Perfect rationing, if I do say so myself! Feeling a certain satisfaction in his heart, Haruyuki looked at Utai with a smile and started, “Okay, now the valve…” before stopping in his tracks.
His partner had been in charge of the valve but was now inside the hutch, and so couldn’t reach the spigot. And that valve wasn’t automatic, so the water wasn’t going to stop when they reached their limit. Which meant they would be over their allotment in a minute or two if the water kept flowing like this. Naturally, he wouldn’t be arrested and sent to jail or anything, but a “minor infraction” would be noted on his record in the local net, and that would lead to a teacher having words with him at some later date, words he very much did not want to have.
“Crap.” Haruyuki instantly gripped the hose as hard as he could. The dammed water flow shuddered in protest, but the meter essentially stopped. Astutely guessing the situation from Haruyuki’s actions, Utai stopped her typing, threw the brush down, whirled around, and ran for the stopcock. And then it happened. Catastrophe.
Haruyuki’s thumb applying firm pressure to the hose slipped, and the superpowered water surged out with overwhelming force, a fully charged long-distance attack and—
Splash! A direct hit on the gym-clothing-clad Utai from her right shoulder down to her stomach.
His brain overflowed at the magnitude of the disaster he had himself wrought; he froze. In contrast, although the much younger elementary school student did stop dead for a moment, a look of surprise on her face, she quickly started running again. She crouched down by the stopcock in the corner of the school building about three meters away and quickly shut the valve off. The water meter in the right corner of his vision was at 0.2 percent; they had narrowly avoided overusage.
But, unaware of this, Haruyuki remained frozen, the hose in his right hand hanging in the air. He watched Utai trot back over to him, typing as a tiny ocean of water drops trickled down from her torso.
UI> PLEASE DON’T WORRY ABOUT THIS. I CHANGED INTO MY GYM CLOTHES BEFORE I CAME, READY FOR JUST SUCH AN EVENTUALITY. Then, the look on her face not changing, she pulled up a large chunk of the hem of the shirt plastered to her skin and wrung it out with both hands.
The paleness of the bare skin he saw whether he wanted to or not due to this innocent gesture crashed into the transmission of Haruyuki’s idling thoughts and got things in gear. The speedometer plunged into the red zone at once. When Haruyuki had finally recovered to the point of his normal reaction to stress and/or embarrassment—increased sweating, redness of the face, heart palpitations—he snapped to attention.
“I-I’m—I’m sorry!!” he shouted in an inside-out voice. “R-r-really sorry! Th-that totally wasn’t on purpose. M-m-m-my hand slipped a-a-and the water—the water splashed…”
Utai blinked a few times as she cocked her small head before her fingers flashed along once more. UI> IT’S FINE! I ALSO BROUGHT A CHANGE OF CLOTHES, SO THERE’S REALLY NO PROBLEM.
“B-b-b-but getting hit by water with that kind of power, your N-N…”
Your Neurolinker will get wet, he tried to say, looking at Utai’s slender neck.
Every model of Neurolinker, an everyday wearable device, was water-resistant to the extent that the wearer could wash or bathe with it on. However, the direct connection terminals and the camera lens were weak points, and there was the risk of water getting in and causing a malfunction if these areas were immersed in water or hit with a high-pressure jet. This was what Haruyuki was worried about. But.
He kept looking at the nape of Utai’s neck, covered by the broad-based ponytail, and he kept seeing nothing there. Just the tips of the fine hairs there glistening with tiny water drops; there was absolutely nothing in the way of a device.
“What…” The word slipped out of Haruyuki, struck by a new kind of surprise.
Utai Shinomiya was not wearing a Neurolinker. But that wasn’t possible. Less than an hour ago, she had made an ad hoc connection with his own Neurolinker. She’d been talking with him through the chat tool this whole time.
Thinking about it, Haruyuki finally stumbled on the question he should have hit a lot sooner: Why chat? He had just accepted it because they could have a conversation without any lag thanks to her incredible typing speed, but now that he was really thinking about it, Utai hadn’t said anything in her physical voice since she showed up. And naturally, there had to be some kind of reason for that.
Utai seemed to intuit the meaning of Haruyuki’s gaze. The irises of her eyes seemed to have a bit of red mixed in as she turned them on him directly. She slid the fingertips of her right hand, and instantly, a long vertical rectangle popped up in his field of view.
A name tag. Displayed in the center was UTAI SHINOMIYA and then in a slightly smaller font, SUMIRE CLASS, GRADE FOUR, MATSUNOGI ACADEMY. BORN: SEPTEMBER 15, 2037.” However, a resident net-certified name tag was generally horizontal; this one was vertical for an unexpected reason: An unfamiliar certificate was attached below the name display field. The text, in a severe Mincho font, read, CERTIFICATE OF PERMISSION FOR USE OF A DURA-CONTAINED TRANSMISSION DEVICE FOR MEDICAL PURPOSES, and then below that to the right, a stamp of authentication from the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare.
Haruyuki stared at the row of kanji characters, the meaning of which was difficult to grasp at first glance. He went backward and forward, trying to pull out the meaning. Contained transmission device was a microchip implanted in the body. And dura was probably inside the skull—the membrane surrounding the brain. So a transmission chip implanted in the brain…Then that meant—
A brain implant chip. BIC for short.
“Ngh!” Haruyuki fiercely resisted his body’s impulse to jump back in shock.
A mere two months earlier, a seventh-grade student had appeared before him soon after the start of the new school year, a boy with terrifying plans who tried to steal a great number of things from Haruyuki. He, too, had had a BIC. At the end of a long and difficult battle, he—Dusk Taker—had left the Accelerated World forever, but the organization he belonged to was still going strong. In fact, a second assassin, Rust Jigsaw, had jumped into the Hermes’ Cord race event the previous week and released a wide-range Incarnate attack forcefully boosted by his BIC, destroying the race itself.
It wasn’t difficult to imagine the Acceleration Research Society, the organization both Linkers belonged to, ramping up their attacks on the Accelerated World, so Haruyuki couldn’t help but be reflexively on guard against Utai Shinomiya, a BIC user he was meeting for the first time. But before all of this showed up on his face, his eyes finally fell on the last of the words inscribed on the certificate.
Medical purposes.
The members of the Acceleration Research Society—Dusk Taker, Rust Jigsaw, and Black Vise—had all had their BICs implanted illegally through black-market surgeries. Naturally, they would not have certificates of approved use from the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare. Even if it was a fake, the complex stamp of authentication glittering on the surface of the tag at least could not be re-created, no matter what kind of hacker you were. Kuroyukihime had once presented a name tag with a revised name, but the tag itself hadn’t been created from zero. She had simply rewritten the encrypted name data. Although even that, no doubt, required a seriously high level of skill.
In other words, according to the certificate Utai was showing him, she had a legal BIC for medical treatment. In which case, what on earth was the medical problem?
Seeming to read these thoughts in his eyes with her sharp insight, Utai stroked her holokeyboard with a calm look. UI> I APOLOGIZE FOR NOT EXPLAINING SOONER. YOU WERE CHATTING SO NATURALLY WITH ME, ARITA, THAT I SIMPLY MISSED THE OPPORTUNITY TO MENTION IT. DUE TO EXPRESSIVE APHASIA, I’M NOT ABLE TO CONVERSE WITH MY PHYSICAL VOICE. SO I SPEAK WITH PEOPLE LIKE THIS IN CHAT, USING MY BIC.
“Ex…pressive?” Haruyuki said. He had a rough idea of what aphasia was, but was unable to dig out the meaning of the word attached before it.
; Naturally, the explanation scrolled out from Utai, who was likely used to typing it. UI> BROADLY SPEAKING, APHASIA IS DIVIDED INTO THE TWO CATEGORIES OF EXPRESSIVE AND RECEPTIVE. RECEPTIVE APHASIA IS A SYNDROME WHERE THE SUFFERER HAS DIFFICULTY UNDERSTANDING WORDS THEMSELVES, AND IN THAT SITUATION, A MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING CANNOT BE REACHED VIA CHAT. IN CONTRAST, EXPRESSIVE APHASIA IS A SYNDROME IN WHICH THE FUNCTION TO MOVE THE VOCAL ORGANS AND SPEAK IN WORDS IS INHIBITED. WE CAN UNDERSTAND WORDS, HOWEVER, SO READING AND WRITING IS POSSIBLE.
Haruyuki read the text displayed over and over until he finally digested the difference between the two, and then timidly gave voice to the question that popped into his head. “Umm…So then what about neurospeak with a directly connected Neurolinker instead of a BIC?”
Almost as if she had been expecting the question, Utai promptly typed out a reply. UI> NEUROSPEAK VIA THE NEUROLINKER IS NOT ACTUALLY THINKING, BUT A VOICE THAT IS RE-CREATED BY READING THE MOVEMENT SIGNALS OF THE SPEAKER ATTEMPTING TO MOVE THEIR MOUTH, TONGUE, AND CHEEKS. SOME PEOPLE WITH A MILD FORM OF EXPRESSIVE APHASIA ARE ABLE TO DO THIS, BUT THE SIGNALS TO PRODUCE A VOICE ARE COMPLETELY BLOCKED BY NEURONS SOMEWHERE IN MY BRAIN. LIKE THIS.
Here, Utai stopped typing and turned the index finger of her right hand toward her mouth. As Haruyuki stared intently, the small lips the color of cherry blossoms gently opened. He could just barely see the tip of her tongue between her droplet teeth shining like pearls. She took a deep breath and went to expel it as sound. Before she could, there was a hard, sharp clacking sound, and her top and bottom teeth were biting down forcefully. The tendons around her throat popped up thinly, trembling, showing the great effort in her jaw. He heard the creak of her teeth clamped down against her will, and a hint of pain crossed Utai’s neat face.
“I-I’m sorry! That’s good, that’s enough!!” Haruyuki cried out unconsciously, and took a step forward. He stretched a hand out toward a slim, rigid shoulder, but he hesitated to actually touch her and froze in a halfway position.
Fortunately, the tension in her was released a few seconds later. She tottered for a moment and, expelling a deep breath, she lifted her face and began typing only the slightest bit awkwardly. UI> I APOLOGIZE FOR WORRYING YOU. I WASN’T INITIALLY INTENDING TO REALLY TRY AND USE MY VOICE, BUT I GOT THE FEELING THAT PERHAPS I MIGHT BE ABLE TO SPEAK, AND I JUST…THERE’S NO REASON I WOULD BE ABLE TO, AND YET I DID SOMETHING SO STUPID. I DO APOLOGIZE.
“You don’t need to apologize.” Haruyuki shook his head fiercely. Deeply regretting that a mere minute before he had been alarmed by Utai’s BIC, he spoke urgently. “I-I’m the one who’s sorry, asking you about all this just to satisfy my own curiosity. I should know better; I know how neurospeak works…If I had just thought about it a little more…I’m the stupid one.”
Unable to look at her anymore, he dropped his head, and cherry-colored text scrolled slowly against the backdrop of the hutch’s floor tiles shining in the evening light that leaked in.
UI> THANK YOU SO MUCH. I’M NOT BOTHERED BY ANY OF THIS, SO PLEASE, ARITA, I HOPE YOU WON’T BE, EITHER. NOW THEN, SHALL WE PUT AWAY THE TOOLS? THE HUTCH IS SO NICE NOW. THAT’S MORE THAN ENOUGH CLEANING. I’M SURE MY LITTLE ONE WILL BE VERY HAPPY.
Haruyuki timidly raised his eyes and looked at Utai’s small face. Just as she had said—or rather written—there was not the slightest hint of ill humor there, and he finally relaxed his shoulders, nodding. “Right. I’ll put everything away. You should hurry and change. There’s an emergency exit on that side of the school building, and there’s a washroom on the left side a little ways in down the hallway there.” He spoke at high speed and had picked up the brush when a fairly forceful objection appeared in his field of view.
UI> I’M FINE. PLEASE LET ME FINISH THIS WITH YOU. I’LL TAKE THE HOS Her words stopped abruptly as she took a sharp breath.
Choo! she sneezed, somewhat adorably.
That was the first time Haruyuki heard Utai Shinomiya’s real voice.
5:45 PM. Having completed the mission to clean the animal hutch and return the cleaning tools, Haruyuki opened the Animal Care Club activity log file, added his name after the authentications already saved for the other two members, and sent it to the school system.
“Phew.” He let out a deep breath and once again looked around the now-clean space.
Although there were still little puddles of water here and there, the ceramic tiles, original light-brown color reinstated, were like a whole different floor from the mulch layer that was there before he started working. The stainless steel chicken wire and the plank walls were dusty, but they would clean up nicely if he took a brush to them the next day.
Of course, the emptiness inside was balanced out by the little mountain of dead leaves and dirt he had made in front of the hutch, but he should be able to stuff that into a garbage bag and throw it away once it dried. Fortunately, the weather forecast was predicting no real rainfall over the next few days, so it wouldn’t take too long for it to dry out.
“When you put your mind to it, you really can do it,” Haruyuki murmured.
Utai Shinomiya had finished changing and quickly typed out, UI> YESTERDAY, I ACTUALLY WAS ALLOWED TO TAKE A PRELIMINARY LOOK AT THE HUTCH. AT THE TIME, I EXPECTED THAT IT WOULD TAKE THREE OR FOUR DAYS BEFORE IT BECAME USABLE. BUT THE WORK’S GONE SO MUCH MORE QUICKLY THAN I ANTICIPATED. IT SEEMS I’LL BE ABLE TO BRING THE ANIMAL WHO’LL BE LIVING HERE TOMORROW. THE ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN QUITE INSISTENT ABOUT MOVING THINGS ALONG, SO THIS HELPS ME IMMENSELY. THANK YOU SO MUCH, ARITA.
“Oh, uh…If I had just been a little more together,” Haruyuki mumbled, omitting the words if I hadn’t sent the other two club members home early, “we could’ve finished a bit sooner. And…now I’m really curious. What kind of animal are you going to keep here?”
He glanced at Utai standing there next to him, and her large eyes with their red-tinged irises sparkled. She tapped just the index finger of her right hand rhythmically. UI> NOT. TELLING.
“O-oh. Then I guess I get to find out tomorrow,” he fumbled out in reply and once more turned his gaze directly to his side.
The summer uniform at Matsunogi Academy elementary was a straight-line dress with a white sailor collar and two wide darts running down from fairly high up on the waist. The whole silhouette was somehow reminiscent of old-style hakama pants.
Haruyuki’s eyes stopped unconsciously for a few seconds on this unfamiliar uniform before he brought his eyes hurriedly forward again. “Th-the school closes in ten minutes, so we should get going. Thanks for your help today.”
UI> THANK YOU. I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU AGAIN TOMORROW. Utai then typed something unexpected. I’M GOING TO GIVE MY GREETINGS TO THE STUDENT COUNCIL OFFICE, SO PLEASE GO ON AHEAD OF ME, ARITA.
“Huh?” He whirled his whole body to the right to stare at Utai.
She had indeed said before that she knew someone on the student council, but even still, it took surprising nerve for a fourth grader to march into the student council office of some junior high school.
She met his wide-open stare with a strange look and then dipped her head, typing coolly, UI> WELL THEN, IF YOU’LL PLEASE EXCUSE ME. HAVE A GOOD DAY, ARITA. She spun around and started walking briskly toward the main gate.
“O-oh, I’ll come, too!” Haruyuki called out to her back, half reflexively. “I know someone in the student council, too, so…”
He didn’t know how many people would still be in the student council office on the first floor of the first wing, but there was a pretty high probability that Kuroyukihime was among them. Kuroyukihime might very well react with the same feelings of alarm as Haruyuki at Utai’s BIC. He needed to tell her as soon as possible that there was no way that Utai, who wasn’t even wearing a Neurolinker, could be an assassin from the Acceleration Research Society or anything like that.
Utai looked at him trotting up alongside her, a curious expression on her face, but she simply nodded without saying—writing—anything.
They entered the campus thr
ough the main gates, and just as he had changed out of his filthy sneakers, a warning announcement from the school system played in his vision and hearing. He frowned at the synthetic voice, rambling on about how anyone who did not leave the school within five minutes would have a third-level infraction of school rules noted on their personal record. Even with the privileges of a club president, this was a rule he could not disobey. The only ones who could request permission to stay after the school closing time were the members of the student council.
His only choice was to get Kuroyukihime to let him stay longer, but he wasn’t sure she would approve of mixing business and personal like this. Heart racing, Haruyuki walked down the hallway of the first school wing, while Utai Shinomiya next to him looked as calm as she always did.
When I was in fourth grade, there’s a good chance I would’ve passed out just taking one step onto the campus of a junior high school I didn’t know. Pathetic thoughts racing through his head, he caught sight of the dead end on the west side. The door in the wall on the right led to the student council office. Now that he was thinking about it, in the year and three months since he’d started school here, he had never once been inside.
When Haruyuki hung back before the closed white sliding door, Utai raised her right hand without a hint of hesitation and knocked at a single point in the air. A holowindow was displayed, and she pressed the entry button.
Two seconds later, he heard the sharp click of the door being unlocked. Her expression unchanging, Utai slid the door open and stepped inside after bowing lightly.
Uh, umm, what should I…Haruyuki stood still in the hallway, agonizing even now, although he had already made his choice, until a familiar voice reached his ears.
“Sorry, Utai. My work here took longer than I expected. I suppose you’re not done cleaning the hutch yet? I’ll come and help right away.”
Shrine Maiden of the Sacred Fire Page 9