Hyakuren no Haou to Seiyaku no Valkyria - Volume 1 - Chapter Pr

PROLOGUE 

There is a legend at the Tsukimiya Shrine. 

It says, “Within the divine mirror resides a mysterious power.” 

It says, “The divine mirror is actually a precious mirror of great renown.” 

It says, “If you gaze into the mirror through an opposing mirror on the night of a full moon, you will be pulled into another world.” 

Really, it’s just the type of cliché urban legend you might find anywhere. 

There are an abundance of similar stories scattered throughout the world, of using opposing mirrors and saying a chant to summon a devil, or of being able to see the past and future that way. It’s likely that the wondrous image of infinite worlds stretching out before them, like when looking through a kaleidoscope, entrances people into conceiving of such fantasies. 

In actuality, the aforementioned legend was not something passed down at the shrine from generation to generation or anything, but just a rumor that began circulating at some point among the residents of nearby Hachio City. 

Undoubtedly that rumor was intended to lead to a situation just like this. 

“Y-Yuu-kun, Yuu-kun, Yuu-kuuun! Let’s turn back!” the teary-eyed girl walking next to Yuuto said in a quavering voice, pulling hard on his sleeve. 

Yuuto Suoh’s heart thumped conspicuously louder. With her looking up at him with tears in her eyes like that, as a guy, he couldn’t help but feel the impulsive desire to protect her. 

Her name was Mitsuki Shimoya. She was Yuuto’s childhood friend, one year younger than him and in her first year of middle school. Her large, round eyes left quite the impression, adding to the honest, rustic charm of a girl raised in the country. 

“Hey, hey, we’ve come this far. It’s too late for you to say something like that now,” Yuuto sighed and shrugged his shoulders. 

The steady wind rustled the trees, as the chirping of insects resonated here and there. If one gazed into the surrounding brush, they would see nothing but all-consuming darkness. 

Nestled in that dark mountain forest, the little old dilapidated shrine was faintly lit by the light of the full moon and stars. 

“I told you, it’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Everyone who’s done this before has lived to tell the tale, after all.” 

“Bu-bu-but!” Mitsuki cried, gripping his sleeve tightly. 

She was always a cheerful girl, with an unflappable smile that glowed like a sunflower, but her greatest weakness was ghost stories, something her childhood friend Yuuto knew well. Even though this test of courage had been planned as an amusing group activity by Mitsuki’s class, her fear of ghosts had led to Yuuto, who was a grade above them, being dragged into it. 

Thanks to that, the underclassmen had ganged up and teased them both about it, and Yuuto found himself feeling embarrassed. Still, it wasn’t totally a bad experience. 

From the time they were very young, Mitsuki had always relied on Yuuto. Up until they’d finished lower elementary school, he’d found it cute, as if he’d ended up with his own little sister. But in the latter years of elementary school, not liking the way it was causing his friends to make fun of him, his demeanor toward her had grown cold. He’d gotten annoyed by her constant dependence on him. 

When he’d entered middle school, Yuuto’s feelings toward Mitsuki had done another about-face. Perhaps he’d come to feel that being relied upon wasn’t so bad, or rather he’d started to take pleasure in it. Now, in his second year of middle school, he actually wanted to be relied upon. 

His emotions were so fickle. 

He was finally beginning to understand why. 

“If you’re that scared, then stay back. I wanna hurry up and get this over with,” Yuuto said as he waved his arm, pulling his sleeve away from Mitsuki’s grasp. 

It wasn’t like he didn’t feel a pang of guilt for acting this way with her, but too much time indulging in arguing back and forth like this might lead to being branded a wimp by the underclassmen, and their making fun of him was the last thing he wanted to deal with. And most of all, he just wanted to look cool in front of her. 

“Now, then...” He leaned into the shrine’s double doors, pushing them open with an audible creak. 

Inside the room was a rusted round mirror, in even worse shape than the shrine itself. No, to be honest, it was doubtful whether one could even call it a mirror. Dirtied, blurry, and broken, it was unable to even reflect Yuuto’s face back at him as he stood right in front of it. 

He heaved a sigh, disappointed. “This old thing’s pretty shoddy.” 

“Y-Yuu-kun?! Saying something like that is bad luck!” she cried. 

“You worry too much, Mitsuki,” Yuuto said. “Awww, but just taking a picture of it is no fun.” 

Taking out his cherished smartphone, the LGN09 aka Laegjarn, he paused for thought. 

As proof that one actually took the proposed route without chickening out, the rules of this test of courage stated that one was supposed to take a photo of the mirror in the shrine, then head back. But being a year older, Yuuto found himself wanting to take it a step further than the underclassmen would. 

“Hey! Wh-what are you doing?!” Mitsuki nearly shrieked as her features stiffened. 

“Hm? I just thought I’d take a selfie with this divine object. Oh, speaking of which, do you think using a front-facing camera counts as an opposing mirror?” 

“Wh-whawhawha! D-don’t! Yuu-kun, if you end up in another world, I’ll...” 

“It’s all right,” he assured her. “It’s just a superstition.”

“Huh?!” Inside Yuuto’s mind, something akin to an incantation resonated. 

It wasn’t Japanese. Nor was it English. It was some language unfamiliar to him. But still, somehow, he got the feeling that it was calling him. 

Once again, what sounded like a voice resonated through his mind. Clearer than before, easier to discern. 

It was a young woman’s voice. 

“Wha... huh?” Just as Yuuto turned in the direction of the voice, an intense dizziness overcame him. 

His consciousness and vision were hazy, but he could see... two mirrors. Emitting a strange light, they seemed to be move before his eyes, overlapping and separating, over and over. It was rather like a kaleidoscope. 

Even more bizarre, in the background of one of the two mirrors appeared the faint form of a girl. The girl danced about with a wild intensity, as if possessed. Her pure white garments, reminiscent of the ones worn by priestesses in service to a deity, fluttered daintily around her as she moved. 

“What is this?!” Shocked, Yuuto rubbed his eyes, yet the image would not disappear. 

In fact... 

While at first the image was so transparent it was like looking at a hologram, the colors gradually became more opaque, and the girl’s supple body gained a tangible appearance. 

“Yuu...kun... Yu...ku...” 

Mitsuki’s voice seemed so far away. He could scarcely hear the last of what she said. 

Instinctively, he looked behind him. 

“Huh?!” 

He was at a loss for words. Mitsuki was no longer there, and a solid white wall now blocked his path. The wall’s surface was densely covered with a variety of drawings. Many of the images were modeled after people, but among them were some pictures that looked like indescribable monsters, some combination of human and beast. 

“Where the hell did this come from?!” 

Just as he muttered those words aloud, he became aware of some sort of commotion all around him. It sounded like a sizable amount of people. 

But that was strange. Why would there be this many people deep in the mountains this late at night? Especially when they hadn’t been there a moment ago. It had all happened too suddenly for it to be students that had come running from the meeting spot. 

Bewildered, Yuuto turned his head to look in front of him once more, and his eyes opened wide. 

Even though he should have been outside, this was clearly inside a room. In a wide space the width of a small gym were several dozen people clothed in plain, simple garments, men whose chiseled faces were clearly not of Japanese descent. They were all watching him cautiously with surprised expressions. 

“Have I ended up on some movie set or something?” he wondered. “...And, hey, that mirror!” 

The mirror adorning the altar behind the men looked familiar. Though this one was far and away more lustrous, more brilliant, it otherwise appeared a perfect match to the one enshrined at Tsukimiya. 

“If you gaze into the mirror through an opposing mirror on the night of a full moon, you will be pulled into another world.” The rumor of Tsukimiya Shrine suddenly appeared in Yuuto’s head. 

“That can’t be true, can it?! There’s absolutely no way...” 

As those cryptic words rung out in Yuuto’s mind, a golden blade was thrust at his throat. 

It happened so suddenly, Yuuto found himself unable to speak. Even if he could speak, he doubted they would understand his words. From the tone of the speaker’s voice, Yuuto gathered that the harsh tone might be used by someone demanding an explanation, but that was all. 

Unsure of what to do, his eyes alone followed the blade down to pretty, thin fingers, reminiscent of icefish. Lifting his gaze, he saw locks of silver hair that seemed to glisten. They danced around in his field of vision. 

She was a girl of incredible beauty, the likes of which he had never seen. It was like one of those valkyries that you read about in myths and legends had jumped straight off the page. 

She looked about the same age as Yuuto, maybe a year older. She had a beautiful face, as if it had been chiseled from ice, and a frigid expression to match. 

Yuuto was so struck by her that he forgot his current situation. 

At that time, he had absolutely no idea of the harsh misfortune that awaited him.