Mitsuha Goes to Another World
The girl stood atop a steep cliff, her hands resting on the weathered wooden railing that separated her from the depths below. Her gaze was cast over the distant horizon. Oh, but don’t worry─suicide was the last thing on her mind.
Her name was Mitsuha Yamano. Her straight, shoulder-length black hair framed a youthful face without a hint of makeup. Standing at merely four foot eleven, the eighteen-year-old was often mistaken for a child in middle school or, even more offensively, elementary school.
Six months ago, Mitsuha had lost her beloved family─her mother, father, and older brother─to a freak accident, leaving her without any close relatives. She had some distant ones, sure, but you could count the times they’d met on one hand, and it was likely they would never meet again.
Following the funeral and other relevant matters, Mitsuha had been left with a hefty sum of inheritance and insurance money, and along with it, no shortage of enemies. A particularly greedy uncle and his wife sought to wrest the money from her with cruel words and intimidation. A couple of undesirables from Mitsuha’s school even loitered outside her home to try to squeeze out whatever they could. By the time Mitsuha was able to drive away everyone pursuing her wealth, the mental burden had led to her failing her college entrance exams.
Losing her entire family would have been bad enough on its own, but Mitsuha’s brother─two years older than her─had been her idol, so she felt his loss the most. The hurt, the stress that had come with handling the aftermath, and the profound dejection that followed had made it far too difficult for her to focus on her studies. By now, at least, she had mostly recovered from the pain of flunking her exams.
Craving a change of pace, she’d decided to visit a local tourist destination. Actually, to call it such might’ve been too generous─the “lookout,” as it was known, was little more than the tip of a jagged coastline. A smattering of modest conveniences, such as wooden fences, coin-operated binoculars, and public toilets, decorated the area. But Mitsuha didn’t need anything more. All she wanted was to stare out at the sea and enjoy its tranquility.
On such an unremarkable weekday afternoon, the only other visitors to the site were a college-aged couple, a pair of elderly spouses, and a trio of thick-headed hoodlums whose intelligence rivaled the rocks’ below. Mitsuha, on the other hand, had the academic potential to enter any of countless colleges across the country. Unfortunately, only one was within commuting distance of the home her parents had left her, and its standards of entry were extremely high. Perhaps she could have met them if she’d been able to perform her best, but this feat had proved too much for her in her dire state.
Originally, Mitsuha had had nothing against attending a college away from home, but now that she was alone, she didn’t want to leave her parents’ house. They had built it from the ground up, and with the absence of her family members, the memories they’d left behind were too precious for her to let go. It was this attachment that influenced Mitsuha’s choice to take only the entrance exams for her local college.
Oh, man… What do I do now? Mitsuha contemplated whether she should give the exams a try again next year or focus on securing an income instead. The remaining mortgage on the Yamano home had been paid off when her father died, and her parents’ life insurance payout had made her pretty wealthy. Four years’ worth of college and living expenses, however, would tap heavily into this supply.
For this reason, Mitsuha weighed the option of entering the workforce right away. While she wouldn’t make as high of a salary as she might with a college degree, there weren’t any companies within commuting distance that were all that generous in the first place. Furthermore, a degree hardly guaranteed a well-paying job in this day and age.
Mitsuha also considered the possibility that she might marry and have children in the future. It would be hard enough to juggle a family and a full-time job; the debt from college would only make things worse. All things considered, college just didn’t seem worth it when the other, more viable option was to start working and saving.
It’s not like I have a dream job or anything, she thought, staring out at the beautiful sea.
“Well now, who do we have here? You skippin’ school, little lady?” An oily voice from behind derailed her train of thought. Mitsuha turned and found herself cornered by three sinister grins. The delinquent who’d spoken had bleached hair and looked to be about twenty. “Wanna hang with us? We’ll show you a good time, take you somewhere nice, getcha somethin’ to eat…then see where it goes from there?”
Here we go again. They clearly think I’m some kid cutting class, Mitsuha thought, thoroughly unamused. While many women enjoyed appearing younger than they were, Mitsuha was an adult, and thus found no joy in being treated like a middle schooler. Then again, revealing that she was actually eighteen would only make them more assertive, so she chose to keep this fact to herself.
But did it really matter? The men before her were trying to pick up a girl they assumed to be in middle school; maybe they wouldn’t have cared one bit about her age. While Mitsuha’s opinion of these skirt-chasers was low to begin with, she didn’t want to accept an even more unsavory alternative: that they would actually go after an elementary schooler.
Regardless, they weren’t people she wanted to deal with, but it would be a tough situation to escape. The three leering delinquents blocked her way forward, and only a plunge to her death awaited behind her. Trapped against the wooden fence, she had no advantage beyond her wits.
Putting on the youngest-sounding voice she could muster, she piped, “Sorry, mister… I can’t go with you. Mommy and Daddy are coming to pick me up!”
Mitsuha hoped the act would convince them that she truly was just a child waiting for her parents─a target way outside the acceptable range of these hoodlums.
But instead, the blond scanned the perimeter to confirm the absence of her parents, then marched forward, grabbed her by the arm, and growled, “Just come with us!” His sidekicks also advanced, sending Mitsuha into a panic. She glanced around, desperate for one of the passersby to lend a hand, but they were all making a valiant effort to see nothing.
Go figure, no one wants to be a hero. Guess I’ve got no choice. I’ll deal with them myself!
Despite her pint-sized frame and cherubic looks, Mitsuha’s intelligence and physical strength were nothing to sneeze at. And above all else, Mitsuha had guts. It was this quality that had enabled her to protect her inheritance from those looking to seize it.
Her body moved before she could think, sending an upward kick directly into the blond guy’s groin. Without so much as a peep, he fell to his knees, writhing in pain. Froth bubbled at the corners of his lips, and he quickly collapsed, lying immobile between his comrades.
“THE HELL’RE YOU DOIN’, YOU BITCH?!” The textbook gangster line erupted from one of the remaining delinquents, and in his rage, he shoved Mitsuha backward with full force.
“Ah…!” she gasped as her back made contact with the wooden fence and an ominous crack reached her ears. Next thing she knew, she found herself in midair, at the mercy of gravity.
Huuuhhh?!
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Falling! I’m falling! I’M FALLING! I’M FAAALLLIIINNNG! I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die! I DON’T WANNA DIE!
Screaming at the top of her lungs, Mitsuha prayed from the bottom of her heart for someone to help her.
I DON’T WANNA DIE! I DON’T WANNA DIE!
“WAAAAAAAAGHHH!”
Just as consciousness left her, Mitsuha heard a strange cracking sound, accompanied by a scream that wasn’t hers.
“Where am I?” Mitsuha looked around.
Bark, leaves, grass, lots of trees… Yep, I’m in a forest. Hey, wait, hold on a sec! I totally just fell off a cliff! It was all waves and rocks at the bottom, right?! she thought, bewildered. But far be it from her to complain about this new development. Waking up in some random forest ain’t great, sure. But it’s way better than turning into a red smear on some rocks!