Truancy Origins

by Isamu Fukui

  Umasi fingered the card in his pocket, and then hastily withdrew his hand as though burned. He had taken it with him, and yet, tainted as it was by Zen’s charity, he could not bring himself to use it, not even to save his own life. Umasi’s clothes had lost some of their dampness over the night, and Umasi was getting used to how uncomfortable they felt. The chill had nearly frozen the fabric as well as the flesh beneath it, and stray snowflakes constantly threatened to dampen the clothes anew.

  Umasi had spent the night under a large tree in the Grand Park of District 20, the largest park in the entire City, a place where no one would go during a snowstorm, and where he was unlikely to be found even if they did. Umasi considered it a small miracle that he’d been able to walk in a daze all the way from District 13 to District 20, but he had collapsed shortly after reaching the tree. Some part of him genuinely had not expected to awake again.

  But he had, and so now he sat upon a lonely park bench, the storm having abated, though the snow still remained. Umasi’s hands gripped his arms tightly, fingers digging roughly into his shirt as they scrabbled almost desperately for warmth. Before sitting down, he had painstakingly wiped the snow off the rough wooden bench, though he’d since discovered that the job had been incomplete; some stubborn flakes remained only to melt spitefully and seep into the seat of his pants. His red eyes watered and stung from the freezing air, which, like a calculating enemy, bit furiously at every inch of his exposed skin. And as Umasi sat there shivering, a deeper, more complete cold penetrated him so deeply that Umasi had forgotten that there was such a thing as warmth, let alone that he had once felt it.

  But more paralyzing than the cold was his own weakness. Part of him was still too proud to accept his brother’s spiteful aid, even if it meant dying. Another part was terrified by what he might have to do to survive, content to perish in denial if only to avoid facing reality. Then there was his despair, the sinking feeling that there was no point to trying to survive, no purpose to be served by living. A thousand weaknesses had frozen him solid before the cold ever reached him, and so Umasi just sat there, helpless to do anything to save himself.

  Soon, worse than any pain, Umasi’s body had now become numb, and the hunger that had pierced him so sharply before subsided into an ominous, distant prodding. His throat was bone dry, and each ragged gasp of freezing air ravaged his lungs. Somewhere, tucked into a dark crevice of his mind, Umasi’s instinct screamed at him to search for warmth, something to eat, even to lick the snow for its moisture . . . but his body had passed beyond the point of obeying his mind’s feeble pleas.

  Umasi leaned forward, and his agonized eyes swelled. He ceased moving, and his jaw grew slack. He sat there on the brink for seconds that seemed like days . . . until finally his tortured eyes slid shut, and what will he had left finally succumbed to the cold.

  That’s quite enough of that, Umasi.”

  Umasi’s eyes snapped open, and then blinked.

  White. All he could see was white.

  Raising a hand to rub his eyes, Umasi was convinced that he was hallucinating. Opening them again, he creased his brow in frustration.

  There was no change. The ceiling, his surroundings, the floor upon which he sat, all of it was one continuous landscape of white so pure that he couldn’t tell where the walls stood, or where the ceiling ended . . . or indeed if there were walls or a ceiling at all. Disoriented, Umasi climbed to his feet, noticing immediately that he felt odd . . . warm, he realized, a sensation that had become alien to him. But that only made sense, after all; there was no snow here in this infinite blankness, nor wind, nor cold. His clothes were dry, his blood was warm, and his joints no longer cried out in pain as he moved his limbs.

  “But on the other hand, of course, none of this makes any sense at all,” said a voice that was not his own.

  Umasi looked around. There was no sign of the person who had addressed him, the figure that he had nearly forgotten, the boy he had hoped never to meet again. But that boy had spoken, and he was right again; the last thing Umasi remembered was treading the border of death on a bench in a park. Waking up to find himself impossibly healthy in an impossible place could mean only one thing.

  “This is another dream, isn’t it?” Umasi called out, hearing his voice echo strangely through the boundless space.

  “Well, of course,” the voice replied from behind him.

  Umasi spun around and found himself facing what seemed to be . . . himself. The boy before him had clean clothes, glasses, and a backpack. He looked well fed, sheltered, naïve. On top of it all he had a warm-looking, hooded olive green jacket that concealed most of his face and stretched all the way down to his winter boots. In spite of himself, Umasi couldn’t help but feel resentful in the boy’s presence.

  “So is this a good dream, or a nightmare?” Umasi asked, surprised only at how casual his own voice sounded.

  “Well, how would you tell one from the other?” the boy wondered.

  “Nightmares are frightening,” Umasi answered simply.

  The boy’s smiled approvingly.

  “I suppose that’s true,” he agreed. “Dreams, like lives, are defined solely by our reactions to them.”

  “So then what’s this?” Umasi asked again. “A dream or a nightmare?”

  The boy cocked his head, contemplating Umasi with bespectacled eyes.

  “Obviously, it’s whatever you make of it! I just hope that you don’t make as big a mess of it as you did with your life.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Umasi demanded.

  “Well, you’re dying, aren’t you?” the boy said bluntly. “You’re too proud to save your own life, too afraid, too depressed, too ashamed, too weak.”

  “So what’s your point?” Umasi asked, gritting his teeth. He didn’t care much for this boy, and cared even less for how right he was.

  “You’re pathetic,” the boy said sadly, “and it’s killing you. I can’t let that happen.”

  “Because you’ll die with me?” Umasi guessed shrewdly, folding his arms.

  “I am you, Umasi,” the child reminded, “and I am weak. But I want to help you.”

  “If you’re so weak, how can you possibly help me?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” the figure said, betraying a note of impatience. “I am everything that cripples you, everything that holds you back . . . and that makes me the worst enemy that you will ever face.”

  “You—”

  “Now you know who I am, and why you must best me. Isn’t that enough?” the boy interrupted. “You were supposed to be a good student, but you never learned that if you can’t master yourself, then you will master nothing.”

  The figure raised his hood above his head, casting his face into shadow. Then he waved his arm upwards in an arc, and from thin air a long procession of polished swords emerged, their blades all pointing downwards. In the space of an instant, the line swiftly expanded as far as Umasi could see, and then the boy waved his arm sideways. The single row of swords multiplied into many, the sky suddenly filled with countless suspended blades stretching as far as the eye could see. As a finale, the child raised his arm straight up, and the swords multiplied again, this time spreading upwards to create several layers of glittering blades.

  “But I don’t want to master anything,” Umasi protested, gazing upwards at the impossible display.

  “Oh, but you do,” the figure insisted as he stretched his arm out sideways, a single sword floating down so that its hilt slid neatly into his outstretched palm. “You once wished to master school. You now want to master your brother’s ambitions. If you awake, you will wish to master the cold, or else you will welcome death . . . out of a desire to master your own life at last.”

  “I don’t welcome death,” Umasi said as a second sword fell haphazardly from the sky, unceremoniously burying itself in the white ground at his feet.

  “Then prove it,” the boy said, pointing his sword at Umasi. “You can only truly appreciate anything, even
your own life, after you’ve had to fight to keep it. And now you will fight, something you’ve only just begun trying in life.”

  “Wait a minute—”

  But Umasi had no time to finish his sentence. The figure, suddenly silhouetted, lunged at him impossibly fast, covering the sizeable distance between them in a split second as though he had shot through the air without touching the ground at all. Without fully knowing what he was doing, Umasi seized the hilt of the sword at his feet and instantly brought it around to block the shadow’s attack. The sheer force of the collision caused Umasi to stumble backwards, but the attack was parried.

  “Your movements are clumsy and your blows lack conviction,” the phantom observed as he slashed at Umasi again, “but your reflexes, at least, are sharp.”

  “Thanks, I think,” Umasi grunted as he parried the blow, backing up warily.

  “Does my sword scare you, Umasi?” the boy taunted, lunging at Umasi again as he brought his sword down in a vertical slash.

  “I’d be stupid if it didn’t!” Umasi shouted as he lifted his sword to block the new attack, backing up even farther.

  “True. Only the insane or foolish are truly fearless. But what is it about my blade that frightens you?” the shadow pressed, doggedly continuing its assault. “Do you fear being cut? Feeling pain? Bleeding, perhaps? Or do you just see a sharp edge and know to be afraid?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” Umasi demanded angrily as he backed up clumsily to avoid a series of fierce slashes aimed at his waist.

  “The first step towards conquering your fear, Umasi, is understanding it,” the boy said patiently, knocking aside a feeble attack by Umasi. “They say that you fear the unknown, and there is truth in that. More significant, however, is that fear is the unknown.”

  Umasi said nothing but gripped the hilt of his sword, raising it challengingly as he glared intensely at his spectral opponent. The boy regarded Umasi for a moment, his blade lowered at his side. A split second later, he lunged, his body suspended horizontally in midair as it swung its sword around in a powerful arc at Umasi’s neck.

  “Understand the nature of weapons, and you will be undefeatable.”

  Umasi had been anticipating an attack and easily blocked the blow, but the attack possessed such impossible force that the next thing Umasi knew, he was hurtling backwards through the air like a rag doll.

  “Understand the nature of death, and you will be immortal.”

  Umasi hurtled through the air disoriented, and the wind rushed in his ears as he plummeted—but despite all that, the boy’s echoing words couldn’t have sounded clearer; they whispered at him from all directions as if their source was inside his own head.

  “Understand the nature of failure, and you will be unstoppable.”

  Umasi finally hit the ground, his right shoulder slamming down first and taking the brunt of the blow. After that initial impact, Umasi bounced once and then rolled a few more painful yards before coming to rest, chest heaving as his newly battered limbs ached.

  “So, tell me Umasi,” the figure called mockingly from a distance. “What is this? A dream, or a nightmare?”

  Umasi forced himself to his feet as his muscles groaned in protest, raising the sword that he had somehow managed to grip even as he was thrown through the air.

  “I’m . . . not . . . scared!” Umasi breathed defiantly.

  Umasi lunged, rushing recklessly at the smirking figure. His bones rattled painfully with each heavy step that he took, and even as he increased his pace, he knew that his efforts were hopeless. Still, Umasi ignored himself and only continued to charge at his motionless foe, his sword stubbornly raised.

  “There’s brave, and then there’s careless,” the boy chided. “It’s time that you learned the difference, Umasi. Bravery can be a strength. Recklessness is never anything but a weakness.”

  In spite of this warning, the shadow remained perfectly still as Umasi hurtled towards him. Possessing none of the boy’s impossible speed, Umasi had only covered half the ground between then when suddenly what felt like a wall of freezing wind slammed into Umasi, bowling him over.

  “Having problems?” the boy asked sympathetically, looking completely unaffected by the gale. “You haven’t been able to lift a finger against the cold while awake, I’m not surprised that it’s the same here.”

  Umasi’s eyes widened, and memories of ice and chilling cold came rushing back. Umasi suddenly found himself shivering, his eyes shut and head aching furiously as the relentless wind pounded at him. Still he stood his ground, but moved no farther even as the wind subsided, paralyzed by indecision. He felt a heavy feeling in his heart, and as his limbs grew numb he realized that he had failed.

  “Beaten so easily?” the boy said, disappointed. “Come on, we can’t have that.”

  The figure swiftly swung his sword three times through thin air, and there was the whistling of something sharp rushing through the air. Umasi opened his eyes and saw nothing . . . and that’s when he felt something like wind slice right through his shirt and skin. A instant later, the pain erupted and Umasi stared downwards to see three long gashes across his chest. The wounds were shallow, but they bled profusely, were white and numb with sudden cold.

  “Well now, I see that you’re moving again,” the boy said cheerfully. “At least the vagrants have already taught you to struggle when someone threatens your life directly.”

  Umasi’s head snapped up as he glared furiously at his enemy, pain and cold forgotten as he readied his sword. The boy smiled back, and then took a single step forward. There was a sound of billowing wind, and then a powerful gust propelled the boy through the air with even more speed and force than ever before. Bracing himself, Umasi stood his ground and arced his blade around at his oncoming foe. Their swords collided with the impossible force that Umasi had come to expect, but this time he gritted his teeth and dug his feet into the ground, even as the freezing wind that had propelled his opponent forward slammed into him. Umasi was pushed back, but not thrown.

  “Better!” the boy exclaimed, again swinging his sword diagonally at Umasi.

  Umasi blocked the blow, but there was more force behind the deceptively casual attack than any before it. Taken completely by surprise, Umasi was flung into the air again, his ascent aided by another gust of wind that followed in the sword’s wake. However, this time Umasi swiftly recovered from his shock and, feeling completely calm as he soared through the air, performed a midair somersault before landing elegantly on his feet. The boy looked delighted as Umasi turned to gaze at him serenely.

  There was a moment of perfect stillness, and then the boy’s arm snapped forward, launching his sword like a bullet. Umasi neatly sidestepped the projectile as his enemy outstretched his arm again to catch another sword that descended from the sky as if by unspoken command.

  Umasi lunged again, but this time his steps were steady, his breathing was even, and his mind was focused. The boy, however, grinned confidently as Umasi charged, and raised his new sword lazily in defense. Umasi’s eyes narrowed, and he struck as soon as he came within range. The two blades clashed, and for a moment nothing happened.

  Then Umasi’s blade began to crack, and then shattered into a thousand glittering pieces as though it were made of glass. The boy laughed, and swung his sword at Umasi’s neck. Umasi blocked the blow with his bare hilt alone, and his opponent’s laughter was suddenly cut short as he outstretched his arm to grasp a new sword that obediently descended from the sky. A determined gleam shone in Umasi’s eyes as he tossed the old hilt aside, and the boy frowned beneath his hood as he launched himself into the air, flying up to seize one of the many swords still hovering above.

  “That wasn’t bad, Umasi,” the boy admitted, “but now is when your real test begins.”

  “No,” Umasi disagreed quietly.

  “No?” the boy asked, suddenly sounding uncertain.

  “No,” Umasi repeated firmly. “I don’t know if this is a dream or a hallucination
or even an afterlife . . . but I do know that this is no nightmare.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I’m not afraid of you at all,” Umasi answered simply.

  “That’s admirable, but Umasi,” the shadow warned, “don’t forget that even the fearless can die.”

  The boy suddenly shot downwards at Umasi, and as he did there was a burst of black smoke from which emerged three identical figures, each wielding a sword. Umasi managed to block the first blade, dodge the second, only to have the third hit its mark, cutting deep into the side of his waist. Two of the shadows faded away into black smoke, but the third pointed his sword at Umasi—a sword now dripping with blood.

  Umasi clutched his side, feeling the unpleasant fluid stain his clothes and hand. The pain was surprisingly bearable, but the bleeding was bad. Combined with the cuts he had suffered earlier, Umasi knew that this wound could mean trouble. What had happened to those old cuts, though? They were hardly hurting at all. Umasi looked down at his shirt, and his eyes widened. No torn fabric, no blood, no wounds . . . but why?

  Because I forgot about them! Umasi realized, looking up at the boy, who he now imagined was grimacing under his hood. This is my dream, aren’t I the one in control here? Wasn’t I always the one in control of this, and my life?

  “That’s not a bad conclusion,” the boy conceded, addressing Umasi’s unspoken thoughts. “However, you overlooked something.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “While nightmares are entirely out of control,” the boy explained, “no one can fully control their lives or their dreams either.”

  Umasi lunged forward at the same time as his enemy, and their blades slammed together with tremendous force, though neither was fazed. As they sprang apart, both swords began to crack, shattering like glass, leaving behind only useless hilts. The boy called down another sword from the sky, but Umasi skipped backwards a step and then lightly leapt high up to where the swords lay suspended in the air. Seizing the hilt of one of the swords, Umasi used its stationary hilt to swing himself around so that he plummeted down towards his foe, pulling the sword down with him as he fell.