After the bus arrived, the people abducted by the Kaisei kyou were headed outside the city.
However, they were all citizens of Hikarinomiya.
It was nothing more than a desperate measure until safety within the city could be secured.
Securing accommodations and the like seemed to have been left to Hiyami san's group companies, but it appeared they hadn't found rooms for everyone just yet.
Though, it was meaningless for Erika and the others left behind to worry about that.
Because if the people with the power to fight crushed the Kaisei kyou as quickly as possible, all problems would be solved.
Also, separate from the bus transporting the people, Ruka had sent a microbus to the front of the facility.
Ruka herself was also riding in it.
Getting out of the car and showing herself before Erika and the others, she first surveyed the surrounding scenery.
"Splendidly in the middle of a forest, and city-owned land to boot. No wonder nobody noticed."
"Plus it's underground. Don't you think it's an incredible amount of preparation?"
Erika said, pouting her lips.
In the underground of their hometown, such a massive facility—and one for killing people, at that—had quietly existed.
It wasn't that she had a deep attachment to Hikarinomiya, but she felt like voicing at least one complaint.
"It must have been used for dirty things to that extent. Let's leave the later investigation to the police or the Self-Defense Forces."
"You called the police too?!"
Kiori was on guard.
But Ruka shook her head in denial.
"Even though it was my arbitrary decision, I'm moving that many buses; they'd notice whether they liked it or not."
"Plus, you are the daughter of the Hiyami Group. Your parents seem to be missing, and you're drawing attention."
Before Ruka and the others arrived, Yoshino had heard to some extent about the current situation in Hikarinomiya from Kiori and the others.
Of course, that included the current state of the Hiyami Group.
"I'm also one of the survivors, and even now I've rushed out of the hospital without permission. Maybe the media sniffed it out first."
"We almost got surrounded at the school too, but dealing with that number of reporters seems like a pain... Ah, I'm not talking about you, Kiori san?"
"You don't need to be considerate, Erika chan. It's a fact that national newspaper reporters are a pain."
Perhaps holding a grudge over being insulted, Kiori agreed with Erika.
"Well, I'm sure there's a lot to catch up on, but won't you wait until we get in the car? If we don't return to the hospital quickly, the uproar will only get bigger."
Prompted by Ruka, everyone boarded the bus.
Sitting together with people they each had relationships with, they departed for the hospital.
Perhaps because they could finally sit on soft chairs and relax, everyone's expressions loosened.
"Right now, even the swaying of the car feels nostalgic... even though it's my first time riding this bus."
Erika muttered deeply while watching the passing scenery outside.
Beside her, Gii, clinging to her, tilted her head.
"Nostalgic?"
"Doesn't Inuzuka san feel the same thing?"
"I don't know because there's no reaction anymore."
"She's basically dead, isn't she?"
"If I want to use her, I'll stimulate her and wake her up again. But—certainly, I feel like the body remembers this swaying."
"Nanase san's side?"
"Maybe."
"...Once the situation settles down, want to try going to see Nanase san's parents?"
"That, I don't know."
Gii's expression clouded.
She spoke while looking down slightly.
"I don't have the concept of family inside me. So, the person I can call that right now is—only Erika, I think."
"Family, huh... I've also lived a life far removed from family, so I'm happy to have Gii say that to me."
"Marin?"
"We just recently finally reconciled, so as a family member, Gii might be the older sister."
"I am, an older sister... Gishishi."
"Hehe."
When the two laughed together, the air enveloping them became somewhat lighter.
"That being the reason—pretending to be Inuzuka Supika in front of her family, or meeting Nanase Asami's family, is not something I myself desire."
"That makes sense."
"But, I do feel murky. To cleanly settle accounts and organize things, I think maybe I should meet them."
"Since Nanase san is already dead, I think just talking about the circumstances of her death would be enough, but the problem is Inuzuka san's side, right?"
"Inuzuka lives with her family."
"Right, that."
"BUT, her home environment is not good, even as a compliment."
"Is that so?"
"The father rarely comes home. The mother is irritated with the daughter who doesn't come home."
"Inuzuka san, she was playing around all the time, wasn't she."
"SO, leaving is easy. I just have to say I'm leaving the house."
In short, she was saying she would cut ties with her family and live together with Erika.
Erika also intended to take responsibility.
Therefore, she replied with a smile.
"Then I guess I'll have you do that. I'm planning to leave that house anyway."
"Living Together?!"
Gii leaned forward, bringing her face close to Erika's.
"That depends on Yumemi chan."
"Yumemi... I see, her parents are Kaisei kyou believers."
"Rea has her father, so I doubt we'd go as far as living together. But Yumemi chan is..."
"Will you persuade her so she can leave the house?"
"I do want to do what I can. But, you know, speaking plainly, Yumemi chan was deceived by her parents."
"Erika will punch the parents?"
"...Even if I don't punch them, Yumemi chan might."
Gii looked at Erika with a blank expression.
Judging from her appearance, Yumemi had the aura of a truly frail girl—but apparently, her inside wasn't like that.
"I still don't understand what kind of person Yumemi is."
"Just the fact that she became friends with me when I was being bullied makes her quite the eccentric."
Even though Yumemi herself supposedly didn't have a bad relationship with her family, she had gone along with Erika's suggestion to run away together.
If Ooki and the others hadn't stopped them with violent means, the elopement would have been successful.
Gii groaned "Hmm" at the discrepancy with the image she held from her appearance, and Erika laughed seeing that.
Then, Shimakawa Ryo came beside her and patted her shoulder.
"Ah, Shimakawa kun's father."
"Sorry to interrupt the conversation. I wanted to thank you again."
"If that's the case, I said Shimakawa kun, who called for help, is the greatest, right?"
"Even so, I can't not say it. Besides, you didn't just save him, you healed his injuries too."
Ryo looked toward Daichi.
Losing one arm and two legs makes daily life extremely inconvenient.
He had dreams for the future too, and he would have had to give up most of them.
I'm glad he's alive, in whatever shape—that was true, but even if he woke up, what would become of Daichi's future?
It was a fact that he was worried about that.
Erika solved all those problems in an instant.
"I'm truly grateful that bowing my head any number of times wouldn't be enough. Thank you."
Ryo bowed his head deeply.
Never having been thanked like this by an adult man, how should she reply—worrying, troubled, Erika scratched her cheek.
"T-Thank you."
Healing was a magic easily used, and she felt like being thanked that much was a bit...
Then Yoshino, sitting towards the back, spoke up.
"Erika chan's senses are paralyzed. You use Healing like it's normal, but outside the school, that's practically cheating."
"I know that much..."
"The monsters you were fighting were so strong that you couldn't face them without using healing magic like it was normal, right?"
At Daichi's words, Yoshino nodded "Yeah, yeah."
"I heard a little from Daichi, it was a harsh environment, wasn't it..."
Kumiko said that, but—no, it was true that the 1st floor was quite dangerous.
As they went up to the 2nd and 3rd floors, partly because Erika herself became stronger, she felt they had gained quite a bit of leeway, but...
"Well. Most of the people inside were turned into monsters."
"I can't even imagine. Other than the fact that being alive here is a miracle, I don't understand anything."
Erika thought it certainly was a miracle.
The contact with the Kaigyo and the descent of Giraiguu happening simultaneously, and Yumemi being chosen as its core.
Layers upon layers of coincidences piled up, making that revenge possible.
However, how to explain the series of events that happened within that?
Acquiring abilities, the process of Gii becoming independent from Giraiguu, the dual-personality Nemusia; just explaining the events individually to people who knew nothing seemed like it would break one's bones.
"The hardest thing to understand is Yoshino being alive."
"I agree. I heard a brief explanation, but I didn't understand it at all."
As Kiori and Chihiro said, the mechanism regarding that was extremely complex and intricate.
It seemed Yoshino had explained it in her own way when they were at the facility—but Kiori and the others still didn't seem to understand.
So, she explained it to the two of them again.
"In short—there was a monster called a Cast that transforms using the power of a name tag, and Hiiro was made into its boss. And because my pendant that Hiiro had acted like a name tag, my body ended up being regenerated. Then my soul, which had become an earthbound spirit wandering Fantasy Land, entered it and—"
Kiori and Chihiro held their heads.
"I still don't understand."
"Earthbound spirits, bodies regenerating, it's too occult to keep up with."
"Actually, occult things are happening, so I can't explain it any further than that..."
In the end, Yoshino also had a troubled face.
"Erika chan, isn't there a better way to phrase it?"
"Why me..."
"Because you're the one who let me survive."
"Now that you mention it, yes."
Although she only connected the final thread of life, there was no mistaking she was an involved party.
But Erika wasn't confident she could explain it well either.
"Even using our power, while we can heal injuries or sicknesses, we can't resurrect humans who died in the past. Inoue san being alive is... for now, maybe you should just think a miracle happened."
"In short, an existence connecting life in a form different from a human, right."
"Hmm, I don't understand at all!"
"Let's just leave the understanding at 'I'm glad Yoshino came back to life'."
"A person came back to life, you know?! Are you okay with that, Chihiro?!"
"Since it doesn't cause any problems... I have no choice but to think it's fine."
"Ugh, that's true but... but Chihiro was safe too, and do I have no choice but to summarize it with the single word 'miracle'..."
Perhaps due to her nature as a reporter, Kiori still didn't seem convinced.
However, after groaning "Hmm" for a while, she seemed to give up,
"Well, whatever works."
She abandoned understanding and decided to cleanly settle on, 'Yay, Yoshino is alive!'.
"Even if I don't understand it, happy things are happy."
"Hehe, right. That alone is enough."
Chihiro snuggled close to Kiori.
The two layered their hands, intertwining their fingers.
Feeling a ticklish sensation from the skin, they looked into each other's eyes, their cheeks reddening as they smiled at each other.
"You two are as close as ever."
Yoshino watched the two with a heartwarming gaze.
"Actually, we were fighting until recently."
"Is that so?"
"...I was the cause."
Chihiro narrowed her eyes, looking remorseful.
"In the end, what was that all about?"
Kiori had made a few guesses, but she hadn't yet heard the answer from Chihiro's mouth as to why she took such an attitude.
Chihiro hesitated a little to speak out of her own wretchedness, but—thinking speaking would serve as a confession—she opened her mouth herself.
"When I went back to my parents' house, the talk turned to Kiori. My face at that time... looked very much in love, I guess... it seems from my mother's perspective, it was clearly obvious that I liked Kiori."
"Ah..."
"And, my mother's face at that time. It was probably a reflexive thing, but she looked very scornful, like she was extremely put off."
"You didn't like that?"
"No, I don't really care about myself. But, thinking that Kiori, who gets along well with her parents, might go through the same thing, I thought maybe I was making Kiori unhappy because of me."
It was an extremely serious story, but hearing it, Kiori laughed, "Hehe."
Naturally, Chihiro was surprised.
"Why are you laughing?"
"Just as I imagined—or rather, I was thinking the exact same thing happened to me."
"It did?! A-And what did you do!"
"Nothing, liking Chihiro isn't a bad thing, so I left it as is."
"As is?!"
"I'm confident about it. It surprisingly works out somehow."
"...I feel like an idiot for worrying."
"Actually, you are an idiot."
Kiori brought her face close, and they gently bumped their foreheads together.
"Do you know how much I was hurt?"
"I'm sorry."
"I'll let myself be pampered that much more."
When she said that in a sweet voice, Chihiro's cheeks quickly dyed red.
"Isn't that... a reward?"
Kiori smiled shyly, "Maybe."
A sweet air flowed between the two.
"It's awfully hot..."
Daichi fanned his face with his hand.
On the other hand, Gii, watching Kiori and Chihiro's exchange, stared intently at Erika.
"I want to do that much too."
"Aren't you already doing it?"
"It's still not enough."
"I feel like my body is being entangled quite a bit, though..."
Gii often used her slime body to entangle herself with Erika.
The extent of that entanglement was beyond compare to Kiori and her partner.
"NO, not just the body. I want to entangle our hearts and bodies."
"We haven't even kissed yet, though..."
"Then we kiss."
"Later."
"LATER. Got a promise."
Having a promise extracted from her, Erika maintained her composure with a 'Well, whatever' mindset.
She felt a ferocity akin to a carnivore from Gii.
Probably, even if she refused, she'd be eaten sooner or later, so she thought she'd rather do it while she could control it herself.
However, although she seemed to be judging things calmly, her heart was pounding furiously from nervousness.
Of course, Gii noticed this, and thinking such naive aspects were also charming—she turned her moist eyes toward Erika, bared her teeth, and laughed, "Gishishi."
Meanwhile, Yoshino, watching Kiori and Chihiro flirting, noticed a certain fact.
"Could it be that Kiori and Chihiro..."
"Hm?"
"What is it."
"Did you recently start dating?"
Frowning, Yoshino asked with a suspicious face.
Then, Kiori and Chihiro answered somewhat displeased.
"Is that bad?"
It was a kind of lashing out.
Being over 30, cohabitating while knowing they liked each other, yet piling up various excuses and not trying to clearly become lovers; they were engaging in a painful romance.
So, strong pressure just slipped out.
Even Yoshino, who had fought ferocious monsters, was overwhelmed by this,
"N-No, it's not bad... it's just, I thought you had been dating for a long time. If anything, since high school."
Saying that, she leaned back slightly.
◆◆◆
The bus arrived near the hospital.
It was a different place from where Chihiro worked, but the area around the building was already surrounded by a large crowd of people.
"Wow, what a huge crowd."
"They probably came to film Erika senpai and the others. What should we do? If we get closer like this, we'll probably be surrounded."
"Is there a way to avoid it?"
"I've contacted the hospital, so I guess we have no choice but to go in while being protected."
Erika had been fed up with it since the school, but it was even worse now.
Erika and the others' escape must have been a sudden event seen from the outside, so the gathering was probably delayed.
However, it would soon be found out that they were riding this microbus anyway.
In the end, they probably had no choice but to get off and head inside the hospital.
Then, Daichi noticed something and pointed near the hospital entrance.
"Hey, where that crowd is gathered, isn't there someone in the middle?"
They thought it was gathered to film the survivors like Erika—but the ones in the center of the crowd were an elderly man and woman.
"...Looks like my father and mother."
Ruka said with a sigh.
"The Hiyami couple, who had vanished, appeared, so it got noisy."
Perhaps due to a reporter's nature, Kiori was trying to film Hiyami Gosei and Manami with her smartphone through the window.
"If they're here now, maybe they came to see Hiyami san."
"Probably just as Erika senpai says. My parents did love me in their own way, after all."
Balancing loving their daughter and being Kaisei kyou believers.
Especially Gosei, even knowing Ruka wasn't his biological daughter, poured love into her no different from a true daughter.
That showed the depth of their affection as parents, while simultaneously proving they were steeped to the bone in Kaisei kyou values.
That is precisely why Ruka was looking at her parents with complex feelings.
The group observing the hospital from inside the stopped bus—but the next moment, a further anomaly occurred.
An explosion sound echoed from a not-so-distant place, and slightly later, a blast wave fiercely shook the windows.
"What's this, what's this, what happened this time?!"
Ryo stood up and looked out the window in the opposite direction of the hospital.
"Erika, smoke is rising over there."
In the direction Gii pointed, gray smoke was indeed rising silently.
It was exactly around where high-rise buildings existed.
"It sounded like an explosion."
"Or rather, didn't that actually explode?"
Orange fire could also be seen in the smoke.
Naturally, the reporters swarming the Hiyami couple reacted and simultaneously aimed their cameras in that direction.
During that time, the couple seemed to have fled inside the hospital.
"It never settles down."
'One trouble leaves, another arrives', is this what it means?
Erika leaned her body against the backrest and sighed lightly.
As if to comfort her, Gii leaned against her.
Just like a spoiled cat.
Or rather, actual cat ears were growing from her head.
Where did she get that knowledge—while thinking that, Erika lightly patted Gii's head.
Looking at her narrowing her eyes and going "Nya" as if it felt good, Erika's cheeks relaxed involuntarily.
Discussion
No comments: