Chapter 002

Act I - The Ambiguous Consciousness

Update Time: 2011-OCT-04 09:57:53

Splash...

Sorano stood under the showerhead, letting the warm water wash over her body. The white steam from the hot water filled the entire shower room, making it hard to see anything.

In the afternoon, she accidentally got caught in the rain. To avoid catching a cold, Sorano took a hot shower to drive away the coldness that had invaded her body.

She turned off the tap, wiped her body with a towel skillfully, and then naturally threw back her beautiful long hair. Her incredible long hair naturally spread out, as smooth as if it had not a single water droplet on it.

Standing in front of the mirror in the shower room, Sorano wiped away the condensation on the mirror with her hand. In the mirror, the figure of a girl appeared.

Graceful facial contours, delicate features, and smooth skin. Although still young, she already had some of the curves of a woman.

Everything seemed to be perfectly proportioned as if it was intentionally designed that way. It was as if the heavens created such a girl just to manifest the concept of "female" in the most perfect form possible.

Even the most beautiful women in Greek mythology, Helen and Pandora, could not match her, could they?

Sorano's appearance was indeed like that of Pandora, full of bewitching charm. It made people unable to help but anticipate her future while also feeling uneasy about it.

However, when did she become familiar with and accustomed to all of this? Caressing the faint "6" birthmark on her right shoulder, Sorano realized that she didn't want to remember anything anymore.

Sorano has a secret that no one except herself knows, which is that she is very likely not Sorano at all.

This might be hard to understand. In fact, in Sorano's consciousness and memory, she should have had another identity.

A man who studied theoretical physics but had no achievements due to lack of talent, switched to writing science fiction novels but was still unfamous, spent his whole life in failure and poverty.

Sorano couldn't explain what was going on. All she could say was that in her consciousness, before having the identity of "Sorano", she was that useless, failed man.

Her memories were partially incomplete, and she couldn't judge which identity in her consciousness, past or present, was the reality. The result of her desperate search was fruitless. The only thing that she could confirm was that the memories, including the knowledge of physics, from her previous identity were fully inherited by the current Sorano.

So, deducing the Einstein field equations at the beginning was actually cheating.

However, there was one thing that Sorano found difficult to understand. That was the fact that the current girl named "Sorano" indeed had almost infinite talent, as her teacher had said. Even the most difficult and obscure theories could be immediately grasped by her with just one explanation. Even Sorano herself was sometimes frightened by her own amazing talent.

At least in her memory, that identity which might belong to the "past" was of someone lacking talent. There was absolutely no innate talent like the present where she could almost certainly master everything as long as she was willing to learn.

This was a difficult thing to understand. If the talent of thinking depended on consciousness (or, one might say, the soul), then such talent should be fixed and there should never be such a situation.

This was also an important reason that made Sorano doubt whether her past identity in her consciousness was false.

She changed into her pajamas and drove her slightly tired body, due to the hot water shower, back to her room. Sorano threw herself onto the soft bed, holding a loose pink pillow, and didn't feel like moving at all.

This very feminine gesture was not something she possessed at first, but gradually developed after getting used to her female identity. In fact, Sorano used to be very resistant to all hobbies that leaned towards femininity, until she had to try to get used to her female identity. Apart from causing a lot of trouble for the orphanage at the time, this seemed to provide evidence that "the past identity was real".

Moreover, although it was possible to doubt whether the past identity was false, the problem was that the current identity of "Sorano" also had many mysteries that were difficult to explain.

In fact, her current consciousness suddenly appeared in the body of "Sorano". Just like waking up suddenly in sleep, when she "realized" herself one day, she was already at the entrance of this orphanage. The memories belonging to the current identity were completely blank, and there were only three things that should belong to her, but they could not become proof of her identity. Those three things were still carefully preserved by Sorano.

She opened the bedside table and took out the three things, placing them on the bed one by one.

A set of eighty tarot cards, a book that Sorano herself could not understand, and an ID card. These were all she had when her consciousness appeared in the body of "Sorano".

In theory, the ID card was proof of identity. However, in her own card, besides being able to confirm her name, the only identity was "an orphan of unknown origin", without any clues that could be found about the identity of this body.

However, a detail revealed in the ID card caught Sorano's attention.

That was somewhat unbelievable, the medical records recorded in Sorano's ID card showed that she was a mirror person.

Placing her hand on her left chest, she could indeed not feel the presence of a heartbeat. Her heart was on the right side of her chest, and all her organs, from their form to their position, were opposite to those of a normal person. Later routine medical examinations also confirmed this.

The probability of mirror people appearing was extremely low, even the denominator exceeded the total population of Academy City. It was not an exaggeration to describe it as a miracle. Therefore, if all birth records of hospitals could be searched, perhaps a clue could be found.

However, this was obviously not something she could do.

"Sigh..."

Sorano covered her head with a pillow, feeling completely helpless.

At that moment, someone knocked on the door.

Sorano didn't have any roommates; she had always lived alone. When she first became conscious and was still struggling with her tendency towards female, it caused a lot of trouble. To avoid the trouble, the orphanage gave her a single room.

"Coming."

Sorano put on her slippers and opened the door. There was Haruue Erii standing outside with a face as if she was about to cry.

"Erii? What's wrong?"

"Sorano, are you leaving us?"

Erii's teary voice interrupted Sorano.

"... You've found out?"

"Yeah, I eavesdropped..."

Behind Erii, another girl came out.

Edasaki Banri, the only person in the orphanage who frequently talked to Sorano.

In the morning, after the "guest" came to visit, the director of the orphanage talked to Sorano. The content was completely different from what Sorano had guessed before.

It was an adoption request.

This wasn't a particularly surprising thing; the children in the orphanage were often adopted by kind-hearted people. However, when this suddenly happened to herself, Sorano's clever mind, which was enviable, completely stalled for a moment.

To be honest, she had thought about this day possibly coming. With her appearance and her genius side, it was almost certain that someone would want to adopt her — in fact, because the previous people who requested to adopt her were not reliable, the orphanage had refused several requests, and Sorano was fully aware of this. But when it finally happened, she still couldn't accept it immediately.

The person who requested to adopt her had a big background — he was the son of the chairman of Tokiwadai Middle School. It seemed that he made the decision after listening to her teacher's introduction and investigating her.

The other side was a social celebrity with an excellent reputation. Moreover, he was familiar with her teacher and very reliable because her teacher played the role of intermediary. He was also the son of a prestigious school chairman, so there was no need to worry about Sorano's future education level. Furthermore, the orphanage should also receive a large donation. From any angle, it was the perfect fit.

Although the director said that the final decision to accept or not was up to Sorano herself, and even gave Sorano a week's time, Sorano actually realized that she was probably going to leave this time. Because for either side, it was already the best possible outcome.

"Don't leave us, okay?"

"Well, nothing has been decided yet, so..."

Sorano wanted to say some comforting words, but found that she couldn't say anything. At times like this, any comforting words would only be lies.

And at this moment, the figure of that boy suddenly appeared in Sorano's mind — the figure of whom drenched in the rain, looking disheveled but deeply imprinted in her mind. So she could only choose to remain silent.

"No, that's not right. This is a good thing, isn't it?"

Watching Banri try her best to persuade Erii with a look that seemed like she was about to cry, Sorano felt like she was being infected by this atmosphere.

Although she had already accepted her current identity, due to those memories that may belong to the past, Sorano always had a sense of unreality about herself in the present, which made her seem indifferent most of the time. Now, this feeling seemed to be broken by something.

Until now, she truly realized that whether the past was fictitious or not, the present was indeed real.

She might not be elder than Erii and Banri, but she had a consciousness that belonged to the past, and her psychological age was much older than theirs. At times like this, she should play a stronger role.

In those memories of the past, she always just met people and parted ways, drifting with the tide. It seemed like nothing had changed, and no trace could be left.

But now, Sorano sincerely hoped for a change.

So she reached out and hugged Erii.

"Erii, the past is only for reminiscing, not for indulging in. We will all grow up sooner or later, and we can't always be together. There will be a day when we will all leave. What we should do is remember each other in our hearts, rather than leave each other in the past, because growth is just a process of countless farewells. This won't be the end of the past, but only the beginning of the future."

Sorano was not good at speaking, nor did she have any experience in this area. The comfort she could offer was only this.

At this point, of course, she could not have imagined how much her words would impact Erii.