2 - Eternal Happiness
2 - Eternal Happiness
“Okay, time for school to start!” Mitsuko Torii said, her voice loud as she drew out the words of her announcement.
“They said an asteroid hit the Earth, but it seems to have all worked out. Good news, huh?”
She laughed, and for the first time the students laughed loudly too.
“I guess it was the Demon King that brought the asteroid, huh?”
“And Brave died trying to lessen the damage?”
The classroom was filled with voices.
“But you know, I thought I was a goner when I saw the asteroid hit. I don’t know when everything went back to normal,” Mitsuko said, not particularly interested in the topic.
They seemed to be at the point several days after Akuto had come to school. Akuto and Junko had joined the class midway, and from the things Mitsuko was saying and the curious gazes of the students, they were able to figure out what was going on.
Many people didn’t realize that they’d died.
They knew something was wrong, but the world was the same as ever, and there was none of the suffering of war. Their lives hadn’t changed in any way, so there was no sense in realizing that they were dead. What really surprised him though, was how his classmates treated him.
His magical power hadn’t changed at all, but none of them seemed to fear him as the Demon King.
The class was on ordinary magic, and for Akuto, it was very simple. It felt good to see the jealous looks the other students gave him, but it felt even better to be treated like a human.
“You’re amazing, new kid. That explains why the class rep is so obsessed with you. She’s your fiancee or something, right?”
“H-Hey! Stop it!” Junko shouted, her face red, but she buried her face in Akuto’s shirt in embarrassment.
Maybe all they’d gone through had made her love deeper, because now she was making no effort to hide her feelings. Akuto, of course, didn’t mind at all.
“I think we should get used to being together a little more,” Akuto said with a smile. Their classmates looked on, shrugging as if they realized there was no point in making fun of them.
“I’m never going to get used to being around a dangerous guy like you,” Junko said, trying to hide her embarrassment. The classmates moved away to give them their space.
After class ended, Fujiko Eto, who’d heard the news, came running up and jumped at Akuto with terrifying speed.
“AKUTO! I MISSED YOU!” she said, forgetting her normal good-girl act.
For Fujiko, this meeting was a long time coming, and it was natural that she would cry. But for the students, it looked like she’d suddenly gone insane.
“H-Hold a second, Fujiko...” Akuto stammered. Fujiko seemed to regain control of herself. She adjusted her uniform, and coughed loudly enough for the students around her to hear.
“Ahem... Sorry. Akuto is an old friend of mine. Our houses were next to each other, and we would always go into each other’s rooms from the second floor window...”
From the look of the wink she was giving him, this was probably something she’d made up.
—I guess it’s just like when Keena rewound the world.
Akuto realized that everything was just like Lily had said. The memories of the people who were most involved in what had happened hadn’t changed. Anybody else had either had their memories erased or altered. And Fujiko had arrived here ahead of the others, and realized that her memories were different than those of the people who’d come later.
“But still, Fujiko...”
“Aww, Akuto... You know you used to call me ‘Big sister’ when we were alone...”
Her voice got louder when she said the last part, so the people around her could hear. This was, however, news to Akuto. There were screams from both the boys and the girls, and no attempt was made to hide the other students’ jealousy.
“H-Hey, get off me, Fujiko...!”
Junko leapt out from the circle of students, and things seemed about to get even more complicated. But Fujiko just smiled and put her arm around Akuto’s, and then said something even more incredible.
“Oh, Hattori. I mean, Junko. We need to get along here. Polygamy is normal in this world. And Akuto is worthy of having at least four or five wives!”
“Um, Fujiko...”
Junko unhappily went to draw her sword, before freezing when she saw how the classmates reacted.
“I knew it.”
“I hate to say it, but he can marry both Fujiko and the class rep if he wants...”
“I wonder if I could marry Sai, too.”
The students were all talking amongst themselves.
“That’s ridiculous...” Junko’s mouth fell open.
Akuto looked at Fujiko. She just wrapped her arms around him and whispered into his ear.
“This is true. You’ve been given permission to marry more than one person, which is very fortunate for us. As long as you’re willing to marry me, we can be truly husband and wife. We can live together with nobody bothering us.” Her voice was husky and seductive, and made it clear how much she’d been waiting for him.
“Students need to live a very dignified married life, you know.” A voice interrupted.
It was Yoshie, pushing past the other students. She wore a lab coat over her suit, and it was plain that she’d been busy working. The other students thought that she was a genius who’d skipped grades to graduate, and was already working as a priest.
“Kita,” Akuto said, grateful for an opportunity to distract Fujiko. He waved at her.
“Don’t call me that, it’s so formal. We’re about to get married, you know,” she grinned.
When she’d said “Things were different” the other day, this was probably the biggest thing that she’d meant. Akuto and Junko were caught so off guard that they forgot they were supposed to be keeping their unique memories a secret from the other students. They both yelled.
“MARRIAGE?”
“Did you forget the date? Haha. Akuto’s only here to get what he needs to graduate, anyway. Just take the test and be done with it. Any of the temples would be glad to have you. They’re also looking into making a special position for you that’s not restricted by faction,” Yoshie said, catching him even further off guard.
Akuto couldn’t keep up with it all, but he realized that this was everything he’d ever dreamed of. It still didn’t feel real, but compared to everything that he’d gone through, doing the job he was given and maintaining the happiness he had seemed very simple.
—This was my dream from before I came here... from before I was told I was the Demon King...
Everything he ever wanted was in front of him. He could be of service to others, too. He had more than enough power to do it. And he had three girls who truly understood him and loved him... What more could he want?
“Is this really... okay?” Akuto said, to no one in particular.
“It is.”
“It is, of course,”
Yoshie and Fujiko smiled and nodded. When she saw this, Junko’s frown gradually started to turn into a smile.
“H-How do I say this... Stop it, guys. It’s kind of embarrassing.”
Junko buried her face in her arms. She was shaking a little.
“Don’t cry. You look like you’ve just found happiness,” Yoshie said, grinning mischievously.
“W-Well, I don’t think there’s anything I can say about this either...” Akuto said with a blush.
One of the classmates surrounding them started to clap, and the clapping spread out into the hallway. It was like he was a popular singer who’d just stepped out on stage.
“Oh, that’s right. I came to tell you that our new home is ready.” Yoshie motioned with her thumb for them to leave the room. The crowd parted to let them pass, and smiled as they walked by. If this wasn’t a school, they’d be tossing flowers at them.
They passed through the arch of people, and headed out into the courtyard. There was a surface car waiting for them there. As they walked over to it, a gang called out to them. “Gang” was the only word that could describe it. Their uniforms were breaking the dress code in all sorts of ways, and they had haircuts that could only have been intended to try and frighten the other students. They were all male.
—So I guess it’s not all happiness, huh?
Akuto thought to himself as he looked at the biggest of them, who seemed to be their leader.
The leader stepped forward, walking out in front of his gang of thugs.
“You know, we don’t like people like you. We just don’t. People like us don’t have anything. And we don’t like people like you, who have everything.”
Akuto remembered the man whose gruff voice he was hearing.
—It’s Takeshi... I remember him.
He was one of Fujiko’s servants. The first person to ever pick a fight with Akuto.
Akuto looked at Fujiko.
“We’ve got no connection at all here,” she whispered to him.
“I see. You want to fight, huh? I bet you do,” Akuto said, with a gleeful smile.
“Now, do I remember how to hold back?”
It felt good, strangely, to know that he had enemies here. Things were going so well he was getting uneasy. There were probably all kinds of fights waiting for him, and setbacks too. But that, he knew, was something he should feel happy about.
“The hell are you talking about? We’ve gone through a hell that spoiled rich brats like you can’t imagine. You won’t beat us by trying to have a stand-up fight.”
Takeshi didn’t seem to think it was possible for him to lose. He wore a cruel smile.
—Oh, he’s got a special nightstick and an incantation gun. The others are ready to jump me on his signal, huh? Two have knives, and the rest all have bats and wrenches...
In a single instant, he’d seen through their clothing and read their minds, and also knew exactly how powerful their magic was, too.
He smiled at Takeshi.
“I don’t want to go into details, but let’s not fight. It won’t do either of us any good.”
Takeshi just laughed and began to slowly walk towards him.
“It’ll do me good. But it’ll be all bad for you.”
The rest of the gang laughed. And then Takeshi jumped on him without warning. It was a surprise attack, but Akuto managed to dodge just by tilting his head.
“That’s dangerous, you know.”
His lack of fear just made Takeshi angrier.
“Maybe you’re not as wimpy as I thought...”
He jerked his head in the direction of his gang. The rest of them began to form a circle to surround him. They were all going to jump him.
“How cowardly!” Junko shouted.
The thugs looked at her and got nasty grins on their faces.
“Oh, hey, you’re cute!”
“Don’t be scared. We don’t hit girls, we make them feel good.”
Junko’s face turned bright red as they laughed. She looked like she might reach for her real sword, not her wooden one. Akuto shook his head.
“Don’t hurt them. Leave it to me.”
From the look on her face, not only would she beat them all, she might kill them.
“But...” she mumbled.
“It’s fine. I’ve learned a few things. Even if you beat them up, they’ll just hate you more. Which means...”
As Akuto kept talking, Takeshi seemed to reach the limits of his patience.
“Stop talking so damn much!”
He yelled and swung his right fist. It was an easily-dodged hook. But it was a trap. The punch was a feint. The real weapon was the nightstick hidden up his sleeve. If Akuto tried to dodge by moving his head again, the nightstick would slip out and strike him head on.
Akuto knew this from the start, however, so he just took a step forward and grabbed Takeshi’s arm, and then easily flung him into the air.
Not just his arm.
He flung Takeshi’s whole body into the sky.
“Hyah?”
Takeshi let out a strange scream as he flew through the air. Flight was one of the more difficult skills for students at the academy to master. And a thug like him, who never paid attention in class, would have no way of dealing with something so unexpected. Takeshi’s body flew off into the sky, like a beach ball tossed up during a dolphin performance.
“Huh?”
His abrupt flight distracted his flunkies for an instant, and that one instant was all it took. Akuto was on them immediately, striking them each firmly in the solar plexus. He’d held back quite a bit, but it was still enough to make all of them scream in pain.
By the time Takeshi landed, all eight of them were squirming on the ground. And after he hit the ground, Akuto grabbed Takeshi by the collar and flicked him in the jaw with his index finger. Takeshi’s head flung backwards, and his brain shut down for an instant, unable to handle the violent impact. In other words, he passed out.
Akuto tossed him on the ground in front of his comrades, and nodded, satisfied.
“I’m glad you didn’t kill them... but they’re still all going to hate you now, right?” Junko asked in exasperation.
“Maybe, but they’re not going to want to fight me now. Also, I’ve decided on how to deal with them in the future.”
“Deal with them... how, exactly?”
“A religion, I guess? One of the old ones. They lack sympathy for others. They don’t think about the future. For people like that, all you need to do is give them a goal in life. As long as they have some kind of goal, they’ll blindly dedicate themselves to it. Ultimately, the traditional religions exist for the sake of people who can’t think, and can’t accept that their suffering is their own fault,” Akuto said, a cold edge to his voice.
“Is that really enough?” Junko asked, flinching at his harsh statement. She still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that sometimes he could be very cruel.
“There were people who believed in the old systems. Really believed. But now we can feel the existence of a real god, right? Someone had to have built this afterlife, after all. So they can study theology.” He opened his student handbook to call Lily.
“What? You want me to ask my dad to make a new department? And then put you in charge of it?”
Lily’s father was a high priest, and had the authority to do it. Using the old data, and the methods of governance used so far, it would be easy to recreate a traditional religion. Akuto nodded, satisfied that he’d found something to dedicate himself to.
“I don’t know how time works here, but it’s going to take years to educate people,” Akuto said. His words sounded prophetic.
They weren’t, however, a prophecy, but a prediction. Though that didn’t make them any less accurate.
“Several years? If we spend that long here, won’t we graduate?” Junko asked.
“Oh? Wasn’t Akuto already planning on graduating? And that’s when our new life is going to begin, right? Come on, our new home is waiting.” Fujiko jerked her head in the direction of Yoshie.
“That’s right. Let’s get going.”
Yoshie began to lead the way.
They got on a train at the school’s station and rode two stations down. Yoshie led them to a high-rise near the city center. Security was tight in the building’s lobby, and there was an automatic lock that kept out the lower classes. This was a living space that was only open to the chosen.
“The whole 60th floor, the penthouse, is ours,” Yoshie explained, as she pushed the button for the elevator.
Akuto looked around the lobby. There was a shopping mall with a boutique, a cafe, a jewelry store, and other tenants. A whole floor of this building would be quite sizable.
“The whole thing?”
“It’s less blatant than building a mansion somewhere. And we won’t have to go up and down stairs, too. Our garden’s going to be artificial, but there’ll be aquariums and flower gardens, too. We could keep some animals if we wanted.”
The button for the top floor was locked so that nobody but Akuto and his friends could get inside. Yoshie led the way, opening the door to their new home. It was sleek and modern, the style that they were all most accustomed to.
“We each have our own room, separate from Akuto’s. They all have their own closets and bathrooms, so you can spend all your time in there. But we’ve also got a living room, a garden, a big bath, and a pool, so I’d prefer you spend your time there. And then there’s...”
After showing them most of the room, she grinned mischievously as she put her hand on the last doorknob.
“The bedroom.”
There was a double bed with a rococo-style canopy. In the back, there was a glass shower and sauna. The ceiling was mirrored, and the whole room was lit up with orange indirect lighting.
“This is, um...” Junko blushed and murmured to herself.
“Well done! So this is Akuto’s personal bedroom, right?” Fujiko let out a scream of joy.
Yoshie, however, shook her head.
“This belongs to everybody.”
“Everybody?”
“Yeah. It’s for anybody who wants to use it.”
“For a foursome?”
“If you’re feeling up for it.”
“I... I definitely am.”
“Yup. I sure am.”
“...I’m not, I don’t think. I want Akuto to be mine and mine alone.”
“Well, we can work out some kind of reservation sheet, or a rotation...”
Fujiko and Yoshie began to discuss specifics, but Junko shut them down.
“H-Hey! What are you talking about?”
“We’re talking about how we’re going to have sex. Our situation is unique, and that’s why we need to discuss things...”
“Don’t be so stuck-up. I know you want to get laid too.”
Yoshie and Fujiko both looked at her, annoyed.
“B-But that doesn’t mean...” Junko tried to come up with some kind of answer, but then she saw that Akuto was trying to sneak away, and yelled.
“...This is what happens when you can’t make a decision! We’re going to have a wedding for everybody! Anything that happens after that is fine!”
Both Fujiko and Yoshie’s expressions changed. Their mood shifted from “horny” to “romantic” in an instant.
“A marriage!”
“A wedding!”
“Wedding!”
“Wedding! Wedding!”
Everybody except Akuto began to run towards the living room. Akuto followed, wondering what they were doing. When he saw that the three of them were already picking out spots to hold the wedding, he sighed, shrugged, and went back to close the door to the bedroom.
Starting that evening, a strange, but somehow peaceful, life began.
During the day, he worked and studied to build what he called “The Pure Church”, and in the evening, the three of them were there to see to his needs. He knew them all very well, but actually living with them taught him some new things.
Yoshie was friendlier than he thought. She had a habit of pressing her body up against Fujiko and Junko too, not just him. She was also selfish and easily distracted. When she got excited about something she was working on on her computer in her room, she wouldn’t come out when anyone called her. And when Fujiko tickled her neck to break her out of her concentration, she got seriously mad.
Fujiko was just like he thought, but once she’d opened up to someone, she had a habit of oversharing, and getting lazy. She would do the cooking, cleaning, and washing if she felt like it, but if she didn’t, she’d just leave it to Junko. She also had a nasty habit of leaving half-eaten bags of potato chips and other snacks lying around. When you threw them out, she’d get mad, too, saying that she was planning on eating the rest of them. Akuto, however, was required to be perfect at all times. And since Akuto would try his best to be perfect when she demanded it, Yoshie and Junko were constantly getting mad at her.
Junko, for her part, let her clean freak flag show early. She complained that she was the only one who did any chores, but she was never satisfied if things weren’t perfectly clean, and refused to even use maids or other cleaning services. Anything that needed doing, she’d do it herself before they could arrive.
She didn’t like ordering out either. It was “unhealthy”, she said. Instead, she would even go out and buy the ingredients herself. However, she seemed to have trouble opening up to others. Whenever Fujiko and Yoshie were getting a little too close to Akuto, she would try to pull them off. She would never, however, try to take their place. But even as she kept her distance from Akuto, she would be constantly staring at him (and sometimes panting), like some kind of indoor stalker. Of course, Fujiko didn’t like this, and would try to bring them both to the bedroom, but Junko would always pitch a fit and run. Lately Fujiko had mostly given up.
Despite all these flaws, though, Akuto was very happy with his situation. Why? Because he could improve things over time, if he put his mind to it. He managed to spend more time with Junko without upsetting her by helping her with the chores. He managed to deal with Fujiko’s laziness by giving her jobs to do outside of studying. And he managed to avoid any discussions of sex by having conversations with Yoshie late at night that the others couldn’t follow.
Normally, doing all this would drain a man of energy, but Akuto could do it. Thanks to that, his days were peaceful. The marriage ceremony was a huge deal. They weren’t sure what religious elements to incorporate, so they ended up using them all.
They rented out the whole event hall the day of the ceremony, and the three came in wearing their wedding dresses to the sound of a live band. The ceremony was only open to relatives and people they knew, but the seats were packed anyway. Everyone there was awestruck by the beauty of the brides.
The biggest moment was when it came time to kiss the brides. Yoshie’s kiss was brief, and Fujiko’s was passionate. But Junko hesitated when the moment came.
“You want me to do it in front of all these people?” she said. Fujiko just glared at her, and even Akuto felt like it was time she made up her damn mind.
In the end, it was Akuto’s words that convinced her.
“I know it’s your first kiss. And that’s why I wanted you to have it at the best spot in the world.”
When she heard that, Junko closed her eyes and quietly accepted his kiss.
The ceremony ended, and then it was time for the reception, and then by the time they got into their car and left, the sun was setting. There was no honeymoon, but by the time he got home that night, Akuto felt like he was on top of the world. Anything he wanted, he could have. Anything money could buy, he could get as much as he wanted. The weather was perfect.
The things he couldn’t buy with money, the things the rich always wanted, like adventure and life, were already his.
Days of wine and roses.
He ate, drank, laughed, got mad, and loved.
For a young man like Akuto, the nights were the most thrilling. The girls all drew lots to determine the order they’d be spending the night with him.
On the first night, Junko had covered her face with her hands. They’d both gotten into bed naked once, but that was when they were trying to recreate a novel in virtual phase space. It was a very strange situation, Akuto remembered.
“You were fiddling with a vase of roses with your fingers, weren’t you?” Akuto said. Junko laughed and finally took her hands off her face. They both looked at each other and laughed, and then there was an awkward silence.
“Are we really doing this?” Junko asked.
“I want to,” Akuto said.
She laughed, nervously, before pressing herself up against him.
After that, there was no time for talking.
Junko got under Akuto, wrapping her limbs around his, and pressing so close that he couldn’t see her face. Akuto wasn’t quite sure what to do either. But when he felt her wetness and warmth down below, he wondered for a moment whether he should do something like he’d seen in porn. When he pushed his manhood up against her, she said nothing, so he tried to push deeper.
Junko twisted her body, sliding up the bed.
He didn’t want to grab her, so he moved up with her.
His manhood touched her again, and there was a slick wet feeling that made him shiver.
Junko let out a strong, short breath, and twisted again. She slid up the bed, and Akuto followed her.
They did this in complete silence, again and again. It only came to an end when Junko hit her head up against the headboard.
“Oww...” she gasped in pain.
Akuto laughed. She chuckled too.
“I-It’s not that I don’t want to do it...” Junko said. She let go of Akuto’s body and stretched out the sheets and comforter to where they’d been before she’d started squirming around. Akuto moved away from the headboard as well. They held each other again, and Junko let out a short gasp. Their parts touched, and Akuto was surprised at how cold they were as well.
“S-So this is how it works... I never really thought about it.” Junko said, surprised at how wet they both were. Akuto nodded.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
This time she nodded back.
He pushed forward.
He could feel her around his whole manhood, but there was some resistance. Junko moaned softly, and wrapped her limbs tighter around him. When he stopped, though, she whispered.
“Go ahead.”
He held her head in his arms, and let the force of the legs wrapped around him push him inside. She thrust her head back, revealing her throat.
○
The theory behind time travel may have been complicated, but the execution wasn’t. A switch was flipped to change the mode of the Brave Suit, and now, by just putting in some numbers and a location, he could go anywhere he liked. However, this was also proof that time travel had been done many times. In other words, what Boichiro said was likely true.
“You’ll keep coming back here.”
—No, you just screwed it up.
Hiroshi chose for his first target the lab that Fujiko had found, the place where mana civilization was first developed. He had plenty of information about it, and knew exactly what year to go to. And he knew what data he had to destroy to put a stop to the research.
There was very little money available for mana research at the time, and even the slightest delay would’ve killed the project. He broke into the facility, wearing his Brave Suit. There were guards, but none of them had guns. He knocked them out, with his lasers set to minimum power.
He searched for the computers with the data he needed. In this era, anything that was put into a computer was also printed out and filed. He decided to just burn the whole room. There was nothing in the room that could explode. The fastest way to do this would be to throw the papers and computers into a pile and light the papers on fire.
Hiroshi threw all the papers into a big mountain and tossed the computers on top of them. He destroyed the fire alarm sensors with his molecular cutters, then used his lasers to start the fire. He waited to see if the computer’s cases would melt. They did.
He had three more rooms to go.
But when he got to the last one, the police had arrived. Someone must have called them after noticing the fire, and they were carrying weapons.
—Am I going to have to kill them?
he asked himself, suddenly uneasy. But he soon realized there was nothing to fear. The police had nothing but primitive revolvers, easily dealt with. He couldn’t use a mana screen to block the bullets, but his auto-tracking lasers could.
The cops were scared. Fortunately for both sides, they decided not to resist further.
—Whatever else I do, I don’t want to kill anybody.
he said to himself.
But...
—Wasn’t I supposed to save humanity?
he thought, and shivered.
What he was doing now was a crime, even by his own standards. He was fighting a cop and burning computers and papers. There didn’t seem to be that much difference between that and murder.
—Boichiro must have killed people.
A small sacrifice to save the many.
A simple calculation.
But in a story, actions like that were never treated as acceptable.
He’d wondered for a long time if this world might be somebody’s story. But even if it was, no, precisely if it was, the simple answers had to be the right ones. That was how ethics worked.
Stories where the hero was forced to choose between his lover and the world were common, but those stories were wrong. They had to be. But if those were the stories people preferred, then what he was doing right now was something most normal people wouldn’t accept.
He felt the cold chill of guilt run down his spine, and a deepening sense of loneliness. He finished his work in front of the police officer, and then used the Brave Suit to go back to his own time.
○
“This means there’s two days when I don’t get to be with you!” Fujiko said, draping herself off of Akito as if the idea gave her physical pain.
“It’s just two days.”
“No, it’s two whole days!” she complained. She was lying on the bed, wearing the black underwear she’d bought especially for this day. Her eyes were shining as she spread her hands out toward Akuto. She was acting completely naturally, but Akuto knew that she’d practically interrogated Junko the other day.
“What was it like when he was holding you in his arms?”
“I’m sure it was very big, and powerful too.”
“How long did the pain last? ... No, my experience doesn’t matter. I’m asking because Akuto’s is special.”
She and Yoshie were trying their best to get the details out of her. Of course, Junko said nothing. And in the end, the two of them were practically resorting to torture. Naturally, Fujiko didn’t have any experience at all, herself. He, however, didn’t have much more.
With Junko they’d both been too awkward to do much of anything, but this time, it was different. Would he just be making things worse for Fujiko? He ran his hands down her body, and then said the first thing that came into his head.
“People have really different bodies, don’t they?”
“What...?” Fujiko gasped in protest. “D-Don’t talk about other girls at a time like this!”
“S-Sorry. You seem more... feminine... It feels like.”
In fact, she had a unique softness to her skin. It felt like his hand would sink into it forever. Junko’s body was lithe, and seemed to push back against him. It seemed to him like he should try touching the girls each in different ways.
Either she was happy that he’d said that, or happy that he’d shut up, because she didn’t say anything else. Akuto pressed himself up against Fujiko’s soft body. His upper body felt like it was sinking into water, or being painted with warm oil. He ran his hands down every part of her body, fondling, not just touching.
While he focused on the parts that made her moan the loudest, she began to run her hands down his body as well. Her fingers ran from his sides down to his hips. She grabbed him down there, and tried to move as if to lead him somewhere. When he adjusted his hips and pushed, he felt a sensation like he’d never felt before, like his skin was being covered in something soft and wet.
The two of them were both shaking with pleasure, but it was Fujiko who moved first. With a provocative smile, she pushed her body against his from below.
○
He’d eliminated the root of mana civilization. But the past hadn’t changed. No, the past had changed, in fact.
“The birth of mana civilization came at a different point?”
Hiroshi asked Boichiro, who was sitting in front of him.
“The data from the lab wasn’t salvaged. A professor wasn’t working that day, and he’d received the data via email. From there, he redeveloped it all by himself. Became a hero for it, in fact. That’s the ‘current’ history.”
Boichiro had the hint of a smirk on his lips. It seemed like the grin of a devil, yet also bore a hint of pity. Either way, it was a smile that said he’d seen this coming. This angered Hiroshi.
“Security was tight at that place. No way in hell did they just send all data to some random scientist!”
Boichiro shrugged.
“Yup. You’re exactly right. But there’s no way of knowing what, exactly, happened. That’s how history works.”
“You don’t need to make it sound like a conspiracy. Like somebody made it all up.”
“No, it was made up. Really.”
“Really?” Hiroshi’s eyes went wide at this surprising statement.
“Correct. Only those who were present for it know what happened in history. And we weren’t there. Even if somebody just overwrote history entirely, we’d have no way to know.”
“Then there’s no way of knowing the truth about anything!” Hiroshi shouted.
“There is no such thing as truth. This whole world is a piece of fiction.”
“Then what you told me about time before...”
“Correct. Change something somewhere, and something else is added to fix it. Things are changed. Someone changes them.”
It was hard to believe. But since Hiroshi could go see for himself, there was no reason for Boichiro to lie. If that “someone” was the Law of Identity, she was being very cruel. Without her allowing the world to be changed, the world would be destroyed. If she didn’t want that to happen, shouldn’t she be helping Hiroshi?
As he thought about it, Hiroshi could feel his mood begin to blacken.
If I kill someone, then maybe...
Maybe changing something big, like that, would keep the Law of Identity from stopping him. He was reluctant to kill, but if this really was the afterlife — not that he had any proof of this — there was no problem.
The person he killed would just come here slightly sooner than planned. And if one death could change things...
“Thinking back, you never managed to kill anybody important, did you?” Hiroshi said, provocatively.
Boichiro understood what he was getting at, and his mouth twisted into a strange sort of smile. But the two of them said nothing more.
○
As for Yoshie’s part, she was nervous, but also curious, and curiosity won out. She would stare at Akuto’s body and touch it, especially enjoying the reaction of his manhood.
“It’s one thing to know about something, but it’s different to actually see it for yourself,” Yoshie said. She was wrapped in a towel that exposed nothing but her head and hands, playing with Akuto’s body as he sat naked on the bed.
“You’re not supposed to play with it like that...” Akuto complained.
“I need to know all about it, though,” Yoshie said calmly.
This left Akuto feeling somewhat annoyed.
“I guess we’ll both need to get to know each other’s bodies, then.” Akuto wrapped his hand around her back and grabbed the towel, pulling it off.
“Hyah!”
Her white skin was exposed, and she struggled to hide her body. Akuto pulled the towel, pulling her forward as well, and bringing her into his arms.
“I thought you were the type to not get upset about being naked.”
“This is a special occasion... You should understand that.”
Yoshie blushed, but Akuto was having none of it. He pulled the towel over them both and then pinned down Yoshie’s legs.
“It’s one thing to know about something, but it’s different to actually see it for yourself,” he said, as he moved his hand down below.
“I’m sorry. I apologize, so...” She struggled, but she was nowhere near as strong as Akuto.
“I’m just playing with the space between your toes.”
“You mean the space between my thumbs?”
“Sorry, it’s an old joke. But I’m kind of surprised that this is what it feels like.” Akuto laughed and then held her tight.
“You’re mean, you know that?”
“Mean? Well, they have told me that I’m the worst person in the world.”
He pressed inwards, without waiting for her. She let out a gasp of surprise, mixed with a very different feeling.
○
Hiroshi shot down the black mage that was carrying baby Akuto and fleeing from him.
When he saw that Akuto was dead, he averted his eyes from the baby that had been crushed from the fall.