Black space and the same dream. A girl talks but he can't hear her, he can't see her clearly. And just like all the other times, he'll wake up and forget. Ryuji opened his eyes to a wooden ceiling and felt a wave of pain and nausea. "Sacred High Heal!"
The pain subsided, and Ryuji could feel his bones mending back to their usual spots. He sighed and looked to his left to see Queen sitting in a chair. She was wearing her casual green attire.
Ryuji saw something flash in her eyes for a moment but, after the moment had left, she reverted back to her usual self. "Oh? The world's laziest hero has decided to wake up, how wonderful."
"Yeah, yeah." Ryuji positioned himself in the bed and sat upright. "So, is everyone okay?"
"The children were fine after receiving treatment. We cannot exactly fix their mental issues, but we made sure there were no physical ones."
Ryuji was glad, but there was still another problem on his mind. "And Jessy?"
"If you had awoken a few hours ago, you would've seen her crying over your sleeping face."
"So she's okay! Phew, good." He figured she was joking about the whole crying thing but still felt elated knowing she was safe.
"Are you done asking questions?"
"Wait! How long was I out? Can we still make it to the academy?" He was sure Rhea would forgive him since he was technically making up for his mistake, but he would still feel terrible about not keeping his promise.
Queen grinned slightly at Ryuji's panic and let him bask in uncertainty for a while before answering. "You have only been out for a day. We still have about two weeks to make it. If there are no more detours, we should have plenty of time."
"Okay! Well, I'll get up and get going."
Queen firmly pushed him back down into his bed. "No. You will rest for today, and we will leave tomorrow."
"You're letting me rest?" Ryuji was wondering where the catch was but upon inspecting her face, he found no such signs. "Didn't think you cared enough."
"Your spell deals with physical pain, not physical fatigue. If we leave now, your status will only hinder us."
"Huh. Well, if that's the case, I'm gonna find Jessy and hangout!"
Queen stared out the window she was sitting near and spoke even more flatly than normal. "Have fun with that."
After getting dressed and gathering his stuff, Ryuji set out to find his friend. "I hope she hasn't left yet."
Ryuji checked the guildhall first and saw her sitting in the very back by herself. After confirming with the master about a reward for his heroic deeds, Ryuji took with him a bag of about 2 million ISH and sat down with Jessy.
Her happy attitude was nowhere to be seen. Ryuji had expected her to be jovial with him feeling better and all, but it just looked like he was about to get yelled at. "Are you okay? And why do you look so angry with me?"
Jessy shot out of her seat and pulled Ryuji by his arm. "We're going someplace more private." Even her signature style of talking was gone.
Jessy strung him along for about twenty minutes. In that time, he didn't dare speak a word. He was worried about getting blown up on and causing a scene was not on his checkbook of activities today.
Eventually, they stopped at a hill overlooking the town. It was completely deserted and suited their purposes nicely. Once they were there, Ryuji and Jessy sat down. Silence followed, and Ryuji kept his eyes trained on the midday sky.
A quiet voice that shook asked a question. "Why? Why did you save me?" It almost sounded as if she didn't want to know the answer.
"Well, because that's what a good person would do." Ryuji was slightly embarrassed by the real reason, so he came up with something else.
Jessy didn't seem to like his answer. "That's it? That is your only reason. That's the only reason you needed to almost die!?"
"Then what about you? Why did you try and help? How are you any different than me?"
"The difference is I didn't know it was a god. I thought it was just some sicko. You, on the other hand, had full awareness of the situation!"
He was getting pretty annoyed with where this conversation was heading, so he decided to give up the ghost. "Fine, it wasn't my only reason, okay! You happy now?"
An upset Jessy glared at the angry and shy Ryuji. All the while Queen sat on the other side of the hill listening to the whole thing. "What was your other reason then?"
"Look, why do you even care? Aren't you happy that you're not dead? Isn't that good enough for you?" Ryuji looked away from the aggressive questioner. He felt like she was too far looking into this, and if she went any further, he might say some truly embarrassing things.
"I…need you to answer me…please?" A teary red-eyed gunslinger looked at the ground.
Ryuji felt terrible from the pit of his stomach. 'Damnit! I really am just a big softie, aren't I?' Ryuji was mentally kicking himself for caving in so easily, but there's no helping it. When a cute girl cries in front of you, it's only natural to try and make her feel better. "Hey, listen, I can answer it, but you gotta promise not to laugh, okay?"
With a single determined nod from Jessy, Ryuji was greenlit to tell her. "Well, it's like…ugggh! Look, I know this is gonna sound weird but hear me out, okay? I'm fully aware that we literally have only known each other for about three days. I'm confident that you probably consider me a stranger, but well, I had a lot of fun with you. I kind of... consider you to be one of my friends. So that's why I did it."
For a while, Jessy remained silent, and Ryuji gained a new shade of red for every second of silence that passed. A self-deprecating laugh escaped Jessy, and she put her face between her knees. "I knew it. I knew that I was trash."
"What do you mean? I'm getting a little confused here."
"You saved me, but if I was in your shoes, I would've just run. It doesn't matter if I think of you as a friend or not. I would've run for my life."
Her tone made Ryuji wince. 'Ah, is this what they call survivors guilt?' He tried desperately to reach out and make her feel better. "I was scared too. I was scared shitless."
"But you still fought!" Her hands were clenched, and tears rolled down her face.
Ryuji looked then turned and faced the sky once again with a content face. "I'm gonna be honest with you, Jessy. If you weren't there, I don't think I would have fought at all."
"Huh?"
"I was just about to hightail it out of there, and that's when I saw what that thing did to you. After seeing you strung up like that! I just couldn't bear it anymore!" Ryuji's hands trembled at the remembrance of her wounds. "My point is that if you're trash, then so am I!"
Silence enveloped the hill once again, and it was quite a while until they talked again. Queen was worried that they might have both died tragically, but then Jessy spoke up.
"When are you leaving?" She sounded as if this would be the last time they would see each other.
Ryuji couldn't bear to look at her. "We're going tomorrow."
"I see." She sounded as if they were talking about something as simple as the weather.
Ryuji looked over at the gunslinger who was watching the sunset. At that moment, he remembered a conversation they had the other day. "I know what I want to do once we meet up with Rhea."
"What's that?"
A smile spread across the swordsman's face. "I want to find more friends. People who want to adventure fun."
With a quick giggle, Jessy looked as if she were admiring the smile on Ryuji's face. "That's a pretty simple thing to want."
"Yeah, but I realized when we went with you that I want to meet all sorts of people and have fun. Just like we had fun with you."
Another pause and another period of silence. This one was shorter than before as Jessy spoke with a concerned tone. "Tell me, what happened the other day, is it something you plan on repeating?"
Ryuji thought back on the crazy past few weeks. "Well, I have had a pretty recent trend of ending up in need of hospitalization."
"Hmm, I thought as much." Jessy exclaimed it as if they were talking about something trivial. She stood up and regained her normal composure. A bright new smile displayed itself upon her visage. Ryuji felt glad that she was doing better and knew that now he could head on towards the capital with no regrets.
"In that case, Mr. Koyanagi, to keep you from doing stupid shit like that again, I'll just have to accompany you on your journey."
Ryuji's mind stuttered as he stared at the cocky girl in front of him. "W-what? I thought you wanted to find new spells?"
"Hmmm, well I still do, but now I want to be with you too! Sometimes in life, you gotta compromise Ryuji."
"That's great news!" Ryuji stood up and, out of pure excitement, took Jessy's hands in his. The idiot only realized his mistake once he saw Jessy's red face. He promptly let go of her. "I'm so sorry. I should ask before doing that kind of thing." Ryuji scratched his cheek shyly.
"It's fine, I just wasn't ready, is all." After her last statement, Jessy pushed her hat down to cover her eyes.
'CUTE!' Ryuji feared that he might have a heart attack if he sees something so cute again. Just what was it about confident girls being shy that made Ryuji's heart burst with joy? He started thinking that maybe he just had a weird fetish, or maybe all of man had it engraved into their DNA.
"W-well it's getting late, and I need to hit the sack before I get yelled at by my caretaker." Ryuji turned on the path and got ready to depart back to his temporary room.
"I should be going to bed too. I have to wake up bright and early tomorrow to go with you after all!"
With an awkward wave goodbye, Ryuji departed from the hill and went the way back to the inn. As he made his way down the dirt path, he was tugged on the sleeve from behind. Queen stood there with a conflicted look.
"Oh, Queen! Jessy's coming with us tomorrow!"
"Hmm, Is that so?" Worry was blatantly written all over the face of Queen.
Ryuji hadn't seen her like this before and frankly didn't know what to do. "What's wrong?"
"Be honest with me. Are you part of the Freiheit cult?"
Ryuji felt stupid for worrying about this ungrateful woman in front of him. "What? No! I haven't even met one before. Why the hell are you even asking?"
"It doesn't matter. If you say you aren't, then you aren't."
"You know you are so weird sometimes." Queen looked as if she wanted to say more, but he had already started turning around. Ryuji began walking away towards the inn when a shout from behind stopped him.
"Why aren't you mad!?"
Ryuji turned around and saw Queen overcome with anger. Her fists quivered, and the look of her eyes would make any man shrink back. "Mad about what exactly?"
"I haven't helped you once! Doesn't that frustrate you!? Don't you hate me?! Don't you wish I'd do more and complain less!?" With every word, she inched closer and closer to him.
Ryuji felt terrified by this sudden outburst from the ice queen herself. "I do wish you would cut me some slack sometimes, but I don't hate you."
"Don't lie to me! I'm terrible! I bring down the mood any time I speak. I always point out people's flaws even though I don't have a solution to mine! People passed and decided to walk the other way. Others gathered to see the fight break out. "I can't even fight…I'm…I'm always too scared! What good am I? What purpose do I serve?"
Ryuji closed the last bit of space between them and put his hand on her shoulder."Purpose? You act like I want you to travel with me because you fulfill some grand role. If there's any purpose you do serve, it's being my straight man. Whenever I get too hot-headed about something, you're there to cool me down and make sure I don't do anything stupid."
She threw his hand off her shoulder and continued her rant. "You want to travel with me? Why would you ever want that now that you don't need me anymore? After all, you have the super-capable gunslinger on your team now. Now you can go fulfill your dream!"
"My dream?"
"You want to travel with friends and have fun, right? There's no way that you can have fun if I'm there. You might as well just get rid of me now." Queen turned her eyes downward and awaited to hear the fateful words that would evict her from the group.
"So, you heard us, huh? I see. You want an answer, right? Well, here's your answer." Ryuji grabbed Marie and embraced her.
He had only known her for about two weeks, and their time together wasn't exactly a blast. Despite that, Ryuji did get to know Marie, and he was convinced that she just didn't really understand how to deal with people. When your entire life is just training, and the only person you talk to is your master, one can only imagine how little small talk she had over the course of those 15 years.
"What are you doing? This is disgusting. Let me go." Her words lacked bite and sounded like the whining of a little girl.
"If that's what you want, then just step away. If not, I'll just keep holding you."
They stood there, embracing each other for what seemed like an eternity. Ryuji could feel the softness of Marie and see her getting more and more embarrassed the longer the embrace went. After a while, Queen backed away, and Ryuji let go.
"So, I can stay?" She asked shyly and looked up to Ryuji with the most emotion he had ever seen on her face.
"Of course you can, idiot. I thought that was the point of our cuddle session just- OW!"
A fist quickly silenced Ryuji as Queen began walking away. "That's what imbeciles who run their mouths get. Now head back and get some rest before I put you back in the hospital bed."
"Yes, ma'am."
With that, our group of three friends got a good night's rest before continuing on their journey to the capital.