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In the infinite darkness of the night sky, there are thousands of stars, faintly glittering in the darkness. They’re very far away, so the untrained eye will find it difficult to discern between them, and many forget that our sun is just another one of them. The only difference is that it’s closer to us, and so it’s the one that lights up our days, that creates the seasons, and that gives life to everything on the earth.
Kuroe had always enjoyed science fiction stories about life on other planets, of beings who lived under the close, watchful gaze of another star, far from ours. They would receive life from it, and it was the proof that that star was valuable. Scientists said that the likelihood of extraterrestrial life was very slim, but she didn’t like to believe that. If there was happiness out there, on each one of those distant worlds, then that meant that every star in the sky was valuable. All of them shined for someone, and so there would be no need to fear that any were burning for billions of years in vain.
Some nights, as long as it was clear, Kuroe would go up to the roof of her house and count every star that she could see in the sky. She couldn’t get around to all of them, as there were many and her time was limited. But the next time she went out, she started in a different spot, and hoped that she would have counted each one at least once.
Kuroe didn’t think she was destined for much of anything. She had no passions of her own, or a future that she liked to imagine herself inhabiting. If she tried to, it just seemed to slip through her grasp as quick as it came, like trying to hold onto water. But that was okay, because she didn’t really need that. She was content seeing the good that others could do.
So every night before she slept, she would pray by candlelight at the foot of her bed, for the sake of the stars that no one else cared for. She didn’t know if her prayers were being answered, or ever would be, but she did so anyway in the faint hope that maybe she would be heard.
“Please, God… make each and every one of their lives meaningful… I don’t want them to burn out for nothing.”
Kuroe had once read that even a single moment could be a catalyst that ended up changing everything. Maybe if she hoped enough, her prayers would be heard for an instant, and it could come true, even if it seemed impossible.
Because if she was not one who could burn so brightly, at least she could hope for the sake of those that could.
Once upon a time, Kuroe discovered that your life could be lit up by more than one star. She had always understood the presence of the sun, that rose in the morning and set in the evening. Even though it wasn’t always there, you could rely on it to come back, and that was how people could keep going, even in the time where it was gone. But then that day came…
She had been tasked by Nemu Hiiragi with protecting an Uwasa alongside two White Feathers, but had run into Yachiyo Nanami, the scourge of the Magius, alongside her friends. The Feathers got away, but Kuroe ended up being roped into helping them find and defeat the Uwasa.
Along the way, she met someone. Her name was Iroha Tamaki, and at first, Kuroe thought that they were a bit alike. Just like Kuroe, Iroha was a bit negative about herself, and a bit confused on what she was looking for in the future. But then, she realized that her and Iroha weren’t much of the same at all. Because despite Iroha’s insecurities, she still fought as a magical girl, no matter how alone or how scared she was. Kuroe could only run away from those situations, cursing her own cowardice.
Iroha had asked her what she wanted her future to be, and just as usual, Kuroe had no response. If she tried to look within herself, she just saw the inky blackness, where nothing about herself could be revealed. And if she couldn’t see anything, then there was nothing there. But then she looked again at Iroha… the one who had reached out for her, who was reaching out for her sister, even though she said she was scared, even though she said she was weak.
So… if Iroha could be like that… then could Kuroe, too?
So Kuroe decided that who she wanted to be… was someone like Iroha.
The sun always comes back at dawn, but Kuroe wasn’t sure when she would see her star again, if she ever would. And yet, Iroha’s flame burned brightly in her mind, and like the light of the sun revealed the land, the light from her memory of Iroha seemed to reveal Kuroe’s very self to her, illuminating a person she could be, a person she wanted to be.
So as the sun was ubiquitous in her life, days marked by its presence and nights branded by its absence, Kuroe’s new star remained with her, the blaze of hope in her heart that had been given to her just as important as any light in the sky.
From that day on, Kuroe added another line to her nightly prayer.
“And please, God… May I be able to shine for someone, like she did for me?”
Because maybe even if not everyone was able to burn so brightly… she could hope that she might.
Eventually, the Wings of the Magius was disbanded. And with that, Kuroe stopped going to Kamihama. There was no point for her to stay there, since she didn’t really have a place to be amongst them, as an outsider who had only come to cling to the Magius. She had hoped to see Iroha again at some point before she left, but that didn’t happen. She wouldn’t know how to get a hold of her anyway, since she had been too cowardly to get her phone number before she left, that day. But that was alright, because she didn’t need to. The new light within her was self-sustaining, and all Kuroe had to do was look within her to that memory, and her hope for a way forward would renew itself.
So, she had to go back to fighting witches, instead of relying on the Doppel system to keep her alive. She had to fight them alone, but her power, aided by the Coordination she had gotten in Kamihama, was sufficient for her to able to eke out victories against the witches of Takarazaki, who held much less power than those in Kamihama. And every time, she thought about her second star. If she survived long enough, maybe they would be able to meet again. So, she couldn’t let herself lose.
This continued for a time, with Kuroe returning to living the same life she had before. She went to school, sticking to herself as she always had, read books about civilizations that found meaning in things that we did not, and counted the stars in the sky. But even though, if someone else were to observe her, her life seemed the same as it did before, it wasn’t the same to her. Because now, there was something new in front of her, that she could see. And it was light.
One day, quite some time after she had returned to Takarazaki for good, her brother had asked her for assistance at some beach house in Kamihama. She couldn’t really say no… so she ended up deciding to go. While digging through her stuff to see if she had a swimsuit (she didn’t really ever go to the beach, so she didn’t…), she noticed an old flyer from the Coordination Shop in Kamihama from the previous summer. It was for Mitama’s swimsuit adjustment campaign, that she had offered to all of the Black Feathers when she was working in-league with the Magius. That time was over, but she wondered if Mitama would still be doing the same thing this year. She may as well visit the shop on her way to the beach and find out, because it would be easier than picking out a swimsuit for herself…
As she found out as she entered the brightly lit shop (She wasn’t exactly sure why Mitama would make her shop so bright with that huge glass wall and expose how dirty she left the place, Kuroe usually kept the lights off so that she wouldn’t have to see how much in disrepair she left her room…), it turned out that the swimsuit campaign had returned this year.
“Welcome, Kuroe! It’s been a while since I’ve seen you!” The twinkle in Mitama’s eyes were as bright as her smile was wide.
“Yeah, it has…” Kuroe stammered out.
“Are you here for a tune-up?”
Kuroe wanted to say yes, because that would lead to the least amount of conversation possible. She wouldn’t have to assert herself, to say what she actually wanted, and she could just go with the flow. But, that wasn’t why she was here… Iroha would’ve been able to correct Mitama, right?
“Uhm… I’m here for the swimsuit thing…” Internally, she sighed a bit in relief.
“Oh, right! Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you,” Mitama said, as she turned around to prepare something.
“Uhm… should I pay you before or after? I have a grief seed…” Kuroe wasn’t super excited about parting with it, considering that she still needed them back in Takarazaki, but she knew that the Coordinator needed to make a living too.
“That won’t be necessary,” she says with a laugh. “This one’ll be on the house.”
“Are you sure?” Kuroe didn’t want this to be because Mitama felt bad for her, or anything…
“Of course! Now just one second…”
After Kuroe explained that she needed a swimsuit that allowed her to help with the SUP classes that her brother wanted her to assist with, her mind started to drift off to other things. Mitama was just changing her outfit, a superficial aspect of her appearance, but it made Kuroe think again about changing herself on the inside, who she was…
She was back in Kamihama, which meant that there was a chance that she could run into Iroha again… but it was a big city, so it wasn’t a big chance. Iroha was probably too busy being a hero and saving others to do things that weren’t so important, like spending time on the beach. Maybe one day, she could be like that too. The ever-present flame that burned inside of her, born from the light of her second star, was proof of that…
Kuroe wondered what kind of swimsuit Iroha would wear.
“And it’s done!” Mitama said, as she backed up to observe her handiwork. Kuroe hadn’t even noticed that she had started; she had been so lost in thought…
“Oh, thank you…”
“It looks so good on you!” She said, before she stopped for a moment to look at something. Was there an issue? Had Kuroe done something wrong?
“Is everything okay, Mitama?” Kuroe could feel herself sinking into the couch.
“Oh, I was just realizing how much your swimsuit looked like Iroha’s,” she said. “Then I realized that I had been thinking about hers while I was listening to you talk about what you needed, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not an issue.” Kuroe wasn’t sure it was Mitama’s fault, because it might’ve been her fault. She had been thinking about Iroha the whole time…
As she prepared to leave, Kuroe heard a yell from behind her.
“You take care of yourself, Kuroe!” She turned around to see Mitama waving at her, and she realized that she still felt bad about something.
“Are you sure that you don’t want payment?” She pulled the grief seed out of her pocket and held it out, although she realized that it probably looked a bit silly to hold it out to someone who was all the way across the room.
Mitama laughed, as she closed the distance between them. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Kuroe. It’s already been paid for.”
“Wait… what?”
“I guess you could say that a while ago, a calling bird dropped by and paid for a gift for a nighthawk,” She said, with a mischievous grin. “If there was that connection between them, maybe they’d never really be apart.”
It didn’t really make sense to her. Not much sense at all. Iroha had apparently paid in advance for the next time that Kuroe came into Mitama’s shop, but that couldn’t be right, because there was no way that she had made nearly as much of an impact on Iroha as Iroha had on her. The stars in the sky didn’t choose to burn because they saw the plight of the people below them; they didn’t even know they existed, being so far in the sky above them as to be unable to see what did not shine as bright as them. They did so because doing so was simply in their nature. So, the Coordinator must have been making up that story to make Kuroe feel better.
That was the answer that she had decided she was going to stick with, in order to not confuse herself more, but in the end, she continued to think about this after she made it to the beach. Business was relatively slow for the morning, just as her brother had said it would be, so she didn’t have much else to occupy her. It wasn’t like Mitama had ever seen her and Iroha together (they had only met for one day, after all), so the only way she would’ve known that they had associated in any way was if Iroha had told her… So even if the Coordinator had made up that story, Iroha had to have told her about Kuroe in the first place, which still didn’t make any sense…
Kuroe had wanted to be inside at the SUP shop, but the owner had insisted that she stay outside and get some sun and fresh air, so she had ended up sitting in one of the beach chairs outside of the shop, underneath an umbrella. It had only been a few minutes, but that was more than enough time for her to think herself up into a tizzy. Usually, in the times when boredom set in, she was able to disassociate and escape it, but ever since that moment in the Coordinator’s shop, she had been a mess. But of course, not nearly as much as she was once she heard a quite familiar voice from her left.
“Huh? Kuroe?”
…Iroha?! Somehow, the two of them had ended up on the same beach, on the same day. What were even the odds of that? There was no way she could talk to her right now, she wasn’t ready, it had been so long and, in the end, Kuroe had changed so little…
“…Iroha?”
“I knew it, it is you, Kuroe!” The girl quickly eliminated the gap between the two and took Kuroe’s hand, catching the other girl off-guard.
“It is, I guess…” She replied, sinking into her chair. “Why are you here?”
“Well, Yachiyo’s work gave us a bunch of invitations for SUP classes, so all of us came here!”
“Oh… I’m here to help out with the SUP classes,” Kuroe mumbled out.
“Really? What a coincidence!”
Iroha had said “all of us”… did that mean her other friends were here too? The ones Kuroe had met on that day that they camped together, Tsuruno and Sana and Felicia and Yachiyo Nanami? Then she looked past Iroha, and found out that there were more than that.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.” It was Mifuyu Azusa, whom Kuroe knew well from her time with the Wings of the Magius. And behind her was Nemu Hiiragi, one of the Magius herself, although she was in a wheelchair.
“Oh, hello… Mifuyu… Nemu…”
“Hello, Kuroe,” the former Magius said. “I’m glad to see you’re doing well.”
“Oh… thank you. I’m, uh, glad to see…” Kuroe cut herself as she realized that she was stumbling into a self-made trap. Nemu noticed too and laughed.
“It’s alright, Kuroe. I’m doing about as well as I could be.”
Iroha had worked against the Magius’ goals out of her strong ideological opposition, and yet after everything, they now spent time together as friends. Meanwhile, Kuroe had ended up isolating herself from both sides in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Wings of the Magius, even though she hadn’t made herself an enemy of either…
“Hey! I wasn’t lost!” Another familiar voice came from her right, bringing back memories of that earlier time… “It was Felicia who got lost!”
“You were the one who recommended we go explore over there, so it’s your fault first!”
It was Touka, another one of the Magius, alongside familiar faces from that day of camping all that time ago. Felicia, the aggressive blonde-haired girl. Yachiyo Nanami, dragging the two of them along with her. And behind them were Tsuruno and Sana, giggling about something, alongside an elegant white-haired (With her hair forming horns? Maybe she was Mifuyu’s sister…) girl who Kuroe didn’t recognize, who was glaring at Touka.
…It really was amazing that Iroha was able to join all these different people together and be herself with all of them, even though she had a bit of a reserved personality. If only she herself was more like that, able to connect with others…
“It’s both of your faults. Touka, stop doing things you haven’t thought through. Felicia, stop listening to Touka.” Yachiyo Nanami’s voice was stern, at least until she turned back from the two of them. “
“Wait, Kuroe’s here?” Felicia peeked out from behind Yachiyo.
…Did everyone really remember her? There was no way that someone like her had made that much of an impression on all these people. Maybe there was another Uwasa afoot that had inserted a better version of herself into everyone’s memories…
And then suddenly, everyone (except for the horn-haired girl, who didn’t seem terribly interested in her) rushed around her to greet her, and all at once, it felt like she was drowning in a sea of people. All “hello” and “haven’t seen you in a while”, and she had never had this many people looking at her and it was quite uncomfortable to say the least and-
“Hey! Hey! Stop crowding her!” A voice rang out from behind the crowd of people as Iroha pushed her way through Tsuruno and Felicia, and everybody quieted down. “I’m sorry about them, Kuroe. Why don’t we go someplace quiet, and we can catch up before our SUP classes begin??”
Iroha held out her hand to her once again, and Kuroe realized that there was a flower (an anemone, Kuroe remembered from a book that she had once read) on Iroha’s wrist, just like there was on her own, although it was pink instead of purple. It looked a lot better on Iroha than it did on her, a flash of light that illuminated the world with color as it reached out to her.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
The two of them ended up heading inside the SUP shop, mostly empty, as the owner was out, where Kuroe met one more person: Iroha’s sister, Ui, the one that she had been searching for. So she had even managed to find her too… Iroha really was capable of anything…
“Oh, this is Kuroe, right?” The younger girl asked as the two of them entered the shop and sat down next to her. Wait… how did she know Kuroe’s name? Iroha’s friends knew her because of that day of camping, and Touka, Nemu, and Mifuyu knew her because of the Wings of the Magius, but…
“Yeah, that’s me…”
“I was hoping I’d get to meet you at some point! Iroha’s talked about you so much…”
Wait… what? She looked over to Iroha, who seemed to be surprised at what her sister had said.
“…Oh, don’t mind her!” Iroha said as she turned to Kuroe, waving her arms in front of her. “She’s just acting a bit silly…”
“No, it’s true!” Ui continued, earnestly, placing her hands on the table and leaning forward. “Recently, she’s been bringing up how much she wanted to see you again, and that she hoped that you were doing okay!”
“Oh! Ui!” Iroha interjected, before Ui could go on even more. “I just remembered! We came in here because Touka wanted you for something. Better not keep her waiting, you know how she is, right?”
“If Touka’s waiting, I probably should!” Ui got up and started sprint-walking towards the door. “See you later, Kuroe!”
After she had left, Iroha sighed in relief, leaning back in her chair, and tilting her head up to look at the ceiling, allowing herself to relax after she had patched up Ui’s slip-up…
“So… what did she mean?” Kuroe asked this and Iroha almost fell out of her seat, realizing that her ordeal was not yet over.
“Oh, it’s nothing! She was just exaggerating, I might’ve mentioned your name like… once when I was recapping to her everything that had happened, but…” Iroha’s voice trailed off as she realized that Kuroe’s expression was sinking to the bottom of her face.
“I see…”
The pink-haired girl sighed, knowing that she had to fix her mistake. “Well… maybe I was exaggerating a bit when I said that Ui was exaggerating. The truth is… really, I’ve been wanting to see you again for a while.”
“…Why?”
“…I had a lot of fun, on that day where we met. I wanted to get to know you even more… but you ran away too fast.”
“Oh, I’m sorry…”
“No, no, it’s okay! My feelings were a bit selfish too…”
Iroha? Selfish? Kuroe really couldn’t imagine that… not the way that her entire existence was that of light, shining out to others. Not like herself.
“How?”
“It’s… you remember what you said? ‘I wanted to be like you…’”
“O-Oh! Don’t worry about that!” Kuroe exclaimed, trying to draw attention away from her previous statement which was, frankly, a little embarrassing when Iroha said it…
“I knew that you were going to go back to the Wings of the Magius, and I said that I was okay with that… but really, part of me was hoping that you wouldn’t.”
Kuroe stopped. “Really? …Why?”
“Well… when you said that… it made me feel a bit better about myself. I was relying on everyone else to help me find Ui, but having someone actually look up a bit and admire my pathetic self… I won’t say that it didn’t make me a bit happy.” She sighed. “But more than that… I don’t know, I just liked being around you. I wanted to know you better than I got to…”
“Oh…”
“But then you went back to the Magius, so… whatever my impression on you was… it couldn’t have been that strong.”
Kuroe wanted to correct her in any way she could, to erase that look of sadness off of her face:
“I never stopped admiring you!”
“The problem wasn’t your lack of strength; it was my weakness!”
“To this day… you’ve always been the light I’ve tried to fly towards.”
But none of those words could come out. She was not even strong enough to speak. An admission of her everlasting feelings would be the very same admission that she wasn’t able to reach them, to reach her.
“I’m sorry…”
“No, it’s my fault, so don’t worry about it…”
Both were quiet for a moment, stewing in their own thoughts. Uncharacteristically, Kuroe was the one to break the silence:
“But… what Mitama said about you paying for my next Coordination was…”
Iroha tensed up. “She mentioned that?”
“Yeah… I thought it was a joke at first, but…”
“Well, you know…” She stopped for a moment, before regaining her confidence and continuing. “I was thinking that it’d be like a nice ‘welcome back’ present, in case you ever visited Kamihama again. And if you didn’t…”
“…If I didn’t?”
“…I didn’t like you staying in Takarazaki, Kuroe.” Iroha shook her head, sadly. “There aren’t any Doppels outside of Kamihama… Every day where I didn’t see you again was one where I wasn’t sure if I was going to… And it’s a bit pathetic of me for caring so much, right? I barely even knew you…”
Kuroe had no idea what to think. Iroha had really thought this much about her?
“I didn’t even know the truth about magical girls at that time, and you did… I didn’t even understand what exactly you truly wanted to be saved from… But I knew anyway that I didn’t want your hope to go to waste. You had been looking for salvation so hard… I wanted you to find it.”
“Oh…”
“So, when we were checking up with a lot of the former Black Feathers, none of them could tell us what had happened to you, and I realized that you had probably gone back. I wish you would’ve at least stayed in Kamihama a bit more, where it’s a bit safer…” Iroha turned her head down. “I didn’t want to not be able to see you again. One day? That was too short… it was too soon to say goodbye…”
Iroha paused to wipe something out of her eye, before continuing.
“So, I went to Mitama, and I gave her a grief seed, and I told her it was payment in advance for a tune-up, if you ever came back. So then… it’d be like there was a connection between us, and that wouldn’t have been our last parting…”
The two of them sat there in the silence again
“I… uh…” Kuroe stammered out. “I appreciated it…”
“Really?” A bit of life returned to Iroha’s eyes.
“Yeah… it was nice… to know that someone was still thinking about me. Even if I don’t…” Her voice left her before she could finish your sentence.
“Kuroe, I… I don’t think you need to worry about that.”
“…Huh?”
“I mean… we only met for one day, right? And yet, I’ve been thinking about you all this time… So I think you’re more special than you realize, Kuroe.”
She really wasn’t sure about that… She had always felt invisible in her, to the point where she didn’t really think she had any friends at all. But if someone who was as radiant as Iroha, who had been able to light a flame inside Kuroe that had lasted to this day, could see something in her…
“Hey, are you two in here?” Yachiyo’s head peeked into the room. “It’s about the scheduled time for the SUP classes. Are you ready?”
“Yeah!” Iroha responded.
“Alright, don’t be too long,” Yachiyo said, before leaving.
She turned back to Kuroe. “So, uh… are you going to be helping us?”
“I think so…”
“Okay! I’m looking forward to it!” Iroha got out of her chair and started walking over to the door. “Are you coming?”
“…Yeah. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“See you soon!” She waved and left, out into the sunshine.
Kuroe sighed. Iroha had let her feelings out to her, and in the end, she herself was the one who had to be comforted. She really did have nothing to offer, didn’t she?
Ultimately, that was Kuroe’s issue with herself. Her parents had not mistreated her or withheld love from her. She had not been bullied or belittled by her classmates. She had not sputtered out in academic or athletic activities as much as she had just given up on them. Even what had happened on… that day… had been born out of cowardice for cowardice’s sake, rather than justified fear. She had not known the truth at that time, after all.
Her world existed as a shallow sea of grey around her, close enough to reach out to and pull to her, and yet she could not get herself to do it. Meanwhile, the second star that she had found was so far out in the dark that no matter how much she beat her wings to fly towards it, it was too far for her to touch. So what else could she be, except nothing at all?
What could she do for Iroha? How could her empty self help? Her mind flipped through all the stories that she had read in the past, until she remembered one from a long time ago, a children’s book that was the one to make her start looking up in the first place.
In a distant universe, an advanced civilization lived under a bright blue star. For hundreds of years, they prospered under its light, until one day, the star began to dim. Confused as to the cause, the civilization sent their four greatest astronauts up to the star to see what the cause of it was.
One was the bravest of them all, because without bravery, they could never leave the starting point.
One was the strongest of them all, because without strength, they could never reach their destination.
And one was the most loving of them all, because without love, all else would be meaningless.
The three of them reached the star, and even though it had seemed like its light had dimmed from their perspective on their planet, it was just as brilliant as it had ever been up close, to the point where they had to wear special goggles to look at it. Then, they asked the star why it had stopped shining as brightly as it had in times past.
The star said that it wasn’t sure for what good it shined, as it could not see any effects of its actions. As it turned out, the star’s light was so bright that it ended up blocking its own vision of the planet beneath it, and thus could not see the people prospering thanks to it. The astronauts told the star of all the good that it had done, and it was relieved to hear that it had not been shining in vain.
But, it found itself unable to return to the shine it had before. Too much doubt remained within it, and so, the astronauts set out to change that. They opened the door to their spacecraft, and one by one, they left, to fly towards the star.
Then, the brave one merged with the star, so that it would never again lose the courage to keep shining
The strong one merged with the star, so that it would always have the strength to do so.
And the loving one merged with the star, so that it would forever feel the adoration of the people that it burned for.
The three of them, as part of the star, continued to shine upon their people for eons, and that was the end of the story.
But… Kuroe knew that she was not like those heroes.
From the start to now, her life had been defined by her cowardice. That day, on the train tracks… to running away from Iroha at the end of their camping adventure… to being unable to express her feelings now. So, she was not brave.
All her time as a magical girl, she had been on uneven ground against the Witches she was under oath to fight. Before, she had relied on the kindness of others to get her through fights that would’ve killed her alone. Then, she had joined the Wings of the Magius, so that her weakness would not cause her to fail to save others, or to need to be saved herself. Nowadays, in Takarazaki, she was only able to defeat the normal-strength Witches because of the boon of the Coordinator. So, she was not strong.
And… she was empty, save the flame inside of her given by another. There was nothing of her own to give. So, how could she ever offer love?
She realized that the others were probably waiting for her, and as she left the SUP shop, she cursed her hollow self.
The SUP lessons had gone well… for a bit. Everyone seemed to be having fun. Kuroe was able to get along with Iroha’s friends, including the two former Magius themselves (Even Nemu had been participate, thanks to the help of the horn-haired girl, who Kuroe found out was named Sakurako, and was actually an Uwasa herself), and Touka and Felicia hadn’t pushed her around that badly.
Then, she had gone out on the sea with Iroha herself. It was nice for a time, with the peace and calm between them being preferable to the loudness that came with helping the others. It wasn’t that bad to spend time with another person if it was like that… but of course, eventually she ended up ruining everything. A large wave came, knocking her off-guard and off her board into the sea. She floundered for a moment, not being a strong swimmer at all, before realizing the water was pretty shallow where they were. She was able to stand up and get herself out of distress… but not before Iroha herself had jumped into the water after her.
Unfortunately, Iroha was unable to swim either, and as Kuroe tried to help her up, both of them ended up getting pulled under the waves. It wasn’t very easy to help someone who was panicking about drowning… In the end, Tsuruno and Felicia had to help them up. Even though Iroha didn’t know how to swim, she had gone in to try and save her without a single thought. Kuroe knew she never would’ve been able to do that herself…
The two of them were given towels and told to dry off back at the SUP shop, so that’s where they went, once again. The owner was out this time too helping with something (a sign at the desk said “Look for me outside!”), so it must have been an especially busy day… although Kuroe supposed that that’s why she was here.
“I’m really sorry about that,” Iroha said, cracking the pall of silence. “Getting us into danger like that…”
“No, it’s not your fault… I was the one who panicked at first instead of remembering how shallow the water was, if I had just acted calmly, you wouldn’t have felt the need to…”
“No, it was!” Iroha exclaimed, maybe a bit more forcefully than she intended to, considering how Kuroe seemed to shrink back. “I mean… I did it because of my selfishness, anyway…”
“What do you mean?”
“I… uh…” She started, finding it difficult to find the words. “I just wanted to be able to do something, for once…”
…What was she talking about? “Iroha, are you okay?”
“It’s… a long story, and I’m sure you don’t need to hear it…” She mumbled.
Kuroe knew that there wasn’t anything that her weak and empty self could do for Iroha… but she could at least listen to her, right? Even if her heart was shallow, she still had ears, and even if any words she could say were hollow, she still had a voice.
“No, I want to hear it…” She managed to get out.
“Kuroe, I…”
“Please…” Kuroe said, trying to keep up the strength of her voice when it started to fail. “Share it with me…”
“Kuroe…”
“What do you want to be, Iroha? What are you afraid of?”
Iroha’s eyes widened. “…Using my own words against me, huh?”
“You remembered?”
“Of course I did…” She said. “That was the moment…”
The moment what? Iroha shook her head, snapping herself out of the thought.
“It’s not important.” She finished.
“It is!” The intensity of Kuroe’s voice surprised even herself.
Now she had done it, right? She had probably weirded out Iroha because of how strong she had came off, and how much she was prying into her business that she obviously didn’t want to talk about, so now Iroha was going to get really mad at her and probably tell her to get lost, and- Kuroe noticed that Iroha’s face had started to become wet with the stains of tears.
“…Really?”
“Yeah. It is.” She hoped she would have to offer no further explanation, or her resolve might break, as she crumbled beneath her fears. Iroha looked left, and right, and Kuroe realized that she was making sure nobody else was in the SUP shop with them.
“It… it was the moment that I realized I wanted to do more…”
“…Do more?”
“Before I met you, I met Sana within a world made by an Uwasa. She had isolated herself there, because she believed that that was the only world that she could exist within. But… I didn’t want to believe that, because I had felt just like her once, out of place in the world that I lived in, and I had managed to break free of that feeling, and find a new place for myself. So, I wanted to think that she could do the same thing too…”
“Oh…”
“And then I met you… and you might have been feeling the same as me too, or you might have been a bit different… but I wanted to find out… and regardless of your answer, I wanted to help you, too… Even if you feared different things than me… if you had different goals… whatever the many ways that you and I could’ve been completely unalike… I still wanted to help you find happiness, Kuroe.”
…She knew that. That was what…
“So… at that moment… I felt like I had changed, all in a single instant.” She said. “Like a fire had started burning inside of me, sparked by that moment with you… and I wanted to see where its light would lead me.”
“Was I your…” Kuroe mumbled on accident, a thought that escaped her lips despite that she wanted it to stay in her mind. But Iroha was too lost in her own thoughts to hear, anyways.
“But… I felt like I wasn’t up for it… like I would always put myself first, if things came to it.” She looked down, sadly. “When we raided Hotel Fendthope… I had decided that I would destroy the Magius, even if it meant ruining the hopes of everyone like you, if it meant I could find Ui… And even now…”
“Now?”
“Well… we’re in a bit of a… conflict in Kamihama, right now… and it’s not going too well…”
Kuroe had heard rumblings about a war in Kamihama, but she had never gone there to discover what it was about, preferring to stay in Takarazaki… where she wouldn’t have had to show Iroha how little she had ended up changing.
“Recently… two of our friends died. They were former members of the Wings of the Magius, just like you. They had worked back then for their own salvation, right? But… they ended up chasing the salvation of everybody, and they both chose to die for the sake of everyone else, even though they’d never get to see the future that they wanted…”
“Oh…” Kuroe winced to herself. She didn’t know which former Feathers Iroha was talking about, but she hated the idea of any of them not having found the salvation they had been looking for, their flames burning out for nothing. …Had it been for nothing?
“If I was in their place… would I have backed out, to preserve my own selfish self? Or could I too, have been a burning light for others, that would guide them to make a better future… just like they were for each other?”
“I, uh… I don’t think it’s a bad thing…” Kuroe blurted out, out of nowhere.
Iroha stopped. “What?”
Her heart was immersed in the dark. The star existed, far off in the distance, but its light was faint, as far away as it was from the ground. But… that light still existed, nonetheless, and that faint light was the thing that pierced the dark. Was it okay for her to continue reaching out, even if she knew it was too far away to touch?
“You know, back on that day, when I said… that thing… about you…” She continued.
“Yeah…”
“The you that I see here, right now… that wants to reach out for others, despite the fear of failure, despite that she thinks she might not be the right kind of person, that she might not be good enough…” Kuroe took a deep breath. “That same kind of… believing in selflessness… that’s the you that I wanted to be like in the first place.”
Iroha sighed. “Then, I’m sorry, Kuroe.”
“…What?”
She got up, before she pushed in her chair. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be a brighter star.”
Then, she turned away, and left.
Not long after Iroha had left her alone in the SUP shop, Kuroe found out that nobody else had seen Iroha, either. She had seemingly vanished into thin air. Yachiyo had gathered everyone to form search parties and comb the beach and the surrounding area for her, and Kuroe had gone with Mifuyu and Ui, but they hadn’t had any luck.
That was when Felicia mentioned that she had heard a report about a missing dog, and Kuroe realized she might know what had happened. There was an island a bit into the sea, that a path appeared to when the tide was low. Iroha had probably started looking for the dog there, and that’s why they couldn’t find her anywhere on the beach.
But why would she have…
And then the realization swept over her. The state that Iroha had left their conversation in… dejected about herself, unsure of her ability to help anyone else. Had she gone after that dog, despite knowing how dangerous that island path was, to prove herself in some way?
She informed the others of what she believed Iroha’s plans to be, and they ran to where the path started. But… the tide was high, and the path was inaccessible. All that was left behind was a few pink petals, which she recognized as the ones from the wrist and hairpiece of Iroha’s swimsuit. Iroha had left them behind as an indicator of where she had went…
As she looked at the scattered anemone petals on the ground, she bent down to pick one up, holding it in her hand. It was just like the flower petals on her own wrist… Even they were different colors… they were still the same kind of flower. They held the same kind of soul.
Iroha would’ve helped her… and if they really were the same, if they held the same fears of failure, fears of being ones that would prioritize their survival above others, of burning out without anything to show for it… then she would help Iroha.
And from that single moment of determination, the flame inside of her swelled. Given life by the heat and light of her second star, it had never been brighter.
The three of them had SUP’d out to the island, since walking wasn’t an option while the tide was high. When they had made it there, they had followed the trail of footsteps that Kuroe had recognized as being made by Iroha’s sandals. Mifuyu and Ui had commended her on being observant, but she had thought that knowing something like that made her a bit creepy…
The path of petals continued too, through the island forest, and they followed them to a cliffside in view of the sun’s shine, where Iroha was standing, alongside the missing dog.
“Ui! Kuroe! And Mifuyu! You came all this way here for me?”
“Yeah!” Ui exclaimed. “We were looking for you! Are you okay?”
“Yeah, both of us are fine… the path disappeared into the tide, so I couldn’t get back, and my phone battery died, so I couldn’t tell you all… I’m sorry.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” Kuroe said.
“Everyone’s been looking for you,” Mifuyu said. “We need to tell Yachiyo and the others, so they don’t need to worry.”
“Everyone? I’m sorry,” Iroha looked down, apologetically. “I’ve caused so much trouble…”
“I shouldn’t have let you go, alone,” Kuroe said, as Mifuyu and Ui walked off to call Yachiyo and update her.
“Huh?”
“You left the SUP shop, and I just let you… I should’ve followed you.”
“No, it’s alright. I just… I went off on my own, because I didn’t want to think that I wasn’t capable of helping others. Like before, when I tried to stop you from drowning, and I just made a mess of things. I don’t think about things… I just want to be able to help. It’s a pretty selfish desire… But if I just cause trouble for others with that, it’s pointless.”
Kuroe wanted to yell at her, to once again tell her that that heroism, that desire to help, and the courage to do so, was what made her inspiring, the very thing that made her special. It was what separated the two of them Because Kuroe was the weak one, right?
Iroha had been fine, the entire time. She just would’ve made it back when the tide receded and the path became traversable again, so there hadn’t been much point in worrying about her, and any idea that Kuroe would be the savior in this situation was just an illusion she made up to herself, to believe that she could touch a star that she could not reach.
But she couldn’t say that. She couldn’t say anything. Once again, she was silent.
They were broken out of the reverie by Mifuyu. “I’ve called Yachiyo, and she knows that we’re safe. Let’s get back there, before they get another reason to worry.”
Unchanged, Kuroe walked side by side with the three of them across the forest, back to the island beach.
With the four of them, Mifuyu deemed them unable to SUP on the same board that the three of them had used to get there. Thankfully, the path connecting the island and the Kamihama beach had become visible again, the shifting tide revealing it once more.
“There’s a lot of shells on the path!” Ui observed.
“Maybe we should pick some up?” Iroha asked, in return. “I bet Felicia would like them…”
“We don’t have time for that,” Mifuyu pointed out. “We need to return as quickly as we can. Even though I tried to get her not to, I’m sure Yachiyo will still be worrying about us until we’re within an arm’s length.”
“Yeah…”
Eventually, the two of them split naturally into two groups, with Mifuyu and Ui walking ahead, talking about something, and Iroha and Kuroe trailing behind them, in silence. Until Iroha broke that silence:
“Hey, Kuroe…”
“Iroha?”
“I don’t know what you were thinking, back there… after you three found me. But… I just think that you should know something.” Iroha’s eyes looked down, unable to meet Kuroe’s.
“…What’s that?”
“Even if I was fine… and I was just causing trouble for you… I think the fact that you went after me in the first place meant something…”
Kuroe stopped for a moment. “…Iroha?”
Iroha looked up, and right into Kuroe’s eyes. “I really do think that you’re special, Kuroe.”
Kuroe’s eyes widened, a light reflected in them. “…What?”
“I don’t really think… I’m someone worth imitating. There are more people, even in this city, who have achieved greater things for the good of others, than I think I ever could… The only times I’ve ever done much is when I was carried on their shoulders. But…”
“But what?”
“Ever since that moment that you met me… that we talked, under the light of the stars… if what you’ve been saying today is true… Then you’ve been looking up to me for all this time. And you’ve been holding onto that for all this time… even if you didn’t think you were worthy of it, or even if you didn’t think it was possible. Is… is that still true?”
“…Yeah. It is.”
“Then… the fact that you’ve never given up… that you still want to believe in that feeling, and that you still chase it… you really are amazing, Kuroe.”
“…Huh?” Kuroe’s voice broke, and a tidal wave of emotions all hit her at once. She could feel pools build in her eyes, and she covered them, as to avoid showing Iroha her weakness. “I…”
“Kuroe?!” Iroha’s alarm was instant. “Are you okay?”
“…Yeah.” She couldn’t get out anything else, her energy focused on preventing herself from turning into a mess on the sand.
“Do you need a moment?”
Kuroe wiped her tears away, before looking back up to Iroha. “Let’s keep going forward.”
The two of them caught up with Mifuyu and Ui, who greeted them warmly. The beach was within sight, although it was mainly empty, most of the tourists having left as the day dimmed, with what appeared to be the figures of Yachiyo and the others being the only ones that stayed behind, to await their return.
As the four of them continued for another minute or so, Kuroe noticed the tide acting up again.
“I think we should probably hurry…” She said, to Mifuyu, who concurred.
“Yes, I think it’s a good idea for us to get moving.”
“Yeah!”
They turned to Iroha, who was at the back of the group, to notice that she had stopped walking, and was instead staring into the ocean… at a large wave, headed right for them.
“Iroha!” Kuroe yelled, but it was as if she couldn’t hear. Her, Mifuyu, and Ui braced their feet into the sand to prepare for the impact, but Iroha was only watching it come…
“Wait, wait!” Iroha yelled, snapped out of her trance as the wave reached the path. She was thrown off of her feet and fell back into the water. They weren’t at the beach anymore… so the water was no longer shallow…
“Iroha!” Kuroe yelled once more, but she wasn’t even sure the pink-haired girl had heard it, with how quickly she had disappeared beneath the surface.
“Stay calm,” Mifuyu said. “I’m sure we can…”
Kuroe didn’t hear what Mifuyu said, after that. She didn’t hear the panicked words of Ui, who Iroha had risked her life to find. She didn’t hear anything, except the roar of crashing water, displaced from where it was, because Kuroe had jumped into the waves without even a single thought.
The ocean was dark, and she could barely see. There was no sight of Iroha, and so there was no path for her to follow. So she just kept swimming down, down, until hopefully she could find her. Her swimming was laughable, but as long as she kept moving her limbs up, surely her body would move down. Seconds passed, although each one felt like minutes, and still, the light of her star had dimmed too much for her to see in the oppressive dark. But she had no other choice but to keep going
They were too deep, far too deep… Even if she managed to find Iroha, there was no way that she could pull them back up in time. So there was nothing that could be done. The story of the star in the sky and the flame in the dark that it inspired would end up with both of them doused by the hand of fate. Neither of them would be able to find what they sought.
But Kuroe remembered her prayers that she had said in the dark of nights past, hoping for the good of every star that shined for someone. The belief, the hope that had guided her before anything else did, before she ever thought that “Kuroe” could become anything at all. Her prayer for what seemed impossible…
“I don’t want them to burn out for nothing…”
And massive, blue wings violently erupted from her back, filled with fruits that had been eaten in past summers, symbols of regret, of times that she could not enjoy looking back upon, as they were all marked by a search for fulfilment that she had never found. One by one, each of those fruits fell out of her wings, left behind in the sea, lost. The blue wings of water turned to black wings of mud, and hardened, and as she beat them to soar through the water, with the force of their weight, she knew one thing:
There was no more time for regret.
“If it was just this moment…” She thought. “Could I finally be… who I want to be?”
Meeting you that very first time
banished all my fears and fright. There’s no reason to be afraid.
She had no more thoughts of fear. It was as if the old her, who had feared reaching out to others, of having no worth, had been completely eradicated. In its place was only belief in the her of this moment, who wouldn’t let the star that had saved her disappear into the fabric of the universe, with nobody left to see it.
In Kuroe’s heart was nothing but bravery. Confidence and belief. She had loved those stories of hope, of people who found meaning. And she refused to believe that she couldn’t live a story just like them.
Even if it’s just for this one moment,
let me now become an illuminating light.
Her wings beat harder, and harder, propelling her through the ocean. In this moment, she was the very strongest of everyone. That was what she had to be, in order to achieve the impossible.
She had been nothing more than the reflection of a flame, a desire, which was only born because the light of a star had given it a purpose… but could she be a star, too?
You are on the other side there.
You touch an open wound, as you reach across the story’s end.
As she saw a sign of pink come into view, she prayed one more time. No longer, though, was it for the sake of another, for stars that she saw as far, far, different from herself. This time, she prayed for only her own sake.
“Please… just let one good thing come out of my life…”
Iroha sank into the dark, but Kuroe swam faster, propelled by wings of mud. They had once represented her emptiness, her desire to escape from the self that she hated, but were now a tool of her resolve, to fulfil the very purpose of her life, that she had seen in this moment. She reached her arm out, to reach for Iroha… reaching further, further…
Tonight, the world breaks, and I hope
it will now become an illuminating light.
A flash of light radiated from the flower on Kuroe’s wrist as her hand met Iroha’s, touching it only for a single moment. Nobody else saw it. But she saw it, and that was enough.
The wings of mud fell apart, with no more energy left to keep them solid. Kuroe continued sinking past Iroha, propelled by her momentum. She barely even had the strength left to think, all of her power having gone into the impossible, into that flash of light. But she remembered the final lines of that story, the one about the astronauts who had gone up to see that dimming star.
“And in the very end, light shall you see. And in the very end, love shall you find.”
And as she fell through the darkness, to the bottom of the ocean, she found it. What she had been searching for, all her life, in order to complete her hollow self. It overflowed in her heart, and in that single moment, the star she had been reaching for, and the flame in her heart that drove her to reach it, they were one. The light she had been looking for, she could touch it now…
It was so bright…
Minutes had passed. Mifuyu had been forced to restrain Ui, to prevent a third body from throwing itself into the waves, and she hurriedly rushed the two of them to the shore, where she explained the situation to Yachiyo and the others.
Yachiyo, as well as Sakurako, had both also attempted to jump in and find them, but Mifuyu had blocked their path as well (despite threats of violence from the Uwasa), stating that that far out, they were only likely to get themselves into even more trouble, and the chances of locating the exact spot where the two girls had sunk to was dim, as the ocean shifted them around hundreds of meters out from the shore.
The only thing that they could do was to trust in Kuroe. And so, all of them hoped for the girl’s success, even though they knew she wasn’t much of a stronger swimmer than Iroha, even though it seemed impossible. Because there was nothing else left but hope in the impossible.
And then, a crash was heard from far away, as they saw a figure rise out of the water. It was hard to make out in the sunset, but it looked like… It was Iroha.
Iroha, with the familiar sight of a patchwork bird that extended above her from the end of her hair. But the head of the bird was adorned by a black hood, instead of the rack extending from her Doppel’s back, which had once held cloth meant to shield her from what she did not want to see, were jet-black wings of mud. They slowly flapped, carrying her higher, higher into the air.
“Iroha…” Yachiyo said, filled with shock and awe at the sight, alongside everyone else.
Then, the doppel tilted itself forwards, and the wings began to beat faster as the newly formed Doppel and its master began to fly towards the beach. Realizing that it was not slowing down, Yachiyo, Mifuyu, and Sakurako pulled everyone out of its trajectory as it approached them, before crashing into the beach, creating a storm of sand.
When they could see again, the Doppel was gone, and all that remained was Iroha herself, partially stuck in the sand by a trapped arm, coughing up water that had been trapped in her lungs. Everyone rushed over to her, to see what had happened.
“Iroha, are you alright?” Sana asked.
“Does it look like she’s alright?” Felicia asked, before Iroha mumbled something, and everyone leaned in.
“Kuroe…” was what Iroha said.
“Iroha, what happened to Kuroe?” Yachiyo asked, obvious concern in her voice.
Iroha rubbed her eye with her free arm before pulling herself out of the sand, as everyone backed away from her to give her space. A flash of light gathered her attention from the corner of her eye, and she looked to its source, to the ocean. And underneath the waves, she could see a bright, green flame that illuminated the sea.
“…Kuroe?”
Then, she lost her balance and collapsed.
Some nights, as long as it was clear, Iroha would go out to the same stretch of beach that she had been on, on that day. When there, she would stare into the sea, at the radiant flame within that revealed everything. Nobody else could see it. But she could see it, and that was enough.
On this night, Yachiyo had followed Iroha out to the beach, to try and see what she saw.
“Iroha…” She said, as she approached the pink-haired girl, who stood barefoot in the sand.
“I think I’ve finally found it, Yachiyo.” She said, without turning around.
“…Found what, Iroha?”
“I think I know… what true happiness is, now. I can see it… like a star in the sky.”
She paused for a moment, to admire the flame in the ocean, a treasure that burned evermore, just for her.
“If I could do something for the good of another, just like Kuroe did, I don’t think I’d care if my body burned up a hundred times over.”
Yachiyo sighed. She hadn’t ever figured out how to approach this with her. “Iroha… what happened with Kuroe wasn’t your fault.”
“It’s okay. I’m not sad.”
“…What?” Yachiyo asked, confused by Iroha’s serene disposition.
“You don’t need to worry about me, Yachiyo…”
Iroha looked down at her soul gem, which shone pink, with dots of purple scatted around it. However, they were not the darkness of curses, but of fragments and pieces of magic that were as every bit as pure as her own.
“I know where she went.”
A moment passed in an instant, and yet, its strength could match up to eternity. You could spend a thousand thousand years wandering the earth in the dark, and you would find less than what would be revealed to you by a single beam of light, that shone upon you only once.
“…What happened, Iroha?”
“A nighthawk… left something behind for a calling bird. And if she kept looking to it… maybe she wouldn’t ever be lost again.”