Synopsis:
Spoiler! :
What if the world you know... isn't the only one out there in this boundless universe?
What if the people you meet... isn't the same person you know of?
What if... everything is fated?
Doppelgangers, the evil living double of humans, sought to threaten the existence of all parallel worlds that existed in this boundless universe. Although Sugisata Nariaki possessed the "Denscrant" eyes that allowed him to perceive visions from parallel worlds, he doesn't realize it until he failed to save a vision of his best friend from an accident...
What if the people you meet... isn't the same person you know of?
What if... everything is fated?
Doppelgangers, the evil living double of humans, sought to threaten the existence of all parallel worlds that existed in this boundless universe. Although Sugisata Nariaki possessed the "Denscrant" eyes that allowed him to perceive visions from parallel worlds, he doesn't realize it until he failed to save a vision of his best friend from an accident...
Spoiler! :
第一章：パラレル世界からの幻視
Chapter 1: Visions from a Parallel World
Part 1
Three years ago, that incident happened.
Even though the noise level was comparable to the school's Cultural Festival Day, the atmosphere wasn't as welcoming as it was.
Students disregarded the school rules as they ran in the corridors, crying for help while 'beings' who bore similar looks chased after them.
However, Sugisata Nariaki didn't move a muscle or utter a word. With his legs anesthetized to the floor and back glued to the wall, he faced the two strangers standing in the blood-tainted classroom.
The tall hooded figure raised a question towards the purple ponytail girl.
"Why do you look like you want to kill me too?"
"...You are the one responsible for this chaos, right?"
The obsidian cloak that the tall person donned, the white sailor uniform that the purple-haired girl wore, and likewise the katana that she held, they were all stained with blood oozing from the dead bodies of Nariaki's classmates.
"Who knows? Even if I was, I would have already killed your beloved one sitting over there." The hooded person pointed at Nariaki.
-Me...?
"Then why didn't you kill him?" asked the purple-haired girl.
"Well, it came as a surprise to me, but he is already carrying the same 'fate' as you do, Iseki Kanae."
"Tch! What happened to our promise from one year ago?!"
As if it was foreseen, the hooded intruder hopped back to dodge the katana thrust.
"Woah, that was dangerous! How could you try to kill the person who granted your wish?" rebutted the tall hooded figure. "And our promise wasn't broken. I wasn't the one who gave him those 'eyes'."
"Then whose doing was it?!"
The ponytail girl closed in with an overhead swing, but it only grazed the person's wrinkled cloak.
"Whew! As for your question, it could be my predecessor's doing. But don't you worry about that. His 'eyes' have yet to awaken. I would have liked to hang around a while more, but I've got more important matters to attend to. Bye, Iseki Kanae."
"Hold it!"
The hooded person leaped backwards just as a black portal materialized from behind, and it dissipated into thin air before the fair girl could reach it.
"...I should report in on my current status first." After sheathing her katana, Iseki was about to reach for her pocket when she suddenly spun around. "Hey, do you still have any strength left to stand up?"
"H-Huh? M-Me? I think so..."
It took Nariaki a while before he realized that the question was directed at him. With the help of his hands, he got himself flat-footed as the numbness within his legs dissipated.
"I see." Iseki made her way over to Nariaki while he stood up. "Nariaki-kun, I want you to forget everything that you have seen today."
"Wh-What are you saying? How can I possibly not forget what I just saw...? Why are you holding up your -"
Iseki struck Nariaki at the lower back of his head with her sheathed katana. She then caught him from falling with her free hand, and left him lying near the dead bodies.
"Don't think too badly of me, Nariaki-kun. I am doing this to protect you."
Part 2
June 9, 20A5. Monday.
“So, let’s move on to parallel lines.”
After picking up a chalk from the wooden tray, the owner of the monotonous voice began writing on the faded slate board.
At this time of the day, on the ceiling of the faded brown room, several ceiling fans have been rotating at a tremendous speed, as if they were going to collapse any moment. Unable to tolerate the scorching heat, some students were leaning over the polished table in front of them.
Donned in their summer uniforms, the students struggled to keep up with the pace set by the bespectacled white-haired adult standing in front of the chalk board. Holding a pen on their dominant hand, they furiously scribbled on their notebooks while their heads bobbed up and down repeatedly, capturing new information that continued to appear on the chalk board.
Even so, a brown layered hair student couldn't be bothered to copy down notes. The notebook lying on his vandalized desk was as clean as canvas and with the apathetic look on his fair round face, his name was Sugisata Nariaki.
Sitting at the secluded back and beside the dust-filled windows, Nariaki propped his head up with his bent forearm as he gazed down at the red loopy track field.
Although the number of students running on the track field could easily make up a class, Nariaki had kept his dark pupil eyes focused on a certain female student from the beginning.
“Iseki Kanae,” Nariaki muttered to himself while admiring at the female student's elegant purple hair tied up into a ponytail.
Not long after, he began reminiscing about his past.
On the first week of the school semester, Narita High School held the co-curriculum activities fiesta, where the first-year students patronized the club booths found in every part of the campus. While Nariaki thought of joining the Kendo club, a huge commotion by the volleyball court distracted him and it was that moment, where he saw Iseki Kanae.
While waiting for the start of the next point, the striking mauve-haired girl stood within the hard court's boundaries with her knees bent. As the opposing team led the attack, she coordinated her team in forming a defense formation. Even before the player from the opposing team stroke the ball, she had already anticipated where it would land, and promptly shouted to a teammate who then managed to prevent the opposing team from taking the point.
After her teammates set up the counterattack, Iseki delayed her timing of striking the ball to throw off the defenders, ending the point with a spike that grazed the white lines at a corner of the opposing team’s court side.
Loud cheers and clapping burst out from the observers near the volleyball court, and a few other students including Nariaki got startled, unable to comprehend what was going on.
As both teams lined up and faced each other, Nariaki then grasped the reason behind the sudden spike in the cheers and claps.
The friendly match was over, and players from both teams bowed down as they thanked one another for the game.
Soon after, the captain of the volleyball club wearing a armband around her sleeve went up to Iseki and offered a handshake. Although looking slightly surprised by that gesture at first, she then took the captain's hand with a smile on her face.
After reviewing his memories, instead of facing the chalk board like his classmates does, Nariaki’s eyes continued to follow Iseki as she made a turn around the curve. Neither his teacher’s preaching of parallel lines nor did the desperate scribbling sound coming from his fellow classmates distracted him.
“Stop dragging your legs, you wimps! Is that all that you got?!” Coming from the sheltered area located near the track field, Nariaki heard the shout loud and clear.
“Darn that Abe-sensei, making the whole class to run rounds in such a hot weather.” Nariaki changed his attention to the bald head teacher who stood under the shelter, rehydrating himself with plain water.
Indeed, the afternoon sun was intolerable for any outdoor activities. For anyone else who was looking down at the track field right now, they would probably share the same hatred that Nariaki harbored. That hatred in subject was against the skin head teacher dressed in orange singlet and blue track pants. The heartless physical education teacher who caused the majority of the suffering class, including all the females, to collapse from either fatigue or dehydration.
Despite having her white top soaked in her sweat, Iseki still kept a cool composure and a steady pace. Even as her breathing grew heavier as time passed, the expression on her delicate face remained undaunted.
-Iseki Kanae. The girl who murdered my classmates from three years ago.
It had been two months since the co-curricular activities fiesta. While Nariaki had only started exploring beyond the boundaries of his classroom after that, it was a coincidence that he found Iseki's class undergoing Physical Education period at this time of the day.
-The adults won't believe me when I told them that she's a murderer, and she could kill me if I confront her directly with this issue that I was supposed to forget. How am I supposed to go about investigating...
-Are you so desperate to see the other side of her?
-Wh-What’s that voice?! Who the heck are you?!
A deep mechanical voice found its way into Nariaki’s mind. As Nariaki began panicking while trying to figure out the unnatural voice’s owner, the unknown voice replied.
-I am simply someone who is interested in you, Sugisata Nariaki. Someone like you who is interested in seeking out the other self of your fellow beings.
-How do you know my name?! Are you someone that I know?!
-My identity does not take priority in our current conversation. Now back to my first question, do you wish to see the other side of that girl, the other side to this world that you are living in? Even though it may cost you "your life"?
It would have been an outright lie if Nariaki wasn’t horrified from listening to that “voice”, where he couldn’t manage to figure out its origin. But his following answer to the offer was obvious, since it was his wish at that point of time, to uncover the other side of Iseki Kanae, to uncover who she really was.
-I-I want to. Even if it’s at the expense of my life, I want to see the other side of Iseki Kanae, the other side of this world!
-A seal detected... must be the work of the predecessors. Activating seal, Denscrant.
With his eyes blanked out, Nariaki fell into a trance as the “voice” that intruded his thoughts uttered some command. As the minute hand of the wall clock moved to the 55th minute...
-Ack! Nariaki winced as though he had received an injection into his eyes. Using the back of his palms, he began rubbing them to relieve the sting feeling.
After massaging his eyes till the pain had completely disappeared, the scene upon glimpsing down the track field again left Nariaki astonished, as if he had received chocolates from a female student on Valentine’s Day.
-Huh? Was there another girl running beside Iseki Kanae’s lane? I thought all the other girls had given up already… and she looked exactly like-
Before Nariaki could finish his train of thought, he felt a stare like an eagle keeping a close eye on its prey coming from inside the classroom.
“Sugisata-kun, what is there outside the windows that is of more interest to you?”
“Huh, I was looking at Iseki –”
Upon hearing his family name being called sternly, Nariaki turned and saw an adult with his arms folded.
It was his math teacher, Itou-sensei, who was currently conducting lessons on parallel lines for his class. Even though math wasn’t his cup of tea, Nariaki still took the risk to ignore Ito-sensei’s lesson, despite hearing rumors surrounding the bespectacled white-haired teacher being the strictest educator in Narita High School.
While Ito-sensei adjusted the bridge of his half-framed spectacles, Nariaki saw the eyes of a predator ready to devour its prey through the transparent lens.
Feeling intimidated, his body leaned backwards on natural reflexes. Since the hind legs of the wooden chair couldn’t handle the sudden change in his weight distribution, it lost its balance, resulting in him landing on the back of his head as he shut his eyes.
Pomm! “Ouch!!”
“AHAHAHAHAHA!!”
Every other student in the classroom began laughing their hearts out, as if their boredom spawned from lengthy theories had been relived upon witnessing a clumsy clown’s act. As Ito-sensei took a step closer to Nariaki...
Pomm! "Ouch! Whose banana peel is this?!"
“AHAHAHAHAHA!!”
The laughter continued as Ito-sensei slipped. And the culprit was...
"Sorry, Ito-sensei. I didn't know it fell onto the floor after I was done eating."
Saruwatari Keitaro who sat near the fallen Ito-sensei. With his hairstyle and looks similar to a monkey, he gazed down at Ito-sensei without a sense of guilt while grinning.
"So it was you, Saruwatari Keitaro." Ito-sensei got himself up as he dusted his clothes. "Come with me to the staff room after the period is over."
"Yes, yes."
While Ito-sensei strolled back to the front, Keitaro sent a wink and thumbs-up to the student seated in front of Nariaki. The student then returned with the same greetings and promptly shuffled over to Nariaki.
“Yo, need a hand?” As Nariaki opened his eyes, a guy with an untidy mullet hairstyle and fringe parted to both sides stood in front of him while offering a hand.
“Yeah." Nariaki got up to his feet with a helping hand. "Thanks, Kazuki.”
As the Narita High School bell rang at the start, middle, and end of the day, the whole class screamed for joy when it rang for the third time.
Nariaki and Kazuki went back to their seats, stuffing their books and stationeries that were lying on their vandalized table into their dusky school bag. As for those students who walked past Nariaki’s seat, they continued to laugh at him, for his earlier clumsy act and his disheveled brown layered hair.
Having done packing his stuffs, Nariaki glanced up to check on Kazuki, but he saw Keitaro exiting the classroom with Ito-sensei in the corner of his eyes.
"Hey Kazuki, why is Keitaro following Ito-sensei?"
"Hmm? He helped you to take revenge against Ito-sensei, that's why. Hahaha!"
Even though Kazuki started laughing, Nariaki couldn't help but to feel worried as he knew that Ito-sensei wasn't going to let Keitaro off the hook so easily.
“Anyway buddy, wanna follow me to the games shop? I found out that the basketball game that I've been waiting ages for is finally out!” Sensing the uneasiness emitting from Nariaki, Kazuki tried to ease his buddy's mood by changing topic.
-Hmm, the games shop huh?
"I don't mind, but shouldn't we wait for Keitaro? I am sure he wants to come along too.”
"No worries about that yo. He will meet us there and asked for us to go ahead first. Oh, and there's a small note for you, Nariaki."
As Kazuki showed Nariaki the screen of his handphone that had a basketball strap dangling off, the latter started browsing through the message. While the first part of the message did ask for Kazuki to go ahead first, the second part caused Nariaki to twitch his eyes.
"...So now, for taking revenge against Ito-sensei, I owe him a bunch of Role's bananas...? I didn't even ask him to avenge me in the first place!"
"Hahaha! Don't sweat over it too much, buddy. Let's make our way to the games shop now yo!"
"There goes my allowances for this week..."
After Nariaki pushed the teak chair back into the desk, the pair shuffled out of their crowded classroom together. They struggled to make their way out as many students clogged the campus hallways.
When they stepped outside of the school’s boundary, Nariaki paused for a while, turning his head to his left and right. Whilst, he began recollecting the route that led to Narita Shopping District, since the games store that Kazuki mentioned earlier was located there.
“It’s to the left yo.” Kazuki patted his best friend’s back.
Part 3
Although the duo walked side by side on the sidewalk by the left side of the road, it was as if they were attending an ongoing funeral until Kazuki decided to break the silence.
“So partner, were you looking at the girl again? Oh, and what’s her name again? Iseki Kanade?”
“It’s Iseki Kanae.”
Despite Nariaki correcting, Kazuki doesn't seem to be bothered about it and kept quiet.
-Weird, why isn't he making any comments?
Even though the pair had only been acquainted with one another for less than two months, Nariaki had thought for sure that Kazuki would make some remarks to hide his blunder. As he sought to uncover the truth, he caught sight of Kazuki staring at his face.
"...Is there something on my face?"
“Nothing much. Just spotted some blushes, that's all.” Kazuki began smirking slyly.
“No, I am not thinking about her!" After understanding the hidden connotations behind Kazuki's words, Nariaki retorted while keeping his eyes away from Kazuki.
“What a bad liar you are, hahahahaha!” Although quick to deny, Kazuki had seen through Nariaki’s lie.
The reason why Kazuki knew about Iseki Kanae was due to his persistence of pressing Nariaki into reporting about the scenes he observed through the transparent windows every day.
However, Nariaki had never once mentioned about Iseki Kanae's involvement in the incident from three years ago. He also doesn't plan to do so either, since he would be exposing his friend to unnecessary danger.
Since the silence between them was broken, Nariaki quickly changed the topic to the basketball game his travelling companion had been waiting ages for.
“So Kazuki, what’s the name of the basketball game that you are getting?”
“Oh that, well the name is N –”
Nariaki achieved his true aim for changing topic, as Kazuki went on and on to elaborate about it.
Although Kazuki sounded more enthusiastic while talking about the basketball game, Nariaki wasn’t listening, since what he had seen earlier at the track field made him to dive into his thoughts.
-Just what on earth happened? There was another "girl" running beside Iseki Kanae, but I remembered seeing the majority of her class given into exhaustion, and it included all the other girls except her. Moreover, the other "girl" running alongside Iseki Kanae looked exactly like her…
After several minutes of walking, the pair arrived at the end of the sidewalk, and several meters away stood an old solitary pedestrian light.
-I couldn’t have mistaken that "girl" for another person, since nobody else except Iseki Kanae had purple hair, a ponytail and a fringe that slants down diagonally to her left eye… but wait. Before I saw all of that, I was talking to that weird voice in my head and had that sting in my e-
“Yo, we're almost there already!” Kazuki patted Nariaki’s shoulder, while pointing at the shopping district decorative welcome sign found across the road.
“Oh, so we have reached.”
-Ack!!
The prick sensation that Nariaki felt earlier had returned and this time, the pain was far more excruciating. He vigorously rubbed his delicate fingers against his eye lids, trying to get rid of the discomfort in his eyes. Upon regaining normal vision, his face turned pale as if he had seen a ghost.
-Ehh?! Was there a guy waiting by the pedestrian light earlier?
Nariaki took a quick glimpse of that “person” waiting at the pedestrian light, and as he squinted his eyes to take a closer look…
-Impossible... How come he looked so similar to Kazuki? That mullet hairstyle, that miniature basketball strap dangling from his pocket... And what are those red words floating above his head?
“Hey hey Kazuki, can you see that “person” waiting by the pedestrian light?! He looked almost like you!”
Nariaki had discarded his indifferent self. For someone who was uninterested in almost everything that existed in this world, this sighting shook him up badly.
Even though that person he caught sight of was a normal human being that could be found almost anywhere, for him to communicate in such a shaky tone was because the person was a splitting image of his best friend, Narita Kazuki.
“Huh, what “person”? There isn't anybody by the pedestrian light. And your eyes looked a bit weird as well yo…” Kazuki replied in a confused tone while expressing a dumbfounded look.
When Nariaki turned back to the pedestrian light, he could definitely see a "person” resembling Kazuki, and he thought to himself if he was hallucinating.
When the green stick figure on the pedestrian light lit up, the person resembling Kazuki started crossing the pedestrian path marked by two parallel white lines. Nariaki’s eyes followed and he saw two trucks travelling at a tremendous speed.
Even as they were approaching a pedestrian path, their speed didn’t drop, as though the drivers didn’t have any intention to decelerate.
Even though Nariaki had perceived and concluded that both trucks looked alike to one another, the one travelling closer to the sidewalk gave off a phantom vibe.
“Watch out!!”
Without a second thought of doubting that Kazuki’s true identity, Nariaki dropped his school bag and sprinted towards him. The distance between him and the phantom truck wasn’t that far off, and it seemed like he hadn’t noticed the apparitional vehicle.
Despite that, Nariaki believed that he would be able to reach that Kazuki before the cinereal truck does. Closing into an arm length away, he stretched out his right hand in an attempt to pull that Kazuki. Before his palm reached that Kazuki, that Kazuki turned his head around and saw the phantom four-wheeler closing in at high speed.
The lively expression on that Kazuki’s face turned dumbfounded, and his legs froze after being struck by overwhelming fear. Nonetheless, as soon as Nariaki estimated his range and determined his timing, he tried to grab that Kazuki's sleeve and to his surprise; his palm went past that Kazuki’s shoulder.
-What the-
Before Nariaki knew, he had ran past that Kazuki’s body. Using the soles of his blemished shoes to create friction, he tried to stop his momentum. Barely halting at the right lane of the road, the other truck he saw earlier sped past in front of his face.
Vrrmm! A fast breeze of wind brushed past Nariaki's face, as he thought that he was knocking on death’s door at that instance. What brought him back to reality was his disordered dark-brown hair, after he realized that they were shoved in the direction the truck travelled.
After groaning for a while, Nariaki began pondering over the fact that he would have died, had he took a step further. However, while recalling the events leading up to this near-death experience, what happened in the beginning made his heart skipped a beat.
Nariaki remembered the two trucks travelling side by side at about the same speed, and that he actually went past that Kazuki’s body while attempting to save him. He then wondered what happened to him. Although he didn’t hear any explosive noise, it didn’t ease his anxiety. When he spun around, his foot staggered backwards when he witnessed the actual conclusion.
The grayish and transparent truck on the left lane had became stationery, and someone had opened the driver seat’s door. A little further from the vehicle, a cinereal middle-aged man who looked like a delivery driver with cardinal writings hovering over his head couldn’t stop trembling. With both wrinkled hands covering the lower part of his disbelieving face, the deliveryman in his forties entered into a state of panic.
Confused, Nariaki couldn’t deduce why the deliveryman made such a face. When he looked in the same direction as the cinereal deliveryman’s eyes were, his eyes and mouth grew bigger and wider than the deliveryman’s.
-No way...
That Kazuki whom Nariaki tried to save earlier was now lying flat on the asphalt. The sight of gray translucent liquid covering his body and the school bag caused Nariaki to cover his mouth, and he couldn’t feel his legs anymore. The air around the vicinity felt heavier and he tried to suppress the despair that hit him. Many questions began swarming through his mind, but the two most important ones were “Is he still alive?” and “What’s his true identity?”
Forcefully, Nariaki dragged his anesthetized legs over to that Kazuki. Ignoring the crimson writings he could see floating above that Kazuki's motionless head, he bent over to examine that Kazuki’s face and it was without a doubt, his best friend “Narita Kazuki”.
-Th-This can’t be true right…?
Nariaki got down on his knees with the intention to take Kazuki’s left hand, to check for pulse for signs of life. Stretching out his shaky right hand, hoping that he would be able to grab Kazuki’s left, it happened again. His trembling hand went past through Kazuki’s, as if he couldn’t made contact with the gray transparent body he perceived through his eyes, as if this Kazuki was either an apparition or an existence that doesn't belong to this world...
-End-
Chapter 1: Visions from a Parallel World
Part 1
Three years ago, that incident happened.
Even though the noise level was comparable to the school's Cultural Festival Day, the atmosphere wasn't as welcoming as it was.
Students disregarded the school rules as they ran in the corridors, crying for help while 'beings' who bore similar looks chased after them.
However, Sugisata Nariaki didn't move a muscle or utter a word. With his legs anesthetized to the floor and back glued to the wall, he faced the two strangers standing in the blood-tainted classroom.
The tall hooded figure raised a question towards the purple ponytail girl.
"Why do you look like you want to kill me too?"
"...You are the one responsible for this chaos, right?"
The obsidian cloak that the tall person donned, the white sailor uniform that the purple-haired girl wore, and likewise the katana that she held, they were all stained with blood oozing from the dead bodies of Nariaki's classmates.
"Who knows? Even if I was, I would have already killed your beloved one sitting over there." The hooded person pointed at Nariaki.
-Me...?
"Then why didn't you kill him?" asked the purple-haired girl.
"Well, it came as a surprise to me, but he is already carrying the same 'fate' as you do, Iseki Kanae."
"Tch! What happened to our promise from one year ago?!"
As if it was foreseen, the hooded intruder hopped back to dodge the katana thrust.
"Woah, that was dangerous! How could you try to kill the person who granted your wish?" rebutted the tall hooded figure. "And our promise wasn't broken. I wasn't the one who gave him those 'eyes'."
"Then whose doing was it?!"
The ponytail girl closed in with an overhead swing, but it only grazed the person's wrinkled cloak.
"Whew! As for your question, it could be my predecessor's doing. But don't you worry about that. His 'eyes' have yet to awaken. I would have liked to hang around a while more, but I've got more important matters to attend to. Bye, Iseki Kanae."
"Hold it!"
The hooded person leaped backwards just as a black portal materialized from behind, and it dissipated into thin air before the fair girl could reach it.
"...I should report in on my current status first." After sheathing her katana, Iseki was about to reach for her pocket when she suddenly spun around. "Hey, do you still have any strength left to stand up?"
"H-Huh? M-Me? I think so..."
It took Nariaki a while before he realized that the question was directed at him. With the help of his hands, he got himself flat-footed as the numbness within his legs dissipated.
"I see." Iseki made her way over to Nariaki while he stood up. "Nariaki-kun, I want you to forget everything that you have seen today."
"Wh-What are you saying? How can I possibly not forget what I just saw...? Why are you holding up your -"
Iseki struck Nariaki at the lower back of his head with her sheathed katana. She then caught him from falling with her free hand, and left him lying near the dead bodies.
"Don't think too badly of me, Nariaki-kun. I am doing this to protect you."
Part 2
June 9, 20A5. Monday.
“So, let’s move on to parallel lines.”
After picking up a chalk from the wooden tray, the owner of the monotonous voice began writing on the faded slate board.
At this time of the day, on the ceiling of the faded brown room, several ceiling fans have been rotating at a tremendous speed, as if they were going to collapse any moment. Unable to tolerate the scorching heat, some students were leaning over the polished table in front of them.
Donned in their summer uniforms, the students struggled to keep up with the pace set by the bespectacled white-haired adult standing in front of the chalk board. Holding a pen on their dominant hand, they furiously scribbled on their notebooks while their heads bobbed up and down repeatedly, capturing new information that continued to appear on the chalk board.
Even so, a brown layered hair student couldn't be bothered to copy down notes. The notebook lying on his vandalized desk was as clean as canvas and with the apathetic look on his fair round face, his name was Sugisata Nariaki.
Sitting at the secluded back and beside the dust-filled windows, Nariaki propped his head up with his bent forearm as he gazed down at the red loopy track field.
Although the number of students running on the track field could easily make up a class, Nariaki had kept his dark pupil eyes focused on a certain female student from the beginning.
“Iseki Kanae,” Nariaki muttered to himself while admiring at the female student's elegant purple hair tied up into a ponytail.
Not long after, he began reminiscing about his past.
On the first week of the school semester, Narita High School held the co-curriculum activities fiesta, where the first-year students patronized the club booths found in every part of the campus. While Nariaki thought of joining the Kendo club, a huge commotion by the volleyball court distracted him and it was that moment, where he saw Iseki Kanae.
While waiting for the start of the next point, the striking mauve-haired girl stood within the hard court's boundaries with her knees bent. As the opposing team led the attack, she coordinated her team in forming a defense formation. Even before the player from the opposing team stroke the ball, she had already anticipated where it would land, and promptly shouted to a teammate who then managed to prevent the opposing team from taking the point.
After her teammates set up the counterattack, Iseki delayed her timing of striking the ball to throw off the defenders, ending the point with a spike that grazed the white lines at a corner of the opposing team’s court side.
Loud cheers and clapping burst out from the observers near the volleyball court, and a few other students including Nariaki got startled, unable to comprehend what was going on.
As both teams lined up and faced each other, Nariaki then grasped the reason behind the sudden spike in the cheers and claps.
The friendly match was over, and players from both teams bowed down as they thanked one another for the game.
Soon after, the captain of the volleyball club wearing a armband around her sleeve went up to Iseki and offered a handshake. Although looking slightly surprised by that gesture at first, she then took the captain's hand with a smile on her face.
After reviewing his memories, instead of facing the chalk board like his classmates does, Nariaki’s eyes continued to follow Iseki as she made a turn around the curve. Neither his teacher’s preaching of parallel lines nor did the desperate scribbling sound coming from his fellow classmates distracted him.
“Stop dragging your legs, you wimps! Is that all that you got?!” Coming from the sheltered area located near the track field, Nariaki heard the shout loud and clear.
“Darn that Abe-sensei, making the whole class to run rounds in such a hot weather.” Nariaki changed his attention to the bald head teacher who stood under the shelter, rehydrating himself with plain water.
Indeed, the afternoon sun was intolerable for any outdoor activities. For anyone else who was looking down at the track field right now, they would probably share the same hatred that Nariaki harbored. That hatred in subject was against the skin head teacher dressed in orange singlet and blue track pants. The heartless physical education teacher who caused the majority of the suffering class, including all the females, to collapse from either fatigue or dehydration.
Despite having her white top soaked in her sweat, Iseki still kept a cool composure and a steady pace. Even as her breathing grew heavier as time passed, the expression on her delicate face remained undaunted.
-Iseki Kanae. The girl who murdered my classmates from three years ago.
It had been two months since the co-curricular activities fiesta. While Nariaki had only started exploring beyond the boundaries of his classroom after that, it was a coincidence that he found Iseki's class undergoing Physical Education period at this time of the day.
-The adults won't believe me when I told them that she's a murderer, and she could kill me if I confront her directly with this issue that I was supposed to forget. How am I supposed to go about investigating...
-Are you so desperate to see the other side of her?
-Wh-What’s that voice?! Who the heck are you?!
A deep mechanical voice found its way into Nariaki’s mind. As Nariaki began panicking while trying to figure out the unnatural voice’s owner, the unknown voice replied.
-I am simply someone who is interested in you, Sugisata Nariaki. Someone like you who is interested in seeking out the other self of your fellow beings.
-How do you know my name?! Are you someone that I know?!
-My identity does not take priority in our current conversation. Now back to my first question, do you wish to see the other side of that girl, the other side to this world that you are living in? Even though it may cost you "your life"?
It would have been an outright lie if Nariaki wasn’t horrified from listening to that “voice”, where he couldn’t manage to figure out its origin. But his following answer to the offer was obvious, since it was his wish at that point of time, to uncover the other side of Iseki Kanae, to uncover who she really was.
-I-I want to. Even if it’s at the expense of my life, I want to see the other side of Iseki Kanae, the other side of this world!
-A seal detected... must be the work of the predecessors. Activating seal, Denscrant.
With his eyes blanked out, Nariaki fell into a trance as the “voice” that intruded his thoughts uttered some command. As the minute hand of the wall clock moved to the 55th minute...
-Ack! Nariaki winced as though he had received an injection into his eyes. Using the back of his palms, he began rubbing them to relieve the sting feeling.
After massaging his eyes till the pain had completely disappeared, the scene upon glimpsing down the track field again left Nariaki astonished, as if he had received chocolates from a female student on Valentine’s Day.
-Huh? Was there another girl running beside Iseki Kanae’s lane? I thought all the other girls had given up already… and she looked exactly like-
Before Nariaki could finish his train of thought, he felt a stare like an eagle keeping a close eye on its prey coming from inside the classroom.
“Sugisata-kun, what is there outside the windows that is of more interest to you?”
“Huh, I was looking at Iseki –”
Upon hearing his family name being called sternly, Nariaki turned and saw an adult with his arms folded.
It was his math teacher, Itou-sensei, who was currently conducting lessons on parallel lines for his class. Even though math wasn’t his cup of tea, Nariaki still took the risk to ignore Ito-sensei’s lesson, despite hearing rumors surrounding the bespectacled white-haired teacher being the strictest educator in Narita High School.
While Ito-sensei adjusted the bridge of his half-framed spectacles, Nariaki saw the eyes of a predator ready to devour its prey through the transparent lens.
Feeling intimidated, his body leaned backwards on natural reflexes. Since the hind legs of the wooden chair couldn’t handle the sudden change in his weight distribution, it lost its balance, resulting in him landing on the back of his head as he shut his eyes.
Pomm! “Ouch!!”
“AHAHAHAHAHA!!”
Every other student in the classroom began laughing their hearts out, as if their boredom spawned from lengthy theories had been relived upon witnessing a clumsy clown’s act. As Ito-sensei took a step closer to Nariaki...
Pomm! "Ouch! Whose banana peel is this?!"
“AHAHAHAHAHA!!”
The laughter continued as Ito-sensei slipped. And the culprit was...
"Sorry, Ito-sensei. I didn't know it fell onto the floor after I was done eating."
Saruwatari Keitaro who sat near the fallen Ito-sensei. With his hairstyle and looks similar to a monkey, he gazed down at Ito-sensei without a sense of guilt while grinning.
"So it was you, Saruwatari Keitaro." Ito-sensei got himself up as he dusted his clothes. "Come with me to the staff room after the period is over."
"Yes, yes."
While Ito-sensei strolled back to the front, Keitaro sent a wink and thumbs-up to the student seated in front of Nariaki. The student then returned with the same greetings and promptly shuffled over to Nariaki.
“Yo, need a hand?” As Nariaki opened his eyes, a guy with an untidy mullet hairstyle and fringe parted to both sides stood in front of him while offering a hand.
“Yeah." Nariaki got up to his feet with a helping hand. "Thanks, Kazuki.”
As the Narita High School bell rang at the start, middle, and end of the day, the whole class screamed for joy when it rang for the third time.
Nariaki and Kazuki went back to their seats, stuffing their books and stationeries that were lying on their vandalized table into their dusky school bag. As for those students who walked past Nariaki’s seat, they continued to laugh at him, for his earlier clumsy act and his disheveled brown layered hair.
Having done packing his stuffs, Nariaki glanced up to check on Kazuki, but he saw Keitaro exiting the classroom with Ito-sensei in the corner of his eyes.
"Hey Kazuki, why is Keitaro following Ito-sensei?"
"Hmm? He helped you to take revenge against Ito-sensei, that's why. Hahaha!"
Even though Kazuki started laughing, Nariaki couldn't help but to feel worried as he knew that Ito-sensei wasn't going to let Keitaro off the hook so easily.
“Anyway buddy, wanna follow me to the games shop? I found out that the basketball game that I've been waiting ages for is finally out!” Sensing the uneasiness emitting from Nariaki, Kazuki tried to ease his buddy's mood by changing topic.
-Hmm, the games shop huh?
"I don't mind, but shouldn't we wait for Keitaro? I am sure he wants to come along too.”
"No worries about that yo. He will meet us there and asked for us to go ahead first. Oh, and there's a small note for you, Nariaki."
As Kazuki showed Nariaki the screen of his handphone that had a basketball strap dangling off, the latter started browsing through the message. While the first part of the message did ask for Kazuki to go ahead first, the second part caused Nariaki to twitch his eyes.
"...So now, for taking revenge against Ito-sensei, I owe him a bunch of Role's bananas...? I didn't even ask him to avenge me in the first place!"
"Hahaha! Don't sweat over it too much, buddy. Let's make our way to the games shop now yo!"
"There goes my allowances for this week..."
After Nariaki pushed the teak chair back into the desk, the pair shuffled out of their crowded classroom together. They struggled to make their way out as many students clogged the campus hallways.
When they stepped outside of the school’s boundary, Nariaki paused for a while, turning his head to his left and right. Whilst, he began recollecting the route that led to Narita Shopping District, since the games store that Kazuki mentioned earlier was located there.
“It’s to the left yo.” Kazuki patted his best friend’s back.
Part 3
Although the duo walked side by side on the sidewalk by the left side of the road, it was as if they were attending an ongoing funeral until Kazuki decided to break the silence.
“So partner, were you looking at the girl again? Oh, and what’s her name again? Iseki Kanade?”
“It’s Iseki Kanae.”
Despite Nariaki correcting, Kazuki doesn't seem to be bothered about it and kept quiet.
-Weird, why isn't he making any comments?
Even though the pair had only been acquainted with one another for less than two months, Nariaki had thought for sure that Kazuki would make some remarks to hide his blunder. As he sought to uncover the truth, he caught sight of Kazuki staring at his face.
"...Is there something on my face?"
“Nothing much. Just spotted some blushes, that's all.” Kazuki began smirking slyly.
“No, I am not thinking about her!" After understanding the hidden connotations behind Kazuki's words, Nariaki retorted while keeping his eyes away from Kazuki.
“What a bad liar you are, hahahahaha!” Although quick to deny, Kazuki had seen through Nariaki’s lie.
The reason why Kazuki knew about Iseki Kanae was due to his persistence of pressing Nariaki into reporting about the scenes he observed through the transparent windows every day.
However, Nariaki had never once mentioned about Iseki Kanae's involvement in the incident from three years ago. He also doesn't plan to do so either, since he would be exposing his friend to unnecessary danger.
Since the silence between them was broken, Nariaki quickly changed the topic to the basketball game his travelling companion had been waiting ages for.
“So Kazuki, what’s the name of the basketball game that you are getting?”
“Oh that, well the name is N –”
Nariaki achieved his true aim for changing topic, as Kazuki went on and on to elaborate about it.
Although Kazuki sounded more enthusiastic while talking about the basketball game, Nariaki wasn’t listening, since what he had seen earlier at the track field made him to dive into his thoughts.
-Just what on earth happened? There was another "girl" running beside Iseki Kanae, but I remembered seeing the majority of her class given into exhaustion, and it included all the other girls except her. Moreover, the other "girl" running alongside Iseki Kanae looked exactly like her…
After several minutes of walking, the pair arrived at the end of the sidewalk, and several meters away stood an old solitary pedestrian light.
-I couldn’t have mistaken that "girl" for another person, since nobody else except Iseki Kanae had purple hair, a ponytail and a fringe that slants down diagonally to her left eye… but wait. Before I saw all of that, I was talking to that weird voice in my head and had that sting in my e-
“Yo, we're almost there already!” Kazuki patted Nariaki’s shoulder, while pointing at the shopping district decorative welcome sign found across the road.
“Oh, so we have reached.”
-Ack!!
The prick sensation that Nariaki felt earlier had returned and this time, the pain was far more excruciating. He vigorously rubbed his delicate fingers against his eye lids, trying to get rid of the discomfort in his eyes. Upon regaining normal vision, his face turned pale as if he had seen a ghost.
-Ehh?! Was there a guy waiting by the pedestrian light earlier?
Nariaki took a quick glimpse of that “person” waiting at the pedestrian light, and as he squinted his eyes to take a closer look…
-Impossible... How come he looked so similar to Kazuki? That mullet hairstyle, that miniature basketball strap dangling from his pocket... And what are those red words floating above his head?
“Hey hey Kazuki, can you see that “person” waiting by the pedestrian light?! He looked almost like you!”
Nariaki had discarded his indifferent self. For someone who was uninterested in almost everything that existed in this world, this sighting shook him up badly.
Even though that person he caught sight of was a normal human being that could be found almost anywhere, for him to communicate in such a shaky tone was because the person was a splitting image of his best friend, Narita Kazuki.
“Huh, what “person”? There isn't anybody by the pedestrian light. And your eyes looked a bit weird as well yo…” Kazuki replied in a confused tone while expressing a dumbfounded look.
When Nariaki turned back to the pedestrian light, he could definitely see a "person” resembling Kazuki, and he thought to himself if he was hallucinating.
When the green stick figure on the pedestrian light lit up, the person resembling Kazuki started crossing the pedestrian path marked by two parallel white lines. Nariaki’s eyes followed and he saw two trucks travelling at a tremendous speed.
Even as they were approaching a pedestrian path, their speed didn’t drop, as though the drivers didn’t have any intention to decelerate.
Even though Nariaki had perceived and concluded that both trucks looked alike to one another, the one travelling closer to the sidewalk gave off a phantom vibe.
“Watch out!!”
Without a second thought of doubting that Kazuki’s true identity, Nariaki dropped his school bag and sprinted towards him. The distance between him and the phantom truck wasn’t that far off, and it seemed like he hadn’t noticed the apparitional vehicle.
Despite that, Nariaki believed that he would be able to reach that Kazuki before the cinereal truck does. Closing into an arm length away, he stretched out his right hand in an attempt to pull that Kazuki. Before his palm reached that Kazuki, that Kazuki turned his head around and saw the phantom four-wheeler closing in at high speed.
The lively expression on that Kazuki’s face turned dumbfounded, and his legs froze after being struck by overwhelming fear. Nonetheless, as soon as Nariaki estimated his range and determined his timing, he tried to grab that Kazuki's sleeve and to his surprise; his palm went past that Kazuki’s shoulder.
-What the-
Before Nariaki knew, he had ran past that Kazuki’s body. Using the soles of his blemished shoes to create friction, he tried to stop his momentum. Barely halting at the right lane of the road, the other truck he saw earlier sped past in front of his face.
Vrrmm! A fast breeze of wind brushed past Nariaki's face, as he thought that he was knocking on death’s door at that instance. What brought him back to reality was his disordered dark-brown hair, after he realized that they were shoved in the direction the truck travelled.
After groaning for a while, Nariaki began pondering over the fact that he would have died, had he took a step further. However, while recalling the events leading up to this near-death experience, what happened in the beginning made his heart skipped a beat.
Nariaki remembered the two trucks travelling side by side at about the same speed, and that he actually went past that Kazuki’s body while attempting to save him. He then wondered what happened to him. Although he didn’t hear any explosive noise, it didn’t ease his anxiety. When he spun around, his foot staggered backwards when he witnessed the actual conclusion.
The grayish and transparent truck on the left lane had became stationery, and someone had opened the driver seat’s door. A little further from the vehicle, a cinereal middle-aged man who looked like a delivery driver with cardinal writings hovering over his head couldn’t stop trembling. With both wrinkled hands covering the lower part of his disbelieving face, the deliveryman in his forties entered into a state of panic.
Confused, Nariaki couldn’t deduce why the deliveryman made such a face. When he looked in the same direction as the cinereal deliveryman’s eyes were, his eyes and mouth grew bigger and wider than the deliveryman’s.
-No way...
That Kazuki whom Nariaki tried to save earlier was now lying flat on the asphalt. The sight of gray translucent liquid covering his body and the school bag caused Nariaki to cover his mouth, and he couldn’t feel his legs anymore. The air around the vicinity felt heavier and he tried to suppress the despair that hit him. Many questions began swarming through his mind, but the two most important ones were “Is he still alive?” and “What’s his true identity?”
Forcefully, Nariaki dragged his anesthetized legs over to that Kazuki. Ignoring the crimson writings he could see floating above that Kazuki's motionless head, he bent over to examine that Kazuki’s face and it was without a doubt, his best friend “Narita Kazuki”.
-Th-This can’t be true right…?
Nariaki got down on his knees with the intention to take Kazuki’s left hand, to check for pulse for signs of life. Stretching out his shaky right hand, hoping that he would be able to grab Kazuki’s left, it happened again. His trembling hand went past through Kazuki’s, as if he couldn’t made contact with the gray transparent body he perceived through his eyes, as if this Kazuki was either an apparition or an existence that doesn't belong to this world...
-End-
