I Have Returned
"You're back... Huh? Mom, who's that next to you...?"
"...Say hello, sweetheart. This is our daughter."
"Starting today, she'll be living with us. You're the same age, but... I think you can think of her as your little sister."
"...What?"
"A little sister? Out of nowhere...?"
"I'll explain the details later. For now, why don't you two introduce yourselves?"
"...Mm, okay."
"...Hi? My name is Lucia."
"....I, I'm..."
"..My name... I can't remember it..."
"...What was it again? El... something El..."
"...It's okay if you remember your name later!"
"Nice to meet you. --El--"
"...This won't do. Come inside. Let's decide on a name, whether you remember it or make a new one..."
"...Ugh..."
"..Ugh....."
"....Hah?!???"
The moment my eyes opened, my body shot upright on its own.
What... what is this? Am I dead?
My vision was still blurry, so I couldn't see anything yet...
I definitely hadn't gone to heaven, so... was this hell?
But hell wouldn't be this white.
I needed to see something to make a judgment, so I tapped my temple with my fingertips until the dizziness faded.
"....?"
The hazy vision gradually cleared, and what came into focus was...
White.
A pure white blanket wrapped around my body.
Everything was white. The ceiling, walls, and floor were painted entirely white, as if not a single stain would be tolerated, save for the faintly engraved grid pattern.
...This place wasn't unfamiliar. It was the sight I saw every time I opened my eyes five years ago.
The laboratory—research facility?—located deep underground in the Hero Association's C-branch headquarters.
So, was this a life flashing before my eyes? Was I about to see all my memories from then until now play out in sequence?
Ha, haha. How considerate. Showing me my life flashing before my eyes right before I die. Not that I actually thought this was real.
"......"
...Or so I thought.
The scene wasn't changing. Nothing at all.
Wasn't it supposed to flip through quickly and end?
It had been at least two minutes, yet nothing had changed.
It was still the same white bed and walls.
What was going on? Contrary to my expectation that this would feel hazy like a dream, my mind was growing clearer by the second.
I calmed my racing thoughts as I tried to analyze the current situation and slowly sat up—
"Whoa?!?"
Thud.
The sound of my butt hitting the hard floor echoed through the room.
What the hell? My body felt unfamiliar, like my limbs had gotten shorter—
No, and why did my voice sound like this? It seemed a bit younger—
Don't tell me...
"..Mirror. Mirror."
I scrambled to my feet and searched for a mirror.
It had been five years, but since I'd once lived here, I remembered the layout. There should be a mirror to the right of the bed...
..Ah.
...My fears had become reality.
It was exactly the appearance from five years ago. My body had gone back to that time.
I was much shorter than I was now, more youthful—just the body of a sixteen-year-old kid.
I had returned.
For a long while, my brain froze and I couldn't think of anything. I just stood there.
Time had gone backward? But how?
Well, I guess... the first time I was thrown into a completely unknown world and born as a girl had already happened, so it wasn't *that* shocking—
Still, shocking was shocking. Not only had I experienced one bizarre event, but now time itself had rewound? And right after everything had failed and I'd died?
I stood there in a daze, organizing the thoughts in my head. In the middle of that—
"Haaam, what was that loud noise... Subject 26?"
"...Why are you staring at the mirror like that? Did you get a scar or something?"
A youthful yet familiar voice came from behind me.
It was the last voice I'd heard five years ago.
Right. Since I'd come back, of course the kid who shared this room with me in the lab would be here too.
...I never thought I'd see her again.
I slowly turned my head. Familiar brown hair came into view.
She was a little taller than me—taller than the thirteen-year-old me. A youthful face.
Clear black eyes, contrasted by an exhausted expression.
The kid who'd shared a room with me throughout the horrific life in this lab, sharing the pain with me.
The kid who used to say her dream was to go to the Academy, but after being dragged here, she'd given up and resigned herself to it.
And in the end, the kid who left this world as the twenty-third victim of that horrific Esper Awakening Serum Research.
"..No, it's nothing. I fell off the bed in my sleep and was checking if I'd gotten hurt."
"Sorry, Subject 25. Did I wake you?"
I already knew this kid's name was Berry. But we hadn't exchanged names until the day before she died—that was when we first learned each other's names.
Inside here, we had no choice but to call each other by our subject numbers.
"...No, it's fine. Whatever. I was going to wake up soon anyway."
"Be careful. What do you mean, falling off the bed in your sleep? Did you have a nightmare?"
In her tired, exhausted eyes, a faint glimmer of worry could be seen.
She was always like this. She seemed indifferent to everything, but she showed me so much care and concern.
She must have been bright before she was captured and brought here. Honestly, there weren't any kids here who could stay bright. If they did, that wouldn't be brightness—it would be mental illness.
That's the kind of place this was.
"...I just had a slightly scary dream."
A dream.
It couldn't be that all those countless events were just a dream. The decisive proof was that the mana that had grown until the moment I was killed by the heroes was still circulating through my body.
It was probably right to assume that time had somehow been rewound.
Still, if I said something like "I just came back from the past," I'd obviously be treated as the nth test subject who'd gone crazy inside this lab.
"...Well, you don't look too serious, so I won't ask any more. Come get breakfast. The meal cart's almost done."
"...Yeah, I'll come out in a bit."
Then came the sound of footsteps moving away. The mechanical whirr of the door opening.
Finally, the sound of the door closing, and the room was left in complete silence.
"....."
Only then did I sit back down on the bed.
Time had gone back. After I died.
What did this mean? Why had I come back?
And if I had come back...
Couldn't I change something?
I hadn't been able to save Berry or anyone else here. I hadn't been able to get revenge on the Association, nor had I been able to protect Lumiel from receiving that horrific serum.
Couldn't I change that kind of outcome?
Maybe that's why time had been turned back.
I didn't know who had done it. But... maybe that's what it was?
I took out a notebook and pen from the drawer beside the bed. It was the notebook every test subject had to write in daily to report their physical condition.
It wouldn't matter if I tore out a few pages.
...Alright. Let's organize this.
Before I returned, how had things unfolded?
First, the Hero Association had planned to inject the S-class heroes with a drug that would make them unconsciously obey the Association's commands in order to keep them under control.
Since injecting the drug outright would raise suspicion, they came up with a plan to disguise it as a serum that strengthened esper abilities.
It would be a win-win if the heroes under their command got stronger anyway.
As a prerequisite, they needed an Ability-Strengthening Serum, and to create it, they needed to research espers and extract something from their bodies.
That's why this lab existed.
It wasn't complicated information, so I wouldn't forget it. And because it was the most horrific memory, I naturally remembered the documents I'd found in the lab in detail.
...Since they couldn't use registered espers, the records showed they had kidnapped children who had only faintly manifested abilities and conducted experiments on them.
Me, Berry, and all thirty of us here had been kidnapped and brought to this place.
The experiment had succeeded. They had succeeded in extracting the ability-strengthening serum from the bodies of espers.
And immediately after, they drained every drop of blood from the children one by one, as if consuming disposable goods, to manufacture the serum.
And the children who ended up like that, of course, died.
I remembered that by the time six had died, the kids here had realized they were being killed off one by one in order of their numbers.
At the time, I had desperately searched for a way to escape this place, but Berry hadn't paid much attention. Or more precisely, she had paid attention, but she had no intention of escaping.
She'd said it would be better to spend her time comfortably and die rather than waste it on an escape that might not even succeed.
Thinking about it now, it was hard to believe those words had come from a girl in her early teens. But then again, this place itself was insane.
In the end, I couldn't find an escape method. After exchanging names with her on the last day and sending Berry off,
The next day, thinking I was going to die, I wandered the lab all night and eventually escaped.
...After that, I lived consumed by revenge.
"Lucia!! Why aren't you coming out? The meal cart's almost finished??"
"J-just a second!! I'm coming out now!"
.....Would it flow the same way?
I had no certainty that the future I knew would unfold exactly the same—but at the point where time had been rewound, it was probably right to assume it would.
If things flowed differently from my memories, it would be no different from not having returned to the past at all.
I hurriedly folded the notebook neatly and put it back in the drawer. I'd think about the details later.
Looking at the calendar, there was still plenty of time before the experiment succeeded. I'd been in this lab for about half a year. Whether I escaped using the route I remembered or did something else, there was still a lot of time left.
Before closing the drawer and leaving the room,
I clenched my fist one last time and made a vow.
...This time, without fail.
I will definitely protect you, Lumiel.