The World Is Mine For The Taking

The problem was that knowing the truth wouldn't automatically fix everything that had happened between us.

If anything, it might make things even more complicated.

Even before Tsubasa died, our relationship had already begun to feel like it was hanging by a thread.

There were things I should have said.

There were things I should have done.

There were feelings I should have admitted much earlier.

If I had realized my own feelings for him sooner, perhaps I could have changed everything.

Maybe Tsubasa wouldn't have died.

Maybe I could have stopped myself from pushing him away.

Maybe I could have prevented our relationship from reaching that point where neither of us seemed to know what the other was thinking anymore.

If I had simply accepted his confession...

If I had been honest with myself...

Maybe things would have been different.

Maybe I wouldn't still be carrying all these regrets around with me.

"Kaori?"

Ayaka's voice suddenly pulled me back to reality.

I blinked several times before looking toward her.

I hadn't even realized how far my thoughts had wandered.

"Are you okay?" she asked while studying my face. "You suddenly went pale for a moment."

"It's fine," I replied, forcing myself to sound as normal as possible.

Ayaka didn't look convinced.

She continued watching me for another moment before her attention shifted toward the bandage covering my wound.

"Is the wound still hurting you?" she asked. "You could've just let them patch you up properly, you know."

I glanced down at the bandage.

The wound had been inflicted by Miss Beelzebub earlier.

It wasn't exactly something I could casually forget about, but it wasn't unbearable either.

They could have healed it immediately if I had allowed them to.

Beelzebub herself had even offered to heal it for me.

I refused.

Maybe that had been stubborn.

Actually, it probably had been stubborn.

Still, I couldn't bring myself to regret the decision completely.

"I think it's fine like this," I told her. "If I'm not brave enough to deal with something like this, then I don't think I'll be brave enough when I eventually get injured during the real battle."

Ayaka stared at me for a moment.

"You sure are taking this seriously," she said.

"Well, aren't you taking it seriously too?" I asked.

She didn't answer immediately.

Instead, she slowly looked toward the ceiling.

Her expression became strangely thoughtful, and for a moment, I wondered whether she was trying to figure out what she actually believed herself.

"To be honest, I don't really know," she eventually admitted.

Her voice sounded quieter than before.

"I feel like I'm taking this seriously, but at the same time, I can feel reality starting to weigh on me."

She paused for a moment before continuing.

"We're about to go into a war. A real war."

I remained quiet while listening to her.

"We're talking about a war of attrition where there'll be death all around us," she continued. "People are going to get injured, people are going to die, and there's a chance that some of us might not even make it back."

Her gaze slowly lowered from the ceiling.

"I know we have to prepare ourselves, and I know sitting around being scared isn't going to change anything, but..."

She stopped for a moment.

Her hands tightened slightly against the fabric of her clothes.

"I never wanted to be part of this at all."

I couldn't immediately think of anything to say.

Because, honestly, I understood exactly what she meant.

I didn't want this either.

Ayaka looked back at me, her expression becoming a little more serious as she seemed to think carefully about everything that had happened and everything that was still waiting for us ahead.

"But we really don't have much of a choice, do we?" she asked, her voice carrying a mixture of resignation and determination. "If we don't do this, then this country is going to be destroyed. The country that summoned us in the first place... I don't even have the same kind of love or attachment to this country that the people who actually live here probably have, but if we refuse to defend it, then the chance of us ever returning to our own world could disappear completely. I don't want that to happen."

She paused for a moment before continuing, almost as though she were trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince me.

"Which is why we really don't have any other choice, do we?"

I went silent for a while, because there wasn't exactly an easy answer that I could give her without making the whole situation sound even more depressing than it already was.

"You are seriously taking this whole situation to another level of depression," I eventually told her. "I understand what you're saying, and I know that you're probably right, but I don't want to make myself feel even worse by constantly thinking about everything that could go wrong."

I let out a quiet sigh before looking around the room.

"For now, I think we should just get some rest so that we can actually train properly again tomorrow. If we're going to fight for this place, then we're going to need our strength, and staying awake all night worrying about things isn't exactly going to help us accomplish anything."

"You seriously just want to sleep after everything that happened?" Ayaka asked, staring at me with an expression that made it sound like I had suggested something completely ridiculous.

"Well, what else do you want us to do?" I asked her. "It's not like we can suddenly turn this into some kind of vacation while everything is going on, and I don't think anyone here is going to hand us a schedule for sightseeing either."

Ayaka stared at me for a few seconds without saying anything, apparently thinking about my answer.

Then her expression suddenly changed.

It was the kind of expression that immediately made me suspicious because it looked like she had just thought of something that she probably shouldn't have.

"Wait, isn't that actually kind of a chance for us?" she suddenly said.

"What exactly are you talking about right now?" I asked.

"This is a completely new place for us to sleep," she explained, becoming more enthusiastic as the idea developed in her head. "So why don't we treat it like some kind of field trip instead?"

"Field trip?" I repeated, staring at her in disbelief. "You can't seriously be suggesting that right now, especially when you know we don't exactly have the luxury of wasting time and fooling around."

"It's not like they're going to prevent us from doing it," Ayaka replied casually. "We're literally just going to sleep together in the same room, so it's not like we're planning some kind of rebellion against the entire country."

"That explanation somehow makes it sound more suspicious instead of less suspicious," I replied while giving her a tired look.

"I'm going to talk to Yume and Nazuna and ask them to come here," she said, apparently deciding that my opinion had already been considered and rejected.

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