Confidential KADOKAWA / Light novel DATE A LIVE
Author: Koushi Tachibana / Illustrations: Tsunako ©2011 Koushi Tachibana, Tsunako
Translated by Kevin Gifford
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[Table of Contents]
Prologue: A Chance Meeting -restart- 012
Chapter 1: The Nameless Girl 014
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Prologue: A Chance Meeting -restart-
—He gasped. The sight before him was all too surreal.
The cityscape was in ruins, all but wiped out of existence. There was a massive crater, as if a meter had struck the earth. Several figures flew through the air.
It was a ridiculous thing to see, the stuff of dreams or crazed visions. But Shido was taking only a vague look at this otherworldly landscape—because something even more otherworldly was unfolding before his eyes.
A girl was there, standing, clothed in a weird, glowing dress.
“Ah…”
A voice just barely made itself known within his sigh before disappearing.
Her presence was overwhelming, as if everything else around them was a mere impurity by comparison. Her dress—made of some mysterious material, not quite metal, not quite fabric—certainly drew his attention. The skirt of light that spread forth below it was beautiful enough to make any observer faint. Long, long hair, the color of darkness,
- 12 - coiled itself around her shoulders and down her back. Her cold eyes, staring up into the blue sky, exuded an indescribable sort of eeriness.
She wearily scowled, her face enough to make even a goddess grow envious, as she pursed her lips together. The sight of it stole his eyes, his attention, and his heart in an instant. That was just how incredibly, extraordinarily, violently beautiful she was.
Shido, overcome with shock, opened his mouth, all too aware his question could be blasphemous enough to make her gouge his eyes, crush his throat.
“…What’s your…?”
The girl slowly turned her eyes downward.
“…My name?”
Her voice vibrated toward him, its tone a pleasant melody in the air.
But:
“…I have nothing like that,” she said, sadly.
“Ah…!”
And just then, when the two of them locked eyes—Shido Itsuka’s story began.
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Chapter 1: The Nameless Girl
“Ahhh…”
He felt utterly awful as he woke up. You couldn’t blame him. If you woke up to your younger sister stamping on your stomach and chest and head, beating out a passionate samba rhythm, you probably wouldn’t like it either (unless you were one of the rare ones).
Monday, April 10. Spring break ended yesterday. School starts up this morning. Shiro Itsuka rubbed his bleary eyes as he groaned to himself.
“Ahh, Kotori, my beloved sister…”
“Oooh?!”
She must’ve noticed Shido was conscious by then.
Kotori, the younger sister whose feet were currently beating upon his body, turned to face him, the skirt of her middle-school uniform flapping in the air. Her long hair, bordered by a pair of ponytails, flowed with the rest of her body, her round, acorn-like eyes sizing him up. It was worth noting that, considering the way she was just caught stomping on someone so early in the morning, nothing on her face indicated any
- 14 - thought resembling “Oh, crap!” or “He spotted me!” If anything, she was honestly delighted Shido was awake. It was also worth noting that, from his position, Shido got a plain-as-day view of her panties. This was no mere flash. It was just, hey, here it is. Beyond improper.
“What, my cute big brother?” she asked, not bothering to move her legs off him. (It should be stated that Shido is not cute at all.)
“No, uh, get off me,” he said. “You’re heavy.”
Kotori gave him an exaggerated nod and jumped off the bed, leaving Shido feeling like he’d just taken a flurry of body blows.
“Gouf!”
“Ah ha ha hah! ‘Gouf’? That’s the name of a ground-based Mobile
Suit! Ah ha ha ha hah!”
Shido silently pulled the covers back over his head.
“Ahhh! Hold it! Why’re you going back to sleep?!”
She began shaking him violently as she raised her voice.
“Just ten more minutes…”
“Uh-uhhh! Get yourself up!”
Shido clamped his eyebrows down at the sensation of his freshly-awoken, still-groggy brain getting jostled to and fro. “Get… Get away from me,” he painfully blurted out.
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“Huh?”
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“…I’ve been infected with the T-Virus. It’s short for the ‘Tickle My
Sister to Death If I Don’t Sleep Another Ten Minutes Virus’.”
“W-Whaaa?!” Kotori exclaimed, as if she just discovered a message hidden for her by extraterrestrial visitors.
“Get away from me…while I can still restrain myself…”
“But, but what’s gonna happen to you, Shido?!”
“Forget about me… If I can just keep you safe…”
“No! My brother, no!”
“Gahhhh!”
Leaping out from the covers, Shido roared, fingers wriggling in the air.
“Aaaaaiieeee!”
With an ear-splitting scream, Kotori fled the room.
“Eesh…”
He took a deep breath, then burrowed back into bed. The clock told him it was still before six in the morning. “Why the hell is she waking me up now,” he griped to himself.
Then a passing thought brought him back to attention. As his brain sluggishly dragged itself from an unconscious state to the realm of the living, it played the memories of the previous night for him. His mother
- 18 - and father were both out of the house for work, starting yesterday. That meant Shido held kitchen duty for the next little while, but since he had such difficulty walking up, he had enlisted Kotori to help him out.
“Ahhhh…”
He sat up, scratching his head and wondering if he could’ve handled that better. He used a hand to pat down his bed-head as he let out a yawn and toddled out of the room. Then he noticed a small mirror hanging on the wall. A man was squinting suspiciously at him in it, his bangs invading his line of sight thanks to his laziness over getting it cut.
“Ugh…”
He sighed at the face, which was getting a little unsightly, and his hair, which would rob him of his vision before long. Then he went downstairs to the living room.
“…Huh?”
Something seemed slightly off about the sight greeting him. The wooden table in the middle of the room was on its side, like a makeshift barricade. Behind it, he could see a head with two ponytails sticking out of it, quivering.
“Um…”
He tiptoed in from the side, not making a sound. Just as he thought,
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Kotori was sitting on the floor, grasping her knees and shivering.
“Boo!”
“Aaah! Aaaahhhh!”
When Shido grabbed her shoulders, Kotori let out a non-kidding, wholly non-romantic scream and flailed all four of her limbs.
“Chill, chill. It’s the same brother you’ve always had.”
“Aaaah! Aaaahhh… Ah? Oh, it’s you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You, you aren’t being scary?”
“Nope. Not being scary. Me, friiieeend.”
“Um, oh…”
The simple, broken words from Shido helped the anxiety slip away from Kotori’s face, like a certain fox-squirrel opening its heart up to a new friend.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll have breakfast ready in a sec.”
Helping his sister up with his hand, Shido put the table back where it belonged and walked over to the kitchen.
Their parents both worked for a large electronics firm, and they happened to be on the road for that at the same time. Shido always picked up cooking duty when that happened; he was well used to it by
- 20 - now. If anything, he was handier with the kitchen equipment around here than his own mother.
Just as he was taking some eggs out of the fridge, he heard the TV come to life behind him. Kotori, now that her pulse was back to normal, must have turned it on. She never missed the daily “Today’s Fortune” segments, come to think of it, offering guidance both by astrological sign and blood type. These segments, though, usually came at the end of the morning shows, leaving Kotori with nothing to do but flip the channels and stare at one news broadcast or another, plainly bored.
Then:
“Early this morning, in the outskirts of Tengu City—”
“Hmm?”
Shido’s eyebrows shot upward. The news was usually just background noise to him in the mornings, but this was different. In her clear, well-practiced voice, the announcer had just spoken the name of a city very familiar to him.
“Huh, that’s pretty close to here, isn’t it? What’s up?”
He leaned over the kitchen counter, straining for a better look at the screen. It showed a town in an utter state of ruin. Collapsed buildings and roads lined the landscape, forming mountains of rubble. It
- 21 - was a horrible sight, like the aftermath of a meteor collision or aerial bombing.
His eyebrows went back down as he spoke.
“Ah…a spatial quake?”
The irritation was clear in his voice as he shook his head.
A spatial quake was shorthand for a phenomenon that shook the very air itself across a broad range of space. Nobody knew what caused them or when they would happen. There’d just be an explosion—no one could say how big it’d be—followed by tremors, then sheer emptiness.
The term covered that entire process, and it was a cruelly unfair and punishing one. It would raze entire cities, like a passing movie monster stopping in to wreak havoc.
This phenomenon was first discovered around thirty years ago, when a huge region in the center of the Eurasian supercontinent—including parts of the former Soviet Union, China, and
Mongolia—literally disappeared overnight. Illustrations and photos of the tragedy were all over the textbooks used by Shido’s generation. That spatial quake left absolutely nothing behind—like some vengeful god just whisked everything away. Around 150 million people died. It was the largest, and most painful, disaster in human history.
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But it was only the beginning. For the ensuing half-year or so, similar, albeit smaller, disasters took place around the world—around fifty, if Shido’s memory served him correctly. They were everywhere—all the planet’s continents, the Arctic, the middle of the ocean, even on smaller islands. Japan was no exception, of course. Six months after the
Eurasian spatial quake, an arc between southern Tokyo and northern
Kanagawa prefecture was rent to ashes, as if someone took a gigantic pencil eraser to it. The exact area, in other words, where Shido and his family lived now.
“We didn’t see any at all for a while, huh?” Shido remarked.
“Why’re there more of them again?”
Kotori raised an eyebrow at him, eyes still glued to the TV. “Who knows?”
Indeed, who knows? The Southern Kanto Spatial Quake was the final strike of that six-month rash—none had been detected since. None, that is, until about five years ago, when a quake in a corner of the newly-rebuilt Tengu City kicked off another series of the mystery catastrophes…this time, centered mostly in Japan.
Mankind, of course, didn’t spend a quarter-century twiddling its thumbs. Starting thirty years ago, Japan began to build a vast network
- 23 - of underground shelters nationwide, beginning with rebuilt areas. The early signs of spatial quakes could now be scientifically measured by the government. Even the Self-Defense Forces that served as Japan’s military had a dedicated Disaster Recovery Force, formed to head for damaged areas and rebuild fallen roads and facilities. The job these guys did felt like nothing short of sorcery. They’d take these totally smashed-up cities and, in what was practically no time at all, restore them to exactly what they used to look like. They never said how they did this; the process was all top secret, but seeing a building that was toppled over yesterday look good as new the very next day felt like you were seeing a magic trick.
But just because reconstruction took no time at all didn’t mean spatial quakes were no longer a threat.
“Doesn’t it seem like we’re seeing a ton of quakes right by here?
Like, since around last year?”
“Mmm, yeah,” Kotori replied, her upper body resting on the sofa’s handrest. “Maybe a little quicker than planned…?”
“Quicker? What is?”
“Mmmm, nrffin’…”
Shido gave her a look—not because of what she said, but at the way
- 24 - her voice got muffled starting halfway. He walked around the kitchen counter toward her. Kotori, noticing this, gradually turned her face away from him as he approached.
“Kotori, lemme see your face a sec.”
“…”
“Tah!”
“Gngh…”
Placing a hand on her head, Shido made her swivel it around. She made a funny little gurgle as he did.
“I knew it,” he said as he spotted something familiar in her mouth.
He hadn’t even served breakfast yet, and she was already going to town on a Chupa Chups lollipop.
“Hey, I told you, no candy before breakfast.”
“Mmh! Mmmnh!”
He pulled at the stick, trying to seize this contraband from her, but
Kotori pushed her lips hard against each other to resist him. Her face stretched out in the direction Shido pulled from, taking her fairly attractive looks and turning them into an ugly, twisted version of herself.
Finally, he gave up. “…Ugh,” he said as he rubbed his knuckles against her head, “will you at least eat a normal breakfast, too?”
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“Okay! Love ya, brother!”
Shido gave a disinterested wave as he returned to work in the kitchen.
“Oh, middle school starts with a half-day today for you too, right?”
“Uh-huh!”
“So you’ll be back home this afternoon… Any requests for lunch,
Kotori?”
“Mmmm…”
Kotori rocked her head back in forth, deep in thought, before putting her body bolt-upright in her seat.
“Umm, the Deluxe Kids’ Plate!”
That was the kid’s meal at the local diner. Shido responded by straightening his posture, then executing a perfect forty-five-degree bow.
“I apologize, ma’am, I’m afraid we do not offer that at this location.”
“Awww,” she whined, the lollipop stick bobbing up and down in her mouth.
Shido sighed and shrugged. “…Ugh, all right. Wanna go out for lunch?”
“Ooooh! Really?”
“Mm-hmm. I’ll meet you at the diner after school.”
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Kotori flailed her hands in the air, excited. “You better! That’s a promise, okay?! Even if there’s an earthquake or fire or spatial quake, or terrorists take over the diner! You better!”
“How’re we gonna eat there if terrorists’re occupying it?”
“You better!”
“All right, all right…”
“Yeahhhh!” Kotori belted out.
Shido chided himself a little, wondering if he was spoiling his sister too much. But today was a special day, and he’d be in the kitchen for a while starting tonight. Besides, it was the first day of school for them both. No harm in enjoying the finer things in life one last time, although he wasn’t sure if a 780-yen kid’s meal counted as a “finer thing” or not.
With a yawn and a light stretch, Shido opened a small window in the kitchen. It was a perfectly clear day, one that suggested good things to come.
◇
It was just about 8:15 in the morning by the time Shido reached his high school. Checking the classroom assignments posted up in the
- 27 - hallway, he headed for the room he’d be spending much of his waking hours in for the next year.
“Year Two, Group…Four, huh?”
Since the spatial quake thirty years ago, the area leveled between southern Tokyo and Kanagawa had seen rapid redevelopment as a testing ground for a variety of new technology. Raizen High, the school
Shido attended, was just one example. It boasted an amazing array of facilities, far beyond the usual public-school standard, and given it was just a few years old, there was almost no damage to the grounds or inside rooms. Like any post-quake school, its basement shelter was also top-of-the-line. It made admissions more competitive for prospective students than most schools—painfully so for Shido, who tested for it mainly because he lived nearby.
He groaned a bit as he looked around his classroom. There were still a few minutes until homeroom began, but it was already decently full. A rainbow of emotions was on display—some excited to be sharing the same class with each other, others seated at their desks alone and looking bored—but Shido didn’t recognize too many faces. He had just turned toward the blackboard to check his seat assignment when:
“…Shido Itsuka.”
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A quiet, monotone voice suddenly erupted behind him.
“Hmm…?”
It wasn’t a familiar one. He turned around, confused, only to find a lone, slender girl standing there. Her hair was almost, but not quite, to her shoulders, and her face was scarily doll-like. That was the only way to describe it, and few were likely to disagree. She was handsome, almost artificially so, as if precision-measured for it—but there was nothing resembling a recognizable human expression on her face.
“Uh…” Shido looked around the room, then raised an eyebrow. Not seeing any other Shido Itsukas in the room, he pointed a finger at himself. “…Me?”
The girl lightly nodded, eyes straight at him. “Yes,” she said, without any particular emotion.
“H-How do you know my name…?”
She gave Shido a confused look. “You don’t recall?”
“…Uh.”
“Right,” the girl said sharply, not sounding very disappointed at
Shido’s hesitation as she took a windowside seat, removed a thick technical guide from the desk, and started reading.
“Wha… What was that…?” Shido scratched a cheek, eyebrows
- 29 - furrowed. She acted like she knew him—had they met somewhere before?
“Tohh!”
“Gehh!”
Just as he was pondering over this, he felt a hand slap him hard on the back.
“Oww! What’s your problem, Tonomachi?!”
He recognized this culprit right off as he rubbed his back.
“Hey there, Sexual Beast Itsuka. You’re looking good!”
Instead of showing any excitement for sharing a class with him,
Shido’s friend Hiroto Tonomachi crossed his arms, showing off his spiky, waxed hair and well-built physique, before stretching back and laughing.
“Sexual… What?”
“Sexual Beast, man. You been puttin’ on the moves when I wasn’t paying attention, huh, you bastard?” Tonomachi put an arm around
Shido’s neck, grinning. “Since when were you getting close to Tobiichi, mm?”
“Tobiichi…? Who’s that?”
“Don’t gimme that crap. You were enrapt in conversation just a moment ago.”
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He motioned toward a windowside seat. The girl was still sitting there. Noticing Shido’s gaze, she took her eyes off her book long enough to look at him.
“…Nh!”
It made Shido gasp a bit before he averted his eyes.
Tonomachi gave her a friendly smile and a wave. She gave no notable response as she delved back into her book.
“Y’see? She’s always like that. She’s, like, the toughest level of difficulty in this school. They call her ‘Absolute Zero,’ or the ‘Cold War,’ or
‘Kacrackle.’ Y’know? The ice spell from Dragon Quest? So how did you get an in on her?”
“Huhh…? What’re you talking about?”
“Dude, you seriously don’t know?”
“…Um, was she in class with me before?”
Tonomachi reacted to this question by spreading his arms out wide and giving Shido an “are you kidding me” look. “That’s Tobiichi, man!
Origami Tobiichi. Like, the biggest super-genius of the entire school. You never heard of her?”
“No, not before now. She’s that amazing?”
“Amazing? Way past amazing. She’s always ranked number-one in
- 31 - every school year she’s in. She got the highest score nationwide in the college test exams. It’s crazy! Whatever your class rank is right now, expect it to go down by one this year.”
“Huh? What’s someone like her doing in public school?”
“I dunno, some kind of family issue?” Tonomachi gave Shido an exaggerated shrug. “And that ain’t even all. She’s a top-level athlete, and she looks like dynamite, too. She was number three in the ‘Top 13 Girls
You Want As Your Lover’ vote; didn’t you see that?”
“I didn’t even know that was happening. Why ‘top 13’? That’s such a weird number to cut it off at.”
“Because the girl running the vote was ranked thirteenth.”
“…Oh.” Shido gave this a listless chuckle. She must have really wanted her name in the final results.
“And you know what? There was a top-guy ranking too, and that went all the way to number 358.”
“Whoa! That’s a lot. That’d be a ‘top guys you’d least want to be with’ at the bottom. Was number 358 the dude running the vote?”
“Yep. You’d think he’d take that as a sign, y’know?”
“What number were you, Tonomachi?”
“Three fifty-eight, but…”
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“You ran it?!”
“Among the top comments received: ‘He’d go too heavy on you’; ‘Too hairy’; ‘The spaces next to his big toenails smell’…”
“Dude, that was a worst-358 vote, not a best one!”
“Well, the bottom rankings were all a big tie among the guys who didn’t get any votes. I had to rank them by negative comments.”
“Why would you put yourself through that?! Just quit at that point!”
“Oh, don’t worry, Itsuka. You got a vote from an anonymous admirer, so you were ranked number fifty-two.”
“I’m, uh, not sure how I should respond to that!”
“Other comments about you included ‘I don’t think he’s interested in girls’ and ‘Frankly, he’s probably gay’…”
“That, that’s totally groundless! I’ll lay the hammer of death on anyone who spreads those insults!”
“Ahh, calm down. You and I were number two in the ‘Top Male
Couples I’d Love to Ship’ ranking, voted on by female fans of yaoi stuff.”
“I am not very happy about that, dude!” Shido screamed, even as he wondered who got number one. But Tonomachi just crossed his arms, not too interested in continuing the topic (or, perhaps, already past the
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‘acceptance’ stage about it).
“Anyway, though, it’s safe to say she’s the most famous person in this whole school. And you didn’t know about her, Itsuka? Well, color
Tonomachi here extreeeemely surprised!”
“What kind of character is that?”
Before Tonomachi could answer, the bell they grew so accustomed to last year rang.
“Oop.”
Shido still hadn’t checked what seat he was assigned to. Following the map on the blackboard, he placed his backpack by a desk in the second column from the window.
Then he noticed.
“…Ah.”
As if destined by fate, Shido was seated next to the brightest student in the school.
Before the bell stopped ringing, Origami Tobiichi closed her book and placed it back inside the desk. She turned her eyes ahead of her, her posture so perfect that she must have measured it with a ruler. No words were exchanged. It was a little too awkward for Shido, who joined her in gazing at the blackboard.
- 34 -
As if on cue, the classroom door opened, revealing a small woman with thin-rimmed glasses. A small stir arose in the class as she walked to her own desk.
“It’s Tama-chan…”
“Yeah. Tama-chan.”
“Ooh, awesome…”
The first reviews sounded pretty good.
“Good morning class,” the woman—social-studies teacher Tamane
Okamine, nicknamed Tama-chan—languidly began. “My name is Tamae
Okamine, and I will be your homeroom teacher for the next year.” Then her glasses, perhaps a touch too big for her, slipped down her nose, forcing her to prop it up with both hands.
No matter which way you looked at it, her young face and small frame made her look not even a trace older than her students. That, plus her lax, easy-going personality, made her a hit with whatever class she ran.
“Huh…?”
Shido, amid all the excitement, stiffened his face. Origami, seated to his left, was staring straight at him.
“…Ngh!”
- 35 -
For an instant, their eyes met. Shido averted his, in a panic. Why was she doing that? Okay, it’s not like she wasn’t allowed to, and maybe she was just looking at something on the other side of Shido. But the thought didn’t help him relax.
“What is going on here,” he muttered to himself as a single bead of sweat ran down his cheek.
Three hours later, the start-of-year ceremonies were over. As the students got their things together and left the classroom, Tonomachi walked up to Shido, casually carrying his bag behind his back with one hand.
“Wanna eat lunch, Itsuka? I know you’re free.”
Half-days, outside of final-exam week, were a rarity at school.
Several groups were gathered around the classroom, eagerly debating where to eat.
Shido was just about to nod his assent before he stopped himself.
“Sorry, I got something set up.”
“Huh? Some girl?”
“Uhhh…sort of.”
“What?!” Tonomachi lifted a leg and made peace signs with both
- 36 - hands, like he just won the big track meet. “What the hell were you up to during spring break, man?! Gettin’ friendly with Tobiichi wasn’t enough?
Now you’re settin’ up lunch dates?! I thought we both swore to shun the opposite sex and become wizarding folk instead!”
“I don’t recall doing that…and it’s just Kotori, dude.”
His friend breathed a visible sigh of relief. “Oh. Don’t scare me!”
“You’re the one carrying on like that.”
“Mind if I come along? Kotori wouldn’t mind, I don’t think.”
“Hmm? Sure, that oughta be fine, but…”
Before Shido could finish, Tonomachi had an elbow on his desk.
“Hey, hey,” he said, lowering his voice, “Kotori’s in her second year of middle school, right? She have a guy yet or anything?”
“What?”
“Oh, not that I mean anything by that. I just figured, like, what would Kotori think of someone maybe three years older than her?”
“…You know what? Never mind. Stay away from me.”
Shido squinted at Tonomachi, still sneering at him from just a few inches away. Then he took a hand and pushed his head away from him.
“Awww! Come on! We’ll be brothers-in-law someday, man!”
“The mere idea sickens me,” Shido said, eyebrows down.
- 37 -
Tonomachi straightened himself up and shrugged. “Heh heh! Well, far be it for me to butt in on you two siblings sharing a little family moment. Just try not to break any laws, okay?”
“You always gotta say one thing too many, don’t you?” Shido countered, one cheek twitching a little. It elicited nothing but fake surprise from Tonomachi.
“Hey, I’m just sayin’, Kotori’s really cute! Sharing a roof with her must be really awesome.”
“If you had a little sister, you’d change your tune quick, trust me.”
“Ahh… Yeah, I hear that a lot. Like, if you got a real little sister, the little-sister trope loses its appeal really fast. So that’s really true?”
“Yeah. She’s not a girl. She’s just this creature I call a ‘little sister.’”
Tonomachi laughed at the bold words. “That sort of thing, huh?”
“That sort of thing. That’s why she’s a ‘little’ sister. She never grows up.”
“What’s a big sister, then?”
“…Like, a really tall sister?”
“Oooh, sweet! I love women’s basketball!”
Tonomachi laughed at this half-hearted joke for a couple seconds.
Then:
- 38 -
Weeeeeeeeeeeee-oooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh…
“…Huh?!”
A foreboding siren blared out across town, audibly vibrating the classroom windows.
“What is…?”
Tonomachi opened one to look outside. Several crows flew up from the school, perhaps spooked by the siren. The students left inside had all stopped talking, eyes round as saucers. The noise stopped, only to be followed by a mechanical-sounding voice, pausing at regular intervals for maximum listening comprehension.
“…This…is not…a drill. This…is not…a drill. A pre-tremor…has been detected. A spatial quake…is anticipated…to take place shortly. All nearby residents…please take refuge…at the nearest shelter…immediately. Repeat…”
At that moment, gasps erupted from across the silent classroom.
Now everybody was sure of it. It was a spatial-quake warning.
“Whoa, whoa, for real?” said Tonomachi, his voice cracking as sweat began to gather on his forehead. But while all the students in class
- 39 -
(Shido and Tonomachi included) exhibited signs of nervousness and anxiety, they all remained relatively calm. Nobody was in a state of uncontrollable panic, at least. The whole area had been devastated by the spatial quake of thirty years ago, so Shido and his classmates had gone through evacuation drill after evacuation drill since kindergarten.
Plus, this was a high school, and the basement shelter had enough space to accommodate every student on the attendance roll.
“The shelter’s right nearby. Just keep calm, and we’ll be fine.”
“Y-yeah,” Tonomachi said, nodding at Shido’s words.
They walked briskly out of the classroom, into a corridor already filled with students. They were all forming neat lines, exactly as trained, toward the shelter.
Then something gave Shido pause. One of them was running in the opposite direction of the lines, toward the entrance. A girl.
“Tobiichi…?”
It was Origami Tobiichi, her skirt blowing in the air as she sprinted.
“Whoa! What’re you doing? There isn’t a shelter that way—”
“It’s fine.”
Origami paused just long enough to say that before darting off.
- 40 -
Shido raised a perplexed eyebrow as he joined the lines.
“It’s fine…? What’s fine?”
The girl made him worry. Maybe she forgot something. Just because the alarm went off didn’t mean a spatial quake would happen right this minute. She ought to have plenty of time if she came right back.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Tamae’s voice leading them.
“S-Stay calm, stay caallllmmm! Everything’s all right, slow dowwwwn! Remember, kids, No-PRT! Noooo-PRT! That stands for ‘No
Pushing, No Running, No Taaaaall-kings!”
He could hear the other students giggle at this.
“…Kinda funny how calming seeing someone panic more than you is.”
“Yeah, I think I know whatcha mean,” Tonomachi said, returning
Shido’s smile. It was true. Watching Tama-chan be a less than reliable leader didn’t unnerve the students—if anything, it eased the tension.
Then Shido recalled something. He took his phone out of his pocket.
“What’s up, Itsuka?”
“Oh, just something quick,” he blurted out as he tapped the name
- 41 -
“Kotori Itsuki” from his recent history. But the call didn’t go through. He tried a few more times. No dice.
“…It’s not working. Hope she evacuated okay.”
She’d be fine, assuming she hadn’t left middle school yet. If she did—if she was out and on her way to the diner—that was a problem.
There had to be a public shelter or two on the way, though, so it couldn’t have been that bad…but Shido couldn’t erase the worst-case scenario from his mind. He could just imagine Kotori completely ignoring the siren, waiting patiently for Shido like a faithful dog. Her “You better!” admonishment from this morning echoed in his mind.
“She said I better show up, even if there’s a spatial quake…but she can’t be that much of a dumbass… Oh, wait, there’s still this.”
Kotori’s phone had a GPS-based positional tracker on it. Bringing up his map, Shido looked at the town from overhead, noticing a red icon on top of it.
“…ugh.”
It made him stop breathing for a moment. The icon depicting
Kotori’s position was parked right in front of the diner.
“She can not be serious…!”
Cursing at her, he put the phone back, forgetting to turn the screen
- 42 - off, and shot back up the corridor.
“H-Hey! Itsuka, where’re you going?!”
“Sorry! I forgot something! You go on ahead!”
Leaving Tonomachi’s voice behind him, he ran down the line and out the entrance. Swiftly putting his outdoor shoes on, he pushed himself outside, almost falling over. Passing through the front gate, he shot downhill, practically half-rolling down.
“Ugh!” he shouted as he ran at top speed. “How thick do you have to be not to evacuate at a time like this…!”
A strange sight greeted Shido as he kept going. Roads were free of cars; streets were free of people. Nobody was left on the sidewalks, at the parks, or in the convenience stores. It was like everyone in town had left at the same time, even as it was clear they were there just a minute ago.
A bit like a scene from a horror film.
Since the disaster of thirty years ago, Tengu City had been redeveloped with an almost neurotic single-mindedness toward spatial-quake defense. No town in Japan was more equipped with shelters underneath all the public buildings, not to mention personal residences. That, combined with the recent rash of quakes, made evacuation happen very quickly.
- 43 -
Just not for him.
“Why’s she just standing there…following our promise to the letter…!”
Shido took his phone out again as he shouted to no one in particular.
Kotori’s icon hadn’t moved a pixel from near the diner’s door. He resolved to give her a flurry of finger-flicks to the forehead once he made it over.
He wasn’t trying to pace himself; it was just full-on pedal to the metal down the asphalt road. His legs hurt; his fingertips grew numb.
His throat was raw, he was dizzy, and the inside of his mouth was dry.
But he didn’t stop. The danger, and the fatigue, didn’t register in his mind as he ran, with everything he had, toward Kotori.
Then:
“Ngh! …Huh?”
He bobbed his head up and down as he ran. On the edge of his eyesight, he thought he saw something move.
“What’s…that…?”
He gave it a look. There were three…no, four of them. Human figures. Floating in the air. But, in another moment, he could no longer pay them any attention.
“Agh…?!”
- 44 -
Shido instinctively covered his eyes. Out of nowhere, the street before him was enveloped in a blinding light. Then, with a deafening explosion, he was greeted by an intense shockwave.
“Nagh…!”
Reflexively covering his face with his arms, Shido applied force to his legs. It was too late. A massive gale, like a powerful typhoon, grabbed him. He lost his balance, tumbling to the ground behind him.
“Ow… What was that…?!”
He rubbed his half-blinded eyes as he sat up.
“…Huh…?”
That was about all the response Shido could give to the sight spread before him. After all, that entire cityscape that was right in front of him, in the blink of an eye…was gone, without a trace.
“W-What, what’s going on here,” he whispered to himself, dumbfounded. This was no metaphor, no joking around. It was like a comet just struck town. Or, really, like the land itself had completely disappeared. The whole of the townscape had been hollowed out, leaving a crater in its place. And there, right in the middle of that hole in the middle of town, something metallic loomed.
“Wha…?”
- 45 -
He was too far away to make out the details—but to him, it was shaped like a throne, the kind some medieval king from an RPG would sit in. But that wasn’t important. There was a girl standing there, alone, in a bizarre-looking dress, one foot atop an armrest.
“She… What’s she doing there?”
It was all hazy to him, but he could make out the long, black hair and the weirdly glowing skirt. She was definitely female. Shido watched as she languidly turned her head, locking it in his direction.
“Hmm…?”
Did…she notice him? He couldn’t tell. But as he puzzled over this, the girl kept moving. In a relaxed motion, she put her hand around a grip that popped out the back of the throne, slowly pulling it out. It was a gigantic broad-bladed sword, its body emitting a mysterious gleam, like a rainbow or a starfield. The girl gave it a swing. An arc of glowing light hung in the air behind it.
Then:
“Ah…?!”
The girl took the sword and swung it horizontally in Shido’s direction. He put his head down—or, really, his arm muscles relaxed, sending him limply falling back on the pavement.
- 46 -
“…Wha—”
The blade had blazed a trail right through where Shido’s head was a moment ago. It was much too far for the sword to directly reach, but—
“…Ah…”
Shido turned his head back, eyes open wide. Behind them, all the homes, shops, roadside trees, and signs that built up the town he knew had all been sliced through, at the exact same height. A beat, and then he heard a rumble like distant thunder as it all collapsed.
“Ee…?!”
His heart was gripped by a shudder beyond anything he could understand. None of this made sense to him. All he knew was that if he didn’t lower his head just now, he would’ve been “downsized” in body height, along with everything else behind him.
“No, no way…!”
He reared back, practically dragging his helpless legs with him. He had to get out of here, no matter how quickly or slowly he could go.
But:
“You…too?”
“Huh?!”
An exhausted-sounding voice echoed above his head. His vision
- 47 - caught up with his ears a moment later.
In front of him stood a girl who didn’t exist several moments ago.
The girl who stood in the middle of the crater, all the way over there.
“Ahhhh…”
There was no coherent thought behind the groan.
She was about the same age as Shido, maybe a little younger. Her black hair, flowing down to her knees, framed a face that presented a mix of charmingness and courage. Ensconced inside were a pair of eyes that shone eerily, like crystals exposed to multi-colored lights from assorted directions. Her clothing was just as strange—the kind of dress a princess might wear, made of a material that might’ve been cloth, might’ve been metal; he didn’t know. The seams, inner layer, skirt, and so forth were all composed of a layer of marvelous light, like no type of material he knew.
And in her hands, she carried that giant sword, as tall as she was.
The situation was beyond normality, her appearance beyond comprehension, her existence beyond ordinary. It was all more than enough to leave Shido rapt. But—alas—none of those relative trivialities were what grabbed Shido’s attention.
“……”
For that one single moment, his eyes were fixated upon her,
- 48 - making him forget the fear of death or even the need to breathe. That was just how violent her beauty was.
Shido, overcome with shock, opened his mouth, all too aware the question could be blasphemous enough to make her gouge his eyes, crush his throat.
“…What’s your…?”
The girl slowly turned her eyes downward.
“…My name?”
Her voice vibrated toward him, its tone a pleasant melody in the air.
But:
“…I have nothing like that,” she said, sadly.
“Ah…!”
And just then, Shido and the girl’s eyes met for the first time. As they did, the nameless girl gave him a depressed scowl, as if ready to cry on the spot. With a soft clink, she readjusted the grip on her sword.
“Whoa… Wait, wait!”
That clink made the shuddering come back. But the girl looked at the simpering Shido with curious eyes.
“…What?”
“Wha, what’re you trying to do to me…!”
- 49 -
“I’m trying to kill you already, of course,” she plainly stated.
The blood drained from Shido’s face. “W-Why…?!”
“Why…? What do you think?” The woman’s face doured once more.
“…You’re here to kill me too, aren’t you?”
“Huhhh?” Shido’s jaw dropped at this unexpected answer. “…I, I, of course not!”
“…What?”
A mixture of surprise, suspicion, and bewilderment crossed the girl’s eyes. But she refocused them, eyebrows down as she turned away from Shido and toward the sky. Shido joined her, looking upward…
“What the…?!”
His eyes opened wider than ever, as the sight left him gasping for air. It would do the same for anyone. After all, there were several people up there, dressed bizarrely and flying around the air—and they had just used the weapons in their hands to fire missile-like objects at Shido and the girl.
“Ah, aahhhhhhhhh?!”
He couldn’t help but scream for his life. But, even after several seconds, he was still alive. “Huh…?” he asked, spacing out. The missiles were stopped in space several meters above the girl, as if snatched by an
- 50 - invisible hand.
The girl let out an exhausted sigh.
“…Why do they never learn how useless those are?”
The missiles crumpled up, like being compressed by something, and exploded on the spot. The blasts were downright puny, as if all the force was sent inward instead of out. Shido had the vague impression this was making the attackers in the air panic, but they didn’t stop the attack. The missiles kept on coming.
“…Hngh!”
With a slight release of breath, the girl made a face like she was ready to burst into tears. The same face she made when she pointed her sword at Shido earlier. Watching it, Shido felt his heart leap even higher up his throat than when he faced near-death a moment ago. It was such a bizarre sight. He had no idea who she was, or who her attackers above were. He had the idea, though, that she had a great deal more power than her opponents. Hence his vague sense of concern.
If she’s so strong, why was she making that face?
“…Go away. Go away. Just, all of you…go away…!”
And saying that, too?
The sword, shining just as eerily as her eyes, was pointed toward
- 51 - the sky. As if tired, or sad, she gave it an artless swing. In an instant, the wind screamed.
“Ah! Ahhh…”
A mind-blowing shockwave struck the area, sending a slashing blast toward the sky above where she swung. The flying assailants hurriedly dodged it, retreating back. But the next moment, a searing blast of light shot toward the girl from another direction.
“…Ah!”
He reflexively closed his eyes. But the ray was banished in midair, as if hitting an invisible wall above the girl. Like a firework dissipating into the night sky, it burnt itself out, twinkling brilliantly in all directions.
Then, following right after, someone flew down behind Shido.
“What, what’s with all these people…!”
He had long since failed to keep up with events around him. It felt like he was having some diabolical daydream. But—seeing the figure that touched down nearby, Shido’s body froze. It was a girl wearing an unfamiliar-looking full-body suit, as if she was completely covered in machinery. A large thruster was attached to its back, and she carried a weapon shaped a little like a golf bag.
- 52 -
Shido had frozen for good reason—he recalled her face. He whispered the name Tonomachi taught him just that morning.
“Origami…Tobiichi…?”
This weird girl, encased in all kinds of high-tech stuff, was Origami
Tobiichi. She gave Shido a look. “…Shido Itsuki?” she said, as if responding to him. Her expression was unchanged, but there was just a barely detectable sense of confusion to her voice.
“…Huh? W-Why’re you dressed like that…”
He knew it was a stupid question, but he had to ask. Too many things were happening at once; he didn’t know where to begin. But in another moment, Origami turned her eyes away from Shido and toward the girl in the dress.
“…Hmph.”
She had every right to. After all, she had swung the sword in her hand at Origami once more.
Kicking at the ground, Origami leaped over the sword strike’s path, closing the distance between her and the girl with astonishing speed. The edge of her weapon now had its own blade, forged from what seemed like light itself. She swung it down hard upon the girl.
“…Nnh!”
- 53 -
The girl’s eyebrows turned ever-so-slightly downward as her own sword stopped it. A beat. Then a terrific shockwave shot out from where their weapons met.
“Whoa…! Ah, ahhhhhhhh?!”
With a pathetic-sounding scream, Shido balled himself up to withstand the blast. Origami herself was sent flying backward.
Measuring her distance from her foe, she recovered, weapon immediately back at the ready as she glared at her.
They exchanged wordless, sharp-eyed looks at each other, Origami and this mystery girl, with Shido in the middle. All hell could have broken loose at any time. A single tiny spark, and battle could’ve kicked off all over again.
“Nh…!”
For Shido, the suspense was unbearable. Sweat covered his forehead as he dragged his body aside, struggling to find someplace to
- 54 -
- 55 - flee to.
Then, out of nowhere, the phone in his pocket belted out a cheerful little tune.
“Ah…!”
“Ah…!”
And there was the spark. The girl and Origami took off almost simultaneously, colliding with each other right in front of Shido.
“Aaaaaagghhh!”
The overwhelming force that resulted sent Shido helplessly tumbling before finally knocking him unconscious against a nearby wall.
◇
The girl immediately spoke upon entering the bridge, her deep crimson military uniform draped over her shirt.
“…Status.”
“Commander,” acknowledged the man waiting next to the captain’s chair, launching into a salute straight out of the army textbook. The girl gave it the lightest of nods as she applied a toes-first kick to his shin.
“Ow!”
“Enough greeting,” she told the man—his face betraying more
- 56 - ecstasy than agony—as she settled into the captain’s seat. “Give me our status.”
“Right.” The main immediately recovered. “Attack began immediately after the Spirit appeared.”
“AST?”
“It appears so.”
The Anti-Spirit Team was, in a sense, a modern coven of wizards.
Greater than human, not quite monsters, they wore suits of mechanical armor for the purpose of hunting, capturing, and killing Spirits. But, as it happened, being merely superhuman wasn’t enough to let them fight on an even keel with them. That was the sheer difference in strength involved.
“…We have ten confirmed. One is in pursuit and engaging.”
“Let me see video,” the commander ordered. A large monitor on the bridge projected a realtime feed. Above a wide road, about two streets down from a busy shopping district, two girls were visibly locked in battle, swinging enormous weapons at each other. Light scintillated whenever their arms met, cracking the earth and sending buildings toppling. It hardly seemed like reality.
“There she goes…but she can’t do anything against a Spirit foe, can
- 57 - she?”
The man watched silently as the commander lifted a foot and planted the heel of her boot right on his own.
“Gnnh!”
Ignoring the look of unbridled happiness on his face, the commander let out a soft sigh. “I don’t need anyone to tell me. We’re just sitting here watching it, and already I find it so boring.”
“M-Meaning, Commander?”
“Meaning, that I’ve finally received permission from the Rounds.
…We’re kicking off the operation.”
The revelation made gasps erupt among the bridge’s crew.
“Kannazuki?”
The commander leaned back in her seat, lifted her right hand a little, and put her index and middle fingers in the air, like an actor in an old film demanding a cigarette.
“Ma’am!”
The man immediately brought a hand to his pocket and took out a small piece of candy with a stick attached. Quickly, but thoroughly, he removed the wrapping, then kneeled before the commander. “Here you are,” he said, delicately wedging the stick between her outstretched
- 58 - fingers.
The commander tossed it into her mouth, the stick dancing around in air as she sucked on the sweet blob at the end.
“…Oh, and what about the ‘secret weapon’ himself? He didn’t answer the phone a moment ago. Did he evacuate?”
“Let me check. …Huh?”
The man tilted his head at his screen, giving it a look of disbelief.
“What is it?”
“L-Look at this.”
He pointed at the screen. The commander gave it a look.
“…Ah.”
It was a short yelp, but it told the whole story. There, adjacent to the Spirit and AST member’s epic battle, a boy in a school uniform was sprawled out on the ground.
“…Well, perfect, then. Pick him up.”
“Roger that,” said the man, giving another well-mannered salute.
(To be continued.)
- 59 -
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