When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace: Volume 4 E-Book

Kota Nozomi

• Herausgeber: J-Novel Club
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 254

Beschreibung

When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace: Volume 4

Leseprobe

Chapter 1: Learning, and an Overture

I was eight years old when we lost our grandmother. She passed away after an extended illness.

My little sister was so young at the time that I imagine she barely recalls our grandmother, but I remember her well. She was a strong woman, proud and stern. In spite of her white hair and the countless wrinkles on her face, she didn’t strike me as elderly in the least. She had spirit and vitality to spare; she walked with drive, purpose, and perfect posture wherever she went. I was always drawn to her inherent nobility. I thought she was incredible.

“Miss Sayumi,” she’d call me. Always “Miss,” even though I was her very own granddaughter. I imagine most people would think that show of formality to be oddly distant of her, but it never struck me as strange at all. I came to understand at a very early age that it was simply how my grandmother chose to conduct herself. Whether she was speaking to an infant, to her granddaughter, or to anyone else, she never neglected to show someone the respect she believed they deserved. Fastidious humbleness was her way of life.

“Miss Sayumi,” she would say, “you must become a person who is worthy of praise.” It was practically a catchphrase for her, one she maintained even after she fell ill. “Become a person who is worthy of praise. So long as you do, then surely...”

They weren’t her last words, and she didn’t leave them behind as her dying wish. Nevertheless, they left their mark upon me and occupied a very special place within my heart. I would become a person worthy of praise. I would live my life to rise to that standard.

But tell me, grandmother—what does it mean to be worthy of praise?

What does it mean to be the way you’re meant to be?

☆

In the Japanese language, certain characters can be read in different ways depending on context. Take, for instance, “gen,” a character found in all sorts of words, like “genmai,” meaning brown rice, and “genbugan,” meaning basalt. Though “gen” is the common reading for the character, it’s sometimes read as “kuro” instead—take the word “kurouto,” meaning an expert, for a common example.

It goes deeper than just the alternate readings, though. “Gen,” you see, is a character that also represents the color black! Consider the Chinese guardian animals of the four cardinal directions; the name of the Guardian of the North—commonly known as the Black Tortoise—is Genbu, written using that very same “gen” character.

Long story short: “gen” equals black. Once you come to that conclusion, the whole world is cast in a brand new light! For instance...

“Isn’t ‘Sugita Genpaku,’ like, the coolest friggin’ name ever?!”

“Nobody cares, chuuni-boy!”

I felt a light smack on my head. Somebody had thwacked me with the edge of their notebook, and I knew exactly who it was. I looked up from the history textbook I’d been reading and turned around to face her.

“C’mon, Tomoyo, just look at this name! Genpaku? Seriously?! How does it get any cooler than that?! The guy has to have been the pride of the Sugita family! The black of ‘gen’ and the white of ‘paku,’ put together in a single name! That’s the sort of name you give a man who holds all the light and darkness of the world within the palm of his hand!”

“Whoa, c-cut it out! Stop shoving your textbook in my face! That portrait of him’s actually really creepy up close, so get it away from me!”

“It’s the name of a tough, grizzled survivor who lives in a world of black and white, I’m telling you! Whoever came up with that name was a stand-up individual and a scholar, for sure!”

“Where do you get off judging whoever named Genpaku like that?! If you’re gonna judge anyone, judge him!”

“Andou?” said Sayumi, sliding into our little back-and-forth. “It’s not every day that we get together to study like this, so I would appreciate it if you’d refrain from derailing us at every chance you get. I won’t tell you not to make small talk, but at the absolute least, try to make it small talk that has something to do with the subject you’re studying,” she scolded.

“Okaaay,” I droned.

It was early July. Summer had arrived, our winter uniforms were a rapidly fading memory, and we of the literary club had come together to get some real studying done. However, there weren’t any tests coming up anytime soon, and none of us had done poorly enough to earn ourselves remedial lessons. In fact, our midterms had just ended, and finals were far off in the future.

So, why had we decided to hold a study group in spite of all that? Simple: when Chifuyu arrived at the club room on that particular day, she’d declared, “I’m going to do homework today.” The rest of us had simply decided to follow her example. As such, none of us were exactly at our most motivated. It was a nice, relaxing, low-stress study day.

“Something to talk about that has to do with what we’re studying, huh?” I mumbled. “Okay, then, uhh... Ah! Sugita Genpaku was the guy who translated the Tafel Anatomie, right?”

“I mean...that’s not wrong,” said Tomoyo, rolling her eyes, “but couldn’t you just say he was the guy who translated the Kaitai Shinsho? I know it was a Dutch text and all, but literally nobody calls it by its original name these days!”

She had a point, but it was too late. In my mind, Sugita Genpaku was firmly cemented as the Tafel Anatomie guy. I mean, come on, just trying saying it—Tafel Anatomie! Now that’s a name with impact! I couldn’t tell you what it is about the name that gives it such a delightful ring, and I definitely couldn’t tell you what it actually means, but oh, did it ever stir my soul with its sweet succor!

“Sink into the monochromatic depths of a black-and-white nightmare—Tafel Anatomie!”

“Stop muttering special move speeches to yourself! It’s super friggin’ creepy!”

“Ah. Sorry, my bad. Just couldn’t help but practice my Sugita Genpaku impression there.”

“Sugita Genpaku never said that!”

“Oh, is that so? Wow, Tomoyo, I didn’t know that you were close, personal friends with good ol’ Genny!”

“Don’t call him that! And no, I’m not, but I still know for a fact that he didn’t! If Sugita Genpaku had a ridiculously over-the-top special move like that, it’d turn history on its head!” Tomoyo bellowed.

“Incidentally, ‘tafel anatomie’ means ‘table of anatomy’ in Dutch,” Sayumi added helpfully.

Oh, huh. I had no idea. I was kind of disappointed that it meant something so perfectly mundane, not gonna lie. It was such a letdown, in fact, that I decided to drop the subject and go back to quietly studying...

...for about thirty seconds, until an uncontrollable surge of enthusiasm welled up within me once again! “Tafel Anatomie! No, that’s not right. I’ve gotta, like, thrust my arm out first...Tafel Anatomie! And its even more advanced form—Tafel Anatomie Castella! Wait...castella is Dutch, right?”

“What the hell are you doing over there?!” snapped Tomoyo, yanking me back into the real world.

“Oh, jeez, that was close! Think I got possessed by Sugita Genpaku for a minute there. Almost went and Spirit Integrated with the guy!”

“Again, that’s not a thing Sugita Genpaku would do!”

“Andou?” a frigid voice rang out, sending chills down my spine. Sayumi had warned me again and again, and I’d promptly ignored her each time. Now she was giving me a mirthless smile that told me I was in big, big trouble.

“S-Sayumi...no, wait, just let me explain myself! It wasn’t my fault! See, good ol’ Genny went and—”

“You’re surprisingly good at doing impressions, aren’t you, Andou?”

“Huh?” That threw me for a loop. I’d been so sure she was about to give me the chewing out of a lifetime that this felt sort of anticlimactic in comparison. “A-Am I? Didn’t think I was that good, or—”

“Why don’t you do another impression for us?” said Sayumi, cutting me off again.

“O-Okay, sure,” I replied. This was another surprise—I definitely wasn’t expecting her to start making unreasonable demands. That smile and unblinking stare of hers told me that there was absolutely no way I was getting out of it, though. I couldn’t afford to hesitate. I had to go all out. It was time for me to bust out the best impression I could possibly manage!

“Excellent,” said Sayumi. “In that case, do Newton, please.”

Hmm. Newton, is it? I turned my gaze upward, staring pensively into the boughs of an imaginary apple tree. As I watched an imaginary apple plummet down toward me, I mumbled in shock and disbelief, my expression the spitting image of a man whose most trusted comrade had just betrayed him to join forces with an evil organization.

“Have you fallen, apple?!”

“Since when did Newton talk like some sort of badass?!” jabbed Tomoyo.

“He did, trust me! I’m positive Newton said something along those lines at some point.”

“He didn’t do it at the end of the Soul Society Arc, that’s for damn sure!”

“All right, then. Who to have you imitate next...” said Sayumi, paying no mind to our antics. “How about...Commodore Perry?”

Ooh, Perry, is it? Mister Black Ships himself! I stood up from my chair, held my palm out before me, and spoke in such a majestic, solemn tone of authority I could almost see the holy aura radiating from behind me.

“Open thy ports unto me!”

“Since when did Perry talk like God?!” shouted Tomoyo.

“I mean, I bet it would’ve been really easy for him to force Japan to open up to the outside world if he had!”

“I’m not exactly an expert on the subject, but I’m pretty sure the process that the Japanese government had to go through to open the country up was a little more complicated than that!”

“Okay, Andou, do the Wright brothers next,” said Sayumi.

Ooh, now that’s an interesting one. They were the ones who invented the airplane, right? I spread my arms wide open and took a step forward.

“Up, up, and away!”

“Oh, come on, could you get any cheesier?! That is not something you’d hear from people who’re trying to build an airplane! That’s the sort of thing you hear from kids who think you can actually fly by manipulating your chi!”

“Have I fallen?!”

“You’re going right back to Newton?! And of course you’ve fallen, ’cause flying doesn’t actually work like that!”

“Do Marie Antoinette next, Andou,” said Sayumi. She really wasn’t giving me even a moment to rest.

G-Gimme a second! I’m running seriously low on references here...

“Andou? Marie Antoinette. I’m waiting.”

“Marie, Marie... O-Oh no, my cavities, how they pain me!”

“Because you ate too much cake, I suppose? Napoleon next.”

“Umm... O-Oh, god, I only got four hours of sleep last night! Man, I’m so sleep deprived! Four hours of sleep, I swear!”

“Oda Nobunaga, during the Honnouji Incident.”

“...It burns!”

“Queen Himiko.”

“H-Himiko? Uhh, umm... It’s time for a Yamatai★Night Party!”

“The Tenpo Reforms, as a belligerent teenager.”

“As a what?! Umm, er, umm... I can’t take this anymore! People always mix me up with the Kyoho Reforms and the Kansei Reforms! I’m me, not them!”

“The Tokugawa Shogunate, as a little girl.”

“...Bweeeh! You can’t ovathwow my shogunate! It’s not fair!”

“The Achaemenid Persian Empire, extremely homoerotically.”

“Hey, Achaemenid, is that a Persia in your pants, or are you... Okay, no, I’m sorry, I got nothing.”

I’d hit my limit. Couldn’t spend a second longer in Sayumi’s hell of impressions. Honestly, the whole thing had gone off the rails the moment she’d started asking for personifications of historical events.

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson and will actually focus on your studies now,” said Sayumi.

“Kaaay,” I droned, dejectedly turning back to my work. I pored over my textbook, but it wasn’t long before I found myself glancing over at Hatoko and Chifuyu.

“Teach me how to solve this, Hatoko,” Chifuyu commanded.

“Okay, sure! Let’s see, let’s see...this one? ‘Takashi is driving a car. He starts at his house and drives at fifty kilometers an hour. How far away from his house will Takashi be after one and a half hours?’ Ooh, a speed problem! I see!”

“Speed is complicated.”

“Well, think about it this way: if he’s driving at fifty kilometers an hour, that means that after one hour, he’ll be fifty kilometers away from his house! He drove for one and a half hours, though, so we have to multiply fifty by one and a half, which gives us—”

“But, Hatoko,” said Chifuyu, a look of utter confusion upon her face, “what about the traffic lights?”

“Huh?”

“If there are traffic lights in the way, you have to stop and start again sometimes. You can’t drive at fifty kilometers an hour all the time.”

“Th-That’s true, yes, but if we assume you don’t have to think about traffic lights, we can just—”

“Is Takashi running red lights?”

“I-I, uhh... I guess he probably would be...?”

“He can’t do that. It’s illegal.”

“Y-Yeah, you’re right! It sure is!”

“So we have to put the traffic lights into the equation...” Chifuyu crossed her arms and fell deep into thought. A few seconds of brow-furrowed concentration later, her face lit up. “Got it! The answer is ‘Takashi’s real name is Yoshio’!”

“What equation did you use to get that answer?!”

“Okay, done with homework.”

“Ch-Chifuyu, nooo! You’re not done yet at all!” moaned Hatoko, who was getting a little teary-eyed at that point. Chifuyu’s thought process was simply too free-spirited for the average person to keep up with, and Hatoko just couldn’t handle it.

It was interesting—both Chifuyu and Hatoko had a certain spontaneous, airheaded quality to their personalities, but there was definitely something subtle that distinguished how they each manifested it. The best way I could put it into words was that Hatoko was spacey, while Chifuyu was a space alien. Her train of thought drove on a wildly different set of rails than the rest of humanity’s. She was a mystery among mysteries.

At that point, a pang of curiosity hit me. “Come to think of it, what are your grades like, Chifuyu?” I asked.

“Mnh? Normal,” replied Chifuyu.

“That doesn’t really give much perspective, huh...? Okay, let me put it this way—how’d you do on your most recent test?”

“We had a math test a little while ago. I got a zero.”

“Ahh, gotcha, gotcha! A zero, huh? Yeah, I guess that is pretty norm— You got a what?!” I yelped, so shocked that I cut myself off midsentence. “A zero? Like...seriously?”

“Super serious,” said Chifuyu with an inexplicably self-satisfied nod.

Zero points? Is that even possible? Even the comically stupid characters in manga always manage to earn a couple points these days! Zero points is just off the table, unless your name’s Nobita!

“Uh, Chifuyu? Please don’t tell me you get zero points on all your tests,” I said.

“Nah. I got a hundred points on the test before that.”

“A full score?! Wait, what subject was that test in?”

“The same. Math. And the test before that, I got a zero.”

“You really swing to some wild extremes, huh?” How on earth does she go that all or nothing with her test scores? Being decisive’s all well and good, but that’s taking it a step too far! I can’t tell if she’s super smart, or super dumb, or what!

“My brain works way better on some days than others,” explained Chifuyu. “It depends on how I feel, and what sort of mood I’m in, and stuff.”

The way she described it almost made it feel like she’d somehow transcended common sense. I had to wonder, Is this how it feels to talk to one of history’s most eminent figures while they’re still a kid? Because talking with her genuinely made me feel like I was getting a glimpse into the childhood of a girl who’d go on to remake the world in her image! They said that Edison was a real free spirit himself back during his school days, after all.

“What’re your grades like, Andou?” asked Chifuyu, her eyes full of curiosity.

“Mine? Eh, pretty normal, I guess. Maybe the upper end of average?” I answered, neither talking myself up nor putting myself down.

Chifuyu glanced over at Hatoko for a moment, then looked back at me. “Okay, then who’s smarter? You or Hatoko?”

“Huh...I dunno, actually. Hey, Hatoko, which of us ranked higher on the midterms again?”

“I was thirty-second in our grade,” said Hatoko.

“Ah, you beat me. I got thirty-eighth.”

Hatoko and I had always scored pretty much the same on our tests. We didn’t treat each other as rivals or anything of the sort. We just made a habit of studying together every time test season came around, and we ended up with similar grades as a natural result.

“So, you’re both the same amount of smart,” said Chifuyu, sounding like she was jotting the fact down internally for future reference.

“Yup, that’s about right,” I replied. “At this rate, I figure we’ll probably end up going to the same college too.”

“Right?” said Hatoko. “I’d love to go to the same college as you, Juu.”

“Sounds good to me. Always nice to have someone you know around.”

Suddenly, our rather bland moment of small talk was interrupted by the clattering of a chair. I looked over to find Tomoyo standing bolt upright, giving me a look of utter shock and horror.

“Wh-What’s wrong, Tomoyo?” I asked.

“W-W-Wait a second... Huh?” said Tomoyo, holding a hand out in a “give me a minute to process this” sort of pose. She looked really shaken up. “A-Andou...your grades are that good?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess. I never mentioned it?”

“No, you didn’t,” Tomoyo moaned, clutching at her head. “Seriously...? That can’t be true, right? I knew Hatoko is smart, but him...? How could Andou be smarter than... Ah, I mean, n-no, umm,” she stammered, working herself up into a feverish panic.

Just then, Chifuyu rejoined the conversation with a single deathly calm word. “Tomoyo?”

“Huh?”

“What was your midterm rank?”

“M-My rank?! I, I got, umm...” Tomoyo babbled, her voice cracking into a falsetto as her gaze darted wildly across the room. Chifuyu, however, kept her pure, innocent gaze fixed directly on Tomoyo until she finally gave in and mumbled, “...eighty-eighth...” as quietly as she could manage.

“Oh, is that all?” I said. “You had me expecting way worse! You’re right in the middle of the pack! Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

Our high school had its students choose whether to focus on the humanities or the sciences starting in their second year. Everyone in the literary club—even Sayumi—had chosen to go into the humanities course. The grade rankings were separated by course, and there were roughly two hundred second-years in the humanities, meaning that Tomoyo was actually slightly above the middle of our class. Her grades were perfectly average.

“Tomoyo, you’re dumber than Andou,” said Chifuyu, calmly and coolly twisting the knife. Tomoyo let out a strangled gasp, shuddered violently, then crumpled to her hands and knees. She was so horribly shaken by the news that, frankly, I was a little offended.

“I’ll never live down this shame,” Tomoyo muttered disconsolately.

“Oh, come on, you don’t have to get that down about it!” I replied. “Who cares if my grades are a little better than yours?”

“I care, and I can’t stand it! I’m beneath you? That puts me on the same level as, what, fleas? ‘Dumber than Andou’? Seriously? That’s gotta count as a slur, right? You’re not supposed to say those things...”

“Is it really that bad? Yeesh.” Apparently, in Tomoyo’s mind, I was the one person she could absolutely not let herself lose to under any circumstances. She was perfectly fine with being the second dumbest creature in the world so long as I was the first. What are we, a certain grappler and his stupidly OP father?

Tomoyo tottered to her feet, then closed in on me. “Why the hell are your grades that good, anyway?!” she shouted. “You spend all your time making crap up and acting like a moron! What, were you studying in secret on top of all that?!”

“See, the thing is, as long as your grades are decent enough, the faculty don’t give you too hard of a time no matter what you do,” I explained. “That’s why I make sure to study up.”

“Wow, just like how Ichigo gets good grades to keep ‘the faculty’ from judging him for having orange hair! I’m sure that comparison doesn’t have anything to do with why you’d pick that as your excuse!”

I gotta say, I was pretty impressed that Tomoyo realized I was going for the Ichigo comparison just because I called them “the faculty” instead of “our teachers” or whatever. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have her around to pick out all those deep cuts!

“Look,” I said, “there’s no point obsessing over your grades in the first place, really! Nobody’s going to care what your report card looked like once you’re out in the demon world!”

“You mean the real world! Though I guess they probably wouldn’t care in the demon world either, when you put it that way... And anyway, I don’t wanna hear that from a guy who gets good grades...”

“I mean, say what you will, but I do actually study when it all comes down to it! It’s pretty fun sometimes, honestly. Especially English—you gotta study up on that for the sake of your future, no doubt about it!”

“‘For the sake of your future’?” said Tomoyo, gaping at me. “Y-You’re kidding me. Andou, are you actually trying to give me serious advice...?”

“After all, I’ve got big plans to start suddenly talking in English out of nowhere when the power slumbering within me awakens someday in the future!”

“Oh, good. You’re the same old Andou after all,” sighed Tomoyo. She sounded relieved, for whatever reason.

“Oh, and don’t forget about math either! After all, it won’t be long before the Japanese state is dominated by psychics, all of its citizens have their latent supernatural powers awakened, and your mental processing power becomes your absolute greatest asset!”

Tomoyo heaved a sigh. “What is it with you chuunis and obsessing over your ‘mental processing power,’ anyway?”

The answer was simple, really: calling it “mental processing” instead of just “mental math” elevates the term from the realm of the mundane into the realm of magical science! Sci-fi stories involving psychics work it into their power systems all the time, and you sometimes even see it in high fantasy, where wizards use staves or gemstones to amplify their mental calculations! Long story short, mental processing: hella cool!

“Do you even know what ‘processing,’ like, actually means in this context?” asked Tomoyo.

“Ugh... It, well, I mean, y’know! It’s, like, really complicated math or something...” C’mon, Tomoyo, if you have to call me out, you could at least be less nitpicky about it! The feel is more important than the petty details when it comes to this sorta stuff!

“What other subjects are important...?” I mused. “Oh, y’know Tao Ren’s catchphrase, ‘I shall not waver’? I thought that was so cool, I ended up learning all about that sort of archaic speech!”

“Never thought Shaman King would have that effect on someone...”

“Never managed to get into, like, full-on classical literature, though. Maybe if I read something with a really cool character who talked in classical Japanese when they snapped, I’d be able to work up the motivation to study up on it.”

“You really do decide whether or not to study stuff based solely on whether or not you think it’s cool, don’t you? And I actually lost to a guy with study habits like that...”

The deathly pall looming over Tomoyo darkened once more. She was even more frustrated to lose to me than I’d thought. Thankfully for her, around that point, Chifuyu’s inquisitive instincts turned their focus to a new target.

“Where did you place on the tests, Sayumi?”

“Oh, me? This time, I placed second in my class,” Sayumi answered.

Second?! Now that was a shocking number. I mean, it made sense, don’t get me wrong. The fact that Sayumi had placed so highly wasn’t shocking at all—just the number itself.

“Sayumi, you’re amazing!” said Chifuyu, her eyes sparkling with wonder.

“It wasn’t as big of a deal as you’re making it sound,” replied Sayumi. “And besides, if anyone’s amazing, it’s Miss Kudou. She’s the one who placed first.”

“Huh? Kudou did? For real?” I asked reflexively.

Sayumi nodded. “She did, yes. Regrettably, she defeated me this time around.”

Daaang, seriously? Kudou Mirei, the president of the student council, was clearly an even more impressive person than I’d given her credit for.

“Wait, you said ‘this time around’? Does that mean...?”

“Last year I placed first, yes,” Sayumi nonchalantly admitted.

From the sound of things, she and Kudou had been warring over first place in their grade for quite some time. Both of them were the sort of person who didn’t go out of their way to boast about their abilities, so I’d had no idea. I guess if you have the brainpower to get the best grades in your year, the humility to not make a big deal out of it comes naturally or something.

“You and Kudou are both amazing!” said Chifuyu. Then she crossed her arms and fell into thought again. “Sayumi is second, Hatoko is thirty-second, Andou’s thirty-eighth, and Tomoyo’s eighty-eighth...”

Finally, Chifuyu’s musings came to an end. She spun around and pointed her finger directly at a certain member of our club.

“Tomoyo, you’re the dumbest!”

“Whaaa?!” screamed Tomoyo, recoiling in shock. Jeez, Chifuyu, merciless much? “I-I’m smarter than you are, at least!”

“I’m in elementary school, though.”

“Ugh!”

“Tomoyo, you’re a high schooler.”

“Ugggh!”

“Youth wins.”

“Uggghhh, ugaaahhhhhh!”

And so, Tomoyo was utterly vanquished by a grade schooler. Frankly, she lost the second she decided to drag Chifuyu into the competition.

“That’s it! I’m studying! I’m studying my ass off! I refuse to let Andou score higher than me on our finals!” shouted Tomoyo. I was sorta expecting her to mope, but instead, she cracked open her textbook with renewed vigor.

“Your motives aside, studying is certainly a good thing,” said Sayumi, closing the book on Tomoyo’s torment. The rest of us followed her example and returned to our studies.

Two hours later...

“Man, now that was a productive session!” I declared, setting down my notebook and stretching. We had just a few minutes left before our club activities were scheduled to end for the day, and it felt like I’d managed to concentrate pretty nicely, but for some reason, I felt weirdly stressed, both physically and emotionally. “One must set foot onto the battlefield to truly feel alive, it would seem!”

“Quit trying to make it sound like you’re some sorta big, badass fighter who hasn’t had a brawl in way too long!” snapped Tomoyo.

“Whoops! My bad, my bad. I shouldn’t let myself drift back to those days of blood and glory, huh? No, this is a peaceful world...a world in which I, a man who only knows how to fight, have no way to prove my worth. Heh! Such is the tragic fate of the Asura...”

“Just checking—can you explain what, specifically, an Asura is?” Tomoyo asked.

“Huh? No, but, I mean...you know what they are! They’re, like, demons that live to fight, or something like that... Y’know, it’s written like the ‘shura’ in Oreshura!”

“I cannot believe I get worse grades than this dumbass,” sighed Tomoyo, slumping forward and planting her head in her hands.

I decided that we could write off the whole Asura definition as one of those things you just kinda have to get a feel for and moved the conversation along. “Okay, but as far as not having fought in a long time goes, it really has been ages since our last supernatural battle, right?”

We had awakened to our powers roughly half a year ago, after which we had spent day after day not getting dragged into any epic conflicts, not getting summoned away to other worlds, and, generally speaking, living our lives without any change whatsoever, for better or worse. I wasn’t dissatisfied with my lifestyle by any means...but I had to admit that deep down, part of me was hoping for, well, something.

“I mean, that time we threw down with Kudou was our last real battle, right?” I continued.

“I guess, though whether or not that actually counted as a battle is definitely up for debate,” said Tomoyo.

“Maaan, at this rate, me vs. Kudou Mirei’s gonna end up being my first and last supernatural battle ever,” I moaned. Now that was a truth that was hard to swallow.

“Huh? It can’t be your first and last battle, though,” Hatoko piped up.

“Huh? What do you mean by that?” I asked, turning to her.

“You’d already been in a supernatural battle before you fought Kudou.”

“What? When did I... N-No way! Has my alternate personality been taking over and getting into fights without my knowledge?! Has my dark side finally decided to reveal itself?!”

“No, no, not like that!” said Hatoko, dousing the flames of excitement that had suddenly welled up within me. “You and Sayumi fought way before that, didn’t you?”

“Oh...right, that,” I said.

“I suppose that did happen, didn’t it?” agreed Sayumi. The two of us exchanged glances and slightly strained smiles.

“Wow, yeah, that takes me back,” muttered Tomoyo, her gaze distant. “The two of you really threw down back then.”

“Hey! Don’t call it a throwdown! That was an honorable duel!” I snapped. “We each fought with our pride on the line—it was a holy war, the likes of which none would dare to defile! Right, Sayumi?”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Sayumi replied. “If memory serves, it was rather too dirty and undignified for me to call it a holy war.”

Ugh! Okay, yeah, I did sorta end up slathered with dirt and mud by the end of it...

In any case, Hatoko was right. I’d thought for the longest time that our encounter with Kudou was my very first battle, but in retrospect, I did have one with Sayumi long before that. Back when our powers had first awakened—when we’d faced each other down in no-holds-barred combat, each fighting for the sake of an ideal we weren’t willing to back down on.

It was a proper supernatural battle, and we each used our powers to the fullest. Dark and Dark clashed head-on with Route of Origin, and in doing so, we determined whose power truly reigned supreme. As for who that victor was...

“Man...good times, huh?”

“You could say that, yes,” replied Sayumi with a chuckle.

Looking back on it, I sort of got the feeling that I’d clashed an awful lot with our beloved and highly esteemed club president, Takanashi Sayumi. Our history of conflict began, in fact, on the very day I was admitted to our school and met her for the first time...