Published at 31st of August 2019 2:24 am

After Story #8 by Takahashi Yashichirou

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

The Dresden Slate had been destroyed.

The stage where he had been standing until now had been no more, and the fact triggered the feeling of lightheadedness accompanied by uneasiness, and also the sense of loss at losing the foothold that was the power filling him until just a while ago. The power that made Adolf K Weissmann the First and Silver King. As the last drops of it were about to disappear from him, Isana Yashiro at the time, he made a promise with the two clansmen standing over him, both looking sad and anguished.

“It’s going to be OK. I will come back, I promise.” He had no idea what exactly was going to be OK though. “After all, I’m your king, remember?” Even if his power as one was rapidly fading away as he spoke.

However, as he drew on it just a little, he felt it deep within his chest. A place, nostalgic, lonesome and missed dearly, and reachable, step by step. If he had to describe it, it felt like the road home. If he walked, following the winding path of it, he would, again…

His eyelids opened once more.

‘Good thing I’m not claustrophobic,’ he smiled crookedly inside a capsule very much like a coffin.

*

In the basement he hid in back when the Green clan, Jungle, was chasing him, there still were mountains of papers left lying around. The floor was covered with them save for a narrow passage not unlike an animal trail left amidst them, and the desk, forced to bear a weight greatly over its capacity, sagged slightly.

But the word “Jungle” was not to be found anywhere in the new pile placed on top anymore. In its place, the word “Timeless Palace” dominated the papers, sometimes mixed with the word “Scepter 4” and even rarer - with the word “Homura”. There were no hastily scribbled notes left even in the lower layer of the papers on the desk, all having been replaced with official documents with their orderly formatting.

“So in the end, you just wasted your time with those negotiations?” Weissmann asked the visitor, sticking out his head above a pile of papers.

The elderly Usagi, kneeling in the doorway, bent his head lower and continued his report. “Yes, sir. In the light of mass resignation, all the faction leaders can do is run about in a panic, it is impossible for them to even find fitting candidates for presidential election, let alone form a cabinet. They all complain that they are too preoccupied to even think of deliberating that law.”

“Yeah, I guess I should have known this is not something that will calm down only after a few days… What a waste though, the Lieutenant went through pains to prepare the protection law precisely for the time when supernatural power holders would lose their abilities, but it has to be put on hold for now.”

“Drafted by the first Blue King, it is a spare sword that was being tempered for more than 60 years to use in case of emergency. So if I may state my opinion, you should take your time without getting impatient, sir. After all, every person is the concerned party in relation to this matter. I am sure the politicians will realize the significance of that law soon enough and cooperate earnestly.”

It had been a week since the ‘Simultaneous Global-scale Mass Psychic Ability Activation Incidents’ - or just 'January’s Superpower Commotion’ as it was dubbed because the official name was such a mouthful - as a result of which the whole humankind found themselves trying on the shoes of supernatural ability holders. Although public unrest had yet to calm down, the situation no longer brought the pictures of Apocalypse to mind with countless violent outbreaks by the superpower holders. As to the ringleaders behind the incident, the Green clan “Jungle”, who went into it with certain expectations in mind, unfortunately for them, the whole incident seemed to have fallen into the category of an unprecedented disturbance that was still only an extension of everyday life.

Accidents caused by superpowers were now only sporadic, people took the wait-and-see approach, trying to refrain from using supernatural abilities they had obtained, the media treated the affair as old news, while public institutions were busy cleaning up big and small messes… Presently, the world was in the process of trying to process those days when people acted oddly, and now everyone worked to return to their ordinary life.

“Good grief,” Weissmann sighed for show and leaned on one of the paper piles. “Well, I guess I should be satisfied for now with just the edict abolishing criminal penalty for damage caused by spontaneous outbreaks of supernatural powers. The fact that the other countries followed suit is a silver lining, too.”

“It is a fruit of the groundwork you had laid in this very room last year, sir, in the form of drawing up the plan on how to deal with the consequences of the Green clan’s uprising. I am certain that His Excellency in the afterlife is also pleased.”

A slightly bitter smile was Weissmann’s answer to the Usagi’s reverent words. “A fruit, huh… Simply put, it just might be that humans love to be humans, or maybe they’re just afraid to become something more or something else. Even if it means creeping through battlefield or suffering in poverty… Ah,” he suddenly made a noise of realization and, taking out a notebook from his breast pocket, started scribbling down something. “If we circulate this catchy phrase in the media, it just might become the slogan of deterrence to superpower holders. No, wait, maybe I should find more hopeful words for it to catch better…”

“…Siver King, sir, if I may…” the Usagi spoke up again, bending low.

“Hm?”

“I am to understand that once the present negotiations are over, all the urgent matters in the wake of the incident could be considered resolved.”

“Yes, that sounds about right.” Having guessed the intention behind the question, Weissmann slowly half hid his face in a mountain of paperwork.

But the Usagi continued, “Is it not time for you to return to the two’s side then, sir?”

The one advice that Weissmann saw coming and still could not avoid had come.

A several seconds of silence followed.

“I still have matters to take care of, like working on consolidating the index for the Slate research.”

“With all due respect, sir, that hardly can be classified as an urgent matter.” The first excuse shot down.

“We still need to take in custody the overlooked participants of the Jungle party.”

“I am told Scepter 4 is already working on it.” The second excuse shot down.

“Umm, then, there are also things like medical follow-up on the Hieda boy and putting his affairs in order.”

“It is proceeding smoothly with the consent of the person in question.” The third excuse met the same fate.

“Th-The regular sessions of the Timeless Palace administration council…”

“The next session is scheduled to be held only next week.” And with the fourth excuse mercilessly overruled, Weissmann had nowhere to escape anymore.

“…”

“Cast away your insecurities and find your resolve, sir,” the Usagi, whom he knew for some time by now, urged him.

*

The body stored in the coffin-like capsule was the original body of the First and Silver King, Adolf K Weissmann. It was body-jacked by the Seventh and Colorless King who, after getting it involved in his crimes for pleasure, later fell to his death… or, to be precise, just before dying the Colorless King moved to another body, so what was left was only the empty husk without a soul.

The Second and Gold King, Kokujouji Daikaku, preserved what was hard to even call a corpse, preparing everything for the revival of his friend, who, without his intention, ended up in a body of another person. After that other body got obliterated courtesy of the previous Third and Red King Suoh Mikoto, what came back to life was not the Silver King’s original body but that borrowed one, making it for a detour on Weissman’s way to finally returning to his original body - by losing his immortality powers of the Silver King that locked his soul in another’s body.

After Weissmann got out of the capsule, he stayed with the Gold clan, Timeless Palace, and spearheaded them in coping with the aftermath of the Superpower Commotion incident for the sole reason of not running away anymore from the matters he didn’t want to confront. Or so it was supposed to be. The reason why he desperately tried to draft up countermeasures designed to reduce the damage and reign in the chaos in Japan and in the whole world was because, naturally, it was his responsibility. Or so he would have liked to think.

But the need was finally abating.

As such, the time had come to move to the next step.

He intended to face what he had to and move forward, like he had vowed he’d do. That is, to disclose his form as Adolf K Weissmann, a man his two clansmen, friends and maybe even family, had yet to see, and reunite with them.

However, vowed he may have, but it still did nothing to diminish his fear. The fear of putting those bonds to the test.

*

He had made up his mind one way or another. Or maybe it was simply a result of the preparations the elderly Usagi had proceeded with, unrelenting.

It was early afternoon when he, in a full formal attire, found himself about to face said test only a few short hours after the talk in the basement as he stood in front of the door to the room where he formerly lived as Isana Yashiro.

’…’

The dorm corridor, usually pretty quiet, was now anything but. Partly it must have been because it was the day when classes finally resumed, a week after the Superpower Commotion, but the main reason for the fuss was his presence.

'Well, only to be expected, I guess.’

Objectively, the situation looked like an overly casual foreigner suddenly set foot into the students’ territory. Of course it would attract their attention.

'I wonder if I, too, would have gone “Ohh, look, a foreigner” a while ago,’ he thought to himself as he waved a hand in the direction of the students watching his every more from a safe distance away.

The students, who waved back at him a little awkwardly, looked somehow small to him.

'I guess I’m actually pretty tall, huh.’

Even the well-familiar door in front of him seemed to have shrunk. This reminder of him being different than the him from a while ago only worsened the nervousness he had just managed to suppress somehow.

Facing the door, he took a deep breath. 'It’s alright, it’s going to be alright.’

From Timeless Palace’s thorough check he knew for a fact that the two were in the room at the moment. So he just needed to open the door, and the three of them would be reunited.

'That’s right, it’s okay… Neko saw me in my original form when she undid the memory manipulation.’ That’s why the two wouldn’t say “Who would you be?” They wouldn’t. 'But how can I be sure? Kuroh didn’t see me, and Neko only saw me once in passing.’

Reason gave him hope, and same reason highlighted the loopholes and destroyed what it gave. Trapped in the loop of his fruitless anxiety, suddenly he felt something that wasn’t reason, something taking the form of a familiar someone.

'Really, you’re still such a sleepyhead.’

Those were the words he had heard in the past, when he woke up, having come back to life as Isana Yashiro. The words that his friend whom he hadn’t seen in 70 years and who had become an old man in that time, had said to him. Those words came naturally, with nothing forced about them.

Both of them had changed beyond recognition in appearance. And yet, Weissmann found himself talking to the other as easily as before, as he replied, 'You haven’t changed at all, Lieutenant.’

The statement objectively wasn’t true. Yet somehow, to him, it felt true.

“…Right,” he nodded to no one in particular.

And before he knew it, his body was already moving. It didn’t even occur to him to press the button of the buzzer first. His hand took hold of the doorknob, and the door opened. Divesting of his shoes carelessly, he pushed forward through the entranceway. Passing the kitchen, he reached the room and, like nothing at all had ever happened, called out, “I’m home~”

The two were sitting at the familiar tea table, eating.

Ah, now that he thought about it, he did smell the yummy waft of grilled fish.

Two pairs of eyes went wide in shock, painting the exact reunion picture that Weissmann had feared so much. But before long, it melted away.

Kuroh - Yatogami Kuroh, to be exact - frowned and with a wry smile turned back up the third empty overturned rice bowl found on the tea table. In addition, he grumbled, “Took you long enough.” Grumbling came as easily as breathing to him.

“Sorry,” Weissmann returned with his usual laidback smile just before Neko - Ameno Miyabi - jumped at his neck. She squeezed him as tight as she could, without any fear of seeing a stranger and without hesitation.

“Welcome back!” And with the easy familiarity she called his name, “Shiro!”

Shiro, also known as the First and Silver King Adolf K Weissmann or Isana Yashiro, gently petted Neko’s hair as he gave his sincere and heartfelt reply to his two precious people, “I’m home.”

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