Finally I'm back! I'll try to get as much out while I still can. The last few months were hectic, never thought senior year would be this bad. Hope you'll like this chapter, enjoy!
Chapter 9
Otonashi Yuzuru
I walk back to my classroom, somehow feeling very satisfied. Finally, something good has happened. Talking with Kanade has helped quite a bit, and now I feel quite confident that looking for the other members of the group will be of even more help. I'll get around to it the moment school ends.
Once again I sit through a painfully long sequence of classes, trying to concentrate but not really doing very well. Somehow my anticipation has increased after that talk with Kanade; it's as if I'm hoping something will happen and yet not knowing exactly what I'm expecting. I feel like I'm operating entirely on intuition now.
As soon as the final bell rings, I leap up from my seat again, fully determined to get going. It doesn't matter how I approach the matter – I've decided to just go with the flow and hope that somehow they've had similar experiences: something that reminded them of their past lives or simply any memory recalled due to familiar stimuli. Everything so far has just clicked quite smoothly into place, what's to stop it from happening to the others as well?
I hurry down to the entrance of the building. I don't know where Hinata's classroom is, but I hope to be able to meet him leaving the school again like I did yesterday. If Yui is with him, then it would be killing two birds with one stone. The problem is, I don't know if I'd feel bad interrupting them and destroying the mood should it really happen. Especially if they somehow do not have any memories of that time yet, it would just feel wrong to bring it up all of a sudden. Well, there's no point worrying about it now I suppose. I'd already decided to do it after all.
After about 10 minutes leaning against the wall and watching the door, I see the blue hair I now recognize as Hinata's beyond the door, brightly reflected in the setting sun. Once again he is joined by Yui, walking at his side and looking quite happy. Well, here's my chance. I take a deep breath and walk up to them, who have turned and are incidentally headed my way.
Apparently they realize I'm headed straight for them before I get within speaking distance. Both of them have stopped their conversation and frozen in their tracks, looking at me in a way I am sure is not something anyone would give a complete stranger. In fact, it's starting to make me nervous.
"Otonashi-senpai?"Yui is the first to speak up, in a tone of complete astonishment.
"Otonashi?"Hinata echoes. His face has such a look of amazement that it takes all I have to hold back an involuntary laugh.
"Hey," I reply. "From those looks on your faces, I assume you know who I am?"
"Of course we do!" Yui exclaims. "The famous new member of the SSS who was among the sole survivors of his first real operation, and the first to make friends with the perceived enemy;the newbie who became close friends with Hinata-senpai and who was among the sanest people in a group of idiots."
This time my mouth drops open. I'm caught off guard from her initial speech – she already seems to know more about me than I do about myself. I can't find a proper response to that outburst.
"Surprised that I know so much about you? Hehehe… There is nothing that Yui-nyan doesn't know about! Her information network is the best!"
"Stop spouting nonsense!" Hinata says, putting his fist on Yui's head and giving her a hard massage. He turns to me. "Well, it's true that we are having flashbacks from our time in the SSS, as well as some of what we went through back then. I guess it's thanks to that that we managed to get together; we both kind of remembered our initial love-hate relationship and the promise we made before Yui moved on. Though it's still kind of early to fulfill that promise," he adds with a laugh.
"But anyway, from your question earlier, I'm guessing you're not here for idle chat?" He continues, turning serious. "This has something to do with the sudden resurfacing of our memories right?"
"You've got that right," I say. "Somehow it feels like both of you know more about myself than I do though. Exactly how much do you remember?"
"Well, I'd say that what Yui said just now pretty much sums up all we remember, of course centered around you," Hinata says with a laugh. "We remember the events leading up to you joining us, the legendary operation in which you and Yuri were the only ones to survive up to the end. My personal memories of that only go as far as I went myself though, hahaha.."
"And then, and then, of how you managed to befriend the very one the SSS was formed to rebel against," Yui pipes up again, as hyperactive as ever. "Throughout your time there, you managed to become close friends with Hinata-senpai. That bit about you being the sanest among a group of idiots is my opinion though," she adds, smirking.
"And whoever calls someone else an idiot is an idiot right, idiot?" Hinata says in a mock serious tone, putting his hand on Yui's shoulder.
"Who are you calling an idiot?" Yui swiftly jumps onto Hinata's back and puts him in a stranglehold, literally putting her entire weight on Hinata's neck.
"Yui…!" Hinata chokes, trying to loosen Yui arm around his neck. "Get off me! I'm your senpai you know!"
"Oops…" Yui says, pulling herself up and supporting herself on Hinata's back. "I'm sorry, honorable senpai, but it is my humble opinion that Hinata-senpai's honorable brain is not as sane as Otonashi-senpai's."
"Why you…" Hinata begins, then suddenly grabs Yui's arm and performs a clean judo throw, flipping Yui over his head and landing her on her back.
As I watch this, I get a weird sense of déjà vu – this scene feels remarkably familiar to me, especially the direction their exchanges took, and yet I do notice a slight difference. Although Hinata threw Yui around, he obviously did it in a way not intended to injure her in any way. It was a practice throw that would not harm anyone prepared for it, which Yui apparently was, though it did not stop her from playing the part.
"Hinata-senpai, it hurts!" she complains, going completely limp from the arm that Hinata is still holding on to.
"Huh? You know very well that it shouldn't hurt that much, especially for someone as athletic as you." Hinata grins.
"Whatever!" Yui exclaims, hopping up again. "Anyway, you are still an idiot for doing that to me!"
"Can we stop the drama now?" I speak for the first time since it all started. I honestly have begun to wonder if they somehow forgot that I'm still around.
"Oh, right," Hinata says, turning away from Yui to face me. "Do you want the details of what we know? I'm guessing your memories still aren't very clear, right?"
"I'd say you're quite right. Should we go sit down somewhere?"
"Let's move to the benches around the field. Come on, Yui!"
We relocate to the place Hinata mentioned, a set of benches placed around our school track field meant for spectators and reserve players when any event is held. Yui has been hanging onto Hinata's arm this whole time, and I hang back, feeling a little awkward being too close. Why are things going so well between them even though they have partially recovered memories? Does it not bother them?
We sit down and Hinata starts, "So what would you like to know first?"
I make a quick summary of what I know so far, and ask him to fill any blanks in with whatever he has.
"Hmm... what you have so far is interesting. It does clarify a few points for me, though it does look like your fragments would have a tendency to make you more confused. What Yui and I have pieced together is enough for us to remember what our relationship was like before, and we just decided to make good use of our promise. Nothing strange has happened to us, and so we managed to just ignore the rest of our memories, thinking that as it was all in the past, there is no use dwelling on it. What you and Kanade have experienced is interesting though – it does seem as if the past is catching up with both of you. I'd love joining up with as many as the old gang as possible if something big happens again."
"Ok, now a quick overview. You just appeared in the world of the afterlife as we were having a quick encounter with Kanade, then known to us as Tenshi. It took a stab from Tenshi before you even realized that it was not your usual world, and that you couldn't die there. It took some persuading, but you eventually joined the SSS, which incidentally was formed to oppose Tenshi. It was based on the perception that Tenshi was really a subordinate of god, and our goal was to oppose god, and by extension Tenshi."
"I think it took a while, but eventually we managed to complete an operation that effectively disgraced Tenshi and lost her her position of power as student council president. It was after that that we realized Tenshi herself was not opposing us, but was only doing her job as a student council president. After she lost her position, her hostility towards us followed. I'm not sure when it was that you started to get friendly with her, but eventually she became a valuable ally to us."
As I listen to this, I finally feel that things are starting to get more coherent. That overview was enough that I can make more sense of the flow of events starting from when I somehow appeared in the afterlife. At least as far as I am concerned, I understand enough that I am satisfied with who I was before. My greater concern now is…
"So just to be sure, you said Kanade was the one you were opposing from the beginning? Based on the assumption that she was an angel of god? But why did you believe that in the first place?"
"From what I remember, it was probably due to the conclusions Yuri made from a long time observing the world around. Kanade seemed to act differently from the rest of the residents and the small group of humans who were there. And most importantly, she possessed powers that appeared to be of supernatural origin – she could barely be scratched with any weapon we threw at her, and her general abilities seemed to border on being magic."
"Yuri? Who's Yuri again?"
"What? Of all the people you could forget, you choose Yuri? Yuri was our leader, the one keeping the entire SSS together! She was the first to rebel against that world and formed the SSS together with me. We were the ones everything started with."
"Really? I don't think I ever knew that. So Yuri was the brains behind the group?"
"Well, I suppose you could say that, though I think sometimes you could be more insightful, especially when you were the first to see Kanade as something other than an enemy. You were slow to realize she wasn't actually an angel though," Hinata laughs.
"Hmm, I wonder if I can somehow find Yuri. I think I sort of remember what she looks like. She should be able to help a lot if she remembers enough from before. She was the first after all."
"She's in this school, don't you know?" Hinata asks in surprise. "If you don't remember her well you probably wouldn't recognize her though. I haven't really talked to her, so I don't know if she has resurfaced memories or not. Maybe you could try looking for her in the next few days."
"Yui-nyan will help too!" Yui says happily, running over from behind us. Apparently she left the bench sometime when we were talking and was running around energetically, the way Yui always is. "I'll ask my band members if they remember anything! I'm sure that at least Iwasawa-senpai will know a few things, even though she was the earliest among us to leave."
"Oh, you know Iwasawa-san?," I ask in interest. "You were in a band before too, right?"
"Yes! We are reforming Girls Dead Monster!" Yui exclaims. "I was so happy when I had the chance to finally perform beside Iwasawa-senpai! It's like a dream come true!"
"You're really energetic," I say, getting up. "Well, I think I've found out enough for the moment. I probably shouldn't bother the two of you anymore today. Thanks for telling me all you did."
"It's fine. We probably shouldn't have just kept to ourselves either, especially since I knew Yuri was in the same school as well. So who do you think should try to contact her?"
"We'll just go with the flow and see who runs into her first tomorrow. If we haven't managed to by the end of the day, then we'll try finding her," I say. Somehow I'm feeling very satisfied from today's conversation and the sense of urgency I felt before is gone. I feel like the next step could be taken with a little more composure.
"Great. Well, see you tomorrow then!"
"Bye, Otonashi-senpai!"
