Chapter 72
Prologue
Having finished getting ready in the morning as usual, I ate breakfast as usual and headed to school as usual.
The day began in its usual way, following its usual routine.
"G-good morning..."
I delivered a morning greeting so quietly that no one could hear it unless they were paying attention.
It was something of a habit whenever I entered the classroom. I never expected a reply.
I hadn't been expecting one, that is, but...
"G-good morning...!"
"...Huh?"
A male student had deliberately approached me and answered.
Two others stood behind him, watching me nervously. Matsuda-kun, I think?
To be honest, I wasn't very sure. I usually didn't speak to anyone in class except when necessary, so the faces and names of classmates I had once worked hard to memorize were growing hazy.
"Ah, yeah. Morning...?"
Caught off guard, I didn't know what to say and gave him an uncertain smile.
Before I knew it, the classroom had grown considerably quieter.
"Um... I wanted to thank you for something today."
With the attention of our classmates focused on us, he continued nervously.
"You know about that spiritual disaster involving a monster using a gun...?"
"Well, yeah. That's right."
"At the time... you saved me, so..."
"I did...?"
"I was hanging out in that city with some friends from middle school, and then..."
"Oh..."
As I searched through my memories of that day, I remembered seeing him at one point.
It was when I first encountered a Zmeu carrying a gun. Apparently, Matsuda-kun had been among the people fleeing at the time.
"Near the convenience store, by any chance?"
"Yeah, that's it. So it really was you, Yahiro."
After smiling as though relieved, he straightened his back.
"Thank you for that. And I'm sorry. I had you completely wrong..."
"N-no, it's fine. Anyone would panic in a situation like that."
"Um... I'll bring you something to thank you properly another day."
"You don't have to... I was only fighting because that's how things turned out..."
"Even so, it's a fact that you saved me."
Matsuda-kun, who had seemed somewhat frightened, steeled himself and met my gaze.
"Thank you. Truly. You saved my life."
He bowed deeply.
＊ ＊ ＊
"Oh, I see. That happened at school?"
"Yes."
After school, we gathered at Takanashi-sa... Miyu-san's garage. Riko-senpai was tuning 'Kenning', and I told her about what had happened.
"That's great. Being thanked feels good, right?"
"Yes. But I was more surprised than pleased."
It really was completely unexpected.
Afterward, I didn't particularly speak with Matsuda-kun or his friends, but... the looks directed at me in the classroom seemed slightly different from usual.
I still felt they regarded me as an outsider, someone who didn't belong. Even so, it seemed as though that feeling had eased somewhat.
"There was a proverb: 'A kindness is never wasted.'"
Miyu-san joined the conversation, her coveralls hanging open over a black T-shirt.
"If the divide between ability users and non-ability users has narrowed, that is a good thing."
"Yeah... Between the recent incident and what happened in Tokyo, public attitudes seem to have changed quite a bit."
"Well, some people are on edge over statements from 'Valhalla,' though."
Riko-senpai, wearing a gray dress shirt, shrugged with one palm turned upward.
"They've been making more and more extreme statements lately, maybe because they want to raise their profile. I'm worried they've been stepping up their attempts to recruit Rosson. She said they'd contacted her a little while ago, too."
"Oh... Come to think of it, I've been seeing that organization in the news from time to time lately."
'Valhalla' was supposedly a protection group for ability users, or perhaps a mutual-aid group. These days, they were loudly proclaiming the necessity of ability users to the public.
There was nothing wrong with that in itself. The problem was their excessive criticism of the police and the Self-Defense Forces, and the way they kept lavishing praise on the two people who caught the killer and on Rosso-san.
They were treating them like heroes out of mythology. To be blunt, the whole thing was beginning to smell fishy.
Just when relations between ability users and non-ability users had finally started to improve after everything that happened, I wished they wouldn't throw a strange spark into the mix.
"Miyu-chi, has 'Valhalla' ever come up in the future? Were they secretly a dangerous group, or did they unexpectedly pull off some amazing feat?"
"No, I don't know anything about it, at least. I never studied history properly, so their name may actually have survived in some form without my knowing it."
"I see... Well, we can't exactly consult future textbooks. Nothing to be done."
While operating the laptop on the workbench, Riko-senpai gave a wry smile.
"The game on the device Miyu-chi had didn't have any detailed data about that sort of thing, either. Though there were lots of pictures of Otaku-kun's gender-swapped character that she'd apparently gone to the trouble of making room for."
"Miyu-san, delete that data immediately."
"I refuse. I have already made multiple copies on offline storage devices, but I have no intention of deleting the original data either."
With a smug snort, Miyu-san answered, thrusting out her enormous breasts.
Damn it, I wanted to sue her for violating my right of publicity, but she was a total stranger from a parallel world. Since she was a different person, I had no grounds to say anything...!
It certainly wasn't because her magnificent breasts had hijacked my thoughts.
"Incidentally, I've got copies of a few of them, too!"
"I may have to erase your memories as well..."
"Whoa, you suddenly got violent!"
As I clenched my fists, Riko-senpai rose from her chair and put some distance between us.
"Hey! If I got hit with that gorilla-like strength of yours, the head of a cute, delicate gyaru like me would be blown to bits! It'd be worse than minced meat!"
"I'm not a gorilla, and you're not a gyaru."
"I am a gyaru! Rosson says I'm a gyaru!"
It was only because Rosso-san's standards for calling someone a gyaru were incredibly lax. She probably considered every cheerful, outgoing young woman a gyaru.
After all, I considered anyone with dyed hair and an outgoing personality a party person.
As I thought that, speak of the devil. I heard the sound of a motorcycle approaching.
"Hail! 'Rosso Vendetta' is here! Is anyone within?"
"Are you a samurai?"
Rather than a noble of the so-called demon realm, her greeting sounded like it came from an Edo-period samurai.
Thinking that, I looked toward Miyu-san.
She nodded, so I opened the garage door.
"Aha, there you are."
Rosso-san walked over from the entrance, her boots crunching on the gravel.
She wasn't wearing her gothic lolita outfit, but a black riding suit. They say a beautiful woman looks beautiful in anything, and I had to admit it was true.
With her excellent figure, she looked both beautiful and cool.
"So, what do you three want? You called me here out of nowhere, saying you had something to discuss."
Rosso-san tilted her head, holding her helmet under one arm.
Her gaze passed over us and landed in the back of the garage, on Kenning.
"Is this about that humanoid mobile weapon over there? Or rather, it's a robot, isn't it? It really is a robot, right? Why is it a robot? Can I try riding it...?"
"That's half of it."
Miyu-san took a step forward.
"However, there is something else I would like to discuss with you."
"And what would that be?"
"It concerns my past..."
A sudden breeze stirred her long black hair.
"And events in the future."
────Early June.
The rainy season was in full swing, and school had begun its seasonal changeover of uniforms the day before. Humid air brushed against my skin.
We ushered Rosso-san inside as her bewilderment deepened, and Miyu-san continued speaking.
"To get straight to the point, I came from the future—one hundred years from now."