Natural Enemies
I’ve got a pretty unusual background. And when I say “pretty unusual,” I mean “if I told a hundred people about it, a hundred of them wouldn’t believe me.” The matter of the amnesia that I opened up to Kiryu about was deeply related to it, and that was the closest I’d come to touching on the subject with anyone in quite a long while. However, a very small number of people knew the full story. Myourenji Renge was one of them, and she was also the very first person I spoke with in this world.
My family and I had been missing for a long, long time, and when the police found me, they took me into protective custody. It took some time, but a man finally appeared to act as my parental guardian. He was Renge’s father, and she happened to come along with him. I’d answered the police’s questions before she showed up, to be clear, but I wouldn’t really say I “spoke” with them. It didn’t amount to much of a conversation, that’s for sure—they just asked question after question, checking off box after box on a sheet to try and figure out who I actually was.
As such, it’s true that she’s the first person I had a proper conversation with. She came to speak with me in the waiting room while her father was busy handling the cops’ paperwork. I think she must’ve been worried about me, and was kind enough to try and keep me company.
“Do you remember me?” she said. “Myourenji Renge?”
“...No.”
“Oh. Well, that makes sense. It’s been almost ten years since the last time we met. I didn’t recognize you at first either, Kou-kun.” She smiled at me, a sorrowful look in her eyes, but I just stared blankly back at her in response. “But, you know what, Kou-kun? From now on, we’re going to be a family!”
“A family...?” I replied, looking away from her. “Strangers can’t be family.”
“We’re not strangers! Not at all,” she said, as she embraced me from behind. “We’re related! Only distantly, though—we’re second cousins.”
“‘Second cousins’?”
“We’re as related as cod and salmon roe.”
“Huh?” I couldn’t make sense of anything she was saying to me at the time. Actually, it took me a really long time to figure it out even after that. I’m talking months.
“Renge?”
“Father! Are you already finished?”
“Yeah. It’s been a while, Kou-kun. I guess you probably don’t remember me, huh? My name’s Myourenji Gouki, and I’m your dad’s cousin.” Renge’s father, Gouki, was a man with an imposing face and an intimidating aura. “Kazuhiro—your dad, I mean... We were pretty close. I’ve been searching for you and your family since the day you went missing.”
His air of intimidation wasn’t enough to keep me from perceiving the kindness concealed beneath it. That’s the biggest reason why I decided I could trust him.
“Where are Kazuhiro and Iori-san?” he pressed.
Renge hugged me a bit tighter. She was probably trying to shield me from her father’s forceful questioning, but I wasn’t actually afraid of him at all. I returned his gaze, looking him directly in the eye, which seemed to surprise him.
“Kazuhiro and Iori... Are those my parents’ names?”
“...What?”
I spoke dispassionately and matter-of-factly. I honestly didn’t think much of it. Not even when I saw their corpses myself.
“What... What the hell happened to you? What happened to your family?”
I did my best to answer his question. I told him everything that had happened to me... Or rather, everything that had happened to me since I’d been reborn just a few years beforehand, and what little I’d been able to piece together about what had occurred before then.
I told him how my family and I had been sent to another world, thrown into a gruesome daily life of battle and bloodshed. I told him how at some point along the way, my parents had been killed. I now know how insane it all was, but back then I accepted it like it was nothing. I was left with only the knowledge of my own sins, and the punishment I’d never been subjected to. They ate away at me, picking my heart into pieces.
It goes without saying that Gouki and Renge were both completely taken aback by my story.
“He’s...serious, isn’t he?” Renge practically whispered. “I don’t think he’s making it up.”
“It completely defies all of this world’s logic and common sense,” Gouki muttered in a low, serious tone.
“This sort of story does come up a lot in fiction, though...” Renge was trembling.
I immediately regretted telling them my story. In retrospect, no wonder the police had treated me like I was a lunatic when I told them everything as if I’d been telling them about yesterday’s weather. Those two were different, though. They hadn’t given any indication they distrusted me in the slightest.
“Do you believe me?”
“From my perspective, you don’t seem like you’re lying. I believe you,” replied Gouki.
“Kou-kun,” Renge added, “I can’t believe the horrible things you’ve suffered through...”
Gouki’s words were kind beyond my expectations, and Renge was crying for my sake. As I stewed in discomfort and bewilderment, Gouki laid a hand on my head.
“It’s all right now, Kou. I’ll protect you in Kazuhiro and Iori-san’s place.”
“You’ll...protect me...?”
“Me too! I’ll protect you too!”
Their kindness was warm and gentle, and I didn’t know whether or not it was all right for me to accept it. My hands were stained with blood. How could I have the right to receive that warmth? How could I ever be worthy of it? But I knew that if I told them that, they’d just worry about me. I’d put them in a strange, uncomfortable position.
So I faked it. I twisted the corners of my mouth into a false smile, and made a show of accepting them.
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
Renge’s warm, gentle smile was unchanged from all the way back when I first met her, and seeing it caused an indescribable wave of nostalgia and guilt to crash over me. She was my family, my savior. And what had I done in return...?
“The thing I texted you about... You’ve already looked into it, right?”
“I have, yes.”
I forced the swirling mass of bitterness that was writhing within me down and spoke as matter-of-factly as I could manage. Renge seemed to realize what I was going through, and responded as happily as ever. We said that we’d speak with each other the way we used to, but the truth was that I’d changed a lot since then. As I became involved with more and more of this world’s people, starting with her, I’d gradually grown used to them.
Being with her, however—with Renge, not “President Renge”—made me feel like I might revert to how I was back when I met her. It was like the old me was trying to assert his existence, to prove that he was the real me and defy the bright and cheery facade I’d learned to put on.
“I’ve determined that the cause of Hikari-san’s extended absence lies within the student council,” she began. That was what I’d asked her in the text I sent the day before: to dig into Ayase Hikari’s acquaintances and social circles. Judging by her attitude, she’d already concluded her investigation. “Hikari-san is an exceptional student, and has made quite an impression even within my student council, which would explain, well... Are you familiar with a boy named Murata Seiji-kun?”
“He’s in my grade and he’s on the council, right? We’re not in the same class, but I’ve heard he’s super hot, and popular to boot.” He hadn’t been able to join the council until his second year, thanks to Kiryu sniping the top spot on our entrance exam. The council’s new members get announced to the school when they’re chosen, and there were a decent number of rumors floating around about him—he stuck out in my memory as a result.
“It would seem that he’s developed a crush on Hikari-san. In turn, a girl in her class called Mikura Kanako-san grew jealous and started harassing her.”
“Jealous? Why?”
“Because Mikura-san is Murata-kun’s childhood friend, to my understanding.”
“Oooh...? So Mikura Kanako’s in love with Murata Seiji?”
“Correct.”
If this were a play, that would just be the beginning. A fresh, exciting plot twist would be waiting just around the corner to overwrite that dull, wholesale-grade setup.
Reality, however, was a different matter. There would be no shocking plot twist, and the truth of the matter was exactly as it looked at face value: Mikura Kanako was harassing Ayase Hikari out of pure, pathetic jealousy.
“Well, that makes this easy enough. We just have to call Mikura out, in public. And by ‘we’ I mean... Actually, what if we just got Murata himself to handle it? He seems like a good pick.”
“If we did, it’s entirely possible that Mikura-san would be bullied next as a result.”
“Like I care. They call it poetic justice for a reason. What goes around comes around, right?” As long as it didn’t have any negative effect on Ayase Hikari (and Yoshiki Yuu by extension, I guess), I didn’t see a problem with it.
“Does it? Speaking as the head of the student council, I’m afraid that’s not a position I can allow myself to take.”
“You do you, Miss President. But do you really understand the position that Ayase’s in?”
“More or less. Considering the sort of girl she is, it’s hard to believe that she’d stop coming to school over something as petty as being ignored. I’ve suspected that there’s some other factor contributing to her truancy.” Her tone carried an implied question: Do you know anything? It seemed she’d caught on to the fact that I was in the know, but she wasn’t aware of any of the details.
I didn’t feel any inclination to spread the story beyond Hikari and me, so I kept my reply short and vague. “You’re not wrong about that.”
“I see.” While Renge knew a fair bit about my life and circumstances, I’d never specifically told her why I was so fixated on Kaito and Hikari. She had all the pieces on hand and it wouldn’t have been especially difficult for her to put them together. All the more reason for me to dodge her questioning as much as possible. “In that case, I’ll go ahead and get into contact with Murata-kun.”
“Yeah, probably for the best. Thanks.” I was barely even aware of the guy’s existence, but Renge could use her position as the president to incite him to action. She had the perfect position for the job.
“Think nothing of it. The Ayase siblings are my beacon of hope, after all.”
“Your, uh, ‘beacon of hope’?”
“Isn’t love between close relatives the most wonderful thing?” Her eyes gleamed. “To be charmed by your own blood relative, rejecting one’s instinctual inclination towards genetic diversity! It’s a form of love that transcends the fundamental principles of biology itself!”
Yikes. “H-Huh, you think so?”
“It comes up all the time in anime.”
“Don’t base your perception of reality on anime, you ginormous nerd!”
“I consider ‘nerd’ a compliment, Kou.” In that sense, she really hadn’t changed at all. She almost certainly never let that side of herself show through in her student council president persona, though.
“A-Anyway, I should go.”
“Wait!” Renge exclaimed. The bell rang, signaling the end of the third period, but lunchtime was still a while off. I knew that the other student council members were unlikely to show up to the room until then, at the earliest. “Can you stay here and hang out with me just a while longer...? Say, an hour or so?”
“Like, all the way until lunch? You already know this, but I’m on record as hating the student council’s president—”
“Well she’s not here right now. We agreed we’d be our old selves for the moment, didn’t we?”
“And you want it to stay that way for as long as we’re in this room?”
“That’s right.”
“All right, fine... You’re helping me out with the Ayase thing, so sure.” I’d already stood halfway up, but I plopped myself back down in my chair and heaved an exhausted sigh.
I heard the bell ring again in the distance, signaling the start of fourth period. Upon reflection, being all alone in a room with the lovely president of the student council is a situation most high school boys would envy. Real shame that I, the person actually in that position, just found it suffocating. I’d already accomplished all of my objectives. Being around Renge just made me remember things I’d rather not think about at all.
My first year or so’s worth of memories after arriving in this world are dominated by the time I spent with Renge. She brought me into the Myourenji household and nursed me like the social invalid I more or less was, breaking down my emotional walls with a double-helix drill of motherly affection and fatherly bravery. She made me feel human again, against my will.
She was quick to laugh, quick to cry, quick to anger, quick to sulk... I’d been told that she was responsible and reliable when she was out in the outside world, but at home she was a mess, perhaps because she had to keep up an act at all other times. She’d stick to me like glue and force me to watch all her favorite anime from beginning to end, leaving me at least slightly brainwashed.
As time passed by, I gradually opened up to her. Little by little, I confided in her about my past, my sins, my anguish... But none of it drove her away. She accepted it all. If I were a normal person, raised in this world without ever having to dirty myself, I’d probably have ended up like all the other boys in my school and admired her—maybe even fallen for her. But...I regretted my actions far too much. I regretted foisting the weight of my crimes and the retribution they prompted onto her, even in the slightest sense. I regretted pulling her into troubles that she should’ve never had any part in. That’s why I distanced myself from her.
“Kou?”
I snapped back to attention at the sound of Renge’s voice, only to find that she’d moved from her desk and was now sitting right across from me at the table. I forced the dark, depressing thought process that’d been dominating my attention into a corner in my mind, and replied.
“Oh, sorry, just got a bit distracted... Huh.” Not that it matters, but Renge was leaning forward just enough to leave her ample chest resting on the table.
“‘Huh’? ‘Huh’ what?”
“Err, nothing, really...”
If Kotou was rock and Kiryu was paper, then Renge’s chest was a pair of scissors strong and sharp enough to shred the heavens themselves! Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but they had at least the impact of a pair of high-ordinance missiles. A chest with the perfect trifecta of adjectives all assembled: “big,” “amazing,” and “sexy!” She was half British, and boy did it ever show.
Wait. If I follow this metaphor to its logical conclusion, wouldn’t it mean that Kotou is supposed to beat out Renge? W-Well, I mean, it’s not like small is bad. Pretty sure there are people out there who’re into tiny titties! Yeah, let’s go with that. I’d feel bad for her if she couldn’t beat anyone, after all.
Her naturally blonde hair and blue eyes could also be attributed to her mixed ancestry. I hadn’t paid them any mind at all back when I first met her—I was coming from an environment where people had hair and eyes of all sorts of vibrant colors, so they didn’t strike me as unusual in the slightest. In this world, though, the people’s hair and eye colors were so homogeneous, they may as well have all been churned out of the same assembly line. People like her were a rarity and stood out, like it or not. She felt special. Incidentally, her mother was really something as well. And I mean, like, really something. Big ol’ bazongas.
“You’re not thinking about something unsavory by any chance, are you, Kou?”
“As if! I’m thinking about something extremely proper and respectable.”
“And that would be...?”
“Not important!” I couldn’t exactly admit what I’d actually been thinking about without creeping her out... Or rather, I’d hope it would, but Renge marched to the beat of a highly abnormal drum. I decided to change the topic. “Come to think of it, the bell doesn’t ring in this room?”
“No, it doesn’t. I disabled it.”
“Didn’t even know you could do that... Another of your presidential privileges?”
“That’s right.” Just how much special treatment does the student council president get at this school? I pondered the question for a moment before realizing that the answer was obvious: it wasn’t because she was the president; it was because she was Myourenji Renge. The Myourenji Corporation was a giant conglomerate that operated on a global scale, and in spite of her age, Renge had already started helping out with its work. She was a monster of a high schooler, and when it came to high school-level work, knocking off one perfect score after another was child’s play for her.
I’d met a number of geniuses since I arrived in this world, but Renge was indisputably the most outstanding of all of them. Appointing her as the student council president would probably do good things for the school’s reputation more than it would for hers—plus, I doubt the school’s higher-ups would want to risk offending her and damaging their relations with her family. The adult world’s full of that sort of dirty dealing.
“Myourenji Renge does it again...”
“My father’s the incredible one, not me.” She sighed. “I’m just...desperate.”
“‘Desperate’? For what?” Now that was a word I never expected to hear from her. She’d been incredibly talented for literally as long as I’d known her. At the very least, her academic skills were second to none—a year’s worth of her tutelage was enough to let me pass an academically rigorous high school’s entrance exam, in spite of how long I’d spent neglecting my studies in favor of complete devotion to the ways of battle. I couldn’t even imagine a situation that could make her of all people desperate.
“It’s certainly true that I’ve been gifted many things by my parents. Perhaps the ‘talent’ that everyone claims I have is among those gifts.” Renge gazed off into the distance, looking somewhat lonesome as she spoke. “And perhaps I could live my life relying on my talent alone, but I know that I shouldn’t. There are people I want to support, and I’m nowhere near strong enough to do so at the moment. I need to work harder, to become more capable!”
Renge clenched her fists, and all I could think about was how astonishing it was to see her act like that. She’d been quite childish back when we lived together, but after we parted, I was sure she’d grown into a high-handed princess type. Even though I’d known on some level that it was an act, it was still shocking to see her so openly frustrated, and even more so to learn that she considered herself inadequate.
“Do you remember what you told me back then, Kou? ‘If we stay together, I’ll end up ruining you someday. That’s why I have to hate you.’”
“I do.” Those were the exact words I said to her on the day I left the Myourenji household after she tried to stop me. Hearing it repeated back to me made me realize how unambiguously cringey a line it had been, but even so, I hadn’t changed my mind in the intervening years. “Can’t believe you still remember that.”
“I remember every bit of the time we spent together. I have it all recorded.”
“You have it what?! Holy crap, that’s terrifying! What, you keeping me under surveillance?!” I couldn’t help but notice that the moment she said the word “recorded,” a red light flashed on a little device that I’d only just realized was sticking out of one of her pockets. It was a digital voice recorder. Y’know what, I’m just gonna pretend I didn’t see that. “I really hope you’re not about to tell me that you have my phone bugged?”
“No, I would never. I would prefer you not to think that I’m the sort of heavy-handed—or rather, inflexible woman who would do something like that.” Her words carried a bizarre intensity to them. Is it just me, or is she angry about something? “I am angry, yes.”
“Would you mind not reading my mind, thanks?”
“Kou. You haven’t just been close with Hikari-san, recently. Your relationship with Kiryu Kyouka has improved as well, hasn’t it?”
“Kinda straining some definitions, there. We’ve only gotten to the point where we can talk to each other at all over the past few days.”
“You visited Shusen City together, didn’t you?”
“How and why do you know about that?!”
“That’s not important.” Isn’t it, though?! Dodging the question like that just makes it even scarier! “Kou?”
“What?” I replied after a brief, doubtful pause. Suddenly she looked completely serious, and I wondered if she was trying to cut off the train of thought I’d been on just a moment ago. It was another face I hadn’t seen her make since the day I left her household.
“No matter where you are, and no matter how much we drift apart, I’ll always be on your side. If you really want me to act like I hate you, then I’ll do it, no matter how much it hurts. If you want to think of me as a member of Ayase-kun’s harem, go right ahead... None of that changes the fact that I’m the person you go to when you need help, even while you try so hard to keep me at a distance.”
She spoke slowly, choosing each word carefully and deliberately. She knew what she was doing. She knew that every word she spoke made the crushing weight within my chest grow heavier and heavier.
“But I’m only doing all of that for your sake, Kou. Even if you distance yourself from me, we’re still family, whether you like it or not. That’s why I can’t turn a blind eye if I know that something’s going to hurt you.”
“What’re you trying to say...?”
“I want you to stop seeing Kiryu-san.”
I paused. Her request was incredibly direct—a candid and straightforward rejection of my recent association with her.
“I think you’re getting the wrong idea about us. Kiryu and I aren’t like that.”
“I want you to stop trying to uncover your past with her.”
I paused once more. “Why?”
“I want to protect you, Kou. That’s my one and only desire. If you do get your memories back, and if the knowledge that you left for yourself—if the knowledge that the old you left for you turns out to be true, then all those memories will do is make you suffer. If the truth is horrible, and cruel, and painful enough that you don’t even want to listen to it, then you’re better off never remembering at all!” The words poured out of her, raw and vivid. “If you remember your past, then you may never be able to go back to the way you are now. Or even worse, you might not be able to stand the pain, and... I can’t even bear to think about it...”
I didn’t say a word. Remembering Kiryu—remembering my old self—would mean remembering all those things that were best left forgotten. It would mean actively remembering the hell that I’d only read about, and it would mean remembering all the sensibilities I’d developed while I was raised in this world. Would the old me, the me who was so spoiled by this world’s peace, be able to bear the weight of all those memories? Most likely, he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
In the end, I really did hate Renge. I had to hate her. She had a gentle, compassionate soul, and to me, that kindness was a poison. Being with her made me want to forgive myself.
“I’m fine with that. I need to remember, even if it breaks me. I threw away my memories out of pure selfishness, and that choice hurt people.”
“But,” she sputtered, “that’s not your fault...”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ve made my decision.” She was starting to tear up, and I turned away. I couldn’t bear to watch her cry.
“Can I ask you just one thing?”
“What?”
“How are you planning to save Hikari-san?” To save her. It struck me as an incredibly pretentious word—all the more so considering that what I was trying to do wasn’t any sort of salvation. “Dealing with the ringleader behind her bullying isn’t guaranteed to resolve the issue. And that’s not the only problem she’s facing, is it?”
“Nah, it’s not. But I never thought that handling one thing would take care of all the rest. As for my plan...” I’d been thinking about what I was about to do for a long time. No, maybe it’d be better to say that I’d been hesitating to go through with it. It was an unambiguously horrible thing to do. I was, effectively, trying to destroy a young woman. I was almost definitely the only person out there who thought it was the right decision. But still, I’d made up my mind. “Sorry, but I can’t tell you.”
“Kou!”
“That’s the one thing I can’t share. Not with you, not with anyone.” If I told her, Renge would do anything and everything in her power to stop me. She probably already had an idea that I was planning on doing something reprehensible.
There was just one thing I could do. One thing that would save Ayase Hikari. This was all wrong in the first place—I was never meant to take an active role in saving a heroine. That’s not a job for an extra like me.
No matter where, no matter when, young women like her are meant to be saved by wondrous, almost magical miracles.
