“Wh-wh-what are we going to do? Was this really all just a waste of my time…?”

“A waste that’s still in progress… I really think you should hurry. She was really fast when she ran away, so there’s a good chance the culprit has some kind of strange protection on her side.”

“Ugh… How can you be so unconcerned about all of this, Puck?”

“You’re the one who told me not to get too involved, you know? Anyway, what are we going to do about him?” the cat said, as if just remembering about Subaru.

As the topic of conversation centered back on him, Subaru put on a weak smile.

“Oh,” said the girl as she finally realized the cat was talking about Subaru.

In response, Subaru put on an empty display of confidence and replied, “Don’t worry about me. Thanks to your help, I’ll be fine. You’re in a hurry, right? You should go…”

Subaru had hoped to finish this off with, If you’d like, I don’t even mind helping you out. How about it, m’lady? while brushing his hair back and flashing a smile, but…

“…Huh?”

Suddenly dizzy, Subaru reached for the wall but missed, and fell face-first back onto the ground.

“Wait. You shouldn’t try to stand up just ye—Well…okay,” came the cat’s warning, just a step too late.

After falling with zero capacity to catch himself, Subaru felt a sharp pain as his consciousness went winging away.

“…So, what should we do?”

“He has…nothing to do with us. That’s not enough to kill him. We’re going to leave him.”

In the far reaches of his consciousness as it left him, Subaru could hear just a little of the pair’s conversation.

That’s an otherworldly fantasy for you. Everyone has quite the severe view on the concept of empathy.

Am I just going to be abandoned here in this alley? was the negative take.

Well, I suppose I was going to die, and now I’m not, so I should be super grateful, was a more positive thought.

With those two views in mind, Subaru’s consciousness drifted further and further…further and further away…

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure!”

Right before the thread of Subaru’s consciousness was cut for good, he was able to see that silver-haired girl, red in the face, turn around and shout.

“There’s no way! No way that I’m going to save him, okay?! Okay?!”

—Man, even when she’s angry she’s really cute. Go otherworldly fantasies.

With that last thought, really this time, once and for all, Subaru’s consciousness fell into darkness.

5

It occurred to Subaru that the feeling of waking up was similar to having your face rise up from out of a body of water. When he opened his eyes, the sun’s light was at an angle and shone into them, causing him to squint at the brightness and rub his eyes. He woke up in a rather pleasant way, and Subaru was the type of person to be fully awake once he opened his eyes.

“Oh, you awake?” said a voice from right above Subaru’s head, with him still lying down.

As Subaru turned to look in the direction of the voice, he realized that he was still lying on the ground, but had his head on something soft that was being used as a pillow.

“You shouldn’t move. You hit your head, so I can’t say whether it’s safe to just yet.”

This concerned voice also sounded very kind, as Subaru remembered what happened just before he lost consciousness, he thought. Given the circumstances, he might just be in one of those blessed situations one hopes to be in as a boy.

To have one’s head in a girl’s lap… Responding to this divine revelation, Subaru pretended to turn to readjust so he could enjoy himself to the fullest. With a circular motion he rubbed his cheek against it and reached a feeling of absolute bliss, and far more than he expected he felt a fluffiness from the softness of the hair.

“Wow… Beautiful girls are a lot hairier than I imagin—Hey, wait a minute!” sputtered Subaru as he faced up, this time with his vision fully recovered, and took in what was happening.

Right in front of Subaru, in his upside-down vision, was the face of a giant cat. “I thought that at least until you woke up, I’d make you feel comfortable. You can thank me later.”

“First of all, I’d like you to stop with that terrible falsetto voice. There’s no way I’d mistake a cat for the heroine.”

Subaru had certainly never been in a situation before where he got to use a human-size cat’s lap for a pillow and, well, it wasn’t like you get to experience this every day, so he decided to make the best of it.

“Wow, this is actually really comfortable. Like, this is amazing. Now I understand why people want to love their cats ’til they go bald.”

“Well, if you’re going to be this happy about it, I guess it was really worth super-sizing… Don’t you think so, too?”

The cat scratched at his face as if it were embarrassed and winked as if seeking a confirmation. At the end of that glance was a silver-haired girl, standing at the entrance to the alley looking unfazed.

It was the same girl from before, if Subaru was to believe his memories, eyes, and heart, which were all deeply branded by her image right before he lost consciousness.

“Umm…I’m sorry about all of this. It looks like you ended up staying here with me until I woke up, and—”

“Don’t get any ideas about this. The only reason I stayed is because I still have some questions to ask you. If it weren’t for that, I would have left you behind. I mean it. So don’t get any ideas.”

Pressing the point, the girl put strong emphasis on her words. This was a level of girl power that Subaru, who had no resistance against such beautiful girls, simply could not stand against. It was so strong that Subaru could do nothing but nod, ignoring the content of whatever she was saying.

“The reason I healed your wounds, and the reason I had Puck serve as a pillow until you woke up—all of that was for me. So I’m going to have you make it up to me, okay?”

“I know you’re trying to build this up and everything, but if you just have something to ask, go right ahead,” said Subaru.

It looked like she was one of those people who took the saying “helping others isn’t just for their sake” to heart.

The girl looked sternly at Subaru and shook her head.

“I’m not asking, I’m commanding. You know something about my stolen badge, don’t you?” asked the girl, dropping the tone of her voice. However, as this wasn’t any different from what she had asked before, Subaru had to tilt his head in confusion.

They had gone through this once already, right before Subaru had passed out.

She keeps calling the thing a “badge,” Subaru thought. So is it something like what police and detectives keep on themselves to prove what they are? I haven’t seen anything like that.

“You didn’t hit your head real hard or anything while I was passed out, did you?” Subaru asked.

“You were only out for about ten minutes, and no, nothing like that happened. Answer the question.”

“Well…if that’s the case, I’ve got to say I really don’t know. Ha-ha…”

You can’t do anything about what you don’t know. Subaru’s answer was no different from before. However, the girl didn’t look particularly crestfallen, but instead nodded.

“Well, if you don’t know, you don’t know. But, the fact that you know absolutely nothing itself is information you have provided to me, and enough for me to justify healing you,” the girl replied, using twisted enough logic to baffle any swindler to describe her complete loss.

As Subaru looked on, dumbfounded, the girl clapped her hands together as if to finish things.

“Well, I’m in a hurry, so I’m going to get going now. Your wounds should all be healed, and I threatened those other guys so much I doubt they’ll go near you again, but it’s still dangerous to enter an alley like this all alone. Oh, and I’m not saying this because I’m worried about you; this is a warning: If I see you in a similar situation again, there won’t be any merit to me saving you, so you can’t expect me to do so again,” said the girl with machine-gun rapidity. She took Subaru’s silence as affirmation, nodded to herself, and turned around to leave.

The girl’s long silver hair swayed as she moved, and sparkled fantastically in the dim light of the alley.

“I’m sorry about that. She’s not really honest with herself. Don’t think too strangely of her, okay?” said the cat with a laugh as, having returned to its original size, it jumped up onto the girl’s shoulder.

The girl patted its back as if to affirm its touch, and the cat disappeared, slipping behind the curtain of her hair.

Without once looking back, the girl continued to walk on. As he watched her go, Subaru thought about what the cat had said, about her not being honest with herself, and her intentions.