HOT NOVEL UPDATES



Hint: To Play after pausing the player, use this button

Chapter 6: Kiryuu Hajime—Tome the Fourth of the Twenty-First Year

Grasp as you will, clutch though you may

Ever shall they fall twixt your impotent fingers

Water or sand, seconds or lifetimes

None shall ever grace the palms of your hands

—Excerpt from the Reverse Crux Record

The next evening, at around the time the local schools were getting out for the day, Hajime really did head out to pay a visit to our alma mater, Senkou High. He invited me along, but I ended up turning him down. I just wasn’t feeling up to it, somehow.

The rest of the members of Fallen Black, meanwhile, all went back to their own private lives. None of them decided to launch a suicidal solo assault on F in the end, though I seriously doubted that any of them were motivated by a desire to obey their boss’s orders. If I had to guess how they felt about him, I’d say they were fed up—beyond fed up—and had lost their enthusiasm for our whole arrangement. It felt like the silent consensus was that if F really did bring the War to an end, nobody would particularly mind.

The Spirit War motivated its Players to stay alive and become one of the Final Eight with the promise that doing so would allow them to have a wish granted, but none of our members seemed particularly enticed by that prize. Actually, when I really thought about it, I had to wonder if Hajime had deliberately recruited people like that onto his team. Of course, I was no exception. It’s not like I didn’t have any wishes I’d like to get granted, but they weren’t the biggest reason I was participating in the War—that would be because doing so meant Hajime would need me. It meant I was able to get closer to him, at least by a little.

“Huh...?” I muttered to myself. I’d just returned home after buying ingredients for dinner, and I was mildly surprised to find that I had a visitor. You’d think I would’ve been more than just a little surprised that somebody had opened the lock to my apartment and let themself inside while I was out, but when I considered the fact that the visitor in question was an entity that transcended humanity, much less locks, the shock was sorta dampened. “Leatia!”

My Spirit Handler was sitting by the table in my living room. She usually made a habit of floating around in the air, so it felt sort of weird to see her sitting politely on the ground.

“What’s up?” I asked. “Did you need something from me?”

Leatia turned to look at me. “Make me some food,” she said in a flat, disinterested voice.

“Uh. F-Food? What? Wait, do you even eat?” I asked.

“I can eat,” Leatia replied. “We don’t need nutrients or anything, though, so when we do eat, it’s just so we can enjoy the flavor. That’s all we get out of food, no matter how much of it we eat.”

Huh! I don’t get it. Spirits were a fundamentally different sort of life-form than humans, though, so I figured that trying to understand would probably be a waste of time.

“Hajime always makes your food look like it tastes incredible,” Leatia commented offhandedly.

“D-Does he really? He makes it look that good?”

“You could at least try to make it less obvious how happy you are to hear that,” she sighed.

“Okay, wait just a minute!” I said. “It’s a little early for dinner, but I’ll whip something up now.”

I’d never minded cooking. Actually, I rather liked it. I stepped into the kitchen and set about putting together an early dinner. Tonight’s dish was going to be a vegetable stir-fry, made using a mix of leftovers from the fridge, the ingredients I’d bought today, and a seasoning mix I’d seen advertised on TV to tie it all together. I paused for a taste test—yup, pretty good—then microwaved some rice I’d frozen, piled it onto a plate along with the stir-fry, and poured some vegetable soup I’d made at the same time into a mug. With that, dinner was served!

“Here you go,” I said as I set down a couple of place mats and our food onto the table. “One home-cooked, cost-cutting, totally unimpressive meal.” I wasn’t just talking myself down out of humility; it really was as basic as meals could get. But when you’re in college, that’s kind of just how it goes.

Leatia said a quick thanks, then dug into her food. “Hmm... Yeah, this is pretty good,” she commented.

“Glad to hear it,” I replied. “And, whoa...Leatia, you’re really good at using chopsticks.” I’d given her a pair of them without really thinking about it, but not only did she not look Japanese, she didn’t even look human. Seeing someone like that use a pair of chopsticks so naturally struck me, in a paradoxical sort of way, as really unnatural.

“What, these things?” said Leatia, waving her chopsticks in the air. “Hajime showed me how to use them back when I met him. He was eating a convenience store lunch box, I think.”

“Oh, huh,” I said with a nod. Suddenly, a thought struck me. Back when I met him, she’d said. That meant a year ago, around the time he’d tumbled into my apartment. He and Leatia were already participating in the Spirit War at that point in time, though they’d kept it hidden from me for the next half year.

“Hey, got seconds?” Leatia asked, holding out her empty bowl.

Fast eater, huh? “Hmm... There’s still a little left, but it’s supposed to be Hajime’s dinner,” I said hesitantly.

“Oh, his? Why bother saving it, then? Let the jackass figure his own food out.”

“I can’t do that!” I said. “What if he’s starving when he gets home?”

“Y’know, I’ve been thinking something for a while now,” Leatia sighed, setting her bowl on the table and resting her chin in her hands. “You really, reeeally love Hajime to pieces, huh?”

I practically jumped out of my seat, coming dangerously close to spewing a mouthful of soup all over her in the process. “Wh-Wh-What’re you talking about?! I-I don’t love that jerk even a little bit! No way, not at all, hate his guts!”

“Okay, but seriously,” said Leatia. “No point trying to hide it. It’s super obvious just watching you.”

“Ugh!”

“What, thought you could at least keep it secret from me? Sorry, but it’s clear enough that even a spirit could figure it out.”

“Ugggh!”

“Hell, to be honest, I think everyone in Fallen Black knows at this point.”

“Ugaaah?!”

Whyyyyyyyyy?! And wait, seriously?! Everyone knows?!

“Everyone totally makes fun of you for it when you and Hajime aren’t around,” Leatia continued. “They’re all, ‘Man, Hitomi just can’t keep a secret,’ and ‘Wonder when she’s gonna ask him out,’ and ‘She’s the sort of girl who’ll waste her life on doomed romances,’ and ‘She’s gotta be a virgin,’ and ‘She flirts like a middle schooler,’ and so on.”

“That’s how they talk about me behind my back?!”

“Yeah, they pretty much only get along when they’re making fun of your love life.”

Boy, did I ever feel conflicted about that one! Considering our members were pretty much always at each other’s throats, it was really nice to hear that they actually got along sometimes...but the fact that they did so for the purpose of gossiping about our love lives was just a lot to take in. Not to mention the fact that we, the members who were in our twenties, were getting made fun of behind our backs by a bunch of teenagers.

“But, I mean, meh. Not like I care about your relationship with him. I just thought you have weird taste in guys, that’s all,” said Leatia, sparing absolutely no mercy whatsoever for me as I went through shame so unbearable I couldn’t even look at her. “I mean, he’s a total wackjob, right? I literally don’t understand, like, eighty percent of everything he says.”

“I mean...yeah, that’s fair,” I said, unable to deny it. He’d been that way since I’d met him in high school.

“Like, I mean... Okay, I know,” said Leatia. “About a year or so ago, right? Right when I met him, I mean—when I first invited him to join the Spirit War—can you guess what he said to me?”

“Probably not,” I said. “What?” I was suddenly really curious. What was Hajime’s reaction when he learned about the War?

“‘So they’re finally upping the stakes, huh? I was just about ready to cancel the whole shebang,’” she said, not even bothering to try to imitate his voice.

“...”

“That’s the first thing he said after I explained the War to him. You see what I mean, right? Doesn’t make an ounce of goddamn sense, does it?”

“Nope,” I sighed. “Yeah, I have no idea what that means.”

“You wouldn’t, because it was total gibberish! And you’re taking care of a guy like that? I don’t know if I should call you devoted, or commendable, or what.”

“I’m not taking care of...” I began to protest, but I just couldn’t press the point because honestly, I probably was. Though personally, I think “getting jerked around by him” would’ve been a slightly more apt way of putting it.

I ended up not really knowing what to say and fell into silence, only for Leatia to do so as well. She closed her eyes and seemed to spend a few seconds in thought before finally saying, “So, hey. On a personal level, I actually like you a lot.”

“Whoa,” I grunted, completely taken aback. I was not expecting someone to open up about their feelings for me on that particular evening, least of all a girl... I mean, assuming Leatia even was a girl in the way I understood those things.

“You’re friendly, kind, and considerate,” she continued, “and you have good manners, even to someone who’s not human like me. You’re a good listener too.”

“Heh heh heh,” I giggled bashfully.

“I mean, Hajime’s a little...well, you know what he’s like, so maybe you just look incredible since he’s my big point of comparison. But still...”

“Ha ha ha,” I chuckled awkwardly.

“But I’m a spirit, and you’re a human. Make sure you don’t forget that,” Leatia continued. “I am not your ally. I’m your Handler—nothing more, nothing less. I’ll tell you everything you need to know, sure, but that goes both ways—if there’s anything you don’t need to know, I won’t say a peep about it. I have a mountain of secrets I’m keeping from you, and I’ve told you plenty of white lies already. What I’m trying to say here is, well...let’s try to keep the nature of our relationship in mind, okay? Both of us.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. It sort of felt like she was giving me a warning—telling me not to open up too much with her. I’d thought in the past that the relationship between a Player and their Spirit Handler was like the relationship between a manga creator and their editor, and it occurred to me now that the analogy could extend to the businesslike nature of those relationships too.

In theory, an editor is a manga creator’s ally. They both do their best to make a good manga together, after all. That being said, an editor wouldn’t guarantee that the creators they work with won’t go hungry if their manga stops selling. Their relationship would begin and end with their work—it wouldn’t be a friendship, by any means. It’s a cutthroat, dog-eat-dog world out there, and if you fall behind the pack, it’s your fault for not being able to keep up. That, in short, is what I figured Leatia was trying to communicate to me.

Of course, the fact that she’s coming out and saying all that just goes to show how nice of a person she is... Wait, no, I shouldn’t think like that! She gave me that warning precisely because I have a tendency to be soft like this! Man. This is kinda tough.

“That’s something that Hajime understands really well, actually. He doesn’t trust me at all,” said Leatia, in a tone that said she thought that just might be for the best. The incident from the day before sprung to mind—how Hajime had sniffed out his Spirit Handler’s plot and done the exact opposite, proving himself to be ever uncontrollable.

“Huh...? Sorry, wait just a second. Yeah? This is Leatia,” Leatia suddenly said, floating up into the air and turning her back to me as she started speaking with someone else entirely. The spirits would do this every once in a while—I knew she was using some sort of telepathy-esque power to speak with someone remotely. I knew that it was just one of the ways spirits communicated, but still, seeing her face the wall and talk to nobody without even holding a phone up to her ear felt downright surreal to someone from my generation, who’d grown up around cell phones.

Of course, someone who grew up in an era without phones at all might think it’s surreal in the same sort of way to see my generation talking on cell phones, I thought as my mind began to wander in a really pointless direction...until suddenly, Leatia’s side of the conversation pulled me back to reality.

“Wait, what?! What the hell are you talking about?! Were you even listening to me?!” she shouted. “What do you mean, ‘not trustworthy’?! Don’t give me that bullshit! I’m telling you, we’re dealing with System here, and that’s not— Fuck! Those shit-for-brains bastards hung up on me! Gaaah, why can’t those geriatric jerkoffs clean the wax out of their ears and just goddamn listen for once?!” Leatia raged. Her hair was practically standing on end out of sheer fury.

“Wh-What happened...?” I cautiously probed.

Leatia paused to take a deep breath, then began to explain. “The Committee’s finally decided how to handle the situation. They’ll be calling the War to a temporary halt and rallying up all the Players to wipe out F as a unified force. Basically, they’re trying to keep this as a Player-on-Player fight to the bitter end,” she spat offhandedly.

I cocked my head. They’re bringing all the Players together as one united force? When I’d first joined the War half a year ago, there had been about a thousand participants, and last I’d heard, that number had been cut in half, approximately. In other words, they’d be sending somewhere around five hundred Players out to grind F into the dust. Surely, not even F could stand up to...but wait, no, that doesn’t make sense!

“Isn’t that sort of, you know...pointless?” I asked. “I mean, considering System’s power, just throwing as many people as possible at her wouldn’t help at all, right?” Actually, it’d be worse than unhelpful—it’d be downright counterproductive! After all, System was a being created for the sole and precise purpose of defeating every other Player.

“You bet it’s pointless,” groaned Leatia. “Assuming Aki was right about System’s power, then even if every single Player left in the War jumped her all at once, she’d turn the tables on them, no sweat.”

“But then, why would—”

“Because the higher-ups don’t trust Aki’s info. It’s not that they don’t trust her ability to analyze powers either—it’s that they don’t trust Natsu Aki as a person.”

“W-Wait, why? Where’s this coming from?” I asked.

“You don’t get it yet? It all boils down to the fact that System hasn’t actually done anything yet. She hasn’t used her power so far, and she hasn’t beaten a single Player.”

At that point, the pieces finally clicked together. Of course—System hasn’t been unleashed on the War yet! She’s never seen an actual battle, and the full extent of her power’s not obvious at all. They’re probably not even convinced she exists yet!

We only knew all about her thanks to Head Hunting and its ability to gather absolutely unquestionable information. We’d been spoiled on her powerset, basically. We’d gotten ahold of the copy days ahead of the story’s official release. Leatia had reported all of that to the War Management Committee, of course, but the Committee hadn’t bought our story. To them, it wasn’t verified information coming from a trusted source—in fact, it was the opposite.

“So...you do have faith in Aki, Leatia?” I asked. “In her power and in her as a person?”

“More or less,” said Leatia. “And, I mean, it’s not like she’d have any reason to lie about this.”

“Right?” I agreed.

“To tell the truth...something pretty similar to this supposedly happened back in the second Spirit War. An irregular element made its way into the mix, and they gathered up all the active Players to stop it. And, well, that’s where this is coming from.”

“They think that if it worked once, it’ll work again?”

“That’s about the size of it,” said Leatia with an exasperated sigh. The higher-ups were sticking to precedent like it was unquestionable dogma, and their subordinates were left to agonize over the consequences. It was like looking at human society in a microcosm.

“God,” Leatia grumbled, “imagine if Zeon had this all planned out in advance. It wouldn’t be a crazy leap of logic to assume that the Committee would go with the tried-and-true ‘gather up all the Players’ plan if you caused enough trouble, and at that point, it’d be the easiest thing in the world to have System wipe them all out at once. That crafty little...”

“So then, was tricking Hajime—I mean, having Fallen Black wipe out F all your plan?” I asked, suddenly remembering what Hajime had said the night before.

Leatia scowled, but a moment later, she seemed to give up and said, “Yeah, pretty much,” with a nod. “I had a feeling the bigwigs might not believe me even if I gave them the whole story. I figured the best possible outcome would be for Hajime to just wipe F off the map before they could turn into a real problem.” She paused, then ever so quietly mumbled, “I thought that if anyone could do something about them, it’d be him.”

For a moment, the two of us fell into silence once more. Finally, Leatia let out another sigh. “Well, no choice left. I’ll just have to go to Hajime and ask nicely, I guess...though I really don’t wanna. The Committee’ll have to inform all the Spirit Handlers about their decision, and the Handlers’ll have to pass the news onto their players after that, so I’d say we have about...two days or so, most likely? We have to do something about the situation before then.”

“Two days...” I repeated. “So two days from now, all the other Players will attack F together...”

It seemed safe to assume that some Players would choose not to participate, of course, but even if only a couple hundred took part in the operation, System’s ever-escalating sequence of asspulls would be kicked off in dramatic fashion. And Hajime would have to do something about her before then?

“B-But wait, Leatia,” I said. “I know Hajime’s strong, but does he really stand a chance against System?” I asked.

“You heard him, didn’t you?” she replied. “He’s got the same power she does, right?”

“What? No, that was just him being a poser! I mean—”


“I’m kidding. But anyway, if he loses, he loses,” said Leatia. “I’m gonna be blunt with you: if Hajime, a Player I’m in charge of, manages to put down F’s rebellion before it really begins, it’ll look really good on my record. That goes both ways, though—if he flies off the handle, tries to take them on solo and loses, that mess is my responsibility.”

“That sure was blunt, all right,” I agreed, cringing slightly. Leatia had a pretty calculating side to her sometimes.

“Anyway,” she said, “guess I should start by giving him a call.” Once again, she spun around in the air to face the wall. Apparently, having a telepathic conversation while sitting face-to-face with me was somehow unpleasant in her mind. Hajime seemed to pick up his phone pretty much immediately, and Leatia gave him a rundown of everything she’d just told me. Then, the instant she was finished...

“Huh? Wait, what? You’ll do it? Seriously?” Leatia said, sounding so shocked her tone came across as almost hysterical. “No...I mean, if you’re okay with that, it works for me. Yeah. Great, thanks.” With her telepathic conversation concluded, Leatia turned back to me. She looked a little skeptical somehow.

“What did Hajime say?” I asked.

“He said he’d do it.”

“Huh? D-Do it, as in...he’ll beat F for you?” I asked, unable to believe my ears.

Leatia nodded. “Apparently, he’ll ‘send them to the deepest pits of The Heavens’ Hell.’”

He said his catchphrase and everything? Oh, god, he’s actually serious.

“I don’t get him,” Leatia groaned. “I seriously just don’t get that guy! If he was gonna say yes that easily, then what the hell was the point of all that crap yesterday?”

“Good question,” I sighed. “Considering this is Hajime we’re talking about, it was probably just a matter of the mood he was in, or a whim, or something.”

“Agggh, why’d I have to end up as his Handler? Couldn’t he just die and get it over with?” Leatia grumbled as she slumped face-first onto the table. I knew well how stressful getting jerked around by Hajime could be, and the stress was clearly starting to build up for her.

But, anyway—Hajime’s going to go fight F? What on earth happened between yesterday and now to bring about that mood swing?

“Hey, Leatia? Did Hajime say where he is right now?” I asked as I stood up. I gathered up the plates, got them soaking in the sink, then started getting ready to head outside.

“Nah, didn’t ask...but I heard somebody say something about an order in the background, so I bet he was probably in a restaurant somewhere?”

A restaurant. Hajime had told me he was going to swing by our high school, and if he’d ended up at a restaurant near there... Yeah, it’d have to be that one chain.

“Sorry, Leatia,” I said as I headed for the door. “I’ll be right back!”

I sped off in my car, making my way to the restaurant. It was one of those sit-down chain joints, and one I had quite a few memories of. I tried calling Hajime several times on the way there, but he never picked up. It seemed I’d be showing up unannounced, like it or not.

Not that I’d had a super concrete reason to rush out and see him, anyway. I was just curious: Why had he gone through such a sudden and complete shift in attitude since yesterday? What could’ve possibly happened in less than twenty-four hours to make him change his mind? This was Hajime we were talking about, so I couldn’t dismiss the possibility he was just being moody or acting on a whim again—actually, the possibility of that was really high—but it was also possible there was more to it than that, and I just couldn’t suppress my curiosity.

Did something happen over at Senkou High? Maybe Miss Satomi said something to him? Or maybe he ran into someone else? Someone whose presence could cause him to totally flip the script on something he’d already come to a pretty definite decision on?

All sorts of possibilities raced through my mind as I drove along...only to notice Hajime himself ambling along the sidewalk just ahead of me. I slammed on the brakes and honked a few times to get his attention. A look of surprise crossed his face as he glanced over at me, but he hopped into the passenger’s seat without hesitation.

“Nice timing,” said Hajime. “I was just thinking about summoning you anyway.”

“Then it would’ve been easier on both of us if you’d picked up your phone,” I grumbled.

“My bad, my bad,” said Hajime, waving my complaint away. “I just had a little date with destiny, that’s all.”

A date with destiny? What?

“Oh, right,” Hajime continued. “Speaking of, I won’t need dinner tonight. Just got done stuffing myself back at the old restaurant.”

“Seriously?” I sighed. “I already cooked and everything...”

“We can just have that for breakfast tomorrow.”

“Right... But wait, since when did you have the money to ‘stuff yourself’ at a place like that?” I asked.

“Oh, no worries there,” said Hajime. “I bailed before we settled the bill. Left it for the guy I was eating with to take care of.”

“You didn’t,” I said, before realizing a second later that yes, of course he did. “H-Holy crap! Hajime! You can’t just— We have to go pay him back right now!” I shouted, reaching over toward the glove box to retrieve my wallet.

Hajime, however, grabbed my wrist and held it in place. “Don’t,” he said. “You’ll ruin the moment.”

What do you mean, “the moment”? This is a question of common sense, not your weird aesthetics!

“I’ll meet up with him again eventually,” Hajime continued, putting a weird amount of emphasis on that one word, “but not yet. It’ll be better if we put it off for now.”

“Who is ‘he’? Just who were you eating out with?” I asked without really thinking about it.

Hajime put on one of his knowing, seemingly meaningful grins. “Guiltia Sin Jurai,” he replied.

To be honest, I can only imagine just how skeptical I looked. It was probably the same sort of expression you’d make if someone came up to you and started talking to you in a foreign language you’d never even heard of.

“A member of Virgin Child,” Hajime continued.

“Oooh,” I replied. Suddenly, it all made sense.

Virgin Child was the name that Hajime had given to a group made up of the current four members of Senkou High’s literary club, plus an elementary schooler who hung out with them. They were our literary club successors, basically—well, all but one of them. I had more than a few reservations about the idea of naming a group of people you weren’t part of without their permission, to be honest, but considering this was Hajime, I knew that there’d be no stopping him no matter what I said.

In any case, Virgin Child was technically a group of Players. Not just any Players either—each of their powers was incredibly potent in its own right, supposedly. The thing was, none of them were actually participating in the Spirit War. I wasn’t privy to any of the details, but from what I’d been able to gather, there were extenuating circumstances that had forced them to be isolated from the War at large. The kids were apparently special somehow.

Leatia was their Spirit Handler on paper, but not only did none of them know she existed, they didn’t even know about spirits or the Spirit War at all. The Committee had deemed them a group of irregulars, and they’d ordered Leatia to keep them away from everything else that was going on...or at least, that’s what I’d been told. I certainly wasn’t expecting one of Virgin Child’s members to not be Japanese, anyway! I mean, there’s no way a Japanese person would be named, uh, Gil...? Nope, already forgot his full name.

“So, that’s why you came out here? To meet this kid?” I asked.

“Nah, I wasn’t planning on meeting with him at all. I wasn’t kidding before—I seriously just swung by to say hi to Miss Satomi. But then I ran into him,” said Hajime. “Gotta say, I never dreamed that there’d be someone that formidable in Virgin Child. The Conqueror of Chaos, in whom the stygian flames of Purgatory, Dark and Dark, dwell! The Lord of Thanatos, the Sovereign of Sin and Damnation, the Umbral Tempest, the Bloody Darkness, King of the Cosmic Apocalyptia... He is the bearer of myriad titles and the chosen child of calamity. He’s the one I’ve been searching for—it could be no other!”

Hajime had peppered his explanation with so many nonsensical proper nouns, I’d totally lost track of what he was saying halfway through. I sighed, and he smirked. It was a brutal, villainous smirk, yet at the same time, it spoke of a profound innocence, like the grin of a child. He just kept rambling on to himself, like he was reciting some sort of spell. I could tell that he’d completely gone into chuuni mode—not that it was hard to figure out, with his delusions firing on all cylinders like this.

It was like he’d resonated with the boy he’d met somehow, like their true selves had fed off of and amplified each other, leaving the chuuni spirit within Hajime crackling with energy. The true Kiryuu Hajime—Kiryuu Heldkaiser Luci-First—had come forth for the world to see.

“S-So, Hajime,” I said, doing my best to move the conversation along and drag him back into the real world. “Leatia said that you’re going to fight F?”

“Huh? Oh, you’ve already heard?” said Hajime, acting as if it was the most trivial of matters. “Yeah, that’s right. I’m gonna crush ’em.”

“But why? You were so dead set against it the last time we talked about this! Not even Leatia actually thought you’d be willing to go for it!”

“But I didn’t refuse.”

“...”

“One of my absolute favorite things to do is to have someone ask me for something purely for the hell of it, certain that there’s no way I’ll agree but figuring they have nothing to lose by giving it a shot, then saying ‘sure’ to them on a whim.”

Clearly, he had no intention of giving me a serious answer.

“Bwa ha ha! I really did think this all through, though,” Hajime continued a moment later. “Part of me thought that letting System take out the trash and throw the power curve to hell and back again would make fighting her in the end way cooler. But y’know, Leatia just picked the worst time to call me about it—actually, make that the best time.”

“What does that mean...?” I asked.

“It means I couldn’t let him see me back down from a challenge, even for a moment.”

In other words, he was trying to look cool in front of that Gil-whatever kid. He was, as always—maybe even more so than always—dedicated body and soul to being a huge poser.

“Contact the Wings of Fallen Black, Hitomi,” said Hajime.

I gulped. It was finally time—time for our next battle. An all-out war between F and Fallen Black is about to begin...or so I thought, until Hajime blew my expectations out of the water.

“Tell all of them to stay put and do nothing. I’ll be taking on F alone.”

“Uh,” I grunted. “Wha... What? B-B-But why?!”

I’m pretty sure my jaw literally dropped. He’s doing it alone? Running the mission single-player? I’d been preparing myself to go into battle since I heard the news from Leatia, and now he had to spring this on me?!

“Oh, wait—is this part of a plan to counteract System’s power?” I guessed. “You mean you’ll take the front line while we support you, to keep her from awakening over and—”

“Wrong,” said Hajime, cutting me off. “I’ll go in solo to fight her like the lone wolf I am, and the rest of you are going to stay out of it. Have the others sit around in the hideout and play Monopoly or something.”

“Monopoly...?”

“Feels like I’ve been losing my edge lately,” said Hajime, perfectly happy to move the conversation along and leave me in the dust. “It’s all this boss-work I’ve been doing, y’know? I’ve been spending too much time keeping the organization in check. Makes me wanna get in a good single-player session.”

In what possible dimension is any of that true? You haven’t done anything even remotely boss-like! Have you forgotten how the whole team almost fell apart yesterday?

“Plus, casting off all my restraints and letting the real me run free every once in a while sounds pretty nice,” Hajime monologued, an ecstatic, ferocious smile spreading across his face. He wasn’t looking at me anymore—I could tell. “In the Divine Comedy, Dante claimed that flame burns upward in an effort to climb back to the heavens from whence it came. Meanwhile, the deepest depths of Hell, the antithesis to Heaven, where all the Earth’s gravity is concentrated into one singular point, is where the fallen angel Lucifer lies imprisoned...”

Hajime paused for a moment.

“Fire and gravity. The power of ascent, and the power of descent. Yes, I see now... These forces are indeed so perfectly opposed to each other, it’s almost too much. Perhaps this, too, is but a stirring of causality—a fate predestined since the Age of the Divines!”

Hajime’s mismatched eyes burned with a crazed glee. He wasn’t looking at me—he was looking somewhere else. Looking at someone else.

Soon after, Hajime had me let him out of my car—where didn’t seem to particularly matter to him—and went on his way. He was off to go do something in single-player mode, I guess.

We had two days until all the Players left in the war would converge upon F en masse. In other words, unless they were taken out of the picture either tomorrow or the day after, System would bring the War to an abrupt conclusion. That, in turn, meant that Hajime would have to mount his assault on F within that two-day span.

For a moment, I just sat there in my car, mulling over the situation. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about him...but on the other hand, for some reason, I just couldn’t picture him ever actually losing. It was incredibly easy, meanwhile, to picture him crushing his foes with ease—never mind who those foes were—and smirking all the while in that same arrogant, villainous way he always did.

I, of course, had never been much of a fighter. There was only so much I could do, even at the best of times. I couldn’t stop him—he was pretty much unstoppable—and if I’d tagged along with him, I’d probably have just ended up dragging him down. That’s why I decided to just do as I was told, swing by a store to buy a board game, and head for the hideout. The rest of us could spend the next couple days playing it together. We’d have a real blast.

“So they’re finally upping the stakes, huh? I was just about ready to cancel the whole shebang.”

As I made my way to the hideout, one of Hajime’s cryptic comments suddenly sprang to mind. It was pretty clear to me that he’d been speaking in media terms. In that context, “upping the stakes” would be in reference to a technique that writers for TV shows and other sorts of media use pretty often to try to prop up an unpopular series.

When a manga or a TV show’s gradually losing its fanbase, the writers often resort to throwing in some sort of big plot twist or a dramatic shift in the story’s direction, thus upping the stakes and hopefully revitalizing interest in the series. An easy example would be the sort of manga that start out as slice-of-life gag series before suddenly shifting to centering themselves around battles and turning into action stories instead. So, what would “upping the stakes” mean for Hajime when viewed in that context? I’d told Leatia that I had no clue what he’d meant, but the truth is, I wasn’t being totally honest. 

“Listen up, Hitomi: life is like a novel that you can only read once.”

Hajime had said that to me all the way back when we were in high school, and it wasn’t a onetime deal. He’d always had a habit of acting as if his life was some sort of story at every opportunity—as if every one of his experiences, as if his very existence was all a work of fiction. Considering that, when he talked about the stakes getting upped, it was pretty easy for me to conclude that he was talking about the stakes of his own life.

One year ago, Hajime’s ordinary life had been abruptly upended when he was pulled into a supernatural conflict. The commonplace, slice-of-life world he’d always lived in was suddenly transformed into a world of supernatural battles. A slice of life getting its stakes upped to turn it into a battle story—it was the classic example, through and through.

But what, then, had he meant when he said he was ready to cancel that story? The obvious interpretation seemed pretty clear there as well: to have your very life canceled would mean to die. In other words, Hajime’s slice-of-life existence was so boring, he was just about prepared to—

I shook my head. That would be nuts. Complete insanity, through and through! And maybe I was wrong. This was all just wild conjecture on my part, after all. Hajime could’ve meant something totally different—in fact, the odds of that seemed higher than the odds that I was right! I mean, what sort of dumbass would kill themself because their life hadn’t suddenly turned into a supernatural battle story? At the same time, though, I couldn’t help but think that it really was possible. Hajime was just unstable enough that I wouldn’t have been able to put it past him.

Ugh...this is hopeless, I thought. Nothing had changed at all since we were in high school. The closer I got to him, the farther away Hajime drifted from me. However much I reached out for him, I’d never grasp anything other than the empty air. It was like trying to keep company with a mass of fog. He was as untouchable as the clouds up above me, but unlike them, he didn’t seem to be far out of reach. That was the worst part: it really did feel like I could catch hold of him if I just reached out that last little bit farther—and whenever I would try, I’d never manage to touch him, but the effort would leave me soaked to the skin, the fog’s condensation gradually seeping its way into my heart.

I’d joined this ridiculous, incomprehensible War just to get closer to him. I wasn’t happy to admit it—actually, it made me downright gloomy—but I couldn’t stop myself from brooding over that fact as I stepped into the bar. The moment I walked in, though, I was distracted by a sharp clink from off in a corner of the room. Somebody was inside, playing darts.

It was a boy, wearing the jacket that came as part of my old high school’s uniform. He held a dart up, paused for a moment to take aim, then flung it at the board...only to miss spectacularly and send the dart thudding into the wall instead. It dropped to the ground with a quiet little clink.

“Good grief. This just isn’t my day,” said the boy. I didn’t recognize him, but if I had to describe him in brief, “a pretty boy” seemed as fitting a phrase as any. He just had a certain beauty to his facial features, and his hair was long and tied back in a ponytail. He was also a little short for a guy, standing about as tall as I did.

“I’ve never liked doing things myself. I’m the sort of person who likes watching someone else play video games or card games more than I like playing them personally,” the boy muttered disinterestedly as he stooped down to pick up the fallen darts. Then, when he was finished, he turned toward the entryway and looked directly at me. “That’s how it works, isn’t it? Something can only look fun when you watch someone else do it,” he said with an amiable smile.

I went on guard in an instant. Why would there be a strange boy I’d never met here, of all places? Nobody outside of Fallen Black should’ve even known that the bar existed!

“Anyway, nice to meet you,” said the boy after a few moments of silence passed by. “Seeing as you’re here, I take it I can assume you’re one of Kiryuu Hajime’s friends?”

“Y-Yeah, I am,” I said cautiously. “But who are you? And why are you here?” There was a very real chance that he was a Player, and I held myself at the ready for him to attack at any second.

“Ha ha ha. Oh, don’t be so nervous, please! I’m just your everyday plebeian. I’m less than a background character! Totally powerless! Couldn’t hurt a fly!” said the boy in a flippant, joking tone. “Oh, though I suppose I should introduce myself,” he continued. “I’m the Thirteenth Wing of Fallen Black: Innocent Onlooker, or Sagami Shizumu.”

I took in a sharp breath. The Thirteenth Wing. A wing I’d never even heard of.

“No need to be distant with me, of course! Just call me Sagamin, please,” he added with a smile. Not a smirk—not even close. His expression was a gentle, unassuming, and disconcertingly natural smile, without the slightest hint of pretense to be seen.



Share This :


COMMENTS

No Comments Yet

Post a new comment

Register or Login