“W-wait a sec. What is that old uncle with so much energy and performing radio aerobics doing?!”

“Looks like he’s really looking forward to scuba diving—”

On the sides of a little boat dimly illuminated on the surface of foreign lake at night, two j.a.panese and American students are whispering to each other. In the middle of the boat is a man of unknown age, wearing sungla.s.ses and performing warm-up exercises full-heartedly with the lower half of his body dressed strangely in rubber diving gear.

“Hmm, hah! Hmm,hah! Hmm, hah! Hmm, hah!”

Who would have thought that his abs are actually pretty strong.

“You said he wants to dive… But he’s wearing sungla.s.ses, and it’s nighttime… Does he think he’s part of Is.h.i.+hara Promotion’s[1] USA branch?”

“Speaking of which, Shouri hasn’t taken your gla.s.ses off either.”

“I’m fine, gla.s.ses are a part of the face.”

“Whoa~~ Then you are discriminating against sungla.s.ses.”

s.h.i.+buya Shouri thinks to himself, I should instill the respect of gla.s.ses men deep into this person’s heart. No matter who it is, anyone who puts on sungla.s.ses will look a lot manlier, but people who look hotter after wearing normal gla.s.ses are way fewer. No matter what kind of trendy frames they wear, if the person wearing them is just meh then there’s no point: In other words, those who can look hotter are the really impressive ones. Those who don’t rely on sungla.s.ses, or contact lenses, and win with just true gla.s.ses, they’re the ones that should be honored as the world’s treasures.

But what is reality like?

“You plan on wearing your gla.s.ses instead of goggles--?”

“Of course, if I don’t wear my gla.s.ses how do you expect me to find the Box?”

“A-ha--?”

Just like the Americans from the educational films, she shrugs, her expression full of contempt!

“Before all that I have to ask, do you guys actually know how to dive?”

The Asian man controlling the plane and the boat asks with heavily accented English. He’s sitting on top of the boat cabin, swinging his short legs and looking all carefree. Next to him is a scary-looking Frenchman born in the Caribbean—Francois, who has his arms crossed in front of his chest and doesn’t utter a word. The two of them seem to know each other, even greeting each other with a language Shouri doesn’t understand when they were introducing themselves at the airport.

The Asian man’s name is DTJ, which sounds like the acronym of a theme song band, so it shouldn’t be his real name.

He’s the pilot of the rented plane, and seems to be an old acquaintance of Bob and Abigail. Apparently his flying skills are the best in the world, but he’s wearing a Yankees ball cap and a striped s.h.i.+rt, add that to his slightly wide chin, and you can’t tell what age he is. He feels younger than Shouri, but even in the country of freedom America, someone that young can’t possibly get a pilot’s license. That mouth of his never has anything good to say, though, he even keeps purposely trying to rile up Shouri, whom he just met.

“You’re j.a.panese? I’ll say this now, the J at the back of my name doesn’t stand for j.a.pan.”

The way he places emphasis on it, seems to indicate he doesn’t have a good impression of j.a.pan.

The Asian guy whose age you can’t tell and the scary-looking Frenchman, the longer you look at them the stranger this combination seems.

“If you don’t have any diving experience you have to tell us honestly--! Even if I am the warrior protector of the people, I can’t save two or three people at once—”

“What the heck is the warrior protector of the people? Is that a relative of Naniwa Mozart[2] or something!? I’m telling you, I can! I know how to dive! Isn’t that obvious? I’m j.a.panese! It’s just diving in a lake, what’s so hard about that!”

Half of the j.a.panese are samurais or geishas, while the other half are ama[3] and fishermen. The super college student whose goal is to become governor shouldn’t be able to handle it. Even the notorious Kachabi[4] can play with the fishes in the southern sea, it’s no problem as long as you don’t have Mukku’s[5] bloodline.

Shouri pulls the skintight rubber diving suit up to his shoulders, and it’s tighter than he thought it would be. Once he pulled the zip up to his neck, it would easy as pie to tell where his nipples are, huh.

“Hmm, he! Hmm,he! Hmm, he! Hmm, he!”

Bob is focused on his warm-up exercises.

“Let’s take this opportunity to get it over with now!”

Shouri quietly hastens Abigail Graves, who allegedly has an instructor’s license.

It’s just that he never thought there would be such a surprising talent in this world. The koi fish girl who sat all alone in the airport, is actually a world-famous treasure hunter (or so she says), as well as a cheerleading captain, diving instructor, and a half-a.s.sed j.a.pan expert. Although to the neighbors Shouri is an excellent older brother, his resume is a little less impressive.

The way things are looking now, it’s not hard to imagine how amazing the talents in the future will be. After all, the Maou of the financial world known as ‘Bob Airlines’ once danced the samba in the middle of the shopping street; so the man who was yesterday known as a simple Gundam otaku, might actually be a new type of extremely reliable human.

…That’s right.

No matter what you want to do, the most important thing is money.

Even if you want to strike first, putting one foot up while pretending to be clueless, you can’t do anything without money. No matter how justified your actions are, it’s the same.

“This is too much, I get suspected even when I use cash to buy plane tickets. Logically speaking, shouldn’t it be safer to shop with cash and a smile? You don’t have to worry about being a credit card slave!”

“Don’t blame America—”

“I’m not blaming any specific country!”

Murata Ken is just against the employee who looked at him suspiciously when he paid for his plane ticket in cash just now. Even if a high school student has a credit card, the limit would be very limited. After all his family is just a normal working cla.s.s family, and can only share the limit on one card.

That’s why he had to use cash, and got a suspicious ‘where did you get this money come from’ look for his trouble. This country has so many people who started companies with their stocks, and students who earned big bucks at a young age! But on the other hand, they also have a lot of young people who commit crimes, dirty their hands, and walk the wrong path.

“Really, do I look like a drug mule? I wouldn’t want to sacrifice my life like that just for drugs!”

Murata releases a long breath, trying to calm himself down a bit.

“But the thing I want to transport is even more dangerous than drugs.”

“It shouldn’t be you, is it, Ken.”

“I know, it’s me. Relax! I can still tell the difference.”

In the end, Rodriguez was the one who bought the ticket for the change of flights from New York.

He seems to really enjoy his role as a guardian, the laugh lines on his face deepening. He takes off his aviator goggles, even putting on the jacket he rarely wears, trying to pretend he’s Murata’s parent. Jose Rodriguez is an excellent pediatrician. This is the job he chose for himself, so he never hated taking care of kids in the first place; plus this is a child he treated before, so it’s obvious he would help.

Murata and Rodriguez have taken a different mode of action from Bob and the others, who took a private plane to Switzerland. The two of them headed for New York from Narita, and then from New York flew to the Logan International Airport in Ma.s.sachusetts.

“Because j.a.panese people look younger—they must have thought you were a middle school student traveling on your own—”

“If it’s to find an important friend, so what if a middle school student rides a plane!”

“You’re not wrong, but the rules here are stricter, like if a divorced father took his son away on his own, it would be treated as a kidnapping, you know—”

“I feel that a middle-aged Latin American man and a j.a.panese student walking together is weirder… Ah~ Doctor, don’t put on such a pitiful expression! I’m really glad you left Bob to stay by me, but…”

The international airport in the afternoon is so crowded it’s scary. Although it’s not the tourism season, there are quite a few people dragging their luggage and running around everywhere. Murata sticks closely to his companion, scared of getting lost in the crowd, and looks up at the skinny Mexican.

“What we’re doing now is going against his orders, will that have any effect later? I hope it won’t have some bad influence on your work or anything.”

“What are you talking about, Ken? I’m just a pathetic little pediatrician, you know--? Even if Bob wants to pressure me, he wouldn’t bother with that clinic of mine that never earns much! Plus, he’s not that kind of person.”

“That’s great. Since you bypa.s.sed him and contacted me directly, I’ve been very worried for you.”

“Mn. Because Ken, I’m guessing you would rather let Bob know first.”

“Of course.”

The mastermind of the group Rodriguez belongs to, is Bob who should now be in Switzerland together with Shouri and the others. That’s why his actions, of giving Murata important information without going through Bob, could be taken as a betrayal and he wouldn’t be able to deny it.

Murata got the intel regarding the ‘Box’ from Rodriguez a few weeks ago. Before he hung up the phone, he said, “If you want to do that, you can report to Bob first, no problem.” Back then Murata immediately answered, “I’ll see how it goes.”

“What we do from now on is all up to you!”

“I think it should be up to Bob, right? His ratings in my mind have plummeted. Who asked him to talk about using ‘Mirror’s Depth’, even if it’s to fulfill s.h.i.+buya’s brother’s wish he shouldn’t do that, right?”

“Hmm—But he’s not usually so rash--? Maybe it’s that once it gets to JUNIOR he becomes a doting father?”

“But they’re not father and son!”

The pediatrician smiles shyly, using those fingers with joints as obvious as old sticks to push the hair out of his eyes, though some locks of unruly hair still stick to his face.

“When it comes to that, I can understand how he feels. Speaking of parents, is this okay with your mom and dad?”

“Don’t worry, both of them have keys.”

The pediatrician’s expression says ‘that’s not what I meant’, but that’s indeed what real life is like, it can’t be helped that he answers like that.

“If you think about the good side, they don’t care about me at all, adopting a free and easy approach to some extent. As long as I leave a note saying I’m staying at a friend’s place, they won’t come looking for me. But the truth is they don’t know any of my friends, so they wouldn’t know where to start looking even if they wanted to. I told them, the school is taking a week off for the school anniversary, so I’m going on a trip. And they said, without a care in the world, ‘It’s okay, as long as we can reach you by phone. But first you have to confirm your accommodation.’”

“Ken.”

The man who was once his guardian before he was born frowns a little, turning the corners of his mouth down unhappily.

“Aren’t you lonely?”

“Lonely? Why?”

Just then a young girl runs past the two of them, yelling something childishly. A woman that looks like a mother waves at her from the blue benches, using French to whisper something as she lifts her onto her laps, hugging her waist tightly. Quite a few flights from the aviation companies pa.s.s by Logan, so there are many tourists headed for Europe here. Rodriguez watches the scene, murmuring almost to himself,

“…Did I make the wrong choice?”

“What choice?”

“Your family? Bob chose a very perfect family for s.h.i.+buya to be born in, but I was the one who chose the family you were born in. Actually, until the very end, I was hesitating whether or not to let you be born in a wealthy childless family in Hong Kong. The one before- you know, that one—stayed in Hong Kong, right? But in the end, I handed you over to a very normal j.a.panese couple… Was I wrong in doing that? If I you were born in a wealthy family, wouldn’t it be better for you to be an international young master—”

“Hah?”

Murata is sh.e.l.l-shocked by his sudden words, slowing down his steps and staring at the other man.

“It’s because from what you’re saying, it seems like you don’t have the warmth of a family, so I’m wondering if you’re happy.”

“There’s no such thing, Doctor!”

Murata can’t stand his wild imagination. Since he’s already a j.a.panese, he hurriedly refutes the other option:

“Sure, it’s tempting to be born in a wealthy family, but if I was born there, it would surely be a lot more ha.s.sle to come to j.a.pan. Besides, if I became the heir to a wealthy family, my family would not let me move overseas so easily, so wouldn’t I waste a lot of time before meeting him?”

“Meeting who? Yuuri?”

“That’s right, so it was the best choice to make me j.a.panese.”

“But Ken—”

The pediatrician pushes his gla.s.ses up with his index finger, the nail trimmed short, because his retro-style frames are almost going to slide off his nose.

“…He is the person you are willing to sacrifice a loving family to get?”

“That’s right.” Influenced by his actions, Murata pushes up his gla.s.ses too, answering with a nod,

“That’s right, no matter what I want a friend like that. Not the new Maou, I just want someone I can talk about everything with. I want a comrade I can trust my all in, I want a friend.”

The Frenchman who never opened his heart out to others, and the poor girl who couldn’t acknowledge her memories, spending all her days looking for the truth—that’s the thing both of them could never get.

“I always wanted s.h.i.+buya Yuuri.”

And now I got him.

“So right now I’m extremely happy, y’know!”

No matter what I don’t want to lose him, even if I have to make enemies of others.

When he held his fist he used a bit of force, too. But those emotions quickly retreated into his body, and he acts cheerful as he continues,

“Besides, I think you may have misunderstood some things, so I’ll explain it for you first, Doctor. Those people… In other words, my parents, I believe they love me a lot, y’know! It’s just that there haven’t been any problems in my growing up so far, so as parents they may seem a little callous. After all, I’m a model student, so they really trust me. If I suddenly started selling ‘legal’ drugs on the street, they would definitely be shocked, and try to bring me back to the right path, even if it means giving up their jobs. But first my father would probably faint from the impact.”

“A model student suddenly starts selling drugs, that sort of life change is way too dramatic. Ow!”

A young man brushes past them, his backpack knocking into Rodriguez’s shoulder and causing him to stumble. Although Rodriguez is healthy, he’s thin as a stick. Compared to the luggage of a frequent traveler, the luggage may actually be heavier than him.

“Although we’re average citizens, you could say our travelling style is pretty high cla.s.s.”

Taken aback by Bob and Shouri’s unexpected actions, they hadn’t brought anything before running straight for the airport, so all the luggage they had at hand were their wallets and pa.s.sports.

Then they stuffed their wallets into the plastic bag they got with the tourist map at the nearby bookstore, while the green booklet went into their inner pockets. As for clothes to change into and other toiletries, they plan to buy these things once they got to their destination. Going on the road with what they had is definitely very light and easy, but no one would think that they were planning to go overseas like this. Thankfully, too, because this way they didn’t need to fight with everyone else at the luggage retrieval area, and can quickly pa.s.s through the customs counter under the ‘Welcome to Boston’ sign.

“You don’t have to worry about that. Our destination—Freeport is a city known as a commercial center, you could cover yourself from head to toe in branded clothes!”

“The one who needs a branded suit is you, right?”

Murata scrutinizes his companion, whose crumpled jacket looks like something bought for cheap at a j.a.panese motel, an outfit that doesn’t fit his status at all. Although he was a resident doctor, he’s still an expert in pediatrics, so there should be a limit to how little he cares about his dressing, right? He could take this opportunity to prepare some clothes for himself—clothes that would let him stand on the stage of an American national pediatrics conference.

“…Forget the commercial center for now, right now I’ll be grateful to G.o.d as long as the place we’re headed to isn’t the Boston city center.”

There are too many things in Boston that bring up memories of the past for him. The Graves family house is right there on Beacon Hill, and that shop in Chinatown should still be around.

Of course those aren’t parts of Murata’s own past, but since something happened and he awakened, in the end they’re no different from things that happened to him personally. If he could avoid them, that would be best.

I wonder if a monologue like this could be overheard.

On the other side, the group headed for Switzerland has encountered an inevitable situation.

The headlights s.h.i.+ne blindingly onto the surface of the water, the boat Shouri and the others are on is now surrounded by a group in green.

They’re all armed to the teeth. And even worse, all the guns are pointed at s.h.i.+buya Shouri & Bob et al. Putting aside from the squad waiting for their orders on the bank, there are at least twenty-over people just on the boats approaching them.

“Twenty-four Eyes[6]… No, there are twenty-odd guns pointed at me.”

“Even I’ve only ever had twenty guns pointed at me, huh—”

Bob, who is particularly reliable at times like this, is still in his warm-up exercises mode. He’s doing the first move from radio aerobics, ‘Stretch your arms forward, stretch your back upwards!’ The way he has his arms raised up high is quite fitting for the moment.

As for the remaining four, they all have their hands raised beside their faces. After all, having twenty-odd guns pointing at them, no matter how powerful a superhero would still have to give up protesting and put on a smile.

“But why must we accept the cops’ ‘concern’, huh? Forget bringing the Box up, we haven’t even dived in! Or is this place—out of bounds for swimming?”

If it’s just to reprimand tourists for swimming against the rules, they’re overreacting just a bit.

Shouri is acting dumb, but hearing his words Abigail doesn’t think much before replying with a ton of insider jargon,

“Really, Shouri, these people aren’t cops, they’re the army, you know! Look closely, they’re not holding .38, but 9mm guns!”

“I still can’t tell even if I look closely!”

“When you say that, it feels very ‘as expected of a j.a.panese person’.”

Abigail’s tone is very relaxed. Even though she acts nonchalant, but when she talks to Shouri, she switches to speaking in English, proving that the situation isn’t as simple as she says it is. To Shouri, he simply can’t tell the difference between the diameters of each gun. Not only that, in every three enemy soldiers, there’s one holding something that looks like a machine gun.

“If it’s the army then that’s even more ridiculous, why would we be surrounded by the army? And more importantly, if we were hit by that kind of weapon would it ‘hurt’, ‘hurt a little’, or ‘hurt so bad I want to die’?”

“It wouldn’t hurt, you’d die before you could feel pain.”

Just as the self-proclaimed warrior protector of the people DTJ mutters that, the boat suddenly starts rocking violently. Turns out the soldiers surrounding them are yelling warnings as they board the boat, but Shouri can’t understand what they’re saying at all. What’s the main language in Switzerland? Swiss?

Abigail uses a bone-chilling expression, yelling back at them in a rude tone.

“G-Graves, there’s no need to be so angry, it’s best not to do anything rash at a time like this…”

“I’m not angry! That’s what retorting in German sounds like! But thank goodness, these people are Swiss soldiers—”

“Why would you say so?”

“Although my great grandfather was German, the problem is he used to be a war criminal, and was forbidden from entering Germany.”

“What the h.e.l.l did your great grandfather do!?”

Abigail is yelling in German, Bob is speaking in fluent French, Francois is as composed and quiet as ever, while DTJ scolds *** and *** as he picks his nose.

Shouri looks up into the sky, still dressed in his diving suit, waiting whole-heartedly for a young celebrity in a helmet to appear holding a sign that says ‘You’ve been pranked’.

The driver of the RANGE ROVER approaching them is almost forty years old. He’s wearing a yellow cap over his curly brown hair, a large man in green camouflage clothing.

Once he sees Murata and Rodriguez coming out of the arrival hall, he throws away the donut he was biting to raise his hand in salute. The driver is saluting? Murata finds this unbelievable, but Rodriguez seems very used to his actions, raising his right hand lightly to return the salute.

“Hi~ Matthew, long time no see. You’re a bit different from usual—Don’t tell me now it’s… Sergeant?”

“Long time no see, Captain! Nah, about that—Of course I would want to be a soldier of the Allied Forces forever, but that--- my son desperately says he wants to invade the Blue Planet—On the other hand, Captain, are you part of the Suit Squad now?”

“Mn, there are a lot of factors involved here. Oh, right, I bought some souvenirs in Tokyo, but since I didn’t want to bring luggage, I had them mailed back home. Later I’ll divide them amongst you.”

“It is our honor, Captain!”

Compared to their honor, the driver’s almost drooling at the idea of the souvenir’s contents, even doing something an American taxi driver never would—getting out of the car and opening the door for us.

“Let me introduce you. Ken, this is Matthew Orson, a friend I’ve known since the White Base period.”

What on earth is the White Base period? Is it okay to think of it as something along the lines of the Cold War or Kamakura period… Just as Murata is thinking that, a memory from his childhood when he was treated by Rodriguez awakens. In the beginning the pediatrician had asked,

“What MS do you like~?”

“… So, could it be… No, of course it is, the two of you are Gundam-related, right?”

Rodriguez and Matthew Orson are all smiles, putting their arms over each other’s shoulders,

“That’s right, that’s right. We are forever Gun-pals, right—”

But time will change a person.

Influenced by his son, Matthew Orson has gotten interested in other anime, until even his rearview mirror has some green-colored ornament. Looks like he’s really into frogs as well.”

“There’s a man with long-lost flight genes in his blood over there, we’re going to meet hi…s grandson, so we’re asking Matthew for help. And he knows the person we’re going to see, too—”

Apparently the special pilot of Bob Airlines is the grandson of the flight genius called DT. But a man with two strange t.i.tles like that, wouldn’t he be about the same as Gundam otaku Orson? Forget it, if it was just driving in a city with normal traffic, they might as well grab one of the local high school students.

Just as Murata looks out of the moving car window…

“Wait a sec!? That was an orange amphibious-looking car that just brushed past us, right!? Don’t tell me Boston is where the army has drills in the middle of the city in broad daylight!?”

“Ah—That’s nothing, just one segment of the novelty tour!”

“Novelty tour!? I thought it was some army vehicle.”

The respect and surprise he feels chases away Murata’s tension all at once. He relaxes his shoulders, slumping into his seat like a rain-drenched ragdoll. Maybe it’s because the car interior is really warm, so the sleep bug takes over him instantly, after all he didn’t sleep much on the plane.

“…Speaking of the army…”

His expression naturally relaxes.

“The other group, is probably already being surrounded by the Swiss and German Special Forces as we speak.”

“Special Forces!?”

“Yeah, even if they didn’t bring out the Special Forces, the division in charge of investigating the X-Files is indeed monitoring them.”

“How did it get so big?”

“Because the information leaked out, of course. It’s already reached Confoederatio Helvetica, in other words the Swiss federal authorities.

Even Murata himself was always thinking, which division do they mean by ‘authorities’? But after coming face to face with them, he’s starting to slowly understand.

“The rookie researchers in Germany heave heard of it too. It was during World War II, an OOPArt[7] the n.a.z.is were desperately searching for showed up in Bodensee Lake…”

Murata tries his hardest to suppress the laughter bubbling up.

“Rumors online even said that the thing has a really long tailfin. I’m guessing in a few weeks, there will be rumors of a red-eyed Bossie that shows up at night or a Boden water-man that leave behind huge footprints.”

“How scary!”

“To distract the enemy attention, this can’t he helped. If everyone were focused on the ‘Mirror’s Depth’ in ‘Bodensee Lake’, there will be fewer people obstructing us here.”

“But…”

The pediatrician who was once this high school’s psychological counselor a long time ago, starts pulling at the hair he tied behind his head. Since he’s a perpetual optimist, it was very rare to see him with such an obvious expression of uneasiness. Like Murata, he seems unwilling to fight on the offensive.

“If the relevant authorities found out, they would definitely sent an expert in to interrupt. Then wouldn’t s.h.i.+buya JUNIOR and Abigail be the only ones in hot water? If one of the sides actually does bring ‘Mirror’s Depth’ out of the water…”

“That’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not there.”

Since he didn’t get any reaction, he repeats the same words. Finally he sees infinite laughlines extend in all directions behind those outdated frames, and those long, narrow eyes turn wide.

“You’re saying… the Box isn’t there?”

“That’s right.”

“Not in the lake?”

“Yup!”

“But, back then the one who said the Box had sunk into the lake, was you…”

“I said that, yes.”

Murata can’t help but smile wickedly at his companion opposite him, eyes wide and mouth hanging.

“I said that, I did indeed say that. The Box… ‘Mirror’s Depth’ has sunk to the depths of the water where no one can reach it, and I was the one who personally sunk it. Technically the person who did it wasn’t me, but that French doctor who could not trust anyone. However, the place isn’t the lake.”

With his mouth wide open, Rodriguez points at Murata with his fingers, so surprised he can’t even ask. No wonder, because no one knew about this somewhat upsetting truth until now, the person involved and Murata, who inherited his soul, never leaked it out.

“Instead it’s in the bottom of the sea, we just pa.s.sed over it, too!”

“You say we just pa.s.sed it, don’t tell me it’s in the Pacific Ocean--!?”

“Mn, I don’t remember the exact location either. After all, to him, that was something unexpected.”

“I… I don’t really understand, Ken! Can you explain it to me step-by-step, slowly? Ah, you can ignore Matthew, don’t worry about him. Matthew, this conversation is top secret, if the news got out we will lose the war! Alright, Ken, it’s fine now!”

“Understood.”

Murata imitates his protector from before he was born, dragging out his reply, “Understood—” Then he crosses his arms in front of his chest, his entire back pressed against the seat, so he can feel the tremor of the car better.

“The ancestor of my soul… To save time, I’ll call him that. After all, it’s annoying to count how many generations ago it was. Anyway it’s someone whose fragments remain my records, from a long~ time ago.”

He purposely chose the term ‘records’, though he isn’t sure if the other person noticed.

“Putting aside whether or not he’s the first generation, in any case I’m talking about that person whose hair was so long it got annoying, the person people call the sage, have you heard that he took two of the four Boxes… and flew over to Earth with them under his armpits?”

“I-I heard of it.”

“After that my ancestors repeatedly missed the location of the Box because they were born in the wrong place, or horrible environments kept them unaware of their true ident.i.ties, so they refused to admit that they brought something here no matter what. But there are still some excellent ancestors who understood everything, and watched the Boxes closely.”

“Just like you?”

“Ah, ha! Just saying, no matter how you praise me, I can’t return the favor, y’know. As you can see, I’m only carrying a plastic bag and my pa.s.sport. But you can’t really blame that Frenchman, Henry Regent, all I can say is he was unlucky, and couldn’t locate both Boxes, that’s why… And this is just a guess, when Abby’s great-grandmother’s grandmother… Confusing, right? Anyway, it was the treasure hunter Hazel Graves that miraculously got both Boxes. One of them, ‘Mirror’s Depth’, was found in West Asia and then entrusted to an art gallery in Australia, but then a dictator heard of it and intercepted it. However, all these are just deductions, okay?”

The pediatrician’s round eyes went back to their normal size, looks like he’s finally regained his composure.

“Mn, about Abby’s great-grandmother, right? In other words, the founder of the museum, April Graves recovered the ‘Mirror’s Depth’ that she heard about from Bob… it should be the Box called ‘Mirror’s Depth’, and then she sank it into Bodensee to prevent it from being used on the battlefield, right? The ones helping her then were her partner-- the flight genius and her husband. The last-last-owner of my soul, Henry Regent tagged along. But Regent didn’t trust.”

“…Didn’t trust who?”

“Rather than saying he didn’t trust ‘who’, it’s better to say he didn’t trust everything. I only dare to say this as his descendant, but he was a very pitiful person, afraid to trust anyone, suspicious of anything and everything. Although it was a bad trait to have, in a way he was a victim too. Honestly, I feel this system is very cruel, and the person who thought it up is a b.a.s.t.a.r.d with no blood and tears.”

Rodriguez wanted to say ‘I know who that person is’, but he doesn’t in the end. Talking about who the founder of s.h.i.+n Makoku is while on Earth is completely meaningless.

“Regent carried too many memories on his shoulders, but he didn’t dare to tell family or friends about it, so he was always alone. On the surface he has the glorious t.i.tle of a doctor, and is friendly to everyone, but inside he’s always been lonely and scared. He even wondered, does he have psychological problems? Why must he protect the Boxes? What should he do? How should he find ridiculous Boxes he can’t even be sure exist? And he has to protect them from falling into others’ hands? Besides, is any of this real? These should be the common symptoms of someone with mental problems. And the past memories, personalities, history, the Boxes and all that, could very likely be a country of imagination that he made up on his own. Of course he would be troubled, because I was too, and I started when I was three!”

“Ken matured so young—”

“Mn, but when I was four or five, s.h.i.+buya and you, doctor, showed up in front of me, so I had no time to trouble over whether I was lucky or unlucky.”

Besides, all those different examples were prepared long before he was born as Murata Ken. Examples of those who were troubled, those who weren’t troubled, those who lost their minds and sank into insanity from their suspicions before they could be troubled. Should they tell everyone around them, or make up something and forget about it? Should they accept this burden and live on? Or reject it, seal it somewhere deep in their memories, and try to forget about this unhappy ending? Regent only remembered half of the past, but Murata got every single record, unaltered and unabridged.

Which part of which life to use, which person he should imitate to live happily, the answers left by his ancestors carry infinite possibilities.

“If Regent could have known Bob, maybe his life would have been a bit easier. But that doesn’t mean they’re the same type of person. After all they originated from different places, and he never opened out his heart to anyone. You can see that Henry Regent had no friends. He was different from me, he didn’t know how to find the heart of the problem.”

The pediatrician asks carefully,

“So Regent didn’t trust anything… Since he didn’t trust anything, what did he do?”

“He took the Box away.”

Even if it’s said in English, it can’t become a cold joke. Murata smiles bitterly, raising his chin high to ease the pressure on the back of his head,

“At the end of World War II, he brought the Box that was once at the bottom of the lake up again and took it away. Just because he couldn’t trust, not that he didn’t trust April and her husband, but he felt that it was impossible the army would never find the Box. He didn’t trust that anything in life could go so well.”

“They went through so much to hide it, and he actually brought it back up again… But you say he took away the Box, yet there can’t be a lot of places to hide it without drawing attention, right? Where on earth did he keep it?”

“Hm, I can’t say either. Sinking it into the sea may have been his initial plan, or it could have been an unexpected accident. Or maybe he intended to keep it by his side the whole time, and keep an eye on it while at sea.”

“Ah~ You’re right. If it was kept in the cabin as a s.h.i.+p doctor’s personal belongings, it would be harder to find than leaving it on land. Plus he travelled a lot, I see—”

Jose Rodriguez mumbles to himself while holding up his gla.s.ses, using those fingers with joints as obvious as sticks to rub his eyelids. There’s weariness in the corners of his eyes, a bit out of place with his usual cheerful Mexican image.

“In the end, it still sank into the bottom of the sea.”

“Rather than saying it sank, it’d be more accurate to say it ‘was sunk’.”

“Eh?”

“The civilian boat he boarded as a s.h.i.+p doctor, was accidentally bombed one of their own.”

Rodriguez doesn’t say anything after an “Ah…”, closing his eyes tightly and resting his head on the back of the seat. His ten fingers are interlinked and resting on his stomach, his lips slanting in grief, as though the one who died in that explosion was his own friend.

Once the conversation dies down, it suddenly becomes silent in the car. Maybe because he can’t stand the wordless atmosphere, Matthew Orson in the driver’s seat turns on the radio. A cacophony of music erupts from the speakers, singing of despair towards the world in fluent English.

Just like he did a long time ago, the doctor puts his hand on the knee of his young counseling patient, using those fingers with joints as obvious as sticks to rub his eyes.

“You remembered the memories from that moment, didn’t you?”

The eyelids over his eyes can’t stop trembling.

“It’s inside you.”

“That’s right.”

With that short answer, Murata’s gaze drifts out of the window. All the trees are dressed in green, all he sees is beautiful scenery. Inside his heart he thinks, no matter what, before he could tell if this was the city, the cars had already crossed the state border on the high-speed freeway. The scenery he’s looking at is no longer Boston.

“Say it. Ken, tell me about it.”

“That feeling is very strange, really hard to describe with words.”

“But I still want to hear you talk about it.”

“It feels very calm.”

He tries to bring out those memories, and it’s as though something bright and colorful appears in front of his eyes, quietly, with a larger emphasis on the color blue, a beautiful image like a kaleidoscope.

“His body was facing upwards, looking up to see the sky fall down on him. But he wasn’t in the sky, instead he was in the sea, so he was looking at the sky through the seawater. It could have been daytime then, the seawater was bright and blue, sparkling even, he was sinking down as he looked up at the seawater. Not a shred of pain, or anything like sorrow, because he didn’t have family that would grieve for him.

He knows in that moment, many people died. He experienced examples of streams of thought interrupted by explosions, and then the world turning suddenly black in front of his eyes. There were also times it was like a child’s dream, and he kept seeing things that were impossible in real life. But Regent’s end was especially quiet, probably only the bottom of the sea can bring that absolute a silence.

“He looked up, and quite a few people were falling with him. Although they were falling continuously, they fell slowly, their limbs still moving gracefully. There probably wouldn’t be a term like this back then, but it looked like they were walking in s.p.a.ce. The women’s hair floated in the waves like seaweed, sometimes becoming red or orange fireworks. But that was on the other end of the screen of water, so the pictures were blurred and soft, and felt very beautiful. This feeling is very strange, not upsetting or painful, just slowly sinking into the clear, bright depths of the water.”

With that, Murata sighs deeply.

“After that he should have died, that must be it.”

“Thank you for telling me. Sorry, forcing you to remember those things, it must really hurt, huh?”

“It doesn’t hurt at all, but it feels so strange… What do you think, doctor, is it worth referencing in your medical studies?”

“Even if I wanted to use it as a reference, your story won’t work on anyone other than yourself.”

Rodriguez takes his hand off Murata’s knee, looking into his face,

“Besides, Ken isn’t sick, so I never used your condition as a part of my medical studies.”

“Is that so?”

Murata interlinks his fingers and puts them behind his head, then stretches his spine hard. His gaze moves from the ceiling to the front seat, then to his feet. The Orson boy must have ridden this sort of car before, right? It’s not too clean inside, and there’s even a donut paper bag scrunched into a ball in the corner.

Outside the car is even a cute pink and light green combination that kids should like.

Most people think that kids like pink and light green. Most adults think that kids never grow up.

“I see.”

“That’s right, I never thought you were sick from the very start. Back then you were just a kid who couldn’t p.r.o.nounce properly, but when you saw my nameplate you suddenly called me Josie, y’know. Meaning you knew your ABCs—”

Distracted, Murata thinks, “Why are my gla.s.ses fogging up suddenly”, but no matter how he rubs with his fingers he can’t rub it away, so he quickly gets back to the main point.

“…’Mirror’s Depth’ should be lying somewhere deep within the Pacific Ocean, together with the body of Henry Regent. It should be impossible to bring it up again.”

“In that case, it is rather more comforting to know it’s in there.”

“That’s right. As long as a marine expert doesn’t use deep-sea radars to look for sunken treasure, there won’t be a problem.”

“That way, the heir of the elite treasure hunters—Abigail Graves won’t find anything in Bodensee Lake no matter how she dives… On the contrary, I kinda feel bad for Bob and the others.”

“If they want to look for it, let them look for it.”

The pediatrician narrows his eyes, staring at him intently.

“Why, doctor, are you unhappy about something?”

“I’m not unhappy, I’m just wondering how you became so crafty—”

“I would rather prefer it if you said I’m someone who shouldn’t be messed with.”

Murata smiles brightly, as though saying ‘no such thing, I’m a model student, you know’. Even if he purposely tries to act more decent, his cover has been blown from the start.

“That’s why I’m saying, the problem we have now is the other Box, ‘Inferno on the Tundra’.”

“But that one—”

As usual, Rodriguez drags out his last syllable when asking.

“—was under Hazel’s care, and eventually burned down together with the house for some reason, right?”

“That’s what it looks like on the surface, but it’s full of mystery."

Back then Hazel Graves was getting ready to renovate the house she just got into a gallery of her collection. She even personally brought in a few of the most precious items, things even her family rarely got to see.

And ‘that’ was one of them—the Box identified as ‘Inferno on the Tundra’.

She gave the other Box she found—‘Mirror’s Depth’ to the art salesman in Australia for safekeeping, while keeping ‘Inferno on the Tundra’ by her side.

That fire that attacked the Graves house burnt even the pillars down to the ground, until all that was left was coal and ash. The a.s.sumption was that she died in the fire as well, but there was no body in her coffin. Back then the people who attended the funeral, who grieved and wept for Hazel Graves, didn’t know that in the coffin covered with flowers and soil, there was only her clothes and personal items.

“…But I suspect she went there.”

“Went where?”

“There.”

Rodriguez doesn’t ask where ‘there’ is. He’s a mazoku born and bred on Earth, so even if someone told him there’s a world completely different to this one, he can’t quite imagine what kind of a place that is. But he can understand the existence of ‘that world’, and he can accept it.

“So this can explain it?”

“To be precise, there is no other way to explain it.”

The crime scene investigators in 1903 couldn’t come to the truth. Their conclusion was the heat was so extreme it destroyed everything, from the building to the items in the house to the body—That was the explanation the police and fire brigade gave her family.

“That explanation can’t convince me. After all, that wasn’t a drug factory or a petrol station, just a normal civilian house, so no matter how high the heat, there should be some flesh or bone left. If there was an explosion then that would be another matter altogether, but a normal fire wouldn’t make someone vanish without a trace.”

“Well, about that… The incident happened over seventy years ago~~”

“However, if Hazel flew over to that world with the Box, everything can be explained. Once things transcend science, reality can never catch up.”

He tries to use the tips of his toes to kicks aside the donut bag, and the paper bounces off under the front seat, vanis.h.i.+ng. But this only means it’s vanished from his sight, and even if he can’t see it, it’s still right there, hiding in a dark place under the seat. Matter doesn’t just suddenly disappear.

“…Anyway, let’s meet Mr Hobart first.”

Rodriguez nods lightly to approve Murata’s words, their conversation ending with that. Only the radio keeps repeating pa.s.sionate words. Soon, though, Rodriguez still can’t help but say,

“B-but… You said it’s not there, so the Box isn’t in Switzerland!?”

The pediatrician presses his hand to his chest, his brow furrowed as he laughs,

“In that case, why did Ken purposely act so nervous in front of Bob!? You had him hook, line and sinker… I can’t believe you actually acted all this out, what a naughty boy you are—”

The pediatrician brings up the incident at the KTV.

Calling him ‘a naughty boy’ isn’t just rude, it obviously means he treats him as a child. But affected by the mood, Murata raps the car window gla.s.s with his fist and laughs,

“I wasn’t acting. That wasn’t acting, I wasn’t in the mood, either, I really panicked. Because s.h.i.+buya disappeared, and without a trace. This was my first time feeling so panicked since kindergarten.”

“Panic? You, panicked?”

“When you ask that and sound so surprised, it’s like you’re saying I don’t have emotions.”

“Nah, that’s not what I meant.”

The doctor’s smile suddenly disappears, and he says, completely seriously,

“I’m really worried.”

“Mn—Because s.h.i.+buya always does things so rashly.”

“I’m not talking about s.h.i.+buya, I’m talking about you.”

His expression is that of a mother who just got interested in parenting, yet has to send her kid to kindergarten. Worried for him, reluctant to leave him, and yet confident that he can pa.s.s this test.

Murata can’t help but avert his gaze, looking at the car ceiling and sighing deeply. Then he relaxes his body, tilting his head towards the window gla.s.s.

“If you’re not hungry then take a nap! We’ll be spending close to two hours in the car, anyway.”

“You want me to take a nap in this car with the G.o.d awful music?”

“Mn, I’ll call you once we reach Freeport.”

“I’ll never get to sleep.”

But it seems there was nothing to worry about.

In a few minutes, he descends into a deep slumber. The young singer continues to vent his emotions, singing of despair towards this world.