Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? - Volume 29 - Chapter 5

The Being of the Beginning and the End

Tuesday, April 5th

Meeting this world’s Shiori had given Koutarou hope. More specifically, it was his own words in this world that had helped him remember his wish with the invaders. They believed in him and they were waiting for him. He couldn’t just give up, because that would mean abandoning them and their future together.

“I thought so...”

After leaving Shiori, Koutarou headed straight for the dig site where he worked part-time. But as he stood there catching his breath at the top of the hill, all he could see was an undisturbed field. There were none of his colleagues, their equipment, or even the prefab huts they used anywhere in sight. It was about what he’d expected. After all, there weren’t any ruins here in this world.

“But there has to be something here...”

Undeterred, Koutarou walked forward with resolute steps. Worksite or empty field, Koutarou had hit his head here in two different timelines. Thinking back on it, that was what had triggered him being able to see Sanae. There had to be something to it. Koutarou was convinced of that.

“And then there’s this feeling...”

Something had been tugging at Koutarou’s sixth sense ever since he set foot in the field. He didn’t know what or where it was coming from. It was so vague that he really had to focus on it to feel anything. But that sensation only strengthened his conviction.

“Let’s see, the area I was in charge of back then was...”

Recalling what he could from two years ago, Koutarou slowly walked forward. If there was something here, it made sense that it would be around the area where he’d been working, but not actually inside of it. It would’ve had to have been somewhere that wasn’t uncovered yet at the time.

“Then there’s the baseball thing... Did I get hit by the ball? Or did it roll into the bushes or something?”

According to what Shiori said, he’d been playing baseball with his friends when it happened. But since Shiori hadn’t been there personally, she didn’t know all the details. Koutarou would have to fill in the blanks for himself.

There were several conceivable ways he’d hit his head. He could’ve been hit by a stray ball, or slid into something while trying to catch one. But Koutarou thought the most likely possibility was that he’d chased one into the bushes. It was fairly common to trip on things underfoot when looking up into the sky to try to catch a ball.

“Which means... it would’ve been around here?”

Scanning the area, Koutarou made note of all the undergrowth and such that would have been near his worksite. If he and his friends were playing baseball here, they’d need a pretty wide area for it. They’d need space enough to position their team correctly, particularly the infielders, pitcher, and catcher. Koutarou looked around and thought about how he’d lay the diamond out, then thought about which positions would have been closest to his work area. As he did, he realized that there was a grove of trees he’d spotted earlier that was basically where bleachers would be off of first base. He could easily imagine himself in charge of first base or right field and running towards the grove after a ball.

“So past this...”

Koutarou walked over to the grove and stared into it. It was still plenty light outside, but the grove was overgrown enough that it was hard to keep track of his footing. The trees and shrubbery were also just dense enough that it was hard to see anything up ahead. But the longer he stood there, the stronger the feeling got. There was definitely something in there.

Whoosh!

“The swords?!”

As if to confirm his theory, his two swords, Saguratin and Signaltin, appeared before him. He hadn’t called for them. They had appeared completely on their own.

“...So I’ll need the swords, huh?”

It was bizarre. Without the girls, Koutarou never would have gone to Forthorthe... meaning he shouldn’t have either sword in his possession. Yet here they were. Full of questions, Koutarou grabbed hold of both blades. Though he didn’t know what, he was sure that the swords coming to him on their own meant something.

“Koutarou...”

The moment he grasped the swords, he could hear someone’s voice in his head. It was a memory of someone calling his name in the past.

“That’s right! I remember hearing someone’s voice here!”

With that, Koutarou recovered part of his lost memories. Two years ago to the day, he’d heard a strange voice call to him while he was working and come to this grove to investigate.

“Koutarou...”

As he replayed what he remembered of that day in his head, he heard the voice again. But this time it wasn’t a memory.

“This way...”

“It’s the same as that day... I heard this voice and entered the grove...”

Reliving his memories, Koutarou stepped into the grove. It was so densely overgrown that it made it hard to see ahead. Back then, he’d been convinced that it was Kenji trying to play a prank on him. And in this world, he was sure he wouldn’t have hesitated to chase a ball in here.

“Then... I fell into this hole!”

Eventually, Koutarou stumbled across a hole just big enough for a person to fit through largely disguised by the underbrush. This was where he’d fallen and hit his head.

It being his second time here, Koutarou was more cautious. Rather than falling, he carefully descended down the hole. It was dark inside, but he could see well enough thanks to the glow of his swords. It didn’t take long to reach the bottom, which, unlike the small shaft down, was wonderfully illuminated.

“What is this?!”

Koutarou found himself in a room that stretched ten meters in every direction with a floor and walls of elaborate stonework. Standing in the middle of it all were nine pillars forming a circle. Each one was about as tall as a person and had a differently colored glowing sphere atop it. There were all seven shades of the rainbow, plus white and black. When they mixed together, they produced a warm light like the sun.

“There’s someone here?!”

In the center of the circle formed by the pillars was a single stand. It too was made of stone, and its surface had been artfully shaved down to perfection. On top of it stood a lone girl with a mysterious appearance. She had long hair shimmering in all nine colors of reflected light. Her unique outfit looked like a shrine maiden’s, but had a much older feel to it. When Koutarou looked at her closely, he could see that her feet weren’t even touching the pedestal. She was just barely floating above it. But what stood out the most about her was her eyes. They were profoundly clear and beautiful. Looking into them was like peering into a pristine lake. And those beautiful eyes were staring right at Koutarou.

This is strange... What is this feeling?

Koutarou was confused, but there was no sense of alarm or unease. He felt no fear or apprehension about the mysterious girl in front of him. Quite the opposite. She felt familiar to him. Like she was someone he knew well.

I’ve never met her before... No, I met her once in Folsaria, but she had four colors back then... Just who is this girl?

Koutarou remembered one previous encounter with this girl, but he’d only seen her. They hadn’t properly met, much less talked. There should be no reason that he felt this way about her.

Shing!

“The swords?!”

While Koutarou was puzzling over her identity, his two swords left their sheaths and floated up into the air before him on their own. From there, they morphed into one and began glowing many colors. It was Nalfalaren, whose blade shone like the girl before him.

“Koutarou, I’ve always been waiting for you...”

As if she’d been waiting for the swords to become one, the girl started speaking. He recognized her voice. He’d heard it before he’d come down here, and he’d heard it under the same circumstances two years prior. But hearing it again now, he felt like he knew it from somewhere else, too. It felt like the voice of an old friend, but that couldn’t be right. He had no memory of ever speaking with her. Something didn’t add up.

“Just what are you...”

Unafraid, Koutarou slowly stepped closer to the girl. His heart told him that she posed no danger, though that puzzled him all the more.

“Infinite yous exist in the infinite expanse of infinite time and the infinite universe, but you right here are the first to return with all nine colors residing in this sword.”

As Koutarou approached, the girl stepped down from the pedestal and faced him. She was shorter than he was, but since she was floating ever so slightly, they stood roughly eye to eye.

“Who are you? What are you talking about?”

Koutarou’s confusion only grew as they exchanged looks. He felt like he knew those eyes and what lay on the other side of them.

“The first wish has come true. Two more remain.”

But instead of answering him, she merely said things that bemused him further still.

“Ah...”

However, that kicked it all off. His missing memories from two years ago came flooding back to him at a frightening pace, like water from a burst dam.

Two years ago, Koutarou had fallen into the same hole and met the same girl he stood before now. The experience was largely the same, the only difference being that he was on his guard the first time since it was all unfamiliar to him.

“What are you...”

“I am looking for that answer myself.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve always been waiting. For you to come to me...”

What she’d said was so abstract that Koutarou couldn’t make sense of it. Back then, he’d still had a high wall built around his heart. He had no expectation of making a lasting connection with a passing acquaintance, so he didn’t particularly care whether he understood what was going on with her or not. But she’d said something that grabbed his interest. She’d said she was waiting for him.

“You were waiting for me...? What do you mean?”

“You have infinite potential. You are the only hope that might free me from my omniscience and omnipotence. A singularity in probability.”

“I don’t really follow... Can you repeat that in a way I can understand?”

Her words baffled him, so she omitted most of the explanation and only told him what he needed to know. Since she couldn’t tell him everything, that would be the only way to make it work.

“I will grant you three wishes. Three and only three, but for anything.”

“You’ll grant me... wishes?”

“Yes.”

“Any wish...? You really mean anything at all?”

“Yes.”

That only fanned the flames of his confusion. There was no way he could just believe a claim like that. Even if she was serious, he figured that she was only speaking metaphorically. He thought that she just meant she’d do her best to make his wishes come true.

“All right, then, for starters... I want to have a fun high school life full of ups and downs. But since I’ll have university entrance exams as a third-year, I guess that should only continue until the end of my second year... How about that?”

And so Koutarou casually made his first wish. It was a harmless wish—one he wouldn’t be heartbroken over if it didn’t come true. He had no idea why this girl was making him such an offer, but he didn’t think that was too unrealistic a request. After all, if he made a friend here, then his high school life would have already taken a turn for the better.

“I understand. Then—”

And as a result, Koutarou did indeed lead a fun high school life full of ups and downs for two years.

Fully regaining his memories, Koutarou was shaken. He now remembered what he’d wished for and what had happened afterward, but even then, it was difficult to accept. This was truly earth-shattering.

“J-Just wait a minute! Does that mean that you sent them to me?!”

“Yes. You should have had a fun high school life full of ups and downs, just like you wished for,” the girl replied with a firm nod.

By “them,” Koutarou meant the invaders. And by agreeing, the girl was acknowledging she’d sent them to room 106. Koutarou met the invaders and fought with them, then slowly came to understand and feel for them. They’d held hands through thick and thin, the extreme and the everyday... all because he’d wished for it.

“Then why?! If you did all of that, why did you suddenly stop?!”

Koutarou assumed that if she had been the one to send the girls, she must have been the one to take them away. And he didn’t understand why. Both he and the girls had suffered terribly for it. She could have just left them be.

“Your wish was for two years. Since the designated time has passed, I returned everything to normal.”

The reason she had erased the girls was simple. It was because Koutarou’s wish had been fulfilled. Two years ago, Koutarou had figured he’d need to buckle down and study for his last year of high school. That’s why he’d only wished for two years of fun. And as such, his wish had now expired. In a way, it could all be chalked up to that wall around Koutarou’s heart. For you see, in the past, lasting bonds and friendships hadn’t been included in his wish for a fun high school life. He’d never dreamed to ask for that. But the past two years had changed his frame of mind, making it a problem now.

“So that’s what it was...”

That was the truth behind the overlapping probabilities that Kiriha had pointed out. It was hard to believe, but her predictions and everything that had happened backed up what this girl was claiming. Koutarou couldn’t find a single way to refute it.

“...I have two wishes left, right?”

“Yes. Two and only two.”

Only one problem remained, and that was what to do from here. Koutarou had had two fun-filled years, so he now should focus on studying like he’d planned. Or he could just wish for success on his exams. He could even wish for another exciting year. If he put a time limit on it, things could easily return to normal just like they had this time. There were infinite possibilities.

“Then... give them back to me.”

But all Koutarou wanted was for the missing girls to be returned to him. He never considered wishing for anything else, and he had no second thoughts.

“By ‘them,’ you mean all nine?”

“That’s right. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.”

In the past, Koutarou and Clan had clashed over a dilemma regarding their timeslip. They only had so much time, and thusly had been forced to choose who to save and who not to save on their way back to their normal lives. They’d come to the conclusion that the best thing to do was not to seek out those who needed to be saved, but to limit their interference to helping those in front of them. That was the rule they’d decided on about how to handle their finite lives.

And Koutarou applied that same way of thinking now. If he could truly have any wish granted to him, that was a power far greater than even time travel. But he limited himself to correcting the situation he was currently in. He didn’t want to play god. He just wanted his life back.

“If those girls are returned without a time limit put in place, the world you inhabited with them will be permanently established as your reality. You won’t be able to return to the normal life that you wanted in the past.”

With the girls around, Koutarou’s world would open up in unbelievable, irrevocable ways. It would change his life forever, meaning he could never go back to being just a normal high school student.

“I don’t mind. Please do it.”

“...Why do you feel that way?”

“It’s not like I have a particular reason. It’s just that I need all of them in my life. Before I knew it, they were my normal life.”

The sun rose in the morning and set in the evening. Rain clouds made rainbows. There didn’t need to be an explanation for it, it was just the way the world worked. And for Koutarou... part of his world was the invaders. It didn’t altogether matter why; it was simply how things had come to be.

“The same goes for them... and the people around them! This is what we all wished for!”

Koutarou remembered the little girl who was grieving Kiriha’s loss even though she couldn’t remember her. She felt like she was missing something, and it upset her terribly. That was probably happening for all the other girls’ friends and families too. Sanae’s parents, Harumi’s classmates, Yurika’s cosclub friends... The list went on. Koutarou had to return the sun and rainbows to their proper places for their sakes too. Even if the start of everything had been nothing more than a whim, it was all too real now.

“Ah, over the passage of endless days and nights, through the crossing of immeasurable distance... Just how many times have I dreamed of this moment in these infinite yet closed worlds?”

Strangely enough, upon hearing Koutarou’s wish, the girl began to cry. Tears streaked down her cheeks without end, catching the nine colorful lights shining in the room as they tumbled towards the floor.

“Why are you crying? Are you sad?”

Koutarou didn’t understand why the girl before him was crying. His wish shouldn’t have been anything that upset her, yet there were tears coming from her eyes. Koutarou couldn’t help finding it mysterious.

“No, I’m crying because I’m happy. I’m happy that you desire the girls and made that wish.”

As the girl shook her head, glittering tears scattered from her eyes. She tried to wipe her eyes, but no matter how many times she did, the tears just kept coming. In the end, she gave up on wiping away her tears and smiled. Her cheeks were still wet from crying, but her smile was indeed a joyful one.

“I was always waiting for that... You’ve finally wished for it, Koutarou...”

As she smiled, her body turned semi-transparent. For a moment, Koutarou thought that she would disappear as well, but he soon realized that was a misunderstanding.

“Hey, Koutarou! Were you lonely? I was! Hurry up and comfort me already!”

“You finally said it clearly. Just how long were you going to take to say something so simple? Jeez...”

“Your Highness, please don’t blame Master. As a man, I’m sure this is more difficult for him than we can imagine.”

“Well, I’ll praise you for honestly saying it instead of being stubborn, Veltlion.”

“M-Maki-chan, you should say something to Koutarou instead of crying.”

“But... But Satomi-kun just... Hic... I’m just so happy...”

“Oh? You seem awfully composed, Sakuraba-senpai. Since you were the last one, did you do something bold like give him a goodbye kiss?”

“I did not! I definitely didn’t kiss him! Are you even listening to me, Kasagi-san?!”

As the girl in the middle turned semi-transparent, a figure appeared from each of the nine pillars around her. It was all nine of the invaders, equally transparent. By the look of things, it almost seemed to Koutarou like the girl in the middle was giving them life.

“E-Everyone, you’re okay?!”