Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de - Volume 3 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Best Friends

“Hmm—sounds like li’l miss Cookie’s got an incredible way of bringing out the sadist in a man. Strong-willed brats like her are just asking to get thoroughly and completely dominated.”

“...”

The next day at lunch time, I found myself once again profoundly regretting the decision to go to Sagami for advice.

“Dude. She’s an elementary schooler! That is literally a crime!”

“It’s not a crime to think about it. Freedom of thought’s a thing, and all that. Oh, if only I’d been born in the postwar era!”

“If only you’d get caught in a time warp and land in the warring states era.”

“That might not be so bad, as long as all the generals are gender-bent. I’d totally make out with Nobunaga or Masamune if they were hot chicks,” Sagami replied with an insufferable smile.

God, why does this freak have an answer for everything?

“But anyway,” Sagami continued, “it sure does sound like Chifuyu’s in a fix. Nobody likes fighting with their best friend. How’s she holding up?”

“She’s actually depressed, which is pretty rare for her.”

That might’ve been underselling it, even. Ever since Kuki had run out from the literary club’s room, it was like Chifuyu’s soul had left her body. She’d always been emotionally flat, but for the rest of the day, you could’ve mistaken her for an actual, literal mannequin.

“Oh? Depressed, is she? I sort of want to see that for myself. Something about those hard-to-read sorts of girls getting depressed just fires me up, you know?”

“Drop dead,” I countered, heaving a heavy sigh.

Sagami was totally useless, but at the very least, getting the whole situation off my chest had made me feel a little better about things. That was the thing about him—no matter how bad the situation was, to Sagami, someone else’s misfortune was always someone else’s problem and nothing more. That meant you could talk with him about anything, no matter how serious, and know he wouldn’t make a capital issue out of it.

No matter what I told him, Sagami wouldn’t try to act considerate and wouldn’t feel bad for me. You might think that meant he had no interest in other people, but that’s actually not quite right. If anything, Sagami was more interested in others than the average person would be. That’s probably why he went so far to draw a line between himself and the people he observed, and why he took great care to never, ever cross it.

No matter what happened, and no matter how many people or how much of the world it happened to, in Sagami Shizumu’s mind, it was never his problem. He held the world at a truly abnormal distance, but I was used to that by now. I was used to our entire weird, messed up relationship, really. I’d been part of it since the eighth grade, so of course I was.

“Oh, by the way, the other day—”

I almost nonchalantly mentioned that I’d met with Tamaki, but backpedaled halfway through the sentence. Is that actually a good idea? Would it even be okay for me to tell Sagami that I met her?

“Hmm? The other day what?” asked Sagami, cocking his head.

If this were an eroge or a dating sim or whatever, this probably would’ve been the bit where I’d get to choose my next move. My options would’ve been:

1: Tell Sagami you met Tamaki

2: Keep it to yourself

The thing is, I had no idea how important of a decision it actually was. It could’ve been one of those flavor options that has absolutely nothing to do with what route you end up on, or it could’ve been one of those ultra vital ones that determines whether you end up at the true ending or an unceremonious bad ending.

“Nah, never mind, actually,” I said, locking myself into option two. I didn’t have any clear logic backing the choice up. I just sorta had a bad feeling about it, and that sourceless anxiety was enough to convince me not to mention Tamaki’s name.

“Oh? Okay, back to talking about little girls, then,” said Sagami. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to make much of the exchange. “So, what’s your plan? I certainly hope you’re not thinking of letting the two of them sort it out on their own.”

“Yeah, that’s not really an option...”

I wanted to do something for them, of course, but I just couldn’t come up with any decent ideas. How had the issue gotten so blown out of proportion, anyway? It was such a tiny argument to start with, but at the rate things were developing, Chifuyu and Kuki’s friendship could be in danger of ending altogether. All Chifuyu had done was keep a secret from her best friend, but that simple fact combined with Kuki’s understandable immaturity had been enough to hurt Kuki deeply.

“How about I step in and give you a hand?” suggested Sagami.

“Huh? You?” I asked incredulously.

“Like, say, what if I started going out with Kuki?”

“How the hell would that solve anything?!”

“She won’t give half a damn about Chifuyu if she’s head over heels for me, right? That’s just how real-life girls work—the second they get a man, their friends end up playing second fiddle.”

“Oh my god, please, just shut up! And besides, you’ve never even seen Kuki, much less met her! I can’t believe you’re actually sitting here talking about dating a girl you’ve never laid eyes on!”

“Oh, no worries there. My strike zone’s really broad when it comes to elementary schoolers.”

“I am not listening to this! Keep your dirty hands away from the elementary schoolers of the world, you lolicon sicko!”

“A lolicon, am I? Eh, can’t deny it. I do love me some little girls. But think about it, though—when all’s said and done, I’m only, what, six or seven years older than those two? It’s not really that big of a gap.”

“If this were exclusively about the age gap you’d have a point, but there’s all sorts of other ethical issues in play here, starting with the fact that they’re friggin’ elementary schoolers!” I took a deep breath, then stood up. “I do not want your help! You’ll definitely just make this a thousand times worse!”

“Oh? Okay, then,” said Sagami with a nod as I stormed out of the classroom.

It didn’t take me long to reach my destination: the staff room. I knocked on the door, let myself in, and walked straight over to Miss Satomi’s desk—that is, the desk of Satomi Shiharu, my homeroom teacher, our club advisor, and Chifuyu’s aunt. She was facedown on her desk and fast asleep yet again, though this time her eye mask had “Sleepy Boy Technique” printed on it. An empty lunch box was sitting out in front of her, so I assumed she was indulging in an after-meal siesta.

“Hey, Miss Satomi? I need you to wake up for a second,” I said.

Miss Satomi responded with a barely audible sleep-mumble. “Mnmmnmph... I can’t eat another bite...”

“Holy crap, seriously?!” Wow! Just, like, wow! People actually say that in real life?! That’s the single most generic way to sleeptalk in human history! Where’s my phone?! I’ve gotta record this!

“...Always wanted to say that at least once,” said a distinctly not asleep Miss Satomi as she sat up and dislodged her eye mask, totally ruining the little moment I was having. “So, what do you want, Andou?”

“Were you awake that whole time?” I sighed.

“You showed up just a second after I laid down for a nap, actually.”

So the sleep talk really was just a joke? Hey, that’s not fair! I had a moment over it and everything!

“C’mon, spit it out. What’d you go and ruin my nap for? I’m gonna punch you if it’s something stupid,” said Miss Satomi, cloaked in the menacing aura of a woman who’d just woken up and wasn’t happy about it.

Punch me? That’s it? Not feeling very creative with your threats of physical abuse today, are you? “It’s about Chifuyu,” I began. “So, uhh...did she go to school today?”

“Huh? Yeah, pretty sure. Just like usual.”

Well, that’s good, at least. I was afraid that Chifuyu would decide to drop out all over again, but apparently not. Though, actually...maybe the whole dropping out of elementary school thing had something to do with Kuki as well? Something must’ve happened to make her hate the idea of going to school, anyway.

“She was acting a little strangely, though, now that you mention. This morning, Chifuyu...got up on her own.”

I gasped. What?! She...err...got up...on her own...?

“Isn’t that, umm, totally normal?”

“No...not even close. It’s a downright bolt from the blue. Chifuyu, the princess of oversleeping, got up after her alarm clock went off once! Normally, she’d never wake up unless my sister went up there to do it in person! My sister actually called me this morning to ask if I thought she should take Chifuyu to the hospital. It’s that abnormal.”

I guess this means that either Chifuyu’s mom is prone to overreacting, or Chifuyu’s even worse at getting up in the morning than I’d always assumed.

“’Course, I was oversleeping at the time myself, and her call’s all that kept me from being late this morning, so it all worked out, in a sense.”

Wow, way to go, miss self-declared functional member of society!

“But, anyway...do you know something, Andou?” Miss Satomi asked with a notably more serious look than usual. Suddenly, the drowsiness had vanished from her gaze. Those weren’t the eyes of a chronic napper—they were the eyes of a kindly aunt who just wanted the best for her niece.

“Well...okay, so, you see,” I began, then launched into an honest explanation about what had happened the day before. That’s actually what I came to the staff room to do in the first place.

“...and that’s the whole story,” I eventually concluded. I had to spin it to leave out our powers, of course, but somehow managed to make it coherent regardless.

Miss Satomi sank back into her chair. “I get the picture now. I’ve met Kuki more than a few times myself. She and Chifuyu play together all the time,” she quietly muttered, her eyelids drooping listlessly. “You know that stuffed animal Chifuyu carries around everywhere? The one she calls Squirrely?”

“Yeah.”

“Apparently, she forgot it at home today. Now that I know the whole story, it seems to me that was a sign of just how distracted she really is by all this.”

Now that was a shock. Chifuyu leaving Squirrely at home wasn’t just hard to imagine, it was downright unthinkable. She’d always carried him around with her, no exceptions, ever since I’d met her a year beforehand. He’d even been there on the day we’d gotten our powers—the day Chifuyu had obtained World Create.

Speaking of World Create, Chifuyu could make anything, up to and including a brand new Squirrely. And yet, she didn’t. She’d made plenty of stuffed animals, but not once had I seen her duplicate her favorite one. I took that as a sign of just how precious he was to her and just how much value she placed on him.

“I was actually the one who gave Squirrely to her,” Miss Satomi mentioned offhandedly.

“You were? Really?”

“Yup. It’s a real keepsake I bought with the piddling remains of my pathetic salary,” she explained, seeming to lose herself in her memories for a moment as she went on. “Her parents—my sister and her husband, that is—are really busy people, and I ended up watching over Chifuyu a lot as she grew up. I was in college when she was three or four years old, so I had plenty of free time on my hands. Worked out pretty nicely.”

That made sense. Miss Satomi was in her late twenties, and Chifuyu was currently ten years old.

“Chifuyu and I used to play together all the time. We’d take naps in the afternoon, we’d go to sleep together, and we’d oversleep together in the morning too.”

Have you done anything with her that doesn’t involve sleeping?

“The thing is, though...ever since I became a teacher, it’s been harder and harder to make much time for her. You’d be surprised how busy this job can be! That’s why I gave her Squirrely as a present.”

“What, like a ‘he can keep you company while I’m too busy’ sort of deal?”

“Nah, wasn’t that dramatic or anything. I actually won it for her from a crane game.”

“A crane game?! Wait, though...what about all that ‘using the last of your pathetic salary to buy it’ talk?”

“I used the last of my pathetic salary to win it from a crane game.”

I guess that’s technically sorta the same thing, but I feel like it carries a pretty different nuance! Then again, now that she mentions it, it does sorta feel like I saw a plushie that looked a lot like Squirrely in a crane game way back whenever.

“Anyway, it was just a crane game prize, but Chifuyu took way more of a liking to it than I expected. She started carrying it around everywhere with her and even sleeping with it...”

We both fell silent. A moment later, Miss Satomi spoke up again in that oddly serious tone she broke out every once in a while.

“By the way, Andou—do you know why Chifuyu started hanging out in the literary club?”

My mind jumped to the obvious answer—that it was all because of our powers—but then it hit me that I was wrong. Chifuyu had already practically been a member of our club when our powers had awakened, and she had been for quite a long time.

“I’ve never actually asked her,” Miss Satomi continued, “but I’ve got a pretty educated guess.”

And then, in one swift summary, Miss Satomi gave me the full backstory of one Himeki Chifuyu.

That day after school, Chifuyu arrived at the literary club the same way she always did. Her expression wasn’t the same as always, though. A distinct hint of sadness was staining the expressionless mask of indifference she usually wore.

“Hey, Chifuyu,” I hesitantly opened, then decided to just go for it. “Did you try talking things through with Kuki today?”

“No,” Chifuyu replied with a shake of her head. “Cookie and I...were still fighting today.”

I guess neither of them could figure out how to close the distance, then. After the sort of total and complete falling out they’d had the day before, even just acting normal around each other had to be tough.

“Cookie wouldn’t fix my ribbon. I had to do it myself...” murmured Chifuyu, pawing at the red ribbon around her collar.

The image of Kuki helping her retie it just a few days before immediately sprang to mind. Now that she mentioned it, her ribbon did look sloppier than usual. She’d probably hardly ever had to tie it herself.

“She wouldn’t let me copy her homework either. Or eat the peppers in my lunch...”

“...”

“...or do my day duty work for me, or the cleaning I was supposed to do after school...”

“...Err.”

“...or wake me up after homeroom finished... When I woke up, everyone else was already gone.”

“I, uhh, I mean—”

“And she wouldn’t guide me through the school, so I got lost in the hallways...”

“Okay, don’t you think you’re relying on her a little too much?!” Just how hopelessly dependent on Kuki is this girl?! C’mon, Kuki, you need to stop babying her like that! No wonder they call you her mom!

I could easily picture Kuki smiling, laughing, and giving Chifuyu a half-hearted lecture about how hopeless she’d be without Kuki around to help her, all while inadvertently encouraging the exact same behavior she’s criticizing. Calling their relationship codependent seemed...maybe a little too harsh? But they certainly seemed like they might’ve been well on their way in that direction.

“How am I supposed to make it through school like this...?” Chifuyu muttered disconsolately.

“I mean...by taking care of yourself? That’s what everyone else does.”

“I have to find someone new to replace her soon.”

“Holy crap, dispassionate much?!” Is this just how the next generation operates?! She doesn’t care who her best friend is as long as they take care of her?!

“I was joking,” said Chifuyu, letting out a little sigh. “Nobody can replace Cookie... Nobody,” she muttered, hanging her head.

Chifuyu was really depressed. I’d never seen her that far down in the dumps before, and I could tell just how hard her fight with Kuki had hit her. They weren’t codependent—nothing of the sort. They were just really, really good friends.

“Chifuyu... First off, I have to thank you,” I said. “You never told Kuki about our powers, even after all this, and I really appreciate it.”

“Yeah. We made a promise, so I didn’t.”

A promise indeed. Something closer to an oath, really. Half a year ago, when we had awakened to strange, unfathomable powers out of nowhere, we’d talked through our options time and time again. Finally, at the end of those countless debates, the five of us swore an oath with each other: never to tell anyone outside of our group about our powers, no matter what happened.

Not our families. Not our friends. Not our teachers. I guess we talked about them with Kudou, technically, but she was an exception.

“It seems that this time, that promise of ours has had the opposite of its intended effect,” said Sayumi, jumping into the conversation.

She was right. Sure, the immediate origin of the problem was Chifuyu’s attendance of the literary club and Kuki’s perception that we were a bad influence, but what had caused the final, definitive rift in their friendship was yesterday’s revelation that Chifuyu shared a secret with us that she wouldn’t let Kuki in on, no matter what.

I guess you could call letting that fact slip Chifuyu’s big mistake. Her big, irreversible mistake. I couldn’t blame her for it, though. Sure, it was the worst way she could’ve possibly picked to dodge the question, but she’d been driven into a corner. The fact that she’d managed to end the conversation without revealing our powers was praiseworthy enough on its own.

“Chifuyu shares a secret with us, and she is unwilling to reveal that secret to Kuki,” Sayumi summed up. “I imagine that to Kuki, those two facts put together are incredibly distressing.”

“Right, but it’s not like we can just let her in on the whole powers thing, so...we’re kinda screwed,” said Tomoyo, resting her head in her hands.

The room descended into an oppressive gloom, which was made all the worse when Chifuyu hung her head again and whispered to herself, “Are Cookie and I...never gonna be friends again...?”

Hatoko stood up, walked around the table, and sat down again next to Chifuyu. She smiled as she wrapped her arms around the little girl and gently stroked her head.

“It’s all right, Chifuyu. You and Kuki will be friends again, I’m sure of it.”

“Hatoko...”

“You wouldn’t be able to fight like this if you weren’t friends, you know?” Hatoko pointed out. Behind the kindness of her tone, it felt like I could hear an ever so slight trace of sadness. “Friends fight because they’re so close with each other. They get to know everything about each other, the good and the bad, and sometimes that means clashing.”

Hatoko’s words were like a beam of sunlight gently filtering through the canopy of a deep, dark forest, and they fell warmly upon Chifuyu’s ears. She paused, hesitated, then finally nodded and said “Yeah” in her tiny little voice. Hatoko’s honesty, her genuine words of comfort, had made it through to her.

Tomoyo, who was sitting next to me, leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Bet this sounds pretty familiar, huh?”

“Oh, shut up,” I whispered back.

Hatoko couldn’t have been more right on the mark. We’d experienced the same thing just the other day. We’d clashed because of how close to each other we were. I’m sure Hatoko hadn’t meant to call me out, of course, but her words still hit home with me and sank in painfully deep. And with them driving me forward, there was no way I could sit still any longer.

“Milady Chifuyu!” I shouted, rising to my feet!

I had a plan. A girl sat before me, her head hung and her heart wounded. I walked over, stood before her, and then took a knee, bowing deeply. Once again, it was time for me to serve her. Just like I had on that fateful day—the day she’d slapped me on my almost entirely naked ass.

“Such gloom ill suits your lovely face, milady. I know you well—you are more free of spirit, more strong of will, and more pure of heart than any other. You are as unfettered as a frolicking fairy cavorting joyously by the lakeside. The brilliance of your innocent smile pierces through the frost that petrifies our hearts, melting it away like snow in the winter sunshine. That is the Lady Chifuyu I have pledged myself to.”

My absurdly formal speech complete, I held out a hand to her, still kneeling in place.

“Wh-What’s going on...?” whispered Hatoko. “Why’s Juu talking like a weirdo? Ah, I mean, he always talks like a weirdo... B-But this feels different somehow...”

“He’s shifted into a brand new chuuni mode,” replied Tomoyo. “Looks like he’s trying to be a knight this time.”

“I have to say...I don’t hate it,” added Sayumi. “I could get used to seeing Andou bow down this freely.”

The three other teens in the room each seemed weirded out in their own distinct ways, but I wasn’t even listening. Nope, didn’t notice the “Why would you pick now of all times to screw around?” atmosphere at all! I only had eyes for my lady Chifuyu! I looked upon her as the most noble and regal of princesses, and I swore an oath of absolute fealty!

“I, Guiltia Sin Jurai, do hereby pledge my service to you, Lady Chifuyu! Henceforth, I shall be your knight! I beg your leave, milady, to put my life on the line in service to your cause!”

“I friggin’ knew he’d throw a ‘shall’ in there,” muttered Tomoyo off to the side.

Hush, you! Can’t you see this is the good part?! “A fiendish demon of nine heads has seen fit to bare its fangs at you, O Empress of Genesis! With the power of Dark and Dark mine to command, to slay the fiend would be the simplest of tasks. However, that would prove meaningless. For you see, the demon of nine heads...is none other than a kindly little girl who simply wants the best for her friend. Thus, I shall endeavor to return the beast to her original form!”

At first, Chifuyu just gaped blankly at me, but as my speech wore on, her expression slowly changed. Gradually, she looked upon me not as an unfathomable mystery, but as her hope for salvation. And finally, in a voice so quiet I could barely hear her, she made her request.

“Andou... Will you help me be friends with Cookie again...?”

“Your joy is my joy, Milady, and your sorrow my own in kind. If such is your wish, I shall shoulder any sin, stain my name with any dishonor, and do it with a smile!”

“Then...do it. Do it, Andou—no...”

Halfway through, Chifuyu’s words trailed off and she shook her head. She paused for a moment, searching her memories, then spoke once more.

“Umm... Do it, Guiltia Sin Jurai.”

My heart pounded with a heavy, rhythmic thud. She’d spoken my true name, the name carved deep within my very soul, and with its invocation, a surge of power rushed through me. With the royal decree of my princess to drive me forward, I no longer had anything to fear.

“Yes, your highness!”

Now—let us begin the end of the beginning!