After the event with the young lady ended, Itsuka-kun and I were slumped over our desks, muttering to ourselves.
"Donghae waters and Baekdusan... until they dry up and wear away~"
"I am not Shiori. I am not Shiori. I am not Shiori..."
Judging by Itsuka-kun’s state, it looked like he’d been put through something awful too.
Still, could it really be as bad as what I went through?
The young lady’s image was still burned into my mind.
"A black tank top with purple unde..."
Bam!
"Begone, evil thoughts!!!"
To erase the filthy fantasies trying to rise back up, I slammed my head into the desk and sang the anthem.
"Donghae waters! Baekdusan! Until they dry! And wear away! By God’s protection!"
"I am! Not! Shiori!!!"
At the sight of us practically seizing up, Mayuri, who had just arrived, asked Maria, "What’s wrong with those two?"
"My hypothesis is embarrassment, or perhaps shame."
"Shame?"
"Yes. In this event, Hii was with Tokisaki Kurumi..."
Bam! Bam-bam-bam!
"Aaaagh!!! Long live our country! Mugunghwa! Samcheonri! Splendid mountains and rivers!!!"
Maria’s words brought the event back to mind, and I frantically tried to wipe the young lady from my thoughts.
"What song is that?"
"Search complete. It is a song called the national anthem of the Republic of Korea. Hii appears to be speaking Korean right now."
"Is that so? Then why is Shido acting like that?"
"Itsuka Shido carried out an event with Itsuka Kotori. The contents of that event were..."
"I am not Shiori!!! There’s no way!!!"
Our seizure-like episode didn’t stop for quite a while.
A few minutes later, we finally came to our senses, only to find blood running down our foreheads.
"At times like this, I’m jealous of Hieta..."
More accurately, only Itsuka-kun’s forehead was bleeding.
I had regeneration, after all.
"Serves you right for smashing your head into the desk."
"Sorry..."
By then, Rinne, who had come into the classroom after Mayuri, was treating Itsuka-kun’s forehead with a first-aid kit she’d brought from the infirmary.
"Why were you acting like that? What on earth happened during the event?"
"Please don’t mention the event..."
Now that the image of the young lady had at least been scrubbed from my head, hearing the word event was bearable, but it still made my skin crawl until the next one started.
"Hehe, I rather enjoyed it."
"I hated it. I mean, the young lady acting all cute and pouting like a child—"
"I-I-I-I-I have no idea what you’re talking about...!"
Just as I was about to talk about what happened during the event, the young lady hurriedly clapped a hand over my mouth.
See? It wasn’t just me who was embarrassed.
"By the way, where did Maria go?"
I pulled the young lady’s hand away from my mouth and looked around, but Maria was nowhere to be seen.
She’d definitely been here a moment ago.
Where had she gone this time?
"Arus said she had something that caught her attention, so she stepped out."
"What?"
I was startled by Mayuri’s answer.
It was about time to go home.
Since the sun was already starting to set, I couldn’t just leave Maria behind at school, so I figured I’d better go look for her.
"I guess I should go find Maria."
"Okay, go ahead~"
After Mayuri saw me off, I left the classroom and started looking for Maria.
I searched the entire school, but there was no sign of Maria.
"What, did we miss each other?"
Had we simply crossed paths and failed to meet, or was there somewhere I hadn’t checked?
Or maybe both. Either way, I kept walking around the school to find Maria.
"Tch. She’s not on the field either."
Just in case, I even went out to the field, but Maria still wasn’t there.
I checked the storage shed for sports equipment and even the far side of the field, but there was still no Maria.
Then the last place left was...?
"The rooftop?"
It was the rooftop.
I hadn’t really expected it, but I couldn’t ignore the possibility, so I headed up there.
Creeeak—
With a rusty groan, the rooftop door opened.
And as the rooftop came into view, the sunlight was so bright that I could only make out Maria’s silhouette.
"Ma... ria...?"
"Ah, Higakieta Hii."
Along with a voice that sounded different from Maria’s, the person my eyes gradually adjusted to in the sunlight was...
"This is a nice place."
not Maria, but Black Arus.
"Black Arus...?"
Why was Black Arus here?
No, she always did turn up in random places, but this was random to the point of absurdity.
So I just stood there at the rooftop entrance, frozen, staring at her.
"We meet again, Higakieta Hii. And what’s with ‘Black Arus’? Am I some kind of low-level mob in a game?"
Black Arus didn’t seem to like the name she’d been given, and she narrowed her eyes at me.
Honestly, if someone called me Red Hiki, I’d probably feel weird too, but that wasn’t the important thing right now.
"Why are you here...?"
"Hehe, who knows?"
Black Arus teased me in a playful tone, which irritated me a little.
"Well, think about it yourself. And I guess you decided to call her Maria...?"
"Since that’s what we decided, of course I’d call her that."
"So that’s how it is. Well, if both sides have the same name, I guess it would be hard to tell them apart."
Black Arus nodded as if she understood.
"If you want, I can give the other one a name too."
"No need. I’m Arus. I’m Arus, that’s all. So, Higakieta Hii. Will you call me that too?"
"...I’ll do that, Black Arus."
"Honestly, I said Arus."
After voicing her complaint, Black Arus smiled, then suddenly laughed.
"Ahaha, I wonder why, but I’m feeling happy. To the point where it feels lacking."
"..."
I hadn’t met that many people in my life, but I knew one thing for sure.
There was no one crazier than the woman in front of me.
Laughing out of nowhere like that was definitely the behavior of a lunatic.
"Could you stop looking at me like I’m some kind of insane person? I do get hurt, you know."
"I don’t want to be looked at with this kind of face—"
Click—
Just as I was about to say something, the rooftop door opened and someone came in.
"Ah, found you."
"Tonomachi-kun?"
It was Tonomachi-kun.
He didn’t seem to notice Black Arus at all, and was looking only at me.
"I heard Hieta was on the rooftop, so I came to talk for a minute—"
"Sorry, you’re annoying."
At Black Arus’s single line, his body flickered with purple light like an error had occurred, then vanished.
"...Was that your doing?"
"Ahaha! Just a bit of fun. The humans in this world disappear so easily."
"You really are insane."
Honestly, I wasn’t all that angry.
After all, the version of him here was just a program made of 0s and 1s.
"Hmm, you’re not getting that angry? So you do know the people here are NPCs?"
"Yeah. I’m not very angry."
I just felt extremely disgusted.
A person had vanished right in front of me.
And not some stranger, either, but someone I knew.
Even if he was an NPC, it still felt awful.
"Don’t be too upset~"
As she said that, the same purple light flickered from Black Arus’s body that had appeared when Tonomachi disappeared.
"Huh? What was I doing just now...?"
And then Tonomachi-kun was back.
He seemed to have no memory of why he’d come to the rooftop.
"I feel like I had something to do with someone... but whatever. I should head home soon."
Tonomachi-kun acted completely normally, opened the rooftop door, and went downstairs.
"Since he’s just a simple program, restoring him is easy too. Fun, wasn’t it?"
"Hah. Say something that makes sense."
If making a person disappear in front of you is fun, then you’re definitely messed up in the head.
"If what you just did was fun, I’d recommend seeing a doctor."
As I said that, I kept my mind racing.
Seeing her freely erase NPC Tonomachi and restore him again made it clear she had some degree of authority too.
I had no idea how far that authority went, but it was definitely enough to be cautious about.
"...Looks like it’s about time."
"Time?"
"Yes, the time when the fun ends."
The moment I heard that, I kicked off the ground to grab the girl in front of me.
Bam!
My body shot forward toward Black Arus with a sound no human body should ever make.
But Black Arus only looked at me with a relaxed expression, and as I got close, she simply twisted her body aside and dodged with ease.
Slap!
"Ghk..."
With my target gone, my body slammed into the rooftop fence instead.
Thanks to that, after hitting the fence I rolled once and ended up sprawled on the ground, looking up at Black Arus.
"Ahaha! That was amazing! How did you pull off something like that with a human body, and not some bug or error?"
Her eyes were shining as if she found it truly fascinating, and that annoyed me.
"If you’d seen my ‘past,’ you’d know."
"Fair enough. Ah, I should get going now. Hurry up and teach ‘that side’ what love is."
"You’re running away again...!"
"I’m looking forward to it too. I’m sure that will tell me something important."
As she said that, purple light began to ripple from Black Arus’s body.
"Damn it."
Of course. She’d run.
"Haah..."
Feeling vaguely unsettled, I came down from the rooftop.
"Ah, right. Maria."
As for my original objective, Maria had already made it back to the classroom.
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