The world below the mountain lacked the complexity to find any deep answers in, so they sat at a diner—pulled right from an old American film—and spoke.
Kamui sloshed about a gritty mug of drip coffee, and Koko stared out the window, bored. Dr. Moon was staring into her own coffee, made caramel-brown by milk and sugar, as if it held answers. Hisako knew her cup, untouched and steaming, had nothing to offer her.
"The people in the lobby—they reacted to him. They seemed to know him, but not when he… became that other person," Hisako began.
"It could be that he is a character in this fantasy that this world abides by," Kamui suggested. "The protagonist, or something important like that."
He meant "antagonist", but was being polite by not saying it, Hisako thought glumly.
"He had his own weapon!" Koko complained. "The test is over. Let's just wipe him off the face of this stupid door."
Hisako shook her head and looked down at her hands. "No, no. I-I want to continue. I think something is wrong. Do you feel it too?"
Koko opened his mouth, but Kamui cut him off before he could speak. "I understand where you're coming from, but I think he just rubbed you the wrong way because he was lying. The man summoned his weapon easily. He's a rogue Awakened.
"If you want your exam to be about taking him in, I'm fine with that, but this is no longer about 'saving' him."
Hisako chewed on her lip.
Finally, Dr. Moon looked up from her mug. "I agree with them, Mochizuki-san. Sylvain was lying—it was all a trick. The whole door, even, may have always been a trap."
"But he couldn't escape, right? He entered the door out of necessity?" Hisako asked.
"He can clear his door at any moment," Koko said. "Didn't you see the way he walked after us? He wanted to play."
Hisako's stomach twisted, and she frowned. "Something changed."
"He stopped lying—that's what changed," Koko sighed.
"What, other than lying, could make a normal person suddenly become that in a door?" Hisako asked Dr. Moon.
Dr. Moon glanced at her sympathetically. "If he is a character in his own door, he may be being, in a way, influenced by the door, or the door is allowing circumstances that aren't normal. Like a conditional Awakening."
"Like playing his character allows him to use his axe, but when he's not, he's just normal?"
Kamui blinked. "I do know of many Awakened with abilities like that." He paused. "Mine, even, is arguably one of them."
"But that still means he attacked us intentionally," Koko pointed out.
Hisako groaned and rubbed at her face. "I know—I know… Just, is there any way he isn't responsible for what he did? He could've fought us or chased us or… I don't know. Things just don't make sense."
"Any mental disorder affecting cognition or behavior could affect the door or ability in conflicting ways. The activation of an ability might be inherently dissonant from the user's intentions," Dr. Moon explained.
Hisako chewed on her lip. "I think I understand, but…"
"He could have a disorder that affects his door or ability. There are a few cases where disorders were thought to change these things.
"A relevant example is in a person now thought to have dissociative identity disorder—what used to be called multiple-personality—having different but similar forms of their ability. The person's weapon changed shape, but only certain shapes were available to each personality."
Hisako rubbed at a rough chip on her ceramic mug. "You think Sylvain might have multiple personalities?"
"You asked for theories."
Kamui sighed in resignation. "It's not a bad one. It's reasonable doubt not to label him rogue."
"So we don't hurt him—we just take him in. In case he's not in control of his actions," Hisako said uncertainly.
"We weren't actually going to obliterate him," Koko defended.
Hisako didn't particularly believe him.
Kamui clicked his tongue at Koko. "We'll act to restrain him. He will be captured as alive and unharmed as possible."
Hisako sank back into the booth cushion. "Thank you, really." She tapped at her mug. "What did you all think of the people in the lobby? The ones that knew Sylvain."
"Buncha characters for sure," Koko hummed.
"The older man in the wheelchair—he was the only one who didn't like Sylvain, and he didn't seem shocked when Sylvain was chasing us with the axe," Hisako pointed out.
"Well, he probably doesn't speak Japanese," Koko grumbled. "So there's no use trying to talk to him."
"But we can communicate with walkers? Meaningfully?" Hisako asked.
Her tiger had seemingly allied with her, but it hadn't registered in her mind as anything more than her door agreeing with her.
"Walkers are manifestations of ideas. They aren't independently sentient, but they are part of the sentience of the doors," Kamui explained haltingly. "A door is sentient—the walkers are aspects of the door, if that makes sense."
"In the context of Sylvain's TV-world, does that mean the lobby walkers' reactions are a reaction to Sylvain's, like, violent state? His door—his heart—was shocked by that?"
"Hrm," Dr. Moon hummed. "Well, it's all very theoretical. None of it can be proven, but there is anecdotal evidence to support what Kamui is saying."
Hisako chuckled. "'Anecdotal.' I'm not sure how scientific that is. But I understand; the walkers are as much evidence as the door, and they have minds of their own, in a way."
"If the old man did speak Japanese," Koko confirmed, "then he might be a good resource, but since Sylvain doesn't understand Japanese…"
"His walkers won't either. Like how you don't dream about things you don't know of." Hisako straightened up. "So, let's sightsee. I'm down to confronting Sylvain soon, but I want a bit more of the picture."
"Well, he loves coffee," Koko said, shoving his cup around like a cat. Some of it sloshed over and left a puddle with a few grounds. "There's a coffee shop on every street. There are two on this intersection."
He pointed, and Hisako looked out. Sure enough, two coffeehouses were across from each other on the other side of the road. The diner, too, was serving coffee; everyone was drinking coffee, even the children.
"Yeah, that's weird," Hisako murmured. "No way it's actually like this in America."
"Is it possible, Kamui, that he's fixating on certain elements of the drama he finds special to himself?" Dr. Moon asked. "In America, don't people share coffee at meetings and gatherings?"
"Ehh, I can't say so for how real it is in America, but it's definitely a thing in some of those shows I mentioned." He scratched at his chin. "There was one show—a murder mystery show. The characters were always talking about how good the coffee was, I think. Always drinking it together while they thought and talked."
Hisako leaned forward. "Was there anything else about the show?"
His face scrunched. "Ah, it was a really weird show—I didn't finish it. Nothing ever made sense; it was all metaphor and abstract and… Eh, I don't think anyone ever understood it, really. 'Misunderstood,' the fans say. A cult-following kind of show."
"Ah," Hisako sighed. "Well, maybe he was one of those fans? Is there anything you remember that might be useful?"
Kamui rolled his shoulders with a sigh. "Nothing. I can only warn you that nothing was ever as it really was. Enemies were secretly lovers, characters thought insane were unnaturally accurate, and the only truths were in riddles."
"Awesome," Koko sighed. "Can we, like, do something soon?"
Hisako stood from the booth. Kamui stayed seated, blocking Koko in with a critical but unsurpised roll of his eyes.
"I don't think there's much to find down here," Hisako admitted. "We didn't see anything stand out the first time around, and the second time only helps us realize how broken it is."
"Alright." Kamui stood.
Hisako blinked as they all rose and began to leave. "Do… Are they going to let us leave without paying?"
"Nobody has noticed us," Dr. Moon replied.
As they left, a barista absently cleaned their table, no waving or shouting goodbyes as they did for the other patrons. Invisible once again; even with Sylvain's hostility, the walkers remained passive.
The walk back to the cable car was only so illuminating—more coffee stores, more diners, and more people always moving, never stopping. She watched a couple leave a diner and go into a coffeehouse; she saw a family cross an intersection with them only to do a one-eighty a few blocks later and repeat the loop.
It was like seeing the limitations of a game—for all the intellect and independence the NPCs seemed to have, breathing life into the world, it was not real.
She set her sights back on the lodge high above; having been there, knowing its shape, she could make it out further.
If the NPCs in the town were set dressing, the ones above were part of the supporting cast, and the lodge was their setting. The answers were there, but so was Sylvain.
As they rode up the cars, she thought about his intentions. He wanted something. That was why he led them to the lodge, and that was why he attacked when he realized his initial plan wasn't working.
He knew what he wanted, but they did not—that was what gave him power, but the door's world was an open wound to a person's heart.
Hajime, she imagined, had wanted an oasis from the stress of life, and his heart had created the leafy palace in the dunes. She could only assume Hachi's heart had created something akin to his clan's home, twisted and maze-like through his own experience of it. Her own door was something she hadn't known she wanted, but found peace in; she even found peace in her monster, making them an ally.
Sylvain also wanted something. Not coffee, though perhaps he had an unhealthy attachment to it, but something small and cozy. A home where everyone knew each other, and everyone wished each other well, chatted for hours, and cared.
What kind of man left his country for a foreign land with a foreign tongue, and ended up living in the shell of a shell of a ghost town? What kind of man stayed?
She could not imagine a happy man doing so. Maybe a man struggling, maybe a man trapped, but never a man happy.
She did not blame a desperate, despairing man for turning an axe on strangers for something he wildly believed he needed. She could forgive him for that.
She needed to find a way to forgive him for this—to reconcile a man trapped and forgotten with the man who'd smiled as he stalked them, armed and dangerous. She wanted to see the man who lived in Japan and dreamed of America.
When the cable car stopped, she was once again the first one off. All the old footsteps had been dusted away by wind and the unyielding flurries, and without fresh sets skulking around, Hisako was confident they were alone on the mountaintop.
"We go through a window," Hisako said. "No use talking to the lobby NPCs, so we'll break into their rooms and go through their stuff."
"I read as much English as I speak," Kamui informed her.
"Do you read all the notes you find in video games?" she asked, walking backwards to the wall beneath a window.
"Absolutely not," Koko chuckled. "I get it. C'mon, Kamui. Give us a boost."
Hisako jumped up and dug her hands into the grooves of the rounded timbers. It was rough enough to climb, even a bit chilly and damp, so she clawed her way up the window. She jammed her fingers between the frame and the window and pushed it up with ease, then climbed in and helped Dr. Moon in, then Koko.
The room was a guest room—it was occupied by an old briefcase-style suitcase stuffed with clothes and little trinkets, and a book sat on the nightstand. The bathroom door was open, and she could see a traditional shaving kit in a tin set on the round ceramic sink.
Hisako found the room quite cozy, despite the novel, woodsy aesthetic. It was similar to the guest-facing halls, but with rich, rosy wood floors and a colorful rug. The bedspread on the bed was similarly woven and colorful, and the handmade furniture was carved with images of pine forests and their animals. A small cast-iron furnace sat cold in the center of the room—she ran her hand along the worn, bumpy metal and noted the flint and steel rods atop the body.
"How did you know it'd be unlocked?" Kamui asked when he joined them.
She turned to smile at him. "Don't you ever watch the behind-the-scenes? TV sets don't need to lock windows—it's a set. Everything here is Sylvain's version of the show's version of reality. Think like a member of the audience, not a character in the show."
She gestured around the room to the personal effects and luggage.
"The audience doesn't read the fine documents—their presence is set dressings as much as the objects. A gentleman with a straight-razor shaving kit and minimal luggage is lodged here." She lifted the book. "He reads serious books with serious covers, and no pictures inside. The author even has a serious photo on the back. He lights his own fires and supplies his own tools to do so—he's a traditional, older man who doesn't rely on hotels giving matchbooks or asking staff to do things for him.
"All we need to 'talk' with the guests downstairs are their rooms."