Volume 2, 4 − Song of the Starry Sky Part 3

Volume 2, Chapter 4 ? Song of the Starry Sky Part 3

On the roof of the rented apartment, Marigold Hills Tokorozawa, Diana was standing with her arms spread apart and her eyes closed.

A crystalline substance the size of a clenched fist was floating over her hand.

The dust on the roof formed concentric circles with Diana at the center, and the powerful flow of magical energy caused it to whirl upwards. In the next instant, Diana shot that crystalline substance towards the sky.

“Go on.”

There was a slight disturbance in the sky of stars, and the crystalline substance vanished.

“Haaaah…”

The weather was warm enough to cause her to sweat a little, and she fixed her bangs that were stuck to her forehead.

After that, she heard a dull voice from near her feet.

“Did you send it already?”

“Yes. Just now.”

“I see.”

After Diana landed in the courtyard of the apartment site and entered her room through the window, the source of that voice spoke in a somewhat sad manner.

“With this, I guess I’m out of a job.”

“You brought this on yourself. I don’t want to lose my job either, so I didn’t hold back at all when I sent my report.”

“That’s fine. That’s fine, really. Aahhh.”

“Don’t think we’re done already. We’re going out again right away.”

“Yeah, I know. Where were we supposed to go, again?”

“For now, we’re going to the department store opposite Tokorozawa Station.”

“Ah, that’s right. What were you planning to buy? Sweets?”

“We can’t very well buy liquor. Rather than the actual item, what’s more important is the attitude of taking something to give when going to visit someone.”

“Understood. Ah, that’s right, we’re out of milk. Let’s buy some on the way back.”

“……Yes, yes. Now, it’s time to leave. We need to be on time. Are you ready, Colonel?”

“Don’t call me Colonel. I betrayed the Knights Division.”

Khalija Welleger appeared from the shadows in the back of the room, wearing a tracksuit and with her left hand wrapped in a triangular bandage.

After being ejected from the tower and returning to Japan, Khalija had received treatment for the injury to her right leg, but refused to allow her left arm to be healed.

After hearing the conversation that had been sent through Yasuo’s slimphone and recorded on Shouko’s slimphone, Hideo and Madoka hadn’t pressed Khalija to explain her actions.

The fact of the matter was that Khalija could not be judged by the laws of Japan.

Khalija herself thought that she should have been killed on the spot.

However.

“Don’t worry about it. It barely took me thirty minutes to get rid of that number of Shii.”

“Although you looked like you were out of breath.”

She was overwhelmed by the words of the couple who were also Heroes of Salvation, who talked about the incident like it was no big deal.

Khalija had released twenty Shii.

Not only had they been defeated so easily, they had also been captured using some magic she had never seen to prevent them from escaping, this was no ordinary thing.

The magic was apparently not as flexible as the snake of light created from Marfik, and would not be able to hold the Shii for very long, so as soon as Yasuo returned, he sent off all twenty Shii using the requiem.

Khalija, having lost all her weapons, admitted her defeat and decided to leave her fate up to the Kenzaki family.

As a result, Diana ended up getting custody of Khalija, and she officially became a freeloader at Diana’s apartment.

“I’m just used to calling you Colonel.”

Even though their relationship from both official and private standpoints had been reversed, Diana still didn’t change her basic attitude towards Khalija, and once in a while she let Khalija catch a glimpse of her strong will that she had never shown in Resteria, which often surprised Khalija.

“It just sounds like you’re making fun of me.”

“In that case, let’s stay this way for a while. I am the master of this house, so please listen to what I say.”

“Have you always been such a straightforward person?”

“Of course.”

Diana, wearing skintight jeans and a tunic, picked up her handbag that contained her wallet and slimphone, and gave Khalija a fearless smile.

“My surroundings have always been difficult in many ways, so I had no choice but to be this way.”

‘……“

Khalija looked confused because she didn’t understand what Diana was talking about, but Diana just laughed and refused to say anything else.

“Well then, let’s go. I need to switch with Madoka and stand guard over Yasuo later in the evening.”

“Yeah, I understand.”

Khalija, who nodded, was still dressed in a tracksuit.

The tracksuit which had the name of Kenzaki stitched on it had ended up full of holes and covered in bloodstains after the battle with Diana, and they had no choice but to throw it away.

The matter had been settled with Diana paying for a new tracksuit for Yasuo, but for some reason, Khalija had gotten really attached to tracksuits and even today she was covered from neck to ankle in a blue tracksuit.

“…Time to go.”

After struggling to put on her brand-new sneakers with just one hand, Khalija lightly patted a small box that was placed on top of the shoe rack and followed Diana outside.

“Wouldn’t it be good to have Hideo or Yasuo fix that, after all? It’s inconvenient for your daily life as well.”

Diana suggested that after seeing Khalija struggle to put her shoes on, but Khalija shook her head.

“At the very least, let me stay this way until you get a reply to your report from earlier. That way, they will also be able to stay at ease.”

“But…”

“Don’t be naive, Major Krone. I am a cowardly rebel and a traitor. In the first place, it would not be surprising if I was forcefully confined inside the room. What would you have done if I was powerful enough to fix my fractured bone on my own? There is no need to feel pity for me. You need to be resolved enough to use me as a shield if the Shii suddenly appear.”

“Is that something a traitor would say?”

“It’s because you are all too soft.”

“Japan is a peaceful country, after all.”

“It is sinful for soldiers to get accustomed to peace.”

Diana looked visibly annoyed with the topic, and suddenly remembering what Nodoka had said, she decided to try it out.

“But you already heard what Hideo had to say, and besides, I know that deep down you’re very kind and not at all the kind of weak-willed person that you say you are, Colonel.”

“…Hey.”

“You are still someone I look up to and trust, Colonel, and now that we have overcome that difficult battle, I believe that you will once again use that power for our sake.”

“M-Major Krone… Listen to me…”

“Please don’t tell him that I told you, but Yasuo also said this. He said, ‘The reason why we were able to stop Khalija-san is because she had paid attention to me all along and occasionally gave me advice.’”

“Umm, I never… I mean…”

“He also said that he had to work harder because even a strong person like you had things you were worried about. Yasuo had also realized that you spoke gentle words to him every now and then to keep him from breaking down….”

“I-I understand! I understand, so please have mercy…”

Khalija blushed a bright red and crouched down on the spot.

Khalija, 『who doesn’t like feeling embarrassed when she’s praised』, was unable to withstand Diana’s straightforward words and was moaning after covering her face with one hand because she could not raise her broken arm.

“Seriously, what do you say we get your arm fixed on our way back today?”

“…You’re doing this on purpose to tease me, aren’t you?”

Khalija looked up at Diana with a bright red face and teary, resentful eyes.

“It was half serious.”

Diana said that to her.

“You’re no friend of mine!”

“How many times are you going to say that?”

He had heard Aoto say that at least ten times today alone.

Aoto used that phrase like it was a suffix and randomly mixed it into conversations, so even Yasuo was starting to get seriously annoyed.

As expected, it seemed that Aoto had taken issue with the fact that Diana had come to pick him up the previous day, and Yasuo also realized that he wouldn’t be able to convince anyone using the same story that he had used with Khalija, so he ended up telling the truth by saying that Diana was the daughter of mutual friends of his parents to settle the issue.

Of course, just because he had told the truth, that didn’t mean that Aoto would be okay with it.

“So you’re saying that there’s a very good chance of your relationship progressing to something more serious…”

“If you want to talk about probability, there’s a fifty percent chance. Isn’t that the same with every girl in the world?”

“Don’t give me that sophistry! Tell me more about your blissful school life and make me jealous, Yasu!”

“Aoto, you’ve been seriously disgusting since the past few days.”

“I’ve never told anyone this before, but there was a time when I refused Valentine’s Day chocolates from one of my juniors to look cool, I regret doing something stupid like that that so much!”

“Shut up. Just go to your club already. Do what you originally planned to accomplish and show us all a great play.”

“Shut uuuuuupp!”

It was after school but the sky was still shining blue, and it didn’t feel like evening at all.

Actually, Yasuo, who didn’t belong to any clubs, had some work at the faculty office.

“Hmm? What’s that?”

Aoto asked after seeing the A4 size report that Yasuo pulled out of his bag.

“My make-up test for Social Studies. I told you that I had to submit an essay, right? I finished it earlier than expected, so I’m going to turn it in.”

“Oh? What was the topic again?”

“I had to write an essay on whether eighteen-year-olds should be treated as adults now that the voting age has been reduced.”

Seeing Yasuo state a difficult topic so casually, Aoto had a complicated expression on his face.

“I see. Actually, the mayor of our city retired due to illness, so we had a sudden mayoral election. I was so excited back then.”

“Hmm? But you’re not eighteen yet, right?”

“Yeah. I got depressed when I realized that. Sure, I don’t know if the mayoral election would have any sort of effect on my life, and I wondered what was so fun about seeing all those posters of old people smiling, but, how do I put this, it really drove it home, you know?”

“Drove what home?”

“Yeah, you know, when we entered middle school and stopped carrying the school bags made for kids, didn’t you feel like you were all grown up?”

“Aaaah… I probably did.”

“Even for stuff like manga, middle-schoolers read sports manga where high schoolers are the main characters, so they equate entering middle school to gaining powers they never had before, stuff like that.”

“Yeah, I understand that. The seniors from third year looked so grown up.”

“Yeah, but we’re like this now.”

“Don’t say it like that. Although I understand what you’re trying to say.”

Thinking that middle schoolers and high schoolers were grown ups, it was just a fantasy.

When they reached that age that they had respected and longed for so much when they were younger, and considered whether they had become existences worth of that respect, it didn’t feel like it at all.

Even though they had become third year high school students, it didn’t feel like they had become capable of smiling fearlessly at ace players from all over Japan, or using their strong will to break free from the persecution by adults, or using keen powers of observation and an intelligence greater than adults to calmly decipher everything they saw, and becoming the head of the students that everyone looked up to.

Not only did they not feel like it, in reality, they had not become such people.

The more people tried to act in that manner, the more they were forced to accept the difference between imagination and reality, and the speed with which they learned to recognize failure and give up was far greater than when they had still been carrying those school bags made for kids.

There were times when he was sitting with his friends, talking with them about vulgar things and chuckling, playing around, and studying because he had no choice, when he wondered if he was really all that different from the twelve-year-old elementary school kids.

“Even if you had been able to vote in that mayoral election, you would have probably been disappointed by how ordinary it was.”

“Probably, yeah. But, you know, eighteen is the age when you’re allowed to drive a car, and if you’re a guy, you can get married. It’s also the age when people go on to either become college students or members of society. On top of that you’re allowed to vote as well, so I remembered that feeling of excitement from my younger days and though it was really cool. Well, these are all things that adults do all over the world, so it can’t be helped if they feel a little ordinary.”

“…I wonder how it is in my case.”

There are many people who think that becoming an 『adult』 means that they will be freed from many restrictions that were placed on them before, and obtain the freedom to do many different things.

However, that freedom comes with many responsibilities and obligations, and 『adults』 spend every day worrying and working hard in return for that freedom.

There have also been cases of people who had been recognized as 『adults』 by society due to the law or customs, and those people couldn’t handle the responsibility that came with it and thus lost their way.

He had always thought that he would naturally 『turn into』 an adult someday, but the closer he got to being an adult the more indistinct it became, until he was not sure what it even meant to be an adult anymore.

In some ways, it was similar to the existence known as a 『Hero』 that Yasuo was aiming to become.

It was something everyone knew about, but no one had a concrete definition for it. In spite of that it was an object of longing for many, and was seen as being something special.

“I wonder how one becomes an adult.”

“If I become an adult, will I manage to find a girlfriend as well…”

“So you come back to that after all.”

Was Aoto really that shocked by the fact that Igarashi had a girlfriend?

Girlfriends don’t just naturally come crawling out of the woodwork just because you reach the age where it is appropriate to have one.

However, if Yasuo said that right now, it would just come back to bite him.

Yasuo sensed that Aoto was about to fall into a troublesome loop and decided to end the topic and quickly picked up his bag.

“Well then, I have to get going.”

“What, you’re going already? Stick around for a bit, I still have some time until my club starts today.”

“No, sorry. I have plans for later today.”

Yasuo really wanted to stay back for a little longer, but tardiness on today of all days would not be forgiven.

He still had some time, but if possible he wanted to get some stuff done earlier, and when he said as much, Aoto wrinkled his forehead as if unhappy about something.

“Plans… Which one is it!? Which girl!?”

“Uwaaah, so annoying.”

“You’re no friend of mine!”

“Yeah, yeah. See you later.”

“Yeah, just go. Bah.”

“You don’t actually need to say ‘Bah’ aloud.”

After leaving the classroom while laughing, he hurried to the faculty office.

“Oh, it looks pretty well put together.”

The teacher for Social Studies, Takayama, skimmed through the report and nodded as if satisfied.

“I’ll return it to you later after grading it, but thinking of topics is annoying for me as well, so study properly next time, okay?”

“Yes.”

Now all he had to do was get through the make-up test for Classical Literature tomorrow, and he would be done with with this pilgrimage that started with him failing his tests. However, Yasuo had another difficult task to clear before that.

After leaving the main gate of the school by himself, he walked to the nearest corner in the road where Diana and Khalija waited beside a taxi.

“Where’s Mom?”

“She had some preparations to make regarding the plans for later, so we switched guard duty with her one hour earlier and she already went back home.”

Diana, who answered his question, was carrying a paper bag with the symbol of a famous Japanese sweets store.

“Got it. Well then, let’s go.”

Saying that, Yasuo climbed into the taxi.

The two women climbed into the back seat, and Yasuo climbed into the seat beside the driver, and stated their destination.

“Please take us to the Aviation Memorial Park.”

The three didn’t talk much while sitting in the car, and there was not much conversation about anything apart from the souvenirs that Diana had purchased.

It took the three of them nearly double the time it would have taken by train, but they eventually arrived at the entrance to the Aviation Memorial Park that faced the national highway.

They mingled with the large groups of children, and there were unexpectedly a lot of families present considering that it was evening on a weekday.

In one corner of the park, they saw someone who had spread a sheet on the ground, set aside a large wrapped package, and was staring at the trees, even though the season for viewing flowers had passed by a long time ago.

Yasuo gathered his courage, and,

“Tatewaki-san!”

Hearing that, Tatewaki Shouko, who was sitting on the sheet, turned around slowly and slightly raised a hand in greeting.

Her expression did not show any strong emotions, and she looked the same as always.

I see black, gold, and silver heads bowing towards me, does that make me the platinum card?

While thinking of something pointless like that, she looked at the top of the heads of the people assembled before her.

Of course, those heads belonged to Yasuo and the two girls who had appeared around him recently.

It was a brilliant real-life demonstration of the art of prostrating oneself.

Diana, who was in the middle, was holding out a bag of Japanese sweets made using sweet potatoes from an auspicious shop in Kawagoe[5], like Echigoya offering a bribe to the Governor[6].

“We’re really… very sorry for the trouble we caused you…”

“Haaa.”

“You must be understandably angry about what happened, but I assure you, we will take responsibility and and we are doing everything we can to resolve the aforementioned issue, so if you can find it in your heart to forgive us…”

“Pfft.”

Shouko barely kept herself from laughing at the sight of this golden-haired beauty, who looked like a Hollywood actress, apologizing in such a formal manner using perfect Japanese. She waved her hand lightly, although she knew that they wouldn’t be able to see it.

“Yeah, that’s okay, I already heard about the circumstances the other day, and there’s nothing you can do about it now, right? So there’s no point in me getting angry about it.”

“Thank you very much…”

“It’s not a matter of forgiving you or not, and it’s hard to talk to you this way, so please raise your heads. It is a communication between people of different worlds, after all. Let’s talk about more constructive and fun things.”

After the three of them finally raised their heads, Shouko held out the wrapped package that she had prepared beforehand towards them.

“What is this?”

“That’s obvious. It’s a packed lunch.”

Saying that, Shouko pulled away the string that kept the wrapping in place, and a fairly old three-layer lunch box was revealed.

“Here, have some wet towels. Ah, you probably can’t use chopsticks with your arm like that right? Don’t worry, I have forks as well.”

“T-Thank you.”

Shouko efficiently distributed wet tissues, paper plates, and disposable chopsticks to everyone, and even prepared a plastic fork for Khalija who had an injured arm. After that, Shouko opened the lunch box to display a picnic lunch that looked like it had been made by a professional.

“Huaaaaaaa…!!”

Diana’s eyes sparkled and she made a sound of appreciation.

The first layer was filled with cylindrical-shaped onigiri that were a brilliant fusion of nori-wrapped and rolled onigiri.

The second layer had several varieties of side dishes such as fried chicken, stewed vegetables, sausages cut in the shape of an octopus, and salad. Although there were a lot of different ingredients used, there was no sign of the food falling apart or leaking at all.

The third layer had a selection of cut fruits. There were oranges, apples, bananas, and strawberries. They were all cut into bite-sized pieces, and it looked like the sort of arrangement you would see at the buffet table of a restaurant.

Yasuo felt strangely nostalgic at seeing this arrangement of food that not only roused the appetite, but also roused feelings of exhilaration in those who saw it.

Now that he thought about it, it had been a very long time since he had seen a picnic lunch like this.

He had probably not eaten something like this since the last sports festival from his elementary school days.

“Alright, before we dig in, let’s take a picture together to remember this moment! Yay!”

“Ah.”

While the three of them were still hesitating at this sudden proclamation, Shouko expertly used the front camera of her slimphone to capture a perfect photo that included all who were present as well as the lunch spread.

“I’ll send the photo over ROPE later on. Right then, let’s eat. Ah, Khalija-san… did I get your name right? If you have trouble serving yourself, let me know. I’ll help you.”

“A-Ah, well…”

Khalija was actually taken off guard for once by Shouko’s attitude.

Seeing that from the sidelines, Yasuo, who had not forgotten that they had come here to apologize, decided to ask Shouko about something.

“D-Did you make all of this yourself, Tatewaki-san?‘

“That’s right. Well, the only things I made from scratch are the stewed vegetables. I appropriated most of the other ingredients from the kitchen of my family’s shop. Ah, did the two of you already know that my family runs a bar?”

“A-Ah, we’ve heard about it.”

“Well, yes…”

“Well that aside, eat up. It may not be as professional as the food made by my parents, but it shouldn’t taste bad either.”

“Y-Yes. I will gratefully accept…!!”

They couldn’t very well refuse after Shouko asked her so many times, and when Yasuo felt that something was off and looked towards Diana, he saw that her eyes had widened in surprise after she took some stewed radish from the box and put it in her mouth.

“D-Diana…”

“W-What’s wrong, Major?‘

“…Yasuo… Colonel…”

Diana trembled as she looked at the two people sitting beside her.

“It’s delicious… This is incredibly delicious!!”

““Aaah.””

“I see. That’s good.”

“Radish… This is radish, isn’t it? Ah, what is this inexplicable feeling, there are no root crops with such depth of flavor in Resteria. It is different from the flavor of soy sauce… just what is this flavor…”

“I let it simmer for quite a while in the soup stock, so that’s probably it. It’s probably better than the Oden sold in convenience stores, but it’s not that great.”

“No! I feel sorry for saying this in front of Yasuo, but even Madoka’s cooking has not reached this level!”

“R-Really…”

“Please go ahead and eat it! You won’t understand until you do! This delicate, sponge-like texture!”

“Sponge-like?”

Sitting beside Diana, who was eating freeze-dried tofu with a serious expression on her face, Yasuo also reached out with his chopsticks to take some chicken that had been stewed with vegetables and put it in his mouth.

He failed to notice that Shouko’s expression was tinged with nervousness.

“Ah, it really is delicious!”

He didn’t have an over-the-top reaction like Diana, but even Yasuo was able to understand that it was a flavor that was difficult to achieve in home-cooked meals.

“Thank goodness…”

Shouko, who appeared visibly more relieved than when she reacted to Diana’s praise, also reached out and took an onigiri.

“Starting from here, the fillings are plum, salmon, and kombu, in that order. Ah, you don’t have to finish everything, okay? I know we don’t have that much time.”

“I-I can’t possibly let this go to waste!!‘

“Major, calm down a bit. You’re losing sight of our original goal.”

Khalija admonished Diana who had a frantic expression, but Diana was serious.

“We didn’t come here to have a picnic. We came here to apologize to her once again, and decide on our plans for the future, correct?”

“Ah.”

Diana froze with an onigiri in each hand, looking like she had just remembered. Seeing that, Shouko chuckled.

“This feels kinda weird.”

“I’m sorry, we relaxed too much.”

While Yasuo apologized, Diana sat beside him with a red face, but as expected, she did not let go of the onigiri.

“Yeah. To be frank, I find this easier. I was pretty nervous about this as well.”

“But I wasn’t kidding when I said this was delicious.”

“Yeah. I’m glad you liked it.”

“…Hmm?”

Khalija looked a little dissatisfied while observing the conversation between Shouko and Yasuo, but understanding her position, she decided not to say anything unnecessary at this time.

They continued talking about inconsequential things for a while after that, and around the time when they had finished about half the food, Shouko suddenly asked,

“So, what should I do from now on?”

Diana, who had managed to calm down by then, spoke up as a representative for the three of them.

“You will have to accept that we will keep you under guard.”

“Guard, huh? Ah, there’s some rice stuck on your cheek.”

“T-Thank you. Ahem.”

It looked like the relaxed atmosphere was still going to continue.

“What you’re going through, Shouko-san, has no precedent even in Ante Lande. I’ve given you a gist of the current situation in our world, but the truth is that there are still many things that we do not know. Among them, your condition is particularly—”

“Worthy of observation, huh?”

“…Exactly. The fact remains that we are unable to remove the Shii from inside your body. I think the time will eventually come… when you will have to travel to Ante Lande.”

“……Travel to another world, huh?”

Shouko smiled.

“Is it far away?”

“……It takes about two hours for a one-way trip……”

“That’s closer than I thought.”

Shouko smiled wryly.

“What about you, Yasu-kun? Have you already gone there? To that place called Ante lande.”

“……No, I haven’t. It apparently costs a lot of money.”

“I see. ”

“I see. Well, it sort of sounds like going on a trip to recover from an incurable disease, so I probably won’t be able to come back for a while once I go there. Although I don’t really feel ill at all. I’m in great shape, you know?”

“T-That’s right.”

Even Diana didn’t know how to reply to what Shouko said.

“Well, I understand, and I believe you. I’ll cooperate with you guys. There are a lot of things that can’t be explained if what you said isn’t true, and besides…”

Shouko glared at Yasuo through narrowed eyes on purpose.

“If the situation wasn’t really that grave, then it would mean I exposed myself for nothing.”

“Uh… No, that was…”

Having that topic raised without warning, Yasuo suddenly became flustered and was unable to look at Shouko’s face directly.

※