It happened rather suddenly while I was walking home. I felt another line of consciousness leading to the present, and with it, a lifetime of memories. It was like I was living another life somewhere else and I suddenly was moved here. I quickly found a bench and sat down to process what was happening.
First things first: who am I? I have memories of a middle school girl and a woman who's… older than that. Although two lines of consciousness have gone into me, they seem to have merged into one. My body is… I held out my hand. Looks like the girl. The adult me looks… older.
After getting my thoughts in order, I headed home. I was just by the train platform so near the center of the city, which isn't far from anywhere else in the city. Cities around here were very small and compact.
I entered my home and everything was how I remember it. Well, of course, I was here just this morning. A medium-sized residence. Three bedrooms, although only two are used, and something unusual for homes in this city: a kitchen. Meals can be gotten for free at the food hall, or even delivered for free if one can't be bothered to go there. We only have a kitchen since mother liked to cook as a hobby, but as she isn't here anymore, it's been going unused.
The other me did like to cook, so I suppose I can make use of this kitchen. I checked what kitchen stuff we had; I'll need to order ingredients and such since we didn't have any food here, but in terms of tools, we were pretty well set. I activated the smart panel in our home and ordered a bunch of ingredients for cooking. Money is less of a concern here. As long as you're not excessive, you can get basically whatever you want. There's also an automated transport system connected to every home, so after about ten minutes, a box full of what I ordered arrived in my home.
I put everything away, then got the rice started, set a timer, and prepped other ingredients. As advanced as this world is, there isn't any magic technology that can cook rice faster here unfortunately, so I had some time to think about the current situation.
To be honest, most of my thoughts weren't too encouraging. After a bit, the timer went off so I started cooking the rest of the stuff. It wasn't too long afterwards when my sister arrived at home.
"I'm home." My sister says in a typically Japanese manner.
"Welcome back." I reply in a typically Japanese manner. We were Japanese, afterall.
"Sorry I'm late Lack, uh… what are you doing?"
"Cooking. I thought I'd try it out. I'm making enough for the both of us, if that's okay. Sorry I didn't tell you about it earlier."
"No, that's fine. I didn't know you knew how to cook."
"I didn't until… I have something I need to talk to you about over dinner. I'm almost done making it though."
"Well, sure. Do you want me to get the plates out?"
"Yes, please."
Soon, dinner was ready and set. Tonkatsu with rice and salad. The salad having strawberries in it since Shiro, my older sister, likes strawberries quite a bit. Like, really quite a bit. She really looks rather happy seeing the strawberries in the salad.
I don't really get it. She'd have strawberries for every meal if she could. The food hall not really serving strawberries outside of deserts being the main thing preventing that.
"So, you wanted to talk about something?"
"Right." I don't think I can just keep this a secret. The stress will kill me if I don't tell somebody. "Something happened while I was coming home today."
My sister looked concerned. "What happened?"
"It's nothing bad. Not exactly. But it's something that can be difficult to believe." I picked up a piece of tonkatsu and put it in my mouth, chewing on it as I prepared what I said next. I swallowed. "I somehow gained the memories of another person, another life."
"That, uh… sounds rather strange? Also, rather difficult to believe."
This is the world of science after all. Well, for now. According to the memories, it won't be quite that for much longer. Doubt is reasonable. "From those other memories, this is the world of an otome game, and you're the protagonist, sister."
"…By 'otome game', you mean one of those romance games? Why would I be the protagonist?"
"The game's story already started. According to the game, you met Akagi-san today and he taught you how to play Essence Dolls. That's why you were late, right?"
"How… did you know?"
"He's one of the potential love interests. In the game, the meeting was his character introduction and a tutorial for the Essence Dolls minigame. I do need to meet him myself though. Can you tell him to come to the north entrance of the park tomorrow after school for information about his younger sister's condition?"
"I… well… what's wrong with his younger sister?"
"I'm hoping everything will come clear tomorrow. For now, can you do this?"
"Well, sure. If it's just telling him that." She then went silent as we finished the meal.
After the meal, we put the dishes in the transport box and put the box through a hole in the wall. The box will go to a dish cleaning place where everything gets washed, then sent back up here after a while. We have extra dishes, so we'll get them back when we start to run out. Centralising most things has made a lot much more efficient, but this particular usage feels a bit wasteful. I suppose when everything has become much more efficient, a bit of inefficiency isn't much of a deal. This might just be more efficient for families of more than two people anyways.
Having memories of another world is really getting me to reevaluate how things are done in this world more. I feel like I've taken a lot for granted.
"You said you have the memories of another person now. Does that mean you're now the other person now, or are you still my younger sister Lack?"
"I don't know." That is the question, isn't it? Although, it's not a question I feel ready to ponder too much quite yet. "I don't know, but I do still see you as my older sister."
My sister just nodded in response.
There's a lot to think about. For now I just want to organise my thoughts. I went to my room and just laid in bed. How does one deal with getting another entire lifetime's worth of memories? If only there was a guide for this.
At the very least, now I know the future of this world. This is the world of an otome game, a game of romance. A world that values romantic love over other types of love. Only my sister's romantic partner can give her true happiness in a Good End. Everything else is a Bad End.
…I hate this world.
I ended up waking rather early the next day. I made and ate some breakfast for myself, then made sandwiches for lunch for my sister and I. Do strawberries go into sandwiches? Well, even if they don't, I'm sure she'll like it regardless. None in mine though.
It was still early, but as I didn't have anything else to do, I walked to school early. The bit of exercise helped clear my head a bit, there weren't many other people around at this time. I expected the classroom to be empty as I entered it, but that wasn't the case.
"Good morning, Hikari-chan."
"Good morning, uh…" What was this girl's name again? I remember we met yesterday, but that was the first day of school and the meeting was rather brief.
"It's Kaede."
"Good morning, Kaede-chan."
She smiled in response. She was a pretty girl with somewhat amber-coloured hair. A relatively normal-looking colour by the standards of the other world, hair colour here can be anything, the ones for the game's character have nearly the whole spectrum. I don't know how this works biologically, although people in the same family tend to have similar coloured hair. It wasn't a subject I had much interest in until I noticed it's kinda weird from the other world's perspective.
"I'm surprised you remembered my name. We only met just yesterday, right?" I'm pretty sure our interaction yesterday wasn't very significant. Although maybe I'm just bad with names.
"Ah, sorry, you just stood out to me yesterday." Do I stand out that much? "Still, I didn't expect to see anybody come here so early."
"I had a lot on my mind so I woke up early. I didn't have anything else to do, so I ended up coming here. What about you? I wasn't expecting to see anybody here either."
"Oh, it's the same for me. Just have lots to think about. Odd for us middle schoolers to have so much to think about, we only just started school." She laughed.
We ended up talking about a few things as other students gradually came into class. She was interested in getting into a new hobby so asked about mine. Mine in this world is mostly Essence Dolls and martial arts. I have other hobbies in the other world, although I don't think I was really the most interesting person there. I can't really keep up with all of my hobbies from both worlds, so I'll focus mostly on the ones here.
Soon, school ended. I got a message earlier from my sister confirming that Akagi will be there, so I headed to the north entrance of the park as soon as I could. After several minutes, he arrived. Along with my sister and… Kaede-chan? Why is she here? Well, I guess it doesn't really matter.
"You're Hikari's little sister?" I nodded. "What do you know about my little sister's condition?"
"First, how about a match?" I took out my doll from my bag. Challenging someone to a match of a game like this is something that usually only happens in manga or anime, although I suppose an otome game is somewhat adjacent to that. Admittedly, my reasons for this are somewhat selfish, but…
"Fine." Oh, he accepted. Didn't quite expect that.
"Essence ready, Doll battle!" After we chose our starting dolls, we each said the catchphrase. These catchphrases are used a lot in children's media to have multiple associations with a given product. Something you can say, like catchphrases, something you can act, like poses, motions, or dances, something you can collect, like toys or cards… Having many different ways of engaging with the product. That said, this is the world of an otome game, not something like a card game anime. It feels like it's merely aping the tropes without understanding…
Okay, whatever, media analysis over. My first two dolls are of the Dark Ninja and Red Witch types… er, essences. Akagi-san sends out a Red Knight and a Light Princess. Knight and princess is a common setup here, particularly among beginners. Princess is good at building up itself and allies, Knight is good at defending. Together, they can power up and demolish opponent teams.
That's how the combination is typically used, but Akagi-san is a bit different. He has a particular strategy in the games, and that Princess is a feint. Attacking the weaker Princess might seem like a better deal here, but I'm going after the Knight.
The round began with my opponent switching out the Princess for a Green Rook, which has some of the highest defensive capabilities in the game. My Ninja used Swap to switch both turn order and positioning with my Witch, which used Flare Bomb on the Red Knight, a small red bolt of light coming out of her wand and into the target, exloding on impact. It leaves behind a smoking red light on the target, which means if the target is hit again, it'll explode again for extra damage. It'll do this three times, with gradually weakening explosions.
My Ninja followed it up with a strike, detonating the Flare Bomb. All together, I managed to deal a bit over half its HP in damage to the Knight. The Knight powered up both its attack and defense, then struck back at my Ninja, who dodged the attack.
With my Ninja using Assassinate on his Knight next turn, which deals a lot of extra damage to targets that have half HP or lower, the match gets settled fairly quickly. Not that he stood much of a chance in the first place. I was the best Essence Doll player in the other world and aren't too bad here either.
My opponent, Akagi-san, hasn't changed much from what I remember from the game. His playing style is pretty much identical.
…I guess I sorta just wanted to test how similar the game world and this world is. The more similar it is, the easier it is to change, I guess. Akagi-san there is looking rather dejected though.
"Don't worry, I'm satisfied with your performance." I assured him.
"Why the test?" Reasonable question. I more expected it before the match.
"I have a lot to say, so let's go somewhere more comfortable first."
Just downstairs was the Ooyama Sweets Café that was a popular place in the game. I haven't been here myself in this world yet, but I was curious. I got myself a small chocolate cake with a cup of coffee, my sister got a strawberry parfait, Akagi-san got himself some cookies, and Kaede-chan has some ice cream.
…Why is she here? Well, no matter.
"So, please explain what you know about my sister's condition."
I feel I've been delaying this long enough, although I still didn't quite feel ready. I'll probably never be completely ready, so I might as well speak now. "Magic."
"What?"
"Yesterday afternoon, I somehow got the memories of another person in another world. In that world, events of this world have played out in a video game, and you're one of the main characters of that game. In about a year, your sister will die, you'll get depressed, and magic will be revealed to the world. In hindsight, that very magic was also the cause of your sister's condition, however, it was revealed too late to save her."
"…Hah?"
"About a decade ago, four heroes in another world, not my other world, fought against a demon king but were sent through a portal to this world. They brought magic with them to this world. The magic spread over time, and so that people could control it safely, the government introduced Essence Dolls to the public. It's a game where one can practice magic in a controlled environment."
"Eh?"
I took out one of my dolls and placed it on the table. I made it do a little dance. "The movements of the dolls aren't limited to the predefined moves. As it moves through one's own magic, it can move however you like."
"…But wait, doesn't it move using electricity?" My sister asked.
"That's what we've been told, but in reality it doesn't need it at all. The battery indicator is a lie."
The guy, Akagi-san, doesn't seem completely convinced, but I hope my little demonstration would show that it's not completely impossible. Well, he seems to be taking this seriously now, at least.
"If you can use this magic stuff, can you cure her?"
"…I can't say for certain. I'll need to examine her magically to see what's wrong first."
"Then can you do so?"
"I'll need your sister for that."
…
Kaede-chan raised her hand. "Um… I'm the sister in question."
"…Oh, this is embarrassing." That explains a lot.
"Hold on. You said all of that but you didn't know who my sister is?"
"Your sister was mostly just talked about posthumously in the game and never actually appeared, so I didn't know what she looked like."
"It's sounding like a convenient excuse. How do I know your whole story isn't…"
"Brother, it's fine." Kaede-chan looked straight at her brother beside her. He then relented. "Hikari-chan, you can help me?"
"…I'll do my best."
"Then please."
I nodded, then tried to examine the magic around us. I could feel the magic, the mana? I could feel it flowing everywhere, moving in and out of peoples' bodies. I then tried to sense the mana in Kaede-chan's body and… it looked odd. Mana were like little strings and hers were all tangled up. They were rather active, trying, but failing to untangle themselves. I looked at others and my own to confirm, but for everybody else, mana flowed smoothly; only hers was a tangle. This was likely the cause of her condition and I'll need to untie it to cure her. I examined the tangle and found a place to start and managed to pull away a piece of mana, freeing it from the tangle.
"Lack, are you okay?"
I found myself breathing heavily and sweating. I guess I was using magic and it was taking a lot out of me. Kaede-chan looked somewhat pained, but was reassuring her brother that she was okay.
"What did you do?" That brother asked.
"I looked at her mana and found it to be in a tangle, so I pulled a piece out to try to untangle it."
"Are you trying to help her or kill her?"
"She's the only one with a tangle in her mana, so I…"
"So you don't have any clue what you're doing…"
"Brother Daiki, enough." Oh, that shut him up. "Hikari-san, I feel a bit better now, thank you."
After arranging for future sessions, the meeting ended there, the two sets of siblings going their separate ways home. My sister was worried about my sudden tiredness, but I think I'll be fine with some rest. This probably means I can't fix it very quickly however. To do everything I need to do, it's going to be a very busy year…
"Are you sure about this? We don't know if there's any truth to her story. For all we know…"
"Brother, I trust her on this."
"Why?"
"Because I've had the same experience she had. I also gained the memories of another yesterday."
"Wait, then why didn't you tell me?"
"I couldn't prove it. Even if I could, what does it change? I'm still your sister."
"So we can trust her?"
"We can trust her not to harm me. And I'll do my best to make sure she doesn't harm you."
