Vol 1 Chapter 2 (2/2)
your eyes see it, but sonal the mind interprets and
comprehends Protected as we are by our ‘common sense’, we don’t perceive
such sight as ‘high’, and we don’t call it such It’s ‘normal’…whatever
nebulous value anyone ht ascribe to that word
Our mental perceptions, on the other hand, also stand perched on its
own vantage point Different s, but all are
im of material reality Awakened minds
bearing a es, can bend its
rules, but never truly break them To cross that boundary is to become
so more and less human A God, but absent the restraint And so
Hypnos becomes Thanatos”
As she says this, Miss Tōko continues to look out at the , in a
co view of the street, the town—perhaps the world She’s looking
at the world with her feet firht was
important for some reason I suddenly remember my dream
Before it ended, I reround Were
the butterfly not so intent to follow racefully
If she had just floated and not flapped her wings so hard, she could
have flown longer But perhaps, seeing the dragonfly and how it flew, it
could no longer bear to just float That’s why it flew
Miss Tōko threw her expended cigarette out the“The fluctuation
at the Fujō Tower ht have been her perception of the world The
uneasiness in the air that shi+ki felt were the bars of the prison A place
steeped in numina”
A few seconds pass without Miss Tōko saying a word, which shi+ki and
I take as a sign that she’s finally finished talking The long sigh and wandering
eyes tell me that shi+ki’s melancholic demeanor calms down at last
“Bars of the prison, huh? I wonder if that girl was inside or outside” Saying
24 • KINOKO NASU
this dismissively, shi+ki’s head is tilted to one side, tired of talking
“Well, I’d say wherever you are, she’s on the opposite side,” counters
Miss Tōko
-> / 4 • 25
--> / 4
It’s 2:00 in the , and the bone in my nape creaks from the cold
I shi+ver in spite ofit, or
my own mind For the moment, I cast aside my reservations and enter the
Fujō Tower, no sight or sound of life indicating any sort of welcome for me
Only the electric light illu the cream-colored walls of the entrance
hallway, a light that looked too artificial and lacking in human warmth that
it ended up being more eerie than the darkness it was supposed to sweep
away At the entrance lies a card checker for the former tennants, now
unused and broken Without stopping, I pass by it, going through the hallway
and into an elevator The situation is the same as it looked outside: no
people except for me The elevator has one of those mirrors that people
can use to ogle the a
light blue kimono with a black leather jacket, with the lazy eyes of someone
tired of doing this job
I press the button that leads to the rooftop while looking at my reflection
in thebut the low hu
ins to rise
For now until this mechanical box reaches the rooftop, this elevator is
a prison The events of the outside are from an entirely different world,
an entirely different existence For now, this is all that is real I allow this
thought to slip intoon the
task at hand
The sliding door opens with only the slightest hint of a sound, leading
into a s outside
to the rooftop The rooht that makes me
think that the door to the roof opens to that different world I fleetingly felt,
the world that I saw in the reflective circus of the buildings’ s It’s a
boundary of e
against the narrow space, I open the door
The room is black as pitch, but it melds into the now visible void of the
endless night sky My eyes take in the view of the city froh There
was nothing special about the Fujō Tower It had a perfectly constructed
and level floorthe
roof Aside from the water tank that stood atop the room I just exited out
of, there isn’t anything else here Except for the view
The height is at least ten stories higher than any building in the vicinity,
giving it a lonely feeling It’s like being on top of a tall ladder, staring
26 • KINOKO NASU
down into the depths of the world below you If the world beloere the
ocean, then the scattered lights of buildings would be the anglerfish, the
only lights in an otherwise black world where neither sunlight nor ht
reach A beautiful sight
The world is sleeping, perhaps for eternity, but unfortunately only for
the hter than any cold wind, and
it feels painful Stars glitter in the sky like jewels, and the moon is out,
brighter than anything In ht
that the moon was not the sun’s mirror, but ato a different reality
A polar opposite to stand as a gate to twilight
Thebeen associated with the arcane, femininity, and
death And as that ure of a
woainst the ht,
acco around her
The floating wo a white cloth that looked like it
could pass for a dress, and she has black hair that reaches down all the way
to her waist What little you can see of her arh the cloth
reveal how slender she is Her eyebrows, too, follow this mold, and her
eyes hold inside the her countenance one of the
most beautiful I’ve seen From her looks, I’d say she’s in her early twenties,
though it’s probably foolish to attach anything like “age” to so like
a ghost And yet she doesn’t possess the distorted air of a ghost that marks
the alive The girls
swiht, look more
the part Above ure,
and the girls floating in a protective for, not so
much repulsive, but more like…
“I see This is all a spell of yours, isn’t it?” I sneer
I didn’t notice it before now, but I note the wo
soly
tonight, her smooth black hair, each strand finely combed, would strike an
otherworldly chord in anyone’s heart Otherworldly, and inhuman
“Then I’onna have to kill you”
As if noticing me for the first time, the woman’s eyes finally cast doard,
and I return the favor, our eyes taking in each other’s measure No
more words are spoken None are needed
From inside my jacket, I draw a blade, a fine weapon seven inches in
length
-> / 4 • 27
The woe to kill The beautiful
white dress sways in the air The slender arm moves like water, and points
an accusatory finger at er seem beautiful,
and look ile now
“Like a bone, or a lily”
Tonight, there was no wind, and ht sky
You can fly When the woer at me, I hear a voice
intruding in my consciousness; perhaps hers, were she able to speak It
buries itself inside, digging in, and telling me I can fly The mental assault
makes ain composure
Overhead, the woman hesitates Now I see
You er, more assertive It is met
with similar resistance And then, finally, finally, my Eyes look at her
And there they are One on each leg, one on her back, a little one in her
left chest I can see the lines, separating her body into little sections The
one in her chest is likely the best target Hitting that’d mean instant death
This wohost But in
the end it doesn’t matter Because with my Eyes, even Gods can die
Holding ht hand, narrowing
ain
I can fly I can fly I loved the sky since I was a child I flew yesterday too
I can fly higher today Freely Peacefully So quickly To
where? To the sky? To freedom? Let’s escape from reality! Yearn for the sky!
Fight gravity Be restless enough not to stay in one place Fly unconsciously
Let’s go Let’s go Let’s go Let’s go Let’s go Let’s go Let’s go Let’s go
Let’s go Let’s go
GO!
“You gotta be fucking kidding, right?”
I raise estion doesn’t work I don’t
even lose my balance anymore
“Can’t see Don’t kno to feel alive—
been that way for a while—so I don’t know the pain of living To be honest,
I don’t really give a da it It’s true
though Joy and sorrow, freedom and restraint; I can’t feel any of them
That’s why I can’t see this fuss about being liberated from pain
“But taking hi mistake Finders keepers, and I found him first
You’re going to give him back”
My left hand grabs the air like a rope, and I pull back The woman and
28 • KINOKO NASU
the other girls are pulled towards ood
catch
The woes She tries her last, vain hope of controlling
estion
FALL!
And again, I disregard it completely With all the firmness in my voice I
can muster, I answer her back
“You fall”
As she coe the knife deep into her chest, as naturally
as I do stabbing a fruit, and so exquisitely perforives even
the victim pause for admiration The knife runs from front to back, clean
through her
She doesn’t bleed Unable tostabbed
straight through, she convulses just once With only a nudge and a slight
away the useless “corpse”, and the incorporeal
body slips through the fence without a sound into the shi+ning city
below Her hair still lies motionless, and her dress embraces the darkness,
a white flower sinking to the bottom of the ocean
And with that, I depart fro in the air
behind me
/ 5 • 29
/ 5
With the i on my chest, I awaken
It was a staggering attack, one that proved how strong my opponent
was, if one can drive through a person’s chest that easily But it wasn’t a
strike born out of anger, or desperation A singular thrust delivered with
no wasted energy, one that would slide easily in between bone and sinew
It wasn’t the pain that hurt
ripped apart, and the sound of the knife plunging deep, deep into my heart
That incomparably bittersweet fear My body shook and trembled at the
thought of it My silent weeping contained my uneasiness, my loneliness,
my will to live My tears aren’t from the pain either, or from the fear of the
encounter It was for the brush of death that I had never before experienced,
but had now fallen in love with, even though I pray every night for
the strength to live
I hear the distinct sound of the door opening, a sound that I have grown
very falow of
the buildings in the city induces the saht It’s not yet
tiular examination, so the person who came must be a visitor
I have a private room, so I’m almost always alone My sole company here
is the bed, the cream colored curtain which never flutters in the wind, and
the lights frohostly yet radiant
“Excuse me You would be Kirie Fujō, correct?” Even her deep voice
can’t oes to
instead to stare down at me
coldly A frightening person, one who I feel can destroy me with a snap
of her fingers if she so wished Yet, in my heart, I still feel happy It’s been
many years since I had any sort of visitor I couldn’t turn her away, even if
she is Death herself come to take me
“And you are the enemy, correct?” I reply The woman nods Perhaps it
beacons of the city, but when
I try to focus my vision on the visitor, I can barely see her Her clothes are
without ble me of the neatness of a school teacher It
e necktie she wears
contrasts sharply with her white blouse, however, uely
a
“Do you know that child who stabbed me?” I say apprehensively, “or
perhaps it is you?”
“No, fortunately I’m an acquaintance of your attacker and your victim
30 • KINOKO NASU
One of theest people, you and I”
She takes out so from her breast pocket, but puts it away just
as quickly “Apologies S isn’t allowed here I suppose? For someone
with lung dauess what she took
out was a cigarette carton The i fits her look, I think,
like a
“But it isn’t just the lung, is it?” Her voice is one of curiosity as she looks
me over “Certainly, that’s where it all started, but there are tumors all
over your body Sarco, but it’s worse inside Your
hair is the only thing that’s left You have th A normal person
would have died long before as this sickness ate them alive” She pauses a
ht, then offers a smile
“How long has this gone on, Kirie Fujō?”
I can’t answer “I have no idea I stopped keeping count” Because there’s
nowas the only way out of here
She murmurs a soft-breathed “I see”
I hated her voice that lacked any co I
can receive from people is their sympathy, and she denies me even that
“shi+ki told me the cut was around the area of the left ventricle and
the aorta, so it ht?” She says
such an absurd thing so normally The peculiarity of her manner of speech
catches uard, and I smile despite myself
“You’re a strange one, aren’t you? If my heart had really been cut, then
ouldn’t be able to talk like this, would we?”
“Quite right I was only confir” I see She was a friend of the person
who stabbedto tie up loose ends on the battle
that took place in the rooftop “But it won’t be long until it affects you as
well shi+ki’s Eyes are potent, perhaps even beyond what that child knows
The sympathetic connection between your double existences means that
the spell will reach you in time There are a few inquiries I need to make,
which is why I’m here” She means the “other” me when she mentions the
double existence, I’d iine
“Because I haven’t personally gone to the Fujō Tower, I haven’t seen
your floating ie there,” she continues “What was it really?”
“I don’t know, to be honest For the longest time now, the scenery outside
the as the world to me I looked down on the panorama,
watching the seasons fly past, and the co of people in the
hospital My voice is never heard, andAnd
I grew to curse this view as I continued to suffer alone in this room”
The wo “I
/ 5 • 31
see now So you really are a woman of the Fujō bloodline Your dynasty is
an old one, and pure It’s thought that you and your dynasty granted blessings
of providence, but now I see that your true abilities lie in cursing The
clue was in your na name, don’t
you think?”
Dynasty
My family
But that too is a chapter ofafter
I was hospitalized, both my parents and my brother met an accident and
lost their lives My medical expenses have been paid by a man who calls
himself my father’s friend, a curiously named man that had the air of a
monk about him
“But a curse is not so easily performed What was it that you wished for
so hard?” I can’t help but s that
even she doesn’t know about
“Have you knohat it is to look down on the outside world for so
long? To look at such a view for years and years, even as your consciousness
erodes? I have hated, cursed, and feared the outside world for so long
now, seeing it all fro happened It suddenly
seemed as if I was in the sky above the hospital courtyard, the one
outsideMy body and mind
were still in the room, but I felt my vision fly in the sky But I still couldn’t
o anywhere beyond this hospital”
“Your s,
considering how long you’ve been here Your spatial awareness must have
been quite strong” For the second time now, she pauses before she says,
“Is that the tiht?”
It seems there is little about me this woman doesn’t know even before
she entered the rooh I will soon be fully blind I nod my
answer
“Yes I could do nothing as the world slowly turned into nothingness At
first, I thought that everything was just turning into a deep darkness But it
was the void I was gazing into But this didn’t bother me, because my real
eyes were floating high up in the sky I can only see the view around the
hospital, but I was never going to get out of here anyway Nothing really
changed, if you think about it Nothing ever changed…”
I have a short coughing fit It’s been such a long time since I talked to
anyone for this long, it hurtstoo much
makes my eyes burn
“I see,” she replies after I compose myself “You projected your con-
32 • KINOKO NASU
sciousness in the sky But if that was your consciousness, then you should
truly be dead, since shi+ki killed your ‘ghost’ consciousness”
In truth, I’ve actually been thinking that as well This wo
the name shi+ki, who I assume to be my assailant Hoas that person
able to stab ,
but also cannot be affected in turn Yet this shi+ki slashed me as if that was
my real body
“Answer me Was that truly you in the Fujō Tower?” she asks with a tone
of curiosity laced with the forcefulness that has never left her voice since
she came inside the room
“It…wasn’t I only stare at the sky, while she exists in it That other me
turned its back onit that way made it
seem like more than an affectation I did truly turn my back on the world,
as it had abandoned me And I abandoned myself, of any hope that my
sickness would get better Being separated from the world outside the
and unable to break through that boundary no matter how hard I
prayed every night, both me and the other me couldn’t put our feet firmly
on the ground, and were resigned to an epheile existence We
share that si with each other I suppose it’s what
this woman called a “sympathetic connection”
She draws a short breath, perhaps in surprise It’s the first time that this
person has shown any sort of uncalculated emotion, and it surprises me
a little “So it’s not that your consciousness was separated, but that you
were acting on two vessels with one state of ave you
this vessel It’s unlike any work I’ve seen yet, I understand that much” A
sly disappointed look
“But why go through so much just to lure children to throw themselves off
buildings? Why were you not content with just looking at the world?”
Ah, those poor, enviable girls What happened to them still saddens me
But I had nothing to do with them They fell because they wanted to
“You used the ie of you at the Fujō Tower as more of a channel for
your will, didn’t you? You reached out to them in sleep, in their dreams of
flight And in those dreamscapes, at least one or two of them were probably
on the verge of awakening to ic, which is why you could notice
them in the mess of other minds in this city, and why you can snare them
so easily But it was you whowhile they were
outside of sleep, even as they weren’t really ‘awake’ They tried to fly, and
they got the natural result of trying to do the impossible”
Yes In the fever dreaht that
we could be friends But they never noticed me, never talked to me, never
/ 5 • 33
touched me All they did was float around like fishes without consciousness
I thought that, when they were outside of sleep, in the times when
they were conscious, they could notice me That was the only way I knew…
“You’re tre, friend Are you cold?” The woman’s voice returns to
its previous icy demeanor I clutch myself as the unearthly wind fails to subside,
despite thebeing closed “I’d like to ask you one
Why yearn so much for the sky of a world you so detest?”
A difficult question I answer to the best of my ability “In the sky, you
can fly as far as you want, go as far as you can go, because it never ends
I thought I could find a world that I didn’t hate, and a world that could
accept me in turn”
“Did you find that world?”
My shi+vering doesn’t subside, the chill acting like invisible hands shaking
I nod yes
“Before I sleep every night, I fear that I will not wake up the next day I
fear that one day, it will be ain
But it’s also the reason why I feel alive Strange, isn’t it? My hollow shell of
a body and poor excuse for a life is always shadowed by death, but it’s that
shadohich I rely on to keep myself alive” Yes, that’s the reason why I
yearn for death o
anywhere one wishes…that’s the world I can yearn for
“So you took my acquaintance as a companion to your world?”
“No At that ti for life, and while
doing so, I wanted to fly I thought I could do so if I ith him Those
tione now”
“You and shi+ki aren’t so different from each other Both of you believe
you can find salvation in so to think you
can feel alive and be saved by someone else”
Kokutō I see So this shi+ki confronted h
I kno that rets
“He’s still a child Always looking at the sky Always so honest That’s why
I thought he could take me anywhere if he put his mind to it I…I wanted
him to take s my eyes so
much they seem to scream in pain
It’s not really because I’m sad What happiness it could have been had
he been able to spirit me away! But it will never come true It was always a
far dream But it was such a beautiful dream, and because of that I couldn’t
stop the tears In my eternity in this prison, it was the only dream I’ve had
in so many years, the only delusion I allowed myself
“But Kokutō has no interest in the sky Those who long for the sky are
34 • KINOKO NASU
the farthest from it Ironic, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is People always sees we don’t need I could
never truly fly Floating was all I could do” The burning in my eyes subsides,
a feeling that will probably never happen again The wind’s invisible hands
grip ly
“I’ve been a burden long enough This question will have to be my last
What are you going to do after this? I can cure the creeping pain shi+ki gave
you through your other vessel, if that is your wish” I don’t answer her,
save for shaking my head no I can’t see for sure, but it seems like she’s
frowning “I understand There are tays to escape: escape without a
purpose, and escape with a purpose I call the for’, and the
latter ‘flight’ You are the only one that decides which of the two your view
of the world froh was But you don’t choose these paths because
of the weight on your soul We don’t choose the path we take because of
the sins we carry But we carry our sins on the path we choose”
After saying her parting words, the woman leaves She never said her
name, but I kno that she didn’t need to I don’t doubt for a moment
that she knohat I a to do Because for me there is no choice: I
can’t fly I can only float I can’t do what she says because I’m weak That’s
why I can no longer resist this temptation: The flash of realization when I
was stabbed in the heart The overwhel torrent of death and the pulse
of life I thought I no longer had anything left, but I was left with such a
si
Death
It was not the nonexistent wind, but death, that little fear, that gripped
my spine in these last moments I need to experience more of death to
feel the joy of life, the glory of everything I had ignored in my life until
now But that death I experienced on that night, the pain that pierced me
like a needle, like a sword, like lightning, would be impossible to replicate
I cannot hope for such a vivid end now But I will try to come as close to it
as much as I can I still have a few days to think on it, but the method need
not even be said
I think h place, a place where
I can look down on a panorama of the world, and fall back to the embrace
of the reality that has rejected me so