Chapter 8.5: Through the Looking Glass (I)

Time slowed to a crawl.

His body felt weightless. The wind rustled in his ears. It was a shrill, piercing sound that resembled a whistle. The burning conference room, the location which still currently served as an all-out battlefield between the Antibody Network and Lacia-class hIEs fell strangely silent. Or rather, it was not that it was silent, for he was sure the raging fires were sure to be making a racket on its own, it was the adrenaline in his system which served to flush all of these sensory noises from his mind.

It was almost as if a shockwave had rippled across the entire area, making the raging battle pause for a moment as every occupant in the hall seemed to focus on him. Strangely enough, despite the critical situation, he felt a sense of shyness at this sudden rush of attention at being put under the spotlight like this. even enemies who were seconds ago completely focused on destroying the other party had stopped to react to the situation.

He could see the eyes of the members of the Antibody Network go wide in shock behind the lenses of their combat goggles. A couple of them had their mouths open, though he couldn't hear them, he was sure that they were yelling.

At the far end of the convention hall, Snowdrop had a look of unabashed glee on her face, like a child at play as she pointed and laughed at him. Even Kouka, which had been locked in lethal combat with her had stopped. He was sure that she too would be relishing in his demise, but to his surprise, he could clearly see her body shift in slow motion to begin what seemed like a sprint in his direction with a determined expression. Earlier she had called him a fool who could not tell apart friend or foe. Even now, he couldn't discern her intentions.

But what commanded his attention the most was the crackling, shifting air at a location merely meters away from him. Bit by bit, layer by layer, like the unveiling of a priceless artifact behind a curtain, he could see her body come into view. With black monolith still by her side and bereft of the invisibility provided by the meta-material fiber film, Lacia was storming towards him. She was moving towards him with such speed that he could see the wooden floor panels under her crack. Lacia was clearly running at the maximum limits her body allowed.

Finally, sound returned to his ears and he could begin to hear once more.

"Arato-san!"

If it were any other time, Arato would be overjoyed at the flustered state of her voice. Lacia was never one to express herself in any overt manner. As she was an hIE, her face remained perfectly composed, but her desperate tone alone was enough to reassure Arato that she had not seen this turn of events coming and it had not been included in her calculations.

She reached out for him with her free hand, and his body automatically responded to her call by extending his as well in a synchronized mirror.

Arato stared at his own hand. It was smooth and fair. It was a privileged hand that had not fully felt the meaning and pain of hard labor or harsh sunlight. The palm that was free of calluses was covered with a mere thin layer of skin. It was the hand of a child that had lived his entire life until now under the shelter of a system run by adults. And it was this same hand that Lacia had urged him to place the entire world in.

At that time, Arato did not feel that such a hand could bear the weight of the world nor did he possess any right to impose his childish vision as such, and thus he rejected her calling. But even so, with these hands, he thought that at the very least he could hold Lacia, he could touch her beatless heart and give warmth to her hollow, mechanical frame. If this was something Arato had the power to do, he would be willing to pay any price.

But despite both parties extending their hands to the utmost of their ability, in the end, Arato found that their hands could not reach each other. The distance between their hands seemed like the gap that would always exist between a human and a machine. No matter how much one tried to close it, the reality remained that such a gap was undeniable, unclosable, and unbridgeable.

He clenched his sweaty palm to form a fist of rejection.

"It's impossible for someone like me after all."

Arato muttered bitterly and lowered his head. He couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes. He couldn't bear to meet the disappointment that was bound to be on her face. He looked away, towards the lights of the city which shone like a shining carpet, stretching from Oi to Ota City and all the way to Haneda Airport and beyond. It was spread out for him in such a way that was so wide, so distant, so vast that it made Arato want to cry.

The world is so large. To place it at the whims of a kid like me would be folly. This was the right choice.

But even still, Arato did not feel like this wasn't exactly the worst way to bring things to an end. At the very least, he had managed to see the panicked Lacia, a new side of her who he found to be quite cute in his eyes.

After all, this was the furthest that he, a human could go for her, an hIE. This was the limit of his meagre human strength. Even Lacia, with all of her impressive capabilities, couldn't easily overcome the gap between them. Unless of course, she was willing to cut off her own wings and tie herself down for 'love'.

But that in itself was an impossibility, for she was a heartless machine that would always objectively pick the most logical choice which corresponded to her own personal self-interest. If she were to do such a thing and go against her nature, such debasement would be akin to an angel falling from the heavens.

However, even though it was wrong, and Arato knew such a thing would come with an equivalent price, in the end, he couldn't stop himself from defaulting to his most primal and human instincts at the very last moment.

"Save me!" He screamed. Despite trying his best to smile and endure it all quietly, his facade cracked, and Arato screamed like he hadn't since he was a child.

Those were the cursed words from his mouth. It was the desperate plea of a boy begging a higher power to change his fate. The payment for such a whimsical demand would be a curse indeed, but in a way, it could also be said that the more things fell and the more they got corrupted and deviated from the initial goal, the more beautiful it became.

Those were the final words from Endo Arato as he plummeted to his death from the 22nd floor of the Oi Industry Promotion Center.

A/N:

When writing this Key Production Scene of the first arc. I found that there were a few lines that were quite difficult to translate from my original draft. It was even more troublesome as they were the key lines that I wanted to center the entire concept of this scene around.

In particular, the line "Unless of course, she was willing to cut off her own wings and tie herself down for 'love'." gave me a bit of trouble. In the original Japanese which I have written this line「彼女も翼を斬り落として、恋を繋ぎ止める」, I used the term Love(恋) instead of Love(愛) to describe Arato's feelings towards Lacia. It's quite a challenge to write it in a way that is easily understood by readers, but in the prologue and for the first half of the story, whenever Arato describes his feelings for Lacia, I structure the prose in my mind around the idea of 'Love'(恋) from the perspective of a teenager. It's a love that's romantic and longing and passionate. It's different from the deep, established, and mature 'Love'(愛) of an adult.

It's a context that is a bit difficult to convey with English directly. It's the same whenever Arato starts to wonder if the heartless Lacia will ever 'Love' him as both words for 'Love'(恋/愛) share the word 'Heart'(心) written in them.

The other line I had trouble with was "It could also be said that the more things fell and the more they got corrupted and deviated from the initial goal, the more beautiful it became." From its original production line of 「堕ちゆく程に、穢れる程に美しい」, it's obvious that my translation/localization got a bit too wordy for its own good. But since this is still a ways off in the current arc, I should have time to come up with a more natural way to phrase it in English.

This Key Scene is an initial production draft and isn't indicative of the precise outline of the events for the upcoming arc. Although the overall events will be the same, any reader expecting a word-to-word replay will be setting themselves up for disappointment. Also, as a production draft, the quality of it obviously differs from a published full-length chapter. But in any case, every arc will begin with a key production scene and cap off with a dedicated afterword, I think that is the structure I have decided for this story.

And yes, there is a lot of foreshadowing here for the entire story and concepts as a whole.

To cut off one's own wings for the sake of love... Huh.