The sun was already setting, bathing the clubroom in an orange glow. It was just me and Lady Isaneko here, as everyone else had long since gone home. Noticing how quiet outside had gotten, I glanced at my phone to check the time. We still had like half and hour before the school was completely locked up, so there was no need to rush. Lady Isaneko also had her phone out and read from it as she jotted down notes. Like always when she does that at this time, she had a huge, serious frown on her face.
While she worked, I decided as the good servant I am, to brew her a cup of tea. I had brought a type of tea over specifically for her at times like this. It only took a minute or two for the water to boil which I poured into the white mug I had thrown the tea bag in. She thanked me as I set the mug next to her, and I replied, "No thanks needed for this humble servant, my master."
And then, after bowing to her like some pretentious Western butler in a comic book, I strolled over to the window to take a look outside and started humming happily to myself.
"You seem to be in a good mood right now," Lady Isaneko said. She laid down her phone on the table and looked at me.
I glanced back at her and grinned. "You can tell, huh?"
"Of course," Lady Isaneko said. "For once, the stupid look on your face is genuine."
"Always with a biting remark, huh, My Lady?"
"You're really committed to acting out the butler trope, aren't you?" Lady Isaneko said.
"You're the one who told me to act like this as part of our contract," I pointed out. "Don't tell me you forgot!"
"It's been years," Lady Isaneko said. "Can you blame me? Anyway, it's okay for you to celebrate, since this is a huge victory for you and all, but don't forget that the mission is far from over. My problems still haven't been taken care of completely, and you still have one more problem coming up."
That really wiped the smile off my face and brought me back to reality.
"I know," I said. "Don't worry. I won't let this case closed give me a swelled head. In fact, this case has shown me that we're still far from a perfect place. It was a really close call, even with all the pieces in place. Tank Hisao, especially, needs to improve. If you don't mind, Lady Isaneko, I'll be counting on you to chuck more things at him with that power of yours. It'll keep him on his toes and make his power grow from the experience."
"Of course," said Lady Isaneko. "I need him to become stronger for my own sake, too." She held the mug to her lips and took a sip. "Though, I'm surprised that he still hasn't realized that all those soccer balls, baseballs, basketballs, volleyballs, and bamboo swords, that he took to the face were because of me. I think he still treats them like freak accidents. It's almost scary how oblivious he is. But I think we should move on from that and start giving him some actual training. Just giving him nudges in the right direction from the shadows isn't going to cut it anymore. Especially if you expect him to play a part in resolving your FINAL PROBLEM."
"I know," I said. "Well, given that Soushu's gang sees us as enemies now, and that Yamimura of Yamimura from Yamimura got a taste of what Tank Hisao can do, there's really no point in being subtle anymore."
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a pink, fuzzy elephant head left on a table sitting at the back corner of the room and I felt a pull towards it. There was just something about its glassy cartoon eyes.
"I wouldn't call turning a normal nobody into a psychokinetic iron man, subtle," Lady Isaneko said. "But you have a point. After those confrontations we had, they definitely know that something is up. If only we could come clean with them. It would save us a whole lot of headache."
"But we can't, since that could change the future in a way that ruins our plans," I pointed out. "If word gets out on the street that we're trying to change the far future like the Shirogami Clan did, who knows what others might think or do? The Shirogami Clan definitely would try to get in our way."
"I know, I know," Lady Isaneko said lazily as she waved her hand at me.
I pouted and wanted to ask her, "Do you really?" But then her phone made a chime, and she looked to see what was up before jotting down notes again into her notebook. She took her work seriously so, not wanting to bother her, I held my tongue. When she was done writing, she took pictures of the notes on her phone to save on a cloud drive. After that, she put the phone in her pocket, drank some more tea, and sighed.
"Done looking over the reports about your mom's business?" I asked.
After looking over those reports and jotting down notes, Lady Isaneko usually takes a bit of time to think up orders to give to the bigwigs of her mom's company. Her mom might be the official leader, but Aika Isaneko was the one who was really in charge, thanks to all the decision-makers in the company being devote believers of the cult.
"Yeah," she replied to my question.
"How's your mom going?" I asked.
Lady Isaneko answered, "She hasn't done anything illegal, but I really can't let my guard down since she is the sort of person who would use her own daughter to start a shady cult for money."
Lady Isaneko turned around as she answered and froze up when she saw my face. Looking dumbfounded, she said, "You really like wearing that elephant head, don't you?"
While she was finishing up her note taking, I got bored, picked up the elephant head and looked at it straight in the eyes. I thought to myself, "Why not?" And then I put the head on just as she looked at me.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm thinking about wearing this everyday in the clubroom."
"Please don't," Lady Isaneko said. "That gag's already gotten boring."
"You think?" I asked as I took off the elephant head.
"Definitely," said Lady Isaneko. "Oota didn't even blink the last time you wore that."
"Darn," I said. "I guess I'll have to think of something new."
I took off the elephant head and tossed it aside.
"Maybe I should try using a horror clown mask instead," I said.
But Lady Isaneko shot that idea down.
"You just got back on little Homura's good side again," she said. "Do you really want to waste your second chance like that? Honestly, I know our great sponsor, the one who gave us the chance to change the future said that playing the fool could help stave off people who'd get in our way, but you don't have to take it that far."
"I kind of like playing the fool, as you call it," I said. "I definitely got more friends now than I did with my other personality."
"Really?" Lady Isaneko said. She propped her elbow onto the table and leaned her cheek against her hand while wearing a wry smile on her face. "I actually liked that gloomy version of you."
It was a move that made my heart skip a beat. But I was able to keep my cool and shot back a grin of my own.
"Oh? What's this?" I said. "Could it be that the great Lady Isaneko was charmed by this humble servant's good looks?"
"Ha!" laughed Lady Isaneko. "In your dreams. You know very well that you're not my type. Anyway, it's getting late. I'm done here, so we should head home."
After packing up our things, we locked up the clubroom and exited the school. We were always hanging out late after school so the security guard was used to seeing us leave as the sun set. Though he never looked happy every time he did.
The roads we took on our way home were mostly empty and eerily quiet except for the wind blowing, the leaves rustling, and the birds tweeting. Looking at these peaceful streets, it would be hard for anyone else to imagine that just the night before, an violent battle took place against a brutal murderer.
Normally, even with the sun bathing everything in yellow-orange as it sunk beneath the horizon, there'd be the occasional tourist walking around. But thanks to the Piper, tourism dropped. It was just another way that psycho monster hurt the people of this town.
But all that was over now, I thought as I enjoyed the warm, setting sun hitting my face and the cool breeze brushing against my back. The Piper's reign of terror has ended. It'll be a while before the town recovered, but now no one had to worry about a serial killer on the loose. And I no longer had to worry about Homura being killed, because the nightmare future I had seen had changed.
But like Lady Isaneko said, we couldn't let our guard down. There were still problems that we had to deal with, more of the future we had to change for ourselves and the people we loved. And little did we know, by changing the future as we knew it, we also created new problems that could shake our town to its very core.
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