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Hida, Takayama, in Gifu Prefecture (Hida is the home of a school for would-be ninjas). Junichiro asks why Kyoko's parents
had moved to Takayama. She answers that they're part of the literary industry and can work anywhere as long as they can get
on the network. Hida has lots of culture and history, but Kyoko dislikes it because it feels too insular. Junichiro asked
to meet Kyoko in Hida partly to see the sights. It's chilly, being midwinter, but he's only wearing a light shirt and slacks.
Her phone rings - it's a message from Helba.
Helba says that she wants to talk to Kyoko about the recent events in The World. If interested, they are to meet at the
"place where the carpenter's daughter sleeps". Junichiro knows Helba as a notorious hacker, while Kyoko says that
The Queen of Darkness is a strategist with a reservoir of information in the Epitaph of Twilight, and more ingenious that
Apeiron, the King of Light. She doesn't like the idea of a hacker using Helba's name as a cover, and then knowing exactly
when she and Junichiro were to meet. Further, a rumor has it that delving too deep into the Epitaph causes strange things
to happen - like "The 100th Tale in the 100 Stories". They've gone to the Takayama Green Hotel to talk in the lobby,
and Junichiro gets paged for a phone call at the front desk. Things are getting eerie, since he hadn't told anyone he was
coming out here. He returns from the call annoyed - a man calling himself "Bith the Black", and working for Helba
- had asked how dedicated he was to getting answers. Bith is Helba's retainer in the Epitaph. Kyoko mentions that they're
being watched physically, and not just inside the net. This pisses her off, so she wants to follow the clues to get answers
in order to confront Helba.
"The place where the carpenter's daughter sleeps" is an ancient pagoda, where the designer was rumored to have
killed his daughter and buried her beneath the building. While they look around, Mai calls saying that she doesn't understand
Junichiro's e-mail. It says "please go to the place closely related to Sadako", and had just arrived from him a
minute ago. Junichiro tells Kyoko that this seems to be Helba's way of letting them know that Mai and possibly Yuki are under
surveillance. Kyoko wonders if Helba is a cover for someone at CC Corp. telling them to stop snooping around. He replies
that CC Corp.'s warning are more direct and ugly. So, the only choice is to keep looking for answers to the clues. The only
Sadako either of them knows is a psychic in a horror movie, which tells Kyoko where to go next - The Tomokichi Fukurai Memorial
Museum (this memorial is a real place, in Gifu). Professor Fukurai, who died in 1952, had been given a leave of absence from
Tokyo Imperial University for having gotten too involved in studying spirit photography and psychic phenomenon. He was from
Takayama, an isolated place filled with legends, and may have grown up believing in spirits. Kyoko wonders if viewing the
Epitaph of Twilight may require a similar "paradigm shift" (using fantasy instead of logic).
Kyoko explains that the Epitaph is about a race of sprites that don't cast shadows, and are being devoured by a force
called the "Cursed Wave". The sprites face extinction until Helba, the Queen of Darkness, and Apeiron, the King
of Light join forces to slow the advance of the Wave. A legend holds that three beings with shadows will set out in search
of the Twilight Dragon at the wavering peninsula at the edge of the world. The beings are 1 human and two half-sprites that
can cast shadows. They are assisted by two allies: Philly the White, and Bith the Black.
As they leave the museum, they are watched by a man in a taxi, and approached by an old woman with a message: Dual-sided
Demon Victory Wish. The woman leaves, and Junichiro catches a glimpse of the man as the taxi drives off. The Dual-sided
Demon is at Senko Temple, a statue attributed to a warrior a long time ago who had 2 heads, four arms and four legs, representing
both good and evil in the same body. Kyoko asks what all of this is adding up to, and Junichiro replies that this is looking
a lot like an RPG; follow the clues to a puzzle piece that leads to more clues. So, Kyoko decides to call in her own strategist
- her mother, the editor of a local magazine. She tells them that the statue is located at Sakura-yama Hachimon. Lord Taki
Furukuma had come to Gifu to exorcize the Dual-sided demon, and he'd built the statue as his victory wish. Kyoko's mother
has heard that her daughter is walking around town with a middle-aged man from Tokyo, and Kyoko wonders if his being middle-aged
bothers her. Then, her father drives up and offers to give them a ride on his way home from a meeting. In the car, her father
comments that someone else had also asked about the Epitaph of Twilight earlier in the day. The meeting her father is coming
home from was with an out-of-towner who's wanted him to translate the entire Epitaph (and was the man Junichiro had seen in
the taxi). Her father had turned down the job, not just because of the rumored danger in it, but that no one knows what the
original text is.
Kyoko's father relates the following: The Epitaph had appeared on the personal website of Emma Wielant, but was removed
soon after. Later, some fantasy writers and occultists became interested in the work, but by that time, Emma had died at
age 28 in a car crash, and the original work had gotten lost. Seven of her most dedicated followers pieced together about
70% of it. Then, word got out the The World was based on Fragment, by the genius programmer Harald Hoerwick, and that it
was based on the Epitaph. So now, with the fanfics and forgeries floating, there have been so many fake and altered versions
of the Epitaph that it's not possible to know what the full scope of the true Epitaph of Twilight is. Kyoko's father got
the business card of the other guy - Ichiro Sato, but it's probably a fake name.
At the shrine, Kyoko says that Emma and Harald knew each other but were just acquaintances.
Yuki calls Kyoko, complaining about the weird e-mail Kyoko just sent her. Kyoko makes up a story about it, and asks the
girl to read the e-mail to her. It says, "The cross of smoke rises, lake of water sprite." Yuki then comments
that Junichiro is pretty rich and she should make him buy her dinner. They continue on to East Hongan Temple, Takayama Branch,
which had caught fire several times over the centuries, but once the rising smoke had formed the shape of a cross. Nearby
is a lake where water sprites (or water spouts, I'm not sure which) appear. Bith the Black is waiting for them at a scenic
overlook by the lake. He acknowledges that Ichiro Sato is a fake name, but names are just symbols - your screen name and
your real name may be different, they still stand for the same thing. Bith stands in for Helba, who has many clients. He
adds that hackers also make excellent security analysts and cyber investigators. They go to a "Duck" fast food
restaurant for lunch, and Junichiro complains about the food quality; he'd rather eat at a bigger chain.
Bith tells them that Harald had based Fragment on the Epitaph, but if the game was just modeled on the world-view of the
poem, it would not have produced the chaos taking place in The World now. What he really did was to "bring the outside
into the inside". And now, the boundaries are wavering. Kyoko might understand this, but Junichiro needs a simpler
explanation. To make his point, Bith takes a bite of hamburger and swallows it. Kyoko explains that there are combinations
of two things - religion and secular, black and white, true and false - which can not be fully separated. This means that
there's an area where the concepts blur and become ambiguous (the gray area). The boy Kasumi lived in the outside world,
but in the game he was Sieg. His body was in Kanazawa when he lost consciousness, but he'd been playing inside the game at
the time. So the question becomes "where was his consciousness at? The inside, or the outside?" You could make
an argument either way. To make the distinction stick, you need to use force, but you have to understand the boundaries of
the two elements first. In anthropology, the name for the nature of boundaries is "Liminality".
Kyoko tries to explain the idea in her own terms. Her parents moved to Gifu and assimilated into the society here by
working for two years at getting to know people and deal with them. Kyoko, on the other hand, feels out of place in Gifu
and uncomfortable having to live there. So, her personal boundaries are wavering. Biff says that the answer is simple -
you separate the outside from the inside; or, you learn to become autonomous from the inside world. Unfortunately, the outside
world that Harald brought into the game is also autonomous and hasn't become fully assimilated. If that's the case, then
all Bith and company need to do is "help it along". To do this, Junichiro has to commit to the project and not
waver any more. They have to take actions that, in the worst case, would result in they're being labeled criminals and wanted
for arrest. Junichiro wavers, but Kyoko wants in.
Junichiro asks what would happen if they acted like he hadn't been told the truth. Bith answers that CC Corp. is planning
on destroying the servers and burying all the problems in total obscurity, causing the clues to saving the coma victims to
be lost. Bith gets into his taxi, saying that they'll next meet on Christmas Eve in Urayasu. The taxi drives off. Kyoko
is happy; she knows where she is going now, adding "this is MY game".
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