“You’re sure?”
“Look, the way I figure, it’s not like you’re leaving forever because youcan’t. Neither can I. Snow isn’t here to stop you this time, either. What’s an hour?”
“One forty-eighth of what we have left?”
Well, that was a grim way of looking at it.
“Perhaps it’ll be an hour well spent, gaining inspiration from the outside world. Nico and I went out earlier and it actually did me a surprising amount of good. People aren’t meant to be cooped up in one place for so long.” Jo paused, following Takako’s line of sight to the double doors behind her. “Unless you’d actually rather head back to the common room?”
Takako’s fingers flew over the keypad faster than Jo could blink.
Jo quickly crossed to her side with a few large steps, barely making it in time to be yanked by her navel through the Door and out into the real world.
The first thing she noticed was the nothingness. And not “nothing” like small town nothing. But “nothing” as in she would not be surprised to discover that they had somehow accidentally landed on Mars. As far as she could see were red rocks, rusty colored rocks, and more dark-brownish rocks. Jo turned, trying to get her bearing.
The land sloped upward, cresting at an edge with a sky bluer than she’d ever seen above. In the distance, she could make out the outline of some kind of rudimentary structure erected on the apex of a ledge. But there was little else.
The second thing Jo noticed was the wind. It howled around her, giving her skin a phantom chill. Even without being clocked into time, Jo knew that she was somewhere very, very cold.
“Where are we?” she asked.
Takako could hear her fine; the muted sensations in their ghost-like state assisted with communication in the barren landscape. “The summit of Mt. Fuji.”
Jo did another quick 360, taking it all in. Tell-tale porous rocks sloped like some kind of bowl. An uninhabited and very high place. Everything that had confused her suddenly made a load of sense.
“So this is it, huh?” Jo shoved her hands into her pockets. “Kind of anticlimactic.” Her words were bitter, angry. “Too bad we can’t just kill it here and now. Take it out like a mobster gone rogue.”
“Funny you should say that.” Takako pulled out her phone, tapping the screen. Jo watched as time flowed for her. The wind whipped her hair and clothing, stretching it over her narrow, muscular frame. She shivered, but it looked more like shaking off the expectation of warmth and hardening herself against the cold than really feeling the chill.
Takako reached into her jacket, producing a handgun. It was the same weapon that Jo had seen her pull on Snow before they’d even begun the wish. Jo wouldn’t exactly be surprised to learn that it was something she kept on her at all times.
“What’re you doing?” Jo crossed over to her.
“I’m going to shoot it.”
“Shoot what?” Jo grabbed her wrist. “The mountain?”
“Yes,” Takako said it as though the fact should’ve been obvious. It had not been obvious.
“What do you hope that will accomplish?”
“You said it yourself, let’s see if we can just take it out.”
“But—”
“Has not shooting it worked?”
Jo’s grip went slack. Why was she trying to stop her? The likelihood of shooting at the caldera doing anything (good or bad) was almost nonexistent. So why did it matter?
“No, it hasn’t.” Jo shrugged, finally taking a step back.
Takako’s arms outstretched with laser-like precision and her finger squeezed the trigger.
The gunshot echoed across the entire summit, piercingly loud. It was quickly followed by another, and another, and another, until a shout rose to meet the final bullet.
The clip empty, she put the gun back into her jacket, tapped her phone, and sank to the ground. Jo eased herself down slowly next to her, as if trying not to startle a wild animal. Takako panted softly, eyes red and glossy.
“Maybe it is as simple as shooting something,” Takako murmured.
