After confirming that Tobiichi had transferred to Raizen High School, Itsuka-kun and I immediately called the commander.
After all, a spirit named Devil had just shown up at school.
I was starting to think it was basically the same as when the Princess showed up, but the problem was that this one was a whole different beast.
She was far more dangerous than an ordinary spirit, and from what I’d heard before, she was dangerous enough to be on par with the Princess. There was no way we could skip reporting that to the commander.
Still, there was one thing I didn’t understand: why had Tobiichi shown up looking normal?
Not that I was saying she’d always been abnormal or anything. I meant how had she come back to normal after reversing?
"I definitely confirmed she was reversed..."
Itsuka-kun had also asked the commander about Devil at home yesterday and said he’d seen her form.
So he must have confirmed she was reversed too.
"How she became a spirit, and how the reversal was undone... everything about it is a mystery."
"Exactly. For now, I’ve told Kotori, so maybe we’ll find out once they investigate it?"
Itsuka-kun said that, but honestly, I wasn’t expecting much.
I wasn’t underestimating [Ratatoskr]’s intelligence network, but even they had to have blind spots.
All we knew so far was that when Tobiichi fully manifested, she became reversed, and that she had left AST around the time Devil started acting openly.
"What are we supposed to do about this...?"
"What are you two whispering about?"
"Gah!"
We’d deliberately chosen the stairs, where not many people came by, to talk, but a voice suddenly came from behind us and startled me so badly I let out a weird noise.
"To be startled by the Princess of the Nine-Tail Wind. How rude."
"Kaguya...?"
"Oh! Looks like Kaguya found Shido!"
"Tohka...?"
For some reason, as soon as Kaguya found us, Tohka, Rinne, Mayuri, the Fire Keeper, and Yuzuru all came swarming over too.
Thanks to that, the place where we were standing was suddenly packed with people.
"What are all of you doing here...?"
"Observation. During break, I saw Hai and Shido heading somewhere."
"Kaguya and Yuzuru thought the two of you were going somewhere together, so we decided to follow you and listen in on what you were talking about."
"...Huh?"
I thought we’d gotten away without anyone noticing, but somehow Kaguya and Yuzuru had already caught us.
And since I hadn’t even realized we were being followed after that, it turned out both Itsuka-kun and I were a lot less perceptive than I’d thought.
I usually noticed when someone was looking at me, but this time I hadn’t felt a thing. I had no idea why.
"So, you were talking about some girl named Tobiichi?"
"Oh? Hai? You said you weren’t interested."
"Huh? Tobiichi? You mean Tobiichi Origami in our class?"
"Shock. Hai, don’t tell me you and Shido were planning to do something to the transfer student..."
"Stop!!!"
Stopping Yuzuru as she spun out ridiculous fantasies, I looked at Itsuka-kun.
It was basically a signal asking whether I could tell them everything about Tobiichi.
Itsuka-kun understood what I meant and nodded.
"Since we’ve already been caught, I guess we should just tell you everything. I don’t know if you’ll believe it, but please at least understand that it’s the truth."
With that, I laid everything about Tobiichi bare.
The faces of everyone who heard the story of the history before and after the alteration made it obvious just how shocked they were.
"All of that... is true?"
"Rewinding time and altering history... that’s on a completely different scale from me..."
"Before the alteration, Tobiichi was my master...?"
Rinne, who had the power to rewind time, and Yuzuru, who had at least been close to Tobiichi and even had a master-disciple relationship with her, seemed to be the most shocked of all.
Yuzuru had even dropped her usual way of speaking, so that said it all.
"But there’s one thing I’m curious about. From Hai’s story, before the alteration Tobiichi became a spirit and came back reversed, right?"
"That’s right."
"Why did she reverse? It’s not like she saw Shido get stabbed in front of her, like Tohka did."
"...Come to think of it, I’ve never heard that either."
"...Did I not mention it?"
"No."
After hearing Mayuri’s question, I realized I didn’t actually know the exact reason Tobiichi had reversed either.
I’d only been guessing that it was because she lost her parents.
"I’m not sure if I should say this, but..."
Since it was Tobiichi’s personal story, Itsuka-kun struggled with it for a moment before finally telling us why she had reversed.
What came out of his mouth was enough to shock us all over again.
"Her own hands... killed her parents...?"
"So that means she turned that hatred on herself..."
Tobiichi had lost her parents to a spirit in the Nankocho Great Fire, and had lived only by clinging to that hatred for revenge.
Then, the moment she learned that the spirit responsible was none other than herself, it was only natural that she would have fallen into utter despair.
When I lost my parents in an accident, it felt like the whole world was collapsing. And that was just an accident. She’d killed them with her own hands.
At that point, it would have made less sense not to reverse.
"...Hieta? You look pale."
"Ah."
While I was lost in thought, feeling heavy-hearted after hearing why Tobiichi had reversed, everyone was looking at me with concern.
Since they were saying I looked pale, they must have thought I was remembering when I lost my parents.
"Are you sick?"
"No. It’s just that I lost my parents too, so it reminded me of that time."
"...Come to think of it, you said Hai had gone through something like that too."
As the mood grew heavier and heavier, I felt awkward and clapped my hands.
Clap!
"All right, everyone, brighten up. The important thing right now isn’t that Tobiichi and I both lost our parents. It’s why she reversed even though her parents were still alive."
The conversation had gone a little long and drifted off in a strange direction, but the original topic Itsuka-kun and I had been discussing was why Tobiichi had reversed.
"Well, if Shido saved her parents, then there wouldn’t have been any reason for her to reverse."
"Maybe she lost them to another spirit?"
"Since we don’t know, I was planning to call her out myself and ask."
"What?"
"Huh?"
At Itsuka-kun’s words that he planned to summon her and talk to her directly, everyone in the group turned to stare at him.
They were people who had actually experienced Devil’s strength firsthand, so they knew exactly how reckless what Itsuka-kun was planning to do really was.
"Shido, no matter how you look at it, if you meet her and Tobiichi fully manifests..."
"Rinne. I have Kotori’s regeneration ability, so I’ll be fine. Besides, if we just sit around like this, there’s nothing we can do anyway, so it can’t be helped."
"But Shido, even if you can regenerate, that doesn’t mean the pain goes away."
"That... is true."
The commander’s power that Itsuka-kun relied on was only regeneration. It didn’t reduce pain.
I’d become numb to it after feeling so many different kinds of pain so many times, but he wasn’t like that.
That was why everyone was worried about him.
You could say it was a bit of a stretch to assume Tobiichi would fully manifest just from seeing Itsuka-kun, but that’s exactly why the word if exists.
"Besides, Shido has Kotori and Rio too, doesn’t he? If Shido got hurt, they’d definitely be sad."
"Tohka is right."
"......"
As Tohka laid out one correct point after another, Itsuka-kun’s expression hardened.
He seemed to be thinking about the guilt he’d feel if what Tohka said came true.
Both the commander and Rio were family to Itsuka-kun, so the guilt he’d feel would definitely be huge.
"So how about this? I’ll wait nearby. I’ll place [Separation] on Itsuka-kun so he can survive for a moment if something goes wrong, and then I can rush in and carry him out."
That was the solution I came up with.
If I used [Separation], Itsuka-kun could buy himself a little more time if he was in danger, and in that split second I could grab him and run.
Since I was immortal anyway, I didn’t have to worry about dying. I thought it was a pretty good plan.
"Sigh..."
So why was the only thing I heard a sigh?
"...Hai. Are you oblivious, or are you pretending to be?"
"Huh?"
"You just agreed with Tohka when she said Shido should think about the feelings of the people around him, and now you’re not thinking about them yourself?"
"......"
This time, I had no choice but to shut up.
I’d always thrown myself into danger to protect Itsuka-kun and the others, and I planned to keep doing that. But I’d never once thought about how the people around me felt in the process.
"But I’m not going to die, so..."
"My dear. Even if you don’t die, you know we can’t just sit here feeling at ease, right?"
"......"
The Fire Keeper was right.
If I knew someone who couldn’t die were having their arms and legs cut off while protecting people, I wouldn’t be able to relax either.
"U-um... guys?"
Itsuka-kun tried to stop the people scolding me.
But...
"Shido. Come here."
He got caught by Rinne and Tohka too, and couldn’t escape being lectured himself.
In the end, Itsuka-kun and I had to sit through a full sermon until break ended before we could finally move forward with the plan.
"
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