Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume1 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 3===

Time continued to flow even during that disaster, so it was late at night before long.

Aine loved small spaces, so she had retired to the prototype spaceship shaped like a bamboo leaf (because it was creepy having her arms and legs stick out of Karuta’s body as she tossed and turned in her sleep) and strawberry blonde Marika went to sleep in her usual spot on the sofa bed (with only the one sheet covering her nudity yet again). She ended up tossing and turning a lot herself, so that sheet seemed worryingly inadequate.

The faint light of a laptop screen was the only thing illuminating the RV at the moment. A cable connected the device to a smartphone.

Student Council President Omotesandou Kyouka was staring at the computer screen in just a large dress shirt.

“Are you still not going to sleep?” asked Utagai Karuta from behind her.

“I have to look after these babies.”

She apparently meant the computer. That phrasing made him curious how she mentally categorized Crystal Girl Aine.

The screen had a few windows open, but they all had a ton of alphanumeric text scrolling quickly by. He could guess she was trying to break some kind of encryption, but he doubted human eyes were quick enough to follow what was going on. His weren’t, at least.

“C’mon, it won’t take that long to decrypt. Karuta-kun, you can go ahead and get to sleep.”

“If it won’t take that long, then I’ll stay up with you.”

“Oh, dear. Trapped by my own wording.”

She gave a bewitching smile and leaned her head a bit to the left. He did not realize what that meant at first, but when she traced her finger along the shoulder that’s smooth skin was left exposed by the baggy dress shirt, he finally realized what she was inviting him to do.

“I’d be too embarrassed.”

“It’s my thanks for staying up with me.”

He got the feeling she would not move on unless he went along with it. He endured the silence for a bit, but he finally gave in to the awkward elevator mood.

He placed his chin on the shoulder she had “opened” for him. They both viewed the screen as if he were rubbing his cheek against hers while embracing her from behind.

He could sense the heat of her soft cheek and the scent of her hair.

And while giving him all that, she also whispered to him.

“Once we know what is inside the giant sword woman’s phone, we should have a fair amount of information on the other Problem Solvers. Then we can finally get to work.”

“…Right.”

“Karuta-kun, are you hoping the decryption fails?”

Since he was essentially embracing her from behind, she must have felt him jump ever so slightly. She may have also noticed his elevated heartrate.

If not for the need to protect the defenseless students and teachers, they may not have had to bare their fangs like animals.

If not for their revenge, the people in this RV might have been able to smile together in an ordinary classroom or clubroom.

Part of him definitely felt that way, but that part of him had made his childhood friend cry back in London.

She had asked him not to leave her – leave them – behind.

“Don’t worry,” said Omotesandou Kyouka. “I feel something similar.”

“Eh?”

At first, he thought this was some kind of leading question, but then she revealed what she meant.

“Revenge, vengeance, making them pay. It is simple enough to say, but I thought we were bound to fail at some point or another. I thought our desire for revenge would waver at some point and that would allow it to be worn down, transformed, and faded. And that is almost certainly what would have happened if I had been thrown out into the world all on my own with nothing but this wheelchair to work with. In fact, I may not have been able to take the very first step. There is no way I could have attempted anything as impressive as eradicating the Problem Solvers who rule this world.”

“…”

“But it’s strange.” The Student Council President in just a dress shirt seemed to be smiling, but he was too close to see her expression clearly. “People I can call partners gathered around someone as weak as me and coincidence stacked on top of coincidence to allow us to survive this long. My desire for revenge never faded and I really am working toward eradicating the Problem Solvers. ‘In a time of need, we only need to work together.’ Hee hee. When I said that at the school assembly, I never imagined it would come to mean something like this. At the time, we had found a blanket and cooler stuffed into the empty space below the heliport and we were trying to figure out who had gone to the misguided effort of setting up such a perfect slacking-off spot with both shade and a nice breeze.”

So.

Did that mean…

“Sorry,” said Karuta. “If we hadn’t run across you, you might not have been led astray like this.”

“Now you are just being overly self-conscious. Just like I could not have done anything on my own, I doubt the rest of you could have made it this far without me. You would have been defeated at some point or you would have failed to take the first step and stewed in your own hesitation. Don’t you think?”

“Maybe so.”

“Also, I doubt we could have lived a normal life even if we never started down the path of revenge. Like I said, we would have stewed in our own hesitation. Especially me since I have plenty I can use as an excuse. I may have ended up living a life where I blamed these legs any time I failed or gave up on something and where I worked to inspire sympathy in everyone around me.”

Karuta had no right to decide which was the better path for her.

She had to live her own life.

That was all there was to it.

A change occurred on the laptop screen. The scrolling alphanumeric text came to a stop and a new window opened instead. It showed a human-readable list of files.

“And here we have another coincidence to add to the stack,” said the Student Council President in only a dress shirt. She sounded partially excited and partially disappointed. “Now we should find some clues and leads. It seems our path of revenge has not come to an end quite yet.”