Chapter 15: The Impossible Choice

The conversation with Ren never happens.

Hana stands in her apartment doorway, ready to demand answers, ready to confront the woman who shares her blood—and the room tilts. The walls fold inward. Ren's face blurs, distorts, stretches into geometric impossibility.

Then she's somewhere else.

The tunnel system smells of exhaust and old concrete.

Hana's knees hit hard ground. Her palms scrape against rough stone. The air is thick, humid, carrying undertones of something metallic—like heated iron, like industrial machinery pushed past its limits.

Emergency lighting casts the space in dull amber. She's in a maintenance corridor, maybe ten meters wide, with curved walls that suggest underground construction. Rail tracks run along one side, disappearing into darkness in both directions.

Where—

"Welcome to the second trial."

Artemis's voice echoes from everywhere and nowhere. Hana pushes to her feet, scanning for the goddess, finding only shadows.

"You enjoy these ambushes."

"I enjoy efficiency." Artemis materializes twenty meters down the corridor, her figure wavering like heat shimmer before solidifying. She wears the same modern clothing as before—jeans, white shirt—but her bow is in her hand. "We have limited time."

"For what?"

"The challenge." Artemis gestures down the tunnel. "Two groups of tourists trapped by a sudden geological event. Magma flow—unusual for Tokyo, yes, but not impossible in this constructed scenario. One group is male. One group is female. Both tunnels are collapsing. You can only save one group first."

The explanation lands wrong. Too quick. Too detached.

"This is real."

"This particular scenario? No. But the emergency conditions are. The people are." Artemis's expression doesn't change. "Constructed reality with genuine stakes. What you do here matters."

Hana's stomach turns. "You kidnapped people to make a point?"

"I created circumstances. The people chose to enter these tunnels. The emergency is... accelerated. But the threat is genuine." A pause. "I'm not cruel, Hana. Merely direct."

Semantics, something in her snarls. Justification wrapped in divinity.

But arguing won't help trapped people.

"How long?"

"Seven minutes until the first collapse becomes unsurvivable. Eleven minutes until the second." Artemis tilts her head. "Choose which group to save first. Explain your reasoning. Then act."

"I need information. How many people? What are their skills? What resources are available?"

"Interesting." Artemis waves one hand. A sheaf of papers materializes—printed biographies, the kind that corporate events might produce. "Twelve men. Ten women. Standard background mix: engineers, teachers, tourists, students. The men's tunnel has three structural engineers. The women's tunnel has a doctor and a nurse."

Hana scans the documents rapidly. Names, ages, occupations, family status. Data points that reduce human beings to variables.

Calculate. Prioritize. Decide.

Her mind rebels against the framing. This isn't a resource allocation problem. These are people.

But the framing is the point, another voice argues. She's testing how you think. What you value. Which lives you're willing to sacrifice.

"The tunnels," Hana says. "Are they connected? Is there a path between them?"

"One connecting passage. Partially collapsed. Impassable without engineering expertise."

Engineering expertise. The men's group has three structural engineers.

"If I rescue the men first, can the engineers clear the connecting passage?"

Artemis's eyes narrow slightly. "Potentially. If they work quickly."

"How quickly?"

"Four minutes, with proper tools. Tools that are available in their current location."

Hana does the math. Seven minutes until the men's tunnel becomes unsurvivable. Rescue them. Four minutes to clear the passage. That's eleven minutes total—exactly when the women's tunnel collapses.

Razor margins. No room for error.

"I'll rescue the men first."

Silence.

"Explain."

"The men's tunnel has engineers. Specialists who can clear the connecting passage. If I rescue the women first, I have no way to reach the men in time. If I rescue the men first, the engineers can create an alternate route. Both groups survive."

"You're assuming the engineers cooperate. That they work at optimal efficiency under crisis conditions. That the passage can actually be cleared in four minutes."

"I'm assuming they want to live and that they'll help others who want to live." Hana meets Artemis's gaze. "People surprise you in emergencies. Usually for the better."

A long pause.

"Go."

The men's tunnel is two hundred meters down the main corridor, through a service door marked in Japanese characters that Hana's implanted knowledge translates automatically: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

She runs.

The air grows hotter as she approaches—ambient temperature climbing from maybe 22 degrees to something closer to 35. The walls radiate heat. The emergency lights flicker.

The tunnel opens into a wider chamber. Twelve men stand huddled near a collapsed section—rubble blocking the path forward, smaller debris scattered across the floor. Their faces are pale, sweating. A few are shouting. Most are silent, processing.

"Everyone!" Hana's voice cuts through the noise. "I'm here to help. We need to move. Now."

"Who are you?" A middle-aged man in a business suit steps forward. Nakamura Hiroshi, according to the bio—corporate executive, no relevant skills.

"That doesn't matter. What matters is that this tunnel is collapsing in"—she checks her watch, a habit that means nothing in this constructed reality—"five minutes. I have an evacuation route. But I need the engineers."

"Engineers?"

"Yamada-san. Ito-san. Watanabe-san." She points to three men near the back, identified from their photos. "You specialize in structural work. There's a connecting passage to another tunnel—partially collapsed. If you can clear it, we can save twenty-two people instead of twelve."

The three engineers exchange glances.

"How do you know our names?" Yamada asks. He's younger than she expected—maybe thirty, with the wiry build of someone who works with his hands.

"That also doesn't matter. What matters is: can you do it?"

A moment of hesitation. Then Yamada nods.

"Show us the passage."

The connecting corridor is worse than Artemis described.

Concrete slabs have fallen from the ceiling, creating a barrier maybe two meters thick. Heat radiates from the far side—the women's tunnel is closer to whatever thermal source is generating this crisis. Through gaps in the rubble, Hana can see flickering light. Hear voices.

"This is bad," Ito says. He's older, maybe fifty, with gray at his temples. "Without proper equipment—"

"There." Hana points to a maintenance alcove. "What tools are in there?"

Watanabe investigates. Returns with pry bars, a portable jackhammer, load-bearing beams.

"This could work," Yamada admits. "But it's going to be close."

"Then start."

The engineers work with terrifying efficiency. Years of training channeled into movements that waste nothing—each strike precise, each brace placed perfectly. The other men form a line, passing debris backward, creating space for the next cut.

Hana counts time in her head. One minute. Two minutes. The rubble begins to give.

"We're through!" Yamada shouts at the three-minute mark. A hole appears—barely large enough for a person, but navigable.

"Everyone out this way!" Hana moves toward the opening. "Single file. Help each other. Go!"

The evacuation is controlled chaos. Men squeeze through the gap, emerging into the women's tunnel. Someone is crying on the far side. Someone else is shouting instructions. The two groups merge, flow toward the exit Artemis presumably created.

Hana counts bodies. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two.

Everyone.

The last person clears the collapse zone as the ceiling behind them groans, shudders, and gives way. The sound is enormous—tons of concrete surrendering to forces beyond its design parameters. Dust billows. The emergency lights fail.

Darkness.

Then daylight.

They emerge into a Tokyo street that shouldn't exist.

Hana recognizes the intersection—Ginza, maybe three blocks from the McDonald's where Kae maintains her pocket dimension. But the buildings are wrong. The signage is wrong. The cars parked along the curb are models from decades past.

"Another construction," she says.

"A convenient exit." Artemis stands nearby, watching as the twenty-two rescued tourists mill about in confusion. "They'll wake tomorrow believing they had a vivid dream. Some may visit psychiatrists. Most will simply forget."

"That's... invasive."

"Less invasive than leaving them with knowledge of divine intervention." Artemis's tone is matter-of-fact. "Mortals adapt poorly to evidence of gods. Their minds create narratives. Conspiracies. Religions. Better to smooth the memory than fracture the psyche."

Convenient philosophy, Hana thinks. From someone who has been interfering with mortals for millennia.

But she's too exhausted to argue. The adrenaline is fading. Her muscles ache. The scrape on her palms stings.

"Why the men first?" Artemis asks.

Hana blinks. "I explained. The engineers—"

"The tactical reasoning, yes. Elegant. Efficient." Artemis steps closer. "But there was another reason. Something you didn't say."

Ah.

Hana doesn't answer.

"You could have rescued the women first. Made a symbolic choice. Demonstrated feminine solidarity. Instead, you chose based on capability. Resources. Utility." Artemis's eyes are gray and ancient and entirely without judgment. "Why?"

"Because capability matters more than symbolism."

"In emergencies, perhaps. But this was also a test of values. What you prioritize. What you believe."

"I believe in saving lives."

"All lives? Equally?"

The question lands heavy.

No, something in Hana admits. Not equally. Never equally. You calculate worth based on contribution. Potential. Threat level. That's how you were trained. That's how you survived.

"I believe in saving as many lives as possible," she says finally. "Gender doesn't enter into that calculation."

"But something does. Some hierarchy. Some system for determining who matters more."

Hana is quiet for a long time.

"You want the truth?"

Artemis waits.

"I don't trust women to not turn on me."

The words come out flat. Empty of affect. A statement of fact rather than an emotion.

"I have this theory. I've watched it my whole life. Be respectful, be kind, be appropriate? Get accused of being inappropriate. Be manipulative, be cruel, be dismissive? Get rewarded with attention and affection."

Her hands clench at her sides.

"The pattern held true every single time. The worse someone treated women, the more successful they were. But be genuinely kind?" A sound that might be a laugh, if it had any warmth. "Then you're the dangerous one."

"That's—"

"I know." Hana cuts her off. "I know it's twisted. I know it's wrong. But when you're eight years old and expelled for looking up a girl's skirt you didn't actually look up? When you're ten and accused of touching someone you never touched? When your teacher—female teacher—sides with the liar every time because 'girls don't lie about these things'?"

She meets Artemis's eyes.

"You learn. You adapt. You trust the pattern because the pattern kept you safe."

Silence.

"I was eight," Hana continues, her voice mechanical now. "Playing on the monkey bars. A girl I didn't know climbed up. Her skirt was short. I was looking at my hands because I was about to jump. She told a teacher I was looking up her skirt."

The memory surfaces sharp and clear—the principal's office, the accusation delivered with absolute certainty, the adults who believed without question.

"I tried to explain. Said I was looking at my hands. They said boys always lie about this. I was expelled within the week."

Artemis says nothing.

"I was ten the second time. Different school. Different city. A girl in my class told the counselor I touched her in the hallway. I hadn't. I was on the other side of the building when she claimed it happened. Didn't matter. The teacher—female teacher—said girls don't lie about these things."

The pattern. The one she learned to anticipate. The one that shaped everything that came after.

"So yes. When I look at a room and calculate who to trust, gender is a factor. Not because I believe women are inferior. But because I learned, very young, that being kind to women made me a target. That respecting them made me suspect."

She exhales.

"And these four"—a gesture toward where Prism5 would be, if this were reality—"are teaching me I was wrong. That the pattern isn't universal. That trust is possible."

A pause.

"But unlearning thirty years of survival instinct? It takes time."

The constructed Ginza street is quiet around them. The rescued tourists have faded, presumably returned to wherever constructed realities dissolve to. Only Hana and Artemis remain.

"I understand survival instincts," Artemis says finally. "I've made choices I regret from them."

"Like what?"

"Like responding to perceived threats with overwhelming force." Her voice is soft. "Like punishing mortals for offenses that were, perhaps, not worth the punishment."

Actaeon. The Lycian peasants. Names from myth, stories from millennia past.

"You saved everyone," Artemis continues. "That's what matters. Not the reasoning. Not the psychological complexity. The outcome."

"That's a convenient philosophy."

"It's the only philosophy that allows for growth." Artemis gestures, and the world begins to fade. "We'll speak again, Hana. There's more I want to understand about you."

The rooftop.

Hana gasps, her lungs filling with Tokyo air—familiar now, almost comforting in its pollution. The city sprawls below. The stars hide behind light pollution.

"Hana!"

Voices. Running footsteps. Then arms around her—Yuki, crying, holding on like she might disappear.

"You were gone for hours," Yuki sobs. "We searched everywhere—"

"Again?" Rei's voice is sharp with fear. "Another goddess thing?"

Hana nods. She can't find words.

"What happened?" Sora, steady as always. "Hana, you're shaking."

She is. She hadn't noticed.

"I told her something," Hana says. Her voice sounds distant to her own ears. "Something I've never told anyone."

"What?"

The theory. The pattern. The childhood that made me who I am.

"Why I don't trust easily." She looks at Yuki, at the tear-streaked face of the woman who accidentally transformed her. "Why I expected the worst from all of you."

Yuki's arms tighten.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers. "I'm so sorry for everything."

Hana doesn't respond. She's not sure she can. The exhaustion is too complete, the emotional excavation too thorough.

But she doesn't pull away.

That, for now, is enough.