I thought he had finally realized the problem, but that wasn’t it.
He was looking down at me with an expression of such love and tenderness, I thought he was about to cry.
I had a sudden realization. His look wasn’t directed at me. I wasn’t sure how, but he seemed to see in me the shadow of the boy he had never stopped loving.
At the same time, I felt from the bottom of my heart a longing for the same boy.
Satoru started moving again, faster this time.
I was quickly reaching my climax. When I orgasmed, the face I saw was no longer Satoru’s, but another boy’s.
Both of us were using each other to make love to someone who was no longer in this world. It might be extremely abnormal, and you might even say we were cheating on each other, but we both knew and wanted it.
After I orgasmed, Satoru pulled out and came on the wall of the hut.
For a while, we simply lay panting.
Even in the pleasant afterglow of sex, the words the faceless boy had said in my dream went around and around in my mind.
Why did he tell me what he did?
He told me not to aid Maria’s escape.
And that she had to die.