Do this—wait, why did you do that? Stop it—She dreamed of constant, endless interruptions, of being forced to do things and of being scolded for doing them, and of being ignored even when she was obviously doing what she was told. Meika’s mind was crushed under that dark pain until she woke up to light striking her face.
The small spotlight shining down from above was blocked by the inverted figure of a man in his prime. He had a finely chiseled face. Her sliding bed had been pulled out of its shelf in the wall just enough to see her head.
They were in Fuyō’s Axis Chamber, inside the room known as the Tamatebako.
The upside-down man wiped the tears from Meika’s cheek, as if taking pity.
“Are you all right, Meika? Are you able to endure being a subject?”
Meika’s mouth slowly formed a smile before she responded, “I am fine, Father. A trial of this caliber is a mere trifle.”
“But it is harsh, is it not? It is it not painful? If you find yourself unable to endure, for any reason, it is possible to replace you with another person.”
“There is no need, Father. It seems the device maintains the experience at an appropriate intensity.”
“Of course. Otherwise, I would not place someone as precious as you inside, even for the noble cause of bringing prosperity to the Gendō.”
The man, Nurude, closed his eyes in a look of relief. “At any rate, your agony will be over soon enough. You will be released once we are supplied with the 15 keys which are to arrive shortly. You need endure only a while longer.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Our promise will be kept. You have my word.”
“Thank you, Father.”
The zuijin near Meika carefully observed her physical condition and suggested she rest for a little bit. Her father, who had generously allowed Meika’s break, exited the room.
Once by herself, Meika punched the casing inside the solidly-built bed. It was true that she was able to endure it, and she hadn’t lied when she said she was thankful. However, what she was thankful for was that her father hadn’t pried further after brushing off her answers. She could put up with it because the stress she was experiencing wasn’t any different from what she normally experienced. Even though she had no interest in sacrificing herself for an honorable cause, her father didn’t seem to understand that in the slightest. He simply viewed his own daughter as a mere follower; her engagement to Chūya as a change of heart. And on top of it, Kanna was now completely beyond her reach.
All of it drove her to punch the casing hard enough to feel it in her bones. The bed beside hers suddenly rolled out of its shelf.
“AAAARGH!” The strange scream reverberated in the room and brought the zuijin in charge of the subjects running. He performed an examination, provided a drink, and left with the bed still out. The subject wasn’t in a state to be shoved back in so soon, but not serious enough to be removed by the zuijin, either. The complaining started once they were alone.
“Damn bastards, what a barbaric machine. Who would design something this monstrous?”
It was a man’s voice. The mere presence of a man inside the Tamatebako was unusual enough that she would have been uncomfortable, but the voice caught her attention instead. She knew who it belonged to. Beyond exchanging pleasantries with this distantly-related man, she hadn’t really interacted with him. But they did share one piece of common ground.
Meika sat up slightly to make sure there were no zuijin around, then looked to her side and whispered, “Kanna-san’s father, good evening.”
The short, baby-faced man who had, like Meika, been wiping the tears on his cheek moments earlier turned towards her. “Ah, if it isn’t Nurude’s daughter.”
“You were making quite the racket. What kind of nightmare were you having?”
“I dreamed that people left one-by-one and were befelled by misfortune... No, I shouldn’t burden you with this. I’ve shown you a rather unseemly side of myself.” Ozuno wiped his dripping nose with the back of his hand and turned away. “You don’t need to concern yourself with me. You may return to your patrol.”
“I am a subject myself.”
“What? What’s your angle here?”
With his surprised look and demand for answers, Meika could see the family resemblance. He was definitely Kanna’s father.
“And why would I be plotting anything?”
“Because you are a very clever person. Not just anyone is capable of hunting down my girl or making a fool of her. A person like you wouldn’t end up here without a plan. Are you doing this for your father’s sake?”
“...You seem quite understanding of another man’s daughter.” Meika felt willing to talk, since Ozuno seemed to think she was here because of someone else, not because she had a purpose. Meika laid back, and looking at the ceiling, said, “It is so I can wed my zuijin.”
“Oh...?”
“Father planned to marry me off to a foreigner to cast nets. Even if he had not, there is a difference in status, as my zuijin is a Jigō. Normally, that arrangement would be unthinkable to Father, but I took advantage of his worries about our lack of available decompers to cut a deal.”
“A very direct explanation. Right, Chūya... the Chūya Jigō-kun who always accompanies you, hm? I agree he’s a good man—but you were into my daughter, were you not?”
“Yes, but she got away from me, so...” After ungracefully answering Ozuno’s shy questioning, she continued even less gracefully, “I’m forced to settle for Chūya as a compromise, since I’m sure he can live without relations from me.”
“That’s... hm.”
The man beside her fell quiet and Meika felt her worry lighten. Soon, though, he began talking again.
“I can decomp a little.”
“Oh, my...”
“I think I was taken into custody because my work was an eyesore, but they justified it by saying I was ‘male netting’.”
“...Is that something you should share with me?”
“Should I find it too embarrassing to share, you mean? Well, it is embarrassing, but I’ve come to terms with it. I’m sure Kanna would snicker ruefully. I take it you feel the same?”
“Who even knows...”
“At any rate, it’s a stupid topic. Every one of our ancestors was exiled for the crime of decomping. As their descendents, all of us should be able to decomp too. There’s no such thing as ‘male’ netting or ‘female’ piloting. Besides, since interclan marriages have mixed our lineages, claiming descent from a specific clan is nothing more than a fairy tale.”
“Those are rather fringe ideas, no?”
“Hm? They’re nowhere near as fringe as your father’s ideas.”
Even Meika had no response to something like that. Her father planned to migrate to a distant planet. He was turning kooky, and so were the people around him. They were taking Fuyō down a bizarre, twisted path, going on about a secret only they knew about. She had no idea just how far Fuyō had gone, or if there even was a way back.
She heard the sound of approaching adhesion boots and whispered, “It is as if this world is coming to an end.”
Then, she heard the man reply, “My girl may still be able to do something about it.”
“What? No way.” Meika gave a sharp, instinctive response, then mumbled, “Actually, she might, but...”
To which Ozuno added, “But if it’s those girls, then...”
The zuijin stopped and shoved the beds assigned to Kanna and Ozuno back into the Manpresser.
The 15 clans’ fishers, who had come under the pretense of accepting the Gendō clan’s generous invitation so they could capture Nurude and his associates in Fuyō’s central sector, found the jig was already up the moment they stepped foot in port.
The Gendō welcoming committee’s attitude, which had been all smiles, abruptly shifted. They cut the connection to the fishers’ pillar boats as they arrived at dock and disembarked. The shape-shifting vessels, the fishers’ most effective weapon, were seized alongside their crews. Fifteen airlocks detonated simultaneously—a bold choice, to be sure, but manageable for a base ship—and literally cornered the fishers.
To make matters worse, Salizone and his wife were nowhere in sight even though they’d supposedly arrived ahead of everyone else. The pair had vanished like smoke, leading the resentful crews to believe they’d been working for the Gendō all along. Although the welcoming committee was shocked to find a crew missing, the fishers only sensed their enemy had only been slightly inconvenienced. Still, even if they wanted to resentfully dig their heels in, the floor of a zero-g spaceport wasn’t the place for it. All they could do was kick at the air in frustration.
And so, the fifteen visiting fishing pairs, minus one, were escorted to the Axis Chamber.
“Axis is an ancient word represented by a shaft and wheel.”
The dim sector lacked gravity. A young, black-haired fisher held up a torch-shaped lantern in his left hand and grabbed a twisted vine rope anchored to the wall with his right. As he floated ahead, he began a monologue that sounded like a lecture.
“This word from the ancient past only serves as proof that the Gendō—the Gendō of the Anno Domini era—built space stations with centrifugal artificial gravity. Clan Chief Nurude’s wish is that our clan, with its most distinguished galactic history and outstanding artisanship in fishing, lead the Circs along the pathway to abundance and happiness.”
“You people and your pseudo-historical bullshit.”
“Your clan’s not the only one with rich traditions.”
The fishers bit back, bundled together as they were with a net and carried along by Gendō dressed in black. As both parties were already aware of the others’ plans, the fishers dropped any pretense of politeness.
“We don’t need a Great Chief or an expedition plan as it is. We’ve been making do by simply fishing, recycling, and calmly discussing resource allotment at the Bow-Awow,” came a response from the pile of fishers.
It seemed to be the assertive Keelung fisher, whose wife joined in on haranguing the masked figure. “That’s right, leave us alone!”
From the darkness of the path ahead, they heard a low, gentle voice.
“And yet, children grow fewer everywhere.”
Several torch-shaped lamps came alight, revealing a human face twice as large as average among them. The fishers’ breath hitched.
The face was bizarre. His eyes were mere threads, angled downwards at their tips. His mouth seemed to curl in an unnatural smile for no particular reason. There was a styled moustache—single, long tufts on each side—and a pinched beard. The face’s puffed cheeks gave it a strange shape and undermined whatever dignity the styling may have had. The hair was short-cropped, adorned with a black cloth hat resembling a dorsal fin. The hat flopped left and right as the head swayed. For some reason, the figure also held a struggling aquatic fish under its arm.
“Our ability to sustain ourselves is diminishing, our lifestyle slowly but surely becoming one of frugality. We discover a crack in construction material we once thought durable, and before we know it, a town square closes after three years with no traffic. Twenty-four clans have become sixteen. We lose our crucial momentum and slip further into the well as we revolve around FBB—and it is not the atmosphere I speak of. We are sliding towards a rapid collapse, and eventually we will find ourselves at its precipice.”
The figure emerged from the background and advanced. At some point, the corridor had been surrounded by a ceiling, floor, wooden pillars—all of which joined horizontally and vertically—and countless paper sliding doors. The architecture wasn’t magnificent, but it was an exotic sight compared to the other base ships. It seemed to extend forever in each direction.
“We will starve, separate, and finally, die. Allow me to welcome you to the Axis Chamber. I am Nurude Shikiriyōni Keiwaku.”
The man, who wore loose-sleeved, Eastern-style clothing gently floated through the air by paddling his hand left and right. He gracefully made his way to the center of the room and stopped himself directing his palms forward.
The sight put the fishers on guard. That he was floating wasn’t strange—they were in zero-g—it was that he had stopped himself. It gave the appearance of having some kind of hidden power. The net restraining the fishers loosened, but none lunged for the man. They simply remained alert, scowling.
Terra and Diode monitored the scene from a duct in the ceiling 15 meters away.
Terra crawled on her belly. She watched on her minicell screen, and in an impressed tone, whispered, “Wow...! It’s like he’s able to generate a magnetic field with his own hands if he wants. So Nurude-san can decomp, too?”
“No, I think beforehand, they laid out footing thread all over the room,” Diode said with a sour look on her face. “You can’t see it because it blends into the background, since the floor and walls are full of vertical and horizontal lines.”
“What? That’s such a... cheap trick—um, I mean, a quaint ruse.”
“You don’t need to censor yourself. He wouldn’t try that with other Gendō, since they know what that stage is like. That mask, and the magic act–”
“A mask? So he’s just covering his own face with a big mask?”
“Yes...? It’s wood. That doesn’t look like flesh, right?”
“Wow, and here I was thinking, ‘so that’s who’s behind this...’”
“That’s obviously not his real face. Nurude’s the picture of a middle-aged man!”
“Come on, no way I could have known that! I’ve never seen anything like it before, so I thought something crazy had shown up! And it was dark, too!”
“So that’s how people from other clans see it...? This might end up being an unexpectedly effective strategy, then.”
“What should we do?”
“Let’s watch a little longer. I think he’s gotten obsessed with some insane vision, but we might get some information out of this. Some of it might even be useful.”
Diode felt herself feeling more hesitant as she spoke, but Terra’s reply nudged her on.
“Right. That, and the invisible thread will keep us from playing our trump card.”
“...Yeah, you’re right.”
“We’ll charge in from above as soon as you think we’re clear, okay? I’ll go in with everything I’ve got!”
Terra made a fist and showboated inside the cramped duct, smashing Diode—at her side—into the wall.
“Gweh.”
The confluence of several factors had brought the two there. They couldn’t come in with the other fishers, and while Chūya and Eda were able to give them an infiltration route and run interference with security devices, they weren’t available to guide the two. So, they did what Diode was best at: sneaking through the ductwork. Since they’d both come wearing low-resistance tightsuits for this exact situation, infiltrating through the ducts was no big deal. What was a big deal was Terra’s size. Still, it would give them an advantage when they launched their attack.
Just to be on the safe side, they indirectly kept watch over the events below using the minicell’s camera through a crevice a little further away.
“Clan Chief Nurude, that’s quite an eccentric costume for a welcoming party.”
A fit, married couple stepped forward from the briefly-overpowered group. They were the Hebrew fishers who were the second to catch the nishikigoi. They took a seemingly calculated look around and said, “And the set has rather intricate staging.”
“You should turn this into a public performance. People would pay to see it at the Bow Awow.”
“Your praise is deeply appreciated, but this guise is not our way of entertaining ourselves. It is to give foreigners a warning.” Nurude swung the fish he held under his left arm into the air and continued, “Ebisu—this is the monster the guise represents. Or perhaps, as some claim, not a monster, but a symbol of a god forgotten to us. At any rate, the form it takes is strange. It is an odd, powerful being from the sea that presides over fishing and the art of producing alcohol. That is what we are attempting to impress upon you.”
“We recognize the excellence of Gendō fishing, so you didn’t need to impress us there.” The Hebrew fisher punched the air with one hand. “Though I wish I could say the same for the alcohol. If you had, maybe you’d have something to show for all this. Don’t all sixteen of our clans discuss issues like this over a beer? Why the sudden rashness?”
The other fishers expressed agreement and nodded. Nurude shook his head.
“Do not misunderstand me, it was not our intent to threaten other clans. We only wish to show an existence beyond our star.”
“An existence beyond our star...? Oh, you mean that planned expedition? I think it’s about time you knock it off with that nonsense.”
“If you want to be the boss, you should just come out and say it.”
The fisher stared at his wife in awe, and she responded with a flick of her eyes. Even she was speaking up. For the moment, Nurude was silent.
Overhead, Terra anxiously whispered, “Wow, even his wife is going in on Nurude-san. He’s definitely going to take it as a huge insult. Is she going to be okay...?”
“He will, but she wasn’t insulting him. She’s provoking him. She’s trying to make him angry.”
“Right.”
Diode touched Terra’s arm as a signal to get ready.
“...None of this is nonsense.” Nurude began to speak again, still concealed behind by the strange mask. “There was not a single lie in our broadcast. We are a people who were run out and subjected to harsh conditions. However, it is precisely because of the conditions at this planet that we have honed our ability to decompress, and if we can fully operationalize the Tamatebako, we can cast nets in the galactic river, as shown by—”
“The only thing you’ve shown us is leaving the homes of your comrades in the dark for a few minutes. It’s not a very inspiring threat.”
The Hebrew woman ridiculed him again, but Nurude didn’t remain silent this time.
“What would inspire you, I wonder?” He asked, tossing away the fish under his arm.
On his left and right, zuijin dressed in black emerged shadow-like from behind the rectangular pillars and began attacking the fishers.
The fisher from Drone&Dongle, who had been first to catch nishikigoi, shouted, “Decompress!” The sight that followed was astonishing.
Swords, clubs, sickles and shields simultaneously emerged from the bustles, bloomers, oxygen reserve tanks, and handbags of the still gel-soaked deck dresses of the wives.
“So this is what you throw together when your backs are to the wall. Seize them!” Nurude ordered, and the scuffle began.
“Woah, this is how it’s turning out? I thought they’d talk Nurude-san down and then overpower him...”
“That D&D fisher, Esik, has the largest catch in the entire fleet, and even he couldn’t convince Nurude. He’s impulsive and brimming with fanaticism, so a fight was the only way this could end.”
As Terra panicked at the sight of the melee, Diode mumbled, “Go ahead and signal Eda.”
“S-Sure!”
Diode kept an eye on the fight below. Thirty seconds after it began, the fishers seemed to be getting the upper hand. The men had some of the fastest reflexes in the fleet, and the women were handing them weapons made from shape-shifting clay. They knocked out the zuijin attempting to capture them and began pushing them back.
But then, there was suddenly a sharp crack as one of the pillars on the wall collapsed. Five or six fishers were swept off their feet as if they’d been dragged along with it.
“It’s a wire! Someone cut it!” The D&D fisher commanded as he scuffled. The fishers had figured out how Nurude stopped himself in midair, but it was too dangerous to cut something they couldn’t see in the chaos. When someone with a sharp tool did cut the wire, they felt a thud as the room gently swayed and brought down several more pillars. Wires lashed at the fishers and whipped them flailing into the air.
A wave of reinforcements rushed the fishers, and the fishers were quickly corralled by zuijin. The balance of the battle had flipped, and the people in black were subduing the fishers one by one.
“Looks like it’s over...”
“It’s okay—I think it’s okay.” Diode repeated as she stared at Nurude.
So far, neither Nurude’s trusted friends or the Vice Clan Chief had appeared, which meant he was in sole command of the Gendō side. As long as they were careful in responding to his moves, they still had a chance to come out ahead.
The man in question kept watch from the corner of the room. He raised his hand as the conflict reached its conclusion, seemingly exhausted.
“We will end this now. You have all done well.”
This time, each fisher was restrained by the arms, not tied together as before. Remaining masked, Nurude approached their leader and leveled his eyes with the D&D fisher.
“You have my deepest apologies for the violence, but it was a required part of the process.”
“We were the ones who were violent, though... Wait.” The fisher suddenly had a realization. “You were letting us decomp?”
“Indeed.”
“So that was all a ploy to exhaust our wives? We absolutely took the bait!”
Terra and Diode were also surprised by what they were seeing, but Nurude’s reply baffled them even more. A zuijin handed him a clay weapon they had picked up, and Nurude, looking at it with a great deal of interest, said, “Your wives are not what I was exhausting.”
“Huh...?”
“Yet, it will indeed make it easier to get them inside the Tamatebako.” Nurude straightened and gave the command. “Take them further inside.”
“Stop!” “Let go of my wife!”
The men started to yell as they saw their wives being hauled away.
Nurude shook his head again. “They will eventually be returned to you safe and sound. However, there will be one issue—they will no longer be able to cast nets.”
“What?!”
Nurude only turned once as he headed deeper into the chamber. “Regrettably, it cannot be avoided.”
He disappeared into the darkness, taking the women and zuijin with him. Left behind, their husbands started putting their heads together in discussion.
In the duct, Terra held her breath. She ruminated on what she’d just heard.
—Your wives are not what I was exhausting.
—They will no longer be able to cast nets.
She felt a chill run down her spine. What did he mean by not being able to cast nets, exactly? He said they’d be returned unharmed, so he’s not going to injure them—but our nets come from our heart. Once we’re freed from the shackles of words and routine, we can spread our nets and fly our boats. A condition where we can’t cast nets... is one where we can’t bring our imagination to life. But then, what did he mean? What was he exhausting when he rigged that fight?
“Terra-san!”
Diode jerking her shoulders brought her back to her senses. She looked at Terra impatiently.
“We need to get going now. Are you ready?”
“Yeah... yeah, I am.”
“Are you really ready? You looked like you were thinking about something important.”
“No—we can go, it’s fine. We’re charging in, right?!” The train of thought that had derailed somewhere was back on track. She looked down the passageway. “We need to follow them, but, ah, we can’t...”
The duct didn’t go any further. Diode's experience and intuition had gotten them this deep into the Axis Chamber, but naturally, the ducts didn’t pass through the extremely classified Tamatebako.
“Guess there’s no other way.”
Diode pointed to the vent hatch the camera had been watching through, then slid behind Terra.
Now in the lead, Terra took out the AMC clay coiled around the form-fitting torso section of her deck dress and put it on the hatch. Diode watched Terra close her eyes and take a deep breath before—in a process that never ceased to amaze her—transformed the clay belt into a powerful cylinder that pressed against the floor and ceiling of the duct. The hatch creaked, then finally broke outwards.
“Done! I’m going on ahead, okay?”
The tall woman slid out legs first, then Diode dived after her head-first without delay. The pair of women dressed in black and blue appeared in front of the squirming fishers, who had all piled up in a corner of the room as they floated around. Amidst the dumbstruck faces, it was unsurprisingly the D&D fisher who recognized them. “The 58K Endeavour? Why are you here?”
“To stop Nurude-san. We were also Salinzone from the Trades, so...”
“This voice... you–”
“Sorry, no time. We’ll explain later. We’re gonna save your wives.”
“Wait!”
The two ignored him and moved deeper into the murk. Diode looked at Terra for a moment.
“So, explaining the situation and bringing them with us isn’t going to work?”
“We don’t have time,” Terra said, shaking her head. “You saw how they’d piled up against the wall, right? That means Eda-san’s already moved into action.”
“Oh!” Diode nodded nervously.
It didn’t take long before they encountered an extremely old, sturdy wooden door. Nobody stood guard, and they didn’t see any cameras or security devices. Instead, it seemed to be bolted from the inside. If the two had come equipped with a modern device to analyze and crack encryption keys, it would have left them stumped.
However, they had brought the lone remaining decomper. Terra pressed the clay on her waist against the center of the door and closed her eyes.
—Decompression. Move the obstruction that’s tightly wedged in here somewhere far away.
Her consciousness flowed through the door, spread through a miniscule gap to the other side, and then brushed the bolt aside. Opening her eyes, she put both hands on the door and spoke to the girl beside her.
“Before we go in, Die-san, can I ask you one thing?”
“Hm?”
“We’re going to destroy the Tamatebako and rescue the decompers, but before we do, there’s something I want to ask Nurude-san. Could you let me talk to him, just for a minute?”
“I’m not opposed, but on one condition.” Diode looked up at her for a moment, then said, “No sacrificing yourself, blowing yourself up, or any suicide attacks like that. You’re not allowed. Because if something happens to you... what will I do then...? You know what I mean, right?”
“Yeah. You do know I wasn’t planning on it, right?” She put on a small, forced smile for Diode, then returned her hands to the huge door. “Let’s go...!!”
It was a sliding door. The two pushed the doors left and right with all their might, then stepped through.
“This is Terra Intercontinental and Diode! Nurude-san, we’re here for a chat!”
The man in the large mask and his black-garbed assistants, all gathered around a small shrine, turned in unison.
The walls circling the room’s perimeter towered overhead. They were lined with neat rows of meter-sized panels; in actuality, they were much closer to a shelf with drawers. The lower part of the cylindrical room had dozens of shelves stacked on one another, and one needed to look up to see all of the drawers. The cylinder’s axis was likely the rotational axis of Fuyō, if not the base ship’s center of gravity.
It was at the bottom of a place like that where the two confronted Nurude and his associates. For a moment, even the air conditioned breeze seemed to stop. Without a word, the 24 zuijin immediately leaped on the two and restrained them.
“Don’t touch me! I’m here to talk!” Terra said, resisting them. She took another look around. The women were nowhere in sight; she guessed they were already in the drawers.
Meanwhile, Nurude and his associates stood in the middle of the chamber, next to a small shrine made from fine wood. It was small, no larger than a pet house, but their guarding it undoubtedly meant it had to be extremely important. It had to be the heart of the room—as long as they hadn’t been paranoid enough to install a fake. In other words, the Tamatebako’s core.
“Nurude-san!” Terra shouted. “There’s just one thing I’d like to ask. You believe in the excellence of the Gendō, so why are you messing with the other clans? You could’ve gotten what you wanted just by taking Fuyō to the Zugspitze system, so why didn’t you?”
Hearing that, Nurude raised a hand. The zuijin suddenly stopped moving.
“I was just pondering the reason a woman would show her face here... what kind of question is that?”
“I’m asking if you’re really aware of the secret behind AMC clay.”
“The secret...? What leads you to believe I know it?”
“After that fight settled, you mentioned the point wasn’t to exhaust the decompers. It was to exhaust their AMC clay, wasn’t it? Changing the clay into various weapons was to wear out its ability to decompress.”
“Your imagination is impressive. Ah, yes, I remember now. You must be Terra Intercontinental Endeavour—you are also known as Tell-Tale Terra, are you not?
“...Am I wrong?”
“Please, continue.”
As she realized that Nurude seemed strangely calm, the door behind the two closed again. It was likely to ensure the fishers were kept out.
“We know,” Terra started, using one of the aces up her sleeve, “that decompression isn’t just a human ability. It’s actually the clay’s ability. It’s a counterintuitive phenomenon that occurs when the alien lifeform we call AMC clay receives our imagination and transforms—that’s what decomping is.”
“Perhaps we should have discussed this elsewhere,” Nurude said, looking around at his zuijin. They remained silent, but looked shaken. Most Circs wouldn’t have heard the idea that the clay itself, not besshu, was alive. “...No matter. I myself would have made that known before too long. We should have no issue continuing this discussion in front of these people. So, Terra-san, how did you happen to come across that information?”
“The Endeavour clan has old facilities of its own.” Okay, I’m not lying here—Terra nodded to herself. “I could have discovered this anywhere. My point is that the clay’s complicated, and has a way bigger secret that we’re not seeing. All we’ve done is exploit the properties we’re aware of.”
“Very interesting.” Nurude gestured again, and the zuijin let go of Terra. “Let us discuss that in more detail at a later time. However, what of it? You have only stated what you know so far. What is it you want from me, then?”
“Finding someone who knows even this much is a rarity.” Terra confidently moved forward, and the zuijin at her sides voluntarily pulled back. “Nurude-san, you’re looking for an ally who understands the situation, aren’t you? The reason you and the very prideful Gendō people aren’t leaving by yourselves and are trying to drag the other clans along with you using the Tamatebako is for numbers, isn’t it? Not because you consider us your equals.”
“Well, you have not said anything wholly incorrect. And what of it? What leads you to believe we seek allies?”
“Because the clay’s hard to handle. Even after 300 years, there are still plenty of besshu that are hard to catch. But what you’re going to fish for is a besshu we don’t know about. It might not even be a besshu at all, but some other clay lifeform. So, even though you’re going to another planet, you can’t let yourself be found at a disadvantage here.”
“Hm... I understand now. So, what you mean to say is...”
“Yes.” Terra made an expression like everything had been cleared up and bowed. “Would you be willing to work with me on a counterplan for the clay in the Zugspitze system?”
“I see—so that is your reason to come all the way here. I do not know your means of arrival, however.”
“That’s fine. May I ask your thoughts about my proposal?” Terra was already improvising to keep the conversation going, but she somehow managed to nod.
And then, she froze at what Nurude said next.
“Very well. If you are offering to enter the Manpresser yourself, then there are no objections on my end.”
“Man... what?”
“In order to hunt the clay, we must decomp. But those who decomp share the dreams of clay. Surely you did not fail to notice the enormity of that contradiction, no?” Through those tiny eye holes, Terra got the feeling that his real face, which she had still yet to see, was smiling. “I pray that you will fit.”
“WAI–”
Terra was seized at a sway of his hand, and this time her protests were futile. The zuijin carried her over to the highest of the shelves that surrounded them.
“Terra-san!” Diode shouted. She lunged out; more zuijin immediately grabbed her wrists and ankles. “Clown Chief Nurude, you bastard! Did you fry your brain cells or something?! Is the brain damage why you’re staggering around all over the place?! Let go of Terra-san!”
“My, such vulgarity.” A young zuijin pinned Diode’s arms behind her at the Clan Chief’s mere expression of displeasure. “It is not befitting of a proper Gendō girl. Your father can hear.”
“Father—what did you do to my harmless dimwitted father?!”
“What a queer way to refer to him. Is he important to you, or do you hate him? Either way, he is not in dire straits, he is simply over there.” Nurude pointed at a low shelf, about three rows off the floor. “In the Manpresser, also known as the Machine Compressor and Tamatebako. This machine, a legacy of the old Wǎngláiquān Fángjūn, is essentially harmless to upstanding individuals. Those who are capable of extremely basic tasks—pledging loyalty to superiors, waiting their turn when they wish to speak, keeping silent when ordered—come out completely unchanged after being placed inside. They remain calm, useful people.”
“This... damn...”
“It is not a ‘damn torture device shit out of hell’s trash disposal’. Ah, such harsh words... However, for the type of person who is entirely lost within their own muddled dreams day and night—a person who is not upright—it is not an easy place to stay.”
Diode had a sudden realization. “Then... this isn’t a device to let you take full control and consolidate the fleet using each clan’s best decomper?”
“So that is what you thought this was. No, it is not. The Tamatebako works by placing the most disobedient decomper from each clan inside. When it recognizes the power of the exiles is weakened, it expands the full authority scope of the Great Chief. It is a verification device.”
“...Terra-san!”
Just as she was being shoved onto the Tamatebako’s bed, Terra heard Diode scream again.
“Die-sa–”
The bed rattled as it slipped into the darkness and stored Terra away. She thrashed her hands, terrified of the narrow space, but somehow they only clawed at a vast space in vain, touching nothing—
A large, warm hand suddenly caught hers.
“What...?”
“Okay, now open the net...”
She was greeted with a gentle smile. He had a genteel, shapely face, and stood as tall as she did. Lace adorned the neck and sleeves of his gorgeous deck dress. She couldn’t remember the man’s name anymore, but he had probably been the best of her former marriage prospects.
“You can open the net. Those are apple prawns.”
“R-right.”
The young man spoke cheerfully in his cockpit. Terra looked out at the surrounding sea of clouds, stared at the VUI display, and realized she was fishing.
I have to decomp. I have to cast the net. Apple prawns spread out a lot, so... ah, maybe I can wrap around them if I give the net more arms? And since they’re going to struggle, I’ll increase the number of otter boards to four—no, eight. Sixteen, maybe...?
“Do it normally,” the man said. “A two-arm tunnel net is just fine. Don’t worry about it, just do it normally. I’ll trawl.”
“Huh?”
The net’s unfurling couldn’t be stopped even if he asked it to. An eight-armed net flowed behind the boat. The sixteen cables that towed it spooled out with the otter boards one by one, and when the wind hit them, the net gracefully blossomed into the gas giant’s atmosphere like a giant flower two kilometers in diameter. The reins regulated its shape and maintained its uniformity. The beautiful geometric shape whirled, and it was so fun, so cool, so exciting—
Everything suddenly fell apart. She heard dejection in the young man’s voice.
“Why did you do that? It’s going to leak in the middle if we make a standard approach using that. Your net is... too complicated.”
“Oh... I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“Let’s try again, but with just the two boards on the left and right, okay? This should be simple–”
A soft, but deep pain slowly impaled her. Even though she knew she should just do what she was told, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t.
“How did I end up in this situation?”
“I’m sorry... I really am...”
“You hate me, don’t you?”
“No, of course I don’t... You’re a wonderful person, really...”
Her companion wasn’t bad. He treated her normally—in fact, he treated her far more gently than what she was used to—but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t follow his directions.
All of this has to be my fault... She wiped the tears from the corner of her eyes, looked up, and—
“Here.” A Stone State Storage was being shown to her. “It’s the Hundred Handsome Guys.”
“Huh?”
“There are a lot of good-looking guys here, so have a look. It’s a compilation of videos and still images from around the galaxy. Like this one.”
Terra’s co-worker Makia smiled as she sat at the neighboring viewer. She had a beautiful actor’s face pulled up.
“You don’t have a sense for the type of man you’re into, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out if you see a bunch of different guys.”
“Uh, well, I...”
“Really? You wouldn’t marry and actor? But yeah, this is about getting a clear sense of your inclinations. You might even find someone you didn’t expect to like!”
“But it’s not really a matter of looks... it’s just, men, you know...”
“If that’s the problem, then there are a few who aren’t manly. Like this one, or... this one. Actually, since you’re putting it that way, doesn’t that mean you do have a type? So what is it?”
“I still... just don’t know what I like yet.”
“You still don’t know something that important?!” Makia stood up and started scolding her. “What are you going to do from now on? Do you just want to play around on the job with that weirdo girl forever? You can’t! It’s about time you started taking this seriously! You do know how everyone feels about that, right?!”
“W-wait, I–”
“No, I’m not going to wait. This isn’t something you need me to wait for, and you know it, don’t you? This is about you! Damn it! I give up!”
“Makia...”
She didn’t turn around, even as Terra tried to apologize to her. Makia called out to someone else and left the room. It was worse than the experience with the fisherman. Terra couldn’t gracefully accept her coworker’s goodwill, and couldn’t express her own different ideas. She was still indecisive, a person with vague expectations and a lingering feeling nothing would go well. There was no way she could think about anything important for the future.
Tears began to fall. She couldn’t hold them back anymore. Her own peculiarities, her muddled dreams of something that didn’t exist at FBB, caused friction with others. It made it so that both parties could hardly stand to be around each other. It was too much. She kept making herself see the things that made her suffer, even though she didn’t want to think about any of them. If only I didn’t have this power...
The world rocked, and suddenly Terra came back to her senses.
“Terra-san...!”
The tiniest crack opened above her. Dark blue eyes peeked through. Which meant the zuijin who had pinned Diode’s arms to her back—Chūya—had found an opening to toss her this way.
“Die-san!”
The crack closed. Terra could hear the sounds of a struggle, so the others must have caught up to her. It had been enough for Terra to reorient herself, though.
So this is the Tamatebako! It was a device that searched its subjects’ memories for certain vulnerable moments—coercion, double binds, neglect, and so on—and made the subjects blame themselves. Now that she had snapped out of it, she could tell it was odd. She wasn’t particularly close with Makia, but she wasn’t the kind of person to say anything that cruel. Conversely, the young man from the marriage trial had been way colder.
Besides, while she’d been through a number of painful experiences, none of them were because of decomping. Decomping had never once been a source of suffering for Terra, rather, it was what allowed her to breathe—her lifeline, the source of her blossoming. And, that girl was who made her realize it was an Essential Element.
“Die-san...!”
Her hands could touch the drawer’s ceiling now. She desperately tried to push her way out with her palms, but she could feel resistance from the outside—the zuijin must have been using their muscle to shove her back in.
“...You!!”
Her hands couldn’t find traction on the smooth ceiling, so there wasn’t much power from her pushing. There were five or six people clinging to the outside and pushing back, too. She pushed her hardest, just in case it was a battle of strength, but no matter how hard she tried, it wouldn’t budge—
She noticed the ceiling slowly drifting closer.
“Woah.”
For a moment, she was terrified. It looked like one of the ceiling traps used to crush intruders she often saw action Content, but it was something else. She tried to feel around behind her and noticed the space growing wider. The ceiling wasn’t moving towards her, she was moving towards the ceiling. She was being pressed against it with a steady force, almost like she was being pulled up with a crane she couldn’t see—No, that’s still not what it is!
Her body started sliding headfirst, and the bed rolled the same direction at the same time. The zuijin pushing from the outside couldn’t keep their hold on it and slowly fell away.
Falling...? Right, I’m falling!—Everyone in the room came to the same conclusion almost simultaneously. Gravity had started being generated at some point.
Fuyō’s rotation constantly generated centrifugally-simulated gravity. But the Axis Chamber, near the center of rotation, shouldn’t have felt it at all. Its design incorporated the fact that it was on the rotational axis. The people here had indeed been floating, and there had been no gravity inside.
Which meant the gravity being generated now was an abnormality. Terra and her bed, near the upper corner of the cylindrical room, slid and started to fall towards the chamber’s ceiling. The drawers to the left and right of her rattled and spilled open, tossing out the people inside.
Strangely, though, none of the beds on the other side of the room did the same. A couple of people had crawled out, but they had forced their way out. As soon as they let go, their beds slid back into the shelf.
Terra put her feet on the ceiling and looked up. Far overhead, the people and beds located in the lower sections fell to the floor one-by-one around the door she and Diode had come in through. It was as if the direction of gravity had switched from the floor to the ceiling. People who didn’t seem to be decompers were falling to the floor along with the fishers’ wives, where zuijin waited to round them up. It all happened on the floor above; to Terra, up and down seemed to be reversed.
No one was dead, as far as she could tell, but the situation was quickly getting out of hand.
Terra looked at a point on the floor above and shouted, “Nice work, Eda-san!”
Eda had made her grand move—using the Great Chief Command to adjust the center of rotation. Fuyō, that giant flower spinning on its north-south axis, first had its rotation zeroed out by the reverse thrusters on its outer circumference. The disappearance of gravity would cause a commotion in the urban districts, but the risk of it being noticed in the zero-g axial section was low.
Terra had sent the signal to Eda to stop the rotation just after the first conflict between Nurude and the fishers first broke out, making it even less risky. The deafening noise of the giant base ship’s thrusters was masked under the din of the fighting. However, the braking generated a small amount of tangential acceleration, which was why everyone and everything had piled up against the wall.
By the time Terra and Diode made their grand entrance through the huge door, the whole of Fuyō, not just the Axis Chamber, was approaching zero-g. Nurude, the Clan Chief, should have been inundated in calls because of the situation, but since he seemed unaware, it meant Eda had also been successful in cutting their communication system.
Her final move was changing the rotational axis. Fuyō was now rotating on an east-west axis—with reference to the Tamatebako, the cylindrical room no longer spun like a rolling pin, but pivoted around the middle rows of shelving like a propeller.
Once the rotation accelerated, it had pushed her bed out of its drawer, and the new artificial gravity kept her feet planted on the ceiling. Terra suspected it wouldn’t have been as easy to get out if she’d been on the opposite side of the room. It was simply a lucky win that she’d been on the side of the room that made it easier to get out of bed.
She wished the same could be said about the fact that she was standing on the ceiling.
“Hang on, Die-san...!”
The room was maybe 20 meters tall. It seemed Diode, who had been there only a moment before, had been returned to the floor right away. She was down there with the fishers’ wives, upside down, kicking and biting. However, nearly all of their clay weapons had been confiscated, so the fighting didn’t seem to be going in their favor—it wasn’t in their favor, but it was clear the brawl around the shrine at the Tamatebako’s core would be decisive to the outcome.
Terra couldn’t help them, so all she did was look up and cheer for them. Four of the zuijin who had been keeping her drawer closed stood beside her, but all they could do was look up and cheer too. It was a strange state of coexistence; a fight here would have no impact on the larger group. Since they seemed to share that understanding, neither Terra nor the zuijin messed with one another for the time being.
What changed things was the appearance of a certain person in the midst of the fray.
“Father, stop it! Stop the fighting!”
Everyone looked towards the source of the voice. A girl wearing a fletched kimono and hakama stood on top of the shrine. Nurude shouted.
“Meika! What are you doing?!”
“I said to stop this goddamn shit-ass useless fucking fight!”
“What kind of language is that? I thought you were a devoted daughter. Are you now turning your back on me? On the new future the Gendō are striving for?”
“My old man’s just an annoying old masked pervert!”
“Old–”
Nurude was speechless. Meika, her face pale, smiled and looked at Diode.
“Kanna-san! I never thought you would have come! I thought you had left the Gendō who had put you through all those terrible things behind and gone off somewhere.”
“Well, that’s the plan, anyway.”
“Yes, I know that you did not do this for my sake.” She looked around, frowned a little when she noticed the woman who resembled a lighthouse was nowhere in sight, then quickly looked back to Diode. “But even so, you still came! Even that is enough to satisfy me.”
“You’re welcome, but what are we going to do now?”
“We’re going to destroy it all, obviously! And then, maybe we can–”
Maybe we can push back against the unfair destiny that, until now, we had to surrender to and come to terms with—Meika didn’t say it, but Diode nodded. She seemed to be the only one who understood. Or, more precisely, there were two women who understood Meika.
Diode quickly accepted Meika as a turncoat, but then she suddenly looked down at Meika’s feet in confusion.
“And how are you going to do that?”
Meika blinked, looked down at the small hutch she was standing on, and with a foot clad only in a white tabi, kicked it with all her might.
“Ow, dammit!”
It didn’t do a thing. The hutch seemed old, but it was scarily sturdy. It seemed to be made with a dense metal that had been painted over.
The air returned to the room—whatever tension had been there was gone. The zuijin closed on her, with only one person, Chūya, remaining below at her feet. He guarded her back, but was clearly outnumbered. Just as they started to believe they were about to once again get swallowed by the turbulent current of previous events—
“Meika-saaaaaan!” the scream came crashing down from above.
Meika’s electric pink ribbon swayed as she looked up. Twenty meters above her, a woman stood upside down, hurled a thin, pale pink pole towards her as hard as she could.
“Use this!”
The pole drew a spiral as it passed through the center of the room. Meika instinctively raised her arm and the pole coiled around it. Their eyes met once more, and the Endeavour decomper nodded. Meika was sure she must have heard the shouting earlier. She wrapped both hands around the AMC clay. It wasn’t a standard decomp, but she got inspiration from the help of her temporary ally and the setting she was in.
—Squeeze out the old to let in the new.
“M-Meika, wait!”
Nurude threw off his wooden mask and witnessed a sight he had never seen before. His daughter smiling, sadly.
“You’re despicable.” Her hand dropped, and the alien lifeform eagerly took on the shape her imagination had given it. The thin, stretched clay coiled around the shrine again and again, then shattered it like an eggshell.
Five seconds later, Fuyō’s boating system detected the Gendō base ship’s abnormal rotation and started its powerful braking so that it could repoint the flower’s style towards their star, a position it had maintained for 300 years.
“Look out!”
The many beds that had fallen from their shelves began to float again and drift in a different direction. Fragments of weapons broken in the conflict pelted faces and bodies. The base ship was decelerating and changing orientation, but for those inside, it was like being sucked into a tornado without wind. Since the direction of gravity, weak as it was, constantly changed, everything flew around the room in an unpredictable way, striking people from their blind spots.
“Die-san!”
Terra aimed for the floor and jumped off the ceiling of the twenty-meter tall room. The moment she did, though, something collided with her back and sent her tumbling sideways. When she turned around, she saw it had been a zuijin, but he had collided with a bed and was now drifting away.
She tried to spot Diode again but couldn’t find her. More than fifty people squirmed as they floated among the debris. “Die-saaaan...!”
Suddenly, her search was interrupted by a miniature woman in a lab coat appearing on the back of her hand.
“Terra-kun, there’s a little something I need to tell you.”
“Eda-san? I’m kinda busy right now!”
“Yeah, I know. So just listen while you do your thing. Anyway, the Tamatebako system was killed safely, and I tried to hand control back to the boating system. Buuut it seems that’s not a function I can hand back.”
“What?! What do you mean?”
“Fuyō’s boating system, which is to say the reason this base ship keeps rolling end over end, can’t handle the ship properly. It is 300 years old, created when Fuyō was just a cargo ship. So now, the little guy is freaking out and if this keeps up, there’s a chance it’s going to disintegrate in orbit.”
“Disintegrate in orbit?! That’s really serious, isn’t it?!”
“Yup! So, I think I’ll try flying manually instead of leaving it to the boating system. This is happening because I stopped the rotation. You good with that?”
“You’re going to fly instead of the boating system...?” She tried taking a moment to think about it, but a ceramic panel or something popped off the wall and whizzed past her face. “Y-Yeah! Please do something!”
“Okay, well that’s that.”
Knowing the situation was that dire made Terra even more concerned for Diode. She had carelessly replied to Eda and started moving forward again under pressure. Then, after a few moments, she thought of something.
“Eda-san, but what about the Insomnia?” There was no response. Terra had a faint feeling of understanding. “Then–”
“Terra-san, look out!”
Unexpectedly, Terra heard a voice behind her. Before she could turn around, she was sent tumbling by something striking her shoulder, then immediately heard a bang. When she turned around, she saw a bed drift by and a small, spinning figure splayed out backwards.
“Huh?” For a moment, Terra felt relief and sympathy that it had been a stranger who had gotten in an accident.
Then the illusion faded, leaving her in the cold, tight grip of reality. Terra screamed over and over as she struggled to swim through the air.