Chapter 157: Wait, We Can Talk This Out

While I was bawling my eyes out, I noticed Tsubaki appearing in the underground laboratory while dragging Conrad Williams by the hand.

The moment she saw me, Tsubaki’s eyes widened and she sprinted straight toward me.

Then she leapt onto me and began frantically licking my tear-and-snot-covered face all over.

“Mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi, mimi-mi-mi…!”

“Abubububububu, bububububu…!”

Tsubaki whimpered worriedly while slobbering all over my face.

Like how dogs and cats lick their companions to comfort them.

T-Tsubaki, wait, Tsubaki.

Thanks for worrying about me. But now instead of tears and snot, my face is soaked in drool.

“H-Hey, Tsubaki, abububububu— I’m okay, really okay. I stopped crying. Bwehff— I’m fine, so stop.”

“Mimi!”

When I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away, Tsubaki stretched out her tiny hands as far as she could and patted my head.

Then she immediately puffed up in anger.

“Who made Dairi cry? I’ll beat them up!”

“N-No, uh… now that I’ve calmed down a little, I’m starting to think this was all just a misunderstanding.”

“Mii? What did someone do to Dairi? Tell me. Don’t hold it in.”

“Ahh… well… basically, I cried because Hiyori killed my friend, but—”

“She killed Dairi’s friend!? The Blue Witch is the worst!”

Startled, Tsubaki jumped into the air as flames and heat waves burst from her entire body.

Then she glared fiercely at Hiyori, who was still crying while talking with Williams.

It was exactly what people meant by “hair standing on end in rage.”

Her flaming hair whipped upward in the heat.

I hurriedly grabbed Tsubaki’s hand as she hoisted her ridiculously huge hammer and tried to go smash Hiyori with it.

Wait wait wait! That’ll just make things worse!

“Calm down, Tsubaki. If you think about it rationally, this girl can be revived with resurrection magic. It’s not like she died a magic death and turned to dust. It’s awful, yeah, but basically she’s just asleep. Like getting hit with a sleep spell.”

“Mi…? Really?”

“Really. Even in full slaughter mode, Hiyori wouldn’t kill a child for no reason. There had to be a reason. The real issue is that instead of thanking Hiyori for coming to save me with everything she had, I just criticized her nonstop.”

“Mimi!? You didn’t say thank you to the Blue Witch!? Even though she saved you!? Dairi, you’re the worst!”

Tsubaki gasped in horror and smacked me hard in the stomach with her hammer.

Gweh!!

Y-Yeah.

Whenever I screw up socially, Hiyori usually gets exasperated or angry.

She never cried.

But right now, she was crying.

That meant I had hurt her that badly.

I really was the worst.

“Dairi, apologize! Say sorry to the Blue Witch!”

“I-I know, but… apologizing is scary. Seriously. Really scary. When I imagine apologizing and not being forgiven, I start trembling. Look at my legs! I’ve never shaken this badly in my life. But this fear is selfish on my part. Apologizing just to be forgiven is the behavior of a trashy self-serving coward. Even if she doesn’t forgive me, the right thing is to apologize sincerely for the sake of apologizing. And being scared of feeling sad myself when I’m the jerk who made Hiyori cry is just pathetic self-centered nonsense. Plus, what really makes me realize how awful I am is that somewhere deep down I still think I had a point too, because Hiyori killed my friend—a girl who was finally about to reunite with her long-lost big brother—and at the same time, saying Hiyori’s innocent just because she’s crying also feels wrong, but then again this was obviously all a misunderstanding and she clearly never meant any harm, which means after all I should’ve prioritized the person I love most, Hiyori, instead of getting swept up in the shock and worrying more about my friend than the woman I’ve spent eighty years with, and now it feels like there’s no taking back what I said and I’m wondering if someone this pathetic can really spend the long, long future ahead with Hiyori—”

“Mi!”

As I spiraled into depressed rambling, Tsubaki jammed the butt of Salamandra into my mouth midway through and shut me up.

“Mogaga.”

“Dairi, don’t make things complicated. Both of you had bad parts. Both of you say sorry, then say ‘it’s okay,’ then make up. Easy! Ah, but your apology has to come from deep in your tummy. If you only pretend to apologize and then secretly go blehhh behind their back later, Spider-san gets really angry. Mii…”

“Tsubaki…”

I patted Tsubaki’s head as she squeezed her eyes shut tightly, apparently recalling something unpleasant.

You really are such a good kid.

She was right.

First, I had to apologize.

Overthinking things wouldn’t solve anything.

That said, the thought of Hiyori rejecting me even after I apologized terrified me so badly my legs refused to move, so in the end I was pathetically dragged across the floor by Tsubaki and hauled in front of Hiyori.

Sorry for being pathetic. My heart was screaming at me to apologize sincerely, but my body just wouldn’t cooperate.

Sitting collapsed on the floor with red swollen eyes from crying, Hiyori turned away the moment she saw me.

“…I don’t want to talk.”

“!!!!!!!!!!”

“That’s troublesome,” 

Williams said gently. 

“Blue Witch, I want you to smile. I want you to be happy. And just as much, I don’t want you to be sad. Could you at least listen to what he has to say?”

“…………”

“Someday, far in the future, I don’t want you regretting that you should’ve talked things through back then. Talk it out first. If after that you still think it can’t work, then fine. You can tell him you hate him. But losing a bond that could’ve been repaired simply because neither side found the words… isn’t that sad? So for your own sake more than anyone else’s, I want you to talk. It’s okay. No matter what happens, I’ll be on your side. What do you say?”

“…Mm.”

“Thank you. Now then, Dairi. Say what you need to say. Dairi?”

“…………”

“Mi? Dairi fainted. Dairi, wake up!”

After being revived by Tsubaki’s alternating slaps, I nervously watched Hiyori’s expression while stumbling through my apology and explaining everything I thought and felt.

Hiyori silently listened to my long ramble, then gradually opened up about her own feelings and circumstances too.

At first she wouldn’t even look at me.

But by the time we had both laid everything bare, she was looking directly into my eyes.

“I see… right. I forgot how quickly you become friends with nonhuman women at light speed…”

“That’s misleading. Sure, her appearance was inhuman and badass, but that wasn’t all. Our gloomy wavelengths matched perfectly. The way she immediately looked at the floor whenever spoken to was exactly like me, so I felt a sense of kinship.”

After properly talking with Hiyori, I finally understood.

I was the strange one for seeing that girl as just an ordinary gloomy introvert.

I could see the stitching marks on her composite body, and I immediately noticed how she folded and arranged her red outer skin skirt carefully, trying her best to look fashionable.

Even her little gestures resembled mine—completely introverted and awkward.

Timid, withdrawn, unable to resist when frightening adults pressured her.

She didn’t look like a monstrous beast at all.

But Hiyori, Tsubaki, and Williams all unanimously called her a monster.

Which meant the abnormal perspective was probably mine.

From Hiyori’s point of view, it apparently looked like captive Dairi Kenshi was being attacked by a horrifying monster.

In reality, we were just having a heartfelt friendship handshake-hug.

But that was only how the girl and I perceived it.

No outsider could possibly know that.

As I absorbed this realization, Hiyori spoke with visible resolve.

“This is selfish of me, but…”

“Hm?”

“No matter what happens, I want you to think of me first. Of course, I know there will be times when that’s difficult. I understand that, but… I don’t want to feel that kind of sadness again.”

“Nnngh…! …Okay! This isn’t the kind of thing to answer half-heartedly. Got it. From now on, no matter what happens—even if the whole world turns upside down—you’ll come first, Hiyori. I swear it.”

“Then that’s enough.”

Having accomplished what Tsubaki called the “sorry” and “it’s okay” stages, we embraced tightly and reconciled.

This incident—where I instinctively criticized Hiyori without considering her circumstances—was a terrible example of things going wrong.

But there had also been times when, even while manipulated by Iruma, I still trusted Hiyori above all else.

Sometimes Hiyori’s tendency to instantly kill threats would backfire.

Sometimes my absurd communication style would backfire.

Even if our personalities and actions caused misunderstandings like this, I wanted us to build a relationship strong enough to talk things through and reconcile every time.

After all, we’d be together for a very, very long time.

As we shared a heartfelt embrace, Williams—who had silently watched over us the whole time—murmured:

“You two really are something. Incredibly… pure. Couples capable of reconciling like this are rare.”

“Mi? But they’re always like this. Normal. Williams, they made up, so now let’s go revive the future-seer! Resurrection, resurrection! Beat up all the bad guys, make all the good guys happy! Mimimi!”

Dragged away by the energetic Tsubaki, Williams smiled helplessly and headed back the way they came.

Left behind, Hiyori and I released our embrace and looked at each other.

No more awkwardness remained. Nice!

“Alright, then let’s revive the future-seer’s sister too. Melt the ice first, then resurrection magic. You’ve got Ghost Gremlin, right?”

“Ah, yeah. I do, but… um… resurrection magic doesn’t work on corpses that died through mutation…”

“…Huh?”

I looked back and forth between the extremely uncomfortable-looking Hiyori and the future-seer’s little sister trapped inside the ice.

No way.

Seriously?

So this wasn’t “everything’s fine” at all!

“I thought resurrection worked as long as it wasn’t a magic death?”

“It doesn’t work on corpses that have been excessively damaged—in other words, bodies that have strayed too far from their original form. The Zombie Witch knew a spell that could restore damaged corpses to their original state. But that spell has been lost, and nobody knows the incantation anymore. For witches and magicians, magic recognizes their mutated bodies as their original form, but for artificially modified mutants…”

Hiyori trailed off.

For a moment, I was stunned.

Was this really how it ended for that poor girl?

She endured horrific human experimentation solely because she wanted to see her big brother again.

She obeyed cruel orders.

She struggled desperately just to survive.

And this was the end she got?

But almost immediately, anger and determination began bubbling up inside me.

Unforgivable.

We’d only just met, sure—maybe our friendship was only Level 1—but she was still my friend!

I spun my brain into overdrive, searching for a breakthrough.

Looking around the room, I examined the cultivation pods, laboratory equipment, operating tables, and piles of research documents one by one as I pieced together a plan.

“Hey, Hiyori… you won’t get mad if I try to save this girl too, right?”

“Hey. You’re overthinking this. What exactly do you think I am? I said I wanted you to put me first, not abandon everyone else.”

“Alright. Then help me. The people doing this research were absolute trash garbage scum, but this research itself is insanely advanced. We might be able to make this work.”

“What are you planning to do?”

Asked that question by Hiyori, I placed a hand on the operating table and answered.

It’ll be fine.

This can absolutely work.

I’m the man who saved the dying Mermaid Witch on the very first try without any preparation, remember?

“We’ll force her body back to its pre-mutation state.”

For a while, master wand craftsman Dairi would be taking a break.

Now then—

Genius magic doctor Dairi, reporting for duty!!!