chapter1 · 013-ep13

Episode 13: Mibu Iroha and Himuro Ren

How are you that strong?

That was the question I'd just been asked.

By Mibu Iroha, no less — who looks far stronger than I'll ever be.

Looking up at Mibu on the tower, I couldn't find words for a while.

The wind blew.

The evening air had a chill to it.

"...Um."

My mouth finally moved.

"Which... which sense do you mean?"

Even I had no idea what I was asking, but nothing else came to mind.

Mibu tilted her head slightly.

"Which?"

"No, I mean..."

Saying it, I sorted it out for myself too.

"When you say strong — do you mean at fighting, or as an Awakener? Feels like both got mixed in there."

"Both, maybe."

Mibu said it easily.

"At minimum, that wasn't normal."

Not normal, huh.

Well. Fair.

It probably was.

From Sakagami's side, the guy who'd only been taking hits the whole time dropped him with a single one at the very end.

From my side, though, that was a pretty serious tightrope walk.

"...More importantly."

Still looking up at the tower, I said it.

"Why are you standing up there?"

Mibu went quiet for a moment.

But it wasn't an I-don't-want-to-say silence. It was a where-do-I-even-start silence.

"Hmmmm. Change of pace?"

"Here?"

"Because it's here."

An instant answer.

That explains nothing.

The school roof.

The tower on top of the school roof.

The wind's strong, and the footing's nothing wide.

And on a spot like that, the most famous girl in school is standing there like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Still explains nothing.

"When I go home, I can't settle down."

At that murmured continuation, I lifted my face a little.

"Can't settle?"

"Mm."

Mibu answered, level.

"My father's swamped with the Gate response right now, and because I'm an Awakener, going home means getting dragged into all of it."

"Ah..."

It finally clicked — the story Sōsuke had told me before.

Mibu's father is a politician, and apparently right at the center of all the Gate and dungeon business. That.

I'd taken it as half rumor, but apparently not all of it was wrong.

"So the only time it's quieter than home is while I'm at school."

Having gotten that far, Mibu glanced this way.

"...That was the idea, anyway."

"My bad."

I returned that without thinking.

Well, fair.

She comes to a quiet place to be alone, and below her, classmates start brawling. That had to have wrecked it thoroughly.

Not that "brawling" is accurate — mostly I was just on the receiving end.

"It's fine. More importantly — stop... changing the subject."

"Stop changing the subject" — meaning, presumably, that shōnen-manga-grade question from before: why are you strong.

"You didn't look fight-hardened."

"Well, I'm not."

"Dropping Sakagami-kun in one hit is one thing, but the way you were taking hits before that was oddly stable, too."

Stable — well, sure, what with Posture Control auto-triggering and everything.

And a +, no less. A plus.

I don't fully get how great this + is myself, but since it's there, I want it on record.

"You had been inside a dungeon, right?"

"More or less."

"For how long?"

Mibu's eyes narrowed a touch.

Less suspicion, more checking because the numbers didn't add up — that kind of face.

How long, she asks.

Well — setting aside the whole achievements-and-Skills business for now, the time at least I could probably say.

She'd been firing questions nonstop,

and this didn't feel like something I could just vaguely deflect.

"...The whole weekend. I was in the dungeon."

So I decided to offer up a slice of the truth, as-is.

"The whole time?"

"More or less."

"Two full days?"

"About that."

Mibu went quiet a little.

The silence was, somehow, heavy.

"Without a break?"

"I was awake at least thirty-six hours."

"Because I wanted the achievement" — that part I obviously left out.

But even the unflappable Mibu stalled, just slightly.

"...Why would you do that?"

The way she asked wasn't angry, and it wasn't exasperated.

It was the voice, the reaction, of someone standing in front of something they genuinely cannot parse.

"I mean — you know games, right?"

"Games?"

"The kind where once you start, you lose track of when to stop."

Even as I said it, I wondered if that explained anything.

"Right. It was... kind of like that."

Mibu's gaze slid off to the side, a little.

"I-I-I see."

She has no idea what I mean.

Well. Fair enough.

Mibu doesn't really look like the gaming type.

But it didn't end there.

"Alone the whole time?"

"Basically."

"Weren't you scared?"

"I was."

"And you kept going?"

"Well... yeah."

"Why push it that far?"

"I mean, if you're asking me why..."

Who is this person.

The question period will not end.

And maybe it's just me, but Mibu's eyes seem to be shining when she looks at me.

"...Interesting."

Mibu looked back at me and laughed.

"I think you've caught my interest a little, Himura-kun."

"Wait — what?"

"Exactly what it sounds like."

"Exactly what it sounds like," she says.

Gorgeous, top of her class.

That Mibu Iroha, interested in me?

But it's probably not that kind of heat — not friendship-shaped, not romance-shaped.

This is someone who gets curious about the bizarre things her common sense can't measure. Probably.

In that sense, I snagged her.

That was the impression I got.

"Even if you say I've caught your interest..."

"Is that a problem?"

"A little."

No — a lot.

Having a celebrity like Mibu take an interest in me head-on just throws my whole rhythm off.

And there, Mibu's mouth softened again, just a little.

"...You might be standing out a bit, from here on."

And just like that, the topic switched.

"Huh?"

"The Awakener Development Program."

"...What's that?"

The term made me ask back before I could stop it.

"The details aren't set yet, but the government's considering it now, as part of the Gate response."

Mibu dropped her gaze from the tower's edge to the rooftop below.

"Education for Awakeners. Training. That sort of thing."

Ah. Got it.

That "things are going to start moving" she told Sakagami's group about on the roof — this is what she meant.

The government's about to start something, aimed at Awakeners.

The outline wasn't visible yet, but that alone made it plenty huge.

"I'm looking forward to it."

And with that, Mibu dropped from the tower to the rooftop, not a wobble in it.

"Looking forward to it" — a line that couldn't be less like Mibu.

No — I know nothing about Mibu Iroha as a person, so maybe I shouldn't be saying that.

"See you, Himura-kun."

"Uh — right. Yeah."

How'd she know my name, anyway?

I wondered — then the unpleasant memory surfaced that Sakagami had been bellowing my name this whole time.

Mibu walked off toward the stairs.

I watched her back for a while.

The wind blew.

The evening air had a chill to it.

Five minutes ago I was brawling with Sakagami; then it was just me and Mibu Iroha talking, and by the end I'd been briefed on some incomprehensible national-scale business.

The Awakener Development Program.

I have no idea what it'll actually be.

No idea — but.

"...Well. Sounds kind of interesting, honestly."

Maybe it's tactless, in a crisis like this, but my heart had drifted a little that way.

New places.

New rules.

Strong guys I haven't met yet.

That smell is all over this.

"...Anyway — time to head home."

A little bit buoyed, I started walking for the roof exit.