I also expressed my agreement while using telekinesis to crush the remains of the handcuffs into a metal sphere and throw it into the recycling bin for metals. “After all, it’s another world different from our own. If you apply the same lens again, then handcuffs that can seal superpowers and dissolvable platinum compounds are also quite unbelievable. Even the fact that something that amplifies superpowers—platinum—can be used also to seal those powers seems illogical. These handcuffs are not even platinum but just normal silver, and the so-called platinum compound was just sugar, right? But by continuously insisting on these lies, they gain credibility. After all, this is all logic from another world.”
“This might be hard to believe for you, Baba, as your world has even attained the technological prowess to even cross worlds at will. However, most Earthlings generally believe that ‘anything can happen in other worlds.’ No matter how mysterious or bizarre something is, as long as it is credibly explained as ‘from another world,’ then no one would bat an eye.”
“Is that how things are?” Baba still looked not quite convinced, but this was a difference in the culture between different worlds, and as such was not something that could be explained fully through logic. Please forgive us ignorant Earthlings.
Next, I opened my second can of low-malt beer, then moved the conversation along to each of our personal favorite moments of the event. “For me, my favorite part was the surprise birthday present. But the funniest part was, well, y’know, Baba’s cheating. You were reading Crime and Punishment to give the students a hint as to the second betrayal, right? But those handwritten notes on the pages, aren’t they your scripted lines in your mother tongue? You and your brazen cheating, seriously. I almost burst out laughing when I realized it!”
“You wish to point your finger at me, do you? And yet did you not also do the same with telekinesis, and Kaburagi with her chronoprohiberis?” laughed Baba in response. Seeing as how Kaburagi was poking at her potato salad with a straight face without showing any intention of denying the accusation, clearly she had also been cheating in her own way.
In other words, all of us had been cheating with a straight face right in front of Touka-chan’s and Shouta-kun’s noses. Thanks to that, we were able to focus on our performance without worrying about memorizing the lines, but this was still quite dreadful in its own way. Seriously, how am I supposed to not laugh?
“As for me, and this isn’t exactly what I thought the most interesting, but the part that was most memorable for me was when the police barged in.”
“Ahh, I totally get you.”
“Peace! Good one.”
As Kaburagi spoke while separating her potato salad, Baba and I both nodded deeply in sympathy. After all, the police duo really did stir up our traitor event quite significantly.
“But well, in the end we managed to pull Kuma-san over to our side, and we also have a collar on Yasui thanks to the great job Baba did digging that trap for him. Hasn’t everything come to a rather satisfying conclusion?”
“What dignity would I have remaining if I had failed after even going so far as to cry like a child?”
“MOOOMMYYYY!!”
“Mpft! No, stop that.”
When I did a voice impression of Baba’s crying, Kaburagi spat out a little bit of her wine in a not entirely successful attempt to hold back her laughter. As she hunched over, quivering with suppressed laughter, Baba stroked her back and repeated “MOMMYYYY!” right next to her ear. Immediately, Kaburagi lost control and totally choked. What are you delivering a finishing blow on her for, Baba! You sure like this joke, don’t you!
“So Baba, what about you? What was the part you thought the most interesting or fun?”
Seeing mischievous little Baba continue to whisper in Kaburagi-san’s ear in an apparent attempt to kill her with laughter, I directed the conversation to her. That prompted her to stop and think for a bit.
“I have several, truth be told. Firstly, I had trouble suppressing my laughter after successfully convincing Yasui of the importance of the party crackers to Sago’s arrest and exhorting him to purchase them in bulk and with the ‘utmost urgency.’”
“Eh, seriously? Detective Dirtbag was the one who bought the party crackers?” Ahhh, that explains why we have so many of them that there are still entire cardboard boxes of unused ones just sitting in the hallway. But poor guy, being made to buy party goods in full seriousness while fully believing them necessary for ‘the plan.’ More like, hasn’t Baba played with him a bit too much? I bet that she’s made him do a ton of other nonsensical fetch missions while turning his head all around with random credible-sounding excuses, hasn’t she?
“Another scene of note would be when Sago used telekinesis to force Yasui to fire his gun, as well as the unexpectedness and comical erroneousness of Kaneyama’s betrayal...... Ahh right, but that time when Kaburagi doubted in seriousness whether I had any intentions of bringing harm to Sago did make me a touch sad. My question truly was posed in sheer curiosity.”
“Ahh, you could tell? Sorry for doubting you. I thought I did a really good job hiding it though.”
“Kaburagi-san......?”
“Sago, pay it no mind. All you need to know is that Kaburagi is vigilant where you are lax.”
What does that mean......? But she said to pay it no mind, so oh well.
“By the way, this just occurred to me, but......”
“Yes?”
“What is it?”
“The blood on my clothes has dried and caked and it feels awful. How about we call it a night and get into some fresh clothes?”
Prompted by my words, Baba looked down at her own bloodsoaked clothes, and Kaburagi-san’s face also turned severe from checking out the dark red splodges on her dress that she had gotten from when she had clung to me. Without any further ado, we decided to disband immediately. A shower sounds wonderful.
After that, the night passed. Yasui moved exactly as Baba had predicted, successfully managing to convince the two students to not report the incident to the police. And through Kaburagi-san, the kids—whose heads were still in a complete mess from the shocking and rapidly changing developments from yesterday—were told of the “real truth.”
Kinemitsu Sago was indeed both the Master of Ama-no-Iwato and the Boss of the secret organization Amaterasu. After awakening to his superpower at a certain point in the past, he then applied himself to self-training. One day, he realized the existence of the World Shadows. At the time, the Shadows were still extremely weak, to the degree where even normal children could repel them. However, there was no doubt that they were a threat. Therefore, Sago attempted to erase them entirely from this world with his superpower.
However, he failed. Instead, his power ended up channeling back into the World Shadows, which strengthened them instead of annihilating them. After having established this connection with them, Sago gained the ability to sense whenever a new one appeared. He then rushed all about, scrambling to make amends due to the sense of responsibility he felt for having strengthened the World Shadows.
World Shadows were fundamentally the materialization of people’s desire for power. Therefore, when Sago’s power flowed into the World Shadows, a tiny trickle of that power backchanneled into the connections that World Shadows already had with all humans. That was why other people also began awakening to their own superpowers.