Two Sides of a Coin
Miss Ui, what is the atmosphere like in the Kivotos where you dwell?
Atmosphere? It was a rather abrupt question. More puzzling still was the fact that she had been the one asking questions, yet here he was answering with a question of his own.
When no reply came, Yi Sang sent another message.
By atmosphere, I mean the people of Kivotos, the scenery, the overall impression it leaves, and so forth. And of your academy, and any other academies you know of—I should be glad if you would tell me of them.
That made answering easier. Ui wrote down what she knew.
Kivotos... isn't exactly ordinary. There are all sorts of academies and students, some that get along well and some that don't. Problem children like Gehenna's Gourmet Research Society exist, but even when they cause a ruckus they get caught eventually. Serious incidents like the Eden Treaty affair have happened a few times, but they were resolved through the efforts of Sensei and the students. That line Hifumi shouted back then—"a story of academies and youth"—is still talked about even now.
Our Trinity General Academy has a generally classical atmosphere. We value history and tradition, and the buildings are pure white. The student council is the Tea Party, with three members taking turns in the role. Other than that... well, the religious feeling is stronger here than most places. My closest friend, Hinata, is a Sister, after all.
As for other academies—there's Millennium Science School, which I mentioned before, focused on science; Gehenna Academy, similar to us in appearance but far more free-spirited; Hyakkiyako Alliance Academy, where cherry blossoms bloom in full; Abydos High School, set in the desert... and countless others. Each has its own atmosphere, and there are conflicts, but everyone just lives day by day.
I see. My thanks for so detailed a reply. Your world... truly seems a beautiful place.
There it was again—that expression steeped in melancholy. Ui wanted to know why he always spoke that way. She was just about to write when Yi Sang struck first.
Miss Ui, from your description, the Trinity General Academy where you reside seems rather like T Corp. of our world. I shall answer your questions presently, but first—may I ask a simple one of my own?
What is it?
How old are you?
Her age? It was quite out of the blue, but not a difficult question. Ui answered honestly.
I'm seventeen this year.
A little younger than young Sinclair was at the start, then.
At the start—so he had once been around her age? Meanwhile Yi Sang sent a warning.
What I am about to tell you may prove far too shocking for you. You may never be able to return to the way things were before you knew. Even so—do you still wish to hear of this place?
"Shocking, he says..."
It was a weighty warning. For a moment Ui hesitated. It felt like the characters in old myths, standing before a box that must never be opened.
But curiosity is a greater force than fear.
It's all right. I'll listen.
Very well.
A short reply came from Yi Sang, followed almost at once by another brief question.
Since I compared Trinity General Academy to T Corp. a moment ago, I ought to begin with T Corp. Miss Ui—color exists in your world, does it not?
"Color? Red and blue and that sort of thing? What does he mean, 'exists'?"
Baffled by the strange question, Ui tilted her head once, then sent her reply at once.
You mean things like the color blue? Of course it exists.
Is that so? Then I am glad. For in T Corp., color does not exist.
What?
Color does not exist—what could that possibly mean? The words were so incomprehensible she could not even manage a reply, so Yi Sang sent a further explanation.
T Corp.'s Singularity is the manipulation of time. You would no doubt find it marvelous. Yet the price is that T Corp. has no color. Were you to stand within T Corp.'s Nest, your body, your clothes, the very strands of your hair would be distinguished only by pale and dark shades, like a black-and-white photograph.
How is that even possible? What does time have to do with color?
That, even we do not precisely know. We know only that they developed such a technology. If you wish to possess color, the only way is to buy it back with money.
Money. The force that moved the world, the line that separated the rich from the beggar. Of course the gap between rich and poor existed in Kivotos as well—but the notion of purchasing color with money was a grotesque idea she had never heard of in her life.
Even as her mind struggled to grasp what she had just read, Yi Sang kept sending message after message.
In T Corp., time itself is a form of currency. Thus the farce of buying and selling time unfolds: the rich live a day of a hundred hours, while the poor live a day of only four. Should one who lives a four-hour day sleep for eight hours, two full days will have passed from his perspective.
Even more shocking. The length of the day one lived was decided by one's wealth. The rich grew ever more leisurely; the poor were driven ever harder by time—a vicious cycle. When Ui pointed this out, Yi Sang answered.
Regrettably, that is the way of T Corp. That we can do nothing about it is simply reality.
B-but does that mean no one even tries? If the people rose up, couldn't they change something?
Revolution... a truly idealistic word, yet we have no such luxury. Simply living from one day to the next is already so overwhelming that the chance to change anything does not exist.
And Yi Sang went on to tell her more about several of the Nests.
N Corp., which seemed to share a culture not unlike Gehenna's, had such a fierce obsession with education that a high school where students transformed into monsters mid-exam and a battle royale broke out only saw its reputation soar higher still. (When Ui asked about the monster transformations, Yi Sang grew tight-lipped.) They could also extract memories at will from a human brain. U Corp. was a floating city upon a vast lake like a sea; that lake teemed with monsters called "Whales," and humans infected by them could be twisted into "Mermaids."
As for W Corp.'s flagship product, the WARP Train—it was in truth a means of transport that hurled the entire train into another dimension, after which cleanup crews roughly reassembled the passengers who had been reduced to bloody pulp, piecing them back together like a jigsaw puzzle. And when an uprising grew too severe for the Wings to handle privately, something akin to Kivotos's General Student Council—the Head—would deploy and crush them with merciless brutality.
And throughout every story, the word Ui heard most often was a single one:
Money.
In that City, without money you could not live in the safety of a Nest and were driven into the Backstreets. There you either scraped by under the protection of some crime syndicate obsessed with bizarre fixations, or you got tangled in something grotesque and died. One or the other.
Is there... no such thing as human rights there?
The girl asked. The man answered.
The Wings call the residents of their Nests "feathers." If a Wing loses one or two feathers, nothing of consequence occurs.
...I see.
As she listened, Ui recorded everything she had learned in the memo app on her phone.
The structures of Kivotos and the City were broadly similar. Each had a central authority—the General Student Council and the Head—and academies and Wings ruled their respective districts. Each had its own culture and its own priorities.
But the resemblance ended there.
For all the noisy incidents that broke out, Kivotos at least maintained a generally peaceful atmosphere. Most students could attend their academies without fear.
But the City?
Money, money, money. Truly, everything could be bought with money, and without it you were cast into the gutter. Even with money you were never perfectly safe. Here you could be swept up in some unimaginable incident and lose your life in the most absurd way, or be crushed under crushing taxes until you were left a beggar. All those marvelous technologies she had marveled at only moments before became knives for hunting people.
Now Ui understood why Yi Sang had reacted the way he had when she expressed admiration.
Is this the world of adults? How do all of you even live in a place like that?
The girl asked. This time it was not Yi Sang who replied, but someone else. Dante.
Well... somehow. I don't remember much, but the people here were just born into a place like this. And...
Even in a place like this, there's hope. It's not common, but it definitely exists somewhere. I've seen it myself.
"Hope, huh... Even I find that hard to believe."
Ui muttered to herself and leaned back in her chair. She needed time to digest everything she had learned today. In the middle of that, another message arrived from Dante.
And about that "world of adults" thing—not every adult is bad. You don't have to think of it that way.
I understand.
Ui gave a small, wry smile. That was right—here they had Sensei. Surely there were good people over there as well. Lost in thought, the girl suddenly seemed to remember something and began to write.
Ah, I just had an idea.
What if we kept an exchange diary? I'll write about the things that happen to me, and you write about the things that happen to you—we share them with each other. After hearing all this, I want to know more.
I hadn't even thought of that, but it sounds fun. All right.
Thank you. Then I'll take my leave for today.
With those final words Ui closed the book. An exchange diary with another world—there would surely be no end of fascinating stories, the girl thought.
"Ah, maybe I should start first. Tomorrow's Hinata's day off, after all."
"So you brought a new pen pal, huh. That's pretty cool. But that friend of yours... isn't her outfit a little much?"
"Huh? This is just my everyday clothes, though...?"
At the words of the girl Ui had brought along as a friend, the Sinners and Dante were left speechless.
"This... is not exactly ideal."
"Are nuns in that neighborhood all dressed like that?"
"Even in my family I've never seen anything like it..."
"This is why kids these days..."
Don't be too hard on her... I'm sure there's a reason.
Dante struggled to calm the Sinners as they each tossed in their remarks.