Among one of those who awakened in such a way was Shiori Kaburagi. Sago found her just when she was struggling with coming to terms with her newfound ability. After helping her out, the two of them decided together to found the secret organization Amaterasu. However, by then, the weight of the guilt of having strengthened the World Shadows had already taken its toll on Sago, turning him into a reticent and sour-faced person.
Additionally, the reason why he hid his identity as Boss from Shouta and Touka was because that was his way of protecting his “ordinary days.” The concept that “those who can’t protect their ordinary days can’t protect the rest of the world’s ordinary days” applied equally to him as well. Rather, it could be said that he was the one who needed those words the most.
Even though the situation was entirely due to his failure at wiping out the World Shadows, and even though it could be said that he was merely getting what he deserved for the hubris that drove him to attempt such an absurd feat, continuously spreading his telekinesis all over the world to kill off World Shadows was extremely tiring. His mind was slowly being whittled down.
Sago yearned for the guileless ordinary days that he had lost. He dreamed of being an ordinary person who didn’t possess a superpower and who couldn’t fight against World Shadows, an ordinary person living ordinary days like most other people all around. And so for him, his face as the bar master of Ama-no-Iwato became his ordinary self. It became something that he wanted to protect at all costs.
It was this modest and unassuming lie that Baba had noticed, been outraged by, and worked to destroy.
However, that was not the end of this tragic tale.
After exhausting herself from crying, Kaburagi covered both bodies with a cloth and stepped away for about thirty minutes. When she returned, both of them were gone. Instead, there were two set of bloody footprints heading out the door and into the night.
Kaburagi was able to draw conjectures based on what she knew about the both of them.
On one hand, Sago had an inexplicable bond with the World Shadows. As long as the Shadows remained, perhaps that bond would keep him alive, even resurrecting him when needed. The World Shadows keep Sago alive, and Sago keeps the World Shadows alive. The relationship of coexistence between them was a Gordian knot that could not be untangled. What with something normally so unrealistic as superpowers actually being real, bizarre phenomenon like this could very well be real as well.
The question that remained, then, was “if he had really been resurrected, then why did he leave Ama-no-Iwato?” Kaburagi had no way of confirming, but she suspected that just as Sago’s power had flowed into the World Shadows in the past, perhaps something of the World Shadows had also flowed into Sago as he was being resurrected by them. Probably that had been the reason why he left, though unfortunately Kaburagi was unable to draw any more specific inferences.
On the other hand, the explanation for why Baba—who had no connection to the World Shadows and did not even possess a superpower—could walk was plain and simple: automatic resurrection magic. Although it was the truth that she couldn’t use magic on Earth, before coming over she had a spell cast on her that would automatically resurrect her upon death. It was an anti-crisis measure that could only be used once. Though there were doubts whether it would even activate properly on this magic-less Earth, the fact that her body had disappeared was strong circumstantial evidence that those fears had been unfounded.
However, there was a problem with that resurrection magic. To get straight to the point, it causes the person being resurrected to lose the previous year’s memories. In Baba’s case, as her time on Earth was still under a year, she must have woken up to find herself in an underground room that looked nothing like her home world. What with all the blood on her clothes, it wouldn’t be too difficult to realize that she had died once and been brought back by the spell. Despite knowing nothing about her current circumstances, simple logic would tell her that it was a good idea to first get away from this place where she had already been exposed to danger once before. After all, the resurrection magic was a one-time use, which meant she had already lost her safety net.
The above was the full “truth” behind the traitor event. After listening to it all, Shouta-kun looked very relieved that Baba and I were apparently still alive. But in contrast, Touka-chan had a grim look on her face.
One must not forget, but Buddhism (warped though it may be) was at the core of Touka-chan’s identity. Me having died and come back, from her perspective, meant nothing other than that I had failed to pass on into samsara, the natural cycle of death and rebirth. By definition, that made me an evil spirit who was still wandering the earth when I wasn’t supposed to. Consequently, she declared in no uncertain terms, “It makes me sad, but if I ever find Master, I’ll help him pass on so that he can return to join samsara.”
Um, please don’t?
As Touka-chan was usually all “life is important!”, we had thought she would accept this cover story quite readily, but our expectations had fallen through in spectacular manner. Of course, we couldn’t just leave her like that, which meant a certain degree of mental support or justification was going to be needed.
But speaking of unexpected, the same could be said of Kuma-san’s reaction. To our astonishment, he quit the police force, apparently motivated from the regret he felt from not having been present when he was needed most. After discussing it with Kaburagi-san, it was decided that he was going to take up the mantle of being the 2nd generation Master of Ama-no-Iwato. When he put it like “I want to protect this store and keep it open, in the hope that Sago returns one day,” then how could we say no? Oh, and he agreed to take care of Ig too.
Kuma-san’s manliness and consideration was heartbreaking. Then the fact that with his grim face and stoic aura, he made for a better bar master than I did made things doubly heartbreaking. He himself said that his intention was to protect my place for me—which I was very touched to hear—but I was slightly afraid that he might end up taking my place entirely.
As a non-esper affiliated with a secret organization, as a master martial artist, as the bar master of a bar, and as the wielder of a pair of PSI drive gloves, even if he had not been aiming for it, Kuma-san was totally living out the dreams that he had been nursing for many a decade.
Whereas on the one hand, we saw Kuma-san quitting his job, on the other hand, the shackles that Baba had set in place worked like a charm in shackling Detective Dirtbag to Amaterasu to serve as our new pipeline into the police force. Of course, he had not been informed of Baba’s and my resurrection, and so was still under the misconception that he had been involved in the murder of two people. Although he did have to write a mountain of explanatory reports for having fired his gun twice, Kaburagi-san applied pressure on his higher-ups and helped him get off the hook without any serious repercussions. This, too, left him in great debt to us.
Although Detective Dirtbag had nowhere near the amount of influence within the force that Kuma-san had, he still had a certain amount of say as the person who had been appointed to succeed Kuma-san’s position as the lead investigator in the task force assigned to investigate espers. What with being “advised” by Kuma-san to fully cooperate with Amaterasu, and having connections to the yakuza and not being averse to dirty work, things eventually settled down with Detective Dirtbag becoming a rather convenient external cooperator for the organization.