“If you invent the time machine, and I get one… I want to come and meet you in your own time.”
Jurina’s eyes widened when she heard Rena say that.
“Really?!”
“Yes! I want us to meet in real time.”
“Then… I’d also want to meet Rena-chan in the future.”
“...Matsui. Oi, Matsui!”
“Rena..chan?”
Jurina felt a hard smack on her head. She winced as she found herself in the familiar college classroom. It appeared as though she had dozed off in class, much to her embarrassment.
“I hope that my classes aren’t a bore to you, Miss Matsui. Or perhaps your body still isn’t used to the new time schedule.”
“Sorry, sir,” Jurina apologized.
-----------------------
That night, Jurina was up late working on her special project, her time machine. Her hands gently tinkered with the small contraption, little sparks flashing as she hooked up the wires.
“This has to work…”
She bit her lip as she carefully hooked up the last wire before closing up the box. The bronze gold device shined slightly, with the gears inside the clock visible and two light bulbs sticking out at the end.
“Okay… what should I test this on?”
She looked around, until she spotted an apple she had for breakfast. She only took one bite out of it, and it definitely showed its age.
Jurina took the apple before typing in some calculations. It had only been a few months since the first electronic computer was made, but she was praying she had enough power to activate her machine.
After pushing in the calculations, turning a knob on her machine to power level 1, the light bulbs became to flicker as the machine turned on.
“Please,” Jurina prayed as she saw it begin to power up.
She then saw some sparks fly and a wormhole opened in her wall, making her eyes widen.
“Okay, so far, so good… Now then.”
She walked towards the wormhole and tossed the apple in. She then punched in some new calculations and moved back the hands on the clock, causing the gears to spin and click.
A few seconds later, the wormhole started to spin in the opposite direction, and out from it, a ripe red apple popped back out. No bite marks were present, as if it had just been freshly picked from a tree.
Jurina smiled as she turned the machine off and the wormhole closed.
“It works… It works!”
She squealed in happiness over her dream, her greatest project, was successfully working.
“Mm~ yosh!” She got out her notebook, writing down some notes. “Now I just need to calculate what coordinates I should use to send a human through…”
--------------------------
“Eh? The library?”
“Yeah. I was wondering if you could come with me. There’s something I wanna look up,” Rena said as she was pacing through her room, putting her clothes on and getting her hair ready.
“Why do you wanna bring me?” Akane asked through the other side of the cell phone.
“Why not? Besides, don’t you have a book on birds to return today?”
“Ah! That’s right! A-alright, I’ll meet you there!”
“Thanks, Chu-chan. See you there!”
After Rena hung up, she hurried out of her apartment and started making her way to the bus stop.
Ever since she met Jurina in her dreams, she had a burning curiosity to find out who she was. Rather than searching through countless online sites, she decided to go right to the source and find her in a local library.
Sure, Akane’s reasoning of searching through a library for hours on end for one girl might be harder, but Rena couldn’t help it. She was on a quest for knowledge, a search for the identity of Matsui Jurina.
“Matsui… she has the same surname as me. But I don’t think Mom ever mentioned a relative named Jurina. Maybe a distant cousin? Ugh, I don’t know!”
She made it to the library where Akane was waiting.
“Let’s go,” she said, wasting no time with dragging Akane in.
“Oh boy, someone’s got an adrenaline kick.”
Once Rena got in, she separated from Akane to let her return her book, and started searching for some information concerning Jurina.
“1941… If I remember correctly, at that point, wasn’t the 2nd World War going on..?”
She got some books about recorded events during WWII, looking to see if she could find anything on the girl. However, she didn’t find any mention of her name.
She let out a sigh, a tower of books with no helpful information to be found piling.
“Hmm… maybe I’m looking in the wrong place.”
She went to the science section and started looking for books on the theory of time travel. She searched through each book she came across quickly, trying to look for the one name.
Then… she found it.
“Ah!” She covered her mouth, trying not to scream. “There it is!”
In a book discussing time travel, back in 1941, when the first time machine prototype was created, there was her name.
“Matsui Jurina, 19 year old college student, unveils the first time machine prototype at Youth Science Festival in Cambridge University, London.”
“No way… she really did it..!” she said in a whisper. She became ecstatic, seeing the picture of the girl from her dreams in black and white. Proof that she existed. “Churi’s gonna freak.”
She immediately dashed down the halls on the library, searching for her friend. She then found her at one of the computers, looking at something.
“Churi,” she tapped her shoulder, making her turn around.
“Rena..!”
“What’s with that look on your face?” Rena asked, seeing that Akane seemed a bit shook.
“Rena… you said that girl’s name was Jurina, right? Matsui Jurina?”
“Yeah. And I found her. She made the first successful time machine prototype! This could mean--”
“But… didn’t you read what happened after?”
“Eh?”
“I looked it up online. If it’s in that book, it should be the same as what I found.”
Rena looked down at the book, reading through the paragraphs until she found what had shocked her friend.
“However, during her presentation, there was a sudden electrical explosion caused by her machine. Scientists deduced there was a sudden glitch or massive surge of electricity that short out the device. No lives were lost, but in the explosion, Matsui’s body had disappeared.”
“Disappeared..?!”
------------------------
“Next, Miss Jurina Matsui.”
Jurina walked up with a smile, carrying the device in her hand.
“I have in front of me, the first prototype of a time machine of my creation!”
In front of her was a crowd of students and faculty from other schools in London and from across England. There were even successful scientists present, and radio broadcasters recording.
“I believe that with this device, we will be able to change the future of our world. By linking the past and the future, we could accomplish so many new things.”
“Would you like to show us now how it works?”
“Yes, sir!”
She turned on her machine, spawning a wormhole that stood near the center of the stage, swirling in the air like a black hole that could suck up anything that comes near it.
“Here, an apple that I ate almost 24 hours ago yesterday,” she spoke, showing the apple she had bitten into the previous night.
She threw it into the wormhole before going back and initiating the process to bring it back.
With a quick flash, the wormhole changed directions.
“Catch!” Jurina shouted as the wormhole soon popped the apple back out.
Once the man caught it, he saw the bite mark was no longer present.
“Amazing!”
Jurina smiled as the crowd applauded her.
“Now, it’s time for the real test…” she thought, taking in a deep breath. “Now that we’ve seen what it can do with fruit, it’s time to see what happens if we send a human.”
“What? Can that be done?!”
“I want to test it right here and now!”
The crowd started becoming skeptical. However, Jurina’s determination didn’t waver. She began recalibrating the calculations into her machine, and turning the power up to power level 3.
“The important note is not to increase the power past level 4. It would be too much for the machine.”
As she powered it up, the wormhole became bigger, enough to fit a person inside. News reporters were taking pictures and filming the events unfolding.
“Sir, I’d like you to be a volunteer,” she said to one of the judges.
“What? Me?”
As she brought him up, she started entering in calculations so that he could go through the wormhole.
“Now, how far do you want to go back?”
“Um… How about three days ago? That was when I was with my daughter playing at a local park.”
“Three days ago then,” she typed in the coordinates, the machine’s light bulb sparking and blinking.
The wormhole started to twist as Jurina moved close to it, beginning to examine it.
“It might take a while for it to open… It’s much bigger this time, so we should let it power up.”
“This is incredible…” the man spoke, placing a hand on the machine. His finger touched the clock’s hand, and felt the heat of the light bulb. “That’s hot!”
As he jerked his hand back, the hands of the clock started winding forward, causing the wormhole to go in the opposite direction.
“Eh? What’s going on?”
“What’s happening?! Miss Matsui?!”
“Stay back! Something must’ve happened!” she went back to her machine, seeing the hands and gears spin out of control while the light bulbs flickered furiously.
“I-I didn’t mean to touch it, I’m sorry!”
“Miss Matsui, explain yourself! What is happening?!”
“Stay back!” Jurina urged. “I have to close it! Or else..!”
“Give it to me!” the man grabbed the handle, trying to turn it off, but it got stuck.
“No! Don’t!”
As she broke his hand away from it, she saw the handle had been turned to power level 4. A spark released from the machine as it started overheating and releasing electrical surges.
“What is the meaning of this?!”
“Everyone run! Get down!”
As Jurina backed away, unknowingly placing herself near the growing wormhole, she looked out in the audience and thought she saw a familiar face.
“Rena..?”
Just then, there was a bright flash and a huge explosion.
BANG!
“KYAA!!!”
It was like a nuclear bomb had gone off. Everything became silent and time itself seemed to slow down as everything faded to white…
….
“Rena… you have to find me.”
Suddenly, Rena woke up in the library. She found it was starting to close down and piles of books laid on top of her head.
“Rena, you up?” Akane asked as she approached her.
“Chu-chan..?”
“Come on, the library’s starting to close,” she said, starting to gather up some of the books. “I’ll help you put these back.”
“...Jurina..?”
Akane turned to her, seeing tears on Rena’s face.
“Oi, were you having a bad dream?”
“Jurina… does that mean.. She died?”
Topic: Even in a dream, I will go beyond time to meet you (WMatsui) Prologue-Chapter 4 (Read 17944 times)