2

Although it was currently summer vacation, a few students dotted the premises, likely visiting for club activities. Kei and Haruki started by walking around and scoping out the various clubs. Clubs were a great source for gathering info, as they could easily section out grades and genders. Kei’s plan was to ask as many third-year girls as possible what they knew about Oka Eri. He had Haruki do the actual talking, since it would be easier for them to talk to a fellow girl.

Nanasaka Junior High had six separate classes for the third-year students. Ideally, one out of every six students they asked would at least share classes with her. They got a bad start, as nobody in the literature club knew her. Their second visit was to the brass band, and while the trombonist was in her class, she didn’t have anything special to offer. But it at least gave them the knowledge that Oka Eri was in the second class group, or in shorthand, class 3-2.

With the class narrowed down, the rest should have been simple. All they needed to do was track down her acquaintances and ask them all questions. They couldn’t learn everything from one person, but everyone would be willing to share their own form of information, and it would all pile up over time. Taking advantage of personality types and what information each individual would be likely to give, he should’ve had all the information he wanted in no time.

After gathering for just over an hour, Kei came to a very simple conclusion: Oka Eri didn’t have many friends. At least from everything they gathered about class 3-2, she didn’t have any friends there at all. She was not in any clubs or committees, and didn’t even make a habit of talking with anyone at school. Kei realized a change of tact was in order.

Instead of looking for her current classmates, he started looking for people who shared classes with her the year before. Since Kei was enrolled while she was a second-year, he knew with certainty that she had been in class 2-4. They began walking through the clubs, looking for people Kei had seen in her class the previous year. From there, they asked who Oka Eri’s friends were, and they finally got a lead.

They were pointed to a third-year girl in the art club. She was so passionate about her art that she was in the school that day getting more painting in. When they opened the door to the art room, they found her sitting alone, staring at a blank canvas. She wore a stained white smock over her clothes. Kei supposed it must have been a gift, because it was far too large for her.

“Excuse me, could I have a moment of your time?” Haruki asked the girl.

The girl spared a single glance in their direction before turning back to her canvas. “I’m gonna keep painting, but go ahead.” Her voice was low and muted.

The girl began painting on her canvas with a large brush smeared in light yellow paint. Before long, the center of the canvas was smeared in uneven yellow tones.

“Are you acquainted with a girl by the name of Oka Eri?” Haruki asked.

The girl mixed a bit of brown into her brush, dulling the yellow. She began painting around the lighter yellow in the center, asking, “Just who are you?”

“We graduated from this school last year,” Haruki answered.

The girl looked towards them one more time. This time, her gaze focused not on Haruki, but Kei. “Asai-senpai?”

Kei nodded. “Yes. I see my reputation precedes me.”

“You’re a pretty hot topic around here, Senpai. The honors student that all the teachers hated.”

“I see.” That wasn’t very far off the mark.

The besmocked girl continued painting with the yellow-brown mixture. “Eri had plenty to say about her senpai.”

“What kinds of things did she say?”

“Any mention of you was only so she could slander you more.” When about two-thirds of the canvas was yellow, she began boldly stroking on a muddy green.

“Is that meant to be abstract?” Kei asked.

“Nah, it’s just a normal landscape painting.” Her brush never stopped as she continued speaking. “You know who Bob Ross is?”

“I do not. Who would that be?”

“He’s an American.”

Kei smiled. He rather enjoyed the girl’s brash manner of speaking. “Is he a painter?”

“Yup. All his paintings look like this. He uses a big brush to make uneven strokes, mixing all kinds of colors, and in no time at all, he makes a painting that is simple while looking complex. It’s really fun, but my teacher gets pissed when I do it during class, so I only do this in my free time.”

The besmocked girl picked up a smaller brush, applying white to the tip and dark yellow to the base. The two colors shouldn’t have mixed at all, but when she made a single stroke across the top of the canvas, clouds sprung into shape, with built-in light and dark sides. The previously yellowed canvas transformed into a brilliant depiction of a twilight sky with the small addition of a few clouds.

“That’s incredible,” Kei remarked.

The besmocked girl shook her head. “No, it’s just imitation art. Anybody could do this by  copying the steps. That’s why my teacher doesn’t like it. He wants me to understand more of my own art before I copy someone else’s style. I get what he means, but… It’s just so fun, I can’t help but do it anyway.”

The girl grabbed yet another smaller brush, painting the lower green section with a brownish-black. Suddenly, the green segment gave way to a shadowy forest landscape.

“I think understanding methodology is still important,” Kei commented.

“Even if you only make a superficial copy?”

“Well, I’m no artist, so I can’t tell much of a difference between the surface and the substance of a painting. But I think that more often than not, most things only show the surface anyway.” Without studying the surface, he could never find the underlying substance. Besides, just having a surface to look at was better than nothing at all.

The girl’s hand stopped, and she looked back at Kei. “You know, you’re different from what I’ve heard out of Eri.”

“Who, me?”

“Of course I’m talking about you.”

Kei gave his earlier question another shot. “What did she have to say about me?”

“That you don’t take other people seriously, you hide your real intentions, and everything you say is to mislead people. You mock the world around you, and everything you say is blatantly malicious. A villain, more or less.”

“I see.” Back in his second year of middle school, when he first met Oka Eri, that description would have been quite accurate.

The besmocked girl turned back to her canvas, saying, “She used to talk about you all the time. She loved sharing stories about the things you did. But over time, she talked about you less and less, and eventually she stopped talking to me entirely.”

“Did something happen to her?”

“Dunno. I wasn’t particularly close to her to begin with. All the girls make their own little cliques at the beginning of the school year. The two of us were really opposed to that, so we were more or less forced to pair up whenever it came time to make groups.” The girl began painting delicate shadows on the canvas in a completely different form than before. “She was always talking about how much she wanted to be like Asai-senpai.”

“Like me?”

“Yeah. Like a villain.”

“Why?”

“I can’t say for sure, but personally I think that when she said villain, she meant someone who was strong. She constantly brought up how much she hated weak people.” Suddenly, she stopped her hand and clicked her tongue.

“What’s the matter?”

“I messed up. This painting’s no good now.”

Kei couldn’t even tell what the problem might have been. “Sorry, I suppose I’m getting in your way.”

“In my way? No, no, it’s not you. I love talking while I paint. I just think that what it needs is more broad and confident strokes. I’m trying too hard to be meticulous.”

“I can’t really see any issues with it.”

“I’m still painting unnaturally. Ah, geez,” the girl groaned, pulling at her hair roughly with her paint-striped hand. She turned back towards Kei and bowed. “You’ll have to excuse me. I want to finish this up, but I don’t like fixing up bad paintings. I really don’t want people to watch me paint indecisively.”

Personally, Kei would’ve advised her to stop if she didn’t like it, but everyone had their own preferences. He nodded. “I understand. We’ll be on our way. Thank you for talking with us.”

“No, I ju- oh, that’s right.” She stopped Kei and Haruki just before they left. “I just remembered something. Eri once said that Asai-senpai was the only person that she allowed to call her by her full name.”

“Her name?”

“Yeah. She hated it when people called her by her full name. I kinda get it, calling someone ‘Oka Eri’ sounds like the setup of a joke or something.¹ But from the way she talked about it, maybe there was some kind of deeper reason.”

Oka Eri. Not Fujikawa Eri, but Oka Eri.

“Thank you very much for letting me know.” Bowing his head one more time, Kei and Haruki exited the art room.

Leaving the school building, Kei and Haruki sat down on a courtyard bench. It was 3 PM in August, and the sky was tinted a light blue. As you moved closer to the horizon, the sky turned whiter, creating a beautiful gradation. Kei watched the baseball team practice across the schoolyard as he asked, “What do you make of all this, Haruki?” What are her thoughts on Oka Eri with everything she’s heard?

“What concerns me the most is how she wanted to be like you.”

It was rare for Kei to hear Haruki talk about concerns. “You mean how she wanted to be more villainous?” Evidently, for Oka Eri, to be a villain was to be strong. It might normally sound like she was taking things too far, but Kei had an idea of what was behind her logic. He had actually discussed the topic with her long ago.

“You are not villainous, Kei.”

“Well, it’s hard to say that with all certainty. She only knew what I was like two years ago.”

“But you have not significantly changed in comparison to two years ago.”

“Well, that’s a shock to hear. And here I thought I’d been making some progress.”

Haruki gave a slight smile. “That is not the appearance of someone who is shocked, Kei.”

The smile was so like Haruki Misora. For most, when in a good mood, a smile would be like a line connected directly to their heart. But this one wasn’t right. Her eyebrows, cheeks, mouth, eyes, everything was off. It was a surface-level smile.

“Are you scared of Oka Eri?” Kei asked. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was. She wouldn’t want to lose her ability. After all, the reset ability carried a profound significance for the two of them.

“I have only one question,” Haruki answered. “Kei. Suppose that my abilities were sealed away. Suppose I could no longer reset. Would that change anything about our relationship?” Her voice was as calm and peaceful as ever.

Haruki Misora’s reset and Asai Kei’s perfect recall. The ability to erase all memories, and the ability to keep all memories. The two abilities were nearly useless by themselves, but when combined, their compatibility stood above all others. If the reset was lost, then so was their reason to be together.

Kei gave a weak shake of his head. “I don’t know.”

Such a terrible thing to say. Perhaps more so than he could even recognize.

Haruki Misora’s tone remained unchanged. “Then with all that I am, I will ensure the protection of my ability.” Having said that, she smiled.

An outburst of anger would have been justified. She could even have broken down in tears.

But instead, Haruki Misora smiled.

✽

Later that night, Kei lay in bed, flipping through the pages of a novel that had been popular some three years ago. He definitely enjoyed the story, but he was having trouble focusing. He just couldn’t get his mind to mesh with what he was reading. Too many annoying things were taking up space in his head.

He finally took his eyes off the book, glancing out the window. There was a wide road that ran about 20 yards away, and he watched the red tail lights flash by. He looked up to see the waning moon, almost getting to the new moon cycle. It looked like it would be a relatively cloudless night. He wasn’t much of an astronomy whiz, but if he went outside, he figured he could at least spot the Summer Triangle.

But just as he was making plans, his phone rang. He checked the display to see, “Tsushima-sensei.” The very moment he pressed the answer button, a voice came blasting in from his cell speaker.

“You’re investigating Oka Eri, aren’t you?” It was very much like Tsushima to just begin speaking when on the phone. Perhaps he just really hated saying hello.

“Yes, that’s her,” Kei answered.

“The third-year at Nanasaka Junior High?”

“Yessir.”

“I did a little bit of research into her.”

Kei would have to make sure to thank him later. “That’s a huge help. What did you find?”

“Yeah, she’s probably got some connections with the Administration Bureau. A certain employee has files on coming into contact with a particularly talented girl by the name of Oka Eri.”

It was fairly common for the Bureau to reach out to ability users and establish new cooperative contracts. After all, the bulk of their power lay in the wide array of abilities they had at their disposal. But there was something even more important underneath that basic knowledge.

“Did Oka Eri seal Sasano-san’s ability under direct orders from the Bureau?” If so, that posed a huge problem. Although Kei’s goal was to return Sasano’s ability, if it had been removed by order of the Bureau, the buck would stop there. It’d be hard to justify defying the Bureau as the right move.

“I’m not sure yet,” Tsushima answered. “There aren’t any documents I’ve found that confirm a decision to take action regarding Sasano Hiroyuki’s ability. At the very least, they aren’t public to the rest of the staff.”

That made sense to some degree. After all, if Oka Eri was working directly under the Bureau, there would have been no reason not to tell Sasano about it. But what did that mean, then? Was the Bureau tied to the incident, or not?

Another possibility came to mind. Maybe Oka Eri was working with a particular employee off the books. He recalled that Sasano had been a former member of the Bureau himself. But if current Bureau members were working to sabotage former members, then the rabbit hole Kei was chasing could get a whole lot deeper than he had bargained for.

As Kei was deep in thought, Tsushima continued, “Something about this doesn’t feel right. I don’t think you should mix yourself up with Oka Eri or Sasano for the time being.”

“You may be right.” Kei didn’t want to just throw in the towel if he didn’t have to, though. He followed up with, “Did you find anything on what her ability is?”

Oka Eri had threatened to plunder Haruki’s reset. The stakes were too high to be taking any risks without proper knowledge.

“No, not yet. It’s taking longer than expected.”

That was strange to hear. Bureau staff rarely ran into any issues when investigating people’s abilities. “Is someone hiding the information from you?”

“I can’t be sure, but… on the organizational side, the Bureau generally discloses its information.”

So in other words, there may be employees working behind the scenes. But what motive could an individual employee have to discreetly seal off Sasano’s ability?

“Anyways, I’m sure I’ll be able to get more info one way or another.”

“Sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to keep looking into it.”

“Just don’t get your hopes up. I can’t say for sure how high up the ladder this operation goes.” After crudely finishing with, “You oughta keep yourself outta this one,” Tsushima hung up.

Kei lobbed his phone onto the bed, closing his eyes. Regardless of whoever may be behind this whole charade, I need to keep my focus on Oka Eri.

There was no doubt that her current antics were related to what happened between her and Kei two years ago. After all, Asai Kei was the first person to ever start calling her Oka Eri.

Footnotes

¹ Speaking Oka Eri’s full name sounds very similar to “Okaeri”, the returning phrase discussed in the previous volume. The word itself is not humorous, but it would be akin to meeting an American named April May. This incidental wordplay is also the reason behind the extra commentary surrounding her name’s introduction. return