Part 109: Coco's Route - True End - Part 14

"I just remembered my name...."

The Kid repeated it slowly.


"Ryogo..., Ka...bu...ra...ki...."


"Ryogo Kaburaki....So I see....Way to go."

I smiled and patted his head. The young Kaburaki smiled shyly....



He had a screwdriver in his hand....

"Ryogo Kaburaki."

With thin sharp writing, The young Kaburaki carved his name deeply into the statue. He must have been pretty happy to have remembered his name? Or was it so that he wouldn't forget it again...? Although I didn't know the reason, he carved his name into the statue.

He continued on....Without stopping his hands, he also carved the following letters.

"Coco Yagami"
"Yubiseiharukana Tanaka"
"Tsugumi Komachi"
"Sora Akanegasaki"
"Takeshi Kuranari"
"Pipi" and "Chami"



He smiled happily after finishing up....The statue kept silent with its hand on the chest....



Track—Drittestock



Which meant that... the 'Kid from the 17 years ago' and...'this guy pretending to be Takeshi' were...actually same person!? He looked so young that it was hard to believe it had been 17 years. If the young Kaburaki was 15 years old, that would make him 32 years old in this world. But the Kaburaki I spoke to looked around 20... there was no way he could have been over 30 years old.

Which meant...?

.................

Before I realized it, the man who called himself Kaburaki had disappeared. He had left a while before. I'd been standing there lost in thought for some time. I remembered back to the scene in 2017, which I had just witnessed earlier....





Six human-like figures and two unfamiliar animal shapes were drawn there.


"...What?"

I looked at the statue. The statue pointed south.


".........?"










"Oh, just what is this supposed to mean!? What is up with this world anyway!?"



I didn't know things that I was supposed to know...I knew things that I wasn't supposed to....

(That must be why my head is so confused. I still haven't recalled any of my memories.)

Some parts of it had come back, but nothing really important. To begin with, I still didn't know what kind of person this 'Hokuto' was. And at the same time, I knew what I wasn't supposed to know and I could see what I wasn't supposed to see.

For instance, the world 17 years into the past. About the legend of Pygmalion, the Tief Blau Virus, the Cure Virus, Pipi, and Chami....I knew about all of them now. I knew exactly what had happened during the dramatic escape 17 years ago, and what had happened on May 6th and 7th. And the world in 2034.

I could sense even the different history flows in this world.

I knew about escaping using the principle of a siphon and about swimming to the ocean surface from 104 feet under the water. The third eye...Blick Winkel...those words were clear in my head. And...then....I remembered running into Ms. Tanaka on the floating island. Or maybe more precisely I should say 'I could see it' rather than 'remember it'.

Anyway, I saw her. The woman who was called Ms. Tanaka...Yubiseiakikana's mother....Meaning, she was actually Yubiseiharukana. Although their relationship defied the norm, still Yubiseiharukana and Yubiseiakikana were mother and daughter.

.................

Pieces of my thoughts scattered....I tried gathering them and struggled to come up with some kind of conclusion.


"It's 2034 now....And Coco was in 2017...."

I whispered to confirm the facts. Yes, that's right, it was 2034 now....That was why Tsugumi had been so suspicious of us. Because the same thing that had happened 17 years ago was repeating....

How about the others? Since Yubiseiakikana had been one 17 years ago, she couldn't possibly have known about the incident. And since Sara hadn't been born yet, she wouldn't know either. Sora, being AI, couldn't lie. And she didn't seem to be lying either.

So that only left Kaburaki. Did that mean Kaburaki was the mastermind behind this whole incident in 2034?

No, wait....There had been two others who had survived the incident 17 years ago....Yubiseiharukana and Coco.

On May 6, 2017. Kaburaki, Yubiseiharukana, and Coco who had been infected with the Tief Blau Virus, had been rescued by the mini-sub, which came to the pool in IBF.


"Oh, wait...."

How did the three of them recover from the virus after they'd been infected? Because of the injection of antibodies made from Tsugumi's blood...? But Coco hadn't received the antibodies. Because she had been under high-pressure oxygen treatment in the capsule pod at the time....


"Huh...?"

(No, no, even before that Yubiseiharukana suffered from 'critical heart disease,' right? But Yubiseiharukana is still alive and well now)


"What is going on here...?"

(Well I guess there's just one answer....It's the only explanation...)

Yubiseiharukana and Kaburaki must have been infected with the Cure Virus. Their bodies must had repeated five years worth of cell division, and when all their DNA had been replaced, they stopped aging. That must have been why they looked younger than their real age. And Yubiseiharukana's heart disease would have been fixed by the Cure Virus.


"But still....Is that really what happened...?"

In a different history flow, Kaburaki couldn't see the image in the pendant. If he wasn't lying or acting, he must not have possessed infrared vision. And although I didn't have proof my instincts told me Yubiseiharukana didn't possess infrared vision, either.

Then again in the world of 2017....Tsugumi had mentioned she was 'special' among carriers of the Cure Virus. Perhaps she was a rare example of DNA replacement that had taken place safely over the whole body.

That meant...? Yubiseiharukana and Kaburaki were not complete Cure, then? But...it didn't seem to me that there could be any such thing as an 'incomplete Cure'.....


"Um....It's no use....I can't figure it out...."

But I still had far serious matter to deal with. I needed to think about this problem first.The problem was....

'How was I able to sense incidents that had taken place before I was born, or in separate time continua?'

And....

'Why is the same accident as 17 years earlier taking place again?'

It couldn't have been a coincidence. Obviously someone had planned it. There was only one clue....

Coco.

I wanted to see Coco. I felt that Coco would know everything there was to know about this incident. But how could I find Coco who seemed to just pop up randomly.


"Oh, I know...."

I had a sudden inspiration....I had a hunch. At this hour on the 5th....Coco would show up....In the Cosmic Whale Room....



Track—Lemurianische Ruine




"What time is it? A whale of a time!"


"Nee hee, ha, ha, ha, ha."


"Y-you...You better not have asked me to come all this way, just to tell me that stupid joke."

(And it's only 8 a.m. in the morning...)


"No. I just wanted to go on a date with you and..."


"D-d-ate?"


"Yeah. Well Takepyon, you like me, right? So that means we're going out! When a boyfriend and girlfriend tell each other their true feelings, everyone knows it's best to be under a starlit sky....That's why I brought you here! To the whale..."


"........."


"Actually, I'm just teasing you!"


"???"


"You're already married, right Takepyon?"


"Huh?"


"Don't be shyyyy. I know eeeeeverything there is to know about you. And not only just you. I know everything there is to know about e——verything."


"Everything..."


"Well, yeah! Of course. I'm a psychic."


"....."


"For as long as I can remember, I've been able to talk with people from different worlds."


"Different worlds meaning...the 'Other Side?'"


"Ummm...No, not like that, just another world that isn't this one."


"Aaahhh...."


"If I borrow the sight from the people in the other world, I can see everything from the past and future."


"Oh really. Wooow..."


"Like, the people in the 2nd dimension, they can't really see the whole world, right?"


"?"


"You can't see those huge line-drawings at Nazca, Peru, from the ground right? And let's say you have a really cool drawing of a robot on your computer display, one of the dots on the screen, they can't see the whole drawing..."


"Uh, yeah...?"


"So what can they do to see the whole picture? Well for the pictures at Nazca, all you have to do is go up in the air and look down...And for the picture on the display? If you can get a little bit away from the screen, into the 3rd dimension, you could see it, right?"


"........."


"We're in the 3rd dimension, right? Only the 3rd dimension keeps moving on forward in time. So in order to see it moving you can't just stay in the 3rd dimension. You'd have to look down at everything from the 4th dimension."

(Come to think of it, didn't Sora mentioned something like this...?)


"But I'm human, and I can't get out of the flow of time…So I just borrow the viewpoint of the people from the 4th dimension."


"So, what you're trying to say is, the 'people from the other side' are really people from the 4th dimension?"


"Yep!"


"That's the dumbest thing I've ever..."


"Well I caaan. I really caaaan!"


"......"


"I really, really can..."

[Music—Stop]






"It's the third eye..."


"Yeah, you could call it that too."


"So, you can tell everything about my past then..."


"Ummm, well, I don't really think I can help you, Hokutan."


"Eh?"


"Because you aren't really Hokutan, right?"


"........."


"So you aren't borrowing anyone's perception, I think. In your case, Hokutan, I'm pretty sure you're just...'perception'...itself, right?"


"What do you mean?"

Track—Drittes Auge Nehmen


"Blick Winkel."


"...What?"


"I'm pretty sure Blick Winkel knows everything."


"Blick...Winkel..."

——Just then!



A massive boom rocked our eardrums. We all reflexively looked up. The ceiling of our world, the cosmos, had shattered...Immediately a large amount of seawater rained down on us like an avalanche. Shards from the shattered wall cracked off and shot into the floor like bullets. I looked back, but Coco was gone.


"Coco!"

Nobody was there to respond. All the sound was drowned out from the water rushing in, so that we could hardly even hear our own voices. Droplets of water were falling from above...white mist was rising from below...The water level was rising quickly.

An incoming jet of water from the ceiling struck the whale, which was suspended in the center of the room. It bent backward hard, fell, and lay on the floor. Its big mouth flapped open, its pupils were empty. The whale was dead...

I turned around, cutting through the water and fled from the room.




"Hey! Are you okay!?"

I spun around, drawn by Sara's voice. She was standing there, shoulders heaving.


"I ran here as soon as the alarm sounded, but..."

Looking over Sara's shoulder...I could see people running toward us from the corridor. I returned my gaze to the door. It didn't appear to be leaking. The Whale Room was flooded, but it looked as though the other areas were safe. For now.


"Hey..."


"?"


"Blood."


"Eh?"


"You're bleeding."

Sara pointed to my left hand. I looked at my palm.

(Where did I get this cut? Did a shard hit me when it fell and I just didn't notice? Or did I snag it on something when I was trying to get out of the door?)

At any rate, bright red blood was dripping from the side of my hand.


"You okay?"

Sara took a white handkerchief from her pocket, and taking my injured hand in hers, bound the wound.


"Does it hurt?"

I shook my head. The truth was, I didn't feel anything. More important...than the scratch on my hand...


"Blick...Winkel..."


"Eh?"

Sara tilted her head questioningly. More than the injury, more than the flooding, more than anything, Coco's words were running through my head.



'Blick Winkel'

'Blick...Winkel...'


"Who...are...you? Who...am...I?"

Again...I could hear that voice again. Was it my voice? Or someone else's? I kept staring at the palm of my left hand. A red stain spread slowly across the white fabric.


"Who...are...you? Who...am...I?"

[Coco]
"Because you aren't really Hokutan, right? I'm pretty sure Blick Winkel knows everything."

'Blick Winkel’

‘Blick...Winkel...'

Blood.....

The wet, crimson, stain spread...And blood fell in thick droplets...Landing in the puddles at my feet. It spread out in the water like smoke, to eventually dissolve into the seawater.

Just then—