Still skeptical, Yuuhi pressed a concealed button in her jacket, and a rift between this world and hers tore open the very fabric of space. From the rift appeared the missing heroines, who all looked rather confused.
“Huh...? Where are we?” mumbled Kiri.
“What was I doing?” pondered Suzuran.
Realizing they were probably dazed from the brainwashing and everything else that had happened, I turned to L.
“Would you mind explaining things to them?” I asked.
“Ugh, fine,” she said in a huff.
L gathered up everyone to fill them in while I pulled aside the unmistakable girl in the back of the group with white wings.
“Huah? What’s this, Rekka?” Rachelle asked, still looking a little dazed.
She seemed puzzled as to why I’d singled her out.
“Rachelle, I have a favor to ask you.”
“A favor, you say?”
“Is there any way you could arrange a meeting with God for me?”
“WHAAAT?!” Suddenly, she went from looking dazed to wide awake. “Th-That’s impossible! No way, no how!”
“Please. The fate of the world is at stake.”
“E-Even if you say that...”
“Just this once!”
There, I explained what was happening to Rachelle. In order to save both worlds, I needed to meet Maine, the goddess of this world, and ask her to call off the game. But unfortunately...
“I’m sorry! It’s just not possible!”
“Why not?”
“I’m sure future Rekka would understand, but in the grand scale of the world—and by that, I mean the cosmoverse—Earth is just a tiny speck of dust, you know?”
“Fair point...”
Earth was just one planet in one solar system, which was practically nothing in the grand scheme of space, let alone the so-called cosmoverse which included other worlds. Earth really was only a drop in the bucket, if that.
“Even the seraphim are pretty far down on the ladder, and I’m even below them! I’m, like, the very bottom! So I’m really sorry to say it, but it’s just not happening!”
“I see... Sorry for putting you on the spot.”
The more frantic Rachelle grew, the worse I felt. For someone as ridiculous as her to be taking this so seriously, it must have really been impossible.
“Rekka...”
My hopes, however, were reignited as Satsuki returned. If we were lucky, the Magic of Omniscience would find us a way to meet a deity.
“Hey, Satsuki. How’d it go?”
“Well, I looked it up with Ms. Satsuki’s help, but it’s not good news. There’s no way to meet the goddess of this world.”
“...Really?”
I had to ask just to be sure, and Satsuki hung her head as she nodded. For answers, I then turned to Yuuhi.
“Weren’t you able to meet your goddess by overcoming some kind of trial?”
“In Sith’s case, yes... but it’s up to the deity whether they want to set up a trial, or what that trial even is.”
“So our goddess has no intention of meeting anyone?”
“Probably not. For the goddesses, this is just a sandbox game. Whether they want to interact with the characters or just observe them from a distance is all up to them.”
That meant Maine, the goddess of our world, wasn’t interested in interacting with any of us.
“I see... Is Touko around?”
“Over here,” Touko responded, raising her hand when I said her name.
She was the only one of the everyday heroines who had gone missing, but it seemed Yuuhi was responsible for that too. Come to think of it, why was Touko the only one of the everyday heroines who had been abducted? I’d have to get to the bottom of that later...
“Could your power get us a meeting with the goddess, Touko?” I asked.
“Hmm... I wonder,” she mused.
“Impossible,” Yuuhi interjected, immediately shooting my idea down. “Like I said earlier, deities are the highest existences in the cosmoverse. If you think they could be manipulated by the power of words, you’re dead wrong.”
“I guess it wouldn’t be so easy...”
My shoulders slumped in disappointment.
“Is it really impossible to meet the goddess of our world, then...?”
I closed my eyes to think. In order to stop the game with one of our worlds at stake, we needed to meet with Maine. We had to. The hitch was that there was no system set up in our world for doing so. Was there maybe some kind of alternative? Another way to get a chance to see her?
“...”
When I opened my eyes, Yuuhi was standing before me with that same solemn expression, tensely biting her lip. Was she worried I would rescind my offer once I realized I was out of options? I wanted to reassure her that wouldn’t happen, but it was perfectly reasonable that she was feeling anxious. That’s why I decided to suggest something more concrete.
“Yuuhi.”
“What?”
“Take me back to your world for a bit. Can you do that?”
“?!”
“Rekka?!”
“Sir Rekka?!”
“Rekka!”
My statement surprised not just Yuuhi, but all the other girls as well. To be honest, they were far more shocked than I’d thought they’d be.
“Your world has a divine trial in place, right? If I clear it, I’ll at least be able to meet with Sith.”
If Sith, her sister, tried to reach her, maybe I could get through to Maine that way. They’d arranged the game together, after all. There had to be a way for them to communicate.
“Well, Yuuhi? Can you do it?”
“It’s possible, but...” Yuuhi glanced over at Satsuki and the others before continuing. “The only people who can cross the boundary are me and people like me. That means I can take you, Rekka, but I can’t take your heroines.”
“I see...” I started to nod, but suddenly realized something. “Wait, if that’s true, then how did you get everyone in the rift?”
“Because it was just a rift. There’s a kind of wall that blocks the way between different worlds. That’s the barrier that no one can cross other than us Namidares.”
“Oh, okay.”
I didn’t really understand the logic, but if those were the rules, then so be it. I could accept that, but it seemed some of the girls couldn’t.
“Hey, don’t go making a decision like that all on your own!” shouted Shirley.
“You shouldn’t be so trusting!” shouted Rosalind.
“Even if you trust her, we need to know all the details first!” shouted Ellicia.
I mean, they weren’t wrong, but...
“H-Hey, wait a minute. Weren’t you frozen, Rosalind?”
If I recalled correctly, the doctor had frozen her in her red mist form during the earlier confrontation with Yuuhi.
“I unfroze ages ago! And don’t try to change the subject!” Rosalind roared, baring her fangs as she landed a well-aimed chop right in my midsection.
“Guh!”
“Oops, you were closer than I thought... Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine...”
It honestly really hurt... Bad enough to make tears well in my eyes.
“I, for one, would like to confirm some things while Rekka’s reeling in pain,” Shirley said, pushing up her glasses as she turned to Yuuhi. “Firstly, explain in more detail the reason why only Rekka can cross this so-called barrier.”
“Well, first of all, I have the ability to cross the barrier between worlds.”
“Of course you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here in this world. What about Rekka?”
“Said ability is supposed to be something that only I can use. But Rekka is this world’s equivalent of me. Essentially, he can fool the barrier into letting him through.”
“And how, might I ask, do you know that?”
“Because I’ve already done it once.”
“You have? With whom?” Shirley inquired, her brow dubiously furrowed.
It was a good question, though. I was right here and had been all along. How could Yuuhi possibly have any empirical proof it would work with me? I had to wonder, but we got the answer straight from the horse’s mouth soon enough...
“With future Rekka Namidare,” Yuuhi replied.
“What did you say?!”
“Rekka?!”
Most of the future heroines angrily raised their voices in response to Yuuhi’s claim that she’d taken future Rekka to her world.
“I see... No wonder my Omniscient Magic couldn’t find him. He wasn’t even in this world,” said future Satsuki, chewing on her lip in frustration.
“There’s something else bothering me.” Shirley, however, seemed unconvinced. “After we were abducted, we were shut in that space between worlds... The rift, you called it? What’s to say you couldn’t have kept future Rekka there as well? Tell us why you went out of your way to send him to Sith’s world instead.”
“There are two reasons for that,” Yuuhi said with a shrug. “The first is simply because the rift is useful. It can hide people from the Great Omniscient Magic, and I can use it myself to travel. It’s very versatile.”
“You can travel with it?” Shirley asked, continuing her line of questioning.
“I can open the rift wherever I want. So if I myself step into it, it’s essentially a free ride to my destination of choice.”
“That does sound convenient...”
It would have been the perfect tool for the extremist mastermind, plotting all kinds of schemes from the shadows.
“The second reason is also simple,” continued Yuuhi. “I feared that future Rekka Namidare would be able to break out of the rift.”
“Oh? But didn’t you say you’re the only one with the ability to cross the barrier?” Shirley said, cocking her head.
“More specifically, anyone who does not possess an ability like mine is unable to cross the barrier of any world they don’t belong to. But that’s not to say, for example... that someone like Harissa over there who’s well versed in teleportation magics couldn’t eventually cross the barrier of Maine’s world and enter the rift if she really endeavored.”
Basically, it worked out like this. Yuuhi was a resident of Sith’s world, and I was a resident of Maine’s. Under normal circumstances, Yuuhi wouldn’t be able to cross over into Maine’s world because of the barrier that surrounded it and vice versa. She could, however, still cross the native barrier around her own world to enter the rift. And the opposite was true; I could cross through Maine’s barrier and enter the rift. That wasn’t to say it would be an easy feat for a nobody like me... Crossing a world barrier was a big deal, after all. But if we were talking about someone with a special combination of supernatural powers—and we were with my future self—then it was easily possible he’d be able to cross Maine’s barrier from within the rift and escape back to our world. That’s why Yuuhi had gone to the trouble of pushing him all the way through to Sith’s world, essentially locking him behind two doors.
“So, when I sealed future Rekka Namidare in Sith’s world, I confirmed that my equivalent self could cross the barrier as well... That’s what I mean.”
Shirley gave a silent, rather reluctant nod at Yuuhi’s explanation. She still seemed quite wary.