Volume 3 - CH 9

For unknown reasons, Sanon was convinced that Eleanora and I were going to get married.

I’m worried that she’s crazy enough to come up with such a ridiculous idea. Whether it’s a misunderstanding or someone’s made-up imagination, it is strange to come up with such an idea.

I decided to deny the accusation right now.

“Um… we aren’t?”

“Eh?”

“It’s impossible for both of us to get married. We are both women, you know? But I guess it’s okay if someone is gonna do that.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s true. Yumiela-san and I are just normal best friends.”

When we all denied the marriage, Sanon’s tears stopped.

The liveliness in her expression came back and her smile seemed to overflow with happiness.

The light literally burst out of her forehead as well and I scrambled to hide behind Eleanora’s back.

“I see. Wasn’t Eleanora being held hostage by you, the hated one?”

I felt like I had this exchange earlier somewhere else. The whole fight for Eleanora earlier also gave me dejavu.

After ensuring that the deco beam had subsided, I asked her the truth about her misunderstanding.

“What made you think we’d get married?”

“You said that yourself.”

“Huh? When did I say that?”

“Yesterday. Don’t tell me you forgot.”

Yesterday… What happened yesterday? So many things happened this morning that yesterday felt like a long time ago.

I believe Eleanora said that she heard God’s voice in the morning. That voice turned out to be Sanon’s, telling her to keep her guard around me.

There is no way that I could have known that, so I assumed that she was having a mental breakdown and hallucinating… Eleanora struck me as a good girl… I ended up saying that I would marry her to provide for her for the rest of her life.

Ah, I said it. I said I was going to marry Eleanora. That’s the reason why I went to see her father yesterday. I remember now.

“…I remember now.”

“Indeed, I heard it. That’s why I rushed over. To protect Eleanora.”

“I was also trying to protect Miss Eleanora. At the time, I thought she had an auditory hallucination. It’s your fault.”

“No, that’s not true… It’s not my fault. You are the crazy one for bringing up marriage.”

I was expecting I could convince Sanon that I wasn’t at fault for Eleanora’s fall. I’m starting to lose my mind, too. Yesterday was crazy.

When I opened my eyes, I thought it was just a silly incident. It never crossed my mind that that would cause the biggest crisis of my life.

Sanon seemed to realize the silliness of this incident. Not long ago we had been enemies, but now we looked at each other and sighed.

…Should we just end it like this? The battlefield seemed to be in Sanon’s favor despite the incident with Eleanora. At best, it was a draw.

There is no way that I, Yumiela Dolknes, would be defeated and remain that way.

“Let’s start round two.”

“Yes?”

Compared to before, the distance between us was closer. If I took a step forward and reached out my hand, I could reach her.

The deco beams and other long-range attacks had gotten the better of me, but now she was in close combat range.

Sanon said she couldn’t catch Eleanora. She was careless enough to expose her lack of physical ability. It was clear, if it was melee combat, I would definitely win.

Kicking the ground, I would like to avoid fighting head-on with her forehead. I slip past Sanon and get behind her.

“She’s gone?!”

“Behind you.”

“Kyaa.”

Sanon was unable to detect my movement so it created a gap.

When the opportunity presented in front of me, I grabbed both her wrists and pulled her back. This caused Sanon to lose her footing.

One step further and my back hit the ground, I lifted my free legs to the back of Sanon’s knees and intertwined my feet.

It was settled. Here I am, lying on my back with my arms and legs towards the sky. Sanon was lifted in the air in a bridge-like position. In Japan, this is called a suspended ceiling position. Also known as—

“Oops! Have a taste of Yumiela’s Romero Special!”

Nice play-by-play, Miss Eleanora. We made eye contact and I gave her a nod and told her she was doing great.

Patrick appeared next to the play-by-play commentator, when did he move? He looks at Eleanora in surprise.

“Miss Eleanora, what was that?”

“It’s like a live broadcast! I learned the technique name from Yumiela.”

“I get the feeling that you’re not wrong about Yumiela being a bad influence.”

Patrick is skipping the commentary.

Sanon flailed above me as she tried to raise her voice in protest, but she was too weak. Her pride and joy, the deco beam, could only be shot into the sky and caused no damage to me.

When she realized that escaping the restraint by force wasn’t possible, she gave up and started to raise a fuss.

“Hey! Yumiela Dolknes, put me down!”

“Does the Romero Special hurt?”

“What do you think? Does it hurt?”

“The shame is greater than the pain! Stop it right now!”

“Actually, you’re supposed to put your opponent on their back, get on their knees, and then flip them over. Ah, I did the commentary.”

I would fire him for his commentary but when I looked at Patrick, I saw that his face was a mess. His face was a jumble of emotions, from sadness, rage, resignation, self-mockery, grief, regret, anxiety, worry, sorry, and pain.

I may have overdone it a little bit. The Romero Special didn’t seem to work either, even though I was careful not to use the Muscle Buster. Next time, I’ll give her a German Suplex.

Unable to stand it any longer, I let Sanon go by throwing her to the side.

Watching her stand up with tears in her eyes made me feel strangely bad about what I had done. But she was the one that picked a fight with me. It was pure self-defense.

“I almost got killed because of a misunderstanding, so this much is acceptable, right?”

“I acknowledge that it was my fault and I apologize. But to be humiliated like that….”

“Were you that embarrassed?”

“Please don’t make me say it! And you say you were almost killed, but I had no intention of killing you.”

Huh… wasn’t the pillar of light a perfect textbook example? Isn’t it impossible if she didn’t have the intent to kill her?

“A direct hit from that thing would be dangerous even for me.”

“The only thing I want to do is to hurt you, the woman who seduced Eleanora…. I have to be careful about having special feelings for certain people. Not that I have any special fondness for Elanora or dislike for Yumiela.”

Sanon said that with a straight face and I found it very hard to believe. Everyone totally hates me and Eleanora is well-loved.

Finally, I understood what the deja vu was all about. The conversations I had with Sanon were exactly like the conversations I had with Eleanora’s father.

“Why are you hiding your favoritism, it’s obvious.”

“I don’t have favorites. I am Sanon, the God of Light, the sun shines down equally on everyone.”

Ah, this is such a trivial matter. One more member added to Eleanora’s fan club, huh?

There were several clues now that I think back about it. Shortly after the exchange about marriage, Eleanora heard a voice saying objection.

But, what took her so long?

“Why did it take you a whole day to arrive here after saying you’d come over quickly?”

“I can freely come and go whenever the sun is shining. But, yesterday the sky was so cloudy—”

“Wasn’t yesterday sunny?”

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t cloudy. The sun was shining bright, it was pretty cloudless.

She averted her gaze as if she was hiding something.

Remn appeared from the side. He was alive. I thought he got hit by the deco beam and disappeared.

“Hey, Sanon, you spent a whole day figuring out what to wear, didn’t you?”

“I-I did not!”

Sanon frantically denied his suspicion.

She isn’t very good at lying, isn’t she? In contrast, Remn seems to be able to deceive people without hesitation with a smile.

Eleanora was surprised by Remn’s sudden appearance.

“Eh?! Who are you?! Are you Yumiela-san’s… younger brother?”

The sight of Remn’s black hair sent Eleanora’s thoughts in a crazy direction. I didn’t want the two of them to meet because  I knew this would happen.

And Remn being Remn, he didn’t even try to deny it and looked up at me.

“Okaa-san?”

“I knew it! I knew it was like this!”

“No, it’s not what you’re thinking.”

My attempt to correct her went unheard. Her delusion accelerated further. She blushed as she alternately looked at Patrick and I.

“If you had children then….”

“He’s not my child.”

“But this morning….”

The misunderstanding from the morning when I tried to get Eleanora to leave the room, backfired. As Patrick said, it was even more trouble than it was worth.

Remn looked like he was around ten years old and it would be impossible for them to have a parent-child relationship.

Eleanora suddenly tilted her head as if she had noticed something. Ah, did she finally notice it?

“Huh? Yumiela-san and Patrick aren’t married yet, are they? Haha! Can you have a baby from kissing, even if you aren’t married?!”

She said with full conviction.

Right. She wasn’t aware. She must have thought we were holed up kissing in our room this morning.

“That cute girl is my best friend.”

“That cute girl is my believer.”

Our voices overlapped. We glared at each other as we checked each other out.

Bracing myself for the inevitable third round, Patrick blurted out.

“How funny.”

“Eh? What?”

“When hearing Yumiela’s marriage proposal, Sanon-sama said she would be coming right over. So why did Yumiela say such an outlandish thing?”

“I thought Deco-chan’s voice was an auditory hallucination….”

Huh? That’s strange.

This whole mess started when Eleanora heard Sanon’s words of caution against me. She had maintained her non-involvement until now, so why did she decide to take action this time?

I was about to ask Sanon the reason why, but Remn spoke up before I could.

“Sanon is insufferable. She couldn’t handle onee-san’s insanity, so she gave her a heads up.”

“Right. I don’t know much about the God of Light but that explanation makes sense to me.”

“…Onii-san, what are you getting up to?”

“If the only one here now was Sanon, it would be quite understandable. Strangely, Remn is also here. Why are you contacting Yumiela today?”

Remn stiffened in silence with a smile on his face.

With Sanon’s intervention, he had become very suspicious. It turned out that the rumor about the God of Darkness’s faith resurgence was false.

Two gods appeared because of two different matters. Our first contact with both of them was last morning. Remn appeared by visiting my dream and Sanon used her voice to communicate with Eleanora.

But, what exactly started all of this?

The one who should be questioned is God who cannot lie. I looked Sanon in the eye and said.

“I would like to ask Sanon a question. What was the reason you spoke to Miss Eleanora yesterday, after all this time maintaining a non-involvement policy?”

Sanon responded to my serious question in a flat voice. It was as if it was a trivial question, like when someone asks you what your favorite food is.

“Because Yumiela Dolknes from a parallel universe has destroyed humanity.”