The Igniter

by Reki Kawahara

  “Um, I mean,” said Minoru, shaking his head. “It’s only that way because I was skipping some steps.”

  Minoru lived alone with Norie, who was busy working at the Saitama Prefectural Office, so not only did he often help prepare meals, but also there were many times he made them himself.

  It wasn’t as if Minoru disliked cooking, but as a high school boy, he was more concerned with recipes for “food that you can make fast that has plenty of volume and is reasonably edible,” and this heavy-volume peperoncino was no exception. Taste was a secondary factor. However…

  After taking their own dishes to the dining table that sat next to the kitchen, Yumiko and Riri wolfed down the food as if they were competing with each other. He was happy to have other people eat his food, but at the same time he hated himself for feeling that way. If he felt happy about being praised despite the fact that he didn’t want to have any memories shared with other people, it would be incredibly hypocritical.

  When I get back home, I’ll forget this…and to help me forget, I won’t make peperoncino for a while, Minoru thought to himself as he ate.

  While Minoru was thinking these negative thoughts, Yumiko finished eating and gulped down the rest of her oolong tea and sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction.

  “I don’t think I’ve had food that tasted like this in a long while…,” she said.

  “Agreed. It must be a flavor that you can only bring out with speed…,” Riri added.

  Minoru shook his head again. “I-I’m sorry, I have no idea how to make a proper meal…”

  “No, we’re complimenting you, Utsugi. This pasta is very delicious. It has a very nostalgic flavor…,” said Yumiko with a rare clear smile, but that just made Minoru feel more embarrassed.

  Where do these two live, anyway? Minoru wondered. It might be all right for Yumiko, who is a high school student, to be out and about, but isn’t it about time for an elementary school student like Professor to go home?

  Minoru hurried to swallow the squid in his mouth to ask about it, but before he could, Yumiko changed the subject.

  “So…Professor. What did you find out about Minoru’s defensive barrier?” she asked.

  Riri, who had been twirling a piece of broccoli on the end of her fork in the air, groaned.

  “Well…I did find out one thing, and that is with the equipment I have here now, I can’t figure anything out,” she said.

  “What? I can’t believe there’s something that you can’t understand!” Yumiko exclaimed.

  “Of course there are some things I can’t understand, Yukko,” replied Riri with a cynical smile before popping the piece of broccoli into her mouth. “My power is not the power to find the answer to any given question, after all.”

  Having heard that, Minoru stared at the small girl sitting across from him at the table.

  “…So does that mean you are a Third Eye host as well, Professor? Just what kind of power do you have?” asked Minoru.

  The answer to that question was simple but unexpected.

  “It’s thinking,” replied Riri.

  “Thinking…?” repeated Minoru, confused.

  “Professor’s power is the power of ‘speculation.’ For almost any question that has an answer, she can find that answer almost immediately. Even if that is, for example, the prime factorization of a number with hundreds of decimal places,” clarified Yumiko.

  “This power is nothing special; any computer given enough time can accomplish the same thing… To be honest, I think that as a result of this power I’ve become an utter fool…but that’s enough about me,” said Riri.

  Taking a sip of grapefruit juice, Riri brought the conversation back on topic.

  “After taking various measurements, I have come to the conclusion that Mikkun’s defensive shell is not made out of any actual material. For one, the coefficient of friction on its surface is absolutely zero,” said Riri.

  “Zero…friction…?” repeated Minoru, unable to imagine immediately what that would mean.

  Yumiko made an objection in his place.

  “But Professor, that doesn’t make any sense! Utsugi has run with his shell activated. If there were no friction, he wouldn’t be able to kick off from the ground and would slip and fall on the spot,” she argued.

  “That is true, but it doesn’t seem that Mikkun is actually standing on the ground when he has his shell activated,” Riri replied.

  “What? …But then how is he able to stand?” Yumiko rebutted.

  “I have no idea. I can’t say anything else until I finish analyzing the data,” Riri replied before putting the last bite of her pasta in her mouth and savoring it. “Thank you, that was delicious,” she finally said, smiling at Minoru.

  “N-no, it was nothing…,” said Minoru.

  “No, no, it was fantastic. It’s enough to make me want to give you the code name ‘Cooker,’” Riri replied.

  Yumiko burst out laughing. “DD would hate you if you did that. He’s totally serious about his cooking.”

  “Code name… You mean like how Yumiko’s is ‘Accelerator’?” asked Minoru.

  “Exactly. You already know that our organization gives code names to Ruby Eyes that we identified, right?” said Riri.

  “Yes, like ‘Biter,’” said Minoru.

  “Correct. All of our organization’s members also have code names. After all, it’s dangerous to use your real names in the middle of combat. Yukko’s code name is ‘Accelerator.’ The one who split Biter’s tooth’s code name is ‘Divider.’ DD’s is ‘Searcher,’ and mine is ‘Speculator.’ Now that you’ve become a member, we’ll need to think of a code name for you as well… ‘Defender’ doesn’t really fit well… ‘Hardener’ makes you sound like a cosmetic nail product… Hmm…,” Riri said as she mused.

  “…What about ‘Isolator’?” offered Yumiko in a quiet voice.

  After blinking a few times, Riri looked troubled. “Don’t you think that’s a bit too tongue-in-cheek?” she said.

  “Not at all. When all of the Ruby Eyes are exterminated and the SFD is disbanded, Utsugi is going to have the memories of himself from every other human being removed by Chief Himi… That was his condition for joining us,” Yumiko argued. With a faint smile, she continued. “So we will one day forget the pasta that we ate today. It won’t remain in anyone’s memory… Don’t you think that is sad?”

  Riri apparently hadn’t been told of Minoru’s condition for joining. Her eyes opened wide and stared at Minoru for a while, but finally with a tolerant smile well beyond her years, she nodded. “…I see. Mikkun, do you have any objections to being called ‘Isolator’?”

  “No.” Minoru quickly shook his head. “I think it’s a good name. Isolator, huh…? I like it.”

  “Well, then, I’ll make a record of your new code name. But still, if I knew that I was going to forget the flavor of this pasta, I wish I could have savored it more,” Riri said.

  Minoru didn’t have any response to give her, but after a short pause Yumiko said, “I’m sure he’ll make it again for us.”

  3

  After Ayato Suka locked the door of his apartment behind him, he took a deep breath.

  It was sweet.

  The thick oxygen in the air made its way through his lungs to his blood vessels and spread all throughout his body, cleaning away the pollution of the outside world.

  Suka had filled every room of his two-bedroom apartment with potted plants, both large and small. But none of them were the kind of plants that withered after flowering for a short time, the kind of plants cultivated just to serve human ego. They were all reliable plants thick with glossy leaves of deep green, vigorously photosynthesizing.

  Taking several deep breaths before he was content, Suka finally removed his leather shoes. As he entered the living room, overflowing with green, he immediately opened the glass door opening to the south veranda, where there were so many green potted plants there was no place to step. In order to make the best of the shorter daylig
ht hours in the winter, Suka moved plants from inside his apartment to the veranda every morning on a rotation schedule.

  However, no matter how much the Tokyo metropolis was becoming a subtropical climate, if he didn’t move the plants inside as soon as the sun set, they were in danger of being damaged by the frost. It was a lot of work to move the dozens of potted plants to and from the veranda every morning and evening, but that didn’t bother Suka. After all, it was for the sake of the plants he had worked so hard on, and because of the red eye he hosted inside of his body, both his strength and stamina had risen considerably.

  “It was cold out there, wasn’t it? Don’t worry, I’ll warm you right up,” Suka whispered to a Strelitzia plant with thick extended leaves, as he rolled up his sleeves and set about his work.

  By the time Suka had moved the fifth plant from the veranda to its spot inside by the wall, he was interrupted as a loud electric sound rang over the intercom.

  “…” He paused, frowning. He looked at the LCD monitor on the wall, but there was no video. He wasn’t being called from the front of the building, but from the bell in front of his door.

  It’s probably a solicitor who slipped in through the auto-locked front area as another resident was passing through, he thought and decided to ignore the bell. But just as he was about to return to his work, there was a loud knock on the door accompanied by a loud and irritated voice.

  “Mr. Suka, it’s Ooshima from next door! I know you’re home!” the voice called.

  Suka clicked his tongue. It was the housewife who lived one room to his right, and he knew why she was here. He tried ignoring her, but she wouldn’t stop knocking on the door. With a sigh, Suka finally stopped his work and walked toward the door.

  “Hey, I know you’re there! I just heard you out on the veranda!” the woman yelled.

  To at least convey some of his irritation, he roughly and loudly flipped the lock to the door. Opening the door as little as possible, so that she wouldn’t see into his apartment, Suka stepped out into the hallway and turned to face Mrs. Ooshima.

  The round middle-age woman wearing glasses with colored lenses shook her drooping cheeks with anger as she yelled, “Mr. Suka, I’ve already told you several times before not to put your plants out on the veranda, haven’t I? But today, when I looked around the barrier between our apartments…it looks like a jungle out there! Lately these disgusting bugs have been coming over to our veranda, and I bet they’re coming from your side! Just where is your common sense?!”

  …You peeked around the barrier? Suka thought, trying to control the anger lurking in his throat before making the same argument he made three days ago.

  “As I am aware, according to the rules laid down by the management, tenants are allowed to put decorative plants out on their verandas.”

  “That doesn’t mean that you can go and make your veranda a forest!!” Mrs. Ooshima screeched. “When people see that forest from the outside, it’s an embarassment to the entire apartment complex! How are you going to take responsibility if the property value falls?! Plus, even if it’s allowed to put plants on the veranda, there’s nothing saying it’s okay to raise bugs!!”

  Suka’s irritation spread from his chest to his right shoulder and down to his right hand. In his clenched fist, that object started to give off a gentle heat.

  I’ll burn you to ash, you old hag, thought Suka, fireworks going off deep inside his mind. But with a deep breath, he was somehow able to calm himself down.

  “But Mrs. Ooshima. From what I can tell looking at your veranda from outside, you seem to have several potted plants as well,” Suka said in a low voice, objecting once more. In reality, on the Ooshimas’ veranda there were several large potted plants, even if it wasn’t to the extent Suka maintained.

  However, many of the plants she was keeping outside, such as anthurium and areca palms, had a low tolerance to cold and most of their leaves had fallen away. It was a pitiful reflection of her, but more than that, he felt sorry for the plants.

  “…By the way, I wanted to tell you that the anthuriums you have can’t survive outside in the winter like this, so until it gets warmer, I think you should move them inside…,” Suka started.

  “You’ve been peeking into my veranda?! H-how obscene!!” Mrs. Ooshima suddenly shrieked, her thick lips and cheeks shivering. “We have a young daughter living at home with us! I can’t believe you were peeking! The police! I need to call the police!”

  Wait a minute, Suka thought. Aren’t you the one who just said something about the way my veranda looks lowering property values? Even before that, didn’t you say that you were peeking around the barrier to look at my veranda?

  His shock only lasted a moment before his anger came back twofold, like a spasm running through his back.

  I want to burn her, he thought. I want to burn this lowly, ignorant, sad excuse for a living thing until there’s nothing of her left but a small black stain.

  But even without going that far, all I would have to do is grasp the air around her and deprive her of oxygen until she fainted. After all, right now her ugly dilated nose and mouth are sucking in air like a vacuum cleaner, he thought.

  But no, now wasn’t the time. He couldn’t yet use his power within the scope of his home, workplace, or his route to work. Suka was warned that there were those who hunted red Third Eye hosts, hosts with black Third Eyes… That was also when he learned that this thing was called a Third Eye.

  The black hunters could detect when reds used their powers from a great distance away and would come to attack them.

  In the beginning, back when he didn’t know anything about the Third Eyes, when Suka believed that he was the only one endowed with this power, he was attacked once by the black hunters. He was barely able to get away by depriving one of their members of oxygen, but before that he had been heavily wounded.

  Of course, he intended to take revenge, especially on the one girl who drove a knife deep into his stomach. If nothing else, he would make sure she burned. It was for that sake that he trained in the mountains to strengthen his power. He would look for an opportunity, plan and set a meticulous trap, and beautifully oxidize her.

  So now was not the time for him to be consumed by petty rage.

  Breathing in air deep to the depths of his lungs, Suka visualized the oxygen purifying his blood and faced the hysterical woman with a level tone. “If you feel you must call the police, then do as you will. As for plants on my veranda, let us bring it up at the next management meeting. Good night.”

  Shutting the middle-age woman’s screeching voice out of his mind, he returned to his apartment and shut the door. He turned the lock and returned to his living room. Even while he continued about his work moving his plants, the spark of anger in his chest would not completely go out.

  But that is fine for now, Suka thought.

  Anger magnifies strength. In order for me to take my revenge on the black hunters, I need to grasp an even wider area of oxygen. It’s not enough that I can only just barely burn a single person away, he thought. I need to be able to call forth the great fires of Sodom that burned those very skies and burn them all in a single sweep like insects that fly into a flame.

  Having finished carrying all the potted plants in from the veranda, he shut the glass door and stood in the middle of his green-filled living room with his arms spread wide. He took in with his entire body the great volumes of oxygen ejected from the plants that had bathed in sunlight all day.

  “Ohh…,” he sighed in ecstasy, curling the fingers of his right hand. The crimson eye in the middle of his palm pulsed happily.

  4

  After they had finished eating, Riri quickly returned to the experiment area and Yumiko said that she would clean up and took the dishes into the kitchen.

  Minoru, left at the dining table, stared blankly out the window at the nightly scene of east Shinjuku. Once he heard a loud clanging sound from the kitchen, but he carefully decided to pretend he didn’t hear
anything.

  A few minutes later, Yumiko returned with two steaming mugs.

  “Here you go,” she said.

  “Ah, thank you,” Minoru replied, taking his cup with a nod. At first glance, it appeared to be coffee, but as he brought the cup closer to check how it smelled, Yumiko glared at him from across the table.

  “You don’t have to be that rude. Even I can prepare coffee, you know? Instant coffee at least,” she said, taking out a couple of packs of sweeteners from her skirt pocket and setting them on the table. “Here, use whichever you like.”

  “All right…,” said Minoru, taking a pack of gum syrup, wondering if it was really all right to put one of these in hot coffee, but as Yumiko seemed to do so with no problem, Minoru followed suit. I suppose gum syrup’s sweetening effect doesn’t change, no matter what you put it in, he thought.

  After they both took a sip, Yumiko spoke. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  “…What do you mean?” he asked.

  “For deciding your code name for you. It’s still not too late if you want to change it now…,” said Yumiko, acting unusually meek, but Minoru shook his head.

  “No, it’s fine. I wasn’t lying when I said I liked it. I think the name Isolator is really fitting,” he said.

  It seemed that Yumiko based the name Isolator on Minoru’s wish to be in “a world where no one knew him,” but whenever Minoru activated his defensive shell, he truly was put in complete isolation. Cut off from the rest of the world, the only thing that could reach him from the outside was light. He couldn’t think of any other word more fitting to describe that state than isolation.

  “I mean, it actually sounds kind of cool. I’m not sure I can live up to the name,” he added.

  Minoru didn’t think he had said anything out of the ordinary, but for some reason, Yumiko looked upset.

  “…Well, if you don’t have a problem with it, I don’t mind,” she said before taking a large sip of coffee and almost spitting it out with a gasp because it was too hot.