Tsukumodo:Volume 2 Self

Have you ever wished that you existed twice?

I'm not talking about twins or anything like that. I’m talking about a second "you" who can stand in for you.

Come to think of it, there was a copy-robot in a famous anime show that I used to watch when I was a child.

In order to act as a mysterious superhero, the protagonist made the robot go to elementary school in his place. The robot had some amazing abilities: it had free will, would act independently, and could then share its memories with the protagonist.

If you had access to something like that, you could make it do your homework when you felt tired, go to school when you weren’t in the mood, or earn money for you to fritter away on whatever you wanted.

Aah, that would be so convenient.

It does sound like you’d be acting like a pretty nasty slave-driver, but that’s not really the case. After all, the two of you share everything - fun and not-so-fun - at the end of the day.

Mh? Then take on the not-so-fun stuff yourself, you say?

...Now that's a whole other kettle of fish.

Well, there’s no point in daydreaming. Possessing something like that would be too good to be true, and even if it were possible, there’d bound to be some kind of catch.

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"I'm back."

"Ya," I said as I paused the game I was playing and turned to the person who had just entered the room.

It was a high school student. He had just come back from school, so he was still wearing his uniform and carrying the official school satchel. His short haircut, sun-tanned skin, and strong build suggested that he was the sporty sort.

If there were a third person in the room, he would have been flabbergasted.

The face of that student looked identical to mine. Not similar, but the exact same.

And our faces weren’t the only things that were identical—our body sizes, haircuts, shoulder widths, weights, skin tones, leg lengths, shoe sizes—everything was the same.

We weren't identical twins. Even so-called “identical” twins look similar at best, and aren’t actually identical.

Our appearances, however, were exactly the same in every respect.

He was like my mirror image, which is why I called him "copy."

"Give me the satchel."

After taking the satchel from my copy, I rummaged in it for a manga that had just come out today. I had commanded him to buy it for me on his way home. When I took the manga out, I accidentally snagged a sheet of paper, which then fell to the ground.

"What's that?"

"The results from the quiz I told you about yesterday."

"Did you mention it to me?"

I took a look at it. Next to my name, Jirou Kishitani, was a 100. It was a perfect score.

"Not bad at all."

"The test covered the stuff we studied yesterday. It paid off, didn't it?"

"You're the one who studied, though."

(But I get all the credit. Heh, looks like I can look forward to my report card this year.)

I tossed the sheet away and threw myself onto my bed with the new manga. My copy picked up the sheet and sat down where I had been sitting.

"Oh? You made a lot of progress, didn't you?" he suddenly said as he looked at the TV screen.

I’d been gaming all day while my copy was at school. Of course I made some decent progress.

‘Cause both my parents work from the early morning ‘till late at night, there's no one who would bitch at me for skipping school. No, I was at school, I guess? Or rather, my copy was. But practically speaking, it's the same thing.

"Train my characters while I'm reading this manga!"

"I don't mind, but let's share our memories before you start reading manga."

My copy refers to himself as "boku," but that’s only when he's with me, of course. I had also made him change his manner of speaking a bit. I would feel really awkward if we talked the exact same way. After those small tweaks, I no longer felt like I was talking to myself and could relax.

My copy got on the bed, lay on top of me and touched his forehead to mine.

It was a sight that could easily be misunderstood. But we weren't doing anything questionable; this was how I could turn the memories of my copy into my own.

While I collected myself, I felt something flowing into my head. It was the memories my copy had experienced that day.

I saw that he went to school and attended classes. He surprised everyone with the full mark he had received on the short test. Figures—I haven't gotten a full mark in my entire life. That’s unsurprising, because I never did my homework properly, let alone prepared myself properly for school. It was kind of funny to see the reactions of the teacher and the other students.

There was also a scene that stood out from my club activities, where he played soccer. I saw him score an amazing goal in a practice game. The goalie was a guy from the first-string team who I couldn't stand. He was gnashing his teeth. Glorious. After that, my copy went to a convenience store, bought my manga, and came home.

"Man, you rock." I had to praise him after seeing that test score and his soccer playing.

My copy got off me and smiled wryly.

"Is that self-praise?"

"Oh, looks like it is. You're me after all, aren't you?"

I couldn't explain what on earth he was.

I could only say that he was my copy.

A copy that looked the same as me and had the same skills. One who did things like going to school, studying, and training my game characters for me.

It's like there were two of me.

But while he was me, he somehow wasn't me.

He was a version of me who had to obey my every command.

What a convenient tool I had gotten my hands on.

I could do whatever I wanted. I never had to do anything boring or annoying anymore.

Ever since I had obtained that tool, my life had been fulfilled.

The manga scene I was reading wasn't particularly funny, but I couldn't stop laughing.

Ah, right. Gotta make him do today's homework.

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"Nhaaa," I yawned as I watched the match.

It was one to one with five minutes remaining. I guessed it would end in a draw.

The motivated players were fighting hard for control of the ball, while the unmotivated players like me just watched from afar.

Some background: PE today was a soccer match.

"Kurusu, the ball!"

"Gotcha!"

The ball was kicked toward me. I just wanted to pass it to a teammate and be done with it, but Kishitani, an opposing player, stole the ball from me and dribbled around me toward the goal.

"Kurusu, get your act together!"

Even though my teammates were complaining, I didn't run after him. My opponent was in the soccer club; even if I managed to catch up with him, I wouldn't be able to steal back the ball. As if to further bolster my decision, Kishitani easily dodged the defenders, one after another.

"Man, how childish can you get? That guy's in the soccer club and still gives it 110%..."

"The guys he's beating are in the soccer club too," said my teammate Shinjou as he approached me.

He was right - the players opposing Kishitani were also members of the same soccer club, but utterly failed to regain the ball.

"Heh, believe it or not, he's actually restraining himself!"

"Really? I mean, look, they've already got nothing on him!"

"He used to be a good-for-nothing who would just rush onto the opponent's side of the field like an idiot, but he's become incredible lately! He's been practicing like a different person, and keeps at it alone, even when everyone else had gone home. I guess something made him turn over a new leaf? I've heard that by now even the seniors on the first-string team have a hard time stealing the ball from him."

When the defense finally seemed about to overwhelm him with sheer numbers, he skilfully passed the ball to a teammate.

"He's even started to do some decent team play - like just now."

"Has he only improved lately?"

"Yeah. He's like a totally different person."

"Like a different person, eh?" I said while gazing at Kishitani, who was running toward our goal.

Right before time ran out, Kishitani received a pass and slammed the ball into the net.

"The losing team's in charge of clearing up!" announced the teacher right after he had blown the final whistle.

Back in the Tsukumodo Antique Shop, Saki asked me "Did you find out something?" as she served us some black tea.

"Yeah, I've mostly narrowed my search down."

"I see."

When I sat down next to her, Towako-san entered from the living room and sat down before the counter, waiting for me to elaborate.

About a week ago, Towako-san had told me that someone in my school had a Relic.

Apparently, she spotted by chance a customer leaving our sister shop when she dropped by there. The uniform of that customer was the same as mine, and from the owner of that sister shop she learned that he had bought a Relic.

The name of the Relic was "Masquerade", and as the name suggests, it was formed like a mask. When that white and expressionless mask was put on a doll or a mannequin, the mask would turn it into a perfect copy of the user that did not only have the same appearance, but also the same skills and personality.

The user was at risk of becoming so lazy that his ability to adapt to society was lost because he might start to push everything and anything on his copy if he kept using Masquerade, which would lead to his ruin.

That being said, I wanted to ignore this incident at first because I thought that there was no real problem if he was just getting lazy, and that it would serve him right if he ruined himself due to that.

But unable to get it off my mind, I found myself observing my class unobtrusively.

Apart from a school badge, our uniforms also had a class badge that displayed the school year with a color and the class with a number. Towako-san had not clearly seen his face, but she had seen his class badge, which was the same as mine.

Considering the power of Masquerade, it was highly improbable that I could tell the copy apart, since it was a perfect copy. Nevertheless, I was on watch for the slightest strange behavior.

And after observing my class for a week, I had drawn the following conclusion:

Kishitani was suspicious.

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