Aoi rolled his body forward just as a swell of wind burst outward.
Akari shielded her face with her arm.
Through the gap in her elbow, she caught sight of Aoi growing more distant.
Perhaps Aoi’s data had already been flagged as a threat, or maybe, hidden behind the overturned car, Akari had gone unnoticed.
Either way, the CODE:I shock troops appearing on the street focused solely on pursuing Aoi.
「Wait!!」
Akari was left behind at the intersection.
She tried to take a step, but the anguished look Aoi had given her flashed in her mind, and it shook her resolve.
Her footing gave way.
Her vision, focused on Aoi’s fading back, turned pale and hazy.
A strange ache crawled through her abdomen.
Her entire body felt light, untethered, like her strength was slipping away.
Even the heat radiating from the asphalt didn’t reach her anymore.
It was like she was dreaming.
Her legs refused to move properly.
「…Ugh…」
Akari clenched her teeth and groaned.
What bound her so tightly she couldn’t move was not pain, but regret.
Aoi needed help.
But mere words weren’t enough to stop him.
He needed someone strong, someone who could stand beside him and say, with conviction: “You don’t need to use that power. That’s not the way.”
Akari couldn’t be that person.
She had no way of helping him fight Kokujou.
She’d only get in the way.
And yet—
Here she was, cloaked in supernatural power, feeling ridiculous, meaningless.
It felt like all the blood in her body had sunk to her feet and pooled there.
So this… is what powerlessness really means.
To stand by while someone you care for walks toward death, unable to do anything.
That helplessness, she hated it.
Maybe that’s why Aoi had kept fighting.
Because he couldn’t stand being weak.
Because he’d known this pain far earlier than she had.
That she would learn it this way, now, of all times, was too cruel.
「…I’m always just chasing after you, aren’t I.」
She collapsed to her knees in the center of the crossroads.
The power of the Radiant Divine Arms faded.
Roughly running both hands through her hair, she then pulled out her phone.
Her burned hands refused to pass the fingerprint scan.
Frustrated, she unlocked it manually and pressed the screen.
The moment it connected, she raised it to her ear.
There’d be time to wallow later.
Right now, powerless or not,
she had to do something to protect him.
『The number you have dialed is either out of service range or turned off.』
The automated voice was cold, lifeless.
She scrolled to another contact, her father.
『The number you have dialed is either out of service range or turned off.』
A drop of blood from her nose fell onto the screen.
Wiping it off, she tried a teacher’s emergency contact.
『The number you have dialed is either out of service range or turned off.』
She tried the connections she had made by chance, acquaintances from tagging along during Aoi’s training.
『The number you have dialed is either out of service range or turned off.』
It didn’t matter who. She just kept calling anyone who might possibly help him.
『The number you have dialed is either out of service range or turned off.』
『The number you have dialed is either out of service range or turned off.』
—No good.
In a situation where everyone was either fighting or hiding underground, there was no one left in Okutama capable of joining the battle.
Should she just wait for reinforcements from other FND branches?
As if they had that kind of time to waste.
If only someone, just one person, picked up, maybe they could connect her to someone she didn’t know who could help.
But a mere student’s network only stretched so far.
『The number you have dialed is either out of service range or――』
『The number you have dialed is either out of service range――』
『The number you have dialed is――』
『――Please… just go back.』
Akari froze.
She thought she heard her own voice whisper in her ear.
Startled by the emotionless voices piling up in her ears, she’d closed her eyes, but now, they snapped open.
She remembered.
It was a day in August…
Back when Aoi still hadn’t woken up.
She’d visited the hospital every day, and this was something she had once muttered in the waiting room.
Under the roar of cicadas screaming so loud they nearly burst through the automatic doors, she had squeezed out a faint, trembling voice.
It had been so soft that even a passing college student hadn’t noticed it, but the girl standing in front of her had reacted like she’d been shot, her blue eyes opening wide in shock.
『A-at least… please let me speak to your parents… I heard you might be here, so…』
Her faintly drooping twin tails swayed gently as she stepped closer, a small bag clutched in her hands.
Akari didn’t lift her head.
She didn’t say another word.
The waiting room TV played a live stream from the National Diet.
The shrill chorus of cicadas.
A plump woman chatting too loudly for the setting.
All those sounds passed between the two of them.
『…I’ll come again.』
Apparently realizing there was no way through to Akari, the girl placed the bag, full of get-well items, on the sofa next to her and turned away.
Akari just stared down at the bag, unable to move.
And just like she said, that girl had kept coming to the hospital.
When Aoi wouldn’t wake up.
When he finally did.
On the evening when Toukatsu agents showed up near Okutama.
On rainy days.
On days when Akari drowned in self-loathing for her own immaturity.
『If anything happens to him… please let me know.』
One day, the girl had pressed a neatly folded slip of notebook paper into Akari’s chest.
A bit forcefully.
Her fingers trembled.
Akari couldn’t ignore the stir of emotions in her chest just from being near the girl.
But even so, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse.
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