Shiratori Haruto

“Yeah, you can,” The feminine voice still rang all over my black mind as everything was just pitch black. HUFF. HUFF. I took in a breath through my mouth. I then closed my eyes, which were a little blurry. I closed them tightly, and then opened them again a little between the two tight masses. With my so narrowed and tightly packed eyes, I looked at the front of me. I had my hand raised to the corner of the roof. On my right was the roof’s railing, and beneath my body, on which I was lying, was the fence. I completely opened my eyes now and came back to my senses. “D-Did I make it?” I suddenly commented. I turned my head upwards, and looked at the empty blue sky on top of me. “I-I guess I did…” I took in a deep breath from my mouth, and then exhaled out. I moved my right leg up, and then twisted my body, facing what saw my back before. I sat on the fence, and looked at the other side of the building. I turned my head down, and beneath my foot, I looked at the other side of the roof just some centimeters up from the ground. “Has the time… stopped?” I asked myself. I then turned my head up, and looked at the beast which had my mom on his left hand and Itsuki on his right one. I then noticed Itsuki was waving his right hand at me. “Haruto!”

“Itsuki!” I shouted back. “What’s happening now?!”

“Huh?!” He shouted back. “First get me off!”

“Maybe he didn’t hear me,” I thought and turned my head down. I was some meters up from the ground. I then turned up to Itsuki. “It’s too up! How do I come down to you?!”

Itsuki was looking at me with his confused, desperate, and exhausted eyes. He turned his head down and looked down on the ground. He then closed his eyes and started to push off the fingers of the beast, but in vain. I then turned to my right, and suddenly my eyes fell on a piece of the broken roof on the floor of roof. The floor of the roof was slanted, so it was like it had been pasted there. I moved my right hand at it, and tried to move it to myself. It was stuck, like it was glued strongly to the ground. I then suddenly stood up and shouted at Itsuki. “Itsuki!” He stopped pushing for a bit and turned his head at me. “It’s all frozen!”

“What do you mean?!”

“The time! It’s stopped! So everything here is as it was before it stood! See! The small rock pieces are literally floating on the ground right now!”

Itsuki turned his head downward and looked at the ground. Some of the small broken pieces of the cemented street really were flowing up. Itsuki then turned his head up. “Yeah! You’re right! But what should we do now?!”

“Assistant?!” I shouted.

The uninterested robotic voice said, “I was just playing a little with you two, that’s it.” The uninterested tone of the voice didn’t really convey the jovial words. “But now that the tutorial’s over, and considering that you both have survived, I guess we can advance to the real stuff now.”

The stones suddenly fell on the ground and pattered for a few seconds as I turned my head right and left and looked at the tiny little particles running down by the gravity. Then suddenly, I felt my body losing weight and being lifted up. “Huh?” I squeaked as my body moved up a little. Then, my butts left the ground and my body started to move up and up. “HUH?!” I turned my head up, and looked at the half of the body of the beast, while the other half was gone like it was slashed up. Its body was converting into yellow-colored dust particles and spreading out in the air. “What’s this?!” I shouted.

“Don’t worry, Shiratori-kun. We’ve just converted your mass in a negative value, so the gravity is working opposite on you.”

“B-But how?”

“It’s a science that humans have not discovered yet. And don’t worry, your mass right now is just below zero. If we increase the mass right now, you’d rise up in the same speed you’d fall down in that same amount of mass.”

I was silent for a few seconds. “… I-I guess I’m getting the idea.”

“Good,” It replied. I then turned my head up and looked at the body of Itsuki rising up too. He looked at me with his confused eyes. We both floated and moved up in the city for some seconds like that, when suddenly we were dashing like hell to the ground. I closed my eyes and quickly covered my face with my arms as a reflex when I looked at my body suddenly falling down. I had my eyes closed for some seconds, and then, I suddenly felt something on my right shoulder. I opened my eyes, looked at Itsuki, and moved my arms down. “I’m safe?!”

“Yeah,” Itsuki, who stood in front of me, replied. I turned my head down. I was standing on blades of small grass all over. “I think it’d teleported us,” He said with his hands on his waist.

I turned my head up, and then turned my head to my left. “It-It’s… the park.”

“The park?” He frowned.

I then turned to him. “Where we used to play! Don’t you remember?!”

He then turned his head right, and looked at the same small well covered with green patches all over. “Oh yeah!”

“Jump in that well,” The robotic voice commanded.

“At that time, we both were just out of our minds. We didn’t know what was happening, and somehow, we were just not feeling any emotions at all. Stress, sadness, happiness—nothing. At that time, it all felt so… surreal. Maybe that’s why we were behaving so awkward right then. ‘Was this really us?’ That’s what we had in our minds right then.”