Scene 1. Spite’s Labor’s Lost
“Renaissance!” I declared authoritatively in our club room after school. “What we need is a renaissance! The time has come for our rebirth—for us to turn back the clock, return to our roots, and start anew!”
About a week had passed since summer vacation had wrapped up and the second semester of school began, and the usual crowd were all gathered up in our venerable literary club’s room. Yes, indeed! We, a collection of individuals so terribly potent we could stand on even terms with the gods themselves and turn the world on its head, had gathered together in one place!
The sovereign ruler of time: Kanzaki Tomoyo!
The lord of all elements: Kushikawa Hatoko!
The magus of space... Wait, no, that sounds too much like the sort of title they give to the expert architects in those home remodeling shows. Gimme a second... Hmm... Ah, okay!
The priestess of genesis: Himeki Chifuyu!
The bringer of renaissance... No, no, hold up again. That’s a total no-go—I already used that word in my intro! If I say it again here, it’ll make it sound like all that stuff was alluding to Sayumi’s power! That’s not what I was going for at all, honest! I meant it in the totally literal “rebirth” sense! So, okay, what can I...? Ah, got it!
She who denies nature’s flow: Takanashi Sayumi!
...Okay, that one might’ve gotten away from me a little, but meh, it works. I based it, of course, off the words of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus: “Panta rhei,” that is, “Everything flows”! It means, well... Y’know, it’s basically one of those impermanence things. All things must pass, and all that jazz. It’s just one of the many terms I learned in ethics class...but still, it’s just sorta great, isn’t it? The mere fact that it’s an ancient Greek thing makes it so awesome, I can hardly stand it! Ancient Greece: hella cool!
But I digress.
Four girls, within each of whom dwelled powers far beyond the extraordinary, had assembled here today. But there was still one more member of their circle. One last clubmate—a boy—whose presence could not possibly be discounted. It was he, a heaven-sent child of devastation, who led those fearsomely empowered girls onward, fated to guide them all the way to the final paradise of the soul, Tír na nÓg!
The Bloody Darkness. The Lord of Thanatos. The Knock on Hell’s Door. The Umbral Tempest. The Sovereign of Sin and Damnation. The Tidings of the Moonlit Evangel. The King of the Cosmic Apocalyptia. He Who Mocks Death. Paradise Lost. The myriad atrocities that fallen hero had wrought had earned him innumerable titles to match. He was the conqueror of chaos with one arm wreathed in the accursed, stygian flames of purgatory. And his name...was Guiltia—
“Would you please stop shouting out of nowhere like that, Andou?!”
“What’s wrong, Juu?”
“Andou, you’re too loud.”
“Remarkable. Summer vacation is over, the weather is cooling down, and yet you’re still full of hot air.”
...Well, okay. He was going by the assumed name of Andou Jurai, for the time being. Nobody was willing to call him by his true name yet, but it didn’t really feel like true names should be thrown about willy-nilly anyway, so it all worked out for the best in the end. That’s what I told myself, anyway.
Meanwhile, Tomoyo shot me a frigid glare. “What’s all this ‘renaissance’ stuff about, anyway?” she asked. “Are you making up a new special move, or a title, or whatever?”
“What?! No! Why would that be the first thing you’d assume?!” I snapped.
“I mean... Duh? Isn’t that always what you’re doing when you start throwing around big words like that?”
“I use big words the way they’re meant to be used sometimes too!”
“Okay, but you’ve gotta admit that you’re arguing against some serious precedent here,” Tomoyo said with a fed up shrug.
“Ugh... Well, you talk a pretty big game for someone who’s still doing her summer homework,” I countered.
“O-Oh, stuff it!” Tomoyo shouted with a blush. Her math textbook, incidentally, was lying on the table in front of her. The second semester had started a week ago, yet somehow, she apparently wasn’t finished with the work she should’ve gotten done over our break. As such, she’d been using her club time to diligently chip away at what was left, and today was no exception. “I’m basically totally done, anyway! This is all I have left!” Tomoyo added.
“Yeah, but basically done isn’t done, and it’s been a week. That’s the whole problem.”
“My class’s math homework isn’t even due till tomorrow, so it’s fine!”
Each subject gave us an assignment over the summer, and each assignment had its own due date attached to it. Some of our teachers said it was fine to turn our homework in on the first proper day of classes, while some demanded that we hand it in right after the opening ceremony. Our math teacher fell into the former category, and since Tomoyo’s first math lesson was tomorrow, she was doing her best to squeak in within that limit...while on the other hand, my first math class had happened the day after the opening ceremony. Life’s just not fair sometimes.
“A-And besides...whose fault is it that I couldn’t focus on my homework, anyway?” Tomoyo muttered.
“Huh? I mean, yours?”
“Okay, yes! Yes, you’re right, but... Ugggh,” she moaned, clutching at her head for reasons that eluded me.
It was around then that Sayumi let out a sigh. “So then, Andou,” she said, “What did you mean when you started yelling about a renaissance?”
“Right! Back to the point! Thank you, Sayumi!” I shouted. I’d let myself get distracted by all that homework talk, but now I was back on course! “I’m saying that a renaissance is exactly what we need! Or, like, that we shouldn’t forget our roots or our original driving resolve... Basically, I’m saying that the time has come for us to take a long, hard look in the mirror and reevaluate our course!”
“Oh?” Sayumi said.
“Maybe it was summer vacation’s fault. We were on break for so long, it feels like we’ve, like...lost sight of ourselves, y’know? And that’s why we need to take a moment for some real, proper inner dialogue!”
“Oh,” Sayumi sighed. The look on her face was about as skeptical as looks could get, and the other club members were reacting in much the same way.
“Andou?” said Sayumi. “I would appreciate it if you would make it more clear whether you’re being serious or trying to put on some sort of comedy sketch. It’s very hard to react to you when your motivations are so ambiguous.”
“Of course I’m being super serious right now!”
“A comedy sketch it is, then.”
“Wait, since when was me being serious code for comedy?!”
“I just have to make it clear that if you’re going to be a clown, you should feel free to clown away, and if you’re going to be quiet, you should do so without raising a fuss first.”
“Are those my only options?! What, so I’m not allowed to talk at all unless I’m being a clown?!”
“More precisely, my hope is to forbid you from talking unless you have a truly, exceptionally, gut-bustingly hilarious routine in mind.”
“So shutting up’s literally my only option! Great!”
As a sidenote—not that it matters, like, at all—“forbid” is such a good word to drop into casual conversation! It’s such a simple word, but it has so much heft to it in spite of that! Actually, while we’re on the subject, simple but dramatic words are great in general. Take, say... Okay, take “keen” for example. So simple, yet so sharp at the same time somehow! Of course, my personal favorite will always have to be “sin.” It’s just three letters, as basic as it gets, but the sheer weight those letters carry! Whoever came up with that word was seriously a genius! Sin: hella cool!
“So, Andou, what exactly have you been trying to tell us with all of this?” Sayumi said, once again steering us back on track. We were having a really hard time moving the conversation forward today.
“Ahh. Umm, okay,” I said. “I get the feeling that none of you are really following me here, so I’m gonna back up and explain this from the top.”
The origin of this whole affair—the spark that ignited my desire for renaissance—lay in today’s club activities, which I proceeded to recount.
“Where to begin... Ah, yes. It was the age when gods still walked the earth and man lived by their side—an age before the entity that would come to embody evil itself had been born into this world... In terms of concrete time, it was, oh, about ten minutes ago...”
“Andou. Stop,” said Chifuyu.
“Right, sorry,” I sheepishly replied, then I started telling my story like a normal person. The story of a perfectly ordinary day in the literary club, starting about ten minutes ago...
“Hey guys,” I said as I casually strolled into the club room after school. Tomoyo and Hatoko had arrived before me.
“Heyo, Juu!” Hatoko cheerfully replied.
“Huh? Sure,” Tomoyo grunted indifferently. She was working on her homework and apparently not paying much attention to anything else.
“I was just about to make some tea! I bought some kinda pricey tea leaves yesterday, and I brought them with me to share with everyone,” Hatoko said as she stood up and walked over to where we kept our teapot and electric kettle. She scooped her tea into the pot and tried to fill it with hot water, but after just a few moments, the kettle’s glugging turned into more of a comical sputter, and the flow came to a halt. “Oh, whoops! It’s empty, I guess...? Oh no, what should I do now...?”
“Well, don’t panic, to start,” I said. “This would be a disaster if you were making instant ramen, but you’re just brewing tea, right? Not a huge deal.”
“It is a huge deal, though! When you brew this sort of green tea, you’re supposed to pour the water in all at once, then serve it right afterward! It gets gross and bitter if you let it steep for too long!”
“Huh. I’m a coffee guy, so that’s news to me. In fact, I’m such a coffee guy I refuse to drink the stuff unless it’s served pure and black!”
“Nobody asked and nobody cares, so stop being such a tryhard poser,” Tomoyo muttered from the sidelines, but I ignored her.
“I’ll go get some more water!” Hatoko said, then she dashed out from the club room with the kettle in hand. Apparently, she was really set on brewing the best tea possible for me.
“It’s nice that she cares and all, but I can’t really tell good tea from bad tea in the first place,” I muttered as I sat down across the table from Tomoyo. “I mean, when I buy bottled tea, I pick one of the ones that comes with a little bonus trinket, not one that I think actually tastes better than the others.”
“Can relate, honestly,” said Tomoyo.
“Come to think of it, I can’t tell the difference between fresh-brewed tea and the bottled stuff, period.”
“That’s just because the bottled stuff is actually good these days.”
“And I know they’re not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you ask me, series that just resteep the used leaves of past works still make for fine brews.”
“Andou, what’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?”
“By the way, Tomoyo, how do you feel about green tea?”
“I’m more of a black tea person, myself. Though of course, I only ever drink Earl Grey... Ah!” Tomoyo gasped with a start, but it was too late. I could feel the gleeful grin spreading across my face already. “Oh no! Nuh-uh! This is nothing like your ‘I only drink black coffee and that makes me hella cool’ shtick!” she shouted.
“Uuuh huh...”
“I-I mean, well... I-I might’ve started drinking Earl Grey because I saw it in a manga and thought it would make me cool, but, like... I drink it these days because I actually like how it tastes! That’s the only reason!”
“Oh, I know, I know,” I said. “I can fill the blanks in myself, believe me.”
“Stop acting so friggin’ understanding, you jerk!”
“Characters who have super specific taste in tea come across as so regal, right? Makes you wanna go all ‘Spare me the lemon, please. You’ll devastate the tea’s natural charm,’ and ‘You drink milk tea? What are you, a child?’ and stuff!”
“I just said that I only like how it tastes these days!”
“Yeah, I get you! Something about having a super specific preference that you refuse to compromise on just gives the greatest feeling of, like, exclusivity, right? You could only listen to western music, or only play doubles in tennis, or only read Crime and Punishment! The possibilities are endless!”
“Listen to me, dammit!” Tomoyo shouted as she sprang to her feet with just a little too much enthusiasm and collided with the table, knocking the cup of tea she’d been drinking clean over. “Ah, crap!”
“Whoa! You okay over there?” I asked.
“Ah, yeah, it’s fine. It was basically empty anyway,” Tomoyo replied.
She was right—there’d been barely any tea left to spill in the cup in the first place. What little had dripped out hadn’t gotten on her homework or the floor, so it was easy enough to wipe it up with a tissue.
Coincidentally, Hatoko returned with a full kettle just as Tomoyo finished cleaning, and she brought Sayumi along with her. I figured they must’ve bumped into each other in the hallway.
“Our poor little kettle’s been acting up a bit lately,” said Hatoko. “Sometimes it stops heating the water up properly, so the tea ends up being lukewarm instead.”
“That kettle’s been here since before I joined the club, so I suppose that’s no surprise. It’s simply reaching the end of its life span,” said Sayumi.
“Do you think so? Maybe we could use some of our club funds to buy a new one...? No, no, they’d never let us get away with that, would they?” Hatoko asked.
“Using club funding would be rather questionable, but I should be able to bring a new one from home for us, actually,” said Sayumi. “My father was given an electric kettle once. The exact circumstances escape me at the moment, but regardless, it’s been sitting in our storage unused ever since.”
“Oh, really? Hooray! That’s perfect!” Hatoko said with a beaming smile, then she turned to look at me. “Did you hear that, Juu? We’re getting a new kettle! I’m so excited! Oh, I know—why don’t we give it a name? Giving things names is a great way to remind yourself to take good care of them, after all!”
“Whoa there, Hatoko,” I said. “Are you seriously saying you want to name a household appliance? You do know you’re gonna have to grow up and move on from that kid stuff someday, right?”
“Whaaat? But you name stuff all the time! Like your bicycle!”
“I...” I began, then paused. This, presumably, was what people meant when they said they’d been backed into a conversational corner. “I, umm, I... R-Right! It’s not like I choose all those names myself! Those names were fated to be, perceivable only by the chosen few! I guess you could say I pick up on them with my sixth sense, y’know...?”
“Andou? I’m sorry to bring this up when you’ve been called out so thoroughly you’ve been rendered beet red from the shame of it all,” Sayumi said in that classic tone that made it impossible for me to tell whether she was being incredibly polite or incredibly scathing as she pointed to the sleeve of my jacket, “but the button on your cuff is about to fall off.”
“Huh...? Oh, it really is! When’d that happen?” I wondered out loud.
“Presumably when you decided to roll your sleeves up in an attempt to make yourself look cool,” said Sayumi.
“Ugh!”
“You certainly are a troublesome underclassman to take care of sometimes,” she sighed. “Well, come on, take it off and hand it over. I’ll fix it for you.”
The combo of strictness and kindness she had going on got the better of me, and I obediently handed her my jacket. Sayumi pulled out a sewing kit from her bag and got to work right away, stitching the button back on with a practiced hand. As she worked, the door to the club room slid open and Chifuyu walked inside.
“Oh, hey, Chifuyu,” I said.
“Mnh,” Chifuyu grunted as she trotted over to us with Squirrely held tightly in her arms. Her eyes were just about half closed, and she looked like she might fall asleep at any second. She seemed at least thirty percent sleepier than usual, or thereabouts.
“You okay, Chifuyu? You look really sleepy,” I said.
“I’m okay,” said Chifuyu. “I walked here, so I’m a little tired. I’m gonna take a nap.”
“Evening’s a little late for a nap, but you do you,” I said. Napping in the club room was nothing new for Chifuyu, so I didn’t bother questioning it too deeply.
Chifuyu tottered her way over to a corner of the room and pulled out two folding chairs. She unfolded them, faced them in opposite directions, pushed them together, then clambered onto the semienclosed space that they formed. She was tiny enough that those two seat cushions made for a perfectly adequate impromptu bed.
“Are you, uh, sure you wanna sleep like that, Chifuyu? I’d be worried about falling off if I were you,” I said.
“I’m okay. It’ll work just fine,” she said as she gave me a thumbs-up.
“There you go, Andou,” said Sayumi, holding my jacket out to me. “I’d appreciate it if you’d learn from this experience and be more careful about rolling up your sleeves in the future.”
“Thanks, Sayumi,” I said as I accepted the jacket, then looked around the room as I put it back on. “Well, I guess all five of us made it today,” I mumbled...then shot to my feet. I glanced around again, verified that everyone was looking at me, then made my authoritative declaration!
“Renaissance!”
...And now that the opening line’s been dropped again, flashback time’s over!
“So, that’s pretty much the whole story. I’m sure all of you understand what it is I’m trying to say by now, don’t you?”
“No. Like, not at all,” Tomoyo replied curtly.
The others reacted in pretty much the same way, except for Chifuyu, who was sleeping like a log. Guess I might’ve dragged that flashback out a little too long for her.
“Ugh—but how could this be?! How could I explain the situation so clearly and thoroughly yet have nobody else notice the clear and looming abnormality that lurks among us?!”
“Okay, Andou,” said Tomoyo, “just fess up. What are you getting at? What’s so weird? I can’t see anything strange about anyone! Everything’s totally normal here, I’m telling you.”
Totally normal? Yes, indeed—everything is, in fact, totally normal. We’d been living like utterly ordinary high schoolers, each and every day so perfectly unremarkable they didn’t even merit description. That casual, commonplace normality, however, was in and of itself the true identity of the abnormality I’d singled out. For us, nothing could be less normal than normality.
“Okay, people, listen up! Listen with all your hearts and souls—listen to the words that my soul is crying out from the bottom of my heart!”
I took a deep breath...then shouted with all of my everything.
“We haven’t been using our powers, like, at all lately, have we?!”
Yup. I said it. I finally, finally said it. Somebody had to do it, and at long last, I was the one who bit the bullet and put it out there.
“Oh...”
“Right...”
“Zzz.”
“Ugh...”
Tomoyo, Hatoko, and Sayumi all responded to my soul-wrenching wail with looks of awkward disinterest. Their faces just screamed “Oh, now that you mention it, I guess that’s true.” Chifuyu, meanwhile, was still asleep.
“Oh, come on, guys! You’re acting like you don’t care about this at all! What gives?!” I shouted.
“I mean, if I’m gonna be brutally honest, we don’t care at all,” said Tomoyo. “Right, Hatoko?”
“I mean, it’s not like not using my power causes me any problems, so...” Hatoko said with a shrug.
“This isn’t about whether or not it causes problems!” I shouted. “We’ve awakened to supernatural powers, dangit! Supernatural powers! And we’re not even using them! We should be constantly drilling and polishing our abilities just in case we ever need them! Life is a battle—which means, of course, that everything is a battle—and that means that every moment of our daily lives is an opportunity to train ourselves! We should be using our powers so much that we can manipulate them as easily as we move our own limbs! We should be able to invoke them as naturally as we breathe!”
I got a little heated over the course of my explanation, but that was only natural. In the week since summer vacation had ended, we of the literary club had returned to our plodding, commonplace, by the numbers daily lives...and we had used our powers so infrequently, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say we’d abandoned them entirely. Our god-tier abilities were just resting on the shelf, collecting dust! We hadn’t even been wasting them on petty nonsense!
If this wasn’t a classic case of pearls before swine, I didn’t know what it was. We hadn’t made any enemies in particular since we’d awakened to our powers, sure, but using them to play around was, like...it was a rule! We’d talked about this! Not just a rule, even—it was our law! Our very destiny! It was, well...it was the whole friggin’ premise, dangit!
“The fact of the matter is that, by and large, we can’t use our powers in front of anyone outside our group,” said Sayumi. “Allowing ourselves to use them for frivolous purposes only within this club room became something of a tacit rule over the long term, so over the course of summer vacation—a period in which we didn’t visit this room at all—we had virtually no opportunities to make use of our powers. As such, even though school has begun again, we’re still in the habit of not bothering with them.”
“That’s right, Juu,” Hatoko piped up as soon as Sayumi had finished her cool, detached analysis. “Plus, there haven’t been any good chances for us to use our powers today in the first place, have there?”
“Fool! Imbecile!” I bellowed, my fists clenched with rage! “Listen up, Hatoko. You can’t just wait for life to hand you opportunities on a silver platter! You have to reach out and grasp them yourself!”
“Oooh! That almost sounded like you were quoting someone!” said Hatoko.
“And for us, that means taking every conceivable chance we’re given to use our powers, no matter how petty it might be!”
“That...doesn’t sound quite right,” replied Hatoko.
I couldn’t push through Hatoko’s skepticism with pure momentum...but that didn’t stop me from keeping that momentum going! “There was a mountain’s worth of opportunities to use our powers in the first ten minutes of club alone! Fortunately for you, you have a world-renowned supernatural power counselor—me—here to explain to each of you, one by one, exactly what chances you let slip past you.”
“Excuse me, ‘supernatural power counselor’? Could a title get any shiftier?” Tomoyo jabbed.
“Congratulations, Tomoyo! Your feckless nitpicking has earned you the opportunity to go first!”
“Who’re you calling feckless?!”
Kanzaki Tomoyo: bearer of Closed Clock, the power to turn the very concept of time into her personal plaything, twisting it to her will. Now then, let us look back over Tomoyo’s behavior today with the capabilities of her power in mind! When I walked into the room, she was working on her homework. Hatoko went out for water, we talked about tea, and then Tomoyo knocked over her teacup—and there! That’s where the opportunity was missed!
“Why would you of all people spill your tea?!”
“What else was I supposed to do?”
“Oh, I dunno, stop time?!”
“Oh...right. Yeah, I guess I could’ve done that. Slipped my mind.”
“It slipped your mind? It slipped your mind...? Are you even trying anymore? What’s the point of a character with the power to stop time at will if they just forget they can do it at the worst possible moment and get whooped? That’s a great way to make your readers give up on you! Do you want to make them so frustrated they’ll chuck the book at a wall?”
I was in such utter and complete despair that I fell to my knees. “You have the power to stop time, for crying out loud! That’s one of the most top-tier, terrifyingly OP abilities to be found in anime and manga! That’s the sort of power that only final bosses, secret bonus bosses, and the strongest character in the series get to have! You have a power like that...and you lost to a teacup?!”
“I didn’t lose to anything!”
“And that’s only the start of it! If you have total dominion over time, then why’re you still working on your summer homework?! How can someone who manipulates time be so bad at managing it?!”
“Those are totally different things! And stop giving me crap about my homework!” Tomoyo shouted. She was furious, but I kept going, trying to appeal to her by way of sheer sincerity.
“Please, Tomoyo,” I said. “I know you’re the same as I am. You’re the sort of person who loves supernatural powers from the bottom of her heart, aren’t you? Have you lost interest in your own power? Have you lost the love you once held for it? Don’t you remember how much effort you put into practicing it back in the day?”
“Huh...?” Tomoyo blinked. “When did I ever practice using my power? When I stop time, it just sorta happens. I don’t remember ever putting in any real effort...”
“Are you kidding?! You put so much effort into learning how to snap your fingers!”
“Wha— Why you— Hey!” Tomoyo sputtered incoherently as her face flushed bright red in a flash.
When Tomoyo activated her power and stopped time, more often than not, she made a point of snapping her fingers. The idea was that doing so was the trigger for invoking her power...though, of course, she didn’t have to snap at all. She could stop time without it, no problem. As to why she bothered snapping anyway...I mean, I think that pretty much goes without saying at this point.
“I get you, honestly,” I said. “Like, I really get it. You need something to use as a trigger for activating your power, like reciting an invocation or carving a seal into your body!”
“How many times have I told you not to act so understanding about this crap?!” Tomoyo shouted. “It’s not what you think... It’s not, honest... I wasn’t trying to show off or anything... I just, umm, I mean...”
“At first, the best you could make was a sad little pft, but you’ve been getting so much better lately! You’ve worked your way up to a real thwap, haven’t you?!”
“Whaddya mean, thwap?! Like hell I have! Do you have any idea how much time I’ve spent on this?! I can totally make a proper snap these... Ah. Umm, I mean... I-I didn’t practice at all! I just realized I could do it out of nowhere, at some point... I-I mean, huh? What are you talking about? Have I ever even snapped my fingers before? I can’t remember at all!”
Tomoyo was glancing frantically around the room, looking for something—anything—that could get her out of this. I laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Tomoyo. Everyone in this club understands how much effort you’ve put into practicing your finger snaps, day after day.”
“No way?!” Tomoyo yelped, then spun around to look at Hatoko and Sayumi...who were both smiling at her in the most forced, least genuine way possible. She’d been really into practicing her snaps for a very long time, and although it seemed she’d been trying to hide it, she must’ve accidentally made it into a habit. Every once in a while, she’d start snapping away without even seeming to realize it. “No, I didn’t... It’s not like— I mean, I never... I... I... Graaahhhhhh!”
In a split second, Tomoyo vanished. Now, apparently, was the right time to use Closed Clock in her mind. I wondered where she’d gone for a moment, but it didn’t take me long to notice that she was curled up into a fetal position in the corner of the room, moping.
“I’m never, ever snapping my fingers again,” Tomoyo moaned.
“Don’t give up!” I said. “Now’s the time to redouble your efforts, Kanzaki Tomoyo! As long as you keep putting in the time and energy, there will come a day when you could be wearing gloves and still pull off a perfect finger snap! Don’t you want to be like the Flame Alchemist?!”
“...Colonel Mustang isn’t actually snapping his fingers when he does that. The snap’s just elements in the air reacting when he does his transmutations. That’s canon, by the way—it’s in a fan book called FMA Research Lab DX.”
Well, crap! That was one heck of a laser-guided callout. I was a big FMA fan, but not quite big enough to have read the fan books. Anyway, the fact that I’d just accidentally shown off inaccurate manga trivia was making me feel pretty awkward, so I decided to bring Tomoyo’s turn to a close and spin to face my very own childhood friend.
“All right—it’s your turn next, Hatoko!”
“Okaaay,” Hatoko replied in a carefree tone that told me she had no idea how grave of a sin she’d already committed that day.
Kushikawa Hatoko: bearer of Over Element, the power to transcend the elements and wield each and every one of them however she saw fit. She had complete, undisputed mastery over fire, water, earth, wind, and light, manipulating them with total impunity...which begged a very serious question.
“Why the heck would you bother going out to refill a kettle by hand?!”
“Huh? Well, the kettle was getting all gurgly, so someone had to.”
“So make water! You can literally shoot it out of your hands! Hell, why bother with the kettle in the first place?! You can just make the water hot to begin with!”
I knew from experience that Hatoko was capable of adjusting the temperature of the water she created—she could make steam and ice just as easily as she could room temperature water. She could even roll her other elements into the equation and make the water as hard or soft as she wanted it to be. She was probably even capable of pulling a trick that turned up surprisingly often in battle manga: creating perfectly, one hundred percent pure water, which electricity couldn’t actually flow through.
“You could definitely make water that tastes way better than a school’s tap water, right?”
“Well, I could,” said Hatoko, “but for some reason, I just don’t want to drink the water I make with my power. It just doesn’t feel...I don’t know, potable?”
Huh. Well, I guess I kinda get where she’s coming from there. Drinking or eating stuff that you made with your own power to keep yourself going just felt...a little wrong, for some reason I couldn’t quite articulate. Chifuyu had told me that she never wanted to eat food that she made with her power either, and Natsu Dragneel didn’t eat his own fire as well.
“Anyway, Hatoko, there’s a more fundamental question we have to deal with here,” I said. “Do you even remember your own power’s name?”
“O-Of course I do!” said Hatoko with a confident nod...followed by a pause, after which she crossed her arms and sank into thought.
Yup. She’s definitely forgotten it.
“Umm... Was it... Oven Energy?”
“No! What sort of name for a power is that?! This is a battle power, not a power from some cooking anime! It’s Oven Element, dangit!”
“Oooh, that’s it! Right, I remember now! Oven Element! I’ve got that totally memorized now!”
“Good. I’d better not catch you forgetting it again! Yes, Oven Element...such was the name I bequeathed upon your abhorrent power.”
A moment of silence passed by.
“...Like friggin’ hell it was! It’s Over Element, not Oven Element!” Hoooly crap, that was close! I almost let that one stand!
“Oven Element, Oven Element,” Hatoko happily sang to a jaunty little tune she’d made up. I should’ve sat her down then and there and explained to her how incredibly cool of a name Over Element was, but she just looked so darn pleased with herself that I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it. I decided to give up and move along.
“All right, next up... Sayumi!”
“Yes?” our resident upperclassman and club president replied with a look of pure, unshakable calm on her face.
Takanashi Sayumi: bearer of Route of Origin, the power to return anything and everything to the form she believed it belonged in—to the way it was meant to be.
“Fixing something that’s broken should be the easiest thing in the world for you...so why on earth would you need to bring in a new electric kettle from home?!” I shouted. “Just fix the one we already have! Make like Doraemon with his Time Cloth and zap it till it’s good as new!”
“I would certainly be capable of fixing it, yes...but since I happened to have an electric kettle gathering dust at home, it simply felt like the right moment to make the offer,” said Sayumi. “The club room’s electric kettle is old to begin with, so I imagine that replacing it will be preferable to fixing it regardless. My power can return it to a functional state, but it can’t add on new, modern functions.”
“Hmph! A well-reasoned response—just what I’d expect from a girl smart enough to fight it out for the top grades in her year! In deference to your intellect, I’ll let you off the hook just this once.”
“What do you believe gives you the right to act so flagrantly condescending toward me, Andou?”
“However! In all seriousness: you could’ve at least used your power to fix the button on my jacket, right?” I continued, holding up my sleeve and showing off its freshly mended cuff. It was so perfectly sewn on you’d think it was brand new...or that she’d used Route of Origin to fix it. Her skill with a needle was clearly expert-level. “I’m not saying I have a problem with your work, of course, and I’m really grateful you went to the trouble...but, like, it would’ve been way quicker and easier to just do it with your power, right?”
“W-Well,” Sayumi began, then she fell silent and shifted her gaze awkwardly to the side. Just when I was thinking how rare it was for her to react like that...
“Did you want to show off your housewifeyness, Sayumi?”
...a bleary voice muttered from a totally unexpected direction. Chifuyu had finally woken up, it seemed, and she’d decided to join the conversation as she sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“Ch-Ch-Chifuyu,” Sayumi stammered, “wh-whatever are you talking—”
“Huh? ‘Housewifeyness’? What’s that supposed to mean, Chifuyu?” I asked.
“E-E-Excuse me, Andou!” Sayumi shouted. “Clearly, Chifuyu is still half asleep. Let’s shelve this topic for now and never, ever pick it back—”
“I’m not half asleep,” Chifuyu said, cutting off Sayumi’s inexplicably panicked proposal and taking control of the conversation once more. “Housewifeyness is what makes you a good housewife.”
“Right, okay,” I replied, accepting her logic.
“Housewives have lots and lots of things they have to do. They cook, and clean, and sew, and do laundry, and get complained at by their mother-in-law, and welcome their husbands home, and stuff like that.”
“Yeah, I, uh, think that list got a little weird toward the end there, but I basically get the picture.”
“When girls try to show boys that they can do all those housewife things, they’re showing off their housewifeyness.”
“Ahh, okay, I see now.” Like how some girls will claim that they’re really good at cooking meat and potato stew just because it’s the stereotypical housewife dish. “So, you’re saying that Sayumi decided not to use her power and went out of her way to sew my button on by hand because—” I began, but as I turned around partway through my sentence, I realized that Sayumi was nowhere to be seen.
No sooner had that fact registered than someone grabbed my arm from behind me and twisted it—hard—into a joint lock. It didn’t hurt, but I sure as heck couldn’t move an inch either, and I only knew one person who knew the limits of the human body well enough to put a guy into that perfect of a submission hold.
“Andou? I would recommend that you never bring this topic up ever again, presuming you’d prefer not to have all memory of it beaten out of your skull. Forgetting it voluntarily strikes me as the preferable option by far, frankly,” Sayumi said from behind me. Her voice sounded incredibly tense, with an ever so slight tremble to boot...not to mention a clear and present willingness to straight up murder me, if necessary. That said, I was just barely able to glimpse her face when I craned my head around to look over my shoulder, and the way she was blushing made me feel at least a little less imminently doomed.
“I-I mean, why’s that such a big deal? I think people who can sew are awesome, and—”
The pressure on my arm redoubled.
“Agh! O-Okay, point taken! Point taken!” I shrieked. That finally convinced her to let my arm go and return to her seat, but given how she kept refusing to so much as look in my direction, the psychological damage she’d sustained must have been pretty substantial. It would’ve been way too awkward to carry that topic forward any further, so with that, Sayumi’s turn came to an end.
“Umm, okay... Seeing as she’s awake and all, Chifuyu can go next,” I said, turning to face our group’s sole elementary schooler, who was currently sitting upright on her impromptu chair-bed.
Himeki Chifuyu: bearer of World Create, the power of genesis, capable of creating anything and everything she saw fit. I do mean anything too, very literally. She wasn’t limited to creating mere matter, as she could even bring space itself into being with complete impunity. Her power was limitless and all but omnipotent. And yet...
“Why’d you bother walking here today?! You could’ve used one of your usual Gates and been here in a second!”
“I haven’t been exercising lately, so I thought walking would be good for me.”
It was such a profoundly concise, logical explanation that it actually struck me speechless for a second. I couldn’t find a single hole to pick in her story, so I just moved along. “Okay, but what about your bed? Why didn’t you just make one? You usually bring out one of those crazy fancy beds when you nap in the club room, don’t you? You could make a super fluffy mattress, memory foam pillows, the whole shebang...so why’re you napping like a corporate wage slave who’s stuck at the office overnight?”
“Tch tch tch,” Chifuyu said, waggling a finger at me. “You don’t get it, Andou.”
“Wh-What don’t I get?”
“It’s true—I could’ve used Sweet and Sour Pineapple to make a bed and pillows and stuff.”
“Hey, no slipping that name in all casual-like! It’s World Create!” For crying out loud, how long are we going to keep dragging out that stupid running gag?
“I can make anything,” Chifuyu said, “so I can make a bed that fits me perfectly and pillows out of comfy fabrics. I can make the lighting all nice, and music too. I’ve tried lots of things. I’ve done my research.”
“No kidding. You really don’t cut corners when it comes to napping, huh?”
“And one day...I did it. I finally made a bed fit for a god.”
“Fit for a god?!”
“Right. But then I realized that, really...it might’ve been a devil’s bed instead,” Chifuyu said, a shudder running through her voice. She sounded like a remorseful scientist telling the tale of the weapon of mass destruction she’d inadvertently invented. “A bed made by me, for me. It fit me perfectly in every way, and it felt super amazing to sleep in... It was like the bed and my body were one.”
“You’ve been getting up to some pretty crazy stuff while we weren’t around, huh...? But wait—if you came up with a bed that perfect, why didn’t you just make it here?”
“I slept in the gods’ bed over and over...but eventually I realized. Something was wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
“The gods’ bed was perfect for me. I was satisfied. But...it was wrong. Something about it wasn’t right. I wasn’t taking the sort of naps I used to anymore,” Chifuyu said. I didn’t really get it, but she’d segued into some sort of speech, and I wasn’t about to interrupt. “I’d always liked searching for the comfiest way to sleep in beds that weren’t quite right. Realizing that I’d ended up in a weird pose was fun. I loved losing my blanket, finding it again, and wrapping myself up in it...”
As Chifuyu’s explanation dragged on, her words grew gradually more and more zealous in tone. Her eyes were wide open, and a profound sense of distress lurked deep within her gaze. In other words, no matter how easy it would’ve been to riff on her story, I just couldn’t.
“Perfection...is hollow. Real, total satisfaction...is empty. The gods’ bed...took away everything that made sleeping fun for me.”
I sorta just...stood there. Okay, for real though, why’s this so intense? Why’s an elementary schooler acting like a world-famous actress who ended up becoming so successful that she lost all sense of happiness and wound up living a life of unfulfilled anguish?
“So, I’ve decided not to use the gods’ bed anymore. I’ve been into napping in places that are a little hard to sleep in lately.”
“Well, it...sounds like you’ve been through one hell of an internal conflict, I guess. But still, isn’t sleeping on folding chairs a little too uncomfortable?”
“It’s fine,” Chifuyu said with a satisfied nod. “When I sleep in a bed that’s too narrow, and which pokes me whenever I move...it feels kinda nice and thrilling...”
“Okay, this is getting weird in a hurry!”
Chifuyu had taken her hobby into a very deep, very personally philosophical sort of place, and her attempt to explain it sailed way over my head. Then again, it was probably a mistake to try to understand Chifuyu, the reigning queen of whimsy, in the first place. Himeki Chifuyu was a real-life cryptid who defied control and description. She’d clearly come to us from some entirely unknowable, otherworldly realm.
“Phew! Well, I guess that’s everyone,” I said.
“Oh, no you don’t! You’d better not think you’re finished yet,” Tomoyo chimed in a beat later. It seemed she’d finally pulled herself out of her depression pit, and she was now glaring at me. “You’ve had your fun raking us over the coals, but now it’s your turn! You talk a pretty big game for a guy who hasn’t been using his power at all lately either!”
“Ugh!” I grunted. She hit me right where it hurt with that one, and now that she’d pointed it out, it looked like the other members were all starting to realize that she was right.
“Admit it: you’ve been forgetting about your power just like we have, haven’t you?” said Tomoyo.
“N-Nuh-uh! I haven’t been forgetting it at all! I just... Look, there’s a really good reason for this, okay? My power, despite how amazing it is, falls short on a certain criterion...”
“A what now?”
I gulped. “I couldn’t believe it myself, at first. I always knew that Dark and Dark was the mightiest, most fearsome, most sinister, most terrible power in existence. I’d believed it to be flawless and unparalleled. Never did I imagine it could have such a glaring defect...”
“I’m kinda curious what part of it isn’t defective,” Tomoyo commented.
“Yes, indeed—a truly dreadful criterion, by which Dark and Dark had to be judged,” I continued. “A criterion that could not be ignored. A criterion that rises above all others...”
“How many times do you have to say ‘criterion’ before you’re satisfied?!”
I mean, a bunch! Obviously! “Criterion” was just such a great word! It means a standard by which you can judge something, to put it simply. It’s also the singular form of “criteria,” but somehow it feels way more stylish than its plural counterpart! It’s the sort of word that gives you the irresistible urge to casually drop it into conversations whenever you can! The word “criterion”: hella cool!
“Now then, Tomoyo: explain to me what my power, Dark and Dark, is capable of,” I prompted.
“I mean, it lets you make black flames?” Tomoyo answered half-heartedly. “They’re kinda lukewarm, at most. Like, about as hot as a hot water bottle.”
“Mwa ha ha... It’d be in your best interest to not underestimate my power. I’ve trained with constant, unerring discipline, and thanks to those efforts...I’ve managed to raise the heat of my flame from that of a hot water bottle that’s been filled thirty minutes ago to that of a hot water bottle that’s been filled mere moments ago!”
“Which is still a freaking hot water bottle!”
“But, well, I digress. Next, go ahead and tell me what season it is right now.”
“The season? I mean...we’re pretty much right between summer and fall, I guess?”
“Precisely. At this very moment, we stand upon the precipice that separates those two seasons!” It had also been unseasonably warm for that time of year. Summer’s latent heat had stuck around way longer than usual, and even though summer vacation was over and August was on its way out as well, it was still warm enough to make me wish we had an air conditioner in the club room. “I trust you see now where I’m going with this? You understand what the consequences of invoking Dark and Dark at this time of year would be?”
“No. Not even a little.”
Clearly, I wasn’t getting through to her. That meant that I had no choice. I had to steel my resolve and reveal the ever-distressing truth—the one unexpected criterion that my beloved power did not, in fact, satisfy.
“When I use Dark and Dark at this time of year...it feels really muggy.”
“Oh my god that’s petty!” Tomoyo shouted, but to me, it was anything but. No, it was a matter of life and death.
Normally, Dark and Dark was so persistently, frustratingly lukewarm that I found myself screaming at it to just Heat up already! with all the passion of former tennis player turned motivational speaker Matsuoka Shuzou. Now, though, that very heat had turned into a fatal flaw. I mean, seriously, it was already so friggin’ hot out! Who the heck would go bringing out supernatural flames in weather like that?!
“In weather like this, the tepid heat of Dark and Dark...is just about as unpleasant as a sensation could possibly get,” I concluded.
“Yeah,” Tomoyo sighed. “Your power’s fire definitely hits that ‘ugh, nasty’ level of heat, doesn’t it?”
“Ever since my power awakened, when I woke up every morning, I’d say, ‘Good morning, Dark and Dark,’ and every night before bed, I’d say, ‘Sleep tight, Dark and Dark’...but lately, using it before bed’s been making me too hot to actually sleep, and I finally brought an end to that routine...”
“Good! You should’ve stopped that ages ago!”
“Maaan, winter was so nice in comparison! My dark flames heated my comforter from the inside, so I was always nice and toasty when I went to sleep.”
“You’re literally just using it like a hot water bottle!”
“And the fact that it burns black just makes it all the worse, honestly. It makes me feel hot just looking at it! And, like, what’s up with the whole black flame thing in the first place? Why black, of all colors? It makes no sense!”
“Holy crap, did you really just say that out loud? Isn’t that, like, a betrayal of your whole persona?! Your chuuni level’s dropping by the second!”
Oh, whoops! That was a close one. I almost lost sight of my own identity! To think the heat could be unpleasant enough to drive me to such an extreme... The lukewarm flames of Dark and Dark are truly a power to be feared!
“So, yeah, that’s about the size of it,” I said. “The only thing using Dark and Dark at this time of year accomplishes is making me get more and more fed up with my own power, so I’ve made a conscious decision to seal it away for the time being.”
“You’re making it sound like you and your power are a couple who still love each other but decided to break up for each other’s sake, and it’s really weird,” Tomoyo grumbled.
With that, I’d finished clearing the air about the complex and conflicted feelings I’d been grappling with lately, and I once again turned to face the other members of my club. “I’ve been suppressing the deep, burning desire to use my power this whole time! I’ve been suffering through a living hell...but what about you guys?! You all can use your powers just fine no matter how hot out it is, so why aren’t you?!”
“Huh? What does you not using your power have to do with us?” asked Hatoko, looking a little bewildered.
“Nothing,” said Sayumi. “He’s simply lashing out. And baselessly at that.”
“You’re a pain, Andou,” said Chifuyu, driving the point home.
Damnations! I should’ve known that none of them would understand the agony I’ve been going through... Or so I’d thought, until Sayumi let out a sigh.
“Yes, I understand,” she said with an exasperated nod. “And that being the case, I propose that we dedicate the remainder of today to using all of our powers to our hearts’ content.”
“S-Seriously?!” I gasped.
“It is true that we haven’t been using them whatsoever recently, after all,” Sayumi conceded.
“Right?! We totally haven’t! Not even a little!”
“We used to make a point of checking in on our supernatural powers once a month, without fail, but thanks to summer vacation, it’s been nearly two months since our last session,” Sayumi continued. “It seems like using them once more and taking careful note of how they’ve developed, if at all, would be worthwhile. I trust you all agree?”
The rest of our members quickly acquiesced to our president’s absolutely spectacular suggestion. It had only been about two months since our last supernatural power checkup, yet somehow, it felt like it’d been way longer than that—long enough that I’d almost forgotten we did those checkups at all, in fact.
“Well then,” said Sayumi, “let’s begin by deciding the manner and order in which we’ll be conducting our tests.”
“Ooh, ooh!” Hatoko shouted as she waved her hand in the air.
“Yes, Hatoko?”
“Why don’t we use our powers however Juu wants us to?”
I gaped at her. “Wh-What’re you talking about?” I asked.
“Well, you were upset about how we were acting during our club today, weren’t you?” Hatoko replied.
“Yeah. Well, kinda? I wasn’t upset, really—I just wished you would’ve all used your powers a little, that’s all.”
“So then, you can teach me what I should do, and I’ll just do that! And then you can tell me whether or not the stuff I did satisfied you! Okay?”
They’ll do everything I tell them to? Everything I want them to do? I’ll have four girls with god-tier supernatural powers at my beck and call?
“Hmm... I mean, I guess that’d work,” said Tomoyo. “I mean, if Andou’s the one deciding everything that happens, he can’t exactly complain to us about this sort of crap anymore, which sounds nice.”
“A fair point,” Sayumi agreed. “Moreover, I must admit that I’m somewhat curious as to how he’ll ask us to use our powers.”
“I’m okay with it too. I’ll do it, Andou,” said Chifuyu. Even our club’s resident princess had deigned to go along with Hatoko’s plan.
Wh-What the heck is even happening...? Where is this windfall of good luck coming from?! How did we go from me griping at them to an incredible development like this?!
“Mwa ha ha... Mwaaa ha ha ha ha!” I cackled. “Very well, then! If you wish for my guidance, then I shall be more than happy to provide it! Allow me to teach you the true way you all should be using your powers!”
About an hour later, my intensive crash course came to an end. Then we rewound the clock and reset our timeline to the state it was in before our club activities began for the day. This time, we would live the way high schoolers with supernatural powers should live. We would embody the ideal form of our literary club as I saw it!
“A troubled wind blows today,” I muttered to myself as I made my way down the hall toward the club room, exuding an aura of danger with every step I took.
By the time I reached our room, slid the door open, and stepped inside, my four steadfast companions had already assembled. Each and every one of them wore a dauntless smile on her face, and each and every one of them sat with such dignified, imposing posture, one would think they were all the leader of our group.
“Well now, what do we have here? It’s not every day that you decide to pay us a visit,” Tomoyo said with a smirk as she met my gaze. “What fit of whimsy led a slacker like you to bother showing up?”
“Heh!” I chuckled. “I was just worried that you four wouldn’t be able to handle it on your own, that’s all.”
“You’re getting soft, Guiltia Sin Jurai.”
“Never speak that name again,” I said. “I gave it up a long time ago. Now I’m just Andou Jurai—nothing more, and nothing less.”
“(Seriously? He spends ages doing everything he can to get us to call him that, and then when I finally do, he gives me this crap?)”
“(It’s so hard to tell what he wants us to call him, isn’t it?)”
Tomoyo and Hatoko broke character and started whispering to each other, but I just ignored them. I took a seat and glanced over at Sayumi, who returned my gaze with a smile and began to speak.
“This is nothing short of stunning,” she said. “How long has it been since all five of us gathered together in the same room?”
“Not since yester—” Chifuyu began, but I clapped a hand over her mouth before she could finish.
Come on, Chifuyu, this is just getting good!
“I think it’s high time you told us what’s going on, Sayumi. What made you decide to bring the five of us together again? What the hell could’ve driven you to call me back to the round table?” I asked, a note of self-deprecation dripping into my tone. The table in our club room was very much rectangular, by the way, but in my mind’s eye, it was as round as could be. Round tables: hella cool.
“He he he! No need to be so hasty, Andou. You’ll have your answers in due time...and speaking of which, I do believe it’s time for us to begin our meeting,” Sayumi began—only to be immediately interrupted!
“Ugh! Aaauuuggghhhhhh!” I screamed as, without warning, I doubled over and clutched at my right arm! “Dammit! Be still, Dark and Dark...! These people are not your enemies! Listen to me, curse you... Obey me!”
The destructive impulses welling up from deep within threatened to overwhelm me, but I held them back, struggling with all my might... And then!
“Ugh! Agggh!” Tomoyo cried out in anguish, her body stiffening up in an instant! “Wh-What’s...happening...?! I can’t...move! My time’s...stopping! Could it be...? Are the gods of time finally taking vengeance on me for desecrating their realm?!”
Tomoyo was trapped, forced to pay the price for the taboo she had violated... But then!
“Ugh! Oh nooo!” Hatoko shouted without warning! I...would’ve preferred for her to sound a little more agonized and a little less plain old startled, but I guess it was close enough. “Wh-What’s going ooon? Oh, it hurts, it hurts sooo much! My body’s being ravaged by, umm...err...Oven Energy! Oven Energy’s tearing me to pieces, oh nooo!”
Please...at least go with Oven Element, I’m begging you!
And then!
“Ugh! Ahhhhhh!” Sayumi wailed as she clutched desperately at her face! “Route of Origin...it’s gone berserk! I cannot control it! My body is returning...to the way it’s meant to be...! The rough patches of my skin, my acne, my tan lines—they’re all being purged! Even my hair is being repaired, restored down to its cuticles! I have to stop it, or I’ll end up looking so youthful, I’ll be mistaken for an elementary schooler!”
Well, that sure is a convenient way for a power to go berserk! And actually, wait...is it just me, or did she kinda just let the fact that she wants to have more of a baby face slip out? It’s not like she looks super old, or anything! She’s just a little adultlike, that’s all!
Then!
“Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!” Chifuyu grunted out of the blue! It would’ve been nice if she’d stuck to just one “ugh,” but Chifuyu was apparently feeling a little eager to please. “My Sweet and Sour Pineapple...is going away... I-It’s turning into...Swee...Swee...Sweet and Sour Beef...”
Yeah. Okay. Should’ve expected this to devolve into chaos.
“Ugh... E-Everyone,” I choked out. I clutched my right arm, and at the same time I reached out with it, as if to crawl my way toward them...but I couldn’t really make it convincing from my current position, so I got up out of my chair, took a few steps away, doubled over on the floor, then reached out once more. It was no use, though—even as I stretched my hand out to them, my trusted companions fell one by one.
“No... How did it come to this...? Is this the price we must pay for misusing our powers...? Ugah!” I grunted as I coughed out a mouthful of fresh blood...or at least coughed convincingly enough that you’d think that was what I was doing. “Dammit... Where did we...go...wrong...?”
As the strength drained away from me, my hand fell to the floor...and gradually, darkness engulfed the world.
BAD END
“What the hell was that supposed to be?!” Tomoyo bellowed, blasting straight through the indescribable sense of satisfaction I’d been basking in with the fury of a raging inferno. “There is so, so much wrong with this picture I literally don’t even know where to start! What the actual hell?! How did that have anything to do with us using our powers in the right way?!”
“Great power comes at a proportionally great cost,” I explained. “I was trying to show how important it is for us to keep that fact constantly in mind, that’s all.”
For a second, Tomoyo just stared at me. “Wait,” she finally said. “We didn’t even use our powers at all, in the end.”
I had to admit, that had been a bit of an oversight in my plan. By the time I’d realized it, though, it’d already been too late to call the whole thing off.
“Why did everyone do the same stupid grunt?” Tomoyo continued. “And I can deal with our powers going haywire, but why would they all do it at the exact same time? Is everyone in our group totally useless? This whole thing was just all of us self-destructing!”
“Well, yeah. Any character with a super overpowered, cheat-tier ability’s doomed to self-destruct in the end. It’s a given,” I said.
“And everyone just dies at the end? What sort of overblown tragedy of an ending is that?”
“Oh, the ‘everyone dies’ ending’s just one possible outcome. The anime, manga, novels, and song series all have different endings. It’s a whole mixed-media thing.”
“I’m sorry, I missed the part where we became a Kagerou Project spin-off!”
Sayumi let out a sigh. “I suppose it was a mistake to leave the planning in Andou’s hands after all. This has been a complete and utter waste of our time.”
“It sure was,” said Hatoko. “Oh, and good work, Chifuyu! You really sold your part!”
“It was fun. I might like acting. Ugh! Ugh!” Chifuyu grunted. She seemed to find the whole thing hilarious, and although I was a little tempted to rebuff the part where she called it an act, I decided against it. If she’d had fun, then that was what really mattered.
With that, my crash course on the proper way for us to use our supernatural powers came to a close. It had been ages since we’d gotten to talk that much about our abilities, and I was feeling pretty fulfilled. Just as I was reflecting on how fun the exercise was, though...
“Excuse me,” a polite but somewhat gruff voice rang out as our door slid open. “I can see you’re all enjoying yourselves to the fullest, as always,” said the president of our school’s student council as she stepped inside. Whether she meant that frankly or sarcastically was anyone’s guess.
“Kudou!” I said. “Been a while, huh?”
Kudou Mirei was not a member of our literary club, but she was our peer in a different manner: she, too, had awakened to a supernatural power of her own. She was the bearer of Grateful Robber, the great and mighty power to pilfer whatever power she happened to witness in use...and, yes, it turns out that the English word “grateful” doesn’t have anything to do with “great” in the way I’d been trying to use it at all, but let’s just not linger on that little detail and move right along.
“It has, yes,” Kudou replied. “And to the rest of you as well,” she added, glancing at the other members.
“Did you need something from us? And does it, you know...have something to do with our powers?” I asked. My mind had immediately leaped to that assumption the second she showed up at our door, but I was surprised to see her shake her head.
“No, not at all,” Kudou said, then she turned to address our club as a whole. “I’m here to consult with the literary club about the cultural festival.”
That’s when I remembered: our school’s annual cultural festival was, in fact, just one month away.
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