"Good morning, big guy," a woman's voice says softly.
'Huh…? Who's making so much noise?'
"Wake up!" the woman repeats, this time with a hint of impatience.
I slowly open my eyes.
The first thing that appears before me is an unfamiliar woman who, at the same time, feels strangely familiar.
"Where am I?" I ask as I look around. The structures surrounding me give me an intense sense of déjà vu.
'The last thing I remember is that…'
'I remember now! After feeling that it no longer made sense to keep staying in the Ice Age, I decided to freeze myself again. Although this time I didn't do it alone… I froze together with Hitomi.'
"Hitomi, it's you! You've changed a lot since the last time I saw you," I say when my mind finally clears.
"Mph, of course I changed. It was a very long time ago. We haven't seen each other in thousands of years," Hitomi replies casually.
'She really has changed. She's no longer the twelve-year-old girl I remembered. Now she's a beautiful young woman of about seventeen or eighteen, with short white hair. She's wearing a school uniform: a white shirt with the collar slightly unbuttoned and a red ribbon.'
"Wait a minute! Where am I, and why are you wearing those clothes?" I ask, completely confused.
"Well… things are like this…"
…
"I see. So you brought me here, to your apartment," I reply while processing all the information she just gave me.
"I had no other choice. No matter how hard I tried, you wouldn't wake up," Hitomi says, shrugging.
From what she explained to me, she thawed out six years before I did. Ironically, she woke up in China.
She wandered for years, surviving however she could, stealing food from the locals, until one day Shidou Reiichi approached her with the intention of studying her for his research. Hitomi always kept her distance whenever he tried to talk to her, but in the end she agreed to go with him, hoping that he could help her find me. After all, she had no idea where to even begin looking for me in this new and strange world.
All I can say is that the power of the plot is terrifyingly strong. In the original work, Hitomi's origin is never mentioned, so technically she comes from the Ice Age, froze by accident, ended up in China, and was found by that guy… everything somehow fit together.
Even by altering the moment when she was supposed to freeze, delaying it, the result was the same: she ended up in China and met Shidou.
Tsk. How absurd the power of the plot is. According to what she told me, she even ended up attending the same school as in the original story and, somehow, met that guy named Nomoto.
Apparently, she found me by accident when some smugglers kidnapped her with the intention of raping her. I don't know how Nomoto Yuuya ended up getting involved with them, but it happened.
Hitomi killed them all without difficulty. Then, while searching the place for valuable items, she found me. She was happier than ever when she discovered me after so many years of searching. In the end, she spared Nomoto's life after realizing that he had been deceived, and because he was the one who helped her bring me here.
…
"Hey, it's time for you to fulfill your promise," Hitomi says, interrupting my thoughts.
"Huh? What promise?" I ask, confused.
"Don't play dumb. I've grown up. Now you can't make excuses. I've waited too long," she says as she begins to undress.
'I remember now… Before we froze, she had entered her mating stage. At that time I refused. Not because I didn't want to… but because I thought she was still too young.'