Chapter 3.2

“Can I ask a question, Kazama?”

“Are you sure right now is the right time?”

“Do you have any idea where we’re going?”

“So you asked anyway. What was the point of asking for my permission…”

In truth, Fujiko had been wondering the same thing.

They had been separated the moment Director Arataki ordered their arrests. Mamoru in one vehicle, Reiko into the director’s private limousine. Only she and Miyuki had been placed together in the back of an unmarked van.

Fujiko had not counted time by the seconds, but they had been driving for at least an hour now, and the prefectural police headquarters was less than five minutes from where they had been taken.

“I hope the captain and Mamoru are okay,” Miyuki murmured.

“I think you should be concerned for yourself, first.”

“Why?” Miyuki asked. “We can fend for ourselves, Kazama.”

“Are you sure about that?” Fujiko held up the restraints fastened around her hands.

“Kazama, there’s no need to hide your abilities,” Miyuki chuckled. “We both know these handcuffs don’t work on either of us.”

Miyuki shook the gemstones nestled on her gloves.

“I have enough imaginarium stored here to unlock the cuffs at any time,” she explained. “These restraints only regulate self-generated magic. They can’t stop you from commanding the local imaginarium to destroy them.”

“Then why haven’t you broken free, Kobayashi?”

“What do you mean? For the same reason as you, Kazama,” Miyuki tilted her head, “because I don’t want to get the others in trouble.”

Fujiko sighed.

Of all the people in Section Eight to be stuck with, Miyuki would have been her last choice. With Reiko, she could at least pry into their shared history. With Mamoru, they could entertain an awkward but nevertheless preferable silence.

With Miyuki, it wasn’t that she didn’t know how to shut up, it was more…

Fujiko shoved the thought away to focus. The events of the night had been shocking enough already. In spite of herself, she found herself needing to vocalize her bewilderment.

“I can’t believe an Egregore was killed by that thing,” Fujiko muttered. “I thought–”

“I know right?”

Miyuki leaned closer, her eyes sparkling like she had found a new gossip buddy.

“You thought something was strange too?” she asked.

“That’s… not what I said.”

Here we go again, Fujiko thought.

“You’re right. It’s inconceivable for Lisa Everest to have died the way she did,” Miyuki rubbed the space below her lower lip, “and the behavior of the other Egregore was also strange.”

“You mean how they all just stood there and let it happen?”

“That too,” Miyuki replied. “Do you remember? Before it happened? You and I were both frozen on the lawn?”

“It felt like my entire body had been locked up,” Fujiko recalled.

“Lisa Everest is known as the Storyteller,” Miyuki explained. “She creates new realities by engraving her signature in The Now.”

“When she signed that space with red ink?” Fujiko wondered.

Miyuki nodded.

“Now that I’ve seen it up close, I think I know how it works,” she said. “It’s a type of magical contract, and it allows her to change the sequential logic of events according to an imagined reality of her choosing. The reason we weren’t allowed to move was because we were not yet a part of the Story she envisioned.”

“What?” Fujiko raised her eyebrow. “That’s ridiculous. You’re saying she can just control all of us, make us do anything to achieve the ‘reality’ that she wants?”

“Not exactly,” Miyuki shook her head. “Think of it more like… a theater, where a director might order characters on and off the stage. The characters will act according to who they are, but they’re all bent in the direction of that particular story.”

“Until someone kills the director.”

“That’s what doesn’t make any sense,” Miyuki murmured. “Unless she wanted to die, Lady Everest’s realities should be near irrefutable. None of her characters should have acted against her unless the Story allowed it.”

“And you think that’s why none of the witches acted?”

“No, that’s what makes even less sense,” Miyuki pouted. “Magical contracts are… they’re hierarchical. Maybe you and I can’t change the direction of the play, but the Egregore are bound by higher order systems. It’s not enough for Lady Everest to sign them into her Story. She needs their Permission.”

“Well,” Fujiko shrugged. “This was very informative and all, but that doesn’t change what we saw out there. And, if you don’t believe that, then believe your eyes that we just got handcuffed and put in the back of a van.”

“But there’s something we’re probably missing.”

“Oh, would you quit it?” Fujiko snapped. “What is wrong with you?”

Miyuki’s eyes widened.

“Kazama?”

“Have you considered that you might be wrong?” Fujiko scoffed. “Or no, even if you were right, that this discussion is useless? How is it supposed to help us?”

“I was just trying to help…”

“Well, you’re not helping,” Fujiko almost shouted. “You act like you think what’s going on, but guess what? What’s that knowledge good for right now? Nothing! We’re accused of murder. Murder, Kobayashi. Get that through your head. You’re not in school anymore. You think it’s the right time to explain how a dead Egregore uses their powers? Could you put aside your obsession with them for just two seconds? Could you be any more dead weight?”

A silence stretched between them, terrible and unmoving.

Miyuki rose from her seat and switched to the other side of the vehicle. She pulled her legs towards her chest and placed her face on her knees, staring vacantly at the gray windowless cabin.

“I’m sorry for being a bother, Kazama,” she said at last. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry for being dead weight again.”

From then on, there came only the eerie consistency of the vehicle’s engine, the tumbling of its wheels, the metallic clicks of their handcuffs dangling from their wrists.

Fujiko could have said something. Part of her knew that she had gone too far, that if she wanted, there were innumerable things she could have said to excuse her own behavior. Stress and shock, for instance, had gotten the best of her.

But Fujiko clung to the parts that told her she was in the right. Miyuki had overexplained things. She had a tendency to think she was always right. She was too fascinated with the Egregore and not with the predicament right in front of her.

We’ll talk later, Fujiko told herself. I’ll apologize then.

And so Fujiko said nothing.