Chapter 7: To the Parallel World
Chapter 7: To the Parallel World
“You’re gonna save the world?” Yuuhi asked, narrowing her eyes. “Which one do you mean?”
“Both,” I answered.
We were still locked in a standoff as I stared her straight in the eye. She stared right back at me, and rather sharply, I might add.
“That’s...”
“Impossible? Maybe for you, Yuuhi.” When I said that in a strong tone, Yuuhi fell speechlessly silent. “If you can’t think of anything other than the War of All to help Sith, I’ll come up with something in your place. So lend me your strength, Yuuhi Namidare.”
“What can you do?” Yuuhi questioned me harshly. “In this future timeline, you indeed possess some tremendous supernatural abilities. But as you are from the past, you’ve gone through story after story and have nothing to show for it. You’re powerless.”
“So, what? You think power will solve all of your problems?”
“...”
“I may not have any special powers myself, but I know the way to overcome any difficulty—by putting everyone’s powers together.”
Plenty of the heroines I’d encountered had special abilities themselves, but that hadn’t been enough to save their stories on their own.
“You say you’re me from another world, but to me, you’re no different than any other heroine. Unable to solve your story with your own power, you’re on the verge of tragedy. So I’m going to save you.”
“I’m... not...” Yuuhi mumbled, biting her lip and looking down, finally putting an end to our staredown. “I’m a Namidare. I’ve done my fair share of saving the day. So I can’t relent here. If I give up now, the story of my world is over.”
“I know. I know that pressure, that responsibility... But it’s not a burden you have to face alone!” I yelled. “Is asking for help really the same as giving up?! It’s not, is it?! You may have saved plenty of people before now, but so what?!”
“Wha—Rekka, wait!”
Satsuki jumped in and tried to stop me, but I ignored her better judgment and marched right up to Yuuhi.
“!”
Yuuhi herself seemed quite surprised at my outburst. If she were an enemy, a reckless approach was a dangerous move on my part. But there was only one thought in my head right now: I had to save her no matter what. The final boss before me was stronger than I was, stupider than I was, and far, far more stubborn than I had ever been.
“Just because you’re normally the hero doesn’t mean that you don’t need to be saved sometimes too!”
I took two steps closer so that Yuuhi’s face was right in front of mine.
“...”
This girl who’d come to our world through the mirror... I admit that looking at her was almost like looking into a mirror. The same eyes stared back at me.
“Just say you need help, Yuuhi.”
Perhaps to Yuuhi, this world was enemy territory and I was just another enemy. Perhaps she was wary of trusting me because she feared for the fate of the world she was carrying on her shoulders.
“You and I are both Namidares. If we both have the power to change fate, if we both help each other out... We should be able to save everyone, right?”
But this was all I could do. Like Yuuhi said, I was weak. Utterly powerless. I couldn’t do anything without the strength my friends and allies lent me. And the first step to that was getting them to trust me. I knew it was highly unlikely that I’d be able to sway Yuuhi with words at this point, so I had to be perfectly clear. I declared that there was a way to be saved. That she didn’t have to struggle alone anymore. That I would do something about it.
“...”
Yuuhi pressed her lips together firmly. Her hands slowly clenched into fists. If she wanted to punch me, she could probably take me out in a single hit. But what happened after that? What would she do next? She’d be up against every heroine present, so she’d either have to flee the scene or defeat them all. And what after that? Even if she got away, the extremists would lose without her. Would she just hide somewhere else and once again try to control the War of All from the shadows, continuing to sow the seeds of unhappiness in this world and plunging us further into misery? All to lead her own world to victory in the goddesses’ game? Was that really a happy ending? It wasn’t for us, and I didn’t think it would be for Yuuhi either.
Is that really what you want, Yuuhi Namidare?
If she was me from another world, then she was probably asking herself the same thing right about now. Over and over. Just wondering if this was right. And the answer to that was obvious.
“Even you know this is wrong, don’t you?!” I shouted, grabbing Yuuhi by the collar. “If you have any shred of pride left as a Namidare, then let’s aim for the happiest ending possible together! And I mean a real happy ending, not some bittersweet one where one of us still has to lose! Let’s author an ending where everyone can be happy! If you don’t have the resolve to do that, then...”
“Then what?”
“Let me spell it out for you!” I declared. “You’d leave me no choice. I’d have to tie you up and go save everyone myself. And I wouldn’t let you take any of the credit.”
“...”
Hearing my answer, Yuuhi looked dazed for a moment.
“Was that supposed to be a threat or something?”
“Oh, it’s a threat, all right.”
“?”
“If I save the day while you’re just sitting here, would you ever be able to forgive yourself?”
“...!”
There, Yuuhi’s expression changed.
The hurt Yuuhi had inflicted on this world ran deep. She’d pushed her breaking heart past its limits to do great evil in the name of saving her own world. But what if that had all been for nothing? If there had been another solution all along? If Yuuhi sat back and let someone else clean up her mess? The only thing she’d have left would be the weight of her crimes.
“Ridiculous. Ever since I resolved myself to do this, I—”
“You were planning on dying either way, right? You really are a fool.”
Yuuhi really was just a normal girl at heart. She was no final boss after all. At this rate, even if she managed to save her world, the guilt of destroying ours would probably destroy her too.
“If you’ve got the guts to put your life on the line, then put those guts to good use, Yuuhi.”
“Rekka, aren’t you being harsher with her than you usually are with the ladies?” R interjected.
“I said it earlier, R. While I can sympathize with her, I’m also pretty pissed at her.”
I believed that Yuuhi hadn’t had any other choice. That much was certain... But had it always been? Or had Yuuhi decided on her own that this was impossible just because she couldn’t do it by herself? If she’d sought someone else’s help from the start... If she’d overcome her fears and reached out her hand... Maybe all of this could have been avoided.
“After sending L after me, and after everything else you’ve done as the mastermind of the extremists, you should have a pretty good idea of what I’m capable of, right?”
“Yeah...”
“Then you have enough information to make a decision. Now hurry up and decide whether I’m leaving you here or not.”
I’d already said everything I could with words. If it just wasn’t enough to convince Yuuhi, it was my loss. Of course, even without Yuuhi’s cooperation, I still had no intention of giving up. I would still save both her world and mine. I just... probably wouldn’t be able to save Yuuhi too. I knew she’d never be able to forgive herself and there’d be nothing I could do about it. It would mean I’d failed to uphold my promise to the girls that I would save everyone... And I would carry that with me the rest of my life. But so be it. There really was nothing left to say to Yuuhi. All that remained was for her to make up her mind.
I let go of her collar, though her fists remained tightly balled. We were about to shape the future with our own hands—our own strength—the first and last weapons we possessed. It was simply a matter of whether or not Yuuhi was going to use her strength to fight or to run. If she ran, I’d give chase. If she fought, I’d fight with her. But the call was Yuuhi’s to make. Only she could choose. Would she pick her world over the happiness of everyone? Right now, the end to this story was in her firmly clenched fists.
“I...”
Her fists trembled, then shook. She squeezed them tighter and tighter as though she was trying to hold back her emotions. She squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed with every last drop of her strength. Her strained fists raised a complaint at the pain... then finally uncurled.
“Can you really... save everyone?” Yuuhi asked in a small voice.
It was R that replied...
“Don’t worry. Despite how he looks, this Rekka here is an amazing hero with a 100-percent success rate. He’s saved every story he’s ever been involved in, and that’ll include yours.”
...with an announcement that Yuuhi had become my newest heroine.
▽
I was going to save both Yuuhi’s world and ours. My bold declaration left the future heroines looking a little conflicted, while my heroines simply looked exasperated at my typical behavior.
“Honestly, Rekka, you’re just so... well, Rekka.” That included Satsuki, who held her head in her hands as she bemoaned my nature. “Are you serious about doing this?”
“Yeah.”
“A parallel world... That’s completely outside the realm of even my magic, you know?”
Satsuki’s Magic of Omniscience was a powerful heirloom magic that allowed her to peek into the annals of history since time immemorial, but it could only access the Akashic record of our world. Nothing was recorded in it about Sith’s world—the mirror world Yuuhi hailed from.
“We can’t even confirm her story, Rekka...”
“I understand your concern, Satsuki, but I believe Yuuhi.”
I’d asked Yuuhi to trust me, which meant I had to trust her too in order for this to work.
“So, to sum up the game between goddesses...” I said, turning to Yuuhi, who was still standing some distance from the other girls. “Once the requisite lead in happiness is achieved by one of the worlds, the other will be destroyed?”
“That’s right,” she confirmed with a nod.
“Is there no way for the game to end in a tie?”
“None whatsoever,” Yuuhi replied bluntly. “Sith and Maine agreed to rules for the match before the game began. There was nothing about a draw in the terms set forward.”
“And so the game has continued for thousands of years... How patient of them.”
“They’re deities, after all. Their sense of time is much different than mortals’.”
“I suppose that makes sense.” There, I folded my arms and looked up at the ceiling. “I suppose, then... our only option is to ask them to suspend the game.”
If we couldn’t force a draw, then we had to find a way to call off the game.
“But suspending the game would require a mutual agreement between Sith and Maine,” said Yuuhi.
“And?” I asked.
“While Sith would agree to something like that on the verge of defeat, Maine has no reason to agree when she’s on the verge of winning.”
“But it wouldn’t hurt to at least try asking, right?”
I had no idea what Maine—the goddess of our world—was like, but I was hoping she wasn’t the type to take delight in destroying her little sister’s world.
“And how exactly do you plan on getting an audience with a deity?”
“Well, how did you meet with the goddess of your world, Yuuhi?”
“In my case, I overcame the goddess’s trial to earn the right to see her.”
“Trial?”
“Yes. You see, deities are the highest existences in the cosmoverse. In order to meet them, you have to go through the appropriate procedures.”
“Hmm...” Procedures, huh? “Doctor, have you heard of anything similar to this divine trial in our world?”
“Anything similar? That’s pretty vague... Hold on a moment,” the doctor said, pulling out some kind of tablet. “The keyword’s just too broad. It makes it hard to search for... Yeah, sorry, there are just too many results.”
“Are there really that many? And what is that device, anyway?”
“It’s a terminal that can access all the databases in the world. I’ve looked through all available records, but mythology from all cultures is just teeming with stories of heroes and priests that have performed great deeds in order to gain divine audience. There’s no end to this list.”
“I see,” I said with a nod before turning to Satsuki. “What about the Magic of Omniscience? Can you search up how to meet a god?”
“Hang on,” both Satsuki and future Satsuki said in the same breath.
They then both looked at each other in surprise.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead.”
“No, you’re the... um... adult here, so by all means...”
“Actually, couldn’t you both search together?”
A strange contest of yielding began to unfold between the Satsukis, so I suggested they both take a crack at it. Considering the infinite list of potential answers the doctor said was available, I figured it would be most efficient for them to search together. It was going to take a while, after all. And while they were busy...
“Hey, that’s right! Rachelle!”
As I was thinking about things, it suddenly dawned on me that we had an angel in the party. She served the god—or goddess, as it turned out?—of this world. Maybe she could get us an audience. Hopeful, I looked for Rachelle... but couldn’t spot her among the heroines in the room. It was only then that I realized Yuuhi hadn’t released everyone yet.
“Hey, Yuuhi. Release the rest of the heroines already.”
At that, Yuuhi returned to stoically glaring at me.
“What, you still don’t trust me? I’m telling you, it’ll be fine.”
Still skeptical, Yuuhi pressed a concealed button in her jacket, and a rift between this world and hers tore open the very fabric of space. From the rift appeared the missing heroines, who all looked rather confused.
“Huh...? Where are we?” mumbled Kiri.
“What was I doing?” pondered Suzuran.
Realizing they were probably dazed from the brainwashing and everything else that had happened, I turned to L.
“Would you mind explaining things to them?” I asked.
“Ugh, fine,” she said in a huff.
L gathered up everyone to fill them in while I pulled aside the unmistakable girl in the back of the group with white wings.
“Huah? What’s this, Rekka?” Rachelle asked, still looking a little dazed.
She seemed puzzled as to why I’d singled her out.
“Rachelle, I have a favor to ask you.”
“A favor, you say?”
“Is there any way you could arrange a meeting with God for me?”
“WHAAAT?!” Suddenly, she went from looking dazed to wide awake. “Th-That’s impossible! No way, no how!”
“Please. The fate of the world is at stake.”
“E-Even if you say that...”
“Just this once!”
There, I explained what was happening to Rachelle. In order to save both worlds, I needed to meet Maine, the goddess of this world, and ask her to call off the game. But unfortunately...
“I’m sorry! It’s just not possible!”
“Why not?”
“I’m sure future Rekka would understand, but in the grand scale of the world—and by that, I mean the cosmoverse—Earth is just a tiny speck of dust, you know?”
“Fair point...”
Earth was just one planet in one solar system, which was practically nothing in the grand scheme of space, let alone the so-called cosmoverse which included other worlds. Earth really was only a drop in the bucket, if that.
“Even the seraphim are pretty far down on the ladder, and I’m even below them! I’m, like, the very bottom! So I’m really sorry to say it, but it’s just not happening!”
“I see... Sorry for putting you on the spot.”
The more frantic Rachelle grew, the worse I felt. For someone as ridiculous as her to be taking this so seriously, it must have really been impossible.
“Rekka...”
My hopes, however, were reignited as Satsuki returned. If we were lucky, the Magic of Omniscience would find us a way to meet a deity.
“Hey, Satsuki. How’d it go?”
“Well, I looked it up with Ms. Satsuki’s help, but it’s not good news. There’s no way to meet the goddess of this world.”
“...Really?”
I had to ask just to be sure, and Satsuki hung her head as she nodded. For answers, I then turned to Yuuhi.
“Weren’t you able to meet your goddess by overcoming some kind of trial?”
“In Sith’s case, yes... but it’s up to the deity whether they want to set up a trial, or what that trial even is.”
“So our goddess has no intention of meeting anyone?”
“Probably not. For the goddesses, this is just a sandbox game. Whether they want to interact with the characters or just observe them from a distance is all up to them.”
That meant Maine, the goddess of our world, wasn’t interested in interacting with any of us.
“I see... Is Touko around?”
“Over here,” Touko responded, raising her hand when I said her name.
She was the only one of the everyday heroines who had gone missing, but it seemed Yuuhi was responsible for that too. Come to think of it, why was Touko the only one of the everyday heroines who had been abducted? I’d have to get to the bottom of that later...
“Could your power get us a meeting with the goddess, Touko?” I asked.
“Hmm... I wonder,” she mused.
“Impossible,” Yuuhi interjected, immediately shooting my idea down. “Like I said earlier, deities are the highest existences in the cosmoverse. If you think they could be manipulated by the power of words, you’re dead wrong.”
“I guess it wouldn’t be so easy...”
My shoulders slumped in disappointment.
“Is it really impossible to meet the goddess of our world, then...?”
I closed my eyes to think. In order to stop the game with one of our worlds at stake, we needed to meet with Maine. We had to. The hitch was that there was no system set up in our world for doing so. Was there maybe some kind of alternative? Another way to get a chance to see her?
“...”
When I opened my eyes, Yuuhi was standing before me with that same solemn expression, tensely biting her lip. Was she worried I would rescind my offer once I realized I was out of options? I wanted to reassure her that wouldn’t happen, but it was perfectly reasonable that she was feeling anxious. That’s why I decided to suggest something more concrete.
“Yuuhi.”
“What?”
“Take me back to your world for a bit. Can you do that?”
“?!”
“Rekka?!”
“Sir Rekka?!”
“Rekka!”
My statement surprised not just Yuuhi, but all the other girls as well. To be honest, they were far more shocked than I’d thought they’d be.
“Your world has a divine trial in place, right? If I clear it, I’ll at least be able to meet with Sith.”
If Sith, her sister, tried to reach her, maybe I could get through to Maine that way. They’d arranged the game together, after all. There had to be a way for them to communicate.
“Well, Yuuhi? Can you do it?”
“It’s possible, but...” Yuuhi glanced over at Satsuki and the others before continuing. “The only people who can cross the boundary are me and people like me. That means I can take you, Rekka, but I can’t take your heroines.”
“I see...” I started to nod, but suddenly realized something. “Wait, if that’s true, then how did you get everyone in the rift?”
“Because it was just a rift. There’s a kind of wall that blocks the way between different worlds. That’s the barrier that no one can cross other than us Namidares.”
“Oh, okay.”
I didn’t really understand the logic, but if those were the rules, then so be it. I could accept that, but it seemed some of the girls couldn’t.
“Hey, don’t go making a decision like that all on your own!” shouted Shirley.
“You shouldn’t be so trusting!” shouted Rosalind.
“Even if you trust her, we need to know all the details first!” shouted Ellicia.
I mean, they weren’t wrong, but...
“H-Hey, wait a minute. Weren’t you frozen, Rosalind?”
If I recalled correctly, the doctor had frozen her in her red mist form during the earlier confrontation with Yuuhi.
“I unfroze ages ago! And don’t try to change the subject!” Rosalind roared, baring her fangs as she landed a well-aimed chop right in my midsection.
“Guh!”
“Oops, you were closer than I thought... Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine...”
It honestly really hurt... Bad enough to make tears well in my eyes.
“I, for one, would like to confirm some things while Rekka’s reeling in pain,” Shirley said, pushing up her glasses as she turned to Yuuhi. “Firstly, explain in more detail the reason why only Rekka can cross this so-called barrier.”
“Well, first of all, I have the ability to cross the barrier between worlds.”
“Of course you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here in this world. What about Rekka?”
“Said ability is supposed to be something that only I can use. But Rekka is this world’s equivalent of me. Essentially, he can fool the barrier into letting him through.”
“And how, might I ask, do you know that?”
“Because I’ve already done it once.”
“You have? With whom?” Shirley inquired, her brow dubiously furrowed.
It was a good question, though. I was right here and had been all along. How could Yuuhi possibly have any empirical proof it would work with me? I had to wonder, but we got the answer straight from the horse’s mouth soon enough...
“With future Rekka Namidare,” Yuuhi replied.
“What did you say?!”
“Rekka?!”
Most of the future heroines angrily raised their voices in response to Yuuhi’s claim that she’d taken future Rekka to her world.
“I see... No wonder my Omniscient Magic couldn’t find him. He wasn’t even in this world,” said future Satsuki, chewing on her lip in frustration.
“There’s something else bothering me.” Shirley, however, seemed unconvinced. “After we were abducted, we were shut in that space between worlds... The rift, you called it? What’s to say you couldn’t have kept future Rekka there as well? Tell us why you went out of your way to send him to Sith’s world instead.”
“There are two reasons for that,” Yuuhi said with a shrug. “The first is simply because the rift is useful. It can hide people from the Great Omniscient Magic, and I can use it myself to travel. It’s very versatile.”
“You can travel with it?” Shirley asked, continuing her line of questioning.
“I can open the rift wherever I want. So if I myself step into it, it’s essentially a free ride to my destination of choice.”
“That does sound convenient...”
It would have been the perfect tool for the extremist mastermind, plotting all kinds of schemes from the shadows.
“The second reason is also simple,” continued Yuuhi. “I feared that future Rekka Namidare would be able to break out of the rift.”
“Oh? But didn’t you say you’re the only one with the ability to cross the barrier?” Shirley said, cocking her head.
“More specifically, anyone who does not possess an ability like mine is unable to cross the barrier of any world they don’t belong to. But that’s not to say, for example... that someone like Harissa over there who’s well versed in teleportation magics couldn’t eventually cross the barrier of Maine’s world and enter the rift if she really endeavored.”
Basically, it worked out like this. Yuuhi was a resident of Sith’s world, and I was a resident of Maine’s. Under normal circumstances, Yuuhi wouldn’t be able to cross over into Maine’s world because of the barrier that surrounded it and vice versa. She could, however, still cross the native barrier around her own world to enter the rift. And the opposite was true; I could cross through Maine’s barrier and enter the rift. That wasn’t to say it would be an easy feat for a nobody like me... Crossing a world barrier was a big deal, after all. But if we were talking about someone with a special combination of supernatural powers—and we were with my future self—then it was easily possible he’d be able to cross Maine’s barrier from within the rift and escape back to our world. That’s why Yuuhi had gone to the trouble of pushing him all the way through to Sith’s world, essentially locking him behind two doors.
“So, when I sealed future Rekka Namidare in Sith’s world, I confirmed that my equivalent self could cross the barrier as well... That’s what I mean.”
Shirley gave a silent, rather reluctant nod at Yuuhi’s explanation. She still seemed quite wary.
“What’s up with Shirley?” I leaned over to R and whispered. “Yuuhi’s explanation just now seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Was there something I missed?”
“How ignorant you are, Rekka,” R spat back with her usual verbal abuse. “Didn’t Rosalind just say you shouldn’t be so trusting of others?”
While I was whispering with R, Hibiki spoke up and entered the conversation.
“Yuuhi Namidare, in the end, we just don’t have any reason to believe you won’t pull a fast one on Rekka.” With folded arms, she continued, “Originally, you were trying to kill our... past Rekka, would you call him? Leaving him alone with you, much less letting you take him to a world where no one else can reach you... I’m afraid I can’t agree to that.”
“...”
“H-Hey, Hibiki...” Between Hibiki’s argument and Yuuhi’s silent staring, I was at a bit of a loss. “I mean, I get why you’re worried, but it’ll be fine.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“Hmm...” I fumbled for the right words. “How should I put this...? Yuuhi reminds me of you, Hibiki.”
“Of me?”
“Yeah. Back when we first met, you were tense all the time too.”
“...!”
Hibiki’s Banjo bloodline was very similar to mine. She also got caught up in all kinds of stories, and a dear friend of hers had accidentally been hurt in the middle of one once. Hibiki took it pretty hard, and in an attempt to make sure it never happened again, she started pushing people away and keeping her distance. It wasn’t exactly the same as Yuuhi’s case, but she was similarly determined not to accept anyone’s help. She was convinced she needed to do everything on her own.
“That’s why, well... Yeah, that might be why I wanted to save her. Though I also want to save both worlds too, of course.”
There, Hibiki went quiet for a moment and sullenly turned away before saying, “Just because she reminds you of me... Don’t do this over something so trivial, stupid.”
“Sorry for being stupid. But that’s—”
“That’s just who you are,” Hibiki said, hitting me in the chest before stepping back a little.
Wait, did that mean she’d accepted it?
“Hey, now hold on just a minute!” Tsumiki shouted, stamping her foot. “Hibiki’s not the only person you have to convince! And besides, the biggest issue here still hasn’t even been addressed!”
“That’s right! Why are you apologizing for being stupid? We already know you are!” shouted Lyun in turn.
Tsumiki and Lyun both clearly had their objections, but so did Tetra and Mio, who were standing behind them. They looked at me with silent, pleading expressions that were practically begging me not to go. On behalf of all four worried girls, Tsumiki pointed a furious finger towards Yuuhi.
“So, lady, why were you trying to kill Rekka in the first place?!”
Instead of answering Tsumiki directly, Yuuhi turned to me and said, “The reason I tried to kill you was, naturally, in order to stop the pacifists’ plan.”
“But if you’d killed me, wouldn’t that have prevented the War of All from ever happening?”
“No, it still would have happened.”
“How? Even if you were pulling the strings from the shadows, the War of All is really a fight over my future self. So if you cut me out of the picture, then there wouldn’t have been anything to fight about in the first place, right?”
That was something I’d been wondering about for a while now. Though they had different methods, both the pacifists and the extremists shared a goal in wanting to put an end to the War of All. Or so it seemed, but here we’d found out Yuuhi’s real goal all along was to keep the war going. Something clearly didn’t add up.
“Normally, a regular human would be unable to change the past on any significant scale.”
“Huh? But the doctor said if you kill someone from the past, it has repercussions on the future... That’s why the future heroines couldn’t fight their past selves, right?”
“That’s a misunderstanding on behalf of the scientists of this world. Allow me to reiterate: a normal human cannot change the past.”
“But... Then what about when I went back in time to save the people of Atlantis?”
“You’re no normal person. You’re a Namidare.”
“What...?”
“The corrective power of time is something no normal human has the power to stand against. Even if someone, let’s say, went to the past and attempted to alter the course of history, the world would self-correct by moving itself back to the course it was set to follow. Think of it as fate.”
According to Yuuhi’s explanation, even if a normal person went back in time and killed their parents, it wouldn’t change the fact that they’d been born. That was because time travels a fixed course once passed, and that course cannot be retroactively altered. So, in the example that someone went back in time and killed their parents, the hand of fate would sweep things forward in a way that brought about the same results. That person would still—somehow—be born, and the world would thusly be back on track. That was the self-corrective power of time.
“But like I said, you’re no normal person. We Namidares have the power to make real changes. The king of Laputa and the others had the right idea. Instead of trying fruitlessly to alter the past themselves, they made you aware of the future so that you could do it. It gave them a real chance at quelling the tempest of fate that is the War of All.”
“R-Right...”
This conversation had reached critical mass in my head. I could feel the smoke coming out of my ears. But the short of it was that only we Namidares could change the past. Only we could change fate. Fate... Fate, huh?
What is fate, anyway?
I had never looked up the word in a dictionary before, but... was fate just the course that some god had predetermined? No, not some god... the goddess of our world. And in order to meet with her, I was about to travel to a parallel world.
When I see her, I should ask her what fate really is.
“So, okay... To summarize, it wouldn’t matter if someone went back to the past and killed me. You’re saying the corrective power of time would mean the War of All still happened anyway?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Yuuhi confirmed.
“I see. So that’s why you sent L and those giant robots instead of coming yourself. You’re a Namidare too, so you coming to the past could’ve really screwed things up.”
“Well, yes... You sure don’t mince words, do you?” Yuuhi looked momentarily conflicted, but pulled herself together. “Similarly, I cannot kill Rekka with my own hands now. That much I can assure you of.”
“Grr... Even so!” Tsumiki grumbled, looking like she still had her objections.
And she wasn’t the only one. My instincts told me to trust Yuuhi, but the girls’ instincts were telling them differently. To talk this out with each one of them could take days, and that was time I didn’t have. I’d already made up my mind to follow Yuuhi back to her world. And so...
“Tsumiki.”
I turned to her.
“Lyun, Tetra, Mio...”
I turned to the girls behind her, too.
“Satsuki, Iris, Harissa, Lea, Hibiki, Rosalind, Suzuran, Chelsea...”
I then turned to the girls on my left, looking each of them in the eye.
“Shirley, Fam, Rain, Ellicia, Corona, L...”
Same with the girls on my right.
“Rachelle, Zeta, Kiri, Chirika, Sherlyn, Nyanyan, Touko...”
I called out to all of them and thumped my chest with conviction.
“Believe in me. I’m going to see this through,” I vowed. “I’m going to do what it takes to save our future.”
I then turned to the future heroines who’d helped me get this far. Although Iris was still busy holding off the Greater Galactic Federation fleet, I was thinking of her too.
“I’m going to Sith’s world with Yuuhi, and I’m going to save both worlds to ensure a happy ending for all of us.”
When I said that, everyone reacted in their own way. There were sighs of both resignation and acceptance. There were tears. There was even laughter. It was almost as if they’d all been prepared for this moment. Like it was only inevitable that I was going to do something reckless. But yeah, I guess that was my MO. With a laugh, I finally turned to Yuuhi.
“Then let’s be on our way now.”
“Wait.”
Someone else called out to me. To my surprise, this time it was R.
“What, R? Are you going to try and stop me too?”
“As if. I wouldn’t do something so pointless,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’m going with you.”
“What?! But Yuuhi said only the two of us can cross over to Sith’s world.”
“Yuuhi,” R said, turning to question her. “Earlier, you stated that only people with power like yours could cross the barrier. But what about people who aren’t people at all? And by that, I mean have no physical body.”
“No physical body?”
“That’s right.”
“...!”
The lightbulb came on for me when I heard those words. The same went for L and the doctor.
“R, don’t tell me...” L said skeptically.
“Do you intend on returning to your demi-material state in order to follow Rekka?” asked the doctor.
“That’s right,” R answered, confirming both of their suspicions. “In my demi-material form, my existence almost overlaps with Rekka’s. I am restricted to a certain radius around him and I am only perceptible by him. In such a state, I should be able to circumvent this barrier and the power needed to bypass it, no?”
“While there’s a possibility, I cannot guarantee it will work,” Yuuhi replied cautiously.
That was enough to satisfy R.
“If it’s possible, then let’s give it a try. With me tagging along, the doctor and the other heroines won’t have to worry so much.”
“R, if this fails...” the doctor said nervously.
But R was determined.
“Doctor, even if you attempt to stop me, this is something I must do,” she said flatly. “This is my story as well. I have a duty to follow it to its conclusion.”
“Even so... Fine. I suppose there really is no stopping you.”
The doctor was ready to argue at first, but relented. She could tell there was no way R would bend on this.
“All right, Yuuhi. If you were the one who reprogrammed R to be material, that must mean you have the facilities to work on her.”
“I do.”
“Then lead the way and lend me a hand in returning her to normal. I need you to tell me exactly how else you modified R, too.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Good. Okay, R. Let’s go.”
“Very well.”
And so the three of them walked off together.
▽
Roughly two hours later, R was back in her demi-material form thanks to the help of the doctor and Yuuhi. But unlike before, neither the doctor nor L nor Yuuhi could see her. She really was only perceptible to me now. That was an attempt to make her as close as possible to me, which was an attempt to increase the odds of her being able to pass through the world barrier with me. If we screwed that up... Well, no one wanted to think about that. Let’s just say the higher the chances of success, the better.
“All right. Time to go.”
Yuuhi pressed the same secret button in her jacket, tearing open the rift between worlds. I tried asking what the rift really was, but...
“Do you remember the world-box metaphor I used earlier? The world-boxes aren’t necessarily right beside one another. This rift, then, is simply the empty space between the boxes where nothing exists.”
Her answer was both very simple and very mind-boggling.
“Okay, everyone. I’ll be seeing you.”
“Come back soon, Rekka!”
“Farewell, Sir Rekka!”
When I waved goodbye, several of the girls called out to me and waved vigorously back. Seeing them like this, I knew... I knew that I had to return home safely.
“...”
Meanwhile, R was watching L from beside me. L was quietly staring back, though she couldn’t see R anymore. Even if R said something to her now, her words would never reach L’s ears.
“R...”
“No, it’s not a problem. Besides, we’ll be back. There’s no need to go triggering death flags excessively,” R said coolly as she pulled down her hat.
But just as we set foot into the rift...
“......back, you stupid little sister!” L shouted after us.
Though she hadn’t been able to see R, she still called out to her loud and clear. Whether she said “make sure you come back” or “never come back” was unclear, but it didn’t much matter.
“I’ll be back soon, Sis,” R said as she turned around and gave L a small wave.
And with that, we were well on our way to Sith’s world.