Prologue 2

“Something terrible will happen to Earth on July 27th.”

That was the ominous prophecy Mio gave as we were fleeing from the pursuers sent by the Spirit King.

“...Huh?”

It was so sudden that I didn’t even know what to say in response.

“You mean... our Earth, right? Like, where we live?”

Trembling, Mio nodded silently.

This would make the third or fourth time the world was in danger... but this time, I couldn’t understand why. What could Mio’s story and the fate of the planet possibly have to do with each other? I thought her story was just about her getting pushed off a building and losing her memories. And we already knew the cause of her amnesia. Yang had sealed away her memories with his telepathy.

All that was left to figure out was the identity of the person who’d pushed her... No, wait. That’s right. There was an even more pressing question about Mio’s story—why the all-knowing Magic of Omniscience indicated that Mio Kotozuka had never been pushed off a roof.

The Magic of Omniscience was magic that accessed the Akashic record, a detailed history of everything that had happened in the universe since the dawn of time. It was impossible for anything but the truth to be recorded in it. In other words, if it said that Mio wasn’t pushed off a roof, it was safe to assume she hadn’t been.

But that would mean Mio lied to me... and I couldn’t see her motive for that. For starters, her memories were sealed by Yang right before she met me. It was dumb luck that she remembered being pushed off a roof in the first place. But how was it that her account of what happened didn’t match the Akashic record? That was the greatest mystery of her story.

Could this prophecy of hers possibly be the key to solving it?

“...”

As I was lost in my thoughts, my prolonged silence prompted Mio to approach me nervously. Her shoulders were trembling.

“Mio, I have some questions. You can take your time thinking, but could you answer them for me?”

“Okay...”

“Firstly, what is this ‘something terrible’ that’s going to happen?”

Mio hesitated for a moment before answering.

“A Psychic Hazard.”

“Psychic Hazard?” I repeated.

“You could call it a psychic disaster,” R mumbled as she hung upside-down in the air.

“On the last day of my tour... After I sang my first song, I heard a man speaking to me inside my head.”

“A man?”

And what did she mean by speaking to her “inside her head”?

“He called himself Yang.”

“Yang?!”

“Y-Yeah,” Mio nodded, startled by me raising my voice.

Was this it? Was this where everything clicked into place?

“...So, what did Yang do?”

I wanted to mull this all over, but I knew I wasn’t going to get to the bottom of it without Mio finishing her story, so I urged her to continue.

“Yang changed us... He changed us powerless humans,” she said.

“What do you mean by ‘changed’?”

“He changed us into psychics.”

“Psychics...? Wait, what?” I interrupted in confusion. “You’re saying he transformed normal humans like you into psychics?”

“Yes...”

“What kind of powers were you given? Was it different for every person?”

“No. Everyone was given the ability to read minds.”

“The ability to read minds...?”

That was a type of telepathy, right?

According to Satsuki, magical telepathy and psychic telepathy were fairly similar, but the latter was a lot more versatile. The ability to read people’s minds, the ability to send thoughts to others, the ability to seal memories... The applications were different, but at their core, they all involved messing with people’s minds in some way. That was psychic telepathy.

But did psychic telepathy somehow have the power to change normal people into psychics, too? It might be better to get an expert opinion from Ellicia, who was a real psychic, or Shirley, who was researching psychic powers. But neither of them were here right now, so I put the thought aside for the time being and rubbed Mio’s trembling back to try and comfort her.

“Sorry, I know it might be a scary memory, but I need to hear more about it. Can you continue your story?”

“Yeah, I’m fine...” Mio took a deep breath and continued. “The audience was immediately in chaos... Fights broke out everywhere and spread like wildfire.”

“Why did that happen?”

“You know, you really could try using your own imagination for once,” said an exasperated Tsumiki from behind Mio.

We were currently sitting in a line along Lea’s back as she flew in Leviathan form, but everyone was huddled up close enough together that even Corona and Harissa in the back could hear what we were talking about. Tsumiki was sitting behind Mio and facing me.

“What is there to imagine?” I asked.

“That’s why I said... Okay, let’s say there’s tens of thousands of fans gathered together at a concert. When you’re packed together like that, you might start thinking about how the person next to you stepped on your foot, or how the person in front of you smells bad, right? And even if that wasn’t the case, everyone attending the concert is going to be a serious fan of MIO, some with pretty strong opinions... If everyone suddenly knew what everyone else was thinking, that’s bound to cause a little bit of discontent and discord, don’t you think?”

Out of consideration for Mio sitting right in front of her, Tsumiki chose her words carefully as she spoke. She was a fan of MIO herself and had actually been to one of her concerts before, so she was probably speaking from experience on this. At any rate, I understood what she was getting at.

“So everybody’s negative thoughts like ‘Ew, gross’ or ‘I hate this guy’—the kind you normally think but keep to yourself—were basically broadcast all of a sudden, and that started fights?”

“I think that’s about the size of it.”

Mio was shaking like she was remembering the incident.

“...So, what happened after that?” I asked.

“The last thing Yang told me was that he wanted to cause that kind of chaos throughout the world. I tried to run from the concert hall after that, but... it was like a riot outside... I was so scared... and then Rekka saved me.”

“Huh? M-Me?”

I pointed at myself, a bit confused. I certainly didn’t remember any of this.

“Yes. You came to see my concert,” Mio said, then turned around. “With Tsumiki. The two of you helped me run away.”

“I-I was there, too?” Tsumiki asked in a confused voice as she pointed at herself, too.

She’d said she was MIO’s fan, so it wasn’t that hard to imagine Tsumiki at one of her concerts. And I would probably go with her if she asked. That much I could buy. It was the rest of what Mio had said that concerned me. The dramatic rescue that neither one of us had any recollection of. That she was talking about this all in past tense. And above all, the date... July 27th.

“Mio, how do you know what happens on July 27th? Today’s only the 24th.”

It sounded like she was talking about something that was going to happen in three days. So why was she talking about the future in past tense? It was as if she’d already experienced it...

“I don’t know if you’ll believe this, but...”

“Don’t worry. I’m pretty experienced in the hard-to-believe.”

“I...” Mio took a breath before continuing, “...time traveled here from the future.”