3 – The same day, 4 PM

The first thing Kei did when he got home was fridge the curry ingredients. Obviously, the canned tomatoes didn’t need to be put there, but what of the rice? As he pondered putting it in the fridge just to be safe, his cell phone rang.

His phone display showed, “Unknown Caller”. He pressed the answer key, putting the phone to his ear. A robotic, feminine voice sounded from the speaker.

“Heya, Kei. It’s been a while.”

The Operator.

He was a man, albeit with his voice digitally changed. He served as an informant whose existence approached urban legend. He could never be seen, only spoken to over the phone.

“It really has been a while,” Kei responded, sitting down on a floor cushion. “It’s quite strange for me to get a call from you.”

“Well, you haven’t phoned me at all recently. You oughta invest more TLC into your friendships.”

“If that’s what you want, we should go somewhere together. Like movies, or lunch, or something.”

“Yeah, no. Do you even know how many pollutants are in the air just from traffic?”

“I’d know more about it than you. I was just out in the stuff.”

“How repulsive.”

“It’s really not that bad.”

“You’re just acclimated, like how a smoker isn’t able to notice the smell of cigarettes.”

The Operator was quite a germaphobe, refusing to leave his dwelling without very good reason. He never even ate. Kei could hardly imagine such a life.

“So, what do you need?” Kei asked.

“Hmm… Well, is there any information you need?”

“There is, actually. I was just wondering whether I ought to give you a call.”

“Great. In that case, you can have it for a specific price.”

“What’s that?”

“A picture of Souma Sumire.”

Kei’s heart leapt into his throat. He had never expected to hear the name Souma come from that source. How much does he know? Why was he asking about Souma?

As questions floated through his head, he came to a realization. “Minami-san asked about this, didn’t she?”

Minami Mirai happened to have a connection to The Operator. The Operator had actually caused Minami Mirai’s death earlier in July. The event itself was erased by a reset, but they both knew who was perpetrator and victim. He wouldn’t be able to refuse a request from her.

“Dead on the money. You figured that out quick,” The Operator answered.

“A friend told me that Minami-san was looking into Souma.”

“More specifically, she was looking into a girl that you were close to in middle school, one who wasn’t Haruki Misora.”

“How do you know that’s Souma?”

“Only took like ten minutes to figure that out. Minami wanted a photo of you two together, but it’s really hard to get personal photos from just the Internet. I’ve never been good at acquiring that kind of stuff, so I figured I’d go to the source.”

The Operator’s hatred of germs meant that he rarely, if ever, left his room. He certainly would have trouble getting even a single photo with that limitation.

“Aren’t you playing this a little too fast and loose?” Kei asked, wondering if The Operator could afford to be blabbing away about his investigation.

“This isn’t some kind of top-secret op. This level of investigation will satisfy the petty desire to sneak a peek into the crucible that is another’s romantic affairs.” It was certainly a poetic expression, if not accurate.

“That’s all well and good, but I don’t have a picture with Souma, either.” Kei had never taken a picture with her. To be fair, he did own a single picture with her in it, but he wasn’t about to make that public knowledge. That one was special.

“As long as it’s got her face, anything’ll work.”

“She was in my middle school graduation album.”

“Then we’ll go with that. Snap a pic of that and shoot me an e-mail.”

“Well, if that’s all you want…” Kei trailed off. Even if he refused, The Operator could easily get a graduation photo in other ways. “What’s your e-mail address?”

“I’ll send you an e-mail first, and you just respond to that.”

“You know my e-mail address?”

“As if I won’t have it in five minutes. Whaddaya take me for?”

“Someone who would tell me your address so we could have a mutual exchange of contact information.”

Kei’s middle school graduation album was way back in his closet. He had opened it once upon receiving it, and figured he’d never open it again.

“So, what is it that you wanted to know?” The Operator asked.

“Whatever you can get me about the traffic accident from this morning.”

“Ah. Now I get it.” The Operator’s voice lowered significantly.

“You get what?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just so you. I couldn’t prove it, but I figured you’d have been involved in it.”

“Wait, so it’s classified as a full-on incident, not an accident?”

“That’s what the Bureau decided. One incident in a series of cases regarding ability outbursts. That traffic accident is incident one.”

“There are more than one?”

“For now, there are only two. The second one took place 30 minutes ago, where everyone present in a supermarket started laughing together.”

Kei, of course, knew exactly what was being referenced. He had been there. He was only asking to see how much The Operator knew. “So you’re already informed on something that happened 30 minutes ago?”

“I got a call from the Bureau. They’re investigating very thoroughly.”

That made sense. The Operator was an accomplice of the Bureau, so he did plenty of work on their behalf.

“What I want to know is how the Bureau has chosen to handle these cases,” Kei stated.

“Well, the cases themselves are simple. A person with a special ability used their ability. It was unintentional and unconscious, resulting in some collateral damage.”

“Both times?”

“Yup. Both times. In the public eye, it’s all just an accident. Only the Bureau is classifying these as incidents.”

“Are these ability outbursts rather rare?”

“Well, let’s consider that. What do you think an ability outburst refers to?”

After some quick consideration, Kei answered, “I guess it would have to mean that an ability was used in a context where the user wasn’t purposely controlling it.”

“By that definition, to some degree or another, every ability user has had an ability outburst at least once.”

Ah, of course. “When the user first gains their ability.”

Nobody knew they had an ability until they used it for the first time. They may get a vague sense that they could do something, but that feeling wasn’t confirmation that they were truly an ability user. So then, any use of the ability would have to, in some sense, be an ability outburst.

“Exactly,” The Operator confirmed. “If we were speaking hyperbolically, we might say that every first ability usage is an ability outburst.”

Kei thought back, realizing that his first experience with his ability was exactly the same. He tried remembering the past, and unintentionally activated his ability. It was only that usage that made him realize his awakening as an ability user. For him, though, it wasn’t an “outburst”, per se. He just recalled the past in perfect detail, which didn’t cause any particular issues.

“So today’s incidents are just the happenstance problems created by first ability usage?”

If that was the case, then multiple possibilities opened before him. The Bureau had dealt with such scenarios countless times in the past.

But The Operator quickly denied him such possibilities. “Not quite. The user in the first incident had awoken to their ability two years ago, and the second user got theirs a month ago. Very different from a first use classification.”

“Is an outburst possible from the second use onwards?”

“It can be, if used reflexively. But in today’s cases, neither user was even aware of their ability usage. All things considered, the only possibility is that abilities were activated, but neither of the two had been aware of that fact.”

The use of an ability outside of conscious decision seemed to go against the very nature of Sakurada’s abilities, as abilities only activated if the user desired it. On the flipside, they wouldn’t work if it wasn’t desired.

“How big is the Bureau framing this issue?” Kei queried.

“I dunno, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this one. It’s like the Bureau isn’t functioning correctly or something.”

“Not functioning?”

“At face value, these incidents look almost insignificant, given the extremely precise track record of the Bureau with any other such cases. But something’s different this time. They almost seem confused. Can you even imagine that? The Administration Bureau, confused?”

Kei could reason it out well enough.

The probable reason for the Bureau’s efficient handling of ability issues in the past came down to their control over the Witch. Her future sight had become the Bureau’s insurance policy.

But there were no longer any Witches in Sakurada.

The Bureau’s safety net had collapsed on them back in August.

“Basically,” The Operator continued, his voice subdued, “The Bureau is scared that ability outbursts will start happening everywhere.”

Having finished his investigation into the two “ability outbursts”, Kei ended his call.

He stood up, walking over to his closet. There, stuffed in the very bottom of a cardboard box, lay a photo album. The very album that was distributed at the graduation ceremony of Nanasaka Junior High.

He took it out, flipping through the pages. Rows and rows of graduates were lined up by class. Then, past all the other students, on a page devoid of any other students, was a picture of Souma Sumire. The only contents of the page were her face and a short, standard prayer for her soul to rest in peace. He didn’t really want to spend too much time looking at it.

Kei quickly snapped a picture of the page on his cell phone, attaching it to a reply e-mail from the one The Operator had sent him.

He threw his cell phone on the bed then stared up at his ceiling, whispering, “Souma… when am I getting the next set of instructions?”

When he didn’t hear a reply, he appended, “I wanna take a shower, but after that, I won’t want to do anything else. Just let me know if you’re gonna make me go out and sweat some more.”

He closed his eyes and listened. There was no reply. Perhaps she was done with him for the day.

Kei took off his clothes, throwing them into his washing machine before heading into his bathroom.

As warm water poured over his head, he closed his eyes and thought.

Alright. What do I do now?

The report from The Operator had been more or less what he expected.

The Administration Bureau was experiencing what could very well have been its most troublesome problem yet. If two separate people could have ability outbursts, then there was every reason to believe the same thing could happen in the future. If they couldn’t source the reason for the outbursts, then every ability user in Sakurada became a potential problem.

It was unclear whether the traffic accident and supermarket incident were accidental or intentional. On the surface, they appeared entirely accidental, since there was no apparent purpose in them.

But Kei suspected that they were both intentional, primarily because the Witch’s future sight seemed to be in so little effect. It had been two months since her disappearance, sure, but if she couldn’t have seen a mere two months into the future, there had to be some sort of extenuating circumstance. Kei found it hard to accept as pure coincidence.

But, whether they were accidental or intentional, the incidents exposed a major flaw in the Bureau’s control.

The Administration Bureau is supposed to be entirely excellent. That, of course, was due to its massive data banks on abilities, and the relatively free use it had over those abilities. With their hands on tens of thousands of abilities, they could solve any problem quickly and efficiently.

And now that strength has turned into their greatest weakness.

If each and every one of those tens of thousands of abilities could suddenly and unpredictably create problems, then the Bureau’s power would only serve to cripple itself. It would be like having tens of thousands of bombs planted all throughout the city, just waiting to detonate. How could the Bureau deal with such a conundrum?

Kei put some shampoo in his hands, scrubbing his head vigorously. A drop of foam fell onto the tile floor, immediately being washed away by the downpour of water. The sight made Kei think of an insect corpse carried along by a troupe of ants.

The Bureau was a calm, rational group. They dealt thoroughly with every problem. They likely wouldn’t take long to make a decision, and only one decision seemed the correct to make given the circumstances.

It was the Bureau’s trump card.

Complete ability shutdown.

Kei knew that they could do it. He knew, because he had been led into the dream world by Souma Sumire the previous month. There, he read a particular notebook. The notebook was a volume of a work known as the Script, penned by an old man, entitled, “No. 407”.

I know the Administration Bureau’s trump card.

The volume Kei read had detailed the first year from the birth of abilities in Sakurada to the establishment of the Administration Bureau.

It brought to mind the previous words of The Operator.

The Administration Bureau is an organization without comparison. Their funds, staff, and established systems are unlike anything else out there. And quite frankly, it’s rather hard to believe how fast it all came together. You could even call it impossible. Public institutions just don’t work the way that the Bureau does. It came to life like a foregone conclusion, as though its purpose had been long decided before the first ability ever appeared.

The Administration Bureau was formed a month after the first ability sighting, functioning effectively from the moment of its conception. It was even within the realm of possibility that it was functioning before its official creation. It was the stuff of legends, really.

But Kei was now very well aware of the reality behind it all. The magical creation of the Administration Bureau had very purposeful mechanics behind it.

In reality, it took the Administration Bureau a full year to manifest after the first ability awoke. People were just unaware of the existence of abilities for that year. That was because, for that one year, there were only three ability users in the entire world.

Those three individuals took only a single year to build the foundations of the Administration Bureau, then announced the existence of their abilities to the public. By the time anyone found out about abilities, The Administration Bureau was all but completely created. To an outsider, it would appear that it had simply sprung up out of nothing.

But there was still that first year, nearly 40 years ago.

Kei knew a story from the time when there were only three ability users in the entire world.

✽

It was a time when the Witch had not yet lost her name.

She was a woman in her twenties, living as normal a life as anyone could imagine. But what singled her out was that she knew her own future. She knew that she would eventually lose her name, become isolated from the world, and become reduced to nothing but a system.

“Are you really okay with that?” the man sitting across from her asked.

The Witch was in the living room of a house. The house was on the outskirts of Sakurada, sporting a distinctively red and triangular roof which particularly stood out from the many tiled roofs surrounding it. A small sign no bigger than a nameplate was hung from its gate, reading, “Piano Lessons”. The house itself was rather ordinary, with nothing else worth mentioning.

But to the Witch, that ordinary house’s living room was the most extraordinary place in the world. Because her ability only existed within that one, singular room.

Another woman sat in that room in front of a grand piano, playing soft classical music with practiced, leisurely movements. A table was placed before the sofa set, laden with homemade gingerbread cookies and tea.

A man sat across from the Witch. The man was ten years older than her, and the woman was seven years older. The woman ran piano lessons out of her house, lessons that the Witch had been partaking in since high school.

The man, the woman, and the Witch were all ability users.

They made up the only trio of ability users in the entire world.

Well, actually, that’s not accurate, the Witch thought, shaking her head inwardly.

Abilities as a concept existed across the world, and new ability users were likely being born that very moment. But it remained true that only those three people knew about the existence of abilities. That rule was held in place by the abilities of the other two individuals she sat with.

The Witch colloquially referred to the couple’s abilities as the Boundary Line. They were the border that separated two distinct worlds. There was a very real difference between that living room and the rest of the known world. Anyone outside of that living room was incapable of understanding abilities, or to be more precise, forgot about them as soon as they left.

One of the Boundary Line ability holders, the man, spoke to the Witch across from him. “This plan we’re talking about would completely ruin your future.”

The Witch and the couple had partaken in several discussions about what to do with abilities. It would be quite accurate to say that the three of them decided all the rules of abilities by themselves. An organization would eventually be born from that process, the Administration Bureau. That organization would absorb the Witch, taking everything from her, even her name, as she became a system designed to monitor the future of Sakurada.

The Witch nodded. “There is no other way.”

The three had discussed countless possibilities, and the Witch would report all the various futures that lay beyond such decisions. But that didn’t make the management of abilities a simple task by any means. The Witch foresaw countless failures, not of the abilities themselves, but of the individuals that came to hold them, and the choices they made as a result.

Abilities were like an allegorical tragedy. They were cruel. They were born from a desire for happiness, yet using them only served to solidify the user’s unhappiness. And perhaps unhappiness born from normal and peaceful desires was an inherent contradiction in human nature. But abilities shone a harsh spotlight on that contradiction.

After a lengthy process of trial and error, the trio managed to create a powerful organization, which they named the Administration Bureau. But in order for that organization to grow and thrive, the Witch would have to give up everything. It could only come into its own once the Witch abandoned all that made her her, becoming a system that belonged to no single individual– not even herself.

The very idea was repulsive. But in a way, it made sense. Perhaps the only true way to control abilities born of the heart was to abandon the heart.

And so, the Administration Bureau was established, with the mission statement that it could never use abilities created for personal happiness for personal gain.

The man sitting across from the Witch took a deep breath, followed by a sip of tea. “There has to be another way. Maybe it’s better to just let the world forget about abilities.”

That course of action had been discussed many times before by the trio. While they had not yet found a way to eliminate abilities from the source, they could create a world where nobody noticed their existence.

In fact, it was possible that such a plan could be entirely accomplished by the man’s ability alone. After all, he could erase information from the world.

More specifically, his ability was to erase one specific memory from anyone and everyone’s mind.

He once explained his ability through an object lesson with candy. It was a rather strange experience.

He had placed a jar full of candy before the Witch, along with a note detailing a simple explanation of what candy was. Upon instruction, the Witch placed a single piece of candy into her mouth. It was sweet. It was candy.

But as soon as the man used his ability, the Witch forgot everything she knew about what candy was. None of the candy before her disappeared, she simply forgot what it was. The objects in front of her appeared to be crushed bits of marble. If anything, she assumed they were glass toys. She became entirely convinced that the sweet object in her mouth was simply a large chunk of crystallized sugar.

But the note before her read, “These are a type of confection called candy. The main ingredient is sugar.” The Witch read the note aloud and became aware of what candy was. Her immediate thoughts were, There are such strange foods in the world.

Then, the very moment that she stopped reading the note, she forgot its contents. Nothing about candy remained in her mind, immediately slipping out of her conscious grip. It was only once the man deactivated his power that the Witch could remember what candy was. Looking back on the memory was surreal, as she couldn’t imagine how she forgot what candy was.

His ability was actively taking away the memory of abilities from the entire world. The only exception was that living room.

That led to the other individual who made up the Boundary Line, the woman playing piano. Her ability allowed that information to remain within that singular living room.

Her ability tended to evade explanation. Put simply, it was the ability to not lose something specific. For example, if she designated something to not be lost outside of a room, it would become impossible to take the item out of the room. If she applied her ability to heat, then the room would remain the same temperature. Her ability allowed a wide range of concepts to be specified. In the present, she was setting her ability to not lose memories related to abilities.

That created the structure of the Boundary Line duo. The man used his ability to erase the world’s memories of abilities, while the woman specified the living room as a space where memories of abilities could not be lost. It created a sort of double-negative pocket where the Witch could retain her memories of abilities.

If the duo focused only on the former ability, then they could erase all memories of abilities from the entire world. Without that living room, the Witch would forget everything about her future sight, allowing her to live as a normal woman.

There was only one reason not to take such action.

“We must, at the very least, allow the ability border to expand to the edges of Sakurada,” the Witch stated. We need the creation of ability users outside of ourselves. It was only a slight exaggeration to say it was necessary to protect the balance of the world. “We must ensure that your ability is protected.”

When the man could no longer use his ability, or to put it more bluntly, when he died, there would no longer be a stopgap keeping memories of abilities from the world. Abilities would overflow throughout the world, creating chaos. The Witch had seen such a future with her future sight, and it was a future to be avoided at all costs.

As such, the man’s ability needed to be kept safe. He needed to continue using his ability consistently till the end of the world, and that was no over-exaggeration. In order to overcome death and continue the use of his ability, he would need other abilities. The three people in the living room would not be sufficient. They would need much, much more.

Taking a sip of his tea, the man smiled. “Twenty years, right?”

“Yes. Exactly that.”

In 20 years’ time, a certain resident of Sakurada would acquire a certain ability that would allow the man’s ability to take permanent effect.

That’s not to say it’ll be a happy event.

He would become another incorporated system of Sakurada, just as the Witch would. In fact, he would suffer an even worse fate. He would be unthinking, silent.

The preparations will ultimately lead to nothing more than his death. He would remain in a sleep like death, unthinking as a stone, serving only as a device to manifest his ability. It would be required in order to control his ability, for the sake of the world.

“But 20 years is just the amount of time to create that kind of ability user in this town, right? What if we moved to another town? Couldn’t we create that ability faster if we went somewhere else?” the man offered.

“And why would you want to hasten that event?” the Witch asked sulkily. To hasten the ability was only to hasten his death. Perhaps not a normal death, but something close enough.

“If you can just get me out of the way, then you can go and live a normal life. You could forget about your powers, just go and live in peace.”

Perhaps he was right. The possibility caused her determination to waver. She had someone she wanted to be with. As soon as the Administration Bureau was established, she would have to leave him.

But she still shook her head. “I will have ten years before I must lose my name. I can at least be a human for ten more years.”

The man smiled. “And I can only be human for two more years.”

The man was already afflicted with disease. A kind that no current medical technology could do anything about.

Without that ability, he’ll pass away in two years.

But if abilities came into being in Sakurada, his life could be extended. The ability he needed to that end would come about before long.

“But you can live for another 20 years if abilities awaken in Sakurada,” the Witch responded.

Even if the only future that awaited him was a sleep like death, continuing the use of his ability while remaining unthinking as a stone.

At least he could stay human for 20 years.

“But that’s just not fair,” the man retorted. “I’m destined to die in two years, and I’m gonna get 20. You should be allowed to be happy, no questions asked. But now, in 10 years, you’ll be forced to throw away your name. This leans too heavily in my favor.”

As the man spoke, the other member of the Boundary Line continued to play her soft, gentle tune on the piano. But of course, she wasn’t deaf to his words.

She loves him so much.

Abilities aside, the pair that made up the Boundary Line were just a happy couple. The Witch had liked them ever since setting foot in their house for her first piano lesson all the way back in high school.

Her feelings for them were something like adoration. Everything the pair did, their conversations, the fleeting expressions they showed in hidden moments, it all was suffused with absolute mutual care for the other. Their happiness was absolute, without any shadows hiding away. She knew that happiness was worth protecting.

The Witch forced a smile. “I think your ability was acquired to make people forget about your death.”

As far as the Witch could tell, the man really just wanted to erase himself. He had gained the ability to erase information from the world so that the woman playing the piano could forget about his death.

The man tilted his head. “I dunno. Maybe.”

But.

The Witch continued, “But you don’t really want her to forget you. That’s why your ability will stop working when you pass.”

What a mess of contradictions they were. Such was the nature of abilities.

He truly did want to erase his death. He didn’t want her to be sad. But at the same time, he truly didn’t want to be forgotten by her. He wanted her to be sad.

None of those desires were wrong, and none of them were lies. It was the contradiction of a human heart. Abilities only served to bring such contradictions into the light.

“Be honest with me. It doesn’t matter how, being alive is happier,” the Witch said. Happier not only for him, but for the woman he loved so dearly. And it would be no different for anyone else.

“Same goes for you. If I’m being honest, then there’s no reason to lose your name in ten years. Living an ordinary life far outstrips becoming a system.”

The Witch shook her head. She knew it was unfair, but there was no other way. Besides, she already knew how the conversation was going to go. She uttered her final words, the ones that were always going to force him to accept her proposal.

“If supernatural abilities awaken within Sakurada and you live on, you will have a son.”

Without abilities, assuming he died in two years, the boy would never come to be.

“I think it’s worth shouldering a few hardships for the sake of that boy, if nothing else.”

She thought it would be okay to choose a future for him and his unborn child.

That day was some 40 years past, back in a time where there were only three ability users in the world.

The Witch and her compatriots decided to make Sakurada a town that could house special abilities.

✽

A year later, the foundation for the Administration Bureau was laid, and the Boundary Line was expanded to fit the whole of Sakurada. By the time people came to know of abilities, all their rules and regulations had already been established.

Additionally, abilities could not be taken outside of Sakurada. Their very existence could only be remembered within the town’s borders. Another rule instituted by the Boundary Line. An artificial rule created by just two people with just two abilities.

If the Boundary Line was changed, things would be no different than they were for that first year, Kei thought.

But in all likelihood, preparations could be made to erase abilities in their entirety, whether down to a living room, or even less. The man had twenty years to live, after all. It had already been twice that amount of time.

That’s the Bureau’s trump card.

The Bureau could take away the public’s knowledge of abilities, making Sakurada like every other place in the world.

If ability users are decided to be the very source of all troubles…

The Bureau would play their last card.

Kei stopped his shower.

And that’s what everything’s come to.

It was a simple, yet undoubtedly difficult problem. A problem 40 years in the making, stemming from a Witch and her compatriots.

Should the Bureau play their card? Should they remove Sakurada’s abilities?

It was a question involving everyone in Sakurada, and perhaps even the entire world.

Should abilities even exist? Or should they disappear?

An answer needed to be found.