It has been a few days since the fire near the Shirogami Shrine. Unable to get the talk between Yuna and her clubmates after that, I decided to go to her school to check in on her. I never thought far ahead about what I was going to do, so when I reached the front gates, I stopped to mull over some ideas.
What should I do? I wondered. Should I just go over and talk to her?
No, that was a bad idea. After what I did, there was no way that she'd just nod and say yes to having a cup of tea with me like a pair of fancy princesses. But it wasn't like I could just leave her alone either, not after I, well, nearly killed her.
Troubled, I ended up wandering onto the school grounds. I was halfway through the courtyard before I realized what I had been doing. But I didn't think it really mattered. It wasn't like anyone could see me while my Perception Manipulation was working.
But as soon as I thought that, this big, scary-looking guy suddenly walked up to me, shooting all sorts of ridiculous accusations out of his mouth at me, like how suspicious I was acting, that I might be an enemy spy from somewhere, or that I was even that arsonist that was on the news lately. I was careless to assume that Yuna's cousin, Oota, was the only one who could see through my Perception Manipulation. I didn't think there was anyone else who'd use their psychic powers like he did all the time.
I was prepared to take the big guy down with a dropkick when then the next thing I knew, Oota showed up. After that, I thought things couldn't get more chaotic. But then some guy I vaguely remembered being at the shrine a few days ago showed up too, spouting the same accusations at the boys only to go rabid-crazy and started a psychic battle in broad daylight.
And finally, while the two strange boys engaged in a psychic firefight, a stray bullet flew my way. I saw it coming, but it came at me so fast that when I tried to move out of the way, it was already right in front of my face. But then someone pushed me to the ground and there was a huge explosion.
"Ow!" I was wearing short sleeves so my right elbow scraped against the ground. It was just hot at first, but eventually started sting. Although I didn't get a look, I was sure it bled.
"Oi, Oota!" I heard the scary guy scream. He was staring past me with a pale face. I followed his gaze to see Yuna's cousin draped over the school wall like a bedsheet hanging out to dry. My heart leaped to my throat when I realized that could have been me. That attack the rabid boy threw was a so powerful, it was downright deadly. Oota, for some reason, saved my life.
Shocked, I dropped to my knees.
But then Oota lifted his head and waved, weakly calling out in a shaky voice, "I'm okay!"
He slowly pulled himself over until he dropped back down to the ground, landing on his bottom with an "Oof!" After a painstaking few seconds, he wobbled back to his feet, dazed but unscathed. Totally unscathed.
I was relieved, but at the same time a bit dumbfounded that he didn't get even a bit hurt by that powerful blast of electromagnetic energy, or that fall from a ten-foot tall wall.
Meanwhile, the other two boys were duking it out, one clad in an armor of electromagnetic energy while the other in psychokinetic energy. They were engaged in a vicious brawl that sent shockwaves (quite literally) throughout the field with each hit to each other. But although each one of their attacks were powerful enough to make a normal person pop like a balloon, those same powers of theirs kept them both completely unharmed.
"Grandma was right," I muttered to myself. "This town's full of monsters."
And then another one showed up. This one was a girl who came running out of a nearby building with globes of water covering her hands.
"Eiji, stop!" she shouted. "Stop it!"
But the boy, whichever one, I don't know, would not listen and the brawl continued.
The girl with water powers stopped a couple of feet away and watched. She had a bad look on her face, a mixture of frustration and fear. I could tell by the way she grimaced that she was trying hard not to panic, to keep her head level and she waited for an opportunity to strike. That opportunity came when the scary guy kicked the crazy one away. The girl launched the two water balls around her hands and sent them flying at the crazy electric guy.
The first ball struck him in the gut and the second hit his chin and sent him flying like an uppercut punch. As he went down, the girl ran over to the other guy and jumped in his way before he could attack the fallen electric one.
"Get out of my way!" the scary guy shouted.
"Calm down! Yamimura, calm down! Quit it!" the girl shouted back.
While she tried to get the scary guy to calm down, the electric guy she felled got back on his feet and threw a ball of electric energy at her while she was distracted.
Oota screamed, "Kawatori, behind you!"
The girl, Kawatori half-turned around when the scary boy, Yamimura, pushed her aside. He was struck in the shoulder and spun in the air before crashing down.
"Yamimura!" Kawatori shrieked, looking completely horrified.
"No! Wait! Get back!" I shouted.
Kawatori ran to Yamimura's side. I thought that was a bad idea and tried to warn her, but she didn't seem to hear me. That was when the electric guy leaped to attack. He charged forward with a fist raised behind his head.
Kawatori saw him coming, but instead of moving out of the way, she stood her ground determined to protect Yamimura as a wall between him and the electric guy. Oota raised his hand, moving, I believed, to try and stop the electric guy with his psychic power. But he was much too slow.
There was no stopping that nutcase from creating a splatter horror film in real life. That was what I thought as he arrived inches away from Kawatori. And then -
He froze for a few seconds and then flew backwards, slamming hard against the ground.
That was when another girl made her appearance. She had also been at the shrine when that fire happened. Although she had appeared flustered around the time of the fire, right now she just looked really, really angry.
Staring coldly at the boy with her hand reaching out to him, she asked, "Just what do you think you're doing, Shikouyama?"
As if a spell had been broken, the fallen electric boy gasped and looked up at the angry girl with a look of horror while sweating buckets.
"I . . . But Yamimura!"
"Shut up!" the girl shouted.
Shikouyama flinched and obeyed with his eyes cast down to his knees. He looked like a little kid being scolded by his mom.
Satisfied with his obedience, the girl turned around to face us and said, "Yamimura, Oota, Hana," she said. "Go! Before the teachers finally show up."
"Come on," Oota said to me. He was all for leaving, but the scary guy, Yamimura, didn't move a muscle.
"What's your angle?" he asked, looking at her with cold eyes.
The girl responded with a cool gaze of her own and replied, "I just want to avoid my own people getting in trouble. And that will be harder to do with all of you here. Don't worry. I had some psychics close off the area with their powers. No one else should have noticed the spat between you guys and this idiot."
By "idiot", she was talking about the electric guy, Shikouyama.
"You're welcome to stick around," the girl continued. "But don't blame me if we all end up being expelled, or worse."
That was enough to finally convince Yamimura to leave. But now Oota was sticking around.
Puzzled, the girl who brought down Shikouyama asked, "What's wrong, Oota? I didn't think you'd want to stay."
Oota rolled his eyes and glanced at me. He was clearly waiting for me.
With a sigh, I said, "Alright! I'm coming!"
There was something I wanted to talk to him about anyway. But rather than let him lead, I took charge and said, "Follow me," before heading to a secluded area behind a building. Oota followed me without a word.
There was no one around, the windows of the building had curtains over them, and the other side was a wall too high to climb alone. It was the perfect place to have a private conversation.
As soon as I was sure of that, I stopped walking, turned around and said to Oota, "Hey. I got questions and I want you to answer them honestly."
"I'm sorry, but I think it's better if we start out as friends," he said.
I blinked and went, "Hah?" I wasn't sure what he was talking about.
"You were going to ask me out on a date, right?" he said. "That's what you were going to ask me, right?"
"NO!" I shouted. "That is most certainly NOT what I was going to ask!"
"Oh," Oota said. "I thought since you had a question and you brought me over here that . . . I mean, when a girl brings a boy to places like behind a school building, it's usually to ask the boy out on a date."
"Please shut up," I begged him. "Seriously, please."
Oh my god, he's such a big headache, I thought as I rubbed my temples. Not only that, even thought it was a misguided assumption that I was going to ask him out, HE rejected ME! I was never interested in him like that, at all, but it was utterly humiliating.
Because he really threw me for a loop, it took me a while to get back on track and get down to business.
After taking in a deep breath, I said, "Back at the shrine a few days ago, I overheard you guys arguing a bit. If happened after the fire was taken care of."
"You were there?" Oota asked.
I nodded and said, "Yeah. One of your friends mentioned something about Yuna's parents, something about them being dead. I know that her dad passed away a long time ago, but what about her mom? She didn't really die, did she?"
Oota hesitated, but then reluctantly answered in a soft whisper, "Yeah, she did."
My blood ran cold.
I tried to remain calm, but my voice started shaking when I asked, "When? How?"
But Oota replied, "Sorry, but I'm not answering that. Since you already overheard Isaneko say that Yuna's mom died, there was no point in hiding that from you. But what happened to Yuna's mom is Yuna's business. If you really want to find out, you should go talk to her. But it's up to her if she will tell you or not."
I did not like his answer and scowled.
"Do you even know what happened?" I asked.
"Not in detail," Oota admitted. He leaned his back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. "I try not to stick my nose in other people's business since that'd be rude, but I did overhear enough snippets from some grownups to get the general picture. Any other questions?"
I looked him up and down, thinking that I still wanted to ask him about Yuna's silence and about her panic attack back at the Shirogami Shrine's storage building. But I was sure that Oota was not going to say anything more about Yuna. The guy seemed obstinate about respecting her privacy. It didn't matter anyway, since I'm sure I heard all I needed to from Isaneko on that day at the shrine.
"I just have one final question," I said. "Why did you help me back there? After everything I did to Yuna, I wouldn't have expected you, of all people, to come to my rescue."
Oota scratched the back of his head.
"I was just paying you back for helping out Yuna back then," he said.
Confused, I asked, "What do you mean? When did I help out Yuna?"
"Huh?" Oota looked at me puzzled. "Didn't you try to get Yuna out of that storage building while the fire raged? It didn't work out, but you did try to rescue Yuna from the fire. That's what Yuna told us."
I was stunned.
"She told you that? Why?"
Oota gave me a curious look and then responded, "Because it's the truth? Mirai verified it with his 'demonic third eye'." He held his hands up and did air quotes. "And I remember seeing you there too. Why? Were we wrong?"
Rather than answer him, I said, "Never mind." I also withheld that I was the one who trapped her in the building in the first place.
"While we're at it, do you mind if I ask you a question of my own?" Oota asked.
I didn't really see why not, so I nodded.
"Why did you pull all those mean pranks in the first place? Did Yuna do something to make you mad?"
I clamped down for a few seconds before answering.
"Yeah," I said. "She did. Or at least, that's what I thought. But now I'm starting to wonder if maybe I had it wrong this whole time."
We were suddenly interrupted by the sound of a gong. Oota pulled out his phone, gave it a quick look over and then stuffed it back into his pocket.
"I gotta get going," he said. "I forgot I was in the middle of an errand. You're welcome to come with."
I appreciated the invite, but I decided to decline and shook my head, "no."
"Okay, then," Oota said.
He turned to leave, but then stopped and turned back around.
"Hey," he said. "I know I'm not all that smart, and very likely not to take my own advice, but if this feud between you and Yuna started from a misunderstanding, then I think that's all the more reason you should talk to her. Not to sound all high and mighty, but whatever happened back then, I don't think it's worth all this fighting. You two could even become friends if you just patch things up. Anyway, that's all I got to say. Later."
And then he left; for real this time.
All alone, I leaned my back against the wall and sank down a little.
"Friends, huh?"
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