Editing City Series:Volume7 Layer 2 (section)

===Record 26: And the Power to Fight===

'''08/03/1997

'''20:05

My daily life had gotten to be pretty extreme ever since I left my training at the Mountain.

I stopped running in front of the railway crossing not far from Tachikawa Station. Hearing festival music in the distance, I look over to see a street lined with festival stands. You ran past me in a yukata, so you stopped and tried to catch your breath.

“Our Mountain training has really made us quick to fight, hasn’t it?”

“You mean it’s made you that way. I quite like the peace and quiet. The trick is to keep an open mind. And a shallow one too.”

“You do not want a shallow mind. And you were the one who blew him away first. I’m sure that’s just how your Mobilized Writing works, but do be careful. Don’t forget that accident from way back when, okay?”

“Fair enough. I am Mountain-trained, so I shouldn’t use this power carelessly. I need to be more peaceful.”

I sighed. I was basking in the summer heat when the heat said he didn’t want any guys basking in him, so I threw him to the ground.

After a careless and unpeaceful fistfight with the heat, you ran up and stopped me.

“Stop that, you idiot! A commoner like you can’t hope to defeat a part of nature.”

“Damn, I’m gonna be so unecological when I grow up!”

I clicked my tongue a few times like a thug and walked down the festival street. The entire street smelled of ginger pork and it was covered in festival stands lit up by brown lamps and people dressed in summer clothing or yukatas.

I heard some cheers coming from near the station way down the street.

You stretched up to peek past the crowd.

“Come to think of it, the Pleiades are descending tonight, aren’t they?”

“Those six gaudy sisters? I don’t get why everyone likes them so much. So what are they here for?”

“You know that Tower of Babel under constructed in Osaka? They’re spreading word about it.”

I looked over to see them holding a brown tower-like work of art on top of the festival stage.

You crossed your arms.

“Once that is activated next year, it will reconnect the global radio network that has been cut off ever since the war. It will act as a massive broadcast tower.”

“That will make it easier to get information out from remote areas and easier to pick up rescue signals. Also…”

“It will make Japan the center of the world.”

“Osaka, not Japan. This will overturn Tokyo’s position. Haven’t you seen the debates on the news and talk shows? They’re all discussing where the real center of Japan is.”

It looked to the festival stand to the side and my eyes met with the guy running it.

“Want to try it? No charge,” he said to me. “You beat up the heat earlier, didn’t you? The heat tends to damage my products, so I’m thankful.”

“What are your products?”

“Legitimate fortunes.”

“And what does the heat do to them?”

“Makes them too lazy to get off their rears.”

“Then I will take one before the heat returns,” you said, drawing one.

The man unfolded it and read what it said.

“You hit the jackpot! This is the best fortune we’ve got! You’ll find money, your financial luck is excellent, you’ll get a pay raise, and you’ll even have some nice temporary income! But these fortunes all belong to me, so that ‘you’ is actually me.”

You and I both carelessly and unpeacefully beat him up.

'''Author Comment:

This is one of the aforementioned chapters I initially wrote. A lot of information and “the way things are” created contradictions upon contradictions, so I had to rewrite it. The Pleiades sisters are actually mixture of gawdy and plain girls.

Tachikawa’s festivals are really lively, but I haven’t been in a while…