The dust from Moment's Respite's activation settled, and in front of me was that park, several thousand years later in time.
Something like that would be funny in a tragically ironic way, but thankfully that didn't happen. I arrived back in my time period, and everything was seemingly in order. All that I had left to do was call Noriko. Hesitantly, I rang her. What I expected her to say when she picked up was overbearing questions like asking where I am, who I'm with, when I'll be back. The kind of questions that sometimes make men feel like their freedom is in danger. The thought of being on that receiving end gave me shivers.
But, I gave her a call. And she answered.
"Hello, dear. It's very rare for you to give me a call. Don't tell me you thought of breaking up with me, and doing it over the phone so you can avoid uncomfortable direct confrontation for at least a little while until you accept that you can't avoid the matter any more and the time has come to deal with it face to face? Because I won't let that happen. I've never broken up with anyone, and I don't intend to break up with you, ever."
What I heard was far scarier than anything I could imagine.
I have a chronic fear of forced commitment to things I never committed to. Though I did feel responsible for making sure Noriko didn't kill anyone, so I did commit in a way. For the greater good. Not because I wanted to.
Back to the main topic.
"Hey, Noriko. Sorry to bring 'em up, but how are your parents all of a sudden?"
"Oh, they died."
My heart rate ramped up rapidly.
"That's what I'd like to say, but unfortunately those pieces of shit are still kicking."
Thank goodness she was only exercising her twisted sense of humor.
"But why did you ask? You don't plan to cooperate with those assholes and stage an intervention to set me back on the straight path of life, do you? Because that's not something I can forgive, you know."
"No, nothing like that."
I thought back on my whole venture through time, and once again thought to myself that I was relieved her parents weren't dead. But then I remembered; The reason I time traveled in the first place.
I was supposed to prevent a war.
Furthermore, I realized that the 'mistake' the mysterious future lady claimed she had come back to prevent probably wasn't the ordeal I was taking care of.
Yikes. Alice wouldn't be too happy that I forgot, but I swore then and there that I had enough of time travel and would never do it again, and procrastinated the whole ordeal by pushing a 'oh well, what can you do' mentality on myself.
"If you're far off the straight path of life, then I've been with you the whole way, and still am. I don't plan on fixing that."