Kara no Kyoukai:Chapter05 05

/5 Spiral Paradox

Winter's arrived.

Like my summer, the autumn that came to these streets seems to have been short as well.

Looking out from the office window, the streets are overcast by a cold sky that threatens to snow at any time. Day by day the traces of autumn disappear to the point where one begins to think the abnormal weather has erased the word autumn from the list of seasons.

That's right. In the short period from the end of September to this day of November 7, I ran through life like a prized racehorse.

To speak of my life during that time, from the start of October I was at a driving school ran by one of my relatives. This school is like a boarding school where students stay for 3 weeks and finish a normal course in a shorter space of time.

Leaving this street for nearly a month didn't appeal to me, but I couldn't turn down my relative's offer and Touko-san - my boss at work - approved the trip, so I ended up having no choice but to go. And so my 3 weeks in the school, which felt like a concentration camp in some ways, finished and I came back to this place, where I was born and grew up.

"... Mmm, name: Kokutou Mikiya."

For no reason at all, I read the contents on the license in my hand.

My name is clearly printed on the small license. Apart from that, my registration location, my birth date, current address, and a photo of my face are on it. There's really only a minimal amount of personal information entered on it, but among all the proofs of identity an individual can possess it is the one with the greatest range of uses. --- That point was just so strange that I couldn't stand it.

"What kind of qualification would this thing called a license be, Touko-san?"

I address Touko-san, who is sleeping on the bed in one corner of the same room. Of course, I don't expect anything like a response.

"--- It's a contract, that thing."

However, Touko-san kindly responded.

This person caught a horrible cold and has already spent nearly a week lying in bed. She was sleeping till a moment ago with a 38 degree fever, but it seems she just woke up.

The reason --- she's probably hungry.

It's reasonable, the time is already past noon.

Right now, I'm at the company office.

To be accurate, this is Touko-san's personal room, which is on the fourth floor of the building where the office is; this room is a place I don't normally frequent. Having moved the chair to be by the window, I'm looking at the license I got only a short time ago while Touko-san is lying in bed.

... Nevertheless it wasn't an ero-material situation. It was simply that Touko-san is lying in bed with a cold. What awaited me when I got back from the boarding school was a Shiki who silently condemned me for something, and my boss who was in bed with a cold.

These two people claimed to have become friendlier in the time I was away, but Shiki flatly refused to nurse Touko-san, and I think she even went so far as to say something along the lines of, 'I hope your brain melts away'. ... Shiki, who displayed the same coldness as ever, is a friend of mine from high school. Full name, Ryougi Shiki. Sex, female. Her manner of speaking is rough so now and then there are people who confuse her gender.

On the other hand, the woman in front of me who has a cold towel upon her head is called Aozaki Touko and is the boss of the company where I work. I am the only employee, so it is a little awkward to call it a company.

This person has a genius's nature and, as those kinds of people sometimes do, has few acquaintances. Even after catching a cold, she said that she didn't do anything and laid in bed for the whole day. The person in question was saying that it couldn't be helped since she didn't have an immunity to this cold at the current time or some nonsense like that.

... Personally, I think that if you don't have any immunity it's really not the time to be sleeping, but as a magus Touko-san probably doesn't feel like seeing a doctor. No doubt the thing called pride is stopping her.

Due to those circumstances, I couldn't really meet up with Shiki after a month away and ended up nursing Touko-san for the whole day.

A contract. Weakly uttering her reply, Touko-san picked up the glasses on the bedside table.

Normally, she seems so sinister that one doesn't quite notice that she is a beautiful woman, but the current Touko-san, who was suffering from a cold, was so gentle and pretty that you could think she was someone else.

In order to clear her still drowsy consciousness, Touko-san keeps talking.

"That, you see, is a contract saying you have mastered driving. It says that you have learnt something important, but the objective has changed. In this country, it's no longer a matter of getting a qualification as a result of learning, but learning in order to get the qualification. When you obtain the qualification, what you learnt loses its meaning. A qualification which has degraded to merely being evidence saying 'I have learnt this much' is like a contract."

Touko-san raised herself up and added, does the chicken come first, or the egg?.

"But isn't a qualification something like that? After all, everyone studies with a goal in mind."

"Of course, there are always opposites. It's a topic with no conclusion because goals and results, behaviours and processes are dissociated things (Translator note: uhh what the heck does this mean Touko? Stop speaking in professor mode!) . There will be people who start driving because they got a license, just as there will be those who, while they get their driver's license, skip any instruction and take the exam right away."

She normally speaks gently when she has her glasses on, she's even gentler then usual today, maybe because she's sick.

I digress, but when this person went to take the test, she got such flawless results in the written and practical tests that she apparently got her license while being glared at by the examiner.

"I did hear about people getting a license without going to a driving school, and I see Touko-san was such a case. ... Speaking of which, the image of you going to a driving school is just ---."

--- So scary, I can't imagine it.

Apparently unamused by my hastily swallowed comment, Touko-san frowns and looks sharply in this direction. "Isn't that a discourtesy Mikiya-kun? In those days I was still a student, so there would have been nothing strange about me going to a driving school if I chose to. I was no different from any ordinary university student."

Touko-san talks with her eyes closed as if she's complaining.

"... That's right. Now that I think about it, Touko-san was once a teen too." Imagining what she would have looked like as a lovable young girl still in her studies, I couldn't help but swallow my breath, because that was a mental attack strong enough to squeeze my heart.

"... That picture seems a whole lot more abnormal ma'am."

"--- You are slowly revealing your true sentiments while the other party is a patient, aren't you?"

Of course. Usually I'm the one that keeps getting picked on, so if I don't at least retaliate at a time like this, things don't balance out.

When I stood up to replace the towel for her, Touko-san said she was hungry, revealing a very frank craving. Distressingly, the porridge that was made for her ran out this morning.

"Shall I go an buy something from the store? Say, udon with eggs."

"No ~, that's all soggy. Hey, Mikiya-kun, won't you make something for me? You live alone, so you know how to cook right?"

The idea that if you live alone you know how to cook, just who spread that groundless rumour? Letting my shoulders fall (Translator's note: There a phrase that would fit in to replace that but I can't think of it) under Touko-san's anticipatory gaze, I firmly declared to her the harsh truth.

"Sorry, the only things I can make are noodles. The lowest rank consisting of pouring hot water into a cup of instant noodles, and the highest rank being pasta. If that's okay I will use the kitchen for a bit."

As expected, Touko-san wore a bluntly disgusted face.

"Then where did you get this morning's porridge from? It was a taste that couldn't have come from a convenience store."

"That was Shiki's. She says that she doesn't cook very often, but it turns out she's pretty skilled when it comes to Japanese food."

Oho, Touko-san goes and blinks as if she's surprised. I was of that opinion too, but really, Shiki has cooked well enough to shame a chef. Shiki comes from a distinguished family and because of that, her sense of taste is extraordinarily high class. For herself, she will eat anything, but I think that's because she didn't make it so any taste can be forgiven. Shiki cooking meant preparing something that she herself could tolerate, so it's really no wonder that her cooking skills went up as a result.

"--- How surprising, Shiki doing something for me. But well, that fits. Since that kid is adept at using a knife. ... I suppose it can't be helped. There are some bottles of pills on the desk, so can you get them for me?"

Realising she can't get a meal off of me, Touko-san lies back on the bed.

When I went to get the three medicine bottles on Touko-san's desk --- one photo caught my attention.

It looks like a scene from a foreign land. A brick road and a clock tower that looks as if it could come from a movie. Beneath a grey sky that looks as if it will start snowing at any moment, three people are standing next to each other.

Two men and a girl.

Both men are of tall stature and one seems Japanese. The other person looks native to that land and fits in so well with the scenery that there is no sense of incongruity about him. No --- it's actually that the presence of the Japanese man is so strong. The sense of existence that flows off that Japanese man standing there with a dark expression is so powerful, it rises up from the picture. ... A heaviness so strong it becomes hard to breathe. I once felt it close up.

That was, yeah. Could it have just been a sensation from that unforgettable time. While I gazed at the photo to try and confirm that, something even more striking caught my eye.

The Japanese man is wearing a coat reminiscent of a black kimono, and the handsome blond man with blue eyes is in a red coat.

There is a girl standing between those two.

Ebon black hair which makes the black coat of the Japanese man look pale. The hair that flows down below her waist; rather than hair it seems like some wonderfully beautiful decoration.

A calm face that still tinged with the innocence of childhood; in one word I could describe it as radiant. The girl is so excessively beautiful that it feels like she will snatch away my soul through the photo. --- One is provoked into wondering if mixing a Japanese ghost with the beauty of a flower blooming in the shadows and a fairy from a western fairy tale wouldn't result in a human like this.

"Touko-san, this photo ---."

Without even realising it, I was mumbling those words.

Touko-san takes off her glasses as she replies.

"Oh? Ah, those are my old friends. I couldn't remember what they looked like, so I took that out of my album. --- Around the time I was in London, it was a unique mistake."

When Touko-san takes off her glasses, her manner of speaking is the first thing to change. Previously, my friend Ryougi Shiki had a somewhat obscure dual personality, but this person called Aozaki Touko really changes identities as if flicking a switch. She says that it's actually her personality and not her identity that changes, but from my perspective it doesn't really matter what it is.

To sum up the Touko-san who has taken off her glasses in one phrase, she's a cold person.

A cold mode of behaviour and speech, a cold ideology, a cold reason --- an image of humanity formed from those sorts of things, that is the Touko-san without glasses.

"I guess it's a few years back now. Around the time when my little sister was entering high school, roughly eight years ago now. Remembering people's faces is my specialty, but for some reason I'm poor at recalling those memories. And I don't feel like tidying it up into a nice shape either since it's a pointless exercise."

Still lying on the bed, Touko-san keeps talking as if she's absorbed in thought. ... For Touko-san to be talking about her past, it's not something you see very often. I think it was true when she said that this was her first time catching a cold. I guess sick people do act differently. (TN: this is a very rough translation, it does have something to do concern sick people acting weird)

"London --- that's the capital of England right?"

Putting the three medicine bottles at the head of Touko-san's bed, I pull up a nearby chair and sit down next to the bed. Touko-san takes out some pills from the bottles and swallows them, then lies down and starts talking.

"Yes. At the time, having run away from my grandfather, there was nowhere for me to go. I calculated that there was nothing else for an amateur mage, who didn't even have the skills or the resources to make an atelier, to do but go under the wing of a large organisation. It's like an university. The equipment is worn, defaced, and failing, but there's nothing wrong with the establishment itself. In the shadows of a large museum, there was a western-eastern ancient and modern age research department. Of course it was actually the association that nourished so many of today's mages. That was also a treasury beyond my wildest hopes."

Soliloquising as if dazed by the fever, Touko-san's complexion kept getting paler. When I got worried thinking that those pills might have been poison instead of medicine, Touko-san assured me that it wasn't poison.

"It's a good opportunity, so just let me talk a little longer.

... It was difficult for a girl not yet twenty to study abroad, especially since an Aozaki gets treated like a heretic. In order to enter that place I decided to specialise in rune sorcery. At the time rune wasn't popular, and there were few people studying it. The association side needed a researcher too, so stabilising the rune characters from that side took me 2 years, and another few years to approach the originals in the Tule association, so it may have been about the time I just got my own workroom.

One day, while I was absorbed in making the doll that was my goal, I met that man. Someone who possessed a unique personal history, like originally being a Tamil priest. He was a hellish man. His strong will and tempered shell, it was like an eternally burning drive for achievement.

... Hellish. What I mean by saying that, Kokuto, is that if the idea of Hell was to gain a will and take the form of a man, my hypothesis is that it would be something like him. To the degree that he couldn't accept others, he was just absorbing misery. His ability as a mage was full of flaws, but his strong ego surpassed everything.

--- It was a coarse guy like that who I fell for."

As if she's looking at the man in her memories, Touko-san thinly opens her eyes. Her look is an undecipherable one that looked of either hatred or compassion.

Without even really knowing the contents of the story very well, I say, "Oh, that's how it was," and agree with her. Not annoying the patient is the main point behind nursing.

"Oho, so Touko-san's doll making is a foreign art?"

To that question which was perfectly unsuited to the mood, Touko-san says, yes it is, and nods seriously (TN: awful phrasing here I know | "Yes it is", Touko-san nods seriously to this question entirely unsuited to her mood.) .

Listening to Touko-san's mutterings is fine, but not being able to understand what it means makes me feel sorry as a listener. That's why I would prefer that she tells this kind of story to Shiki or Azaka, but the fever-addled Touko-san raised the gear on the story's incomprehensibility.

"The reason I got into doll making you see, was to reach 「out for the perfect」through the perfect human body.

Adversely he chose to try and reach 「out for the」through the soul, or in other words, an existence that is 「there」but 「not there」, like a cat inside an unfathomable box. The box has a definite form, so you can't see inside it, but the formless soul can be seen into.

It's similar to the collective subconsciousness some psychologist proposed. He probably thought that if he felt his way along that chain, he would eventually reach the heart.

Ah, but you see, we both were trying for the original work. The one original, you could call it, humanity's individuality . Modern humans have become so divided that their lineages and attributes are already impossible to divine. Therefore it's impossible to reach the origin. Lineages and attributes, or in other words fate. It's like a number form, so a life only achieves a certain result if this ability and that role is poured in. A life that can only achieve this result. It's natural, since the genes have only been granted those abilities. If you call that fate then it will be fate.

The pinnacle of creation has become too complicated. Probably as a result of being invested with too many abilities after pursuing omnipotence. The genes that are the data which form a human are nothing more than four different bases, but the simple spiral formed by stacking those four types of bases has fallen into the paradox that, by being piled up till it was impossible to measure, it really has become impossible to measure.

So --- I decided that the only thing to do was to make it myself, although the result was cruel. No matter how hard I tried, the only thing I could make was a perfect me."

The medicine must have started working as the colour returns to Touko-san's cheeks.

The eyes that stare into the air too, their focus gets steadily blurred.

"But --- that person will still be going on.

The guy that looked toward humanity's 'origin', he said that he got expelled by his teacher while searching for the form of the soul. ... There must be some sort of karma, for him to be getting involved in this kind of thing at this point. Do you understand, Kokuto? I'll warn you beforehand: no matter what happens, do not approach the man in the photo."

Touko-san spoke as if squeezing out the last dregs of her strength, then she fell asleep straight away.

Her slight chest moves up and down, repeating quiet breaths. The medicine had definitely taken effect, and she has fallen asleep.

Changing the wet towel on Touko-san's forehead, I left the room so as not to wake her.

There's no one in the office next door.

Only a high toned noise can be heard from the factories around the building.

Feeling that trailing noise on my skin I muttered to myself.

"--- Don't approach him? I can't, Touko-san. You see, I knew that guy two years ago."

But what significance that fact has, I can't know. No, I'm not even sure if the person who helped me then is the guy in the photo.

Inside me, that person in the photo is unidentifiable, and the fever-ridden Touko-san's words are scattered around like puzzle pieces.

Uncertain things call out uncertain words. It's only that, but the air that was calm till just now thins out, and it feels like I'll run out of oxygen.

An uneasiness I can't express with words sends a shiver down my spine.