Chapter 3: The Traitorous Heart

Chapter 3: The Traitorous Heart

The Traitorous Heart

This was during the first time around.

She spent too long worrying about getting ready, and they ended up missing their train.

“Ack.”

They watched as the end of the train sped away. Her shoulders sagged, knowing it was her fault that they missed the train even though they’d arranged for tickets.

“I-I’m sorry…”

“Oh, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

As they watched the trail of Guiding Light fade from the tracks, the other girl shrugged, cheerfully letting her failure slide. Akari hung her head in response.

There were no more trains heading toward their destination until the following morning. So on this day when they were summoned, they got a hotel room in the capital of Grisarika Kingdom.

Wracked by guilt, Akari trailed after the other girl, who kept trying to talk to her and cheer her up, but Akari only managed to mumble vaguely and wear a forced smile.

That was the first step of their first journey together.

At the time, Akari had no way of knowing the one-day delay allowed them to avoid a major incident.

She just hoped that she could make it up to her in the future.

As she sprawled out on the bed and sneaked a glance at the girl next to her…she wished she could thank that girl properly for looking after her.

That was the kind of person she wanted to be.

Guiding Force: Connect—Improper Attachment, Pure Concept [Time]—Invoke [Regression: Memories, Soul, Spirit]

It was the morning of their second day in the oasis.

As the sunlight poured into their room at the inn, Akari shook her head to break out of her daze.

Menou wasn’t there. She and Sahara had left early in the morning, saying they had priestess duties to attend to. She insisted that it was too dangerous, managing to convince Akari to stay behind.

Now, left alone in their rented room, Akari yawned in a very unladylike manner.

“Something’s definitely off…,” she mumbled.

Akari Tokitou was a time traveler.

As the holder of the Pure Concept of Time , she had the ability to Regress time for the entire world. By using this ability that she’d acquired when summoned to this world, Akari had already repeated her journey with Menou over and over.

So that Menou could kill her.

Akari was rewinding time to search for a way that Menou could survive, but she always failed.

Usually, Akari kept her memories locked away so she wouldn’t arouse suspicion, but there were certain conditions that allowed her to unlock them, which let her check on the current situation and occasionally guide Menou’s actions.

It was precisely because she had the advantage of knowing the future that Akari could say exactly what felt wrong about this situation now.

“Nothing like this has ever happened before…”

The events here in the desert, the Wild Frontier in the center of the continent, were completely different from how Akari remembered them.

Akari had never been kidnapped by criminals here before. Usually, their travels across the desert went fairly smoothly. This time, things had gotten out of hand so quickly that Menou and Akari were now separated.

Most of all, Akari didn’t have any memories of the girl called Sahara. They had never met before.

“I don’t dislike Sahara, but…”

A chance meeting with an unfamiliar girl made her think of the monstrous encounter they had in Libelle, too…with Manon Libelle.

A girl whose mother was an Otherworlder had spiraled into taking violent actions, fueled by her feeling of displacement in this world. She’d caused a massive tragedy that involved countless innocents without any hesitation.

The one who tempted her into sin was none other than the terrifying Pure Concept of Evil —a gruesome specter that wore the guise of a little girl and took it off at will, donning her own cast-off skin to hide the monster inside.

“I wonder if she has something to do with this…”

The source of all Concepts of Original Sin, one of the Four Major Human Errors.

Akari shuddered as she pictured the cherubic little girl. She embodied the repulsive yet pitiable end that awaited an Otherworlder.

Something the girl had said echoed in the back of Akari’s mind.

“It exists. A way home.”

While Akari kept turning back time and clinging to this world, the girl had given her an innocent grin and told her that she could, in fact, go back home. Akari shook off the memory that tried to lodge itself in her mind.

“I’m never going back.”

It didn’t matter if she used up all her memories and forgot about Japan entirely.

When she’d seen the vase of flowers placed on a desk that nobody sat at anymore, she remembered thinking, What a tasteless joke . It made her unreasonably angry.

That student had suddenly stopped coming to class one day. Who was it that used to sit there?

Akari had already forgotten. It might have even been a friend of hers. In fact, it almost certainly was. Otherwise, there was no reason she would have gotten so annoyed when she saw the vase.

But what kind of person was her friend who sat there?

That had already been consumed by Time .

“I’m awful, aren’t I?” she murmured to herself as she reflected on the lost memory.

It seemed cruel even to her that she didn’t care whether she forgot about that person.

“But I’ve got Menou.”

And she didn’t need anything else.

Now that she’d confirmed that, Akari turned her thoughts back to the current situation.

Whether Pandæmonium was directly involved in this or not, the fact that she’d escaped from the fog meant that the flow of time had fundamentally changed from any existing timeline.

The fractures formed in this world by Akari’s frequent use of Regression had warped the fog enough to unleash Pandæmonium. In other words, her own efforts to save Menou were unwinding the future Akari knew.

Be that as it may, she just had deal with these situations as they arose. Akari’s only goal was to be killed by Menou; as long as that happened, it didn’t matter how they got there.

“If they’re going to that base from yesterday, I can catch up to them if I want to.”

Akari could teleport. There were some restrictions, but for the most part, she could instantly transfer people or objects. If Menou was in danger, Akari could find an excuse to come running to her side. She could even pretend to have gotten kidnapped again if it came to that.

Just then, there was a knock at the door.

“Yeees?”

Akari opened the door without really checking, assuming it was an employee here to make the bed. It was habits like these that made Menou scold her for being thoughtless, but Akari didn’t think she was. Both sides of her were the real Akari, be it her regular self or the one who had memories of all the previous time loops. Her base personality was the same. When her memories were unlocked, her mind was able to integrate smoothly.

She opened the door to find a girl.

“Hello. Am I right in assuming you’re Ms. Akari Tokitou?”

“Er…”

A decidedly adorable young woman nodded in greeting to Akari, who stood dumbfounded at the door, her bed head sticking up wildly without her headband. The Japanese girl had to direct her gaze downward slightly to make eye contact with her. Akari wasn’t particularly tall herself, but her visitor was even shorter.

“Um, yeah, I’m Akari…”

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Akari. I’ve been put in charge of guarding you while my darling is away.”

A guard. Akari’s eyes glittered. She had never expected this girl to suddenly appear before her now.

This had never happened before, either.

“I’m a junior to Menou, the priestess who has been guiding you all this time.”

“Menou’s junior…”

Akari knew that, of course.

On closer inspection, her visitor’s clothing was of the same variety that Menou was always wearing. The skirt’s hem was daringly short and modified with adorable frills, but it was still a priestess robe.

“Is that a white priestess robe?”

Akari was so blindsided by this new development that she found herself voicing a pointless question.

“Yes. Unlike my darling, I am still in training. I’m a mere novice priestess who serves as an assistant.”

The girl in the robes seemed perfectly unruffled; she placed a white-gloved hand on her chest and shifted her tights-clad legs together neatly.

“My name is Momo. I hope we’ll get along.”

Her pink pigtails bounced as Momo smiled brightly.

“When you’re forming multiple relationships, I think it’s important to consider the relationships between those other people, too.”

The morning sun hadn’t yet started to shine at full strength. As they strode briskly through the fine sand of the desert, Sahara began explaining an inexplicable theory to Menou.

“You can’t give any one person special treatment. No, I guess that’s not quite right. You have to make everyone think they’re special. It’s important to keep giving bait to a fish you’ve already hooked. Basically, you have to be considerate.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just sharing a helpful tip.”

Menou’s cold remark seemed out of place against the warm, dry air, but Sahara looked at her like it was obvious.

“Well, none of this is helpful to me in the least. Would you mind changing the subject?”

“Are you sure about that…? When you’ve got a berserk, violent monster like Momo at your side, I think it’s important to know this stuff. She’s definitely going to start taking action herself if you leave her to her own devices for too long.”

“Listen. She can certainly be a little too emotional at times, but Momo is an excellent aide and a very nice girl.”