"Aaaaaahhhhhhhh—"
The Japan Branch of DEM Industries. The one known as the strongest Wizard—Ellen Mathers, currently sat at her desk. Facing the mountain of docunts piled up on her desk, she let out a despairing howl.
"Calm down, my dear Ellen."
Sitting on the sofa not far away, Westcott elegantly tasted red wine and said in a leisurely and relaxed tone:
"It's just work. Take your ti."
"Ike, if you don't understand anything, don't make sarcastic remarks from the sidelines!"
Lifting her head from the pile of docunts, Ellen rarely showed obvious anger towards her superior. It was certain that if the superior subordinate relationship wasn't standing between them, Ellen would absolutely not hesitate to pick up a stack of docunts and smack them right in Westcott's face.
"Yare yare, to be able to push DEM's strongest Wizard to this state. I guess I should say, as expected of the Spirit most dangerous to humanity, Hacker?"
Westcott chuckled lightly and shrugged.
The docunts currently piled up on Ellen's desk... Without exception, they were all reports regarding the most dangerous Spirit—Hacker—sent from Wizard branches all over the world.
Perhaps among all Spirits, Hacker's power isn't the strongest. But to humanity, she is the most dangerous Spirit.
Possessing hacking skills that surpass the current technological level of humanity, and holding the cracking thod for the Wizards' weapons—the CR-Units. These undoubtedly caused panic among Wizard branches in various regions. And naturally, as DEM, which is responsible for the invention and sale of Realizers, bore the brunt of everyone's questioning and bla.
She rembered during the worst period, every corner of DEM was bursting with ringing phones.
Although the situation finally improved after Westcott invented the "Vaccine Box," which could prevent Hacker from cracking Realizers. Even so, the Spirit nad Hacker didn't seem to have given up on causing trouble. Even after the headquarters's database was completely isolated from the network, she continued to harass Wizard branches all over the world through hacking.
If Ellen had to use one word to evaluate this Spirit—Annoying!
"I will definitely tear Hacker into a million pieces!"
"Yare yare~"
Looking at the murderous Ellen before him, Westcott shook his head helplessly.
"Excuse ."
Just then, the automatic door of the office suddenly opened, and a young woman in her twenties walked up to Westcott.
This woman had breathtakingly beautiful blonde hair, blue eyes that seed to reflect the sky, and skin as white as snow.
Compared to the dominating female secretary Ellen, the woman before him gave off an aura of an adorable young lady.
"Report, Director. The information you asked to investigate is ready."
"Good work, Artemisia."
"I'm rely doing my duty."
A gentle smile appeared on her face. After respectfully bowing to Westcott, Artemisia walked over to Ellen's desk.
"Ellen-san, let help you process so of the docunts regarding Hacker."
"There is no need for that."
"But even for you, it will take a considerable amount of ti to process all these docunts alone. If this delays other necessary work, you'll be troubled too, Ellen-san."
"Mhm..."
Hearing Artemisia's suggestion, Ellen hesitated for a mont. Indeed, if she wasted too much ti on these docunts, lacking her supervision, the Wizards in the execution departnt would definitely slack off during daily training.
"Hmph, although there would be absolutely no problem even if it was left entirely to alone, your words do make so sense. I will allow you to handle a portion of the docunts."
"Yes, yes~ Heave-ho—"
Completely unbothered by Ellen's arrogant attitude, Artemisia nodded with a smile. Putting her arms around them, she carried away more than half of the docunts on Ellen's desk.
(This strength—she must be using a micro Realizer to enhance her physical abilities.)
Ellen thought secretly in her heart. As the strongest Wizard, even she would breathe a bit heavily carrying a portion of those docunts, let alone others. But towards her subordinate's little trick to show off, Ellen decided to tactfully pretend she didn't see through it.
"Oh? We've captured the whereabouts of Devil and Hacker."
Browsing through the report in his hands, Westcott raised an eyebrow in slight surprise.
"—!"
The mont she heard the word "Hacker," a fierce light flashed in Ellen's eyes.
Westcott didn't miss his subordinate's reaction. He sighed lightly and said:
"My dear Ellen, although I understand you really want to settle the score with Hacker right now. However, what we need to prepare for currently is the plan regarding Material A."
It wasn't that Westcott planned to let go of the inverted Spirit he dread of. But rather, from the other Spirit—Hacker—Westcott felt a subtle sense of incongruity.
From the Yamai sisters, to the subsequent Tohka inversion incident, then the invasion by Arusu Marina, and his subordinate Mudroch privately dropping an artificial satellite on Tengu City. In the battles between DEM and Ratatoskr, this Spirit would always appear very 'coincidentally' at the most critical monts, rescuing Itsuka Shido and the others from danger.
After investigating afterward, Westcott discovered that all of this was not a coincidence. Hacker seed to have anticipated how things would develop long ago and had taken preventive asures far in advance.
It wasn't predicting the future, but more like she was navigating a familiar road she had already traveled.
If he acted rashly without figuring out the reason behind this, Westcott would instead fall into a passive position. Even for this purpose, Westcott must make the power of Material A his own.
"...I understand."
Gritting her teeth sowhat unwillingly, after a mont, Ellen finally cald the killing intent in her heart and nodded to indicate she would follow Westcott's orders.
Even though he didn't say it explicitly, Ellen clearly had roughly guessed Westcott's thoughts. Westcott couldn't help but show a gratified smile at having such an excellent secretary by his side.
"Then, I'm going to take a nap. Work hard, my dear Ellen~"
"Guh... Just you wait... Hacker."
Sitting alone in the spacious office, looking at the still massive amount of docunts before her, tears welled up in the corners of Ellen's eyes. Gritting her teeth fiercely, she buried her head and started working again.
__________________
November 10th, Friday. The second day after Itsuka Shido changed the past.
"Hah—"
Accompanying Tohka to school as usual, after sitting in his seat, Shido couldn't help but let out a long yawn.
"Are you sleepy, Shido?"
Tohka at the next desk asked sowhat puzzled.
"Mhm... I didn't sleep very well last night."
"Ugh, that's no good. Are you okay?"
"Haha, well... I'll sleep for a bit before making dinner."
Shido smiled bitterly, patted his cheeks lightly to cheer himself up. After hesitating for a mont, he asked Tohka:
"Tohka... do you know a Spirit nad Hacker?"
"Mhm! I know her."
Tohka nodded without hesitation.
"Then do you know where she is right now?"
"Ugh... Sorry, Shido. Since I last saw Hacker when Natsumi appeared last ti, I haven't seen her again."
Tohka lowered her head in disappointnt, the ribbon on her head seeming to droop as well.
"It's okay. This is enough, thank you, Tohka."
Patting Tohka's head in gratitude, Shido sighed lightly. Looking up at the ceiling, a trace of bewildernt appeared in his eyes.
The reason for his lack of sleep was simple. Shido did two things last night.
The first was going out. After dinner, Shido sneaked out alone and went to the apartnt where Origami lived in his mory, and the Minami-Kacho residence where Origami lived during the fire five years ago.
However, the apartnt room was empty, and the original Tobiichi residence in Minami-Kacho also bore soone else's naplate. Although he tried to ask about the Tobiichi family's whereabouts, he didn't get any clues.
The second was verification. After noticing that Kotori, Natsumi, Yoshino, and the others hadn't forgotten Yutsuki, but simply recognized her as "Hacker," Shido requested Reine to let him watch the relevant video recordings of him conquering Spirits during this period.
Up until the school trip, the events that occurred didn't differ much from Itsuka Shido's mory. However, after he returned to Tengu City, a massive discrepancy erged.
A spacequake at the end of July. Originally, this was his first eting with Yutsuki. However, according to the records in the video, when he entered the ruined departnt store, Yutsuki had already disappeared.
In this world, his first eting with Yutsuki was during the Miku incident. After Miku broke her promise and Tohka was taken away, he was introduced by Kurumi to this Spirit wearing a black trench coat and long brown hair.
—Hacker, that was what Yutsuki called herself.
At that ti, with the help of Kurumi and Yutsuki, he safely conquered Miku and saved the inverted Tohka. And after that, whenever Shido encountered difficulties, Yutsuki would appear to help him overco them.
That being said, Ratatoskr wouldn't ignore an unsealed Spirit either. So 'he' also proposed a date to her and requested to seal her Spirit power in order to conquer Yutsuki.
However...
[A aningless thing.]
The Yutsuki in the video rejected this.
Then, half a month ago, while Shido was in the middle of conquering Natsumi, Devil suddenly appeared.
According to Kotori, Devil does not appear alone. Instead, when other Spirits manifest, she has a certain probability of appearing randomly. After which, she will launch a frantic attack on the manifested Spirit. And the unsealed Natsumi at the ti was unfortunate enough to beco the target of both Devil and DEM simultaneously. If Yutsuki hadn't arrived in ti to help him stall Devil, the consequences would have been unimaginable.
The reason Natsumi in this world also ca to like gas was because Yutsuki, who ca to visit at the ti, engaged in the sa monitoring behavior as in the previous world.
Subsequently, after helping Shido and the others deal with the three descending artificial satellites, Yutsuki never appeared again.
"Phew..."
After understanding all this, Shido once again realized just how naive the him from yesterday was, who held the thought that "everything can be solved as long as I change the past."
Shido could be certain that the Spirit Devil appearing on the screen was the inverted Origami he saw in the previous world.
But why did it turn out like this? Undoubtedly, Shido successfully saved Origami's parents five years ago. Having lost the cause of her parents being killed, it was naturally impossible for Origami in this world to invert. No—it should be said she didn't even have a reason to beco a Spirit.
Moreover, why did Yutsuki, who was supposed to et him at the end of July, disappear early? And after that, why did she help him despite not knowing him? And why did she hide her na? Is there any connection between Origami's inversion and Yutsuki's abnormalities?
—Or perhaps, the Hacker existing in this world is not Yutsuki.
(No—calm down a bit.)
Realizing his thoughts were heading in a terrible direction, Shido hurriedly took a deep breath to cool his head.
"Anyway, I'll explain the whole story to Kotori when I get ho and have her help investigate Yutsuki and Origami's whereabouts."
Letting his imagination run wild alone wouldn't help. Although he didn't know if Kotori would believe that he traveled through ti and changed the world, as long as he made it clear that this was intel related to Hacker and Devil, she shouldn't ignore it.
"Ah, right. Today I want to introduce a new friend to everyone."
During the horoom before class, Tama-chan sensei suddenly announced the news that a transfer student was joining the class.
"Tama-chan sensei, is the transfer student a beautiful girl?!"
Tonomachi Hiroto raised his hand excitedly and asked.
"That's right!"
After getting Tama-chan sensei's confirmation, a burst of excited cheers instantly erupted in the classroom.
"Then—co in."
He had to admit, transfer students at this ti of year were very rare. But since Shido's mind was full of thoughts about Origami and Yutsuki, he didn't pay much attention, rely glancing forward slightly.
However—
"...Eh?"
Looking at the girl walking up to the podium, Shido widened his eyes in astonishnt.
A slender girl with a dignified and beautiful face like a doll. Her pale long hair covering her entire back made one wonder if she was a princess from so country.
"—My na is Tobiichi Origami. Please take care of ."
After writing her na on the blackboard, the girl nad Tobiichi Origami bowed deeply forward with a charming smile.
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