Turning Point (July 27th)

Yang connected the minds of everyone with his telepathy. And once they were all connected, that meant people could freely read each other’s thoughts.

Normally, minds were only connected to a certain extent in order to prevent too much information from being shared. Like how Lea’s magical telepathy only shared the thoughts we wanted to send out. Like how Yang had specifically showed me only the memories of the past.

But with this, Yang connected people’s minds without any restrictions or limits. Memories, thoughts, ill will, consciousness, unconsciousness. Everything flowed freely.

When Mio had experienced the Psychic Hazard in the future, she’d mistakenly assumed that everyone had been given Yang’s power—in other words, that they’d all become psychic. It was easy to see why she’d thought that, but it wasn’t quite the case. If people had become psychics, they would have eventually learned how to use and control their powers. But Yang was the one behind all this. He was controlling all of it, and he was the only one who could pull the plug on it. People had their minds connected against their will, and no one had the power to stop him.

Originally, this wouldn’t have been possible. Yang could only connect the minds of people he could see. That meant, effectively, that his abilities were limited to line of sight—a fairly short range.

But Yang had used Ail’s copied clairvoyance to extend his range to the entire world. As a result, everyone on the planet had their minds connected, and as expected, all hell broke loose.

That was the start of the Psychic Hazard. The catastrophic disaster Mio had experienced in her future was happening all over again. And Yang, the one who caused it all... was now dead.

▽

A heavy gloom fell over the spaceship. It was like the very air we were breathing was dark and heavy.

“I think that when Yang used the clairvoyance to extend his power to the world, he probably couldn’t handle the amount of information flowing into his head at once. It likely burned out the circuits in his brain,” Satsuki hypothesized.

After initiating the Psychic Hazard, Yang had spurted blood from nearly every orifice and dropped dead on the spot in the coal mine. Satsuki used search filters to control the amount of information that passed into her brain when she used the Magic of Omniscience. But Yang hadn’t had any such protection.

Now he was dead, and we were left with the Psychic Hazard in the wake of it all. Even though the man who’d caused it was no more, the psychic connection couldn’t be undone. It was like he’d put a dying curse on the world.

Thankfully we were all protected by the psychic-resistant jackets Shirley had brought us... but she couldn’t have prepared them for seven billion people. Not even Rain, Fam, or Iris could do that.

I actually hadn’t been wearing a jacket when it all started, so I’d gotten a taste of the disaster in the initial fallout. There weren’t that many people in the coal mine at the time, but even then...

The anger and bitterness the psychics felt towards Nartessia.

The contempt and rage the mages felt over having their precious treasure stolen by the organization.

And the deep darkness I’d felt from Nartessia.

I’d only briefly suffered the effects of the Psychic Hazard, but I was never going to forget any of that.

“Ha! Is that all they wanted to do?”

Nartessia was the only one who’d been able to stay calm after what happened. Something was off about her. Even the other mages had gone mad and started screaming.

“Don’t be so afraid, Rekka.”

She amusedly smirked at me as I broke out in a cold sweat.

“Humans are quick to change and adapt. They can get used to anything. This fuss will all calm down eventually... Though I don’t know how much will be left when it does.”

With that, she gathered what she could of her people and departed, passing over everyone who’d already collapsed “from just this much,” she said. But it wasn’t just her own people she left.

“...”

I looked over and saw a girl curled up in the corner. It was Ellicia.

“...”

She was huddling with Yang’s glove and the earring clutched to her chest.

“You lot can keep the earring as something of a consolation prize to commemorate that man’s accomplishment. Our only objective was retribution, after all. And I’d say we’ve accomplished that,” Nartessia had said with a grin as Ellicia watched Yang breathe his last. “I’d kill you, too, but... you’ll remember the faces of your dead comrades forever, won’t you? They protected you from my magic and died in your place. For that, you’ll suffer. You’ll spend your days wallowing in regret and despair, and you’ll die on your own eventually. But you can’t kill yourself, you understand? If you do, their sacrifices will have all been in vain. Don’t worry. You’ll get to see them again. All humans die in the end. Have fun reflecting on your actions until death finds you.”

After Nartessia left, Ellicia had staggered to her feet and dutifully retrieved the earring from Yang’s lifeless hand. But nothing more. We took her, completely unresponsive, back to Shirley’s spaceship. Even as the calendar flipped over to the next day, she didn’t make a sound or move an inch.

“What shall we do now, Rekka?” asked R, the only voice on the otherwise silent spaceship.

What... What could I do? I didn’t have an answer. I just grit my teeth. Had I been too late again, just like when I couldn’t save Lyun’s little sister?

“R...”

“Yes?”

“Did Ellicia’s story come to a bad end?” I asked R weakly.

I was merely confirming the hopeless situation at hand, but...

“Nope. Ellicia’s still a heroine, it seems.”

My heart skipped a beat. Suddenly, I felt the strength returning to me.

“Really?”

“Oh, please, have I ever lied to you?”

“I... don’t think so?”

Her attitude was usually... Well, whatever. It was at the very least true that she’d never lied when it came to stories. Granted, she hardly ever told me anything at all. But if Ellicia was still a heroine, that had to mean there was still hope... But how?

As I was mentally going through the stories I’d gotten caught up in the past few days, I felt someone tug my shirt.

“Um, Rekka...”

I looked down to see Mio blinking back up at me.

“Can you... use my power?” she asked quietly.

“Your power? You mean your songs? It’s true that your singing helped Corona recover, but the Psychic Hazard is...”

“No, not that one... the time traveling one.”

My eyes went wide.

“I don’t know why I was able to return to the past... but if I could do it once, maybe I can do it again.”

“Aha!” I yelled.

I hadn’t thought of that, but it was the best idea I had right now.

“What’s wrong, Rekka?” Satsuki asked worriedly.

“Satsuki, there’s something I want you to look up!”

“Oh?”

I explained to everyone how Mio had traveled back in time from July 27th—the first July 27th, I should say, since we’d caught up to it now in the present. After that, I asked Satsuki to use her Magic of Omniscience to find out if it was possible Mio had some kind of time-traveling power.

“Here we go. Mio possesses a psychic space-time reversal power called ‘One More.’”

“Huh? A psychic power?”

So, Mio was also a psychic?

“I had no idea,” Mio muttered, apparently also surprised at this news.

“Psychic powers are essentially talents, after all. It’s completely possible to have one and not be aware of it,” Shirley explained. “If you don’t use it, you might never learn you had it. But it’s also possible that coming into close contact with other psychics powers triggered her latent abilities.”

“Other psychic powers?”

The first time around, Mio had been subjected to Yang’s telepathy in the Psychic Hazard. Was that what caused her dormant psychic powers to activate?

“But my knowledge on the subject is incomplete. I’ve only studied psychic powers in space. The abilities of human psychics on Earth may vary or follow different rules. As a local of this planet, what do you think?” Shirley directed her gaze to Ellicia in the corner of the room.

“There were some kids in the organization who had their powers awakened that way, yeah.” Ellicia, who had been dead silence until now, cast a sidelong glance at Mio and continued. “That girl... Probably her, too. It would explain why Yang didn’t kill her back then.”

“Back then? You mean in the vacant lot?” I asked.

When I saved Mio on July 20th, Yang had already made contact with her. And since she’d just come back from the future, she knew about Yang’s plans and the Psychic Hazard. With how hell-bent he was on it, there was no way he could just let her go with that information.

“Now that you mention it, killing her would have been a lot less risky than sealing her memories... Although sealing her memories was pretty effective, too, I guess.”

But looking back on it, Mio had regained her memories little by little, so Yang’s seal wasn’t perfect. He likely knew that. So why had he intentionally chosen the riskier method?

“Yang... He drew a hard line between psychics and non-psychics. He never hesitated to put his life on the line for one of us.”

Huh...

“He said that psychic souls emitted a different wavelength than human ones. He could tell them apart by just looking into their eyes... so he would have known Mio was a psychic the moment he met her. That’s why he tried to save her even when he was pursuing me... but when he realized she could be a danger to his plan, he had to seal her memories.”

“So, that’s how it went...”

Why hadn’t Yang just killed Mio? Why had he even approached her while he was chasing Ellicia? I hadn’t thought about those things too hard, but now it made sense.

“But what kind of power is this ‘One More’ anyway?” Suzuran asked Satsuki with her head tilted to the side.

“It’s the ability to return one week into the past when your life is in danger. But you can only use the power once in your life.”

“Once in your life? So if you return to being your past self, you can use it again?” asked Tetra.

“Hmm... No. Once it’s used and you return to the past, it’s unusable again. I think it’s perhaps because Mio’s memories and consciousness are what returned, Mio is still herself, and therefore it’s the same lifetime for her.”

“That can’t be...”

Hearing that her power was already used up, Mio recoiled in horror. She’d used it to return to the past from the “first” July 27th, and she wouldn’t be able to do it a second time. However...

“Guys, we still have Nartessia’s earring. Mio can copy her power into it so I can use it,” I said as I walked over to Ellicia.

Even though she was sitting in the corner away from everyone, she’d heard everything. She slowly raised her head as I approached.

“Ellicia, that’s the gist of it. I’m going to use it to return to the past and redo everyone’s stories, so would you mind lending me the earring?”

“Do what you want.”

Ellicia threw the earring at me as though she didn’t care about it or what I did with it. Picking it up, I started to worry about her indifferent attitude.

“I’ll definitely stop Yang and Nartessia this time. I’ll save your story, too, Ellicia.”

“You think you can do that?” Ellicia glared at me angrily. “You can only go back one week—in other words, to July 20th. The Margaret clan destroyed the organization headquarters that afternoon.”

“That’s true... but...”

Lyun’s sister also lost her life on the night of July 20th. I’d have to get to the spirit world and save her by then, too. And then there were still Mio and Corona’s stories...

“The organization stole the earring from the Margaret clan long before the 20th. Do you really think Nartessia would just withdraw quietly? Yang can’t be stopped, either... He wouldn’t even listen to me.”

It was true that there would be too much to do and too little time on the 20th.

Yang had told me about what was going on while we were in the coal mine. The organization’s headquarters had been destroyed, the Margaret clan was chasing after them, and they’d even kidnapped Satsuki... They were cornered and grasping at straws, so that was probably a spur-of-the-moment decision.

But even before all that had happened, Ellicia had tried to talk him down and failed. Under normal circumstances, there was no way an outsider like me could convince Yang to stop the Psychic Hazard. However...

“Listen, Ellicia... Based on the conversation I had with Yang in the mine shaft, I think I have a real shot at stopping him if I return to the past.”

“Do you... really think so?”

I nodded fiercely. A single tear rolled down Ellicia’s cheek as she looked at me.

“Can you really save everyone? The organization... was the only place I ever belonged...”

I watched Ellicia hang her head in regret.

“It’s not like I didn’t hate the people or society that treated psychics so terribly... But the Psychic Hazard would only make things worse. The organization wouldn’t survive it unscathed, either.”

“That’s why you betrayed the organization and took the earring?”

“Yes...”

“It wasn’t for nothing. I’ll make sure of it.”

I kneeled down and hesitated for a moment... then hugged Ellicia.

“I’ll make sure Yang knows that, too. Do you have anything you want to say to him? I’ll return to the past and pass on your message.”

“I do... I have so much I want to say...”

With that, Ellicia started talking about her feelings. She told me what she wanted to say to Yang in the past in order to stop him for sure this time.

▽

After making all kinds of preparations, I was now standing on the roof of a building holding the earring overwritten with One More. In order to activate its power, my life had to be in danger. I couldn’t exactly ask my friends to attack me. When Mio had first used it, she was falling from the roof of a building—allegedly—so we decided to recreate that situation as best we could.

“W-Well, we’re going to leave now... You’re really, really sure you’ll be all right?”

“Yeah, thanks, Iris. Everything will work out.”

“O-Okay...”

With that, Iris took the other girls back to the spaceship that carried me here, which took off into the sky and eventually disappeared from sight.

“Are you okay, Rekka?” R asked once everyone else was gone.

“Haha, what? You think I’m afraid of heights?”

I tried to respond as cheerfully as possible in order to hide my fear. It was obvious what would happen if One More didn’t activate when I jumped off the roof. However, if I’d had Iris and the others on standby for the worst-case scenario, my life wouldn’t really have been in danger. The power likely wouldn’t activate if I kept thinking that there would be someone there to catch me. That’s why I’d had Iris and the other heroines retreat. I mean, it was the whole point, but the danger of this all now seemed very real.

“I keep hesitating, R, so could you like... give me a light push?”

“No can do. It would violate the stipulations of my mission.”

“Yeah, well, it feels like you’ve been awfully helpful lately, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try my luck.”

“That’s just your imagination. Please don’t joke about things like that.” With one eye closed, R sighed heavily. “My actions are monitored by my superiors in the future. It’s not an issue if I accidentally let something slip and you assume what you will from it, but there will be severe consequences if I help you on purpose.”

“Oh... kay?”

She seemed to be putting a lot of emphasis on the “assuming” part. Was she trying to say it was up to me to connect the dots? She did say something about severe consequences...

“Why don’t you just jump already? If you dawdle too much, it’ll become the 28th and you won’t be able to return to the 20th anymore.”

“Ugh... I know.”

It was still morning, so the date wasn’t about to change any time soon... but she was right. There was no point in wasting any more time.

“All right, here goes... Time for a little trip!”

I shouted loudly to encourage myself as I stood on the edge of the roof.

“Oh, God...”

Looking down, I got dizzy. We were way up there. I was the one who’d chosen such a tall building to make sure the fall would kill me, but I was regretting it a bit now. My stomach was churning.

“Rekka, one warning before you jump.”

“What, are you going to tell me that if I jump feet first I won’t die?”

“There you go thinking cowardly thoughts again. Don’t worry. At this height, you’ll be a pancake no matter how you jump.”

Well, that was a relief to hear... A pancake, huh? It wouldn’t be a problem if One More activated before I became minced meat... right? Right? Damn it, my legs were trembling.

“S-So? What’s the warning?”

I kept talking to R to hide my fear.

“It’s nothing certain, just something to keep in mind.”

“You keep beating around the bush... What is it?”

“Yes, well...” R took a deep breath. “Changing the past can mean taking on an unimaginable risk. Even if everything goes well, you should never let your guard down.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s exactly as I said. Figure out the rest yourself,” R said and turned away with a huff, no longer responding to anything I said.

“All right, I got it. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Sighing helplessly, I looked down at the ground again. No matter how many times I looked at it, it didn’t seem any less scary. The cars looked like little ants...

“You know, I think I’ll jump feet-first after all...”

Still turned away, R let out a sigh.