Chapter 97: Which of Us Is Special Is Self-Evident
“Now that you’ve calmed down, let’s address the main issue. Where is the sacred orb’s power you absorbed?”
“Who would tell you!?”
With Kuwajima’s furious shout, darkness shaped like a water dragon erupted from the floor and attacked me.
I didn’t move a muscle.
It was merely a product of Kuwajima’s imagination and posed no physical threat.
I knew her imagination couldn’t damage my firmly established ego.
And Kuwajima couldn’t fully control the sacred orb’s power she’d absorbed.
In other words, it was only an empty prop.
There was no reason for me to respond.
Because I possessed that certainty, I did nothing.
Just as expected, when the water dragon struck me, it burst apart with a pathetic splash.
Not a drop of darkness harmed me.
“If you won’t tell me, that’s fine. I’ll simply search using every method available.”
“Impossible… This man truly remains completely unmoved…”
“Hmm? Did you do something?”
“You clearly noticed it!”
I’d noticed, but responding to an ineffective attack with provocation was also perfectly ordinary behavior. Forgive me.
I’d completed another quota.
Kuwajima unleashed various things afterward, but fundamentally, she had no talent.
She produced numerous attacks based on images she considered “cool,” but without substance, they were merely empty.
Even things she could freely control within her mental world had no meaning against me.
Thus, Kuwajima now resembled a child desperately throwing a tantrum inside the faculty room.
“Understand this already, Kuwajima. You cannot harm me.”
“I-I must still have more hidden power within me!”
She groaned in frustration while glaring straight at me.
This made me look like some villain cornering Kuwajima.
Since she looked like a middle-school student, it would appear even worse from an outside perspective.
Perhaps the proper course was to wait until Kuwajima surrendered, but I didn’t have time to entertain this farce indefinitely.
After thinking briefly, I began persuading her.
“Kuwajima, you’re kinder than you realize.”
“…What are you talking about?”
“You might attack a genuine enemy, but you can’t truly intend to hurt someone close to you from the bottom of your heart. And I’m not your enemy. That’s enough. You don’t need to fight anymore.”
“Stop treating me like a wounded demon! I am the ruler of this world!”
As if unleashing her final attack, Kuwajima sent a tsunami of darkness surging toward me.
It swept up the faculty room’s desks and chairs, making it appear to possess physical force.
Perhaps being struck by a desk or chair that had originally existed in this world could ordinarily injure me.
But I wouldn’t cower here.
If I flinched at such a critical moment, I could never become an ordinary university student you could find anywhere.
The predecessors I’d seen in my textbooks—light novels—advanced fearlessly when approaching another person, even if they might be hurt.
I gave a faint smile and finally moved.
Step by step, I walked into the approaching tsunami.
Straight toward Kuwajima, never slowing.
As though proudly declaring that I would follow my own path.
“—!!”
Kuwajima’s face showed shock, followed by a moment’s hesitation.
The tsunami was already on the verge of swallowing me.
Then I took one more step.
The approaching wave split.
It flowed behind me, avoiding my body.
As expected, Kuwajima couldn’t bring herself to hurt someone from the bottom of her heart.
After a sequence that resembled a fantasy battle series, I reached middle-school Kuwajima.
She hung her head without looking at me.
“You understand now, Kuwajima. That power doesn’t suit you. Relinquish it.”
“…”
Her true self—the Kuwajima in her mental world—had remained a second-year middle-school student all this time.
I’d certainly barged into this world with muddy shoes, but the fact that she’d kept a second-year middle-school student inside her heart all these years was Kuwajima’s own answer.
“I was probably special back then.”
Kuwajima murmured.
Still hanging her head, she spoke like she was talking to herself, but intended me to hear.
“Even without special powers, everyone relied on me, expected things from me, and respected me. It felt good, but it was frightening. I couldn’t stop, and it hurt. I had complicated feelings, but that was still when I felt most special in my life—special enough that I haven’t forgotten it even now.”
I recalled middle-school Kuwajima.
She’d matured mentally faster than her peers.
She had also immersed herself deeply in subculture.
Those two qualities made her stand apart from others beginning in the later years of elementary school.
But around middle school, others caught up to Kuwajima’s development.
Suddenly, she became a charismatic figure among her classmates.
She must’ve been happy in that moment. She must’ve enjoyed it.
Then, despite everyone’s expectations, Kuwajima saw a little of reality.
When she calmly examined her circumstances, she realized she possessed nothing.
Yet when she realized it, she cursed herself.
Other people’s expectations cursed her so deeply she couldn’t escape on her own.
She was a good girl who couldn’t easily betray those expectations.
Yet she was an ordinary girl who realized she wasn’t special.
She was a selfish girl who couldn’t abandon the things she loved despite not being special.
And now she was an overgrown child who’d obtained a “true mystery” for the first time.
“I always wondered: If I’d really had a special power back then, would something have changed? Could I have become the genuine article—someone who made everyone’s expectant eyes shine brighter and brighter? Like Taketsuru-kun or Meiko-chan?”
Perhaps Kuwajima only began harboring that desire so strongly after becoming involved with me.
Taketsuru and Meiko were audacious supposed members of modern society who nevertheless possessed special powers. Seeing them would’ve made her even more aware that she possessed nothing.
Then, by accident, she obtained this power.
She’d gone so far as to imitate unfamiliar behavior and pretend to hurt people because she wanted to protect it.
Honestly, I listened to only about half of that story.
I understood that Kuwajima was telling me something important.
I believed I also understood what she meant.
But I couldn’t sincerely empathize with why it troubled her so deeply.
Therefore, I denied one thing she’d said.
“Kuwajima, haven’t you misunderstood one thing?”
“What?”
Kuwajima finally raised her head.
I spoke plainly to her as she looked like a student whose answer had just been marked wrong.
“Whatever you experienced in middle school, and whatever abilities you might’ve possessed, the university-student Kuwajima of today is incomparably more special.”
“What? Why?”
At Kuwajima’s question, I pointed my thumb at myself.
“There’s no possibility that the position of ‘Kirishiro Gouto’s best friend’ isn’t special. Common ninjas on the darker end of the spectrum overflow in this world, but Kuwajima is my only ‘female best friend.’ Which of us is special is self-evident. A special ability is merely a bonus too trivial to list on a résumé. Be satisfied with your present situation. You are an ordinary university student’s ‘female best friend.'”
Yes. That was practically a law of the universe.
No matter how many people with unusual abilities existed in this world, no matter how many aliens, time travelers, or otherworlders fought unknown battles in places we knew nothing about…
An ordinary university student you could find anywhere was fundamentally the center of the world.
The position of my “best friend” was obviously far more special.
Therefore, as one of the world’s protagonists, Kuwajima could hold her head high.
“…No, wait. How confident can one person be…? For that matter, what part of Kirishiro-kun is an ordinary university student…? Trying to persuade me with that is so ridiculous… Heh, heh-heh-heh, ahahahaha!”
“What’s funny?”
“I realized you truly believe it from the bottom of your heart. Kirishiro-kun really is Kirishiro-kun.”
Naturally.
I was me. Only one me existed in this world.
There was no point in worrying whether one was special.
I’d grown tired during high school of hearing phrases like “what makes you different from others” and “the thing only you can do.”
Regardless, I was me.
Since my consciousness existed only within me, that fact alone made me the world’s most special being from my perspective.
I was myself, not another. I think, therefore I am.
An excellent saying. It demonstrated that I was me.
Though as an ordinary university student you could find anywhere, I preferred not to go around calling myself special.
“Obsessing over the ability to spray a little water like a hose in front of Kirishiro-kun is starting to feel stupid. Fine, fine. You win.”
“I see. Then let’s remove the cause immediately. Time is precious.”
“…Couldn’t you say something sympathetic, even if it was a lie?”
“I’m a man who generally doesn’t lie. Though I occasionally use expedient untruths.”
“Then use one now!”
Kuwajima seemed to have abandoned the Kumamoto dialect, but she’d simultaneously recovered her usual energy.
The darkness that had spread through the faculty room had vanished at some point. The swallowed teachers had also returned as if nothing happened.
It reminded me this world wasn’t physical but changed according to Kuwajima’s state of mind.
“Now, Kuwajima. Take me to the sacred orb.”
“…”
“Kuwajima?”
My request wasn’t difficult.
I’d expected the current Kuwajima to comply, but she quickly averted her gaze.
What did that mean, Kuwajima? What were you hiding?
After I stared for a while, she murmured.
“Heh-heh-heh. Just because this is inside my mind doesn’t necessarily mean I understand everything here. Don’t you agree?”
“Meaning?”
“I lost track of where it went. Tee-hee!”
Kuwajima!
──────
Author’s Note:
In a fantasy romantic comedy, this might’ve been an important event for saving the heroine.
But this is a modern fantasy about ordinary university life you could find anywhere.
It’s a comedy. The persuasion phase is a waste of time.
It’s frustrating, but it can’t be helped.
When a lack of human empathy is overcome by brute-forcing matters with ego, malfunctions occur.