“Well, again, we’re not really directly talking with each other, in a strict sense of the phrase. It’s indistinguishable from you having a back-and-forth with me, but the truth is that I’m actually having this conversation with the future Andou. It may feel like a perfectly normal conversation to you, but in reality, you’re just actively caught up in another precognitive vision as we speak, and—”
Okay, nope. You’ve lost me.
“Fair enough. Frankly, I don’t totally get it either. I’d rather not talk to you in such a confusing and roundabout way, if possible...but this was the only way that I could talk to you at all, considering present circumstances.”
That made total sense. Jumping through all these convoluted hoops was the only way Sagami could reasonably speak with me right now. After all...
“Ugh! Gaaah...”
...the real Sagami was, at that very moment, dying before my eyes.
“Heh... Heh heh, ha ha ha... Yeah... Figures it’d...turn out like this,” Sagami muttered. Unlike the fluid, casual speech of the future version of him in my mind, present Sagami’s voice was terribly hoarse. He’d managed to force out a laugh, but it felt like every single word he spoke was a painful trial to spit out.
We were in a clearing by the riverbank—the very same one where I’d fought Futaba Tamaki less than half an hour beforehand. Earlier that day she had caught me in an ambush, whisking me off to an unpopulated pseudo-city that some unknown collaborator had created. She’d chased me around for quite a while until finally, I’d squared off against her by the river...and defeated her. Dark and Dark of the End had vanquished Lost Regalia.
Well... Okay, vanquished might be a strong word. It wasn’t really a victory I could brag about. I’d been driven to my absolute limits and had just barely squeaked out a win with a desperate bluff. But anyway, after things had been settled between me and Tamaki, Sagami had arrived on the scene. He and Tamaki had talked, reconciled, and put the lingering aftermath of our time in the eighth grade to rest for good. It’d seemed like everything had been wrapped up with a neat little bow...
...until suddenly, Hinoemata Tamaki had been consumed by darkness.
Bwa ha ha!
A dry, distinctive laugh had signaled his arrival: Kiryuu Hajime, aka Kiryuu Heldkaiser Luci-First. At first, he’d focused on me—his mismatched eyes, one red and one black, had been so single-mindedly fixed on me you’d think he’d waited an age to see me once more—and yet...
I, Sagami Shizumu, declare my intent to participate in the Fifth Spirit War.
The moment Sagami had spoken those words, Kiryuu had furrowed his brow and shot a glare in Sagami’s direction. Now it was my turn to be the third wheel, not to mention totally out of the loop. I hadn’t been able to keep up with their conversation at all, so I’d ended up just standing there in a daze. All I could say for sure was that the two of them had a very peculiar sort of relationship, and that said relationship ran deep. It felt like the hand of fate had led them to this point—like they’d been destined to do battle from the moment they’d been born.
And so, Kiryuu Hajime and Sagami Shizumu clashed. They stared one another down and invoked their powers in unison. A fated battle was about to unfold...or, well, that was the idea, anyway.
“Ayup. No way I was gonna win that one, huh?” Future Sagami nonchalantly quipped. The present version of Sagami looked like he had one foot in the grave already, but the one in my mind had the same insufferably casual attitude that I was used to from him.
Sagami...had lost. He’d lost instantly. I really mean it—he didn’t last a second. The very moment their fight began, he’d been slammed face down into the ground. I mean, like, splat. It was like an enormous, invisible hammer had crushed him in a single blow, and that single strike had ended the fight on its own.
Oh, and as a side note—apparently, Sagami had induced me to see visions of the future during that same instant. All of those futures that might come to pass I’d seen hadn’t even taken a second to play out in real time. Actually, rather than saying I’d seen them play out, it might be more accurate to say that the experiences I’d had within them had been written into my mind in a flash.
“Of course this is how it’d go if we used our powers at the same time,” said Future Sagami. “Innocent Onlooker looks like a lame excuse for a power at first glance, but when you look a layer deeper, it has a surprising number of uses...and then, when you look a layer deeper than that, it turns out it really is pretty lame after all. How the hell was I supposed to beat a guy who bends the force of gravity to his will with a crapsack power like this? Seriously, this is some broken-ass bullshit.”
I had to admit that Sagami’s power seemed more suited for a supporting role or for catching an opponent off guard in an ambush. It didn’t seem very well matched for a one-on-one showdown. Actually, it seemed straight up useless under those circumstances.
“Maaan, I swear... Couldn’t my power have taken a hint? I finally worked up the motivation to get out there and make a difference, so it could’ve at least been a little more combat-ready, y’know?”
Future Sagami was really laying on the complaints. Present Sagami, meanwhile, was slowly and painfully heaving himself upright. The power that had crushed him to the ground—which, now knowing that Kiryuu was a gravity-manipulator, I figured had been a gravitational wave—seemed to have vanished as quickly as it manifested. The damage was done, however, and it had been nasty enough that Present Sagami couldn’t quite make it to his feet.
“Heh heh... Ha ha ha ha,” Present Sagami chuckled. He was a painful mess from top to bottom, but the smile on his face looked somehow satisfied. “So...I lost, huh? It’s weird, though... For some reason, I don’t feel bad about it at all.” His voice was feeble, but there was still a brazen confidence to his words.
Unfortunately, the whole time Sagami was delivering his speech...Future Sagami was still grousing in my mind.