“Um, are you okay?”
“Um... yes.” She seemed confused, like she didn’t really know why she was here yet. “What... happened to me?”
“You were passed out in an empty lot. I happened upon you while I was passing through.”
“I see... Thank you.”
The girl smiled slightly, but she still seemed uneasy. I could understand why.
“Can you tell me your name?” I asked.
“...Mio Kotozuka,” she said after a long pause.
“Mio, huh? Do you remember what you were doing in that empty lot?”
“I don’t know...”
“Then I guess you don’t know how you got there, either?”
“I don’t know...”
“Do you know your home address?”
“Um...”
She looked down like she didn’t know what to say. Honestly, I didn’t know what to say, either.
“Is there anything you can tell me?”
“I... don’t know. I can’t remember anything.”
I looked at Harissa, and then R too for good measure.
“Is this... amnesia?”
“Probably...”
The girl put the hat on so I couldn’t see her eyes, and she refused to look at either me or Harissa. Awkward silence filled the room. I couldn’t imagine how scary it must be for a young girl like her to wake up in a strange place with no memories, but... surely there had to be some clue to help us figure out what was going on. Oh, wait... That’s right. There was. The reason I’d thought she was a heroine.
“Do you know the name Rekka Namidare?” I asked.
Her eyes went wide.
“Ah... aah!”
She put her hands to her head like it was about to explode. She looked like she was in terrible pain.
“H-Hey, Mio?”
“The building... The roof... I...”
She was choking out words, but I couldn’t make sense of it. What building? What roof? I was lost, but then she said...
“I was pushed.”
It sounded like she was saying she’d been pushed off the roof of a building.
“Is that what happened?”
Wait, was that...
“If she was pushed, that means someone had to have pushed her,” R interjected.
I knew that, obviously, but the thought made me feel like someone had stuck something unpleasant down my throat. Even if it was only off of a single-story building, that wasn’t the kind of thing you did as a joke. There was only one way to take it. Whoever did it wanted to kill her. Fortunately, she’d survived and didn’t appear to be hurt badly, but still...
We tried waiting for her to calm down before talking to her more.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes...”
She actually looked far worse than she had earlier, but she nodded. I could understand why she was feeling down. The first thing she’d remembered was being pushed off a building.
Amnesia, an attempted murder... It seemed her story wouldn’t be an easy one to resolve.
▽
Satsuki arrived about five minutes earlier than she said she would. She must’ve hurried, because there were beads of sweat on her face. I led her into the living room, turned on the air conditioning, and brought her some barley tea.
“Thanks.”
She gulped down the tea. She must’ve been hot. She’d even tied her hair up. I took a sip of my own tea as I looked at her.
“Rekka, are you the kind of guy that gets excited when you smell girls’ sweat?”
“Bwuh?!”
I involuntarily spat out my tea.
“Kyah! H-Hey, what are you doing, Rekka?!”
“S-Sorry...” I apologized to Satsuki and then glared at R.
Begrudgingly, I turned on the TV and turned down the volume to give R something else to do. I was hoping that she’d watch whatever show was on and leave me alone.
“So, what have you been caught up in now?”
“Well, you see...”
I explained the situation so far to Satsuki, then told her there were two things I wanted her to look up. The first was where Ellicia, the girl who’d been chased by the man with the scar, was now. The other was what had happened to Mio, the girl with amnesia.
“Okay, I think I’ve got enough to go on. Where should I start?”
“Ellicia comes first. She might be in danger. Can you see if she’s okay and give me a general location?”
“Yeah, I think I can do it if you give me a few minutes. About what time did you meet her? Also, tell me as much about her as you can.”
“Let’s see. It must have been about...”
I told her everything I could remember. The Akashic Record that she could access with her magic contained the annals of the universe. But for all its vast knowledge, it was essentially just a database. In order to learn anything from it, you needed to narrow down your search as much as possible. It contained so much information that it was literally impossible to look through it all.
“All right, I’m going to consult the Akashic Record now,” she said.
I watched on as she closed her eyes and started to concentrate.
“I ask the records of all things...”
As she whispered an incantation, particles of light appeared and cast a gentle glow throughout the room. I wasn’t a mage, so I didn’t really know the details, but the light was a manifestation of magical power. Apparently everyone’s was a different color, and Satsuki’s happened to be pale blue. The bluish specks of light formed a circle around her, then disappeared up through the ceiling like they were delivering her voice somewhere on high.
“I’ve found her data. Her full name is Ellicia Otto. She’s currently moving west... She doesn’t seem to be under anybody’s control.”
“I see. Good.”
That meant the man with the scar hadn’t found her yet.
“Can you tell how far away the scarred man is from her?”
“Probably, but if all I have to go on is ‘men with scars on their cheek’ and ‘somewhere in this city,’ it’s going to take time to narrow it down and find him.”
“Hmm...”
Maybe it would be better to just go see Ellicia then? The Magic of Omniscience was helpful, but it had another limitation, and that was Satsuki’s magic powers. The more powerful the magic and the longer she used it, the more it drained her power. And if I was going to have her find out what happened to Mio or monitor Ellicia in real time, I’d need Satsuki to conserve her magic.
“Can you look into Mio next?”
“Of course. Just give me a second.” She opened her eyes and wiped the sweat off her brow. “Actually... Can I take a little break? Using the Magic of Omniscience this much makes me lightheaded.”
“Oh, sorry...”
I realized I’d been pushing her to use her magic without really thinking of how she was feeling. She was clearly pretty spent. I went to get the pitcher of barley tea from the fridge. I got some ice from the ice maker, too. I plopped it into the tea, but I could see it start to melt immediately.
“Want me to turn up the air conditioning a bit?”
“I’m fine. I don’t want to get too cold, either.”
She took a deep breath and used her handkerchief to dab the sweat off her collarbone. It was... strangely sexy. I could feel my heart skip a beat, but no! Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that kind of thing! Was it the heat? Maybe it was the heat getting to me.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“N-Nothing!” I said, louder than I really needed to.
Satsuki seemed confused, but didn’t say anything more... Thank God.
“Okay, moving on,” Satsuki said as she cast a glance toward the stairs leading to the second floor. “You said she had amnesia. Are you sure?”
“Well, she said so, and she didn’t seem to be lying.”
“But she’s not hurt? Like, did she hit her head?”
“I had Harissa ch
eck her over for me, and she seems to be fine.”
I lied a little. I’d actually asked R to look, but I couldn’t tell Satsuki that. She couldn’t see R.
“Then it wasn’t an accident... Huh?” Satsuki suddenly seemed to realize something wasn’t right. “Didn’t she say she was pushed off a building?”
“Yeah, but...”
I knew what she was trying to say. If she was pushed off a building, then why wasn’t she hurt? Unfortunately, I didn’t have an answer to that, but...
“It would help if you could find that out for me, too.”
“I see.”
With the Magic of Omniscience, Satsuki had access to the entire history of the universe. She could look up anything that had happened in the past, so it would be a surefire way to find out if what Mio was saying was true or not.
“By the way, I didn’t catch her last name. Does she know it?” Satsuki asked.
“Yeah, it’s Kotozuka.”
“Huh?” Satsuki looked dubious for some reason.
“I said her name’s Mio Kotozuka.”
“I heard you... but are you sure? Is that really what she called herself?”
“Yeah. Why?” I asked, not understanding why she was so skeptical.
“Listen, Rekka. Do you know who Mio Kotozuka is?”
“The girl upstairs...?”
What was she talking about? She was acting like she knew something I didn’t.
“Rekka, that...” she said as she pointed behind me, “is Mio Kotozuka.”
“Huh?”
I turned around and saw a commercial playing on the TV that I’d turned on to get rid of R. An idol with a stuffed heart-lion was talking about her upcoming tour. It was MIO. Hmm... Was that what Satsuki was trying to say?
“Wh-What? Come on, they just happen to have the same first name, I bet.”
“Kotozuka is MIO’s last name. You don’t know anything about idols, do you, Rekka?” she said with a sigh.
“No, I mean, I know MIO. She’s super famous. But it’s not like I know her real name, and besides, the girl upstairs doesn’t look anything like that.”
“She doesn’t?”
“Nope.”
MIO on TV had long, blond pigtails that reached down to her knees, but Mio upstairs had shoulder-length, black hair. Sure, maybe they had about the same height and build, but...
“That hair could just be a wig. What about her face? Did that look the same?”
“I’m not sure...”
The idol on the screen had a bright smile as she winked and energetically talked about making the concert fun. But the girl upstairs was quiet and shy. They had totally different vibes.
“W-Well, can’t your magic tell us?”
“That’s true.”
Satsuki closed her eyes and accessed the Akashic Record again. This time she opened her eyes again before even ten seconds had passed. Maybe it was easier to find information on someone if they were famous?
“Hmm...”
“What is it?” I asked, a little worried when I saw the uneasiness in her expression.
“It’s about halfsies, I guess.”
Halfsies? What was halfsies?
“First, the girl upstairs is indeed the real Mio Kotozuka.”
“Which means...”
She was the idol MIO. But if that part was true, then the other half...
“It’s not a fact per se that she was pushed off a building.”
I should’ve figured.
“You’re sure about that?” I asked without thinking.
“The Magic of Omniscience is never wrong.”
I couldn’t argue with that. I’d seen its power firsthand, and it had saved me more than once. So, if Satsuki said so, then it meant Mio really hadn’t been pushed off a building.
“But why would she lie to me about that?”
“That I don’t know...”
Satsuki’s magic could reveal the secrets of the universe, but it couldn’t reveal the secrets of a person’s heart. The Magic of Omniscience was a record of facts and events, and that didn’t include people’s thoughts and feelings.
“Wait... Mio’s concert tour is today, right?” I suddenly remembered the commercial we’d just seen.
“Oh!” Satsuki gasped, then nodded.
What was she doing out here in the countryside if her concert was today? Something wasn’t adding up.
“Come to think of it, how did Mio know my name?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“When I found her in that empty lot, she was mumbling ‘Rekka.’”
“Hmm, that is unusual, but it must have been on purpose. She probably wasn’t asking for a wrecker.”
We had a few strange clues to go off of now. Mio was totally unharmed, whether or not she’d been pushed from a roof. She was here in a town with no concert hall on a day she should have been performing for her tour. She knew my name even though we’d never met. To top it off, she had amnesia and couldn’t explain any of it. Adding it all up, one thing was pretty clear to me at this point. It wasn’t a coincidence.
“Let’s look into it a little more. I’ll see what she was doing yesterday. Maybe we can find out why she came here or how she lost her memories.”
“Yeah, good idea.” I nodded and watched as Satsuki closed her eyes.
“Yesterday she went to a meeting about the concert, then a rehearsal, then a costume fitting... It seems like she was really busy. That night, she went home to her condo and went straight to sleep.”
There wasn’t anything unusual about that. What happened to her must have come next.
“...Huh?”
“What’s wrong?”
“She got up in the morning, left the condo... and got on a train headed here.”
Satsuki sounded confused, but she wasn’t alone.
“...Did something happen when she was asleep?”
“Nothing. She slept the whole night, then got up and came here.”
So she spent all day yesterday prepping for the concert, and then today she just decided to blow it off and come here? Why? I couldn’t even imagine what might’ve happened to her. Actually, from what Satsuki was saying, nothing at all had happened to her. Even with the Magic of Omniscience, we were stumped. The cause of all this was still one giant question mark. It was a mystery. There was no explaining what she’d said or done.
“Don’t tell me she came here to see me.”
Mio had known my name and where to find me. That was all I could really put together with the information I had. If she had come to see me, that might explain her behavior. But even if that were the case, I was at a loss as to how she knew who I was in the first place.
“Just to make sure, she and I have never met, right?”
Satsuki closed her eyes to consult her magic.
“That’s correct.”
“Thought so.”
Normal people didn’t know pop idol superstars. The plot was only getting thicker at this point, but turning it over in my head, I realized something.
“Let’s say she did come to this town to meet me... That means she had her memories when she got here, right?”
“Well, yes... You’re exactly right.”
Whatever her reason for coming here was, she clearly knew what she was doing at the time. That meant she had to have lost her memories after she’d arrived in town. That was another hint, so we pushed forward to try and find the answers we needed in order to get to the bottom of this. This time I had Satsuki look into what Mio had done once she’d gotten to town.
“By the time she got here, Mio was barely able to stand. She didn’t eat breakfast, it looks like... She was also in a big hurry on the way here, so she may have been exhausted.”
“I see...”
“She staggered into an alley that led to an empty lot. There’s no way she knew that path, so she was probably lost.”
“And she passed out in the lot after that?”
“She may have just wanted to rest
a little... but yeah, she passed out in the grass.”
“That’s where I found her.”
So nothing had happened between her getting off the train and passing out, either. It wasn’t long after she collapsed that Ellicia and I and went by, but we certainly hadn’t done anything to her. I had Satsuki keep looking.
“She was unconscious when you showed up, and she was still out cold when... Wait, someone touched her while she was unconscious!”
“Who?!”
“Hang on... It’s a man. His name is Yang Danshey... He’s, um... got a scar on his cheek?”
“A scar on his cheek?”
That sounded familiar.
“Is it the guy chasing Ellicia?”
“I’ll check in a minute, but it seems like it. The timing and the description match.”
“But why would he do that when he was chasing someone else?”
It wasn’t like he’d done it out of concern for her. I gulped as I waited for Satsuki to tell me what Yang had done.
“Yang sees Mio and approaches her...” Satsuki said, trailing off.
“Then what?” I asked eagerly after a long pause.
“Yang used his psychic powers to seal away her memories.”
“Psychic powers?!”
“Yeah...” Satsuki said with a weak nod.
Psychic powers, huh? I hadn’t expected that, but Ellicia had used something similar.
“Then is Ellicia’s wall-walking ability a psychic power, too?”
“Most likely.”
So, one psychic was chasing after another. But why? I had all kinds of questions, but the one thing I was sure of at this point was that these psychic powers probably had something to do with Ellicia’s story. If I was going to help her, I’d have to keep that in mind while forming my team.
“Why would Yang seal Mio’s memories, though? What was the point?”
“I... have no idea. It appears that they were strangers and hadn’t met before.”
“What in the world is going on here?”
How did she know anything about me, a boy she’d never met before? And why would a stranger like Yang want to seal away her memories? Was there some connection between us that would be the key to solving her story? Just as I was starting to worry my head might explode, the doorbell rang.
▽
“...So to be honest, I don’t understand most of what’s going on with these stories. I’d appreciate it if you all could help me figure it out.”
I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 7 Page 4