R’s Special Mission: Final Report

“Thus concludes my report.”

I informed my superior of the investigation report I had just transmitted, containing all the information I had gathered on the heroines until now. With that, my special mission should have been completed, but...

“Wait, R.”

“What is it?”

It was pointless, but I feigned ignorance anyway.

“Why did you let L escape?”

I knew I had that question coming.

“She had a particle relocator in her possession.”

“Taking into account your abilities and equipment, it should have been possible to apprehend her before she used the particle relocator.”

“...”

“Why did you purposefully let her escape?”

Well, I seemed to be in a bit of a pinch. It didn’t look like I could talk myself out of this one. I had at least 20 frivolous excuses prepared, but each one only had a fifty-fifty chance of working. What to do...?

“Intentionally allowing a hostile to escape is a severe breach of orders. You will be dismissed immediately if you are deemed to be unsuitable for the mission.”

“All right, that’s enough.”

Just then, my superior and I were interrupted by a third party cutting in on the chat log. There were only letters displayed on the screen, but I knew it was...

“Doctor?”

“Ding, ding, ding! As expected of my daughter. You knew right away.”

There was no mistaking it. This lighthearted tone had to be the doctor—the one who’d created both me and L.

“Doctor, you may be one of the leaders of the agency, but this is a breach of protocol—”

“What are you pretending to be so calm for? The jig is up, you fool.”

Jig? What was going on?

“It’s been revealed that you guys were the ones who betrayed the agency, kidnapped L, and sent her as an assassin.”

“...”

“You sure had some guts using my daughter like that, you rotten bastards. A neutralizing squad will be there within three seconds, just you wait.”

“W—”

The messages from my superior cut off there.

“Good grief, what scum...”

“Doctor. What’s the meaning of this?”

“It’s exactly what it sounds like. Humanity remains the same no matter how much time passes. I’m still investigating whether or not they were bribed, but they were the ones who took L out of the protected residential division and handed her to the other side.”

“I see. Were they the ones who sent L to this time period, as well?”

“I believe they were involved somehow. But it was reckless of them. The space-time translocator isn’t something that can be easily operated. Calculating the rewind of a constantly flowing variable like time, approximating a time line, securing four-dimensional coordinates—both pre-computed and in real time... Do they realize just how complicated that all is? No one other than me could possibly do it all properly.”

“I see. But at least I understand now.”

“Understand what?”

“This ‘special mission’ of mine.”

It was probably a ploy to separate me from Rekka and make him an easier target for assassination. L had mentioned that her immediate contact with Rekka was an unforeseen circumstance, which meant she was initially supposed to be teleported elsewhere. Then she would just have to wait for me to leave Rekka’s side so she could assassinate him. The reason why my special mission was given the oddly long deadline of “until the end of summer” was probably because they had issues getting the space-time translocator working perfectly, just like the doctor suggested. They only had a rough estimate of where they’d be sending L back to, so they were just trying to keep me busy for a while. If they’d specified the month, day, hour, and minute precisely, then they’d have to make sure I wasn’t with Rekka at that exact moment—which they couldn’t necessarily do. In the end, their inability to operate the space-time translocator properly had led to the downfall of their plan.

“I’ve got the general gist of what’s going on now. Do you know who’s behind this, by any chance?”

“No, unfortunately. Not even I have the faintest clue. The agency is investigating to the best of its ability, though.”

“Oh, well.”

Though they may have had the help from my former superior, we were dealing with someone good enough to hide L from the agency, after all. It wouldn’t be that easy to identify them.

“All right. I’ll leave the investigations to you, Doctor. I will continue my mission.”

“You got it, girl. Oh, I had something I wanted to ask you, R.”

“What is it?”

“Why did you let L escape?”

“...”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not mad; I’m just curious. L was right in front of you, and you had the ability to catch her. So why not do it?”

“While the particulars are unknown, L technically assisted an opposing entity and betrayed the agency.”

I decided there was no need to lie to the doctor and spoke honestly.

“On top of that, I failed in trying to talk her down, and she continues to stubbornly target Rekka. I deduced that the agency would deal with her appropriately if I were to apprehend her in that state.”

“So you wanted to win her over and get her to at least offer the agency information about who was behind all this? That is why you delayed capturing her?”

I hadn’t gone into that much detail with what I typed, but the doctor read between the lines.

“All right, all right. I get it. Leave the convincing in the future to me. You focus on convincing L. Oh, and I don’t mind if you punish the runaway daughter a little. Mother will allow it.”

“Understood,” I replied with a wry smile. “And also... I have something I’d like to ask you too, Doctor.”

“Hmm? What’s up?”

“If I recall correctly, during my pre-education stage, you said I had to know about how Rekka’s... how the male mind was charmed by the female chest. You had a lot of graphic references, too.”

“Indeed. I made sure you had all the materials you’d need. You didn’t have any interest at first, but you eventually got so into it you started to reach for m—”

“That’s irrelevant right now.”

I put a stop to the doctor’s trip down memory lane right there.

“When you showed me the footage, I asked you why my chest was flat, to which you replied: ‘If Observer R had a big and charming chest, the target Rekka Namidare would be constantly in agony.’ Is that right?”

“That’s what I said.”

That answer made perfect sense. My mission was to have Rekka choose a heroine—not me—in order to save the future, after all. It would have been a hindrance to my mission if he developed desires for me. And I had accepted all this.

“However, when I made contact with L the other day, I discovered her bust size was set two centimeters larger than mine.”

“Oh, my.”

“Don’t give me that. There’s no mistaking my scanner readings. What’s the meaning of this? L was meant to take the same mission I did. What is the reason for the discrepancy?”

“Sounds like you’ve finally reached that age, huh? Being bothered about things like this...”

Excuse me? What was this phony mother saying?

“I’m not bothered. I’m just questioning why such a design flaw occurred.”

“It’s not a flaw, per se. Maybe L just grew up?”

“Kiklim are artificial life forms. Growth is impossible.”

“Even artificial life forms can grow up. How else would your heart grow into worrying about things like this?”

“...!”

It really shouldn’t be possible, but that declaration sounded so certain that I could hardly say a word in return. Come to think of it... L had a really colorful range of emotions for a Kiklim. Was that because she had “grown up”?

“I can’t believe my precious R is worried about the size of her chest... Is this puberty?”

“I’m only 12 years old.”

“Heh. At any rate, I’m glad to see you have more emotions compared to before. I’m so happy you turned out to be a nice girl.”

I could feel the affection in the text from the other side of the screen. It really did seem like moods could transcend time and space.

“That’s because I’m your daughter.”

I sent that message to the future containing all of my affection.

“All right. You take care of yourself now, you hear?”

“You too, Doctor.”

The semi-transparent display screen disappeared after that last message.

“Now then...”

“Hmm?”

Rekka had been reading a magazine on his bed, and reacted to the first thing I said out loud in a while

“What’s wrong, R?”

“No, it’s nothing,” I answered while looking at Rekka’s face. “Something just crossed my mind all of a sudden. Let’s do our best.”

—Fin—