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Volume 3, Chapter 1 – What has to be seen through to the end Part 1

On her way back from school, Tatewaki Shouko unconsciously tensed her body when she saw the message that she had received on the ROPE messaging application; or more to the point, when she saw who had sent the message.

The message that she had received from Kenzaki Yasuo was very concise.

『Can we meet today?』

“……Ha? Haah?”

She stopped in her tracks, took a deep breath of air, let it out, and tried her best to calm her heartbeat.

There was nothing to be worried about.

Just when she was about to start walking again, she received another barrage in the form of one more message.

『There’s something I want to talk to you about.』

“Stop sending such suggestive messages.”

Shouko unconsciously said that aloud.

From the way the messages were written, it looked like he wanted to meet her so that he could confess his feelings for her.

She waited for a while longer, but she didn’t receive any further messages or stickers.

Since she was staring at the message screen, the sender should have already seen that the message was marked as read.

It would be bad if she made him wait too long and caused him to send another strange follow-up message.

The sender was that Yasuo, after all. That Kenzaki Yasuo.

Trying to guess the intent behind the message was well and good, but in this case the meaning behind it was definitely going to be something that would exceed her imagination.

“Ugh….. Ugh…… Haa.”

While gritting her teeth, Shouko gathered her resolve and sent a reply.

『Sure, if it is after my classes at prep school today.』

Although Shouko and Yasuo went to different high schools, they lived close by and went to the same prep school.

If they wanted to meet, there would be a number of chances for them to do so, but talking after her classes at prep school would be the most 『natural』.

She received a reply immediately, as if the sender had been waiting for her response.

『I’d rather not be overheard. Can we meet privately?』

“……”

Shouko looked up from her phone for an instant and her her composure cracked.

She then started operating her slimphone with so much force that the LCD screen was in danger of breaking, and pushed the button for the telephone call. After a few rings, Yasuo picked up.

『Ah, T-Tatewaki-san, sorry about the sudden—』

“Choose your words more carefully!!!”

『Eh!? Did I write something weird? I’m sorry!』

Even ordinarily, Shouko was under a fair amount of stress on a daily basis.

On that day. The day when her relationship with Yasuo had gone through a perceptible change.

When Shouko had returned home, she dove into her bed, pressed her face into her pillow, and continued groaning and screaming into it for about an hour.

Even later, whenever she remembered what had happened, she felt like hitting her head against the wall at home, or against her desk or locker at school. She had actually done that a few times.

At that time, she had done it so casually.

She had told Yasuo how she felt about him.

Even though she had told him, what came after was the absolute worst.

Despite the fact that she had been influenced by the atmosphere, why had she gone and done something so rash?

She must have been delusional. There was no other explanation for it.

Considering what had happened to her recently, becoming delusional might have been unavoidable.

Another mistake she had made was to not ask for a response from him.

However — no, exactly because of that, this was a little cruel.

“Everything about what you sent is weird! What is it!? Did you feel like responding to my confession or something!?”

『Ueeh!? Eh, t-that is…』

“I’m ready to hear your answer anytime!”

『Umm, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, did I really write something that made you think that?』

“If anything, it felt like you were going to confess your feelings for me instead!”

『Eeeh!?』

“I know, okay!? It hasn’t been that long since that incident, and seeing as you want to talk to me about something, it must be really important, right? It probably has something to do with Ante Lande, right!? That’s why you didn’t want anyone to overhear and asked to meet in private, right!? Well!?”

『T-That’s right, yes.』

“Then write that to begin with! Don’t get my hopes up!”

『Eh? Hopes!?』

“That’s right! Do you have any idea how I feel right now? I want to keep my hopes up but I feel like I don’t have any hope, which leaves me just feeling regretful, and in spite of that I’m still holding on to that hope!”

Even Shouko didn’t understand what she was saying anymore, but she didn’t think what she was saying was wrong.

“Well!? Is that something we can’t talk about now!? There’s no one around here right now!”

『W-Well, uh, It’s not that we can’t speak over the phone, but it’s a really serious matter so I’d like to talk about it in person and explain the circumstances.』

Despite the fact that Yasuo’s voice had become completely timid, Shouko did not show any mercy.

“What’s the topic!?!?”

『T-Topic? Umm, let’s see…. How do I put this… There’s this place I want you to go—』

“………I just told you to choose your words carefully, didn’t I?”

『Eh?』

“You’re definitely not inviting me out on a date or anything, right? You’re talking about Ante Lande, right?”

『Eh!? A date!? Eh!? How did you know I was talking about Ante Lande!?』

“Are you making fun of me!? Fine, be that way!”

Despite the fact that she had confessed her feelings to him, she knew that Kenzaki Yasuo had neither a decisive personality, nor the experience of an adult.

It was apparent at a glance that he was not used to dealing with women, and he was more a child than an adult.

However, because of that, it could be said that he was more earnest and truthful than most other boys of his age.

With his personality, Yasuo would never try and make plans to meet or give his reply to her confession over a messaging application like ROPE.

He would definitely try to go about giving her his reply in a more formal way, and make a mistake somewhere.

That being the case, the only other important matters that Yasuo would want to discuss with her would be college examinations or the other world, Ante Lande.

“Haa, forget it. I don’t get what it’s about, but I’ll see you today after my classes are finished! We can meet up at the lounge at the prep school! Goodbye!! ……Aaaargh!”

After hanging up without even waiting to hear Yasuo’s reply, Shouko let out a rough breath and unconsciously gripped her Slimphone tightly in her hand, but,

“Eh?”

Someone snatched her Slimphone out of her hand all of a sudden, and she quickly raised her head.

At some point, a beautiful young woman with golden hair and emerald-green eyes had appeared beside her, and was looking at Shouko’s face with a complicated expression.

“Be careful. Your eyes.”

The girl just said that short sentence, and Shouko unconsciously put both her hands over her eyes.

“Aaah… Ugh, my hands are so cold….”

While feeling the coldness from her hands over her eyes, she let out a large sigh.

“Umm, I’m sorry for doing that all of a sudden. At that rate, it looked like you were going to crush your Slimphone, so…”

“No… that’s okay. Thank you, Diana-san. I probably would have done that. Haa.”

Shouko pressed down on her eyes for about ten seconds.

By the time she moved her hands away, the ominous black flames that had been flickering around her eyes had vanished. Shouko, who looked a little tired, stared into the empty sky.

Diana, who had been guarding Shouko, could not hide her surprise at seeing Shouko control the flames so easily, even if it was only in the region around her eyes.

“……That was splendid. It looks like you have it under control now.”

“I wonder if something like this can be called having it under control.”

Although Diana looked impressed, Shouko shook her head.

“It has happened a few times since then. However, since I know the reason why it happened, I was able to learn a trick to calm myself down.”

“Umm… by a trick to calm down, you mean…?”

“It’s embarrassing, so I’d rather not say it aloud. Although it’s pointless to feel shy about it in front of you after all that has happened, Diana-san.”

While saying that, Shouko looked at her Slimphone which Diana had rescued.

The screen still showed the ROPE application with Yasuo’s messages.

Diana immediately realized what Shouko was thinking after following her gaze and looking at the screen.

“Ah, yes. Here you go.”

Diana returned the Slimphone to Shouko with a complicated expression on her face.

Shouko also understood that Diana had realized what she was thinking of, as she accepted the Slimphone and put it into sleep mode in an annoyed manner.

“Thank you. Actually, Yasu-kun was saying some stupid things earlier, so…”

“……Stupid things……?”

“Apparently he wants to talk to me about something important.”

“Something important… Ah, so he put it like that?”

“Oh, so you know about it as well, Diana-san. That means it has something to do with Ante Lande, right?”

“That’s… right. It is definitely…”

“Dammit. Why’d I have to go and…”

Seeing Shouko slump her shoulders in an exaggerated manner, Diana once again showed a complicated expression.

※

The other world, Ante Lande.

Tatewaki Shouko had first found out about that ridiculous concept — or rather, that ridiculous world — only a week ago.

Apparently, the parents of Kenzaki Yasuo, her classmate from middle school whom she had been reunited with at prep school after entering her third year of high school, were a Hero and Sage who had saved that other world from peril around thirty years ago.

Even that sounded ridiculous enough that Shouko did not know how to react, but now that Ante Lande was apparently once again facing an unprecedented crisis, so they sent over an emissary to summon Yasuo’s parents back to that world.

That emissary was Dianaze Krone, a Magitech Knight.

That young woman, who was called Diana, told them about the monsters called 『Shii』 that were eating away at her world, and asked for the Hero to return to her world once more. However, after some dispute among the members of the Kenzaki family, for some reason Yasuo had apparently volunteered to become the new Hero.

All of this had been properly explained to Shouko, but she had only seen a small part of it with her own eyes and hence there were still parts of the story that she did not completely understand.

In fact, the part that was important to Shouko came after that.

The monsters mentioned earlier, the 『Shii』, had appeared in Japan, that is to say in this world. Due to that, Diana’s superior officer, Khalija Welleger, had also been dispatched to help guard the Kenzaki family.

However, while still in Ante Lande, Khalija had become involved with a group of people who could apparently control the Shii, and developed a deep-rooted conviction that it was possible to resurrect people who had died by using the Shii which imitated their appearance.

After a fierce fight, Khalija’s ambition was crushed and she was released from her delusion, but at some point between Khalija’s appearance in Japan and her fight with the Kenzaki family, Shouko had been possessed by one of those 『Shii』.

That Shii had appeared in the form of a monster in front of Yasuo several times, and apparently used its inhuman strength to hurt Diana and Yasuo.

Shouko did not have any memories of the time when the Shii took over her body.

Annoyingly enough, when Shouko’s feelings of love for Yasuo grew too strong to hold in check, the Shii would start to manifest in the form of cold, dark flames that came out of her eyes and would attempt to take over her body.

That was a pretty girly reason for the Shii — which were said to be basically the same sort of existence as the living dead — to appear.

Not only Diana, but even Khalija had no idea how to effectively deal with Shouko’s situation, and they had never heard of a similar case occurring in Ante Lande either.

After being placed in this situation, Shouko decided upon the path of 『Confessing her feelings to Yasuo』.

After hearing all the details, Shouko surmised that the Shii would take over her body when her feelings for Yasuo got out of control.

She thought that if she just told Yasuo how she felt, she would be able to prevent her feelings from bursting forth unexpectedly.

Doing that had an effect greater than what Shouko, Diana, and Khalija had expected.

Just like what had happened earlier, if her feelings for Yasuo ever crossed the breaking point, she would be able to repress the black flames by calming her heart.

Looking at it another way, it could also be said that in the one week since Shouko had told Yasuo how she felt about him, the Shii had become that much more insistent on manifesting.

One of the reasons for that was the fact that even though she had told Yasuo how she felt about him, she had not demanded a reply, which left her in a state of constant worry.

The other reason, and perhaps this was unavoidable, was the fact that Yasuo had been acting evasive whenever they met at prep school.

He would not look her in the eye.

He would run away from her.

Just this was enough to make Shouko indescribably anxious.

It had taken her a considerable amount of courage to tell him how she felt about him.

And what’s more, it was under circumstances that could not be explained by common sense.

Despite all she did, since the other person was behaving like that, Shouko’s current feelings had bypassed anxiety and it didn’t take her very long to think, Maybe my confession has caused Yasuo a lot of trouble.

Perhaps Yasuo was feeling troubled by getting a confession of love from someone he didn’t care about at all.

Rather than the crisis in the other world or monsters that she had not seen with her own eyes, Shouko was constantly bothered by such uneasy thoughts that were far closer to her heart and were more concrete.

And then, she had received that ROPE message under such circumstances.

Shouko could hardly be blamed for letting the black flames leak out of her eyes.

※