Now and Forever...Itsumademo... - Chapter 17C
危機(kiken)
太陽のない日々が終わり(taiyou no nai hibi ga owari)
栄えの翼で辿りつき(sakae no tsubasa de tadoritsuki)
隠された真実に近寄るものたち(kakusareta shinjitsu ni chikayoru mono tachi)
秩序の維持できなくなる(chitsujo no iji dekinakunaru)
Danger
Days of no sunlight will end
Arriving on wings of prosperity
Those who get close to the hidden truth
Will make it impossible to maintain order
( Read more... )
太陽のない日々が終わり(taiyou no nai hibi ga owari)
栄えの翼で辿りつき(sakae no tsubasa de tadoritsuki)
隠された真実に近寄るものたち(kakusareta shinjitsu ni chikayoru mono tachi)
秩序の維持できなくなる(chitsujo no iji dekinakunaru)
Danger
Days of no sunlight will end
Arriving on wings of prosperity
Those who get close to the hidden truth
Will make it impossible to maintain order
( Read more... )
Studiously avoiding his therapist’s eyes, Jun laced his fingers together and looked down at his clasped hands. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, sensei.”
“Am I? Then why is the pig person still thinking with his nether regions through his apology roses. Surely, the sexual intent of the coral roses are not lost on you,” her ladyship’s voice lilted into a cold venomous tinkle as she continued admiring the diamond ring on her pale hand.
“You’re just reading too much into it. That’s your damn problem! You think too much,” growled Jun in growing rancour whether at the devil’s intrusion into his home, the devil’s appropriation of a ring meant for him, or the devil’s insinuations as to the character of his beloved, he did not know.
Unperturbed, a curiously deformed smirk writhed on her ladyship’s lips as she went on in a quiet tone, “Then let us move on to the second point of information. Two, it’s in the middle of the day and the pig person takes a shower. Why is that, don’t you wonder? Well, Mr Matsumoto, I will tell you. The fact that the pig person has only just showered, the fact that the roses are still fresh, and the fact that this ring is still cold from the air conditioning of the shop speaks volumes. It tells you (a) he has just come home after buying you the roses and this expensive trinket, (b) he spent all night elsewhere and waited till the shops opened before he bought you these so-called tokens of his apology. Don’t you want to know where he has been all night? Don’t you want to know why he was at the Ginza branch of Harry Winston? Don’t you want to check the sheets to see whether they’ve been slept in? Don’t you suspect something is wrong with the pig person, especially after your talk with Ayumu prior to our previous session?”
Jun paled and clutched his head as if he could block out everything the devil-therapist was saying. “No, you’re mistaken. Ayumu’s mistaken.”
“It’s all right if you don’t trust me. I wouldn’t trust me either,” she sneered. “However, does this mean you would rather trust the pig person who nearly killed your son and denied it was his fault rather than your son who has hitherto been honest with you?”
“Sensei, I warn you…” bellowed Jun as he uncrossed his legs and leant threateningly forward.
“Please, I’m not interested in you in that way, so drop the sexual aggressor act,” she calmly threw out with an edge of vitriol. “So you don’t believe me when I tell you the pig person is trying to buy your forgiveness with expensive gifts? Let’s move on to point of information three, d’accord? Three, he gives you an expensive diamond ring with three diamonds in a row. In the early 20th century, this was called a trilogy ring. It is used to symbolise commitment in the past, present and future. Don’t you wonder what the pig person has done that he needs to remind both you AND himself of his commitment to you in the past, present and future, hmmm? What is the pig person’s game when he has usually taken you for granted.”
“How can you call Leader a pig person! I resent that! Leader doesn’t take me for granted!” Jun snarled menacingly.
As Lady Strange tossed the ring to him, she took the opportunity afforded by his momentary confusion to point her cane directly at his throat. “I resent it too,” she hissed, slowly unsheathing the barest hint of her rapier from the cane against Jun’s neck. “Diamonds stand for clarity and wisdom transcending the pedestrian, but you seem unwilling to transcend the banal. What will it take for you to cross the Rubicon, hmm? Another betrayal from the pig person? Is that what it takes before you wake up from your cosy la vie en rose?” She paused and drew the slightest bit of blood from the man as she giggled almost girlishly in delight. “Be careful what you wish for, Mr Matsumoto, you just might get it.”
“You’ve worked out your banter,” grumbled Jun as he glared daggers at the devil.
Reply
“What do you mean?”
An airy beau geste marked her ladyship’s dismissal of the question. “One always covets that which one has not. An unpolished and slavish soul tries to hide behind the lights and desires the diamond, n’est-ce pas?” ventured she mysteriously.
“I don’t get it,” Jun sighed before glowering at the she-devil.
“You will - in time,” she sniggered, sheathing her blade and returning calmly to her seat. “Interrogate the pig person and find out what he’s trying to hide and maybe you’ll get a hint. Then go to Ayumu and ask him for the details. Do both those things and you’ll have the bigger picture surrounding the pig person and his recent penchant for messing up and revolving things around his enthusiasm for passionate desire.”
“I don’t like your tone,” he growled.
“Why? Should I sing instead? I am believed to be a tolerable mezzosoprano,” she retorted sarcastically.
“Sensei…” He glared at her.
“And he said I could sleep with you. I wouldn’t touch you with a bamboo pole,” she grumbled sotto voce whilst fixing him with a disparaging look. “Alors, what about transcending the banal shit on the surface vis-à-vis the infernal 2009 contract, hein? Was Mr Miyazono any help to you at all?”
“I don’t like your tone,” huffed Jun disagreeably, folding his arms defensively once more. “It reminds me of Miyazono when he compared me to a komodo dragon.”
At this admission, Lady Strange clapped her hands together rapturously. “Ah, a wonderful beast! I kept one as a pet many years ago when I had to damn the soul of a corrupt Indonesian politician to perdition. I called my little komodo dragon Shakespeare because he calmed down whenever we read Shakespeare to him. Pity he’s dead now. Nessie ate him by accident. My heart was quite broken. He was a magnificent and honourable beast.”
“Er… right.” The former celebrity looked askance as his therapist as he intoned sceptically. “It’s just an ugly lizard with poison saliva and stuff.”
“Venomous, Mr Matsumoto, not poisonous, do keep your facts straight. Oh, but Mr Miyazono didn’t tell you, did he - one komodo dragon doesn’t touch the prey/carrion of another. Now that’s honour. They don’t make lizards or men like that any more,” she lamented in a grossly exaggerated manner with a hand dramatically poised on her forehead.
“Meh, what’s the diff.”
Rapping his knees with the top of her cane in a chiding fashion, her ladyship elucidated, “Poisonous are things like poison mushrooms. I grow a breed called the destroying angel in my garden at Malmaison. Mature destroying angels look like white button mushrooms, young destroying angels look like puffball mushrooms. They look harmless, but are deadly. Once you eat even half a mushroom, you’d die. There isn’t a cure. And great thing is - it takes up to 24 hours to be absorbed in your system before it shuts you’re your kidneys and liver. You will die from defecating and vomiting due to dehydration. Beautiful isn’t it, but amongst us devils, it is a supreme delicacy.”
Jun shuddered artistically and rubbed his upper arms. “That’s as creepy as Miyazono saying that people can eat spiders and snakes.”
“Snakes are ‘heaty’ to the body system, I don’t recommend them. But fried tarantula is a delicacy in Thailand. Just throw them in the fire, get rid if the hairs and the fangs and it’s very palatable,” her ladyship smiled as she volunteered the information, enjoying the interesting shade of greenish-purple Jun had turned.
“I feel sick. Miyazono called the after effects of the king cobra venomous bite wonderful. There’s something wrong with the both of you.”
Reply
“Screw you! I’m not a damn lizard!” Jun hotly recoiled both verbally and physically.
“Bah, you have no sense of humour,” she scoffed, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “I don’t see why Mr Miyazono is so protective of you. You’re nothing like my truffle; you don’t even question what you see!”
“I do think about them!”
“Then why didn’t you ever wonder why Old Kitagawa changed his legal people, accountants and so on so often? The truth is, you just can’t be arsed to find out. That’s why you willed the 2009 contract into being! That’s why you will let the pig person wanking in the loo walk all over you and buy your forgiveness with expensive gifts!”
“Sensei, you’re crossing a line,” snarled Jun with a might glare.
“At least I’m crossing something. You don’t even dare to cross the bloody Rubicon,” her ladyship taunted. “You don’t dare cross it because you don’t even question what you see and what goes on around you. You just let those things slide because you couldn’t be arsed about them. Like the drugs business at the Jimusho. You couldn’t be arsed about it. Have you ever wondered where the pig person you called your partner acquired his marijuana back in the day? Did you even think that it could be via the jimusho at one of those exclusive soirees? Don’t you wonder whether that’s why the Jimusho could cover up the would-be scandal that would have broken out over the pig person’s consumption of the said drug?”
Jun paused and his eyes widened. “We all knew about Leader and the weed… Wait, are you insinuating what I think you are?”
“My dear fellow,” said Lady Strange in a falsely maternal accent as she patted his cheek before grabbing his head and twisting it painfully to the side at a most unnatural angle. “I am not insinuating anything; I am telling you to think and use your grey matter! For all your claims to Yuuichi that you’re thinking too hard, you’re not really thinking at all.”
“Am to!” the man shot back angrily.
“Then why haven’t you joined the dots that are before you? Are you so afraid of the picture those dots will form? Or is it a case of you not caring at all? You tell me,” she riposted, playing most meaningfully with the handle of her rapier-cane.
After a mighty glower and a heavy scowl, Jun relented somewhat to continue, “Sensei, you’re talking in riddles.”
“Really?” she lilted in specious horror. “In that case, let’s see if you can follow me as we delve further into the infernal contract, d’accord? Bien. The parts of the contract concerning the dissolution of Arashi are found on page six. 6 in numerology is the number of reaction, flux, and responsibility.”
“Crap,” Jun snorted in disagreement.
Reply
“Even if there was something in the number 6, that doesn’t mean a thing,” verbally retaliated Jun.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” her ladyship sneered before jabbing her cane roughly into his crotch. “Pages 8 to 17 deal with the dissolution of Arashi. 8 is the number if power and sacrifice. It means for the sake of power, something must be sacrificed. How like the Old Kitagawa goat, n’est-ce pas? The number 17 in numerology is taken apart and added together to make 1+7, that gives you 8. Again, it brings you to the number of power and sacrifice.”
“Sensei, that’s nothing but bunk,” Jun repeated himself with far less resolution than before.
Watching the man tremble lightly, Lady Strange curled her lips disdainfully, “Group 17 in the periodic table features halogens like chlorine, bromine, and iodine. This is the only group in the periodic table which contains elements in all three states of matter (i.e. liquid, gas and solid) at room temperature and standard room atmospheric pressure. Group 17 allows all form of any halogen to exist. Much like how a bunch of misfits like the members of Arashi could exist peacefully together for so long. Chlorine has the atomic number of 17. Chlorine is used as a cleaning agent because it is the largest part of Clorox or Bleach. 17 is the first number that can be written as the sum of a positive cube and a positive square in two different ways; that is, the smallest n such that x-cubed + y-squared = n has two different solutions for x and y positive integers.”
“Like the Rubik’s cube!” Jun suddenly interjected with tremendous surprise.
“Oh yes, there’s the cube and the square, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Let’s get back to the terms of the infernal contract,” she counselled, twisting the end of the cane painfully into Jun’s stomach. “Clause Seven states ‘contact between current members and staff of the jimusho is obviously not prohibited; however, the jimusho prefers that you keep the contact to a minimum’. Have you tried to keep in touch with the staff at the jimusho? 7 is the number of consciousness and of thought. Surely, you do think about contacting those with whom you have worked in the jimusho, hein?”
“Eh?”
“Bah, do use your brain before I cut your head off, scoop up the insides and give the empty head to your mother-in-law as a vase,” hissed her ladyship. “Clause Nine states ‘to protect the interests of the jimusho, any suspicious activity involving current members of the jimusho or staff may result in legal action’. 9 is the number representing the highest degree of change. The fact that the jimusho will sue if it regards something you do as ‘suspicious behaviour’ paints the place as an institution resistant to change. But if you and the rest of the former members of Arashi play your cards right, you lot can be number 9 and bring about the highest degree of change.”
“That’s what Miyazono hinted at when he posed the rhetorical question of where the Old Man was on the business cycle and if the Old Man was on his last legs of the cycle,” Jun said with due consideration.
Reply
Jun looked up suspiciously at the devil and threw up a stony, “Talk about unlucky thirteen.”
“Oh, but there’s more,” her ladyship elaborated acidly, “13 isn’t all that bad. While it is indeed a sign of death and ill omen, it can also signal the dissolution of something. Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with the 13th legion, heralding the Roman Civil War and bringing about the collapse of the Roman Empire. Apply this to your bloody Jimusho and the Old Goat and tell me what you see.”
“Sensei, that goes beyond the pale,” Jun lowered his voice into an uncomfortably hoarse whisper as he struggled against acknowledging that his therapist had a point.
“13 could also mean an epiphany. Christ received the Magi on the 13th day of his life. That marks an epiphany in the religious calendar. Epiphany - that is something you and the rest of the former members of Arashi needs, wouldn’t you say?” her ladyship sneered with an unpleasant and evil knowing half smirk.
“That’s no different from Miyazono informing me that I can’t just march down to school of Ayumu was bullied. That was an epiphany, sensei. Miyazono made me realise that I didn’t plan far ahead where Ayumu’s concerned,” Jun confessed, tugging anxiously at his hair as he looked down in disconsolation.
A wistful sigh escaped the devil-therapist’s throat as she pronounced softly, “It is his way. Yuui always gets people to see the ‘e’ at the end of the regression equation. Even after all these centuries, he’s still a marvel with that mind.”
“Er… Sensei… We were talking about Miyazono, not your love of the week,” Jun interjected with a shudder of genuine fear and apprehension at his therapist’s state of mind. While she appeared generally sound and herself to him, these fleeting moments when she would go off-tangent and ramble on something he had no idea of was being to disconcert him.
Feigning a start as though she were coming out from a reverie, her ladyship hardened her mouth and went on in a cold, brusque manner: “Ah yes, Miyazono. His secretary’s name is Sawaguchi, most interesting. 澤 has four meanings - (a) marsh, swamp, (b) damp and moist, (c) fertile land, (d) grace and brilliance. 口means mouth . Ergo, Sawaguchi means ‘the brilliant and fertile land at the mouth of the marsh/swamp. All this means Sawaguchi’s past might be murky and dodgy but currently, Sawaguchi is brilliant and most useful because of the past checkered experience. No wonder Mr Miyazono hired Sawaguchi, and no wonder Sawaguchi follows Miyazono.”
“What has that got to anything?”
“What do you think?” her ladyship riposted with an enigmatic but tartly mutinous look in her eyes as she pushed at her glasses. “Alors, about the remaining five pages of the contract, you know the number 5 stands for action juxtaposed against restlessness, n’est-ce pas?”
Jun scowled and narrowed his eyes. “Eh?”
“That only makes your eyes look piggish,” she scolded, rapping his head with the top of her cane. Pages twenty-six through twenty-eight covers what will happen if you and the Pig person disobey the issues laid out in the contract. 26 becomes 8 in numerology because 2+6. Once again, you are reminded of power and sacrifice.”
“Coincidence,” Jun ventured with less conviction than he felt.
Reply
“What’s that you’re trying to say?” Jun growled threateningly.
Ignoring the feral sound, her ladyship continued after incapacitating the man with a swift kick to his nether regions to silence him. “26 is the gematric number for the ‘true name’ of God, which is Yahweh in the original Hebrew version of the Holy Bible. The four letters making up God’s name are usually transliterated from Hebrew as IHVH in Latin, JHWH in German, French and Dutch, and JHVH/YHWH in English. It has been translated into Yahweh or Jehovah in English. Of course, as a devil telling you, you will be suspicious. However, the number presenting God is powerful. It tells you that at pay 26, not only is Kitagawa invoking his power by sacrificing Arashi as you might surmise from 2+6=8. Kitagawa is also trying to play God, and in so doing, he is being blasphemous. The blasphemous always fall by the way into the 8th Circle of Hell. But because Kitagawa has numerous other sins, he will likely head to Tartarus. That’s the number 26 for you.”
“28 is a Keith number that recurs in a Fibonacci-like sequence of 2, 8, 10, 18, 28. See the pattern? That says the Jimusho is warning you, ‘I can do this to you again and again and always incrementally.’ Coincidentally, a lunar month has 28 days; the Gregorian calendar is run in 28 year cycles with 4 leap years in between. 28 in Hebrew numerology corresponds to the Hebrew word ‘koakh’ which means ‘energy’ and ‘power’, both of which might be synonymous with ‘might’. So, think, whose power and energy is used as might to subvert whom? What will take for the subjugated to gain or regain their own energy and power, hein?”
“Coincidence, sensei,” blustered Jun with even less conviction.
“Really?” enquired her ladyship with false concern. “Why then does 28 becomes 1 in numerology? Because 2+8= 10. From 10, you get 1+0=1. The number 1 in numerology means the power of the individual, often that individual will be the aggressor. Doesn’t that tell you something, Mr Matsumoto? It tells you that the whole 2009 contract came about because of one individual aggressor, viz., the Old Goat.”
“Coincidence,” Jun reiterated.
“The fact that the contract was conjured up and signed in 2009 is no coincidence because 2+0+0+9=11. Entre nous, everything at the 11 is no coincidence as I told another client.”
“Oh my God, you’re making this more complicated than I thought it would be,” the former celebrity groaned and covered his face in his hands.
“Je sais, mon enfant,” Lady Strange replied with blasphemously infuriating unconcern. “Page 29 where the contract was signed with the stamps and seals. I find that amusing. In 29BC, Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, better known as Octavius was elected Roman consul for the 5th time. That same year, the temples of Janus were closed ‘ostensibly’ to mark peace. Janus is a two faced God of gateways, doors, entrances and exits, beginnings and ends. You must look forward and backwards in order for the middle to clear. The fact that Octavius or Kitagawa in this case closed ‘the temple of Janus’ should indicate to you that he’s trying to prevent you lot from looking forward or even going forward. Not satisfied with that, like Octavius, Kitagawa even demands that you truncate all your links to the past by burning bridges so that you can’t even look back or revisit the past for succour. The blank page 30 you know is a wedge between you-and the pig person vis-à-vis the rest of Arashi.”
Reply
“Ah, but the fact that Mr Miyazono showed you how things should be and could be through the Rubik’s Cube demonstrates how you must go about the problem. It’s no different from what I’ve done for you. I’ve simply put the past, specifically the details of the contract and its significance into perspective. Where and how those things fit in with one another is something you must play on your own. Play it like a Rubik’s cube, Mr Matsumoto,” her ladyship advised.
The former actor-singer fixed the devil with a defiantly incredulous look. “Sounds like what Nino would say. Do you know how many possible permutations are possible in the Rubik’s cube square?”
“43,252,003,274,489,856,000 to be precise. However, it is possible to solve the puzzle in 22 moves if you’re careful,” was the smooth but biting response.
“Next thing you’ll be saying is that it depends on how I read the stupid prophesy-poem,” Jun scoffed.
“As a matter of fact, it might hinge on that,” responded Lady Strange with an ugly sneer. “Let’s interpret it and go beyond what Mr Miyazono told you, d’accord? How does the Pythia’s verse go again? We shall begin with the first stanza:
Danger
Days of no sunlight will end
Arriving on wings of prosperity
Those who get close to the hidden truth
Will make it impossible to maintain order.”
“It’s just something warning the Old Man about danger,” Jun stated very sourly.
“Notice how ‘no sunlight’ is associated with ‘order’. Someone’s ruling from the shadows, but this someone’s very success and ‘prosperity’ with damn him. Why is this someone in the shadows? Because he wants to prevent others from getting close to the hidden truth,” her ladyship said vaguely in the same manner she would have once used to interpret prophecies in Roman times.
The former actor-singer’s eyes flickered up. “What hidden truth?”
“Think about it.” The devil-therapist curled her lips into an enigmatic smirk.
“What happens next? Miyazono said something about the ‘prince of games’ being Nino, and ‘twin leaves’ being Aiba.”
“The second stanza goes: Destruction
After a short period of silence
The prince of games survives
Twin leaves seek out insincerity
The sands will begin to move again,” ventured her ladyship with specious consideration before she suppressed a snigger. “Three names are mentioned here, all the three whom you are no supposed to contact. Apparently, if we are to believe this stanza, moves have been made against these three again.”
“There are only two names, sensei,” Jun pointed out crossly.
“The Sakura blossom stands for ‘insincerity’ in the language of flowers.”
“What?!”
“Come now, surely, you have to make the connexion.” Lady Strange struck Jun across the face with her cane so that he would stop being hysterical. “Destruction would be wrought after a period of silence. Why will destruction happen? Because Mr Ninomiya survives (in spite of what happened) and Mr Aiba will seek out Mr Sakurai with what he knows. Because these three will have some nasty things done to them and because of that, they will be the winds that stir the sands. Two questions in turn arise -- what is hidden beneath the sand? Will the wind from these three be enough to sweep away all the sand and come at the ‘hidden truth’ of the first stanza?”
“What kind of hidden truth?”
At this query, her ladyship curled her lips contemptuously and dropped her voice in a faint sing-song lilt, “Something you, dear Mr Matsumoto, already know. Mr Miyazono hinted at that when he interpreted the third stanza for you.”
“That’s about how Arashi could bring down the Old Man’s empire,” Jun said, pressing his cheek where he had been smote. For the first time, he noticed that his therapist was reading the lines of the poetic prophecy without referring to the paper or her notes. That was a fact he found disconcerting and not for the first time, he wondered how much Lady Strange knew of his personal affairs.
Reply
(Sudden) death
Unexpected
What should have been dead
The Imperial Palace
The end of an era,” Lady Strange continued with all the placidity of one who knew what she was about. “Apparently, someone is past his ‘sell-by’ date because it ‘should have been dead’. All empires must crumble and what is one way it can fall? Through that which is intimated by the number thirteen.”
“Bad luck?” hedged Jun, more than a little confused at that which his therapist was hinting.
“Be Caesar and cross the Rubicon. Be Loki and gatecrash that elite party of the Gods and start a Gotterdammerung. That’s how most civilisations end.”
“Civilisations not empires, sensei,” Jun reminded her.
Without warning, the cane sharply smacked the other side of the man’s face as she hissed waspishly, “An imperial empire is a civilisation, think before you speak. It’s bad form if things go through the white matter but not the grey.”
The former celebrity sighed and rubbed his brow. “How do you think we can beat the Old Man and win?”
“Problem with the Old Goat is that he’s won so many times, he thinks he’s indestructible. But you and I know that no one’s indestructible. Use that as his weakness and flush him into the open. Then go picnicking on his vitals,” her ladyship said with a flick of her wrist as though it could not be simpler. “Besides, haven’t you wondered who is your secret ally? Would you like to know?”
“What do you mean?” Jun heaved another sigh of exasperation. “My back is the one against the wall. I know I put myself there.”
“True but academic, lad,” commented Lady Strange, prodding his stomach with her cane. “There are several points of information to note: One, the person who sent that poetic prophesy knows where you live and what not. Who would be privy to that sort of information? Someone close to you. The fact that it came to you on the same day as the contract demonstrates that it was likely dispatched from the same place. Who could have sent it? Someone who wants to help but is fearful of being found out. We know he/she/it doesn’t want to be found out because the ‘To the resident of Unit 11-04’ was typed.”
“Who would know me well enough to know that Leader and I were screwed over by the Old Man?” Jun retorted in growing annoyance.
“Think!” Her ladyship hissed and threw the blade from her cane, which she then used to smack the man across the face. Satisfied with the thin gash of blood above his cheekbone, she calmed down considerably and went on her selfsame arctic, indifferent manner: “The bottom half of the poetic prophesy was torn off, meaning someone had seen it and intended to take it. However, he/she/it could not retrieve the whole slip of prophesy paper because there was something on it. He/She/It just took what he/she/it could. Which means the person who sent you that poetic prophesy took it from Old Kitagawa’s desk or some such other place within the confines of the Old Goat’s belongings. He/She/It obviously didn’t want to be caught and did it quickly, which resulted in the torn sheet of paper you now have. Someone very close to Old Kitagawa and someone very cognisant of the Old Goat’s business model knows the Old Goat was screwing you as it were.”
“But hiding behind technicalities between typed notes and indirect methods of communication? That’s cowardly,” stated the house-husband former celebrity with a disapproving sniff.
“Ah, but he/she/it is prudent. It is like this,” she offered, taking up the Harry Winston box and flicking it between her fingers and making it disappear then reappear.
“Magic? That’s more of a Nino thing,” the man scoffed.
“What is magic about, Mr Matsumoto? Finding direction through misdirection,” she explained, throwing him the small box. “If you still have the envelope in which that poetic prophesy came, give it to Mr Miyazono. Those kinds of things can be traced.”
“He’s a lawyer not a seer.”
Reply
“What meaning is that?”
“Other than being a phallic symbol and a sign of penis envy, you mean?” her ladyship enquired with specious unconcern and a knowing smirk. “Think about it. If I told you everything, it would spoil the fun.”
“This isn’t a game, sensei. It’s not fun,” the man huffed in evident aggravation.
“It’s a fox hunt, not a game. Treat it like game hunting, you’ll find it vastly more entertaining. In fact I’ll be organising a fox hunt sometime soon in Hell, would you like to come? We’ll be hunting the pig person. I’ll even let you make the kill.”
Jun recoiled and shot the devil a look of fearful disgust. “Gods, you’re sick!”
“Merci du compliment,” giggled she, covering her mouth daintily. “Fox hunting is like solving a Rubik’s cube puzzle. There are no rules. You go on a steeple chase and all you have is your wits. The same could be said for the fox. Who wins in a battle wits? The craftier one, n’est-ce pas. Treat the fox like you would kitsune or fox spirit. The fox has no real form, it can shape shift and it can pull any form of trickery from its arse to escape from you.”
“How’s that like the Rubik’s cube?”
Rolling her eyes, her ladyship lashed her blade against the man’s other cheek. “Think, fool, think. The kitsune is a shapeshifter, which means at heart it has no real form. The same can be for the Rubik’s Cube. There are no orientation markings on the centre faces of a Rubik’s Cube, therefore solving it does not require any attention to orienting those faces correctly. The algorithm governing any Rubik’s Cube solution is based on decidability, much like fox hunting. It’s like a flow chart of possible steps you could take and the outcomes of each step. That’s how you solve a Rubik’s Cube problem, and that’s how you hunt a fox. Looking at the surface is not enough as Mr Miyazono told you. That will only give you the wrong solution and you could end up mangling yourself or getting the wrong fox.”
“That has got nothing to do with the Rubik’s cube.”
“Shuffling the pieces around without looking at the big picture looks confusing and looks like you’re making things more complicated, but it only LOOKS that way. That lulls your fox into a fall sense of security. This goes back to the whole concept of ‘finding direction through misdirection’. Upon misdirecting the fox, you let the fox think it has confounded you. However, when the fox realises you have found its burrow and when the last side of the Rubik’s Cube slips into place, you can shoot the fox between the eyes or through the heart,” her ladyship’s eyes flashed as she described this scenario with great animation.
“Why me then?”
“Because you live at 11-04,” came the vague response as she swiftly tugged the veil down from the hat and under her chin.
“Eh?” Jun exclaimed amidst sounds of the bathroom door opening.
“Oh, looks like the pig person is done. We shall continue this when next we meet. Interrogate him about the trilogy ring and milk your son for the truth. Remember what Mr Miyazono said - everything is connected on the Rubik’s cube even the bits about what happened to your son while you away.”
“Sensei, you can’t go like this!” Jun blurted out, unconsciously letting slip of his own fear of that which he would discover.
“Ah, but I can,” she purred melodically, rising with her sheathed blade in her cane.
“At least grill Leader with me!” offered the man.
“Only if he’s grilled in half over a spit and his organs are still pulsating,” Lady Strange cackled before snapping her fingers.
“Sensei, you can’t leave me hanging! You wouldn’t dare!”
“But, you see, I do dare,” was her ladyship’s parting shot as she disappeared into a quick burst of midnight blue-black flames.
[More therapy sessions and commentary to come eventually.]
Reply
Leave a comment