There’s a dream I have.
In it, someone is pulling me by the hand.
A lady laughs and says, “Sorry.”
A man tells me, “You’ve got no right to blame us for this.” He looks mad.
Snow begins to fall. A lot of snow.
It’s so, so cold.
Ever since that day, I’ve always been alone.
✦ ✦ ✦
Jupiter woke up sometime around eight PM.
“Where…am I?”
Those were the first words out of her mouth.
“Who are you?” she asked me.
“Are you still half asleep or what, Jupiter? It’s me. Me. Kyouichirou Shimizu.”
“I don’t know anyone called that.”
“…What?”
What she was saying didn’t make any sense. And it didn’t sound like a joke. She had a look of genuine fear in her eyes. It was almost as if—
“…Wait. I do know. You’re…Kyouichirou. And you’re Haruka.”
The gross, hot feeling that had been building in my upper back was dispelled in an instant. She really was just half asleep.
“Good morning, Jupiter. Are you feeling okay? Like, in general?”
“I’m oka… Ah!”
Her red eyes slowly opened wider. It seemed like her muddled memories were coming back to her piece by piece.
“I—I… Keraunos…”
The young girl’s body began to discharge black sparks of electricity. Things weren’t looking great. But we had seen this coming.
All right, time for step one.
There was only one thing to do. Before Jupiter could be consumed by guilt, we just had to take something else—
“Now, then. Yalda, if you would…”
—and distract her with it!
“…please help us celebrate Jupiter!”
I called out in the cheeriest voice I could muster so that it would carry to all the jiggly creatures in the area. From all directions, they jiggled and jiggled. They jiggled so hard that the jiggling completely dispelled the serious air that had come over us!
“Welcome, welcome! We welcome you!”
“I don’t very much understand but congratulations, Mr. Jupiter!”
“On this most hallowed of occasions we have a song that we would ever so much like to sing to you!”
The jiggly purple creatures cheered, bounced, and jiggled with excitement as they charged Jupiter’s bed.
Now what, Jupiter?
Not even you can be glum when you’re swimming in an ocean of these carefree little guys.
“K-Kyouichirou. What’s…going on?”
“What do you mean? It’s a celebration! We wanted to have a party for the MVP of the day, so we asked the Yalda to help us out.”
“No! But I—”
“Stooop! If you want to talk, you’re going to have to do it once you’ve filled your stomach. A growing girl like you needs to eat, and you are severely lacking in essential meats and sugars!”
I snapped my fingers and the jiggly little aliens brought meat skewers in droves. Then they began to try to feed them to her. “Say ‘ahhh’!”
“S-stop! Okay! I’ll eat, I’ll eat, just… Let me do it on my own…!”
“Let us serve you!”
Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay!
The countless little mascots swarmed the girl and (forcibly) kept her entertained.
Watching these ultimate hospitality pros do their thing was exactly as impressive as I had imagined.
“This is nice and relaxing.”
“You said it.”
Haruka and I kicked back and watched Jupiter having fun with the jiggly little creatures from a distance.
“What…is all this?”
That was the first thing out of Jupiter’s mouth once we had all finished eating. I guessed that this was her attempt at resisting what we were trying to do.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve caused you nothing but trouble. So…why?”
“Hmm.”
I turned to Haruka beside me, and we both tilted our heads in overt confusion.
“Trouble? What trouble?”
“I’ve got no idea what you mean… What about you, Kyou? Any ideas?”
“Nope. Not a one.”
It was obvious that we were putting on an act.
But we were also being sincere. And to prove that, I added a little addendum to what I had said.
“Oh. Are you talking about that beast of a dad of yours? Don’t tell me you’re worried about that old guy. Sorry. I’d completely forgotten about him. I guess it didn’t leave much of an impact. My apologies.”
“What are you…?” Jupiter’s crimson eyes opened wide in disbelief.
It was an understandable reaction.
Up to this point, her spirit had cast a dark shadow over her entire life. Even in her wildest dreams, she probably never imagined that anyone would ever make light of such an imposing figure.
She seemed overwhelmed with confusion, albeit in a different way than when she had woken up.
“I know that Keraunos attacked you…”
“Attacked? Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re kidding, right? Just look at me and Haruka. We’re totally fine. If that old man of yours can’t so much as scratch a couple of rookies like us, he clearly can’t be all that tough.”
“…Huh?”
She looked us over in the light of the campfire and it finally seemed to dawn on her.
We were completely uninjured.
If we had been hit by the lightning’s combo of electric and miasma damage, there was no way we’d be sitting here, healthy as could be.
In other words, the only conclusion she could draw was…
“You really made it through without taking any damage…?”
“That’s what we’ve been saying!”
“Yeah! It was super exciting!”
I hadn’t found it the least bit exciting, in fact, but I followed the radiant star’s lead and agreed.
Jupiter seemed a little put off by my reaction, but there was no helping that, so I just rolled with it.
“But it’s still true that I caused you both a lot of trouble…”
“If you’re gonna think that way, then I’m just as much to blame. If I’d blocked that damn bird’s fireball like I was supposed to, none of this would have happened in the first place.”
“I should have diced it to bits instead of tearing it to shreds. I’m sorry, Jupi.”
We both bowed.
And we were serious. What had happened on the fifteenth floor was not entirely Jupiter’s fault.
It was just as much our fault for letting her get attacked despite knowing what the result would be.
We deserved to split the blame three ways. There was nothing to be gained from anyone playing the victim.
“In the end, no one got hurt. And we’re at least partly at fault.”
“Yeah. So, there’s no reason for you to take all the blame, Jupi.”
Jupiter’s jaw dropped. “Why? Why would you do all this for someone like me…?”
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? You’re our dependable bombardier. How about showing yourself some self-respect, huh?”
“We wouldn’t have been able beat that bird without you, Jupi. Now it’s your turn to let us help you.” Haruka reached her hand out and gently patted Jupiter on the head.
“I don’t…get it.”
Her voice was trembling. It was like she had to force the words to come out.
“Everyone… Everyone’s scared of me. They all… All of them. They left me behind.”
“But we’re here for you.”
“My powers hurt people. So that makes me a bad person…”
“No one here has been hurt by your powers, Jupiter. So, you’ve done nothing wrong. Actually, you never have. Not even once.”
She was sold off by her parents and forced to carry a terrible power. But without that very power, she never would have survived. After going through all of that, who in their right mind could think she was a bad person?
“I always have the same dream… In it, there’s a man and a woman I don’t know. We’re walking through the snow… In the end, the people from the facility always show up. And then they…”
“That must have been so painful. It sounds awful…”
“I’ve always been alone.”
Haruka wrapped her arms tightly around the frail young girl. “You’re not alone anymore, Jupi. Me and Kyou, we’re gonna be by your side forever! Let’s go on plenty of adventures. And we’ll have so much fun. So, so much…fun…”
The radiant star’s back trembled slightly.
Ugh… You’re such a damn good person, Haruka… Now my eyes are… Gah! Damn it!
“So, anyway! That’s that as far as we’re concerned. From here on out, you’re our party’s bombardier. So, you’d better get ready, ’cause we’re gonna expect great things from you during our next big fight!”
My voice was embarrassingly high-pitched as I struggled to get those words out.
But I had gotten my point across. Jupiter, ever-expressionless, gave a small nod once I was done talking.
“All right! That’s it for the debriefing. Next up, we discuss our next big battle!”
“Battle…? Are we going to the twentieth level…?”
“No, no.”
I shook my head dramatically so it would be easy to see in the darkness.
“We can leave the twentieth level for another time. There’s a new enemy that’s reared its ugly head. And we need to take it out before we can even think about the twentieth level.”
“Enemy? Who…?”
Her expressionless crimson eyes looked up at my villainous face.
“It’s a monster you should be pretty familiar with. A pathetic father whose overprotectiveness has gotten way out of hand.”
“……!”
You get it, right?
Of course you do. There’s only one common enemy we share that fits the bill.
“It’s Keraunos. That monster of a dad of yours has caused enough trouble for everyone. It’s about time we cut that beast down to size.”
I had already declared war on the beast.
All that was left was to take it on.
Between the three of us, and with Jupiter’s power—
“We’re gonna overturn our crappy fates.”
—we were going to grab hold of our future.
End of Part 2
To be continued in Volume 3…