A Dream So Real, A Memory So Distant

“This tribe is suicidal,” Kuro warned; his stern expression cutting through the air.

Akari passed her eyes around the room. A dark underground makeshift bunker lit by candlelight. Where exactly it was that she found herself was all a blur, but in the same vein, she didn’t question it either. As she looked up at the single door above her head, a reluctance to leave washed over her like a cold shower.

“I think they’re trying to protect something,” Akari theorized, but Kuro was unshaken, “They barely own anything.”

“It might be information…”

Kuro trotted around in the dark underground confinement, restlessness tickling at his skin. “You know, before you showed up, I assumed I was dead, and this was nothing more than a dopamine high that I was going through.” With his voice trailing off as he scratched the side of his head he continued, “Huh… I still think so, to be honest.”

Akari sat crouched on the floor, running her finger through the dirt while her thoughts danced around out of tune. “You think Toyo and Fukai are somewhere in this world too?” she asked, but Kuro shook his head. “Fukai made a run for it.” His eyes then descended towards the ground, the certainty in his voice wobbling like a loose screw. “I told him to run… He had to have made it.”

He shifted his glance towards Akari as he continued, “I have no idea what happened to Toyo… If they survived they’d probably be blamed for our disappearance.”

An empty pause entered between them as their anxious thoughts simmered in the air.

“Pass me your phone,” Kuro then asked to Akari, “you have it with you, right?”

“My phone was in my bag when I dropped it back at the temple. I guess it didn’t make the trip to wherever the hell it is that we are.”

Forfeiting his curiosity, Kuro began trotting around the small underground space once again, before coming across a basket of food sitting on a wooden shelf against the back wall. Despite the floor and walls made of hardly anything more than the soil of the earth, reinforced with rusted metal and aged wood, the food appeared so fresh he nearly mistook it for a prop.

“This must be another one of the tribe’s preservation scripts,” Kuro theorized, “You think it’s safe to eat?” He tossed the food at Akari without warning, startling her as she violently batted it away.

“Gross! I’m not eating that!”

Kuro burst out into his usual laughter, pointing his finger at Akari as she drew herself inwards. “Calm down,” he teased, “you don’t have to treat it like a dead animal.”

“Shut up you annoying bum!” Akari bit back.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Kuro felt a weight of relief. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed that carefree atmosphere he’d taken for granted back when they were all just students at school. He knew the situation he and Akari were in would only grow more unpredictable from there on out, but being able to ignore it all, if even just for a few seconds, made him feel alive again.

“Kuro.” Akari stood to her feet, “We need to find a way home.”

Kuro looked her in the eyes, nodding his head in a quiet agreement. He then took his phone out of his pocket, the glow of its bright screen catching Akari by surprise.

“Does that thing still work?” Akari eagerly asked, “Yeah,” Kuro confirmed, “It’s also being preserved with a script, or I guess the battery and processor are? I don’t know how this stuff works.”

Shaking his head, he refocused, “I’ve been able to play this game, although it’s stuck in the same loop.” He then raised his eyes up to Akari, “This thing has kept me alive.”

Akari craned her neck, carefully watching as Kuro navigated through the gacha game that she had grown a distaste for over the years. “The tribe thinks this thing is like a god’s tool. They treat me like a deity for knowing how to use it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

“Because I wasn’t sure how they would react to seeing two of them. Since you weren’t using yours, I decided not to force it. But something came across my mind just now.”

He crouched down, luring Akari closer towards him. “There’s this character, Mihra, who can deflect psychic attacks by adjusting the resonant frequency of her own mana. It prevents psychic ability users from synchronizing with it.”

Kuro swiped through the screens at a rapid pace, initiating a battle and demonstrating the character’s defensive ability. Akari, however, wasn’t quite sure what it was that he was getting at. Simply finding the idea that a video game could in any way help them escape their situation as perplexing.

“Think about it,” Kuro implored, “because me and you can’t sense chakra, all we have are our normal five sense. That and practical equipment. One thing I noticed about this world, is that people here are more likely to neglect that last part.”

“They’ll wait until they can train their bodies to do so, but we lazy ass humans will just find something to do it for us.”

He then turned his phone screen towards her revealing the frequency detector app he’d used back at the temple, the trace of a plan flickering behind his eyes.

Squeak!

Akari sprung up from the bed. It’s old wooden legs creaking under her weight. Another one of those damn dreams, she mulled to herself. As she eased out of the bed, the vacant house she was in had a bitter taste to it. Another day with Azu nowhere in sight. She’d begun to question if he’d ever return. After all, Iddak and Saba had vanished without a trace from the encampment, and Akari had very little reason to assume they’d be on their side if she or Azu were to run into them again.

As her mind trampled over a thousand scenarios, one thing lingered like an immovable weight. When Sir Didact had penetrated her mind, it felt as though her sanity was being stolen from her. As if he was meddling with her very consciousness. It left her traumatized at the idea that someone could potentially take control of her, wiping her existence form her own body. Perhaps it was that fear that made Kuro’s words sit on her mind so heavily.

Resonate frequency.

The concept lingered in the corners of her mind like a cobweb. At the very least, her spirit was trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t string its words together.

Looking to lighten her mind, Akari stepped outside to the view of a small village. Trees were abundant and the air felt clear. A young man passing by gave her a warm greeting before placing down a bucket of water at her door. “The river is running dry today, so use this instead of the faucet,” he told her, “I expect things to be back by tomorrow morning, but if not this’ll have to last you until the day after when we can make another trip to the neighboring town.”

Akari kindly thanked the man, bowing her head as he trotted off to the next house. She then peered over at the bucket, watching as her reflection wavered with the shifting water.

“I haven’t noticed a missing reflection this entire time.”

Those were the words Akari said to Azu as they sat within Azu’s home, having arrived earlier that day after leaving the encampment.

“It’s not that simple,” Azu informed, “there are plenty of things that have a reflection that you don’t think about. If the user targeted any of those, you wouldn’t notice it right way.”

“And how far do we need to be from the script user?”

“Not very far, actually, since the skill uses a lot of chakra.”

Akari was seated at the bed, while Azu sat across from her at a nearby table so covered in books you could barely see its surface. “You see, spying through reflections is actually a form of transfer script.”

Akari’s eyes crossed over one another, his words like the chirp of a bird to her ears.

“Just think of it as a way to transport one thing from one location to another. Most people use it to send information, but Scytales like Norin have used it to transfer light.”

Azu lifted up a spoon, angling its metallic surface into the light of the candle flame. Although she was aware of what he was attempting to demonstrate, Akari was seated so far away from the tiny utensil that she wouldn’t even bother to pretend to notice what he hoped for her to see.

“In other words,” Azu drudgingly continued, “the light that bounces off of a surface which we see as a reflection, this script user will transfer to their location. And just like that reflection, this light projects to them what the reflective object would have shown someone staring back at it.”

Akari twirled her finger through her hair. Azu’s words hopscotching in and out of her ear like a rubber band ball. But just as Azu moved to wave the white flag on being able to reach her with his words, he was thrown a curve ball.

“So, it’s just like how camera’s work with taking photographs. They capture the light and project it onto a film.”

Azu wasn’t entirely sure how to comprehend her reference, but he was somehow reassured that she’d grasped the gist of his explanation. “Yeah… I guess,” he then concluded.

That conversation was nearly a week ago. Azu had claimed that he’d travel back to the pasture and ask Norin about him commissioning the twins. Akari was to stay put in the Village of Iama, where Azu was a longtime resident, until he returned. However, ever since her run in with Sir Didact, she’d been suffering more and more from flashes of memories she never knew she had. Some of which barely made any sense. She tried to convince herself that they were nothing but mere dreams. And that she’d surely arrived in this world alone. But the more she said it to herself, the less it felt true.

Now, looking back upon her own reflection, Akari had finally accepted that the only thing that would calm her mind was action. Waiting for Azu to guide her or hoping that someone would protect her was the shackle on her ankle that kept her weak.

Her only choice was to trust herself. Even if that meant putting her life at risk.