The Biter

by Reki Kawahara

  “Oh… But isn’t she just going to have her memory erased anyway…?” Minoru muttered, inclining his head.

  Yumiko, who was leaning against the wall with her arms folded, said in a slightly harsh voice, “You really don’t understand people’s feelings, do you? Even if she forgets, you’ll still have the memory, right? That’s waaay more important, at least for her.”

  “…”

  But for me—

  For me, memories are always heavy, painful, sad things, Minoru repeated to himself as he recalled all the things that had happened after he ran across Tomomi Minowa on the embankment of the Arakawa River in the early morning.

  He definitely did wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t said or done the things he did then.

  But it was surprising even for Minoru that that wasn’t all he felt. Tomomi smiling in front of a backdrop of pure white fog. Tomomi as they walked next to each other down the hallway at school. Even Tomomi shedding tears on the bench in Akigase Park. Inside him, these images gave Minoru a feeling of sweet pain that was not at all unpleasant.

  “…Let me see Minowa,” Minoru said softly.

  Himi nodded, smiling.

  Tomomi Minowa’s hospital room was also on the highest floor, not too far from the private room Norie was in.

  When Himi knocked on the door, a voice from inside answered right away, saying, “Come on in.”

  With Yumiko prodding him in the back, Minoru steeled himself and pulled open the sliding door. When he stepped into the private room, the thing he sensed before anything else was not the smell of fresh flowers beside the bed, but the scent of Tomomi herself that he had smelled countless times. It reminded him of the sun.

  “What’re you just standing there for?” a voice from behind him said quietly.

  Minoru stepped forward as he thought, And what’re you doing following me?

  Going around the white curtain, he saw Tomomi Minowa sitting upright serenely in the middle of the large bed.

  Over her yellow pajamas, she was wearing an ivory cardigan. She seemed better than he had expected. The moment she saw Minoru, she broke into a big grin and waved her right hand.

  “Mornin’! I’m glad you came, Utsugi. Don’t just stand over there; c’mere.”

  Having already been told that earlier, he couldn’t help but walk over to the bedside. Luckily—if luck was the right word for it—Yumiko and Himi stayed on the other side of the curtain.

  “G…good morning, Minowa. How are you feeling…?”

  He felt embarrassed about looking directly at Tomomi in her pajamas while he asked, but he managed to keep eye contact as she looked straight at him.

  “I’m completely fine. From the start, I was only a little scratched up. Wanting to run is really driving me crazy.”

  After bouncing her feet up and down under the covers and laughing, Tomomi suddenly fell silent.

  After a few seconds of silence, she asked him quietly, “…What happened to him…?”

  He knew instantly that she was talking about the Biter. So Tomomi really had seen the Ruby Eye with his grotesquely transformed face, and she remembered it well, too.

  Taking a big breath, Minoru spoke each word clearly.

  “…Everything’s fine now. He’s gone.”

  “Really?! Did you crush him for me, Utsugi?!”

  “…”

  Of course, it wasn’t like Minoru had taken down—no, killed—the Biter on his own. But if he tried to be modest and hold back in front of Tomomi now, it would only be for his own sake.

  Minoru nodded with a soft yet certain motion and said, “Yeah. I have a power that lets me fight guys like that. So if any more bad guys come around, it’s fine. Because I…”

  Minoru stopped to take a breath and said in a louder voice, “Because I’ll protect you, Minowa.”

  At this, Tomomi’s eyes grew even wider, glittering like a starry sky. The stars gathered together and spilled from her eyes as pale, twinkling drops of water.

  Minoru had seen Tomomi’s tears three days ago in the twilight of Akigase Park as well. But now, he felt like the tears that wetted her white cheeks were a completely different color and temperature.

  Even as the teardrops spilled from her eyes, Tomomi gave him another big smile and said, “Okay,” in a shaking voice.

  After taking a few deep breaths and getting her trembling breathing under control, she wiped her cheeks and went on talking.

  “Um, you know…they’ve been telling me I have to forget what happened in the park. I don’t mind forgetting about that scary guy, but…it’s too bad that I’ll forget you protected me, Utsugi.”

  “…Mm…”

  With Minoru unable to say anything else, Tomomi leaned forward in bed and put out her right hand. From the clenched hand, she stuck out only her thin pinkie.

  “Hey, Utsugi, promise me something. Even if I forget what happened in the park or all the times I talked to you before then…promise you’ll still be my friend again when we meet on the embankment of the Arakawa River.”

  “…Okay.” Minoru nodded.

  Putting out his right hand, he wrapped his pinkie around Tomomi’s.

  As they said, “Pinkie swear,” in unison, Minoru realized that he would at least keep this promise, even if this was a relationship he would someday lose.

  He was just a little surprised at himself for thinking that way.

  Minoru and Yumiko went out, leaving Himi in the hospital room to perform Tomomi’s memory block.

  They cut through the hallways and stood in front of a window. In the eastern sky, the morning star shone white amid the gradient created by night turning to morning.

  The red and black Third Eyes had come from a much farther place than that star and descended to Earth. And then they changed the fates of those humans they encountered.

  What meaning was there in that? Or was there no meaning at all?

  “—Do you still feel like you want that girl…and everyone around you to forget about you?” Yumiko said quietly as she, too, looked up at the stars from beside him.

  Minoru nodded, dropping his gaze to the city lights on the surface of the Earth.

  “Well, then, I guess we’ll only be knowing each other for a limited amount of time. For the time being, I’ll introduce myself. Face this way.”

  Minoru turned. As she faced him and stuck her right hand straight out, she spoke in a dignified voice.

  “—My name is Yumiko Azu, code name Accelerator. Let’s work well together until I forget you.”

  So we never actually gave each other our names, he thought as he gently gripped Yumiko’s scratched-up hand.

  “I’m Minoru Utsugi. Let’s work well together for as long as you remember me.”

  The End

  AFTERWORD

  Nice to meet you, or long time no see. This is Reki Kawahara. Thank you for reading the first volume of Isolator.

  This is my first new series in the five years since my debut in 2009, but just like another of my works, Sword Art Online, this book is based on a work that was serialized on the Internet. I’d like to start off by writing about why the book was released at this point, when both SAO and Accel World are still being published.

  There are two major reasons. The first is that, although I put Isolator (the title of the Web version is slightly different: Isolation) on hiatus while it was still incomplete, it’s been stuck in the corner of my mind ever since my pro debut. If I had to say one way or the other, I tend to be the type who writes stories under pressure, so I was always concerned that I might never start writing it again if I abandoned it at this point.

  The second reason is an issue of capacity.

  For these past five years, I’ve basically published books at a rate of six books a year, putting one out every even month. This wasn’t really something I decided from the start. When the end of the year approaches and my editor and I discuss the next year’s schedule, it concludes with me declaring my intentions by saying something vag
ue like, “Well…let’s do things the same way we did this year I guess…”

  That’s why I didn’t think much of it when, at the end of last year, my editor and I agreed to do one less book in 2014 for a total of five books. This was because the time it takes me to work on one book has gone up in comparison to the start of my debut and because it seems like my work outside of publishing will be increasing. However, afterward, a feeling of doubt or maybe hesitation bubbled up inside me. I wondered, Is it okay to mess up my pace this easily? Before I decrease the number of books I publish, shouldn’t I do my best for as long as I can?

  Even I don’t really understand what point there is in getting hung up on six books. Maybe it’s just that I’m randomly afraid of having something or other change when I do five books. In any case, that’s when I thought of taking the existing manuscript of Isolator, doing the minimum amount of editing, and turning it into a book. I thought if I did that, I could release one more book without putting pressure on my schedule.

  Of course, before that, I had to get my editor to read the manuscript and look into whether it would be right for publishing. Luckily I received the okay, so I dove right into the editing.

  However, the portion that seemed suitable for the first book was a draft from ten years ago, so parts that bothered me just kept coming up… I tried to fix everything that I could within reason, from small things like sentence composition and phrasing all the way up to big things like establishing characters, but before I knew it I’d rewritten more than 90 percent of the manuscript.

  Naturally this took more time than either SAO or AW. It put intense pressure on my schedule, and I got to hear things like, “I knew this would happen…” from my editor. Still, I have no regrets. I feel that I poured every last drop of the light novel skills I currently have into this book, so now the only thing left is to hope that you all will enjoy it.

  I’ll end the discussion of the publishing process here and talk about the content a bit as well.

  If we were to summarize Isolator by genre, would it go into the “supernatural battling” category? I’m both surprised and impressed by myself from ten years ago; he allowed himself to just write using the twist-free premise of “young men and women with mysterious abilities battling evil and powerful people.” However, when I think about it, my other two works don’t have any big twists, either, so instead of giving up on this book as being just that…I plan to be positive and move forward like I’m pitching a fastball as hard as I can.

  If there was a part that could somehow be thought of as a twist, would it be the main character Minoru’s ability? It’s called a “protective shell” in the book, but more simply, it’s the embodiment of something else: Who didn’t, as a child, cross their arms in front of themselves and shout, “Force field”?

  …I apologize, I guess that’s not really a twist after all…

  It’s a complete protective ability that might seem a little strange for a main character. However, for me this was a rare series where I also wrote quite a bit from the enemy’s point of view, so this adds the element of powerful enemies trying to figure out how to conquer Minoru’s complete protective barrier. I’m working so hard to accumulate ideas that I even asked all of you to let me know through Twitter or letters if you had any great ideas about how to conquer it. Still, since the publication of Zettai Naru Kodokusha originally started from coincidence, it still hasn’t been decided when the second book will come out. Before that, the publisher is still undecided about whether or not to put out the second book… But for now I’ll say that all I can do as the author is try my hardest! With that, I hope to see you for the second book that will (probably) come out someday. The subtitle for this one will be “The Igniter.”

  To my editor, Miki, who went through so much trouble and concern and annoyance because of the process I explained earlier, thank you for taking such great care of me! To Shimeji, who again took on a variety of difficult tasks involved in illustrating a light novel and who provided cool, beautiful, and impactful illustrations, thank you so very much! And just one more time here at the end, I’d like to ask all of you to cheer me on!

  A certain day in April 2014

  Reki Kawahara

  Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Yen On.

  To get news about the latest manga, graphic novels, and light novels from Yen Press, along with special offers and exclusive content, sign up for the Yen Press newsletter.

  Sign Up

  Or visit us at www.yenpress.com/booklink