Hideaki Sena.

Parasite Eve Sephirotto.

PROLOGUE.

Everything vanished suddenly before her eyes.

Kiyomi Nagashima had no idea what had happened. The houses she pa.s.sed every day were reflected in the windshield only a moment ago. Just ahead, the street took its familiar slope downward and bore slightly to the right, where a traffic light had just changed to yellow, before vision failed her.

Kiyomi tried to blink, but her sight did not return. No matter how much effort she put into it, nothing appeared. They had all gone away: the white sedan driving in front of her; the tail light of the bus waiting at its stop; the cl.u.s.ter of high school girls hastening along the sidewalk. Kiyomi looked down in her confusion to check the steering wheel. Then, she was truly shocked. The steering wheel was gone. In fact, she did not even know where her hands were. She could not feel the seat belt around her waist nor her foot on the gas pedal, for neither was where it was supposed to be. There was only darkness fanning out, continuing endlessly in all directions.

There was a churning around her, and she was floating in a warm, viscous liquid. She was naked. Her clothes had vanished without her ever noticing.

That dream again.

That dream she had once a year, on Christmas Eve, in which she felt herself writhing in some pitch-dark world without beginning or end. She'd always had that strange dream. This was the dream, and she was now entering into it again. But she did not know why she was having it just now. Like the stars' orbits, the dream always came to her with regulated precision. She never dreamt it on any other night but Christmas and had certainly never entered into it while she was awake.

Her body was changing profoundly. She lost all feeling in her arms and legs. Maybe they'd actually vanished. Head, torso, and hips gone, a body long and narrow like a worm's, she felt herself to be. Kiyomi shook and slithered ahead through the slightly sticky blackness.

What is this place? It was a question she had asked many times before. Her body seemed to recall this place, yet no matter how much she tried, Kiyomi herself could not remember. Once, in some far-off place, Kiyomi was just like this, not understanding anything, just squirming and swimming. That much was true. Had it been yesterday, a recent year, or in the more distant past? She could not tell. To begin with, it was not clear that time flowed in this vast gloom.

Kiyomi felt her body changing again. Something small divided slowly deep inside of her. At the same time, she felt a gentle constriction in her very center, and the ends of her body flowed quietly in opposing directions.

She was becoming two.

It was a strangely tranquil feeling. Time seemed to pa.s.s so gently, slowly.

Where am I? When is this? What am I? Such mundane concerns no longer mattered.

She wanted only to remain floating like this in the dark.

She gradually split in half. There was no pain. Rather, she was insensate and that was bliss. Everything sedate. No turmoil. Dividing like it was natural. Calm. All was calm.

Kiyomi let all her nerves relax as she slowly surrendered herself to the flow...

Her vision was then completely restored just as unexpectedly as it had abandoned her.

She clearly saw now her own two hands grasping the steering wheel. Kiyomi blinked, then looked straight ahead.

She was heading straight into a telephone pole.

PART ONE.

DEVELOPMENT.

1.

Until the phone rang that morning, it was the beginning of an average, uneventful day for Toshiaki Nagashima.

At 8:20 amToshiaki parked his car at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The lot was still more than half empty. Briefcase in hand, he got out of the car and locked it. He looked up indifferently at the Pharmaceutical Center. Rising six stories high, the building was steeped in somber gray beneath the cloudy sky.

In the entrance lobby, Toshiaki changed into a pair of sterile sandals, then took the elevator to the fifth floor. Double doors opened to reveal a corridor extending in both directions. Far back to the right was the lecture hall where he taught his course on Advanced Methods in Biofunctional Sciences. It appeared that most of the students and other staff members had yet to arrive, for not a sound could be heard. However, late mornings were not unusual. The other organic science courses were quite different, entire staffs a.s.sembling and seminars beginning at 8 am. Toshiaki's course was an exception in that they wasted no time on finding fault with their students' time management skills. Instead, he and his colleagues stressed that what mattered was for the students to conduct their experiments and present the data.

As a mere research a.s.sociate, Toshiaki made an effort to arrive by 8:30, but this was not a commitment required of him.

He opened the door to Lab 2, which housed his desk, turned on the light, and entered.

After hanging his coat, he placed his briefcase next to the bookshelf. Two chemical agent order forms had been written up and left for him on the desk by his students the night before: specifically, requests for the restriction enzymes EcoR I and BamH I. Toshiaki attached the forms together with a paper clip and pinned them to the desk-side wall.

Looking over the notes he'd made the day before, he began to prepare for his experiment. First he left the lab and keyed open a door just down the hall which led into the Cultivation Room. The room's interior was imbued with a ultraviolet sterilizing light, which he switched to an ordinary fluorescent light as he stepped inside. He took two plastic culture flasks from the incubator and placed them under a microscope. He adjusted the focus and peered through the lenses, gazing at the cells at the other end. After ensuring he was satisfied with their condition, he returned the cells to the incubator, then removed a few implements from the autoclave and placed them into the clean bench.

Toshiaki returned to his lab and removed several testing chemicals from the refrigerator. Just then, Sachiko Asakura, a second-year master's student he had been mentoring, walked in.

"Good mor-ning," she enunciated pleasantly as she entered.

Toshiaki returned the greeting like an echo.

Asakura put her coat away, revealing a figure shrouded in a white summer sweater and jeans. She had her long hair tied behind her back. Removing her sweater, she donned a white lab coat.

At nearly S'9", Asakura was quite tall for a woman, shorter than Toshiaki by only an inch or so. When she pa.s.sed by, she acknowledged him with a smile and a small bow.

Asakura's height was greatly accentuated in her long coat, and it was always pleasant to watch her stately figure as it fluttered about the lab during an experiment.

Toshiaki informed her he would be in the Cultivation Room and, with that, left the lab.

Once the clean bench preparations were complete, he removed the culture flasks and commenced his work. The cells he was using, known as NIH3T3, were relatively common.

He had, however, introduced retinoid receptor genes into the cells of one of the flasks. Two days before, he'd placed each respective cell culture into a new flask and bred them; then, the following day, he'd added a dose of beta-oxidation enzymes into the indicator solutions.

Today, he planned on collecting mitochondrial data from both cultures. His expectation was that the activity of the beta-oxidation enzymes would be higher for the cells receiving the gene transfer than for the control cells.

Just when he began the procedure, there was a phone call.

Toshiaki heard the lab phone, but his hands were occupied and Asakura was over there in the lab. He a.s.sumed she would take the call. After three rings, she seemed to have picked up the receiver; for a dozen seconds, the morning's peace was restored. But soon there was the sudden echo of rushed footsteps. Toshiaki continued working, wondering what was the hurry. Not knowing why, he chanced a glance at the wall clock. The hands indicated exactly 9:00 am.

The lab door burst open.

"Dr. Nagashima, you have an urgent phone call."

As he lifted his gaze slowly, he saw Asakura's face in the doorway, her mouth trembling slightly.

"It's from the hospital. Y-your wife. She's been in an accident."

"What?"

With that he rose.

2.

The streets around the University Hospital were congested, rows of outpatient cars spilling over onto the public roadways. Unable to suppress his mounting impatience, Toshiaki sounded his horn furiously.

The person on the phone had been a staff member from the emergency ward. Kiyomi was driving her car, he said, when for some reason she veered off a turn, crashing straight into a telephone pole. Considering how bad the wreck was, he doubted she had even tried the brakes. Kiyomi had suffered a potentially fatal impact to the head. Toshiaki asked about the location of the accident, only to discover that it was a main drag he used too. It was an easy road to speed on, but its un.o.bstructed view made it anything but dangerous.

"Dammit!" he shouted, turning the steering wheel sharply as he peeled out from the middle lane and made a U-turn. Car horns blared everywhere like pigs, but he paid no attention to them. He circled around to the hospital's back entrance, skidded into a parking area reserved for personnel, and dashed inside through a loading bay. On the way he managed to grab hold of a pa.s.sing nurse to ask where the emergency ward was.

The hallway felt endless as Toshiaki ran with all the speed he could muster, his leather shoes making skittish sounds upon the linoleum floor. His Hps shaped Kiyomi's name in a continuous murmur. He turned right at the next pa.s.sageway, nearly knocking over an elderly woman in his haste. Noticing her at the last moment, he jerked his body around to avoid her and continued hurriedly down the corridor. He refused to believe it. What had gone wrong?

Hadn't Kiyomi smiled that morning like always? Toshiaki thought of breakfast. They ate fried eggs with fish and miso soup with tofu. Not that there was anything unusual about it. It was as common a breakfast as one could imagine, a meal that implied she meant to continue their life just so. This was all too sudden.

They'd left together that morning. Kiyomi was going to the post office and took her own car. She had just gotten the car, a used compact, six months ago because she needed it for shopping. She liked cute things and was attracted to its red color.

"Excuse me, but are you Kiyomi Nagashima's family?"

Toshiaki caught his breath. An aging nurse had come running up and was peering into his face.

Toshiaki cleared his throat, swallowed, and forced out an affirmative reply.

"Kiyomi-san is in critical condition," the nurse explained. "It appears she sustained a strong impact to the head from the accident. When she was carried here, she was already hemorrhaging badly and not breathing."

Toshiaki walked past her and sat himself down on a couch in the hallway. He gazed at the nurse's face in blank amazement, unable to wrap his mind around what she had just said.

"Can you save her?"

"We've taken her straight into the operating room for emergency treatment. Her condition is serious... I would advise that you summon her relatives."

Toshiaki groaned.

Kiyomi's parents came at once. Her father managed a surgical clinic in an old housing district nearby and lived right next to his workplace, only a few miles from the University Hospital.

Both their faces were pale. Kiyomi's father askedToshiaki how she was holding up.

When he learned of her critical state, he gulped, closed his eyes, and slumped onto the couch.

Kiyomi's mother, normally the epitome of unwavering composure, was badly disheveled. Concealing her face behind a handkerchief, she showered the nearby nurse with cries of anguish. Toshiaki stared blankly at the hunched figure of his mother-in-law. He hadn't expected this.He realized with a jolt that Kiyomi's parents were human beings after all.

When he was invited to Kiyomi's house for the first time, Toshiaki's impression was of a peaceful, elegantly dressed family, smiling, sipping tea, enjoying each other's company surrounded by high-cla.s.s furniture. Her father was an easygoing and reliable man and her mother, while reserved, wore an inextinguishable smile. He had always thought them perfect, like a family one might see on TV. He could hardly picture the couple before him now as the comfortably tranquil pair they always presented themselves to be. Theirs now was a show of raw emotion.

"Calm down, "Toshiaki's father-in-law chided his wife, but he was unable to mask the trembling in his voice. She turned around with a start, her eyes wide open. Then, letting out a great sob, she leaned her body brokenly into her husband's.

It was well past noon, but they had no appet.i.te. They relocated to the waiting room at the nurse's suggestion and sat down, staring absentmindedly at the clock. The nurse came occasionally to update them. By applying ma.s.sage, they had been able to restore Kiyomi's respiratory function, but she was lapsing into gasping fits and was now on a respirator. After undergoing some CT scans, she had been moved to the Intensive Care Unit.

After thirty long minutes, a doctor finally came in. They all rose from the couch. The man wore gla.s.ses and had a certain aura of frailty. He was still young, probably in his early 30's. But his facial features were chiselled, and his eyes gentle. Toshiaki had a good feeling about him. The doctor introduced himself as a brain surgery specialist. He turned his face almost defiantly towards them and explained everything in the most sincere tone.

"Kiyomi-san was suffering from a serious cerebral hemorrhage. As soon as she was brought to our ward, we operated on her brain and attempted to resuscitate her heart and lungs. She's breathing now with the aid of a mechanical respirator; she has lost the capacity to breathe on her own. We will continue to medicate her with heart stimulants and keep a close eye on her. However, she is in a deep coma right now. It's extremely regrettable for me to have to tell you this, but she is heading toward brain death..."

Kiyomi's mother hid her face to smother the pain-stricken voice that escaped from her mouth as a strange ah.

Toshiaki did not know how to respond. Terms like "mechanical respirator," "deep coma," and "brain death" coiled into a vortex in his head. He could hardly believe that his beloved wife was being described in such terms.

Suddenly, Toshiaki sensed heat. He looked up. His body felt hot, like it was on fire.

The room hadn't gotten any warmer. It felt more like he'd ignited from within. The temperature shot up. Unsure what was going on, Toshiaki looked around him, but his vision clouded with crimson and was soon gone. He opened his mouth to scream, but only a dry rasp came from his throat. The back of his throat had vaporized. Flames would rise from his fingertips at any moment. He was going to burn, he thought. He was about to start burning.

"What will happen to her?"

The heat left him. His mother-in-law was interrogating the doctor.

"We are monitoring her brain waves, blood pressure, and heart rate. If the blood flow to her brain stops, she will start losing brain cells. We are performing CT scans to monitor the situation. After reviewing the results, we will examine whether brain death has occurred."

Toshiaki could hardly tell where the doctor's voice was coming from. He blinked. He saw a hand. It was his left hand. He tried closing and opening it and saw that his fingers were moving. They did not flare up as he half-feared.

By the time he came to his senses again, Kiyomi's mother had drawn near to her husband, and the doctor was informing them that the first brain-death examination might have to be conducted that evening. Toshiaki felt dizzy and sat on the couch, still reeling from his hallucination. There was a throbbing in his temples.

"Are you okay?" said the doctor.

Toshiaki waved him away.

Kiyomi was going to die.

He felt deceived. Everything seemed to be happening in some distant world. His entire body was still flushed. What was that anyway? He wondered amidst the banging in his head.

What on earth was that heat?