Boogiepop Returns VS Imaginator Part 2

by Kadono. Kouhei

  “Whaaat?! You know me?” Kotoe stared, amazed.

  My sister snorted. “Thought so. Girl like Kinukawa Kotoe, suddenly acting crazy...”

  “What do you mean?!”

  “You aren't Kinukawa,” she said quietly. “You're just borrowing her face, or maybe you brainwashed her. I dunno, but absolutely every student at Shinyo Academy knows who I am.”

  She looked awfully used to this.

  “What are you?” Kotoe asked.

  “I'm not big on giving out my name as much as he is. And I'm the one asking questions. Who's controlling you?” she asked, pointedly.

  I was confused now.

  What the... ?

  Brainwashed?

  So it wasn't this woman who'd done something to Orihata?

  “............ “ Kotoe fell silent.

  Then her face twisted into a smile again.

  “Oooooh... I get it. I found you, buried down in Kinukawa Kotoe's memories. You're that 'Fire Witch.' Didn't seem that important, at the time, but I guess I blew it, not leaving that in the conscious registers. Never thought the class delinquent would be doing something like this.”

  This was nothing like the way Kotoe had been talking -- she sounded like a middle-aged man with the face of a girl.

  “Answer me,” my sister said, unmoved. Was she always doing stuff like this?

  “My, my. First him, then the Imaginator, now you... problems everywhere I turn.” Whatever was inside her grinned at us. Her eyes stayed perfectly round, which made the smile that much more sinister. “Good thing I took the precaution of sending in two teams.”

  She snapped her fingers.

  “...... !”

  My sister suddenly flung herself to the side.

  And from above, one after another, something -- no, someone, fell on her.

  Punk-styled men were attacking from the air!

  (WHAT-- ?!)

  I looked up. Out of the second floor staircase window of the building beside us came a swarm of punks, skinheads, and yakuza-looking men, all leaping down into the alley. Like the first bunch, this motley crew seemed to have nothing to do with each other.

  The six men I'd knocked out earlier were just the main course? These others had all been waiting on standby?!

  “N-nagi-neesa-- !” I tried to tell her to run, but...

  “Hmph!”

  Making a noise somewhere between a grunt and a chuckle, she dodged every nail- ridden bat they swung at her.

  Then she'd kick them, zap them with her stun gun, dodge a blow from behind without even looking...

  It was all so fast...

  She was taking on five or six at a time, never flinching, never hesitating -- knocking them down like bowling pins. She was insanely strong.

  (Wh-who the hell is she?)

  By any standard, she was far stronger than me. And it wasn't because she had a weapon. No, she was good without one, but with a weapon, it was like it became an extension of her own body. It was a clear sign of just how good she was.

  Now that I thought about it, I remember once asking my shishou what my sister, the daughter of his friend, had been like as a child.

  Shishou had laughed, and said only this: “I couldn't keep up with her.”

  But I'd never thought he meant it literally.

  “……..”

  Both body and mind now stunned and unable to move, Nagi suddenly grabbed me by the front of my shirt and flung me across the alley.

  'Aaah!' I thought, and a second later, a skinhead landed where I'd been lying. She'd saved me from getting trampled.

  Now that is true strength.

  Bam, bam, all the punks went flying, kicked or zapped.

  “......”

  I no longer understood anything, but did my best to move, trying to keep out of my sister's way.

  Suddenly, a yakuza-looking guy landed right in front of me.

  I panicked for a moment, but he was out cold. Wasn't even twitching.

  Just as I started to get angry with him for startling me, I noticed the key holder hanging from his alligator belt.

  There were a bunch of keys that looked to go to various motorcycles and cars, and so on, but the one my eyes had latched onto, was...

  “Th-that's...”

  I forced my frozen arm through horrible pain, and grabbed the key.

  I'd seen that key before.

  I'd seen her holding it, once.

  “Oh god...”

  It belonged to Orihata. It was her apartment key.

  ***

  “Shit-- ! What is she?!” Kinukawa Kotoe snarled, watching the terminals get pulverized by one girl. Kotoe picked up the gun Taniguchi Masaki had dropped, and fired it in the girl's direction.

  It hit the girl square in the back.

  “Unh!” She fell forwards... and turned it into a forward somersault. She was back on her feet in a second flat.

  Bulletproof clothing!

  She spun towards Kotoe, and glared at her.

  “Sh-- shit!” Kotoe fired the gun a few times. But the enemy was moving too fast, and none of the bullets hit her. Most of them hit her allies, the terminals.

  They, however, were not bulletproof. They simply toppled over, spurting blood.

  “Stop it!” the girl roared.

  (l'm finished... !) Kotoe thought, and fled, abandoning her allies.

  “Wait!” the girl called, but that wasn't going to happen.

  “Keep her here!” Kotoe yelled at the terminals.

  They did as they were told, flinging themselves at Taniguchi Masaki's sister despite their wounds.

  “Argh!” she roared, knocking them aside, one after the other.

  When the last one went down, she looked around her.

  There was no sign of Kotoe.

  “Damn,” she muttered. Then she noticed her brother was missing too. “That idiot!” she said, irritated, but her tone was more worried than annoyed.

  “Okay. Guess I'll have to take care of you boys first,” she said, looking down at the groaning terminal in front of her.

  She poked her stun gun against his head.

  “If this is the guy I think it is, this ought to fix things,” and a weaker burst of electricity coursed through the terminal's head.

  She repeated this with all of them. Even those with gunshot wounds-- none of the wounds were fatal, so she let them be.

  “Okay...” she said, looking up. She checked to see just how many power lines were running overhead.

  Then she picked up the five guns lying on the ground. They all had silencers on them, so she unscrewed them, and held the pieces in both hands.

  She fired and fired until there were no bullets left, leaving the street echoing with more gunfire than a yakuza flick.

  ***

  Kinukawa Kotoe heard the noise as well.

  “What-- ?!”

  She had already fled onto a different street, but the noise carried like the wind.

  Everyone in earshot knew something was up.

  (What is that crazy bitch thinking... ?)

  The people around her were turning their heads, and moving towards the noise. Presumably they had never heard real gunshots before. In this respect, Japan was still a peaceful country.

  But Kotoe had no intention of turning back and making sure of anything. She wanted to get away as quickly as humanly possible.

  But, as everyone around her headed towards the noise, and Kotoe started up the road in a temporary vacuum, her feet suddenly stopped.

  A man was standing in front of her.

  He was not heading towards the noise, but looking right at her, waiting quietly.

  He was wearing white.

  “……..”

  Kotoe could not understand why this had such an impact on her. To be strictly accurate, the surface consciousness Spooky E had imprinted on Kotoe did not understand.

  (Who... is this again?)

  She thought, mystified to find herself fretting because he'd seen her.

&
nbsp; “……..”

  The man in white moved slowly towards her.

  He looked very sad. Kotoe felt that expression was very familiar.

  Like something she had long since left behind...

  “Wh......... wh-- who...... are you?!” she shrieked.

  Right there in the middle of the street, heedless as to who might see her, she pulled out her gun and pointed it at the man.

  “............ “ The man in white kept walking toward her.

  Kotoe took a step backwards, helpless.

  She couldn't let him get close to her. She couldn't even look at his face.

  She had to run away. She turned her back and took a step...

  And he grabbed her hand.

  “-- Kotoe-chan…”

  he whispered.

  When she heard his voice, Kotoe burst into tears. “L-- let go!” she screamed, but it was a very feeble scream.

  The man in white did as she asked.

  Kotoe staggered, tripped over her own feet, no longer able to walk.

  The man was in front of her again.

  “I've known how you felt for a long time,” he said, quietly.

  Kotoe could not answer. Consciously, she was unable to understand anything he said, but her body had frozen, unable to react.

  “Wh-what... ?” slipped out of her mouth despite this, but he ignored it completely.

  “I know that you were, in your own fashion, quite serious about me. But at the same time, I could see you. So I knew very well that, even if you loved me, you would never become happy.” His voice droned on and on, like some sort of machine.

  “Ahhhh...” Kotoe began shaking.

  “Your feelings are, sadly, nothing more than childish admiration, Kotoe-chan. You will never be able to truly love anything. That's the way you are. Half of your feelings for me were nothing more than pity. You were only able to convince yourself that this was love because you are still a child.”

  “Aaaah…”

  “And you will always be lonely. You will never understand why you seem to be incapable of being truly passionate about anything... which will be an eternal source of sorrow. That's why I interested you. I appeared to be sad, and you wondered if I was the same as you-- but that was a delusion.”

  “Aaaaaaaahhhh...”

  “I never really felt sadness. Only despair. I lacked a future, but had no feelings like yours. Whatever you wanted from me, I could have given you nothing.”

  “Aaaaaaahhhhh, aahhh...”

  From the moment he started talking, Kotoe had been bawling. Her face was frozen and expressionless, but her tears were pouring down her cheeks.

  “There is no world where we can be together,” he said, and closed his mouth at last.

  “Ah, aaaaah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh. . .”

  Kotoe shook so hard she almost fell over, and had to grab onto the man for support.

  “.... ..H...... he.. ....help...... “ her expression shattered, and she struggled to say something through her tears. “...... Help... help me... help me, Jin-niisan...... help me!”

  A name she should not have been able to say escaped her lips.

  Like a lost child who has at last found its parents, she clung to the man-- to her beloved Asukai Jin.

  “-- If I only could,” he said, in the same quiet voice. “I've been hoping I could for a long time now. If only I could help you... but I can't. I still have no idea what to do for you. I know that you should not be with me. Regardless of what you felt that night you spoke to me, when I was waiting for snow alone outside.”

  Only this last line showed any trace of warmth.

  Kotoe was well beyond her stress limits, and was unable to stop her consciousness from fading away. “Jin. . . nii. . . sa. . .n. . . . . .”

  The world in front of her darkened. From the darkness, she heard a voice, unchanged from a moment before, ask, “Where is Spooky E?”

  Kotoe might have said something in reply. But she was no longer capable of knowing what.

  For a second, she felt as if she were being embraced, but it may just have been her imagination.

  “I'm sorry. Goodbye,” came a voice from so far away that it may well have been in the next world. It was the last time she ever heard it......

  ***

  ......When people came back, they found a girl lying in the middle of the road. She was taken away in an ambulance, and regained consciousness a few hours later. She attempted to explain herself to the policeman sitting by her side, but he only nodded kindly.

  “We've figured out most of it by now.”

  The gunfire incident concluded in a rather odd manner, since almost everyone involved had received an electric shock, and was unable to remember anything about it. The forensics team believed that one of the bullets had struck a power line, which in turn had sent a current running through the ditch water left standing in the alley. The area was a mess, and they were unable to find any further evidence.

  There were a few witnesses, but all of them just said stuff like, “I didn't see anyone else come out of there.” So they were forced to conclude that the scuffle had ended in this extremely unusual fashion.

  The reason for the scuffle was lost in a sea of confusion, but at least a few of the people lying there were known drug dealers, which made things simple. The punks, skinheads, and indie musicians lying around them remembered being asked by the girl to look for something. The police in turn concluded that she had been the leader, and had been investigating ties to a possible drug syndicate. As further evidence, a strange outfit often described by recently arrested drug dealers was found lying at the scene.

  “The only thing left is motive, which we heard as well. Your cousin cooperated with us once before. He was involved in a case where one of your friends died. He told us you were unable to let that situation rest.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. It was pretty bad. She was so far into withdrawal, the pain led her to stab herself in the throat. I know just how you feel.”

  “My friend...” she said absently, lying still in her hospital bed.

  She was a little out of it.

  The police were not surprised. “You've done a few things we could probably charge you for, but really, why? Mitigating circumstances are good enough for me. The people who helped you will get off with a suspended sentence as well, I think. After all, you have managed to completely destroy a drug operation.”

  “……..”

  “I'm gonna let you take it easy and start recovering from shock now,” the policeman said kindly.

  All she could do was thank him, in a voice without emotion.

  V

  A perfect victory is difficult to obtain,

  But it is even more difficult to lose well.

  – Kirima Seiichi (VS Imaginator)

  Trying not to puke from the lingering effects of the stun gun my sister had zapped me with, I boarded a bus and headed straight for Orihata's apartment building.

  (Urp...... )

  The more you try to suppress the urge, the more attention you attract. I barely managed to look normal.

  I had lost the Boogiepop outfit Orihata had made me.

  That felt strange.

  I felt like that had been the link between us, and without it, I couldn't settle down.

  But I could no longer rely on it. Either way, Kinukawa Kotoe had been taken into custody, and there was no way for me to ask her where Orihata was.

  I got off the bus, and walked the route to Orihata's apartment, which I had followed countless times before (to which I always turned back at the entrance).

  I was a little worried that someone would stop me, but no one ever did, and I was soon standing outside the door to her apartment.

  I rang the bell, my heart pounding.

  There was no answer...

  I rang it again.

  Still nothing...

  I gritted my teeth, pulled out the key, and unlocked the door.

  Now that I thought about
it, Orihata had never once actually come over to my home, and this was my first time ever entering hers. Yeah, all things considered, we had had a rather strange relationship.

  “Hello?” I whispered, stepping in.

  My feet stopped almost instantly.

  “Uh...... ?!”

  The room was empty.

  There wasn't a trace of anyone living here.

  “W-wait a minute...” I said, flustered.

  This was absurd. I had dropped her off here almost every day, and the key was the right key, so... feeling myself beginning to panic, I looked around the apartment again, and found a sleeping bag lying in the corner of the empty living room.

  I gulped.

  I crept over to it, and picked it up by the corner.

  I sniffed -- I know, kinda creepy -- and it smelled like her hair did whenever she leaned in close to powder my face in makeup.

  (Orihata-- slept here?)

  I dropped the sleeping bag and peered around the room.

  Her Shinyo Academy uniform was hanging on the wall.

  I opened the closet, and found the rest of her clothes. I'd seen everything in there. It was all of the clothes she'd ever worn on our dates.

  And that was it...

  Nothing casual, nothing for around the house. No sweatshirts, no jerseys, no pajamas. Nothing.

  “……..”

  Hesitantly, I opened what I assumed was her underwear drawer.

  Only one type, and they were all lined up. It was as if she'd bought them on sale somewhere.

  I glanced back towards her clothes.

  I had seen all of them... but one set was missing.

  “Where are the clothes she was wearing the last time I saw her... ?” I said with an uneasy feeling gnawing at my gut.

  I went into the kitchen. The stove looked barely even used, so I looked in her garbage. It was filled with empty convenience store bento. I flipped through each of them.

  No recent dates...

  The most recent one was the day before I last saw her.

  “.........” I felt suddenly dizzy, and fell over on the floor.

  (What does this mean-- ?)

  Where was Orihata?