The Igniter

by Reki Kawahara

  “You seem like you would get along pretty well with the other guy, don’t you?” said Yumiko, having finished putting on her blazer and buttoning it securely from top to bottom.

  “Huh? Y-you mean DD?” asked Minoru.

  “No, the other guy,” answered Yumiko.

  Huh? Who is she talking about? thought Minoru, but without clarifying, Yumiko turned to Riri.

  “But enough of all that, Professor. Can we get to the main reason we came all this way? The sun’s going to set,” she said.

  “The time the sun will set in Tokyo on December 13, 2019, is at sixteen hundred hours twenty-eight minutes and forty-three seconds. We only have five minutes left, but I guess we can hurry along,” said the maybe ten-year-old Riri, without looking at a calendar or smartphone. She motioned for Minoru and Yumiko to sit back down on their round stools before taking a seat herself across from them and taking a sip of her coffee filled with milk.

  “Now that we’ve finished all of the formalities, Mikkun, about your power…,” started Riri.

  “R-right…,” answered Minoru, straightening up.

  “When Yukko first described your power as a protective shell, I hypothesized that you were using molecules to create a clear barrier. As part of the investigation to learn what molecules those were, I analyzed Biter’s tooth. Biter bit down several times on your protective barrier, so I thought that there should be some residue of your shell left on the surface of the tooth,” Riri continued.

  “Ah…okay…,” said Minoru, nodding, remembering his frightening experiences from four days before. Biter had transformed his head into that of a man-eating shark’s with silver teeth that could bite through iron, and he had used those teeth several times in an attempt to destroy Minoru’s shell. If Minoru’s shell were made up of some clear material, then some of the molecules should have been scraped away by the teeth.

  But Riri looked over at the petri dish on the table with an unsatisfied look on her face.

  “However, it appears I was wrong. The only material I recovered from this tooth was concrete fragments from the underground parking lot of the Saitama Super Arena, where you had your last battle with Biter. Nothing else could be detected with an electron microscope or a gas chromatography test. I cannot imagine a shell could endure being bitten by teeth harder than any other substance but diamond and sustain absolutely no damage,” explained Riri.

  “…Ah,” muttered Yumiko after a pause. Though she had looked upset ever since she had her blazer stripped from her, all traces of that were gone, and she brought her hands together with her fingers intertwined.

  “Then couldn’t it just be made out of diamond? Diamond is crystallized carbon, right? If his power manipulates carbon, he could just take it from the carbon dioxide in the surrounding air… Is there any possibility he is crystallizing that carbon at will to form a shell?” offered Yumiko.

  “Hmm. That is a very interesting point, and that would be fascinating, but…” Riri shrugged her shoulders and smiled in an unchildlike, cynical smile. “Unfortunately, while diamond excels at hardness, its toughness, or shatter resistance, isn’t especially high. Even if you were to make a thin shell out of diamond, a normal person could break it to pieces with one swing of an ordinary hammer. I doubt that it could withstand the stress put on it by the Biter’s bite.”

  “Well, that’s no fun,” said Yumiko disappointedly as she sipped her cold coffee.

  Riri lifted two fingers toward Minoru, who was starting to feel like a letdown.

  “Therefore, I made a second hypothesis that your defensive shell is not made of any material but is a form of molecular manipulation all by itself,” Riri continued.

  “Molecular…manipulation?” repeated Minoru.

  “How should I explain it…? Ah, look at this,” Riri said, bringing the petri dish with Biter’s tooth back in front of her. After removing the lid, she took a pair of tweezers and pressed on the top of the tooth.

  When she did this the tooth, about two centimeters in diameter, split in two from left to right. The surface of the cut shined like a mirror.

  “That’s amazing! How did you do that?!” exclaimed Minoru, reaching out his right hand toward the petri dish.

  “Don’t touch it! The edge of the cut is so sharp you’ll cut yourself just by touching it!” Riri immediately warned, and Minoru drew back his hand.

  “O-okay… Prof— I mean, Ms. Isa, did you just cut that tooth?” asked Minoru.

  “You can call me Professor if you want, and the answer to that question is no. It had already been cut but was being held together by van der Waals forces.”

  “Van der Waals forces…,” repeated Minoru.

  In Minoru’s science class, they had covered the basics about those forces as part of their physics curriculum.

  “You mean intermolecular forces, right? But I thought in order for something like metal to be held together by only those forces, the surfaces between the two halves would have to be perfectly smooth and even… Did you cut Biter’s tooth with a diamond cutter and polish the halves for some reason? Why?” asked Minoru.

  “Good question,” Riri said, nodding. “Certainly, cutting this tooth by normal means would require a diamond cutter, but in this case, this tooth was cut by abnormal means. Specifically, it was cut using the power of one of the members of the SFD.”

  “…!” Minoru gasped and stared at the petri dish with the two halves of the tooth. Cutting Biter’s tooth like that into halves like it was cheese certainly was abnormal.

  “By power do you mean…the power to create a blade like a razor that is as hard as diamond…?”

  “Now that was not a good question,” said Riri with a smirk on her face, twirling her pointer finger around as if she were reeling in the conversation. “Didn’t I just say that your shell is not made out of a material, but instead might be a form of the manipulative power itself? The power that cut this tooth is the same kind of power. For the sake of simplicity, we call the power ‘division,’ but…simply put, the power nullifies the intermolecular forces within an object along a certain plane. The couplings between molecules are cut, so whether the object was a clump of hardened steel or a block of tofu, it will be perfectly cut in two.”

  “Division…huh,” muttered Minoru, lost in thought.

  Riri looked down at the petri dish on the table before speaking again. “So have you figured out what I’m trying to say? That like this division power, your protective shield is not made out of any material, but is…”

  “Ah…I see. It’s not a material, but the power itself… In other words, it’s a power that rejects molecules?” asked Minoru.

  “Precisely!” exclaimed Riri, clapping her hands together. “That was my second hypothesis. It puts your power as being the same type as division, while being put to a completely different use. If that were the case, it would explain why Biter’s teeth were unable to scrape off a single molecule from your protective shell. However…and this is the catch…” Riri paused before doubling back on her argument just as it was making sense to Minoru.

  “When I read the report about your final battle with Biter, I had to reject my second hypothesis…,” Riri said.

  “What…? Wait, but why?” asked Minoru.

  “That is because you were able to isolate yourself from even the fierce heat of that gasoline fire!” exclaimed Riri, biting down on her lip with her pearl-like teeth.

  Riri suddenly stood up and grabbed an LED desk lamp from the table and flipped the switch, pointing orange light that came out of it at Minoru’s right hand. Minoru could feel warmth emanating from the spot that was lit.

  “The heat you feel radiating from a flame is not a material substance but a series of electromagnetic waves, the same as the heat radiating from this lamp. So let us assume that your defensive shell isolates you from electromagnetic waves. However, visible light is also made up of electromagnetic waves. For that argument to make any sense, you would have to be unable to see outside your she
ll when it was activated, and others would have to be unable to see inside your shell as well. If your shell absorbed light, it would be pitch-black, and if it reflected light, it would be like a mirror, right?!” argued Riri.

  As Minoru was trying to keep up with the increasing difficulty of the conversation, his mind was drawn back to his frightening battle with that shark man, Biter.

  When Biter’s brains were blown out, his Third Eye had gone berserk, transforming him into even more of a monster. With his fanged arms, he had ripped the frame of an automobile into pieces, as if it were made of paper. As gasoline poured over Biter’s head from the ruptured fuel tank, Minoru had rushed in, using his defensive shell to pin down Biter, and he had gotten Yumiko to provide a spark from her stun baton.

  The gasoline immediately caught fire, and crimson flames had engulfed both Biter and Minoru. At the time, Minoru certainly felt more than enough fear, but he hadn’t felt any change in heat.

  In other words, Minoru’s defensive shell had completely rejected the heat from that flame burning at close range. But even so, Minoru had seen the bright light of the flames, and to have one without the other didn’t make any sense. After all, the red light from the flame was made up of the same electromagnetic waves that carry thermal energy.

  Turning off the desk lamp, Riri’s eyes sparkled as she continued at a fast pace.

  “Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m out of ideas for hypotheses! For example, it could be that your defensive shell only lets through electromagnetic waves that fall within a certain safe range of wavelengths that include visible light. If that were the case, it would mean that your power does not only work on the order of molecules, but it also affects subatomic particles, but I can’t say anything for sure until we run some tests,” Riri said excitedly.

  Then, Minoru timidly raised his right hand, a single doubt having surfaced in the back of his mind.

  “Umm… Ms.…Professor?” he asked.

  “What is it, Mikkun? If you’re going to call me Professor, you don’t have to add a Ms.,” Riri replied.

  “Ah, sorry about that…Professor. When I am using my power, I can see outside just fine, but I can’t hear a sound. Does that mean that I am rejecting all of the air molecules that would vibrate to carry sound? Like oxygen and nitrogen?” asked Minoru.

  “Hmm. That seems like a plausible explanation,” replied Riri.

  “However…a few days ago I had my power activated for more than an hour, but…when I think about it now, I didn’t have trouble breathing at all. Doesn’t that sound contradictory…?” continued Minoru.

  “…” Riri froze, her eyebrows coming close together. “What did you just say?”

  Over the next two hours, Professor Riri Isa thoroughly investigated the properties of Minoru’s defensive shell herself.

  It grew dark outside the windows, and beyond the tree line was visible the shine of lights set up for the holiday season in east Shinjuku. Yumiko had lain down on the sofa a little ways away and was immersed in reading a comic series.

  Minoru had told Norie, his adoptive elder sister, that he was staying over at a friend’s house. From Norie’s perspective, Minoru hadn’t done anything like that in the eight years he had stayed with her, and she was thrilled. But of course, Minoru wasn’t exactly telling the truth and felt bad about it. Yumiko offered to talk on the phone to corroborate his story, but it went without saying that Minoru politely refused.

  As he continued to muse vaguely about these things, Minoru activated his power several times on a table surrounded by video cameras and odd sensors.

  Riri groaned several times in thought as she continued to take measurements, but by the time the clock struck seven o’clock at night, she declared that she was done for the day.

  After Minoru leaped down from the table and was putting on his shirt, Yumiko headed over toward him with a large yawn.

  “Are you finally done? Professor, let’s go ahead and have dinner. I’m starving,” said Yumiko, now without her blazer, which she had taken off earlier, along with the ribbon for her blouse.

  “I don’t mind, but DD hasn’t come back yet, and that means that one of us is going to have to be the ones to prepare it,” said Riri.

  “Geh… You’re right…,” said Yumiko, her face twitching a bit as she looked up at the ceiling. “I really don’t want to have a repeat of that tragedy we had before…”

  …Tragedy? thought Minoru, puzzled.

  Yumiko then glared angrily out the window and yelled, “Argh! If only we could order delivery!!”

  “Huh…? You mean we can’t order delivery?” asked Minoru reflexively. They were in Shinjuku and it was only seven o’clock. They should have no problem ordering pizza or sushi or Chinese food… There should have been tons of options.

  But glancing back at Minoru, Yumiko just shook her head. “We can’t. After all, no one is able to enter this area.”

  “What do you mean? After all, the gate leading to this place was wide open when we got here,” said Minoru.

  “Chief Himi has set up a barrier that extends all the way to the gate. Even if an outsider crosses the road in front of the gate, they can’t perceive that there is a gate or an apartment complex here. We could pick something up if we had it delivered somewhere around Meiji Street, but if we’re going to go that far, we might as well go eat out,” continued Yumiko.

  “A barrier…” Minoru finally understood what she was referring to. Chief Himi was a man with a sort of warrior-like air that Minoru had been introduced to at a hospital in Saitama four days ago. He was the commander in chief of the SFD, and his power was the ability to manipulate people’s memories.

  Since Third Eye powers work on atoms and molecules, Himi’s power probably had something to do with synapses and neurons in the brain, but who would have thought that he could make this five-story building imperceptible to outsiders, without even being here…

  “…I’m starting to think that there are no limits to what these powers can do…,” muttered Minoru before lifting his head and noticing that Yumiko was staring at him from a very close distance.

  “Uwah!” Minoru shouted, pulling back. “Wh-what’s the matter?!”

  “Hey, Uuutsuuugiiii…,” said Yumiko.

  “…What is it?” he repeated.

  “You don’t happen to be able to cook, do you?” asked Yumiko.

  “A-as long as it’s something simple…,” stuttered Minoru in response.

  But by the time he had realized his mistake, Yumiko had already grabbed Minoru firmly by the shirt collar.

  “It’s not like I’m asking you to make a full-course French meal, or a Kyoto-style ceremonial dinner, or a Manchu-Han imperial Chinese feast, as long as you just make something edible!” exclaimed Yumiko before going behind Minoru and pushing him toward the kitchen on the other side of the room.

  “Mikkun, I don’t like chrysanthemums or shiitake mushrooms,” said Riri, waving her hand without looking away from the monitor she was working at.

  …If only she weren’t a fourth-year elementary school girl, I would have made a hot pot filled to the brim with chrysanthemums and shiitake mushrooms, thought Minoru to himself as he crossed the thirty-meter room.

  The peninsula-style kitchen was surprisingly well fitted out. There were three built-in-type gas stoves, and the stainless steel countertop was well polished. The faucet had a water purification device attached to it, and the hanging shelves had several thick pots and frying pans.

  “…Is it okay for me to use this…?” asked Minoru.

  Yumiko nodded. “DD bought all of these things on his own whim and with the SFD’s budget to boot, so I won’t let him complain.”

  “Okay…”

  When Minoru went to open the German Miele-made large-form refrigerator, it was stocked full of fresh ingredients. With this much at his disposal, Minoru would be able to make do with his small repertoire of recipes. After turning to Yumiko one more time to say that he didn’t guarantee it would taste
any good, he took a large stockpot, filled it with water, and put it on the stove.

  Then he defrosted some squid, clams, and shelled shrimp in the microwave and prepared a smaller pot of boiling water to parboil some asparagus and broccoli. By the time he had finished that, the water in the large pot had begun to boil, so he added a large amount of salt and dried pasta for three people.

  After that, he minced a clove of garlic and put it in a frying pan with olive oil, along with chili peppers he had removed the seeds from, and set it to low heat. When the garlic started to faintly colorize, he added the seafood and vegetables and quickly fried them. When the heat had started to pass evenly through the ingredients, he added water from the boiling pot of pasta and shook the ingredients around. The thick frying pan was probably about two kilograms, but perhaps with the help of his Third Eye strengthening his muscles, it didn’t feel heavy at all.

  When the oil in the pan started to get cloudy, he turned to Yumiko, who was standing beside him.

  “I’m sorry, but could you take those tongs over there and strain the pasta?”

  “Oh—sure,” she replied.

  Minoru took the pasta that Yumiko had clumsily moved with tongs from the pot to a strainer and dumped it into the frying pan with the stove on full heat. The pasta hissed with steam as Minoru agitated the pan, mixing the emulsified sauce and pasta and adding a little salt to fine-tune the flavor.

  “Could you bring over the plates please?” said Minoru.

  “O-okay!” Yumiko replied.

  After adding pepper from a pepper grinder, he took the frying pan and evenly distributed its contents among the three plates Yumiko set next to the stove. Then, after sprinkling a bit of a sweet basil leaf he ripped in his hands, he took a final sigh.

  “…Well, anyway. It’s done,” Minoru said to the sound of applause.

  Riri, who at some point had come to the entrance of the kitchen, and Yumiko standing beside her were clapping.

  “…He did it in just fifteen minutes, Professor,” said Yumiko.

  “I’m surprised as well… When DD’s chef, it always takes at least an hour…,” replied Riri.