City Series:Volume7 Layer 9

Layer 9: Feelings

11/15/1998

15:35

I went to the Officers’ living room after school to find Snowy working hard at sharpening her sword in the unlit back storeroom.

Wondering why she was doing it in the dark, I switched on the lights.

“Hey, Snowy?”

She gasped and stopped sharpening. Then she looked up at me, glared, and opened her mouth.

“What have you done!?”

“This sounds annoying, so just sum up the main point.”

“A blade’s shine is what gives it its edge. I wanted to keep it out of the light to avoid wasting its shine. And now look: it’s gone dull.”

I wasn’t sure that was how it worked, so I touched the blade and earned myself a red line on my finger.

“Yowch!”

“Don’t get it dirty, you fool. Now it has a fingerprint on it.”

“Sorry. Does my hurt finger not get a mention?”

She nodded and viewed my bloody finger. And…

“That is a very clean cut. This really is a fine weapon.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re impressed. Now go to hell.”

I held my finger in my mouth and tasted iron.

“But who are you planning to cut with that?”

“My father is returning home soon, so-”

“I’d rather not know anything incriminating, so don’t tell me a word more.”

“Very well.”

She stood up and swung the sword in one hand. She watched the blade’s path while it swished through the air.

“You could say all of this comes from how I feel about my father.”

Author Comment:

There are different living room for the different divisions in the Chancellor’s Officers, but they mostly just come and go as they please.

Maybe it’s like a library or a training gym. Or maybe not.

Record 9: More of the Usual

04/10/1997

9:51

After the entrance ceremony, I walked from the gym to the faculty room.

That meant walking through a few unfamiliar school buildings and outdoor walkways to reach the faculty building. My homeroom teacher was waiting in the general faculty room.

She had told me earlier to come see her after the ceremony was complete. She’s pretty young and I recalled her seeming unusually scatterbrained.

I bowed, opened the faculty room door, and took a look around.

But why was I being called here on my very first day at school?

“Probably not for something sexy.”

My comment caused the grownups around me to freeze.

I answered the unexpected attention with a wave and then walked toward the person I was here to see. Sensei was organizing a variety of documents under her desk and she didn’t notice me approach.

The documents were piled up on her chair and on the floor.

She had crawled under the desk with her suit butt sticking out toward me. I scratched my head, wondering what to do, and then checked the documents on the desk.

Were these handwritten notes?

“Lifepath test for incoming freshmen.”

That was too dangerous to let her keep, so I stuck it in my pocket. But what else was there? There was one paper that looked like a poem or song lyrics or something. Reading through it, I had a feeling it was a fairy tale. A European one I had heard at some point. Was she researching it? Maybe she was a better teacher than I had thought.

“Sensei,” I called, causing the butt sticking out from the desk to jump.

“Um, yes!? What do you-”

Before she was done speaking, a dull thud came from the bottom of the desk. The desk briefly tilted and I had to quickly hold down the documents to keep them from sliding off. Sensei emerged holding her head and sat on the floor.

“Ahh, wh-what do you want?” she said, half in tears.

When she saw me, she started to say something, resisted, and actually started crying after finding a lump on her head.

Hey, hold on.

I looked around to see the other teachers staring at me and whispering to each other.

“Wasn’t he just talking about doing ‘something sexy’?”

“And now he attacked the angel of our faculty room.”

“Boss, I say we teach him a lesson.”

At this rate, they would tear me apart without giving it a second thought.

I crouched down to avoid their gazes and tried to figure out what I could do. I could see Sensei had switched from crying to sobbing.

When I noticed her heaving shoulders, I concluded she wasn’t going to make even more of a scene and breathed a sigh of relief just in time for a document to fall from the desk.

It was a copy of my student info. The administrative office must have made it for her because it was handwritten but had digital characters all over it. It included my academic history, but my eyes moved to the family section below.

Something written in red pen really stood out since the rest was a grayscale copy.

A special note in the family section said my parents were away for an extended period of time and that was circled in red with a note to discuss it with me.

That explained it.

She was an idiot, but she had a good heart.

I looked up to see she still had her right hand on the corner of her eyes, but she was holding out her other hand. I handed her the paper and she cleared her throat.

I was afraid she would start crying again if she tried to speak, so I spoke first.

“It’s alright. They’ve been like that forever.”

“They have?” she asked with just her eyes and I nodded. She thought for a bit and nodded.

“Then I suppose I don’t need to go fix meals for you.”

I pondered what she had just said for a moment.

“Sensei, can I take back what I said?”

Author Comment:

This is when he met Sensei. Well, it’s the first memory about her that stuck with him.

She makes it pretty clear she’s a new teacher, but she seems to have left a good impression on her colleagues. She still has a lot to learn, but they can tell she’s trying her best.

Most of the teachers were in the Chancellor’s Officers in their day, but Sensei wasn’t and they tend to see her like a little sister or a daughter.

Record 71: He Told Me to Do It

07/10/1998

11:42

It was hot. The cicada cries and the heat were both unbearable and we were up on the school’s roof.

Everyone was taking their exams below. There was no point in us taking the exams since we were in the Chancellor’s Officers. Our job was to watch over the people below right now.

I turned back from the edge of the hot, hot roof to see Snowy wearing a T-shirt and crunching up ice in a penguin-shaped shaved ice machine.

Did that count as eating an early lunch?

Senpai stood below a parasol next to her and stared into the distance. Despite the extreme heat, he was wearing his full uniform. There was something wrong with him.

Just as I wondered where you were, I felt something hot and sticky on the back of my neck.

“Whoa.”

I grabbed it and found it was Daitarou. Small animals were supposed to have high body temperatures and he sure did look overheated with the way he was sticking out his tongue.

And I knew who had to have held him against me.

“You.”

I looked back to see you eating shaved ice in a tank top with your shirt tied around your hips.

“Sure is hot, isn’t it?” you said with the spoon in your mouth.

That was an accurate statement, but I wanted to get my mind off of that. I changed the subject while walking over with Daitarou in my hand.

“Where’s the Boss?”

“He’s trying to fix the living room A/C, but he says it isn’t looking good.”

“I see.”

I placed Daitarou on Snowy’s nape while she acted as our human shaved ice maker. She immediately leaped to her feet.

“Hototot!”

Quite the scream.

I caught Daitarou after he fell from her and hid him behind my back. Snowy reached her hands behind her back and swung them around in something of a dance.

“Hm? Strange. I could have sworn I felt something.”

“Probably the ghost of the air conditioner you broke. The poor thing got PTSD after you slapped it on the side. Now our summers will be hot, our winters cold, our rainy seasons humid, and our autumns dry.”

“You should thank me for giving you a more vivid seasonal experience.”

“Hey, did you all hear the excuse this criminal is trying to peddle?”

“Stop that. I will apologize to the others. Just not to you.”

“Thanks for teaching me that discrimination can be found in even the smallest organization.”

“We should search for a new room,” said Senpai from below the parasol. “The corporations are acting suspiciously. I would like a serious base.”

“Isn’t that an overreaction to a simple air conditioner?” I asked.

An explosion and the shatter of glass erupted from below.

Senpai waited until the noise had entirely faded before looking to me.

“What was that about a simple air conditioner?”

“Well, um, it only exploded a little! I’m sure it’s fixable!”

“But fixing it now will probably take the Professor’s help too,” you said from behind me. “Are you sure this will be okay?”

Which part did she think might not be okay?

Then Lady walked up from the emergency stairs. She set down her keyboard, amp, and speakers and hooked them up.

“Whew, I’m exhausted. Okay, everyone, I’ll play you a refreshing song.”

Now, we’re talking. My boiled brain made a mental note to grab her butt later on and she soon had her headphones on and was playing the keyboard. All of our hopes for some refreshing music were dashed in an instant.

“How can we hear the music if she uses her headphones?” you asked.

The cicadas were the only thing to be heard in the sweltering heat while Lady played her keyboard with her back to us and shook her butt to a refreshing beat.

I sighed, approached her, and pressed Daitarou against her dancing neck.

“Ahyah!”

Author Comment:

On hot days, holding an animal feels unbearably hot.

This is also a continuation of the air conditioning story from before.

Record 82: What About Me?

09/14/1998

3:36

We received permission to use the bomb shelter, so we decided to stay there for two nights to clean and organize the place. The civil engineering club would be coming tomorrow for some serious remodeling.

After finishing most everything, we spread out some snacks and a map of the place on the table in the central room and discussed who would get which room.

I watched you giving Daitarou some amanatto and asked a question.

“Why are you girls aiming for the corner rooms?”

“Because then two sides are on outside walls. That makes it harder for anyone to eavesdrop.”

“You’re being paranoid. I do admire your active imagination, though.”

“I predict you will regret saying that,” said Snowy and the other girls agreed.

But I ignored that and tilted my head.

“But some bad Lives gather in the corners of places like this. Haven’t you noticed a strange presence here for the past few days? Like a monster or something?”

“Now I think you’re being paranoid, but that is a disturbing thought.”

“Also, a lot of girls work under us, so what about their rooms? Not to mention a locker room.”

You stared at the map for a while.

“What about this? I don’t know if these monsters of yours exist, but if they do come from the corners, there can only be four of them.”

You folded the map in two with the map side showing and placed it on the table.

“This adds two extra corner rooms along the fold of the front and back sides, right? If we keep doing that, the strange presence will be distributed too much to cause any trouble and we can all have corner rooms.”

Makes sense, I thought and then realized we hadn’t decided on a room for me.

Author Comment:

They discuss their plans for the bomb shelter.

He later has the civil engineering club build a peeping hole.

Record 53: Thinking Again

02/20/1998

21:45

After the Boss’s welcoming party, I was walking home with you and Lady. We would accompany Lady as far as the train station. I would then accompany you to the pharmacy located between the station and my home. Finally, I would accompany myself to my home.

The wind was weak, but the night was cold. We gave some help to a Seasonal Wind drunk and puking on the side of the road before continuing on our way.

“So that Boss guy is a transfer student from Kansai, huh? The times really are changing. That would’ve been unthinkable before. I always assumed Japan would be split my whole life.”

“It was in our second year of middle school that the country was reunited seemingly out of nowhere, wasn’t it?”

Lady turned toward you.

“You don’t have any kind of information on what happened as the 1st Special Duty Officer in charge of intelligence?”

You shook your head with Daitarou in your pocket.

“Unfortunately, no. All I know is that the Tokyo Chancellor’s Officers of the time did something that led up to it. But most of the data on those Officers has been sealed. None of it has been mentioned at international conferences and all of the current 3rd years who were freshmen at the time aren’t talking. I only know the names they used when they left Tokyo.”

“I know that the top level of the Chancellor’s Officers stopped all activities from the start of ’96 until Senpai was given the position of Chancellor based on only the first half of his Mountain training. Even though the reunification was such an important period of time. It’s called the Silent Half Year.”

“Does Senpai know anything about it?”

That was hard to say. He did have a lot of worries. If he did know something, I doubted he would tell us. Because he didn’t want to get us involved.

That did make me kind of sad, though.

Author Comment:

The story of the Boss’s arrival is told elsewhere, but this is the night after.

Not even the current Chancellor’s Officers know much about the incident in Osaka.

Assume that a lot of special circumstances apply there.

Record 100: Even If You Tell Me That

12/23/1998

10:37

I realized something while watching the second term’s closing ceremony.

“Oh, god. I’m still single. As single as can be.”

I walked to the train station, thinking of visiting the next town over. The streetside TV installed at the traffic circle there was playing data about Babel.

Babel was the global broadcast tower being built in Osaka. The corporations were letting the students in Kansai use it first.

To earn that right, the students had formed news teams and were competing in sales in what was known as the Battle of Babel.

The best team that survived to the end would get to use Babel.

The tower stood more than 3km tall and whoever stood at its peak would be the first person to speak to the entire planet.

The final battle had been fought at the start of this month, so the winning team was already known. The scary part was that the winning team was led by a transfer student from Tokyo.

But then the adults intervened.

The details weren’t well known, but the corporate dealings involved in Babel had led a team of corporate adults to compete against the winning student team.

That battle began on the 20th of the month. The last day of their activities would be February 20 and the results would be announced on March 6.

The TV was exploding with speculation and rumor.

No one thought the students had a chance of winning. The way the newscaster talked made it sound like they didn’t want to let the student team win. I was probably imagining that part, though.

“This isn’t about me, so I need to stop assuming 2nd place.”

“2nd place?” someone asked from behind me.

I turned around to find Little Boy. He was wearing a black coat of all things. And since he wore his uniform below that…

“On your way to school? Sensei should be there. She’s dumb enough to only start tidying up the library the day of the closing ceremony, so I doubt she’s done yet.”

“I know. You don’t need to tell me that.”

Oh, so he’d already been there? Since he was emptyhanded, Sensei must have brought her own lunch. I didn’t know how she felt about him, but the end result was the same: this bastard was my enemy.

I considered what to say, but he looked to the TV and asked me something.

“Hey, you know that transfer student from Tokyo that’s making a name for himself in Osaka? Is it true he used to be your classmate? I heard he got some good records on the track team but suddenly quit before the tournament.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I looked away from Little Boy to view the TV. It was showing profiles of the student team members. I looked to the name and photo at the top of the list.

“I don’t know a guy with that name. Or with that expression.”

“I see,” said Little Boy. “Then he must have learned how to take things seriously after moving there.”

He walked past me but looked back for a brief moment.

“Just so you know, we Tokyoites only come in contact with the concept of names when we leave the city or find the person we truly need. Because in this city, strangers have no real connection to us. …That means the #1boy who always made you #2 wasn’t necessary for you.”

“Know-it-all. So are you telling me to be #1?”

“Yes. Because if you become #1, then I get bumped up from #3 to #2. I won’t say that again, so don’t forget it.”

Author Comment:d

Establishing a small connection to the Osaka game.

This takes place at the same time. If you played the game, you should understand what those dates mean.

Record 45: Even So

12/19/1997

21:54

It was nighttime, but I was tying up several trash bags at the entrance to the pharmacy. I questioned why I was doing this when you appeared at the door behind me.

“That’s the last of them. 7 in all. Let’s go throw them out.”

I nodded and listened to your sandaled footsteps on the way to the trash collection area.

“You’re not actually supposed to take it out the night before, you know?” I said.

“But I couldn’t carry all of these out myself tomorrow morning. And my parents are saying tomorrow’s lucky direction is bad or something like that.”

“I see. But couldn’t you have asked Senpai?”

“No, no. I can’t ask him for things like that.”

That was awfully sweet of her. Even if it meant more work for me.

“So what do you like so much about him anyway?”

“Well, if I had to narrow it down, I guess the fact that he shows up when you need him? I know it can be hard to believe, but he’s always talking about how much things worry him. I think he wants someone to get rid of all his worries.”

“And you’ll do that for him?”

“I don’t know if I can, but my Mobilized Writing exists to support someone. So…I hope I can help him.”

“Hm. But what happens once his worries are gone?”

“They never will be. He’s a nonhuman, so I’m sure he’ll always have something to worry about.”

“How long are you planning to be with him?” I replied in exasperation and you smiled bitterly.

“You needed my support when you used to run track, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but now I’m sticking to the comfort zone I’ve found in being Vice Chancellor.”

I came to a stop and found we had returned to the pharmacy.

We hadn’t thrown out any of the trash.

Author Comment:

Cleanup after Record 44.

The protagonist just does what she says, but is that only because he trusts her?

This also touches on his past.

Record 48: Without Getting Rid of Any

01/15/1998

11:46

Today was Coming of Age Day, which was great because it meant we had the day off.

Or we should have, but the school was still open and the dorm students had to do their health examination. That meant I was trudging to school while seeing all the new grownups in their finest clothing.

“Not often you wear a track suit, Senpai.”

I saw Senpai standing at the back of the line with a health examination form in hand.

He would let anyone who showed up cut in front of him, so he was always at the very end of the line. But he seemed to be enjoying it. And you could say that was a leader’s job.

“Stay at the very end long enough and you will automatically be #1 in the very end. Move to the very front, and you lose that position right away. Stay in the back and everyone in front of you clears the way for you on their own. Isn’t that right?”

He could only wait long enough for everyone to clear the way because he was a nonhuman with an undead lifespan. He just had more time to work with.

“So are you worried about your health?” I asked him.

“I am, of course. I must be healthy if I am to worry about others.”

I checked the line he was in and realized it was for donating blood, not the health exam.

I wondered if any nonhuman would want his blood, but then he turned to face me.

“I am not giving my blood to anyone. I am having my blood removed.”

“Eh?”

“When a nonhuman’s blood grows too thick, it slows our reactions. I regularly get rid of some blood so I need not worry about that.”

“Couldn’t you remove it yourself instead of donating it?”

He shook his head and replied looking even more serious than usual.

“We are talking about bloodshed. I can only rest easy if a professional is in charge.”

Aren’t you a pro at cutting people?

Author Comment:

Senpai is a vampire.

Their memories of him oftentimes are related to blood.

Record 103: We’ll Have to Search

01/05/1999

9:17

I had needed to take our New Year’s break by force, but that was over now and I had been going to the Officers’ living room since yesterday. The only people at school right now were the students with club activities, the ones who couldn’t go home for a variety of reasons, and a certain idiot.

“Hey, Professor.”

He turned toward me with a rolled-up diagram under his arm.

“Oh, what brings you here at this time of year? Today is the makeup astronomy exam, so are you here to join them for some kind of masochistic thrill?”

“Nope, I’m just here to punch you. I hear you’re already causing trouble this year. I’m about to raise my fist, so give me a good first scream of the year.”

“I’m sorry to say I have no interest in the imagined Japanese customs your mind has conjured into being. I am about to pour my efforts into researching Psyche Outer devices. Entrance exams begin in the third year, right? So if I can figure out how to activate the mind or increase people’s memories, I’m bound to make a killing.”

“Some of that concerns me, but man, we live in a convenient age.”

“We do, don’t we? The only slight problem is how everything I try just erases the test subject’s memories like I’ve bleached their brain.”

“How is that a slight problem!? And you’ve been experimenting on people!?”

“Not to worry. They lose their memories of the experiment along with the rest, so they are always willing to volunteer again. I am so thankful to have them.”

“Out of curiosity, how do you run these experiments?”

“Strap them to a chair, place a helmet on their head, and bathe them in a visible electrical current for three minutes.”

I punched him out. And…

“Excuse me.”

I turned toward the male voice behind me and saw an elderly man wearing a military coat. His gray hair was slicked back, he had a medium build, and he wore a katana. He was Snowy’s father, the Colonel. I had spoken with him a few times during negotiations between the Chancellor’s Officers and the military. He was pretty famous.

He nodded when he saw me.

“I am here for a parent-teacher conference, so do you know where my daughter is?”

I thought about that, tilting my head. I honestly wasn’t sure since we entered the 2nd year. I knew she lived in the girls’ dorms, but this school’s campus alone had hundreds of girls’ dorm buildings. The student affairs office was on vacation and the dorm mangers would only know about their own building. How could I figure this one out?

Then the Professor took a step forward and faced the Colonel.

“You need someone to summon Snowy?”

The Colonel simply nodded once. The Professor nodded back, pulled a magic marker from his pocket, and approached the nearby student dorm.

“He wrote “Girls’ Dorm” in messy writing on the entrance.

Then he wrote “Snowy” on the entrance door.

“Yes, that all looks right. Time to open it.”

He opened the door to reveal Snowy’s dorm room on the other side. The small room had a bunkbed and two desks by the window. Snowy stood in the center.

She was frozen in place with her eyes on us. For some reason, she was in her underwear. For perhaps the same reason, she held the rest of her clothing in her hands.

“What are you doing, Snowy? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were changing.”

She didn’t respond at first, until suddenly…

“You pervert among perverts!”

Anything a woman’s hand touches becomes a weapon.

We quickly slammed the door shut and corrected the label with the magic marker.

“ ‘Snowy Mountain’. There, now this door should lead to a frigid mountain peak.”

The killer intent on the other side of the door vanished and I breathed a sigh of relief, but the Colonel tilted his head.

“My daughter has opened up so much. She used to be so shy.”

“She really has,” I said just before the door opened and a fully-dressed Snowy rushed out with a roar of anger. She failed to even notice her father’s presence and left him behind, so the Professor and I fled from the sword-wielding disrespectful daughter.

I looked back to see “idiots” written on the inside of the door in ink calligraphy.

Author Comment:

It doesn’t sound like he got to have much fun during his break.

The fact that he goes to the Officers’ living room first shows you what he considers to be important.

The Colonel shows up too, but it doesn’t seem like he and his daughter interact much at this point.

Record 30: The Time Will Eventually Come

09/02/1997

20:11

I was back at the Mountain.

You and I were the only ones that got off at the mountain station where people pretty much never got off. The others had apparently arrived during the day, so we could see lights on at the dorm higher up the mountain.

You turned toward me with Daitarou on your head in the lights of the unmanned station.

“Looks like Snowy is already here.”

“It does,” I agreed before thinking a bit.

Only those with the best results in the first half of the training had returned for this second half. The next three weeks would be nothing but fixing up our technique and being tested.

The problem was the tournament on the final day.

That was an exam to test the combat skills needed for the top positions.

You were allowed to use weapons, so injuries were always a possibility.

“You aren’t participating, right?” I asked.

“I plan to aim for the 1st Special Duty Officer spot with my writing and some light practical skills. But you want to be Vice Chancellor, so you have your work cut out for you. I heard Snowy wants the same position.”

“That’s gonna be a pain,” I muttered while walking through the station building and stepping outside.

I noticed a few people were walking our way from the Mountain dorm.

I wondered who that was, but then you pulled on my hand.

“Don’t look. I think those are regrets.”

“Regrets from when? Last year?”

“I don’t know,” you replied while we tried out best not to view our surroundings. We talked about all sorts of things while we walked, but something was nagging at me the entire time.

I still didn’t know my Mobilized Writing. Yeah, it still eluded me.

But I knew more or less what it had to be: my fists.

“If you throw a punch, all things will receive the blow in accordance with the conservation of energy.”

That was the general idea of the power. That punching power had saved me and other things I cared about when it really mattered. I could wield that power without fear.

But knowing the general idea didn’t mean I could use it freely.

When it worked, it was perfect. When it didn’t, it didn’t work at all. It was either 0 or 100 with nothing in between. How did I have to punch something to make sure I could use it?

“Hey.”

I looked up, thinking that was you, but it was a regret.

By the time I realized I’d been caught, my fist was already moving.

I placed my incomplete Mobilized Writing on my fist to avoid the regret.

If you throw a punch, all things will receive the blow in accordance with the conservation of energy.

“Nothing?”

It failed. My fist passed through the silhouette and its shadow tangled around my arm.

That’s not good, I thought in a strange calmness, but then you grabbed my arm.

“Stay strong!”

Your urgent voice was followed by your Mobilized Writing.

The motivation behind words is transformed into heat.

Power passed from your words to my fist. That helped me stay strong. I clenched my fist tighter and felt like I was gripping a great power in my hand. In other words…

“I believe I have real power here now.”

Those words told me the simple condition behind my Mobilized Writing.

What did I need to do when I threw a punch if I wanted to use my power?

“Now I have my answer: I must have belief in my heart.”

If you throw a punch with belief in your heart, all things will receive the blow in accordance with the conservation of energy.

The punch landed.

Author Comment:

This is when the protagonist first used his Mobilized Writing.

My idea is that the Mountain training is a bit different on each mountain.

The Kantou Mountain is generally for the Tokyo region, so the Kansai Mountain will do things differently.

And I think the more you drag around your regrets, the more insistent they become.

Record 114: That is Your Name

02/17/1999

20:21

I ran through the Kanda city at night.

I was pretty obviously running away, but Senpai was pursuing me and any attack from him was terrifying. His Mobilized Writing was a simple thing.

If you cut with belief in your heart, all things will be sliced through by having their molecular word bonds shattered.

Every one of my attacks was sliced through and his words reached me.

“Is running away all you can do?”

Of course it was. Just look at my right arm. The fist was cut and covered in blood.

Yes, it was a simple matter. Senpai and I had similar Mobilized Writings, but his had the additional element of using a weapon. All I could use was a gauntlet.

In a direct clash, he was going to win due to his greater attack power.

What could I even do? I punched the air behind me to launch myself forwards and put some distance between us. Then I heard a phone ringing.

From the left? I looked that way to see a red phone standing on the side of the road and looking at me. I hesitated before running over to it, but it was cut through when I was just a step away.

Damn, I thought when I heard another phone ringing. This phone was further away at about 30m. I felt certain someone was calling me, so I took off running. The wind blew behind me, telling me Senpai was pursuing me, but I somehow knew the phone was more important.

“––––!”

I ran. The phone rang. I reached out my hand, but it was cut through. I heard another phone ringing. It rang two, three, four times, and even more than that. Senpai pursued me from behind while I continued to pursue the ringing phones that were cut down before my eyes.

I had to hurry. I had to be gradually catching up to the voice calling to me. I was almost there. Surely the next one would work. No, it wouldn’t, but the one after that would. I would make sure it did.

I was out of breath and my legs were worn out, but I felt sure I would reach the phone.

I held that belief in my heart, so I had to run, reach out my hand, and remember why I was running.

“I know why! To never be #2 again!”

Yes, I was just a step away. My foot reached the ground and it was still ringing. Did I reach out with my unharmed left hand? No, I used my dominant right hand that I knew I could believe in.

I couldn’t give up, I had to open my fist, reach out that hand, and-

“!!”

For just a moment, I had a flashback to so long ago when I used to run track.

I smiled bitterly. The next thing I knew, the phone receiver was in my hand. I pressed it against my ear and took a breath with Senpai running toward me, seemingly within arm’s reach.

But the voice that reached my ear was far more important. It was yours.

“How are you? Yes, I’m in the bath right now. I borrowed Snowy’s phone.”

“That’s an awfully indecent thing to tell me. But you need to hurry. This is important. I am going to give Senpai, you, and myself what we all want.”

“I see,” you said. And, “Hey, do you remember that promise we made a long time ago? When we first decided to go to the Mountain, I asked you to rescue me just once if I got into the Chancellor’s Officers. And with all your heart.”

I remembered that, but I said something else with my back toward Senpai as he raised his sword.

“Did you say that?”

“I did. But before I did, you asked me to root for you just once if you got into the Chancellor’s Officers. And with all my heart. So since you’re keeping your promise, I’m going to keep mine.”

I heard your Mobilized Writing – the Words of that power you rarely used.

The motivation behind words is transformed into heat.

“We’ve both done everything we can here. So win this! Please!”

I nodded, threw away the receiver, and spun around. I held power in my fist. Both my own power and the power you had given me. Was that more powerful than a sword? No, I didn’t need to think about all that. I just had to throw our power into his.

If you throw a punch with belief in your heart, all things will receive the blow in accordance with the conservation of energy.

Yeah, that’s right. It was time to blow away all of his worries so I could finally be #1!

Author Comment:

I feel like I shouldn’t say anything here.

Because if I say anything, I feel like I would have to say all of it.

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