“Hgragh?!” I grabbed Onishi by the hair and pulled him up. “F-f-f-fuck you!! Put it back! Put my arm back!!” he whined, clearly no longer in control of the situation. He extended the stump of his upper arm and yelled at me with such anger, I began to wonder if he’d already forgotten the pain. “You know what I’m gonna do to you for this?! I’ll kill you! I’m gonna kill you! Then I’ll get your sister and your friend, and I’ll sell them to— Ghgh?!” “Like I said, you’re under a simple misconception here. Besides, what did you just say? Are you fucking stupid? Do you want to die? Is that it? If that’s the case, then just say so.” “Grh…gggh…?!” I pressed his face into the floor, twisting it so the rough concrete scraped the skin off his face like a file. He resisted at first, but once I felt his neck go limp, I lifted his head up once more. “Now, let me ask you some questions,” I said. “If you hesitate, or lie…well, I’m sure you can imagine what will happen, right?” “Hrk?!” I stared into Onishi’s face, filling him with terror. He was a little easier on the eyes now that his face was sliced up. “Still, if I consult my memories, I have a pretty strong hunch…but I’m not sure. I guess it could be someone I’ve never met before.” “I’ll talk! I’ll talk! Just please stop!” “All right then, why don’t we start with who’s behind all this?” “Kawakami! A reporter lady named Kumiko Kawakami! She’s the one who asked me to—” “Hmm, yeah, that’s what I figured.” I wasn’t all that surprised by the name that fell from Onishi’s lips. In hindsight, it was strange how she’d managed to sniff me out despite the fact the police were concealing my existence, not to mention how she’d managed to track my every move. Plus, there had been subtle giveaways in her expressions and mannerisms that pointed to her ulterior motives, the significance of which I could only perceive now that I had my memories back. Of course, analyzing my recollection like that was flaky business, so I couldn’t be sure. I still had an inkling Dr. Maeno had something to do with everything. Then again, if he’s the mastermind, he’s a pretty shitty one. He was way too obvious. “Right, then next… Huh. I guess that’s it, actually.” Now that I thought about it, the only thing I’d needed to confirm was the identity of Onishi’s “client,” which he had just done. It would be far quicker to ask Ms. Kawakami about the rest, rather than try to wrangle any more information of dubious quality from Onishi. Even with my memories back, I still didn’t want to leave Mai alone for any longer than absolutely necessary. Perhaps Onishi realized this, as his face grew even more twisted with dread. “Eep! L-let me go, I’m begging you. I was only kidding! I won’t touch you or your friends ever again!” “Me? Let you go? You’re joking, right?” Naturally, I had no intention of showing mercy to my foes. Flinging my empathy from the precipice, I kicked him to the floor and made my soul blade flicker brightly with flame, then slashed at his ankles and lopped off his feet. “Grgh?! Gaaaaaagh!!” “I think we’re way past the point of forgiveness now, don’t you?” He’d tricked me. He’d hurt my sister and my friends and abetted in their murder, at the very least. But worse than any of that, he said he was going to hurt Mai again. That made him my enemy. Someone who stood in my way, who sought to destroy the world I held dear. He’d destroyed Mai’s world already, and so I needed to destroy his in return. “Hgggh! Ghhheh?!” “Die, die, die. There’s no salvation for the likes of you.” I hacked left and right, like a swinging pendulum biting into his flesh, slicing Onishi’s legs to ribbons. Burnt chunks of flesh scattered across the floor. “Not very imaginative, I know. Usually, I’d take my time with this sort of thing, but unfortunately you caught me on a bad day, so I’m just kind of winging it.” “Please…stop…help…me…” “Sorry, not gonna happen. Nobody’s coming for you. Did anybody come for the people you helped kill? I think not. Your price was ten million yen, was it? Well then, the penalty for failure has to be worth that much as well.” In my other hand, I summoned the Sword of Earthbound Wyrms and extended its area of effect across the concrete floor, extracting the iron in the ground to create a coffin for the armless, legless Onishi. The floor of the factory began to collapse like a sinkhole, and above it, a silver box about a meter across formed. “So die,” I said. “Die in remorse. Die in pain. Die in despair.” I picked up the scattered pieces of Onishi’s limbs and threw them into the box. Then I lifted him up by the scruff of his neck and lay him to rest on a bed of his own flesh. “Now I’m going to roast you alive,” I said. “I’m going to seal the box and heat it up from beneath. It’ll be magic fire, by the way, so it’ll burn as long as I need it to. By the time it’s over, you’ll be blackened and crispy. You’ll croak before then, of course, but I don’t know how long it’ll take. I’ve never done this before, you see.” “P-please, no! I’ll apologize! I’m sorry!” “How will you go out, I wonder? Will it be from shock from the flames roasting your skin? Will it be from the boiling blood of your severed chunks turning to steam? Maybe you’ll run out of air, or maybe the heat will melt your throat first. Oh, I guess you might also die of fear, too. What do you think?” “No…no, no, no! Nooooooo!” “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You’ve only yourself to blame! You made your bed—now lie in it!!” I cackled and cackled and cackled. Again and again and again. The flame in my heart unleashed a dark cry of joy. Laughing at the past, the future, and everything in between. Laughing at the mountain of corpses beneath my feet. Laughing at everything I’d lost. Laughing at my vengeance. At every unpardonable sin. Throwing myself on the fire in order to burn everything around me to ash. That was the way I’d decided to live. “Don’t feel too bad,” I said. “Perhaps God will give you a second chance. Then I’ll give you an even more excruciating death! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!” “Hel—” I stopped listening. I just laughed and laughed and laughed until the box closed around him like the maw of some ravenous beast, searing Onishi’s terrified face into the innermost reaches of my mind. “Huh,” I said at last. “I guess now I’m a murderer in both worlds.” I looked down at the box, Onishi’s fearful screams still issuing from within, and channeled mana into the Flaming Sword of Wheels. “O, faithful servant of the sun. I shall imbue you with fuel everlasting. Bow down to this miraculous and eternal fire. Ivory Flame of the Sun God.” I swung my soul blade gently, and the fiery edge dissolved into white motes of light, like snow. The particles flowed into the hole and lit a shimmering white flame beneath the iron coffin. “See you. Meet your end in a fiery grave, where no one will ever find you.” Then I covered the hole, the flame, and the metal box with a layer of concrete. To anyone who came here, it would seem as though nothing had happened at all. Nobody would possibly find out that there was a magical fire that required neither oxygen nor fuel, burning just a few feet underground. That dark, bright flame would continue gorging itself on despair, emitting a cackle dripping with scorn, until the time the screams ended and the soul within that box was transported to hell. Hmm, the mana density in this world sure is high. So high that it makes it hard to control. I dispelled both my soul blades and pondered that fact. The world was like a cardboard box, packed tightly with blocks. Even if the blocks could shift a bit, there wasn’t a lot of room for them to move. That meant you needed to be pretty skilled to manipulate the mana in this world. No problem for me, of course. “Anyway, I’d better hurry up and get back to Mai…” Just then, my phone rang in my pocket. “A strange number…and the timing is uncanny. Are they watching me?” After considering whether I should just ignore the call, I decided to answer. “Is that Mr. Ukei? Oh, thank goodness!” The person on the other end seemed flustered about something. It wasn’t a voice I recognized, and I sensed my earlier paranoia was probably unfounded. “I’m with the Iizuka police department. Are you sitting down?” I frowned. It wasn’t exactly what you wanted to hear at the start of a phone call. “There’s been a hostage situation at Fujinomiya Institute. It’s the Rebirthers—they’re demanding to see you, Mr. Ukei.” “…Huh?” My slight frown deepened into a scowl of concern. What on earth was going on this time? “We think word of your return must have gotten out somehow. They’re threatening to hurt the children if we don’t hand you over. Of course, we’re working to de-escalate the situation, but we’d like to take you into protective—” Bip. I hung up and started hunting for information online, ignoring the ringing as they tried to call me back. I navigated to a blog collating details about the incident. It was being updated in real time, and it even had links to news articles and video clips that had been posted only a few minutes prior. I clicked on one of them and waited, frustrated by the slow load time. Eventually, I saw an image of my own school, taken from afar. The shutters, which had been installed in the aftermath of the disappearance, were all down. Judging by the clock visible in the video, it would have been taken during second period. Right about the time I’d left home and run into Onishi. “As you can see, the place is still locked down, and it’s been about an hour now since the whole thing began. The first reports came in from people living in the neighborhood, along with a video posted online by who appears to be the culprit himself. We’re going to run part of the clip now.” Then the report suddenly cut to the video in question. It looked to have been shot inside the school, and it showed a plump, grinning man sitting in a leather armchair. “How are you, ladies and gentlemen? I am Swordsmaster Alex, a kind and gentle hero who will save the world. Ha-ha-ha!” He sneered and chortled into the camera. “N-now, this is not my world. I-I’ve been chosen by the Holy Sword to cleanse its world of evil. But to go there, I’ll need to unseal my power, as well as that of my companions.” Here the camera panned to show the companions in question: a tall, skinny man with long hair, and a large man with glasses, as well as several others. “I-I’m Rozenhaldt, the Slayer of Mortals.” “I go by Agito Ryuusenji, Massacrer of Multitudes.” “…Schweinsteiger, Ruler of the Everlasting Void.” Their names alone made my head hurt. After an excruciating round of introductions, the camera returned to the first guy. “We were all born into the wrong world,” he said. “We were supposed to be summoned last year, but the demon lord interfered with the magic spell, causing the summoning rings to appear in this school instead of in their fated location! It’s all thanks to his demonic minions, who walk among us disguised as high school students! They must be stopped!” Then the speech of this “Swordsmaster Alex” grew darker. “And so we plan to kill all of those miserable creatures infesting this school! With their life energy, we shall embark upon a journey to our own world! Ohhhh!” The man was either high on something or just plain stupid—it was hard to tell. My anger began to flare again, just after I had finally started calming down after dispatching that other fool. “Regrettably, some of the students are real humans, and lacking our true powers, we have no way to distinguish them. However, the minions have a midboss who came to this world! If we beat him, the minions will surely disappear! We need your help, people of this world! He goes by the name of ! Bring him to us and let us put this dark chapter to rest!” The bleeped-out name had to have been mine. I felt my blood boil, but I tried to remain calm as I watched the rest of the video. “We have two requests to make of you. The first is to bring us this demonic lieutenant who goes by the name of . And the second is to bring us guns! Guns will be invaluable in our quest to defeat the demon lord! Oh, and I mean big guns, not those peashooters the police use. I’m talking military-issue SMGs and assault rifles. And ammo, lots of ammo, you hear?” I wanted to punch the guy right in his shit-eating grin, but just then, he suddenly turned grave. “However, we are short on time. We must head to our world as soon as possible. You have until three thirty-one this afternoon, or 6D:342 in our world’s time. If we do not have and the weapons by then, we will have no choice but to neutralize the entire school, thus ensuring that innocent lives will be lost!” Aah, my head was starting to hurt. Our two worlds really weren’t so different after all. Both had idiots around every corner. “We await the good word, honorable citizens!” With that, the video ended, and the camera switched back to the reporter from earlier. Having learned all I wanted to know, I turned off my phone and considered my next move. First things first, I had to make sure Mai was okay. “It’s a little far…but with this much mana in the air, I won’t need to consume as much MP.” I conjured the Squirrel’s Blade of Holding and withdrew from it an MP potion, which I drank. Then I went to hang the blade from my hip, before realizing there was no place for it on my school uniform. “…Forgot I was wearing this. Guess I’m still in otherworld mode.” It felt like part of me had been left behind in the other world when I’d come back to Japan. But now the student was gone, and the Revenant was back behind the wheel. Perhaps that was why I now felt a creeping, unpleasant sensation, like something was lurking just out of view. I summoned the Transcendent Blade of Translocation. “As drifting cloud, as wand’ring dream, across the reach of space. To distant lands and travelers my flesh and soul displace! Grant me the one my heart desires! Translocation: Seat of Souls!” Using a long chant to save on MP, I pictured Mai in my mind and focused on her. I felt myself crumble away, becoming one with the streams of mana suffusing the world. The thick mana was hard to control at first, but once I got used to it, I could command powers I’d never dreamed of before. My body disintegrated into tiny particles before being swallowed into the void. For some reason, I felt a deeply unsettling sensation, like a bad premonition of what was about to unfold. “…Oh, great.” The teleportation took an instant. It was like coming out of a tunnel. And there I saw… …a sight deeply familiar to me. Blood, guts, and human gore. “Why is it always the same? In this world or that…” “D-dear brother?” “Kaito?” “Ngrrrrh! Rgh! Brrrrgghh!!” “…it’s always too late by the time I show up.” Standing there, splattered from head to toe in blood, swinging their ax and naginata down upon the bound and gagged men… …were my friend and my sibling—Yuuto and Mai. “Class duty today. Gone to school early. From Bro.” That letter was the last fragment of normalcy before my life was plunged into utter darkness, the way a circuit breaker snuffs out the light in a room. “Oh, it’s late. I’d better hurry, or I’ll be late for school. That would be embarrassing, when I always tell him off for it. Or…maybe I should let him get angry at me, and by way of penance…? N-no, no. However tempting it may be, I mustn’t be late on purpose.” A year and a half ago, early June. Spring had just ended, heralding the arrival of the rainy season. The weather was pleasant, but not completely clear, and a thin layer of gray clouds covered the majority of the sky. The reason I was late sounded like a stereotypical child’s excuse: I had been helping an old lady who had fallen over. “Phew. I think I’m just barely going to make it— Eek?!” I was jogging a little, my club naginata slung over my shoulder, when it happened. I was just about to reach the bottom of some steps when a blinding white light appeared before my eyes. I still remember the feeling of my foot slipping into empty air. I tumbled to the bottom of the stairs, and as the world faded to black, I saw a magic circle of light where I had just been standing. The last thing I heard were the voices of concerned onlookers, running to see what had happened. “…Huh?” When I next awoke, I found that what little I possessed had been taken from me. At first, I didn’t understand. They told me that Mother and Father had driven off a cliff and disappeared. They told me my dear brother had gone missing, along with hundreds of other people from school. It felt fake, like an image reflected in hundreds of tiny bubbles of soap. “…It’s not true.” I returned to the empty house, but it was no longer my home. I curled up on the rocking chair in my father’s study, listening to it squeak. I watered the plants my mother kept and did nothing but stare at them all day. I went into my dear brother’s room. I read his comics, wore his clothes, lay in his bed, and wrapped myself in his sheets. “…It’s not true.” I sat in the empty living room and watched the anime we used to watch as children. It depicted the adventures of a troublesome little boy and his upstanding elder sister as they attended school in a fantasy world. It had been very popular when we were young, and when I was too sick to leave the house, Kaito would always play this game with me where we would pretend to be the two main characters. I even started calling him “dear brother,” after the girl in the show. “…It’s not true.” He always said we’d play outside together when I got bigger and stronger, just like those two did. I asked him, “If I become like her, will you want to play with me forever?” and he said, “Yeah, we’ll be brother and sister, adventuring together.” I’d wanted to make that a reality, so I picked up naginata, the same weapon the girl from that show used. I did everything in my power to become the proud, upstanding young lady she was. Normally, I showered my bungling younger brother with abuse, but at times, I allowed my kind heart to shine through. Whenever a girl began to get close to him, I used fair means and foul to make sure it didn’t amount to anything. “…It’s not true.” I wasn’t the least bit embarrassed about my obsession. When the girls at school called me names, I said what the girl on TV said: “A little sister’s big brother is the most important thing in the world for her.” It was true. When I said I wanted to go shopping, my brother would come with me. He would buy me presents for my birthday and other special occasions. When he got invited to parties, I would sulk, and that would be enough to make him refuse to go. Whenever I did anything for him, he would smile and say “Thanks.” Then I would reply like the girl on TV did. “Anything for my useless brother.” “…It’s not true.” Each time I said those words, another bubble burst. And each time a bubble burst, the gray substance inside them spilled out into my world. This world of mine was now full of holes, and one wrong step would send me right to the bottom of a deep, dark pit. The rooms in my house were cold and bleak, devoid of human warmth. Bereft of the people I had cherished. It was like I’d been transported back into the mind of that bedridden little girl, who only had the four walls of her room for company. Trapped inside a dark cistern, struggling for breath. I was so, so scared. I remember one time, when I was little, I woke up and realized Kaito was gone. I couldn’t bear being alone in the house, so I ran outside and was hit by a car. When I came to, my mother and father and dear brother were all there. At that moment, I didn’t care that I’d been hurt. All I cared about was that they were safe. But this time, there was no way out. I had stood up and taken a step forward, only to fall down a dark pit. One that would break me before I ever reached its end. I stayed motionless, not even crying. Every waking moment I spent watching that old cartoon over and over and over again, until I grew so tired that I passed out. For the first few days, I didn’t eat or bathe or get changed. Why would I? There was nobody to do it for. No reason to diet or choose my food well, no reason to make myself pretty, no reason to wear the mature clothes my brother liked. No reason to try. All I did was remain transfixed on the TV, occasionally going to the bathroom. I lost track of the days, flickering inconsistently between dreams and my waking nightmare. Soon, even that wall broke down, and I spent my days in a constant slush of shallow sleep and addled consciousness. “Perhaps next time I wake up, I’ll see my dear brother’s worried face again.” That was what I was thinking in the few fleeting moments of clarity I was afforded each day. And each time, I thought… If not, then I would rather die before I wake, so that I never have to live in a world without him. Everything up to that point was the first act of my despair. Though all seemed lost, there was still a light in the darkness. I only wished I’d realized it at the time. “What were you playing at, silly?!” “We were so worried about you!” “Ow, ow! It hurts! Stop it, you two!” I awoke in a hospital bed and sat up to find my friends standing beside me. Yuuki, whose father was a famous judge, and who hated anything not on the straight and narrow. And Satomi, the daughter of a rich man, who seemed airheaded at times but could be surprisingly stubborn. Yuuki slapped me hard across the cheek, while Satomi pinched my upper arm. Tears streamed down their faces as they yelled at me. I didn’t know what I’d done. I just stared at them in confusion. But somehow, their raw emotion sunk into my flesh like knives. “Hey…stop…what’s…aaah… Waaaah!!” Like an uncorked bottle, my tears came flooding out. I cried and cried and cried, releasing all my suppressed emotions, until it felt like my eyes would dry up and my lungs run out of breath. By the time all three of us passed out on the bed, it was evening. The IV had cleared my mind, and I was able to hear the full story. Apparently, my two friends had grown concerned about my prolonged absence and had come by my house to check on me. When they looked through an open window, they saw me collapsed and emaciated on the floor and immediately called an ambulance. I was rushed to the hospital and treated for malnutrition and severe dehydration. My two friends had stayed at my bedside the entire time. “I thought you were the bold one, Mai. I can’t believe you would give up so easily! I mean, if your brother is missing, then you have to get off your butt and find him! What happened to the old Mai? Where’s that drive you always had when girls came after Kaito and you called them home-wreckers who should drop dead?!” “That’s right, that’s right! I can’t forget all the times you turned those murderous eyes on us!” After receiving a lecture from my two best friends, I was discharged from the hospital, and we proceeded to hunt after the missing students…or my brother, to be precise. We solicited information on the internet and badgered the police for updates. We even swapped leads with Yuuto, one of my brother’s friends. It didn’t radically alter my life. The world was still full of holes, but with Yuuki and Satomi by my side, I felt I could face it with courage. And so I had forgotten the lesson that life had seen fit to teach me so harshly. That there comes a day when all good things must end. It happened a few months after we’d started investigating. The shocking case had just begun to gain traction in the media after the police file containing the personal information of everyone connected with the case was leaked and the video footage depicting clear evidence of the supernatural was posted online. At the same time, a troubling conspiracy theory had resulted in a breakdown in public order, culminating in the events of that day. We had arranged to meet at a nearby shopping mall. I recalled seeing one of those magic circles myself when I’d slipped and fallen. Wondering why it had come after me even though I hadn’t been at school, we decided to return to the place it happened to investigate. It was a little before noon when we heard the screams. Then the first of what would become a series of stabbings transformed that peaceful shopping mall into a maelstrom of chaos. A man with a knife stabbed a boy from school, then climbed atop him, plunging his blade again and again into his lifeless corpse. The crowd panicked, and I was separated from my friends in the resulting stampede. That was the very last time I saw Yuuki. I met back up with Satomi afterward, but we couldn’t even get Yuuki to answer her phone. She hadn’t been home, either, and while we notified the police, they were busy dealing with a spate of stabbings that had suddenly occurred all over the place, so there was little they could do to help. Satomi and I looked everywhere and turned up nothing. Six months later, nothing had changed. Then one day, when we were searching for clues like usual, the world decided I hadn’t lost enough. “Satomiii! …Satomi?” I was in front of a room we had rented in Satomi’s name that we used as our base of operations. Her parents disapproved of her investigating the case, so we worked in secret. It wasn’t perfect, but we had little choice, as I wanted to preserve my house exactly as it was. Thus, we pooled our money together to rent something. “Mmmmm! Mmm, mmm!! Mmm!!” “Mmmm!! Mmmmm!! Mmmm!!” I still remember how cold the doorknob felt. Through the paneled wood, I heard the muffled cries of a struggle. “K-khah…!” “Hee-hee-hee-hee! Yes…yes, yes, yes!! Now I can finally escape this godforsaken world!! So long, hairless boss!! So long, condescending workmates!! So long, uppity new hires!! Ah-ha-ha-ha!! I’m going to travel to another world and become the greatest knife master in history!! Ah-ha-ha-ha!!” I burst into the room and came face-to-face with a sight so bizarre, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Satomi lay on the floor, and a short, fat man I had never seen before was sitting atop her, plunging something gray and shiny into her stomach. “Two-hit combo! Three-hit combo! Four-hit combo!” “Ghh! Guh! …Agh…!” The man pulled several more knives from a holster and thrust them into Satomi. As soon as I realized what was happening, I rushed over and pushed him as hard as I could. “Guh?!” “Satomi! Satomi!!” The knives scattered across the floor, but there came no answer to my frenzied cry. The feeble light in Satomi’s eyes burned brightly, then winked out in an instant, like a candle extinguished by the wind. I was thrust into the pits of oblivion, like a torch consigned to the abyss. “Sato…mi…” And my hole-riddled world became completely black. “H-heyyy!! What’s the big idea?! Y-you’re planning on getting in my way, too? A-ah, I know you! I’ll kill both of you and double my score! I’ll get cheat powers! Knives akimbo!” I heard something snap within me. “…WwrooooaaaaaaAAARGHH?!” “Huh?” My mind went blank, my eyes red, and before I knew it, one of the knives was in my hand, cleaving the flesh of the man’s neck. By the time I settled down, there were two silent corpses at my feet. I got scared. I was so terrified, I wanted to scream. I had killed somebody. One of the friends who’d pulled me from the brink was gone. I didn’t know what to do. So I ran. I got away from that place as far as I could. By some miracle, I made it home without anybody spotting me, and after shutting the front door, I slumped to the floor. Only then did I look at my hand, which had frozen like a stone, grasping the blood-covered knife I had used. “Ah-ha… Ah-ha-ha… I’m sorry, dear brother. Your little sister…has tainted herself.” I wasn’t like the girl from that cartoon anymore. After everything I’d done to emulate her, I had failed. I had been dragged right back down to the depths of a dark ocean. I lacked the willpower to go outside, as well as any friends to help me do it. By a stroke of luck, no evidence was found at the scene of Satomi’s death that connected me to the case, and I was never arrested. But by then, my freedom meant nothing to me anymore. The days went by in a blur. Go to school, go home, eat, sleep, repeat. I didn’t want to think. I didn’t even know if I considered myself alive. My circuit breaker had tripped, and my world had been plunged into darkness once again. I didn’t care what became of me. However, this time was different. This time, I had someone to blame. The Rebirthers. There were more of them. More of the people who’d smashed my patchwork world into bits again. So I accepted Yuuto’s offer. I had blood on my hands already, and there was nobody left I would have liked to hide it from. Unable to let go, I stood before the dark hole created in my world, waiting for this day to come. And my dear brother returned to me. My dear brother came back! My dear brother came back! My dear brother came back!! I was so, so, so happy. That was all it took for the light to return to my world. I turned my back on that dark pit, and with my hands clasped behind my back, I tried desperately to make everything the way it was before. But I couldn’t stop things from crumbling by turning a blind eye. My anxiety grew by the day. I kept wondering if today would be the last time I would feel Kaito’s warm hand in mine. To be quite honest, I didn’t want my dear brother to regain his memories. But I knew that he would always choose me, no matter what happened. So for him, and for Yuuto, I held back. I told myself that if I was the same girl as before, it wouldn’t have been a problem. …But then I made another mistake. The Rebirthers came after my brother, too, attacking him and making it look like a gas explosion. So I stopped waiting for my dear brother to regain his memory. I thought everything would be fine if he only looked at me and never set foot outside the house again. What I failed to realize was that he’d already seen me. He knew what I was, that I’d been tainted. I was ashamed. Deeply, deeply ashamed. I had to do better. I had to put in the effort. So that nobody would ever try to take him away from me again. So that he would never find out about my uncleanliness. I couldn’t leave it all to Yuuto. I had to cleanse the taint upon my world myself. “E-eep! S-stop! I-it hurts! Mommy!!” “Oh, sorry. I was lost in thought.” I looked down at that taint now, bringing my long reverie to an end. At my feet was the man who had orchestrated this attack on our school, recruiting Rebirthers from across the internet. The men who kidnapped Yuuki and did awful things to her. The men who treated Kaori like their plaything. I had been tipped off about what was going to happen, so it wasn’t difficult to get the drop on them. Now I looked down at the man bleeding like a stuck pig at my feet as though he were a reflection of that day. I had broken his arms and legs with the back of the blade of my naginata. It was no mere practice weapon, and I had sliced off his nose and the gut that made him look so unsightly. “After what you did to Yuuki, it would be a shame to let you die so easily. And didn’t you come after my dear brother as well? Well? I’m listening.” “I—I—I don’t know anything about that! I—I just wanted to become a hero…!!” “Silence. Anyone who threatens my peaceful life must be wiped off the face of the earth.” “Gah…ghh…” I brought my blade down hard, cracking the disgusting man’s skull open. …Aah. I got my hands dirty again… Blood, shards of bone, lumps of flesh, and brain matter went flying. I needed everyone who had dirtied me to disappear before I could return to my dear brother. “But…just one more. Only one more left.” I turned to Yuuto. He’d embedded his ax in the arm of another man, who now resembled the crooked remains of a dead tree. All that was left was the filthiest, ugliest man of them all—the one behind everything. I hoped this would ease Yuuki’s soul a little. I’d killed the scumbag who stabbed Satomi, and now I’d slain the one who laid his hands on Yuuki, too. Once all of them were gone, I could return to my old self again. It would be okay. Once there was no longer any trace on Earth of these Rebirthers… Once everything went back to the way it was, and there was nobody to distract my dear brother from me… …then what would be stopping him from spending the rest of his life by my side? He would be mine, and mine alone, wouldn’t he…? “Oh, great… Why is it always the same? In this world or that one, it’s always too late by the time I show up.”
Chapter 90
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