Part one hundred fifty two — The Chase

　Yuki's own memory clicked into place the moment Himari explained how—a car, deliberate, striking him.

　She remembered the damaged front bumper on the car Kenji had arrived in that night.

　"I think I know who did it," she said. "The friend who came by, claiming he'd been sent—his car was damaged, right in front."

　"His name," Himari said.

　"Kenji," Yuki said. "Same name Haruto mentioned, when he told me he was heading out that evening. I didn't think anything of it. I let him into the apartment myself."

　They went to the station together, where Toru played the footage.

　Himari couldn't watch.

　They saw Hana.

　They saw Haruto shove her clear a heartbeat before the impact.

　They saw Kenji step out of the car afterward, unhurried.

　"That's him," Yuki confirmed. "Same man. Same car."

　"You're certain?" Himari asked.

　"Certain," Yuki said.

　Then, studying the frozen frame of Hana more closely, she frowned.

　"That girl looks familiar. Can you zoom in?"

　Once the image sharpened, she recognized her immediately.

　Hana.

　A classmate from her university.

　Toru located her within the hour.

　And Hana, questioned properly, gave them everything—how she'd never wanted any part of it, how Kenji had insisted, forced her along despite her own reluctance, and finally, where he could be found.

　Himari picked up a service weapon and left immediately, Yuki following close behind.

　"Wait!"

　Toru shouted after them, already calling in backup as he chased.

　They found Kenji's location.

　He heard them coming through the door.

　Instead of waiting, he went out a window and sprinted for his car.

　Himari didn't let him get far.

BANG!

　A single shot found the tire, and the car stalled before he'd even cleared the block.

　Kenji ran the rest of the way.

　He weaved through side streets, desperately trying to lose them, unaware that Toru had already circled ahead to flank him.

　He barely slipped past.

　Ducking behind parked cars.

　Crossing an open street—

　Yuki hit him with their own car before he'd made it across.

CRASH!

　Kenji hit the ground unconscious.

　Himari reached him first.

　Her weapon was already raised.

　She fully intended to end it right there.

　"Don't," Yuki said urgently, grabbing her arm.

　Toru arrived seconds later and immediately agreed.

　"Not like this. Let the system handle it properly."

　They took him to a prison hospital instead, waiting for him to wake.

　But the impact had clearly hit him harder than expected.

　Eventually, Toru left to get something to drink.

　Yuki went to get water for Himari.

　That left Himari alone with him.

　She gave him an injection meant to end things quietly.

　Permanently.

　And it worked exactly as intended.

　Himari left the room and sent Yuki a single message.

Meet me at my place.

　Toru returned shortly afterward.

　He found Kenji dead.

　He simply sighed.

　"You've got to be kidding me."

　He rubbed his forehead before looking toward the body.

　"Well. Nothing to do now but handle the paperwork properly."

　Yuki met Himari as asked.

　They comforted each other.

　They bathed together.

　They tried to settle into something resembling normal.

　They were about to eat when—

　The floor beneath them lit up.

　A magic circle.

　Neither of them had any way to understand what they were seeing.

　And then—

　Without warning—

　Both of them were gone.

　　　　　＊　＊　＊

　Kenji, unknown to either of them, had already been reincarnated into the very same world.

　He had been born as Jiro, son of the legendary hero Valt Horax, in the Kingdom of Teorema.

　He carried no memory yet of his previous life.

　No understanding of what he'd done.

　No understanding of how he'd died.

　Only the vague, formless awareness of having been reborn at all.

　Yuki and Himari, meanwhile, had been summoned.

　Pulled by a kingdom whose spirit-summoning magic had, somewhere in the process, gone badly wrong.

　Whatever they'd intended to summon—

　It hadn't arrived.

　Instead, two women from another world entirely landed somewhere they'd never planned for at all.

　They appeared in the city of Roshan.

　And within hours, they were taken by slave traders.

　The same operation that would, some time later, nearly cost Eris her life—

　And end permanently at the hands of the boy she'd eventually call family.

　　　　　＊　＊　＊

　The night Kai rescued Eris, he freed every enslaved person in that mansion.

　Then he turned to the widow—the trader's own wife, now running the legitimate remains of the business.

　"Find proper work for those willing to stay," he told her. "Especially anyone capable of handling goods and calculations."

　Yuki and Himari stood among that crowd.

　Confused.

　Disoriented.

　Watching a boy neither of them recognized give orders with a calm authority that felt, to one of them, strangely—

　Impossibly—

　Familiar.

　Kai didn't notice them specifically.

　Not in that moment.

　They were simply two faces among dozens, freed alongside everyone else.

　He told the widow not to forget proper roles for anyone skilled with trade calculations.

　Then he left.

　　　　　＊

I felt something, though.

　He would think of it much later, turning the memory over long after the fact.

A presence in that crowd that felt—familiar.

Similar to someone.

I didn't know about summoning magic yet, back then.

Didn't know it was even possible for someone from my old life to end up here too.

So I told myself it was nothing.

Coincidence.

Grief playing tricks on me.

I wish I'd looked harder.

　　　　　＊

　Himari felt it too.

　Standing in that crowd, something about the boy struck her as achingly, impossibly familiar.

　The way he explained the trading calculations to the widow—quick and precise.

　It was the exact same way her own brother had once explained his account to her, back when she'd asked him to teach her.

That can't be him.

　She told herself that even as some quieter part of her refused to fully let the thought go.

That's not possible.

He's gone.

I watched him go.

　But the thought stayed with her anyway.

　Small.

　Stubborn.

　Refusing to fully die.

　And so Yuki and Himari began, slowly, the long work of adjusting to an entirely new world.

　New customs.

　New dangers.

　New lives neither of them had asked for.

　But both of them were determined to survive properly.

　　　　　＊　＊　＊

　Jiro, meanwhile, trained under his new father's rigorous instruction in Teorema.

　Utterly unaware of the man he'd once been.

　Utterly unaware of the sister who was, at that very moment, still quietly, desperately hoping the world had given her back some small piece of what it had taken.