"Hah... this is driving me crazy."
A small girl fiddling with a whale plushie on her bed. Her small stature was enough to mistake her for an elementary school student, enough to make her seem cute, and enough to make people think she was weak.
But contrary to her small stature, the girl was a considerable powerhouse, no, one of the top-tier strongests in all of Kivotos.
Most students get stronger as they go through the grades, and usually reach the peak of their power in their third year of high school. But the small girl was different.
A completed form.
Even at the age of a first-year high school student, she had already reached the upper limit of possible strength. Whether it was Millennium's Symbol of Victory, Trinity's Strategic Weapon, or Gehenna's Prefect Team Leader—maybe in two years it would be different, but right now, it meant she would win overwhelmingly.
However, perhaps this was a downside to such strength. She possessed a mental age befitting her small stature.
You know those kids you sometimes see in elementary school? The ones who act like they're adults, forcing their deductions and opinions on others.
She was that type.
Her first target was her younger brother.
Wanting to hide her failing school, she took away her brother's freedom. She spied on him when he contacted people on his phone, and sent him far away for both elementary and middle school.
She thought she was protecting her brother from the adult world, but naturally, to her brother, it was nothing more than a prison.
When she entered middle school, she wanted her brother to become stronger. So she wielded violence.
She held back, thinking she was going easy on him, but as he suffered defeat day after day, her brother grew to hate his sister even more. But she thought it was okay. Because she believed she was right.
She was immature in the process. She couldn't cook, so her brother took over, and it wasn't just once or twice that she had to apologize for breaking property during a fight. But she dismissed all of this as her brother's immaturity. Thanks to that, her brother began to hate his sister even more.
Three months before she entered high school. She met Yume. Although she had heard stories, she was dumbfounded by how much stupider Yume was than she expected, and at the same time, she was seized by the obsession that she was the only one who could take care of Yume. She misunderstood, acting as if she were her guardian.
She tightened her grip on her brother even more. Outwardly, she tried to appear close. Even when a person covered entirely in black light approached her brother, she didn't know their relationship was so broken that her brother relied on that person instead.
Yume was kind. Enough for Hoshino to feel like she could rely on her and be with her.
The problem is that emotions have a total capacity.
Love, affection, warmth. She poured all her positive emotions onto Yume, becoming infinitely cold towards her brother. Anger, irritation, resentment. She couldn't bear to unleash her negative emotions on Yume, so she directed them at her brother.
When she stopped even trying to appear close, her brother felt like he was going crazy. It was a prison, but it used to be warm; now, even that warmth was gone.
He endured and endured. And then, on January 1st, the day she became a high school student.
Ding—
[I can't be your brother anymore because it's too shitty. I'll live on my own, so just process my expulsion.]
A text message from her brother saying he had run away from home.
She denied it. Huh? I must have been right? This is the right way?
She filed a missing person report with the General Student Council, but only received a reply that he couldn't be found. She checked the tracking device she had attached, but it was already broken and crushed to dust. She kept sending text messages, but there was no reply, whether she was blocked or he was dead.
Eventually, she accepted it. That her younger brother was dead. But even so, she did not admit that she was wrong. She just thought she had been a little too harsh.
As proof, she denied the existence of The Farm, a company established on the exact day her brother went missing. Citing that the scale was too large, she denied that her moron of a brother could have grown so much.
Is she any better now?
"...I don't know. I should really go to school tomorrow."
Seeing her idling around while her senpai was dying and her runaway brother was searching for her, you can get a pretty good estimate.
Yes. To borrow the expression of her younger brother, Takanashi Kosei.
She is a complete piece of trash.
"Did you find anything?"
[Nothing.]
A day has passed since I ordered the search to prevent my sister from becoming a murderer. Normally, the rule is to leave at 6 PM and arrive at 8 AM, but upon hearing that a life was at stake, they voluntarily worked overtime...
"It makes no sense that there isn't even a trace of a person..."
Actually, excuses are perfectly possible. The desert is insanely vast, and helicopters have a speed limit. But even so, I don't want to make excuses, nor can I.
Two days. Depending on the timing, maybe three. Even with water, it's approaching the limit for a person to survive in this desert.
We have to find her quickly, quickly.
It's mid-July. Just standing here is sweltering; there's no way she's okay.
She really could die. A person dies. Life ends, the heart stops beating, and they can no longer watch other people's stories or write their own. Even just dying would be unfair, but dying for some trash while trying to support a failing academy? That's just too unfair.
"...Fuck."
As the company grew, I tried to cut down on swearing, but the more I chew on it, the more I feel this is the only expression fit for my sister.
After that, we searched for a full eight hours more, but there were no traces. The employees returned to Gehenna, and I also returned to my hotel and lay down on the bed.
"Phew... the employees are working hard..."
We have to resume the investigation early tomorrow morning, but I can't participate.
Tomorrow is the day the Black Suit hyung agreed to meet me. It feels dirty weighing a human life against information, but I have no choice.
My participation won't increase the search area anyway.
On the contrary, if I ask the Black Suit hyung for help, the chances of saving her might actually increase. He's someone who knows information no one else expects.
...
"Ah, shit. I feel like crap."
I thought about contacting the General Student Council, but that's probably impossible. Something like this ultimately falls under the jurisdiction of the Defense Office. Of course, there's no way Kaya would do this for me. Even if she did, she'd demand something in return. And for the GSC President to help directly, there are too many eyes watching.
Increasing the search team or reporting it to Valkyrie would spread rumors that The Farm and Abydos are connected, and Kaiser PMC wouldn't look kindly on that. Those guys are trying to enslave students; surely they could bury one person.
Ultimately, this is the best option right now.
Now, all I can do is pray.
"It's not like this is Trinity or anything."
Still, I have to try.
I clasp my hands together roughly as I've seen others do, close my eyes, and concentrate.
It's my first time in my life, but I pray earnestly. If there is a god, or even if there isn't.
'Let a miracle happen.'
Some say miracles aren't that common. I will say that's not true.
Me going to Kaiser, meeting Arin and Sarin, meeting Neru and Utaha at Millennium. Wakamo coming to us, and everything that led us here.
All of these must be miracles.
Yes, miracles are common and scattered everywhere. It's just that some people consider them everyday occurrences.
I finish my prayer and lie down on the bed to prepare for tomorrow. Wishing for a miraculous day tomorrow as well.
Regrettably, my eyes didn't close right away. I just spaced out until late at night, wrapped in the feeling that a lime-green dream was flickering in my eyes.
A heterogeneous space that seems dark yet brightly shining at the same time. The air has settled calmly, and not even small living noises can be heard.
An office with only necessary furniture and no interior decoration, vaguely expressing the madness of this place's owner.
I am standing here, right now.
"...Long time no see."
The person I greet is the owner of this office and the hyung who taught me about Mystics in my past. His skin has a grotesque appearance, like a black shell placed over a white ball, but his attitude is more mannerly than anyone else.
A master of speech who makes you feel like you're being reeled in every time he speaks.
"Huhu, indeed."
The Black Suit hyung.
Without saying more, I sat down on the chair. He's a hyung I've known for a long time anyway. I threw off my mask and faced him with my bare face.
Placed in a situation facing each other with only a desk between us, the Black Suit hyung smiled as if amused.
"You managed to find your way here well."
"Who do you think I am?"
When I woke up in the morning, the landlady gave me a note, and I just came to the address written on it.
"Even though I gave you the address, your insight to be certain that I gave it to you. It is good to see that you no longer show the clumsiness of the past. You dyed your hair. Is it because of Horus?"
"Forget that. Let's get to the point. You know why I came, right?"
"The eyes. Is it not?"
As expected, he knew everything. No, come to think of it, he was the one who told me about the eyes in the first place.
I nodded as if to say he was right, and the Black Suit hyung spoke with satisfaction.
"As I told you before, the name of those eyes is Ibis. Eyes that see through the information of all things in the world."
"I remember that too. What I'm curious about is how to reduce the side effects of these eyes."
"By side effects, you mean?"
"After using Ibis, my eyes sting and my consciousness becomes hazy."
This is the reason I don't use Ibis often. The eye pain aside, it becomes hard to hold onto my sanity.
I can't just stand there spacing out when I don't know what might happen.
"Hmm... Regrettably. I cannot fix that."
"...You can't, hyung? No way. Don't you have headache medicine or some training method?"
"No. None at all. Because that is not a side effect."
"What?"
"It is literally as I said. Your consciousness becoming hazy is not a side effect of Ibis."
Seeing that I didn't understand, the Black Suit hyung explained in detail.
"A side effect refers to an unexpected effect that was not desired, not the natural order of things. Sleeping pills have the side effect of death if overdosed, but the possibility of falling to your death is not a side effect of gravity, is it?"
"You're saying it's natural for it to be like that?"
"Correct."
Saying that, the Black Suit hyung took a coin out of his pocket and handed it to me.
"You are aware of Mystics, are you not?"
"Of course. The mysterious power and substance students possess. Isn't it?"
"Correct. Now, the heads of this coin is the Mystic. The part shown to the public."
Using a coin as a metaphor must mean there's a tails side.
"Conversely, the tails side is the opposite of Mystic. In our terms, 'Terror'. And a coin that combines this Mystic and Terror. We call it the 'Sublime'."
"What does that have to do with Ibis?"
"There are many students with supernatural abilities. Luck, mind reading, photographic memory, even precognition. However, a clear difference exists between your Ibis and their abilities."
A clear difference...
"Autonomy?"
"Precisely."
It's not that complicated a story. Just look at Wakamo; she can summon calamities thanks to her Mystic, but she can't control it. Other students probably have it active all the time like a passive skill.
But my Ibis is different. A supernatural ability I can turn on and off when I want.
"Why is there such a difference?"
"Their abilities stem from their Mystic. It is natural since their Sublime currently bears the aspect of Mystic; it is the same as red construction paper being red no matter how you cut it."
"Does that mean..."
"Yes. Your ability, Ibis. It is a power stemming from Terror, not Mystic."
All students possess the Sublime, and that Sublime has a heads side called Mystic and a tails side called Terror. Every student's Sublime is in the Mystic state, and their abilities also stem from the Mystic, so there is no penalty, but my ability stems from Terror.
"So I was forcibly revealing the tails side from the heads side."
"Yes. To avoid experiencing haziness even after using Ibis, the only way is for you, Thoth, to enter the state of Terror yourself."
"I'll pass. The name Terror, or being the opposite of Mystic. I don't really like it."
"A pity. We could have seen something interesting."
So he can't fix it after all. Can't be helped. I have no choice but to use it only when it's important.
"Still, you may be proud. A forgotten god using the power of Terror while in the state of Mystic. You are likely the only one in all of Kivotos who can do this."
"Then is there anything else I should know? I think I should get going."
"Hmm. It does not matter if you use the ability, but please be careful not to fall into a coma. Since you are already a coin folded towards the tails side, if your balance is disturbed, you may become the tails side."
"Okay. Thank you. See you later."
It's a shame about the side effects, but it was a question worth asking. I also heard various information about Terror and the Sublime, so it was a decent Q&A session.
Now I have to go quickly. The Abydos Student Council President. If worse comes to worst, I have to retrieve the body and hold a funeral.
I hurriedly put my mask back on and ran outside.
"Horus, Takanashi Hoshino. Thoth, Takanashi Kosei."
One possesses the greatest Mystic in Kivotos, and the other possesses the most alien Mystic in Kivotos. They are truly interesting siblings.
Of course, I didn't expect him to come like this, but since he is the possessor of an unprecedented Mystic, just observing and recording him will result in a record close to a treasure. Now what remains is what will happen if Terror is mixed into the Mystic called Horus...
Will she draw in Terror partially like her brother, or will she explode from within and self-destruct?
This, too. I cannot help but be interested.
Ah. Come to think of it, Kuchinasi Yume, was it? The Abydos Student Council President. Her Mystic was insignificant so I intended to use her as a discardable pawn, but I didn't know she would have this much influence on these siblings.
Well then, let's watch how much shock and terror her current state will bring to the two forgotten gods.
Please, tell me an interesting story. You two.