A near deathly cough erupted from Ayano as she returned to her time.  She quickly fixed her vision on the girl, noting the change.  It didn’t hide well, but giving the unclear nature of her power she would never guess what happened.

However, Ayano still needed to catch her breath from it.  Her chest pounded almost choking on air.  ‘I never felt one like that!  I swear I think I truly could have died from that.  I didn’t think that was possible.’  Ayano never considered that there might be a limit to what her power could manage.

The blast she witnessed completely wiped out her existence and everyone else.  The only one to have survived that was Chiharu.  Could a death be so severe that she could never rewind time on it?  That had been the only reliable factor to it thus far.  If she met death, she could fix it.  For anyone else, it was less reliable and she didn’t understand the reason for its activation.

Her training with Chiharu never improved the skill.  Nothing that they did could reveal what trigger she needed to be able to access it on her own.  Chiharu remained convinced that she would see it change and evolve in the future.  She didn’t know why she had such a strong belief that her useless power would improve.  Her luck being what it was, would keep that from ever happening.

Chiharu didn’t understand.

No one knew.

Chapter 638 – Death’s Forecast

It felt right that this was the power that Ayano received.  An useless power suited her.  Chiharu and Yuki argued with her that it wasn’t useless.  It had helped Yuki and the family.  It kept everyone safe.  But if it was truly useful Yuki wouldn’t be dead.  They wouldn’t have been hiding out in the bookstore.  They would have a different life.  She could’ve helped change their lives.

But no, she had to rely on Chiharu to do that.  They needed a child to save them.  None of them could do it.  She couldn’t do it.

She wished that she could throw the power away for something that had practical value.  Even as frightening as Kenta’s plasma power was to her, she’d prefer that over what she got.  But like Chiharu explained, they all came as a reason.  And that reason was part of the core that made up who they were.  So of course a power like undoing death would be what she would get.

Someone like her couldn’t even be allowed to die.

That’s what the world mockingly told her everyday of her life.  And that was the point of this power.  She knew that.  Chiharu didn’t understand that.  There was nothing more to be found in her power.  It had a single point.  To spit on her at every turn when the hint of hope might appear.

This was what was right for her.

Ayano pressed her hand to her chest to control her breathing.  She needed her body to be still.  A fight still raged and if she stood still the girl would murder her again.  Only the confusion saved her for now.  But even that started to fade.  A coughing fit for no reason didn’t exactly make a lot of sense.

Once the pounding of her heart ceased and her body heat stopped making her sweat, Ayano focused on the roof.  She slowly began to move around.  Anything that would start keeping the traps away from her.

The back of her mind remained haunted.  She already knew the girl was deadly, but this was nothing like what she expected before.  ‘My body’s still shaking.  I can barely feel my arms.  It’s like time ripped me from my body.  I’m not fully connected…’

Mechanically, she didn’t understand how her power worked.  She only knew that it stepped back time to before she died, but even that wasn’t consistent.  Sometimes it was a second and other times multiple.  Even the concept of how such things were possible didn’t make sense.

Japan being what it was now.  Ayano had to accept that reality didn’t mean shit anymore.  The idea of normal or rational got thrown out when the city became a jungle.  But there had to be a logic still that made everything work.  Even if that logic was something completely incomprehensible.  Unfortunately, that likely meant that she’d never get how it worked.  And if she never got that, the power would forever a black box of garbage.

Reality though was that her body didn’t feel right.  That death still left ripples through her body.  Even moving as she did only helped a little.  She couldn’t fight properly like this.  ‘I knew how strong people could be…  Those UN guys…  But this…’

Echoes of the utter obliteration that she felt as her body vaporized tickled her muscles.  It happened so fast that she couldn’t even feel the burning or suffering.  But whatever existence it was to be particles rather than whole lingered in every cell of her body.  It wasn’t the instant rewind like other ones.  She experienced more and her body remembered it all.

‘I have to be even more cautious with her…  A power that great could kill everyone…  She could destroy the building if I provoke her.’  Ayano looked around at her family.  They all disappeared in that cutaway future.  One that she couldn’t let be the truth.

Facing the girl, she forced her legs to move faster even though they didn’t like it.  Ayano stumbled a little and it nearly dropped her on her face, but she moved.  The fight had to continue or she’d just die or someone else would die.

The drop in her capabilities meant that even pushing herself she could just keep up with the girl.  It balanced things out as it were.  Though she had no intentions of getting more aggressive with her.  Each time she tried, it got her killed.  And the more desperate the girl got the worse it was for her.  ‘I should get her away from everyone.  She’s too dangerous to be around the others.  But how?’

Ayano looked over to one of the other towers and saw the blur of Chiharu’s fight.  It was a fight that she couldn’t follow well at all.  Even if she no longer just disappeared, when the kid wanted to she could still surprise them.  The feat that kicked their leader an entire city block was one such display.

The apartment had five towers over four city blocks.  An expansive complex that was easy to forget in the focus on the singular roof.  While the towers didn’t all reach the same height.  The one that Chiharu fought had the smallest change in height.  She could only see two of the three other towers from her position.

Even still, she was no Chiharu. The strength to manage to kick someone to another tower wasn’t in her body.  A city block was too far to ask her to achieve.  She didn’t even think that she could jump that distance.

Ayano stared at the girl as she froze for a moment.  ‘Everyone else is in danger…  Even if I can’t do it, I should get her away from the rest, right?  If it’s just me, that won’t slow down the team any.’  Her mind tried to think about how she would even make that attempt.  She didn’t want to die.  It wasn’t a suicide.  Death was almost certain.

Maybe it didn’t have to be though?

Could she make it over?

The different possibilities ran in her mind for how she could do it.  She watched Chiharu do it.  That was her only example.  Could she just follow her and succeed?  Did she have the strength for it?  ‘Gods please give me strength…’

Nothing would happen without taking the initiative.  Ayano danced around the girl feeling her body finally starting to act normally again.  ‘Now or never.  Worst that happens, we both die.  I can live with that…  I accepted that end a long time ago.’

Once things lined up, she moved in checking her with a shoulder charge and her tonfa.  It surprised the teen enough to not immediately react.  Ayano managed to guide her to the edge of the roof.  The short wall was going to be more than she could break like Chiharu.  So she did the next best thing.

Ayano grabbed her arm and turned around.  The weight difference between them helped along with her superhuman strength.  Normally it’d be a ground throw over the shoulder, but she used it to get the teen into the air.  Jumping up, Ayano followed to kick her in the stomach at the nearest tower.  The one in the middle with less distance, though the highest of the others.  A five story drop and with gravity, it would be a challenge.

The angle was bad and she didn’t have the right amount of force when she jumped to launch the girl properly.  Ayano landed quickly and sprinted out after her.  Her stomach fell out from her as she took the last step.  Committed to the course, she felt the panic rush through her body.  Only her mind kept on task, but that wasn’t enough.  She missed the girl and they both found gravity tearing them down quickly.

Her opponent smashed into the apartment before bouncing off a little before her.  Ayano’s face smacked into the window shattering it as her chest rocked off the metal frame.  She rebounded off falling down staring up at the night sky unable to see the ground rapidly coming up to her until a wet crack spread her all over the concrete.

Gasping back awake, Ayano blinked.  She stared at the girl once more just before charge.  ‘Guess it really won’t let me die…  But it does mean I can keep trying until I find the correct way…  Dammit!’  Death five counted.  How many more would it be until she got it right?

She continued the charge like before, but rather than a shoulder charge, she turned the girl around while still holding on to her speed throwing.  The roof edge remained several meters away, but it meant she could get more lateral movement.  There was the lift that she wanted and extra momentum behind it, but it still ended the same way, even if it was a different excruciating death.

Six, seven, eight, twelve, twenty, she continued to track each one.  She came out of each feeling a little shorter on her life.  What could it be doing to her body with this many repeated deaths.  Each learned something new for her.  She changed and improved.  Understood her body more.  But still failed to reach the target.

The only thing that ran short on her body was the mental fatigue that each death laid upon her.  Her body felt the same each time unlike the one death.  So she could continue to give each attempt her full effort.  It almost felt like she cheated.  But against someone with invisible bombs, which was cheating more?

Ayano slid in low, catching the girl off guard as she hadn’t seen this sort of speed before.   Swinging her tonfa in, she struck under her stomach doubling the teen over.  Whipping around, she grabbed from behind dropping the body backwards getting into position near the roof.  Switching holds, Ayano went into a pin again.  ‘Ten…nine…eight…’  She squeezed just the right amount that looked threatening.

‘Now!’  The countdown over, she released her opponent from the hold and quickly threw her, having perfected the right motion to fling the body into the air.  It arched well into the space over the gap.  Ayano then bounded off the roof edge, throwing one of the kunai that came with the suit.  A split second later, an explosion of pink and orange flashed over the roof.

Riding the shockwave out, Ayano braced herself as she finally had the right course to collide with the girl.  The smashed straight into her chest with the full impact of the explosion throwing her body.  The secondary strike pushed their bodies even further, changing their arch to the roof.  A few seconds later, they slammed into the concrete rolling over the center tower’s roof.

Ayano flipped a little more separating from the girl.  It took a bit of focus with her body still shaking from the blast to come to a stop.  She rolled up to her knee resting against one of the AC units.  ‘Thirty-seven…’

A slow heaving to catch herself from the insanity of the jump and disbelief that she made it.  Ayano blinked, having to look around to see that it was real and not just her future sight.  She succeeded.  Finally, she did something.  Maybe she could win this fight.