6 - Epilogue

“Look, I was trying to sever ties with him in the coolest way possible,” Airi fretted from the back seat of the minivan. “But then once I got home, I remembered we still had the offline meetup...”

“I really don’t think it’s anything to worry about...” Yurina said from the driver’s seat.

“I agree,” said Fuyo calmly from the passenger seat. “After all, you didn’t think you were never going to see him ever again, did you?”

Yurina Chigasaki wasn’t too different from Yuri, her avatar in the game: she was a striking college student with a noble bearing and a tall, slender silhouette. Even the fact that she had bought this used van to help her and her friends go out and have fun seemed like a rather heroic motivation. Fuyo had even asked her if she wanted a part-time job modeling, but Yurina had just turned a bit pink and demurred.

The Narrow Fantasy Online offline meetup was taking place in Shinjuku, but Airi and Fuyu had first decided to meet up with Yurina and take her car to the site. Fuyo had applied herself to finishing up everything she needed to do for TGC in preparation for the meetup. Then, since she had time to spare, the two of them had decided to check out the apartment where Yurina lived. As a result, a 17-year-old, a 20-year-old, and a 28-year-old had ended up having a girls’ night out and pajama party sleepover, and sadly, the details of what happened cannot be printed here.

“I’m sure Mr. Tsuwabuki won’t mind, either,” Yurina assured her.

“I don’t care what he thinks! It’s about my pride in the moment!” Airi shouted.

“A-Airi, please keep your voice down... you’re hurting my ears...” Fuyo stammered.

At Airi’s insistence, we’ll keep things vague, but the truth was that when she had said goodbye to Ichiro Tsuwabuki at the end of the Rosemary incident, she had had to work very hard to control her feelings. She hadn’t wanted the young heir to confirm or reject those feelings, and she hadn’t wanted him to be disappointed by her expressing them in words. So she hadn’t said anything. She had just said goodbye, turned around, and walked away.

She had totally forgotten about the upcoming offline meetup.

After that, she had logged in every day (it had only been a few days), but even when she had hung around the Iris Brand guild house all day, the young heir had never appeared, and Kirschwasser and Yozakura, apparently busy with real life, hadn’t shown up either. Her initial hunch, that the young heir was never going to play the game again, was starting to sink in as fact.

Ah, but for Airi’s sake, we’ll stop there.

At any rate, she had begun to feel rather stupid over her internal conflict of the last few days, and she’d eventually started wanting to dig herself a hole to hide in. Fuyo and Yurina couldn’t really understand why, and that’s what brings us to now.

“Well, I haven’t seen Ichiro for several days, either, so I’ve been really looking forward to today. But...” Fuyo giggled. “Did you know that he cares so much about me that he’s helping me prepare for TGC?”

“W-Well, I guess that would follow,” Yurina said. “You are a subsidiary company, more or less.”

Pony Entertainment’s stock was now officially about 60% owned by Ichiro Tsuwabuki, which meant he was their official CEO and boss. Since over 60% of the stock was now owned by an individual, the company had been delisted from the market. It had been rather major news.

The 30% of MiZUNO’s stock that had been bought up by Tsunobeni had been released by it, so of course Ichiro Tsuwabuki had bought it up, which had shifted it from the Mizuno Group to a Pony subsidiary.

As far as Pony itself went, Airi and Yurina didn’t understand much about it, but the young heir had conducted himself with a confidence that implied either great skill or great experience. He had led the company, which had come perilously close to a management crisis, back onto a steady track.

In addition, he had ended up not being indicted for the unauthorized access incident. But not much about that had been made public yet, so they would just have to hear it from the horse’s mouth at the offline meetup.

The subject had strayed, but Yurina decided to take them back to it. “Well, either way, I think you just need to steel yourself for this, Ai.”

Airi looked back up and nodded. “Ah, well... that’s true... Yeah, I should just say hi like I usually do...”

“That’s right. Just be your usual self.” Fuyo smiled brightly, and Airi finally felt calm.

Then, just as Airi was feeling better, Yurina spoke up again. Her hands were firmly on the steering wheel, and her eyes gazed forward (she was a much more conservative driver than Fuyo), but her expression, reflected faintly in the windshield, was ever-so-slightly mischievous. “Fuyo, tell us more about what you were saying last night.”

“Oh, about the last day of the incident. Airi was just incredible!”

“C-Could we not talk about this?” Airi could feel herself getting strangely sweaty, but Fuyo continued telling the story with gusto. When she reached the part Airi was most afraid of, a description of when she had slapped the former Pony CEO across the face with a wad of bills, even Yurina had to burst out laughing.

Airi still wanted to dig a hole to hide in, but now it was for other reasons.

Three men and one woman sat together in the reserved seats of the Azusa Special Express headed for Shinjuku.

They were “The Monstrous” Sergei Kyoshirovich Tanaka, “Baron” Choji Kazuha, “Saint” Misuka Terauchi, and “Demon” Gorgonzola Saito.

“Shooting Star” Hikaru Ichibanboshi would normally have appeared in the group, but he had eaten some expired Hakata pollack roe the night before and unfortunately now had to sit things out. Instead, they kept a picture of Parmigiano-Reggiano sitting next to the window, like a funeral photo.

These were the elites of the Red Sunset Knights, taking the train to the offline meetup in Shinjuku. They were in their seats, picking at the station-bought lunches open on their laps, faces grave.

“It really is tough, after eating the commander’s home cooking last night and this morning...” Terauchi muttered, moving her chopsticks listlessly, her expression slightly disgusted.

“Well, I bet the food that we eat at the meetup won’t be as good as Sergei’s cooking, so let’s use this to help ease our palates down,” Kazuha joked.

Sergei remained stone-faced. “Complimenting me won’t earn you a higher wage.”

Only Gorgonzola Saito spent the entire time silent, arms folded.

Out of these four, Misuka Terauchi alone lived in Sendai. She had applied for plenty of paid leave in advance of the meetup, thinking she’d arrive in Tokyo a day early and do some sightseeing. But then the commander, Stroganoff, had invited her to Yamanashi to hang out, so she had gone there instead.

She had heard that Stroganoff, Gazpacho, and Gorgonzola knew each other in real life, but she hadn’t expected them to be childhood friends. When they’d explained the circumstances that had led them to start playing the game, she had burst into tears from how touching it was.

Sergei ran a restaurant. It appeared that it was quite high-class (though he insisted that only applied to the appearance), and with that as their backdrop, Terauchi had filled up on the beef stroganoff he prepared on site. Though she would be spending the night in a business hotel, they had stayed up late discussing where things might go in NaroFan from now on.

“So, about NaroFan,” she said. “What do you think will happen next?”

“I’m not sure.” Stroganoff, who was so loquacious in the game, was rather soft-spoken in the real world. He seemed like the type who only said what was necessary, though that was cool in its own way (if you ignored his rather small stature).

By contrast, it was Gazpacho who was the outgoing one, and he was far more svelte and handsome than you’d expect, given the bearded dwarf character he played in the game.

“Tsuwabuki’s shown no sign of logging in since then, either,” Sergei said.

“I wonder what the old bastard’s up to,” Kazuha commented. “Well, I think he’s coming to the online meetup...”

“Ah... well, we should speak more respectfully,” Saito added.

The three then spoke up in chorus: “Because he’s a dev now!”

Yes, the Dragonet Magi-Fencer Ichiro Tsuwabuki, who had been a thorn in the Knights’ side so often before, was now the CEO of both Thistle Corporation and Pony Entertainment. He was the most powerful person in NaroFan. While they doubted he would do any such “nonsense,” it would be easy for him to lay down bans with a word, so they would need to be careful how they spoke about him in the future.

To the players inhabiting the large-yet-small continent of Asgard, the developers were effectively God. The players might talk openly about how the balance was crap, or about how microtransactions were eating the game, but they couldn’t actually be insubordinate with the devs. Most of the developer-gods were magnanimous enough to laugh off obvious insults, which gave the players a measure of freedom. It was a give-and-take, faith in exchange for survival in the game.

Either way, Ichiro Tsuwabuki was now the boss of those developers. Which meant he was no less than God in the eyes of the NaroFan playerbase.

“He became God so that he could keep fighting for our world, outside of our world,” Kazuha said.

“The economic world, mainly,” Saito added.

“When you put it like that, it sounds very grand... a little like a novel?” Terauchi mused.

“It’s something you see a lot in anime and games,” Sergei pondered.

They all gazed up at the roof of the train car, reflecting on the moment.

“Speaking of which, we’d better finish eating these lunches,” Kazuha muttered a moment later, then stared down at the station-bought lunch on his lap, which he hadn’t made much progress on. “Sergei, this is why I said we should have gotten the field vegetable and katsu lunch set.”

“That might have been a safe choice, but the pairing of chicken katsu and fresh vegetables suggested a lack of effort in preparation.”

“We should have gotten the genkigai lunch.”

“N-Now, now...” Terauchi said. “I brought some haginotsuki and sasakama. We can enjoy those for a snack after we finish our lunches.”

In the end, those lunches were really bad. But nobody complained any further, and they resumed silently munching, the atmosphere like that of an all-night study session.

The Azusa Special Express passed through Otsuki Station, heading right for Shinjuku.

A little ways up a back alley in Akihabara stood a PC parts shop called Aono, Inc. The store wasn’t that large, and their selection wasn’t especially good, but if you asked the well-connected woman who ran the place, she could get most anything for you (not limited to PC parts), so it was considered a hidden gem by those who knew about it. Of course, it had a few faults, like inflated margins, but still.

“Ed, shouldn’t you be going around now?” the shopkeeper, Aono Sakata, said to Edogawa, who was loitering around the store looking at parts.

Edogawa checked his watch. “Ah, yeah, you’re right. You said you weren’t going, right, Bossman?”

“I told you not to call me Bossman. It’s Aono,” the charming young female shopkeeper with the beauty mark under one eye said as she put out her cigarette butt. “And yes, I won’t be going. Say hi to the kids, though.”

“Right.” Edogawa gazed at the woman, who was reading her newspaper spread out over the counter. Frowning, he struggled to superimpose the image of the scraggly-bearded dwarf who ran Narrow Fantasy Online’s largest crafting guild over her real one. But when Aono grunted a “What?” at him, he quickly averted his eyes.

He would lock the secret deep inside him—well, it probably wasn’t actually a secret, as such, but Aono apparently didn’t want her real identity known to others.

He bowed politely, and was about to leave the store, when she called him back.

“Hey, Ed.”

“Yes?”

“Do you enjoy the game?”

It was an unexpected question, but Edogawa stopped walking and turned back. “Yes.”

“Glad to hear it.”

He lingered in the doorway for a while, but there was no sign of Aono saying anything else, so he quickly left the alley.

If she was asking him a question like that, did that mean it seemed like he didn’t enjoy the game? When he thought about it, maybe there had been a time when that was true; a time when he’d been so prickly and prideful, he hadn’t had the presence of mind to just enjoy it. He was under no illusions that that was completely in the past, but he still felt that he had matured a bit, or at least chilled a little.

The offline meetup was coming up. That man would be there.

Edogawa headed for the JR Akihabara Station, glancing at his cell phone as he went. The e-mail Iris had sent out contained the agenda for the day and a detailed list of those attending; Ichiro Tsuwabuki’s name was on the list.

Edogawa had also managed to get the impression that Ichiro wasn’t logging in to NaroFan, either, but that didn’t change the fact that Edogawa thought of him as his mortal enemy.

The offline meetup would be another battle that he couldn’t afford to lose.

He bought an energy drink at a convenience store, chugged it, and then stepped into the station.

“Meow-ho, Tomakomai!” Shoko Amemiya waved her arm in the lobby of Narita Airport.

A tall, scrawny man in a coat waved back to her, dragging his suitcase behind him. He had a sickly pallor to his face, like he was all skin and bones, but atop it he smiled a gentle smile.

Densuke Tomakomai had managed to make it back to the country just in the nick of time. He was going to be heading to the offline meetup next, so he’d really been through a lot. It was hard to tell whether Tomakomai was tired or not, given that his appearance was already that of a walking skeleton.

“It’s nice to meet you, Amesho,” he said. “Though we’ve both seen pictures of each other, at least.”

“Myeah, we have. But Tomakomai, have you lost weight since the picture on your home page?”

“That was from before I started playing NaroFan. I wasn’t expecting you to come here not in disguise, though.”

“Aw, it’s not like I’m all that popular,” she said. “My income as an idol is basically money for pocket change.”

Despite that, Shoko was looking quite beautiful, dressed from head to toe in the MiZUNO brand’s latest fashions. They had been a gift, in exchange for her cooperation during the guild sponsor incident. She was known as a damsel player in the game, but nobody would have expected her to act the same way in real life.

“Watching Fuyo made me realize that a woman’s appeal has an expiration date, so I should probably just do what I can while I have the chance,” she added.

“Everyone has their own way of thinking about things, but if you don’t do it in moderation, you’ll burn out.”

“Yeah, I’ll be careful,” she said.

Tomakomai and Shoko made a strange pair, walking through the airport lobby side by side.

“So, how’d things turn out with Yozakura?” she added.

“Oh, that?” Tomakomai had been watching the Rosemary incident from an ocean away, but he’d ended up more involved than he’d ever expected to be, on Ichiro Tsuwabuki’s request.

From his position as a scholar in the field of neuroscience, he had been tasked with charting Yozakura/Rosemary’s reactions to certain electric signals via NaroFan. The concept had been quite novel for Tomakomai, but in practice, it wasn’t terribly different from the work he usually did.

“By the way, did Tsuwabuki know you were in neuroscience?” Shoko added.

“It appears so. He seemed to have known the reason I hadn’t logged out since the NaroFan service began, too.”

Densuke Tomakomai was a distinguished professor at Abashiri Medical University, and the head of the neuroscience research center there. He was a leading expert in the field, and Drive technology, which used quantum waves to immerse the consciousness in a virtual realm, was his pet subject. He had been playing the game, literally, without eating or sleeping, receiving IV drips for nutrition the entire time. As a result, he had been able to prove with his own body that there were no negative physical side effects to Driving, and he was a leading voice in the scientific world that the technology could be a godsend for people in terminal care.

“I did everything I could,” he told her. “Now it’s simply up to Mr. Tsuwabuki and the people at Thistle.”

“I see...”

All Tomakomai could do was pray that his report would help Rosemary be acknowledged as human in court.

“Hey, Tomakomai! Amesho!” Just then, the two heard a voice calling them, and they turned to face it at the same time.

They were in the airport lobby, which was full of people coming and going, so it took them a minute to realize who it was that was calling to them. Eventually, they noticed a plain-looking man in black clothing walking towards them and waving. Neither of them could put an avatar to the face.

“Who are you?” Shoko asked what could have sounded like a scathing question to the man in black.

“Heh...” The man let out a chuckle and produced a paperback from his bag. It was a first printing of Dragon Fantasy Online, well-worn from regular reading, but most likely a premium item by now. It was then that Tomakomai and Shoko both recognized him.

“Oh, Kiriri?” Shoko asked.

“I’m impressed that you identified us,” Tomakomai added.

“Well, I’ve seen your faces on the internet...” The man, apparently Kirihito (Leader), laughed as he returned the paperback to his bag. “Heading for the offline meetup, right? I wonder what everyone’ll be like.”

“Hmm, I expect everyone to be meow-re or less what they look like in the game... You look generic in both, too.”

“G-Generic? Hey, Kirihito’s handsome!” the man protested.

“Like 80% of the male avatars in the game are handsome, which means you look generic,” Shoko said. “Not that I mind being surrounded by handsome men, but being flanked by a skeleton and an extra is pretty fun in its own way.”

Shoko Amemiya apparently had no filter. Kirihito (Leader) looked a little conflicted about this, but he did not bother to put his feelings into words. Perhaps he was aware that he looked generic.

From there, they took the Narita Express from the airport and headed for Shinjuku.

“Today’s the offline meetup, I hear.”

Masaki Majima was lying on the bank of the Arakawa River, looking up at the sky when Eika Sugiura arrived.

Her shadow passed over Masaki’s face, causing him to turn over in annoyance. He was silent for a while after that, but finally spoke up, sullenly.

“I know,” he replied.

“You aren’t going, I suppose?” Eika said, giggling delightedly.

“There’s gonna be someone there I don’t want to see. What about you, then?”

“Not going, for the same reason.” As she said that, Eika sat down next to Masaki, who was still lying down.

Eika’s outfit was about the same as that of Sorceress in the game. It seemed stifling in the heat of summer, but Masaki decided not to comment on that, as he had no right to talk.

Masaki and Eika had joined NaroFan at Shoko Amemiya’s invitation two months ago.

It would be hard for them to say that playing video games, which they had little history with, had been of any benefit to them. It was also hard to say that meeting the people they had met had been of any benefit to them. But if someone asked them if they had had fun, they would probably admit that, yes, they had. They had met a lot of people of the sort they disliked, but the two months they had spent playing the game had been rather fun.

“Tsuwabuki, huh?” Masaki said. “He’s a weird one...”

“So is Iris,” Eika said. “She’s not the type of person you meet very often.”

It was true. He’d rarely met anyone like those two before.

Anyone like Ichiro Tsuwabuki, who never stopped flaunting his own talent.

Anyone like Iris, who, while aware of her lack of talent, spent her blood, sweat, and tears to keep moving forward anyway.

Maybe it was meeting people like them that had made these last two months worthwhile, even if it meant taking back what he’d said before.

Masaki lay there in thought. Suddenly, he realized he did want to go to the offline meetup.

“Hey, Masaki,” Eika said. “I bought you some puddings if you want them.”

“Don’t call me Masaki.” Masaki sat up abruptly from where he was lying on the grass. “Where are you going?”

“Shinjuku.”

“Do you have train fare?”

“I’ll walk,” he whispered after a pause.

Eika giggled. “Oh, please. I’ll lend you money, then.”

“No way.”

But despite his insistence, Masaki Majima, a.k.a. Taker, ended up taking the witch Eika Sugiura’s railway pass and heading for Shinjuku on the Saikyo Line.

“That reminds me. The offline meetup is today, it seems,” Shunsaku Shaga said in the middle of discussion about the trial.

Azami looked up at the clock on the wall and nodded. “That’s right. It’s soon, isn’t it?”

“Well, I’m mainly glad that we managed to prove Tsuwabuki’s innocence in time.”

Azami nodded in response to his words, whispered as he flipped through the documents.

The reveal of the existence of the artificial intelligence Rosemary had resulted in Ichiro being cleared of the charges of unauthorized access. It had been a false arrest, so there had been quite a lot of censure directed at the police, but in a way, they were worthy of sympathy; no one else would have expected a sentient program to have committed the crime.

At the same time, that reveal was sending shock waves through various industries, and the Japanese legal world was apparently in a panic regarding how to deal with it. In the midst of all that, Shunsaku Shaga alone seemed energized.

There had been no public announcement about Rosemary’s existence yet, but rumors were beginning to spread on the internet. The news about Ichiro Tsuwabuki’s arrest had been broadcast far and wide, and then, other than the announcement that he was falsely accused, all new word had stopped. As a result, people had started wondering if there might be a conspiracy at hand, and the major message boards were all awash in gossip.

“Well, our battle continues... Of course, putting it that way makes us sound like a manga that just got canceled...” Shaga said, after finishing his explanation about the documents.

“That’s true. What do you think will happen to Rosemary, in the long run?”

“Well, there are those who think that the program should be put on trial as someone with acknowledged personhood. There are also those who think it needs to be worked out what age and position she should be treated as having, and those who think this should be deferred as a special case until legislation can be worked out. Opinions seem to run the gamut.” Shaga reached for a cigarette in his pocket, but stopped when Azami glared at him. There was no smoking allowed in the meeting room. “There’s no conclusion yet, so for now they seem to want you, as the program’s creator, to take responsibility. Sorry for all the trouble.”

“Not at all...”

“I’ll do my best by you,” Shaga said. “There might be some pressure coming from unexpected directions, but this time I’ll have Tsuwabuki backing me, too.”

She knew that much. She hadn’t spoken to him properly about it, but Azami was roughly aware that Ichiro Tsuwabuki had been working for them tirelessly behind the scenes. There were apparently those who wouldn’t accept new legislation based on the advancement of Drive technology, and they wanted to do what they could to take down Azami and Rosemary. But from what Shaga said, their resistance had been surprisingly meager.

Then, out of nowhere, President Azami remembered something. “That reminds me. Pony’s former CEO...”

“He’s out of the hospital and will be put on trial soon,” Shaga told her. “For violation of the Poisonous and Deleterious Substances Control Law. They’re working to get unauthorized access added onto it, too... He admits to it himself, but the secretary’s insisting she did it of her own accord, so it’s getting a little complicated.”

It seemed there was a complicated network of relationships there, though Azami didn’t have the energy to inquire any further.

“Well, that’s it, more or less,” Azami said. “It’s getting late, so we should probably take a break.”

“Yes, indeed. Can I take you to lunch?”

Azami met Shaga’s light come-on with a bright smile. “Absolutely not.”

The summer sun was blazing overhead. Asuha Tsuwabuki stood on the pitcher’s mound.

It was the top of the first inning, and Asuha already had two outs. The ball felt completely different from the one she usually threw, so she had allowed one man on base, but she was starting to get the hang of it now.

Today was the Narrow Fantasy Online offline meetup.

Many of the people Asuha knew in the game would already be meeting up in Tokyo. Asuha had wanted to participate, but she couldn’t miss this match today.

It was a practice match against a team from a nearby school who had won a championship before, and she was helping out. The baseball club at her middle school was small and weak, so to save them from being disbanded, as the ace of the girls’ softball club, Asuha had agreed to take part in their practice match as a pitcher.

Not long ago, she might have prioritized the meetup over the match. Even now, she was not actually obligated to be standing on the mound today.

Just a little while ago, Asuha had heard these words from Ichiro:

“In the time I’ve been away, you and Iris have both have grown up a bit. It makes me extremely happy.”

She had merely been happy to hear it at the time, but on more careful examination, it had brought her to a conclusion.

She had to find something that she could lose herself in. Then she would master that.

Just like Iris was working to become a clothing designer. Just as Sera Kiryu was seeking to become a master gamer. Asuha wasn’t thinking of trying to beat Ichiro like they were, but now she wanted to find the one thing that she could devote herself to.

Her answer was this white ball.

The moment that thought entered her brain, Asuha felt as if she were on fire. The boys from the championship team would prove an excellent chance to test her skill. She didn’t want to let that slip by. There’s a difference between hardball and softball, as they say.

Ichiro Tsuwabuki had retired from playing NaroFan. As the one who had invited him to play, Asuha felt a bit sad about that, but she also wanted to keep adventuring in NaroFan as Felicia. She couldn’t keep chasing after Ichiro her whole life. An adventure was something a person should continue under their own power.

So for now, she would put everything she had into this ball.

She nudged her cap and glared at the batter’s box from atop the mound.

Her opponent was fourth in the lineup, Futa Saruwatari. He was a first-year in middle school just like her, and was already a regular in the lineup, expected to go pro. He had an excellent eye, and he had watched her two pick-off attempts without flinching.

She needed to get three swings from him and finish him off. Then she would announce her victory to everyone once the offline meetup was over.

The corner of Asuha’s mouth turned up.

“Here it is... my new technique! Sure-kill miracle pitch!”

She raised the ball up high. The Tsuwabuki blood sleeping inside of her awakened.

As she cried out, the white ball in her hand bent in an unpredictable way, then slammed into the catcher’s mitt.

In the deepest part of the Doom Range was Heavensword Mountain, currently the tallest point in Narrow Fantasy Online. On fair weather days, it served as a sightseeing spot that offered a fantastic view of the entire Asgard Continent. But considering how much trouble it was to climb, it didn’t offer particularly profitable mobs, so just about the only players you saw there were ones coming to sight-see.

A single boy had arrived at the top, his black Accel Coat flapping in the wind.

The weather was clear, but the wind was strong, enough that letting your guard down for a moment might send you tumbling down the sheer slope. But the boy stood at the summit with great confidence. Various emotions passed through his eyes as he gazed down at the Asgard continent below.

“Oh, today’s the offline party, isn’t it?”

He turned back to the source of the unexpected voice. At some point, a familiar elf had appeared. He stood there hunched as though cowed by the strong wind, the usual thin smile on his face.

“Mr. Matsunaga.”

“Hey, King.”

After that brief exchange, the two stood side by side.

King Kirihito and Matsunaga weren’t going to participate in the Narrow Fantasy Online offline meetup. It would be the only way for them to talk to one of the men who would be in attendance, but regardless, neither had demonstrated any interest in taking part.

While the wind battered them, Matsunaga spoke to the silent King. “He ran off with the win, didn’t he, King?”

A slight change came over King Kirihito’s face.

The Dragonet Magi-Fencer Ichiro Tsuwabuki, who had knocked him from his perch as the ultimate solo player, was no longer in Asgard. Even his account had been erased, and the only traces left of his existence were the Monetary Blades scattered across the Doom Range.

In the end, King Kirihito would have no chance for a proper rematch. That was what Matsunaga had meant by “running off with the win.” Even though Ichiro had gone missing, King couldn’t stand tall with the assurance that he was the strongest player again, and Ichiro had left behind no statement on the matter. That had left a lump in King’s heart, and Matsunaga had seen it.

“Well, I think it’s fine.” How many minutes had King Kirihito stood in silence before he managed to whisper his response? “I never thought I’d lose to anyone in games except my mother, but the old man still beat me in this game, at least. Now that he’s left the game, it means I definitely lost. I think that’s fine.”

It wasn’t like King Kirihito to simply admit defeat. Weighing those words, Matsunaga peered over at King’s profile. He saw the young man looking up at the sky, smiling a tranquil smile. It was the face of a person who hid aggression behind a facade of cool, of a person preparing to make a decision.

“I spent my second term as a shut-in anyway, so it’s okay. Next time, I’ll bring myself up to the old man’s level and challenge him there. Even though I don’t know what form it’ll take...” King drew the XAN smoothly from his belt and held it up to the sky, shouting as if his challenge might reach someone up there. “Next time, I won’t lose!”

“At first, I thought I should just give it to you, too...” Ichiro Tsuwabuki said with a fed-up expression, his cell phone in one hand.

Sakurako, who had gotten everything ready for the outing, fidgeted, exchanging glances between Ichiro and the clock. They had to move out quickly, or they’d be late to the meetup. But the person he was talking to on the phone was apparently being incredibly stubborn.

“Father.” Rosemary’s dispassionate voice came through the speakers newly installed in the Tsuwabuki house. She was speaking very softly, probably in consideration of the fact that Ichiro was in the middle of a phone call.

“Yes?” Sakurako asked.

“Who is Ichiro talking to?”

“Ah, most likely his father.”

She was referring to Meiro Tsuwabuki, Ichiro Tsuwabuki’s father and head of the Tsuwabuki Concern. A shifty manipulator, as Ichiro described him. His ability to exploit and manage others was truly incredible, and Ichiro also admired him, secretly—though that secret had been leaked. But there was no sign of that respect in the conversation they were having now.

Sakurako had more or less figured out what Meiro had called Ichiro about. He’d been monitoring the recent Rosemary incident, and had seen the huge change in the Japanese stock market. As a result, Ichiro had acquired a large amount of stock, and control of a large company. Meiro likely wanted to see them added to the family group.

“But the management of Thistle, MiZUNO, and NaroFan...” Ichiro was saying. “Once I began handling it all, I started to realize it was interesting in its own way... ah, nonsense. Don’t be so angry. Yes. Yes. That might also be fine. I am a bit curious to find out which one of us is the better CEO...”

Ichiro showed no sign of rescinding his authority. Listening to him talk down to the man on the other end of the phone, Sakurako couldn’t help but sympathize with Meiro. It was like his own son was picking a fight with him.

“Well, I need to head out. I’m going to end the call now. Yes. Yes. Nonsense. I’ll be coming to Great-Grandfather’s for New Year’s, at least. We can talk more then.”

Ichiro then apparently hung up on his father.

“Forgive the wait.”

“Well done, Ichiro-sama,” Sakurako said.

“Well done,” Rosemary agreed.

Several days had passed since it had all gone down. It had been something of a blur to Sakurako. Ichiro’s innocence had been proven, and the true culprit Rosemary herself was about to be “taken into custody.” But as a result of actions taken by Ichiro, Shaga, and Somei, the artificial intelligence had been allowed to remain in the Tsuwabuki household.

At present, Ichiro had her running the building’s security, and she was receiving pay with a proper contract. He had installed speakers around the house for Rosemary’s convenience, and he’d planned to install security cameras, too. But Sakurako had objected, so he’d decided on a moving camera instead. The camera that served as Rosemary’s “eyes” sadly lacked its own method of propulsion, so generally, Sakurako or Ichiro would carry it.

Right now, they were going to carry her to crash the offline meetup. The cell phone that Rosemary would speak through was in Sakurako’s bag. It had an application (designed by Ichiro) to always keep the camera function on, and it served as Rosemary’s terminal. Sakurako found herself rather delighted by the science fiction of it all.

“Ah, but here we are, going to the offline meetup,” Ichiro breathed as they headed for the door.

“It is hard to believe, yes,” Sakurako said. “As is the fact that we’ve only known them all for two months.”

“True.”

“A lot has happened over those two months.”

“That’s true. A lot has happened.”

“It’s been a very rich two months.”

“Yes, perhaps the third richest two months of my life,” Ichiro said, almost dismissively.

Sakurako found herself narrowing her eyes. But Ichiro was as impudent as ever, and showed no sign of noticing it.

Still, he did say this, with a different emotion in his smile than his usual coolness: “But it has been the most fun two months, I suppose. I really enjoyed this summer.”

Those were likely Ichiro Tsuwabuki’s unvarnished feelings. If so, then Sakurako had no right to object to his words. Rosemary must have thought so, too, as she also showed no sign of interrupting.

They changed their shoes and walked out the front door. Just then, Sakurako spoke, as if remembering something. “That’s right, Ichiro-sama.”

“Hmm?”

“I just remembered, I heard you got really angry back there...”

“Yes, I was quite angry.”

“Was that...” Sakurako opened her mouth trepidatiously, and finally asked the question. “...for me and Rosemary?”

Ichiro let out a laugh and kept walking, flipping the key to the blue Koenigsegg in his hand. With his usual cool demeanor, he spoke one word out onto the now faintly-autumnal wind. The word was this:

“Nonsense.”