The elevator chimed, and its doors slid open.
Barely ten steps down the narrow passage stood a heavily secured gate. Seijirou Kikuoka held the card in his right hand to the sensor beside it. A quiet electronic tone sounded, the metal barrier lowered, and he walked through without breaking stride.
Unlike the floors below, this one was so austere that it did not even have windows. Smooth white panels covered the walls of the sealed corridor, which ran straight ahead before branching left and right. Kikuoka took the left path at an easy pace. Only a handful of masked nurses in white uniforms moved through the soft light.
The deeper he went, the farther away the outside world seemed.
There was no unnecessary noise here.
A sliding door stood in the right wall. Beside it, a metal panel held a plaque marked Special Measurement Room. Kikuoka took out his card again and swiped it through the slot.
At the end of another long corridor, he entered a control room packed with monitor-lined consoles. A massive observation window occupied the wall ahead, but the glass was black, concealing whatever lay beyond it.
"She's already been moved to the sterile room?"
Kikuoka stepped beside the researcher. Streams of data from the surrounding displays reflected in his glasses.
"After holding on for all these years... it couldn't have been easy."
"There is still hope."
Dr. Nagashima's face remained unreadable.
He approached the dark window and worked the controls beneath it. A faint vibration passed through the wall as the glass lost its tint and became transparent.
The room beyond was barely larger than a solitary cell. Machines crowded the cramped space, leaving just enough room for a bed. Their cables and metal frames surrounded the only person inside like a trap.
Kikuoka moved closer and looked through the glass.
A small figure lay half-sunken into a blue mattress, a white sheet drawn up to her chest. Her exposed shoulders were painfully thin. Tubes and needles ran into her throat and both arms, while a helmet-like machine enclosed almost her entire head. Only her narrow lips and pointed chin remained visible.
She was alive.
The advanced medical equipment surrounding her reported every vital sign in precise numbers.
"I remember when she could still walk," Kikuoka said. "She was frail enough that a strong breeze might have knocked her over, but at least she was still on her feet. Now she's slowly withering away."
He watched the girl through the glass.
"She grew older, but her body never stopped looking so thin. The illness never gave her a moment's peace. There is nothing romantic about watching something beautiful decay."
"AIDS itself is only a disease," Nagashima replied evenly. "Medicine has advanced. It isn't the hopeless illness people still imagine it to be. A cure is possible."
"Of course. She has fought the virus since the day she was born and survived the most dangerous years. But disease isn't the only thing she has had to fight."
Kikuoka gave a small shrug.
"Misfortune took her entire family. That alone would be enough to break most people."
"She is not that weak."
Silence held for several seconds.
"Unfortunately, she has reached her limit," Kikuoka said.
Nagashima finally turned toward him.
"This is not the medicine of twenty years ago. The field is advancing faster than ever. Everything I have learned in more than two decades tells me that I can cure her."
"You are the expert on the virus inside her, Professor Nagashima. I believe you can heal her body."
Kikuoka's voice did not soften.
"But can you heal her soul?"
Nagashima froze.
"That is why I say the disease isn't what truly killed this girl. It was bad luck."
Kikuoka placed one hand against the glass.
"Yuuki was delivered by emergency cesarean section after a difficult labor. Her mother lost so much blood that she needed a transfusion, and contaminated blood infected them both. Her father and sister were found to have contracted HIV within the following month. One stroke of misfortune claimed the entire family."
He recited the history of her life with detached precision.
"Her weakened immune system left her vulnerable to infections most people could fight off without difficulty. Then came one opportunistic infection after another. Pneumocystis pneumonia. Esophageal candidiasis. Each one made the others worse."
Kikuoka glanced back at the doctor.
"By then, ordinary life was already impossible for her. Even you had run out of options, hadn't you, Dr. Nagashima?"
A low sound of agreement caught in Nagashima's throat.
"That was when you came to me, Mr. Kikuoka. You brought the Medicuboid and an offer of medical support I couldn't refuse."
His voice had gone distant.
"I had nowhere else to turn. Yuuki's family died one after another, and her relatives couldn't keep paying her rising medical bills forever. I was her attending physician. I wanted to do everything I could, but my effort alone wasn't enough."
Nagashima looked through the glass at the girl on the bed.
"The hospital was pressuring me too. They kept trying to make me understand that this is sometimes what being a doctor means. We cannot save everyone. We are only human."
A humorless laugh escaped him.
"But I knew she could survive. Give me enough time and the right resources, and I could save her. Everyone and everything around me was telling me to stop. To stand by and watch her die. To become the one who killed her."
"One critically ill patient can ruin a family. She can also ruin a respected physician like you," Kikuoka said. "You begged for money wherever you could find it, then turned to loan sharks. In the end, you dragged yourself down with her. A perfect picture of medical devotion."
His gaze remained on the monitors.
"I remember our first meeting. Despair seemed to follow you into the room."
"Because the answer was right in front of me, and I still couldn't reach it," Nagashima said quietly. "If there had truly been no hope, I could have accepted that. But there was hope. Her life was within reach."
"How kind of you."
Kikuoka smiled, though Nagashima could not tell whether it was praise or mockery.
"Still, those actions are what brought you to my attention. Your efforts did earn a reward."
"You call this a reward?"
Nagashima let out a bitter laugh.
"Now it really does feel as if fate has decided she must die."
"No one could have predicted this. That is why we call it misfortune."
"And you think none of it is your fault? You brought that machine here."
"Don't twist my help into malice. You aren't a child. You understood the exchange when you accepted it."
Kikuoka's tone remained calm.
"I covered every expense and provided the best equipment available. In return, she became an experimental patient for the Medicuboid. I never deceived you about that."
His eyes returned to Yuuki.
"None of us imagined that she would cross that threshold and awaken her Fluctlight."
Nagashima's expression darkened.
"Do you remember your reaction when I first showed you the Medicuboid? As a doctor, you praised it instinctively. You said FullDive technology had been wasted when it was developed solely for entertainment."
Kikuoka began counting off its virtues as though repeating an old presentation.
"It offered an entirely new medical environment. For patients with visual or hearing impairments, it was a miracle. Even if the eyes or optic nerves were damaged, the machine could send images directly into the brain. The same applied to hearing. Someone born without ever knowing light or sound could finally experience both."
"It could suppress physical sensation as well. Electromagnetic pulses temporarily blocked nerve signals, avoiding the risks that came with anesthetic drugs. Even people unable to move their bodies could use VR to rejoin society. A Medicuboid built for those purposes was a dream machine."
Kikuoka looked at him and smiled.
"Those were your words."
"Did it never bring you any comfort at all?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Palliative care."
Nagashima said nothing.
"You always believed you could save her, but no matter how strong she was, she was still a young girl. Her entire life had become treatment. She fought her fate alone in hospital rooms. Your skill could not erase what she had already lost."
Kikuoka adjusted his glasses.
"You were emotional enough to nearly destroy yourself for her, but you were still a rational physician. You knew the odds favored her dying."
Nagashima remained silent.
"If everything reached the point of no return, the virtual world could at least give her the freedom and happiness reality had denied her. That was why you accepted the Medicuboid. You accepted it as end-of-life care too."
"Yes," Nagashima said faintly.
"We both began with hope. We both did everything we could. Misfortune simply refused to release her."
For a moment, Kikuoka almost sounded sincere.
"Beautifully put. It doesn't change the fact that you harmed her."
"Oh?"
Nagashima's voice hardened.
"You wanted stable data over a long testing period, so she was placed in a clean-room environment free not only of dust, but of bacteria and viruses. She became more isolated than ever. You moved her into this sunless facility and kept her connected almost twenty-four hours a day for three years."
He turned on Kikuoka.
"You collected your data and enjoyed every moment of it. When she awakened that damned thing, you laughed, didn't you?"
"We each received what we needed. Nothing more. There is no right or wrong in that."
Kikuoka's face was blank.
"And you succeeded, didn't you? You are about to eradicate the disease that has tormented her all her life."
"She is still going to die!" Nagashima roared. "This time, something I don't even understand is killing her, and I have no chance to save her at all."
"So to you, a Fluctlight awakening is no different from AIDS?"
Kikuoka laughed.
"It is a genuine treasure. I thought you were an intelligent man."
"A treasure? Makoto Kaizuka had that treasure. He died. Shouichi Shinkawa gained it after being tortured until he nearly broke."
Kikuoka shook his head.
"I didn't expect such a pedestrian argument from a man of your standing."
"Yuuki's brain is aging at an impossible rate. That is all I see. She was supposed to begin a new life, and you planted another disease inside her. This one truly is terminal."
"It is an incomparable privilege. I am sorry you cannot understand that."
Kikuoka's voice dropped.
"I had hoped we could discuss this properly, but there is no point pretending we remain friends. I have given you both more time and leniency than I should have. We have reached the final stage, Dr. Nagashima. I expect you to accept what comes next."
"You say that as if I have a choice."
"Good. And why are you so certain she will hate what I intend to do? She may welcome it."
Kikuoka smiled again.
"What are you planning?"
"She had a friend once, someone whose fate mirrored her own. They understood each other without explanation and could offer the comfort no one else could. That friend died."
He paused.
"Wouldn't another encounter draw something new out of her? I arranged the meeting. I gave her a chance to settle what was left unresolved."
Kikuoka removed his glasses and polished them with a handkerchief.
"There has only been one clash between Fluctlight bearers. We missed it. A second may happen very soon. Perhaps it will astonish you. Perhaps it will finally show you what I have been searching for."
"Perhaps," Nagashima said wearily. "Her treatment is about to begin. Please leave."
"Then I won't disturb you any longer."
Kikuoka put his glasses back on and turned away.
"One more thing, Mr. Nagashima. Once this is over, our contract ends. We will clear your remaining debts, and you can finally live for yourself. Put all of this unpleasantness behind you. Your daughter is studying abroad, isn't she? Go join her. Enjoy what remains of your life. Nothing here will concern you anymore."
Nagashima listened to his footsteps fade. Then he began to laugh.
Kikuoka still did not understand him.
Perhaps there was no reason for someone like Kikuoka to understand someone like him.
Nagashima did have a daughter who had gone abroad.
She had been dead for years.
She died on the same day he took responsibility for Yuuki's treatment.
He remembered himself at Yuuki's bedside, hollow and barely aware of his surroundings. He had forced himself to ask about her condition, but his attention slipped. Before he knew it, he was crying.
As a young man, Nagashima had wanted to become one of the finest doctors in the country. He devoted most of his life to medicine. He walked hospital corridors and saved lives, certain that his work gave his existence meaning. The hospital became his home, and his patients became his family.
Then one day, he looked at a hospital bed and realized his wife was lying in it.
At the moment when a surgeon needed absolute clarity, he lost the ability to make a decision. He could only stare at her face. The wrinkles and gray hair looked nothing like the woman in his memory. It was as though time had stolen several years from her while he was not looking.
He was no longer young.
Neither was she.
Her disease was already in its final stage. He should have seen it. What he could not understand was how he had failed to notice.
She was his wife. For more than a decade, he had gone home and eaten the meals she prepared. For more than a decade, they had slept beside each other and listened to each other breathe.
How could he have been so close and seen nothing?
He failed to save her.
Nagashima stumbled out of the operating room in a bloodstained gown, too numb to react when his daughter slapped him. She had grown as tall as he was without him noticing that either. Soon afterward, she left for another country and abandoned him to an empty house.
He wanted to repair what remained between them. He could reconnect severed limbs, but he could not mend his own family.
Then the call came from overseas and took away that chance forever.
No amount of skill could bring back the dead.
Lost in grief and self-doubt, he broke down in front of Yuuki. The girl stared at him in surprise. Then the patient reached out, patted him, and tried to offer comfort.
"Don't cry," she whispered. "Hang in there. You're going to be okay."
Her voice was so gentle that Nagashima pulled her into his arms, careful not to hurt her.
It felt as though heaven had given him one more chance. His hands had to be meant for saving, not destroying. The youth and the life he had poured into medicine had to mean something.
He argued with the hospital director. He signed papers with loan sharks. He sold his home and his car. His colleagues thought he had lost his mind, willing to ruin himself for a patient he barely knew.
Now Nagashima sank down beneath the observation window, tears streaming over his face.
He had grown old. There would be no second chance to make up for everything he had missed. He would never meet another patient who trusted him so completely, then turned around and tried to support him.
He wanted to save Yuuki, and he wanted to save himself.
It seemed he could do neither.
In the end, his hands had failed to hold on to hope.
His sobs echoed through the empty control room. On the display before him, the screen Yuuki used to communicate with the outside world, two words blinked alone.
Don't cry.
In another part of the floor, Shouichi Shinkawa stood with his arms crossed against the cold wall. Bloodshot veins framed the gold in his lowered eyes. He should not have heard or seen anything. The facility was completely soundproof and protected by the highest level of security.
Yet he raised his head and gave a low, irritated grunt.