Kamisu Reina:Volume 1 Shizuka Wakui
1
While letting the broken Engrish of our over 50-year-old English teacher in at one ear and out at the other after about 3 seconds, I look up terms on my electronic Kojien dictionary.
principle of mass conservation [n]
A principle in classical physics stating that the total mass of an isolated system is unchanged by interaction of its parts. Discovered in 1774 by Antoine Lavoisier.
principle [n]
- A basic truth, law, or assumption.
- A basic or essential quality or element determining intrinsic nature or characteristic behavior.
The mechanics of the world are surprisingly simple.
There must be lots of those basic and essential qualities, scattered all around the world, but if you divide them even further into their most essential parts, the absolute number of distinct qualities shrinks to a number that's everything but high.
Did you know that many laws and principles are just augmented rehashes of a set of already known core principles?
More often than not, you end up at the same place no matter from which side you approach the nature of things. That's also why the teachings of people who have mastered a way often coincide even though their ways have nothing in common.
In other words, if you understand some of those core principles, you start to see how the mechanics of the world work.
Core principles are the essence of things. Understand them and you can apply them wherever you want and form new, unshakable laws. Cores attract everything around them just like magnets.
But no one else really knows; they all grow up to shallow people, only ever looking at the surfaces instead of the underlying cores. They let others influence themselves because their understanding only scratches the surface. They can't consider the true nature of things on their own. Poor people. All it would take to acquire those cores is picking up a good book. Oh, or is there a set of requirements that need to be fulfilled, which I happened to do? I pity them even more, then. It's as though they were characters of a manga fighting each other, unaware of what they are. Even though they fight for no purpose other than their writer's household. Even though their conflict is just a figment, and their very existence is for the sake of fighting.
Anyway, one of those few truths goes by the name of "mass conversion."
Contrary to its name, it's not limited to mass; the amount of everything is bound to a certain number that neither grows nor shrinks. Everything's unchanging, be it mass, energy, sex drive, the number of souls—you name it.
The lesson ended while I was absorbed in thought, gazing at my electronic dictionary. Classes are finally over. I have better things to do than this. But I can't just deviate from my usual behavior and skip school. I mustn't let anyone get wind of what I'm doing; if I appear suspicious, it becomes more likely that someone will notice it. Before anyone else, especially—
"Phew, done for the day! Shizuka, wanna tag along somewhere today?"
Before anyone else, that easy-going boy, Kazuaki, might notice. Which is because we have spent too much time together from an early age on.
"I'll pass," I reply toward the neighbor seat.
"Oh come on... you're so cold," my childhood friend says as he purses his lips. Geez... he just won't change.
"I've got something to take care of, you see."
"You've been saying that all the time lately... you're not trying to avoid me, are you?" Kazuaki asks as he wrinkles his brow. Oh dear, he really doesn't change.
"Of course not!"
"Uh-huh...," he mutters downheartedly.
"Why don't you go home with the C2 duo if you're feeling lonely?"
"T-There's nothing between me and—" he counters in denial with a slightly flushed face.
"Senpai~!"
"H-Hozumi-chan... don't be so loud, it's embarrassing..."
His objection is cut off from afar by two girl voices. With the appearance of those two innocent-looking girls, I wave my hand to Kazuaki.
"See you."
"Ah..."
Don't look at me like that; I'm not leaving you behind because I want to. As soon as I've sorted this out, I'll tag along whenever you want.
But that has to wait, okay?
The world is at stake, after all.
Unconcerned by the waves of students heading homeward, I look around in thought.
The world is in danger.
Maybe that's an exaggeration. But in the very least, danger is looming ahead in this vicinity. I hoped I was wrong (which was out of question, of course, but I wanted to be wrong) but with the news that 3 students at the Shikura middle school committed suicide, my fear proved true.
We're in imminent danger.
And here we return to the thing about core principles and conservation of mass.
I used to be a completely normal girl; I may have hit puberty earlier than others, and have received dozens of confessions already, and I primarily hanged around with Kazuaki instead of other girls, but apart from that, I was a completely normal girl.
I'm using the past tense here because I feel that this no longer holds true.
There is a number of truths (cores). By getting to know these, I learned how I'm supposed to look at things.
It didn't take long for me to hit upon a certain question. We all have feelings. Joy, anger, sadness, fun.
Now, let's apply the law of conservation of mass to this case. Emotions are energy, which, especially in the case of love and hatred, store extreme heat. We consume emotional energy by converting it into energy that keeps us moving. However, not all of our feelings are always converted and consumed. But then where does the energy go when we are unable to suppress our feelings? Most of all, where does the energy go when we die—which must be a tremendous amount when faced with a violent death—when it can't possibly be consumed? Where does that energy fade away to?
With that question in mind, I started to pay attention.
Before long, I found the answer: the energy doesn't disappear at all. The answer was right under my nose, on the other side. Strong feelings, to raise an example, which often happen to be grudges, surface slightly on our side from time to time. It's dead easy to observe when you clear yourself for a moment and float up. Look, there's one. There's an accumulation of converted emotional energy. In most cases, those accumulations are shaped like a human.
Anyway, back to the danger the world is facing.
After becoming aware of those humanoid energies, I observed a peculiar change as of late.
Originally, those humanoid energies were unable to move by themselves, and completely harmless for people who didn't notice them; they would just stay put at one place and spread their network in order to influence whatever got caught in there.
Lately, however, they changed their behavior and started to shimmer like mirages. As if afraid of something or in ecstasy? I can't tell. What I can tell, however, is that it's not normal and that it's a sign for something to happen.
I don't know what the humanoid energies will do, how that will affect us, and what will happen, but there is one fact:
Three students died at the Shikura middle school.
But that's of no import. Well, of course it's very deplorable that their lives were lost, but in the face of the great menace that might be ahead of us, even a loss like that turns insignificant.
Three people died. What if... what if that was just a sign?
If, hypothetically speaking, this phenomenon was due to a natural circumstance, I would probably have to give up and let things take their way. Besides, we would just have to take cover and wait for the menace to pass by.
However—what if someone is pulling the wires behind the scenes?
It's not that I take issue with that ethically, no. What if we are not dealing with a random phenomenon, but with one that is deliberately called forth by someone? What if there is someone who can use that power whenever he wants? What if there is someone who can control all the humanoid energies that are likely to be spread all over the world?
That's what I fear.
After all, if my concerns prove true and that really was a man-made incident, he could endanger the life of everyone in the world.
The world is in danger.
Someone is scheming to ruin us all; someone evil like that is among us. And I have to track that person down.
That's why I've been closely observing the humanoid energies around me for a while.
{Volcano goes up to the 2nd floor of a black minus to eat warmed-up food and falls.}
{I want to eat the lucky meat that died ten times but resurrected a hundred times.}
{I throw a telephone receiver into a 4-dimensional pocket because the trash bin is full.}
{The unrivaled adventures of Hutch the Honeybee are a living tourmalines.}
As they shimmer, the energies give off signals on a different wavelength that, while barely converted into my language, make no sense whatsoever.
However, I can make out a difference in volume.
Slowly but surely, their voices (?) grow louder and their flickering stronger.
Maybe I'm getting closer to the bad guy.
Last time, their abnormal behavior stopped while I was investigating, but I don't feel any signs of that happening again. I might be able to find him this time around.
—The uncanny conjurer who could easily extinguish three lives.
———
That's right... I'm about to run into a horrible foe...
Only now noticing this fact, my feet sink into cement and my steps become slower.
Besides... How do I know that his victims add up to just three? The only reason why I associated their deaths with the anomaly that occurred to the humanoid energies is because they were all suicides and happened in succession in my school. I don't know if they're even related to the anomaly I observed.
On the other hand, you can also say that there might be numerous undiscovered victims that I could not tie to this menace.
Come to think of it... the suicide rate has been growing lately. Hey, what if that's partly due to the criminal I'm about to meet? That's by no means unlikely; not only would killing someone with humanoid energies leave behind no evidence, it wouldn't even be noticed.
What am I going to do, meeting a person like that?
Sure, I can perceive humanoid energies. But that's about it. Apart from that, I'm just a normal girl who may have hit puberty earlier than others, and has received dozens of confessions already, and primarily hangs around with Kazuaki instead of other girls. Probably.
What is a girl like me going to do against a heinous criminal like that? Persuade him? Would my words really get through? Would he leave someone who knows his secret alive?
My legs stop completely.
But—
But if he were to extend his deadly hands toward Kazuaki...
My buried legs come free from the cement and I start moving forward again.
I'm afraid... I really am, but...
I have no other choice.
{Corn rings with gleaming rainbows in the background.}
{After bathing in Nattou, Watanabe-san's car travels through through time as it flies through the air.}
{A club-wielding maid brings Nagatacho's meat shreds into motion.}
The voices (?) become louder.
The sentences are as devoid of meaning as before, but the weight of their words has changed. With crackling tension they reverberate through my body, prickling my brains like with a mechanical pencil.
A grudge? I think to myself as I notice a core of a humanoid energy. A type of energy that would normally only get transported to people who were caught up in their nets flows to me.
I feel nauseated. Like on the day of my worst menstruation.
I want to curl up immediately, but I mustn't. There's someone I have to meet. I must meet her.
...Huh? Her?
Why do I know her gender?
I pull myself up and stagger into the park before me. Except for a few children with their parents near the sandpit, there's nobody besides me.
Nobody.
I stand before an old, weathered wooden bench. I don't know what to say. I don't know if it possesses the ability of language, anyway. However, I can't just stand here, so I try speaking to it.
"Hey, what are you doing here?"
She raises her head.
"Ah—" I groan in surprise.
Her features were absurdly beautiful.
But what surprised me more than anything was the fact that I—
"Reina... Kamisu."
—knew the name of that phenomenon.
2
[in progress]
