Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de - Volume 12 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Path of Route of Origin

The progenitor of beginnings, Route of Origin—this was the title that had been bestowed upon Takanashi Sayumi and, by extension, the name of the power she’d awakened to, which granted her ultimate authority over the force of regression. The one who had bestowed it, needless to say, was none other than me. Between “the progenitor of beginnings” serving as its introductory appellation and the English words “Route of Origin” providing a foreign flair, it was a truly idiosyncratic and esoteric name for a power to have, if I do say so myself.

Sayumi’s power granted her the ability to return anything she touched to the way it was meant to be. Out of all five of the powers we’d awakened to, hers was the only one that lacked any direct offensive capabilities...and yes, you heard that right: the only one. Mine was...y’know. It was still developing, and had limitless potential hidden away within it, so it didn’t count.

Anyway, whether living or inanimate, organic or inorganic, Route of Origin could return anything to the way it was meant to be. The definition of how something was meant to be, meanwhile, was provided by Sayumi’s own subjective viewpoint.

When I really thought about it, Route of Origin struck me as a truly ambiguous power. It relied, after all, on a human’s perspective to define its capabilities, and you could hardly pick a more ambiguous standard than that. If you spoke with a hundred different people, you’d find that they had a hundred distinctly different perspectives. There could never be any one single, defining answer to any given question of perspective—our values were far too varied and far too personal for that.

All of that, of course, is just common sense. It’s not the sort of thing that there’s any real need to point out or emphasize...and yet, at the same time, it’s something that’s very easy to forget, at times. You are yourself, and the people around you are themselves. Everybody knows that intellectually, but everybody also has moments when it slips their minds and they start operating under the misapprehension that everyone else shares the exact same set of values that they have. That’s why it can be so shocking and disheartening to hear someone else say that a book you loved was boring—it’s why it can feel so frustrating and mortifying to see society at large love an anime that you thought was a snoozefest.

Actually, I take it back. It’s less a matter of misapprehensions and more a matter of expectations. I think everyone has the expectation, on some level, that their sense of values will be validated—and, by association, that they themselves will be validated. Unfortunately, however, there’s just no practical way to get total validation from everyone around you. After all, for every book that you consider a masterpiece, there will be someone else out there who thought it was such a drag they couldn’t even finish it. It’s not at all uncommon for people to believe their perspective on something is universal, only for it to turn out to be anything but. There really are a limitless number of perspectives—an infinite quantity of subjective perceptions of the world—and that is what makes perspective itself such a truly ambiguous thing.

That’s not all, though. The most terrifying truth about perspective is that not even one’s own personal viewpoint is excepted from this rule. Even as individuals, our perspectives are ambiguous.

Perspectives—in other words, values, interests, preferences, principles, and on and on—are truly unclear and terribly fluid, even on a personal level. They are by no means absolute. Sometimes, you cease to believe in the things you were certain of. Sometimes, you lose all affection for the things you used to love. Anyone can be subject to conversion or a paradigm shift. Sometimes, these happen through seemingly destined meetings or dramatic, life-changing events...but sometimes, it’s the opposite of dramatic, and you casually change your mind for no clear reason.

That was how it happened when, in the eighth grade, I got over my chuunibyou for no real reason in particular. That lack of a real reason was, in and of itself, the only reason I had to get over it.

Anyway, the point I’m getting at is that the human perspective is remarkably prone to changing and wavering. With that in mind, it’s not hard to see why the power to return anything to the way it was meant to be was a truly ambiguous and unstable ability to have. One can very easily lose the ability to do things they’d been able to do effortlessly up until the day before, and on the flip side, one could suddenly gain the ability to do something they’d never been able to pull off before, no matter how hard they’d tried—shifts like that were a regular occurrence.

Let’s think through a more specific example, for reference. As of this moment, Sayumi was capable of using her power to heal people’s injuries. Well, not healing them, strictly speaking—what she was really doing was returning them to their former state—but the point is that she could use her power to patch up the human body.

Imagine, however, if Sayumi were to go through some event or another that led her to believe that sustaining injuries was a perfectly natural consequence of human life, and that as such, being injured is only natural—in other words, the way that people were meant to be. In that scenario, she would likely lose the ability to use Route of Origin to heal people’s wounds. Depending purely on the way she saw the world, her power’s capabilities could all too easily waver.

Now, I’m not trying to say that Sayumi’s perspective was especially unstable by any means. I just mean that virtually no one has absolute, unshakable confidence in their own sense of values. It’s not at all uncommon for people to find themselves arguing the exact opposite of a point that they’d argued a decade ago, and on the flip side, the odds are very high that a decade from now, you’ll find yourself arguing the exact opposite of something that you would argue now. Personal values are just that fluid, and I think that, at least to some small extent, everyone’s aware of that fact.

The only people who can convince themselves that their current perspective is absolutely correct, and will remain that way in perpetuity, are either idiots or seriously dangerous. They’re the sort of people who lead revolutions or plot insurrections—the sort of people who end up as the final bosses of manga and video games, you might say.

Everyone is occupied by a constant search for answers, stumbling their way through life in a directionless cycle, and that’s how it’s always been. We all ask the world—and ourselves—who we are, time after time. We all know, deep down, that our perspectives are unstable and unreliable...and said instability is especially inescapable for adolescents like us.

Adolescents don’t have the relatively stable sense of self and beliefs that adults generally do by the time they go out into society, and we also lack the blind, innocent faith that children have in those adults and the society they work in. We despise being treated as children and do whatever we can to put on a show of maturity, but the moment our lives pose difficulties we can’t easily breeze past, we disavow all responsibility, letting the adults and their society take care of it for us.

You might say that we’re in something of a moratorium—a grace period of our developmental cycle. We aren’t adults, but we aren’t kids either. It’s an ambiguous stage of growth in every respect. Our hopes for the future, our plans for our lives, and even our senses of self and perspective are all poorly defined. Though, of course, you could also make a case that this is the one period of our lives in which society at large permits us that ambiguity. And, taking that argument to a logical extreme, you might even say that that ambiguity is forced onto us by society at large.

We are forced—coerced—into a state of ambiguity. Of obscurity. Of uncertainty. Of instability. Of unreliability. Of immaturity. Of imperfection.

The words “manly” and “girly” have taken on pretty sexist connotations in recent times, and in my experience they get used a lot less openly than they used to...but the same can’t be said for “mature” and “childish.” They still get used all over the place. Adults are supposed to be mature, and children are supposed to be childish. Acting your age is the societal ideal.

Society wants children to be childish. In other words, it wants them to be innocent, inexperienced, and—crucially—foolish. People complaining about “the kids these days” is such a played-out cliché that it’s downright embarrassing to see someone actually say it, but it also contains an implicit self-contradiction. Is it not, after all, an example of adults disparaging foolishness in children—the exact trait that they also expect of them? Isn’t it a sign that those adults, at least on a subconscious level, look down on children for lacking the experience and abilities that adults have? When people talk about how “the kids these days” are no good, or how “compared to our generation” they come up short, I have to wonder if they’re just venting their resentment in an effort to soothe some emotional wound within their own hearts.

Well, okay...maybe I’m going a little too far with this line of logic, or at least looking at it from too sharply analytical of a perspective. Still, I firmly believe that adults expect and desire a degree of foolishness from children. If “foolishness” sounds like an overstatement, then “ambiguity” works just as well. They tell us to just go to college and figure things out from there, or to get out there, see the world, and broaden our perspectives. On a basic level, they disapprove of children making an effort to solidify and stabilize their values and perspectives too soon.

Adults act as if children have infinite potential, and they encourage children to see what’s out there for them to apply that potential to. There’s nothing malicious about that, of course...but the flip side of having infinite potential is lacking a fixed foundation. Unfixed—in other words, immature, and thus unstable. All together: ambiguous.

To sum up: the beings known as children are permitted, and at the same time compelled, to live in a state of ambiguity. I think that’s true of any child living in the modern era. It was true of me, and it was true of Sayumi as well. She came across as mature for her age, but the truth of the matter was that she was still a girl—not even twenty years old. Sure, she had the specs to storm into society with guns blazing and make a name for herself before we knew it, but for the time being, she still lived under the support and supervision of her parents, and she couldn’t get by on her own.

Sayumi was a praiseworthy child. A child who, by nature of her age, was expected to live in a state of ambiguity. But here’s a question: when a child who’s expected and compelled to live with an ambiguous perspective uses a power of regression like hers, could you ever reasonably expect its effects to be clear and consistent? Perhaps they only seemed consistent to us, while in fact—

“Enough, Andou. This preamble has dragged on for far too long, even by your standards.”

Wham! Sayumi’s words slammed right through my narration, brooking no room for argument, and I sat up with a start.

We were, as usual, sitting in the club room. Sayumi and I were the only ones present, on account of today being my third one-on-one power naming interview, in which we’d be coming up with a name to give her ability.

“Whoa, wait a second, Sayumi! I was just getting to the good part! Why would you stop me there?!” I protested.

“‘The good part’? Really, Andou? You were braving new realms of tedium. I shudder to think how long you would have carried on your droning, pointless monologue if I hadn’t intervened.”

“Please don’t act like it’s perfectly natural for you to know what I’m saying in my inner monologue,” I sighed. It really feels like we’re, I dunno...like we’re giving ourselves an awful lot of leeway, here. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that we’d start playing it fast and loose with all sorts of stuff by the time we hit the third round. “These bonus stories always open with me writing a little mini-column in the narration about whichever power’s getting focused on. It’s like a sort of introduction, right? That’s been pretty well established by now! We start with a prologue-style monologue, then there’s a cutaway and we transition to the club room, where we—”

“Yes, I’m well aware. I’ve already read the manuscripts for the first and second stories, after all.”

Wait, seriously? Has Sayumi been inspecting all the stories up till now? That feels like a step too far, even compared to all the other meta stuff we’ve done up till now!

“Okay, so if you knew, then why’d you cut me off? The template just went out the window thanks to you! What am I supposed to do in Hatoko’s story now?”

“Let the record show that I would have much preferred to sit still, behave myself, and wait for a section break to signify that we’ve gone through a scene change. That was my intention at first, but there was only so much of your seemingly endless, pointless tirade that I was capable of sitting through. I had no choice but to stop you.”

“Come on...‘pointless’? Really? It was my philosophical treatise on the human condition!”

“You call that philosophy? And a treatise...? Pff!” Sayumi snorted. It was the sort of laugh that indicated she was absolutely making fun of me without trying whatsoever to conceal it. “Your thesis was completely inscrutable, and no matter how long you went on, you showed no sign of reaching any sort of conclusion. It was a tedious, frequently redundant ramble...and now you’re telling me it was supposed to be a philosophical treatise, Andou? How?”

I paused, completely silent. There was nothing I could say to that. Honestly, even I’d thought “Huh? What was I talking about, again?” and “Oh, crap, where am I even going with this? What’s the point I’m building toward?” at a few points throughout my preamble. I guess if I had to put it into words...the real point is that talking about perspectives and subjectivity and stuff is super fun, basically. Once you start talking about a topic like that, it can be really hard to stop.

“I-I think you should seriously consider the possibility that shutting someone’s ideas down without even hearing them out is a horrible thing to do! That’s right—it’s horrible! If you have a problem with the theory I just laid out, Sayumi, then you should at least have the decency to be specific about it! You can’t just keep saying I was tedious or long-winded and act like that means you can throw out all my ideas! That’s no different from running away from them! If my ideas are that bad, then try debating me! Bring it on!”

I put my everything into that rebuttal, but Sayumi wasn’t moved in the slightest. In fact, she almost looked like she pitied me as she replied in a soft, all-too-gentle tone.

“Andou. Theories and arguments need a purpose. They’re only meaningful if they serve to support a conclusion. The argument you were making, however, you made solely for the sake of argument itself. Isn’t that right? You critiqued common sense and made a few random points that flew in the face of societal expectations, then strung together a series of cheap and largely unrelated arguments...and frankly, all of it looked like nothing more than you stroking your ego. To put it very lightly, you were putting the cart before the horse. And so, because your argument had no conclusion to support, it ended up meandering aimlessly until not even you could tell where it’d be suitable to bring it to a conclusion.”

This, surely, was what it meant to be struck dumb. I had been debated into complete and utter submission. I could muster neither an “Objection!” nor a “No! That’s wrong!”—Sayumi was entirely in the right once again, and to make matters worse, the fact that she’d said it in a nice way rather than in a scathing tone made it entirely impossible for me to find the right words to strike back with.

“For that matter, Andou,” Sayumi added, “be honest with me. The truth is that you’d lost sight of how to end your rambling argument so thoroughly, you were actually relieved when I pulled the plug, weren’t you?”

“...”

Yup. She’s got me there.

But, anyway—with that, the matter of the way-too-long prelude was resolved. Now then, let’s move on to the actual topic at hand, shall we? We’ve dragged this out for a pretty long time, so let’s forgo the usual section break and just jump right on into it!

“Okay, Sayumi. Let’s get this one-on-one interview to pick a name for your power started! That’s the whole reason we blocked out this time to meet up in the first place, after all!”

“Yes...and on a related note, I have something of a regret I must confess.”

“What’s that?”

“I regret choosing to give you full authority over our powers’ names. I was convinced at the time that you’d think up names by yourself within a day or two, and that would be the end of it. I’d never imagined that you would choose to pull every member of the literary club into this disaster.”

“As if I’d ever put that little effort into giving a power its name! My pride would never allow it,” I replied indignantly.

I’d dreamed over and over again about obtaining a supernatural power, and that dream had finally come to fruition for all of us. It was entirely inevitable that I’d put a crapton of effort into giving those powers their names. I’d pour all the wild fantasies that I’d had up to that point into the endeavor, staking my very being on a desperate battle to give the powers of me and my compatriots the best names I possibly could.

“Of course, in the end, I put in too much effort, and I’ve wound up not being able to manage it on my own. And that is the purpose of having these interviews with all of you!”

“What exactly are you trying to prove with all this, and to whom?”

“Who am I trying to prove something to...? Well, myself, I guess. I’m battling my own standards—telling myself that, surely, I can do better than this.”

“In other words, you have entirely hoisted yourself by your own petard. Your behavior is so self-destructive, you’ve actually self-destructed,” Sayumi said with a tired, bitter sigh.

“Okay, but we did clear the first roadblock! Giving Closed Clock its name was a major first step. That’s always the hardest part for a creator, y’know? Like, getting through the excruciating process of starting out from absolute zero.”

The single greatest challenge throughout this whole process—pinning down the style and template for our powers’ names—was already over and done with. Closed Clock and World Create were set in stone: two names consisting of two English words apiece. All we had to do for the rest of the names was to stick to that formula.

“So, yeah—now that the basic style’s hashed out, the rest of ’em should go nice and smoothly.”

“I would certainly hope so.”

“Though, of course, if they really do go totally smoothly, that’ll be a problem in its own right. We’re supposed to make sure these bonus stories end up being somewhere in the neighborhood of forty pages each, so we’ll have to make sure to drag them out if it’s looking like we’re gonna come up short.”

“Yes, it would certainly be troublesome if all the remaining stories turned out like Chifuyu’s did.”

“Right?” I said with a nod. One irregular, mold-breaking story like that was enough. If we bucked expectations two or three times in a row, it would get boring in its own right.

But, okay...this is a surprise. I was expecting Sayumi to be more aggressive about calling me out when I say meta stuff like that. I’ve been saying some pretty line-crossing stuff specifically because I figured she’d call it out, and having her react all nonchalantly like this makes it kinda hard for me to know how to react in turn.

“What is it, Andou? You look almost unwell,” Sayumi said calmly. “I suppose I should say this, just for the record: in this story, I intend to be as liberal as humanly possible with my meta commentary.”

“Wha—?!”

“I found the way you made a show of toeing the line in the first and second stories to be supremely irritating, so I’ve decided to take the reins myself. Being your club president, I believe it’s my duty to teach you a lesson.”

“I-I wasn’t really—”

“Calling out other people’s nonsense is second nature to Tomoyo, which is perhaps why she ended up engaging with your behavior seriously, but you should know that I have no intention whatsoever to play along. In fact, I fully intend to lead you around by the nose, so you’d do well to prepare yourself for that,” Sayumi said with a sadistic chuckle that sent a chill down my spine.

O-Okay, I definitely wasn’t planning on this... I thought I’d be able to drop a meta reference or two, she’d say “Andou, you should really refrain from saying things like that,” and that’d be the end of it. Who could have predicted that Sayumi herself would decide to be the meta instigator?

I was coming to realize that I had, just maybe, stepped into territory from which I could never return. I felt like a hotshot high school delinquent who acted like he was the toughest guy in town even though he’d never been in a fight, who then accidentally got himself wrapped up with the actual, for-real yakuza.

“Now then, Andou, there’ll be plenty of time for you to cower in fear later,” said Sayumi. “For now, we should hurry up and start this interview. We have to choose a name for my power, don’t we?”

“Y-Yeah...you’re right. Let’s get started.”

“Though of course, we know perfectly well that it’s going to be called Route of Origin, so we may as well just chat about whatever comes to mind until we find a natural moment to settle on that, don’t you think?”

“You can’t just say that! You’re gonna ruin everything!”

Agggh, this isn’t working! I’m completely on the back foot here! She’s forcing me to be the straight man in this bit!

What was I supposed to do about this? Sayumi, a girl who was typically firmly entrenched on the side of common sense, had taken a turn and joined the forces of mischief and chaos. She was using the fact that this was a bonus story as an excuse to cut loose entirely.

“Wh-What’s wrong with you, Sayumi...? It feels like you’re being kinda, I dunno, careless today? Like, you’re being way more aggressive and way less straitlaced than usual... Did something happen?”

“Hmph. Even I lose the ability to care, at times,” Sayumi huffed. She seemed a little upset, and her cheeks were faintly flushed. “How could I not after seeing my chest...jiggle like that, on a nationwide broadcast?”

“...”

Oh, god, she’s holding a grudge over the anime’s OP! That’s what she’s upset about—the chasteness characteristic of a prim and proper Japanese lady wouldn’t let that cut slide! And, I mean, okay... I’ll admit, they really did give her boobs one hell of a bounce there. It was wild enough to make me wonder if her uniform’s jacket was made out of rubber or something.

“And besides, considering Tomoyo’s physical capabilities, I think it’s highly implausible that she could ever carry me in her arms like that in the first place. Moreover, the concept in that sequence was that Tomoyo had just deactivated her power and allowed the flow of time to resume, so why did it look like she was landing from a fall? If you’ve stopped time, then why on earth would you not wait until after you’d landed to start it again? Everything about our motion in that sequence was unnatural, and one really must ask what purpose it was intended to serve.”

“Hey, Sayumi, how about we talk about anything else?! Like, seriously, we need to stop, now!” You’re gonna get us chewed out! We’ll get the stink eye from so many people at this rate!

“And that’s not even starting on you, Andou. Why is it that while I was jiggling in the foreground, you were walking past in the background, looking entirely too serious for your own good? It made for an almost impossibly surreal image, altogether.”

“What do you mean, surreal?! That’s the scene that everyone (in my mind) has been saying made me look like a super awesome, hella cool main character, and you’re calling it surreal?!”

Also, not only was that scene the climax of the whole OP, it was also the very first cut of the OP that actually featured me in it. Yes, really—shockingly enough, I hadn’t had so much as a frame’s worth of screen time up to that point. I’d seriously started panicking for a minute when I’d seen the OP for the first time and realized that I wasn’t showing up! I was all “Wait, huh? Am I not in the OP? I am the protagonist, right?” and stuff! I’m talking major anxiety!

“I hope you’re not getting the wrong impression, Andou. My intention here is not to harshly critique the OP,” said Sayumi.

“Huh? B-But...”

“After all, the part where I end up jiggling—in other words, the scene that takes place during the chorus, in which all of the literary club’s members put on a show of being involved in supernatural battles—turns out to have all been part of your dream in the end.”

“Right, yeah. Since the whole OP ends with me sleeping in the club room and Tomoyo waking me up.”

“In other words: my jiggling in the OP is entirely your responsibility. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Wait... Wh-Whaaat?!”

Why am I in the crosshairs all of a sudden?! Is she seriously trying to make this all my fault?! Did she make it look like she was chewing out the production team as a feint, all to set up a brutal attack on me personally?!

“Tell me, Andou: am I a high school exhibitionist who walks around perpetually braless in your fantasies? I can’t imagine any other explanation for why you’d picture me jiggling like that.”

“Nooope, nope nope nope... Sayumi, please, calm down for just a second, okay?”

“Honestly, you can never overestimate the puerile stupidity of a boy in puberty. You’ve become so engrossed in your obscene delusions that you’ve convinced yourself a woman’s chest could actually behave that way. How perfectly loathsome. How utterly filthy.”

“Please... If nothing else, stop looking at me like I’m a piece of human waste. You’re gonna make me cry, honestly... And actually, let’s just drop this subject altogether! Anyone could tell you that you’re barking up the wrong tree by blaming me for this!”

“Oh, really? In that case, allow me to ask you a question. Andou: can you tell me, in complete honesty, that you have never even once wished that my breasts would jiggle in that manner?”

I took in a sharp breath. What could I say to that? The question itself could only be a joke, but Sayumi’s attitude—the look in her eyes—seemed so serious that I just couldn’t bring myself to brush it off with a random excuse.

“W-Well... I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t thought something along those lines even once. I’m a guy, so it’s hard to avoid thinking stuff like that every once in a while, I guess... And you have such a good figure that it’s impossible not to notice it, which means that there are times when I just can’t help but look at you in, y’know, that sort of light...”

I suppressed my shame and spoke with total honesty...but partway through, I realized something odd. Somewhere along the way, Sayumi’s look of indignation had vanished. She looked downright bewildered all of a sudden.

“Uh... Sayumi?”

“I didn’t even consider the possibility that you actually had...”

“Huh?” I grunted. Sayumi’s expression was making it clear that she was really shaken.

“E-Excuse me. I, umm... I was under the distinct impression that you had no particular interest in that sort of thing, so I was anticipating that you would reply to my question with a clear and definite ‘No,’” Sayumi bashfully mumbled. “I-I thought that you regarded coolness as far more important than the feminine form, I suppose, or that if presented with an indecent magazine and a pair of fingerless gloves and told to choose between them, you wouldn’t hesitate to latch on to the latter.”

“That’s a pretty out-there example, all right... But anyway, nah, I’m not that much of a late bloomer. I’ve got a libido, just like everyone else.”

“And, again, I never imagined you’d say something like that to my face...”

“A-Agh, sorry!”

“No, no—I didn’t mean for you to apologize! I’m glad to hear it, if anything...”

“Uh... You’re glad?”

“Ahh! N-No, not—not in that sense! That came out entirely wrong!”

“I-It’s cool, I get it! You made your point! I’m pretty sure I understand what you were really trying to say, so no worries!”

“D-Do you...?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, in that case, good.”

“Right...”

“Yes...”

“...”

“...”

What is even happening here?!

Then we added a section break, changing the scene and purging all that awkwardness in one fell swoop! It was time for us to cut the casual chatter and kick off our naming discussion for real.

Yup. Definitely time for us to get started. I really can’t believe we let the first half of this story slip by with barely even a mention of Sayumi’s power’s name. This is pretty much the opposite of how Chifuyu’s session went down.

At first, I’d been confident that since this third interview was Sayumi’s, it couldn’t possibly go wrong. I’d figured that no matter how much I ran wild, I could count on her to pull everything together and wrap it up in a satisfying manner when all was said and done. Evidently, however, that preconception was in desperate need of reevaluation. It seemed that Sayumi herself would be the one screwing around this time. It was up to me to buckle down and keep things under control.

“All right, Sayumi. To start, do you have any particular requests in regard to your power’s name?” I asked.

“That’s a rather difficult question to answer in specific terms. You’ve already decided upon the general format for our powers’ names, haven’t you, Andou?”

“Yup. We’re going with two English words for each name, plus a title.”

“I see. I suppose you’ll need to brainstorm words, then? In the case of my power...‘return,’ ‘reverse,’ ‘restore,’ ‘begin,’ and ‘regress’ all come to mind.”

“Hmm. I mean, none of those are bad, but they don’t quite feel just right either. My leading contenders for now are ‘karma,’ ‘eternal,’ and ‘rebirth,’ but...”

“None of them feel just right either.”

“Yeah... I did come up with one concept that I really liked: doing something with avaivartika...”

Avaivartika: in Buddhism, it refers to the point in one’s training at which they reach a state of nonregression, ensuring that when they’re reborn, they’ll end up in the Pure Land. It was a word that sounded cool in isolation, and it tied nicely into Sayumi’s power if you were willing to extrapolate a little: a state of conviction in one’s beliefs so strong that it’s undeniable was more or less how her power worked. All the words and concepts surrounding the idea were cool and interesting...but...

“...basically any way you slice it, the English always makes the most sense as one word.”

“Meaning that using it would involve departing from the format you’ve defined, I take it?” Sayumi asked with a shake of her head. “I seem to recall you saying something about how setting the format in stone will make this whole process go much more smoothly, but as I’m sure you’ve now noticed, it also means that our options are much more restricted than they otherwise would be.”

She was absolutely right. Having a template laid out in advance could certainly help the decision-making process along in some cases, but there were plenty of other instances in which it would actually just tie you down and limit your options.

“In my power’s case, I believe that limiting ourselves to two words could prove to be quite the harsh restriction. The ability to return something to the way it’s meant to be is rather idiosyncratic, to say the least, and it requires a fair number of words to be clearly communicated,” said Sayumi.

“Okay, but we don’t have to force ourselves to say everything about your power in its name,” I countered. “Just hinting at how it works is plenty. Spelling out a power in full detail in its name actually kind of ruins it most of the time, in my book. It’s best if the name and the function are separated by at least a bit of a gap.”

Sayumi sighed. “Oh, is it now?”

“Some things are better left unsaid, right? It’s fine if you don’t get it, though. You wouldn’t be alone there—trying to cram in as much as possible and explain everything that a power does in its name is one of the most common mistakes for beginners to make.”

“How strange... I wonder why that was such a profoundly upsetting statement to hear from you.”

“So anyway, Sayumi, sometimes you just have to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks! Let’s forget all about how your power functions for now. Focusing too hard on one particular aspect of a name can make it easy to run up against a roadblock. You’ve gotta open your mind and broaden your horizons! Sometimes, the best ideas come from angles you’d never even consider until the moment they fall into your lap, and taking a step back’s the best way to make it happen!”

“I see. I’ll admit, there may be some truth to that,” Sayumi said with a nod...but a moment later, a rather doubtful expression came across her face.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, per se... I’ve just suddenly come to my senses, that’s all. It struck me that I was genuinely putting effort into thinking up a name for my power, and I’d honestly thought for a moment that your bizarre, obtuse theories on the subject made sense. From a calm, detached perspective, there’s something terribly comical about that,” she explained with an almost ashamed sigh.

Well, I see someone still hasn’t grinded enough naming EXP yet. The moment you look at yourself from a calm, detached perspective, it’s all over. Knowing that’s the most basic of the basics, and it’s kinda sad she hasn’t figured it out yet.

“Well, anyway, let’s set aside your power for the time being and just chat for a little while!” I suggested. “Like, uhh... Oh, I know—do you have any hobbies?” I was looking for any random topic I could bring up, and I just happened to end up settling on the sort of question you’d ask on a blind date.

“Hobbies? I’d like to say ‘none in particular,’ but I suppose that isn’t really true. I’ve tried my hand at a wide variety of interests, though I’ve never dug especially deeply into any of them. I’ve learned calligraphy, how to play the koto, and the basics of tea ceremonies and flower arrangement, for example.”

“Huh. Feels like you’ve, I dunno...covered all the classical Japanese bases, I guess?” And knowing Sayumi, even though she said she’s “never dug deeply into them,” I bet that she’s pretty much mastered every one of them.

“Oh, and for the record, my including flower arrangement among my hobbies was not a retcon to account for my flower-arranging scene in the anime’s OP. I was fond of the practice from the very start.”

“You didn’t have to explain that! Pointing it out just makes it sound like more of a retcon!”

“What else...? Ah, well, this is certainly an innocuous choice, but I’m also fond of reading.”

“Ahh. Reading, huh?”

Hmm. Honestly, I’ve never really known how to deal with people who say that reading’s one of their hobbies.

I didn’t mean to bad-mouth Sayumi, of course, and I wasn’t at all trying to criticize self-proclaimed hobbyist readers either...but “reading” just covered such a huge spectrum. It was extremely common for two people who read as a hobby to find that they had absolutely nothing in common in terms of interests.

Normally, when you find that you share a hobby with someone, your first reaction is to get excited and strike up a conversation. When that hobby’s reading, though, it tends to go something along the lines of “Oh, you like reading? Me too! What sort of stuff do you read?” “I read a lot of this, and some of that.” “Oh, so you’re one of those people, huh? I don’t really read any of that stuff.” “Ah, that’s fine. What do you read, then?” “Mostly these.” “Oh. I don’t read those at all.” or something to that effect. Long story short, the end result was usually awkwardness all around.

Personally speaking, I’d always felt that if you were going to say that reading was your hobby, it was better to identify a clear genre or something that you were into as well—like, “I like reading light novels,” for example...though on the other hand, if you met someone else who liked light novels in specific and still found that you had no interests in common with them in terms of the type of light novels you liked, the situation would be totally beyond saving.

“Okay, so you like reading, but can you be a little more specific? What genres do you like?” I asked.

“I’m afraid the only answer I can give is ‘a wide variety.’ I’m something of an indiscriminate reader.”

“Ahh, yeah, I could see that. It has always seemed like you read a crazy variety of books.”

I’d seen her reading books on business, history books, autobiographies of celebrities, manga by Tezuka Osamu...the list went on and on. Sometimes she’d read foreign works in translation, which made her look like a total intellectual, and sometimes she’d be as basic as could be by reading light novels with upcoming anime adaptations.

“All right, but is there a genre you’re particularly fond of, at least?” I pressed.

Sayumi paused to think for a moment. “BL, I suppose,” she finally replied with a peaceful, contented smile.

I...didn’t know what to say to that.

“BL, as in boys’ love: works of fiction depicting homoerotic romance involving men,” she clarified.

“Ah, no, I mean...it’s not that I didn’t hear you, and I already knew what the abbreviation stands for, so you didn’t have to define it or anything.”

Man. BL, huh? I’d actually sort of forgotten that Sayumi identified as a fujoshi...though, then again, it was weird for me to know that at all at this point in the timeline, continuity-wise. No point fussing over details like that in a bonus story, though, so let’s just ignore that little issue.

“Right...you’re a fujoshi, aren’t you, Sayumi?” I said.

“Yes, though frankly, that aspect of my character has been entirely abandoned at this point.”

“You’re not supposed to say that about your own character traits!”

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“I-I mean...sure, it hasn’t really come up much lately. It’s not the sort of trait that gets much mention, I guess.”

“In my case, when I say that I’m a fujoshi, I mean it in a rather low-intensity sense, for better or for worse. I don’t create any fanfiction, whether drawn or written, and I’ve never participated in Comiket or any similar events. I simply buy and read BL fiction, and that’s the end of it.”

“Okay...but even just reading BL’s not exactly normal, from my point of view.”

“I have to say, Andou, that I’m unimpressed to see you label a hobby that you don’t understand as ‘abnormal’ just because it doesn’t match your interests,” Sayumi scolded with a frown.

Hmm. Yeah, when she puts it that way, she’s got a point. I really shouldn’t be judging people’s hobbies based on my own values and interests alone. I should work on that.

In my mind, BL was a hyperniche interest that only people in a very specific subculture would enjoy—and yet, I’d heard that the sales numbers for BL books were pretty astonishingly high these days. There was plenty of evidence to suggest that it might actually be a pretty common interest for girls. Its place in society had shifted, in much the same way that anime, manga, and the like had gone from “idle entertainment for children” to “a globally recognized cultural product that Japan can take pride in.” BL had started out as an underground sort of interest, yes, but maybe it too would go through the same progression as society grew more aware of and familiar with it.

“Yeah, fair enough,” I said. “BL does feel like it’s getting some pretty widespread acceptance lately, after all.”

“Of course, that isn’t to say that I intend to make a point of declaring my interest in it to everyone I meet. Flaunting interests that aren’t broadly socially acceptable in times and places where it isn’t appropriate is just as shameful as belittling the interests of others,” Sayumi added.

“I guess it’s all about doing things in moderation, huh?” I said, trying to sum the point up.

Sayumi gave me a satisfied nod. “I have a hobbyist’s taste for BL, yes...but I’m also well aware that it’s a hobby that many people will find difficult to understand. Some people are uncomfortable with, or even disgusted by, that sort of content. As such, I make a point of not bringing that particular hobby of mine up in public settings.”

“That seems like a pretty good attitude to have about it, the way I see it.”

“Though it’s also an attitude that has led to my fujoshi nature being neglected for so long that it’s more or less been written out of my character.”

“Okay...again, please stop talking about your character traits getting written out.”

“The other issue is that, in all practicality, the sort of fujoshi who get joked about in media are actually only a very small minority among the larger fujoshi population. The most common variety of fujoshi by far will fantasize about the relationships of two-dimensional men on a regular basis, yet lack any desire to direct their imaginations toward real, 3D men. That applies to me as well—I virtually never fantasize about real individuals in that way. I did so about Sagami and you, at most.”

“Okay, so you did do it with me and Sagami, then!”

“Oh, excuse me. ‘At most’ wasn’t quite the right phrasing. I meant to say that in the case of Sagami and you, I was compelled by circumstance to fantasize about real-world individuals. I had no choice in the matter.”

“That’s not the right part to apologize about!” Also, she’s been going out of her way to say Sagami’s name before mine, hasn’t she? In other words, I’m definitely the bottom in her fantasies...

“The Sagami/Andou pairing being the one real-world ship that I fantasized about gave me ample ammunition to tease you with, and in that sense, my being a fujoshi allowed for a number of reasonably amusing exchanges. However,” Sayumi said before pausing for a moment, seeming to have a hard time finding the right words to express herself with. “To be frank...it became much harder to tease you about that after learning what happened between the two of you during the eighth grade back in volume 6.”

“Wow! Not my problem!”

“It ruined everything, Andou. How are you going to make it up to me?”

“I’m not, because again, not my problem! Don’t even try to make this one my responsibility!”

“Of course, on the other hand, learning all about your sordid past and the origin of your peculiar acquaintances-not-friends relationship helped my fantasies flourish to a truly unprecedented degree.”

“Look...please...can we just stop, Sayumi? All of this fujoshi talk isn’t getting us anywhere at all. Let’s call it a day and move on.”

“Let’s call you gay and move on?”

“Call! It! A! Day!”

Going pretty heavy on the stupid little quips today, aren’t we, Sayumi?!

Anyway, with that, fujoshi talk time came to an abrupt conclusion. I’d decided to bring up a totally unrelated topic in an effort to break through the dead end we’d hit in our naming conversation, but in the end, that side topic had taken over the whole discussion. Our priorities were completely backward.

That’s it. No more digressions. We’re going full steam ahead on the topic at hand. In other words, we’re taking the shortest possible path to a name for her power...because if we don’t, we’re gonna run out of pages before we finish!

“All right, Sayumi. It’s time for us to pick up the pace! We’re doing the rest of this interview at turbo speed!”

“Yes, that would be for the best. Given our remaining page count, we’ll be in serious trouble if we don’t at least start dropping hints that lead us toward choosing Route of Origin as my power’s name.”

“Would you please stop saying stuff like that?!”

“By the way, Andou, what about your black flame power? Have you made any progress choosing a name for it? If you’ve already picked one, it’d be nice to know what you chose for the sake of reference.”

“Oh... My power, huh? The thing is, blah blah blah, now you’re up to speed.”

Sayumi cocked her head. “Pardon? What do you mean, ‘blah blah blah’? That tells me nothing.”

“Don’t call out the narrative shortcuts, please! That’s supposed to mean ‘and then I told you all the info that the readers have already gotten from the previous stories’! It comes up all the time!” I shouted. Then I took a moment to explain the circumstances surrounding my difficulties picking a name for my power to Sayumi, which I’d already discussed with Tomoyo in the story before last.

Sayumi cocked her head. “Pardon? Andou, saying ‘then I took a moment to explain the circumstances’ in the narration also tells me nothing. Please actually explain it to me, through dialogue.”

“You’re calling out narrative shortcuts in the actual narration too?! Seriously?!” If you start picking at seams that deeply, we’re not gonna have a novel at all by the time you’re through!

Having a character say a few random nonsense words to represent them summarizing a situation was a well-established trope, and going after that was bad enough, but questioning summaries delivered through narration was just going way too far! If the narration says it happened, it happened, no ifs, ands, or buts!

“He he he! I was kidding, of course. I’m perfectly aware of your reasons to put off naming your black flame,” said Sayumi.

“Oh, so you did get the summary after all?” I sighed.

“I didn’t have to. I already informed you that I’d read the first two bonus stories, didn’t I?”

“Wait...that wasn’t a bit? You actually did that?” Is that even allowed? Hmm. Well, whatever, I guess.

“I appreciate that it will be some time longer before your power will have its name...so in the meantime, perhaps we should use some of the other names you’ve thought up as reference?” Sayumi suggested.

“What other names?” I asked.

“Like, for instance, the ‘true name’ you—”

“You mean Guiltia Sin Jurai?! What about it?!”

“Well, that topic certainly grabbed your attention quickly.”

“Yes, indeed—the name Andou Jurai is nothing more than an alias, appropriated to allow me to walk this world without raising suspicion. My true name—the accursed, profane epithet carved into the very depths of my soul—was lost over the countless reincarnations that I’ve been subjected to. It has been consigned to the annals of oblivion, and in the modern era, not one individual remembers it...save me! I alone know that my true name...is Guiltia Sin Jurai!”

“If your true name is ‘accursed’ and ‘profane,’ then I’d request that you refrain from shouting it at the top of your lungs. I could say much the same thing regarding it being ‘consigned to the annals of oblivion,’ as well. Nothing in the preamble you delivered justified saying your name out loud in any aspect.”

I winced. Sayumi had hit me right where it hurt, but I just turned away from her and pretended not to let it get to me. Having a true name that was sealed away or lost was super friggin’ cool, but on the other hand, the urge to proclaim my true name to all and sundry was impossible to resist. It was a real dilemma.

“So then, that rather cringey name of yours—Guiltia Sin Jurai. What are its origins? Considering how you adore drama and backstories, I’m certain you had some sort of intent or concept in mind when you came up with it, didn’t you?”

I didn’t reply.

“Andou?”

“I, umm... Sorry, but would you mind not digging too deeply into my true name’s origins?”

“Hm? Why not? And for that matter...why do you suddenly look so ashamed?”

“I don’t— I mean, umm, well... I guess you could say I’m sorta ashamed, or maybe embarrassed, and that’s kinda why I don’t wanna talk about it, more or less...”

Sayumi’s eyes widened with shock. She looked downright astonished, in fact.

“S-Surely I must be misunderstanding you... You’re embarrassed? Your entire existence is fundamentally embarrassing, and yet now, after all this time, you’ve found something that makes you feel ashamed?” Sayumi said in a tone that couldn’t have been more openly skeptical. “You mean to say that telling me about your true name’s origins would be embarrassing? But you’ve spoken at incredible length about so many of the other names you’ve come up with, haven’t you? And that in spite of the fact that no one has ever asked you to!”

“I wish you hadn’t said that last part... And no, look, I’ll totally talk about the origins of my power names and titles and stuff all day long, for sure! Getting to talk about the origins of the names you come up with is one of the things that makes coming up with them so rewarding! But the thing is, Guiltia Sin Jurai isn’t a title, or an alias, or anything like that. It’s my true name.”

“Please don’t earnestly assert things that you know perfectly well aren’t true. It is not.”

“The thing about true names is that you don’t make them up for yourself, right? Somebody has to give your true name to you, so part of me can’t help but think that talking about my true name’s origins myself would just be sorta wrong.”

“You...are picky in an exceedingly obnoxious sort of way,” Sayumi said with a look on her face that told me she really meant it. I couldn’t blame her for that. Not even I completely understood what I was trying to articulate to her.

It was an intuitive sort of problem. A matter of instincts—of feeling. Talking about your own true name’s origins was wrong. It felt that way, somehow, for some reason that I couldn’t explain. It just was.

“Well... I must admit that I do ever so slightly, to the faintest and most infinitesimal degree, understand what you’re trying to say,” Sayumi continued. “You’ll find many fictional characters who are proud to describe the origins of their titles or their powers’ names, but characters who do the same for their own name are certainly few and far between.”

“Right! Exactly! That’s the feeling I’m talking about! I knew you’d get it, Sayumi!”

“I’m sure you intended that as a compliment, but it was very much not flattering.”

“So, yeah. Sorry, but that’s why I can’t explain the origins of my true name to you. I wish I could, honestly! It’s such a shame to pass up the chance when you’re clearly so interested. Yup. A real shame. Wish I could make it up to you somehow. I’m sure you’re itching to know all the hidden meaning that my true name contains...but this is one thing that I just can’t compromise on, no matter how painfully curious it makes you.”

“Ugh. Just stop,” Sayumi said in a tone of purest irritation. She was so annoyed, she barely even sounded like herself for a moment. “I do not appreciate the implication that I’m burning with curiosity to know the details of your true name. I do not care. I’m not interested in the slightest. Hmph—besides, knowing you, I’m sure you barely put any thought into it other than making it sound superficially cool. It doesn’t even have any real origins, does it?”

“Wh-What?! Oh, you did not just say that!”

“Take ‘Jurai,’ for instance. That’s just your actual given name, written with a different set of characters that can be read the same way, isn’t it? It’s very conspicuous that you spared no effort to come up with a ‘cooler’ way of writing your name, and the secondhand embarrassment that realization brings is quite the force to be reckoned with.”

“Ugh...”

“And then there’s ‘Guiltia’... I have to assume that’s a word of your own invention, isn’t it? It’s so easy to imagine the expression you made when you came up with it, and that expression screams ‘Look how cool the nonsense word I just made up is! How do you like that?!’”

“Gah! Agh...”

“And then there’s the ‘Sin.’ You put that in exclusively because middle names aren’t common in our culture, thus making them cool by your standards, didn’t you?”

“U-Uggh... Eeep...”

Sayumi had verbally bludgeoned me within an inch of my life, seeing through my name from top to bottom and picking out the exact parts that would hurt the most for her to call out with terrifying accuracy. She’d torn me to shreds, and her relentless assault on the most fragile portions of my psyche had me on the verge of tears...that is, until she went just a step too far.

“Of course, I’m sure you only chose ‘Sin’ in particular because of its English meaning, didn’t you?”

“N-No! Wrong!” I yelped.

Sayumi had made one ever so slight misreading this time. Seeing the faintest glimmer of hope, I rose from the depths of despair to fight back with everything I had.

“The ‘Sin’ isn’t just the English word! It’s also supposed to evoke the Japanese ‘shin,’ denoting divinity! It has two meanings, giving it twice the malevolent depth you’re giving it credit for!” I declared, forgetting my “no talking about my true name’s origins” policy in an instant. “Plus, it’s not even just the English word ‘sin’—it’s an abbreviation of ‘Original Sin’! Within that name dwells the very roots of sin itself—the origins of sin from which no human can ever escape!”

I was getting carried away by the surge of excitement within me, rattling off my explanation without even pausing for breath.

“Heh, heh heh heh... Haaa ha ha ha ha ha! Too bad, Sayumi! It seems not even you could see through the full meaning of my true name!” I boasted as I sprang to my feet, gazing down on her with a haughty, triumphant air.

Sayumi let out a long, deep sigh. “Oh, is that so?” she listlessly replied, nonchalantly wrapping her hair around a finger as she fiddled with her smartphone with her other hand. She’d shifted tactics to the mortal enemy of any argument: ignoring me until I stopped trying.

I silently picked up my chair, returned it to the table, and sat back down. Ugh. What can I even say about this anymore? Just...ugh.

“Hey, Sayumi? Let’s just drop the true name topic for now, okay...? The only thing we’re accomplishing here is finding new ways to fray my psyche.”

“We’re finding new ways to gay your psyche?”

“‘Fray’! I said ‘fray’! You already did that joke, dang it!” I shouted, dipping into a much harsher tone than I’d usually use with Sayumi. She’d driven me into just that much of a corner. “Sayumi, please. We have to stop going on these tangents. It’s time for us to take a straightforward, one-way route toward coming up with a name for your power.”

“I was under the impression that we’d been taking detours precisely because the direct approach didn’t work?”

“I know, but that was a mistake. We can’t just keep chatting in the hopes that a flash of inspiration will hit us somewhere along the way... We have to face your power head-on and think about its name directly. I’d forgotten how important that was. I’m confident now that if we take the most direct route toward your power, we’ll hit upon the roots of a solid name before we know it.”

Sayumi blinked. “Excuse me?”

“H-Huh? You didn’t get that?” I said, then frantically tried to clarify, “I was doing a play on words! You know, ‘route’ with an ‘ou’ and ‘root’ with two ‘o’s?”

“Oh, I see now. So that’s what you meant—I didn’t notice at all,” said Sayumi.

Come on, give me a break! You forced me to turn into one of those people who explains their own jokes for a minute there! “I really thought you’d get it, considering how good your grades are,” I muttered.

“In my defense, your choice of framing made that rather difficult. More to the point, your usage was a little unnatural. In this sort of context, you would typically refer to the ‘root,’ singular, rather than ‘roots,’ plural. Your pronunciation was slightly off, as well.”

Leave it to Sayumi to master that distinction. And she pronounced it perfectly, even though it’s a really hard word for Japanese people to enunciate!

Anyway, it sort of figured I’d get chided for my pronunciation. I liked studying English a lot, and I considered it one of my better subjects, but pronunciation and intonation—oral communication in general, really—wasn’t my strong suit. I’d only come to like studying English in the first place because it seemed like it would come in handy for thinking up cool names, so it wasn’t particularly surprising that my pronunciation had fallen by the wayside. After all, when it came to names, it didn’t matter if your English came out with a thick Japanese accent. Actually, scratch that—names with English in them were better with a thick Japanese accent! That’s what made them good!

Take the word “god,” for instance. When spoken by Japanese people, it tended to come out sounding more like “goddo.” That wasn’t accurate pronunciation, by all rights, but that didn’t change the fact that to my Japanese sensibilities, “goddo” just felt better. And then, of course, there’s “chaos.” The typical Japanese pronunciation for it sounds more like “ka-osu,” and to me, that pronunciation felt far more natural and familiar than the natural English version.

No doubt about it: when it comes to English power names and titles, going with a Japanese accent is the right call—even if it means your pronunciation’s technically terrible! Plus, using the Japanese pronunciation opens up all sorts of double meaning potential that a native speaker might not—

“Ah?!”

In a split second, I shot to my feet. The chair that I’d taken the time to pick up just moments before clattered to the ground all over again.

“A-Andou...? What is it?” asked Sayumi.

“I got it...”

“Huh?”

“I got it... No, not quite! I almost have it, I think... The point is, it’s right there! It’s on the brink of coming to me in a flash!”

My true name, Guiltia Sin Jurai. Double meanings. I had the distinct feeling that those two elements were exactly what I needed to finally lead the way to a name for Sayumi’s power.

“Double meanings... Route and root, which sound identical but mean different things... That’s it. I can work with this! The power to return something to the way it was meant to be—in other words, the power to open up a route that returns anything and everything to its roots!”

“I suppose you could put it in those terms, yes.”

“Root... It’s all starting to come together now! That word may be the key to unlocking your power’s name!”

“In other words, you think that ‘root’ should be one of the two English words that make up my power’s name?”

“Ah, nah, I dunno about that. Hmm...”

“Root,” huh...? It wasn’t bad, but it also didn’t quite do it for me. I just couldn’t help but think of root vegetables and stuff like that when I heard the word, which was the opposite of cool.

“Do you have any ideas, Sayumi? Like, about synonyms for ‘root’ that sound a little bit better?” I asked.

“I’m not so sure what you’d think would ‘sound better’ to begin with...but as far as loose synonyms for ‘root’ that might suit your aesthetics go, there’s ‘foundation,’ ‘source,’ ‘primordial,’ ‘progenitor,’ ‘inception,’ ‘center,’ or ‘core,’ perhaps.”

“Oooh, dang! Those all sound awesome! Just on a gut level, ‘center’ seems the most promising...but no, we can’t! Hikaru no Go already has dibs on ‘center of heaven’!”

“I can’t say I understand your standards.”

“The runner-ups would be ‘primordial’ and ‘progenitor’...and between those two, ‘progenitor’ definitely wins out for me. ‘Primordial’ just feels kinda primitive, somehow? Like, it makes me think of the Jurassic era, for some reason.”

“I understand your standards even less than I did a moment ago.”

“All right! That settles it—we’ll do something with ‘progenitor!’ It’s a bit long, so maybe in the preamble?”

That was one major piece of vocabulary out of the way, but we still needed to settle on the actual name itself. I was still stuck on the idea of working in the route/root double meaning, and with a semisynonym for “root” in the preamble, it just made sense to me to use “route” as one of the two English words...but that association on its own didn’t feel like it was quite enough. I still needed that one last step.

Come on, think. Think! A route...roots...I have a feeling that a word’s already come up in this conversation that could tie it all together perfectly...

“Wait, of course... Original Sin! Original! The answer was hiding away in the full form of my true middle name all along!”

Original—or, wait. Considering how we’re using it, it’d make more sense to use it as a noun rather than as an adjective, right? And in that case, it’d be ‘origin’! ‘Original’ gets used as an actual loanword in Japanese way too frequently, anyway, so it’s played out. Let’s just ignore the fact that there’s a pretty famous takeout chain called Origin Bento and call it good.

“‘Origin’—it works as a synonym for ‘root’ as well, even if it’s a little more mundane than the other options...and that means that it pairs perfectly with ‘route’ for the sake of the double meaning! A route to a root—a route to an origin... And with a preamble involving ‘progenitor,’ we end up with...”

I muttered to myself as I put it all together, meticulously assembling the name piece by piece in my mind’s eye.

“The progenitor of beginnings, Origin Route... No, that doesn’t work. Not quite enough...”

Come on, calm down. You’re almost there, and that means that you can’t let yourself lose your cool now. If you let yourself screw up here, right at the finish line...well, I guess it wouldn’t be that big of a deal since I can always take another stab at it, but the point is I can’t screw up!

I sharpened my thoughts, considering every possible detail from every possible angle, until finally...

“The progenitor of beginnings, Route of Origin.”

...I got there. A single, split-second flash of inspiration took form in a name that would last for an eternity.

“Route of Origin... H-How about that, Sayumi? What do you think?!”

“I have no objections. I believe that will do nicely,” Sayumi said with a kind, gentle smile. I could tell she was happy, for what it’s worth, but compared to how I was very literally trembling with delight, her reaction came across as a little lukewarm.

“This is the big moment—we just gave your power its name! Shouldn’t you be a little more excited about that?” I asked.

“Well... Although the way you walked through your solution made you sound like a genius tactician putting together a master plan to turn around a life-or-death crisis and pulling victory from the jaws of defeat, when all’s said and done, all you did was come up with a name for a superpower.”

Ugh! I mean, she’s not wrong, and this whole thing probably did just look like me doing a bunch of thinking from her perspective, but there was a lot going on behind the scenes that she couldn’t see! Like, all the strokes of fortune and flashes of inspiration—y’know, all that fated stuff! That’s what makes coming up with a name that you’re genuinely content with so profoundly satisfying!

“Well then, now that a name’s been settled upon, shall we head home?” Sayumi asked.

“W-Wait a second! We only just picked your name out—let’s bask in it for a little while longer!”

Sayumi ignored my shouting entirely and kept packing up her things. As she did so, however, a thought seemed to strike her and she spoke up once more.

“By the way, Andou. A moment ago, when you were thinking through your options, you said that Origin Route ‘wasn’t quite enough.’ What exactly did you mean by that?”

“Huh?”

“What I mean is, not quite enough what?”

“Oh, not enough characters— Ah. I mean, umm...”

O-Oh god, I don’t wanna say it. I really don’t want it to get out that I’m trying to make the character counts of our powers’ names written in Japanese match up too!

That would’ve been...well, just kind of embarrassing, really. I was pretty self-conscious about the possibility that my whole thing about wanting to make our powers’ names match up to deepen our bonds with each other would come across as, I dunno, too effeminate, or too sentimental, or something.

“I-I meant it wasn’t elaborate enough, of course! Origin Route’s just lacking that element of complexity, y’know?!” I babbled.

“Not enough characters? In other words, you’re concerned with the number thereof... Route of Origin... And Tomoyo’s and Chifuyu’s powers are named Closed Clock and World Create...” Sayumi said to herself, sinking into thought as she once again totally ignored me. “Ah, I see,” she finally said with a nod. “He he he! How very like you, Andou.”

“Huh...? D-Did you figure it out?” I asked.

“Who can say?” Sayumi said with an amused smile. She’d dodged the question, but I knew how smart she was, and I had a feeling that she’d seen through what I was thinking with ease. “Come on, now—you should get ready too, Andou. I’ll be locking up after I leave.”

I definitely didn’t want to get locked in the club room overnight, so I quickly packed my things and followed her out of the room. The sun was already setting at that point, and the school’s hallways were dyed orange as we strolled toward the entryway.

As we walked, I silently thought to myself about the power that, as of today, was named Route of Origin. At the present moment, its effects were stable. Ambiguous and unreliable though it might have been in theory, for the time being, it was quite steady. Considering how many times she’d used it, you’d think that it would have displayed different effects under the same broad circumstances at least once, but to date, we’d had yet to observe that phenomenon.

The way I saw it, Sayumi’s personality accounted for that. Her grades were impeccable, her conduct unimpeachable, and she was as earnest and honest as could be. She had the self-confidence that came with holding herself to the same strict standards to which she held others—and that, I assumed, is exactly why she could use Route of Origin with such consistency. We had her personality to thank for it...or perhaps I should say that we had her personality to blame for it.

There was nothing wrong with stability, of course, but for some reason, I just couldn’t help but think that in this case, it wasn’t necessarily a good thing either. I had a feeling that in the long run, Sayumi’s unwillingness to bow to ambiguity—the disposition that drove her to maintain her own standard of perfection—would come back to bite her.

I hoped I was worrying about nothing, but if I was right, and if my concerns ever became a reality, I knew that I’d want to do my part to protect her...even if that meant coming into conflict with her in the process.