“Her full workup came back fine. There’s some physical atrophy, but she should recover from that quickly,” Azuma said, summarizing the results briefly.
For some reason, Koyuki felt a little depressed. Kaguya was almost back to where she was before entering the coma.
“Two weeks,” Kaguya said, explaining what she had been told about her condition. “I’m supposed to get some rest and a little rehabilitation before getting back to work, but supposedly, two weeks should be enough.”
“Hmph…” Koyuki felt a complicated mix of emotions. “That seems pretty short. Wouldn’t it be better if you rested a little longer?”
“Short? I actually thought it seemed a bit long.”
“Kaguya. You’ve been unconscious for a whole month, and not just from normal exhaustion. There was contact with a hero. Two weeks is hardly enough time to recuperate from that.”
“I don’t know,” Kaguya said, cocking her head. As far as she was concerned, two weeks was overkill.
“Look at it this way, Kaguya, what would you say if it were me? If, after being in a coma for a whole month, I said I only wanted to take two weeks to recover…?”
“Hmm… I suppose I wouldn’t like it.”
“There, you see? That’s exactly what I mean. That’s how I feel. I’m worried you’re taking things too fast.” Koyuki slipped into the chair on her left. “Listen, Kaguya, I was talking with Azuma and… Hey, are you even listening to me?”
Kaguya had glanced at the bottom bunk, where a sheet of paper of some sort was placed. She snatched it up suddenly. A document. It looked like it had been ripped out of some kind of report.
“What was I thinking, leaving something like this just lying around…?” she muttered.
“What is it?”
“This? No, it’s nothing…”
“Huh…?” Koyuki said softly, rising from her chair. She stood in front of Kaguya and peeked over the top of the page that Kaguya was holding in her hands. “A document? Is this…a personnel report?”
Based on the format and what she could see from this angle, the piece of paper seemed to be from a physical of some sort. There were two types of handwriting on the page. One was Kaguya’s. Looking more closely, she realized that the other handwriting was Azuma’s.
“Is this report…about Azuma?”
“It is…”
Kaguya reluctantly handed the piece of paper to Koyuki. It was indeed a self-assessment on Azuma’s physical condition, written in his own handwriting. Kaguya’s additions only seemed to be notes and addenda. At a glance, the paper didn’t appear to be anything particularly special, certainly not worth holding onto.
Koyuki cocked her head as she read the words written on the page.
“Elevated pulse, increased body temperature, sweating, redness in the face. And hold on… It says these symptoms only occur when he’s in your presence, Kaguya.”
Koyuki wasn’t sure if these symptoms qualified as a disorder per se—but they certainly occurred in response to some very specific stimuli.
“Kaguya? Did you have any reason for saving this?”
“I… Um, I wasn’t really sure what it all meant…”
“You weren’t? I thought you couldn’t stand not to get to the bottom of things?”
“Y-yes, that’s true…” For some reason, Kaguya blushed slightly and turned away. “But I mean, it’s very unusual, isn’t it…? What if Captain Azuma is experiencing some sort of issue with his nervous system? What would we do then?”
“Yes, what would we do then? But as far as I can tell, it seems like Azuma’s heart only races when he’s near you, Kaguya.”
A certain possible—okay, completely obvious—interpretation had occurred to Koyuki by this point.
“Are you really sure you don’t understand what this means, Kaguya?”
“N-no… Is it something I should know about? Please…tell me, Koyuki.”
“Well, if you need to be told…”
It felt a little tasteless to just spell things out. And a little embarrassing, to be honest. Not that Koyuki was completely inexperienced in such matters, but who wouldn’t get a little tongue-tied when it came to talking about stuff like this out loud?
If she didn’t say something, though, Kaguya would probably go her whole life without ever noticing. Maybe Kaguya just needed a push. A little one.
“Kaguya, do you know what a ‘crush’ is…?”
“Huh?” Kaguya was taken aback. She made a sound Koyuki had never heard from her before. “Crush? What do you mean, crush? What kind of crush?”
“I mean love,” Koyuki said. She took the paper from Kaguya’s hand, laid it on the desk, and began writing it out in pen. L. O. V. E. “Of the romantic variety.”
“Romantic love… Yes, I’m aware of the general concept. But why bring something like that up right now…?”
“If not now, when? This seems like the perfect time.”
Koyuki peered into Kaguya’s face. As far as Koyuki could tell, Kaguya looked perfectly cool and collected. There were no signs of even the slightest hint of self-consciousness in her face.
“What about you, Kaguya? Have you ever had a crush on anyone?”
“Me? You’ve got to be kidding,” Kaguya laughed in exasperation, as if Koyuki had just said something hilarious. “First of all, the emotion of love is just a temporary glitch in the brain. What more proof do you need than the fact that the feeling lasts no more than three years at most? Just the amount of time that is needed for smooth procreation and some basic initial rearing of offspring…”
“Maybe, but I have a feeling Azuma probably likes you.”
“Huh…?”
“Elevated pulse, increased body temperature, sweating, redness in the face. His heart might as well be doing backflips. And it only happens when he catches sight of you.”
Several long seconds passed as Kaguya gave the idea some thought.
“And this is what love feels like?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m glad you’re so quick to catch on. I was worried I was going to have to explain the birds and bees to you next.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense… These sound like aftereffects or some kind of arrhythmia. Or possibly a disorder of the autonomous nervous system—”
“Think again, Kaguya,” Koyuki said, cutting her off. Kaguya was just being silly now. “What kind of syndrome would it be if his heart only races when he’s in your presence? There is no way the effects of turning into a hero would be so arbitrary and ridiculous.”
“R-ridiculous…?”
“Poor Azuma. I really think you would have never noticed without someone telling you.”
Everyone knew how Azuma felt about Kaguya. They just didn’t talk about it. Even Haru seemed to have picked up on it, meaning it was practically an open secret.
And yet Kaguya herself seemed completely clueless. On top of that, even Azuma seemed to be ignorant of his own feelings. Without a helping hand, these two were never going to get anywhere.
“H-he likes me? Captain Azuma…?”
“Well, the only one who knows for certain is Azuma himself. What if you tried just asking him?”
“Asking him? I mean… I mean…,” Kaguya repeated herself, continuing to say I mean several more times in a row. “Imagine how embarrassing it would be if you were wrong.”
“Then what about you, Kaguya?” Koyuki asked, deciding to tease her friend a little. “How do you feel about Azuma? Is he just a colleague? A friend? Or is it love?”
Kaguya must not have been used to conversations like this. She seemed absorbed in her own thoughts, but in an awkward way. Like these new thoughts were quicksand, pulling her deeper and deeper within.
“No, I don’t think I’m in love…,” Kaguya said, carefully tidying away the document in a drawer. “I’m pretty I’m just experiencing a disorder of some sort.”
“The only one who can know your feelings for sure is you, Kaguya. I think it might be a good idea to sit down with your feelings and really work them out.”
“My feelings…?”
“I get the impression it’s something you haven’t taken the time to do before. With so much going on all the time, it’s important to rest and take stock of yourself.”
They had now found their way back to the original topic.
Apparently, after being in a coma for a month, a rehabilitation period of around two months was usually called for. Two weeks would barely be enough time to just get back into the swing of daily life.
“I understand the importance of rest,” Kaguya said, nestling back into the darkness of her bunk. “I heard about the Chronoses from Mari. Finding all that out… It’s shocking, isn’t it?”
“Yes… I suppose it is.”
Kaguya’s face was hidden in the shadows of the lower bunk, making it impossible for Koyuki to discern her expression. The height of the chair made it easy for her to hide her face in the shadows. For a moment, it reminded Koyuki of the darkness that clung to the heroes, but she quickly chased that thought away.
“I know there’s no clear proof, but if the Director said this was true, then I think it probably is,” Kaguya said, speaking frankly. Kaguya had full faith in the Director’s abilities.
“Koyuki.” Kaguya lifted her face again. “What do you plan to do, now that we believe the Chronoses are sentient?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Koyuki said honestly. “We can’t defeat the heroes without using them…at least once.”
Haru had explained how the soldiers who were unable to use Chronoses safely made do with other weapons for the most part—utilizing explosions, traps, and other tricks to immobilize the heroes and only resorting to the Chronoses once they had a guaranteed shot.
“You’re not sure how you feel yet, then?”
“Can you blame me?”
Mari had given Koyuki and Kaguya more details. Major Mirai had managed to get her hands on a report that she then backed up to an information terminal for safekeeping. Honestly, Koyuki barely understood most of it, but Mari summarized the contents for them in an easy-to-understand manner.
Every time Koyuki fired a gun—a Chronos—a bullet traveled through its interior cavities at 250 meters per second, exiting the barrel with proportionate pressure and heat. The impact from being fired was equivalent to being dropped from a height of several hundred meters.
Koyuki only had to move her finger by a few centimeters to fire a gun, but that small gesture was all it took to create so much pain. She still found it hard to believe.