“Then, amidst the chaos, it sees a ray of light…”

Half a year ago, Kakizaki Minayo quit her job. She was still living alone in her apartment off allowances from her family and unemployment insurance.

She’d quit the job for personal reasons, not because she was fired. No one knew why she quit—not her superiors, nor her co-workers with whom she ate lunch and spent most of her day.

It was, in fact, for one of the most clichéd reasons that a woman would quit her job: because of a man. She was pregnant.

But before the baby could grow bigger in her belly, she’d miscarried. Since then, she’d spent her days in a daze. Her daily schedule consisted of cleaning her apartment daily for no real reason—it wasn’t all that large—and instead of cooking, she’d go out to the convenience store to buy bentos or whatever was on offer, eat what she’d bought, then sleep. This was the monotonous lifestyle she led. She probably should have been looking for a new job or gone back to her parents, but it was too much of a hassle for her to think about such things.

Then, one day, she went out as usual to the convenience store to buy food.

“Oh, they don’t have that toothbrush anymore…” she muttered to herself, looking at the display shelves. She hadn’t met with or spoken to anyone lately, so she had gotten into the habit of speaking to herself. She spoke quietly, of course, so her voice was almost imperceptible to others.

“Oh well… I suppose I’ll go for this one.”

Then, just as she picked up the product…

“I just told you to shut up, didn’t I…?!”  came a voice from behind her suddenly.

Surprised, she turned around and saw what looked like a high-school girl standing there.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, and the girl turned to face her.

She looked a little pale. That, and Minayo’s apology had snapped her out of something.

“O-oh, no. Not at all… Sorry, I wasn’t talking to you.” Now she was apologizing.

“…?” Minayo was baffled. The girl continued.

“U-uhm… Excuse me…!” She began to say something but couldn’t seem to express it. Her lips were trembling.

“Can I help you?” asked Minayo in response.

“U-uh, well… A-are you okay?!” she blurted out.

“…What?”

“D-did something, uhm…t-terrible happen to you?” she asked suddenly.

Minayo’s eyes went wide. “Sorry…?”

“S-something must have happened! The way you’re going right now… No, uh… how do I even explain this? It-it’s dangerous!”

There was a serious look in her eyes. An urgency. Not at all like one of those evangelists who possess a strange self-assurance and confidence, with whom you feel like you’re being talked down to. There was none of that.

It was as if… Almost as if she was acting the way Minayo had herself just a short while ago, she thought.

She decided to go along with her for now and leave the store, as it was difficult to talk inside.

“Err, you are..?” Minayo asked the girl, as they sat on a nearby bench.

“Honami Akiko. Ah—” Just as she’d said it, she winced. Maybe it was a bad idea to give away her name.

“Honami-san? Tell me, what exactly is dangerous for me?”

“Ah, well, that’s… Err…”

“Do you know me? Because I don’t recall you.”

“No, I don’t know you. We’ve never met before, but, the thing is…”

She was all over the place and wouldn’t get to the point. With resignation, Minayo introduced herself and asked her a number of questions.

She learned that Akiko was indeed a high-schooler—at Shinyo Academy, apparently. Minayo wondered if that was why she was here now, but she was hesitant to elaborate on that.

Ultimately, she had absolutely no idea why it was so important for this girl to speak to her.

“…You said something odd earlier. You asked me if I was okay?”

“Y-yeah, I did.”

“Can you tell me…why I wouldn’t be?”

“W-well…because of your li-“

“Li-?”

“Your…life.” Akiko had struggled to come out with it, but at last stated it clearly.

In that moment, Minayo’s face froze.

The day he proposed to her was the day that she herself realized that she was pregnant and had begun fretting whether or not to tell him. She cried.

“Silly,” he said with a smile. But she still couldn’t smile—the tears wouldn’t stop.

Then a week later, completely unexpectedly, he died. It was a traffic accident, the most commonplace and trivial of things. He was crossing an intersection, when suddenly he was hit by a car who’d ignored the traffic lights. The car had also failed to swerve and crashed into a concrete wall—the driver was killed instantly. There had been nowhere for her to direct her anger.

She came to realize then, now that she thought about it, that nobody had known about him and her. They were co-workers at the same company and workplace relationships were forbidden, so she’d kept it secret. They were planning on introducing themselves to their parents but hadn’t gotten as far as contacting them yet.

And then she’d even lost the life growing in her womb. When it had happened, she couldn’t have imagined that that was what it was,  but then the doctor shook his head and informed her that it was a miscarriage.

“It was still in the fetal stage, so you wouldn’t have exhibited many symptoms yet. There is…no longer a child in your belly.”

She didn’t know how to react. It was only once she’d quit her job that she realized everything had essentially been “wiped clean.” She couldn’t stay at work. Not because she was afraid that they might find out about her relationship with him; it was just that she couldn’t be there anymore. Going on working at the same place like normal, without him… The thought was unbearable.

But simply quitting her job wasn’t going to help her get by either. If she didn’t keep up, the trash in her room would start to pile up. Though she was living in a daze, tidying up such things was like a daily ritual.

Just mindlessly living. There was likely no reason for it. Maybe that’s just how it had to go.

But…now…

Now this girl she’d never met before was telling her that her life was in danger.

Why?

Why would my life be something that matters?

“Life…”

The moment she heard the word, something in Minayo changed. It was as if everything had gone out of focus, a vacant look on her face.

“Yeah…that’s right. I know it sounds weird, but—” Akiko shook her head and struggled to find the words. She had no idea how she’d explain this, but she had to get the message across somehow.

“What do you mean by that? ‘Life?’” Minayo looked pale—white as a sheet. “You mean I’ve lost my reason for living…? Is that what you’re saying?”

“N-no, how do I put this? I see death in you. No, that’s not right…”

Akiko was frantic. Why were everyday words so lacking? Whenever she tried to explain the part that really mattered, it kept coming out wrong. It was so debilitating. How did she ever manage to communicate with others until now if she was this inept?

But while Akiko was stumped for words, Minayo herself spoke up.

“You think there’s a reason, do you?” she said in a hushed voice. “What makes you so sure something like that exists?”

“Huh?” Akiko was taken aback by the sudden fierceness in her voice. She didn’t know that she had inadvertently flipped the switch which had been hidden away—and which Minayo had been keeping hidden—within her heart this whole time.

“Why are any of us alive right now? Who gets to decide a thing like that?!” she exploded.

Wh-what?

Amid Akiko’s confusion, Embryo chimed in.

[[It’s her heart.]]

Huh? What now?

[[People’s hearts are like a ticking time bomb… Just waiting for their moment to go off, even if they don’t realize it themselves… Same for her. She must’ve been waiting this whole time for the moment she can feel it’s okay for her to die.]]

W-wait, what? Th-then…

Even as she continued her conversation, which was inaudible to others, Minayo’s tirade went on.

“I… Why am I alive? He’s dead. My baby’s gone. But I’m still here… What the hell is this?!”

She’d been bottling it up all along, stopping herself from thinking about it. That, and she couldn’t endure thinking about it . The human mind automatically saves the content of its thoughts  from exhaustion; once she’d subconsciously thought it, she’d instinctively avoided dulling her resolve for when the time came.

The worst barrier to resolve and action is really “habit.” Even when you have the most pressing issue before you, if you keep thinking you’ll do it some other time, it’ll eventually fall by the wayside. She’d known this deep down, which was why she tried not to think about it.

But somewhere along the way, her resolution had petered out. This was why, even living alone, she’d always clean her room till it was spotless, why there was never any spoiled food in the fridge. Because she’d make do with buying things from the store, even down to the smallest thing.

Her preparations to avail herself of this world were already long finished.

She didn’t know herself when the time would come. Maybe she’d slump onto a busy road. Or fall onto the train platform. Or climb over the railing of a building’s roof.

She’d be acting in a fit of despair, perhaps. But the truth of it was that she’d been waiting for this to happen for so long, and now…

“I-I… I…”

…But then she realized.

“I…I wanted to die along with him…!” she cried, and fell to the ground sobbing, her forehead pressed to her knees.

“………”

Akiko didn’t know what to do. She could more or less guess the circumstances from what she’d been saying—that she’d lost someone very important to her and the shock had subconsciously driven her to wanting to follow them to the grave. Akiko was right on the mark.

[[So? What’cha wanna do?]] butted in Embryo again.

W-what do you do in this kind of situation?

How could anyone know that? She was just a teenager . What could she possibly say to a grown-up woman who wanted to kill herself?

“Uh…Minayo-san?”

Even so, she managed to wring out her voice. She had to say something. If she let this be, the woman might really jump out onto the road and kill herself. After all, death was half-poking out of her already.

“I don’t know what it is exactly that happened to you, and I’m sure I probably wouldn’t understand even if I asked you for the details, but…” She took a long, deep breath. “But I know that the pain you’re feeling is so bad, you feel like you want to die. And it’s not an exaggeration to say that. I know it’s not the sort of thing that goes away after a while. The way you’re going right now, you really will die.”

She desperately squeezed out her voice, on the verge of trembling. “So…let me ask you this. Are you trying to take revenge on the people who died…because they did something terrible to you?”

“……”

Minayo’s shoulders twitched.

“They left you behind, died before you did, and it’s so cruel of them that you can’t take it. That’s what you’re thinking? That’s why you want to die? Even though these people  would never, ever have wanted you to die? Or is that the reason? You feel like you want to die because you want to say to them, ‘serves you right’…? Because that’s the way it looks to me.”

“………” Minayo didn’t answer.

“If that’s the case, then the fact that you met these people… No, even if they’d never been born and you had never met them, um… Even that desire for them to be born… If you’ve decided that you’re going to kill yourself, then all of that would, uh… It would all be for nothing.”

The words from Akiko’s mouth were like a poorly read speech. Minayo didn’t move.

“Living is… I’m sure it’s, uh…not really all that fun, really. There are lot more painful things than nice things, so it’s true that it would be a lot easier to just die. But…but at least, you feel sorrow for the life that once tried to be born, and that alone should be, um…”

Akiko clammed up once again, but quickly resumed.

“You have a responsibility not to be crushed by the weight of that sadness. Otherwise, it’d mean that that life existed only to cause you hurt. Is that what you want it to be? Is that really the kind of thing you’d wish for?” She finished with a gulp.

“………”

Minayo was still frozen stiff, face looking down. But eventually, her shoulders began to tremble.

“……Ohh…” A small sound escaped her lips. “……Oohhh, ohhh…” It was different to her crying until now—a moan, almost.

“Ohhhhhh……!” And then she began to stamp on the ground with her feet. Again, and again, wailing like a child having a tantrum, stomping up and down on the spot.

She was bawling her eyes out.

It was a rampage brought on by the most intolerable vexation. Her sadness hadn’t subsided at all, and even if it were to lessen in future, it would never fully disappear. And yet…the reason why she was frustrated was because she was openly expressing her anger—the anger of having to relinquish her feelings. The “death” from her back had already disappeared.

By the time she raised her face, bright red from weeping her eyes out, Honami Akiko was gone.

“Haah, haah, haah…”

After she had run away, Akiko sank to the floor inside the cave.

[[Gotta hand it to you… that was one helluva speech,]] piped up Embryo. [[Never thought you had it in ya… To be honest, I thought—]]

“Just shut up!” yelled Akiko. “You’ve got to be kidding me! All of this is just… I can’t take it with these powers anymore!” Now she, too, was in tears. “It’s too much! I can’t deal with seeing people’s death! I’ve had enough!”

She scrunched up her face and shook her head over and over. “Am I…going to have to see things like that all the time? To think up that kind of stuff every single time? There’s no way!”

Sitting there was just an ordinary girl. There was no trace of the attitude she’d had when she weaved those stirring words just a short while ago.

The truth was, not even the words had really belonged to her. They’d been borrowed from some girl who had said those things to her. She didn’t recall where it was, or who—only that it was a girl her age. Maybe it was… No, she couldn’t remember.

Then there was Kyou-nii-chan. If that kid had been alive, he might have said something like that. But he was long dead. She didn’t really have anything she felt she ought to say to a woman who wanted to kill herself. The only reason she could was because that lady was sure she was loved by the departed. Not many people in the world were as lucky.

It was sheer luck. If she’d encountered someone with a different set of circumstances, what would she have done then?

“I give up. Just make it stop. Help me…” whimpered Akiko, as she planted herself on the ground.

[[You want me to help?]]  Embryo asked. [[In that case…]]

“I’m sick and tired of you always telling me to kill you!” she yelled.

But Embryo responded in a calm voice. [[How about Takashiro Tooru? Wouldn’t he be able to help you?]]

“Huh?”

[[If you met up with him, think it’d ease your pain a little?]]

“What are you talking about? Y-you mean… you know where Tooru-san is…?”

[[…Can’t say for sure, but I’ve got a feeling I might be able to…‘call’ him.]]

“You’re free to go,” said the guard.

“………” But Tooru wouldn’t move. He stayed stock still, eyes closed.

“…I-I’m telling you to leave!”

The guard was one of the people who’d tried to stop this guy from hitting his head against the wall in a rampage and got dragged around by him, so he was a little afraid to make a move.

“J-just hurry it up! There’s already a surety  here to pick you up!”

Tooru’s shoulders twitched at the guard’s panicked voice. He had no next of kin, so the people it could be were limited to those involved in the current incident.

He opened his left eye. It was a dark cell, where no light shone.

“Kirima-san?”

“A man by the name of Teratsuki. He’s about your age.”

“Teratsuki…?”

He wasn’t familiar with the name.

“It’s written in the log, Teratsuki Kyouichirou. Come on now, get outta here!”

At last, Tooru lifted himself up and carried his large, slender body out of the cell. As he was being escorted out of the station, he pondered. The name Teratsuki Kyouichirou really didn’t ring a bell.

And when he reached the room, Tooru caught the eyes of that man. He briefly held his breath.

“…Yo.”

The man recognized him and raised a hand. He was indeed young, but…

“………”

As for who it was, Tooru already knew.

“So, what’cha wanna eat?”

After leaving the police station, the man who had acted as surety had taken Tooru by foot to a family restaurant. The lack of customers suggested there were better establishments in the area. Tooru noticed as the man was opening the menu that his hands were covered with silk gloves.

“…Let's cut to the chase, Habara Kentarou-san,” said Tooru in a low voice.

The man smirked. He appeared not to have any qualms about acting under a false name.

“So you knew.”

“Kirima-san showed me a photo of Masaki. You were in it too.”

“I see. Well, that makes things simple,” Kentarou said with a nod. “I’m a friend of Nagi’s. Close with Masaki too. I’ve known him at least longer than you. Nagi’s doing all she can to locate the missing Honami siblings, which is why I headed over to you.”

“…How’s Masaki’s condition?”

“Bad,” said Kentarou, without missing a beat. Tooru went silent, unable to find a response. Nor did Kentarou continue.

As the silence grew heavy, the waitress came to take their orders. Kentarou went ahead and ordered two orange juices without asking Tooru. Once the drinks had been brought to them, Kentarou sighed.

“All right… Before we get down to business, I need to see what you can do.”

“…Hm?” Tooru lifted his head and looked at Kentarou.

“What can you do?” asked Kentarou calmly.

“………”

After a brief silence, Tooru picked up the cold drink and gulped it straight down. He placed the empty glass back down on the table and flicked the rim with his index finger. It spun around and around until eventually, it split clean in two. Each half rolled onto the table.

“………”

Tooru then took the two halves, put them together, and used the straw that had come with the orange juice to suck up a drop of Kentarou’s water  and let it drip onto the cut plane. Finally, he handed the glass back to Kentarou.

“Wow...”

Kentarou spun it around a bit to test it, but the glass, which should have by all accounts been severed in half, was being held together by the water’s surface tension, and held firm. The cut had been so clean that the pieces adhered to each other in the same way that two sheets of plate glass stick to each other with water.

“What’s the logic behind that?”

“I could see the line that told me where to tap it to make it split. That’s where I hit it,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Got it… Interesting power.”

Kentarou knocked the glass on the table a few times, but the pieces held fast. If the staff continued to rinse it, then it was possible that the water acting as an adhesive would never dry up and it would stay like this forever.

“So what you’re saying is, you can find weak points and attack them, yeah? Makes for a pretty decent combat ability.”

“…What do you want me to do?”

“You know the guy you went mano-a-mano with?” Kentarou instead replied with another question. “The one who got you good…this ‘Fortissimo’ guy? Seems he holds a special position even within the Towa Organization… Far as I can tell, it doesn’t look like they even treat him as much of an ally.”

“…What of it?” asked Tooru, staring into Kentarou’s eyes. Kentarou didn’t return eye contact.

“Towa might not be keeping him in check… That’s what it’s looking like. In which case, say he were to in some way abandon his mission and go on a rampage, it’d be the perfect chance to catch Towa red-handed… They’re sure to let something slip. If we can exploit that, we’ll get to gather a whole motherlode of data.

“…What are you getting at?”

“Nagi…” Unsurprisingly, Kentarou didn’t answer his question directly. “Someday or other, she’s gonna take Towa head on. It’ll happen, no question. So in preparation for that time, I personally need to learn as much as I can about our opponent. Since right now, even Nagi herself barely knows anything about them…” Kentarou sighed. “I still don’t even know if it’s a good idea to tell her. But I know that I want to do as much as I can to prepare for it.”

“…Who are you to Kirima-san?”

“An aspiring sidekick. Nah…to be precise, she saved me once. So yeah, Nagi, she’s my benefactor.”

“………” Tooru lowered his eyes. “So…you’re telling me to fight. That I should…confront Fortissimo again?”

“Don’t tell Nagi. If she knew, she’d stop you for sure. After all, you’ve got next to no chance.”

“…That, I know.”

“Then it’s perfect. I’ll arrange a location that works in your favor. Already got a way to get his attention, too. All you need to do is focus on your battle.” Kentarou rattled all this off impassively, but what he was essentially asking Tooru was for him to die.

“…Are you telling me to take revenge for Masaki, even if it costs me my life?” asked Tooru, at which Kentarou suddenly grabbed his drink and drained it dry.

“Ahh…” he sighed, placed the glass back down, and continued in a low voice.

“You’ve met Orihata-chan, right? This is for her. She won’t cry.”

“Huh…?”

“Her beloved Masaki’s wavering on the edge of life and death, and the girl won’t shed a single tear. She doesn’t look sad about it… Just sits as his side, watching over him. Day and night, the whole time.”

“………”

“There’s no way me or Nagi can be in that place… We can’t stand being there a second longer… You know exactly what I mean, don’t you, Tooru-san?” For the first time, Kentarou looked straight at Tooru. Tooru in that moment was keenly aware of the man’s anger, anger at his being the cause of Masaki’s terrible plight.

“It’s not you or me fighting for Masaki. It’s Orihata Aya. She’s the one doing it…!” His voice was forced, quaking. “There’s nothing else any of us can do. So…I have to do this. A halfwit like me has to at least use this opportunity to give Nagi’s future some hope…!”

Though Kentarou’s words were through clenched teeth, they were almost loud enough that others might hear him at any moment.

“………”

Tooru was silent.

Kentarou took out a cash card and threw it on the table.

“It’s counterfeit. There’s only one store you can use to withdraw from, but there should be about two mil  on there. Keep your face hidden from the camera, take out as much as you can from the self-service ATM, then make a quick exit and the money’s yours. They won’t trace you—the goods come from somewhere with no connection to you.”

“………”

Tooru didn’t pay much interest in it. It was more of an advance payment than a reward. Taking it would equate to him taking the job. Even so, he wasn’t interested in looking at it. Instead, his one eye was staring vacantly into space, as if he was gazing inside himself.

“…Are you gonna do it or not? Which is it?” asked Kentarou, glaring.

“…Why did you come to me?”

“What?”

“If I didn’t plan on accepting your proposition, what would you have done?”

“What, are you gonna bail?”

“…That’s not what I’m asking. Why would you ask me? To take such a risk and trust me?” Tooru asked, his expression serious.

But Kentarou shook his head. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t trust you one bit. It’s just…”

“…Hm?”

“Masaki and Nagi trusted you. So I don’t have much choice but to trust you too. If you betray that trust, well, not much I can do about that.” He shrugged.

“………”

Tooru could not comprehend this man, this Habara Kentarou in front of him. He had no idea what he was thinking. But one thing alone was clear: If Tooru were to turn him down, he would undoubtedly move on to some other plan. He was the sort of person who covered all his bases.

And one other thing…

“…And you promise to keep this a secret from Kirima-san?” Tooru reminded him.

“If she found out, she might never talk to me again,” said Kentarou simply.

Tooru nodded and took the credit card. They had an agreement.

“You said you could pick a location for me. What are my options?”

At this, Kentarou pulled out a few pages from his shoulder bag and handed them to Tooru.

“Pick one you like from those.”

Written on them was a list of different buildings, each one a large-scale construction designed for a special purpose. And to the side of each one, some curious notes were written. The details of which, as Tooru read them, gave rise to an evident question.

“How do you know all this stuff? What are these?”

“They’re legacies. Of some man, a nobody,” said Kentarou quiety. “A little something that happened gave me cause to snoop them out. I did some research and whaddaya know, buildings of that sort started popping up all over the place. So I went to check them out, but…” Kentarou sighed.

“Thinking about it, it wasn’t all that hard to guess. Of course the Towa Organization were gonna scope them out too. But they still left them abandoned. Meaning it’s extremely likely that they’re leaving them as bait, waiting for them to be used. That made it kinda hard for me to find a good use for them. I was stumped. But now…” He smirked. “Now we can make use of their traps. They’ll need to have checked the place if we want to use that to trick our opponent.”

“………”

He couldn’t keep up with half of what Kentarou was saying. It seemed the man had already been fighting with someone many times in the past. This information was a byproduct of that.

But if he was in this deep, then…

“………”

Tooru looked back at Kentarou’s hands. They were covered in silk gloves. Then…he was making sure not to leave fingerprints. Tooru was convinced that Kentarou hadn’t directly touched this perfectly ordinary copy paper, nor the printed paper scraps with common lettering .

“Burn those, would you?” said Kentarou, as though reading his mind.

“………”

Tooru’s eye returned to the documents. One thing in particular stood out, and his eyes narrowed.

“This one.” He showed it to Kentarou.

“Hm?” Kentarou saw it and frowned. “Really? Is this a pun on what I just said? ”

“It’s the perfect location,” said Tooru quietly.

“…All right. Well, if you say so. Though, if you’re counting on the remote possibility of getting Fortissimo caught in an ‘accident’ given all the prep, I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

“I know,” said Tooru calmly, shaking his head.

“…Well, whatever. Okay then, we’ve got our place. Incidentally…” Kentarou took out his cellphone. “Do you happen to have some kind of secret code that only you and Fortissimo would recognize?”

“Hmm?”

“You did talk to each other, right? Wasn’t there anything like, I dunno, a keyword? Something other people wouldn’t recognize you by, but Fortissimo would straight away, or something?”

After a brief silence, Tooru soon started laughing. It was a strange laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing… Habara-san, in the end, you don’t really care what happens to me, do you?” Tooru had now slipped completely into a casual way of talking. 

“Whether I fight or run away, none of that matters. Really the number one thing you need is this keyword to lure Fortissimo out, isn’t it? With it, he’ll have accepted someone’s challenge, and that fact alone is good enough for you.”

“………”

“I did think it was strange. Preparing all this money and finding an arena… You never believed I would really want to fight. Any normal person would panic and never want to fight again. But there’s this thing called pride, isn’t there? Anyone can claim that they’ll fight. They’d want money, too. So you could achieve your objective no matter who the opponent is. Heh heh, you’ve really thought this through.”

“…Yeah, so what?” Kentarou appeared a little taken aback at Tooru’s sudden loquaciousness.

“Oh, don’t you worry. You wanted a keyword, yes? There’s one, indeed. Something that came from Fortissimo’s very mouth. ‘Inazuma.’ That’s something that only he’ll understand.”

“Inazuma? As in, the straight-up Japanese meaning?”

“I wonder. But he’ll recognize it, for sure.” Tooru grinned.

“…All right then, I’ll believe you. Inazuma, eh…? Will he get it if I write that in English?”

“I’m sure he will. It sounds even more like a secret code that way,” Tooru said with a grin.

“Right, well, I’ve kept my side of the deal. You better not go check out the site for the battle now. It’ll be pretty damn dangerous.”

There was an insincerity in his voice—Kentarou really didn’t trust him. But Tooru knew. He might not know what would become of Taniguchi Masaki’s older sister, Kirima Nagi, but what he did know was that when that time came, she would need Habara Kentarou’s help. Tooru could do this without a guilty conscience.

Fighting was something he did. Not because anyone ordered him to—it was merely a self-conceited act to fulfil his own personal desire.

As such, he didn’t need any awkward camaraderie here. He had to rid himself of people’s kindness.

“………”

Kentarou poked around on his cell phone to enter some characters and then passed it to Tooru.

“Push the send button and the message’ll go through. Throw the thing away after that.”

“Yes, sir. I just need to push send?”

“Don’t do it here. Wait till you’re at least a kilometer away. Doubt it’ll be traced, but you can never be too careful.”

“Ha ha! One button press for two million, eh?” Tooru accepted the phone, now wholly amused.

“The date and time are written there in the document.”

“Heh heh. I’ve never challenged someone to a duel before. Never stood them up either. Oops, or should I not have said that part out loud?”

Tooru filed the document away in his pocket and then made to stand up.

“Right, well, I doubt the two of us will ever meet again, so…”

“Yeah, I doubt it. …Ah, hold on.” Kentarou put a hand in his pocket and produced a key. “Take this with you. It opens the big coin locker at the underground station’s east gate.”

Tooru took it and frowned. “What’s inside?”

“…Hm?”

“I wasn’t planning on giving it to you, really. Yeah, that’s right… I figured you’d just take the money and run.” Kentarou sighed with resignation, shaking his head. “Didn’t think you’d actually be a samurai. I misjudged you. Sorry,” he said, and bowed his head.

“…What are you saying?” Tooru was confused.

“Come on now… I may be a big-headed oaf, but if there’s one thing I can pride myself on, it’s this. When I met Nagi, I knew that second that she was something special. Somehow or other, I can tell when a person’s serious about something. You’re trying to stop me from going in any deeper, in spite of everything I dropped on you… Heh, I can get on board with that. I won’t go anywhere near or get in your way. But hey, it should be fine for me to at least give you a parting gift, no?”

“………” Kentarou watched him silently.

“…Why?” Tooru asked at last. “Why are you all so kind to me…?” A drop of blood trickled from his missing eye. He clenched his fists. “…I humbly accept your gift.”

It was a weighty thing, far heavier than a one year-old baby .

“………”

He drew the blade a little, hiding it behind the locker door.

The beauty of Japanese blades is often extolled, but this sword was not at all beautiful in that sense. It didn’t gleam, but rather reflected a dull, subdued hue.

But Tooru knew at a glance—this sword had no lines to speak of. There was nothing fragile about it. It was an incredibly solid thing, through and through. Truly, it had to have been tempered so as never to break on the battlefield. In a fight, the sharpness of a sword actually takes second place. Sharpness gives rise to a shortfall when the blade dulls. After dozens of clashes, the sword is covered in mud, showered in blood, caked in grease…and becomes utterly unusable as a cutting implement, such as a box cutter. It becomes a tool for bludgeoning. What really cuts down the enemy is not, in fact, the sharpness of the blade, but the frightening speed with which the wielder strikes and draws back; in other words, “friction” is the principle upon which a sword severs in true battle. It must be unyielding to be of any use.

This work of master swordsmanship had surely been used the very same way.

“………”

Tooru took out the bag and slung it over his shoulder. He fished out the cell phone he was given as he walked out. A single press of the button and there would be no going back. Habara Kentarou, who now had to have been far away from here, had said something to him as they parted.

“You know, I think I heard somewhere that a samurai has this nuance of ‘one who knows shame.’ So if you think you can’t take this guy, running for it would be the samurai thing to do. You get that, right?”

“…You’re saying I shouldn’t fight him seriously?”

“I’m saying, don’t get yourself killed for nothing. I don’t really like this idiom ‘cause I personally like the animal, but… don’t take on an opponent you can’t beat just to take a jab at him and die like a dog .”

“A dog, is it?”

How does a dog who has lost its master go on living?

Tooru smiled wryly. Those were the words of someone who has a place to return to. He no longer had such a place.

He pushed the button effortlessly. Countless messages showed up on the phone’s LCD screen. And casually displayed among them was the word:

Once Tooru confirmed that it had really been sent, he tossed the phone into the rear of a nearby parked truck. The phone, whose weak point he had already struck, landed on a pile of gravel, split into pieces, and was lost in the heap.

“………”

Long after sunset in a deserted park, Kakizaki Minayo was still sitting there on a bench, her body slumped. She’d been wracked with the desperate urge to die, but that very thought was itself proof that the life force inside of her was slowly gaining strength. The words of that Honami Akiko girl had been spiraling around inside her head.

“…Ohhh…” She’d cried so much that her throat was parched. Even so, she couldn’t even stand up to buy a drink.

Then, before her, a figure emerged.

“Whatever are you doing out here?” they asked. It was a strange voice, one that was impossible to discern as male or female.

“…Shut up. Leave me alone.” Minayo forced out the words.

“Really? …That can’t be pleasant. This desire to die, or what have you .”

Minayo must have been muttering to herself out loud.

“None of your damn business. People can think what they want, can’t they…?!”

“You’re absolutely correct,” the voice said playfully. “But if that’s so, why are you sitting out here? I can’t imagine anyone coming all the way out to such a place and crying unless, say, someone said something to you and you had an awful shock.”

“…Yeah, so why should any of that matter to you…?!”

“I happen to be looking for someone. Could you describe to me who it was that spoke to you?”

“…Who are you looking for?”

“My being automatic, I can’t say I know very well right now…but that person is carrying something very dangerous.”

“…Then it’s got nothing to do with me. Because the busybody who spoke to me was a girl called Honami Akiko.”

“Honami…Akiko?” The voice sounded surprised. “You’re sure that was her name?”

“I’m sure.”

“…Did she happen to say anything strange to you? Being able to ‘see your death,’ for instance?”

“Huh?” How could this person have known this?

Minayo lifted her head. It was dark, so she couldn’t see very well, but from their clothes, the figure before her was less like a person and more a pipe that extended up from the ground.

“I see. So the one with the egg was Honami Akiko, the survivor of the miko… A strange quirk of fate indeed,” murmured the figure.

Then, they turned on their heel and vanished before the astonished Minayo like the wind.

[1] The law is fairly self-explanatory. This is the major Japanese weapon control law. Though, it has a uniquely Japanese flair thanks to it’s explicit mention of swords. This is because of various elements of Japanese history, including the Meiji Restoration ban on swords.

[2] An Odachi (大太,刀also referred to as a Nodachi [野太刀]) is basically a Japanese great sword (大太刀 literally means big long sword, with blades starting at around 90cm in length). While most katana in media are of the uchigatana variety (about 60cm long blades), Odachi were more prominent in actual battles. This very closely mirrors the practical uses of the longsword and the greatsword in western culture. Longswords and Uchigatana were more side arms and street self-defense weapons. Greatswords and Odachi were weapons of war.

[3] It’s worth mentioning that this novel uses some… odd romanization here for Inazuma. This was written in English in the original Japanese; however, it was spelt INNAZZUMA for some reason. We can’t think of why this would be the case other than bad English, so we changed it to reduce confusion. Figured I’d mention it just in case though.