Best enjoyed with the music: /Ai8nzUV8V3U

Chapter 5 - 魔法量子 ～ 忘れた性格

"That's... I never thought about that. But what exactly spurred you on to think about these boundaries? You said you were inspired by your friend, was she also in physics?"

"No, she was in the social sciences actually, specifically relative psychology. But there was more to it than that, Kitashirakawa."

"What do you mean?"

"She was a living contradiction to all of my reasoning. You remember what I said about individuals who may have quantum adaptations? She had one, and not just any adaptation. She could see the boundaries of the world, Kitashirakawa. Even manipulate them."

"But that would mean they are physical, at least somewhat, right? If it was a quantum adaptation, then her body chemistry has to be entangled with something, right?"

"You're beginning to see the problem now. Boundaries existing leads to there being a quantum for our own psyches, and for them to interact directly with particles. Is that not magic; something that is so radically against the thought of all the greatest thinkers in physics, that it must be some hoax? I saved myself the trouble of hearing it from someone else, and made up a reason that reinforced what everyone already believed so that the project could end.

"That's when we went our separate ways, my friend and I. The last thing she said to me was that she was going to keep investigating her adaptation, or 'ability' as we called it then. I haven't seen or heard anything about her since."

"That's so sad. What was her name?"

"Maribel Hearn, although somehow I get the feeling she doesn't use that name anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"It could mean a lot of things really. The most simple is maybe she continued on to have a normal life, got married like me, and all that. I wasn't always 'Professor Okazaki,' after all, just check those papers I gave you.

"But I didn't figure her to be the type to give up investigating her ability, so I like to think she went and fully realized what she had. But an ability to influence people in unseen ways, to actually manipulate the boundaries that people leave behind wherever they go, is rather terrifying isn't it? A being that can push past the boundaries of space and time exists in a superposition across all spacetime unobserved, who knows what she has seen."

"Sounds like you're afraid to see her again."

"Wouldn't you? How would you see yourself after years and years of playing with the mechanics that underlie the universe? I can barely recognize myself from twenty years ago. To move in space independent of time, and time independent of space, wouldn't that warp your perception of things?"

"Hmm... Ms. Okazaki, I think that's just all in your head. Like a character you've created of what she might be. But that's not really her! Like distant stars stuck in the past, it's just an image of her affecting how you see her now! You'll only know how she is when you see her, whether she is that friend you knew or not."

"I... No you're right, that's the truth of it."

Pizy here!

Since this is the penultimate chapter of QoM, I'd like to open a Q&A of sorts. Feel free to ask whatever you want in the reviews, or comment section of this chapter's song!