2 – July 15th (Saturday) – Starting point (third time)

Saturday morning was heralded by Tomoki’s voice. Being the third run through, Kei was well used to it. The world was, as ever, sunny and bright. The weather wasn’t subject to last night’s dreams, after all.

When Kei arrived at the coffee shop for the planned meeting, Tsushima was nowhere to be found. In the place where he should have been were two young women.

One of them was Haruki Misora, which was quite understandable. The less understandable girl sat diagonally of her. Murase Youka was there, drinking her iced coffee with a sullen look. But why Murase? Tsushima could at least have told them in advance that he was setting them up for this.

Haruki looked up at Kei like it was any other Saturday. “Good morning to you.”

Now he couldn’t escape. He was left with no options.

Kei replied with his own, “Morning,” and sat down next to Haruki. Naturally, this placed him directly across from Murase. Murase didn’t acknowledge him. In all honesty, it was kind of awkward, given that their last conversation mostly consisted of death threats. But he gave it a shot anyway. “Good morning to you as well, Murase-san.”

No response. He tried a question. “What are you here for?”

Her first response was her ever-present glare, before she finally answered with a tone that suggested she’d rather be anywhere else. “Tsushima told me to come here. So, how much do you know?”

Know? “What do you mean?”

“About me. I imagine Tsushima gave you a rundown about my ability.”

Kei wouldn’t have needed any kind of explanation. He’d gotten a firsthand account of how Murase’s ability worked. Something didn’t feel right about her question. Kei slowly tried to tease it out. “I wouldn’t need anyone to explain it to me, given the circumstances.”

Murase scrunched her eyebrows. “What do you mean, ‘given the circumstances?’”

“We’ve met before, prior to a reset.”

“Yeah, what of it?”

“Where do you remember that happening?”

“This coffee place, duh. What are you trying to pull?”

“No, I…”

Something was off. Her story didn’t fit, but she didn’t look like she was lying, either. She shouldn’t have had any reason to lie in the first place. But, if that was all true…

“Murase-san… Do you want to kill me?”

Murase flashed a perplexed frown. “Why the heck would I want to kill you?”

Kei wished he knew. “Just kidding.”

“Your jokes suck,” Murase quipped, looking even more sullen.

There was no doubting it now. Somehow, she didn’t have any memories before resetting. No, wait, that wasn’t quite right. She at least remembered the first Friday, since she recalled meeting at this coffee shop, where she asked them to save a cat. But there was the second Friday, when she attacked them on the riverbed. Somehow, she got past the first reset and kept her memories, but she didn’t make it through the second reset? How could that be?

Kei probed a little more. “Is the cat doing well?”

“Why you askin’ me? Tsushima should’ve told you everything.”

Tsushima hadn’t told Kei anything. “You told us that you adopted the cat about six months ago. You raised him from a kitten, he’s a moggy, and his name is Mike.”

“And?”

“You were lying to us. Well, granted, he is a moggy. But your whole adoption story was made up.”

“Boy, you sure did your research, huh?”

“Point being, if you made all that up, I don’t get why you made the request.” Resetting to save the cat you adopted was one thing. It varied from person to person, but many people saw their pets as family. But using a reset on some random stray was a bit overkill, to say the least.

“I wanted to see what I was capable of. I wanted to try canceling out your ability with mine.”

Kei was starting to get worried, but spoke up nonetheless. “But we’ve reset twice since meeting you.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Did Tsushima-sensei tell you that?”

“Look, you’re starting to get on my nerves. Quit beating around the bush. Just say what you wanna say, or shut up.”

“Alright, sorry. So, it seems obvious to me that the first reset didn’t affect your memories. But you somehow didn’t last through the second reset. Why is that?”

“I probably only bothered with one experiment. If I knew I could do it, then that’s that. No reason to care about you after that.”

“I see.” Surely she was lying. She wasn’t that careless. She must have continued protecting her body every five minutes with the callout, “Whole body, abilities.” After all, she canceled Nonō’s connection every time that she touched the cat.

What happened in the span of Thursday to Saturday? She must have been up to something. Surely she wouldn’t suddenly walk up to them with death threats for no reason.

The waiter came by their table, possibly noticing the lull in conversation. After a quick glance at the menu, Kei ordered a coffee float.

Murase spoke up, with every ounce of her bad attitude in tow. “Why would you order something like that?”

“Not a fan of ice cream in your coffee?” Kei could find no reason to deny himself something so delicious.

“Of course not, ‘cause the ice in the coffee sticks to your ice cream.”

Sadly, she was right. In order to fully enjoy a coffee float without picking it apart like a barbarian, ice cream sacrifices had to be made.

“If you want iced coffee and ice cream, just make two separate orders. It’s bad taste to just throw two things together willy-nilly.”

“But it’s more expensive to order them both separately.”

“Who cares, Tsushima’s buying.”

“Oh, I see. I wish you had brought that up earlier.”

“I didn’t know I would have to.”

Tsushima finally arrived amidst the lovely conversation Kei was having with the girl who wanted to kill him. He was five minutes late.

Tsushima sat down next to Murase, and became the recipient of her trademark glare. “Why are these two here?” Murase demanded.

“‘Cause the MacGuffin was stolen, and you all need to get it back,” Tsushima answered offhandedly.

The conversation ground to a halt. The events that Kei had finally strung together were entangled once more. As Kei struggled to contain his breathing, Haruki claimed her pancake breakfast set from the waiter with a, “That is mine.” Just as always, Haruki was completely detached from what was unfolding before her. Tsushima took the chance to order the house blend.

When the waiter walked away, Murase spoke. “Didn’t you tell me that you’d be giving me the MacGuffin if I came here?”

Well, that was a surefire way of getting her to show up, Kei figured.

Tsushima put his chin in his hand and looked at Murase with his sleepy eyes. “Can’t give you something that was stolen. If you get it back, it’s yours.”

“Then I could’ve handled it myself. Why are they involved?”

“‘Cause they’re your senpai.”

“How? Aren’t they younger than me?”

Still looking Murase in the eyes, Tsushima pointed at Kei. Kei felt pinned down with no way of escape just by that one finger alone.

“These kids here caused a hell of a lot of trouble for the Bureau two years back.”

For just a moment, Murase’s eyes widened, before quickly narrowing again. Despite her airs, she tended to wear her heart on her sleeve. Honesty was always an honorable virtue.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Two years ago, Asai Kei, a second-year middle schooler, rebelled against the Administration Bureau, and almost succeeded in his revolution. It was almost poetic how well he fielded the board. It may as well have been two queens against a few measly pawns. A couple of brat kids managed to completely upend the Bureau.”

“But then what happened?”

“Just as he had it all, he resigned. The Bureau jumped at the chance to reclaim all their lost pieces, and now, two years later, it’s like nothing ever happened.”

Murase fixed her glare towards Kei. “Is that true?”

Kei shook his head. “I remember that story quite differently.”

Tsushima smiled. “Oh, so how do you remember it?”

“During the whole match, there was never a king on the board.” No matter how hard he tried, if there wasn’t a king to take down, he couldn’t win the game.

“Whatever that means,” Murase muttered. It wasn’t all that complex of a tale. Kei tried to take on the Bureau for his own selfish reasons. He prepared as much as he could to make it work. But it couldn’t work. All he was left with was the reminder that selfishness wouldn’t help him achieve his goals.

Kei’s coffee float was brought over, and he took it from the tray. He set it down and scooped some ice cream from the top, taking care not to let any coffee spill.

With his finger still pointing at Kei, Tsushima turned back to Murase. “Like I said, this guy’s your senpai.”

“Then why’s he working as the Bureau’s gofer?” Murase griped.

“To be honest, I’d like to know too. Why is that?”

Kei didn’t really want to talk about it. He was more concerned with keeping the ice separated from his ice cream, but it didn’t look like he could weasel out of this one. “Because taking down the Bureau by sheer force is never gonna work. Besides, it’s not like I hate the Bureau on principle.”

Two years ago, Kei was convinced that he was fully prepared. But ultimately, he was forced to concede that he couldn’t cut it. His whole approach had been wrong, right from the get-go. He thought he was so cool, running in guns blazing, trying to appease his own selfish desires. Looking back on it only proved to show how childish it all was. He seriously thought he could get away with borrowing someone else’s power while blasting them with hostility from every direction. Now, if at all possible, Kei just wanted to work alongside the Bureau. “Shouldn’t we be worrying more about the MacGuffin? Who stole it, and to what end?”

“Oh,” Tsushima interjected. “Yesterday after school, the MacGuffin was in my desk drawer. There was a small interval of time where no teachers were in the staff room. But somewhere in that time, it disappeared.”

“Are you sure you didn’t just lose it, Tsushima-sensei?”

“Absolutely. I know that it was stolen for certain.”

Kei studied Tsushima’s face. He had plenty of examples of Tsushima’s facial expressions to compare and contrast against. For now, he probably wasn’t lying.

“Did anyone witness any possible culprits?”

“No, but not many people in the office knew about the MacGuffin. Plenty of teachers would have been willing to leave the staff room unmanned. In all likelihood, the culprit is Yoshii Ryouji.”

The Operator. An informant so powerful that even the Bureau utilized him. It was within reason to assume that he could manipulate the circumstances and find the opportune moment. But there wasn’t much supporting evidence. Besides, even Kei knew where the MacGuffin was, and he was reasonably confident that if he wanted it badly enough, he could figure out a way to get it.

Something was off about the whole situation, but Kei decided to keep it to himself for the time being. He was all too aware that Tsushima likely possessed more information than he was letting on. Enough information to indict The Operator at least, if not more.

“Get it back as soon as possible. I don’t care what any of your motives are,” Tsushima said, sounding as though he truly didn’t have a care in the world.

“I’m not ‘getting it back’. I’m taking what’s mine,” Murase responded.

Kei didn’t really want to insert himself into their conversation. He watched Haruki silently eat her pancakes. Man, she really has it good, he thought as he grudgingly opened his own mouth to speak. “Just one thing.” He scooped up a bit more of his coffee float. The ice cream was already melting into the coffee, clouding up the dark liquid. “Did Minami-san ever get in touch with The Operator?”

Tsushima paused for a moment before slowly shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

That sounds about right, Kei thought as he nodded.