Until now, such men had pa.s.sed through Her life as mediators...mere stepping stones to keep Her alive until today. Those before him were all so foolish, though they never doubted their own greatness. Scoffing at them, She'd remained outwardly silent.

But She would hide no longer.

She'd devised many plans for Her happiness over the long years. While pretending to yield to these men, She had positioned strength at crucial points, someday to manipulate their very cores. The men did not know this.

The first man ever to know what I have done and who I am - probably this Toshiaki Nagashima will be the one. She thought this.

She remembered Toshiaki's eyes and felt warm all over, felt a quickening of all Her functions. This feeling... She didn't remember ever experiencing it until She met him. She did not know what it was. But the woman called Kiyomi tasted it when she was loved by Toshiaki, this She knew.

And now She Herself was feeling it.

Did this mean: She and Toshiaki loved each other?

Maybe. But She could not explain why She had become capable of this sensation.

But this is evolution, She told Herself.

This was simply Her way of acclimating to Her new environment. She had evolved, once again.

Toshiaki had to be used, further. He would grant Her every desire. From now on, it will no longer just be creating copies of Herself...

He will give Me a daughter.

She multiplied fully into the s.p.a.ce around Her. There was ample s.p.a.ce.

Doing this brought Her great delight. However, this alone would not satisfy Her.

Everything up to this point had been mere preparation.

As She continued to multiply, She occasionally had a dream. It was the life

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It was fun rummaging around in Kiyomi's being. For it meant also to remember Toshiaki.

Quietly, but steadily, She replicated Herself, as She dreamed...

PART TWO.

SYMBIOSIS.

1.

Kiyomi Kataoka loved her birthday.

Whenever the day came near, everything from school to streets took on a new vitality.

She was greeted with joyful laughter and song wherever she went. She loved all of it. Not everyone was excited for her sake, of course, but she liked to think that all the people in the world were enjoying themselves on her account. It was the time of year when shopping districts resounded with the familiar lilt of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Jingle Bells," and smiles graced the faces of all who walked the streets. It was truly the best day of the year.

When Christmas approached, she and her parents decorated a real tree in their living room. From the time she was in kindergarten, they had spruced up the house together every year. Kiyomi always had the honor of plugging in the cord to set the tree aglow, but only after making sure the room was as dark as possible. The large tree would scintillate with blues and reds and, as she watched the lights reflecting off the wallpaper, Kiyomi thought of how wonderful it was to have a birthday on Christmas Eve.

Dining grade school, she invited her friends every year to her birthday party. Her mother did most of the cooking, but Kiyomi also helped out with the smaller things. Cooking with her mother was always fun. After the food was ready, her friends came over and wished her a happy birthday as they walked through the door.

They all arrived with presents in hand and Kiyomi delighted in seeing them pile up under the Christmas tree. They then gathered around the large dining table to eat, play games, and sing songs. Kiyomi usually played "Silent Night," which she had learned from her piano teacher. After her friends returned home, she received presents from her parents, usually books and stuffed animals.

"You know, Kiyomi, you were born exactly at this time," said her mother as she glanced at the clock on Kiyomi's tenth birthday.

Her father was sitting on the couch, smoking a pipe. He looked at Kiyomi and smiled warmly. He said: "It was nine o'clock when I heard your cry. It was such a lovely cry...full of strength.

And your mother was crying too, from joy. It was a cloudless night. At midnight, I looked out the window; the hospital was on a hilltop, so the entire town was spread out below me. I could see the stars so clearly. That's when I decided to name you Kiyomi."

The characters of her name meant "holy" and "beauty."

Stuffed animals clutched at her side, Kiyomi waited for Santa Claus to come. But eventually she succ.u.mbed to sleep.

She had a dream that night, as she did every year.

A dark place. A low rumbling, resounding without pause. A stream slowly enveloped her body, clouding her perception of up and down. She surrendered to the current, feeling herself floating upon it. Enveloped by a womb-like warmth, time could not be felt here.

Kiyomi tried to imagine where she might be; she felt mysteriously at home. I've been here long ago. But she could not remember where "here" was. All was dark, and there was nothing, in this dream that was like a dream...

When she opened her eyes the next morning, a pile of Christmas presents, rivaling the amount she had received for her birthday the night before, was stacked neatly at her bedside.

Kiyomi tried asking her parents once.

"Does Santa make you dream?" Her parents exchanged confused glances, but listened intently as she told them everything about the dream. When she expressed a feeling of having been there before, they groaned with surprise and admiration. She asked them, "You know the place?"

Her mother smiled gently and embraced her.

"I think I do, sweetie. You were probably in my tummy."

"In your tummy?"

"That's where you came from. I'm sure you were just remembering the feeling of being inside me."

"Is it dark in there?"

"Yes, it's dark and warm, and it feels like you're floating in a bath." "Hm..."

"I've never had that kind of dream. You must have a good memory."

"Don't other people dream about it too?"

"I doubt it. Everyone usually forgets about it."

After that her parents started discussing difficult things that Kiyomi didn't understand, like "intrauterine education" and "memory formation." While Kiyomi accepted her mother's explanations, she did not feel her curiosity had been sated. The landscape of which she dreamt was something far more ancient. She understood that it was indeed a place she'd seen before her own birth, but it wasn't in such a recent past. It was far more remote, far away.

2.

The sunlight was unmerciful.

Sachiko Asakura shielded her eyes with her hands and looked towards the sky. Cotton-like clouds drifted swiftly from right to left across the blue expanse. The jet stream was swift that day, but standing as she was far below, upon asphalt, Asakura could only feel the intense, steady heat filling the stagnant air. Feeling the effects of the summer weather most acutely in her black one-piece suit, she wiped off beads of sweat from the nape of her neck with a handkerchief. She ran into the shade, fleeing from the sunlight.

The funeral service was just ending. Asakura, along with other students and staff members, had come to Toshiaki's home to help with the service. The undertakers and relatives had everything under control, but she had insisted on helping out with the reception.

The coffin was to be carried out soon and she had just taken a step outside to make sure the hea.r.s.e had arrived.

Toshiaki lived in a government condo. The ashen walls were cracked here and there, giving them a feeling of antiquity. Twenty-four families lived in his four-story wing.

Toshiaki had shared a happy life on the third floor with his now deceased wife. This was the first time Asakura had ever seen his place. The area had probably been little more than a field of rice paddies once upon a time. Now it was host to a cl.u.s.ter of homes and had the air of a declining residential district.

The parking lot was packed with cars, with just enough s.p.a.ce to pa.s.s between them.

Every vehicle shimmered with distorted heat trails; grazing them carelessly would surely have burned the skin. The narrow street in front of the complex was also subdued, as still and silent as the woman towards whom its paved lines led all who were gathering here today. The occasional echo of a motorbike engine from the distance was the only sound to be heard. All of a sudden, a gloom fell upon everything. When Asakura looked upwards, she saw that new clouds had rolled in to cover the sun. She took one step forward, pulling away from the apartment wall. At that precise moment, the light returned, glaring up her surroundings anew.

She squinted into the glare.

"Finally the first floor," said a voice, followed by a rattling sound. When Asakura turned around, a group of men carrying Kiyomi's coffin were edging their way down the stairs. The concrete steps were narrow, flaked with peeling paint, and the men were having trouble turning the coffin on a stair landing. Toshiaki led the procession, holding a mortuary tablet in his hands. At his side were Kiyomi's parents, with a photo of the deceased.

Someone from the undertaker wove the hea.r.s.e through the crowd of parked cars and backed it up carefully to the side of the building. The back door was opened. A few grunts later, the coffin was loaded inside. Asakura watched silently in the background.

Once the coffin was in place, the mourners all gathered in a semicircle around it.

Seeing that final blessings were about to be given, Asakura hurried over to meet up with the others, standing modestly behind them. Because of her height, she could see Toshiaki's face clearly in the center of the congregation.

"I want to thank you all for coming today..." he began in a tone that was plain, almost disturbingly so. There was no cadence in his voice, like he was just going through the motions. The only one unable to control her tears was Kiyomi's mother. She was pet.i.te, and her hair had l.u.s.ter. A few wrinkles were carved into her forehead and around her mouth, but she looked surprisingly childlike; she must have been adorable as a young girl. Kiyomi's father, on the other hand, had the air of a distinguished man in the prime of his life. He listened patiently to Toshiaki's words with eyes and head cast downward. But his shoulders sometimes trembled, betraying the sadness he was unable to contain. Toshiaki's flat voice, only the more unfitting in contrast, gave off the unreality of a shimmer at the bottom of a cascade of sunlight.

Toshiaki's look during this entire ordeal kept nagging at Asakura. The darkly clad man who sat near the altar during the ceremony was not the man she knew as mentor and role model. His features used to be gentle, taking on a penetrating look whenever it came to research. This was not the Toshiaki she saw every day in the lab. His face was pale, offset by dark patches under his eyes. Sometimes his back teeth chattered like he was having chills, and his fingers twitched slightly. She'd seen him like this for the first time the night before, when she and her cla.s.smates had come to see how he was holding up. He'd changed so much that for a moment she couldn't speak.

A large black-and-white photograph of Kiyomi adorned the altar, and the picture showed the smiling face of a woman who still possessed a child's innocence. Asakura had met her only once; Toshiaki had brought along his wife for last month's open session of the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Asakura recalled her charming smile and how, though Kiyomi had to be a few years older than her, she'd actually looked younger, thanks probably to her features. Asakura had felt fl.u.s.tered; even the woman's name, Kiyomi, was pretty.

She'd stolen glances at Kiyomi's face from a distance as the beauty lay in her coffin.

Apparently Kiyomi had hit her head in a car accident, hence the white cloth covering her skull. This gave her a slightly different impression but did little to taint her attractiveness.

Her face was made up and her lips were frozen in a faint smile. Her white cheeks, so pale they appeared translucent, were of fine complexion, and at one point Asakura could barely suppress a sudden strange urge to touch them.

Throughout the entire ceremony, Toshiaki kept looking at her photo, only half-listening to condolences. For the most part, he looked vacant, but sometimes cast the photo a smile like he'd just remembered to. Asakura had noticed a similar expression on him the night before. It was so tranquil that it terrified her. She'd had to look away, like she'd unwittingly taken a peek at some secret between the man and the deceased.

Toshiaki resumed his speech, during which Kiyomi's name was intoned innumerable times. The sunlight beat down harshly and everyone was getting tired. Some continuously wiped their foreheads with handkerchiefs, but most just stood in place, waiting patiently for him to finish.

Toshiaki had changed completely. After Kiyomi's death, his soul seemed to be in turmoil. Helping out with the funeral, Asakura felt that this was a man she didn't know and was unable to say a word to him. She was only feeling more perplexed. It was like that when he made his sudden appearance at the lab a few nights before. He just shouted at her when she was trying to express her worries, then set himself to work at the clean bench, clearly possessed. Afterwards, he went back to the hospital without a word. As he left, his countenance was one of dreamy intoxication. While he was gone, Asakura secretly peered into the incubator to see what he had been doing. A new culture flask and a six-well plate were left inside. On the lid, the word "Eve" was scribbled in Toshiaki's handwriting. She didn't know anyone by that name. Gently removing the flask, she observed it under the microscope and saw the shapes of healthy cells but could not identify them. She did not understand why Toshiaki had yelled at her just to perform a routine cellular procedure.

Feeling very uncomfortable about it all, she'd hastily returned the flask to the incubator, placing it as close to its original position as possible, a little scared she'd be found out.

Toshiaki's tone changed subtly as he came to his closing statements.

"Kiyomi will now be carried out of our lives... but this does not mean she is dead.

Kiyomi's kidneys have been transplanted into two patients. Let us never forget that she thrives within them."

Under his plain delivery, Toshiaki appeared to be hiding a faint excitement. There was a certain force in his words that one didn't a.s.sociate with eulogies, and Asakura didn't miss the grin that crossed his features. Toshiaki thirstily licked his lips in between words. As she watched this, Asakura's mouth went dry, too. The scattering sunlight covered everything in a bleary whiteness, and the mourners were sweating like dogs by now, but they all remained quiet, eyes cast downward to the asphalt. Only Toshiaki's face was raised. Asakura, who was getting really nervous, couldn't tear her gaze away from it until he closed his salutation: "Kiyomi will live on."

When she came to her senses, people were already making to leave. Toshiaki and several relatives separated into two cars and pulled out onto the street. The others gathered in the shade of the entrance to bid them farewell from there.

The hea.r.s.e left, followed by the black sedan that Toshiaki had climbed into. Emitting low engine rumbles, the vehicles turned at the intersection. A cool glint flashed off- the black body of the hea.r.s.e just before it disappeared from view.

Everyone stood there for some time.

"We will now prepare to receive the ashes," said a man, who appeared to be a relative, provoking sounds of relief from the small crowd. The man returned to the apartment steps and the rest followed suit. Asakura trailed behind.

"The husband was a bit strange, don't you think?"

When Asakura heard this, she looked up, startled at such a direct comment. Two middle-aged women were talking in front of her. They appeared to be relatives or close acquaintances, but their indifferent gossip indicated otherwise.

"'Kiyomi will live on.' Gives you the creeps, doesn't it?"

They probably thought they were taking care not to be overheard, but their high-pitched half-whispers were all too audible to Asakura. She felt uncomfortable and wanted to get away, but the pair's conversation crept into her ears as if she were their designated audience.

"He was pretty weird during the wake, too. I guess he was just devastated by the suddenness of it all. Must be having a hard time accepting it."

"Well, apparently he's been acting like this for a while. I heard that for a while there, Kiyomi was, you know, brain-dead."

"I had no idea... Ugh, I hope I never end up that way."

"Me neither. You know, he allowed kidney transplants... They say he's been acting odd ever since."

"How could he let them do that? I mean, he let them take out his wife's kidneys? Didn't he feel bad?"

"Exactly. Why mangle her body like that? I bet he thought letting them go ahead made him look good."