#like i now have a deeper sense of connection with the average high schooler from a teen movie. and also my friend david (he’s dating our

[dreamertrilogys]

dating dani has made me feel SO #normalcore (not in a bad way obviously) like this is the most NORMAL i’ve felt in my life (not that feeling abnormal was bad: i have a tumblr complex.) but like i’m just some 16 year old guy with his first girlfriend. & i skip school for fun (hanging out purposes). that is the most normal-est thing on planet earth

[himetsuri]

Observer

[Takechi Yuusuke's story from the second novel. He’s the detective who appears in chapter 87, after Ageha and the others return from the future after rescuing #07 from Usui, questioning Ageha about his and Oboro’s disappearance.]

It was three years after the war, that is, one year later after Kabuto Kirisaki came to this land. Since it's pretty close to the equator, this land doesn't have winter. But it definitely had the war going on and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a warning against travel there. One side was claiming for "Peace" and the other was claiming for "Freedom."

"You're Kirisaki Kabuto, aren't you?"

Kabuto, having finished work, was at his usual place at the counter of a worn-down bar named “Breakdown” by the locals, due to the large hole in the wall on the outskirts of the slums that allowed view of the main street. He was about to down his usual cup of sake, good for nothing but its low price, really, when that man called out to him. "Japanese?" That was the first thing to come to his mind. It had been three years since that battle–––and almost a year since Kirisaki Kabuto had come to this place. This country, which was close to the equator and had no winter, was currently caught in a crossfire between two sides: one side pushed for “peace,” while the other brandished support for “freedom.” As a result, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had issued a travel advisory. Kirisaki Kabuto had come to this land to be a war photographer and had earned the nickname of “Miracle Man” for all the times he’d returned from dangerous battlefields without so much as a scratch, due to his ability of "Menace" that allowed him to sense death several seconds beforehand. In this bar that was in the city closest to the frontline, even Kabuto himself didn't speak Japanese much. "Uhh…who are you? And aren't you hot?" "I've regretted not changing into something more appropriate since I touched down at the airport…" This country was in the tropics, making the temperature and humidity far higher than in Japan. The black suit the man was wearing must've been like a torture device. “Figured as much…so, who are you? Someone from the government? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs…the embassy?" There wasn’t a soul who would come to this country unless it was work-related. And there wasn’t anything of value here whatsoever, unless you were someone from the government. "Yeah…temporarily working for the government…I'm with the police." "Haah? Again, really…I’m not a part of some worldwide crime ring or anything, alright?" "Be at ease…I haven't come to arrest you. I just have a few things I'd like to ask…quite frankly, this doesn't even have to do with my job." For a moment, a sudden self-mocking smile arose on the man's face. "Things you wanna ask…? Also, it seems you already know my name, so maybe you could find it in you to tell me yours…otherwise, it just seems like a regular old interrogation, y'know?“ "Haha…that is true. My name is Takechi Yuusuke, a detective from Aichi's Shirataki police station."

July 2008–––actor Mochizuki Oboro had somehow managed to vanish into thin air in broad daylight. Contrary to the mass media’s frenzied uproar, Takechi, who had been put in charge of the incident, kept his composure. Mochizuki Oboro had last been seen on surveillance camera in the airport's parking lot. With him was a fifteen year old boy, who had also gone missing–––Yoshina Ageha, who apparently was reasonably well-known around his neighborhood as a delinquent. Though it was mostly for getting into fights, not for theft or reckless rampages. Takechi merely assumed that the eccentric TV star had gotten into some “mischief” with his poorly-behaved friend and wound up kidnapped and locked away somewhere, or something along those lines. Yoshina Ageha returned home several days later, so he immediately went over to investigate. All he had to do was raise his voice, grab him by his lapels, and shout at him; he would get his answers, even to questions he hadn't asked, and there would be his neat and tidy case closed–––or so he thought. The boy named Yoshina Ageha was not, by any means, what one would call "normal." In Takechi's experience, anyone would start to grow weary after a ten-hour long interrogation, no matter how tough they acted or how much of a professional they were. But that boy simply yawned, as if this wasn’t even worth his time––– "Me and Amamiya eloped. We split up with Oboro at the airport, I dunno what he did after." –––and tried to end things off with such a blatant lie. He said this right to a full-fledged detective’s face, with eyes that practically ordered, “We’re gonna leave it at that, got it?" If this had been anyone else, he would’ve wasted no time in yelling at them, "Don't play dumb!" or "You're lying!" But he couldn't. Instead, he let the cigarette between his lips fall and let Ageha go back home. The reason behind this was truly quite simple. It was because "he had been afraid." He–––a full-fledged detective who knew both judo and kendo, who knew how to safely apprehend a target, and who had experience capturing culprits in possession of deadly weapons–––felt "he would be killed" by a fifteen year old boy. There were those who'd laugh at Takechi upon hearing that. But the feeling he had gotten from being before Yoshina Ageha was strong enough to silence those voices. This wasn’t comparable to the “kill or be killed” life that an average hoodlum or delinquent would speak of. Yoshina Ageha had an air that only one who'd truly survived a battlefield, one in which death was certain unless one killed first, possessed. And, if he so felt like it, he had the power to make killing Takechi mere child's play. Even if Takechi were to confront him with a readied handgun, he wouldn't be able to win. He truly believed that. Takechi had no idea if this was what one would call a detective's intuition or not. At this point, no thoughts about "Mochizuki Oboro's disappearance" were left in his head. His objective had now changed to ripping off this boy's mask.

"I started by thoroughly reexamining Yoshina Ageha and those connected to him…many interesting things came to light as a result…first was the fact that Asaga Hiryuu also went missing on that same day. Additionally, Asaga Hiryuu's friend, Mana Tatsuo, had also been missing for an extended period of time.” "Uwaa…you sure did your homework, huh…" "Hmph. A detective requires a sense of duty and a sense of justice; however, what he requires most, above all else…is an unyielding persistence." Takechi gave a snort and downed some cheap sake full of impurities. He wanted to wet his lips before spinning more of his tale.

There was definitely something more lurking behind all this––––– At the very least, it wasn't just some cut-and-dried case of high schoolers eloping and an intentional disappearance, as Yoshina Ageha had asserted. There was something deeper to it, he thought, but right when he was about press further with his investigation, he received abrupt orders to call off the whole thing. It hadn't been from a chief or prefectural manager. It had been from much farther up. But that wasn't nearly enough the extinguish the flame of Takechi's persistence. After receiving the orders to cease, he'd requested a paid vacation, something he’d been painstakingly building up and hadn't even taken for his daughter's birthday–––if he couldn’t continue this investigation officially, Takechi would do it himself. And so the investigation continued, slow and steady, until at last it led him to one key word that would become the crux of the matter. It was what Mochizuki Oboro had attempted to talk about on a live show before collapsing, unconscious, halfway through; what Tenjuin Elmore, who was currently sheltering Yoshina Ageha from the mass media's inflamed reach, had even gone so far as to place a monetary reward of five hundred million yen on for anyone who could pinpoint its truth. That word was "PSYREN"––– For the past several years, or at the bare minimum the past two years, a large number of those involved with it had gone missing. Semitani Kouji, Sugita Nozomi…the list went on. Far too many to attribute to mere coincidence. According to a worker who routinely visited Elmore's mansion, there was no longer any trace of Yoshina Ageha on the grounds. "Maybe he's been 'erased' once again–––" By now, Takechi had begun to feel a strange sense of kinship with this boy. Perhaps there was a reason he couldn't say anything to his parents or to the police, a reason such as he was being held hostage or something had been done to him. Among those who had passed away after involvement with PSYREN, there were many for whom the cause of death was still unknown.

"However, I've been forced to suspend my investigation here…" "Why's that? Vacation days run out?" "…Well, there's that. Though there's more to it." Here, Takechi took a quick turn from chatty to tight-lipped. “Now that I think of it…Kirisaki? It appears you also went missing for a year or so around the same time Yoshina Ageha did…where'd you go off to?" "Uh, well…funny story, that~…I kinda went away from Japan for a bit, see…" Takechi, seeing how Kabuto had started speaking vaguely, shot him a slightly pointed look before continuing on as if to say, "Well, whatever." "Then…you weren't directly involved in W.I.S.E's all-out acts of destruction in 2009…"

It was the first time in human history there'd been an organized string of destruction caused by those with supernatural powers. Just one of them wielded power equivalent to that of an entire army; when tried-and-true strategies and maneuvers failed, the military resorted to human wave attacks and unbridled assaults–––to attempting retaliation with brute force and sheer numbers. It was a showdown between no more than ten Psychicers with tremendous powers and a military of over ten million lacking in strength. Strangely enough, it depicted the current state of the world where antagonism ran rampant between those with power and those without. As a result, it was the military, and not W.I.S.E, who caused more damage during urban warfare and a proportionate amount of human injuries and casualties. But that wasn’t the end of it. There were those with abnormal powers among the humans––– Those who saw those supernatural abilities with their own eyes grew incredibly agitated and fell into a panic. What if their own neighbor was a monster? The ones enslaved to their fear and paranoia began carrying out what could be called modern-day witch hunts. You could have different colored hair, eyes, or skin. You could be aggressive by nature, you could try to avoid interactions with others as much as possible–––if there was anything at all that set you apart from “those who were normal,” you would be labeled as “abnormal,” condemned, and sentenced to trial by the masses. Any attempts to deny being one with power would invite demands for the “devil’s proof”–––“Well then, show us proof that we’re wrong!”–––and incite many acts of violence without any opportunities to put in any words otherwise. This tendency was especially strong in urban areas, where mobs formed and houses were burned down. ‘This world is teeming with piles of refuse that feign sainthood. It is a world brimming with prejudice towards those who are different.’ The words of W.I.S.E's leader, Amagi Miroku, had proven to be true in the most ironic form.

For the sake of maintaining peace, the police were forced to work overtime for far more than 24 hours; miraculously enough, Takechi was assigned to Tenjuin Elmore’s mansion, the very same place he’d been looking into himself. It would’ve been out of his jurisdiction under normal circumstances, but apparently it was impossible to assign anyone from the local police in Shizuoka due to a fear of leaking information. Takechi was not informed of how dangerous those inside the mansion actually were. However, every so often it would be children, not much older than his own daughter, who would come peek over the wall. They had been called from out of jurisdiction to create such a tight watch, set up some of the military’s fully automatic rocket launchers a few kilometers in front, all due to these children. If anything happened, they were to bring an end to both the humans they were keeping watch over and the mansion. “Must seem laughable…a bunch of full-grown adults, quivering in their boots because of an old woman and her five kids…kukuku.” It was around midnight, several days into the watch, when a strange man tasked with monitoring the mansion grounds called out to Takechi. The police, as mentioned previously, were assigned to the outside of the mansion; there was a separate group of men assigned to the inside. Takechi had no clue who they were. He wasn’t permitted to try and find out. The one assumed to be directing them, a man with an eyepatch and an almost reptilian–––snake-like air to him, continued by asking, “Do you, perhaps, have a light?” “My apologies. My subordinates are all non-smokers…” “Well, I know you yourself are quite the smoker…” Takechi’s first impression of the man: truly disconcerting. “Oh, you just had that smell about you…my nose is quite sharp, you see. …Fufu, please don’t think so poorly of me.” The man had the most unsettling smile creep its way onto his face as he spoke, with eyes that seemed to see deep into one’s innermost thoughts. “Are you…aware of who exactly it is…that resides within this mansion?” “Tenjuin Elmore…right? She’s a famous fortune-teller, I believe, who also has some connections in both politics and business…” “You sure are well-informed…but, you are only partially correct. Elmore is hardly a simple ‘fortune-teller.’ She’s one who possesses supernatural powers…a Psychicer.” “Wh…!?” Psychicer…that was what those living in this country, after seeing the destruction brought about by W.I.S.E with their very own eyes, had labeled the ones carrying out such evil deeds. “Ah, now don’t get the wrong idea. Elmore is not a part of W.I.S.E. That old woman holds the power of ‘future vision,’ and she knew these current events would, someday, happen. As such, it appears she had set out on gathering children yet untainted by Amagi Miroku’s poison in order to form a resistance…quite honestly, they are Psychicers who fight on the side of you humans.” The way he said this gave off the subtle implication that he did not count himself on the “side of humans.” “Then…why are they…why are those children being treated like this!? Are they not our allies?” Takechi’s words only made the man more amused, and he laughed mockingly. “Why? Why, you ask, Takechi-kun? Surely you must understand… Those without power fear those with it…that is a simple fact of life. Say there is a lion before you, able to tear a human to pieces, its mouth open wide and fangs bared. Even should you know ‘it will not bite me, ever,’ you would not offer your neck to it…the same applies here.” “…So the government doesn’t believe them…doesn’t trust them?” And, most likely, truly wanted to just “put an end” to them already. Elmore’s connections made that impossible, but above all was probably a more twisted logic holding them back: should worst come to worst, they would still have one means of retaliation to utilize against W.I.S.E. “Is it not foolish, Takechi-kun…so foolish, in fact, it becomes laughable…though, if I do say myself, that old woman is quite laughable in her own right, knowing this would happen yet struggling to change it all the same…” After saying so much, the cigarette held between the man’s fingertips was more than half gone. “Everything has been preordained…it is impossible to change. Everything…is proceeding according to PSYREN’s wishes…” “–––!?” “PSYREN.” The word that had been avoiding Takechi for half a year now fell suddenly from this man’s mouth. He started and looked up, but the man had already tossed his cigarette to the ground, crushed it beneath his heel, and was walking off towards the mansion courtyard where Takechi and the other members of the police force were prohibited from entering. “Wait! Just who in the world are–––!?” “Takechi-kun? You are a very splendid officer…should you survive the coming several years, pay a visit to Shimabara…it’s a wonderful place…a very, very wonderful place, beaming with sunlight.” Leaving those words behind, the man departed without ever turning back to Takechi again.

“I don’t give a damn about that man’s identity. What matters is that PSYREN was even somehow involved with all that devastation W.I.S.E caused!” Takechi, thoroughly worked up, slammed his fist down onto the counter with a thud. The glass resting there nearly toppled over as a result, which caused Kabuto to scramble to keep it upright. When the other customers took notice, he shot them a stiff smile and explained, in local tongue, “Sorry for the ruckus. Nothing’s wrong, so don’t worry.” “After that…October 2009. Amagi Miroku and the rest of W.I.S.E had perished after a fierce onslaught by the military, they declared…peace had finally returned to us…and then, as if on cue, Yoshina Ageha also made his return. Along with Mochizuki Oboro, Asaga Hiryuu…and you. Isn’t that right, Kirisaki?” “…” “But right as I was going to begin my investigation anew again, the unthinkable happened!” Takechi pulled out a stack of pure white paper from his suit’s inner pocket. It looked like regular copy paper, but there wasn’t a single sentence or character or anything at all on it. It was just a stack of white paper, held together by an ordinary clip on the lefthand side. Nothing more, nothing less. “What’s…that?” Kabuto was clearly confused, and Takechi answered him bitterly. “My investigation report. I wrote everything I uncovered about PSYREN in it.” “You wrote…but there’s nothing here…oh, it’s in invisible ink!” “No!”

It was about half a year since November of 2009, when the government had lifted the state of emergency–––Takechi had felt it was finally time to start up his investigation once more when something unbelievably strange occurred. Every single bit of data he had gathered up until that point had vanished. But it wasn’t that someone had deleted it. It extended even to the backups he’d created on other devices in order to stay on the safe side. It had all just vanished, like it never existed in the first place. And it went even further. Even the data he’d printed out on paper had turned back into blank sheets. The attached photos, too, had been whited out. At first he thought someone had done this to impede the investigation…and for a moment, that man he’d met at Elmore’s mansion rose up in his thoughts. But he quickly concluded that couldn’t have been the case. If someone truly wanted to obstruct his investigation, they would’ve just destroyed everything. There was no reason to instead go through such convoluted means. Additionally––– From what Takechi remembered, something strange happened among those involved with PSYREN. Those who had gone missing, or supposedly died, had slotted back into their normal lives. Neither they nor those close to them had any recollection of them disappearing, and there were no records of it occurring either. It was as if an entire portion of the world had been rewritten: that whole event had simply “never happened.” “What the hell is going on?” Takechi went so far as to wonder if he was losing it. But there was one piece of undeniable truth that tethered him. “Mochizuki Oboro’s disappearance” and his subsequent “interrogation of Yoshina Ageha” were both events that still verifiably happened, indisputably. Yoshina Ageha and the others had reappeared after October 2009. He’d wanted to go and ask them about the truth of the matter as soon as possible, but once again the upper management brought its foot down and forbade any and all involvement or contact with the matter. But Takechi couldn’t give up on his investigation. Though he was looking into “something that no longer existed”–––on a wild goose chase, one might say–––he persisted, going over his findings over and over again. In doing so, he found, from the day when Mochizuki Oboro had disappeared, security footage from a service area that featured Asaga Hiryuu and Amamiya Sakurako. And it was here that he discovered Kirisaki Kabuto, riding with them in the rental car.

~~~~~~ [Notes: *While the service area (or SA in Japan) Amamiya and co visit is probably nothing too extravagant, some of them can be far more than a simple ‘drive in, drive out’ area. The part where they go to this service area is actually depicted in the manga, in chapter 59.]

| Part 2 →

[sumstudent-blog1]

Life Transitions, Part 1

The following is an excerpt from my blog (I don't think I can post the link), if you're interested in reading more things like this, let me know. I'm writing to the person I was in high school all those years ago, now as a senior Chemical Engineer at UC Berkeley. I guess I have felt the full spectrum of school settings given the path I took in my education, so I feel able to comment on the transition one would expect after moving into the next jungle of academia. This post will focus mainly on the high school to junior college experience. I’ll talk about the junior college to university transition next (probably). I’ll briefly sum up my transition from high school to junior college by saying it was tougher than I thought. In high school, I was one of the kids who was in all the AP classes. You saw the same kids in AP Biology as you saw in AP Spanish and Physics, so you became familiar with your schoolmates over the years. I wasn’t the most social of high schoolers, I only had a few close friends, never went to parties (or prom…sad, I know), so I didn’t really have to go through the pain of losing too many close friendships after I started at SRJC. We stayed in touch on Facebook and met during the occasional spring break or whatever, but starting anew really means starting a new life, making new friends, etc. What surprised me the most when I started at a junior college (SRJC) was the difference in students relative to high school. In high school, we were all the same age, lived in the same area, had similar interests (why else would you take AP Biology if you didn’t like science?), and (I may seem like a jerk here) I felt like we all had a spark. By that I mean all my classmates were going places, they were on a tight schedule because they were moving to Colorado or New York or whatever for their dream school so they could pursue their respective passions. At SRJC, the student body was a lot different. The demographics are much more diverse. I was the baby of the class in Calculus II (at age 18), I felt like the average age was about 30 with a standard deviation of 10. It wasn’t uncommon to see a 40-year-old is what I’m trying to say statistically. Being the youngest in a group can be intimidating (it doesn’t help that I’m short too), so I had a hard time making connections with people when I started. The hardest part for me was a sense of stagnation. I (this is the jerk part), felt like the 30 and 40-year-olds were going nowhere. I respect them immensely as I know how hard it can be to get back into school after working. But as a freshly minted high school grad, whose friends had all just gone off to their dream universities and was used to this environment in which ambition was abundant, was in for a shock. My older classmates were people who dropped out of high school or finished high school but didn’t want to go straight to college. I really wanted to go to UC Berkeley, “Berkeley or Bust” was my motto, and I could strongly feel the difference in enthusiasm for school between me and my AP (advanced placement) classmates and the average student at SRJC. I should back up my feelings here with some statistics. According to Teacher’s College at Columbia, while 81% of incoming junior college students say they want to transfer to a 4-year university, only 33% actually transfer within 6 years. Life at a junior college is tough, I can personally attest to this claim. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to quit and drop out and just work and live my life. It is so easy to give up, I would argue even more so than many universities in which they have fancy counseling services and programs to keep their students enrolled and on track to graduate. While the quality of the student body at a junior college may be considered less than that of a high school (I neither agree nor disagree with this assessment as every college and high school is different), I will argue that the relative quality of teachers improved greatly. High school teachers can teach a subject with only a bachelor’s degree, whereas a junior college or college professor can only teach a subject if they have a Master’s or Doctorate. A college professor will (on average) know a lot more about a topic than a high school teacher, and if you’re passionate about the subject, you can dive a lot deeper into stuff you care about. You can have a lot more interesting conversations about something you like in junior college with your teacher than you did in high school. SRJC and most junior colleges, are commuter schools: most students drive many miles to get there. Out were the days of a 5-minute drive to high school, in were the days of two-hour commutes and fighting for parking and worrying about your car breaking down on the day of the final. Commuting was a new, and quite stressful, experience for me. You never really get good at it, just used to it. The next major change was class size, in my high school honors chemistry class we had about 15 students, the class size of general chemistry at SRJC was about 60, which is quite small compared to university settings. That isn’t to say the days of individual attention were gone, the professors at a junior college and many state schools are very accessible and (on average) friendlier than a university professor, so it is an easier transition than going straight into university out of high school. Get used to spending a lot more time on campus. Out were the days when high school classes were nicely packaged and organized so you could finish everything by 2 and have a nice set time for lunch and break, in were the days of having Linear Algebra at 7:30am for 2 hours, Organic Chemistry at 11am for an hour, Organic Chemistry Lab at 2pm for 3 hours, then commute back home for 1 hour in traffic. Making use of your time between classes is critical, you won’t make it in college if you can’t force yourself to block out the noise and focus hard on something for a few hours at a moment’s notice. For me, the best place I could do that was at the library. I’d turn off my phone, make a list of my goals I needed to get done within the next 2 hours, prioritize the list, and start working. At the junior college, registering for classes was tough (the demand for classes was so high). For example, I damn near didn’t get into my Organic Chemistry class because there were 60 seats and a lot of people wanted the class. We had 14 people standing as they crashed the course on the first day, only 4 of them made it in. Registering for and actually getting classes at a JC is very stressful, and I feel the stigmas associated with people who spend years in a JC are unfounded as luck plays a big role in whether you get a class or not. I could have very well needed to spend an additional year if I didn’t make it into my OChem class, and I got one of the last available seats because of how the priority system worked. I’ll end by saying you need to have something in life that isn’t school. For me, it was going on a bike ride every day. If I didn’t have that, I’d be clinically insane. There needs to be more to your life than school and work. Think of all the things you’d do if you weren’t in school and do them, or do something that makes you feel happy. This is the stress of college, this is what makes people drop out. It can feel like you’re drowning if you never surface (get outside and do something you love).