Intro 5: Science Meets Supernatural
Inside the principal office of a certain Junior High School in Ibaraki prefecture, two individuals —the principal and a boy student—sat on the sofa, facing each others.
"I can't thank you enough, Shizu-kun, for bringing such honor to this school by winning all that international Science Olympics competitions.
I'll make sure all your achievement records preserved and make it the symbol of reminder for this school, that even the out of nowhere school like us could stand in the world sta--"
"No, please don't. I appreciate the sentiment, but please don't make me as the symbol or standard for the upcoming students. It will be too much of a pressure for them.
Besides, I joined the competition just for the money rewards. Not for any grand reason like to bring honor or such a thing."
"But--"
"Is that all you wanted to say, sensei? Then I'll take my leave now. I still have something I need to do at home."
Without waiting for the response of the middle-aged teacher in front of him, the boy just stood up, taking his bag and walked to the door.
The principal seemed like he still wanted to say something, but boy paid him no heed and just got out of the office.
Even when faced with such disrespect from a student, the principal couldn't do much. Because that boy wasn't just any average student.
The principal looked at the transparent thropies cabinet at the corner of the office.
Before that student enrolled, that cabinet was barely filled to the 20 to 30% of it's space, but since that student enrolled till his last year this year, he always brought back the first award thropies in any competition he joined, be either it national or international level, and now, that cabinet was full to the tightest space with thropies, which some of them came from very prestigious competitions in the world.
Mizuno Shizu.
The apex young genius that only born once in centuries.
The second coming of Einstein.
That's what people in educational world had said about him.
The principal even getting so many invitations from many top high school schools, inside and outside of the country, to ask that boy to be enrolled in their high school as scholarship student.
But the boy instantly refused, said he already decided his choice for high school.
Giving a very firm attitude about his decision, not even giving any face for offers and negotiations from the adults that wanted to invite him.
That boy wasn't someone who would bow down to anyone. So even if the principal wanted to scold him, he can't.
The school that boy picked, maybe there's something in that school that grabbed his attention, so much that he even refused the best high school in the country without a second thought.
The mindset of a genius wasn't something a normal person like him could comprehend.
★
Meaningless conversation, even with bad topic.
As I stepped out from the office, I calmly walked to the toilet, went inside one of the stall and sat on the toilet seat.
I looked at the smartwatch on my wrist, which beeped while showing the number on the screen.
No wonder I felt a little bit dizzy back then.
I quickly took a small bottle container from my pocket, a bottle that was half filled with few black capsules.
I took one capsule and gulped it down straight to my throat. Closed my eyes and waiting a moment for that capsule to work in my body.
So bitter.
I opened my eyes and looked again to my watch and the number already stabilized on 70 BPM.
I put the bottle back in my pocket, and get out of the toilet to go home.
•
•
On my way home, a message came to my smartphone.
Another email invitation from top tier high school. Let's see, this time from somewhere in Germany, I don't even want to finish reading the name and just close the tab.
I really hope this invitation stop soon.
Why would I want to go to high school outside the country? Forgot about going outside the country, I didn't even consider picking school outside the city.
I just wanted to stay in a place where my family were.
Be in reachable distance from everyone, that's all I ever wanted.
Nothing more.
At least until my research completed.
A message once again came to my phone. At first I thought it was the same school invitation again, but when I saw the username.
A client?
I opened the email to see a string of text that said:
[Hello. I heard about you from my friend in the internet. He said you can create anything as long it's within the realm of possibilities. Here is my situation.
My company needs me to go to China for a business meeting with our partner company there. The meeting itself will be using english so there is no problem with that. But after that meeting, I have 2 more days that I can spend all I want there.
I planned to enjoy my time there to the fullest, but the problem is, I can't read chinese characters. Sure I can use phone to translate the things I want to read, but it's too much of a hassle.
So my request is, can you make a glasses that when used can instantly translate everything I see into my desired language?]
Long story short, this guy wanted a translator glasses.
I quickly replied in message:
[I can. When would need you need it?]
[Oh fast reply.]
[The schedule said that I would go in 2 weeks, so I hope within that time frame.]
[It will be ***** Yen, is that alright with you?]
[Yes. No problem with that.]
[Good. I will send it to you within this week.]
[I'll message you again when it's done to ask for your address.]
[Thank you in advance. I will be waiting for the news.]
With that, I secured another client.
Translation glasses seemed quite popular lately, I already made 5 orders of translation glasses this half year alone.
Should I just mass produce it and sell it in online market? But hmm, making it alone by myself would be taking too much of my time. Time for my research would also decrease.
Or maybe I should make patent for this device, and let some technological company out there handle the production and marketing, with that I would get another passive income from the royalties.
I looked up to the bright sunny sky.
It's been 6 years since I involved myself in this business. Making money from creating inventions, accepting order from online clients, patenting an invention and outsourcing the mass production to some company.
All with only one purpose.
Completing my research about the unknown condition or disease that befalling my family.
It all started from when I was still in elementary school....
★
Mizuno Shizu was considered as an odd kid in many circles.
In kindergarten, when kids his age enjoyed playing around with other kids, Shizu would just sit on the sideline reading any kind of book that's not normally be read by a kid like him.
When other kids just started learning to read, Shizu already tried solving high school book tests on his own.
When other kids trying to talk to him, asking what he liked, what came out from his mouth was something that was beyond any kid or even some adult could comprehend.
Since then, no other kids wanted to play or even talk with him anymore, because he was just too much of an oddity.
But Shizu didn't mind that.
Not bothered by anyone, for him, was actually what he wanted.
He loved what he loved, if people couldn't understand him for that, then he didn't even want to communicate with them.
That's why, of all people in this world, he loved his mother dearly.
His mother would treat him like her equal. Talked to him not just as a mother to her kid, but also as two individuals that stood in the same stage.
Understanding everything he said and be serious with her response.
His mother was his idol. The most genius person he aspired to be when he grew up.
So it pained him so much, seeing his dear mother collapse many times and must be treated in the hospital.
When he was in elementary school, in the umpteenth time his mother laying in that bed in the very familiar hospital room, Shizu asked her the question.
"Kaa-san, what's wrong with your body?"
Everyone else was gone, going to the cafeteria to get some food, while Shizu stayed behind, wanted to accompany his mother.
His mother just smiled, patted his head gently and said not to worry. That there's nothing wrong with her body and that maybe she was just too tired because of her age.
This was something Shizu hated.
No matter how much his mother treat him like equal in their daily conversation, in the end of the day, she was his mother.
A mother who would never let her children worried about her.
That in this moment, in her eyes, Shizu was the same as her other children.
A kid.
Shizu couldn't accept that concern at face value. He wanted to do something for his idol.
Something for his mother.
In the end, because he couldn't get anything out of her, Shizu asked straight the doctor who was responsible for her mother treatment in the other chance, only two of them.
But the doctor also reassured him that there was nothing wrong with his mother, and said her collapse most likely attributed to the fatigue and tiredness.
Shizu still didn't believe that, and the doctor showed him the copy of medical report of his mother conditions, asking whether he could understand it.
Shizu took it and scanned every letter and description. Just as the doctor said, there are nothing unusual in the report, other than the slight at the start of diagnosis, before it returned to normal in the next moment.
Even when faced with the evidence of his mother was all fine, Shizu still thought something was missing.
•
•
When Shizu came back from the hospital, he holed himself in his room, in front of computer, trying to find anything that could be a clue of what was happening to his mother.
He didn't really have any lead.
The reports already proved that there's no foreign substance in her body, or any sign of problem with her body systems.
The only thing that could be used as a clue was the bradycardia at the start of the report, so he searched every conditions or diseases that related with heart.
But nothing.
His mother condition was too normal and there was nothing in the internet that could be connected with whatever that happened to her.
Her condition was normal, but at the same time, abnormal.
It was illogical.
Like, it's not a medical condition. But rather.....,
"A curse."
He murmured.
Something that couldn't be explained with today science and knowledge. Something that happened between the realm of real and unreal.
Metaphysical and quantum realm.
Shizu didn't believe in something like that.
But since he didn't have any more clue, and he remembered a certain post in the internet that talked about slow heart rate and a curse, he decided to try and read it.
[Bloodline Curse of an Ancient Japan Clan]
That was the title of the post, and it seemed like just a fictional story with many details created by someone.
Long story short, it talked about a certain clan in the past, around in Japan. About a clan named Amatsukami, a clan that ruled on the land that now known as Ibaraki prefecture.
The land ruled by them flourish with resources such as farming and mining. They said to be a very great clan that cared for their citizen.
But behind that, the clan was actually worshiping a certain god to make the land prosper. The god who always asked for a sacrifice in a form of one female child to be 'given' to him as the cost for his blessing, every 25 years, from that clan.
The clan always fulfilled the demand in hundred of years, but someday, there was no female born from any branch families. except for one girl, who was born in the main family.
Long story short again, the head of the clan didn't want to sacrifice his daughter for the ritual, and it ended up angering the god they worshipped.
The calamity happened everywhere in that land, killing many lives and almost annihilated all the Amatsukami members.
The god ceased his wrath, but he left the remaining Amatsukami with an unknown curse that slowly killing them.
The post described that the curse slowed down the heart rate of the person it contracted to, teasing them with the feeling of death before returning it to normal. It happened so many times, to the point people contracted with it became crazy and ended their own life for sure.
Even after reading all of that, Shizu didn't just outright believe it.
He contacted the poster, asking about the source of this story.
Took quite a while before the poster responded.
[Oh, that story? I read it in one of the old book in Tokyo Central Library a few months ago.]
[Is the book still there?]
[Yeah, it is.]
[How do you know?]
[I'm the librarian.]
[I read many old book in my spare time there and share the story in the internet. Thinking it maybe can invite people who likes to read to come and reading in our library.]
[In what day and hour you work there?]
[Wait, is this perhaps a pick up line?]
[I don't know what that is. But I want to read that book.]
[Oh, OK. I work on....]
•
•
At night, when his father just came home from work, Shizu already waiting for him at the entrance.
"Shizu, what's wrong?"
"Tou-san, can you take me to Tokyo Central Library this weekend? There is a book I really want to read there."
★
It's barely a month since the last time she came to the hospital, and she already back again.
With similar situation as the last time, where it's only me and her in this patient room, I asked her about the things that I had been researching this whole month.
Sitting on the stool beside her bed, I looked straight at her.
"Kaa-san, can I ask something?"
"Sure, what is it, Shizu?"
"Amatsukami. Do you know this name?"
"...."
I could see she tensed up for a moment before smiling as normal and looked at me with confusion.
"No, never heard of it."
So typical of mother.
Never wanted her children to worry about anything.
But you know, mother? I'm not your typical child.
"So that's the thing that always makes you ended up in this hospital."
"What are you talking Shizu?"
"Amatsukami's curse. Kaa-san, you have that, right?"
"...."
She once again frozen for a brief moment before laughed out loud.
"Haha, seriously what are you talking about Shizu? A curse? Something like can't be real, haha~"
I smiled with her response.
Exactly what I expected.
I stood up from my chair and walked to her and hold her hand.
"Yes, I agree with you, Kaa-san."
"Shizu...?"
"Curse is not real. It's unscientific."
"Yeah, exactly--"
"That's why, Kaa-san. I will cure you! I will prove, that whatever happened to you is not a curse!"
"....."
"Just you wait! I will create the cure that can make whatever make you sick disappear! Because I'm–"
"Shizu!"
Before I could finish my words, mother pulled me up to the bed and hugged me, planting my head to her chest in a tight embrace.
"Kaa-san?"
I struggled a little, tried to look up, but she didn't let me.
I could feel her heart beat through her chest, and this rhythm, it was....
"I love you, Shizu."
.... she was crying.
I didn't struggle anymore, hugged her back and said it with confidence.
"I love you too, Kaa-san."
•
•
From that point onwards, I began my research in this whole 'curse' thing.
If we were really the descendant of Amatsukami clan, then this 'curse' wasn't something that always 100% ended up killing everyone who got it.
The proof that we lived now meant there was a hole in how it works, where our great-great-grandparents able to find and exploited it to let us all lived until now.
I also came back several times to the Central Library to read the manuscripts of the Amatsukami clan and other related materials.
Turned out, there was a pattern in the remaining family trees.
Since it was a manuscript written centuries ago, I didn't know how much I could believe, but apparently, the family that didn't have daughter born in that that family ended up all died not even a half of normal human .
While the opposite, the family that had daughter born in their family, tended to live long enough that they could even see their granddaughter have their own daughter and most of them died of old age.
The born of a daughter.
That was the only difference between the wiped out families and the surviving families.
So that's the reason mother and father worked so hard until there were five of us as their children?
"Something in the body that only gone after a daughter is born? Does something like that really exist?"
I started researching about something like that, but surfing through internet could only lead me so far.
Asking a professional for a help idea was thrown out of the window, because just like how I didn't believe in something unscientific as 'curse', normal adults in this field were more likely the same.
So I decided to build my own research lab in our basement.
I knew it would cost so much money to build something like that, and our family wasn't your high-level kind of family so for one, money was a bit of a problem.
I asked my father to make a bank account for me, and started to do what I did best; creating things.
In handicraft lesson at school, when my other classmates make painting, or house replica with ice cream sticks as homework, I made a functional robot that could do simple movement and easy command.
So I started selling anything I could create in internet market places to get some money.
But it's not fast enough, so I changed my approach.
I created an account that sell my service to research or create anything the client wanted.
At first, only a few people curiously contacted me asking for mundane tasks such as researching their thesis subject for them, making robot pet for their kids, spy camera, trackers, etc.
But after that, words spread and more and more people asking for my services, either it for research or creation purposes.
Of course I asked for a reasonable price since I knew what I did wouldn't be as good as the professional in their fields, but the review I got at least decent enough, I think, 4.3 of 5 from 100+ reviews.
In a few months, I racked a considerable amount of profits.
Now that I got the money, I could proceed with my main research.
Buying all the necessary equipments like microscope, incubator, centrifuge, the glasswares, and all other materials.
The first thing I researched wasn't the cure for curse, but something more basic.
I couldn't create the cure for something I didn't understand the principles behind it, so the first thing I needed to do was to put a temporary stop before her condition worsen.
The curse worked in a way that slowed down the heart rate of the person it contracted to, to the point to make them collapse and kept getting lower until it almost stopped before gradually returning to normal again, just by the time she already in hospital. Thus made it impossible to trace what actually happened in that mean time.
So how would I do that?
It actually simple enough. If bradycardia was the sign of curse working, then all we need to do was just to counter it.
I got this idea a week ago, the first time I tried coffee when I was working on my client's request late at night.
Coffee, or the be exact, the things in it, the caffeine.
The primary use of caffeine in the coffee was to block the effects of adenosine, a neurotransmitter that promotes sleepiness. But in the same time, caffeine also stimulate the release of adrenaline and dopamine that can increase the heart rate and reduce fatigue.
So in the end, it was just a simple equation.
If something was lacking, just added it.
However, asking mother who was in conditions of dizziness from bradycardia to drink coffee and waiting the caffeine to kick in would take .
So that was my first goal, to make a caffeine that could works instantly when the sign of the curse started to appear.
Day after days, after school, I would spend all my free times in the basement, trying to come up with how to make the thing works as I envisioned.
In half a month, now with the small bottle on top of the table contained several small black capsules in front of me, I couldn't help but smile.
"I did it! The first prototype of !"
I put up of my hands in the air in celebration after I tested the effect on myself. The concentrated caffeine worked under 2 minutes.
I could still try to make it worked faster, but this already quite good enough for now.
I need to tell mother–
The door to the basement opened by my father with panicked face.
"Shizu, we need to go now. Your mother was in accident!"
But I would never expected it.
Just when I was about to see the light of my struggle, the greater darkness awaited me.
•
•
Sitting in front of the ICU room, my hands clutching the bottle containing the CC prototype very tightly as I prayed that she was fine.
She should be fine.
She always did.
So I could tell her that I already made the counter for her condition.
That I could cure her from her curse.
So please.
Please...
She must be fine.
But when the operating doctor came out with grim expression, and started shaking his head, that when my hands that clutched the bottle really lose all it's strength.
★
After the funeral, Shizu took quite a punch to his heart when his idol, his sun, his light was gone.
There was no more happiness or energy in his expression. Just a calmness.
He became the true personification of his .
Even when the family were having breakfast and dinner, Shizu would just quietly eat his portion, responded with curt response and went to his room or basement after finished eating.
★
In the basement lab, I was sitting in front of the computer desk, replying all the messages from clients that I haven't opened yet because of the funeral and all.
Now that she was gone, should I still continue this business?
The main purpose of all this business and hardworks was to save her. But since she already out of the picture, was there even any reason for me to continue with all this.
I apologized to all my potential costumers, and said in my post that I would close the request for the time being for personal reason.
Turned off the computer and planted my face to the table.
When I turned my head, I saw the bottle with the black capsules in at the edge of the table.
6 months since I first confronted her about the truth of her conditions.
All those efforts, sleepless nights, headache, fatigue, errors, failures.
'-thump-thump!'
All of that just to make these pills, that sure couldn't cure her, but at least in theory could lessen her burden.
Only for it all to end never being used.
'Thump__ thump!'
All was meaningless.
I couldn't save her.
'Thump____ thump!'
I'm tired.
I want to sleep.
'Thump______"'
"Huh, wait....."
Before I could noticed it, the world spun and all turned to darkness.
•
•
•
When I woke up, I was faced with familiar ceiling of a room where mother usually be.
So that meant I was in the hospital. I turned my head to side, and saw my father sitting beside my bed, with his head down.
Maybe he heard my movement, as he lifted his head, and saw me awake, he hugged me fast.
"Thanks god, Shizu, you wake up. I thought I lost you too."
I who still couldn't freely move my body just let him calmed himself down by hugging me, making sure that I was fine.
After that father told me the whole thing, that when checking on me in the basement, wanted to ask me to move to my room, he found me laying lifelessly on the floor in front of computer desk, almost not breathing and low heart beat.
He panicked and brought me straight to the hospital. After the doctor checked on me, he said I was only sleeping, probably because of accumulated stress and tiredness.
I who heard it all had a mixed emotions.
It's a relief that nothing bad happened and I could still wake up.
But at the same time, father description of what was happening to me when found me was too ominous.
Amatsukami's Curse.
I didn't know if it was the same one as what my mother felt, but perhaps, I got the same thing.
It's filled me with fear.
Not for myself.
But for my siblings.
Mother already have this condition from the first time I could remember things, so I didn't know when she first contracted it.
Did she lived with this curse when she was my age now? Or she got it later in life?
If even I, who was the middle child in this family could get it, it meant everyone else have the same chance of contracted it too.
I couldn't and didn't want to imagine everyone became like mother, collapsed every now and then. And perhaps one day, met the same end with Amatsukami clan members in the past who died from suicide because they couldn't take to live with the curse.
•
•
•
When we came back from the hospital, the first thing I did was came back to the basement lab.
I stood in front of the computer desk, looking at the small bottle on the desk with mixed feeling.
I still felt the regret because I couldn't save her even though I already promised her.
But now that it came to this, I would at least finish this research, just as preparation for the worst case scenario, where my other sibling also got the curse.
"Kaa-san, please watch over me."
I turned on the computer and started working again.
I would beat this curse and save my family.
•
•
From then on I kept the research going, but I realized I hit the bottleneck because of insufficient lead.
If only I could get a blood sample of an Amatsukami descendants that still lived without the curse.
A blood of an Amatsukami that gave birth to a daughter.
Mother's brother, Ren-nii's birth father should also be an Amatsukami descendant, but he also died in the 2011 earthquake. Also, even if he was still alive, not like it could help me with my research since he also only had one son, not a daughter.
I tried to trace back my mother family tree, but my grandparents from ny mother side had long died before I was even born.
Trying to find out whether mother have cousin or other relatives seemed a little impossible since my grandparents were orphans from World War II, and didn't have record over who their parents were.
While family tree from the Amatsukami's manuscript stopped in late Period.
All I could do for now was just trying to find the difference between an Amatsukami descendant (myself) with normal human sample.
I also spent my time going to the Tokyo Central Library by myself, trying to find a book that at least had connection or clue about what I should do next.
Since there was nothing, all I could was running the experiment blind, trying every combinations of drug and tested it on myself.
Of course, I wouldn't use something that could endanger my life.
I also had this crazy idea about how to get a blood of an Amatsukami descendants that gave birth to a daughter....
....But I'll save it for the very last resort.
And before I knew it, many years passed without that much progress, except for the perfection of the CC pill.
The one I used everytime the sign of the curse started to appear.
★
8 Years since mother died, and Shizu was getting frustrated over this stalemate.
Leaning on the rotating chair in basement lab, Shizu spun around while looking at the ceiling.
"Should I just go ahead with that last resort? But with who?"
He murmured.
"Yuuki and Nao definitely out of the equation. Yuu-nii, hmmm, yeah, no chance. Haru-nii seems plausible, but I never heard him has any close relation with a girl. In other hand, Ren-nii, he has a girlfriend right? Should I just use him? Hmm."
While he was busy thinking about that, the computer screen showed a new coming email message.
Shizu stopped his thoughts, focused on opening the message and reading the content.
"Hm, let's see. Request for research, a video?"
The email contained a string of sentences, but the first thing it showed was a video file.
Shizu clicked on the file and a video was played on his screen. It was an amateur video, full of shaking and instability, but at least it was watchable.
In the video, on top of the table, there was a small unmoving mouse, it's body has several cables attached and connected to the BPM machine counter, showed a straight line over and over.
"Okay, a video of dead mouse. What next?"
The one recording the video then showed a 500 ml glass bottle with unknown red substances in it.
It then showed an injection filled with the same substances and injected it straight to the mouse body.
Not long after being injected, the mouse started moving again. The BPM machine showing that the heart started beating again.
However, around 15 seconds later, the mouse tensed up, it's head bloated and 'pop', scattering all it's inside everywhere.
Then the video stopped.
"Dead mouse live again, is it ? But the color doesn't match, and by the mouse condition, it should be long dead before the experiment. Beside, that explosion in the end, maybe a virus or small bomb planted ahead by the person recording?"
After that Shizu read the paragraph under the video.
[You're the guy who can research and create anything right? Can you research about this thing?
I found this bottle full of blood from an abandonend building I explored for my youtube content and took it home.
I tried to research about it myself, but I don't know what blood it is. I tried to do some experiment like in the video I sent you, and apparently this blood works like an adrenaline, except in the last part, its explode.
So for the note, that video is 100% real, unedited.
I don't have enough tools to further research it on my own, so I want you to research it for me.
Find out from what this blood came from, and preferably, also a way to make it doesn't explode after being injected to.
Just imagine it. This thing could be a revival potion in real life.
If it's turned out to be something special like that, I bet it could sell with a high price in online market. Of course, I'll give you 25% of the profit. How about that? Will you accept this request?]
"Adrenaline doesn't work like that and definitely won't make a long dead mouse live again. But wait, it is a blood? What an unethical experiments."
Shizu commented with a slight of disgust in his voice.
But even thought he said like that, he actually curious about unknown blood that could do all the things shown in the video.
His research has been stagnant for a while, and he didn't have much request to do right now, and quite bored in the remaining vacation before the new semester start.
So yeah, might as well...
[40%.]
[What? Dude, come on 25% already good enough. I don't even know how much this thing going to be worth.]
[But I'm the one who will be researching on this thing with my own tools and resources.]
[Alright, how about 35%?]
[I'm the one who found it.]
[You can just sell it as is. Though I'm sure it won't sell as high as after it was throughtly researched and knowing it's full worth.]
[Then 30%. Please, I also need the money dude.]
[Alright.]
[Nice. I will send you few sample of the bloods.]
•
•
In the next day, a package came for Shizu, inside was a small glass bottle vial containing around 50 ml of red substances.
Sitting in front of the computer, Shizu looked at glass vial with curiosity.
[Did you get the package?]
A message came to his DM.
[Yeah, I got it. Give me 2 days to research.]
[Roger that. I'll wait for your news bro.]
Shizu smiled while looking at the glass vial.
"Let's see what exactly are you, shall we? Perhaps I can also use you for my research."
•
•
•
[Hey, you sure there's nothing beside the bottle of blood in that building?]
[What, did you find anything?]
[I'm the one asking first here. Answer it.]
[Okay. There are a lot of things there actually. It seemed like that place was a lab or some sort.]
[Is there anything related to a cat in all those things? Maybe a cat corpse or some research journal?]
[Wait a minute, I'll check all the photos I took from that place.]
Shizu looked at the glass vial on the table, still have around 30 ml left, he felt quite a headache just from looking at it.
Through microscopic examination and DNA analysis, the blood sample was at least 80% matching with normal cat's blood.
However, there were also quite a lot foreign parts that Shizu never saw before.
The traits of the blood were also weird, like each blood cells was alive and did their own things.
When it was mixed with other animal blood, some of the blood would combined with other animal blood and seemed to repair it.
But the other side, the rest of the blood would 'eat' the other animal blood, and then destroyed themselves.
More than a blood, this thing felt more like a living things in the form of liquid.
[I don't know if it's what you're looking for, but there's a family photo with a cat in it.]
New message came with other image file attached.
When Shizu opened it, there was a family photo in black and white hanging on the wall, a young couple with their daughter hugging a strange white cat.
Shizu looked at the photo, or to be specific, to the cat throughly and sighed.
"What did I just involved myself with?"
The cat tail in the photo looked like it was swaying it's tail since it's tail seemed splitting into 2 tails.
But old camera couldn't take an afterimage.
Which only meant, that cat, really have 2 tails.
Shizu didn't believe in supernatural things like curse, thinking there must be a scientific explanation that just still undiscovered until now.
But Shizu read a lot of things in his spare time, so he naturally knew exactly what cat in that photo was and possibly, the source of the blood in the vial on the table.
"Nekomata."
Some sort of malevolent cat youkai from folklore and mythology in Japan.
Nekomata described as a mischievous and evil youkai. It also has power to control the dead.
Maybe that's why for a moment the blood could resurrect the mouse in the video, but killed it brutally in the end. It toyed with its victim. That's what Nekomata was.
A things that was only supposed to be in fictional story, but now he saw the real thing in the photo.
"Wait a minute me, calm down. Think more. Maybe it was . It was a very rare case, but it's not impossible. It's not Nekomata, but just a cat with polycaudalism. Yeah, that's it."
Shizu tried to calm himself, came up with plausible reason for the thing he saw. But in the end, he could only reason about the cat in the photo, not the blood in front of him.
If the blood wasn't from Nekomata's blood, then what was it?
A blood that have 80% matching rate with cat blood, but have weird property.
Shizu still didn't have an answer for that.
[Hey, you still there?]
[Did you find out anything?]
Shizu almost forgot to reply to his client. He quickly typed.
[Oh right, sorry.]
[I'll compile the research file now.]
[Please wait.]
Shizu's hand stopped before he could hit the 'send' button.
He looked at the smartwatch on his wrist, and saw the BPM number already went down under normal and kept going lower.
Shizu took out his pill bottle from his pocket, only to realized it now was empty.
"Shit, I forgot to refill."
His eyes darted to the other side of the basement, a lab refrigerator where he saved the stock of his CC pill.
Shizu stood up from the chair and walked there, but just in 2 steps, he fell to the floor like a string doll after it's strings were cut.
Power was drained from his body that he couldn't even move a finger.
"Damn it! bring me the CC pill!"
From the other side of room, a on the table were turned on from Shizu voice activation command, showing a pixelated face on it's screen.
The robot started to levitate from the table, flying to the refrigerator. Mechanical claws came from each side of the robot, opening the refrigerator with one claw and taking a similar bottle filled with CC pill with the other claw.
When the robot was flying toward him, Shizu's consciousness were already went dark and he fainted.
The robot that's called A.R.A stopped in front Shizu's body, it's pixelated face seemed to scan the surrounding area before it's eyes stopped on the blood vial on the table.
["Perfect ingredient acquired. Execute independent decision protocol."]
The robot free hand extended to take blood vial and put both bottles down beside Shizu's body. It opened both lid of the bottles, take out one CC pill and dropped it in the blood bottle.
The CC pill dissolved in a matter of second and the color of the blood changed to a much brighter red color.
A.R.A rolled Shizu's body so he laid on his back and it opened his mouth. It then picked up the blood vial to Shizu's mouth before pouring it all without hesitation.
All the remaining blood in the glass disappeared into Shizu's esophagus, and A.R.A scanned Shizu's body again.
["My mission is complete. Turning off the power."]
BPM counter on Shizu's wrist has returned to normal number, and his breathing also been regulated.
A.R.A descended fully to the floor beside Shizu's head, retracted it's claws inside it's cube body, and in the end, it's pixelated face turned off with a click sound.
That night, in the quiet basement lab, something happened to Shizu's body.
•
•
•
In the morning, not long after Yuuki called for him without getting an answer, A.R.A beside Shizu's head automatically turned on and started ringing loud.
["It's morning, Master. Please wake up soon or you'll be late for school."]
["It's morning, Master."]
["Wake up, Master."]
Along with the constant ringing beside his head and loop of reminders from A.R.A, Shizu slowly opened his eyes and put both of his hands to cover his ears on top of his head(?)
"Alright, I'm awake now. Stop ringing! My ears hurt!"
A.R.A instantly went silent.
Shizu slowly got up to sitting position and look around his surrounding, trying to remember why he slept on the cold floor instead of bed.
He then remembered that he collapsed last night because he didn't prepare for the curse to hit him while he hadn't refilled his pill yet. Luckily, he had A.R.A for situation like that.
Now fully awake, Shizu finally realized something weird.
When A.R.A was ringing loudly, trying to wake him up, why he instinctively covered the top of his head? Not his ears?
Shizu rubbed the top of his head, feeling something different and kind of ticklish.
When he was still confused, Shizu looked at A.R.A and saw a familiar bottle, that had been his research subject in the past two days, now empty beside A.R.A.
Shizu grabbed A.R.A with both hand and shook it hard in front of him.
"A.R.A what did you do? Where is the blood?"
["Inside Master's body."]
"What the... you use it on me? Did you want to kill me? You know how dangerous that blood?"
["Yes. No. And last question is irrelevant."]
"That blood make the subject it injected to explode."
["That's why it's irrelevant. The blood only destroy a subject with incompatibility with it."]
"What you mean?"
["Master, or to be precise, Master's blood have high compatibility rate with the blood. By mixing it with the current CC pill, in my calculation, it could cure Master from the curse........ Except for one thing."]
"What is it?"
A.R.A didn't answer him, but changed it's front screen function, from showing it's pixelated face into front camere function.
"....."
Shizu froze when he saw the image of him in A.R.A's screen, and his grip on A.R.A loosened, letting it fell to the floor with a thud.
["Ouch."]
Shizu paid it no mind, stood up and walked to the stand mirror in the lab, to fully see himself right now.
What was reflected in the mirror wasn't the usual him. No matter how he looked at it, the reflection in the mirror showing him a girl with white silver hair with shoulder length.
If it wasn't weird enough, the thing existed on top of her head was even more weird. A pair of animal ears. It moved alongside the confusion he felt.
When Shizu moved his hand, the reflection girl mirroring him.
A.R.A levitated and hovering beside Shizu.
["Although that blood could cure Master from your condition, there was some side effects as Master can see now."]
As if she didn't hear it, Shizu moved closer to the mirror and started touching and playing curiously with her new ears.
"So this is how it feels to become a nekomimi. Oh, I can move it? Did this ears use the same with my normal ears or is it a new set of muscle? Also, check sound! Check sound!"
Shizu curiously and excitedly try to find out more about her new features, not even bothered by her changed gender.
Closing her human ears and checking sound, Shizu's eyes lit up.
"Cool! The sounds quality is really different! What else? Do I also get the cat eyes feature?"
The basement door swung open loudly, and Haruka appeared looking angry.
"Oi, Shizu! Is this your do.....ing?"
Shizu and Haruka eyes met. Both of them took a while to comprehend each other appearance.
★
In the living room of Mizuno family, where all family members gathered, Shizu told her story about how he got changed, while Yuuki from behind the sofa playing around with Shizu's cat ears.
"Haru-nii came to my lab and shouted blaming her condition on me."
"I already said sorry for that one, alright?"
"You accused me just because I'm the only in this family who likes doing experiments. Also, Yuuki, stop playing with my ears."
"Once again sorry. My bad."
"Okay, I'm satisfied. Thank you, Shizu-nii."
Haruka once again apologized, looking a bit guilty. While Yuuki smiled happily and stopped playing with Shizu's ears, hugged her from behind, and Shizu just let her be.
Ren thought about Shizu's story and asked.
"Have you tried to contact that client again? Maybe asking for more blood sample to try to reverse your condition now?"
"I already tried it but he blocked me. I would understand if he blocked me after I sent him the , but I haven't done it yet and he already blocked me.
Perhaps because I fell asleep in our chat last night, so he fed up and blocked me?"
Shizu naturally didn't tell the whole story. She especially left out all the things about her condition and curse in their bloodline, didn't want to make them worry. She blamed her changed gender to the mishap in her research over a mysterious client request.
"Tracking the IP address?"
"The account was deleted just a few hours ago. Also, it was most likely just a dummy, so no point in tracking that."
"So no lead either huh."
The room fell silent again.
Yuuichi, Haruka, and Ren's cause of transformation already left them in confusion, and while Shizu's transformation had a clear clue about how it happened, it still didn't answer many things.
Without looking back, Shizu raised her hands and pinched both sides of Yuuki's cheeks, gensturing her let go.
"What about you, Yuuki? I think I already figured it out about your situation, but let everyone hear your story first."
Yuuki struggled a little and stood straight after letting Shizu go.
"Oh now my turn? Actually my part was very simple. You all remember there was a festival at Ryuusei shrine yesterday, right?"
Yuuki asked while looking around to everyone expression.
"I'm working part time at that time."
"Me too."
"I went to Sendai."
"I'm busy in my lab."
"Sleeping."
"I still worked at the company around that time."
Yuuki's expression cracked for a moment from everyone's responses.
"A-Anyway! Because you all were busy with your own business, I went to the festival with Kei-kun. Long story short, when we're praying at the shrine, Kei-kun made a wish so that I born as a girl. And tada~, I became a girl in the morning."
All eyes were on Yuuki again, wondering if she really told the truth from how easy going her story was.
"Kei-kun....? Ah that guy." (Yuuichi)
"What, did he swing that way for Yuuki?" (Haruka)
"I don't know what should I feel for him. Should I pity him?" (Ren)
"No, wait a second. If you changed in the morning, how could you go to school like normal?" (Father)
Satisfied with the majority responses, a smile bloomed again in Yuuki's face.
"Hehe, that's the neat part. It is because–"
"Because for this world, Yuuki is a girl from the start. The history was rewritten. It just our memories were unaffected."
Before Yuuki could explain it, Shizu already cut her off and answered everything. She also showed the screen of her monitor to everyone, displaying a family photo of eight, including their mother. In that photo, Yuuki clearly dressed as a girl.
"Shizu-nii, you meanie! That was supposed to be my big reveal!"
Yuuki threw tantrum again by shaking Shizu from behind the sofa.
After Shizu said that, everyone else checked their own phone, searching for a photo that containing Yuuki in it, and as Shizu has said, Yuuki in all those photos was always captured as a girl.
They were confused because in their memories, Yuuki was always a boy, not a girl like shown in the photo.
Shizu also lost in thought, but for a completely different reason from everyone.
'Wait, if Yuuki was born a girl from the start in this reality, then doesn't that meant Kaa-san never got the curse? Well, she did died because of an accident, and that was unrelated to the curse, so maybe it can't be changed when the reality was rewritten?
But what about the rest of us? Since Yuuki was a girl from the beginning, doesn't that mean this family was free from Amatsukami's curse?'
"Is there a way to confirm if I still have the curse?"
"What did you say, Shizu-nii?"
Shizu snapped from her thought and shook her head.
"Nothing, just talking to myself. Anyway, back to the topic. If it as Yuuki said, to be able to change even the reality itself, the one changing her should be the goddess herself or at least an existence from the higher dimension than us.
So, Ren-nii, can you call that thing out again, I want to test something."
"Huh, okay? There, it appears again." (Ren)
"Yuuki, can you see it?"
Yuuki stopped rocking Shizu, rested her chin on top Shizu's head, between her cat ears, her eyes focused to where Ren was standing.
"Huh, yeah, I see it clearly. That flying white ball. It still shyly hide behind Ren-nii's shoulder though."
Shizu raised her hand, covering Yuuki's left eye, the red one.
"How about now?"
"Oh? Now I can't see it. Ren-nii, did you ask him to disappear again?" (Yuuki)
"I didn't do anything. It still there.... ahh, now I understand." (Ren)
"Yes. Yuuki see things differently with her left eye. So my guesses would be that the cause for Ren-nii and Yuuki's transformation were either they came from the same being, or at least they were related to some degree."
"It's rare to see you readily accept their whole cause as something related to supernatural." (Haruka)
"Believing in an existence of a higher dimension being wasn't necessarily against science. Human calls something as supernatural just because they can't perceive it normally and don't understand the concept behind it logically.
If we can learn more and comprehend them in scientific way, at some point, supernatural will be just another field of study for humanity."
"Who would want to study something as boring as that. Sometimes, humanity really likes to make thing difficult for themselves huh?"
Through out this whole conversation, Nao just focused with his game and only joined after Shizu's last comment while yawning.
Shizu was about to talk back when Nao raised her hand to the front and grabbed a bottle of soda that just appeared from thin air in her hand.
Whatever Shizu wanted to say before, she lost it all. Also everyone too. All were too stunned to speak about what was happening.
Nao opened the bottle and drank it all, before she calmly resumed her game after placing the bottle on the table.
But she realized everyone had became quiet and looked around to see everyone's eyes were focused on her.
"What?"
Everyone sighed at the same time, making Nao even more confused.
"Nao, that's should be our question. What did you just do?" (Father)
"Huh?"
"Nao-chan, what we mean is about the bottle. What did you do with it?" (Yuuichi)
Nao looked at the empty bottle on the table, and tilted her head.
"I drank it?"
"Not that! You just made it appeared from thin air! What the heck is that?!"
"Shizu-nii, calm down. You break your character."
Even Shizu couldn't kept her calm and must be held down by Yuuki to sit still before she could doing anything further.
Nao thought about it for a moment and finally understood.
"Oh, that's one of my ability I got."
"Ability, what kind of abili--- umphh!"
"How about we hear Nao-kun full story first? Right, Shizu-nii?"
"Hmphhh!"
Shaking his head at the sight of her children, father looked at Nao
"Don't mind them, please go on, Nao."
Nao nodded and started her story.
"Alright. Last night, when I was sleeping....."
Author's Note
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