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Toward The Tipping of The Balance
Translated by LyraDhani
Edited by LyraDhani
The rest of the winter break went by without incident.
He made plans to hang out with his classmates, and it was all about guys who got together for Christmas. Things got a little bit messy in the end. Well, it was just a typical day.
–And today was December 27. The sky was clear, and it was a perfect day for a trip.
Chidori left early in the morning to the rendezvous point for the trip, and wouldn’t come home for three days.
He felt a little sad, but it was a good opportunity, so he hoped she had a good time. Incidentally, Tsugumi was planning to go out for a full day of eating and walking with Bell.
Today’s attire was a khaki-colored military coat and a black checked knee-length dress. He wore a big red ribbon tied around his waist, his hair was loosely pulled down and he was wearing glasses. He looked somewhat different from his usual impression.
According to Bell, she kept it simple with the theme of “the gap between the honor student look and the coat”. He wondered where she was going with this.
While thinking about this, Tsugumi watched Bell continue eating.
“…You really eat a lot.”
“This body converts food into energy the moment it’s swallowed. I never feel full.”
“So it’s a problem of fuel efficiency… The women around the world would envy you.”
While having such a conversation, Bell was consuming a mountain of cream puffs at a high pace. To say the least, it is a very surrealistic picture.
–But the people around him didn’t look at Bell.
This is something that he’d noticed recently, but it seemed that ordinary people didn’t see Bell’s figure. No, it might be more correct to say that their perception was tampered with.
For example, if they had a barbecue outside, and Tsugumi was busy putting meat on Bell’s plate, the people who saw it would only think that the meat had somehow run out.
The rest of the time, the brain would supplement the reason why the meat had gone on its own, so the majority of people would recognize that the person cooking the meat, Tsugumi, ate it.
This is why the world was spreading the word about Tsugumi – Hagakure Sakura – as a gluttonous character.
Today, he wore glasses and a light disguise just to be safe, but it’d be obvious when he ordered a large amount of food.
“Come to think of it, you have no memory of the past. The catastrophe of ten years ago, was it? What is the story of that among you?”
Suddenly Bell asked him such a question. Tsugumi wondered what was going on out of the blue, but there was no sign of anything unusual, so it was probably just an extension of small talk.
-The catastrophe ten years ago. It’s deeply involved in Tsugumi’s life, but there isn’t much he could say about it.
“I don’t know all the details. Partly because I don’t remember it, but also because the government has restricted information about it.”
After he grew up, he reexamined the catastrophe, but was unable to gather any information at all, given the scale of the disaster. All he could find were reports about the damage, but there was nothing definitive about the cause. He could only think that the government was hiding the truth.
When Tsugumi answered, Bell’s eyes narrowed in interest.
“Hmmm? Well, regulation is reasonable. Among our people, there is a strong belief that it was a failed attempt to ‘bring down the Gods’.”
“Bring down the Gods?”
They were words he had never heard before. When Tsugumi tilted his head, Bell glared at him in frustration.
“This is why ignorant people are so annoying. –The word ‘bring down the Gods’ in this case refers to bringing down a divinity to a person’s body. It is a foolish thing at all. How could a human being possibly conquer a God in the first place?”
“…Wait. Does that mean that the disaster could have been artificially created?”
Tsugumi had thought for sure that a Magical Girl had failed to defeat an A-class Demonic Beast and that the government had concealed it. He had no idea that it was man-made.
Bell shrugged her shoulders, uncaring.
“I guess that’s what it comes down to. Some say that they were trying to bring down a Demonic Beast rather than a God, but either way, they gained nothing by sacrificing an entire city. What an expensive study failure.”
–Bring down “God” to the person of a human being. He didn’t know why anyone tried to do that, but the side effect was the self-destruction of the people around him.
“I really can’t tell Chidori…”
“I don’t need to say anything else. –There are many things in this world that are better left unknown.”
Bell concluded and began to bring the cream puffs to her mouth again. Just as she put the second bite into her mouth, they heard the tinkling of a bell, ringing from somewhere.
Tsugumi looked around, but couldn’t see the source of the sound.
Bell clucked her tongue at the sound and pushed the cream puffs she was about to eat to Tsugumi.
“Eh? What?”
“Hold on to this.”
Bell said and held her hand up to the void, from which something like a plate of glass suddenly appeared. Apparently, it was the glass that made the sound of a bell.
Then Bell put the plate of glass on the table and began to speak.
“What do you want? …Huh? Why should we do such a thing? There are plenty of pawns in your brood, I don’t care who you are or what you think. –After all, it is your own fault. You should be sorry for your own incompetence, you rude people!”
Bell shouted, then raised her hand and knocked the glass plate to the ground.
Tsugumi had no time to interrupt.
He wasn’t sure what happened in the end… But something terrible must have happened for Bell to be so angry.
“Who the hell do you think you are, damn dog of the government! Oh, I could tear you to pieces right now!”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but calm down. Here, have some of this.”
Tsugumi gently let Bell hold the cream puffs he had been entrusted with and picked up the glass plate that had been knocked off.
Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he placed the glass plate in his coat pocket. If he gave it to Bell now, she’d likely throw it somewhere again, so it was probably best if he kept it for a while.
“So what was that all about? It sounded like a phone call.”
He asked when Bell’s agitation calmed down a bit. Bell sighed heavily.
“The government has asked us to go to work. There seems to be a glitch in the prediction system, and apparently, an A-class Demonic Beast will appear in this world 15 minutes from now. They probably called you because you have the Transportation skill.”
“Why make ‘Hagakure Sakura’ do such a thing? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to talk to Rikka?”
In the first place, it’s strange to call on Tsugumi who didn’t belong to the government.
The government might be short on time, but there were a lot of people with Transportation capabilities, and there’s no way that the C-class Hagakure Sakura would be a match for an A-class Demonic Beast. It was only natural that Bell would be angry like this.
“Hmmm. They said that the appearance of 20 D-class, six C-class, two B-class, and other high-ranked beasts in the morning had combined to make it impossible for the government to move those with the ability to transport. In addition, there are no Magical Girls near the place of the appearance, so no matter how fast they hurry, they won’t be able to make it in time for the appearance in another 15 minutes. –The government is to blame for not being able to manage the risks, no matter how many irregularities there may be. That’s no reason for us to put our lives on the line.”
Bell said it so lightly, but for Tsugumi, it was a surprise.
–There were only about five B-class Demonic Beasts a month, but today there were two of them. That alone would be enough to make it a quasi-disaster.
He’d heard that a lot of people had the ability to transport, so this must be a very serious situation. It was noon, and there were still twelve hours left in the day. What were they going to do if another high-ranked Demonic Beast appeared before then?
Maybe it would be okay to talk to Bell and see if she could come up with a response.
“It’s going to cause a hell of a lot of damage, that’s for sure.”
“I don’t know. I don’t want mercy for those fools.”
“But still, an A-class Demonic Beast. Where is it located?”
“Oh, apparently they appear in a town called Hakone in Kanagawa Prefecture.”
Tsugumi stopped moving.
“…Hmmm, I see”
–I see. So it is in Hakone that the Demonic Beast appears? Then what Tsugumi would do had been decided from the beginning.
He gently reached into his pocket and checked its contents. A slight bulge asserted its presence. It surely wasn’t a problem.
He felt a sharp pain in his chest. What Tsugumi going to do was definitely a betrayal to Bell. It’s also an act that would bring the trust of the past three months to naught. It was a really, really, painful thing to do.
…He didn’t want to do this, if possible.
–Still, Tsugumi didn’t even hesitate. Because the scales had long since tipped.
Then, when Tsugumi slowly stood up from his seat, he turned down lightly toward Bell.
“I’m sorry, Bell-sama, but I’m going to have to leave for a while. Eat some cream puffs while I’m gone.”
“I don’t care, but what’s wrong?”
In response to Bell’s dubious question, Tsugumi put a perfect smile on his face and said.
“–Yeah. I’m just going to pick some flowers, you know.”
–It would be him that got picked, though.