Chapter 3: Ordinary Origins

Moribe Sabaki is your average high school boy.

Sure, characters introduced this way usually turn out to be anything but ordinary, but as far as Sabaki himself is concerned, there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about him.

Average height, average build.
Average abilities, average family background, average life story.

His life isn’t flat enough to say there’s nothing to it, but it’s not sharp enough to say there’s something either.

You can go ahead and spout all that “No one is ordinary, everyone is special” nonsense if you want. But no matter what anyone says, Moribe Sabaki doesn’t see himself as special—and never will.

So, if there’s anything worth noting, it’s not about him.

It’s about her.

The one who was always by his side.

The only thing in his life he ever considered special.

A girl with flowing, cherry-blossom hair. Childlike yet mature. Like a young adult despite being the same age as him.

Arisiro Toki Kizami.

If you had to label their relationship, you’d call them “childhood friends.”

But their houses were three doors apart. Their parents only exchanged small talk when they happened to run into each other. No family-level friendship. No particularly close bond as neighbors.

Still, they’d known each other since elementary school.

He doesn’t even remember how they started talking.

Maybe they were seated next to each other after a class shuffle.
Maybe they just happened to walk home the same way.
Something trivial and forgettable like that.

Honestly? She wasn’t the most likable girl.

Even back then, she had a cute face—but she made no effort to hide the fact that she saw everyone her age as children.

Yet, her maturity, her abilities that seemed far beyond her years, and the mysterious aura she carried—like she knew some truth no one else did—made it hard to complain.

Even though she was clearly isolated, no teacher or adult ever said, “You should try to get along better with the other kids.”

But Moribe Sabaki stayed by her side for a long time.

And he’d like to think they were friends.

Not because he was special. Not because he did anything extraordinary.
Nothing dramatic like that.

It was just a boring accumulation of small reasons—
Their houses were close. They were always in the same class. Their seats often ended up near each other.

Naturally, they had chances to talk.

Still, whether she ever considered him a friend... Sabaki isn’t sure, even now.

Looking back, it feels like she always treated him more like a younger brother than an equal.

That grown-up, sisterly attitude.
That androgynous, lively energy that didn’t match her delicate face.
That unique presence—always a step apart, always convinced of her own specialness.

It wasn’t arrogance. It was something only someone truly confident in their uniqueness could exude.

Maybe it was just the narrow perspective of a child, but back then, everything about her seemed mysterious. Captivating.

Honestly? He thinks he liked her.

Not in the way of an innocent childhood crush, but something messier. A mix of admiration, curiosity, envy—
A jumbled, immature fondness born from all of it.

And yet, when he looked at her with that childish affection, she would grin—mischievously, like a boy.

She never rejected it.

And little by little, she opened up to him.
Let him closer.

And then—

"Hey, hey, Sabaki, see that? No one else notices, but that thing curled up in the corner of the park... it’s a monster."

"BWAAAAAAHHH!?!?!?"

"Pfft. Your scream’s hilarious."

The result of them growing close was her showing him that.

According to her, it was supernatural. A lurking urban legend. A threat.

Once he noticed them, he realized they were everywhere.

Not so numerous that they invaded daily life, but not so few that they stayed completely hidden.

If you adjusted your focus just a little, they were close enough for a child to reach—right there, just within grasp.

Young Sabaki was terrified. Absolutely, utterly terrified.

He tried telling the adults, but no one believed an elementary school kid.

Looking back, she must have known that from the start. She told him anyway, probably because she knew no one else would believe him. What a jerk.

You’d think it would’ve been a traumatic experience. But somehow, he got used to it.

Part of it was realizing that nothing really happened unless you actively provoked them. Part of it was accepting that they existed whether he liked it or not. And part of it—though he’d never admit it—was his own stubborn pride.

After all, Kizami, a girl, wasn’t fazed at all.

“Level 1 grunts can be taken down with just a stick, you know.”

But Kizami did go out of her way to provoke them. And that meant Sabaki couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.

He followed her. Got dragged into dangerous situations. Narrowly escaped. And sometimes—just sometimes—witnessed things so mystical they felt like something out of a dream.

A part of him thrilled at the adventure. And before he knew it, he’d gotten used to it all.

Back then, it felt special.

He truly believed he was the main character in some kind of story.

But it seemed she didn’t see it that way.

“Hey, Kizami, what’s that you’re always writing?”

“This?” She glanced up briefly before flipping her notebook shut. “It’s the protagonist's hero. I write it down so I don’t forget—so I’ll remember when I find them.”

“They don’t exist.” Sabaki frowned. “Riders, Sentai teams—none of those guys on TV ever fought those things. It’s just stories made up by adults who don’t know anything.”

“He exists.”

She said it with absolute certainty.

“Sabaki, if you ever find him, let me know. I want to be friends with people like him the most.”

“…But Kizami, you can’t even make friends.”

“It’s not that I can’t, it’s that I don’t.” She didn’t even hesitate. “Regular friends won’t do anything for you when it really matters. It’s pointless to talk to mob characters. That’s why I need to be friends with people like this—people who truly care about others.”

Her words—directed at him yet utterly oblivious to his presence—grated against his heart in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

He didn’t fully understand why, but something about it felt wrong…

No, that wasn’t it.

He knew exactly what felt wrong. He just didn’t want to admit it.

“If you’re ever in trouble, you should ask these people for help. I’ve taught you how to handle the small fries around here, but you’re still just a normal person, Sabaki. There’s nothing you can do against the really strong ones.”
“……”
“Here, you should memorize these names. They’re not around yet, but eventually—hey, what are you doing!?”

He remembered tearing the memo she handed him into shreds.

That day, they parted after a fight.
…Though, if he was being honest, it was more like he was the one sulking.

She had tried to calm him down, calling him childish. But eventually, even she got a little annoyed and said something like, “Fine, I’ll just meet this person next time.”

And then—

---

—Something happened.

That period of time was a blur in his memory.

Now, he understood—they had performed some kind of large-scale, long-term memory manipulation.

Officially, the explanation was simple. “A big fire.”

By the time he came to his senses, the burned area had already been reconstructed at an impossibly rapid pace.

And then—

“Um, about Arishiro-san… Due to sudden circumstances during the break, she’s transferred to another school…”

That was what they told him.

But even after hearing it, he still felt… confident.

It’s hard to describe what kind of confidence it was. A gut feeling, maybe. A belief that something new would start from here, that everything would work itself out, that she’d come back eventually and things would return to normal. A baseless, unfounded confidence.

But in the end, he couldn’t do anything.

He tried looking into it—the school she transferred to, what really happened during the fire—but he found nothing.

He didn’t even know where to begin.

Looking back, all those so-called "adventures" were just him following her around—getting swept up in her recklessness, helping her out of dangerous situations, pretending they were a team.

But that was only his perspective.

She was always the one making the plans, doing the real work. The “dangerous situations” he worried about? To her, they were probably just minor inconveniences. And the things they supposedly “worked together” on? She could have handled them alone—with a bit of money, effort, or time.

Realizing that… it crushed him.

But even so, he thought—those moments, those places, were something only the two of them knew about.

So he started visiting them.

The spots where they had their adventures, where those things had happened.

No one else knows about these things.

So if I wait here… maybe she’ll come back eventually, right?

—And then.

“This is the field team. The known supernatural threat has been successfully eliminated. …Memory processing… No, there don’t appear to be any witnesses. Yes, we’ll handle the cleanup now—”

That was when he learned the truth.

The hidden side of the world.

The secrets he thought only the two of them shared… were nothing more than ordinary facts.

When he managed to slip past the cleanup crew and return later, the eerie, mystical place he had once known was gone—replaced by a run-of-the-mill convenience store.

Thinking about it, it made sense.

If monsters like that existed everywhere, yet the world showed no signs of ending—if no one even seemed to know about them—then of course, someone had to be out there keeping it all hidden.

And it probably wasn’t anything dramatic.

…Once, for a school assignment, they had to research their parents’ jobs.

His father was some kind of civil servant in the Ministry of the Environment. Over beers, he’d ramble about lifelines, infrastructure—things Sabaki never paid much attention to. But he did remember one thing.

“It’s an important job protecting daily life.”

That’s what his father had said.

And now, Sabaki figured they were probably the same.

Not heroes, not warriors—just pest control. A daily job. Ordinary labor that no one ever noticed.

The things he’d once found so thrilling, so special… were nothing more than that.

He realized it. He felt it deeply.

And then—

Moribe Sabaki… cooled off.

He wasn’t a main character.

Not even a supporting character.

Just an extra. A background mob.

The role Moribe Sabaki played in this world was nothing more than that.

And maybe—just maybe—Arishiro Toki Kizami was different.

That was all there was to it.

But maybe that was for the best.

Trying to force his way closer wouldn’t lead to anything good.

It was out of place, beyond his reach. He could already see the backlash coming—like Icarus flying too close to the sun. Or maybe, like a satellite crossing the Roche limit, crushed by the gravity of the main star.

“……”

But… at the very least, he wanted to know something.

Even if he didn’t know what that something was.

So he entered middle school and lived out his ordinary days.

On the side—without any real benefit to his grades or future job prospects—he spent his weekends half-heartedly searching for, poking fun at, and occasionally swiping minor supernatural phenomena around him.

It felt hollow, but it was enough to satisfy him.

Then he graduated from middle school, passed the entrance exams for an ordinary high school, and spent his spring break as usual—lazily looking for strange things.

That’s when it happened.

“What the heck is that?”

A giant lightning monster.

And fighting it—a girl with pale cherry-blossom hair.

During the battle, her hood tore.

And for just a moment—just long enough—he saw her face.

His childhood friend.

“—This is the cleanup team. Initiating memory processing for the witness.”

Just as quickly, they erased his memory.

But Sabaki knew they could be surprisingly sloppy.

It made sense, in theory. They underestimated ordinary people.

So, before his memory was wiped, he scribbled down what he saw on his arm in code—disguised as a shopping list.

He also hid his smartphone in the bushes to avoid having its records erased. He didn’t understand the mechanics, but he knew from experience that devices like that existed.

Later, he retrieved it. Pieced together what had happened.

And then, after returning home—

“…This has to be Kizami, right?”

It had been nearly five years since he’d seen her.

But there was no way this was just someone who looked like her.

The footage was grainy, distorted by electromagnetic interference. But even through the static, he could tell.

That vivid, signal-red gaze.

That mystical presence.

Dressed in a striking combat outfit, standing alone against a monster no one else could hope to face—

She looked like a protagonist.

That thought came naturally.

"……"

He felt… a little happy.

The girl who had once been his childhood friend really was special.

She wasn’t just anyone. She was extraordinary. A main character.

While he—he was just a background extra, destined to barely cross paths with her.

That’s what he thought.

"……"

But still, he wanted to know something.

What that something was, he still couldn’t figure out.

And then, just like that, he entered high school.

Half a month passed.

Then it happened.

As he grabbed his gym clothes, ready to head to P.E., he saw her.

A girl with pink hair, leaning against the lockers.

No—Arishiro Toki Kizami.

(She’s just… here at school, like it’s normal…?)

Like it was nothing. Like she hadn’t been fighting monsters. Like she hadn’t disappeared for years.

"Ugh… hng… uhh…"

(She’s… crying?)

She was.

Cautiously, he stepped closer.

The first thing he noticed—how small she was.

Crouched down like that, she seemed even smaller, but even standing, she was probably below average height. Back then, they’d been about the same. Now, she looked tiny.

Her frame was slender, almost delicate.

Long bangs covered her face, making her look withdrawn.

The school’s neatly designed uniform didn’t suit her at all.

She didn’t shine. Didn’t radiate presence.

She looked… nothing like the hero from that night.

(Well, she was never really the girly type, but still…)

To check if she was really crying, Sabaki bent down slightly, peeking through her bangs—

And nearly recoiled on instinct.

She was beautiful.

He’d seen her briefly during spring break, but it had been from a distance. The footage he recorded was too grainy to capture her properly.

But up close, there was no mistaking it.

She was cute. Extremely cute.

She’d always had a pretty face, but back then, there was still a childlike softness to it.

Now, that potential had fully bloomed—like a flower finally in season.

But her eyes were tightly shut, and her face was still a mess of tears.

Not knowing what else to do, Sabaki did the only thing that came to mind. He spoke up.

“Uh… so… what’s wrong?”

A pause. Then—

“...J…”

“Huh?”

“Ugh… I forgot my gym clothes… I forgot my gym clotheeeees…!”

Seriously?

Sabaki stood there, stunned.

Forgot her gym clothes—forgot her gym clothes? She was crying over that? In high school?

What was he even supposed to do with this?

Internally screaming, he figured he should at least acknowledge their first meeting in five years.

“Uh, so… do you recognize me? It’s me, Moribe Sabaki. We were friends in elementary school—”

“I don’t know you… Who…?”

A direct hit.

The sheer brutality of her words shattered Sabaki’s heart into a million microscopic fragments.

“I-I mean, come on, at least look at my face, Kizami. Like, we have P.E. now, but after that, maybe we could—”

“Don’t call me by my name, creep…”

He almost died on the spot.

He barely managed to stay upright, reeling from the shock.

But even so, his knees trembled. Just two hits, and his legs were already giving out.

At this point, desperation took over. He had to make her face him—had to get something, anything out of her.

He grabbed her arm, half-forcing her to turn.

“Come on. K—Arishiro, you’re crying over forgetting your gym clothes? Seriously—”

“—Ah.”

Her sleeve slid up.

White bandages.

The sight made him pause.

For a brief moment, a dark thought crossed his mind—but no, it wasn’t that. At least, he didn’t think so. Given the battles she’d been fighting, wounds weren’t surprising.

Still…

He looked at her face again—

And instinctively recoiled.

The eyes that once sparkled with vivid, signal-red brilliance were now dull and clouded with despair.

He wanted to say something. Anything.

But nothing came out.

Instead, awkwardly, he thrust his gym clothes toward her. Just as awkwardly, she accepted them and turned toward the gym. That’s when it happened.

A crumpled piece of paper slipped from her grasp, landing at his feet.

He picked it up.

A loose-leaf sheet—faint creases, slightly smudged edges.

A familiar illustration stared back at him.

The protagonist hero she used to draw back then.

“—Do you still like this kind of stuff?”

The words tumbled out before he could stop them.

Kizami turned, eyes widening—

RIIIIING—

The bell cut through the moment.

Flustered, she spun on her heel and dashed toward the gym.

“……”

Sabaki stood there, staring at the paper in his hands.

…What had she been feeling when she drew this?

Did she want to become something like this?

Did she manage to?

Why was she acting the way she was now?

Why had she been the way she was back then?

What should he do?

Was there even anything he could do?

“…………Ah.”

And finally—finally—he put into words the one question that had haunted him for years.

The thing he had always—
Always—
Wanted to know.

How she felt.

---

"…How did it end up like this…?"

The morning after his usual outing—roaming strange places in his cosplay outfit and ultimately getting into a fight with the man in the lab coat who had been going after Kizami—Sabaki was getting ready for school, still reflecting on everything that had happened.

(…And somehow, I ended up bringing that thing home, too…)

His cluttered desk.

Among the scattered items sat the mysterious black box the man in the lab coat had dropped, its surface engraved with geometric patterns.

It wasn’t alone. His desk was always filled with random supernatural trinkets he had picked up—an hourglass that never stopped pouring sand, a cup that never spilled, a 10-yen coin that sometimes landed heads despite having no heads side. None of them were particularly useful, just oddities.

At first, he had grabbed this one out of habit. But it was different. It had a presence—something far beyond the weak supernatural curiosities he usually collected.

His eyes landed on a string of characters etched onto its surface, probably the product name.

Materializer.

A direct translation would be "something that materializes." If he rephrased it, maybe "material manifestation device" would be more fitting.

Last night, he had taken it apart to examine its structure. It was complicated—far beyond modern science. The intricately woven carbon fibers seemed to follow a deliberate pattern, moving in a way that felt familiar, yet alien. Knot theory, maybe? Something like Reidemeister moves? He wasn’t sure.

One thing was clear: it wasn’t something an ordinary person should be tampering with. Not that it had stopped him.

He had tinkered with the part that looked like it handled user authentication—standard electronic components, nothing special. Still, messing with it probably wasn’t the smartest idea. Then again, taking it apart in the first place was already questionable.

"…Reproduction rate 3%, cosplay outfit manifestation? Oh, it’s working."

He placed his hand on the Materializer, focusing on an image in his mind.

Without a sound, the costume he had made yesterday materialized in front of him.

Encouraged, he tried to summon something else—a magnet, a utility knife—just like the man in the lab coat or Kizami had. Nothing happened.

So, it only worked with things he had created himself? Or objects he was deeply familiar with? There were probably individual differences, too.

Interesting.

Leaving aside its complex structure, he at least had a general idea of what the device was. That much was enough to satisfy his curiosity. But now came the real question—what was he supposed to do with it?

Sabaki furrowed his brow, tilting his head. Just tossing it somewhere felt… irresponsible. Maybe even dangerous.

Handing it over to Kizami was probably the safest option.

"…But still…"

That would mean admitting he had been the guy wandering around at night—in full cosplay—wearing an outfit based on one of her designs.

A weirdo. No, worse. A creep.

It wasn’t like he had planned to go out in cosplay at night. Sure, he’d gotten excited when the costume was finished, but that wasn’t the original goal…

Still lost in thought, he made it to school without realizing it.

As he walked down the hall toward his classroom, he nearly bumped into someone.

"—Ah."

A girl with pink hair stood there, looking slightly flustered.

“Uh, um… Moribe… Sabaki-kun? G-good morning…”
“Oh… morning.”
“Uh, here—your gym clothes…”

She held them out awkwardly.

He took them without much thought, though a small pang of disappointment hit him at being called by his last name.

She had been his childhood friend, but over the years, she had grown much more reserved—timid, even.

He was about to leave when her voice, slightly higher-pitched than usual, stopped him.

“Um—have you seen this person? Wearing this outfit? I’ve been asking around, but…”

She held up a piece of paper. He didn’t even need to look closely. He already knew.

It was a sketch of that character.

Silently, he took the paper and examined it.

(…Isn’t this kind of idealized?)

“Huh? Wh-what?”
“No, it’s nothing…”

The legs were longer than he remembered. The proportions were a little taller, the silhouette more refined. It looked nothing like his own makeshift cosplay, pieced together from secondhand materials.

"Well… I think I saw them. Near my house."
"R-really!? Where exactly!? Do you know where they went!?"
"Uh, well, I didn’t get a good look… It was dark. But if I had to guess, maybe they headed toward the school…"
"I-I see—thank you! That’s great! If you see them again, let me know! Please!"
"Uh… sure."

As he tried to return the paper, she grabbed his hand with both of hers.

Her hands were soft—so soft he almost doubted they were the same ones she used to fight.

Then, through the strands of pink hair covering her eyes, she smiled. It was bright, almost dazzling.

And for some reason, his heart clenched.

"…Uh, so. Arishiro, why are you looking for this person?"
"Huh? Oh, well… last night, they helped me. So I wanted to—no, I needed to thank them. And… I wanted to see them again. I think they’re definitely… like a hero or something…"
"Hmm, I see… Well, not to be that guy, but isn’t it kinda suspicious? Someone wandering around at night in that outfit? Couldn’t they just be some random cosplayer who happened to help you?"
"Th-that’s—no, absolutely not! Why would you say that!?"
"Ah—sorry… my bad…"

Her teary glare made him instinctively lower his head.

It was all his fault. No matter how he looked at it, this just sucked.

Feeling awkward, he scratched his cheek and tried to wrap things up.

"Well, uh… don’t push yourself too hard, okay? Looking for someone is exhausting. No point in overdoing it."
"Yeah—oh, um… They really helped me. Sorry for getting mad…"
"Ah, no, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it."

For the rest of the day, he was completely out of it.

(…What would she do if she found out it was just me in a cosplay?)

Would she cry? Get angry? Just start hating him?

The thought left a bitter weight in his chest.

And on the flip side—

If he were a real hero… if she looked at him like that—

"…!"

—Thud!

His forehead slammed against his desk.

"Hey, I just heard a noise. You okay, Moribe?"
"I’m fiiine…"

He mumbled a half-hearted response to the math teacher, not even lifting his head.

That’s right.

Moribe Sabaki didn’t particularly want her to hate him.

But he didn’t exactly want her to like him, either.

He hadn’t done it for some shallow reason.

It wasn’t about wanting her to like him. Or fearing that she’d hate him.

He just wanted to know—

What she felt.

What a hero like her thought.

What someone special—

Was feeling.

"……"

—Maybe it was time to take this a little more seriously.

Not because he wanted to impress her. Not because he was afraid of her disappointment.

Well… maybe that was part of it.

But if he gave up now, he’d just keep making excuses.

And that—

That was the only thought in his mind.