Chapter 2: The Scenery Seen

Now, about my special ability that I haven't confided in anyone, including my own family—I have the power to “interfere with people's minds.”

While I can now apply it in various ways to achieve significant results, the fundamental aspect of my power is “reading people's hearts.” As a derivative of this, I can also eavesdrop on and interfere with the mental and cognitive state of others, though it’s not exactly a power that screams "overwhelming strength."

Nevertheless, this power has been with me since the moment I was born into this world.

Initially, it was just the ability to “read emotions,” but I refined it to the point of “interference” because this power, for better or worse, couldn't physically interact with anything and, at the same time, was imperceptible to anyone.

This power, which could neither be separated from me nor betray me, was something special that no one around me, including my parents, possessed—I realized this soon after I became aware of the world.

When my parents were talking to other adults, what they said aloud and what I “saw” inside them were different.

No matter how harshly someone might be cursing another person internally, the words they actually spoke were completely different, utterly unlike the inner thoughts I could see—just hollow words, carefully crafted facades.

They cherished relationships built on these flimsy words as if they were precious, never understanding that these relationships themselves were nothing but a stack of their own accumulated falsehoods.

Even as a child, little Rinka was amazed and bewildered by how superficial people could be.

Continuing to observe this disconnect from reality, I developed a kind of disillusionment towards adults and, at the same time, understood just how extraordinary my power was.

A power that far surpassed human knowledge.

Different from those who compare themselves to others based on things like memory, athletic ability, or manual dexterity.

--- I became convinced that I possessed an overwhelming, innate talent that could never be filled by anything else.

Even as a child, I never told anyone about my power.

Reading the minds of my parents and unfamiliar adults, I quickly understood that having one's mind read was nothing but terrifying for the person on the receiving end, and I realized that if I revealed my power, I might lose my hard-earned advantage.

So, on the surface, I remained safe, ordinary, and innocuous—making sure it was never known to anyone else.

I used my “mind-reading power,” this “unique ability,” in a way that wouldn't arouse suspicion, maneuvering it to my advantage in various fields and achieving results.

Board games that relied on thinking, human relationships at home and school, helping people troubled by unspeakable problems, even ruining people at the peak of happiness—I did both good and bad things.

My abuse of my runaway, almost rampaging unique ability continued into middle school. I surrounded myself with people who blindly trusted me, and without letting anyone realize anything, I steadily expanded the reach of my unique ability's encroachment.

…Back then, I was intoxicated by my own sense of omnipotence.

I can say it now, but during that period, I was in the throes of so-called chunibyo, right in the thick of my dark phase.

I realized how foolish I was being and managed to stop before it became irreversible, but if I had taken one wrong step, things could have truly become irreparable.

I was really stupid back then.

However, precisely because of that, the current me can appreciate the everyday, uneventful life more than anything, deepened my understanding of my own power, improved my handling of the output of my unique ability before it manifests as a phenomenon, and became thorough in not using my unique ability more than necessary.

I switched from using my unique ability with malicious intent to harm others to using it to protect myself.

I realized that what I truly wanted wasn't praise from strangers, nor excessive wealth, nor control over the country or the entire Earth—I came to know my place.

In the end, I was just an ordinary person with an extraordinary power, not someone cut out to rule people from the shadows.

In the future, at best, I'd be suited to work as someone else's lackey, toiling away.

Just knowing that was already a gain for me.

Looking back on those days now, it’s an embarrassing dark age that makes my face burn with shame, but it must have also been a good medicine.

It was around my second year of middle school that I understood my direction.

Since then, my previous rampage subsided, and I have been quietly and ordinarily dedicated to my studies.

And now, as a first-year high school student.

It seems that the consequences of that time are finally catching up with me, just when I was trying to make a so-called high school debut in a place where no one knows about my past.

"…Haa…"

During lunch break, without talking to anyone, I opened my homemade lunchbox on my desk and sighed.

Not talking to anyone during this lunch break was putting it mildly—I hadn't spoken to anyone all day.

The drawback of voluntarily coming to a place where I have no friends, no conversation partners, not even acquaintances.

--- In other words, the opening of my reverse high school debut.

(If only that bus hijacking hadn't happened…)

It's still early April, not even a few days since school started, but everyone around me has already formed groups, each hanging out with their close friends.

This is the result of the group assignments neatly distributed by the friend-making, or rather, group-forming process that is decided in just a day or two after the entrance ceremony. And for me, having wasted a precious day of that crucial period in that bus hijacking incident, a significant handicap existed.

Well, I initially thought, “So what? I have amazing talent, so a handicap of this level is nothing to me.”

But when I opened the lid, this is what I got.

No matter how well I understand people's hearts, there are still countless things I can't do, and this was the result of being made to realize that.

(But, surely, there will be people who get left out of the groups eventually. If I can become friends with someone like that…)

No need to rush.

Eventually, there will always be people who are left out due to disagreements, differences in values, or even trivial jealousy or quarrels.

It's enough for me to pick up such a person and live quietly in the corner of the classroom.

The person who was left out won't be a loner either, so it's a win-win relationship, you might say.

I glanced around at the groups formed in the classroom, confirming the situation within the room.

And from among them, I noticed one person in particular.

A bespectacled girl among the flashy, showy girls, looking a little out of place.

She is Tatebayashi Haru-san, currently number one on my list of people I want to befriend.

Her timid demeanor and seemingly earnest personality are a good match.

She's plain, but her mannerisms suggest good breeding.

If I were a guy, she'd definitely be the type of girl I'd want to date, but apparently, she has absolutely no popularity with the opposite sex at this stage. On the contrary, the flashy girls around her, who enhance their looks with makeup, seem to be popular.

It seems the intention behind pulling Tatebayashi-san into their group was to have a foil, but judging from the looks of it, it's succeeding without a hitch, which is just as well.

I wish Tatebayashi-san would escape from the shackles of those idiots and become my friend soon.

I sent out such thoughts, but Tatebayashi-san didn't seem to notice my feelings, shivering as if she felt a chill.

…I'm not using my unique ability at all. It would hurt my feelings if it turned out to be some kind of animalistic danger-sensing ability at work, but that's surely not the case, so I'll stop thinking about it.

(Also, there's someone who's becoming a loner from a completely different direction than me, and I'm a little concerned about her…)

As I was thinking about this, the girl sitting next to me stood up with a loud clatter.

She glanced at me, who had jumped at the sound, with a bored look, and then left the classroom—this tall girl.

I don't remember her name, but she's a delinquent-type girl with dazzling blonde hair, and the other person in class who hasn't made any friends, whom I was just thinking about.

Contrary to her gentle-looking features with languidly drooping eyes, her prickly demeanor and attitude constantly exude an aura that says, "Don't talk to me," a solitary lone wolf.

I can't imagine wanting to be friends with her, or even being able to.

Her flashy appearance and her behavior that doesn't seem to consider those around her—everything about her is unappealing to me.

It's not like she's specifically done anything to me, but… somehow, people of that kind are, rather, the type I, who prefer shadowy places, just can't stand.

"Don't disturb a sleeping god," as they say.

It's not like she's someone deserving of that saying, but considering the lesson likely embedded in that proverb, it perfectly applies to my current situation.

There's no particular constraint for me to force myself to interact with someone who is visibly incompatible with me.

Thinking that way, I watched her back as she left like a storm without calling out to her, when I noticed a notification arriving on my phone with a ping.

The content was breaking news about the kidnapping incident that was causing a stir in society.

【New Victim: Five-Year-Old Boy Living in Himuro Ward, No Evidence Linking to Perpetrator Yet Discovered】

"…Whoa, it's finally come this close…"

The "Serial Child Kidnapping Incident"—it was a criminal case currently causing a stir in society, a kidnapping incident with an unprecedented number of victims.

The victims are mostly children aged five to ten.

It's a serial case with a cumulative total of twenty-three victims in the half-year since the first kidnapping occurred, and despite this, the police are still completely unable to get a lead on the perpetrator.

And this incident, which has continued to this day without demanding money or anything else from the police or the victims' families, has escalated into a major incident that could at any moment lead to a loss of public trust in the police and create nationwide anxiety.

No evidence, no motive, no means understood.

The incident begins when a mother, who returned home with her child just minutes before, went to the kitchen to cook, noticed that she couldn't hear her child in the next room, searched the house but couldn't find them, and reported it.

Initially, the reporting mother was suspected of being the perpetrator, but the situation changed when an identical incident occurred in another household, mocking that initial assessment.

After that, the Metropolitan Police Department launched a large-scale investigation as a series of kidnapping incidents by the same perpetrator, but they have been unable to resolve the case or even prevent subsequent incidents from occurring, and the situation remains unchanged to this day.

The public says it's due to police negligence or lack of investigative ability, but if that were the truth, the story would be simple.

If bus hijackings like the one the other day occur as a ripple effect of this kidnapping incident, it would be a nuisance for me, so I wish the police would firmly put an end to it.

…Though, it’s likely quite difficult.

People in the class groups also seem to be paying attention to the kidnapping incident, and it's become somewhat noisy since the breaking news came in.

I've decided to wait, but I don't intend to neglect efforts to make friends.

Putting my energy into gear to somehow use this topic as a weapon to enter the conversation circle and seize a bright student life, I stood up from my seat.

◆◆◆

"I-I don't understand… I don't understand recent high school girls' thinking… 'Cute' is…? What's 'creepy cute'…? Isn't that just ugly…?"

Today, too, I was defeated in my attempt to make friends.

It was good that I rushed in to join the conversation, but the topic I tried to use as a weapon didn't work at all, and I was looked at with eyes that seemed to see me as a bit strange. On top of that, I couldn't understand the appeal of the mascot character that was the center of their conversation even one millimeter.

The synergistic effect of their eyes, which strongly recommended it, and the character's flabby figure, made me feel like I was having a horror experience.

I want to believe that I wasn't wrong to run away, but at this rate, if I, who want to make friends quickly and enjoy high school life, continue like this, I can't help but feel worried about the future.

W-well, as a result, I'm a defeated soldier, but if I think of it as protecting my own sensibilities, that must have some value, right?

While making such excuses in my mind as I trudged home, I deactivated the automatic mind-reading power I had spread around my house in front of my house.

Then, I opened the gate and nodded in acknowledgment to the plump middle-aged man who happened to pass by, looking at me intently, and went inside.

It was dusk, but no one else had returned home yet except me.

As usual, I finished preparing dinner and light housework and returned to my room.

I opened my computer, confirmed that there were several notifications on my SNS account for part-time work, and finally started looking into the details of the kidnapping incident, which is what I had been meaning to do.

Interestingly, because it's causing such a stir in society, many people seem to want to get involved, and it wasn't difficult to find photos of the area around the scenes, and I could easily gather some useful information.

All the incidents so far have occurred in Tokyo.

In other words, it's almost certain that the kidnapper is based in Tokyo, and I know that the police are also operating on that premise.

Incident locations, times of occurrence, and even baseless rumors about things that were trending around those times.

While processing the mountain of information flowing in my head, I linked it to the bus hijacking I was caught up in the other day, and the circumstances that led the middle-aged couple to hijack the bus also became visible.

(The bus hijackers were parents whose child had been kidnapped. They must have been contacted by the perpetrator in some way and instructed to hijack the bus…)

There were two things I was quite certain about regarding this incident.

The first is that a considerably large organization is lurking behind this crime.

If it were done by an individual, kidnapping once would be enough, and if they were involved in human trafficking, an individual would not be able to handle it alone.

Therefore, it's almost certain that a large organization is planning this kidnapping incident.

And the second thing, this is probably --- an incident involving someone like me, in other words, someone with unique abilities.

I don't particularly have a hobby of solving various criminal cases that are causing a stir in society, nor do I feel responsible for the words I casually said to the bus hijacker, but I simply feel anger towards the mastermind of the kidnapping incident who is using the victims' parents to commit crimes.

Especially if that mastermind is like me, a power holder who knows they will never be arrested by the police.

"Nee-san, can I come in for a bit?"

Without even knocking, my younger sister, Satori Kirika, who is in the midst of her rebellious phase and recently even dislikes sleeping in the same room with me, came into my room.

While I take after my father and am the only one in the family with dead fish eyes, my sister takes after my mother, with lively and strong-looking eyes… apparently.

It's highly objectionable, but since Dad says so, it must be true.

"You know, Nee-san, you said before that things are getting dangerous because of the kidnapping incidents, right? It seems there was a kidnapping incident recently in our Himuro Ward too, and I've started to think it might be dangerous for me too. I'm going to try to refrain from going out as much as possible, but I think you should also stop your part-time job on Sundays. You were caught up in that bus hijacking the other day too, so let's try to stay home as much as possible."

"That's true, but…"

"Even during the bus hijacking, you were in danger, right, Nee-san!? You always tell me not to go out much, but it's not fair if you're not doing the same!"

"Muu…"

I was at a loss for words at my sister's concern, which wasn't just rebellious but also seemed to worry about me.

Certainly, what Kirika is saying is perfectly reasonable, and it's me who needs to correct my behavior.

Even though she's in her rebellious phase, it doesn't feel right to disregard my sister's request, who is worried about the safety of our family.

I was thinking that I could manage anything because I have my unique ability, but for my sister and Dad, who don't know about my power, it must be nothing but anxiety.

"You're right, Kirika. You're right. I'll try to refrain from going out as much as possible too."

"!!"

Seeing my sister's face light up with a smile, I gave up.

With my unique ability, danger is almost non-existent, but I haven't told anyone in my family about this power.

Therefore, I have to be mindful of my actions to avoid worrying my family and causing unnecessary burdens.

That's not what I want.

"Tell Dad too, and maybe even taking a break from school wouldn't be bad! There are so many crimes happening now, it's scary!"

"Don't get carried away. Kirika, you're a third-year middle school student this year, you need to study, right?"

"Haa? You're starting to sound like Mom again! I'm studying properly, okay? I can get into your high school easily!"

"You don't have to specifically choose the high school I go to, you know? There are plenty of places where you can aim for what you really want to do."

"T-the best school around here is your school, okay!? Don't get the wrong idea!!"

I'm not getting the wrong idea; my sister is using me as a kind of benchmark.

To gauge how much she needs to do, how much she needs to achieve, older siblings like brothers and sisters can easily become guideposts.

This is especially pronounced if she hasn't found anything in particular she wants to do yet.

So, by no means is it because my sister loves me so much that she wants to go to the same school as me.

"Oh, and also. I asked you, Nee-san, not to go out because it's dangerous, but I was wondering if you could let me go to the movie theater that I'd promised my friend a while ago. It's been planned for quite a while, and it's a promise to go out and play for the first time with a girl who just transferred here and became my friend, so I don't want to break it…"

"Mumu…"

"Please! You can even come with me, Nee-san! If you're there to keep an eye on me, you won't have to worry, right!?"

"Y-you want me to come with you? …You really want to go that much…"

I was overwhelmed by Kirika's expectant eyes.

Everyone needs a break from studying, and if I were to ruin a plan she was looking forward to this much, her efficiency would probably worsen.

She's even saying I can come with her, even to an older sister who is so prickly.

If I were to forcefully tell her not to go out, who knows what would happen.

"Okay, but as you said yourself, it's dangerous, so you mustn't be out too late."

"…Huh? You're not coming with me, Nee-san?"

"If your older sister comes along when you're going out to play with your friends, it'll just be a nuisance, right? You're already in your third year of middle school, Kirika, so I trust you to keep your word."

"…I-is that so… right…"

I watched with satisfaction as Kirika, for some reason, pouted slightly, looking somewhat dissatisfied.

She must have felt a bit rebellious towards her understanding older sister's overly mature response.

It's almost nine o'clock at night. I should urge my sister to go back to her room.

Just as I thought this, I suddenly noticed the sound of footsteps echoing from around the living room on the first floor.

"---"

"Huh, is Dad back? I don't think I heard the sound of the front door opening though."

Kirika also noticed the footsteps coming from the living room, and reached for the door handle, intending to greet Dad as usual.

However, before Kirika could open the door, I grabbed her wrist and stopped her from going out into the hallway.

Without even making eye contact with my confused sister, I continued to focus my gaze on the footsteps echoing from beyond the door.

"Nee-chan…?"

I never use my unique ability on my family, absolutely never.

It's a restriction I've imposed on myself, a boundary line to prevent crossing a line that must not be crossed.

Therefore, I really don't know what my sister and Dad think of me, and I prefer to remain ignorant.

It's a resolve so strong that I believe it wouldn't change even if our family relationships were to become strained.

It's my strong selfishness that I want our relationships with them to be something achieved without such things interfering.

But… but…

If there's a crisis approaching my precious family, that's a different story.

Taking safety is the top priority, and I never misjudge priorities.

If there's even a slight suspicion that danger is approaching my family, I had no hesitation in reading the mind of the source of the footsteps, who could be my father.

"Kirika, absolutely do not leave this room."

"N-Nee-chan? Why are you making such a scary face…?"

My sister, more frightened by my face than by the footsteps, looked at me with a pale face.

But there was no time to worry about that. As if hearing our voices, the footsteps that had been wandering around the living room gradually approached us.

"It's okay, Dad's almost home, so it's alright."

Those footsteps, absolutely, were not my father's.

Judging from the loudness of the footsteps, the source was probably someone weighing around seventy to eighty kilograms. Nothing like my slender father.

And that person, with a malice that my easygoing father could never possess, was now walking around the first floor of this house.

And the emotions filled with malice and ferocity were directed at us two sisters, whom they knew lived in this house.

Not like the bus hijackers, who had some kind of unavoidable reason.

A despicable human being trying to unleash their own madness by taking advantage of the social turmoil.

That is who is now coming towards us.

"Wh-why… then, these footsteps are…"

I stroked Kirika's head, whose face was contorted in fear, as the footsteps climbed the stairs, step by step.

"It's okay, just absolutely don't leave this room, okay?"

"N-Nee-chan, wait—"

With that last word, I tossed my sister, who had shrunk back in fear, onto the bed and stepped out of the door.

Then, leaning my back against the door to prevent it from opening, I looked at the obese, unfamiliar man who had climbed the stairs—no, the plump man I had seen earlier when entering the house.

The knife in his hand, his eyes completely stained with lust, the dirty stubble around his mouth, and his unclean hair—none of it was scary when I thought of my sister behind me.

"Good evening, stranger. Nice night, isn't it?"

My voice came out much colder than I had expected.

(Illustration No. 10)

Hearing my own voice, I finally understood.

"---Though, for you, it will surely be the worst night ever."

I realized that I was feeling much angrier towards this intruder than I had thought.

Saying so, I forced a smile, at least.