Volume 1 - CH 2.7

7

That night, Kei turned off his lights, jumped into bed, and closed his eyes, thinking through all the activities of the day. Between the cat, Murase Youka, and everything else, he doubted the day could have been any more eventful.

Just as he was trying to discern what it all meant, he heard something say his name.

It was a girl’s voice… and his first reaction was to blame Tomoki. He’s probably using that stupid ability of his to send me another prank call, Kei thought. But Tomoki never spoke up to claim the prank.

With no other ideas, Kei opened his eyes, and before him was a… ghost. Its semi-transparent form hovered in his room, and if he wasn’t mistaken, it looked like Minami Mirai.

Kei took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure what else to do. After all, he had never seen a ghost before. He was mostly just speechless. If he was walking down a dark alleyway at night, he could have at least screamed, but in this situation, he had entirely missed the timing to be surprised, and it wasn’t like she had attempted to scare him in the first place.

Just as Kei was starting to get annoyed at this ghost’s lack of situational awareness, she scratched her head, smiled, and gave a slightly embarrassed, “Uhh, good evening.”

Although Kei still felt entirely unfrightened, he couldn’t forget his manners, so he responded in kind, “Good evening.”

The two sat in silence for a while. Eventually, Kei got out from under his sheets and sat up cross-legged on his bed. As for what to do from there, he was entirely clueless. The situation had left him thoroughly confused, but since she wasn’t going anywhere, he couldn’t just sit staring at her forever. “Minami-san?”

She nodded in response to his question. So she really was Minami-san. Not that that made things any clearer.

Still trying to calm the storm in his head, Kei desperately searched for a conversation starter. “So, what’s up?” Three pathetic words. It hardly conveyed what he was trying to say, but she seemed to understand him nonetheless.

“All of a sudden, I was a ghost. Got any ideas on why?”

“Uh…” If she was a ghost, then what naturally came to mind was dying. Granted, they were in Sakurada, so it was possible that she became a ghost without dying. If they were anywhere else, though, death would be the natural conclusion.

Kei shook his head slightly. “I can’t say for certain, but maybe you can astral project?” That would at least be a start, were it true.

Minami had exhibited no powers up until this point, so any kind of power could have awakened within her at any point, and it wouldn’t have been all that strange. Everyone awoke to their abilities at different times. It was generally set in stone by the time someone became an adult, but high schoolers were known to spontaneously awaken to an ability on occasion.

“Astral projection? Wow, that’s totally a paranormal phenomenon!” Minami shouted, jumping up and down excitedly. Granted, she was floating, but there was no other way to describe her movements at that moment.

“I’m sure it’s just an ability.” With her logic, all of Sakurada’s abilities could be attributed to paranormal phenomena.

“So is this my personal ability?”

“Most likely. Work backwards with me for a bit.” Over time, ability users would become self-aware of the nature of their ability. With that said, there was no one-size-fits-all manual for how abilities functioned and affected people on an individual level. Not much point in pretending I know what I’m doing, Kei thought.

Consider, for example, someone with the ability to fly. The awareness that they could fly would strike them before they had ever actually tried, but they wouldn’t be aware of their limits. They wouldn’t know how high or fast they could fly, or the length of time they could sustain it. They wouldn’t even know how to take off, until one day, while going through their everyday activities, they would simply begin flying. Until the exact point they began flying in the air, they wouldn’t be able to prove if they could actually fly or were just suffering from delusions.

With that in mind, Kei began posing his questions. “Have you ever thought that you wanted to become a ghost before today?”

“Well, sure I have!”

“Alright, have you ever wanted to become anything else?”

“Well, there’s a vampire, and a witch, a transforming superhero, or really any kind of ability user.”

“Did you want to be any one of those more than the others?”

“Not really. I just thought they’d be interesting.”

That line of questioning wasn’t getting anywhere, so Kei changed tact. “What did you want to do when you became a ghost?”

“I wanted to become an urban legend, like the woman with the slit mouth.1 The kinda stuff that got you excited when you were in elementary school, y’know?”

“So, are you planning on going off to accomplish that right now?”

“Hmm, well, I’d rather figure out how to turn back into a human first.”

“You don’t know how to turn back?”

“Nope. I got nothing. You know of anything?” Minami asked, tilting her head.

“If you don’t then I certainly wouldn’t.” Sitting in his bed talking with a ghost was starting to make Kei feel uncomfortable, so he stood up, turned on his room light, and sat in his desk chair. By the time his eyes were back on Minami, she was spinning in circles in midair. “What are you doing?”

“Even when I’m upside down, my skirt doesn’t flip over. That’s pretty convenient.”

“That’s nice.” Any new abilities needed to be reported to the Administration Bureau. They could get on that tomorrow, then wait for the Bureau’s response before taking further action. Of course, Tsushima would have to be informed as well.

As Kei was lost in his thoughts, Minami had slowly crept up to him, and suddenly shoved her face in front of his. It was admittedly quite eerie.

“C’mon, Asai-kun, get thinking. Why is this happening to me?”

“Well, what were you doing before you ended up as a ghost?”

“I can’t remember. I told you, all of a sudden, I was just a ghost.”

“Hmm,” Kei muttered. So, she became a ghost, but evidently it was at the cost of her memories. Of course she would be feeling a bit out of sorts. Perhaps that was the limitation of her ability at play, but at the same time, they couldn’t rule out any external factors.

“In that case, just run me through what you remember. What did you do yesterday, starting right after school?”

“Well, first off, you ditched me.”

“Right, so you ended up going vampire hunting by yourself?”

“Mhm. Ooh, maybe I’m a ghost because I went to Spirit Mountain?”

“Sure, that might be possible. Did you find any vampires?”

“Dunno. My memory gets fuzzy around the time I got to the mountain.”

“What time would that have been?”

“Oh, probably around five, maybe a bit later.”

So just about six hours ago, Kei thought. “Okay, what’s your next memory after that?”

“Just recently. Probably about 20 minutes ago.”

“At which point you were already a ghost?”

“Mhm.”

Kei shuffled through his memories to recall what Minami had told him regarding vampires. “You said someone else was attacked by a vampire a couple years back. Do you know what happened to them?” If that person had really met a vampire, then their experience could correlate with Minami’s. After all, if Minami really was astral projecting or whatever, that meant her physical body was just lying around somewhere out there, right?

Minami answered slowly, likely pulling from memory as she spoke. “According to the U-Lab documentation, he regained consciousness pretty quickly.”

“And then? What of the vampire?”

Minami let out a small, “ah,” then raised her voice. “That’s right. He couldn’t remember what had happened, just like me. So he couldn’t put a face to who the vampire was.”

That didn’t sound right to Kei. He didn’t want to get too far off topic, but felt it was worth investigating. “If he couldn’t remember what happened, then how did he even know he met a vampire?”

“Yeah, weird, isn’t it? U-Lab might have attached the whole vampire thing to it themselves. Oh, now that I put it that way, maybe that’s why the prez wasn’t all that into my vampire hunt…”

Well, that was a bit of a let-down.

At the very least, Kei did learn something positive. Even if you got attacked by the vampire, you could still regain consciousness. If that was true, then Minami could very well return to normal at any moment. Sure, it wasn’t good to be overly optimistic, but it was no better to be overly pessimistic. Regardless, if something terrible happened, then Kei still had a reset up his sleeve.

However, there were still a few negatives to consider. Since he wanted some time to think them over by himself, Kei changed the topic. “By the way, why did you come here, Minami-san?”

“Because you’re in the Service Club, Asai-kun. I figured you could do something.”

“Sorry to be a bummer, but Service Club requests have to go through the Administration Bureau.”

“Whaaat? Even for your own classmates? You meanie…”

“That doesn’t mean I won’t help you at all. But for now, you should probably head home. It’s already this late, I bet you’ve got people worrying about you back home.”

“I think it would only worry them more if I came home as a ghost.”

“I’ll call Tsushima-san and use him to get in contact with the Bureau. If this has anything to do with abilities, then they’ll act quickly. You can tell your family not to worry.”

In a rare twist, Minami aggressively frowned at Kei. “I don’t just wanna leave my body lying around in the mountains. That’s gross.”

She was right, but everything would be fine following a reset. Not that she knew about that. With the exception of Tomoki, Kei had never shared the details of resets with any of his classmates. It would do no good to get flooded with requests to turn back time for who knew what reasons.

With no choice but to console her, Kei suggested, “Alright, how about we both go to Spirit Mountain tomorrow?” He was more than happy to go, but it was possible that real danger laid in wait at Spirit Mountain. If something were to happen, specifically to Kei, then there was a possibility that resetting would be out of the question. In that case, he needed to consider measures to ensure his safety.

Minami waved her hands in front of her face sheepishly. “Oh, yeah, asking someone who was trying to go to sleep is kinda inconsiderate. Can we head there first thing in the morning?”

“Alright, that’s not a problem.”

“Oh no, wait, you have Service Club work tomorrow, don’t you?”

Kei shook his head. “I’ll make it work. Don’t worry about it.” The “work” was just a cover-up to protect their reset anyway.

“You sure?”

“Yup. I’ll meet you at the stone steps of Kamisaki shrine tomorrow at 9, got it?”

Minami nodded, and that was that. After saying their good nights, Minami disappeared behind a closed window. Being a ghost had its perks, evidently.

Kei watched her receding figure. It was already raining again, and although it was a moonless night, Minami’s ghostly form shimmered dimly in the city lights. As she disappeared into the night, Kei closed his curtains and laid back down on his bed.

Time to consider the negatives.

Minami had somehow become a ghost. Before the reset, she had never come to his room, and she probably hadn’t turned into a ghost outside of his knowledge, either. Kei should’ve known better than to mess around and toy with new responses and outcomes following a reset. Which decision was the wrong one? Where did her future change?

“Damn,” Kei muttered under his breath. It was because he reset. Telling Haruki to reset was practically what turned Minami into a ghost. And if she was a ghost, he couldn’t avoid the topic of death forever. And death only served to remind him of another girl from two years earlier.

Setting that aside, he had a part to play here and now. First, to contact Tsushima. Ultimately, Tsushima was only a through line to the Bureau, so he decided to write an email. His message would be better preserved that way.

After sending his email, Kei began flipping through his contacts list. He needed insurance just in case something unexpected happened. He found the person he was looking for, and started a call.

The ringing quickly stopped, and Kei was met with an extremely annoyed voice. Nakano Tomoki’s extremely annoyed voice, to be precise. Ignoring the complaints mumbled at him, Kei talked over his friend.

“I’m really sorry about this, but I need to call in a favor.”