My relationship with the woman named Kawasaki Midori could be described in a single word: mortal enemies.
We would never get along, never trust each other, and our feelings towards one another would never improve.
I’m confident I’d break out in hives from just a handshake.
You probably got a general idea from our exchange of insults just now.
There’s no reason for it.
It’s simply a matter of not liking each other on a fundamental, visceral level.
Perhaps it’s the result of an irreconcilable conflict from our past lives, but for me, who has no way of knowing such things, the only important fact is that this woman, Kawasaki Midori, is someone I dislike.
“Hmm, you seem more energetic than I expected. I thought you’d be broken after the Demon Lord’s Army’s interrogation.”
“Thanks to them, after they peered into my mind and made me spill everything, I’ve just been sleeping soundly. At least my sleep is secured.”
For someone like that, there’s no need for hesitation or consideration, no feelings of empathy.
Every time we open our mouths, it’s an exchange of sarcasm.
We don’t hide our emotions, and if we look at each other with contempt, the other person will respond with similar feelings.
“That’s a nice position to be in. Even if you don’t get three meals a day, with these facilities, a life spent just sleeping is quite luxurious.”
“If you’re envious, I can switch with you? Though I think it would mean eternal sleep.”
Continuing to play verbal games, straying further and further from the main topic, without even caring about the other person’s ill feelings, only serves to increase my stress.
“I’ll pass. I can’t sleep if my pillow is changed. I’ll pass on this uncomfortable-looking space.”
I quickly put an end to this sarcastic battle and narrowed my eyes.
“Let’s get to the main point.”
“Oh my, it’s rare for you to need something from me. Especially since you hated me so much.”
“Don’t joke around.”
“Scary, scary. Even with eyes like that, I can’t do anything.”
Her mental fortitude is incredible, even with her body sealed, her soul and body separated, her consciousness fixed to her soul, and even her soul’s freedom suppressed.
It’s almost maddening how nonchalant she is.
A normal person would have gone insane in this situation.
Yet, this woman is calmly smiling.
For a moment, I wondered if she was someone else, but Evia-san has no reason to do such a thing.
“So? What is it you want to ask me? Not to be rude, but you should have revealed all your memories, so you’d be better off asking that demon over there than me?”
“I’ve read all the documents.”
The reason I came all the way out here for this woman, who has become nothing more than a soul, was because there was missing information that only she would know.
“But it’s not enough. There’s information you must know, but it’s missing.”
“It’s possible I’ve forgotten. If I forget, that information won’t be obtainable either.”
That information is absolutely necessary for me, and it’s also absolutely necessary for the company.
It was missing.
“If you’ve forgotten.”
“Heh, the way you say that, it means there’s information that I wouldn’t forget, right? That’s strange. If that’s the case, it should show up in your investigation. But it doesn’t. Isn’t that a contradiction?”
“It’s not a contradiction. After all, you didn’t forget it; you sealed those memories yourself. That’s why the Demon Lord’s Army’s investigation wouldn’t find it. No matter how much they tortured you, used drugs to make you talk, or probed your mind with magic, it wouldn’t come out. After all, you yourself can’t perceive it, so there’s no way you can recall it.”
The absence of that information itself is strange, but I was the only one who noticed it.
“According to your memories, you made contact with the Otherworld’s god after meeting Ishan. The events leading up to that, reading it felt like a terrible romance novel and made me sick, but thanks to it, I found it.”
Reading this woman’s memories was an experience I never want to repeat.
But it’s precisely because of that that only I could realize it.
“When did you go to the Middle East? Your study abroad destination was supposed to be England.”
The company has its limits when it comes to investigating memory manipulation.
Using convenient functions like magic, and even with connections to the Japanese Government, there are few ways to investigate an individual’s information thoroughly.
Moreover, re-investigating someone who hasn’t been monitored at all from scratch is an immense undertaking.
If even their academic background and travel history are all falsified, any investigation based on that fabricated information will only yield false results.
And to top it off, even their memories are crafted to align with that falsified information.
One of the Demon Lord’s Army’s techniques is memory confirmation through magic, but even that had a loophole.
Studying abroad, an uncommon act in Japan, should have been noticeable, but when I saw this woman’s memories, which had been so perfectly altered to avoid any sense of dissonance, it struck me.
“…Who knows? In my memories, I can only say that my study abroad destination was a school in some Middle Eastern country.”
“You’ve gotten bad at lying. You don’t talk like that when you’re hiding the truth.”
It’s certain that she sealed her memories of her own volition.
“I found it strange. You, who used to communicate diligently with Katsu for several months after going abroad, suddenly stopped contacting him. And when you did occasionally get in touch, you acted as if you didn’t care about Katsu at all.”
I had felt that dissonance after reading the report that outlined and summarized the situation.
“Even if you found another man, you would never act like that. The method was too sloppy for you. You would have broken up with Katsu cleanly, without any lingering issues, and avoided any subsequent trouble. That’s the kind of woman you are.”
There are truths that can only be known by someone who detests their opponent.
I apologize to Evia-san, who is giving me a questioning gaze, but for now, please just watch.
I know this woman’s social skills well enough to state it with certainty.
It’s natural for her to smile on the surface while sticking her tongue out inwardly.
Even if she appears loving, she can’t stop acting based on profit and loss.
Even if she deeply fell for a man named Ishan, that part of her would never waver.
That’s precisely why.
“I don’t like it. Why did you leave a message that only I could understand? If you hadn’t left a message like this, I wouldn’t be here.”
Why did you leave a message that only I, whom you detest the most, could understand?
The Kawasaki Midori, now just a soul, scrunches her eyebrows as if questioning what I’m saying, but I have more to say.
Why do I have to do this? If I don’t do it, Katsu and Jiro-san will be troubled. That’s the situation you created.
It’s all the more infuriating because the woman before me understood this like Future Sight and left the message.
Suppressing my desire to yell “Stop messing around,” I let out a big sigh.
“Do you know about self-hypnosis?”
I spat it out as if to quell my anger, and then, to quickly extract the information from this woman, I moved on with the conversation.
“Self-hypnosis, you mean like hypnosis where you convince yourself something is true by telling yourself so?”
There’s no end to it if I were to care about every single one of this woman’s attitudes.
That’s why I started my work, aiming to end my interaction with her as quickly as possible.
“Yes, that. What do you think would happen if you had subjected yourself to it?”
“Me? There’s no way.”
“Is that so? If you had used self-hypnosis to forget, you wouldn’t be able to remember it. So why can you confidently say you haven’t been affected?”
“It’s more likely that you’re spouting nonsense. Unlike other magic, this kind of hypnosis is a technique whose effectiveness is uncertain; it’s more natural to not be under its influence.”
“What if, hypothetically, you had used that magic before us?”
I have a certain conviction.
I dislike this woman, but there are parts of her that I trust.
That is undeniably her competence.
Competence isn’t just in academics or sports; it includes interpersonal skills like building connections and the ability to understand things.
“Magic? That’s absurd.”
Adaptability in all aspects.
If you were to graph her stats, she would clear them all at a high level.
Would a woman with such obvious capabilities simply give up without a fight when she found herself in dire straits?
No matter what anyone says, I can definitively say that is not the case.
“Then, shall I show you the evidence?”
“Evidence?”
Otherwise, no matter how much free time I might have, nothing would come to this woman.
Looking at Midori, who seemed skeptical, I threw the words that should be recorded at her.
“Hey, August 20th. Does this date ring a bell?”
“August 20th?”
The date I mentioned was, so to speak, the trigger word for releasing the message she left.
Thinking there was something, she tried to rummage through her memories, but this woman couldn’t recall it.
She didn’t say “What are you talking about?” even if it was a bluff, because something about it resonated within her.
It’s not someone’s birthday. That woman would never leave such a straightforward word for me.
A message from a serious, model-student type woman, who has an incredible thickness of skin, to me.
Moreover, it’s absurd that a keyword that wouldn’t be released unless spoken by me, someone who is arguably her enemy, not her family, friends, lover, or even Katsu, who was her lover for a time, but rather her sworn enemy.
“You couldn’t forget, could you? After all, this is the day you and I fought with all our might. The day I was almost disowned by my parents, and the day you saved me.”
I’ll never forget that summer. I quarreled with this woman.
The trigger might have been something trivial, but because of that trivial thing, I, who couldn’t control my emotions, and she, who unusually showed her true feelings, ended up fighting.
It wasn’t a slap; at that moment, I clenched my fist and punched this woman in the face.
“…That didn’t happen, or rather, did it happen?”
There’s no way this woman could forget such an event. After all, to her, I was the only enemy who had ever defied her.
This woman, who had been playing the role of a good girl, and I, who had sensed her true nature.
Midori, confused and hesitant. She held her head as if the memory of a fight she’d never had, or perhaps a flashback, was tormenting her.
I wonder why she’s making that gesture when she’s just a soul, but that doesn’t matter right now.
This is the time to strike while she’s starting to get confused.
“You couldn’t have forgotten. A fight between two women is not something you forget. Even I, who am not particularly intelligent, remember it. Your fists hurt back then.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t know about that.”
It was a coincidence. If there was a god’s prank, it was definitely malicious in intent.
And it speaks to the wicked nature of this woman.
“There’s no way you can get away with saying you don’t know? After all, the quarrel started when *you* came to me for advice.”
“What do you mean?”
Migori, holding her head and looking like she was in pain, made gestures as if something was flashing back.
Perhaps seeing her like that, I raised my voice from the depths of my being, something I would never normally do. It’s because I remembered the emotions of that time, and the anger from back then resurfaced.
“I won’t let you say you don’t know! That was your mistake!! Don’t pin it on me!!”
I have to let out these emotions to suppress them. I can’t forgive her for forgetting this particular incident. I absolutely won’t forgive her.
I can’t forgive her for forgetting the time she truly regretted her actions, repented, confessed her sins to me while crying, and asked for my judgment.
“You broke up Katsu’s family!!”
I poured my anger, which had been boiling, into this single sentence, as if I were an observer.
“You found out about Katsu’s mother’s affair.”
I could feel my hot head cooling down rapidly with this shout.
“Hey, what do you think I should do, Minami?”
“About what?”
With my cooled head, I recalled a past conversation between my past self and my past self, talking in an empty park late at night.
It was long before that summer day of our fight.
She always spoke familiarly, but that day, this woman, who had never taken off her thick cat disguise, was so mentally unstable that she couldn’t maintain her composure, and she called me out.
“I saw them.”
“Huh? Saw what?”
It was a serious conversation between a still-minor me and Midori, not a joke.
“I saw Katsu-kun’s mother coming out of a hotel with another man.”
It was probably the first and last time that woman, who could do anything, clung to me in a panic. The fact that she obtained information that could potentially destroy one happy family. A secret between two women.
A secret that, even though I hated her, I intended to take to my grave. And now I’m exposing it here.
“What should I do? I can’t tell him about this. But I can’t just stand by and watch him continue to be deceived.”
The event that day, when she begged me for help tearfully, pouring out her true feelings, made me feel truly defeated.
There’s no way she could have forgotten this.
Today’s word:
Triggers differ for each person.
Thank you for your usual feedback and for pointing out any typos. If you’re enjoying this novel, please leave a review, rating, or bookmark.
I am also currently serializing another work:
Pandora Pandemic Panic – The Pandora’s Box has been opened again, but we’re fighting back with various things in our secret base and more!!
Please check that out as well!!
