Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de - Volume 8 - Chapter 4

Scene 4. What Starts Well Should End Quelled

“Oh? Your club’s going to perform Romeo and Juliet in the music room? Sounds like a good time—I think I’ll go check it out if I have a spare moment,” Sagami said with one of his usual dashing smiles. I’d just told him about the near bloodbath that had transpired the day before, and now he was giving me one of those half promises that made it impossible to tell whether he actually meant to come watch our play or whether he was just saying so to be polite.

“Come to think of it, are you doing anything for the festival, Sagami?” I asked.

“Of course not. You think I would?” said Sagami. “No, I’ll be spending this festival the same way I spent the last one: doing the bare minimum to finish the tasks our class assigns me, then wandering around at random until it’s over.”

“Hmm. Should’ve guessed,” I grunted.

Our class was putting together some sort of manga café-esque sort of setup, but neither he nor I were making any effort to directly involve ourselves in the project. We just weren’t the type, basically. I guess you could say there was a sort of unspoken acknowledgment in our class that some people just weren’t into it, or that it wasn’t part of their social role? It was one of those high school society things, really, and Sagami and I just happened to both fall into the group of students who didn’t proactively participate in any of the school’s events. Whether or not everyone in that group had chosen to end up in that position, of course, was a little more ambiguous.

“I think the only thing that’s going to be different this year is the girl I’ll be walking around with,” Sagami added offhandedly.

I gave him a look. “Since when did you have a new girlfriend?”

“Sometime during summer break. A high school girl who was doing sales for a doujin circle I’m into at this year’s Comiket hit on me, see. She’s a real cutie—wanna see a picture?”

“I’ll pass,” I said. “You’ll have moved on to the next girl before I can commit her to memory regardless.”

Sagami responded to my jab with a flippant smile. “Oh? Shame,” he said as he put his phone away again.

The quality of Sagami’s looks and the quality of his personality were inversely proportional to each other, and apparently, he still hadn’t broken his habit of finding and discarding girlfriends on a regular basis. Normally, I’d be jealous of his romantic success, but he took it to such an extreme that I actually couldn’t see anything to be envious about at all in his situation.

“Okay, but wasn’t the girl you were dating last year a student at our school?” I asked. “Like, I get walking around with someone like that, but this new girl goes to another school, right? Are you really going to call her all the way over here for a festival like ours?”

Not to bad-mouth my own school or anything, but our cultural festival wasn’t exactly a large-scale event. It was open to the public, technically, but the vast majority of visitors were either a family member of a student or a kid from one of the local middle schools coming to take a look around. It didn’t strike me as the sort of event worth taking your significant other to.

“Trust me, I know,” said Sagami. “She lives pretty far away from here too. I couldn’t decide if I should invite her or not... But, well, you know how the festival’s on my birthday this year? The moment she learned about that, she decided to come without even waiting for me to ask her.”

“Right... I guess the festival is on your birthday. I totally forgot,” I lied. I did my best to feign ignorance, but the truth is that I’d very much remembered. However much I wished I didn’t—however much I wanted to forget about it—Sagami’s birthday was stuck in my mind for good. It was September nineteenth—or rather, “ninedeeth,” in the Fukushima dialect.

“I hope you’re getting me something nice this year, Andou,” said Sagami.

“Hell no,” I replied.

“Miser.”

“Not the point. You seriously don’t think I’ll get you a birthday present when you’ve never gotten me anything, do you? We’re not exactly on gift-giving terms.” We were more than acquaintances, but less than friends, so I thought that was only natural.

“Oh? But wait, Andou—you gave me something once, didn’t you?” said Sagami. “You know, that film strip I really wanted?”

“I mean...that was back in the eighth grade, right? It’s been three years. And anyway, I didn’t give you that film strip. That was—” I began, but then my words came to an abrupt halt.

It felt like I’d picked at an old, half-healed scab. A surge of emotions emerged from within me and raced up my throat...but I swallowed them back down and kept talking as casually as I could possibly manage.

“...that was Tamaki’s present, wasn’t it?”

That’s right. I hadn’t given him that film strip—Tamaki did. She’d put her everything into figuring out what her boyfriend would like the most, and after expending no small amount of effort to obtain the perfect gift, she made sure he had the best birthday imaginable. I’d helped out a little, sure...but it was still Tamaki’s present, no mistaking it. It was a truly unique, one-of-a-kind symbol of the purehearted love that she had held for him.

“Ahh, right, I guess that was Tamaki, wasn’t it?” Sagami mused. “Not that it matters, considering I sold the thing off in the end.”

I blinked. For a moment, I couldn’t comprehend what Sagami had just said.

“You...huh? Wha... Whaaat?! You... You can’t be... You sold the film strip?! Are you serious?!” I finally shouted.

“Yup,” said Sagami. “Threw it up on Yahoo! Auctions just a little while back.”

“B-But...why?!”

“Needed some extra Comiket funds.”

“Are you kidding me?!”

“People have the right to decide what they do with their gifts, don’t they?”

“I mean,” I said, then hesitated. “Yeah, that’s true, but...you were so happy when you got that film strip, weren’t you? You said you’d treasure it, didn’t you?”

“Ha ha ha ha!” Sagami chuckled. “Andou, please! You know how long ago that was! It’s been a whole three years, so of course my tastes would change! I’m into different things now, that’s all. I was obsessed with that anime in the eighth grade, but I’ve been over it for ages. You know exactly how that feels, don’t you? It happens all the time.”

“...”

“There’s been no word of a sequel, and the manga and mixed-media drive both ended ages ago. As far as society’s concerned, that anime’s past its prime. It had some incredible momentum going at the height of its popularity, but then it just stopped selling. It’s over—a dead IP. Which, by the way, meant that the film strip didn’t even sell for all that much in the end. Ahh, man—if I’d known it would turn out this way, I would’ve sold it the second I got my hands on the thing.”

“...”

I was at a complete loss for words. I was overwhelmed by a truly intense feeling that transcended anger, or shock, or anything along those lines. Rather, it was a truly terrible sense of exhaustion. I was too profoundly tired to offer a single objection. I understood all too well that Sagami Shizumu was so purely, well, himself that even trying to engage with him was a waste of time.

In a certain sense, he wasn’t entirely wrong. What you do with your gifts is nobody’s business but your own, and not thinking much about throwing out an ex’s present is probably what society expects from guys these days. The idea of your tastes in anime changing, of losing interest in a show that you were super into three years ago, was perfectly reasonable as well. I really had experienced it plenty of times myself.

Over the course of three years, a popular franchise can turn into one that’s dead in the water. Over the course of three years, the heroine you’re into can change entirely. All that has form must someday cease to be. All worldly things are impermanent. All that prospers will someday decline. Panta rhei.

Everything we know shifts and changes as time flows onward. Nothing is eternal, and neither nature nor the human heart are exceptions to that rule. The fluidity of existence, the incessant shifting of reality, is one of the few things that is forever constant. I understood all of that, on a mental level. Still, though, I just couldn’t bring myself to find peace with it.

But, well...all that being said, Sagami’s detached attitude—his thoroughly unchanging side—was, in some ways, a lifeline for me. I knew that there was nothing malicious whatsoever about his poor behavior, which allowed me to keep my cool in the face of it. If he’d expressed the slightest hint of guilt or regret—if he’d uttered even the emptiest apology, or told me he thought he’d wronged Tamaki, even a little—I would’ve flown into a rage, punched him out, and kept punching him until I’d rearranged his pretty face so thoroughly not even the best surgeons around could put it back together again.

“By the way, getting back to the subject at hand, who did end up getting cast as Juliet in the end?” Sagami asked. It seemed like he either hadn’t picked up on my internal conflict and turmoil at all, or otherwise knew all about it and just didn’t give a crap. “It’s kind of incredible, honestly. Who would’ve thought that all of them would want to play the lead role?”

“Yeah, I was surprised too,” I admitted.

“Everyone’s really giving it their all, aren’t they?”

“No kidding. I never thought any of them were all that into stuff like the cultural festival, so it really came out of left field for me.”

“Oh, no, no, not that. I’m talking about how they— Hmm,” Sagami said, then paused for a moment. “Actually, never mind. That’s not my place to say.”

“What? Are you trying to imply something here?” I asked.

“When am I not trying to imply something?” Sagami replied. He wasn’t wrong, but the fact that he seemed proud of it made it unspeakably insufferable. “So? Who did you choose as your Juliet?” he continued, his gaze full of curiosity. “Who do you want to smooch it up with, Andou?”

“Don’t say it like that, you creeper!” I shouted.

“But I’m just so curious! Who could your favorite be, really? I’m just shivering with anticipation!”

Yeah, I can tell...and it’s annoying as hell. Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll finally snap, start screaming like a madman, and jump out a window. “This isn’t about me having a favorite,” I said. “We were casting a play, not having some sort of popularity contest.”

“But you were the one who made the call, weren’t you?” Sagami countered. “You chose your own Juliet—the girl who would play the role of your lover! That’s barely even a step away from straight up baring your feelings to her, isn’t it?”

“And that’s exactly why it was such an issue,” I sighed.

No matter what I did, somebody would’ve inevitably interpreted it in a romantic sort of light. That meant that I couldn’t just choose someone at random, but I also hadn’t been given the option of not choosing anyone at all.

“Andou. Please,” said Sagami. “Stop dragging this out and tell me already. Who did you choose?”

For a moment, I didn’t reply. I really didn’t want to reply at all, but it was only a matter of time before he found out one way or another, so there wasn’t any point to hiding it. And so, after a few seconds, I irritably grunted, “I picked Chifuyu.”

That’s right. I had chosen Himeki Chifuyu—a fourth grader—to play my Juliet.

“...Oookay. I didn’t see that one coming,” Sagami said, his eyes wide. “I guess I was right, then. You really are a lolicon.”

“No, I am not! And what do you mean, you were right?!”

“It’s fine, really! No need to shower me with excuses. I get it, genuinely. I understand everything. Chifuyu’s just that cute, after all, and when you factor in her being an elementary schooler...why, her market value skyrockets! It’s almost too much!”

“Oh my god, stop! Quit talking about a real-life grade schooler like she’s some sort of commodity! You realize that people like you are exactly why society assumes that all anime geeks are sex offenders, right?!”

“Deep down, there isn’t a man alive who doesn’t love little girls. They might not say it out loud, but the truth is that all of us harbor the secret desire to flirt it up with them. The law, however, says otherwise, so we’re forced to settle on mature women instead.”

“No, that...that’s not how it works. Some people just like older women, period.”

“Those people are just putting on a front. They’re going for the exact opposite of their actual type to hide the fact that, in truth, they like ’em young.”

“Like hell they are!” Agh, I can’t take much more of this! I knew he’d react this way! This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell him in the first place!

“But you know, Andou,” Sagami continued, “it’s pretty hard for me to take your ‘not a lolicon’ claims seriously when you chose Chifuyu out of a lineup like that. It’s not like she’s particularly well suited for the role, is she?”

“I mean, not really, but you know...”

“Well then, what other reason could you have, lusting after her aside?”

“At least say I’m crushing on her, or something!” I snapped, then I added, “I just thought picking her would leave the least hurt feelings, that’s all,” a moment later.

“Hmm,” went Sagami, as if he’d seen through the whole situation thanks to that single comment. “Yeah, fair enough. I have to admit that when faced with the unenviable task of choosing between the four of them without causing any carnage, picking Chifuyu was probably your best bet. After all, she is a grade schooler.” Sagami smiled. “And, of course, this way, you and the three girls who weren’t chosen can just tell yourselves that it would’ve been immature of you to try to seriously compete against her. It’s the perfect excuse.”

I didn’t say a word.

“You get to be the kindhearted young man who decided to grant a little girl’s wish, and the other three get to tell themselves not ‘Andou didn’t pick me,’ but ‘I decided to give the grade schooler her moment in the spotlight’—and so, their pride emerges unscathed. Yes, I see now. You really did find a clever way to muddy the waters this time,” Sagami said, once again acting like he knew it all. He’d always had a way of making it seem like he could see right through people...or, really, he’d always had a way of making unilateral assumptions about people’s motives. The fact that he wasn’t entirely wrong this time just made it all the worse.

The fact that Chifuyu was still a grade schooler really had played a major role in me choosing her. The atmosphere in the room after everyone volunteered to play the heroine had been really weirdly heated, and perhaps as a result, the question had wildly shifted from “Who would make the best Juliet?” to “Who do I, personally, like the best?” It was a downright interrogation, and there was no way I could’ve really chosen someone under circumstances like those. I was at a loss, and in the end, the only solution I could come up with was...to choose Chifuyu, muddy the waters, and slip away from looming disaster.

“That’s a very you solution, Andou,” said Sagami. “You were thinking about everyone’s best interests when you made that choice, not prioritizing one of them above all else. You were just as nice as ever...and just as naive.”

“What? If you have a problem with me, then just come out and say it.”

“Oh, not at all! I just thought, well—it’s not fair, is it?” said Sagami. There wasn’t a trace of bile or sarcasm to his words. He was, as ever, just sharing his impressions with me.

“Not fair?” I repeated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If you don’t understand, then, well, there’s your answer right there,” Sagami pompously replied, dodging my question in the process. That oh-so-perceptive smile on his face was really getting under my skin. Actually, he was just being a plain old obnoxious, pretentious prick.

“Okay, Mister High-and-Mighty,” I said, “What would you have done? Who would you have picked if you’d been in my shoes?”

“Me? I suppose...hmm,” said Sagami. I was more than a little curious what someone like him would do if four girls ended up fighting over him.

“I’d start by dropping a save, I suppose.”

“Friggin’ figures!”

I found myself wishing from the bottom of my heart that Sagami would decide to dive headfirst into the world of video games, shove his head through a computer monitor, and electrocute himself to death in the process.

My conversation with Sagami had reminded me of something: Chifuyu really was an elementary schooler. I mean, okay, it’s not like I’d forgotten the fact that she was a grade schooler in a literal sense! It’s just that it had totally slipped my mind that she wasn’t, in fact, a formal member of our literary club.

This kinda goes without saying, but Chifuyu wasn’t a student at our high school. She was the niece of the literary club’s advisor (who also happened to be my homeroom teacher), Satomi Shiharu, and she had started coming by to hang out with our club as a result. From our perspective, Chifuyu was unmistakably a member of our club, not to mention an irreplaceable friend and a comrade in arms who shared our deepest secret, but our perspectives were very much not reflective of how the rest of the world saw things. On paper, Chifuyu wasn’t part of the literary club at all. That was the plain and simple truth, and was also one thing that our god-tier supernatural powers had no hope of changing.

Of course, that’s not to say we really needed to change it. Chifuyu’s formal status hadn’t caused us any problems up to that point, and none of us had paid it any mind in particular. Now, however, Himeki Chifuyu had been chosen to play the lead role in our play for the cultural festival—well, she had volunteered to play the part, really. How would that go over with the administration? The way I saw it, it seemed plausible that somebody in a position of authority wouldn’t take kindly to an outsider having such a prominent place in a high school festival’s program...

“No, that shouldn’t be an issue at all.”

...but when I posed the question to Kudou, the head of the student council, she replied with an air of casual indifference.

It was the afternoon of the same day that Sagami and I had had our chat. Before I headed to our club room, I’d decided to climb up to the fifth floor and pay the student council room a visit so I could ask if it would be all right for a student from another school—moreover, a student from a local elementary school—to be part of our play’s main cast. We’d already started our preparations for the play, so if she did tell me that it was an issue, it probably would’ve turned into a major pain in the neck, but it still seemed like we’d be better off checking in advance. It also probably would’ve made more sense to check with the head of the cultural festival’s management committee, but since we were already acquainted with Kudou, I figured she’d be a better bet.

“Really?” I asked. “You don’t think anyone would care if we give Chifuyu a leading role?”

“Really. I can’t give you any sort of official approval, but I don’t think anyone would bother turning something like that into a major issue,” Kudou replied. She sounded a little exasperated about having to explain this to me at all. “Plenty of outsiders will be attending the festival anyway. We’ll have parents, kids from the local middle school, and even some grade schoolers. Why would anyone raise a fuss about one of those outsiders getting involved with one of our clubs’—ahem—‘improvisational theater performances’?”

Hmm! Now there’s an idea, actually. If anyone seemed like they were going to complain about Chifuyu’s involvement, we could always claim that our whole performance was improv from the get-go, and that Chifuyu had just happened to join in on that particular day. I could tell that Kudou was the student council president for a very good reason. She was, surprisingly, just as good at bending the rules as she was at preserving them. I was already impressed, but she wasn’t quite done yet.

“Also,” Kudou said, “while it would probably be an issue if the drama club were to bring in a student from another school to star in their play, they’re putting on a full-scale performance in the gymnasium. The literary club, however, is a four-person organization performing a skit in the music room. Even if you bring in an elementary schooler to play another role, nobody, well...”

“Yeah, right,” I sighed. I got what she was trying to say, and the part that she’d left unsaid was honestly kind of depressing.

To put it bluntly: nobody would care one way or the other. It felt like a matter of grave importance to us, but it was our event, and to an outsider, our play probably wouldn’t be worth making a big deal out of no matter what we did.

“So basically, you’re saying you’ll look the other way?” I asked.

“That’s right,” said Kudou. “Like I said, I can’t give you any formal backing or permission, but I don’t see any reason to tell you not to go through with it either. I won’t support you or oppose you. From my perspective as the student council president, the literary club’s performance is a nonissue.”

“Understood. Thanks,” I said. As I turned to leave, though, Kudou spoke up once more.

“However,” she said, “my position aside, I do have a few thoughts to share from my personal perspective.”

“Huh...?”

“For one thing, I believe that it’s only reasonable for a cultural festival’s events to be put on exclusively by students from the school in question. More importantly, however, I believe that in the case of events put on by clubs, it’s only natural to show the eldest students—the third-years—a certain degree of deference.”

I looked up with a start as the meaning of Kudou’s words sank in. Kudou, meanwhile, carried on.

“I’m not saying that you should always give third-years their way just because they’re your seniors, of course. I’m a firm believer in judging one’s club members by virtue of merit, whether in the case of athletics or artistic activities. In your case, however, I think it would have been reasonable to give your resident third-year, Miss Takanashi, the opportunity to play the leading role. Does that seem reasonable to you?”

I didn’t reply, and Kudou shrugged. “Of course, if she didn’t want the role, then that’s an entirely different story.”

The story wasn’t different at all. Sayumi had wanted the role, and she had made her interest clear. I just hadn’t chosen her.

That’s right—it totally slipped my mind. This is going to be Sayumi’s last cultural festival as a high schooler. It’s her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in one of these festivals as a senior student.

Maybe as the younger students in our club—as her juniors—we really should have shown her some degree of deference. Considering how she’d always made bringing our club together her top priority, and the fact that she had proactively asked for the role of Juliet, maybe the right thing for us to have done as her clubmates was to let her be the star. That hadn’t crossed my mind at all, though, and instead...

“I-It’s not that big a deal! Don’t look so sad,” Kudou frantically protested as I sunk into a brooding silence. “Umm, I mean... S-Sorry! I wasn’t trying to call you out, exactly!”

“No...it’s fine. You’re completely right, after all,” I replied.

“Th-That’s not... Look, the way I lectured you just now was sort of in bad faith, if I’m being totally honest. I’m sure you all talked this through and came to a decision together, and it wasn’t my place to second-guess that,” said Kudou. She sounded genuinely sorry for what she’d said. “I just, umm... I’ve been so busy with all this cultural festival stuff lately. Then the other day I saw how much fun all of you literary club people have been having, and I ended up feeling so jealous I couldn’t stop myself from looking for something to hassle you about. I’m sorry, honestly.”

Kudou had shrunk back into her seat as she apologized profusely, and I was so taken aback I didn’t know what to say. She was jealous. I’d never imagined that she could possibly feel that way about us. “I can see you’re all enjoying yourselves to the fullest, as always” was what she’d said when she came to visit us. I understood now that she hadn’t meant it sarcastically after all. She hadn’t been being mean—she’d been being honest, pure and simple.

“Hey, um, Kudou?” I said as a thought struck me. “Have you used your power lately?”

“Huh...?” Kudou blinked. “My power...? No, not at all. Actually, how could I? I can’t use my power on its own—that’s just not how it works.”

She was right. Kudou’s power was purposeless in isolation. She couldn’t use it on her own...which meant that she couldn’t play around with it on her own either.

“Okay, then,” I said. “Since I’m here and all, how about we take the chance to use our powers to the fullest? You know—just like we do in the literary club.”

I turned my gaze inward, asking the deepest reaches of my being: Can I do this?

My heart was full of fear and apprehension. I knew very well that if I were to bring my power to bear, here and now...there was a real chance that I would surpass the limits of my flesh. If I used my power more than a set number of times in a single day...nothing in particular would happen. Furthermore, using an incomplete technique could place a burden on my body too great for me to bear...which didn’t really matter, since this wasn’t one of those.

Still, though, using Dark and Dark here and now would be, well...honestly, considering the current climate, it’d be pretty rough. The student council room’s air conditioner was off, and the prospect of using my power for the first time in quite a while already had me breaking out into a nervous, excited cold sweat. Ugh, no way—I can’t! If I use my power now, I’ll end up soaked to the skin! And I still have to go to our club meeting after this!

Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop. I had to use my power, for Kudou’s sake. Hang in there, O body of mine! The time has come to invoke Dark and Dark...with a full three times your usual intensity!

“I am he...who conquers chaos,” I recited as I held my right arm aloft, the words slipping past my lips like a verse from the world’s most exquisite work of poetry. Those were the keywords that would unlock my power—the malediction that served as its trigger.

Once, when I recited the Malediction in front of Kudou, I was so nervous I completely flubbed the whole thing. Today, I would make up for that mistake! Peel your eyes and bear witness, Kudou! Watch as for the first time in a very, very long while, I recite the Malediction in full!

“O purgatorial flame that sways upon the brink of the Abyss, O twisted blaze of sable darkness, blighted crimson of deepest—”

“Yoink.”

“—niaaugh?!” I yelped as Kudou stole my power halfway through my invocation and I lost my balance, tumbling to the ground in a heap. “N-No, Kudou, no! That was too soon! You jumped the gun! I wasn’t finished reciting my Malediction!” I sputtered.

“Huh? O-Oh, really?” said Kudou. “But...you’re the one who said that I could steal your power, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but you have to time it right! I hadn’t even activated my power yet!”

“No, you definitely had. There were little black wisps coming out of your arm, so I’m sure of it.”

“That’s not... That’s not!” I shouted, unable to come up with a decent objection.

Strictly speaking, she was right. I really had started my power up halfway through the Malediction, out of necessity. My goal had been to make it look like my power was gradually seeping out from within me over the course of my incantation, so I’d just barely put out a tiny quantity of flame early, carefully reining it in so it set the stage but didn’t go overboard. It took a ton of effort, but I’d been planning to keep my flames carefully regulated until I was finished reciting, at which point I would’ve let them explode out in a blaze of blackest night! I guess you could say that I’d been trying to build up the scene’s tension to enhance that final moment of catharsis...but apparently, Kudou wasn’t familiar with the unspoken rules of supernatural battles.

“What exactly is the point of that ‘Malediction,’ anyway?” asked Kudou.

“Heh... Well, to put it simply, you might say it’s the key that allows me to unlock my power’s potential,” I explained. “By reciting its fateful verse, a doorway deep within me is unsealed, allowing me to borrow but a fraction of the dark, monstrous power that slumbers in the depths of my heart. Without reciting the Malediction of Unleashing, I am unable to invoke Dark and Dark’s power.”

“Huh? That’s not true,” said Kudou. “You used it without reciting anything back when we met for the first time.”

“...”

“More precisely, you started to recite something, stumbled over your own words, shouted ‘Malediction canceled,’ then used it.”

Please—if you’re going to call me out like this, at least don’t look so disinterested when you do it. I’m begging you here. “W-Well, an ordinary person would never be able to pull that off,” I said. “I’m the only one out there who could get away with a Maledictionless invocation. It’d be downright impossible for your run-of-the-mill human, but I, having received the baptism of the elder gods themselves, am able to do so without falling victim to the terrible price that awaits those who do away with it carelessly.”

“Oh, really? When I stole your power, I could use it without reciting any sort of—”

“Right! Yes! Exactly! That’s what makes you so incredible, Kudou! What are you?! What sort of peerless being am I in the presence of?! I’ve gotta say, I’m so proud to go to a school that has someone like you as its student council president!” I babbled. I’m not really sure how to put this, but it sorta felt like the longer I kept talking, the more I was tightening a noose around my own neck. I can’t deal with this! People who take everything you throw at them totally seriously are impossible, I swear!

“Hmm,” said Kudou. “I can’t say I’m following all of this...but if it’s possible for you to use your power without reciting anything, then why bother at all?”

“Right. Yeah. Good point,” I said. She was just acting so normal about all this that I couldn’t muster up the willpower to object.

Anyway, I decided to take a moment to collect myself then start the whole thing over. I had Kudou give me my power back, then held my arm aloft once more.

“Dark and Dark!”

With those exultant words, my right arm was wreathed in a cloak of black flame! Darker than the dead of night, blazing more furiously than primordial chaos itself, my flames flickered in the air as if dancing in anticipation of the world’s end. Hella cool. My Dark and Dark is, and will forever be, hella cool!

Hella cool indeed, but...also, well...muggy. It would’ve been one thing if it were a dry heat, but the fact that it was more of a tepid, lukewarm sort of deal made it almost exquisitely uncomfortable. I was starting to suspect that my black flames were less a sign of the world’s end, and more a sign of the hot, humid, thoroughly unpleasant Japanese summer. That said, I couldn’t let that discomfort show in front of Kudou, so I endured the sweat dripping from every pore of my body and waited for her to steal my power away from me!

“...”

“...”

“...”

“So, can I steal it now?”

“Ah... Yeah. Go ahead.”

Oh my god, I can’t even with this! First she jumps the gun and ruins everything, and now she takes way too long to go for it?! Kudou, please, you’re killing me! Don’t ask for permission! Just take it, and make it look cool!

“Okay then. Here goes,” said Kudou.

“Agh!” I grunted. “N-No! Dooon’t!”

“Huh? What, should I stop?”

“No, no, no! You just don’t get it, Kudou... It’s okay—you can keep going!”

“But you literally just said stop, didn’t you?”

“That was...just an act, I guess you could say? Like, if I don’t at least make it look like I’m putting up a fight, the whole thing’ll look super lame. It’d feel like I was disrespecting Dark and Dark too... Oh, and while we’re at it, it’d be really nice if you, like, said something when you steal it? Like, it’d mean a lot to me if you shouted your power’s name the moment you—”

“Oh, for the— Can we please just get this over with?!” Kudou shouted. She’d finally snapped, and she invoked Grateful Robber without bothering to fulfill a single one of my requests. Just like that, my black flames leaped from my right arm to hers.

“Hmm. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this black fire of yours,” Kudou said as she gazed at the flames that flickered away on her arm. “I think the last time I stole your power was, what, six months ago...? And, that’s about all I have to say on the matter.”

“Whaaat?! Come on!” I whined. “You’ve gotta have something else to say about it!”

“I really don’t. Nothing’s coming to mind at all.”

“Try harder!”

“Okay, umm... Your power...wait, what was it called again?”

“Mwa ha ha... An important question indeed! I have the strangest feeling I’ve said it repeatedly throughout this exchange, but very well—I shall say it once more. The name of my accursed power is none other than...Dark and Dark!”

“Dark and Dark...? That’s... How should I put it...? Gibberish. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. What on earth were you trying to say when you named it that, Andou?”

I took a deep breath. “Sorry, but please. Just... Just stop asking me these questions. Accept that it’s just one of those things and let it slide, that’s all I ask.”

While I gave the most earnest apology I could muster, something strange happened to Kudou, who had yet to snuff out Dark and Dark: beads of sweat began to drip down her forehead and cheeks.

“S-So, Andou,” she said. “Th-This is actually quite hot... Well, make that sort of hot. It’s unpleasant in a way I can’t quite put my finger on... U-Ugh, and it’s getting grosser by the second... Why is this so irritating?”

“Okay, another request: please don’t say that my power’s gross, or irritating, or whatever. That actually really hurts.”

“I don’t remember it being this bad the last time I used it...”

“It’s a seasonal thing, yeah,” I said, thoroughly dejected. At that point, though...

“Heh... Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!”

...Kudou broke out into a fit of laughter.

“Aha ha ha ha ha ha! Honestly...your power’s just so worthless! It’s not even close to hot enough to use as a weapon, but it is hot enough to make the person using it uncomfortable? How is it even possible for a power to be that stupid?”

“P-Please stop laughing,” I moaned, but Kudou just kept at it, cackling hysterically like my power was the funniest joke in the world.

Kudou returned Dark and Dark to me and I left the student council room, only to find Sayumi standing right outside.

“Good day to you, Andou,” she said.

“Sayumi! What’re you doing here?” I asked.

“I’m here for the same reason you are, presumably: to report to Miss Kudou regarding Chifuyu’s involvement in our play...and to check up on her, while I was at it.”

A moment of silence passed, and Sayumi shrugged. “Of course, I gather you’ve beaten me to the punch on both counts,” she added. “It seems to me that you’ve given her the perfect opportunity to take her mind off her work.”

“That wasn’t really what I was going for,” I said. “I just thought it’d be fun to do some Dark and Dark NTR role-playing again, that’s all.”

“Ever the modest one,” Sayumi said with a snicker, then she glanced at the student council room’s door. “Organizing this cultural festival will be Kudou’s final duty as the president of the student council. I imagine that’s why she’s applied herself to the task so thoroughly...and I must say, I was a little worried about her.”

Once the cultural festival comes to a close, the third-year members of the student council would be stepping down from their positions. Come October, an election would be held to determine their replacements. In other words, the festival represented the conclusion to Kudou’s yearlong stint as the council’s president. It wasn’t hard to imagine why she’d throw herself into the job considering that. This was her last festival—her last year in high school—and she wanted to make the most of it.

“Umm...Sayumi?” I said. We’d been walking toward our clubroom, but now, I stopped in my tracks. “Did you want to play Juliet?”

“Well...that was abrupt. Where is this coming from?” Sayumi replied.

“I, umm, well...”

“I suppose Kudou said something to you?” she added. The look in her eyes was so piercing that I found myself at a loss for a reply. After a moment, though, Sayumi let out a quick sigh and smiled once more. “I realize now that I put you in a difficult position yesterday, and I apologize for that. I’m afraid I let my competitive side get the better of me.”

“...”

“I understand perfectly well that choosing Chifuyu was an act of kindness on your part. Please, don’t worry about it.”

“Sayumi...”

“Moreover, truth be told, I wasn’t especially attached to playing Juliet in the first place,” Sayumi added. “I just...”

“Just what?”

“...Never mind.” Sayumi said, her smile growing a touch strained. She turned to look me square in the eye. “Let’s strive to make this cultural festival one to remember. I’m very excited to see how you’ll portray Romeo on the stage.”

Sayumi’s smile carried a sense of graceful maturity, and the sight of her standing there, backlit by the setting sun, was as picturesque as could be.