My Little Sister Can Read Kanji—All of Them

“Step out of the elevator,” the nearest officer commands, “slowly.”

Behind them, it appears we’re in one of the hangars not far from the entrance to the offices. There’s only half a dozen cops, but they got the drop on us, so we walk out with our hands held high.

“What do we do with the robot?” one of the other officers asks. “They don’t make handcuffs that big.”

“Go get some of the workers and have them take custody of it,” another officer replies. “That’s not our jurisdiction. We’re just here for the troublemakers.”

“Thank goodness.” Saionji lets out a sigh of relief, going with her plan to bluff her way past the officers. “You don’t know how relieved I am that you caught him.” She starts to break down in tears. “He kidnapped me from the party. I thought I’d never see my family again.”

“Save it,” an officer snaps. “You can tell it to the guys down at the station.”

Saionji shrugs. “You can’t blame me for trying.” She runs off to the left, drawing fire from the officers. They’re lousy shots. It takes several tries to hit her. These crystals are lower-powered, designed to incapacitate, not to kill, but Saionji takes one straight in the back and doesn’t stop.

Chiyo and I take advantage of the distraction and run past the officers. We almost get to the door before they manage to hit us, but just like Saionji, we shrug them off. Swearing under their breaths, the cops give chase.

Meanwhile, the real Chiyo, Saionji, and I, under Chiyo’s cloaking field, sneak out the side entrance while the cops chase the projections. Why she can create three of them while I could barely manage half a head, I had no idea. Maybe Fujisaki’s tech is more advanced.

With the cops distracted, it was time to run. There was no way for us to silence Chiyo’s heavy footfalls, so we simply ran as fast as we could. Without a power suit, Saionji wouldn’t have been able to keep up, so I scoop her up into a princess carry, and we hightail it out of there at forty kilometers an hour.

“Hey, no fair, Big Bro. Me too!”

I can’t help but laugh. That’s the Chiyo I know: clingy and spoiled, not babbling sick, elaborate fantasies. “Maybe later, after you get you out of that robot.”

Chiyo’s pace slows and I slow to match. “Big Bro, you can’t take me out. I am the robot now.”

“What?” I stop in my tracks. “Don’t tell me you’re just a robot programmed with Chiyo’s memories…”

“Not at all! I am the real Chiyo. It’s just… They replaced my brain with Xyrite. This crystal you were trying to steal? It’s me.”

“You’re gonna have to explain that one to me, sis.” My stomach sinks as I begin to suspect this is some kind of setup. “If they replaced your brain, where’s the rest of your body?”

“Long gone. Come on, keep running. I’ll try to explain it. Have you ever seen Xyrite being grown?”

“Sure have.” I nod.

“So have I,” Saionji says, as if she has something to prove. “It’s really amazing how it molds itself to its container as if it’s liquid, even though it’s solid.”

“Yeah, well,” Chiyo says, “the container was my head. Dr. Ito found a way to control the growth to the point where it could grow into the wrinkles in my brain and slowly take over.”

“Wouldn’t that hurt like hell?” I ask.

“Only at the start. After a while, it felt amazing.” Again with the suggestive talk. What have they done to my sweet, innocent sister?

No, it’s obvious what they did: They killed her. The robot I’m talking to now is just what remains of their twisted experiment, a mere echo of who my sister once was.

“Take a left up ahead,” Saionji orders. “We’re late for the rendezvous as is.”

I scoff. “You still want to hand her over to Hosokawa? She’s my sister.”

“No, she’s just an empty shell now. Your real sister died when the Xyrite ate her brain.”

Damn her for having the guts to say that out loud. Sure, I was thinking the same thing, but maybe, just maybe, if no one jinxed it into the world, I woulda been able to delude myself into believing she was my real sister.

Despite my tough facade, I’m a weak man.

“That’s not true at all,” Chiyo protests. “I was awake the entire time. My brain activity never stopped. It was less like dying and more like… transforming. Big Bro, would you abandon me if they had lobotomized me?”

I don’t even have to think deeply about that one. “No, of course not. You’d still be my sister.”

“Then what about if they replaced my frontal cortex with Xyrite? Because that’s what they did first.”

“I guess if you’re still you without a frontal cortex, you’re still you with an artificial one.” This is getting more difficult to figure out. “Assuming it wasn’t controlling you somehow, and if it was, I’d do everything in my power to remove it.”

“How could it control me? It modeled itself after my own brain, after my thought patterns. So if I’m still me after my frontal lobe was replaced, what about my temporal lobe? My cerebral cortex? When do I stop being me? When, exactly, am I supposed to have died?”

“That’s just sophistry,” Saionji huffs. “It doesn’t matter what the exact timing is. Only the end result matters. Your ‘brain’ is a chunk of solid crystal; therefore, the real you died.”

“How small-minded. Big Bro, are you sure she’s the one you want to raise my nieces and nephews?”

“For the last time,” I say, “we’re not together. We’re just… coworkers.”

“Yeah, well being cooped up in that office for years, I saw plenty of what ‘just coworkers’ do after hours.”

“Come on, Tsuruta, is that how your sister talked? Even if she really were alive—by… some definition—they changed her. She’s no longer really your sister. Let’s turn her over to Hosokawa and go home.”

“You just want Big Bro all to yourself. Of course I changed. He hasn’t seen me since I was an innocent schoolgirl. You have no idea how lonely I was after he left. I just wanted someone to fill that void, but Big Bro was freezing his ass off on the frontlines to pay for my school. How could I waste my time playing around, especially after he gave up on his own relationships to keep me fed? I worked my ass off to graduate summa cum laude, never going on even a single date. After years of being lonely and frustrated, is it any wonder I became just a tad obsessed with lecherous thoughts?”

“Great.” Saionji rolls her eyes. “So both siblings grew up to become perverts because they never learned to take time off. This doesn’t change anything, Tsuruta. Stick to the plan.”

“Oh, we’ll stick to the plan,” I say.

“Big Bro…” Black tear projections animate down the side of Chiyo’s face.

“But the plan was never to actually turn the rock over to Hosokawa. In case you haven’t realized, Saionji, he’s going to kill us once he gets it.”

“What? But he wouldn’t… Well, maybe he would.”

I smirk. “But don’t worry. I’ve got a different plan. We’re going to get him before he can get us.”