Itsuka-kun said he had a stomachache and left, and before I knew it, it was already lunchtime.
Itsuka-kun still hadn’t come back by lunch, so I asked Tamae-sensei if something was wrong, and she told me he had gone home early.
"Hieta. Find out anything?"
Rinne asked with a worried look on her face.
I let out a long sigh before answering her.
"Haah.... He went home early, apparently."
"Went home early? Shido did?"
"Yeah. Looks like he went to look for Tobiichi."
That was the only reason he’d have to leave early.
He must have gone to ask her directly why Tobiichi was transferring.
Ring-ring-ring!
"Hm?"
While I was opening my lunchbox and worrying about Itsuka-kun, my phone rang.
Checking the screen, I saw it was the commander calling.
"Commander? Why?"
It was lunchtime at the middle school too, so I asked her the reason as soon as I picked up, wondering why she was calling now.
And the answer she gave me was enough to shock me.
"What!?"
"Shido has gone missing."
Itsuka-kun had disappeared.
At around the time Hieta was being told that Shido had gone missing, Shido had gone to Origami’s house, where he was ambushed by an unknown attacker and knocked unconscious.
And when he opened his eyes, he was in a place he didn’t recognize at all.
"...Where am I?"
When he woke up, a single shaft of sunlight was shining down on him in a suspicious room.
Shido realized he was tied to a chair and even handcuffed, and tried to struggle, but it was useless.
"Ghk...!"
On top of that, when he looked down, he saw hinges.
The chair itself had even been nailed to the floor.
"I was chasing after Origami...."
Step, step.
Just as Shido was trying to calm himself down and retrace his steps, a figure appeared before him.
She was wearing the Raizen High School uniform and had silver hair. It was the person Shido had been looking for.
"Origami! Hey, Origami! You!"
Ignoring Shido’s words, Origami walked forward and took something out of her bag.
What she pulled out was a plastic bottle filled with water. Opening the cap, Origami asked Shido,
"Water. Are you thirsty?"
"Huh?"
Shido was thrown off by the sudden, out-of-nowhere question, and Origami took a mouthful of water before leaning her face toward him.
Anyone could tell she was about to pass the water mouth-to-mouth, so Shido turned his head away.
"Stop! Fine, I’ll take it! I’ll drink it, so just give it to me normally!"
At Shido’s reply, Origami held the bottle out to him.
"Then, slowly—"
Shido tried to drink slowly, but Origami clearly had no intention of allowing that and shoved the bottle straight into his mouth.
The water in the bottle poured down Shido’s throat, and he had no choice but to swallow for dear life.
"Kuhk! Cough! Cough! Cough!"
Only after all the water was gone could Shido breathe again, and he coughed over and over, spitting out the water left in his throat.
Meanwhile, Origami had licked the mouth of the bottle that had been in Shido’s mouth, but Shido was too busy coughing to notice.
"Hoo.... F-first of all, Origami. I’d really appreciate it if you untied me...."
Once his breathing returned to normal, Shido asked Origami for help, but she shook her head.
"I can’t do that."
Shido stared straight into Origami’s eyes after hearing that answer, then voiced the question he had been holding in all this time.
"...Origami. Did you join DEM?"
He wanted desperately for that not to be true, but reality was not so kind.
Origami nodded at his question.
"Yes."
"Did you kidnap me because Westcott ordered you to?"
"Bringing Shido here was my own decision. DEM had nothing to do with this matter."
"Then why—"
Just as Shido was about to ask why she had kidnapped him, Origami turned her head away and avoided his gaze.
For a moment, Shido was puzzled by her behavior, but the words Origami spoke only made his confusion worse.
"It was an unavoidable measure. If I wanted to keep you from getting dragged into this, this was the most reliable way."
"Wait a second.... Keep me from getting dragged into what? What the hell do you mean!?"
Shido couldn’t make sense of Origami’s words at all.
What exactly was she trying to keep him from getting caught up in?
Why had she joined DEM, and why had she kidnapped him?
As all those questions turned toward Origami, she crushed the plastic bottle in her hand, her expression hardening with it.
"...My fight with the spirits."
"Spirits...!"
"Of course, Yatogami Tohka and the others are no exception."
At Origami’s words—that she would fight the spirits, and that even sealed spirits like Tohka were no exception—Shido twisted against his restraints and shouted.
"Your target is the spirit that killed your parents! Tohka and the others have nothing to do with it!"
Thud!
At Shido’s shout, Origami hurled the crushed bottle at the wall.
The sound of the bottle rolling around in the enclosed room echoed through the space, and the atmosphere grew even colder.
"There’s no difference just because they’re spirits. I can’t leave their existence alone if it means never letting someone like me be created again."
Shido could tell that although her eyes were pointed at him, she was really speaking to someone else.
But he had no time to think about that strange feeling, because he was too busy trying to stop Origami.
"Right now, Tohka and the others don’t even react like spirits! There’s no reason to target them in that state!"
"That’s the upper brass’s policy in the Ground Self-Defense Force. It has nothing to do with me anymore."
Origami said she was no longer an AST member, but a Wizard of DEM, and that she would deal with spirits without hesitation. Hearing that, Shido lowered his head and pleaded.
"Origami.... Time really does fly, doesn’t it? It’s already been half a year since Tohka transferred to our school. The spirit who used to try to kill all of you is now blending in like that...... They’re all trying to live as "human" beings now."
Shido’s pleading voice rang out and echoed into Origami’s ears.
"And you...! After watching them for so long...... can you really say nothing has changed...? Spirits are just spirits...... and because they’re dangerous, you have no choice but to kill them...!"
Bang!
The moment Shido finished speaking, Origami slammed her fist into the wall.
At the sound, Shido jumped and looked at her, only to see Origami turned away toward the wall.
"I know that too!"
"Origami...?"
"Yatogami Tohka and the other spirits are still spirits. There’s no mistake that they’re my targets for revenge...... That should have been true. I couldn’t forgive myself for the fact that my perception was slowly changing. On that day five years ago, I swore I’d get revenge on the spirits...... and I was scared of myself for getting used to this situation...!"
As Origami poured out her words as if a dam that had been holding them back had finally broken, Shido stared at her in silence.
"The reason I joined DEM is because I realized that about myself. Because I started accepting the everyday life where Yatogami Tohka existed."
Shido was stunned by what came out of Origami’s mouth.
He couldn’t understand what the problem with that was.
"What’s wrong with that!? You know it too! Tohka and the others just want to live normal lives!"
From Shido’s perspective, having spoken directly with the spirits and learned their circumstances, he had no choice but to deny Origami’s words with everything he had.
They were just living beings who wanted nothing more than an ordinary life.
The spacequakes were just disasters they couldn’t control by their own will.
Of course, that didn’t mean they were innocent when people died because of them.
Even so, now that they finally had a chance to live normally and atone for their sins, Shido had to stop anyone who wanted to kill them.
But Origami didn’t know what Shido was thinking.
No, she did know, but she simply ignored it and kept reminding herself of her revenge.
"...That can’t be allowed. As long as they are spirits. The ones I’m going to kill aren’t just the spirits. It’s myself too, for letting myself become attached to them without even realizing it."
As she said that, Origami moved farther and farther away from Shido.
"By taking Yatogami Tohka’s life, I’ll take myself back."
"Origami."
As Origami walked into the darkness and placed her hand on the doorknob, Shido’s low voice stopped her.
"Hieta’s going to stop you. What are you going to do then?"
As he said that, Shido thought of his friend and reliable ally, Hieta.
His strength was enough to be called overwhelming, so if Hieta seriously stood in Origami’s way, she’d be forced into a situation she couldn’t handle.
Besides, he wasn’t a spirit, so he wasn’t even included in Origami’s revenge. He was the perfect person to stop her.
However, there was one thing Shido had overlooked.
"It doesn’t matter. He’s a spirit too, so I’ll just kill him."
"What...?"
When Hieta had once revealed his past, Origami had not been there.
Because of that, in Origami’s knowledge, Hieta was also a spirit.
Creak...
After finishing her answer, Origami left the room, and the door shut with a rattle.
"Wait! Hold on, Origami! Wait――!!!"
Only Shido’s voice echoed through the room after Origami was gone.
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