Chapter 6: Reverse Crux Record

“Hmm.”

Later that night, I sat at my desk and racked my brain for answers. I’d returned home, had dinner with my parents and sister, taken a bath, then sat down to really think things through. What was I thinking about? It’s obvious, really.

“Maybe I should go with ‘stygian fires of purgatory’ instead of ‘stygian flames of purgatory’ after all...?”

Indeed, I was preoccupied with a problem no less daunting than the quest to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem. I had made up that “Stygian Flames of Purgatory” epithet back when I first thought up my power’s name, and at the time, I couldn’t imagine describing Dark and Dark in any other way. “Flame” just has a certain something to it that makes it several times cooler than plain old fire. Speaking as a (self-declared) disciple of the Flame Alchemist, I absolutely refuse to back down on that point.

But, well, it’d been half a year since then. People change over the course of half a year, and I wasn’t the same person I’d been back then. And so, being older and wiser, I found myself wondering if deliberately aiming for simplicity and going with “fire” instead might make the whole phrase cooler on the whole.

I’m sure if Tomoyo were here, she’d roast me with all her might and say that it doesn’t make a difference, but oh how wrong she would be! Naming something has a profound effect upon that something’s very being. In short, my choice of wording here—and power names on the whole, really—would play a major factor in determining the outcome of any supernatural battle! Probably!

“All right, only one thing to do at times like these! If I’m gonna workshop my power’s name, I ought to take it for a spin and get me some inspiration!” I stood up, held out my right arm, focused with all my might, and recited the new and improved (after a painful and extensive chaos-trimming process) Malediction of Unleashing!

“I am he who conquers chaos! O purgatorial—”

“Shaddup!”

Thud! I heard my sister smack the wall of her room, which was right next to mine.

“S-Sorry!” I shouted in reply.

“You’d better be! One more peep outta you tonight and you’re dead meat!”

My sister was a big fan of death threats, at least as far as I was concerned. I could practically feel her bloodlust seeping in through the wall between us, and it was intense enough to make me shrink away with fear.

Her name was Andou Machi, and she was in her first year of college. She was decent-looking, I guess, but she had the temperament of a battle-hardened internet troll. Our parents picked her name because, surprise surprise, she was born in March. Part of me had to wonder what they were planning to do if one of us were born in January or February. Would we have ended up as Andou Januari and Andou Feburari? I wouldn’t put it past them.

Anyway, the wall that separated our rooms was basically paper-thin, and if we did anything even slightly loud, the other party would hear it, no question, hence her habit of pounding on the wall the second she heard me start to get noisy. I really wish she’d stop being such a pain in my neck.

“You just thought that I’m a pain in the neck, didn’t you?!” Thud!

“No, I didn’t! Sorry!” What is she, a mind reader? Freaky.

The thud of terror, unfortunately, had totally knocked me out of the moment. I gave up on invoking my power and went back to mulling over its name instead. Hmm... Yeah, I think it’s gotta be “The Stygian Flame: Dark and Dark.” Changing around the lead-in for no reason just doesn’t feel right.

Satisfied with the conclusion I’d reached, I strolled over to my desk. I had to keep up the front of being a perfectly ordinary high schooler, which meant that I was obligated to do my homework on a daily basis like the rest of my peers. The moment I opened up my bag, however, I realized that something was off. There were two black notebooks inside. I pulled them out to find that one of them was the Bloody Bible, while the other was—

“The Reverse Crux Record?!”

There was no doubt about it. The tome of the inverted cross, the treasonous manifesto disowned by God Himself that I’d witnessed a few days earlier, Kiryuu’s jet-black cringe compilation—ahem, notebook, lay in my hand. But how on earth did it end up in my bag?

“Oh, I get it,” I muttered to myself. “That notebook I grabbed on my way out of the club room wasn’t the Bloody Bible after all. It was the Reverse Crux Record!”

But no, that still didn’t explain anything. Even if that were the case, what had it been doing in the club room? It was hard to imagine that Kiryuu had snuck into the school for the sole purpose of leaving it there...

My mind was full of questions. Questions...and a hint of budding temptation. I wanted to look inside. I wanted to read Kiryuu’s notebook.

“And, I mean, why wouldn’t I? He’s already read my Bloody Bible. Fair’s fair, right?”

I lost to temptation almost instantly and resolved myself to give it a read. The moment before I opened the tome, though, I heard a voice resound from deep within my mind: You sure about that?

“Wh-Who’s there?!” I wheeled about, searching for the source of the mysterious voice, but I was alone in the room. Still, it continued. If you open the Reverse Crux Record, there’ll be no turning back, it cautioned. Are you really ready for that?

“H-Hey, seriously, wh-who are you?! C-Could it be? Is that you, Dark and Dark?! You’ve finally grown strong enough to talk with—”

Thud! A slam on the wall shut me right up. Yikes—when she pounded on the wall without a word, it was always a sure sign she was mere moments away from totally losing it. Pretending that a mysterious voice was talking with me was fun and all, but it’d have to wait for another time.

I took a deep breath, then looked back at the notebook. This time though, I didn’t hesitate. I just opened it right up...then gulped.

“Oh. Oh.”

The next morning, I left home a little earlier than usual. I didn’t head for my classroom when I arrived at school, though, instead making a beeline straight to the club room.

There’s no such thing as morning workouts in the literary club, obviously. Nevertheless, when I peeked in the window, I found exactly the girl I’d expected inside. She was pacing about frantically, searching for something. I cracked the door open and walked in.

“Hey.”

“Gah!” The girl—Tomoyo—jumped as I greeted her. Then, she turned around so slowly and stiffly, she reminded me of a machine in desperate need of grease. “A-Andou... Wh-What’re you doing here this early?”

“Not much. What about you?”

“O-Oh, same, not much...”

“I was gonna brew some tea. Want a cup?”

“Uhh, sure...”

We sat across from each other at the table and sipped our tea in silence. Eventually, when our cups were drained, I struck up a conversation as casually as if I were making the most idle of small talk.

“So, are you trying to become a light novelist?”

To cut right to the chase, the Reverse Crux Record I had accidentally brought home with me wasn’t actually Kiryuu’s after all. Technically, it wasn’t even the Reverse Crux Record at all. It was the exact same style of notebook as his was, but it was, in fact, a completely different one. I hadn’t actually read through his, of course, so this was all just conjecture, but I couldn’t imagine the handwriting inside this one being his. It was distinctly feminine, in a way that just didn’t suit him.

So whose notebook could it be? Out of all the girls I knew who frequented the literary club’s room, who would be likely to have a notebook of the exact same design of Kiryuu’s? The answer was obvious: it could only be Kanzaki Tomoyo’s.

In retrospect, this would probably explain why she’d been so desperate to hide something on her computer from me that one day I caught her posing. She’d been writing in the club room, all on her own, and had gotten so wrapped up in her own story she’d gotten carried away and started posing in front of the mirror at just the right time for me to catch her in the act.

“Ah, ahh, ahhhhhhhhh!” Tomoyo stammered incoherently. Her face kept shifting in color from bright red to deathly pale, and her mouth was flapping like a goldfish. “Wh-What’re you talking about...?”

“This is yours, right?” I asked, pulling the notebook out of my bag. It wasn’t the Reverse Crux Record, but by that point, I had a pretty good idea of what it was. “You’ve been using it to jot down ideas for your stories, right?”

Tomoyo made a screeching sound so high-pitched I could barely even hear it, and an instant later, the notebook vanished from my hand. She’d used Closed Clock to snatch it, apparently. For a moment, I assumed that she’d fled the room while time was stopped, but just like last time, I soon found her curled up in a ball in the far corner of the club room. Guess going into a fetal position’s how she deals with sudden crises. Girl has the survival instincts of an armadillo, I swear.

“Wh-Why would you read it?!” she wailed. “Ever heard of a thing called privacy, jackass?! Drop dead!”

“I didn’t exactly do it on purpose! I was positive it was Kiryuu’s! I mean, who could’ve imagined there were two Reverse Crux Records out there?”

“I-It’s not one of those... Hajime spent ages trying to color a notebook just the right shade of black, and he left all the ones that weren’t good enough for him lying around the house. It’d be a waste not to use them, that’s all...” Her voice shook as she explained herself. Her entire body was trembling with shame, for that matter. Not that I could see much other than her back, with the way she was curled up.

I really did feel her, honestly. Tomoyo’s notebook was full of character profiles, worldbuilding notes, concepts, plot outlines—all the material she could possibly think of to base a novel on. It wasn’t a proper draft of a full-on novel in and of itself, but it was still unmistakably an original creative work of Kanzaki Tomoyo. And having your art get seen by other people just might be the most lethally embarrassing experience in the world.

When Kiryuu saw my Bloody Bible, I’d felt so embarrassed I wished I’d drop dead too. He had turned out to be one of my people in the end, which mitigated the damage a lot, but I still would’ve preferred it if he hadn’t seen it at all. And remember, this is me we’re talking about. I’m almost totally shameless, and even I had felt so ashamed I could have just curled up and died! The sheer depths of Tomoyo’s shame in that moment were, frankly, unfathomable.

As such, I decided that my only recourse was to offer a sincere apology. “So, uhh, sorry.”

“Are you k-kidding me...? Ugggh, this is the worst... Why you, of all people...?”

“Hey, I said I was sorry.”

“I-I’m not, like, seriously trying to be a writer, for the record! I was just, you know, writing some random stuff to kill time, that’s all!”

“Yeah, I’m not buying it.” I had to contradict her on that point. I didn’t know for sure if she was serious about becoming a light novelist or not, but I knew with absolute confidence that her writing was anything but “random” or for the sake of “killing time.”

“Wh-What do you know?!” Tomoyo snapped furiously.

“I know that you noted down the deadline for an amateur writing contest, that’s what!” I declared. Tomoyo gasped. “You wrote a list of artists you’d want to do the illustrations too.” She made a strained and horrified little squeal that time.

That had been the biggest tip-off that had made me realize she wanted to write light novels specifically. That, and the fact that she had all the girls on her character profile pages listed as “Heroine 1,” “Heroine 2,” and so on. Regular novels don’t operate under the assumption that a female character is a heroine by default.

“Look, you even practiced signing your pen name!”

“Oh my God, just kill me already!” Tomoyo leapt to her feet, grabbed me by the lapels, and shook me as hard as she could. Her whole face was flushed bright red, and she was definitely starting to tear up a little. “Why’re you so calm about this, anyway?! That just makes it worse! If you’re gonna laugh, then laugh already, dammit!”

“Huh?” I cocked my head in confusion. “Why would I laugh? What’s the joke?”

Tomoyo gaped at me. “Wha...? B-But, writing light novels is, like...weird, right? It’s embarrassing, right?”

“What’s embarrassing about light novels?” I asked, in spite of the fact that I understood why she’d feel that way and why she’d want to hide her ambition all too clearly. Writing a novel isn’t an ordinary thing to do. It’s not the sort of activity that most everyone has at least a little experience with, like baseball or soccer. That’s what makes it so embarrassing to throw yourself into, and that’s why you could never know for sure if the person you’re talking to would approve of it.

“B-But...I haven’t even debuted, and I was already practicing my signature and stuff. Isn’t that, like, super cringey?”

“Is it? News to me. For your information, I practice my signature practically every day!” And I’m not even trying to be a writer! I do it in both Japanese and English characters too!

“Right,” Tomoyo sighed. “For a second, I forgot I was talking with you.” Which was super obvious, of course, but somehow, the way she said it made me feel like she was making fun of me. Weird.

“And besides,” I added, “you realize this is the literary club, right? What’s so wrong with a literary club member writing a novel? We all wrote short stories for last year’s magazine, and we did all those story relays too!”

“Yeah, but none of you guys are really seriously trying to be writers, are you?”

“Well, no, but still...” I couldn’t deny it. I’d never gone all-out writing a story, long or short, with the serious intent of submitting it to a contest. Most likely, the same was true of Hatoko and Sayumi.

I assumed all the way through middle school that the people who join literature clubs must all want to be writers in the future, but when I actually joined one myself, I quickly corrected that bit of personal bias. Turns out that liking books doesn’t automatically make you want to write after all.

That’s not a universal rule, though. Some people who join literary clubs really do want to be writers. Like, for instance, a certain girl who was sitting before me, ready to break down in tears at any second.

“But anyway, come on, you can’t go getting embarrassed about writing a book! If that’s embarrassing, then what’s it say about me, the guy who scribes the hidden truth of this world in the Bloody Bible day in and day out?”

“Umm... Nothing that isn’t true? You really are embarrassing enough to make a girl cringe herself half to death.”

Wow, ouch! You’re gonna make me burst into tears, jerkface!

Tomoyo sighed. “Y’know what, I don’t even care anymore. Talking with you made me forget what I was even embarrassed about in the first place. I guess it’s just human nature to feel reassured when you see someone who’s even worse off than you are.”

Tomoyo was back on her feet and back on the offensive. Her attitude had done such a complete one-eighty it was almost hard to believe she’d been shivering like a terrified rodent mere moments before. Getting talked down to like that was irritating, of course, but I decided to let it go. It didn’t feel like the right time to get offended.

“Yeah, it’s true,” she declared. “I’m trying to become a writer. Actually...that’s not quite right. It’s not that I want to be a writer so much as that I want to get a book published. I want as many people to read my stories as possible, and I want to hear what they think of them...”

The more she spoke, the fainter her voice grew. I could understand what she meant painfully well, though. I’d thought about how great it’d be to be a writer or a manga artist plenty of times, myself.

I’ve imitated the art from my favorite manga and written fanfics of my favorite light novels. I’ve imagined what Devil Fruit I’d eat, what sort of Zanpakuto I’d wield, what Stand I’d awaken to, and what Nen ability I’d possess. I’ve dreamed up more fantasies than I can count, and I’ve wished my fantasies could be a reality almost as many times. Considering all that, how could I possibly make light of Tomoyo’s feelings?

“I know that going pro’s not gonna be easy, and I don’t think I’m super talented or anything,” she explained, “but I’ve been having so much fun writing lately...”

“Yeah, I get you,” I replied. “So, what’s the problem? If writing’s fun, then go ahead and write.” I didn’t think that enjoying writing was enough to make somebody a pro, to be sure, but on the other hand, I had a hard time imagining that someone who didn’t like writing would ever get all that good at it, talented or not.

“So, what? Are you gonna cheer me on?” she asked, a glint of hope in her eyes as she watched carefully for my reaction.

I thought about it for a moment before I replied. “Nah, I don’t think so.”

“Huh...?” Tomoyo looked so shocked you’d think I literally stabbed her in the back, but I wasn’t done yet.

“How to put it... I think that it’s not a great idea to throw yourself into supporting people for this sort of thing that easily. Like, if a friend of yours wants to be a writer, or a manga artist, or a musician, or a comedian, or whatever, that means they’ll be trying to break into a pretty risky business. There’s no stability in careers like those.”

It’s easy to cheer a friend on. “You’ve got this,” you can shout. “I know you can pull it off!” But of course it’s easy—you, the person doing the cheering, aren’t taking on any of the risks or responsibilities that your friend will have to shoulder. It takes barely any effort, and it makes your friend feel good about themself, so it’s a win-win.

And yet, I still saw things differently.

“Anybody can cheer you on when you’re chasing your dreams...but it takes someone who’s really close to you to worry about you instead.” That’s something that only your family, your loved ones, and your friends can do, in my book. “If you were the sort of person who goes around bragging to everyone about how you’re aiming to be a writer, then I’d cheer you on without a second thought. But that’s not you, is it?”

She sat there silently, not answering, so I continued. “At this point, I have no idea how serious about this you actually are. If writing light novels is fun for you, and that’s all there is to it, then hey, that’s fine! But if you really want to be a writer—if you really want to be a pro—then I can’t just cheer you on that irresponsibly. After all, we’re friends, aren’t we?”

Tomoyo had been staring at the floor the entire time I was talking, and even after I’d finished, she stayed silent for a moment, fidgeting her fingers restlessly. Finally, she managed to let out a quiet “Why?”

“Why...? Why do you always act like such a...such a big, stupid, goofball moron...but then at times like these, and only times like these, you actually start making sense...?”

“Oh, shut it. I always make sense.” We fell back into awkward silence. I’ll admit it: some of the stuff I’d just said might’ve been pretty darn corny. I had to push through it and salvage the mood, though, so I started talking again, trying to sound as bright and chipper as I could. “Oh, but if you ever want somebody to read your work, I’d be up for it!”

“Hell no.” An instant reply. She didn’t even have to think about it; the answer must’ve come out by pure reflex.

Uh, wow? Mean? Isn’t this the part where you’re supposed to blush, nod, and say “Okay...” all shy-like? Read the mood, girl! Or at least read the script!

“You’re the last person on Earth I’d ever let read my stuff.”

“Th-The last person...? Oh, wait. Is this ’cause of the most recent story you wrote about in there?”

Tomoyo’s expression stiffened up once again. The very last plot outline in her notebook had been for a classic supernatural battle story. She’d only roughed out a broad outline, so far, but it basically boiled down to the tale of a protagonist who wielded dark flames and a heroine with the power to control time.

I didn’t even have to think about it—she’d obviously modeled the duo on me and herself. The story clearly drew a ton of inspiration from how we and our clubmates had awakened to our powers. And, well...she’d written a bunch of notes about scenes where the me-like protagonist and the her-like heroine flirt around, or where he trips and somehow ends up grabbing her chest, or where he decides to walk into the bathroom without knocking for who knows what reason and she’s already inside...

“N-N-No, it’s not...that’s not...no!” Tomoyo waved her hands frantically in the air, her face bright red. “I-I don’t, like, feel like that about you at all, I was just—”

“Yeah, duh. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t make that sorta stupid misunderstanding.”

“—writing down whatever came to mind, and it sorta just...wait, what?”

“Writers and their stories are two totally different things,” I declared, drawing an important line in the sand. Assuming that everything an author writes reflects their desires and personality perfectly is one of the most foolish acts a person could possibly commit.

Like, you can’t assume that mystery authors are all latent serial killers. You can’t assume that people who write racy books about little girls are actually pedophiles, and you can’t assume that people who write harem light novels are all lifelong virgins, and you can’t assume that people who write supernatural battle stories all have genuine cases of chuunibyou. Holding that sort of prejudice just proves that you’re lacking in love for fiction on the whole!

Authors don’t just write about their own desires, so even if Tomoyo had written a story about a guy modeled after me getting all flirty-wirty with a girl modeled after her, I wasn’t about to read anything into it. The fact that I didn’t misunderstand her was, for the record, hella cool of me.

“I bet that having them end up like that was just convenient for the sake of the story, right?” I guessed.

“Huh...? Ah, y-yeah! Right, exactly!” Tomoyo stammered out a hurried agreement, then heaved a long, deep sigh. “Andou...don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

“Yeah, I know. I won’t. But why not tell the other literary club members, at least? I don’t think any of them would make fun of you for it.”

“You’re right, but...I dunno, it’s just awkward! Besides, I think it’d be better to tell everyone once I actually have some results I can show them...”

She wants results first? That’s just like her—she’s never been the type to let other people see her struggles. “Results, huh? Now that you mention it, how’ve you done so far? Submitted anything to any contests?”

I’d asked it casually, but Tomoyo immediately snapped her gaze away from me. H-Huh? Did I say something I shouldn’t have?

“I’ve...gotten dropped in the first round twice.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Most light novel contests for new writers are structured into multiple rounds of judging. Three rounds or so’s pretty typical. I was sort of familiar with the process since I’d read so many of them, and I knew enough to be aware that getting dropped in the first round is as bad of a result as you could possibly get.

Yeaaah, okay, that explains a lot. No wonder she doesn’t want to bring it up. I wasn’t about to say it out loud, but frankly, none of the ideas in her notebook had been all that interesting. I guess the best way to put it would be that you could tell she was writing from a girl’s perspective in a male-dominated market? Sorta like how Aoki Ko couldn’t bring herself to draw panty shots in Bakuman, even though she knew her male fans would eat them up.

As I struggled to find the right words, Tomoyo’s gaze dropped to the floor. “Things never work out that easily, do they?” she quipped in an offhanded tone. Then, a second later, a pyramid of books had suddenly been erected on the table. I knew what things moving around the room in an instant meant: Closed Clock.

“I can stop time,” Tomoyo grumbled. “I’ve got one of the craziest superpowers I can think of, but here I am, totally incapable of writing a half-decent book.” She tapped the pyramid, which collapsed, the books scattering all across the table. Tomoyo was smiling, but that smile was tinged with a hint of self-derision.

“My power doesn’t do me any good when it comes to getting along with my family, and it sure as hell isn’t helping me realize my dreams either. I actually used to wish that I could stop time, y’know? But now that I can actually do it, I’ve realized that it’s surprisingly pointless.”

“Mmm...”

“I can stop time and shout ‘WRYYYYYYYYYYYY!’ all I want, but since time’s, y’know, stopped, nobody ever even reacts. It’s just boring.”

“Hold up. You actually do that?”

“Gah! Th-That was just an example!”

Oh, wow, she’s totally actually done it. I’m talking with a girl who plays DIO when nobody else can see her. This is a real pot calling the kettle black situation, I know, but still: oof.

“A-Anyway, the point is that my power’s totally useless!”

“Useless, eh...?” I pondered her words for a moment, then turned them back around on her. “So, what do you want? You want a power that helps you get along with your family? Or a power that lets you write the best book ever?”

“Hah! You’re kidding, right?” Tomoyo scoffed at my question. “That’d make the whole thing totally pointless!”

I silently nodded. She was exactly right. It wouldn’t be an accomplishment if you let your power do the work for you. It’d be pointless.

“Hey, Tomoyo?” I said. “Watch this.” I stood up, spread my legs to a shoulder-width stance, and held my right arm aloft.

“I am he who conquers chaos! O purgatorial flame that sways upon the brink of the Abyss, O twisted blaze of sable darkness, blighted crimson of deepest night! O howling, maddening inferno that paves the road to oblivion! Fetter sin with sin, pierce my being with thine onyx sigil, and bare thine fangs at the arrogance of providence!”

My incantation—the new version of the Malediction of Unleashing—was complete. With one final shout, I activated my ability.

“Dark and Dark!”

Pitch-black flames flared up from my right hand. That didn’t seem quite good enough, though, so I went a step further, extending my power across my body. I cloaked myself in an aura of fire, taking care to go a little heavy on the flames around my shoulders. I made myself look as cool as I could possibly be. I made myself look as cool as anyone could possibly be.

“Well? What do you think, Tomoyo—nay, Closed Clock?”

“Huh...? What do I think about what?”

“Hella cool, isn’t it?” I grinned. “Supernatural powers are the coolest thing ever—and that’s all they are. That’s all they have to be.”

Powers like ours could never be allowed to bring misfortune upon others, even accidentally. But they couldn’t bring fortune either. They just had to be cool. Nothing more, nothing less.

Tomoyo let out her longest, most exaggerated sigh yet, then cracked a smile.

“Go off, chuuni-boy.”

After school, the usual crowd gathered together in the club room.

“Want some cookies, Chifuyu? We baked them in home ec today!”

“Okay.”

“Hey, Sayumi, think you could help me out for a sec? I’m having trouble with this problem.”

“Oh, I see. To start with, x refers to the area of this triangle—that’s what you’ll have to calculate first. Here, you do it like this...”

The state of things in our room couldn’t have been any more mundane. It was a scene you could’ve found in absolutely any high school in the country, played out by a group of absolutely ordinary high schoolers.

“Oh, and these cookies are even better with a little chocolate melted on them! Here, I’ll make some fire.”

“I wanna try them with cinnamon too. I think we have some in the fridge at home, so I’ll use a Gate and go get it. I’ll be right back.”

“Oh, right, Sayumi? While I’m at it, I spilled a drink on my skirt earlier. Think you could handle that for me?”

“Certainly. I’ll undo that right away.”

Okay, maybe not absolutely ordinary. It was a perfectly representative slice of our everyday lives, though, at the very least.

Half a year ago, we had awakened to supernatural powers out of nowhere. We’d expected our daily lives to be altered beyond all recognition as a result...but we’d been wrong. Completely, utterly wrong. Our daily lives, as it turned out, were a lot harder to upend than we’d anticipated.

“Mwa ha ha,” I chuckled as I gazed out over the so-called everyday scene before me. “A day will come for us to be thrown into battle. It’s inevitable. But until that day arrives, I can think of worse ways than this to gather our strength and heal our wounds.”

“I’ve definitely never seen you use any of this ‘strength’ you’ve supposedly been gathering,” jabbed Tomoyo offhandedly.

Just then, the door opened, and a girl stepped inside. Her gaze was sharp, and her mouth was fixed in a perfectly measured scowl. She stood there, head held high and posture perfect, sweeping her sharp glare across the room.

“Pardon the intrusion,” she politely but gruffly opened. “This is the literary club, correct?”

“If it isn’t Miss Kudou,” replied Sayumi. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

That answered one question right off the bat: our visitor was Kudou Mirei, the president of the student council. She wore her uniform precisely according to school regulations, not a fold out of place or a wrinkle to be seen. Everything about her, in fact, from her expression to the atmosphere around her, felt clear-cut and to the point. She was all around quite attractive, but you could just tell how intensely by the book and high-strung she was just by looking at her.

“I’ve come here today to audit your club,” declared Kudou.

“To ‘audit’ us?” questioned Sayumi.

“Quite. As we’ve discussed multiple times, President Takanashi, I have my doubts about the merits of allowing your club to remain on the books. This school’s budget and facilities are stretched thin as is, and we can’t afford to waste them on a club with very few members and virtually nothing in the way of productive activities.”

“I understand your position,” replied Sayumi, “but allow me to remind you that the literary club has been around since our school was founded. We’re a longstanding institution in this school’s history. Don’t you think it would be rash to do away with a club such as ours for frivolous reasons like those?”

“The old student council and the teachers might’ve let you fast-talk your way out of this,” scoffed Kudou, “but not me. I don’t care how much history a club has or how much of an institution it is. On my watch, useless clubs get axed.”

If there were a blunter way for Kudou to make her case, I sure couldn’t think of it, and judging by Sayumi’s grimace, she was on the same page as me. The bigger problem, though, was that Kudou was right. If you asked me what our club was contributing to the school on the whole, I’d struggle to come up with an answer. Doing nothing was our modus operandi, after all.

Of course, that wasn’t to say I was planning on going down without a fight. Glancing around at my clubmates, I could tell from the look in their eyes that they felt the same way.

“Mwa ha ha!” I laughed in my signature style. So, this is war, then? A battle between us and the student council, with the fate of our club on the line? Really, now—yet another problem that our powers won’t be of any help for whatsoever. “Why not be honest with us, little miss president? You’re not here to audit us—you’re here to scout us out!”

That’s right! Whether we’re confronted with boring, mundane issues or actual, supernatural battle-style disasters, I’ll take them on in my own way! I choose to forge my own path as Guiltia Sin Jurai and live the coolest life I possibly can!

“I saw through your true identity ages ago,” I boasted. “How long are you planning to keep up this farce? Just admit it: you couldn’t care less about whether or not our club’s disbanded! That was all just a pretext for you to make contact with us, wasn’t it?!”

Kudou shot a glare of pure animosity in my direction, and holy crap did it ever freak me out, but I wasn’t finished with my speech yet, and I had no intention of stopping. “Oh, believe me, I understand your apprehensions. Anyone would fear the consequences of antagonizing a faction as mighty as ours. But be that as it may, I can’t stand dragging these things out! It’s time for you to cut to the chase, reveal your true intentions, and get to the good—”

“Can it, chuuni!”

Tomoyo smacked me right on the head as hard as she could. Hatoko was muttering something along the lines of “Please, Juu, this isn’t the time...” and Chifuyu was looking at me like I was some sort of strange, unidentifiable cryptid.

“Excuse us, Miss Kudou,” said Sayumi, sounding for all the world like a corporate middle manager apologizing to her boss for one of her subordinate’s mistakes. “I’m afraid that one of our members suffers from a serious psychological illness. Please ignore him.”

Not gonna let this get me down! No way, no how! Cringe it up all you want! I’ll walk the path that I think’s coolest, no matter what you people say! I’ll live on in this seemingly fragile yet profoundly unbreakable world of the everyday—this world that, deep down, I don’t even want to see broken—and I’ll bear the sin that is to be a chuuni on my back all the while! After all, nothing’s cooler than being hella sinful!

“How...?”

For a minute, I was totally sure that was the perfect line to close the story on, but then a single word slipped from Kudou’s lips. Her voice was quavering, and it was easy to assume that was on account of my behavior pissing her off. I’d actually forgotten she was still there for a second...not that there was anywhere else she could’ve been. You can’t blame me, though! I was in end-of-the-volume mode, and she wasn’t the first thing on my mind!

Tomoyo, who seemed wary of the president’s rapidly simmering rage as well, leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Hey, Andou, this is seriously bad! Look at her; she’s gonna snap at any second! Hurry up and apologize!”

“Hmph. Very well. I’ll admit it: I shouldn’t have called you ‘little miss president.’ You are my senior, and I should have called you ‘Madam President’ instead.”

“Not the problem!” snapped Tomoyo. Kudou, meanwhile, turned her glare onto me.

“How? Andou Jurai...” Her eyes burned with indignation...and a glimmer of distress. It was easy enough to understand why she’d be enraged, but I couldn’t even begin to guess why she’d look shaken. Frightened, even. I didn’t have long to ponder that mystery, though, because a moment later she resolved it for me.

“How did you figure out my true identity?”

“...’Scuse me?”

We were all completely flabbergasted.

“Don’t play dumb!” Kudou snapped. “Everything you said...it’s all true—every word of it! I’ve been monitoring you this whole time. All that stuff about disbanding the literary club was just a pretext. I was putting on a front just for the sake of investigating you!”

My train of thought ground to a screeching halt. I couldn’t even begin to make heads or tails of the situation I was in. Wait, wait, wait. What the hell is she talking about? Is she playing along for a laugh, or—no, surely not. She couldn’t actually mean...

“That’s right! I’ve been monitoring you this whole time...ever since the day I learned about your powers!”

Every member of the literary club shivered in unison. She knew. Somehow, Kudou had found out about our abilities. As for how she knew, I quickly jumped to one simple conclusion.

“Do you have powers too, Kudou?!”

“Hmph! Quit with the feigned surprise, Andou Jurai. You just told me you’d seen through my true identity, didn’t you? In other words, you saw through the fact that I have my own supernatural power! Isn’t that right?”

“Y-Yeah... R-R-Right, totally!”

“I see now that I may have ever so slightly underestimated you. I’m seeing you in a new light. But tell me, how did you figure me out? I’m all but certain that the act I put on was flawless, so how did you see through it?”

“I, err... I mean... Uhh...”

“You have no intention of revealing your secrets, do you? Fair enough. I am your enemy, so of course you wouldn’t.”

For an enemy, she was awfully willing to read the most generous explanations possible into everything I said and did. She was saving me a hell of a lot of face, but it wasn’t the time to be worried about embarrassing myself, regardless. I had to figure out what on earth I was supposed to say to her, first of all.

What do you even say about a situation like this? That I got hit by a bolt from the blue? That I shot for the moon and landed in a whole different galaxy? Actually, wait—I know exactly what I should say about these circumstances before anything else.

What sorta asspull plot twist was that?! LMAO!

Seriously, what the hell? A full half year passes since our powers had awakened with no notable events whatsoever, and then a self-proclaimed ‘enemy’ suddenly pops up out of absolutely nowhere? And it was the president of the student council, of all people! She had powers too?!

“I...suppose this means that Andou dug himself so deep into a hole of chuuni idiocy, he somehow managed to strike gold?” said Sayumi, the color draining from her face as she slowly backed away from Kudou. Tomoyo, Hatoko, Chifuyu, and I all jumped up from our places at the table and backed away as well, taking up a position across the room from her.

Actually, on second thought, saying we “took up a position” would be giving us too much credit. It wasn’t anything that cool. We were retreating out of sheer terror, that’s all. The situation was so far-flung from reality, none of us had any idea what to do.

“C-Calm down, everyone! Follow my lead!” I stammered, doing my best to set my clubmates—and, while I was at it, myself—at ease. “Don’t worry! I know how these things go! I’ve read tons of Jump manga that suddenly turn into battle stories right before they get canceled!”

“Why the hell would that make us worry less?!” shouted Tomoyo.

“Light novels too! I’ve read tons of ’em that seem like rom-coms for the first half or so, but then they suddenly force in a bunch of battle-based plot twists toward the end!”

“Again, what’s your point?!”

“Not to mention mystery series that start out totally realistic but go full-blown supernatural battle in the endgame for no real reason!”

“Are you even listening to yourself?!”

Tomoyo’s comebacks were less on-point than usual, possibly on account of how nervous she was, but thankfully, that little back-and-forth did a pretty good job of clearing my head.

“Okay then, Kudou—ah, I mean, Kudou Mirei,” I said, quickly switching back to max-drama mode. It just seemed right to go with that persona, at least for the moment. “What is it you’re after?”

“You really think I’d tell you that?”

“Hmm... In that case, let me ask you this: what do you know about our powers?” Could she know why we awakened to them? Could she know why we were the ones to awaken to them?

“Sure, I’ll answer that one...if you can beat me, that is!” Kudou declared with a fearless smirk.

“Beat you...?” I repeated, aghast.

“Don’t worry,” she quickly added, “I’m not saying I want a fight to the death. I just want to get a look at your powers, that’s all! Though I suppose you should prepare yourselves to break a bone or two in the process.”

Kudou took a step forward, and all of us took a simultaneous step back.

“Wh-What should we do, Andou?” Tomoyo whispered into my ear. “Should I use Closed Clock and blitz her, or what...?”

Her tone sounded confident enough, but I could tell how worried she was underneath that front by the look in her eyes. She was certainly quicker than any of the rest of us. Really, when Closed Clock entered the picture, speed lost all meaning as a concept.

There was just one problem: none of us, Tomoyo included, had any real combat experience. All the god-tier powers in the world wouldn’t change the fact that not a single one of us had ever used our abilities to deliberately harm another human being. We had power to spare, but on a psychological level, we were completely toothless.

“Andou...?” said Sayumi, Hatoko, and Chifuyu, all turning to me as well. They all had the same look in their eyes. It spoke of a mixture of worry, restlessness...and a hint of resolve. I could tell that, should worse come to worst, they were all prepared to take action on their own. There wasn’t a single heroine in the room who was hoping to sit back and let herself be protected.

How could I possibly let myself back down in the face of all that resolve? “I’ll do it,” I said, stepping out ahead of them.

“A-Are you kidding me?! What’re you thinking, Andou?!”

“She’s right, Juu! You don’t stand a chance!”

Tomoyo and Hatoko frantically urged me back, but I took another step forward instead. Dark and Dark only had one function: to look cool. I had no idea what sort of power Kudou could have, but nevertheless, it was plain as day that I had no chance of beating her. That didn’t stop me, though. I walked on, a vanguard of one.

“Don’t worry, guys. If things go bad, my dark side will lend me its power,” I reassured them. I was half kidding, but also half serious. We were in big trouble, no doubt about it, and yet on some level, I was enjoying the situation.

I was feeling the same ebullient sense of excitement I’d felt on the day our powers awakened. The situation was utterly disconnected from reality, exactly the sort of supernatural battle-style plot twist I’d been longing for, and I could feel a seed of delight—or, at least, something resembling it—begin to sprout deep down inside me.

I mean, between Kudou’s reassurance that she wasn’t planning on fighting to the death and Sayumi’s Route of Origin, I figured I’d probably be fine, even if I did get maimed a little. With an option like Sayumi’s power to fall back on in the worst-case scenario, I felt like there was no reason not to enjoy the moment in my own sort of way.

“Mwa ha ha! No need for backup. I can handle the likes of you on my own! You wish to behold the accursed power some call the Knock on Hell’s Door? Then so be it!” I slowly unbuttoned my uniform’s jacket as I spoke, making sure to drop the new title I’d thought up the night before into my speech. “Tell me. Do you know why I always wear this jacket to school, day after day?”

“Because not wearing it violates school regulations?” Kudou guessed blandly. I mean, yes, but also no!

“Mwa ha ha! No, it’s not for the sake of regulations—it’s for the sake of restraints! My power is so mighty and violent that not even I can control it, and this jacket serves as its seal! It has innumerable magical runes of all types inscribed within it, and it weighs no less than a hundred kilograms!”

I swept my jacket off my shoulders and cast it dramatically aside. It fluttered gently through the air, only to be intercepted by Hatoko, who clearly didn’t realize this was not the moment to butt in and be helpful.

“Whoops! Almost missed it!”

“Hatokooo! Come on, you can’t just catch it like that!”

“Wh-Why not?!”

“’Cause it’s supposed to be crazy heavy, stupid! It totally breaks continuity if you’re carrying it around like it’s nothing!”

“Oh, right! I get it!” said Hatoko, finally on the same page as me. “O-Oh nooo, it’s sooo heavy! I can’t believe Juu’s been wearing something that weighs so much this whooole time! He’s incredible!” she said, utterly failing to sell the part in any capacity.

Yeah, great. Ham it up, why don’t you? I clicked my tongue at her internally, then forced myself to get back on track and thrust my right arm out before me. Tomoyo’s eyes widened; she knew my mannerisms well, and she could tell exactly what I was about to do.

“Oh, you dumbass, you cannot be serious! Are you really planning on reciting the Malediction of Unleashing now, of all times?!”

“Don’t be so quick to judge, Tomoyo,” said Sayumi. “Andou’s Malediction isn’t necessarily as meaningless of a gesture as you seem to think it is.”

“Huh...? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I believe it’s possible that to Andou, the Malediction of Unleashing serves the same sort of purpose as an athlete’s pre-shot routine.”

“A pre-shot routine...? You mean, like, the little tics the pros have? Like how some baseball players re-roll their sleeves every time they get up to bat, or how some tennis players always bounce the ball a couple times before they hit a serve?”

“Exactly. They serve as a sort of ritual for the players. By performing a certain action consciously and deliberately, they ensure that they never let their play become too rote or mechanical and focus themselves to an intense degree of concentration. It could very well be that by reciting the Malediction, Andou is putting himself into a state of mind that’s fully and perfectly focused upon the use of his ability.”

“Okay, sure, but no matter how focused he is, his ability’s...well, you know...”

“Nevertheless, let’s believe in him. It’s not like we have a complete understanding of even our own abilities. For all we know, there may be something more to his that we simply haven’t grasped yet. Andou has confronted his power with more sincerity and dedication than any of us, and I believe we should stake our hopes on him.”

“It’s okay, Tomoyo,” a small voice added.

“Chifuyu...” said Tomoyo, glancing down at the little girl.

“At times like these, Andou has what it takes.”

“Andou...”

I could feel their gazes on my back. Their feelings—their passion—gave me the power I needed. I paused, took a deep breath, and began to recite the cursed incantation that would unleash my power onto this world!

“I am he who congers—concwers—congwews—!”

A deafening silence descended, muffling the world in its awkward embrace.

Oh god. I flubbed it. When the cards were down and push came to shove, I totally flubbed it. Oooh, god, grant me the sweet mercy of death!

Seriously, what do I do about this? It’s like time’s literally stopped in here! Since when was I able to use Closed Clock? Speaking of Tomoyo, I felt an incredibly intense stare burning a hole in my back. I could almost hear her voice in my mind, telling me that she was an idiot for believing in me for even a second.

In front of me, meanwhile, Kudou was clearly struggling to come up with an appropriate reaction. The look in her eyes just screamed “What on earth is this guy trying to do, here?” I suddenly had a new appreciation for the phrase “between a rock and a hard place.”

“Screw it! Malediction canceled! Dark and Dark!”

In the face of overpowering shame so intense I wanted to drop dead on the spot, I decided to cut to the chase, bring out my power, and gloss over the whole debacle I’d just inflicted upon myself. My pre-shot routine was in shambles. This would be the single sloppiest invocation of Dark and Dark I’d ever executed, but sloppy or not, the usual transcendentally awesome jet-black flame erupted from my hand.

“So that’s your power, Andou?” asked Kudou.

“That’s right! Born from the umbral depths of chaos incarnate and mighty enough to burn the very gods to ash: the stygian fires of Hell itself!” I declared triumphantly, raising my flame-adorned hand overhead. “Now—let us begin the end of the beginning!”

I decided that was the perfect moment to bust out the ridiculously deep and profoundly meaningful catchphrase I’d come up with for myself. Kudou’s eyes narrowed as she inspected my power...then smiled.

“There it is! You’ve shown me your power!”

“Wha—?!” A sudden, overwhelming sense of lethargy swept over me, and I fell to my knees. The sable flame atop my palm wavered. I was losing control of Dark and Dark. No, not losing it—it was being stolen from me!

“And now,” declared Kudou, “your power is mine!” With that, Dark and Dark’s flame left my hand entirely, leaping directly over to hers instead.

“D-Dark and Dark! Dark and Dark!” I desperately shouted, but my call was in vain. However much I screamed, I was unable to invoke my power. “K-Kudou Mirei! You didn’t!”

“Oh, but I did. My power allows me to steal the powers of others!”

I recoiled with shock and horror, but it wasn’t long before I realized how much sense that really made. I’d been careless. She’d gone out of her way to tell us that she wanted to get a look at our powers, and she’d just stood there passively during our extended, insufferable back-and-forth banter session. She hadn’t made the slightest move to attack us herself. Every action she had taken was for the sake of tricking me into using my power.

“Dark and Dark...” I crumbled, lying prone on the floor. I could intuitively sense the truth behind her words. Dark and Dark had vanished from within me, leaving only a gaping void in its place. It was gone. Dark and Dark was gone, and nothing I could do would bring it back.

“It’s been by my side for the past half year, supporting me through good times and bad... Dark and Dark...” I lamented my loss. The grief that was tormenting me was no less potent than that of an elderly retiree lamenting the passing of their spouse. “It was always there to listen to me... Every morning when I woke up, I’d say ‘Good morning, Dark and Dark,’ and every night before bed, I’d say ‘Sleep tight, Dark and Dark’...”

“Wait, like, for real?! Holy crap, that’s creepy!”

I was so focused on my unfolding personal tragedy that I didn’t even hear Tomoyo’s jab. “Take my leg! Or my arm! Take both of them! You can even have my heart...just give it back! It’s the only superpower I have!”

“I know you’re quoting Ed when he transmutes Al’s soul! Stop it!”

But Kudou didn’t react to my spirit-rending wails or Tomoyo’s nitpicking. She was too busy inspecting my power. “Hmm. So this is Andou Jurai’s ability...?” she muttered to herself, manifesting the black flame in her hand and peering inquisitively at it.

Oh, gods... My very own Dark and Dark is getting used by somebody else. “Right in front of me... Some random new character just NTR’d Dark and Dark, right before my eyes...”

“Pretty sure that’s not the right word for this situation!”

“God dammit, Dark and Dark, were you just playing around with me this whole time?! Toying with my poor, innocent heart?! Are you okay with anyone using you?! Dark and Dark, you slut! Harlot!”

“Your anger is seriously misdirected!”

“But...I gotta admit...it does feel kinda nice, in a really messed up sorta way... This is the most tragic thing that’s ever happened to me, but it’s also sorta exciting!”

“This is not the time to awaken to a cuckoldry fetish!”

“Ugggh...” The shame and disgrace were so overpowering, I couldn’t even stand. How could I have made this grave of a mistake? I went in for an all-out suicide attack, and all I managed to accomplish with it was getting my power stolen by the enemy.

“So, it makes black fire? That’s it? What an incredibly useless ability,” mused Kudou, already sounding bored with it. It seemed that she was granted an innate understanding of the traits of the powers she stole.

“I was hoping it would have some secret effect that wasn’t immediately apparent, but no, against all odds, it really is an utterly powerless superpower... Not that it matters, really.” Kudou turned her pointed glare behind me, toward the other members of the literary club. “I was after all of your powers to begin with.”

I was speechless. Confronted with the power to steal other powers, I was stricken by how terrifying such an ability really was. I finally understood: she’d come here to make all of my friends’ god-tier abilities her own.

“I probably don’t need to explain this to you,” noted Kudou, “but there’s no limit to the number of powers I can steal. I can keep Andou Jurai’s power and take all of yours at the same time without issue.”

That declaration snuffed out the last spark of hope I had left. If she’d only been able to steal one power at a time, then we probably would’ve been able to manage, one way or another, but if she claimed all five of our abilities, she’d turn into a monster beyond all imagination—a monster capable of bringing the entire world to its knees.

“All right,” she said, spreading her arms wide open. “Come at me! All of you at once!”

There was nothing I could do. Staying on the ground and clenching my teeth was the best I had to offer. My clubmates’ unparalleled powers would be turned against us. The stronger we were, the stronger our foe would become. Dammit... It’s hopeless. We’ve lost.

But then, somebody walked past me.

“Tomoyo?!” She stood before me, facing down Kudou. “Wh-What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Don’t worry about it,” she replied. “Just shut up for a second.”

What on earth is she planning? She’s not gonna try to use Closed Clock to stop time and take Kudou out before she has the chance to steal it, is she? It wouldn’t have been a totally hopeless plan, but it would’ve been a massive risk that hinged on the specifics of Kudou’s ability. If it activated in the literal instant she saw Closed Clock get used, she’d be able to steal it away before Tomoyo could do anything, and then we’d be finished. It would be an all-or-nothing gamble.

“So, you’ll be the first to offer me your power, Kanzaki Tomoyo?”

“Nah, wasn’t planning on it.”

“Hah! You’re planning something. I can tell that much. Well, fine. Have it your way. Go on—show me your power!”

“No.”

It was as blunt and concise as a reply could get, and Kudou obviously had no idea what to make of it. “Huh...? Wait, but...what?”

“If I show you my power, then you’ll just steal it, right? Of course I’m not gonna use it.”

Kudou stared blankly at Tomoyo, her eyes wide.

“When you took Andou’s power, you said, ‘There it is! You’ve shown me your power!’ Seems pretty easy to guess that your ability has a condition. You have to see the moment somebody activates their power if you wanna steal it, right?”

“That’s... I...”

“Looks like I’m right on the money. Yeah, there’s no way any of us are gonna use our powers now.”

I was just as taken aback by Tomoyo’s declaration as Kudou was. Oh... Oh, right! That would be an option! If using our powers means they get stolen, we can just not use them! I hadn’t considered the possibility at all. It felt like a massive loophole in the whole system. Like, seriously, who would ever think of walking into a supernatural battle and not using their supernatural powers?

“So, yeah, I guess that means this fight’s gonna be hand to hand from here on out. Hey, Kudou, do you think you can take on all five of us in a fistfight at once?”

“Ugh... B-But I still have a trump card! I have Andou Jurai’s power on my side! It may be one-on-five, but I’m the only one here who can actually use her power, which gives me the advantage!”

“No, Kudou! You don’t understand a thing!” said Tomoyo with a gleeful, sadistic grin. “You’ve severely underestimated how useless Andou’s power is! It’s really, truly, one hundred percent useless!”

Kudou gasped in shock. The same sort of shock, incidentally, that I was feeling delivered directly to my heart. Like, couldn’t she have been at least a little less direct about it? Maybe soften the blow just a tad?

“He he he he he!”

Suddenly, an unnerving laugh rang out.

“Now then, Miss Kudou, I believe it’s time for us to battle!” said Sayumi, stepping up to the front line with a look on her face that said she was enjoying every second of this. “Or is five-on-one too one-sided for your taste? If that’s the case, I’d be more than happy to take you on alone. I am the club president, after all!”

Sayumi, of course, was the most combat-capable member of the literary club by an absolute mile. “He he he!” she chuckled menacingly. “I must say, you gave me quite the scare! I do hope you’ll forgive me if I’m so frightened I happen to forget to hold back.”

“T-Takanashi...?” said Kudou, her voice quavering. “W-Wait, aren’t you...?”

“A black belt in both judo and karate, yes. Is there a problem?”

Kudou squealed with terror, and Sayumi once again erupted into ecstatic laughter. She was venting all the stress that had built up over our encounter with Kudou, all at once. I just knew she was thinking something along the lines of “Oh, you’re going to pay for scaring me like that, you little cretin!”

Kudou backpedaled, her face white as a sheet. I could tell from her expression that Dark and Dark was the only power she’d stolen up to that point. She didn’t have anything else in stock to defend herself with.

“C-Crap!” With no hope of victory remaining, Kudou spun around on the spot and made a break for it. Unfortunately for her, it was too late. The door slammed shut before she could make her escape.

“You’re not getting away that easily!” I shouted. I’d seen her flight coming and had stealthily crawled around behind her while her attention was focused on Sayumi.

“A-Andou...Jurai...”

“Mwa ha ha!” I cackled like a supervillain, basking in the triumphant glory of victory. “Everything’s gone just as planned!”

“Wh-What?!” Kudou’s eyes widened. “N-No way! You were aiming for this from the very beginning?!”

“Exactly!”

“You even saw through my ability in advance?! You were afraid of what might happen if I stole your allies’ powers, so you played the clown just as an act to make me drop my guard?! You used your own pathetically useless power as bait to figure out the specifics of my power and seal it away completely?! Although I thought you were just a buffoon, all of your idiocy was an act for the sake of setting up this very moment?!”

“Eeexactly!”

“Andou Jurai...what sort of Machiavellian genius are you?!”

“Mwa ha ha! Mwa ha ha ha ha! Mwaaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaa!”

Holy crap! This is so! much! fun! I just used a worthless power to take down the strongest power around! Like, seriously, it feels like I’m savoring a pure distillation of the best the supernatural battle genre has to offer! Having everything go just according to plan: hella cool!

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, pal,” said Tomoyo, giving me a smack on the head. “‘Just as planned’ my ass. This was all a coincidence, and you know it.”

“Don’t be absurd! This is the best sorta plot twist! Every supernatural battle story has to have a moment where the protagonist defeats their mightiest foe only to have an even mightier foe emerge from the shadows and reveal that everything that’s happened, including the protagonist’s own actions, was all part of their master plan!”

“Sure, but what you’re doing here’s a laughably obvious retcon, at best!”

“Okay, but when you really think about it, most of the time that twists like that come up in manga or light novels, they couldn’t be anything but retcons either.”

“Don’t drag other people’s stories down to your level just to pad your ego!”

As Tomoyo and I kicked off another of our usual banter sessions, I glanced down at the ground. Sayumi had Kudou in a perfectly executed judo arm bar, her legs pinning the president firmly to the floor.

“Stoooooop!” wailed Kudou, practically in tears. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I regret everything! I take it all back, so please, just let me gooo!”

Hatoko walked over to me as I watched the spectacle unfold. “Hey, Juu...? What did she even want from us, anyway?”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. She’d popped up out of nowhere and gotten shut down just as abruptly. She was defeated before she even had the chance to establish her character and motivations.

In any case, I could say one thing for sure: the literary club’s monumental, first ever supernatural battle ended with our overwhelming victory.

☆

A large cherry blossom tree grew outside the literary club’s window, a short ways away from the school. Flower petals gently fluttered from its innumerable branches as young leaves grew to take their place.

On one of those branches, the leaves had company: a man, hanging upside-down from the bough like a bat. No, not hanging—he was standing upside-down. He wasn’t holding on to anything, nor did anything seem to be supporting his weight. He was just standing there, plain and simple.

His black clothes and silvery-white hair were similarly unperturbed by the force of gravity. It was as if heaven and earth had decided to swap places exclusively in the man’s immediate vicinity. If anyone had been around to observe his uncannily reversed silhouette, it would have evoked a distinct image: that of an inverted cross.

“Bwa ha ha!” the man laughed, in his own uniquely humorless way. He peered through his sunglasses into the window of the very literary club he had once called himself a member of. Within the clubroom, Andou Jurai was laughing as well, celebrating his successful repulsion of Kudou Mirei’s attempted raid. Andou Jurai...or rather, Guiltia Sin Jurai.

The man who was staring so fixedly at Andou had heterochromatic eyes. His right eye was red, redder than red, a brighter red than the most vivid nightshade, a red more brilliant than the blood that ran through his veins—a crimson that put even the flames of hell to shame. His left eye, meanwhile, was black, blacker than black, a darker black than the darkest lacquerware, a black deeper than shadow—an ebon more intense than the dead of night.

That man, his eyes standing in such sharp contrast with one another, was none other than...me!

“Looks like this story’s actually in first person!”

My little game of narrating my life in third person as if I were a character in some super cool novel complete, I returned my attention to the clubroom and the boy within. Andou Jurai had lived up to my expectations, or perhaps even exceeded them. Kudou Mirei had barely managed to put up a fight before he’d brought her down.

“Good thing too. Wouldn’t be fun at all if he couldn’t pull that much off. Bwa ha ha!”

“There you are, Hajime!”

Somebody called out a name—the name I’d taken on as an alias to use while I remained in this world. A moment later, ripples spread through the air in front of me, and from that warp in reality, a single woman appeared, intruding upon my upside-down domain. Everything about her, from the shade of her hair, to the color of her eyes, to the style of her clothes, felt disconnected from reality. More than anything else, though, the pair of tiny, translucent wings that sprouted from her back were what identified her as a spirit.

“If it isn’t Leatia. Need something?”

“Yeah, I need you to pick up your damn phone! You turned it off again, didn’t you?”

“Yup. Didn’t want you butting in and interrupting the show.”

“Don’t give me that shit! If you take more than five seconds to pick up when I call, it means you screwed the pooch! You got that, asshole?!” Leatia floated in front of me, scowling and cursing up a storm. She looked cute on the outside, but she just couldn’t help herself from swearing like a sailor. “Seriously,” she moaned, “couldn’t they have put me in charge of a guy with looks and brains...?”

“The feeling’s mutual,” I replied. “I’d take someone who can actually appreciate my sense of aesthetics over you any day of the week.”

“Uhh, seriously? You really think there’s anyone out there who could get behind your gross-ass ‘aesthetics’? You could search all over the human and the spirit realms and not even find a single person!”

“Oh, but I did find one,” I said, staring once more through the literary club’s window. The excitement in my tone wasn’t an act; it came very naturally to me. “After year after year of nothing but dipshits who don’t understand a thing about me, I finally found someone I can actually talk to.”

Leatia just stared at me blankly.

“Anyway, think you could get outta my face? See the girl doing the arm bar in there? She’s just one lucky move away from letting me see up her skirt, and you’re blocking the view.”

“Fuck you! Were you even listening, shit-for-brains?! I was trying to call you ’cause I have something important to talk about!”

“Hey.” My words came out so cold and distant, I almost surprised myself. “I told you to move, didn’t I? And look at you. Not moving. You know what that means, right?”

I didn’t wait for her to reply. Without the slightest hint of hesitation, I let my destructive impulses take the wheel and unleashed my power.

“Lucifer’s Strike.”

A black orb materialized out of nowhere in front of Leatia’s chest. It was roughly the size of a golf ball, and it was so potently, profoundly dark, it seemed to devour the very light around it.

“Huh?! W-Wait a second! Cut it—”

Leatia didn’t even have time to cry out in horror before the ball of darkness consumed her whole. And not just her—matter, light, and even space itself were swallowed up at an explosive pace. Picture the water getting drained out of a pool, and you’ll have the right idea.

That was my power: the ironclad hammer of a fallen angel, fit to crush the heavens and the fools who rule them, Lucifer’s Strike. It granted me the power to desecrate the force of gravity. It was, quite literally, a destructive force powerful enough to bring down the heavens above and turn the world on its head. It was the symbol of my rebellion against God.

The black orb that I’d made was a miniature black hole, a product of fine-tuned manipulation of gravity. There’s no way to dodge an attack like that. How could you evade a gravitational field so powerful that even space-time is twisted by its influence? Anything and everything that existed within its area of effect would be crushed by the hand of an invisible giant, condensed to a single point by pure, overwhelming pressure.

I, however, grasped that all-consuming orb in my own hand and instantly destroyed it. And it felt incredible. It felt like I held the world itself within the palm of my hand.

“Bwa ha ha ha! Bwaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

“Okay, for real, literally drop dead!” shouted Leatia, who was still right in front of me, completely unharmed and unambiguously pissed. “You know that those powers don’t work on spirits, right? What the hell were you trying to accomplish with that?”

“Bwa ha ha! Setting the tone, of course! You gotta bust out your secret move every once in a while. Imagine if I actually needed to use it, but it’d been so long since the last time I’d done it that I screwed it up. That’d be the worst, right?”

“Remind me again, who was it that crushed F without even using his power so much as once?” I didn’t bother to answer her question, so she carried on. “They really did have a godlike power on their side. Even the War Management Committee was treating them as a serious threat that would have to be dealt with... And yet, a single man took them down, all on his own...”

“What about it? Got a problem with that?”

She gave me a long, appraising look. “Just how serious are you about all this?”

“I’m always totally serious about everything,” I replied. “Do you remember what I said a year ago, when you gave me this power? I told you I would rule over this War, and I meant it.”

“Is that why you’re keeping them isolated from the War?” asked Leatia, disregarding half of what I’d said and turning her gaze to the literary club. “To keep part of your fighting force in reserve?”

Half a year ago, those five children were made to awaken to supernatural powers.

Dark and Dark: Andou Jurai.

Closed Clock: Kanzaki Tomoyo.

Over Element: Kushikawa Hatoko.

Sweet and Sour Pineapple: Himeki Chifuyu.

And Route of Origin: Takanashi Sayumi.

I feel like I might’ve gotten one of those a little wrong, but I can’t remember how it was supposed to go, so whatever. Now that was a solid set of titles, seriously. I would’ve liked to have named my little sister’s power myself, honestly, but that’s water under the bridge.

“Four out of five of them ended up with ridiculously powerful abilities,” said Leatia. “In terms of pure power alone, in fact, they’re in the top class of all the Players participating in the War. If those four girls joined your team, I can only imagine how—”

“You’ve misjudged me, Leatia,” I said, cutting her off. I looked my Spirit Handler right in the eye. “I just don’t want my sister getting wrapped up in the War, that’s all. I was a worthless older brother, but if I can protect her from all this, then I want to do that, at the very least...”

“Oh, spare me the stupid jokes. I haven’t known you for long, but I know you well enough to know that’s not your style.”

“Oh, do you?” What a shame. Girls who can’t take a joke bore me to tears. “There’s one more thing you’re wrong about, Leatia. The scariest out of those five isn’t one of the girls. No, the most frightening of all of them is him—Andou Jurai.”

“Him? You’re screwing with me, right? That guy’s power’s as trash-tier as it gets. He’s far and away the smallest small fry out of all the Players! All there’s to say about him is that he really drew the short straw.”

“You just don’t get it. How many times have I told you that the power of chuunibyou makes the world go round?”

My thoughts turned to Andou. To Guiltia Sin Jurai. To the man I’d been waiting for this whole time. To the man who was both my lifelong comrade in arms and my fated arch-enemy.

“He’ll step forward to stand against me, someday. He’ll be my strongest...and final foe.”

“Seriously...just die, please. I can’t believe how hard it is to drag a coherent thought outta your thick-ass skull.” Leatia clicked her tongue at me. It was obvious she didn’t have the slightest idea about my true intentions.

I was used to people not understanding the way I thought, though, so I just brushed it off. I’ve always been misunderstood. I’ve lived a life of constant rejection. I’ve suffered loss after loss at the hands of this society that’s so dead set in its confidence that its ways are the only ways.

“Then again, as much as we get along, we really couldn’t be more different,” I added. “He’s the sort of chuuni who spends his classes fantasizing about what he’d do to save everyone if terrorists took over the school. I’m the sort of chuuni who fantasized about the best way to massacre everyone in the classroom.”

We were similar, yet different on an absolute and insurmountable level. Identical on the surface, but polar opposites inside.

Kiryuu Hajime and Andou Jurai. Kiryuu Heldkaiser Luci-First and Guiltia Sin Jurai.

“So, hey, question. Just what are you trying to do, in the end?” asked Leatia with a skeptical, appraising glare.

“I want to be Don Quixote,” I answered off the cuff. I wanted to be the ever-dreaming fool who hurled down his gauntlet to the world; the man who stayed true to his beliefs and fought for them to the bitter end, even as he was scorned, ridiculed and despised by his peers; the first and greatest case study in chuunibyou.

Leatia looked confused. “You...want to be a discount department store?”

Oh, come on. Why does absolutely everyone think of Don Quijote first? “Anyway, didn’t you want me for something, Leatia?”

“Ah, right! I finally found the next Player for you to battle!”

“Their power?”

“Unknown.”

“Good. That’s how a supernatural battle should be.”

“Don’t get complacent, dipshit. Your next target’s tough enough to have taken down several other Players already. Sounds like they’re one of your people—the ones who actually like fighting.”

“Hah! Bring it on! It doesn’t matter who I’m up against. Anyone who tries to defy me gets a one-way ticket to The Heavens’ Hell.”

“Of course you’d drop your lame-ass catchphrase there. Please, I’m begging you, just die already.”

“Bwa ha ha!”

I returned my gravity to normal and dropped from the cherry tree’s branch, activating my ability once more a mere instant before I collided with the ground and setting my weight to virtually zero for a flawless and soundless touchdown. Then I set off with Leatia floating along at my side.

“Guiltia Sin Jurai. Endless Paradox. And...err, the rest of you guys too.” I spoke quietly to myself, not even turning around. “You’re not ready for supernatural battles yet. You can stay here in your little slice of life and carry on your meaningless, commonplace antics...for now.”