82 The Watcher, a glimpse

"On the achievement of slaying a foe of two evolutions alone and without a Lantern, I commend you, Orihara Satoru."

The silhouette lingered silently for a little longer, but there was no reply.

"I am well aware that you can hear me, Satoru, although your current state might prevent you from comprehending my words to the fullest."

Orisa's body blinked green, and all the pain subsided immediately, making her mind clear as spring water. She let out a gasp of relief and tried to stand up, but her body didn't listen to her at all.

"I temporarily cleared your state to make it easier for you to listen. Temporarily means that you will return to your previous condition after we are done talking."

"I know what the word means," Orisa blurted out without a second thought, only a moment later realizing her attitude.

"Indeed, you do. My intention was to stress the fact, nothing more. To clear further meaningless questions and worries, let me say this - neither you are dead, nor are you dying at the moment. This vision in front of you is no hallucination, of course. Are we clear?"

"Yes, sir," she hastily answered.

"Oh, one more thing which, I assume, is the most important for you," the voice chuckled, giving Orisa chills as the chuckle is lifeless as well. "Your, hum, girlfriend is alive, too. I am positive of her ability to heal your back, provided you give her enough Mana. You two form a balanced pair if I do say so myself."

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"Thank you, sir. But who are you, if I may?"

"This is not the time for your questions yet, for all of your words matter, so listen well. As I stated earlier, you achieved a feat which not many people could boast of. I am here now to commend and commemorate. Achievements such as this should be rewarded most appropriately. Thus, I grant you a reward - I will thoroughly answer any one question of yours to the best of my abilities and what limited time there is. Think thoroughly and ponder it, as I imagine you would like to use this opportunity wisely."

Both parties fell silent. The fire that began after Orisa's strike almost died out, but the air was still filled with ash and smelled of smoke. The phantom in front of her was dyed in yellowish-red as if highlighting the cause of its appearance.

"I need something to write on," said Orisa finally.

"How is this request related to my previous statement?"

"You see, I need the question to be in a written form so that there won't be any misinterpretations or misunderstandings. I saw enough movies about djinn to at least try and write a foolproof request."

And so, both parties fell silent yet again. Orisa had been waiting for the almighty creature's reaction for quite some time before it finally blurted out:

"Are you retarded? Ahem! What I meant to say is, um..." the silhouette shook slightly, also giving Orisa time to recover from the shock. The interlocutor in front of her lost half of their mysterious aura in a single moment, leaving Orisa more puzzled than before. "Orihara Satoru, you need not doubt my words. I have no intention of tricking you or otherwise distorting your request. Be calm, be confident, do trust me, and ask your question now. My time is limited."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to doubt you. Anyhow, if that's how it is, my goal is to prevent the Wave from destroying the world. It includes all the related events, from Beasts simply spawning too often and eating humanity or occupying the whole continent, to any bizarre phenomenons that may occur after the Wave is done charging up. The question is, how do I achieve it?"

"The question I was expecting to hear from you, Orihara Satoru. Even one as old as myself can never be too sure of your kind's nature, so now I'm filled with joy. I was expecting this question some ten years ago, but the other party deemed it unworthy of their attention. But I digress. There are two answers to your question, and I'll go from the shortest to the longest. Aside from these two, you are able to conceive other solutions by yourself, but they would not fit your own description completely. Thus I will omit them.

The first one is simple and quick and should provide you with a general understanding. To achieve the goal of yours, you would need to travel to the Spire Transmitter and either disable or destroy it.

Destroying it is an option, indeed, but you yet lack understanding of the consequences of this decision. Following this condition, the longer but more thorough answer is to collect the necessary tools and knowledge to do so ahead of time. In doing so, you may find even more solutions to this issue.

The places of learning you will seek are already known to you by now, Orihara Satoru. Those are the Shelters of the past where the Spirespawn gather, indeed. One of them was twice within your reach, but that is a sad tale of the past. How many of those shelters you would need to visit is up to you to decide, but knowing you as well as I do, I would recommend measuring the time you have on your hands well before committing to the task.

There is only one more thing I want to add to provide you with a thorough answer. The knowledge contained there is not easy to comprehend as it refers to terminology, methods, and technologies of which you have little understanding.

I would like to conclude this explanation with this - you were expecting more specific instructions, of that I am well aware, but you will understand everything when the time is right. To ensure this, I will imprint this conversation into your memory. Whatever should happen to you, it will not be possible to forget my words.

The time is out, so I must leave. I hope to meet you again one day, Orihara Satoru."

Upon finishing the speech, the silhouette disappeared in a blink of an eye. All the pain that has been silenced by his presence returned to Orisa's body, squeezing a muffled moan out of her dry throat. She lay motionless, her ragged breathing helping to fill her mouth with a taste of ash and smoke.

'What the hell was that thing? Am I really sane?' Orisa pondered. As she tried to question the reality and recollect the event, every word of the discussion appeared in her mind with ease. It felt as if she had spent numerous hours memorizing the speech, and now sentences and paragraphs were jumping in her head, ready to be spoken out.

'Oh, so he didn't lie about engraving them, huh? Guess I'll think about it later, then.'

Orisa closed her eyes, and her mind began to drift inside a haze. For her, an unknown amount of time passed. She had seen visions during this semi-dream that she couldn't remember well when a scream woke her up:

"Satoru! Satoru, where are you!? Satoru, please! Answer me! Where are you?!"

'Oh, I know that voice...' thought Orisa, slowly opening her eyes.

"Please, Satoru, where are you!?"

Focusing her attention upward, Orisa released several bright sparks in quick succession and then repeated the same thing thrice after a short pause. When Kanai's Mana began to move in her direction, Orisa finally allowed herself to relax. Her mind slipped as she began to dream.

~~~

"Tia, please, we are out of time," Orisa pleaded to her friend, although her voice surprised her. It sounded alien, wrong, but quite familiar at the same time.

"That's not my name, stop calling me that!" yelled a girl in front of Orisa. She brushed her short blonde hair to the side, revealing angry eyes looking at Orisa with a mixture of defiance and betrayal. A mask she had torn from her face a moment ago was clutched in her hand. "I have a name that my mother gave me! I have no need for this... this insult! I hate it, but you still keep calling me that! You keep insisting that I play along with this madness. You dragged me here, but all you do is order me around or look down upon me!"

"I'm sorry, I... I know it's all my fault, but please let's continue it some other time, not here," Orisa begged once more, feeling her soul tearing apart from a burning sense of guilt.

"You are always like that, always thinking about grand things. I told you I didn't want to go! I told you this isn't for me! But you dragged me here, you begged, clutched onto me, cried at my feet. What a fool I was, how little I knew, how naive I was to trust you." She looked at Orisa, her eyes wet with tears and full of pain as she kept screaming: "You all betrayed me! I don't know you! I don't want to know you!"

When Orisa was about to answer, a metal door behind her opened loudly. That made her realize her surroundings - they stood on a roof of a very tall building, a skyscraper, surrounded by the lights of a bustling night megapolis.

"Orion, what are-. Oh, Tia, where is your mask!?" A familiar and dear voice ran pleasantly through Orisa's ears, but she couldn't look away from her friend.

"To hell with the mask, and with your schemes and games!" Tia threw the mask down, then pulled out a phone from her back pocket and smashed it to the concrete floor, blasting it into pieces. "I'm sick of it all!"

The next moment, her figure turned blue, then white. A gust of wind blew over the roof, shattering the silhouette and turning it into a cloud of snow that flew away, leaving only the mask and the broken phone.

Orisa let out a long and tired sigh, torn by the event, her feelings of grief and guilt growing even bigger.

"Don't worry, she'll be back by tomorrow anyway," a warm palm squeezed Orisa's shoulder, calming her a bit. "I know that you blame yourself, but even I think it was the right thing to do. For now, let's focus on the mission."

~~~

Orisa woke up in a complete dark. The air felt dusty and cold, but her body was warm despite that. And something heavy was pressing her down, making it hard to move. She shuffled uncomfortably, still feeling awful from the dream she saw.

'Where was I? Who were these people? It all looked so real and familiar.'

Memories of the recent events surfaced quickly in her mind, and Orisa almost yelled, remembering what had happened earlier - the fight, the revelation from the ghostly figure. And Mirai. She jolted but couldn't get up as something heavy was obstructing her movements. Remembering who she was, Orisa focused her mind and produced a sphere of light, illuminating her surroundings.

She was inside the cave that they made together with Kanai. She knew for sure since numerous hours spent in the tunnel made every crack here familiar to her. The warm and comfy place was, indeed, her sleeping bag and a blanket. And she was pinned down by Kanai, who was sleeping soundly by her side with his right hand and leg both hugging Orisa. She couldn't help but chuckle.

A piece of paper was clutched in his hand, and Orisa overcome by curiosity carefully pulled it out. Numerous identical Japanese hieroglyphs filled the page, which made its hilarious content even funnier and endearing:

'Idiot Satoru Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot I love you Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot Idiot.'

With a huge smile plastered over her face, Orisa went back to sleep.