A Curious Companionship
There is a word for it: ineon — fate, karma, the ties that bind.
A relationship formed between people.
Or a thread connecting one to a particular thing.
That is what the dictionary would say, but in practice, it is something a little more mysterious.
Among the countless moments where lives brush past each other, a meeting that arrives as if by a promise long sealed — perhaps that is the closest way to describe it.
And so fate sometimes has a strange flavor to it. The one you wish to hold onto slips away without a backward glance, while the person you'd rather never see again crosses your path again and again.
Right now, it was the latter.
"······."
"Huh···?"
It was a narrow passage — barely wide enough for a single person to squeeze through. Ash and Akina came face to face with Ifrit, who was walking toward them from the opposite end.
Both Ash and Ifrit already had their weapons drawn. Though this was the first time they'd laid eyes on each other, each had long since sensed the other's presence.
Ifrit jammed her hand cannon back into its holster and scowled. It was the kind of scowl that needed no words — you two again?
"We meet again, young heroine."
Seeing his opponent stand down, Ash lowered his blade as well. His expression carried every bit as little welcome as hers did.
"Hi there!"
Akina waved from behind the mountain that was Ash, only one eye visible past his frame. At the sound of her voice, Ifrit gave an awkward little wave back.
"Oh, uh······ hi?"
After that, the three of them said nothing.
They stood there for a solid ten seconds at the very least.
In fairness, there wasn't much to say.
It was Ifrit, scratching her head under the crushing awkwardness, who finally broke the silence.
"So, uh — the mapping going okay?"
"Well enough."
"Cool···."
A short while passed.
This time, Ash spoke first.
"And your little hobby? Faring well?"
"Nope. He's gone to ground somewhere. Haven't seen hide nor hair of him."
"I see."
"..Ugh, enough! We've all got places to be, so let's just split up already. I seriously cannot stand this awkwardness."
Ash nodded at her words.
"I concur. The awkwardness in particular."
"Great. Then step aside."
It was a narrow passage.
Wide enough for exactly one person.
Her words amounted to: I'm going through, so you back up.
Ash shook his head.
"I have come a long way, young heroine. You retreat."
"Ha! Same here, buddy."
"I find that difficult to believe."
"That makes two of us!"
And so the standoff began.
Two pathfinders planted at either end of the narrow corridor, glaring at each other, yielding not an inch.
Ash stood with his arms crossed, immovable as a mountain; matching him, Ifrit slouched insolently and began to whistle.
Neither showed the faintest intention of budging.
"Let me tell you something — my stubbornness is world-class."
"How intriguing. My patience, meanwhile, is exemplary."
"Stop flexing and clear the road. We've got mapping to do, remember?"
"Can one so leisurely hope to catch Restman?"
"Ugh, MOVE!"
"Furen shen hao qing — the spirit's nature loves stillness, yet the heart stirs it; renxin hao jing — the human heart loves stillness, yet desire drags it about."
"What are you even saying?!"
"Still your heart, and step aside. That is all it means."
"Oh, you actually want to do this? Fine. Let's go."
"Um, excuse me!"
Akina, unable to watch any longer, wedged herself between them.
"Instead of fighting, why don't you both just press your backs against opposite walls and shuffle past each other? I think it's just barely wide enough for that···."
Ash shook his head.
"Out of the question. Doing so would place me far too close to that heroine···."
"But we're the ones short on time here."
"···."
Akina was right.
Ifrit, a famous idol, surely had a personal vehicle waiting. Ash and Akina did not.
The time allotted to them was finite.
To finish the mapping contract and reach the rendezvous point on schedule, they could not afford to waste minutes on a petty staring contest like this one.
Variables, after all, could spring from anywhere at any time. Even with a relatively comfortable margin, throwing that time away was unthinkable.
In truth, stubbornly refusing to step aside had been about time as well — Ash simply hadn't imagined it would be squandered in so absurd and unexpected a fashion.
Ash looked at Ifrit.
"What are you looking at? I'm not moving. Not ever!"
She showed no sign of yielding even an inch. Ash met the provocative glint of her heart-shaped LEDs and let out a low sigh.
This ridiculous impasse had to end.
Ash turned toward Akina.
"My young lady."
"Right? See, my idea was better after all!"
Without another word, Ash wrapped his steel arm firmly around Akina and pulled her close, her small frame vanishing against his chest.
"Huh? Mister, what are you—"
"Hold tight."
"What's that supposed to— whaaat?!"
Before her short scream had even finished leaving her mouth, Ash's body rose into the air in a spiraling leap.
The hem of his gore-textured coat flared out behind him like black wings.
Unhae Biyeong — Shadow-Flight Across the Sea of Clouds.
It was an explosive ascent, as though gravity itself had been defied.
"Wha— WHAT!?"
Ifrit, who had been grimly holding her ground with terrible posture, threw her head back, jaw hanging open.
The junk-metal humanoid she'd been feuding with moments ago was sailing through the air — directly over her head.
With Akina tucked under his arm, no less!
Before she could even react, Ash had already cleared Ifrit and touched down on the far side. The remarkable thing was that the massive body's leap of several meters produced not the slightest sound or tremor.
Ash set Akina down gently.
"Are you unharmed?"
Dazed, Akina said nothing and simply nodded. Ash then turned his head toward Ifrit.
"We will take our leave. Do the same, young heroine. And let us never meet again."
It was a scene too astonishing for an immediate reply.
While Ifrit stood gaping, the mystery humanoid and the girl vanished into the darkness of the narrow passage.
"..I should've gotten that on stream."
Ifrit's belated murmur lingered in the air.
The mapping was nearing its end.
They had reached ninety-five percent of their quota.
As they began plotting their withdrawal — calculating when to head back to the pickup point — Ash and Akina arrived at a place with a markedly different atmosphere from everything they'd seen so far.
At the heart of that difference stood a stone gate.
It rose a good ten meters or more, its surface densely carved with geometric patterns and script no one could read.
It was unmistakably unlike anything they'd encountered in the ruins so far.
Yet Ash and Akina paid the stone gate no attention whatsoever.
"Well, well."
Because sitting right in front of it, slurping on an energy stick, was Ifrit.
"Hey there!"
Surprisingly, she greeted them warmly.
Which only made her seem more suspicious.
Ash tucked Akina behind his back.
"Have you been tailing us?"
"What are you talking about? I got here first."
"Then this is an ambush?"
"If it were, I'd have shot first and asked later."
Ifrit rose from her seat, dusted off her backside a couple of times, and flashed a grin.
"But yeah, I was waiting for you. Something told me you two would end up here too. Actually, no — it'd be more accurate to say every passage in this place funnels here."
"..And why exactly were you waiting for us?"
"I need the little squirt."
"Huh? Me?"
Akina poked her head out from behind Ash.
"Come to think of it, I never even asked your name. What is it?"
Ash stopped Akina before she could blurt it out.
"State your business first."
"Man, you are a character."
Ifrit shrugged and jerked her chin toward the thing behind her.
"That gate. Can you open it?"
She was pointing, of course, at the stone gate. Akina's interest was instantly piqued, and she stepped forward.
"Of course I can!"
"Oh, really? Then could you open the doo—"
"—as long as the credits are right!"
"..Wow. You two really are characters."
Ifrit stared at the ceiling for a moment as if deliberating, then held out an open palm. Akina's face scrunched up.
"Fifty thousand credits? Isn't that a bit cheap?"
"Our little squirt's got smaller pockets than she looks. Does this look like fifty thousand to you?"
"Wait, then don't tell me—!"
"Yep. Five hundred thousand."
Five hundred thousand credits?
They'd scraped and scratched for two full days of exploring and hadn't even managed two hundred thousand. And she wanted five hundred thousand?
"Nice to meet you, big sis! I'm Akina Greenwood — a technomancer with a blazing future ahead of me! Was that the gate you wanted opened? Leave it to this Akina, right here!"
Spitting out words like a burst of automatic fire, Akina tied back her thick blonde hair and sprinted toward the stone gate.
"..She is not always like that. She has merely been spending heavily of late—"
"You don't have to explain."
"Very well."
"By the way — you're not gonna ask?"
"Ask what?"
"Why I want the gate opened."
"Restman, no? One assumes he fled beyond that gate."
"..I mean, yeah. But nailing it exactly like that just leaves a bad taste."
With that brief exchange concluded, Ash and Ifrit joined Akina by the gate. She was already plugging a cable into the port at the nape of her neck.
Watching a cable connect to a body that looked, for all the world, like pure flesh and blood was deeply dissonant.
Finished with her preparations, Akina turned back to Ash.
"Mister. You know the drill, right?"
Her eyes were dead serious.
Ash nodded in return.
"Of course."
Their gravity had good reason.
Deep Dive.
The act of penetrating the cyberspace of an ancient civilization through the full-brain cyberization module.
It was the most fundamental reason a technomancer — all but helpless in combat — braved the ruins at all.
Once the dive began, the technomancer's consciousness was transported into the vast cyberspace. The body left behind in reality was nothing more than a living shell.
Protecting that body in that moment was, one could say, the assault's single most critical duty.
While the assault's blade and gun held back the threats of the physical world, the technomancer swam through cyberspace — seizing system control, cracking ciphers, or claiming lost technologies beyond all valuation.
This was the very root of the pathfinder's calling, an iron law that could not be broken.
How, then, could the bond between a technomancer and an assault be dismissed as mere comradeship? They were a single community of fate, each resting their life upon the other.
"Go and return safely. I will be here the whole time."
At Ash's words, Akina gave a faint smile and connected the cable's terminator to the data port beside the stone gate. Then she drew one deep breath and closed her eyes.
Moments later.
The girl's small frame gave a faint shiver, and then — ever so slowly, as though defying gravity — she rose into the air. Exactly one hand-span above the floor.
The levitation phenomenon.
The signature state that appeared when a technomancer's consciousness departed the flesh and plunged into cyberspace.
A faint blue haze bloomed around Akina's body. The Deep Dive had succeeded.
Ash planted himself in front of her like a wall, drew the bare steel blade at his back, and spoke in a low, iron voice.
"Fall back. From this moment, anything that approaches will be treated as an enemy."
Even Ifrit — who had done nothing but bounce unpredictably from place to place since they'd met — cracked no joke and played no trick during the dive.
Naturally so.
She was a pathfinder too.
The cold severity of a Deep Dive was something Ifrit knew well in her own right. Without a word, she withdrew a considerable distance, raising both hands as if to say she would draw no weapon.
A brief silence settled.
From her exaggeratedly distant position, Ifrit murmured:
"Ash Blade······ that was it, right?"
Ash did not answer.
Perhaps she'd expected as much, because she kept talking.
"Looks like a blade's your main weapon, but you should still keep at least one ranged option ready. Movement gets restricted during a Deep Dive, you know."
Ash, still, did not answer.
"You two look good together. I hope you both survive a long, long time. That's not sarcasm. I mean it."
And then—
-Grrooooaaannn···!
With a ponderous rumble, the great stone gate began grinding open with a deafening clamor.
"Got it!"
Akina's eyes snapped open, her own breath coming rough now. Her face had gone somewhat pale, but her eyes alone shone bright with the joy of success.
Ash sheathed his blade at once and caught Akina as she swayed.
"Easy, my young lady. Are you well?"
"Hehe! Mister! Did you see? I opened it! Oh man, cyberspace is such a letdown!"
Watching her laugh so brightly, Ash found himself speechless for a long moment. Meanwhile Ifrit had come closer, and she whistled.
"That's fast. You're actually pretty good, kid."
"Am I? I thought I was pretty quick, yeah!"
"Oh. Extremely."
Ifrit reached out to ruffle Akina's hair — then caught sight of Ash and thought better of it.
"When the expedition's done, come by Halloween Entertainment. I'll throw the five hundred thousand credits at you on the spot."
"Deal! Shall we head in, then?"
"Yup, yup. Wait — huh?"
Ifrit, who had been about to stride through the gate, spun around.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Inside the gate?"
"Uh······ why?"
"Because the mapping isn't finished yet."
"So what, you're saying we go together?"
This time it was Ash who answered.
"No one said any such thing. So go on ahead."
"Ha!"
Ifrit scoffed.
Her heart-shaped eyes flashed.
"You're telling me to walk in front of you. Is that it?"
"That was not my intent, though that is indeed what it would look like."
"What kind of lunatic talk is that? How am I supposed to walk with my back to you itching like that? Fine, if you're so worried, you two go first. I'll follow behind."
Now it was Ash's optical sensors that flared.
"Absurd. What guarantee is there that you will not strike us from behind? I have already made the acquaintance of your capricious ways, so spare me the nonsense."
"Argh! YOU go first!"
"YOU go first, young heroine."
"Oh my god, enough!"
Akina shoved her way between them.
"Then just walk side by side, okay?"
There is a word for it: ineon — fate, karma, the ties that bind.
A relationship formed between people.
Or a thread connecting one to a particular thing.
That is what the dictionary would say, but in practice, it is something a little more mysterious.
Among the countless moments where lives brush past each other, a meeting that arrives as if by a promise long sealed — perhaps that is the closest way to describe it.
And so fate sometimes has a strange flavor to it.
A very strange flavor indeed.