Chapter 1: Namidare and Banjo, Brought Together?

I led Hibiki to the living room, then went up to my room to put away my backpack. I thought about changing, but I was too curious to hear what she had to say, so I just went back to the first floor in my school uniform.

She was still just standing there, so I motioned for her to sit on the sofa, and then brought a chair over from the dining area and took a seat across the table from her. Harissa appeared with tea for both of us.

“H-Here you are...”

Harissa seemed a little intimidated by Hibiki’s sharp gaze as she set the teacups on the table. She must have been in the middle of making dinner, because she was wearing her bunny apron. There were no walls between our living room and kitchen, so I could smell the miso soup cooking on the stove.

“Harissa, thanks for the tea. I need to talk to her for a bit, so would you mind going upstairs?”

“R-Right!”

Harissa, fidgeting next to the table, leaped up at my request and ran out of the living room, still holding the tray. Her smoky blond hair trailed behind her as she disappeared through the doorway with a clatter.

“Who’s the girl?”

“Her name’s Harissa. Some stuff happened, and now she lives with me.”

“‘Some stuff?’” Hibiki must not have liked my answer, because she started to glare at me again. “Is she a relative of yours or something?”

“Oh, no... I mean, it’s just not a story you’d normally believe.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not normal.”

“...Yeah, okay.”

I still hadn’t gotten to the bottom of this Banjo bloodline thing, but from the way she was talking, it was probably similar to what I was going through. Which meant that something a little out of the ordinary wasn’t going to faze her.

“Harissa is a sorcerer from another world, but she can’t go back home now. Since there’s no place else for her to go, I’m letting her stay here.”

“I see...” Hibiki was frowning, seemingly lost in thought.

Was something bothering her?

“So... What did you come to see me for?” Since we weren’t going to get anywhere by sitting in silence, I decided to speak up.

“To marry you, like I said.” She raised her head and spoke.

“I understand that... I mean, I don’t understand, but let’s just start from the beginning, okay? Why do you want to marry me?”

“Do you know anything about the Banjo bloodline?”

“Nope, not a thing.”

She looked upset, but I was being honest. “To make things EXTREMELY simple, I’m like a female version of you with the Namidare bloodline.”

“...Meaning you get caught up in stories too?”

“Yeah. In your case, you become the hero. In my case, I become the heroine.”

“...I see.”

I remembered the stories I’d been caught up in so far. The ultimate mage. The Demon King from another world. The monster from the age of gods. Each encounter had nearly cost me my life. A falling meteor. A cafeteria about to go out of business. A secluded village below the surface of the earth. Every story I’d been involved in had been hard. All of them had come with great responsibility.

Had she been caught up in stuff like that? Even though she was a girl?

“That’s... pretty rough, yeah.”

“Hmph. Don’t get the wrong idea, please.”

“Huh?”

Hibiki brushed back her bangs and shook her head like she was annoyed.

“I didn’t come here because I wanted sympathy. I came here to put an end to our cursed bloodlines.”

“...?”

I didn’t understand what she was getting at. I was born Rekka Namidare. I couldn’t exactly change that. It was the same way for Hibiki. So how, really, did she intend to “end” our bloodlines?

“...”

Come to think of it, she’d been awfully set on marrying me. Why was that?

“Maybe you want to get married to, uh... get a new name, or something?”

“Are you an idiot?”

Yeah, that probably wasn’t it...

“But then why marry?”

“If we get married and don’t have kids, never again will anyone inherit Namidare or Banjo blood.”

“Bwuh?!”

Kids... That felt like skipping a few steps, but maybe that was just a sign of how serious she was?

“And if we’re always together, we might get caught up in the same stories.”

“Um, so you’re saying...?”

“For example, imagine Story A is unfolding in the town where you live, and in the town where I live, Story B is occurring at the same time. What happens then?”

“Well, then I’d be caught up in Story A, and you’d be caught up in Story B, right?”

“Probably, yeah. We’re basically like magnets, and these ‘stories’ are drawn to us like iron filings. But what if we get married and live in the same house?”

“Well, I guess we’d both be involved in Story A.”

“Right, just Story A. We’d essentially cut the number of stories in half.”

“Well, that’s true...”

But we’d still be getting caught up in stories, right? Well, at least I was starting to see where she was coming from.

“I still don’t know if I could just get married though.” That was the big problem, and the part I really didn’t understand.

Hibiki’s eyebrows twitched.

“What? Am I not good enough for you?”

“No, I mean I’m not even old enough to get married. And...”

“And?”

“I don’t think I could marry someone if we didn’t love each other.”

“...”

Hibiki’s eyes narrowed sharply. She seemed to get pretty miffed whenever I talked back to her.

“Listen, I understand why you hate the position you’re in, but I don’t know about marriage... I mean, even if you’re with me, you’re still going to be getting caught up in stories.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Huh?”

Weren’t stories precisely what she was trying to avoid? No... That wasn’t it. She seemed to understand that being with me wouldn’t change that part.

So was this just a strategy to reduce the total amount of stories the pair of us were caught up in? But then why was she so insistent on it? There wouldn’t be anything in it for her per se.

Without thinking, I looked at her suspiciously.

“Our bloodlines hurt the innocent people around us.”

The words she spoke in answer to my unasked question made me gasp.

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said.” She bit her lip and balled her hands into fists.

“But what do you—?!” I started to ask her again, but stopped myself. I could see a red trickle of blood running down from her lip.

“...Did something happen?” There had to be some reason she felt this strongly, even when there was nothing in it for her.

“...” Hibiki didn’t answer immediately. A moment later, she wiped away the blood and looked me in the eyes. “I grew up hearing all about the bloodline of the Banjo family nonstop.”

“I see.”

I’d only heard about mine from my dad the night before I turned sixteen. Was that just a difference in how our families did things?

“I was taught how difficult it was to resolve a story, so I trained myself every single day, day after day. Weakness would only mean bad endings for the stories I was involved in, and I didn’t want that. I did my best to get stronger.”

I could tell from how built she was that she wasn’t exaggerating.

“Everyone around me thought I was weird. I trained instead of playing, and I spent the rest of my time reading books to get smarter. I never had any friends... until middle school.”

With those words, I saw a gentle light in her eyes.

“At first, she thought I was weird too. That’s why she took an interest in me. She would sit across from me as I read in the library, and just watch me silently. I tried to drive her away, but she followed me everywhere. She eventually even started coming to the dojo. I thought she was annoying, but then... Little by little, we started to talk to each other every day. When she wasn’t at school sometimes, I’d get worried. I heard she was sick. One day, she told me that she thought I was cool because I was a girl who could beat up guys... Really, the next thing I knew, we were friends.”

“...”

This should have been a nice story, but the longer I listened, the more anxious I became.

“And then I turned sixteen.”

What was it she’d said before she started talking? “Our bloodlines hurt the innocent people around us”?

“I ended up getting involved in a story where I was up against a group of gun smugglers.”

She started to look down more and more as she spoke.

“She got worried about me when I started missing class in high school. I told her there was nothing to be concerned about... But that night, she got worried enough to come looking for me.”

Her bangs hid her face so that I couldn’t read her expression.

“...She got mixed up in the fight between me and the smugglers, and took a stray bullet to the stomach.”

“...”

Her voice was filled with sadness and pain, and there was nothing I could do but listen.

“...”

R was sitting up straight with the same deadpan look on her face as always.

The air in the living room was frozen. The ticking of the clock seemed strangely loud.

“What happened to her...?” I worked up the courage to ask.

“She managed to survive, but she’s still in the hospital. She’s never woken up.” Hibiki’s voice was calm and indifferent.

“...”

She took a deep breath and raised her head.

“Just so we’re clear, she had nothing to do with the story. She was badly hurt solely because she got involved with someone like me.” Her expression returned to normal as she continued. “Rekka Namidare, I can guarantee the same thing is going to happen to you.”

“...!”

The Namidare and Banjo bloodlines were the same thing at their core. Two sides of the same coin. But she was saying that someday, I would....

“No, but...!”

“We’re not normal. Our very existence spreads disaster,” Hibiki cut me off.

“...”

Denying it was a defensive, emotional reaction. A single glare from her was all it took to shut me up.

“So until this bloodline disappears, we should live as far away from other people as possible, Rekka Namidare.” Her words were heavy because they were based in experience.

I’d had the wrong idea this whole time. I had assumed that she wanted to be rid of the Banjo and Namidare bloodlines for her own sake. But I was wrong. She just didn’t want anyone getting caught up in her stories. Being with me could potentially decrease the number of stories that happened around us, reducing the chances for innocent people to be dragged into them. That was all she wanted.

“I understand what you’re saying...”

And I knew that she meant it, too. That was fine. The problem was that my own feelings weren’t keeping up.

Of course they weren’t. Even if my legacy was a little weird, I was still a normal person. That’s how I’d thought of it... But my personal hang-ups weren’t what mattered now. If my being a Namidare was going to get someone hurt...

“...”

But I couldn’t just stop being who I was. My thoughts from earlier flashed through my mind again. It meant that there was no obvious solution to this problem.

Then, like Hibiki said, I should do what I could to minimize the damage. It would be better to stay away from everyone. I would just have to avoid all the people I cared about and live apart from everyone until I grew up. Even so, I knew I couldn’t make a decision like that so suddenly.

“...”

But not saying anything wasn’t going to solve a thing.

“...”

I opened my mouth to say something—anything—when...

SMASH! The sliding glass door in the living room shattered.

“What?!”

“—!”

I shouted in surprise, and Hibiki immediately readied herself for a fight.

“I’ve found you!” A man suddenly entered the room and shouted.

He was clearly after me or Hibiki. Did this mean that, just like she had planned, by being together we were both getting sucked into the same story? If it did, that would seem to confirm that staying together and constantly keeping our distance from other people would be an effective strategy.

But it was all so sudden that I wasn’t ready in the slightest. Not even mentally. But the wheels of fate keep spinning whether you like it or not—and I was getting caught up in its gears.

▽

Krrsssh!

I heard the sound of splintered glass falling to the floor. A man in a white lab coat tread over the shards as he approached. No, more precisely, he wasn’t touching them at all. He was wearing some sort of backpack with fire-breathing jet boosters, and using it to float right over them.

“I am Kult Graphimore, genius professor of magical science. I apologize for intruding so late at night, beings of another world.” The man grinned as he spoke, light gleaming off of his super sketchy-looking monocle.

“Hello. I would appreciate it next time if you would be so gentlemanly as to use the door.”

“Hrmm, yes... My apologies. I will be more careful in the future.” He was talking in a weird way, too.

Wait, did he just call us “beings from another world”? Then was this Kult guy from another world, like Harissa was? I’d never heard of “magical science” before.

More importantly, why did all these weirdos end up coming to visit me? Really, why...?

“So, yeah, what do you want with my house?”

I brushed the depressing thoughts out of my mind and grabbed the back of the chair. Whether I would throw it at him or use it as a shield depended on his next move. Since I didn’t know what he was going to do yet, I just waited.

“Hmph. What I seek is here.” Kult stroked his long moustache with a single finger.

“This is just a plain old, normal house. There’s nothing here a head case like you would want.”

“No, no, I assure you. I have a magical crystal ball that shows its bearer the location of things they desire.”

Kult pulled a spherical crystal the size of a volleyball out from his coat.

“And this dowsing pendulum shows me the way to what I seek.”

Then he produced a pendulum weighted with a blue jewel.

“With both of these, it’s impossible to hide anything from me. For instance...”

The eye that wasn’t covered by the monocle narrowed. In a low voice, he whispered something quickly. The pendulum in his hands slowly rose up, and the jewel at the end pointed toward Hibiki.

“The girl I’m looking for is right there.”

“!”

So he was after Hibiki. I still didn’t know what his endgame was, but at this point, it didn’t seem good.

“And now I will take her!”

“I won’t let you!”

I suddenly threw the chair at him.

“Aherm!”

Kult evaded the chair in mid-air. His boosters were surprisingly agile. I looked around for something else to throw, but Hibiki made her move first.

“Hyaaah!”

She closed the distance between her and Kult with remarkable speed. It was no normal run. It had to have been some kind of special martial arts movement style.

“Fuhh!”

She breathed in sharply, and then let loose with a forceful jump kick.

“Nwwoooooh?!” Kult screamed and just barely managed to dodge her. He used his boosters to move way back. Beads of nervous sweat ran down his face. “Hmph. I’m surprised to see a lady capable of moving that way.”

I was as surprised as he was. You could tell that she’d been training since she was little.

“I guess those with a great Fate Ratio aren’t easy to deal with.”

Fate Ratio? That was a weird phrase.

“I don’t know if this ‘Fate Ratio’ you’re talking about is referring to my bloodline, but...” Hibiki spoke without letting her guard down. “Don’t think for a minute that I haven’t made any preparations to deal with my cursed fate.”

She pulled something from her belt that looked like a stick. It chinked and glistened metallically as it extended to the length of a bo staff. It was like a special kind of telescoping police baton.

How has she not gotten arrested carrying around something like that? As I wondered about something ultimately inconsequential to the situation at hand, things escalated.

“Hmph. Then I’ll have to use my trump card,” the magic scientist from another world said quietly.

This time, he revealed a capsule with a beard mark emblazoned on it. The capsule was tiny, but it looked like a machine composed of incredibly delicate parts. Was this Kult’s trump card?

“Taste my fusion of magic and science: instant sorcery!” Kult yelled, throwing the machine capsule at Hibiki.

“...!”

She quickly tried to knock it away with her baton.

No, not that!

“Dodge!” I screamed out of some sudden intuition.

“Tch!” Hibiki heard my voice and instantly relaxed her stance, dropping to the floor.

The capsule flew over her head and landed on the chair I’d just thrown. Despite its hard-looking exterior, it broke cleanly in two upon impact. Light poured out of it, followed by thorny vines that wrapped themselves around the chair.

“What in the world?!”

The thick vines were giving off a pale light. It was like magic, but it had come out of an intricate machine.

Magic and machines... Magic and science... “Magical science”? Was this it?!

“Hibiki! Don’t let any of those capsules touch you! They’re probably filled with magic. They activate on contact!”

“Roger.” Hibiki nodded as she stood up.

“Hmm... So you figured it out after only seeing it once? You may look dumb, but you’re quite observant.”

“Thanks?” I sort of joked, but I was starting to get scared.

I’d seen magic and cutting-edge space technology up close before. It gave me a leg up on figuring out what was going on, but it didn’t help me at all when it came to trying to figure out a way to beat his “instant sorcery.”

This was going to be surprisingly tricky. I had no way of knowing what magic was inside the capsules. This time it was a spell to bind Hibiki, but that didn’t mean they would all be the same.

If he mixed in a wide-area attack spell as a feint, I didn’t know if I’d be able to deal with it. And since he didn’t need to chant anything, there was no opening to attack him. If only I knew what spell he was going to throw next. No, there was no way he was just going to announce it...

“Since you’ve figured out what it is, I’ll tell you. That was a binding magic capsule. For your reference, the next one will be a sleeping magic capsule.”

...Okay, maybe he would.

Did he just look smart, and he was actually a total idiot? Or maybe he was trying to show off? Either way, he was a fool. And that would make this a lot easier.

“I am a magical scientist, but I am also a gentleman. I have no intention of hurting you. So don’t worry when this hits you!”

“Then don’t attack us in the first place!”

“That’s a separate matter!” Kult yelled as he threw eight capsules.

“Wait! You’re chucking that many?!”

The handful of capsules flew in an arc toward me and Hibiki. I quickly moved from the living room to the kitchen. Without a wall between them, it was a clean break—hopefully far enough away to get me out of their range. Just as I was thinking I needed some way to fight back...

The door to the living room flew open.

“Sir Rekka!”

It was Harissa. She’d changed into her robes. She must’ve heard the loud explosion from a minute ago. She’d brought her staff, too, which probably meant she was there to help us fight.

No. That... That didn’t matter.

She’d appeared on the battlefield unprepared to protect herself, and one of Kult’s capsules landed right on her chest. It broke open, and the light poured forth as the magic activated.

“Huh?”

Even a spellcaster like Harissa was defenseless against the instantly activating magic. The strength drained from her legs. Her big, wooden staff rolled across the floor.

“Gnuh! Oop!” Kult sounded panicked.

“—!”

It was all I could do to stop myself from running up to him and sucker punching him in a fit of rage.

Calm down. Could I do what Hibiki did? No. Then...! I grabbed the bottle of shichimi red pepper flakes from the kitchen table, took off the lid, and flung it as hard as I could at Kult.

“Ngwah! It hurts! My eyes!” Kult was distracted by Harissa’s collapse, and he took the full brunt of the bottle. He was covering his eyes with both hands and screaming.

“Hibiki!”

Hibiki moved just as fast as I spoke. She leaped from the low table in the living room and jumped straight for him. Her right hook landed square in Kult’s blinded face.

“Gyafnuh?!” Kult hit the ground hard, bouncing two or three times before rolling straight out of the living room into the yard. “Grrr... Temporary retreat!”

He stood up, covered in dirt, and turned a purple jewel on a ring on his finger ninety degrees. It began to glow, and suddenly a blue door appeared out of thin air. He put his hand on the doorknob, then turned to us.

“Listen here! I’m making that girl mine, no matter what! Just you wait!” He then opened the door and vanished. A moment later, the door disappeared soundlessly as well.

“A teleporting item, huh?” Hibiki said in a hushed voice as she relaxed.

Finally, my home was shrouded in silence once more. It was just the three of us... and the destroyed living room.

“Harissa!” Once I was sure the danger had passed, I ran right over to the fallen girl. “Harissa! Hey, wake up!”

“...”

I held her in my arms and yelled, but she didn’t respond. She just kept breathing rhythmically, making cute little noises every time she exhaled. She was alive. At least there was that. But she wasn’t waking up.

Kult had said it was a sleep spell. Yeah, maybe she was just asleep. But if she wasn’t waking up when I was yelling in her ear... When was she going to wake up?

“Move.”

Hibiki had been looking around the part of the yard where the blue door had disappeared. Now she came back inside and took Harissa out of my arms. And then she started slapping her on the cheeks.

“Hey, wait! What are you doing?”

“If you want to know whether she’ll get up or not, this is best way.”

She slapped her two or three more times after that. There was a smacking noise as Harissa’s cheeks turned red. But still she didn’t wake up.

“Hey... Wait. You’re kidding me.” What if she was never going to wake up? “That bastard! He said he wasn’t going to hurt her!”

I glared at the yard where Kult had vanished. Of course, there was nothing there.

But I couldn’t stop myself from glaring at it anyway.

Hibiki handed Harissa back to me and stood up.

“The good news is that she’s not hurt. His goal was to take me alive... A permanent sleep spell would be the best way to do that.” Hibiki analyzed the situation dispassionately.

Harissa was alive. But she would never wake up.

That... That wasn’t fair!

“Damn it!” I gritted my teeth and heard a nasty sound as part of a tooth cracked off.

Why... Why wasn’t I able to protect her? I could’ve sent her somewhere safe before the fighting broke out, or kept her closer to me... Anything! So why hadn’t I?

“Why...? Harissa...”

“It’s because we were here.” Hibiki looked down at me with cold eyes.

“...We can still fix this. If we see the story through, we can still save Harissa. Right?”

“...I don’t know.” Hibiki answered my pained question with a shrug.

But I was only pretending to talk to her. I turned to R. She was from the future and knew more about my bloodline than I did. She should know the real answer.

“To be honest, it’s unknown whether or not you can save Harissa,” R said bluntly. “You’re caught up in Hibiki’s story right now. She’s the heroine. Harissa is just a side character who happened to get dragged into the middle of it, and your bloodline only gives you the chance to save people who are critical to the story. In other words, just because you resolve Hibiki’s story doesn’t mean you get to save Harissa too. It’s just like how when Hibiki defeated the gun smugglers, her injured friend didn’t suddenly get better.”

What the hell...?

Harissa got involved in this because of me... And I couldn’t save her?

“Well, that doesn’t mean there’s no way for you to save her. For example, when you defeated the Demon King and saved Harissa, of course, you saved the rest of her entire world too. So the possibility still exists that by saving Hibiki’s story, you can save Harissa as well.”

“...”

R’s voice was flat, but it felt like she was casting the blame on me.

“You get it now, right? We’re walking disasters that bring misery to everyone around us.”

And Hibiki’s words only made it worse.

“......”

I’d already been caught up in so many stories. Satsuki, Iris, Harissa, Tsumiki, Tetra, Lea... I’d struggled in the face of tragedy after tragedy, and somehow managed to save them all. Had I just been cocky? Had I thought that if I just worked hard enough, I could save anyone? All while unconsciously ignoring how dangerous I really was?

“I’m a walking disaster, huh...”

Maybe Hibiki was right. When I started to think about how this was all my fault, the back of my head began to hurt.

Lea, the girl I’d saved during the battle underground, had been convinced that everything was her fault too. That was why she tried to take responsibility all by herself. I told her she was wrong, but... Something terrible might happen to those close to me, and it would be my fault. I finally understood the terror that she’d felt.

“Zzz... Zzz...” Harissa was still snoring in my arms.

Even if I solved Hibiki’s story, it might not be enough to save her.

“...”

I had to try my hardest to stop myself from screaming. I didn’t have the right. Not after doing this to her.

What... What was I supposed to do?

“Rekka!”

Suddenly I heard someone yelling my name.

I turned around to see my childhood friend who lived next door, Satsuki Otomo, standing there out of breath. She’d realized that something was wrong at my house and come over as fast as she could.

“Rekka, what happened?”

“...”

If I asked Satsuki for help, would things work out? Maybe she could use her Magic of Omniscience to come up with a way to wake up Harissa.

But... But...

Kult would be back. He might put my childhood friend in danger too. No, he would for sure. What if he did something worse than put her to sleep? Something there was no way to recover from? If that happened, I would never be able to forgive myself.

I retracted the hand I was about to reach out to her.

“Rekka, what happened?! Answer me... Huh? Harissa?”

As she raced toward me, she realized that I was holding Harissa. Harissa simply appeared to be sleeping, but coupled with the mess that had been made of the living room, it was obvious that something was wrong.

“This is... magically-induced sleep?”

“Yeah. You can tell, Satsuki?”

“Y-Yeah. It’s a spell I’ve never seen before, though.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I’m not sure. It’s a very strong spell, so with my power, I think I’ve got about a fifty-fifty chance.”

“I see... Then take care of her.” I gave her Harissa and stood up.

“Take care of her? What are you going to do, Rekka?”

“I’m going with Hibiki to follow the guy who did this to her.”

“Hibiki...?” Satsuki appeared to finally notice Hibiki’s presence.

“...”

Hibiki, who was standing in the corner of the room, looked at Satsuki silently.

“Who is she?” Satsuki asked.

“My partner.”

“Your partner...?” Satsuki looked shocked, like she didn’t believe me.

“Anyway, I’m leaving.”

“W-Wait! You still haven’t told me what happened here. And if you’re getting caught up in something again, I’m going with you.”

“...!”

For a split second, I thought that my stomach might have literally been ripped open.

If Satsuki tried to help just like Harissa did...

If something terrible happened to her too...

And if I couldn’t do anything to stop it...

The thought alone was enough to fill me with dread.

It wasn’t like what had happened with Lea, where we all had to work together in order to beat Bahamut. I was putting Satsuki in danger just by being near her. And it was all because of the Namidare bloodline.

The only way for me to stop being Rekka Namidare was to be reborn... And since that was impossible, there was no way to solve this problem.

If there were a solution, I would’ve loved to rely on Satsuki and Lea for help. But... there just wasn’t.

So...

“Please don’t.”

“Huh?”

“I want you to look after Harissa. This time, it’ll be just me and Hibiki. So don’t come with me.”

“Why are you saying something like that? I...” Satsuki pushed back.

I knew exactly how stubborn she could be at times like these. And that was why...

“I said stay here!” I cut her off by rejecting her as strongly as I could.

“...Rekka...?”

Satsuki seemed more bewildered than discouraged by what I’d said. How long had it been since I’d raised my voice at her like that?

I didn’t know what kind of look I had on my face... And I was scared to find out. I looked away from her confused gaze.

“...Please. Just stay here. We’ll solve this story ourselves. Having everyone come along will just make things worse.”

The hesitation was swirling around in my heart. I was potentially on the verge of throwing away everything that was important to me. But it was better than destroying them. That possibility was far scarier to me than the very idea of the world ending.

“Bye.”

And that’s why I turned my back on Satsuki.

I walked over to Hibiki. She silently stepped away from the wall.

“Let’s go, Hibiki. We don’t know when Kult will come back.”

“Yeah.”

I left the living room with Hibiki. I was walking slowly, but what mattered was that I was going. I couldn’t let any of the people I cared about stay close to someone like me. I had thought I was protecting them, but I was wrong. This was really how I needed to protect them.

I had to get away from everyone... From Satsuki.

“...”

Just once, I looked back over my shoulder. It broke my heart to see my childhood friend holding Harissa in shock.

“Sorry...” I bit down on the words of apology in my mouth, and left my home behind.

My chest was aching as I walked down the night street. The dull, throbbing pain wouldn’t stop.

“...”

Even R was silent.

I ran ahead of Hibiki, down the dark streets illuminated only by streetlights. It was like I was trying to shake off the things I’d left behind.

But it still hurt.