Bound

The prison guards stuff me into a straight jacket and escort me to the medical center early in the morning. Binding me to the operating chair, Dr. Yamamoto puts on some gloves and makes the preparation for a circlet change. I play along, cooperating to the best of my abilities, though acting confused. “What’s going on? Why did you take me here?”

The doctor stands before me, and I can see a smug look even from behind his mask. “Mr. Ishiguro… A fellow anonymous inmate has informed me that your debilitator needs renewing. If you knew about this, then you should have just told me. There's no need to be embarrassed about breaking your debilitator.”

I take a deep breath and gulp, my heart racing as he takes out a dose a dose of anesthesia. He approaches me, carefully inspecting a syringe. “Mr. Ishiguro, I hope you don't mind, but I won't be using anesthesia for you today.”

“W-what are you talking about?”

“Hm? Is that a problem?”

I let out a nervous chuckle, pressing my chin against my chest. “What do you mean? Y-you’re joking, right? I-I mean, hey! At your pleasure! I, uh, I don’t see why it would matter whether you administer me with anesthesia before you renew my circlet or not.”

“You’re absolutely right. It wouldn’t make a difference.” He sets down the syringe and wraps around behind me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “It’s simply too much effort to go through the process of administering anesthesia on a midyear renewal. I usually prepare it quite some time beforehand, and we simply did not have the time today. You hope you can endure the pain this time, Mr. Ishiguro. If you find it too painful, I suggest you make sure not to break your debilitator next time.”

He begins undoing my current circlet as I flail about wildly in the straight jacket, protesting his methods this time. “Wait! Wait! Wait! Are you sure you don’t want to drug me first!? I might escape with my ability once you take off the circlet!”

“No, I don't believe that will be necessary.”

How flyingly this plan is panning out makes me want to smile, but I have to suppress the urge before it gives me away. I override any facial expressions with an exaggerated panic paired with more struggling and panting. “No! You can’t do this! C’mon! You got the anesthesia just for me, remember?!”

The doctor becomes irritated and firmly repeats himself. “I said I don't think that will be necessary. Hold him steady.”

The prison guards hold me down with excessive force as I struggle enough to keep the guards none the wiser but not enough to allow the doctor to remove the debilitator. Once I hear the click and feel Restless Spirit tingle back into my palms, I drop the facade and deatomize myself, springing up from the chair. The guards try to tackle me, yet they simply phase through me and hit each other. I make sure to get a good at the doctor's face of pure shock and frustration, that usual stern and confident look completely crushed away, before sprinting off through the prison as fast as I can.

Having never run faster in my life, my revelry in my success bolsters me like wind under my feet. The absolute fool! You played right into my hands, Dr. Yamamoto! I knew you were reading my journal entries ever since the first annual circlet change! The prison in Osaka must’ve told you about how I wrote my escape plans in my journal entries. Just as you’ve been watching over my activities, I’ve been observing you this whole time too! How naive you were to take everything I wrote into my journal entries as fact! You got overconfident and felt far too secure! The meticulous plot that I’ve laid out for over a year has finally come to fruition, and in the end, it was I, Ishiguro Asahi, and my Restless Spirit that triumphed!

The doctor’s furious scream of frustration in the distance is music to my ears as I continue to run through and out the prisons. I hear the police sirens blare already, though their pursuit cannot chase me through walls. I make a dash for the cityscape labyrinth that is Tokyo. The world seems to be within my grasp as I take in the environment while running and making turns, the pain of object collision left entirely in the back of my mind. Passing through a convenience store, I take a pack of masks, a change of clothes, and some makeup cosmetics and proceed on through the buildings, leaving the store cashier utterly baffled, and as I sprint past a man in a business suit on a phone call, I take the opportunity to snatch the phone as well, phasing it away from his hand almost too easily.

As the high of the vast freedom fades, panic sets in again as I hear the ticking seconds of my Restless Spirit countdown on me. I need to find somewhere secure to hide and rest, but more importantly, I need to get out of Tokyo. Boarding a train is out of the question, so do I walk? No, there’s no way I’m walking all the way from Tokyo to Osaka while escaping the cops. Think, Asahi! Think!

Do I stow away then? I could run to the Tokyo airport and stow away on a flight to Osaka. There are a lot of people there for me to be lost amongst the crowd in, but at the same time, there’s an extraordinarily high amount of security too. And after I land in Osaka, then what? Then what? If a plane isn’t it, then what!? There’s still quite some time until the middle schoolers graduate, so getting there early isn’t to my advantage either. What should I do… Somewhere safe to hide. Some mode of transport to stow away in. Some way to stay in the shadows for a while. Some sort of way to drag out my time away from the police… All of that’s pointing to… A cruise.

After I run my Restless Spirit to depletion, I stop in an alleyway to catch my breath and recharge. I need to get onto a cruise from Tokyo to Osaka, but for now, I need somewhere in Tokyo I can hide and do research. They already know that I stay in hotels and inns, so that’s no longer an option… What does that leave me with…? I could try unrented apartments… I could try other cafes…

No, that’s too obvious… What’s somewhere they wouldn’t check? Where would they not check? Where– I’m either a genius or I’ve absolutely lost it… Either way, I find myself searching for directions to the nearest prison. How do you like that, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department?! You wouldn’t check for an escaped inmate in another prison, now, would you?! With a destination in mind, I sneak across the city from wall to wall, building to building, and alleyway to alleyway as I recharge Restless Spirit in intervals. Without hesitation, I charge directly into the prison and quickly find myself an empty room to take a seat in. Locking the door to the room, I take a moment to relax, change into new clothes, and begin my research.

I start by finding out the graduation date of Hikari’s middle school, giving myself an exact time frame. March nineteenth is the day, making it sixteen days from now. In that case, considering that I should get to Osaka with a couple of days to spare… I begin searching for cruises that take two weeks to go from Tokyo to Osaka leaving today. After an hour or so of research, I fail to find any cruises leaving today that fits my criteria perfectly, but I do find a cruise leaving tomorrow morning that’s headed for Osaka with a ten-day trip.

Setting my mind on that cruise, I decided to stay overnight in the prison, avoiding the notice of any staff or prisoners through Restless Spirit and my knowledge of a typical prison schedule, constantly shifting into empty rooms that I know lack surveillance cameras such as bathroom stalls and other inmate cells as the inmates make their rounds. Spending the entire night in the prison’s bathroom and taking to make sure the phone doesn’t lock, my gambit must’ve been correct as the police did not show up to search the prison throughout the entire night.

I head out under cover of the early morning, following the directions of the port to the ports with makeup covering up my pale complexion and a mask covering up the scabs on my face. I travel through the city once more with cover and Restless Spirit until I find some domestic tourists to blend in with. I locate my designated cruise and verify it with the now almost dead phone before turning my attention to a cruise a few berths down the dock. Approaching it, I verify it with the phone once more and find a tourist that seems to be in line to board it.

Pressing the phone against the tourist’s backpack, I phase the phone into the man’s bag and fall over on him with a swift motion. “Ah, my apologies. I tripped.”

I’m not stupid enough to take a tracking device with me onto the cruise I’m stowing away on, so as my parting gift to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, I hope they have fun chasing that phone down all the way to Hokkaido.

With that sorted, I fill my lungs and dive into the cold ocean, holding my breath and swimming towards the bottom of my designated ship. Pushing my hands against the bottom of the ship, I phase my arms in first and pull the rest of my body in. Stumbling around a bit in the dark, I find a place to take a seat, relax, and set my items out to dry until the ship starts moving and steadies itself on the waters.

After a short nap, I decide it’s finally time to ascend to the upper decks of the cruise, repeating the same process as I did when I entered the cruise, though I press my face through to check the other side before ascending. Eventually, I find myself in an empty cabin, though the luggage has already been placed in the room. I take the opportunity to take a warm shower, and check the suitcases for anything useful, though, unfortunately, none of the clothing inside the baggage fit me properly.

Reapplying my makeup and putting on another mask, I head out of the cabin before its occupants return and blend into the crowd of domestic tourists on this recreational cruise. Leaning on the handrails of the deck, I look out into the seas of Japan. For the first time in years, I feel a sense of calm wash over me. I can just relax and not worry about being chased.

I feel a tap on my shoulder as I turn around to find a security staff member staring down at me. “Sir, would you mind showing me your ID card?”

I almost freeze up for a moment, all the calm of a warm ocean breeze swept away by my storm of awful luck. “Uh, why… would that be necessary?”

“Our surveillance cameras noticed you exit a room that a family had already exited minutes before. We’re not sure how you got there, in the case that you are a stowaway, I’m going to have to see some ID.”

I suppose my own oversight isn’t necessarily awful luck. This is what I get for getting overconfident in Restless Spirit. “Sure thing, sir.” I pretend to reach into a pocket and dive into the lower deck as my body deatomizes. Looks like I don’t get to enjoy a free luxury cruise ship experience after all, but instead, I get to play hide and seek with the cruise security for the next ten days. What a fool I was to assume that it would be anything else.

I grab a map of the ship and begin committing its ins and outs into memory. If I had to choose between evading the security and staff team of a cruise within the confines of the cruise or evading an entire metropolitan police force within the confines of a metropolis, I think I’ll pick the one where the people who are actively trying to hunt me down don’t carry firearms. Either way, it doesn’t matter. No obstacle can sever the bond that tethers me to her.