The Graveyard of Information (1)
The Wizard's quivering, tearful face was almost cute, but Shirone read desperation in it.
'She's really furious.'
Shirone, who had already opened his time-sense, knew how difficult this would be.
'Humans perceive time primarily through light signals. To destroy that… the brain's fundamental wiring has to be altered.'
"Alright."
Hope brightened the Wizard's face, but Shirone said something she hadn't expected.
"Training's over. You seem prepared enough, so now we'll open your time-sense."
"What do you mean by that?"
The flow of time is a trick of the brain; suddenly opening the time-sense could be dangerous.
If the present collapses, past and future no longer exist.
"The reason I gave you a day was for this. You needed to think about every possible thing regarding time so that when the shock that shatters common sense comes, you'll be able to cope."
Shirone turned toward Ikael. "This is my mother, Ikael. An archangel's senses far surpass a human's. From now on you'll experience a process of mentally resonating with her."
"Mother?"
The Wizard craned her neck all the way up. With her small frame, it was hard to see Ikael's face towering over two meters.
"Nice to meet you. So you're the Wizard."
Ikael bowed slightly and smiled with a warm squint. The Wizard's mouth parted a little.
'She's incredible.'
There was a special dignity to her that exceeded ordinary human standards, embodied in her very form.
The teachers and students reacted the same way.
"An angel. No way."
The long-standing rumor that Shirone's birth mother was not human had just been confirmed in the flesh.
"Ahem."
Principal Nikolai cleared his throat and stepped forward. "I've heard about the possession, but isn't this dangerous? We have to protect the students…"
He spoke carefully, aware of the Wizard's parents, but it felt like there was an actual reason behind his concern.
Ikael smiled. "Shirone says it's fine, so it shouldn't be a problem. If it becomes dangerous, I'll stop it."
"Heh. Well, not just the students—Miss Ikael should vouch for this too. You're a great star of humanity, after all."
"You're flattering me. Thank you." Shirone narrowed his eyes as he watched Nikolai's grin stretch across his face.
'Could it be…?'
Amy jabbed Shirone in the ribs. "What's with the fretting? You can't show it, but everyone likes her. Besides, judging by her expression, your mother doesn't seem interested."
"I know. It's just…"
Shirone held no prejudice. He only knew how much Ikael had loved Geopin and how happy she'd been.
"Then let's begin."
Ikael stroked the Wizard's head. "Trust yourself. That is to trust me. From now on I'll have you absorb the sacred light-body into your head. We'll think as one mind, and in that process you should be able to awaken your time-sense."
Shirone added, "Remember that the present exists in the mind."
The Wizard nodded and squeezed her eyes shut. Ikael began transferring the sacred light-body.
"Gah."
The child's chest rose, and a glow leaked from between her trembling eyelids.
The surroundings were still calm, but in the Wizard's brain thunderous conversations must have been raging.
"Ughhhh!"
Her eyelids fluttered, then her shoulders shook, and soon her whole body convulsed as if electrocuted.
At the height of that trembling, the Wizard opened her eyes.
"Aaaaaah!"
The barrier of time had shattered; past and future were all perceived as present.
'We have to grab it here!'
Focusing her mind calmed the time-sense and made her sense of self distinctly clear.
"Hah! Hah!"
After only a few ragged breaths, she opened her eyes wide to the newly expanded senses.
"Huh? Oh?"
The present felt stretched out. What would it be like for someone else to live their past as if it were happening right now?
"You did it."
"Teacher."
The Wizard halted mid-step as a sudden murderous intent prickled her skin.
"Next phase."
Shirone conjured a Hand of God above his head and spoke in a cold tone. "Dodge my attack."
The Wizard, who hadn't sulked during training, immediately nodded.
"All right. I'm going."
A colossal fist of light shot forward. Its speed and power were in a completely different league from their training; the Wizard's face went white.
"Wait—!"
KRAAANG!
When the Hand of God slammed into the ground with a roar, her body was crushed like an ant.
A corner of Shirone's mouth twitched up. "Pass."
That was the basics.
"Heh heh, thank you."
What remained in reality was the teacher and student looking at each other with warm eyes.
When Shirone arrived in the capital of Kesia, he scanned the quiet, deserted streets.
'Looks like a ghost town.'
Only the many traces of people inside the buildings denied that.
The last time he had been to Kesia, murder, looting, and arson had been commonplace.
'What on earth did they do?' No one was living a normal life, so rumors hadn't even spread.
'At any rate, it certainly looks like they've suppressed Emotion Sickness. No—it's hard to call it fully suppressed, but they managed to stop its spread.'
Shirone stopped before a high-rise crowned with the emblem of the Golden Wheel. Through the glass, people in suits moved about, working. The sight, set against the empty streets, gave Shirone the creeps.
"Hello."
He spoke, feeling the air inside colder than outside, but no one looked up.
Looking closer, their eyes were vacant.
"Who—?"
A woman who seemed at least partially with it forced herself to steady her steps and came toward him. "Ah, I'm Shirone. Is Fermi here by any chance?"
The staff turned their heads reflexively and answered in halting voices. "Shirone? Fermi?"
Shirone thought they couldn't be in their right minds.
"Please come this way."
When he turned toward the voice by the stairs, a man with clear eyes pushed up his glasses.
"You are…"
Fermi's secretary, whom Shirone had seen before, stared at his wristwatch. "You arrived twenty minutes earlier than expected. Well, this incident was unearthed twenty days ago. I'll show you. Mr. Fermi is waiting."
It all sounded incomprehensible, so Shirone followed the man into the elevator.
On the seventeenth floor, Fermi waited in an office of floor-to-ceiling windows.
"Shirone."
Cleaner-looking than before, he spread his arms like an old friend greeting an old companion.
"What happened?" They weren't close, so Fermi awkwardly lowered his arms. "Sit. Have some tea…"
"How did you know I'd come? Why hasn't Emotion Sickness run rampant? Why is there nobody on the street?"
Fermi snorted. "You seem to have a lot of questions. That's understandable—some of your memories were erased."
"Memories."
According to Grand Judge Terafos, Shirone had erased some of his own memories of his own will.
"Want me to tell you?"
Fermi's smile cracked like a fissure. "How about it? You're curious too, right? If you want, I can tell you what deal you made."
This was why Shirone disliked Fermi.
'But that's precisely why… I can believe I made a deal with Fermi.'
He was undeniably capable.
"Never mind that. I want to know the whole story of Kesia. How on earth did you stop Emotion Sickness?"
"Hmm."
Fermi rested his chin on his hand and pointed at the door. "Want to see for yourself?"
He led Shirone to a ward where orphaned children lay high on a drug called Angel.
"Hah. Hah."
Shirone shuddered at the thin moans of pleasure leaking from a child's throat.
"What is this…?"
"A special concoction I made. You saw it when you were here before, didn't you? After several stages of clinical trials, I finally made it—Angel, Tears of Angels. With this we can suppress Emotion Sickness."
The moment Fermi finished, Shirone grabbed his collar and hauled him forward.
"Are you insane?"
Fermi only looked back coolly. "They're under ten. You used drugs on those kids? Do you know what you've done?"
"I do."
Fermi answered. "And what about you? Have you brought anything better into the world than this?"
Sparks flared in Shirone's eyes, but he couldn't entirely turn away from Fermi's voice.
"That doesn't make the result any better."
"Result? Foolish talk. Do you think you're high because you took on humanity's burden? All life ends in death. That's the only definite outcome. People like you who dream of hopeful futures have their place, but please—face reality."
"...How did you do it?"
Shirone's grip slackened.
"What kind of drug can stop Emotion Sickness? Seriel tried every compound and failed."
"Of course she failed. Because a cure hadn't been developed. At least, not yet."
Shirone felt like grabbing Fermi by the collar again. "Explain it so I understand."
"How did I know you'd arrive today?"
"I don't know."
"Then I'll show you."
Fermi motioned for him to follow and took the elevator down to the second floor.
When the door marked RECOVERY ROOM slid open, two hundred beds came into view—each occupied.
"Huh?"
Shirone recognized someone among them. "Marsha?"
Even though he called out loudly, Marsha lay sleeping without moving.
Shirone looked back at Fermi. "What is this? No way this is just from Angel—"
"Don't worry. Of course we administer it regularly, but not to the point of disrupting daily life. More important is where these people are located."
"Where they're located?"
Fermi's words didn't just mean the recovery room. Suddenly Shirone understood.
"Could it be…?"
When he'd woken after erasing the Valhalla Action debt, Miro had told him something.
"Shall we check the excavation site?"
Fermi pointed to an empty bed and tossed a pill the size of a bean. "This?"
"Dream Star. You know it? Ah—was that part of your memory erased too? You're thorough, I'll give you that."
"You mean I ever took this?" Shirone examined the Dream Star but felt no familiarity.
"Yes. You insisted on seeing it in person, so I went with you. That was when I was struggling alone, but—so, will you take it or not?"
Lost in thought, Shirone grabbed the pill and lay down on the adjacent empty bed, propping himself up to ask, "What happens if I take this?"
"You pull out of the dream and enter the Undercoder. Before that, you do an address match… No, just take it. You know the mechanism roughly—you did it all at once last time, too."
'Undercoder.'
Fermi lay down first. Shirone put the Dream Star in his mouth and swallowed.
The sedative coating the pill dissolved on his stomach lining, clouding his mind.
He could force himself awake by artificially arousing his brain, but Shirone let the drug take its effect.
The sensations of reality faded…
"Hmm?"
The dream-sense, buried among countless corpses, linked with Shirone's five senses.