Everything Becomes F: The Perfect Insider
Chapter Ten Aster-Colored Truth
We finally meet, Saikawa-sensei.
Hello, Dr. Magata Shiki.
Sensei, what are you saying?
Nishinosono-san is also there, is she not?
I'd like to see her.
Same here.
Shall we go to where you are now?
No, this is a special occasion,
so let us meet somewhere special.
Don't stare at me so much.
I'm just trying to copy your movements.
Sensei...
I understand you want to see Dr. Magata,
but wake up.
We saw her body.
"Who are you?"
Huh?
When you tested this device with Shimada-san, you were asked that, right?
I've heard that question before.
Because someone is pretending to be the doctor.
How do you feel?
Like I'm about to embark on a journey through space.
Have a wonderful trip, then.
They're both inside.
I don't really understand,
but we can hear the killer's voice now, right?
Yes...
What about video?
Impossible.
It's only visible within their minds.
Chief, once we identify their access point, we'll head in immediately.
The killer says they'll only talk to those two.
Not happening. We're the police.
But isn't it a bad idea to tick the killer off?
That's a vicious murderer.
For now, we'll wait until we get a confession.
I'll give the word.
Sensei, can you see it?
Yeah.
I can.
The sea is beautiful.
The sea?
Nishinosono-san...
We meet again, yes?
I'll start by asking a question.
Did you factor in that I'd solve your problem?
Nishinosono-san,
did you tell Saikawa-sensei about seven being lonely?
Yes.
And "B" and "D"?
I didn't tell him that.
I didn't know what they meant.
I understand.
If I'd heard that, I probably would've figured it out an hour earlier.
Such confidence.
Wait.
You're just pretending to be Dr. Magata, right?
Who are you, really?
Calm down, Nishinosono-kun.
I believe you'll tell us the truth now.
Very well.
I shall answer any questions you have,
since the game has ended.
You're the one who killed those two people, aren't you?
Correct.
Where's the access point?
I don't know yet... Please calm down.
All right, where to begin?
Wherever you like.
It would have to be this, then.
The biggest mystery in this case.
"Everything becomes F."
"F" is "fifteen."
In your room, the dictionaries and literature collections
all stopped at volume number fifteen.
I'm impressed you noticed that.
It wasn't a coincidence, was it?
Your daughter...
Daughter?
...was always taught by you.
And you had no need to teach her numbers higher than fifteen.
Because humans only live for fifteen years.
In their fifteenth year, they turn fourteen, and kill their parents.
Just as you did when you were fourteen.
No way.
Sensei, this isn't Dr. Magata we're talking to!
Whom was it you met at the lab?
Dr. Magata Shiki.
She didn't look twenty-nine.
That's what you said.
That's because she spent fifteen years in her lab.
I don't think that's the case.
You didn't meet Dr. Magata Shiki.
It was her daughter.
That's impossible...
Your daughter was meant to do as you told her.
Kill you and take your identity.
You'd planned that for years.
You made her wear gloves all the time,
so she wouldn't leave fingerprints.
The reason Magata Shiki began to publicly
appear so much lately was to make the world believe she was you.
Nishinosono-kun, that was also true of when you met her.
No way.
The whole thing had been planned out.
She would kill her mother and go outside.
And then kill her father.
That's what her mother taught her to do so many times.
She never thought about if it was right or wrong.
She'd always believed that was the only way humans lived.
And then, it happened.
When your daughter became F. That is, fifteen.
You haven't explained everything.
Also, Sensei, there are other F's.
"Fourteen," "five," "four."
Hexadecimals, Nishinosono-kun.
The variable in Red Magic
that keeps track of time is two-bytes long.
In hexadecimal, it can hold up to four digits.
Sixteen to the fourth power...
65,536.
Taking into account that it starts at zero, it's actually one less.
65,535.
What does that have to do with F?
In the world of hexadecimals, a single digit can go up to fifteen.
In decimals, the digit after nine,
or ten, becomes a two-digit number.
In the same way,
in hexadecimals, the number after fifteen
becomes a two-digit number.
Thus, numbers greater than nine should still be treated as a single digit.
So, in hexadecimals, the decimal ten is "A,"
and eleven is "B."
Then, what is "F" in hexadecimals?
Fifteen... Everything becomes fifteen.
The maximum decimal value of 65,535
becomes, in hexadecimals, FFFF...
In other words, the largest number Red Magic can count to.
Right!
FFFF is the maximum number it can count to in hexadecimals, right?
Yes.
It counts from 0000,
all the way to FFFF.
That was the timer.
You've been planning this
for a minimum of seven years.
Yes.
And that day,
the counter reached its limit and executed its programming.
Yes. Everything became F.
You see, Saikawa-sensei,
I am a Trojan horse.
I understand.
What does she mean, Sensei?
Nishinosono-kun, what's a Trojan horse?
A program that appears useful,
but actually contains destructive code.
But when it destroys things, it doesn't act irregularly, like a virus.
It destroys things, like a virus, while acting normally...
That's about right.
Red Magic didn't suddenly start acting up.
A normal program that had been part of Red Magic from the start
began acting just like a virus would.
In other words, everything was planned from the beginning.
Back then, just as it was programmed to do,
Red Magic kept that yellow door from opening.
And then, at the appointed hour,
you opened that door.
The Trojan horse here was Red Magic's main system itself.
Put another way, its designer, Dr. Magata Shiki...
You.
Did you see video of me leaving the room?
Unfortunately, no.
Because you set the lab clocks back by one minute.
I am impressed that you noticed.
Though it seemed to take you some time.
There's one thing I'm wondering about.
Why didn't you erase all traces of the Trojan horse?
Because I wanted someone to notice.
Someone to notice like you,
Saikawa-sensei.
Who are you?
That's the third time for that question, isn't it?
Answer the question, please.
I am Magata Shiki.
No, you are not!
Find the data for the access point now!
Wait.
Let's listen to her a little more.
How long will you pretend to be Dr. Magata?
You killed your parents.
Your mother, the doctor, and your father, Director Shindo.
The doctor and the director were her parents?
No way!
Dr. Magata killed her parents because they opposed
her giving birth to the child she conceived with Director Shindo.
Yes, that's right.
I could not accept it.
Because no one had told me it was wrong.
"A doll did it."
That's what you said.
You meant a body.
In other words,
you, the only one of the multiple personalities with a body.
Who knows? I couldn't say.
Enough!
Why did you kill Dr. Magata?!
That is something permitted to all living creatures, Nishinosono-san.
Permitted?
What are you talking about?
A daughter killing her mother is a terrible thing!
Don't cry, Nishinosono-san.
That is the destiny
under which all creatures are born.
A flower wilts for the sake of a new seed.
And a mother dies for the sake of a new life.
This is not a sad thing.
Shut up!
How can losing your family not be a sad thing?!
It isn't okay to kill your parents.
But she wanted to give birth to you, anyway.
And she raised you in that room.
That's why that room needed a robot that
could open and close doors.
Because you locked the door from inside.
And there were two chairs in the room for you,
and blocks, and stuffed animals.
No one went in or out of that room,
but the killer was inside.
And it was only possible because you were in that room for fifteen years.
The doctor told you to kill her.
That was her attempt at purifying herself, after killing her own parents.
That isn't true, Nishinosono-san.
What isn't true?!
Nishinosono-kun,
I thought the same thing at first.
But the truth is different.
What do you mean?
Then, I'll ask you...
Why did she, the doctor's daughter, kill her mother?
Because the doctor told her to.
So why did she cut off her limbs?
The doctor never told her to do that.
Because she needed
the doctor's hands to leave the room.
And her legs? Did she need those, too?
Well...
Your reasoning isn't logical.
It's very emotional.
The killer wasn't the doctor's daughter.
It was the person right in front of us,
Dr. Magata Shiki.
Then the body we saw?
The doctor's daughter.
She was going to kill her parents.
Until she met you.
Until you asked her that question.
"Who are you?"
That question threw her off.
Because it would reveal she wasn't Magata Shiki?
No.
From that moment, she began to question it.
Exactly who she was.
Your reasoning is very emotional.
Yes, I'll admit the contradiction.
That's not fair.
That is why she couldn't have killed her parents.
"That is why"? What do you mean?
In other words, she was a normal girl.
She wasn't a genius, like the doctor.
So she couldn't understand the doctor's reasons.
"Who am I?"
Your question caused her to hesitate.
And she wanted to be free.
That's why she wanted to
kill the doctor and go outside.
That isn't the only way to be free.
What do you mean?
For instance, I'm free right now.
I've been released from my body, which is simply a vessel,
and am floating, without purpose.
Freedom itself.
I would be happy staying here forever, never going back to my original world.
I don't understand what you're saying.
Is that really true, Nishinosono-san?
There must have been a time when you wanted the same thing...
To be released from everything that bound you,
to be free.
But you did not do that.
Because Saikawa-sensei was with you.
She, herself, chose death?
I don't know.
Regardless,
you cut off her limbs, to make it appear that you had died.
The hands, so the fingerprints wouldn't identify her.
And then the legs, so your actions wouldn't be obvious.
And you went from the elevator to the roof,
waited for Director Shindo to arrive, and killed him.
He turned his back on you
because he loved you. Isn't that right?
Yes, that is correct.
Then afterward, where did you disappear to?
She's right in front of us.
She's not the doctor.
And this isn't reality!
In the physical sense,
she's accessing this system from a terminal somewhere.
Isn't that right, Dr. Magata Shiki?
Splendid, Saikawa-sensei.
But I am currently disinterested in the material world.
I want to stay here a bit longer,
Saikawa-sensei.
Will you come with me?
Sensei! Sensei!
What's going on? She disappeared?
Sensei! Don't leave me alone!
Sensei!
Moe-chan!
Where's the girl?
We don't know.
She's probably using a very complicated route.
Search the lab!
Strengthen security at the entrance and on the roof.
Right away!
Okay!
Where are we?
Don't ask.
What's important is where it is to you.
I wonder if we see the same thing.
I don't know.
We are free here.
Yes.
Now, what shall we do?
Anything.
There are no rules to bind us here.
I want to see the ocean. It's been a while.
That was the message you left.
In that moment, what were you feeling?
Which moment?
When you came out onto the roof of the lab.
Nothing, really.
Is that true?
It had been fifteen years since you'd seen the sky.
You're quite sentimental, are you not?
That is your weakness.
Perhaps.
Saikawa-sensei, can you keep up with me?
We're inside the sea, right?
I said something stupid again.
Saikawa-sensei, what are you thinking now?
I want a cigarette.
Why are you thinking that?
Because you can't smoke underwater.
Wonderful...
I am glad I met you.
Me, too.
Someday, I shall come to you, for certain.
Remember that.
Can we shake hands here?
Who are you?
Saikawa-sensei? Saikawa-sensei!
Sensei!
I'm so glad...
The autopsy showed no signs of past pregnancy.
No way.
Then it really was...
But where did the doctor go?
We're searching the lab now.
There's a chance she went outside.
That's impossible, as long as the system here is working.
During that time, it wasn't.
Yamane-san?
Yeah...
For some reason, it suddenly switched to Unix, and the lights went off.
It wasn't "for some reason."
The doctor changed it.
But you'd need a ship to leave the island.
A ship...
Setsuko!
What is it, Sohei-kun?
You passed by our students
when you arrived, right?
Yes.
You said there were two women, right?
That's right.
One was Chinese?
That's true.
She couldn't speak properly.
And the other?
Um... She had a purple dress, and...
Kunieda-kun would die before she wore a dress.
Why didn't I realize it?
I'm a fool.
Sensei...
There never was a bag.
There's no such person as Magata Miki.
She was Dr. Magata Shiki.
Magata Shiki is a genius.
It's impossible for us to match her.
It was never even a contest.
I missed you!
Me, too.
You're going to kill me now, right?
Don't cry.
I want to save you.
I wasn't going to give you this, but...
I'm really glad I've lived this long.
Farewell, Uncle.
I loved you, Uncle.