Kara no Kyoukai:Chapter03 01

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"You brought an unusual letter of introduction."

I'm at a laboratory at a university. An old man, whose white lab coat suited him well, offers me a handshake with a reptilian smile.

"Wow, supernatural powers? You're interested in such things?"

"No, I just want to know what kind of things they are."

"That's what you call "interest". But who cares though? To use her card as a letter... that's just like her. She was an outstanding student of mine, so I'm concerned about her. This place is getting fewer people who can be used, so we don't have enough human resources. Yup, not enough is not good."

"Um, about the supernatural powers..."

"Oh yeah, supernatural powers... But, there are many different kinds of powers. We don't measure them genuinely here, so I don't know if I can help you. In this occupation, this is an ominous subject, so there's only a few laboratories that study it in Japan. This thing is a black box, you know, so the real details don't get to me. Yeah, I heard it's getting practical, but I have to wonder. That thing is, you know, something you have to have when you are born..."

"I really don't care about the classification. I think it's PK anyways. What I want to know is how people end up with these powers."

"They're like channels. You watch TV?"

"Well, yeah... but what about it?"

"You can compare the human brain to channels. Which channel do you usually watch?"

"...Let's see, I guess it's channel 8."

"That's it. That should be the channel with the highest rating, right? Let's say there are 12 channels in a human brain. The brains of you and me are always on channel 8, the channel with the highest rating. There are other channels but we can't go there. The channel that everyone watches... should I say "common sense"? Channel 8 is the channel we have as we can live within that common sense. Do you understand?"

"...Um, so you're saying we're made to watch the safest programs?"

"No no. It's for the best. The common sense of the 20th century, the channel with the highest rating is channel 8. Since we can be there, that's the most peaceful channel, right? We live in that common sense and we are protected by that common sense... isn't it beautiful?"

"You're saying other channels are not peaceful?"

"I don't know. Let's say channel 3 is a channel that receives the words of plants instead of people. Let's say that on channel 4, the brain waves to make your body move actually move something else. It's amazing to have these kinds of channels. There, the common sense airing on channel 8 doesn't exist. Since the most popular channel shows the common sense needed to live in this current world, other channels do not show such a thing. At the very least, the morals in channel 8 are not shown."

"So you mean not having channel 8 would make you mentally abnormal?"

"Yup. Say there's someone that only has channel 3. That person can talk to plants, but in turn, cannot talk to people. As a result, society treats that person as mentally disabled and locks them up in a hospital. That's what it means to have supernatural powers. It's people who have had different channels compared to everyone else since the time they were born. But, most people with supernatural powers have such channels as 4 and 8 at the same time and can switch between them. They're channels that you can switch between when you want to, right? When you watch channel 4, you can't watch channel 8. When you watch channel 8, you can't watch channel 4. People with supernatural powers in society live by using both of them, the usual self and the abnormal self."

"I see. So that's why common sense is useless for the person who only has channel 4... because they don't have such a thing to begin with."

"That's right. Society calls these people maniacs or killers but we think of them as an "unfit existence". There are many people who are unfit for society, but these people are unfit right from their existence. They are people who shouldn't exist... no, they cannot exist. This is a "what-if" story, okay? If there was someone who had both channel 4 and 8 and something happens to that person to destroy their body, causing that person to be permanently on channel 4, they would be done for. Even though that person had all the common sense, if they cannot be on the same channel as us, they cannot communicate with us... because they are on a different channel."

"Is there a way to make the unfit into a fit existence?"

"You can just stop their life. To put it more precisely, you have to destroy the abnormal channel. But to do so means to destroy their brain, so it comes down to killing them. There's no such thing as killing the channel without killing the body. If there is, that's what you would really call a supernatural power. That's around channel 12, I think? That channel can pretty much do anything."

The professor laughs like it is really funny.

"That was helpful. By the way, is spoon bending the most popular power in PK?"

"What? Spoons can bend?"

"I don't know about spoons, but at least human arms."

"You mean the arms of an adult? That's pretty amazing. "Distortion" depends on the object's size rather than its hardness. I would think it should take about seven days to bend something like the human arm. So, which way is it? Right? Left?"

"Does that matter?"

"Of course. It has something to do with the fulcrum. Even Earth has a direction of rotation, right? What, it's not constant? Hmm... does that power actually exist? Then you shouldn't have anything to do with this person. This person has more than two channels. That unfit existence probably can rotate things in both directions. I have never heard of a case of someone having two channels and is able to use them both at once; it's too powerful."

"Um... I don't have much time, so I should get going. I have to get to Nagano by today... so thank you for all your help."

"It's all right. You can come as often as you want if it's her introduction. Oh, and by the way... is Aozaki-kun doing well?"