Sunday arrived.
Amagi Station on the Toto Line was the meet-up spot that Sento Isuzu had dictated to him. As Seiya passed through the ticket gate, he caught sight of a nearby police box and paused in front of it, considering. A middle-aged patrolman noticed, and addressed him: “Something bothering you, son?”
“No...” Seiya shook his head. For a moment, though, let’s imagine what would have happened if he had told the officer what was bothering him:
“This weird transfer student asked me on a date under threat of musket fire! Yes sir, she had a musket. Yes, like the guns from ‘The Three Musketeers.’ They’ve also become rather famous as magical girl weapons these days. Please, you have to arrest her!”
There was no way he would have been taken seriously.
It wasn’t just the police, either. Over the past three days, Seiya had wavered over and over about whether or not to tell his teachers or his aunt what had happened. Each time he did, though, he arrived at the same conclusion, and ended up saying nothing.
“......?” The officer was starting to peer at him intently. Overcome with a feeling of awkwardness, Seiya distanced himself from the police box, walking instead towards the small convenience store that stood next door.
He casually checked his attire in the reflection in the glass. Oh, yes. Look at you, handsome!
He was wearing a simple dark jacket and pants, with an equally plain white v-neck; the outfit emphasized that he was slender, with a defined musculature. His hair had been precisely waxed to give it just a slight illusion of motion. He had long, slender eyebrows and eyes, and his face was held at a perfect 45 degree angle that boasted of intelligence and refinement.
Ahh, even I’d fall in love with that man in the mirror! With my spectacular looks, plus the best grades in the whole school, it’s no surprise at all that some transfer student I’ve never even talked to would want to ask me out...
...The issue was with the “If you refuse, I’ll kill you” threat. That girl... yes, that’s what she was—one of those “yandere” types I’ve heard so much about! Her overwhelming love for me has caused her to snap emotionally. A woman in such a wretched mental state deserves pity more than anything...
(No, no, no...)
Like hell I’m going to pity her when she’s swinging that dangerous gun around. If it were a fruit knife, a carving knife, an icepick—the kind of weapon you see in sleazy suspense-thrillers—maybe then I could understand...
But then, come to think of it... where had she pulled the weapon from? She’d been empty-handed when she’d first addressed me, Seiya realized. It was only when I’d asked her, “What is it?” that the gun had appeared in her hand as if from nowhere. Maybe that’s the first thing I should be wondering about...
“There you are,” said Isuzu.
“Hngah?!” The sudden voice from behind snapped Seiya out of his train of thought.
Panicked, he turned around, steeled for whatever was coming, but Sento Isuzu had arrived at their meeting spot unarmed. And the outfit she was wearing was absolutely unremarkable—in fact, he might even call it appealing. She’d painted an attractive figure in her school uniform to begin with, and this was even better.
Wonderful! And most wonderful of all, she isn’t carrying the musket!
“Let’s get going,” Isuzu said, apparently skipping the pleasantries.
“Where?”
“AmaBri.”
“Er?” Seiya was confused.
“AmaBri,” Isuzu explained, “Amagi Brilliant Park.”
Amagi Brilliant Park. It was an old theme park, about ten minutes from the station by bus.
“The bus leaves from the second terminal. Follow me.” Isuzu began swiftly walking away, but he stopped her.
“Wait, Sento—”
“Stop stalling,” she demanded.
“—just hang on a minute. Why are we going to that amusement park?”
“It’s not an amusement park. It’s a theme park.”
“Like I care. Would you just tell me what’s going on already? Why do two people who barely know each other have to go to some dodgy amusement park together?” Seiya asked, frustration rising.
“Dodgy...?” In the blink of an eye, Isuzu had produced the musket in question from beneath her short pleated skirt, whipped it around in a precise 260 degree arc, and pointed it at Seiya’s crotch.
A nearby woman, out with her child, stopped and stiffened.
The child said, “Mama, that lady’s got blue striped panties. That’s standard equipment...” To which the woman replied, “Hush! Be a model member of society and pretend you don’t see!”
Seiya wasn’t at the right angle to identify whether the child’s statement was accurate or not, but seeing him dismiss blue striped panties as “standard equipment” made Seiya fear what he might grow up to be. But... no, no, never mind that now...
Instead, Seiya spoke up: “Why are you angry?”
“......”
“...There’s a whole lot of things I want you to explain,” he said, “including where you keep pulling that bizarre weapon from.”
“Let’s go.”
He was ignored.
Isuzu stowed her musket away, making use of whatever inexplicable law of physics she’d used to bring it out in the first place, then began walking towards the second terminal.
Located in Amagi, a commuter town in the western part of Tokyo, the theme park in question might require a bit of explanation:
Amagi Brilliant Park. What idiot was it who had thought up that painfully lame appellation—“brilliant?” Amagi Brilliant Park (aka AmaBri) was built during the 1980s, an amusement park (they insisted on the term “theme park”) riding the wave of the greatest excesses of the bubble economy.
The 1980s. It was an era in which delinquents had haircuts like the bows of space battleships; idols with mushroom-cap haircuts were all the rage; and anime was heavy with streaky black shading and characters striking extreme-perspective poses.
AmaBri’s reputation was quite negative compared to that of the world’s best theme parks. People called it a lot of things. Some called it, “The dubious legacy of the bubble economy.” Some called it, “A surefire relationship wrecker for couples who go there on a date.” Some called it, “A relic sure to baffle future archaeologists who happen to dig up Amagi City.” And among the young people of western Tokyo, AmaBri was known as “The archetypal awful dating spot.”
Seiya had a feeling he’d gone there once with someone when he was little, but now that he was in high school, he barely remembered it at all.
They’d been on the city bus for about five minutes. They had passed through an unremarkable residential area and come out into a hilly region covered in the greens of early spring, and now a castle could be seen beyond the trees. It was an attractive castle, all done in pastel blue.
Wow. More impressive than I’d anticipated... Seiya thought to himself. He’d been expecting the old amusement park to be rather run down, but even the coloring had a nice, modern sensibility to it. Much to his surprise, the place really looked legitimate.
The castle in the distance gradually grew closer and closer.
“The next stop is Amagi Brilliant Park. Disembarking passengers, please—” Seiya was just about to press the buzzer when Sento Isuzu, sitting beside him, grabbed his sleeve tight.
“What is it?”
“One more stop,” Isuzu answered.
“Huh? But we’re going to Amagi Brilliant Park, aren’t we?” Seiya asked. “Isn’t that castle the front gate?”
“......tel.” Isuzu murmured something, but he couldn’t hear it under the noise of the bus’s engine.
“I can’t hear you.”
“...hotel.”
“I said I can’t hear you.”
With a sense of deep resignation, Isuzu finally leaned in close to Seiya and spoke into his ear in a whisper that was barely more than a breath. “It’s a love hotel. It has no connection to the theme park.”
“I... I see,” he stammered.
“It’s a common mistake. AmaBri is the next stop down,” Isuzu explained. “The front entrance used to be here, but it was moved during renovations about ten years back. The bus station remained, though, and they built this, ah... ‘castle’ nearby.”