When I went outside and looked around, there was no sign of White Arus.
“So at least she’s not near the house...”
I widened my search radius and ran around like crazy.
Then, just as I reached a park, I heard Arus’s voice.
“Oh my, you came. Hello, Higakieta Hai.”
“I was looking for—no, nice to meet you. Black Arus.”
The voice I heard was Black Arus’s, not White Arus’s.
“...I see. So Higakieta Hai is that kind of person.”
Black Arus widened her eyes and spoke in a tone that sounded genuinely surprised.
“What do you mean?”
“No, no, don’t worry about it. I just thought it’d be fun.”
As expected, she felt completely different from White Arus.
The atmosphere was so different I could honestly say they didn’t seem like the same person at all.
“...What were you doing in a place like this?”
“What was I doing... hmm... I was watching Higakieta Hai. That’s why I’m here.”
“...”
I couldn’t make sense of what Black Arus was saying.
She’d been watching me, and that was the reason she was here?
It was all nonsense to me.
“Why so quiet?”
Black Arus propped her chin on her hand and looked at me with interest.
“I’ve got something I want to ask. Can I?”
“...What is it?”
“Hey, who is ———?”
Clench
At Black Arus’s words, I tightened my fist without thinking.
How did she know that name?
I hadn’t told anyone that name yet.
“How do you know that?”
Maybe because of that, I dropped the polite speech I usually used and spoke bluntly.
“Hmm~ That’s a pretty intense reaction. You even dropped the honorifics and started talking casually.”
“Stop dodging the question. How do you know that name?”
I tensed my arms and legs as if I might lunge at Black Arus at any second.
“It’s nothing special. I just learned it through your memories.”
“My memories...?”
If she’d seen my memories, then it made sense that Black Arus knew that name.
It was definitely a name that remained in my memories.
Once I understood how she’d learned it, the strength went out of my arms and legs.
“Heh... I know everything about this world. You know that, right?”
“...I suppose so.”
The Black Arus in front of me also bore the same name, Arus, as White Arus.
So it wouldn’t be strange if she, like White Arus, knew everything about this world.
“Among those things, some of your memories have been manifested as objects. Like the Fog Wall your friends saw before, and other things too.”
“Other things...?”
It was the first I’d heard of it.
So there were other objects manifested from my past memories besides the Fog Wall.
“Well, just keep it in mind.”
Black Arus shrugged and brushed it off like it was nothing.
But I couldn’t do the same.
If what she said was true, then those were probably memories from before I fell into Dark Souls, meaning memories from modern-day life.
“Why do you look so serious?”
“If someone tells me they’ve been digging through my past, how am I supposed to not look serious?”
“Fair enough?”
Black Arus smiled with obvious mischief.
I was starting to feel tired already.
“Ah, and that was fun. What was it again?”
As she said that, Black Arus took up a certain stance.
“...No way.”
Her posture was unusual.
It looked like she was holding two daggers in reverse grip.
I felt a sense of dread at the sight.
“Was it like this?”
She started moving little by little.
One step forward, then a thrust.
Another step forward, then an upward slash.
After that came a downward slash and a diagonal slash.
She kept going, thrusting and slashing in every direction, and I felt a crushing wave of secondhand embarrassment.
“Now!”
Black Arus flicked her wrist as if spinning the weapons in her hands, then fired off a thrust with one hand and a slash with the other.
“Aaaagh!”
Watching the whole thing in real time, I could only scream.
“How was it? Pretty close, right?”
“Why would you even watch something like that...!”
Of course, that had been the ridiculous dagger style I’d used back when I was young and full of myself.
When I was a kid, I thought it was cool. From anyone else’s perspective, it just looked pathetic.
“Heh. I liked it, though. The way you were so absorbed in it.”
“It was just a kid acting like an idiot...”
I took a deep breath to calm down, lowered the hand covering my face, and asked Black Arus,
“Anyway, who are you really? Are you actually Arus?”
“Well, the answer to that... could be yes, and could also be no?”
“That answer again.”
I hadn’t expected her to tell me easily anyway.
At least she’d said it could be yes, so it seemed like using the name Arus was correct.
“I am Arus. That is the only thing that has been decided for me. So there’s no doubt about it... absolutely not.”
“I see. So, are you planning to disappear again this time too?”
If this had been normal, I would’ve dragged her off and asked a ton of questions, but after what happened last time, it was obvious things wouldn’t go my way.
“That’s right. Correct answer. I have something to do. See you later, Higakieta Hai.”
“Ah, damn it. Flashbang.”
And just like last time, Black Arus vanished.
I burned the “other memory from my past” she’d mentioned into my brain and started searching the area again for White Arus.
*****
I kept looking, but I still couldn’t find White Arus.
So I was about to give up halfway and head home when I spotted White Arus near the house, looking up at the sky.
“Arus...! There you are!”
At my shout, White Arus turned around and said,
“...Higakieta Hai? Were you looking for me?”
“Yes. You disappeared all of a sudden. What are you doing in a place like this?”
At my question, White Arus closed her eyes and answered,
“...I was looking at the stars. That would be the correct answer, I think.”
“The stars?”
“Yes. I wanted to know whether the stars seen in front of the spirit mansion and the stars seen here are different.”
At White Arus’s words, I looked up at the night sky too.
“There probably isn’t any difference. The stars are extremely far away from here in the first place.”
Of course, there wasn’t really any difference between the stars seen in front of the mansion and the stars seen here.
“Yes. The positions of the stars have barely changed. But... many other things are moving too...”
“I see.”
I didn’t say anything else and stood beside White Arus, looking at the stars with her.
“...That’s strange. It feels a little different from when I look at them alone.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m here beside you.”
“Because Higakieta Hai is here?”
“Well, more accurately, because there’s another person here.”
People are emotional creatures.
Even something as simple as looking at the same night sky can feel completely different depending on whether someone close to you is standing beside you or not.
Well, that was just my personal opinion.
“By the way, Arus. There’s something I want to ask you...”
I told White Arus everything that had happened in the park earlier.
It didn’t seem like something I could solve by keeping it to myself.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a shame.”
But White Arus didn’t know anything either.
I felt a little disappointed, but I hadn’t exactly been expecting much, so I didn’t think too hard about it.
As we looked back up at the stars, White Arus spoke again.
“...According to the data, I’m listed as Arus.”
“Yes. I know that.”
“Arus... maybe this is what you’d call a surname. If so, whether I have a given name... or whether I’m even allowed to have one... I don’t really know.”
“Then do you remember any name at all?”
At my question, White Arus shook her head.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know whether I had one. I can’t remember.”
Hearing that, I felt sorry for White Arus.
At least Rinne and Mayuri had names, but the girl standing beside me only had a surname and no given name. That made her seem pitiful.
“Just in case, would it be all right if I gave you a name?”
So I asked her.
Whether it would be okay for me to name her.
White Arus’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Higakieta Hai would... give me a name?”
“Yes.”
“Then, please do.”
Once White Arus gave me her permission, a name came to mind.
Maria.
Maria.
It was a name usually given to women, and also the name of a figure connected to the nun-like clothes White Arus was wearing.
“How about Maria?”
“...Maria. Is that my name?”
“If you don’t like it, I can think of another one.”
I wondered what I should do if she hated it.
“No. I like it.”
But my worry was pointless.
“...Maria. Arus Maria. My... name.”
“It suits you.”
“...Arus Maria. Please call me that, Higakieta Hai.”
“Would ‘Maria’ be fine?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
“Then please call everyone else by their names too, and call me by mine as well. I’m sure they’d all like that.”
“Understood, Hai.”
After hearing Maria’s answer, I started thinking it was about time to head home.
“Shouldn’t we go home now?”
“...Could we stay a little longer? I’d like to keep looking at the stars.”
“If that’s what you want.”
Honestly, I had nothing to do at home anyway, so I decided to wait until Maria had finished looking at the stars.
As we watched them together, I suddenly remembered why I’d been looking for Maria in the first place.
“Ah, right. Maria. That thing you made. Was it bavarois?”
“Yes. Bavarois.”
“It suited my taste, so could you teach me how to make it?”
The snack Maria had made, called bavarois.
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that snack had captured my taste buds.
“It suited your taste... does that mean it was delicious?”
“It does, right? Honestly, I think it was the best.”
I’d tried the other dishes too, and the pot-au-feu hadn’t really suited my palate.
Maybe that was why the most memorable and delicious thing I’d eaten was the bavarois Maria made.
“So that means you chose me?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“You... chose me? Higakieta Hai... chose me?”
At my answer, Maria muttered something under her breath.
Her sudden reaction made me wonder if I’d said something wrong.
“Maria? Did I say something bad?”
“No... I never thought I’d be chosen.”
“Is that so? I thought it was incredibly delicious.”
“It feels... strange.”
At Maria’s words, I thought she might be starting to feel emotion.
I could feel that she was changing little by little too.
“...Higakieta Hai.”
“Yes?”
“...The stars are beautiful.”
“They are.”
After that exchange, the two of us silently watched the stars in the night sky for a while.
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