Kimi to Boku no Saigo no Senjo, Aruiha Sekai ga Hajimaru Seisen - Volume 11 - Chapter 4.1

MEMORY ILLUMINATION 3

As Life Audibly Crumbled Apart

1

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…What…was I doing again?

He opened his eyes.

He couldn’t recall dreaming. He hadn’t even remembered the moment he had closed his eyes as he looked up at a ceiling and realized he was on his back.

“…I……ouch!”

The moment he tried to rise from the pristine white sheets, he felt an acute pain from the back of his head.

He must have fallen backward and hit his head.

But if that were the case, when had that happened? And why?

“How are you feeling?” A nurse clad in white peeked in from the hallway.

“I’m glad. We thought you would wake soon,” she continued. “I’ll call the doctor. I think he’ll probably examine you.”

“…”

He realized he was at a hospital, and that he was being treated as a patient. Although his brain was hazy, he still had been able to understand.

“Can you remember your name?”

“…Crossweil Gate Nebulis,” he answered.

“And what happened before you lost consciousness? Do you remember the explosion?”

An explosion? What explosion? Did it have anything to do with what he was doing here?

…I live in that junk house…

…I live there with my sisters. No, that wasn’t it.

That wasn’t the reason why he had fallen. He recalled he had left the house in the morning. He felt as though he’d headed to work as usual with his sisters.

…Wait, I didn’t. We had the day off.

…Because we got to the goal, to five thousand meters.

All of the miners had been gathered by the opening.

“Oh!”

He remembered. He recalled the explosion.

“That’s right! I was at…the Festival of Spiritualism! We were watching the moment when the astral power was being dug up, when the new energy was discovered. But then…”

Light had burst through. And that was all he remembered seeing. The colorful lights he had seen erupting from below the planet’s surface had surged into the air like a geyser. The second he’d realized that, the light had also swallowed him.

“…I think I lost consciousness right after I got hit by that blast of light…”

“That is exactly right,” the nurse slowly nodded. “Many people fainted from the blast. When we heard the news that hundreds of people lost consciousness all at once, we rushed over, but…luckily we found the cause was from momentary shock. It was just a bright light and a loud sound that caused it.”

“So no one’s…” Crossweil started to ask.

“The Imperial assembly announced to the rest of the world that they don’t believe anyone will lose their life from this.”

“…”

“Don’t worry. The hospital agrees with the assessment, too.”

She pointed around the room. There were three empty beds. It seemed he was the only one in the four-person room.

“The other three have already woken up and left,” she told him.

“Has everyone left the hospital? Am I the last one…?”

“Yes. You’ve been here four days, Mr. Crossweil.” She gave him a small smile. “Fifty-three people were brought to this hospital. Most of them woke the next day and were given a clean bill of health before leaving.”

“…Um, do you happen to know where my sisters are?”

“What are their names?”

“Eve and Alicerose. They both have the last name Nebulis, like me.”

“They’ve already been released,” she said. Her reply was so quick, it was almost anticlimactic. She likely had been expecting him to ask about the others as soon as he woke, so she must have already looked into it ahead of time.

“…I’m glad,” he said. “Just hearing that makes me feel so much better.”

Deep within him, he wanted to ask what had happened to the Crown Prince as well, but stopped himself from asking.

…He wouldn’t have been admitted to the same hospital anyway.

…And if I’m not careful about what I say, I might create trouble for him.

He was likely fine, too.

If anything had happened to the Lord or Crown Prince, there would have been a huge commotion. The patients likely wouldn’t have been immediately discharged, either.

So he was glad.

It was nearly a miracle how no one had been victim to such a large explosion.

“May I ask a question?” he inquired. “Was the light we got showered in the new energy from the excavation site?”

“The Imperial assembly has announced it was, yes. They say that humanity has obtained a wonderful new resource.”

“…Even though there was an accident?”

“Despite the explosion, there were no causalities. The reports say astral power is harmless to humans, which is great news.”

“…I suppose so.”

He couldn’t argue with how she put it.

The light from the explosion.

Had that been fire or a heat wave with the same scope of impact, thousands would have become victim to the explosion. But no one had lost their lives. The intense light had simply showered them, and despite knocking them temporarily unconscious, it hadn’t left a single wound on their bodies.

Astral power was harmless energy. That was likely better than the Empire could have ever imagined. The unprecedented accident had become a sort of advertisement for the other nations.

“I see,” Crossweil said. “If my sisters have already been discharged, I guess I can leave without worrying too much about it.”

“Just to warn you, you’ll still need a thorough checkup before you can do that. You did hit your head when you fell, after all.”

“Oh, right. I can still feel a bump on my head.”

It still throbbed as well. He touched the back of his head automatically and brought his hand down to the back of his neck.

“Uh?”

Something felt off.

It didn’t hurt or feel as if anything was there. But instinctively, he simply felt as though something was different.

“Um…do you have a mirror? Even a small handheld one.”

He borrowed one used for examinations and checked the back of his neck. Something unfamiliar was there. At first glance, it looked like a birthmark. It was dark purple and spiral-shaped. Was it a bruise from when he had hit his head? Yet it was a very specific purple hue, and had a very specific shape.

…What is this?

…Did I injure this part when I fell?

It didn’t hurt when he touched it.

“Oh?” The nurse peered at his neck and her eyes widened. “Looks like you have one too.”

“……Huh?”

“Of the fifty-three brought in, about ten-odd people had a mark from where they hit themselves falling over. The Imperial assembly said they were forming a medical team to look into whether it has anything to do with the explosion. Do you feel any other symptoms around your bruise?”

“…No, not at all. Actually, my head hurts more.”

It was a bruise? Were bruises ever this clear and distinct? And other people also had similar marks. Since there had to have been close to a thousand people caught in the blast, he wondered what had happened to the patients at other hospitals.

“You’re not going to hold me until the mark goes away, are you…?” he asked.

“As long as your checkup looks fine, we’ll schedule a follow-up, then you can go. Do you have any other questions?”

“…I don’t.”

“Then I’ll head out. If anything happens, just let me know.”

The nurse left, and he was alone in the four-person room.

“…What is this thing?”

He checked the mark on his neck again. Crossweil could think of only one reason for how he had developed it, and it was most likely due to the light of the astral power that had bathed him following the explosion.

…There’s no way.

…The Imperial assembly officially announced astral power is harmless.

He felt slightly anxious.

He spent the rest of the evening with a nagging feeling in a corner of his mind, one that simply would not leave him.

The next day, after Crossweil finished his medical exam, he was allowed to leave without issue.

“Congrats on being discharged, Crow!”

“Took you long enough. You spent five whole days sleeping in the hospital, huh?”

It was the first time he was home in five days.

Crossweil was greeted by his sisters with the sweetest smile in the world and the most sardonic smirk ever.

“…You two are just way too different.”

He had missed this.

Coming back to his normal life gave him relief.

“Looks like you both were discharged way before me,” he said.

“Yes. I was discharged two days before you. Apparently Eve woke up the same day as the blast and was walking around the hospital like nothing happened.”

“That was quick!”

“…Heh,” Eve gloated. “Unlike you, I’m not scrawny.”

She sat cross-legged on the ground as she crossed her arms pridefully.

“It was a huge ordeal for me. Since I was one of the victims of the blast, I was surrounded by cameras the moment I left. They were making a whole commotion and prying about the light that showered us, and how I was feeling and stuff.”

“Everyone must have rushed to you because you were the first one to wake up.” Alicerose chuckled quietly.

When Crossweil looked at her kind eyes, he realized that they were bloodshot.

“Alice, your eyes look irritated,” he said.

“Oh, you mean this? …Yeah, I haven’t slept well for the last three days.” She held her hands up to her eyes and laughed bashfully. “But it’s not a big deal. You’re so sweet, Crow, thank you for worrying about me. I’m sure I’ll feel better soon enough.”

“…You haven’t been sleeping?”

“I just haven’t been able to fall asleep. It’s been so hot the last few days.”

She turned her eyes away. He didn’t press her about it any further. He couldn’t when his kind sister was acting like that.

“Hey, Crow, so I bet you wanna get a look at my eyes too, huh,” Eve said.

“…Uh, well, if Alice isn’t feeling sleepy, then I just would assume you’re fine too, Eve. You really do seem okay, actually.”

“…”

Eve widened her eyes as she stared at him seriously. For a moment, she just blinked, as though she wasn’t sure he’d actually addressed her.

“What gives you the right to be so cheeky, Crow?!”

“Ouch?!”

She had punched him.

For some reason, she’d hit him even though he’d been worried about how his sisters were doing.

“I’m saying you should worry more about yourself than me,” Eve said. “Sheesh. Unlike you and Alice, I’m not frail. Never even caught a cold.”

Hmph, Eve sighed as she crossed her arms again.

“It’s almost time for the sale at the supermarket. I’ll go so you and Alice wait here at home.”

“Oh, Eve, in that case, let me—” Alicerose tried to volunteer herself.

“I’ll be fine going alone,” she didn’t even let her sister finish her sentence. “All right? If you really haven’t been sleeping, then you should rest. Same goes for you, Crow. What’ll we do if you two overdo it and faint again right after getting out of the hospital?”

“…”

“…”

As Eve said that, Crossweil and Alicerose turned to look at one another.

“Hm? What’s up? Why’re you acting like that?”

“Nah, no reason,” Crossweil responded.

“I really love how you act like such a little kid sometimes, Eve,” Alice said.

“Wh-who are you calling a little kid?! I obviously act like the older sister! Alice, stop grinning like that! …Ugh, who cares!”

Eve rushed out of the house, her face bright red. Both Crossweil and Alicerose watched her adorable retreating back. Yes, despite the explosion of light, they would continue living their lives as usual.

Crossweil never so much as doubted that.

For the time being.