“It’s just… Nothing like that ever happened at the dorms. We’ve only ever gone out to eat since you came to Technical, remember? Who are you thinking of?”
“Well…”
Kaguya wasn’t sure how to answer. Now that she thought about it—she couldn’t remember the person’s face or their voice. Or anything about what had happened before or after that incident. It was all absent from her head.
But she did seem to have a vague memory of this incident she was describing—no, not a memory, exactly. Even when she tried to focus on it, the details remained unclear.
“Huh… Who could it have been…?”
There was only one possibility.
“Maybe it was just a dream…”
She must have experienced something like that in a dream. It was the only explanation she could think of.
“Kaguya, can’t you even tell the difference between reality and a dream?”
“Honestly, lately, it seems like I can’t. I keep convincing myself that things that happen in dreams actually happened in real life. Maybe I’m just tired.”
The exact same thing happened the other day. She had remembered being in a physical fight with someone—something that obviously would never have happened to her. Specifically, she had been holding some kind of long stick, and her opponent—well, she couldn’t really remember her opponent, but the person had been attacking her. Kaguya had been at Technical this whole time, however, so obviously she wasn’t going around with a stick in her hands getting into fights.
There was more, too. She remembered being in a place that was all white in every direction like it was dipped in a white shadow, and she had been talking to somebody there. But she couldn’t remember the person’s voice or their face.
And she remembered an unbroken field of flowers for some reason. Something had happened there—she just couldn’t remember what.
And also—
“Dreams are just dreams, Kaguya,” Mari said, sounding concerned.
Kaguya lifted her head, snapping out of it.
“Anyway, I can’t blame you for being tired. You were asleep for months, after all. Besides, this work isn’t like with the heroes. Trying to turn Goddesses into humans is a whole different ball game.”
“Y-yes, I suppose.”
Mari’s words did little to dispel Kaguya’s unease, however. Besides, an image passed through Kaguya’s head. The image of a silver—
“Huh?”
Kaguya suddenly felt someone’s gaze on her.
Not even a gaze, exactly. Just a feeling that something was off. She glanced around restlessly before releasing a little exclamation of surprise.
A young man in a uniform whom she had never seen before was loitering in a corner of the deserted Technical cafeteria. She couldn’t see his face, just a tiny bit of his hair, like silver ice.
“That guy over there… Who is he?” Kaguya muttered.
Mari looked at the young man.
“Ah…?!”
Visibly shocked, she stood up, her chair falling over with a clatter. There was both surprise and anger in her eyes. Enough to make Kaguya feel a little afraid.
“M-Mari?”
“I’m sorry, Kaguya… Wait right here for a moment. Don’t move. I’m going to go talk to that person.”
“What? Well, okay.”
He must have been an acquaintance of Mari’s. She stomped toward the person with long strides, a look of incomprehensible annoyance on her face.
“Well, now I need to know what this is about…”
Quietly and casually, Kaguya inched her way closer to Mari and this unknown person, trying not to be noticed. Mari seemed to be accosting the person for some reason. She was acting menacingly, in a way that Kaguya had never seen her behave before.
“This isn’t what you promised…! What do you think you’re doing, lurking here?!” Mari was keeping her voice low, but even from this distance, Kaguya could tell she was getting worked up. “Wait. You’re not trying to see her, are you?!”
The young man shook his head back and forth wordlessly as if to say that was obviously not the case.
“I didn’t come here to see her,” Kaguya heard him say.
Kaguya leaned forward eagerly. “Her”? Who did he mean by her?
“I came to give you this,” the young man said, handing something to Mari. “It was the only thing of hers still left at Charon. It didn’t feel right just to get rid of it.”
A white earpiece. Possibly a recorder in the shape of an earpiece. Maybe there was something important on it. Mari took it, looking displeased.
Kaguya, however, had picked up one important piece of information from this conversation.
Charon? That’s one of Tactical Infantry’s squads, isn’t it?
Mari hadn’t shared many details, but Kaguya had heard of this group. Shouldn’t Mari have been more surprised to see someone from Tactical show up around here? How did she possibly know him? Kaguya tried to move a little closer, her interest now piqued, when she suddenly caught a glimpse of his face.
He had light silver hair and blue eyes. Even to Kaguya, who didn’t take much of an interest in people’s faces, his features seemed handsome and well-formed. His expression betrayed a blatant lack of interest in his surroundings.
“Ah!”
As soon as she saw his face, Kaguya’s heart seemed to beat faster.
But the feeling soon subsided. Kaguya wasn’t sure what to make of it. It almost felt like a palpitation. But why? Nothing Mari had told her so far had had much of an effect on her, but for some reason, the mere sight of this young man had managed to capture Kaguya’s attention completely.
“Later,” the young man said, waving his hand lightly as he began to leave.
Apparently, he had accomplished whatever he came for. Just as he was about to turn around, for the briefest moment, his eyes moved her way. They were sharp and blue as if they could penetrate through anything.
At that moment, she saw it. There, dangling from his left ear. An earring in the shape of a cross.
“E-excuse me…!”
Kaguya called out to the young man without thinking, abandoning her efforts to hide.
“Kaguya,” Mari said, in shock. But Kaguya wasn’t looking Mari’s way.
That cross…
That cross. She had been seeing it so often lately. But it surely couldn’t be the same one that was showing up in her dreams.
“…”
Upon being spoken to, the young man pointed his sharp gaze wearily in Kaguya’s direction. A moment later, without a word, he turned his back to her once more as if rebuffing her attempt to speak with me.
The idea of speaking up again was daunting. This was her first time meeting this person. But if she let him get away now, she would probably never see him again.
“Wait!”
As she called out for him to stop, the young man turned around. His blue eyes narrowed with displeasure, and Mari looked surprised. It didn’t feel as if any of this was happening for the first time.
No, it wasn’t—Kaguya was certain of it. She had seen all of this before. But for some reason, she couldn’t remember.
“Umm…I’m sorry to bother you like this. But would it be all right if I asked your name?”
“…Why?”
His voice was sharp and curt. She had a strong feeling she had seen him before.
Why? Kaguya was at a loss for words. She couldn’t think of a good answer. She had just asked him to wait. She could hardly say it was because she had “seen him in a dream.”
She remained silent. The young man spoke again.
“You’re…with Technical No. 3, right? What possible reason could you have for speaking to me?”
“W-well, you’ll probably laugh at this, but I have this feeling like we’ve met before.”
“…”
There was silence between them for a moment. She thought she saw the young man’s eyes widen temporarily, but they soon narrowed once more.
“You must be mistaken. I’ve never met you before in my life. This is our first time speaking with each other.”
“Yes, I suppose, but—”
“And I’m sorry, but I just don’t feel like sharing my name. Telling you my name would be pointless.”
With that, the young man turned around once more and began to walk away rapidly.
“Kaguya…,” Mari said timidly as Kaguya watched the young man leave. “Did you rememb—? I mean, do you know him from somewhere? Why did you just speak to him like that?”
“Because… Well, I’m not really sure why. I’m sorry. It seems like I interfered in something important. I just had this feeling that it wasn’t my first time seeing him.”
“O-oh… Of course, didn’t I mention before?” Mari said, her voice sounding a bit panicked as if she was trying to come up with an excuse. “It probably has to do with this.”
Mari waved her personal Bureau terminal in front of Kaguya’s face.
“Sometimes he shows up on the Bureau’s video feed. You must have caught a glimpse of him on a terminal somewhere, and the image just stuck in your head.”
“Oh… I guess that would explain it.”
She must have seen him somewhere without remembering, and the image had gotten lodged in her memory. What with her amnesia and everything, she must have just gotten confused.
Unless… I wonder…
The explanation did make sense. But something wasn’t sitting right. She wasn’t sure what that something was exactly. But she did know one thing for sure.
That man…was so infuriating!
She instinctively suspected that the two of them would not get along.
“You see, that’s all there is to it. Anyway, Kaguya, what did you decide? Should we get the seasonal plate, then?”
“Why not?”
Kaguya turned back around. It was better to not get involved with someone so disagreeable. She had probably just seen him somewhere else before. She would forget about him soon enough.
“While we’re at it…I think I’ll order Lunch Set A and Lunch Set B, too. I’ve got a feeling the special won’t be enough.”
“I guess that’s one thing about you that will never change.”
The recorder contained the last words of the departed Sakura Arakawa. He just couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. Having something like that at Charon could raise questions, however, so that was why he had decided to return it to Mari.
“You never introduced yourself. What’s your name?”
Azuma could hear her voice again in his head.
Why? That was what he had asked her at that time. What was she—someone who had an egg inside her—doing at the Extermination Bureau? That was what he had originally meant by his question back on that day.
But not now. What he wanted to know now was why she had spoken to him.
She didn’t remember him, after all.
“It’s better this way,” he whispered.
This was sure to be his last time visiting Technical, and she would not be coming to Charon again.
“Farewell, Kaguya. This time, for good.”
And then they each went their separate ways. Just as they had done before.
From then on out, they would have nothing to do with each other. Not until the day when heroes disappeared from this Earth.