Omen

By the seventh week of his suspension, the echo had shrunk to the size of one and a half fists.

Every morning, when Suguru Geto woke and looked inward, he could feel that it was a little smaller than the day before. The change was tiny, so small that the monitor's waveform barely showed any difference, but his body knew. His cursed energy core was no longer being compressed, his breathing came more easily, and the dull, swelling ache in his chest was gone. Shoko said it was a good thing. Kiryū offered no opinion. Satoru Gojo said nothing at all.

But Suguru Geto knew the echo was not shrinking because it was disappearing. It simply no longer needed its "size" to prove that it existed.

At noon on Wednesday, while Suguru Geto was eating in the cafeteria, Kiryū walked in. He wore his dark blue uniform, with neither a monitor nor a clipboard in his hands. He sat down across from Suguru Geto, slipped a pair of disposable chopsticks out of their wrapper, snapped them apart, and laid them on the rim of his bowl.

"Mr. Geto, the Association has some questions about the results of your follow-up examination last week." Kiryū did not look at him, instead picking up food and putting it into his bowl.

"What questions?"

"The deformation of your cursed energy core dropped from 'moderate' to 'mild' last week. At the same time, the foreign body inside you shrank by approximately fifteen percent. These two changes occurred simultaneously." Kiryū picked up a piece of tofu, put it in his mouth, and chewed twice. "The Association wants to know what you did."

Suguru Geto watched him. Kiryū ate with impeccable manners, chewing each mouthful many times, as though savoring every molecule of the food. His face was expressionless, but Suguru Geto noticed that his eyes never strayed.

"I didn't do anything," Suguru Geto said.

"You did nothing, and your core's deformation repaired itself? The foreign body shrank on its own?" Kiryū set down his chopsticks, took a small notebook out of his pocket, and opened it. "According to the Association's case records from the past forty years, once a cursed energy core becomes deformed, it recovers under only three circumstances: first, the foreign body inside the core is successfully removed; second, the subject dies. The foreign body has not been removed, and you have not died. So what did you do?"

Suguru Geto fell silent for a few seconds. He considered how to answer. The truth? Or keep hiding it? Kiryū was not Sasaki. He would not be brushed off with "I didn't do anything." He would press for answers, take notes, and write every word into his report. Then the people at the Association would read it, analyze it, and draw their own conclusions.

"I've been talking to it," Suguru Geto said.

Kiryū's pen paused. "To whom?"

"The echo."

"What do you say?"

"That it can stay."

Kiryū stared at him for a few seconds. His expression did not change, but Suguru Geto noticed his fingers tighten around the pen. Then he lowered his head and wrote a few lines in his notebook. His handwriting was messy; Suguru Geto could make out only a few phrases: "initiated communication," "emotional exchange," "abnormal."

"Mr. Geto," Kiryū closed the notebook and looked up, "the Association does not recommend that you continue this communication. The echo is not human and does not possess human emotions. You believe it is 'listening' to you, but that is merely your own psychological projection. This communication will bring no benefits. It will only introduce more uncertainty."

"What uncertainty?"

"The echo may exploit your trust to further erode your cursed energy core. Just because it has shrunk now does not mean it will not grow again." Kiryū stood and laid his chopsticks across his bowl, which was still half full of rice. "The Association recommends that you stop initiating communication. Regard the echo as a foreign body that requires monitoring, not as something you can communicate with."

He left. His footsteps echoed through the empty cafeteria, growing more distant until they disappeared at the end of the corridor.

Suguru Geto sat there, looking at the half-finished bowl of rice across from him. Perhaps Kiryū thought the meal was not worth finishing. Perhaps sitting with Suguru Geto had already spoiled his appetite.

Echo, Suguru Geto said silently, you're not a foreign body.

The echo pulsed once.

You're not something that needs to be monitored, either.

It pulsed again.

Before dawn on Thursday, Suguru Geto was jolted awake by a splitting headache. He curled up on the bed, both hands pressed to his temples.

Then he saw the images.

More than a dozen flooded in at once. He saw a stretch of ruins, a city he did not recognize. Buildings collapsed, streets split open, the sky was black, and the ground was red. He saw someone kneeling in the middle of the ruins, long hair trailing to the ground. The figure raised his head, his face obscured by shadows, but Suguru Geto knew it was him.

The image changed. He saw a door. An iron door, very thick, with iron bars welded across its surface and paper talismans affixed to them. The door opened. Beyond it lay not a room, but a void, black and bottomless. Things crawled out of the void. Translucent things with no fixed shape. They emerged slowly, but there were so many of them, packed together in a dense mass.

The image changed again. He saw Satoru Gojo. Not the seventeen-year-old Satoru Gojo, nor the twenty-seven-year-old Satoru Gojo, but a Satoru Gojo he had never seen before. He still had his Six Eyes, but there was no light left in them. He stood in a field of snow with nothing around him, only snow and sky. He opened his mouth and said something. There was no sound, but Suguru Geto read his lips.

"Geto, where are you?"

The images vanished. So did the headache. Suguru Geto lay on the bed, gasping for breath. Sweat had soaked his hair, plastering it to his forehead. The echo was pulsing rapidly, as fast as though it were running.

Echo, Suguru Geto said silently, what were those images?

The echo did not answer. But it pulsed faster.

Was that the future? The past? Or something else?

The echo's pulses slowed. Little by little, they returned to their usual rhythm. Neither fast nor slow, as though saying, I don't know.

Suguru Geto sat up, got dressed, and left his dorm room. The corridor lights were still on. He walked to Satoru Gojo's door, stood there for a few seconds, then knocked.

No one answered.

He knocked three more times. Still no sound. He pushed the door. It was unlocked and swung open. The room was empty. The bedding was neatly folded, a half-eaten bag of chips sat on the desk, and a black jacket hung over the chair. Satoru Gojo was not there.

Suguru Geto closed the door and returned to his own room. He sat on the bed and looked out the window. Dawn had not yet broken. He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the echo's pulses.

"Echo," he said, "were those images you just showed me things you're afraid of?"

The echo pulsed once.

"Are you afraid Satoru Gojo won't be able to find me?"

It pulsed again.

"Are you afraid that door will open?"

The echo's pulses quickened. So fast that it seemed to be saying, Yes.

Suguru Geto closed his eyes. He remembered the line in Nakajima's journal: "It isn't trying to hurt me. It just doesn't know how to exist." The echo was not trying to hurt him. It was simply afraid. Afraid that the things in those images would become reality.

"Echo," he said, "whatever those images are, I won't let them happen."

The echo's pulses slowed.

"I'll be here. I won't disappear. I won't let that door open."

The echo's pulses slowed further, until they almost matched his heartbeat.

"So you don't have to be afraid."

The echo did not answer. But Suguru Geto felt its emotions, as though it were saying, I'm not afraid anymore.

Outside the window, the moon sank, and the sky turned from black to deep blue.

He closed his eyes. Before his consciousness sank into darkness, a question occurred to him: was the person kneeling in the middle of the ruins really him? Or was the echo borrowing his image to express something it could not otherwise convey? He did not know. But he knew that, from this day forward, he could no longer regard the echo as merely a mirror.

Echo, he said silently, are you my friend?

The echo pulsed once. He did not know what it meant.