Chapter 3:
Transfer
A few hours after their amazing win, Akira sat near her laptop, relaxed. She could hear Kei talking to their mother and laughing downstairs, and smiled. She sat up and turned to her laptop, meaning to shut it off, when a notice popped on screen. She stared at it.
“New email message received…” Akira frowned. She clicked on the message and read it. There were only three sentences in it.
All journeys have a beginning and an end. The end is close at hand, but the journey has only just begun. The times of trouble will soon come, and then only spirit will save us all.
Akira inspected the message and found no trace of a sender or return email address. The subject line was blank. That’s strange… Then she read it again, mystified and a little uneasy.
‘The end is close at hand, but the journey has only just begun…’ She shivered. What does that mean? The rational part of her dismissed the message as just a joke or prank, but another part of her also thought, ‘what if?’ Did the cryptic message have something to do with the game? Or was it in connection with something else? She started to wonder if she had somehow stumbled into something that was way over her head.
She shook her head and shut off her laptop. It’s nothing, she thought. Just a harmless message sent by some nut playing a joke… Deep down, though, she had doubts.
Her thoughts were interrupted as Kei bounded up the stairs and burst through the door. She was holding a small, brown cardboard box.
“What’s that?” Akira asked when she got inside.
“I don’t know. Mom said she got it in the mail earlier, and it was addressed to me.” Kei shook the box and heard something clatter inside. She opened the box, and a strange thing fell out. She picked it up and gasped. It was a small, round, translucent green electronic device. It had a small digital screen with a circle of strange symbols around the rim of it. A single, thin slot crossed the top of the device. “Weird,” she said softly, “It looks just like a watch without the strap!”
Akira stared at it with a strange expression. “That’s funny,” she whispered, “I think I’ve seen that somewhere before…” She strained to remember where and when she saw it, but the answer seemed to stay just out of reach. She sighed, frustrated.
Kei smiled, not listening to what Akira was saying. “I guess this is a prize the game company sent because we won that mission!” She skipped away, the strange little digital device in her hand. Akira stared at her, frowning.
“Then why didn’t I get one?” she whispered.
“Seita?”
Seita was currently packing a large duffel bag. “Yeah?” he asked, turning toward Yuka.
“What do you think these could be?” Yuka asked, holding up two small devices, one blue, one pink.
Seita frowned. “Where did you get those?”
“In the mail.”
“Can I see one of them?”
Yuka looked at both devices, then tossed the blue one to Seita. She remained silent for a few moments while he examined it, then spoke up.
“They came in a little brown box, addressed to both of us,” Yuka said softly, “Mom found it on the doorstep…” She hesitated, looking directly at Seita. “Right after we won that mission.”
Seita shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, pushing random buttons on the device. “Maybe they’re some sort of prize for completing a mission, or something. They’re a bit of a waste, though. They don’t look like they do anything.” He shoved the device in his pocket and picked up his bag. “Don’t worry about it.”
Yuka was silent a moment, staring at hers. “Everything happens for a reason,” she murmured in a dead voice.
Seita raised an eyebrow. “Yuka-”
“Seita!” their mother’s voice rang out.
“Yeah?” Seita answered back.
“Soccer practice!” she called back, “Now, or you’ll be late!”
Seita sighed. “All right, Mom, I’m going.” He was about to leave the room when she shouted again.
“And take your sister with you this time!”
Seita sighed again. He looked down at Yuka with concern. “I guess Mom doesn’t mind if you get bored,” he said, trying to make a joke.
“It doesn’t matter,” she answered softly, then her face clouded over. “I think I should go, in any case.” Her eyes narrowed, and she clenched the pink device in her hand. “If something happens today, I don’t want to be here all by myself.”
Something about what she said gave Seita the shivers. “Yuka, what are you-”
“Seita!”
He turned toward the voice in annoyance. “What?!”
“Out!” his mother exclaimed, “Now!”
Some moments later, both of them were outside, nearing the soccer field.
“What were you saying, ‘if something happens today’, Yuka?” Seita asked, still puzzling over what happened before they left.
Yuka said nothing, and just shook her head.
“Didn’t you tell Mom or Dad anything?”
Yuka shook her head again. “They wouldn’t understand.”
“Hey, Kazama!” someone called out from the field.
Seita looked over and raised a hand in greeting. “Yo.” He saw a couple of boys being rather rough with one of the spare soccer balls, kicking it hard. He ignored this, and turned to Yuka. “Just go over to one of the benches and sit,” he said, “We’ll be done in about an hour.”
Yuka, however, was not listening. She was staring down at the device in her hand. It was acting strangely – beeping and vibrating wildly.
Seita was completely baffled by this, and when he pulled his out of his pocket, he saw that it was doing the same thing.
Then, they were both startled by a shout from the field, behind them.
“Watch out!”
Seita looked back, and from the corner of his eye, he saw a soccer ball traveling toward him, slowly, heading dangerously close to his face, and then…
Tian yawned as she walked down a narrow, busy street, absently swinging a bag full of groceries. The early morning sun cast blinding rays into her eyes, and the hustle and bustle from passing cars, pedicabs, and people on bicycles bored through her ears. A car zipped by her, horn blowing, causing her to yelp in surprise and cover her ears.
She moaned, and rubbed her eyes to clear them, silently vowing never to pull any more all-nighters. She passed by an electronics store with several TVs on display, when something peculiar caught her eye, making her back up and look again.
At first glance, the TVs were normal – showing a story on the local news station, and the same one on each screen, with the time shown on the top left hand corner. However, the time on every screen was scrambled, with several of the digits quickly shifting between zero and nine in a wild roulette. Also, with a closer look through the store window, Tian could see many of the appliances acting similarly weird, and many of the employees were starting to complain.
At the same time, Tian felt a strange vibrating in her pocket. She reached in and pulled out a yellow device, shaking and making a curious beeping noise in her hand.
Suddenly, she wasn’t sleepy anymore.
She was further interrupted as a series of car horns, as well as the sounds of several collisions, filled the air. She looked toward the noise, and was shocked to see a massive car accident that had cropped up in a nearby intersection. The traffic lights were blinking madly from red, to yellow, to green, and back.
The crash began attracting more shocked and curious pedestrians, and as Tian tried moving closer, she had a difficult time seeing over the heads of those taller than her. In the confusion, she and many of the others failed to notice that another loud commotion had erupted just a block away.
A moment later, Tian could just barely hear someone shouting “Look out!” in Chinese. She turned around…
On a sparse, little-used highway, a large coach bus sped along smoothly. An endless stream of trees lined the road on both sides, and everything around was dark, save for the darkening blue sky and the faint, orange rays of the sunset filtering in through the branches.
Jun was staring into space, absently flipping a strange orange device into the air and catching it. Mana sat next to him, a similar red device resting on her lap. She stared out the window at the dark, impenetrable forest, and sighed at constant intervals, clearly bored. The never-changing scenery, the rumbling of the bus, as well as the constant chatter of the kids sitting around her were starting to get to her. And the bright orange light glinting into her eyes from whatever Jun was flipping into the air was not helping.
“Jun, will you stop that?” Mana said irritably, “It’s getting on my nerves!”
“I will, if you stop sighing,” Jun answered, still staring into space.
Mana glared at him and looked away, facing the window again. She didn’t sigh again, so the flipping abruptly stopped.
“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?” Jun asked, “You were practically bouncing off the walls after we defeated that game this afternoon, and now-”
Mana glared at him from the corner of her eye.
“Now, you look like you’ve eaten a box of tacks!”
Mana continued to glare at him. “Very funny.”
“Then why are you so ticked off?”
“Here’s why-” Mana said scathingly, “We’ve been on this bus for four straight hours, heading for a camp in the middle of who-knows-where, and-”
“And?”
Mana was about to reply, when the bus suddenly lurched, slamming both of them into the seats in front of them. Screams and shouts erupted from the other kids on the bus, and then… silence.
“What was that?” Mana asked in a fearful whisper.
“No idea,” Jun answered, picking himself off the floor. He got up, noticing immediately that the bus had come to a complete stop. “Did we hit something?”
His thoughts were interrupted by Mana’s sudden intake of breath.
“What is it?”
Mana gestured toward the kids who were sitting near them, both in front and in the back. “Look…”
Some of the kids were screaming, while others looked surprised. However… none of them were moving. No sound came from their mouths, and their expressions remained the same – as if they were frozen in time. A quick look around the bus confirmed that all of the other kids were similarly affected.
Jun got out of his seat and stepped into the aisle. He pulled his backpack up from under the seat and slung it over his shoulder. Mana did the same with hers.
Jun looked toward the front, at the driver, and called out.
“Sir?”
His voice sounded unusually loud as it traveled down the aisle. He walked slowly over to where the driver sat, Mana following behind him. “Excuse me, sir-”
Jun stopped, staring at the driver in shock. Just like the other kids, the driver was frozen, with a stunned look on his face. He looked as if he was trying to steer the bus out of the way from something.
Jun turned away from the driver and looked directly in front, through the windshield. There was nothing in front of them that could obstruct their path. In fact, there was absolutely nothing in front of them at all – no road, no trees. There was only a blank space.
“What’s going on?” Mana asked fearfully, “Why is everything frozen?”
Jun opened his mouth to reply, but he was interrupted by a loud beeping noise and a violent shaking in his hand. He looked down at the orange device he still held in his hand. It was beeping and vibrating wildly. Mana looked at her own red device and saw that it was doing the same. Then, suddenly, a bright, blinding light flashed out.
It was the last thing they were aware of…
“Akira!”
“Yeah?” Akira looked up at the sound of her mother’s voice.
“Come down for a minute. I need to talk to you.”
A few minutes later, Akira was staring at her mother blankly, after listening to what she had to say.
“Touma’s coming back? Tonight?”
Her mother nodded. “Yes.”
Akira looked away from her. She tensed up, trying not to let her fear and anger show through, but apparently some did, for her mother replied, “Oh, I wish you wouldn’t feel like that, Akira.” Akira closed her eyes and shook her head. She walked back up the stairs.
“Tell me when dinner’s ready,” she called back. Her mother sighed sadly.
When Akira got back inside the room, she closed the door and smacked her fist on the wall. It’s just like him to do something like this, she thought ruefully. No matter what I do to stay out of his way and forget, he’ll never leave me alone!
She looked up and glanced at her overnight bag, feeling slightly tempted to run away. She walked over to the drawer where she kept her clothes, opened it, and pulled some out. A small device popped out and fell to the floor. Akira glanced at it and picked it up.
It was a device just like Kei’s, but was a light, pale blue in color, and looked more battered and worn. Akira looked at it more and a strange vision popped into her head.
She was standing in the colored forest, but the wind was colder and gave her a small chill. She held the blue device, which glowed with a bright light, and smiled sadly at…someone.
The details were murky and gray, like a long-forgotten memory.
“Akira! Dinner’s ready!” Her mother’s call startled her, making her forget the flashback and let it fade away. She stood up and looked at the device again.
This one’s mine, I think, she thought, Or used to be. Maybe that’s why they didn’t send two. They probably knew I already had one. But… She frowned. How did it get here, and how did I get it in the first place? Maybe I left it here a year ago, the last time I was here, but I couldn’t have gotten it then. It looks a lot older than that… She felt nervous and excited at the same time, as if her thoughts were dancing around the edge of some mystery, something hidden away for years.
“Akira!” her mother called again.
“Coming!” she called back, tucking the strange gadget in her shirt pocket. The giddy feeling suddenly flowed away. She took one last look at the room and walked down the stairs.
During dinner everyone was unusually silent. Even Kei didn’t talk much. Akira finished early and got up from the table.
“Can I go out for a walk, Mom?” she asked.
“Sure, as long as you come back before we meet Touma at the airport.” Akira frowned and turned to the door. “Are you going to take a jacket?” her mother asked her.
“No, it’s all right. It’s a warm night.” She went out the door quickly and shut it. Kei looked after her, then turned back to her mother.
“Mom…”
Akira walked out of the house quickly, trying to put some distance between herself and everyone in the house. She didn’t feel like discussing anything with them yet.
Akira walked over to the park and sat down on a bench, looking at the strange blue device.
I want to go home, she thought to herself, Why did I ever agree to come in the first place? I promised myself… that I’d never come back, ever… Tears shimmered in her eyes. That I’d never let it happen to me again… She couldn’t help remembering things – the pain and hurt, the hate, and the – what? She hit a strong, high wall in her memory, a wall blocking her from… something.
It wasn’t the first time she experienced this. The feeling that she knew something but couldn’t put her finger on it, something important she should know but could never remember no matter how hard she tried. She tried shaking the strange feeling off and looked around her. The sun was sinking slowly below the horizon now, and lots of places had their lights on.
She breathed deeply, wondering how it would feel like, just to walk off and just disappear into the crowd, to forget everything and finally be away from him. She could do it – just run off and never come back, then find some way to go back home…
She shook her head. She was being stupid. Of course I can’t just run off, she thought bitterly. What will Mom and Kei think? They’d know I ran away, and when he comes back, he’ll come and take me back and the whole thing starts over again… She shut her eyes tight. I can still remember it… She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. No. Never again. Besides, the last time I tried running off, it didn’t work. It landed me into–
Again, she slammed into the memory wall. She sighed. What happened then? she wondered, getting nothing but a blank. Whatever it was that happened, she couldn’t remember. Tian had taken to calling it an accident – whatever that meant. It was strange – she couldn’t remember a lot of things, especially things that happened within the last year. It was as if they were locked away, unable to be touched.
She pushed these mysterious thoughts away, like she always did lately, and looked around. It was getting very late. She closed her eyes. I came because I wanted to see them, to help take care of them while he was gone. I’ll have to stick to that when he comes back. She got up, making her decision, and began to walk back to the house. She was halfway there when she bumped into a little boy. He stumbled and dropped a few things.
“Oh! I’m sorry!” Akira leaned down to help him pick up his things when she noticed what they were.
There was a digital device just like hers, but black, and a pendant, jet black with a carving of a strange, curved keyhole.
She looked at the pendant and had a flash of recognition. She blinked in surprise, trying to grab the memory back, but it quickly faded away. She glanced up at the boy. He was small and had a navy blue tracksuit – the mystery boy who helped out in the game! He had black hair and cold, dark eyes. He shot a dark look at her, quickly gathered up the items, and ran.
“Hey!” Akira called after him, “Come back! I want to talk to you!” The boy continued running and didn’t look back. Akira ran after him. She chased him until she reached a dark intersection close to Kei’s house. The boy ran across the street, and she tried to follow him.
“Akira!” a familiar voice called. She turned around and saw Kei run to her. She looked back at the boy, who was almost out of sight.
“Kei! What are you doing here?” Akira demanded, and noticed bright lights ahead. A car was coming, and they were right in the middle of the road! “Kei! Go!” Akira pushed her off the road and out of the way of the car, but there wasn’t enough time for her to move herself. The oncoming car’s lights blinded her, then…
Akira’s pale-blue device started shining and beeping wildly. Kei looked at hers, and it shined as well. The air around the girls got hotter and stuffier, and everything began to shine in wild rainbow colors. A giant wave appeared and enveloped them, and then everything went black…