A Truth of Perspective

The next day went better than the last for Yumi. Part of it felt a little mental as she had some time to talk with Yuki and vent a little. The other part was the lack of Miki distracting them. There remained a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she would appear randomly at some point. But she never did appear.

One day passed into another and while there was a bit of mounting tension for when she might strike again, there came a bit of calm. She could focus on her work and not worry about having to defend herself needlessly to the woman.

By the end of the week things were feeling better and she had the project in a good spot that she treated herself to a small break. The breakroom had no one currently using it so it gave her a place of peace to just be focused on her thoughts. Though she \ learned to plan while distractions happened around her, she was glad not to have to use it.

Munching on a protein bar, she relaxed on the couch and closed her eyes. ‘The problem now is I have to figure out a new candidate. But it’s not like finding one is going to be easy.’ She chewed slowly going over her past fifty plus years of experience.

Recalling Masa’s world first in her mind, she thought about when she found her. ‘It was not until I was already deep into her world before she even appeared. I didn’t even know it was her. It was years before I managed to actually track her down again and I didn’t even know I needed to find her. That was my first time.’ She searched for the woman, but for a different reason than believing that she was the necessary goal. Something just drew her to the woman.

Sumiko turned out completely different making it a difficult one to use for a data point of comparison. It was still valid because it was a data point, but the circumstances were special. ‘I had to find her immediately due to the limited time. Which is a little ironic since I looped that time with her so many times I nearly went insane and lost myself. I still don’t know how many years I lost to the time loop. I can’t clearly remember them. It’s all just a complete mush of knowledge rather than experience. But I’m already too late to use that as a point for this world.’ She had to move on to the next point.

‘Aya was another unique case. It was years before I found her because we had a childhood and for years I thought it was Moriko. Which I worry is a more accurate comparison for this world.’ Aya’s world was a story and they were characters to play. Which made this world different like the others. But she already had a role that they assigned to her rather than leaving it up to her to make a choice.

Her fingers crumpled the fold on the wrapper as she went deeper into thought. ‘If I’m being honest, there probably was no other way for it to go. This is the modern era, not like the other worlds where being independent from the world is a valid means of living. Money is a driving economy and we need it to exist here. So we needed jobs. They simplified it for us.’ That was certainly a positive way of thinking about it.

Yumi had trouble believing that they were being wholly beneficial in what they did. It was a trial that they judged her worth to rule them. Walls and challenges faced by her put in place by them. They wouldn’t be easy on her.

So they would still see to it that she had to work for their respect. At least, that was her view of matters. She couldn’t say that they were being fair by giving them jobs. It just felt like they weren’t going to intentionally set her up to fail. She had everything needed to succeed, even if it wasn’t clear at the start. Anything that happened after that would be on her.

In a way, that might be considered fair. But she still had trouble believing it. She felt like they wanted her to lose so that they could take over. Yet they still tried to make her learn as well. Personal emotions still clouded her on their motives, she could at least admit that.

‘If it took years to find Aya. I hope it’s not years in here. We’re already adults, so I want to believe it may be months rather than years. At worst a year, otherwise why start so far away from the goal post.’

Suddenly, a distant pair of voices snapped her out of her thoughts. “Hm?” There was something that they said that caught her attention.

“Miss Tomori gave me the job!”

Chapter 567 - A Truth of Perspective

Yumi told herself that it didn’t matter what they were saying. ‘I’ve moved on…’ Yet she still stood up and moved over to the water cooler, the closest point to hear the conversation.

It was two men that she had seen around the office on her floor. They were part of the marketing team for the small TV division that the company ran. It was mostly just being part of the committee for funding than having a direct impact on the work. Their team provided the marketing as their support.

She didn’t know either of them well, but that they were fighting made her curious.

“And like I told you, I just came from a meeting with her. She told me personally to see to the talents.”

“She told me a week ago for me to handle that. This is a one man job. I don’t need help.”

“Clearly she felt that you weren’t going to work for it.”

“If she felt that way she would have said something to me. We speak on nearly a daily basis.”

‘She gave them both the same job?’ There was very little that she knew about what they had to do on that side of the marketing division to understand the situation. The actual conflict didn’t interest her very much, the fact that this was started by Miki drew her attention. ‘It wasn’t a mistake…’

Listening to the two, Yumi had seen this sort of conflict before. Two men fighting over a woman happened often in Aya’s world. Nearly all of the conflicts ended in fighting of some sort. It varied, sometimes it was just some punches and whoever could walk away won. Others it turned more lethal.

Neither of those options would happen here. She did wonder if they wanted to throw a punch and just held back because of the setting. Since she couldn’t really see them well, only hear, reading everything from voice didn’t give the best image in her mind. ‘What’s her goal in all of this… Just to make men fight over her? Why is she inciting them?’

The argument got more heated between the two until someone else passed by interrupting them. They still tried to keep the sense of nothing being wrong amongst the rest of the co-workers. But they were no doubt glaring at each other. Neither sounded like they planned to back down.

Miki had set the two against her and they both seemed driven to do whatever she said. More strange questions swirled around the woman with each encounter. Yumi didn’t know what to make of it anymore. This wasn’t the sort of person she had a lot of personal experience in dealing with.

Not having any more that she could learn from them, she left to return to her desk. ‘I thought I gave up on Miki. So why did I even eavesdrop on them? She’s not the one. I’ve made that clear already. I can’t get hung up on her.’ Giving herself that focus, she put herself back to work on the task at hand.

Passing into a new week, things still remained silent from Miki making Yumi think that maybe she had actually managed to successfully scare her off. The effect of Aya’s aura was powerful from personal experience. Those that were weaker would crumble under the overwhelming pressure that she exuded. Though she didn’t lower her guard.

On Tuesday, she got a clue to what might be the reason. Kasuse came by her desk after lunch around three in the afternoon from wherever he disappeared. “Hey Mizuno, check it out.” He handed over a paper with a familiar looking set of numbers. The weekly book rankings came in.

She quickly looked for Soseki’s book and found it sitting at number five of all places after just two weeks. That was doing far better than she predicted. “I’m really curious what happened to get this strong of a swing. I kinda want to do some research on the side.”

He laughed a little while listening to her. “It’s all data points for you. Don’t you know what this means?”

Looking up at him, he had some genuine excitement, something that others might find a little odd considering it was just numbers on a paper. But they were personally invested in the success of the book. Though she was surprised that he seemed more so than her, considering the ‘bet’ was her’s. “He’ll hit number one before the month is over.”

“It’s crazy is what it is. This is all happening like you said it would.”

“Well, it’s going faster than I thought, so I wasn’t accurate.”

“Accurate or not, you’re going to be able to rub it in her face. What I won’t give to see the look on her face right now. Even she can’t argue with this.”

Yumi nodded a little in support. “For most people, she might try to say it’ll still fall off.”

“But it’s not going to.”

“Sounds like someone’s got confidence.”

“Hey it’s not everyday you see a prophet.”

The word made her eye twitch a little and she noticed, trying to keep it under control. ‘That hit me more than I expected. He caught me off guard with that remark.’ Aya had been called that often by people with less understanding of how she made her all seeing visions a reality.

She went more introspective than she planned. The outside world fell silent to her thoughts. ‘Data points, prophet, am I turning into Aya? Not sure how I feel about that thought?’ Her mind tried to decide if it was a bad thing or not to be like Aya. The objective part of her could see that Aya had a lot of worth to her that Yumi could use, so long as she didn’t wholly turn into her. Emotionally, it bothered her deeply that even being associated with Aya threatened her personal identity and if that meant she didn’t actually win. Becoming Aya could be the same as them taking her over.

Troubling thoughts swirled around her mind for what seemed like hours compressed into seconds. Outside contact snapped her back though and left her to have to deal with her new personal problems another time.

“Mizuno? You already trying to put those calculations into practice?” teased Kasuse.

Recovered externally from her dilemma, she gave a smile as reward for his joke. “It’s a lot to think about.”

“You can just be happy. Things are turning out great.” He took the paper back, folding it up and walking over to his desk. “Though it’s a little weird to be so excited about this. Normally once the job is done I don’t think about it afterwards. If we get a bonus or something, I’m pleasantly surprised, but I really want to see this do well.”

“We put a lot of work into this. I think it’s only natural.”

“Maybe, but we do the same for all our clients. This one just feels different, I guess?”

Yumi thought about it. She could remember his energy for the job. It wasn’t as though he didn’t have the drive for others, but she couldn’t deny that he seemed to have more passion for that one specifically. ‘Maybe it was because it was the first we worked on. I changed up the rules a lot on him being different than he was used to…’

That wasn’t really something that she could say to him. “I think it’s a good thing. You’re passionate about it. Just look to see how you keep that energy for every client.”

He smiled and chuckled a little. “You make it sound so simple. But I’ll try! I do feel a little guilty not having the same sort of drive for everyone.” That seemed to have worked for him and he turned around.

Yumi went back to her looking at her monitor after the little chat. Almost immediately her mind went back to the worry of what it meant to become Aya. ‘Could all of this just be a lie and they’re using this as a way to make me their puppet? Have I been reading the situation wrong?’ Too many new questions came to her mind.

Thinking back on everything that she went through it was hard not to see a different context when plugged in with that thought. Each world they had taught her how to become like them and challenge them. She beat Masa as a swordswoman and in the end became her. Once Sumiko disappeared, rejecting the world, Yumi took over every job that would have fallen to her. At the end, the people were almost ready to consider her a replacement until she stepped in to put things on a different course.

She intentionally disagreed with the methods of how Aya went about conquering Japan. She did everything that she could to separate herself from how Aya acted because Yumi found it unsettling. Yet in the end, she stood as her equal, matching her intelligence and tactics. Even if it was a different path, it still led back to Aya in the end. And she even used Aya’s aura on Miki like Aya would do.

‘Am I becoming that which I’m trying to control? Am I actually just losing myself more? What is the truth to all of this?’