At this rate, we wouldn’t be getting anywhere...which meant that I had to pull out my last resort. It was time for me to use the secret stratagem Sagami had entrusted me with to make everyone believe me in one fell swoop.
“I get how you all feel,” I said. “This is all coming out of nowhere, so of course you wouldn’t believe me. That’s why I’m about to show you undeniable proof that I’m telling the truth.”
“How long are you gonna keep this up...?” sighed Tomoyo. “Look, tomorrow’s a school day, so hurry up and—”
“Allow me to introduce you. Everyone, this is Leatia the spirit.”
“Oh, am I up? Hey. Good to meet you all.”
“...Gyaaaaaaaaaaaah?!”
Now that worked the way I was hoping it would!
The subject of my perfunctory introduction was a palm-sized girl who’d appeared out of nowhere. She had a tiny pair of wings sprouting from her back, and she was casually floating in midair. It couldn’t have been more obvious that she wasn’t human—or, for that matter, a species native to this Earth. The members of the literary club, meanwhile, reacted in exactly as over-the-top of a manner as you’d expect someone to when they’d had an undeniably extraordinary life-form appear before their eyes. Even Chifuyu seemed pretty shaken up, despite still being half asleep.
“Honestly, I don’t think anyone will believe this story coming from you. They’ll think it’s just another chuunibyou flare-up—I see the punch line coming a mile away—so I’ll teach you a trick that’ll let you sort that problem out in no time.”
The technique that Future Sagami had taught me: shoving a transparently supernatural entity in everyone’s faces. I’d done exactly what he’d told me to back then, saying Leatia’s name out loud, and she’d shown up like he’d said she would, even though I’d half doubted it would work myself. For the record, I’d reacted with just as much shock and astonishment as the others the first time I’d met her.
Ayup. Guess spirits are a real thing, then. Cool, cool.
“So...it’s friggin’ finally time for Virgin Child to step up,” Leatia listlessly droned as she pointedly ignored the girls’ collective freak-out. “Would you please get out there and shut down that dipshit’s stupid game, already?”
“Well then—allow me to summarize the current state of affairs, if I may,” said Sayumi. The chaos prompted by Leatia’s appearance hadn’t fully subsided yet, but Sayumi was doing her best to bring us back to some semblance of coherence.
One way or another, everyone at least seemed to believe me now. My story couldn’t have been easy to accept on a moment’s notice—assuming that I’d just dreamed it all up really was the only reasonable conclusion—but having an openly bizarre entity like a spirit get shoved in their faces had left them with no option but to have faith in it anyway.
“Beings called spirits live in a world other than our own...and those spirits periodically enlist humans to participate in a combat sport known as the Spirit War. All of the participants in the Spirit War awaken to a supernatural power and are made to fight until only one competitor remains. That victor is then allowed to have a single wish granted, with no restrictions as to what that wish may be... This may be somewhat gauche of me to point out, but it certainly is the sort of setup you’d find in your typical death game manga or anime. However,” Sayumi said, pausing for a moment before finishing her thought, “the current Spirit War—that being the Fifth—is unlike those that came before it. Unlike prior Wars, this one was initiated and has been officiated by a single human being. That individual, Kiryuu Hajime, is the victor of the Fourth Spirit War, Tomoyo’s elder brother...and the man responsible for both the awakening of our powers and our isolation from the Spirit War at large. Is all of that correct, umm...Leatia?”
“Yup. That’s basically the gist of it,” Leatia replied, meeting Sayumi’s nervous inquiry with casual indifference. “Hajime prohibited all of us from saying anything about him being the mastermind behind the Fifth Spirit War, by the way, but there’s not really much point in staying quiet about it anymore since Zeon already leaked it to the Fallen Black folks. Looks like you—Andou, right?—heard about all of it from Sagami Shizumu too, didn’t you?”
I gave Leatia a nod. Future Sagami had already told me everything that he’d managed to learn.
“This is all very difficult to believe...but considering the circumstances we’ve found ourselves in, I suppose we have no choice,” Sayumi gravely admitted.
That’s when Hatoko nervously spoke up. “So...I don’t think I really understand all of this yet...but does this mean you’re the one who gave us our powers a year ago, Leatia?”
“That’s right. Wasn’t my choice, though—all of this was on Hajime’s orders. Actually, answering question after question with the same speech is gonna be a pain, so let me just put this on the record: Literally nothing about the current Spirit War wasn’t ordered by him. No matter what you ask me, the only answer I can give you is gonna be ‘because Hajime said so,’” Leatia explained with a roll of her eyes.
In short: the whole War had played out under Kiryuu Hajime’s direct supervision. He was the source of all its evils, its ruler, and its ringleader. Or, to borrow a phrase that Future Sagami had used...he was its author.
“What the hell is that dumbass even doing...?” Tomoyo muttered with a scowl. She was obviously enraged with her brother, and probably mortified by the thought of what he’d put us all through as well.
Leatia gave Tomoyo a long, hard look. “You’re Hajime’s little sister, right?” she asked.
“Huh?” Tomoyo grunted. “U-Uh, yeah. Technically.”
“Well... My condolences.”
Even the spirits sympathized with Tomoyo on this one. Leatia had apparently been Kiryuu’s Spirit Handler, and I couldn’t even begin to guess how much crap he’d put her through over the course of their relationship. Just how much suffering must it have taken to make her look upon his little sister with a face so full of pure, unadulterated pity?
“Andou,” said Sayumi, “you said that Sagami and Kiryuu’s former companions—that is to say, Sagami and Fallen Black—were engaged in combat with Kiryuu himself, didn’t you? What do you know about the current state of that situation?”
“About that...it’s all over,” I replied. “They were wiped out. Every member of Fallen Black was defeated and dropped out of the Spirit War.”