The Courage To See Your Crimes Through

I hadn’t spoken with Raven since that day at Nohato Village. Anything I could say would sour my progress in taming her. No complaints; even after she published an article praising the Robin Hood on her awfully named site, Justice's Missionary. This public love letter shook the entire Japan. Even the mainstream media covered it, though they were more critical of the Robin Hood. Meanwhile, some columnists shouted that the whole thing must’ve been a hoax.

Unfazed by all the attention on him, E.T. dragged Raven along to Yanaka, with only a single cryptic “I want to show you something.” A pair of vending machines stood as sentinels at the street’s mouth; cameras perched on lampposts and stuck to walls, surveying the length of the path.

“Are you sure you are safe with this little disguise?” Raven had spent almost an hour on her makeup and hairstyle, whereas E.T. looked the same as always, only rocking a pair of sunglasses and an unremarkable gray T-shirt. A standard attire for a morning walk.

“I have nothing to hide.” E.T. gave Raven a reassuring smile.

“But…” Raven fidgeted and shot quick glances at the cameras, while E.T. kept an even pace.

“The true power of cameras isn’t in what they record, but in the mere fact that they exist, along with the possibility of being judged. And also, remember, we’re only going on a date.” E.T. matched his words by offering his hand. Raven evaded his glance, but took his hand regardless.

“Anyway, we are here.” He spun Raven to face an ancient structure, one wrapped within a layer of stone walls. The slanted roof of the building extended to the eaves; the roof tiles mimicked the scales of a mythical dragon. Stripes of wood crisscrossed over boards and shoji screens to form the body of the temple.

E.T. didn’t forget to bring Raven to the temizuya, cleansing their hands and mouth first, before heading in. They left their shoes at the door and bowed to the monk as he passed by. E.T. lifted a floorboard in a dark corner to reveal a ladder, dipping into a cavity beyond my quasi-omniscience.

Wow, putting your secret base in such a holy place. His blasphemy knows no bounds.

After they descended into the darkness, E.T. flicked a switch. Connected by thick cables, the light bulbs around the basement flickered on, and our vision returned. The surfaces were battered with shoji screens; stone peeking out through the torn parts. The size of the space couldn’t even measure up to a normal living room, and the musty air almost repelled me out of Raven’s body.

Good job. What a place to bring your girlfriend to.

Raven covered her nose and scrunched her face. E.T. noticed her expression but chose not to address it. Instead, he directed her attention to a pile of items haphazardly stacked on the floor, like a grade schooler showing off his toys to his crush. “I got a bunch of magical items, some manmade, some natural.” They ranged from garments to weapons, from rusted to mint.

I noticed the familiar Hama Yumi and Eight-Hand Mirror among the heap. Really? This is how he treats priceless treasures? Raven, are you really following this guy?

“Natural? What do you mean by natural?” Her questions remained at the basic level. I could give an explanation or a snarky comment, but I held my silence.

Because E.T. did my work for me. “Do you know what type of information creates magic?” Not the kind that was patronizingly explained to another, for sure.

“This is a trick question. It’s all of them. Those rich assholes keep sucking everything in.” When would Raven remember that she was one of those assholes?

E.T. strolled to one side of the room; there stood a three-screen desktop computer setup. “Not exactly. Atoms and cells are information, but not all of them produce magic. In people, cells in the body and brain synchronize their actions and reactions, creating meaning. With one person doing this, you get consciousness; with a group of people, you get magic.” The phrase ‘synchronize’ only brought to mind their bedroom activities in the past month.

A single button commanded the device to life, drawing power from the same cables as the light bulbs. E.T. stared at the monitors, which were bursting with color. “The servers could try to mimic it, but in the end, they have no bodies, no neurons, no biology. They can only create an imperfect flow of integrated information,” said the guy who had been copying English folklore.

E.T. opened a few webpages, displaying varied pictures of the same figure: a man in a Lincoln green outfit, holding a bow. Robin Hood. And in typical Internet fashion, the tights were too tight, accentuating the rear end too much.

But the image was beside the point. My mind was occupied with something else. A revelation I should have gotten the moment Raven had become my host. Other than the ancient myths and gossips creating magical artifacts and horsemen, other than the servers collecting personal information to force artificial magic, there was a third type of magic. One lying between the two poles.

The Internet, with its memes and trends, produced magic that no company could own.

“I got my five minutes of fame once, and I stirred the masses to imbue my several meme accounts with magic. Now, I can use these accounts to create new variations of the Robin Hood meme. That’s how I give myself new abilities, but not too many; the last thing I want is for the lore to get too complex to spread accurately.”

I didn’t take the Robin Hood meme seriously, but it had given E.T. charm, stealth, and the ability to use any weapon with ease. And recently, a new variation of the meme emerged. The Robin Hood had fallen in love, and his partner had the same powers as he did.

“Be my sidekick, Karasuya-san. You have given me the courage and drive to move forward. You don’t have to work for Yonna-san anymore. The two of us are enough.”

What is this? A proposal? You are proposing in this dim, smelly basement? Where is the ring? You aren’t even kneeling. But I knew that no matter what I thought, Raven would…

“Let’s make the world a better place.” I felt a wide smile growing on Raven’s face. An addictive high in her mind that leaked over to mine. She had been waiting for him to say this ever since she saw her mother’s name in the suitcase, another superior idea to latch on to.

Raven had to go on a few more heists with E.T. for the memes to recognize her as the ‘partner’ of the Robin Hood. But already, it felt like he had long snatched her away from me. For a moment, I wondered if this was worth it, or if it would be less of a hassle to… seize this vessel for myself. To kick Raven out of her body.

Through killing her.

It should be simple enough. But as soon as the thought of killing her arose, another thought, containing an unpleasant memory, followed. And the latter extinguished the former without mercy.

I shouldn’t ever kill my host. Never.