Takemura Itsuki

“The two of us are injured now, and one is gone,” Ichika said as she had her eyes staring into the infinity down towards her feet. Her back was on the wooden wall of the carriage, her legs spread straight out in front of her. On the right side of her black boots lay me, my back on the ground and my legs folded up beside Ichika. A little bit of my shirt was tucked up, exposing a little bit of my belly as I lay on the ground. My eyes were narrowed, my right arm on top of my forehead. Ichika turned to the right towards the front side of the carriage, looking towards the back of Airi, who wore a pink semi-circle type cloth on top of her white shirt. “Only you’re the one fit among us right now, Airi.”

“I’m the only medic, and if I were down, it’d be a great loss for us right now,” Airi said as she drove the horses. “Itsuki was pretty badly hurt too.” I remembered the upper half of my body jerked at the front as the sharp sword cut through my chest from my back to the front. “We were just lucky that he didn’t hit any of the vital organs, such as the lungs, the ribs, or the heart.”

“It’s dark…” I murmured as I looked at the top of the carriage. “It was going on such a great day. We won against Kabata-kun, even though we had that in mind that we can never win against him, and we even partied…” I remembered how I sat on the wooden round table in the middle of all those old dudes and young girls of my age, smiling and laughing. “Then… as the sun dusked… it went down so dark…” I remembered Katsuki’s devilish laugh, his dark silhouette, his green robe covered with the darkness, his eyes covered with the shadows of his blonde hair, his right hand holding the sword, as he stood in front of the exit.

Ichika turned her head down in sorrow. “We fought Kabata-san twice in just one day, and in both the fights…”

“And in both the fights… we saw two sets of difficulty,” I finished.

“Yeah,” Ichika said as she turned at me. “He really was just playing with us in the first fight.”

“He could have easily killed us in the second fight if Itsuki was not in the mood for revenge, to be completely honest. Somewhere, his anger and rage against Kabata-san played a part in our victory.”

“Whatever the shit it was… my revenge still remains incomplete.”

“Forget revenge for some time. Has anyone even think what we’re gonna do next from here on?” Airi asked as she drove the horses. She turned to the back, and looked at Ichika glaring towards her feet aimlessly, while I aimlessly looked at the carriage’s ceiling.

Ichika gulped in, turned to her right at Airi, and said, “I guess we needa skip to step two.”

“Step two?” I asked, my eyes still fixed at the top. “The heck is that?”

***

Yashiro Kiyoshi

“So, you don’t know what has happened over the past few months?” My eyes were fixed at the front of me. My hands were on top of my dominant knees as I sat on the backless chair, my legs spread dominantly, with the white bed on my right.

Haruto sat on the same backless chair in front of me, his hands squeezed in between his shy thighs, his back tilted a little to the front. He shook his head innocently, and turned his head up. “I don’t remember anything.”

“Not even a single thing?” I asked. “Try to remember something. Like some creatures, or… or some giant beasts… something looking like ‘Yeti’… creating havoc all around this whole town, breaking the buildings, coffee shops, and other offices and other buildings all around.”

Haruto kept staring at me, doubtfully narrowed his eyes, tried to run his mind, and then turned a little up at me again. “N-Nothing of this… makes a-any sense. G-Giant beasts? Yeti? And creating havoc here?”

I opened my lips, about to say something, and then closed them again, nodding slightly. “Obviously it won’t make any sense for a kid like him, especially after a hardcore memory loss such as this.” I then opened my lips again and questioned, “Okay, so, do you remember how you ended up here, in your mother’s hospital room?”

Haruto shook his head again. “I… I just opened my eyes, and… my mind went numb for a few seconds. I-It was paining hard. W-When I came back to my senses, I was lying here on the ground, beside the bed.” He pointed his left finger down at the ground at the area between his chair and the bed.

I nodded as I heard that answer. I turned to the left at one of my men, signed him to move his head closer with my left fingers, and he bent down, moving his ears in front of me. I whispered something in his ears for some second silently, and then said, “Okay?”

“Yes sir.” The man nodded, turned back to the hospital door, and walked away. I looked at his back going away as I heard the voice of him opening the door and stepping out, the door closing behind his back. I then turned to the front again at Haruto. “So, uhm, Haruto, do… do you remember anything about a boy named Takemura Itsuki?”

***

Isekai’d

Written by Dhruv Pabreja

***

Shiratori Haruto

“T-Takemura Itsuki…?” I repeated, my eyes fixed at the front, glaring at the infinity, as I tried to remember. I remembered the two of us walking down the school gate towards the entrance of the building in our white and black school uniform, I remembered me lying on the ground with the boy on my right with his hands on a black game controller, his eyes glued to the front at the black TV screen, and I then remembered his guilt face as he turned his head down to the ground and said, “Yeah. At last, this gives a new meaning to my meaningless life.”

I turned my eyes and met Yashiro-senpai’s serious eyes, my forehead a little sweating. “Seems like you’re remembering something,” Yashiro-senpai commented.

I shook my head deliberately. “N-Not really, but seems like I’ve heard the name…”