City Series:Volume7 Layer 7

Layer 7: Stars

11/15/1998

7:40

Good grief. Only the teachers are supposed to be arriving at school this early.

Which was why I found my homeroom teacher walking in when I passed through the front gate. She was already wobbly and had a weak shadow first thing in the morning and I was afraid something bad would happen, so I called out to her.

“What’s with you, Sensei? Stayed up all night reading another gay novel you confiscated from a student?”

“N-not this time.”

But yes another time? At any rate, she turned around after noticing me. Her weak shadow grew stronger and gained a solid physical form, so I went ahead and punched it.

If you throw a punch with belief in your heart, all things will receive the blow in accordance with the conservation of energy.

A star fell onto the pavement. Oh, did she get distracted by the stars and stay up all night? But she looked to me, and…

“Ow! What was that for!? You are not going to enjoy class today! I’ve made sure of that!”

“Teachers aren’t supposed to make their classes intentionally unpleasant. And if it’s a punishment for what I did, shouldn’t it be I will make sure of that?”

“Huh?” She tilted her head and considered her mistaken phrasing. “Was that a weird way of putting it? Could you fix the language center of my brain if you punched me hard enough?”

“Probably,” I said, so she shut her eyes and held her face up toward me. Was this supposed to be a kiss scene or something? I don’t think she knew what she was doing.

Instead of punching her, I shoved the fallen star into her half-opened lips.

Author Comment:

It seems wrong for a student to suddenly punch his teacher, but the people who are used to this probably think of it as no more than “oh, they’re at it again”.

Record 2: I Did It Again

02/13/1997

23:32

After completing my daily quota of entrance exam studying, I stepped out onto the apartment balcony.

I could see the house lights spread out across the darkness, or something like that.

I was out here taking a break from my studying, but some of the people in those lights had to be doing other things.

“Like something unthinkably lewd.”

Then the phone rang. I took the receiver back out onto the balcony and heard your voice.

“Hey, did you just have a really weird thought?”

“No, everything I was thinking was extremely, supremely normal for me.”

“That’s a yes, then.”

How can you be so sure? I recalled you were trying to get into the same school as me. Because Senpai goes there.

That put me in a bad mood, so I looked to the nightscape in front of me.

“So which of the lights out here is your house?”

“What are you talking about? We’re having a blackout in more ways than one. There aren’t any lights on in the city and this phone isn’t even connected.”

Huh? I thought and realized I wasn’t even hearing a dial tone from the phone. I looked out from the balcony and found what I had thought was the city was actually the starry sky and I had fallen onto my back on the balcony.

After a while, the blackout must have ended because you called me.

“Hey, did something really weird just happen?”

Author Comment:

This story is actually based on something I wrote a long time ago.

These days, you would be using a cellphone instead of a landline phone with a receiver.

We didn’t even have cordless ones when I was in middle school, so I had to pull the cable along with me onto the balcony.

Record 91: I Can’t See It

11/04/1998

23:04

The final day was tomorrow, so we were having a preliminary post-festival party tonight. Unfortunately, the school had banned any raucous partying, so we had to have it out on the road in front of the school.

Between the pavement and the starry sky, everyone was laughing, most were singing and dancing, half sat around a chair, a minority were running around in the nude, and a smaller majority were rushing into the nearby houses to call the police on us.

During that very loud version of peace, Snowy was seated next to me for some reason. You were sitting across from her and you looked to me and shook your head with a tense expression.

“?”

I looked over to see Snowy was sweating bullets and gripping her sword’s black scabbard tight.

“This is a portion of the standard school events. It may violate the law and it may far surpass the limits of my understanding, but it has been a part of this bizarre festival for many long years. I am the outsider in this abnormal space.”

Wow, she had softened up a lot. Then the Professor stepped out of the bathhouse across the way with an experimental rubber pipe tied to his head with a headband. The idiot was carrying a case full of coffee milk.

“Behold! The science club’s technology allows me to use my very own hands to open the refrigerator and spatially transfer the coffee milk within!”

That’s called opening the fridge and stealing its contents, dumbass.

Anyway, Snowy sprang to her feet and I stayed seated while looking to her back.

“Go on. This festival is a time for cutting loose, so I say you can get away with cutting him tonight.”

Hm. I had planned to do a gamble bungee with him, but now I might not have an opponent.

Author Comment:

Snowy seems to have trouble with celebrations like this.

Whether or not the gamble bungee happened is mentioned in Record 92.

Record 40: How Far Has It Spread?

11/03/1997

15:18

The Professor unexpectedly asked me to go see him during the school festival.

I was to meet him in front of the science clubroom. I was pretty sure the 1st years would be doing something at this time, but once I got there, I found the Professor and Sensei past the crowd. They stood in front of the empty clubroom’s entrance which had “keep out” tape across it. I raised a hand in greeting.

“Hi, Sensei. This looks like trouble, so can I leave?”

“Try making sense next time? I will admit this is a pain, but…you know?”

What am I supposed to know? Anyway, I ignored the helpless teacher and looked to the Professor. I could see his hand on the clubroom’s doorknob. I had a very bad feeling about that, so I punched him.

“Ow, ow, ow. That might be the worst greeting I’ve ever received. And you might be the biggest problem child I’ve ever met.”

“Then allow me to introduce you to yourself. Besides, I was warranted in punching you there. So what did you do this time?”

“Well, I converted the clubroom into a null space as a public experiment. Now, to explain this with the simplest, plainest, and most elegant phrasing possible and with some beautiful prose sprinkled in to ensure even an idiot like you can-”

It was very simple and plain to me that nothing about that was simple and plain, so I punched him.

“Try that again, Professor. If you don’t do better, we might just have to hold a public execution during the school festival.”

“I have to agree with him,” said Sensei.

“Excuse me. Then to make it as unnecessarily complicated as possible, I filled the clubroom with cement for the public experiment. Once the entire space is full of cement and entirely closed off, it becomes a secret world of dreams. Thus, it is no different from a null space. And if we open the door…”

He opened it to reveal a black space with a few star-like points of light.

“Do you see now? A null space has collapsed into our space and made a mess of things.”

The world started to collapse into the room, so he quickly shut the door.

The space around us had been warped to the point that the door and the light were bending toward the inside of the clubroom. My fist had also warped the Professor’s face.

“And what did you think I could do about this?” I asked, still warped.

“Would you punch me if I said I just wanted to see how you would react?”

“Of course I would. So please, for the good of the future, please say that was your reason.”

“Heh heh heh. Unfortunately for the future, I never answer questions when everyone already knows the answer.”

“Which is why you cause so much bizarre trouble, dumbass.”

“Me? A dumbass? Then relatively speaking, you must be a super-duper dumbass. Now, my suggestion for you is to punch this space to de-warp it. You see, things got a little out of hand and the other club members are all inside there.”

“Was it an accident?”

“Yes, I hit the switch for the cement without warning them and they didn’t have time to escape.”

“That’s not an accident! That’s you being a walking disaster!!”

“Ow ow ow ow. Why are you so impatient? Hear me out before you act. If that space continues to spread, the world could be at risk. And what will you do once that happens?”

“Could I start by patiently punching you?”

“How unscientific of you. What would that do for you?”

I went ahead and punched him and it made me feel a lot better.

Still, I had to do something about this, so I looked to Sensei and saw she was the only person not warped.

“Why are you fine?”

“I think my stooped back was already a little warped. A non-warped spine is a lifelong treasure.”

That told me who would be on the one-woman rescue squad. I opened the door and shoved her inside.

Author Comment:

What was Sensei even doing there?

It doesn’t really matter, but when I’m writing null stories like this, it reminds me of the graphic null character you could get when you pressed the GRPH key on a computer I once owned.

It also reminds me how they wrote a title using that. Although you would need to be familiar with Mycom BASIC Magazine to know what I’m talking about there.

Record: 76: The Sounds Have Memories

08/07/1998

20:11

I was doing security for a large fireworks festival along the Tama River. I had Lady with me as a recordkeeper while I went around punching anyone who was up to no good. At one point, Lady came to a stop.

“Oh, look. There are fireworks flying into the sky. Wow, and they’re going boom!”

She had gone a little bit crazy as she looked up into the sky where the fireworks were blossoming.

The noise reached us a moment later and that seemed to remind her of our job out here. She shrugged and caught back up with me.

I nodded, turned my back on the fireworks sounds, and resumed my patrol.

I heard another boom. And another.

After the third one, Lady tugged on my sleeve. I looked back and into the sky to see no fireworks in the sky to match the booms. She tilted her head at this.

“Sometimes it’s just the sound.”

“They eliminate the light and only play the sound for people who aren’t paying attention. It’s an energy-saving measure.”

As soon as I said that, a passerby made a comment.

“The sounds that were seen last year are gathered out back this year. They have no successors, which has left them shorthanded. The night sky normally belongs to us, so I do feel bad.”

“I see,” I said and turned toward the voice to find no one there anymore.

But Lady narrowed her eyes into the sky past the fireworks.

“The evening star is shining.”

Author Comment:

I feel like fireworks festivals are getting less common.

They’re completely gone in my area, or at least really small.

I always loved sitting in a large parking lot and watching the fireworks while I ate some snacks.

Record 25: Cheer Up

07/29/1997

20:38

I was out at night on my way to the train station’s meetup terrace.

I was temporarily down from the Mountain, but my daily habits were still very Mountain-ish. I ended up wanting to train at night, so I went for a run before resting my elbows on the terrace frame and viewing the sky.

Tokyo’s sky was a lot darker than the Mountain’s sky.

Just as I was wondering if it was painted different, the wind blew in and someone was standing next to me. It was the Night Wind. She wore a black dress and viewed me with confusion in her black eyes.

“It isn’t often someone is in this area at this time to let me wash over them.”

“This shouldn’t surprise you. We Tokyoites are capricious and it’s late at night.”

“I suppose so,” she said, sitting lightly on the terrace railing. When the winds wanted people to hear their voice, it was usually when they wanted something from us.

“Do you need any help?”

“Yes. The East Wind has been sluggish of late thanks to the summer heat. She isn’t saying much and loses herself in thought.”

“She does? Then why don’t you grab her hand and bring her out with you? She usually chases after you, doesn’t she? The wind from the east is the morning wind, so bring her up next to you, Night Wind.”

“Maybe I should,” she said, smiling.

The dim part of the following morning lasted longer than usual.

Author Comment:

I think the Night Wind is the immature honor student of the winds. Or maybe like the little sister.

The East Wind is depicted elsewhere.

Record 67: Just Accept It

06/12/1998

20:43

We were out on a job at night. I had been doing some gamble mount punching in the meeting room, but now you and I were in the Boss’s car traveling to Hachioji. We were taking National Route 16 south.

I saw the lights of Hachioji Station to the left while the Caddy shook.

“So what brings us out here so late at night?” asked the Boss while he drove. “It’s gotta be more than some trivial student-level fighting.”

“Divine Punishment City – Yokohama contacted us to say a causality battle might break out on our border,” you explained, flipping through the faxed document in the back seat.

“The entire country is still dealing with the effects of unifying the east and the west,” I said. “And I bet Yokohama is still dealing with the effects of the Bakumatsu period. By the way, where’s Lady?”

Wasn’t she from Yokohama? She must have had a good reason to move to Tokyo. I considered contacting her and you must have noticed.

“I called her already. I think she should be able to make her own decision about this.”

“I see,” I said before punching the car we were riding in.

If you throw a punch with belief in your heart, all things will receive the blow in accordance with the conservation of energy.

I punched away the slow parts of the car and the Boss turned back toward me.

“What the hell, dude!? Don’t punch my car!”

He started operating the gear shift and steering wheel while he said that. The gear display was an analog gauge and it now went all the way up to gear 99. If you did the torque calculations…

“We can easily break the sound barrier,” said the Boss.

The car accelerated, but someone flew south through the sky even faster than us.

It was a comet.

The fox star had a long bluish-white tail and Daitarou got up from your lap when he saw it.

“Food.”

No, that’s not food. That is Kerry Bantham who is scheduled to fly through next year.

He was known as quite the dandy for being so young, he had been given a peerage rank despite being a homeless comet, and he was the instigator of next year’s Grand Cross. I had heard he was flying all over the sky in preparation for that.

You set the faxed pages aside and picked up Daitarou.

“He’s probably here to see the causality battle. Because the Spacetime Lives get distorted during battles of cause and effect.”

“Why would a comet be interested in seeing a spacetime distortion?” asked the Boss, upset that the figure in the sky was outracing him.

You shut your eyes as you responded.

“Long ago, Kerry’s Comet was said to carry a toxic gas and bring misfortune, so no one went out to see him. But there was just one person – or machine that went out to see him.”

You spoke slowly, choosing your words carefully.

“There is a time-telling Sein Frau on the roof of Kanda’s House of Time clocktower that resonates with the world’s time. She sang for the baron, but her service life is coming to an end soon.”

“And the other countries told the Japanese government to scrap her because a Sein Frau that can resonate with time is a risky thing to have around,” I added.

The Boss glanced back to give us an impressed look. Except this knowledge wasn’t really all that special.

“We went to see the House of Time with Lady that one time, remember? That’s the place. She had already lost her singing voice by August of last year. But she’s being given the chance to see the Grand Cross commanded by the baron one last time. Then the government will sever the House of Time’s time resonance and tell the other countries the deed is done.”

“So the baron is investigating spacetime in the hopes of extending that Sein Frau’s lifespan?”

The Boss added “just like me” to the end of that thought, but I didn’t ask about it.

The car accelerated and Lady never did contact us.

Author Comment:

The story of the Grand Cross isn’t told in this Tokyo book.

I don’t know when it will be told.

And Kerry will be touched on more later.

Record 97: Something Still Unseen

12/19/1998

20:16

During the night, I found myself sitting on a guardrail with myself.

We sat side by side but also back to back. So…

“Hey,” I said. So I…

“What do you want?” I said. And…

“Sorry, I did this last year, so I knew what you were going to say,” I added.

How am I supposed to respond to that? I wondered.

“Don’t you have anything to say?”

“I’m just surprised how much of an idiot other people think I am. You’re supposed to say these things to the outside world, not to your inside world.”

My future self laughed at that, his shoulders shaking.

“You drove out your past self earlier, didn’t you?”

“And now I’m thinking of driving out my future self.”

“Why’s that? I’m what you become in the future.”

“But you’re a stranger as long as you’re here by my side. You aren’t me now. You’re just a stranger who lived in the same environment in the same way…but for a year longer than me.”

My future self fell silent there. Until…

“What makes you say we’re strangers?” I asked.

My future self quickly turned around.

“We should have the same foundation,” I said. “But after punching out my past, I chose to change. You knew what I would say. That means you haven’t changed. Even though I’m supposed to change. So you’re a fake, my future self.”

“Ha.” My future self hung his head and laughed bitterly. “So you could tell. I actually came here today to warn you that I’m a fake.”

My future self clenched his right fist and showed it to me.

“I was supposed to be a more normal person. It really shouldn’t affect you any if you don’t change. The attitude is what matters, not actually changing. There’s a part of you that doesn’t want to change and there’s where I came from.”

“You don’t sugarcoat it, do you?”

“Why would I, idiot? But I’m here to tell you that isn’t enough. If you stay the same and become me, then it all becomes fake.”

My future self stood up.

“I don’t know what happened between us. Because I’m your future self. Nothing ever actually happened between us. But the key is found in your future memories that I never experienced – in other words, in something you haven’t predicted.”

“What would that be?”

“Something that will save me from becoming this version of me. I don’t know what that is, but that’s because I’m a fake. So listen,” I said. “Whatever might happen, make sure you go out and face the things I can’t predict.”

“I will,” we both said at once and bumped fists.

The next thing I knew, my future self was gone and I caught up with my friends who had continued on ahead.

Author Comment:

The fake and the real.

It’s a difficult concept, but if the future is made into a fake, then is the past seen from that point in time real or fake? I can’t quite decide.

At the same time, I think this is a very immature topic.

Record 44: Can I Think of It?

12/19/1997

20:00

We were celebrating your birthday in the living room behind the pharmacy at your house.

“Congrats on being another year closer to death.”

You knocked me to the ground for that one. A weird way to thank me for celebrating your birthday.

Anyway, you, Senpai, Snowy, Lady, and I sat around the kotatsu.

“Why am I on the corner and with my back to the chilly entrance?” I asked.

“Because idiots don’t catch colds,” you explained while petting Daitarou on top of the kotatsu.

Lady smiled at your tone.

“You two are such good friends. Have you known each other all your lives?”

Oh, yeah. Lady wouldn’t know about all that since she’s a transfer student. I pointed at you while you grabbed the sugar pills spread out on the kotatsu.

“We’ve known each other since middle school. We were both on the track team and got a lot of records, but we only really started talking after meeting Senpai in our second year. Senpai had gotten into an argument with some idiots, so I intervened.”

“And I ran in at the same moment. I feel like you also saved my life another time too. That’s really about it,” you said with a light clap of your hands.

Senpai didn’t even stir in response and Lady looked around before opting not to say anything. A heavy mood set in and I turned to Snowy, hoping she had a good joke to add some levity.

She was staring at the cake fork in her hand.

I briefly recalled her Mobilized Writing, but I doubted she would cause any trouble here. I decided she was just overly fond of pointy objects in general. I looked to you to find you setting a cake down on top of the kotatsu. You had probably been saving it for later but wanted to provide a distraction.

As soon as you opened the box, Daitarou ate half of it.

I balled up the animal and stuck him under the kotatsu while you sliced the cake with a knife. Lady passed out the slices and then took an excited bite.

“What kind of cake is it? I asked.

“Pharmacy Cake – Attempt 2.”

As soon as the words were out of your mouth, I heard a stone-like crunch from Lady’s mouth and her face grew pale.

Eventually, she left the living room with her expression entirely blank.

Then I heard her hurried footsteps in the hallway.

Things sure are peaceful here, I thought with a glance to the TV. It showed an image of Osaka.

“Babel, huh? I wonder what’s going to come of that.”

I got up and looked over to see Snowy was still staring at the fork.

“Hey, you aren’t really going to use your Mobilized Writing on that, are you?”

“Hm? No, of course not. Why would I need to wield my power on such a joyous occasion?”

Good, she’s sane, I thought.

“However…I am unsure how to use these Western tools.”

I burst out laughing as soon as I heard, so she slashed at me with the fork.

Anything a woman’s hand touches can be used as a weapon.

I quickly grabbed her wrist instead of the fork.

“What happened to this being a joyous occasion, you cavewoman!? And have you never used a fork with your school lunch!?”

“I have brought my own lunch since elementary school!”

Was that really something to shout so forcefully?

Senpai and you were ignoring us and enjoying the cake.

Apparently this wasn’t worthy of Senpai’s worry. It worried me plenty, though.

Author Comment:

You’s birthdays show up a lot.

I think this is less of a birthday party and more of a laid-back gathering using her birthday as an excuse to party.

But will Daitarou be okay after eating that medicine cake?

Record 16: Something Important

05/21/1997

18:56

After dinner at the Mountain, I took a stroll outside the dorm.

The Mountain was a large place. We would be going home during the summer and a select group would go to an even deeper area afterwards. I wasn’t sure if I would be chosen for that.

That was on my mind as I stretched my legs even more than yesterday to head deeper in. I held a small plastic basket in my hand. It contained some Inari sushi leftover from dinner I had swiped from the dining hall. They were made by the girls in the Mountain and contained a variety of ingredients.

I left the thicket and walked along the mountain trail. After crossing a smaller mountain, the mountains toward Tochigi came into view. It was already past evening, so the sky was dark and starry.

I looked around to see some mossy stone steps. The steps led to an old red shrine with fox statues on either side. I felt like the statues were watching me, but I had to be imagining that. I sat on the steps and considered offering the Inari sushi to the foxes. I opened the basket.

“Just one?”

Why was that all that was left? I set the basket down to my side instead of in front of the shrine.

I looked to the sky. I stared at the stars for a few seconds before realizing those were the stars of the northern sky. I must have been pretty homesick to unintentionally look to Tokyo’s stars like that.

Then I heard someone stepping on a branch and speaking loudly.

“Oh? What are you doing here? Running away?”

I looked over to see you. You suddenly sat down next to me.

“What brings you out here, delinquent girl?”

“You have no right to call me that after bringing this out here again.”

You reached toward the Inari sushi and ate it.

I gasped and looked back toward the shrine, but you didn’t care. You pulled out a handkerchief, wiped off your hand, and looked to the same part of the sky as me.

“So what are you doing out here?”

“You first. You know I’m no good at those complicated questions.”

“True.” You nodded. “I’m looking for someone who can take good care of someone.”

“Huh?”

“When most people think of someone else, the person in their mind isn’t the real them, right? It’s a convenient fake that looks similar.”

That was true. The real person was out here in reality, so the one in their mind was only a copy.

“But when you think about someone real, you think of the real one and the one in your mind as the same. So you end up surprised when the reality differs from your imagination. If you were really thinking about the real one, that wouldn’t happen, would it?”

“This is getting philosophical. And preachy.”

“What’s wrong with that? But as the person in your head, I think you’re doing a pretty good job with it. Was the first time it really bothered you that time you got 2nd place in track?”

“Yeah, everyone rushed over to the guy who got 1st place, so only you were left to tell me my time. But why bring that up now?”

“Because I want to. And I’m sure I will continue to be exactly the kind of person you think I am. I won’t betray your expectations. So try to keep getting along with her.”

You placed the basket in my lap, stood up, brushed off your butt, and climbed the steps.

I turned back to tell you that led to a shrine, but you weren’t there anymore.

I reached for the basket you had given me and found it was soft.

Confused, I looked down at my lap and found a single white fox child who still had brown fur was sprawled out in sleep there.

Was this a weird sort of gift?

Author Comment:

How Daitarou ended up with the protagonist.

Daitarou appears to be the child of a fairly high-ranking sacred beast.

I think he was left with the protagonist so he could learn about the human world, but I worry the parent fox made a poor choice of caretaker.

Record 112: That is What I Want to Say

02/17/1999

18:03

What now? I more or less knew where Senpai was: Kanda, at that one used bookstore that was open 24 hours a day.

But what was I supposed to do about that? For once, I was at a loss. I knew all too well what I had come here to do, though.

The Boss was leading the Chancellor’s Officers for now, but no one other than us knew about this yet. I honestly just wanted to hear your voice, but that felt like having you alone determine everything for me, which I didn’t like.

I had no choice but to call someone who didn’t know Senpai all that well: Sensei in the faculty building.

The red phone’s ringing soon ended and she answered.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing skipping school!?”

“That’s the first thing you have to say? And how did you know it was me?”

“Intuition. And if I had been wrong, I would be apologizing right now.”

Did she have guts, or was she just stupid? Anyway, she knew of Senpai as the Chancellor but nothing beyond that. She was my homeroom teacher. Of course, anyone who went to the Mountain like me would have the academic skills of a college graduate, so they wouldn’t need a teacher. But I called her Sensei anyway.

“Sensei, can I ask you something?”

“No.”

“Really, you’re going to refuse? I’ll admit I’ve nonchalantly asked about your measurements and the color of your underwear in the past, but I have a more advanced question for you this time.”

“Eh? P-please don’t. I’m not ready for something more advanced than my measurements or underwear. Especially not in the faculty room.”

Please. I know you’re an idiot, but get a grip. Sometimes I had my doubts if she was really a teacher. Or an adult for that matter.

“Not like that, Sensei. For example, Tokyo – or Japan as a whole really – is in a precarious situation. But there’s just one person left who could send it all up in flames. And I’m the only one who can stop him – no, who can kill him. So what should I do?”

“Why would you kill him? Does he want you to do that?”

“Probably. Because if I don’t…someone he cares for will cease to be human. I think he attacked her knowing I would come after him to kill him.”

“But what if she…yes, what if she wants to cease being human?”

“That isn’t possible.”

“Why not? How can you be so sure?”

“If she wanted it, she wouldn’t have come to me for help. If she wanted it, she wouldn’t come to me to tell me I’m #2 and tell me what I should do about it like she did in the past.”

“I see.” Sensei nodded and I heard her sigh over the phone. “When she told you that you were #2 in the past, did you become #1?”

“No. I had convinced myself that was a lost cause.”

“Do you want to change that now?”

That question reminded me of a few things from the past and the future.

There was only one possible answer. I gave it and Sensei laughed quietly.

“Remember her. If she told you that you were #2, then she must want to hear something from you as well.”

“Is that something I can tell her once I’m #1?”

“Yes, but I do not know what that is.”

“I see,” I said before nonchalantly asking what color her underwear was and hanging up.

I turned around and faced the used bookstore that still had its lights on.

Author Comment:

In this conversation with Sensei, she isn’t aware what is going on in the Chancellor’s Officers.

I think the protagonist only called her because she is a grownup. I have serious doubts whether or not she really is one, though.

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