Editing City Series:Volume7 Layer 2 (section)

===Record 19: Remember Your Power===

'''06/10/1997

'''16:03

I spread my arms and thought in the setting sun.

I was facing a wet rock wall and a large waterfall.

I clenched my right fist with my arms raised as if to embrace the scarlet-tinged waterfall. I was pretty sure the clenched fist was closely related to my power. My true power.

This wasn’t the fake power I had believed in due to a weird false assumption and misunderstanding.

This was the real power that was mine alone and that I could place absolute trust in.

I was sure it had to do with my fist – with punching. But…what was it beyond that?

Was it destruction? Violence? Sexiness? All wonderful options. Yes, I would be satisfied with one of those.

But that wasn’t it. So what was it? Everyone has their own power. And it’s always found nearby.

Most everyone who had traveled deep into these Ibaraki mountains to join the Chancellor’s Officers already knew what their power was. I’d heard Snowy had gotten pretty far in training hers.

If I found my power while training here, it would become a real power by the time I returned to Tokyo and all of this would be no more than a memory to look fondly back on. I would have those memories to tell me my power is very real and I never have to doubt it.

I knew it had to do with my fist. But what kind of power would come from that fist? And what would I think when I learned the answer to that question?

I hoped it wasn’t a power I disliked. I mean, if it’s my real power, I have to place my trust in it. I might hate it and want nothing to do with it, but I would still have to place my trust in it. So a fun power would be best.

Everyone obtains their own power. That sometimes happens when they’re faced with a situation requiring it and sometimes it happens when it’s taught to them and they make it their own.

I had figured out on my own it had to do with my fist, but I had been taught at the Mountain how to clench and throw that fist.

When I eventually find my true power, will I be able to look back on this time and make that power real?

If so, maybe I can discover something in an even older version of me.

Hmm.

For example, it was in my second year of middle school that I developed my Punching is #1 philosophy. One sunny Tuesday morning on the way to school, I saw you waving to me and running toward me.

“Then you punched away the three wheeler that nearly ran me over.”

I heard your voice and turned around, but there was no one there. Only the riverbank in the sunset.

Did I imagine that? No, maybe I was becoming the past self that my future self was looking back on. And my future self decided to use your voice to give me a hint since I kept rambling on about nonsense.

“You blew away the waterfall before too, right? What were you trying to punch then?”

I smiled bitterly when I heard your voice again. I decided to raise my fist toward the waterfall.

“Could you keep it down? These moments are only cool if you think through them on your own.”

'''Author Comment:

A look at the protagonist’s Mountain training. I expect you need to ask permission to train at night. I have been to the mountains and a waterfall at night, but it really does feel like something is following you around.