Chapter 4: Searching Out Connections
Chapter 4: Searching Out Connections
Now that we’d decided on a plan—recruiting the heroines of the future to help us—we had to put it in motion. And that meant going outside... which was a problem for me considering I’d been missing in this time line for a while now. Anyone who saw me would probably raise a fuss over it. The doctor had brought me here to the future without permission, after all. No one knew I was here. That meant I’d have to keep my identity a secret as we made our exit from agency HQ. And the same went for L, who was functionally a defector.
“Well, R and I hid the fact that L was working with the extremists, so that shouldn’t be a problem,” explained the doctor.
“Really?” I asked.
“Yes.”
She nodded casually, but wasn’t that a pretty dangerous game to play? I had to seriously wonder for a moment, but then it dawned on me that it was perfectly in character for the doctor and R.
“W-Wait a minute,” interjected Satsuki. “This is all news to me.”
“Oh, really? Then you stay quiet about it too, Satsuki,” instructed the doctor.
“Huh... Well, all right,” Satsuki acquiesced with a sigh. “But whose side she’s on doesn’t change the fact that she’s been missing all this time, right? I was shocked to see her when I walked in.”
“You sure didn’t seem like it,” L chimed in, eyeing Satsuki dubiously.
“Th-That’s... That’s because Rekka was here,” Satsuki said, bashfully fidgeting with her fingers.
She’d apparently been so preoccupied with me that it overrode her reaction to L in the heat of the moment. It was... kind of embarrassing. But L only glared harder at me and my reddening face.
“A-Ahem... What I mean to say is that there are plenty of employees here that know L, so someone’s bound to cause a commotion if they see her.”
Yeah, I suppose that was the normal reaction to suddenly seeing someone who’d supposedly been missing. L and I were in the same boat in that regard, so we’d have to come up with some way to stay hidden.
If only Harissa were here, we could use her invisibility magic to sneak out quietly...
She was my go-to girl in situations like this. I really needed to find the heroines—my heroines—as soon as possible.
But just then, L said, “If it’s a disguise you want, I have something for that.”
“Really?”
“It’s a device that can alter your appearance with a hologram,” L said, pulling out a small gem. “You place it over your head like this.”
She held it over her head just like she’d described... and it started floating all on its own. It then flickered for a brief second. Suddenly L no longer looked like L, but a rather intimidating-looking yakuza guy.
“Yikes!”
“This is how it works,” the yakuza said with L’s voice.
It was kind of surreal, but apparently she could modify her voice in much the same fashion if she so chose.
“Wow, that thing does make for a great disguise. It’s really handy to be able to change your height and stuff.”
“That’s because I’m not wearing the disguise directly.”
Basically, the crystal floating above her head bent light to manipulate the way people saw the object or person below. L disappeared into an illusion—a hologram being projected over her. Her mouth movements and expressions were all preserved through facial tracking, so the effect was perfectly natural. The hologram also adapted itself to include any objects she happened to be carrying. She had to be careful about that, however. For example, if she fired a laser gun she was holding, the beam would still fire from where the gun actually was rather than where it appeared to be in the hands of her taller hologram. It could jeopardize her disguise since the hologram was purely audiovisual. And the same was true about touch. If anyone physically came into contact with her, the jig would be up.
“That said, using doorknobs, operating consoles, and performing other close-range tasks isn’t an issue.”
Apparently simple things like that could still be covered by the projection from the gem. In other words, she just had to be careful about projectile weapons or anything else that might leave the range of her hologram.
“The hitch is that I only have one of these,” L casually announced after explaining how the gem worked.
“Shouldn’t you have opened with that?”
“Facts are facts; the timing doesn’t change the truth. I had another one as a spare, but that little gremlin girl broke it.”
“Gremlin... Fam, huh?”
Fam was a gremlin, a kind of monster known for putting delicate electronics on the fritz courtesy of a strange signal they emitted from their horns. Fam normally suppressed that ability with a special headband, but... I wonder what L had done to Fam? Whatever. L was right—facts were facts, and the fact of the matter here and now was that we only had one hologem.
“Well then, Doctor, Satsuki, do either of you have one of these hologem things?”
“I know where to get one, but it’s agency property. We’d have to fill out a requisition form, and there’s not exactly time for red tape right now. We could just try and take it, but that could backfire if we trip an alarm...”
“Hmm... I’d like to get outside as quickly and quietly as possible.”
I looked around the room. I was hoping to get a glimpse of things outside, but unfortunately there weren’t any windows in the doctor’s room.
“Say, Doctor, I recall you mentioning we were in space. Does that mean we’re on some planet?”
“No, this is a colony.”
“By colony, you mean one of those big spaceships just floating in space?”
A certain famous anime came to mind as I imagined that, and the doctor confirmed my imagination was more or less correct. The colony that comprised the agency headquarters was surprisingly not all that large. It was roughly one quarter the size of my hometown and housed just shy of a thousand workers.
“For the record, this room is within the colony’s employee residential block. The spacecrafts, both for personal and business use, are in the next block over.”
“Gotcha.”
Since we were on a space colony and not a planet or anything, we’d need space suits or some kind of spacecraft to go outside. My original plan was just to sneak me and L out of a window or something and then have the doctor and Satsuki come pick us up, but that was now, well... out the window. Based on the way the colony was designed, we’d have to make it to the next block over to board a ship.
“Then I guess we don’t have a choice...”
When I said that with a sigh, the three women in the room all cocked their heads. I had a backup plan in mind, but I considered it a last resort. I didn’t really want to do it, and I knew L certainly wouldn’t. But desperate times call for desperate measures and all that.
“So, L, hear me out...”
L must have sensed something was up, because she turned my way with an extremely disgusted look on her face.
▽
We were now walking down the corridor to the bay with the doctor in the lead. The wall and floors here had the same futuristic look the doctor’s room did, making it feel all the more like Iris’s spaceship. There were still no windows in sight, and I was starting to think it was a little stuffy, when...
“Geh!”
“Hey, don’t make strange noises.”
“Ummm, L, you’re kind of strangling me. Please stop squeezing your thighs together,” I whispered.
“That’s your fault for swaying,” she muttered as she relaxed her legs, which were currently draped over my shoulders.
“Rekka, L, we can still hear you, so try to refrain from needless chatter. From our perspective, it sounds like you’re talking to yourself.”
Oops. At Satsuki’s warning, I quickly shut my mouth.
But what else were we to do with only one hologem? In order to make it work, I’d suggested that L ride on my shoulders. This way, L could put the gem over her head and it could theoretically cover both of us. We had to adjust the motion tracking settings a little bit, but that was a piece of cake for the doctor.
L and I had taken the time to change out of our burnt and ripped clothes while she worked, but I guess that step wasn’t technically necessary since we had the hologram disguise. As for the hologram disguise, we’d “borrowed” the appearance of a random male employee at agency HQ whose work area was as far as could possibly be from the residential block. The doctor had pulled up his employee photo on the console in her room, and L had used that for reference to generate the disguise. Then we went on the move.
For the record, L was controlling the upper body of the disguise while I was controlling the lower. But Satsuki was totally right—people could still hear us. So when I talked to L like I just had, it probably did look and sound like this guy was talking to himself.
Actually, since L’s the only one with vocal mimicry, I should just stay silent altogether.
I’d been careless earlier. Fortunately, however, no one walking down the corridor was paying attention to us. It seemed like they were all too busy to be bothered. I guess the aftermath of the extremists’ attack was still unfolding, after all.
So this is the chaos the doctor had abandoned to come get me? If she hadn’t moved so rapidly, I would still be running around being chased by the giant robots the extremists had sent after me. But now that they knew I was here in the future, they should at least leave my hometown alone. I guess you could say I’d saved the past in a way by coming here to the future, but there was still more to do. While I obviously had to save the kidnapped heroines, I also wanted to do something about what was going on here in the future too. If I didn’t, incidents like this would just keep happening, and I wasn’t going to stand for my hometown being destroyed over and over. I’d have to defeat the mastermind behind all this to put a stop to it no matter what.
“...”
After turning several corners and going down an elevator, we finally arrived at our destination: the spacecraft bay.
It’s huge...
Perhaps I should have expected it, but this place was way bigger than our school gymnasium. I couldn’t even see the roof unless I tilted my head back 90 degrees. Over 20 spacecrafts were crowded into the wide space that we could see, varying in size from the spaceship equivalent of speedboats to mega yachts.
“Pardon me. Do you have a moment?” the doctor walked up and asked the departure attendant.
“Yes, of course. Just one mome—oh, Doctor Laputa! Wh-What can I do for you?”
The attendant looked up from a pile of paperwork and panicked a little when she saw the doctor. It seemed even she was in the middle of handling all kinds of things. There really wasn’t an area around HQ that wasn’t hectic right now...
“I received a call from XXXXX. I’m making a visit myself, so please prepare a smaller spacecraft for me.”
The “XXXXX” part was a strangely pronounced word that I didn’t understand. Probably some kind of space language. At any rate, saying she got a call was only an excuse. The doctor was just trying to net us a ship we could use.
“You’re going yourself, Doctor?”
“It’s related to the current incident, and I need to explain the circumstances. If we lose their support, we won’t have a leg to stand on. So yes, I’m going myself.”
“Understood. Just a moment, please.”
“Make it one with a sublight speed warp drive.”
“Understood.” The attendant then rummaged in her desk for something. “Now, let’s see... Who all will be boarding with Doctor Laputa?”
“Satsuki Otomo.”
“And L—I mean, Dienz Ormando.”
L almost gave her own name instead of the name of the male employee we were disguised as.
Whew, that was close.
A chill ran up my spine for a moment there, but the attendant hadn’t seemed to notice L’s slip of the tongue. She then finished what she was doing and handed the doctor the key to a small spaceship.
“Thanks.”
“It’s my pleasure, Doctor Laputa.”
“See you then—”
The doctor gave a little wave to the attendant, and we began the descent into the bay, when all of a sudden the doctor froze up on the spot. Wondering what was wrong, L and I looked up ahead to see...
“Huh?”
Right there at the bottom of the stairs, coming up towards us, was a man. But he looked familiar for some reason. Like I’d just seen him recently... Wait, I had seen him recently!
Ack, it’s the real deal!
This guy looked just like the picture the doctor had shown us of Dienz Ormando. But what was he doing here? According to the doctor, he worked in a totally different block. I guess maybe the chaotic aftermath of the attack had agency employees juggling all sorts of tasks they didn’t usually. He must’ve had some kind of job to do here, but what were the odds?! This was bad news.
“Huh? There are two Mr. Ormandos?”
The attendant had now noticed what was going on too. We all froze, no one quite sure of what to do next.
Can we come up with an excuse? No.
We could try our best to talk our way out of this, but there was no guarantee that would work. There was too much risk involved, and we could end up blowing our only chance to make it outside. We had to get to that spaceship no matter what.
“Run!” I yelled, rushing forward to trip Mr. Ormando, who was still taken aback in shock.
“Wah!”
In his surprise, he fell backwards. I then put L down and turned back to Satsuki and the doctor, who had yet to move.
“Follow me!” I yelled loudly.
It was enough to make the two of them flinch before finally getting a move on. I let them go ahead of me and then brought up the rear as we all ran down the stairs.
“S-Someone!”
Behind us, I could hear the attendant yelling for help. An alarm then began blaring all through the bay.
“R-Rekka! What do we do now?!” the doctor yelled in a panic.
“Ignore it! Which one’s the spaceship?!” I yelled back.
“Let’s see, 43, 43... I-It’s that one!” she shouted, pointing to a smaller spacecraft with a giant “43” painted on the side.
We made a beeline for it. The doctor tapped the keycard against the door panel, and it slid open immediately. Once we were all inside, the door slid back into place, and the interior of the ship automatically lit up. But we didn’t stop running until we hit the cockpit.
“All right! Now fly!”
“Don’t be absurd!” Satsuki yelled from the pilot’s seat. “The bay hatch can’t open until we’ve left the control room!”
“Ugh... Can’t we just fire a beam or something and leave through the hole we make?”
“If you did that, all the employees in the bay would be sucked out into space!”
“Ah, right. We’re in space.”
If we punctured a hole in the colony, anyone nearby would be sucked out in the depths of space. Which left us in quite a pickle as we were trying to escape.
“There’s an automatic emergency repair system in the outer walls of the colony, so the building itself should be fine. But the people here will still be in trouble, which is doubly an issue with the alarm going off. Security teams and all sorts of other people are on their way here right now.”
“That’s no good...”
Though this was an emergency, I didn’t want to get any innocent bystanders hurt.
“Satsuki.”
“What is it, Rekka?”
“Um, this spaceship has a warp drive, right? Could we use that to get outside?”
If so, then we could get out of here without even having to open the hatch. I thought it was a good idea, and the doctor seemed to think so too.
“That might be possible. Let’s use the short warp to get outside,” she said.
“Even the short warp needs a certain amount of acceleration, no? It’ll be impossible in here.”
“We should just be able to pull it off if we increase our speed by circling the inside of the bay.”
“You think I can pilot this thing like an acrobat?!”
“Do your best.”
“That won’t help!” Satsuki shouted, fiercely opposing the doctor’s suggestion.
“So, uh...” I piped up, trying to come up with another last-ditch-effort plan. “Why don’t we just go and explain things to everyone calmly? We can say the hologram disguise was just a trick of the light or something.”
“There are surveillance cameras in the corridors and here in the bay. It’d be impossible to fool them.”
“Then... was it a bad idea to run back there?”
That thought had been bothering me all this time.
“What’s done is done. And now we do what we have to. Move,” L said as she shoved Satsuki out of the pilot’s seat and took her place. “I’m taking over.”
“What? You, L? But you’re so clumsy...”
“Who are you calling clumsy?!” L snapped at me for being worried. She then grumbled, “Just so you know, I trip over a lot because this child-sized body has bad balance.”
She continued to grumble as she pulled a cable from her long kimono sleeve and connected it to the pilot’s console.
“I’m an artificial life form. I can pilot this type of spaceship electronically. With my calculation abilities, a short warp is a piece of cake.”
“A-All right... We’re counting on you, L!” I shouted.
“But let’s put our seat belts on for now!” the doctor shouted in turn, prompting me and Satsuki to take a seat and buckle in.
“Here we go!”
The spaceship started to move on its own, seemingly controlled by nothing other than L’s voice. I glanced outside the window to see agency employees gathered in scattered crowds. They were probably judging whether the moving spaceship was a danger or not as we rose higher and higher into the air.
Airplanes on Earth couldn’t lift off without gathering speed along a runway first, but this puppy could apparently move straight up even from a standstill. And once we’d gotten an appropriate altitude, L started to turn the ship around and lap the bay. As we gradually picked up speed...
“Ugh, I feel sick...”
“I think I’m gonna hurl.”
Satsuki and the doctor both held their hands over their mouths, their faces pale. I honestly felt a little queasy too.
“Tough it out! We’re leaping now!” L yelled.
We were already at the velocity we needed to enter warp, and L didn’t waste any time activating it. Not a few seconds after she gave us the warning, a strange light enveloped the spaceship as we leaped through space.
“Whew...” L exhaled quietly as she unplugged her cable. “So, where to now? Well, I guess we have until the warp finishes to decide.”
“Satsuki’s searching for the exact coordinates of our destination. Our first target is a heroine who has desperately maintained her neutral status without joining any faction since the start of the War of All—Lea.”
▽
Three hours after we made our escape from agency HQ, our small spaceship arrived in the vicinity of a certain planet.
“Lea’s really here?” I muttered in something of a daze.
Said planet was already close enough to see plainly through the window, and it... it didn’t exactly look inviting. I’m not an expert on planets or anything, but it sort of looked like pictures I’d seen of stormy Jupiter. I couldn’t say one way or the other about its size, though. When you’re standing in front of them in person, all planets look ridiculously huge.
I was more concerned about how the entire planet was covered in brown clouds. Or maybe it was airborne sand? Either way, you couldn’t see the surface at all because of it. Furthermore, the color wasn’t uniform. You could see yellow spots amidst the brown here and there, which seemed to be swirling faintly.
“Those are probably sandstorms. The entire planet seems to be sandy, and with the weather like this, there likely isn’t much light on the surface,” said the doctor.
“How does anyone live here...?” I asked.
“For a normal human to live here without any specialized equipment, the whole planet would need to be terraformed. But with the right gear, we should be able to get down to the surface and explore just fine,” the doctor replied, furrowing her brow. “Lea, on the other hand... Lea is known first and foremost for her power. If she put her mind to it, she could easily rival the military force of an entire planet. I suspect she sequestered herself somewhere inhospitable like this so that no one would try and use that power.”
“...Let’s just go.”
“Hold on, Rekka,” said Satsuki. “I’ll look up more detailed information on Lea’s location.”
From there, we followed Satsuki’s directions and entered the atmosphere of the sandy planet.
“Wow, it’s really all sand...”
And we just so happened to come down in the middle of a terrible sandstorm.
“It’s just barely bright enough to see without a light, but the sandstorm drastically reduces our visibility even more.”
It was only about as bright as a really cloudy day on Earth, but like the doctor said, the raging sandstorm prevented us from seeing any more than a meter or so ahead.
“Which way should we go?” I asked.
“First we descend straight down,” replied Satsuki. “She’s somewhere in this area.”
Satsuki continued to navigate for us, giving detailed directions to L in the pilot’s seat. I was grateful. Without her and her Omniscient Magic, there was probably very little chance we’d ever be able to find Lea here.
We gradually descended, bringing the hovering spaceship all the way down to the surface. From there, Satsuki used her magic again to determine Lea’s exact coordinates.
“Fifty meters ahead of us, there should be a small cavern,” she said.
And lo and behold, there it was. Rather than a natural landmark, however, it was more like a hollow bored into the side of a giant mass of rock jutting up out of the ground.
“So, Lea’s in there...”
“You’d better suit up before going outside.”
“All right.”
I heeded the doctor’s warning and put on a protective suit. It covered my body completely, but it wasn’t as bulky or hard to move in as a traditional space suit. If anything, it was more like a skin-tight drysuit with an attached helmet.
“It’s been ———— since I last saw Lea...”
Hm? Just now, it sounded like Satsuki blipped out for a second there... Ah, wait, that must be the canceller at work. I’d completely forgotten about the little device jammed in my ear. Judging by the beginning and end of her sentence, she’d probably said something about how many years it had been. The canceller had automatically cut that part out, so it seemed like it was doing its job to prevent me from knowing what time period it was.
“All right, let’s head out now.”
While I was thinking about that, the doctor opened the hatch to the ship and led us all outside.
“Whoa!”
That was some wind! I had to brace my legs in order not to be immediately blown away, and I grabbed the doctor’s and Satsuki’s hand spur of the moment.
“It’s probably best if we hold on to each other,” I said. “We’ll get lost instantly if we’re separated.”
Even if we were only going to a cavern a few meters ahead of us, it’d be a disaster if we lost our sense of direction even for a moment. On a planet like this, it could cost us our lives.
“There is a distress beacon installed in the suits just in case, but... Yes, let’s hold hands too. Here, L.”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t treat me like a child.”
“There’s no need to play tough. The adults are holding hands too.”
“H-Hmph! Only because you insisted...”
And so the doctor took the fussy L’s hand. Meanwhile, Satsuki on my other arm seemed to be strangely stiff.
“Satsuki? Are you okay?”
“I-I’m just fine!”
“You sure? Then let’s go!”
The four of us proceeded forward side by side. The sand was almost like fresh snow, sinking beneath our feet with every step. If any one of us tripped, the wind would send us rolling. I’m sure it was hilarious to watch, but it was a rather precarious situation. We moved forward with extreme care and caution, eventually arriving at the cavern entrance.
“Phew...”
Stepping into the mouth of the cave shielded us from the whipping wind and sand, allowing us to see a little better. But without any light, the depths of the cavern were shrouded in complete darkness. And from the darkness, someone asked challengingly...
“Who’s there?”
The voice was familiar to me. I had no idea how far in the future we were, but it hadn’t changed at all since I’d heard it last.
“I don’t know who you are... but I’m not interested in taking sides. I only pray that everyone will cease their pointless fighting.”
“Lea, it’s me!” I called to the darkness.
“That’s...! You...!”
I could tell by her voice she was shaken.
“Yeah, it’s me. Rekka Namidare,” I called again to the darkness.
From the depths of the cavern then came a peculiar sound... Quiet, staggering footsteps. And slowly but surely, a redhead I knew appeared from the dark of the cave. She was wearing a long, veil-like cloak, presumably to protect herself from the sand, but she was otherwise the exact same heroine I knew... Lea the Leviathan.
“R... Rekka!”
Her long, disheveled hair swished behind her as she ran towards me, straight into a hug.
“Whoa!”
Lea was a little taller than me, so her face was much closer to mine than when Satsuki had hugged me. I could feel her breath tickling my ear.
“Why...? How...? When did you return? No, none of that matters... I’m just glad you’re alive.”
“Um...”
While I was indeed Rekka Namidare, I wasn’t the Rekka Namidare she knew. I wanted to explain that to her, but it was hard for me to say anything when she was sobbing like that...
Come to think of it, future Lea really did look exactly like the Lea I knew. Was that because she was Leviathan? While future Satsuki had clearly grown older, I felt a little strange looking at Lea who hadn’t seemed to age a day. But the doctor had asked me not to put too much thought into that, so I decided not to dig any deeper.
“Listen, Lea... I’m sorry to ask, but could you let that Rekka go?”
“Laputa... and Satsuki? You’re both here too?” Lea murmured as though she’d only just noticed them.
It seemed like she didn’t have eyes for anyone other than me. The doctor smiled wryly, as if she’d known that would happen.
“I know it may come as a disappointment, but would you listen to our story, Lea? I promise we won’t take up too much of your time,” she then asked.
About half an hour later...
“...”
While she was initially shocked to find out that I was Rekka Namidare of the past, hearing why we’d come to find her put a conflicted expression on Lea’s face.
“I understand your request,” she said with a small nod.
“Then...”
“But I want you to promise me something first.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t mind lending you my power, Rekka. However, I ask that you won’t use it to fight the other heroines. I don’t want to hurt the friends I spent those happy days with...”
By “those happy days,” did she mean the time she spent with the heroines in this time line? Thinking about it, Lea was always the most openhearted of the heroines... It was probably because of the thousands of years she’d spent sealed away and alone.
“Yeah, I can promise you that, Lea. This might be a different time period, but I don’t have any intention of hurting anyone either. I just want to save them.”
“Heh... I guess you are Rekka, after all,” Lea said with a smile. “You can count on my assistance.”
“Thank you, Lea.”
“That said...”
Suddenly, Lea blushed.
“Do you have anything to eat? I haven’t had a bite since I shut myself away on this planet,” she asked sheepishly.
▽
“Now, where to next?” the doctor asked, handing me something.
It was a list of all the heroines that were common to both my past and this time line.
“Hom nom...”
Lea was happily munching away on space food in the back of the cockpit. I knew she was fine fasting for thousands of years since she’d done it once before, but she was also capable of eating endlessly when she wanted to. I let her savor her first meal in ages in peace.
“Hm?” Looking back at the list, I noticed something. “Come to think of it... This list contains a lot of heroines that I saved in my first semester of high school.”
“Oh? Yes, I suppose it does,” the doctor said with a nod. “While your fate and future Rekka’s fate diverged thanks to the agency’s interference, you both inherited the Namidare bloodline on your sixteenth birthday. It’s not like your fate can turn on a dime, you see.”
When she put it that way, it made sense. While the agency’s interference—that is, R—made all the difference, both me and future Rekka had the same starting point. We were both teenage boys from rural Japan with the same upbringing and circle of friends. Meeting R was where things started to change for me, but it was a gradual change. So while future Rekka and I ended up in completely different places, we had the same origins.
“Speaking of...”
“Hm?”
“I’ve been wondering about this for a while now, so there’s something I’d like to ask,” I said, looking at the doctor, Satsuki, and Lea in turn. “Just how different am I from the version of me that you guys know?”
It’s not like hearing it would change anything, but I at least wanted to know how different we’d ended up. Mostly, I was just curious. But the three women looked at each other...
“That’s a tough question. How different? Hmm...”
“They’re the spitting image of each other outwardly.”
“I don’t know about the fundamentals, though.”
So... maybe I wasn’t all that different after all?
“Ah, but there is one thing—one rather big thing—that differentiates the two of you.”
“And what’s that, Doctor?”
“Well, you see,” the doctor began. “Rekka of the future is no longer human.”
“No longer... human?” I parroted back blankly.
What... What did that even mean? My head instantly filled with questions. I knew for a fact that I was definitely still human, but future me... wasn’t? What on earth had happened?
“Sorry, perhaps that was a poor choice of words. More specifically, he quit being human.”
“That’s the same thing,” I retorted.
“Really? I think it makes a big difference whether it was done willingly or not,” the doctor replied, scratching her cheek.
“That’s fair... But why did I give up on being a human?”
“That’s obvious,” the doctor said, pointing between me and the girls. “To save heroines, of course.”
“...”
“Surely one or two examples come to mind, no? Stories where you had to surpass your human limits, stories where you were cornered into making an impossible choice.”
“Yeah...”
When she put it that way, I saw what she meant. I’d been through so much... If I’d agreed to share Satsuki’s magic, I would’ve become an Omniscient Contractor. If Rosalind had taken my blood, I would’ve become a vampire. I’d managed to save Rain’s planet, but if I hadn’t eaten Raul’s immortal flesh, I would’ve succumbed to the mutations caused by Shirley’s drug. If I’d lost to the Mask of Greed, I would’ve turned into a demon. If any one of those events had played out differently, I very well may have become inhuman myself. And when I thought about it in those terms, I realized how lucky I was to still be human.
“So what did future Rekka become? A vampire?”
“...”
At my question, the three women looked at each other... and started counting on their fingers.
“Part Omniscient Contractor, part vampire, part spirit, part demon sacrifice, part blood magus, and... Um, what other blood did he take in?”
“Part dragon, part undine, part nine-tailed fox, part oni, part both devil and angel, part fifth-dimensional alien, and part seventh-dimensional observer... What else was there?”
“Well, I don’t remember exactly which parts he had exchanged for cybernetic upgrades, but I also think he equipped himself with several ancient technologies...”
“Yeah, okay. I get it. Thanks.”
So future me had gone whole hog on the abandoning humanity thing. Wasn’t that a little much for just one person? How many part-somethings can one man be, anyway? And we’re talking about the same guy who went missing... Just who could kidnap someone like that? It would sure have to be more than a Demon King or ancient evil... And yet a mere terrorist attack had taken him out? Maybe that was a bad way of putting it, but I did have to wonder. Nevertheless, just spinning my wheels on it now wouldn’t get me anywhere. I had to concentrate on what was right in front of me.
“All right, let’s go get her next,” I said, spreading the list out and pointing to a particular heroine’s name.
▽
In the future, there was special technology to travel between worlds. Apparently it had been created by some scientists from Earth and outer space with the help of a particular sorcerer. She’d used her specialty summoning and teleportation magic to set up gates between already known worlds and make stable paths to and from them. Unfortunately, once the War of All broke out, those gates became pathways of attack rather than trade.
But the sorcerer who’d made it all happen—Harissa Hope—was the next heroine I was thinking of recruiting.
“Why Harissa, though?”
“Hm?” At Satsuki’s question, I turned to face her. “There are two reasons. The first is because Harissa’s a dove. I suspect it’ll be easier to get her cooperation because of that.”
“What’s the second reason?”
“The second reason is her magic,” I answered. “I promised Lea that our goal is to gather allies, not to fight. Harissa’s magic will make doing that a lot easier.”
In addition to her summoning and teleportation magic, Harissa had really nifty spells like invisibility and healing. Her invisibility magic in particular had saved us tons of times in the past. It was great for moving around in secret and making stealthy escapes. But her magic aside, Harissa was the first heroine I had ever saved...
I figured the closer we got to my origins, the less difference there should be between me and my future self. In short, future Harissa and future Rekka should have met under very similar circumstances to the way Harissa and I did. The story should be more or less the same. Who knew what differences took place after that, but...
Anyway, the biggest obstacle when it came to negotiating with the heroines of the future was the fact that I wasn’t actually the Rekka they knew. Effectively, I was a total stranger. One misstep could spell a whole mess of trouble. So in order to alleviate that risk, I figured starting with the heroines I would know best—and the heroines that knew me best—would be safest.
Now, in order to set things in motion, we headed to the kingdom of Aburaamu, Harissa’s homeland. I mentioned earlier that pathways had been established between various worlds, but it wasn’t like just anyone could use them. Even on Earth, entering a foreign country required various customs and inspections. And if you tried to enter a warring nation, you’d be turned away at the door as a matter of course. In that regard, having the doctor with us was like an ace up our sleeve. She was a respected figure among the pacifists and had apparently been to Aburaamu on diplomatic missions before, so we had no trouble getting into the country.
“This is the capital of Aburaamu?” I muttered as I looked down at the city from the spaceship window.
The last time I visited Aburaamu... Well, I actually had no idea how long it had been since I didn’t know what time period it was, but Aburaamu sure had changed. From what I remembered, it was extremely medieval—stone castle and all. But the capital that stretched out before me now was more like something out of a sci-fi fantasy. There were still wood and stone houses on the outskirts of town, but the heart of the city had been reformed to accommodate towering clusters of futuristic skyscrapers. And yet, the castle in the very middle of it all was still medieval-looking... What in the world was going on here?
“The city kind of looks like a hodgepodge mess.”
“That’s what happens when different worlds collide... But it’s not necessarily a bad thing, you know?” said the doctor. “Aburaamu has been receiving technology via trade with Earth and other planets. That’s why the level of development here feels so uneven. The castle itself embodies that perfectly—for the sake of appearance and tradition, its exterior is the same as it ever was, but its interior has been remodeled and updated quite thoroughly.”
“You don’t say...” I said, nodding.
“War is also a type of cross-cultural exchange, so this kind of thing happens.”
The doctor finished her explanation right around the time we landed our spaceship in the dock next to the castle. The dock had apparently been installed to help facilitate cross-cultural diplomacy.
“All right, L. I’m counting on you.”
“The situation being what it is, I won’t complain... But it feels like you’re giving me a ride on your shoulders, and I don’t like it. It’s humiliating.”
“That’s complaining, you know.”
L continued to grumble as she climbed up onto my shoulders. We then used her hologem to change our appearance and left the ship with the doctor and the others.
“Welcome, members of the agency. Right this way,” the gentleman who’d come to greet us said.
His outfit had the same sort of hodgepodge feeling the city did, but I guess that was just the fashion in Aburaamu these days? He led us into the castle, and the doctor wasn’t kidding—the interior had changed quite a bit. Wait... Oh my God, is that an elevator?! I remember visiting Osaka Castle on a field trip as a schoolkid and being totally shocked to see an elevator there. This was just as bad, if not worse. But, well... since I was carrying L on my shoulders, seeing the elevator was actually kind of a relief.
Anyway, we made our way through the castle I’d visited twice before. While the interior of the building had largely been upgraded and remodeled just like the doctor said, it didn’t look like the king’s audience chamber had changed much. Was this one of those “balancing the old and new” type deals? I don’t really understand that kind of stuff, so I decided not to put too much brainpower into thinking about it.
“Welcome, members of the agency,” said the bald old man standing next to the king as we entered the room.
Why did he seem so familiar? Could he maybe be the grandson or something of the minister I’d once met here? Well, he didn’t seem to recognize me—he probably had no idea who I was—so I decided not to worry about it. In response to his greeting, the doctor offered a polite smile.
“Do pardon us for visiting on such short notice. We’ve come today in hopes of asking an important favor.”
“Oh?”
Hearing the word “favor” made the minister smile, but there was a glint in his eye. Surely that smile didn’t mean anything good...
“I thought the agency’s credo was to remain neutral and stay impartial with all political powers.”
“You thought right. We would never seek to ally ourselves with any particular entity.”
“Is that so?”
“Quite so.”
“Then what business do you have with our kingdom?”
“As I said, the agency has an important favor to ask,” said the doctor, finally cutting to the chase. “We seek to thwart the War of All by approaching Rekka Namidare in the past... That has been our goal for many years now, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
“But of course.”
“Our request concerns that goal.”
“And what might this request be, specifically?”
The doctor paused to take a breath before answering the minister’s question: “We seek the cooperation of Aburaamu’s royal sorcerer, Harissa Hope.”
“...”
“Naturally, it would only be a temporary measure. Embarrassing as it is to admit, the agency is experiencing a hiccup of sorts in its operations, and her assistance would be most appreciated in helping us overcome it.”
“Hmm... Yes, that’s terrible news indeed,” the minister replied, stroking his beard.
I couldn’t say exactly why... But for some reason, it felt like he wasn’t taking us seriously.
As I was thinking that, the minister replied, “Lady Harissa is our royal sorcerer, you understand. Letting her go would be most difficult, so we cannot answer you readily.”
“I understand the burden our request would place on you, but I do hope you’ll consider helping us.”
“Even so...”
“At the very least, if you would allow us to speak with Harissa herself...”
The doctor tried to negotiate a meeting with Harissa in person, but the minister swiftly shook his head.
“Lady Harissa is always busy, you see. Moreover, her life is under constant threat by outside powers. Unfortunately, we cannot allow her to meet with any foreign entities.”
“What?! You think we’re going to assassinate her?!” I yelled.
What the minister was suggesting was so absurd, I couldn’t help it. But my little outburst made the minister and the other officials in the room all turn their eyes on me... Oops. I was supposed to keep my head down while we were here.
“Ahem,” the minister coughed, forcefully clearing his throat. “At any rate, I do hope you understand that Lady Harissa is a valuable asset we cannot simply let go of. If you insist on this matter further, then we would require you show evidence of your good faith.”
“...”
“Now, I’m sure you’re all tired from your journey here. We have rooms available in the guest house, so why don’t you stay here for the night? If there is anything more you wish to discuss, please come by again in the morning.”
“So be it... We’ll gladly take you up on your generous offer.”
And so our first meeting in Aburaamu came to an end without us even seeing Harissa.
▽
After our not-so-productive meeting with the minister, we made our way to the guest house. It lay in the southern gardens of the castle grounds and, as its name implied, was a residence built to accommodate guests like us. The rooms were all lavishly extravagant, but that didn’t really improve my mood any right now.
“Argh! Damn that old minister!”
Of all the reasons he could have come up with, he had to go and imply we were trying to assassinate Harissa... While I could understand being cautious in times of war, I couldn’t help the rage that surged within me at the very idea.
“There, there, Rekka. Calm down.”
“Yeah, you’re right...”
I put my face in my hands and sighed, trying to cool my head. The doctor and Satsuki both took a seat, and L flopped face-first on the bed.
“Anyone want drinks?” Lea asked.
She was standing over by a rather large refrigerator, looking over her shoulder at the rest of us. Wait, a fridge in a world like this? There really had been a lot of technological and cultural exchange in Aburaamu.
“Something sweet, please...”
“Got it.”
Lea tossed me a bottle made of a thin, aluminum-like metal. I guess they didn’t have plastic here? I removed the cap and took a sip. It was... grape juice. Nice and chilled, too. Lea handed juice out to everyone else before taking a seat on the bed next to the collapsed L.
“It seems we’re in quite a bind,” she muttered.
“Evidence of our good faith, huh? They’re outright demanding a bribe...” the doctor said with a sigh.
“But what do you think, Doctor? With the situation being what it is, perhaps we should humor them a little in order to get a meeting with Harissa...” Satsuki suggested.
“Well, I’d love to play along if it were an option. But you remember the ruckus we caused before leaving the agency, don’t you?”
“About that...”
“Moreover, the extremists’ attack left HQ in such shambles that I’m sure the accountants are still scrambling to come up with the capital to pay for all the necessary repairs. If I asked them to send money for a bribe now, they’d kill me.”
“They are rather fussy about funds...”
This time, the doctor and Satsuki sighed in unison.
“So what are we gonna do instead? At this rate, we’re just wasting our time here,” L said rather bluntly as she rolled over.
“If all hope is lost, shall we try another heroine?”
“I dunno. Giving up so easily is a little... I mean, we haven’t even seen Harissa yet,” I said, looking towards the castle from the guest house window. “Hey, Satsuki, Doctor, do you know where Harissa is right now?”
I asked the two of them because Lea had been living in absolute seclusion for who knew how long now. I figured she probably wouldn’t have any idea.
“Probably the sorcerers’ tower, I suppose?” Satsuki answered.
“The sorcerers’ tower?”
“That one there. See it?”
Satsuki walked over to the window and pointed outside. I wandered over and looked out to see a large tower standing next to the castle.
“Isn’t that...?”
Back when I was searching for a way to return to Earth with Corona and the others, we’d had to come here to Aburaamu in order to gather material components for Harissa’s connection magic. We specifically needed Red Thread as a catalyst, and we’d had to sneak into the castle’s magical research facility to get some... And yeah, I’m pretty sure it was that tower right there.
“All of Aburaamu’s magical research and refinement takes place in that tower. It’s illegal to take anything from the premises, be it people or items. It’s a measure to prevent any kind of leaks or espionage.”
“And you think Harissa is there?”
“Harissa is the kingdom’s preeminent sorcerer, after all.”
“Come to think of it, my Harissa did invent a new teleportation spell all by herself...”
She really did have a talent for magic. But that left us in a pinch. Her talent had her holed up in the tower, which made it harder for us to get to her now.
“Is there any way we can sneak in?”
At times like these, I would normally rely on Harissa’s invisibility magic, but...
“Hmm, I could search the Akashic record for a spell that would get us inside, but...” Satsuki paused there for a moment, looking troubled. “If I use magic to kidnap Harissa here, it’d be an interworld incident. The agency only has its neutrality to stand on, so that would be extremely problematic.”
“I see...”
Thinking, I folded my arms and furrowed my brow. Satsuki was right. If we snuck into the tower and left with Harissa, it would look like we abducted her.
“If we could just talk to Harissa... If she knew it was a request from you, Rekka, I’m sure she’d cooperate with us. But with that minister around, we won’t get to see her for free.”
“That’s it!”
Hearing Satsuki’s mumbling, a light bulb flashed on in my head.
“Did you come up with something?” the doctor asked, curiously turning my way.
“Yeah,” I replied. “If we can’t go see her, we’ll just have to get her to come see us instead.”
▽
Ten minutes after we commenced our plan...
Knock, knock, knock!
Something suddenly started rapping on the window, attracting all of our attention.
“So that’s how she got here?”
This was the second floor. She’d probably used some spell to fly over. Or up, as it were. Lea, the closest to the window, got up to open it. A gust of wind blew in, bringing something rather large with it...
“Wah!”
I was tackled by said something, which knocked me backward onto the bed. It had jumped on me. Or, rather, hugged me overenthusiastically. That seemed to be happening a lot today...
Just as I was thinking that, it became apparent who the “something” that had tackled me really was. Indeed, when she dispelled her invisibility magic, I saw Harissa—future Harissa, that is. She was wearing the white robes of a royal sorcerer and looked like a mature version of the Harissa I knew. I had always thought of her as a little sister while we were living together, so seeing her grown-up like this was oddly flustering. I mean, her chest was... Yeah, let’s just say she’d definitely grown.
“Sir Rekka...”
“H-Heya...”
Harissa wrapped her arms around me with tears in her eyes, refusing to let go. Our plan to lure her over had been a simple one: we used Satsuki’s magic to let her know that I was here. We figured she’d come running if she heard the name Rekka Namidare, so it was going to be hard explaining that I wasn’t really her Rekka Namidare. I felt bad. Really, we’d tricked her into coming...
“Um, would you be willing to listen to what we have to say?”
“Of course.”
“Then could you maybe let go of me?”
“...Give me a little longer first.”
About half an hour later...
There weren’t enough chairs to go around, so we all sat in a circle on the floor and explained what had happened to Harissa.
“I see... You’ve been through so much, Sir Rekka of the past.” After hearing our story, Harissa nodded with a doleful expression as she clutched her well-loved staff tightly with both hands. “I understand the position you’re in, and I would happily lend you my power.”
“Really?! Thank you, Harissa!” I nearly shouted, gratefully lowering my head.
“That being the case, allow me to go and receive leave from the king forthwith.”
Harissa immediately stood up to make good on her word. I stood up too to see her off, and it was right about then that something occurred to me.
“Er...”
“Hm? Is something the matter, Sir Rekka?”
“I hope not. It’s just that minister... I don’t even know his name, but he was pretty opposed to us taking you with us. Are you really just free to go as you please?”
When I voiced my worries, Harissa giggled.
“That man is selling our kingdom’s magic technologies to other nations, so he’s actually leaning towards the militant hawks in terms of taking a side on the war.”
“Huh? Doesn’t that make things even worse?”
“It’s fine. The king, in comparison, is a dove. I’m certain he’ll consent if I say I wish to go. And if the king and I are in agreement, then no minister will be able to oppose us,” Harissa answered.
Man, did she ever sound confident and reliable right now. Seeing the little girl I once knew suddenly so grown in the blink of an eye was a rather strange thing.
“...”
Harissa stared at me silently for a moment before sidling over to me.
“You’re the Sir Rekka from when we only just met, right?”
“Hm? Yeah, I am. Well, technically speaking, I’m the Rekka from about half a year after that. What of it?”
“Nothing,” Harissa said, moving her hand held level from the top of her head to me and back. “What do you think? Our height difference has shrunk quite a bit since we first met, hasn’t it?”
“Ah, yeah...”
I’d noticed that the moment she first hugged me. But acknowledging it made Harissa’s lips curl up into a wicked grin for some reason.
“I may have been a little pipsqueak in the past, but look at how mature I’ve become!” she said, twirling on the spot. “So if you’re going to choose a heroine, you should choose one that gets better with age, don’t you think?”
“W-W-Wait! Stop! Hold it right there!” the doctor shouted, interrupting her in a panic. “Don’t go saying things to tempt or sway Rekka!”
“Hmph. I don’t see the problem. It’d be unfair if my past self wasn’t chosen just because I used to be childish.”
“If that’s allowed, then I—”
“No! It’s not allowed! That’s completely off-limits, you hear?!”
“Ngh... I’m at a disadvantage since I haven’t changed much at all.”
“I said off-limits!”
Both Satsuki and Lea were ready to jump into things too, but the doctor wouldn’t hear it. Meanwhile, Harissa was impishly giggling at the chaos.
“Does something seem a little different about Harissa’s personality to you?” I muttered.
“I can tell you exactly what it is—she’s matured into a little devil,” L snarked, crossing her arms.
The ruckus in the room continued for a while before eventually dying down.
“Now, I shall head straight to the king. The necessary procedures and formalities may take a day or so to complete, so please wait here for me until I return.”
“All right,” I said with a nod.
After that, Harissa left out the window exactly the way she’d come—invisible and flying.
▽
We spent that night in the guest house, and Harissa came by the next day as promised to let us know her negotiations with the king and minister had been mostly successful.
“Unfortunately, however, they will not grant me leave indefinitely. I’ve been given a furlough of three weeks and must return afterward...”
“That’s more than enough time.”
From there we boarded our spacecraft, and Harissa’s colleagues saw us off as we made our exit through the gate back to our world.
“Now that we’ve recruited Lea and Harissa, what’s next?” the doctor asked.
“Hmm... Come to think of it, how strong are the extremists really?”
The abducted heroines were probably being held at their headquarters. My ultimate goal was to rescue them, but I still didn’t know exactly what we were up against. That made it hard to gauge how strong—and how well defended—we needed to be. Based on the group of giant robots that had attacked my hometown, I was guessing the extremists were a pretty serious force to be reckoned with.
“I wonder. You did destroy several of the independent armaments they sent to the past, and their resources should be somewhat depleted after their attack on the agency. I suspect they’re in a somewhat weakened state right now...”
As the doctor began hypothesizing, one of the panels on the ship’s command console started bleeping and flashing.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A message. It’s from... the agency.”
“Bleh.”
“We’ve been charging ahead rather recklessly so far, so I guess we’re finally getting fussed at.”
The doctor’s tone was light and joking enough, but we really had caused some serious commotion back at the agency. Things were still in disarray at HQ, so they’d probably been delayed in getting around to dealing with us, but if the agency decided to take a strict stance with the doctor... Things could get ugly.
“If it’s that bad, you can always tell them I forced you all to act under my orders.”
I was a Namidare and they were heroines. If I said that I’d forced them to listen to me, it should sound convincing enough.
“I was the one who asked you to come to the future in the first place, so I wouldn’t do that to you. Now, let’s see...”
The doctor opened up the message with a laugh, but the smile on her face froze over when she began reading.
“What? What does it say?” I asked in a panic.
But the answer that came back was far more dire than I could’ve imagined...
“The Greater Galactic Federation has declared war on the agency.”