On The Side Of The Pitch With You

Beyond Space Through Time

"Shit."

Kimiko opened her eyes to glare at the one standing before her. The older boy quickly sat upright on his bike, but before he could do anything else, she used her telekinesis to keep him from moving.

"Damn it."

He tried to use his own power against her. Granted, he was putting up a pretty good fight. But so was she.

After about ten minutes of struggling and an extra two of glaring, he finally gave a defeated sigh. "Alright, fine. I'm sorry I didn't tell you your boyfriend has to get kidnapped for the world to be saved. There. Happy?"

"No."

"Well, not much else I could do about that."

"Zanark!"

"Geez, I'm right here. You don't need to yell. What?"

She pursed her lips before taking a deep breath to calm down, letting him go from her mind grip. "Can you give me any more details?"

He raised an eyebrow at that. "You said you wanted to figure it all out along the way."

"That was before Kyousuke got kidnapped to who-knows-where with some dead-alien-king-spirit of the planet that nearly declared war on the galaxy telling me to keep shut about it!"

"And you listened?"

"Well, I mean―! W-What else was I supposed to do?!" She took another deep breath. "He's a ghost! He could possess me or something if I didn't! Like what Potomuri did to Mizukawa-san! I don't want anyone controlling everything I do without my knowledge!"

"I knew you'd say that. If he wanted to possess you, wouldn't he have done it immediately than risk you being... you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"You do realize who and what we are, right?"

"Yeah, but he doesn't know that!"

"He said he's been watching you since you arrived on that planet, didn't he? That should be clue enough."

"Yeah, but―" She stopped herself and blinked. "Wait, how did you know that?"

It was his turn to shoot her a look. "Did you think, when I said I'm going to keep my eye on you for the entirety of your stay back there, I was joking?"

... Was it bad if she really did think that? "Wait, so you've been watching everything I do or...?"

"Not necessarily everything. Who the hell do you take me for?" He was starting to look exasperated. That's a new one, coming from him. "I have a good idea of the outline of the events that will― or at least, is supposed to― unfold. Teleporting grandpa gave me the data."

Professor Aruno.

"It's pretty vague data, but of course, nothing I couldn't figure out." He tapped on the monitor of his bike a few times and two holographic screens appeared. Both screens have similar contents, that is, the timeline of events since her return to the past. The only difference was that there was a pink line overlapping a section where it should be green on one of them. Most likely an indicator of the time she spent there. "I just speed through stuff and contact you at points of time that seem important."

Literally scrolling through the timeline, huh... "So that's how your calls are always so perfectly timed."

He simply smirked in reply.

She took another deep breath. "Then, judging by these charts..."

He nodded. "You haven't changed anything enough to make an interruption point. Just made some people happier."