The Fate of Shin-Osaka – Chapter 24

My heart skips a beat at seeing him standing in the doorway. I close my eyes and say a silent thanks to Yoshi for giving me back my emotions. It’s moments like these that remind me I miss being human. If I were alive and in my body, I would cross the room to Rin and throw my arms around his neck. I’d press my lips to his and savor the taste of him, the shape of his body, the feel of his hands on my back and waist.

I’m still an android.

I’m still Kara.

I have to end this soon.

“Hey,” I say, tempering my emotions. “What are you doing out of the hospital?”

My chest aches with the desire to smile and shout my thanks to the gods for saving him.

“They discharged me. Two treatments were more than enough. I have a little cough. It should dissipate in a few days.” He presses his fist to his lips as he clears his throat.

I wave him towards us. “Come meet Sanaa.”

His progress is hesitant at first, his eyes coasting down Sanaa from head to toe, reading her body like the trained kenryōshi he is. He’s seeing the same things I see, no doubt, even without my heightened android senses.

Sanaa is a petite woman who stands confidently with her shoulders back and her eyes forward. Aoi Uma got her hair right — long and straight, parted in the middle — and the freckles across her nose. She is infamous at home for not being of purely Japanese descent. However, I think the populace has finally gotten over it. When she had two boys with her consort, the people brushed many of her faults aside. The only difference here is Aoi Uma has captured her in her late twenties. She’s in her early fifties in real life. I gleaned most of the footage I used for the documentary on her from the news of her youth. I suppose this age discrepancy is mostly my fault.

“Sanaa Itami, this is Rin Hara.”

They consider each other before Sanaa smiles and extends her hand to him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Same,” he says, shaking her hand politely.

His gaze falls on mine, and I know that look well.

“Sanaa, will you excuse us? I need to catch Rin up before we make our plans.”

“Sure.” She nods at us. “See you in the conference room.”

She leaves, and Rin and I slip into a nearby darkened room. With the lights turned out, the only light comes from the early afternoon glow of the setting sun. The air is fresh and clean. The smell of paint lingers.

I’m not sure where to begin.

“I hope you’re rested —”

“I saw what you did for me,” he interrupts.

This catches me by surprise. “What’s that?”

“The drone footage — I watched it earlier today. You carried me from the Aoi Uma building and forced oxygen into my lungs. I know that could not have been easy for you.”

“I…” I suck in a reedy breath and turn away from him for a moment. Tears threaten to fall, but I use my programming to halt them and return my heart rate to normal, something I rarely do now. I wanted the emotions, so turning them off is almost a violation. “I did what I had to do. For you, for Hikari,” I say, raising my chin.

“For Yumi.” He tilts his head to catch my eyes. “You did it for her.”

The moments outside the Aoi Uma building come into sharp focus from both my point of view and the surveillance videos Rin accessed. I held his face in my hands and panicked. I couldn’t let him die. My whole being was focused on fixing him.

Because I need him.

“I did it for us.” After sighing, I pop a weak smile. “I did it because we need you.”

That’s right, Yumi. Shove the emotions away until you’re whole again.

“And Yumi can’t come back until we can solve our current problem and get the hell out of this city.”

He folds his arms over his chest. “What problem is that?”

I explain how we’re certain Narumi Ogawa is dead, that we need Aka Matsuba on our side, and how we’re trying to find Tamura’s daughter.

He shakes his head. “I remember very little about our time in the building. The oxygen deprivation played with my memories. Are we sure Narumi is dead?”

“As sure as we can be.”

He relaxes and takes a step towards me. I try not to tense up, but my body wants to spring into action whenever he’s near. When his hand touches my arm, my insides melt.

“I know this has been hard for you. All of it.”

“No —” I try to interrupt, but his hand squeezes, and my objections die.

“Let’s end this now, so we can move forward.” His hand travels down my arm to my fingers. “I gave a lot of thought to our mission while I was lying in the hospital. We can’t keep going the way we have.”

I swallow and hope the tightness in my chest isn’t apparent on the outside. “I know. We don’t have the resources for an all-out war.”

“It’s time to make the change. No more fighting in the streets. No more revolution.” He squeezes my fingers and lets go. “We either end Aoi Uma, or we walk away. That’s it.”

Relief runs through me. This was what I was hoping for from him. We had already made this decision without him, and it’s nice to see we’re now on the same page.

“That’s it?” I ask with a laugh. “You make it sound easy.”

His returning smile is sad. “It’s easy because it’s our only choice now.”

I nod slowly.

We have nothing left but this.

“Then let’s go see some foxes.”

—-

The conference room is almost empty by the time I return. This place was a hive of activity for so long it feels wrong to see it like this. The table is clear, and the chairs are stored away. The space feels lonely.

But there are still a few people left with work to do.

“Kara, come. We’re almost ready to go.” Kazuo waves me over to the end of the table. He’s lined up six open backpacks, packing water bottles and food into each from a cooler at his feet.

Chiéko, Aimi, and Ryoko stand up from their seats and approach me with a tablet.

“We have good news and bad news. I assume you want the bad news first,” Chiéko says, her gravelly voice rolling straight over the sarcasm like a demolition team.

“You assume correctly.” I lean over to study her tablet. It has a real-time map of Shin-Osaka and Aoi Uma’s current occupation state. I sigh. “This doesn’t look good.”

The blue area of the map has grown overnight. Most of the humanitarian escape corridors we established are gone. Aoi Uma is trying to close ranks and keep people penned in the city. I don’t know how they’re doing it at this point. Over a week ago, they stopped shipping in androids. Their human forces are depleted. In my heart, I believe they’re faking their way through this occupation, but I can’t prove it until they surrender… and that may never happen.

Chiéko points to a section in the northeastern region.

“This is the only area you’ll be able to exit the city from. Unfortunately, that puts you more than fifty kilometers away from your destination over here.” She points to the northwest by the water. “We can get you out, but then you’ll have to walk the rest of the way. There are no butsues, and hiring a vehicle will only draw attention.”

I shake my head. “No. No, we can’t do this.”

Kazuo turns and pays attention. Rin joins us.

“This is a choke point.” I indicate the area of the map Aoi Uma left open. “We can’t travel here. Trust me. They left this exit available for a reason. They’re hoping to force people through this and capture them on the other side. It may not be specified on the map, but I’m sure Aoi Uma is already there in secret.”

Chiéko nods. “That’s a good point. You’re probably right.”

Both Aimi and Ryoko sigh as disappointment falls over their faces. Everyone’s been hoping for a better outcome. No such luck today.

“What was your good news?”

“That the walk was going to be great exercise,” Chiéko says with a laugh.

I smile at her as I sigh and sit on the conference room table. Great exercise. Sure. For some people, not me.

“Okay, then we need an alternate idea.”

I look up from the tablet as Sanaa enters the room.

Kazuo freezes, his hand suspended in the air holding a water bottle. Sanaa approaches and smiles, and his eyes trace her path along the side of the conference room table. If I didn’t know before that he had been in love with her, then I definitely know it now. My heart aches for him. He’s been a bachelor his whole life because of the choices he made as a stupid twenty-year-old. Seeing Sanaa like this must be painful, a knife to his soul.

Once she passes behind him, he hesitates a moment before continuing his task.

“Can I be of any help?” she asks, joining the group.

“Sanaa, have you met everyone here?”

Aimi nods. Chiéko and Ryoko are Orihimé natives, so they’ve grown up with the empress, just like Kazuo and me.

“We’ve met.” Chiéko’s statement is dry as a bone. “Though I’m unsure of why and how she’s here.”

“I find it’s best not to ask too many questions,” Ryoko replies. “This place is weird like that.”

Everyone looks at Aimi. She places her hand on her chest, her lips forming an O. “Trust me. Even I find my life strange. I’d give anything to sit around, bake, and knit all day.”

Me too, Aimi. Me too.

“Sanaa is our guest, and she’s here to help,” I say, bringing them back to the subject. “Maybe she can put fresh eyes on our situation.”

Sanaa gently moves some of Kazuo’s backpacks to the side and sits on the conference room table next to me. Pushing her hair behind her ears, she leans over to look at the map. I have to stop myself from marveling at how similar she is to the real person.

“What about here?”

She points to Kurobé, a port city to the west of Shin-Osaka. Rin’s old apartment in Kadoma Ward used to look out over the marsh flats spanning the space between here and Kurobé. There are a few ways to travel there — a high-speed train line, a loop of butsues through two smaller towns, and vehicles via the main roads. Vehicles aren’t permitted in most of Shin-Osaka, so they stop at the city’s outer reaches to unload goods or people. Goods head to UPN drop points, and people take the subway or butsu.

“We could travel by sea, yes? The sanctuary is only a few kilometers from the shore.” She zooms in, and the fox sanctuary comes into focus, about six kilometers inland.

I run through the options in my head before saying anything aloud. Taking only two-point-three seconds, I determine the train and butsues will be too risky. They are under Aoi Uma’s control, and they will be watching for us there. Our only choice is the roadway.

“Good idea.” I hop down from the table. “This is what we do. We find someone amenable to our situation, a fisher or dock worker who makes this trip daily with no issues. They take us out there after hiding us in their truck. We’ll need a boat, too, obviously. Someone who goes that far north, anyway.”

“Aimi and I will take care of it,” Rin says, stepping into the conversation. “We should be able to find what you need.”

“Great. Perfect. I have a backup plan with Shiroi Nami, too, that I can initiate on our trip.”

“What’s that?” Rin asks. Everyone looks to me with wide eyes.

I press my finger to my lips. “Shhh. It’s my little secret.”

I glance over at Rin; his eyes are intense on me, piercing in a way I haven’t seen in a very long time. He used to look at me like that before he’d kiss me… Kiss Yumi. The first time we ever had sex plays through my head, a crystal clear memory of drunken kisses, sweaty skin, his hand between my legs, and the tōsha stars lazily crawling across the ceiling. It had been so long since I had been with anyone. The time together was unforgettable.

My heart speeds up, and my cheeks heat as I turn my eyes from his. Oops. Kara isn’t allowed to have feelings for Rin. Not now, not yet. I immediately tell my android body to get ahold of itself and cool down. This is not the time or place.

When I peek back, Rin’s smirk is unmistakable.

I set my tablet on the table and leave before anything else can happen.