Volume 1
My Parallel-World Self, and I Know How She Feels About Me
"U-uh, um… Tsukino-chan. Hi, it's been a while."
"Y-yes. It's, it's been a while. Um, sorry for being out of touch. How do I put it, um…"
"No no, don't worry about it. Sorry it ended up like I left you on unread. I got your message while I was out on my motorbike, and then I kept thinking about how to reply but couldn't come up with anything…"
"No, um, I'm sorry. I didn't mind at all, really, it's totally fine!"
After Nanaha-senpai's spirited entrance, Tsukino and senpai fell into a thoroughly awkward, fidgety exchange.
Well, I get it. Her distance with Nanaha-senpai was a little different from the one with Jun, whom she'd known way too long, and while there hadn't been any major falling-out, I couldn't imagine two people reuniting under awkward circumstances after a while apart just snapping back to normal.
Now that I think about it, back when Tsukino was in my world, there'd been signs she avoided going into the bookstore. So it had been that thing where you don't want to walk into a shop where an acquaintance you're not quite close to works, huh.
That said, with my thin ties to this world's literature club there wasn't much I could do, and I'm not the type who can smooth over interpersonal stuff to begin with.
"The weather's kind of nice today, isn't it."
"True. When a story turns toward a bad end, bad weather reads as the fitting staging, but in some cases you can also portray abnormally good weather to draw a contrast with the tragedy."
"It's not weather that dramatic, though."
Having small talk about the weather veer off full-tilt into bad-end land was a bit much.
"Argh, quit dragging it out!"
The one who cut in was Jun. He came pouncing at the two of them as they hovered at their awkward distance.
He meant to scoop them both into a hug and force them together.
"Owowowow, so rough, rough, what an interesting wo— OWW!!"
Without missing a beat, Tsukino locked his arm and left him grinding his face into the floor.
I couldn't even track Tsukino's movement. No, more to the point, why does she have joint locks in her arsenal too? Was whatever she'd trained in actually something karate-adjacent?
"I've been telling you your sense of personal space is broken this whole time, haven't I."
"And every time, I end up getting wrecked for it."
"This whole back-and-forth is nostalgic. I love it."
I see. So this is Tsukino's-world literature club. The physical damage Jun takes is excessive.
Even after Tsukino released the joint lock, Jun writhed on the floor for a while.
Paying him no mind, Tsukino and Nanaha-senpai looked timidly at each other. They were still stiff, all shy, held-back smiles, but even I could tell that Jun's noble sacrifice had inched them back toward their old relationship.
"So, Tsukino-chan. I got the gist of the story from Jun-kun already."
"Not that I believe a word of it, though."
Ignoring Jun and his exaggeratedly twisted lips, Nanaha-senpai pushed up her glasses. The eyes behind them were soft and gentle, and yet shining with blatant curiosity.
"So there's something I can do to help!"
Senpai's voice had the same bounce it gets right before a novel battle.
*
Concrete walls and floor, steel bookshelves lined up in neat rows, and a Western-style table and chairs in the center of the room. The Hananokorizuki family archive at Nanaha-senpai's home was quite different from what I'd pictured.
The Hananokorizuki estate, which I'd never visited even in my own world, looked from the outside like a historic Japanese-style mansion, but it had apparently been renovated and added onto over and over, and once inside, a lot of it was sleek Western-style construction.
The archive we'd been shown to seemed to be one of those renovated spots, a modern storeroom. Honestly, I'd imagined somewhere more like a traditional storehouse.
Still, the local historical materials the Hananokorizuki family owned, lined up on the shelves, were mostly antiquated books that wouldn't have looked out of place in a storehouse.
After meeting Nanaha-senpai in the clubroom, Tsukino and I had wanted to learn more about Himurogioka's forbidden ground. It was something I'd asked my own world's senpai about but never gotten around to researching in detail.
Now that we'd figured out the forbidden ground and its surroundings were involved in crossing between the two worlds, there was nothing to do but dig deeper. Tsukino had meant to ask Nanaha-senpai about it too.
So Nanaha-senpai had offered to search her family's archive. Jun tagged along as well, apparently willing to lend a hand.
"Sorry to keep you waiting."
Nanaha-senpai had ducked out of the room, and she came back transformed. In a prim white dress paired with a pale blue cardigan and thin white tights, she looked every bit the young lady. I'd wondered why she was taking so long: her hair was now done up in the braid I knew. The color was still black, but this was the Nanaha-senpai I recognized.
"I came ready to give it my all."
She swept her tightly braided hair back with one hand and adjusted her glasses too.
"So, according to Tsukino-chan's story, he— Asahi-kun is the parallel-world Tsukino-chan, right?"
"I know it's hard to believe, but that's right."
"I still say it's a lie, personally."
Still sitting on the archive floor, Jun shrugged.
"I think it'd be fun if that kind of thing were real. Ordinary reality isn't any fun, after all."
Her eyes behind the glasses lit up, and she leaned way in toward us.
"What's your world like, Asahi-kun? What's different from this world? Could it be that I'm a man named Nanao?"
"No, Jun's and Nanaha-senpai's genders are the same as here."
"For real? I was kind of into the idea of a carefree little-devil-type me."
"Weren't you the one who didn't believe it?"
That said, Tsukino, my own counterpart, is very much my type, so there's an odd twinge of guilt to it. She was subtly averting her eyes. Well… somewhere in the infinite possibilities there's bound to be a world with a counterpart who hits Jun's kink dead-on, too.
"So I'm the same, then. If the worlds are a year apart, then the me from a year ago… Is she enjoying herself?"
"That's…"
As for how it had all played out for Tsukino's-world literature club: the black-haired Nanaha-senpai could no longer write novels. What had she been thinking around that time? Had she managed to keep smiling the way senpai does?
"That anguish… Could it be that the me in your world founded an evil literature club and is challenging you to novel battles? Novels aren't a tool for hurting people, though!"
"Your brain's way too far gone on novel battles. She's just a normal club president, thrashing me and Jun to a pulp in novel battles."
"That's… fufufu. Sounds fun. There are other things I want to ask, too…"
Nanaha-senpai stopped there. She stared at me intently, narrowing her eyes and even sliding her glasses up and down.
"…Huh? I feel like I've met you somewhere before, Asahi-kun. Is this déjà vu? Could it be that your crossing over between worlds has triggered some memory-sharing with the other me?"
"No, we met this morning, when you recommended Tsukino's book to me at the bookstore."
Nanaha-senpai tilted her head and let her gaze drift into empty space. After a while of that, she clapped her hands with an "Ah."
"You're that person from before, the one who looked like he was skipping school!"
And I got pointed at by Nanaha-senpai, who had very clearly been skipping her own university classes.
"Hold on, you hadn't noticed until now?"
"Nanaha-senpai kind of has no interest in anyone outside her friends and club members…"
Senpai looked bashful. That wasn't a compliment, and even though she's a different person from my own world's senpai, it came as a bit of a shock all the same.
"Anyway, we've got something we have to do here."
Blatantly changing the subject, she went on.
"We don't know the cause of you and Tsukino-chan crossing between worlds, but there's a strong chance the forbidden ground is involved, right."
"Right. The Nanaha-senpai over there talked about spirited-away incidents, too. And one thing's certain: both when I went over there and when Asahi came here, we passed through what used to be the forbidden ground."
"But we've got no decisive clue as to where the point of contact between the worlds is, or what to do to connect the two. There has to be some condition."
"If there were no conditions and just passing through sent you to a parallel world, then almost everyone living around there would've been shipped off by now."
"My world's Nanaha-senpai said there used to be a ritual for bringing back people who'd been spirited away."
Nanaha-senpai put a hand to her glasses and fell into thought.
"That does sound like something I'd say. I looked into the forbidden ground once before… But it was a good while ago, so my memory's hazy."
Nanaha-senpai pointed to one corner of the archive.
"Oh, I know! Let's just barrel through reading everything around here."
It was only part of the archive, but roughly two large bookcases' worth of materials, big and small, were crammed in there.
"No, that'll take way too long."
Jun spoke up, eyeing us sidelong as we stood speechless.
"We've got no clue which materials have what in them, so, Nanaha-senpai, you pick out the ones we need. Legends of the forbidden ground, stuff about the spirited-away incidents and the ritual… and then old and current maps, I guess?"
"Mm. I think that's about where the clues will be."
"That's Jun for you. All logic, even over here."
"What, if you're into me just say you're into me. Anyway, that's the plan. We read through whatever materials Nanaha-senpai pulls out. A lot of it'll be too old to read, so we leave that part to Nanaha-senpai."
"Spoken like the current literature club president."
Nanaha-senpai reached for the shelf right away, narrowing her eyes. She pushed her glasses up three times. Here it comes.
"And now… novel battle! Ready, go!"
"We're not battling, though."
"Even after all this time apart, you've still got that hobby-anime brain. Kind of a relief."
Even if this wasn't the clubroom, the three of them springing into motion looked no different from the literature club I knew. I couldn't help letting my mouth soften into a smile, but I had my own clues to hunt for.
Tsukino was on her feet, fighting for my sake. My world has my world's literature club, and my dad and my mom.
Even if I didn't want to go back, I would get back to my world no matter what. I opened the unfamiliar materials and set about trying to read something out of them.
*
We'd started searching the archive in the evening to begin with, so the sun went down before long.
We went out for a meal partway through and resumed work as soon as we got back. The day's fatigue was setting in, but we kept at it, trading small talk here and there.
"Doing this takes me back to before the culture festival, when Tsukino-chan and Jun-kun were first-years."
Nanaha-senpai's eyes crinkled fondly as she read through the materials.
"The lit club's a plain one, after all. You've gotta get creative to get people to look. We really busted our butts on the display, huh."
"Nanaha-senpai vaguely throws out an idea, Jun works out the concrete details, and the rest of us get dragged into it."
The three literature club members of this world laughed together.
In the autumn of my first year, we'd put together a culture-festival exhibit the same way in my world. To liven up our plain display even a little, we'd made a poster (a blonde beauty) and an explanatory corner for the club magazine, and hand-folded copy-books for a spur-of-the-moment project. We'd filed a request with the school to extend our activities and kept up the mindless busywork around the clubroom after dark, rubbing our sleepy eyes.
For Tsukino, that had probably been the everyday life before her loss. The setup for Ultimate Causality.
But now, Tsukino had returned to those days. At the smiles she traded with Jun and Nanaha, I let slip a sigh I couldn't explain. Maybe it had been relief.
The investigation went on.
Fortunately, tomorrow was a Saturday, so Nanaha-senpai had explained things to her family and was still keeping the archive open for us. Jun, too, had phoned his family and stuck around to help even though it was already past eleven at night.
That said, everyone was visibly worn out, and the date itself would roll over before long.
"It's getting late. Let's wrap things up for now."
Jun proposed, kneading his own shoulder. His spiked-up hair had wilted more than usual.
"You're right. I just wish we'd found something decisive first…"
She cast an apologetic glance my way, but I couldn't ask Tsukino or Nanaha-senpai to push themselves harder.
"I don't mind pulling an all-nighter."
"Even if you're fine with it, senpai, it'd be trouble for your family."
When Tsukino said it flatly, Nanaha-senpai let out a mournful sound.
"Even so, just summing up is gonna take a bit of time."
We cleared the table, pushing aside the materials we didn't need. Onto it we spread several maps and a stack of closely written notes. The surprisingly neat handwriting filling them was Jun's; partway through, he'd committed fully to the role of organizing the information. Trust the logical happy-end junkie.
"Don't get impatient and lunge at it. First, a recap. The old forbidden ground is, roughly, on the east side of the New Town, in Himurogioka-Higashimachi."
"Around where my uncle's house is. The other places I went were, what, the graveyard and the park?"
Landmark-ish spots at best, though.
The area designated as forbidden ground in this world matched the one in mine. The Hananokorizuki estate where we were now, like Himurogioka Shrine, sits in Motomachi, part of the old quarter, so it's well outside the forbidden ground.
"There are many legends about the forbidden ground. Spirited-away incidents, from back when it was still forest, where people who wandered in went missing. And conversely, though only a few, I also found accounts of strangers coming out of the forbidden ground. Some of them apparently said they weren't from this land."
"That's new information."
"Someone who'd stumbled into a parallel world, like me or Tsukino, would feel that way, yeah."
"There aren't a lot of records, but it happened enough times that you can't chalk it all up to coincidence. And then… there were also several accounts of people seeing a figure in the forest that looked just like themselves."
"The way this is going, isn't that supposed to be them seeing their parallel-world self? Not that I believe it."
I see. Jun's interpretation made sense.
"…It might just be my imagination, but I've seen a ghost on the forbidden ground."
"My world's Nanaha-senpai said that too."
"Huh? Huh? Then strange things really do happen! This is fun!"
"If strange things didn't really happen, I wouldn't have gone to another world, and Asahi wouldn't be able to get home."
Nanaha-senpai brushed it off with an "ufufu," then cleared her throat and went on.
"Let me keep going a bit more. There definitely was a ritual meant to bring back people who'd been spirited away. There are records of this nationwide, though."
The book Nanaha-senpai had opened depicted people pushing their way up into the mountains. Many of them were beating what looked like drums and shouting something.
"Apparently relatives and kin led the search, combing the mountains. They'd beat instruments and walk around calling out the person's name. According to the materials, that often did turn up the spirited-away person."
"Isn't that just them finding some guy who wandered into the forest and got lost? Well, for now we're just laying out the facts."
"I think there are rules to connecting with a parallel world. Like that net-lore about an elevator that connects to another world, where the order you press the buttons is fixed. Otherwise, this whole area would be nothing but missing-persons cases."
"In that case, for instance, wasn't the route they walked during that ritual fixed or something?"
"Hmm. The detailed route isn't preserved. But… it looks like they circled all the way around, with the iwakura at the center."
"Iwakura?"
At this word I'd never heard before, I looked to Tsukino, but she shook her head too.
"Simply put, it's a rock regarded as a deity. Japan has its eight million gods, the idea being that a divinity dwells in all sorts of things, and in the old days a great rock up in the mountains, say, was an object of worship too. And so our shrine's object of worship, the deity we enshrine, is that iwakura."
On the old map Nanaha-senpai pointed to, "iwakura" was indeed written.
"Isn't the deity Himurogioka Shrine enshrines Sarutahiko-Ōkami? And the shrine's set apart from the iwakura on this map, too."
"Sarutahiko-Ōkami is a god who guards boundaries, so I think he got blended together with the iwakura-centered forbidden-ground faith. So that people don't cross to the other side, and so that nothing comes over from the other side… It's a common enough thing."
"Why's the iwakura set apart from the shrine? Just give it a hug already."
"It's also not unusual for the place of worship to sit a little apart from the object of worship. A famous example is Ōmiwa Shrine in Nara, which takes Mount Miwa as its object of worship: by praying at the shrine at the foot of the mountain, you're considered to be paying your respects to the mountain, which is the god."
Nanaha-senpai pressed her palms together to demonstrate.
"Our shrine's worship hall is built to face the direction of the iwakura, too, so when you pray there, you're actually paying your respects to the iwakura."
"So that's how it was."
Then when Tsukino and I had prayed there, we'd been making our wish to the far-off iwakura, to the god that dwells in it, or that is it.
"But senpai. I don't remember seeing anything iwakura-like in Higashimachi."
"True. If it were a rock or spot with a god dwelling in it, you'd think there'd be a small shrine or the like left standing."
In some places, a small shrine or sacred tree that can't be removed is left standing in the middle of the road… I remember seeing photos like that. There's no such spot in Higashimachi.
"There's no small shrine, but there is a shimenawa strung up. Though I don't think ordinary people ever get a chance to see it."
Nanaha-senpai indicated one corner of the current map.
Both Tsukino and I had gone wide-eyed in spite of ourselves.
"The tunnel you pass through going from Himurogioka Shrine to Higashimachi. Himurogioka First Tunnel. It's up above there."
"Why would they build a tunnel in a place like that?"
"Because it's a place like that. They cleared the forbidden ground to build the New Town, but they couldn't move the iwakura, so they had no choice but to run a tunnel underneath it, apparently."
"So there was a curse! Lots of people died!"
"You think it's a moving nonfiction about the New Town construction, and then partway through the workers start dropping dead one bizarre death after another. A bad-end nonfiction, huh!"
"My family's god is being cast as a curse god, and yet this is so much fun!"
"No, nobody died in that construction. Senpai, you should really get properly mad about this, you know."
The exchange mirrored the literature club of my own world. There was surely still a lingering awkwardness between Tsukino, Jun, and Nanaha-senpai. Even so, if they could talk like this, they ought to be able to get back to being the literature club, even if it wasn't exactly the same as before.
"Back on topic."
I turned my attention to the sound of Jun clapping his hands.
"Anyway, so this Himurogioka First Tunnel is the center of the forbidden ground."
Jun indicated materials from before and after the construction.
"Then I'd been passing through the middle of the forbidden ground without knowing it. And after that, I met Asahi."
"I passed through it when I came to Tsukino's world, too. When my phone briefly connected today, I hadn't gone through the tunnel, but I was at the park near there."
After meeting Tsukino, I'd used the First Tunnel only once. The rest of the time I'd taken other routes.
"So if you pass through there, Asahi, you can go back to your original world!"
"Don't rush it!"
Jun leaned in, pressing toward Tsukino, got put in an arm lock, and thrashed around on the floor.
"…What do you mean, don't rush it?"
Still holding Jun's arm as he groaned low, Tsukino asked. Mindful of the late hour, he was desperately stifling his voice. Good on him.
"You said it yourself just now, Tsukino. If you could go to a parallel world with no rules, this area'd be crawling with missing persons. Ow-ow-ow."
When Tsukino let go, Jun rubbed his arm and went on, still wincing.
"If just going through the tunnel took you to another world, it'd be a huge deal by now."
"That's… true, yeah."
"Can't argue with that."
"Fufufu. And this is where I've actually got one more piece of information."
Nanaha-senpai held up another document. It was so old we could barely make out the characters.
"During a certain period, entering or even approaching the forbidden ground is especially forbidden."
"There's a rule that specific?"
"Other regions have similar stories about this kind of thing. On the mountain god's day, you mustn't enter the mountains. You mustn't do mountain work. I think it's close to that. And right now is that period. Things are heating up!"
"A day when the world connects to another. A period when you're prone to being spirited away… you could read it that way, I guess."
"Even so, people go through that tunnel every day. It doesn't add up."
One eyebrow raised, Jun kept his pen moving.
"We need to narrow the conditions down more."
The place: the iwakura. The area around Himurogioka First Tunnel. The timing: call it this current period.
"But naturally, nothing spells out a condition like 'do this and you'll get spirited away.'"
"If it were written that plainly, someone would've noticed by now, yeah."
"Anyway, whatever it is, try laying out all the information we've got so far. It might turn into a hint."
I folded my arms and sank into thought, searching through everything Jun had noted down for anything that looked like a condition.
"When they search for someone who's been spirited away, people close to the victim do the main searching."
"If your own family got spirited away you'd be worried, so that seems like a normal thing to do."
"But the fact that they went out of their way to write it down like that is intriguing."
If it were obvious, you wouldn't bother putting it in writing, huh.
"When people with a close relationship are together, a connection to another world forms?"
"Feels like a leap to me."
"But, just for example. The accounts of seeing your own self. Couldn't you read those as saying the selves from different worlds were each in the same spot in their own world at the same time, and that's why the worlds connected?"
Even as she said it, Tsukino shook her head.
"No good. That day, Asahi and I first met at Green Mall. Asahi hadn't gone to Higashimachi or the tunnel. That's a contradiction right there."
"— No."
At the sound of my stunned voice, Tsukino and the others turned to me.
There was one thing I hadn't even considered until now.
"That might be it. That day, I did go to the forbidden ground, to Higashimachi, and I went through the tunnel too."
"You did? Huh, but…"
"Both of us, me and Tsukino, had only been thinking about where she went."
It was only after I came to Tsukino's world that I'd factored in the route I'd traveled, too.
"The day I met Tsukino. I checked out the secondhand bookstore in Higashimachi, and then headed for Green Mall. The tunnel's on the way there."
Tsukino's eyes went wide, and she pressed a hand to her mouth.
"We watched the same movie, so it wouldn't be strange for us to have gone through the tunnel at the same time in our respective worlds."
"For real? I mean, it's just a hypothesis, but."
Still, it satisfied the conditions: place, timing, and on top of that, the two counterparts drawing near.
"When Tsukino and I came to this world, we definitely passed through the tunnel together. It's worth trying it with Tsukino one more time."
"It's the only lead we've got right now. Let's swing by on the way home."
"Ah," Nanaha-senpai let out. For senpai, it was an uncharacteristically murky groan.
I dropped my gaze to what senpai was looking at. I couldn't read much of it, as usual, but the page she had open had dates written on it.
"The days when you mustn't enter the forbidden ground, the ones I mentioned earlier… Put the other way around, that's the period when it might connect to another world. And it happens to be right now, is what I'm saying."
Her white fingertip pointed at a date.
"What's written here is a date on the old lunar calendar, of course. But converting it to the current calendar… it only runs through today."
Everyone reflexively checked the time.
Time had slipped by while we pulled the materials together; without any of us noticing, the day was nearly over. In fifteen minutes the date would change, and the period senpai spoke of would end.
"Even if the date changes, would the point of contact really vanish right on cue?"
"That's true, but there might be a chance. If anything, being right before the deadline would explain things that didn't make sense until now. When I went to Asahi's world, the world adjusted itself conveniently for me."
I understood what Tsukino was getting at.
"When I came over here, there was nothing like that. At the very least, the world's influence is weakening?"
"Maybe… is all I can say. But!"
Tsukino tossed my bag over to me.
"'If only I'd run back then, I could've gone home…' You don't want to end up thinking that, do you!"
I barely caught the bag and nodded.
"Sorry, senpai. Jun. Let's go, Asahi!"
Before I could answer, Tsukino broke into a run.
With a bow to senpai and the others, I chased after her.
Leaving words of thanks behind, Tsukino and I bolted out of Nanaha-senpai's house.
"Wait, we're coming too!"
"Damn it! I don't believe you, but you're an interesting bunch! Of course I'm coming along!"
I heard the two of them burst out after us.
Through the night-time old quarter, through the falling shadows of the trees stretching from the antiquated mansion, the four of us ran.
Himurogioka-Motomachi had few streetlights, but the strangely dazzling light of the moon lit the road ahead for us.
Just before midnight, the town was deserted but for us. Even the sounds of daily life from the houses had all but ceased; only our four sets of footsteps rang out through the quiet.
We passed by the side of Himurogioka Shrine. The worship hall was apparently built to face the iwakura above the tunnel, though I couldn't really tell.
Tsukino was probably holding back her pace, but even so, she was fast. I kept up as best I could, but I'd started flagging early. The back of my throat burned; my chest and side ached. My breath caught.
I couldn't spare the attention to check my phone, so I didn't know if it was past midnight yet, but it felt like we were down to the wire.
There was no guarantee I could get home. The hypothesis itself hadn't even properly come together.
Reasons to stop running clung to me.
I didn't want to go back in the first place. I couldn't leave Tsukino alone. No, I wanted to be with Tsukino.
My body was heavy. I was on the verge of stopping. Even so, heedless of her black hair coming undone, Tsukino kept running ahead of me. So I kicked off the ground too.
Just before my stamina gave out entirely, that tunnel appeared before me. Short enough that you could barely make out the far side. Himurogioka First Tunnel.
The area around the tunnel connecting the old quarter and Higashimachi was also the outer edge of both residential districts. There wasn't a soul about, and the streetlights were dimmer, too. A pitch-black forest spread out above the tunnel, and now that I knew it was the center of the forbidden ground where the iwakura sat enshrined, I couldn't help sensing something ominous in it, beyond what its appearance let on.
"We've still got two minutes! We'll make it!"
Phone in hand, Tsukino looked back, sweat scattering off her forehead.
I drew even with Tsukino, who'd slowed down. From behind, I could hear Nanaha-senpai's and Jun's footsteps too.
Wringing out the last of my strength, I entered the tunnel with Tsukino.
The tunnel's lighting was stronger than outside, and I could see my surroundings with strange clarity. Amid the trapped, damp smell, I searched for some kind of presence, but all I saw was the graffiti left on the walls.
Four sets of footsteps echoing, we ran on through the tunnel.
And then— we stopped.
Just barely keeping myself from crouching down, I gasped for breath. Sweat ran down my cheeks to the nape of my neck.
When I lifted my face, Tsukino had turned back to face the tunnel we'd just come through.
At the edge of my vision, that park was visible in the distance, too.
A little behind, Jun and Nanaha-senpai came out of the tunnel. Both were winded, but they still had energy to spare. The one in the worst shape was me.
Tsukino and I each checked our phones. The time had just hit midnight; the date had rolled over.
Tsukino's phone had a signal, but mine showed no plan. In other words, this was still Tsukino's world.
"…Nothing happened, huh."
We'd combed through the materials, but it had all been nothing more than hypothesis. It'd be stranger if it had worked.
"Sorry."
Tsukino's voice went hoarse. The gaze she'd fixed on the tunnel was mournful, and her usually ramrod-straight back looked somehow smaller.
Not yet. I didn't want to give up. Was there anything I could do? Anything I'd overlooked? Any anomaly I could find?
Even if I didn't want to go home, I wanted to repay what Tsukino and the others had done for me.
Straining my eyes, thinking, reaching for something, anything, I took a step toward the tunnel.
Just then, the phone I'd been gripping buzzed. There was no signal, but a LINE notification had come in.
And then, ever so faintly, I heard a familiar voice echoing in the tunnel.
Beyond the downcast Tsukino, beyond Jun and Nanaha-senpai standing with their backs to the tunnel. Past the tunnel lights floating in the darkness, on the old-quarter side where we'd entered, there was something like a haze. There looked to be two of them… two human figures.
I recalled Nanaha-senpai saying she'd seen a ghost on the forbidden ground.
The indistinct figures, as if set apart behind frosted glass, were so vague you couldn't even be sure they existed, a presence that by rights should have been frightening. But their movements were familiar, and so was the faint voice reaching me from far, far beyond the tunnel's length.
Those figures were calling for Masumi Asahi. They moved like people I knew. Once I thought of it that way, the blurred figures' hair started to look spiked, or silver.
Because I'd stepped toward the tunnel, Tsukino noticed them as well.
"Is that Jun and Nanaha-senpai from your world, Asahi?"
At Tsukino's words, this world's pair turned, a beat late, toward the figures beyond the tunnel and let out small groans.
"In the ritual, people close to the one who'd been spirited away entered the mountains…"
What that had truly meant, I didn't know. But maybe what was in front of me now was something close to it.
There were Tsukino and me, one and the same existence, and there were Jun and Nanaha-senpai. Whether what stood beyond the tunnel was a hallucination or the Jun and Nanaha-senpai of my world, I couldn't say. Not blood relations, but deeply connected: the literature clubs of two worlds were gathered here.
"Tsukino, Jun, Nanaha-senpai. Thank you. I'm going to try."
Tsukino started to say something, but all that spilled from her lips was a breath.
It was now or never; I made for the tunnel. Maybe it was my imagination, but the two figures seemed to be gradually fading. No, they were definitely fading.
"Asahi-kun, do your best! Thank you so much!"
"I don't buy the whole parallel-world setup, but I'm grateful!"
With their two voices at my back, I kept moving. If I turned around, I'd probably come to a stop.
"Me too!"
Her voice was close. Tsukino drew up beside me.
"I'll go with you…! Just partway."
Tsukino wouldn't look at me. Her gaze, half-hidden behind her disheveled black hair, was more uncertain than I'd ever seen it, dropped to the streetlit asphalt.
"That helps. Going alone was lonely. You get it, don't you."
Tsukino's lips traced a faint arc. The black-and-silver rose adorning her hair glinted.
"Right. Because I'm you."
We walked on side by side. Tsukino's fingertips touched my hand, and my fingers touched hers too. They twined, overlapped. Hand in hand, we headed back into the tunnel we'd come through just moments ago. Her far-too-soft palm felt hotter than it had that night.
Himurogioka First Tunnel was no different from before. Footsteps echoed, and the damp air brushed over my skin. On the far side, faint voices came from the two blurred figures.
We passed the midpoint of the tunnel. The figures, fading little by little, drew nearer.
Both Tsukino and I stayed silent, only trading glances now and then.
The end of the short tunnel was already in sight. Another ten meters or so and we'd reach those figures.
I'd come to a stop. Here was where I had to part from Tsukino. Let go of this hand and go on ahead alone. I'd never be able to see her again.
All at once I felt as if the ground beneath me might crumble away. The feelings I'd kept a lid on until now came flooding out.
I didn't want to leave Tsukino. I wanted to be with her. Talk bad ends, go to movies, write novels together. I knew that if I asked her to come to my world, she'd say yes.
Let's go together.
I barely swallowed the words that had risen to my throat.
And then—.
It was so sudden I couldn't grasp what had happened.
Tsukino had let go of my hand and thrown both arms around me.
The arms around my back squeezed almost painfully tight. Our bodies met flush, and the softness and the firmness, the heat risen in each of us, even the breath so close by, all mingled together.
Tsukino had buried her face in the crook of my neck. Her spilling breath brushed from my cheek down my neck, and with it fell a single warm drop.
"I want this world, the world I'm in. I lost so much, and I thought it was an Eternal Hell, but Asahi, and Asahi's world, showed me it wasn't only that, reminded me of it."
Tsukino lifted her face. Her eyes, swimming with tears, were hot.
"I love you, Asahi."
Tsukino's face was right there, close enough to feel each other's breath. When she gently closed her eyes, another line of tears spilled down. Her bangs mussed with sweat, her wet lashes, her lips vivid red even in the dim dark, all of it was beautiful.
"You feel the same, Asahi, don't you. I know."
She drew close.
Lips met lips.
Soft, and faintly cool. Everything before my eyes seemed to burst, and the shock of it sent a numbness shooting from my core up to my head.
The kiss lasted an instant. I didn't even have time to close my eyes, and her smile seared itself into my mind.
Her lips left mine, her arms unwound, and Tsukino herself slipped a step back.
The sound of a foot striking the asphalt rang out oddly heavy, and an impact slammed through the center of my body. Only after registering that I was flying through the air did I realize she'd hit me with a palm-heel strike.
She'd seen my hesitation and sent me on my way.
So I thought, unable to resist at all as I was sent flying.
I rolled across the asphalt, rolled, rolled, rolled, rolled—.
"So strong, strong, strong!!"
I rolled a shocking distance. I've no idea how many rotations. Still, my chest didn't hurt where she'd struck it, and I hadn't scraped myself rolling, so I could tell she'd held back somehow… but come on, that's messed up! She seriously has talent.
"That's overkill…!"
There was no one there.
When the spinning finally stopped and I turned back, fighting off the dizziness, all I found was the brightly lit tunnel. And farther beyond, at the Higashimachi-side exit, no sign of Jun or Nanaha-senpai either.
"Asahi!" "Asahi-kun!"
The voices came from behind me, from the old-quarter-side exit close by.
Jun and Nanaha-senpai came running up. The two of them were in Himurogioka High School uniforms, and Nanaha-senpai's hair was a beautiful silver.
"It's just like Nanaha-senpai said, isn't it. The forbidden ground, the ritual, all that."
"Asahi-kun, are you all right? We couldn't reach you at all. I was worried. So, since you were talking about the forbidden ground the last time we met, I looked into it."
I answered that I was okay.
My world's Jun and Nanaha-senpai had worried about me, as friends do. That was surely what had led to this moment. Because the two of them came, a point of contact formed between the worlds. I could only be grateful, from the bottom of my heart.
And their presence was also proof that this wasn't Tsukino's world.
Still sitting there on the asphalt, I looked back once more at the empty tunnel.
"…I'm the same."
I'd murmured it without thinking. Toward this town that wasn't here.
"I was taught, and I remembered, that my world is something precious."
I clenched my fist and raised it. The fist-bump we'd repeated so many times, swept up so easily by that movie.
"I love you, Tsukino."
My vision blurred. It wasn't because the two worlds had connected. I knew that much myself.
"You feel the same, Tsukino. I know."
More Bad, More Hell.
Nothing would come back to my fist, or my words. I knew that, too.