Page 95 of Pandion

“Even with how he treats you?”

“That’s not something he deserves to die for.”

Death for death seemed reasonable, but whether Fujitani and her associates had all deserved it was difficult to say. They had been involved in Takazaki’s death, but to what extent? Had all of the people that had died today really been involved?

Aren’t you forgetting something?Evidently the name-picking had reached a conclusion, and the organism was back to sort through Kagesawa’s thoughts.

What?Kagesawa wasn’t feeling his sharpest.

She was going to kill us to protect JufO.Ah, right. That. That probably shouldn’t have been something that would slip his mind.

“I must be getting tired.” He’d been about to let that slide. He was a burden to other people, so offing him to let others out of their misery seemed like a neutral moral decision. It was too bad the organism couldn’t be moved to another person to save it…can it? How do you usually switch hosts? You must be doing it at some point, somehow, to keep living when your host dies.

What Kagesawa could tell from the scraps of info he’d gathered, the organism developing inside of him was supposed to be an offspring of its mentor. The mentor was supposed to be giving it instructions through the link until it reached maturity and became a mentor itself by replicating or reproducing itself somehow.If I could get you to an age where you could move on…There would be no mentor to help out and finding the right host would be tricky, but if there were any hope for a satisfactory outcome…

Don’t worry about it. It’s not that bad tagging along with you. I could do without the painful bits, but I like what we do with the calculations and the coding. I love that stuff almost as much as Satoru ******ing your ********.

Satoru let out a poorly stifled cough.

“Did you hear that?”Did you tell him that? Why did you…?Kagesawa shook his head.

I have decided you can call me Ayase.Ayase seemed pleased. At least the obvious portmanteau happened to be an actual name and not just garbled up bits lifted from someone else’s name.

Does your kind have gender by the way? It doesn’t feel right referring to you as ‘it’ now that you have a name.Treatingthis being with the respect it deserved should have been a gigantic triumph for the JufO, but sadly their agenda likely had nothing to do with the organisms’ wellbeing. Once he’d had some rest, Kagesawa would try to figure out what their deal was, but right now, with his thoughts scattered all over the place, it was useless to even try.

No, I don’t identify as either male or female, if that’s what you mean.

“Kagesawa?”

“Huh?”

“You look like you’re about to fall asleep. Do you think you can hang in there while I go fetch your clothes?”

“Yes, sure, thanks…” He was not confident about it, but perhaps if he stood up and got some fresh air. Hase-sensei’s apartment had a small balcony with a view toward the river.

If it’s fine by you, I’ll refer to you with the singular ‘they’. I’m sure we’ll get used to it in no time, and it’s better than ‘it’.

Harumine returned to Hase-sensei’s apartment with Kagesawa’s clothes and a bit of something to eat. The sun had set. The apartment was dark save for the light he’d turned on in the entryway when he’d left. Kagesawa seemed fine through the link, but Satoru could hardly trust it.

The balcony door was half-open, so he headed there expecting to find something horrible, at the very least Kagesawa collapsed on the floor. Instead, Kagesawa was simply standing there, leaning on the railing, watching the dots of light along the river.

“Here.” Harumine offered him a tuna-mayo onigiri.

“Thanks.”

“Aren’t you cold?” It was still a little cool to be wearing nothing but a robe outside this late in the evening.

“I guess it’s getting chilly.” He followed Harumine back inside to change into his clothes. The cleaning service had mended his tattered shirt and jeans, replaced some of the missing buttons onhis coat and pressed the lot. They had made considerable effort to make them look like clothes again. Kagesawa seemed relieved.

“Almost forgot.” Harumine pulled out a sports drink from the plastic bag he was carrying.

“Oh, thank God, I’m parched.” He downed most of it in one go.

“Tell your, eh, Ayase to stop projecting at me. I could guess you were thirsty from context, but it’s impossible to tell through the link.”

“Tell them yourself. I didn’t ask them to do it.” Kagesawa devoured the onigiri and finished the rest of the sports drink.

Ayase? Could you stop projecting at me, please? I’d like to be able to tell how the two of you are doing. Thank you.

---