A Car Chase Part Unique to Movie Versions
(Author: I said about ten chapters, but it looks like it will extend even more)
(can’t decide between oujo-sama or young lady)
The nightmare seen that night was a dream in which her own existence was denied by all beings of both worlds.
From the humans, she was cursed all at once as a “monster pretending to be human,” and from the holy beasts, she was rejected as a “fake pretending to be an angel.”
There was not a single ally to stand up for her, and even acquaintances, friends, and family denied Mea’s existence.
No matter where she went, there was no place that would accept her, and the lonely girl wandered through a world of endless darkness.
──No. The people Mea knows would not say such things. (tl note: Mea reverts to how she spoke in the main story)
Mea was clearly aware, even at this moment, that it was a poorly made nightmare.
Everyone Mea had met were all kind people.
It was true that there were people who did bad things and had to be captured, but she believed that it was only because, due to their own sad experiences and repeated anxieties, they had merely fastened a button wrong* by just a little. (tl note: Japanese idiom that means “a mistake made in the initial steps can create a persistent discrepancy in understanding between parties.”)
Therefore, as long as anyone had emotions, Mea stubbornly believed that they had a kind heart.
As if to ridicule those feelings of hers, a “voice” was heard from somewhere.
『You’re afraid.』
──No.
『The reason you’re kind to people and save people is because you yourself are afraid of the people around you.』
──No!
『You, who are neither human nor holy beast, think that unless you’re at least kind, no one will love you. Poor Mea…』
In the dream of darkness, the one who appeared before Mea was a gray-haired boy she had no memory of meeting in the real world.
His height was about the same as Mea five years ago, and his appearance looked almost like a human child. A boy with dark skin and an androgynous look.
However, two elements that represented his features revealed his strangeness at a glance.
Eyes of a silver color, beautiful like jewels, yet not emitting even a fragment of light.
And──growing from his back, two “black wings” like those of a crow.
His wings had the same color as the one side of the wings possessed by T.P. Eight Olishua.
If one were to extract only his well-featured appearance and the wings on his back, he might look like an angel in Fairy World.
However, from the first glance, Mea understood that he was fundamentally a different existence from the holy beasts.
『I understand you. Until that time, we were always together… isn’t that right? Mea』
──…You’re…
The gray-haired boy lowered his gaze slightly and let out a small breath.
The gaze with which he looked at Mea appeared extremely sorrowful. His lightless eyes, as if despairing over everything in this world, bore a close resemblance to Keter, the King of the Ten Archangels of Sefirot whom Mea’s group had once confronted.
『You overestimate beings other than yourself too much. Humans and holy beasts aren’t such great beings. Everyone is selfish, and yet we’re the only one who are denied. In the current world, there’s no place where we belong.』
Recently, how many times had he appeared in Mea’s dreams?
Without knowing why, Mea felt a sense of familiarity toward the voice of the boy whose name she did not even know.
It was a strange familiarity, as if he were “another self.”
The words he spoke, as though speaking on behalf of Mea’s heart… she didn’t want to accept them, but there were parts that were correct.
Neither a holy beast nor a human, she who was different from those around her. The more she felt the kindness of those around her, the more she sometimes wondered──was it really okay for someone like her to be here?
Over these five years, she thought she had gradually overcome it, but at times Mea still felt an unbearable loneliness about her own existence.
Toward her, who crouched down hugged her own body like a small child shivering n the cold within a dream, the gray boy with black wings continued.
『Even the people you think are kind don’t understand the real you. Even Daat… no, she’s different. Certainly, that person alone could be called a genuine angel. But exactly because of that…』
Stop… she weakly uttered, but he did not heed her words.
『You can never become Daat.』
The louder the voice calling out to her became, the more her consciousness gradually returned.
“Mea-chan!”
“…!?”
At last, the moment the voice could clearly be heard, Mea got up as if jumping up from the spot.
The one who flinched at that action, her shoulders trembling, was Yamikumo Arisu, who had been calling her name from beside her just moments ago.
“W-What’s wrong, Mea-chan, all of a sudden? You’ve got a really scary face…”
“…Eh?”
It must have been quite a terrible expression. Arisu, who nervously looked up at the standing Mea, seemed more meek than when she had been a underclassman.
Seeing her like that, Mea came to her senses and sat back down in her seat.
What had she been about to do just now…? In her right hand, she was gripping the blue ribbon she had pulled from her hair, in a state just before it would turn into a weapon.
“…Sorry, Arisu. I was just a bit half-asleep…”
“I-I see… Are you okay? Tired? Or are you mad that you were being tailed by ‘this person’?”
Right now, Mea’s eyes, unlike her usual sharp gaze, showed a sense of fatigue. While apologizing to Arisu, who expressed her concern about her condition, Mea rubbed both her eyelids like a cat, trying to wake herself up.
…It seemed she had briefly fallen asleep in front of others. Finally recognizing the situation, Mea’s cheeks faintly flushed with shame as she bowed her head to the young man in front of her, whom Arisu had referred to as “this person.”
“Tsubasa-san too, I’m sorry. Even though you came all this way to see me, I ended up spacing out…”
“It’s fine. You’ve got a busy life, and like the young lady said, the fatigue must be piling up. When you don’t feel tired at all and then it suddenly hits its peak, I’ve experienced it too. Though I’m the one who stopped you like this, when you get home today, go to bed early.”
“…Yes. I’ll do that.”
The time was the day after the two girls resolved the incident involving a terrorist organization that targeted the Fairy World embassy.
Now that the classes for the day had safely ended, the two who had left the academy were at a certain family restaurant.
It wasn’t a stylish place befitting high school girls, but if people on the street were asked, “When you think of a family restaurant?” it would likely be a standard place whose name comes up in the top three.
The reason the two were there now was not because they had originally planned to eat out after school. It all started because they were invited by Mea’s older brother-in-law’s former colleague, whom they happened to run into on the way back.
Recalling the circumstances of that encounter, Yamikumo Arisu spoke cheerfully.
“Still, that really surprised me! I thought it was some pervert stalking us, but to think it was actually Kazaoka Tsubasa!”
“…I didn’t think I’d get found out. Even though you’re sleep-deprived, what kind of perception ability do you have… I even got hit with a pretty good kick.”
“Yeah, it was a brutal high kick you couldn’t even enjoy as a panty shot.”
“Right.”
“Stop… stop.”
The name of the young man with dull, long hair was “Kazaoka Tsubasa.” He was one of the heroes who went to fight in Fairy World together with Mea, Akatsuki En, and Rikidou Chouta five years ago.
One year after that battle, about four years ago now, he withdrew from the Savers and decided to devote himself to his other original identity as a private detective.
The official reason was that “he originally wanted to devote himself to detective work, and with peace achieved with the holy beasts, the need for him to fight had faded,” but… those who knew him well, including Mea, knew that there was another “true reason.” That was why, while regretting losing his excellent abilities, they accepted his withdrawal from the Savers in a relatively harmonious way.
As for how often he and Mea met in a year, at most a few times, or sometimes not at all for an entire year.
The last time they met was a few months ago at her adaptive older sister and older brother-in-law’s wedding, so it was recent, but that day had the biggest surprise of T.P. Eight Olishua’s return, so neither of them had any room to spare, and it was still fresh in memory that they had no opportunity to talk face-to-face like now.
“Well, I’m glad you seem well. Still, time really flies, huh… that little Mea-chan has grown into quite something.”
“You too, Tsubasa-san, you’re still only twenty-five, right? If you say things like that, Otou-san will get mad at you.”
“Haha, spare me that. I don’t want Akihiro-san yelling at me again.”
Because of the battle five years ago, the two comrades in arms with an age gap chatted enthusiastically in a corner of the family restaurant while reminiscing. Seeing the peaceful state of the two, no one could imagine that just a little while ago there had been a slight misunderstanding between them.
This reunion with him had come in an unexpected form for Mea.
On the way home from school, noticing that someone was following her, Mea instantly stepped forward to shield Arisu behind her back, and at that moment, someone leapt out from an alley.
Chasing the suspicious person who fled at a speed impossible for an ordinary person to track, Mea used her Chesed Form in a fierce dead heat, and when she caught him, she accidentally delivered a kick with too much force──that was all the details of their reunion.
Arisu, who had joined them later, had scolded her as if revenge for yesterday, saying, “Senpai, you overdid it…”
Right after that, when it was identified that the suspicious person was Kazaoka Tsubasa, they ended up stopping by a nearby family restaurant to talk at his suggestion──that was how things got this way.
For Mea, it was an awkward kind of reunion, but when Tsubasa lowered his head first, saying, “If you go back to the root of it, it’s my fault for sneaking around like a stalker,” Mea also bowed her head, saying, “N-no, I’m sorry for going too far too!” and the reconciliation between the two, who had been under a misunderstanding, was quickly established.
Tsubasa’s attitude of graciously admitting his fault even to someone younger made him seem like a proper adult… however, the fact that he had been tailing two high school girls was beyond doubt, so Arisu, who had become an observer, was at a loss for how to react.
After taking a sip of the melon juice that Kazaoka Tsubasa had treated them to, Mea asked him with a smile like a blooming flower.
“So, why were you tailing us?”
That face was beautiful enough to captivate not only boys her age but even adult men, yet to those who looked closely, it was also a smile that could feel intimidating.
Of course, she wasn’t angry about being followed, and there was no emotion hidden behind that smile.
The smile that honestly and sincerely rejoiced at being reunited with a former comrade in arms, however, seemed to effectively prick on his conscience, and he answered with a wry smile as if he had resigned himself.
“…I’m tracking T.P. Eight Olishua for a request. Since there’s a high chance she’s aiming Yamikumo Arisu’s supernatural ability, I was staking out around you, young lady.”
“Huh? Eight-san? Me? ???”
Hearing his answer, which carried a complicated emotion, Mea, who somewhat expected it, accepted it with a “I see…,” while Arisu, who didn’t know the circumstances, was confused about what was going on.
To them, Tsubasa, perhaps out of guilt for having ended up tailing two girls of their age despite it being an inevitability, told them everything about the situation.
That he was currently taking on a request from a certain client to search for, or capture, Eight.
That based on the trend of her past crimes, he had deduced the places she would appear, and that there was a high possibility she might show up to Yamikumo Arisu in the not-too-distant future.
“…Eight-san went back to being the Supernatural Ability Phantom Thief? She’s been targeting children with dark-type supernatural abilities? …I see… so the rumors going around among the fan club members were true…”
Arisu, who learned for the first time about the covert activities of the Supernatural Ability Phantom Thief T.P. Eight Olishua from what Tsubasa said, appeared to be somewhat shocked.
She was the one who had spoken loudly about her how much deeper than anyone her respect for Eight was. Hearing that she had once again become someone targeted by Savers and the police would not leave her at ease.
“I don’t know what reason she has for moving again, but if her target is children with dark supernatural abilities, there’s a high chance she’ll come to you, young lady. No, hasn’t she already made contact? I don’t think you’re sheltering her, though.”
“I-I’m not!? Her suddenly coming to my house and going to the sea together… is something that did happen, but that was in summer!”
“…You’ve seriously met her?”
“Ah.”
Arisu’s supernatural ability, “Dark Binding,” boasts top-class power even among supernatural abilities related to darkness. If there really was such a tendency among the children whose supernatural abilities had been stolen by Eight so far, then it was entirely possible that Arisu could be targeted.
When pressed by Tsubasa, Arisu easily let it slip and panicked, thinking, “This might be kind of bad for us…” and seeing that, Mea moved close to her as if to reassure her.
“It’s okay, Arisu. Tsubasa-san and the higher-ups believe in Eight-san too. Saying ‘capture’ is really just the last resort, and if Eight-san tells us her purpose, the orders will go away.”
“…Well, if she’s made her move, there’s definitely something going on. Conveniently enough, something creepy called the ‘Tree of Evil’ has sprouted overseas… depending on the reason, the commission might even be withdrawn. Though returning all the stolen supernatural abilities to their owners is a prerequisite.”
“…I see…”
“That said, even if we went at her with everything we’ve got, she’s not the type who’d quietly let herself get caught.”
“That’s true!”
“You got energetic all of a sudden.”
“Thinking about it that way, this situation might actually be good… will she come to see me? Will she steal me again? Will I get stolen? Kyaa!”
“…Hey, Mea, is it really okay to have this girl working in the Savers?”
“Arisu is a reliable ally. …As long as Eight-san isn’t involved.”
“You’ve got to be kidding…”
For Arisu, who had just learned this serious fact, Mea had been ready, if necessary, to defend her by saying, “Tsubasa-san, don’t intimidate Arisu!”… but her close friend, who had been obsessed with Eight since the age of nine, had a tougher mentality than expected, and that concern turned out to be needless.
──However, the possibility that she might come to Arisu was also important information for Mea.