Quinn gulped down saliva in his suddenly dry throat.
"A military officer gave it to me after my parents died." He replied, looking down. "Apparently, it had been in my family for decades, but no one was able to open it."
Hearing this made Tsukuru nod.
"Right." He replied. "Whoever made our Systems must have made yoursgenerations ago. While mine was created only recently."
Tsukuru glanced to the side, his hand under his chin.
"I had originally thought that my mother was the one who created my System." He replied, before turning back to Quinn. "But seeing how our Systems seem to possess the same software, it means that they must havebeen made by the same person, but if your System was collecting dust in your family for years, that means that it couldn't have been made by my mother."
Tsukuru narrowed his eyes.
"My mother died when I was ten, killed in a battle with One-Horn." He replied, making Quinn's eyes widen in surprise. "And she was only thirty-six when she died."
Quinn remained silent for a moment.
"Does that mean…you only became friends with me…because of a System Quest?" He asked, his fists tightening.
He suddenly felt betrayed.
Tsukuru scoffed, and rolled his eyes.
"Oh, please." He replied, causing Quinn to look up at him. "We're both kids who had to suffer for years growing up with no Ability in this wretched caste system."
Tsukuru then looked at Quinn, fire in his eyes.
"We both hold the way this world works in contempt. We would have become friends regardless."
Tsukuru's face then showed an amused smirk.
"Besides, the Quest only required me to 'make contact' with you." Tsukuru replied, glancing away. "If I really wanted to, I could have abandoned you at any time."
Quinn raised an eyebrow.
"Then…why didn't you?" He asked.
There was a long pause after Quinn asked his question.
Eventually, Tsukuru responded.
"You really have to even ask that question?" Tsukuru asked, his head still down with his bangs covering his eyes.
When Tsukuru raised his head, Quinn saw a look on Tsukuru that he had never seen before.
It wasn't happiness, amusement, or even rage.
It was a look of pure and utter sadness, loneliness, and misery.
"You should already know the answer." Tsukuru replied, glancing to the side. "After all, we're the same, you and I."
Hearing this, Quinn raised an eyebrow.
"We run into your sister constantly." Quinn replied. "And you've now mentioned your brother twice." Quinn narrowed his eyes. "How can we be the same? I have no one left in this world."
Tsukuru grit his teeth in response.
"Don't assume that just because I technically have 'family' that I didn't grow up alone." Tsukuru said bitterly. "Even before she was drafted into the military and sequentially killed, my mother was never around."
Tsukuru glanced to the side, a look of anger on his face. "As the CEO of one of the biggest gaming companies in the country, she was always busy."
Tsukuru turned back to Quinn.
"Shizuka spent a majorityof her time on Military Base 1, and my brother was almost always holed up in his room working on his little 'inventions'."
Tsukuru's fists tightened in frustration.
"And as for my 'aunt and uncle', they were equally as absent in my life as my mother was!" He replied, a dark expression on his face.
He let out a bitter snort.
"Hell, the closest thing I've had to a 'conversation' I've had with my Auntie Laura in years was a brief, video message she left with the box that contained my System."
Tsukuru then turned to Quinn, a fire in his eyes.
"The only differences between us two is that I grew up in a mansion while you grew up in what, one of those stupid, shitty, low-cost, low-matenience, one-bedroom apartments that they seem to just shove every kid he got orphaned due to the military KILLING OFF THEIR ENTIRE FAMILYin?!"
Quinn glanced to the side, his fastened tightening and his teeth clenched in anger.
Seeing this, Tsukuru narrowed his eyes.
"Yeah, I suspected as much." He muttered, before glancing to the side. "Our parents gave up their lives to protect the world, and the military gives us the bare minimum!"
Tsukuru's teeth clenched even harder.
"Though I shouldn't be surprised." He snarled, making Quinn turn to him, his eyebrow raised in confusion. "It's the same way they treated military veterans in the old world! People came back from psychologically changed and sometimes even physically disfigured, and they had to fight tooth and nail just to get a modicum of support!"
Quinn stared at Tsukuru in surprise.
'Damn…' He thought. 'Even a military brat like Tsukuru doesn't like the military…'
Quinn then raised an eyebrow.
"What's the second difference?" He asked.
Tsukuru glanced away annoyed.
"You've seen the way the military officials act around me, haven't you?" He asked, looking back at Quinn.
Hearing this, Quinn thought back.
He remembered how in the Ability Level Placement Test, that one woman had shuddered when calling his name, and she had seemed to be walking on eggshells when talking to him.
Then, he remembered how those military officials had acted when the group of himself, Layla, and Tsukuru had walked past.
It was as if they were worried about breathing too hard around him.
"You had protection." Quinn replied finally.
Tsukuru narrowed his eyes, and nodded.
"Right." He replied. "While youno doubt got beat up on a regular basis, all I got were hateful stares and snide remarks."
Tsukuru glanced up at the ceiling.
"Eventually, I got sick of it, and just started spending all my free time on the school's rooftop to avoid them entirely."
There was another long pause.
Quinn then looked up at Tsukuru.
"How do you get your System?" Quinn asked. "You said that it was contained in a box. Was it a book, like mine?"
Tsukuru smiled.
He held up his hand with his thumb and index finger close together.
He then activated his Ability.
The sound of electronic interference filled the room, and pixels began to fill the space between Tsukuru's thumb and index finger.
The pixels clustered together into the form of a diamond with a line cut in the top, going halfway down to the center of the diamond.
There was a flash of light.
When it faded, Tsukuru was holding a plastic replica of the microchip that he had gotten his System from.
As Tsukuru held the microchip between his two fingers, it became enveloped in an aura of glitching pixels.
The next moment, it glitched out of existence.
A moment later, it reappeared floating in the air in front of Quinn's face.
As it began to fall, gravity reasserting itself, Quinn held out his open palm to catch it.
Confused, Quinn reached into the center of his hand with his other one, grabbing the replica microchip with his thumb and index finger, holding it in the same way Tsukuru had been holding it.
"A microchip?" Quinn asked, holding it up to his face and looking at it.
"Yeah." Tsukuru said, before he then glanced to the side. "But it was kept in a strange jewelry box that refused to open until a drop of my blood came into contact with it."
Hearing this, Quinn looked up.
"Yours too, huh?" He asked, before looking back down at the microchip.
He let out a bitter laugh.
"You know, it's funny." He replied. "I spent years, and countless credits trying to get that blasted book open, and in the end, I opened it completely by accident."
Tsukuru raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"You accidentally spilled blood on a book?" He asked. "How the hell'd you manage that?"
Quinn laughed again.
"I was trying to fix my glasses." Quinn replied, his face softening. "One of my lenses popped out during an altercation with a bully at school that day, which ended with me getting blasted clear across the hallway and into a wall."
Hearing this made Tsukuru narrow his eyes in annoyance.
"In my frustration, I pushed it a little too hard." Quinn continued. "I ended up breaking the lens, and it gouged up my thumb. Then, when I reached down to pick up a few shards of the broken glass that had fallen on the book, which was on the ground at that point, me having pushed it off my desk after another failed attempt to open it, a few drops of my blood fell onto the book in the process."
Quinn looked forward at Tsukuru.
"What about you?"
In response, Tsukuru burst out laughing.
"The smartass who created the box containing the microchip included a false keyhole into it." Tsukuru explained, sounding somewhat amused. He glanced away. "When I placed my thumb over it, a spring-loaded needle shot out, and pierced my thumb."
He glanced back at Quinn.
"Then, when I jerked back from the pain, my blood dripped on the box's lid, opening it."
Tsukuru then pointed at Quinn.
"It was at that point that little chip there began flying around my room like a damn insect." Tsukuru continued. "It floated rightin front of me, and shot out a light, scanning me. Afterwards, it flew backwards into my forehead, electrocuting me, and knocking me unconscious!"
Quinn let out a snort that was somewhere between bitter and amused.
"Even the way you unlocked your System was an improvement over mine." He replied.
Tsukuru glanced to the side, an amused look on his face.
"More like the guy who made the damn thing saw you Talens fumbling with it for generations, and decided to put an insurance policy in the next model." Tsukuru replied.
Quinn continued looking at the microchip.
"I assume this thing disintegrated just like my book?" He asked.
"Eh, more or less." Tsukuru replied. "It was nowhere to be seen when I woke back up."