The Origin
The voice tickled my ear like a gentle whisper. “Oppa… wake up…”
A subtle weight pressed down on the blanket. Just before my eyelids fluttered open, something warm brushed lightly across my cheek. When I opened my eyes, Yuzuki was straddling me, gazing down with quiet intensity.
She wore the academy uniform with perfect composure, her skirt hem spilling just past her knees onto the sheets. Her fingertips awkwardly swept my bangs aside. The sight felt strangely familiar. Of course it did. It was almost exactly what Luna had done to me yesterday morning as a prank.
Yuzuki was clearly imitating her. But unlike Luna, a faint blush of shyness colored Yuzuki’s face. Her trembling knees and the way her toes curled against the blanket betrayed every ounce of her nervousness.
I watched her for a moment, then slowly closed my eyes again.
“…Oppa?” Yuzuki called softly, her voice tinged with confusion. Her fingertips froze. “Why are you going back to sleep…?”
Before she could finish, I reached up and wrapped my arms around her waist. She barely had time to gasp before I gently pulled her upper body down and pressed my lips to hers.
Her entire body trembled against me. Still, I held her back with careful tenderness, and she melted into the kiss without resistance. The brief but deep connection let our body heat mingle, flowing between us like liquid warmth.
Only then did I open my eyes and sit up, the blanket sliding down. Cool air kissed my skin. I exhaled slowly and said,
“If you’re going to wake me up like this from now on, do it exactly like that.”
“…Ah. Y-yeah…” Yuzuki froze solid. A deep crimson flush spread across her cheeks. Her fingers hovered absently over the spot where our lips had met. She blinked so slowly she looked dazed. Even her breathing seemed restrained, as if she were afraid to make a sound. After a long moment, she gave the tiniest nod.
“Yuzuki… that’s so unfair.”
“W-what is?”
“You know exactly what.”
Luna set her spoon down and narrowed her eyes at Yuzuki, a mischievous grin blooming on her lips. “Yesterday morning you scolded me so hard for climbing on top of him, but today you’re the one straddling Yuto first? Don’t you think that’s a little hypocritical?”
She tilted her head with an innocent expression, but her tone dripped with playful mockery.
“T-that… I just… it just kind of happened.” Yuzuki looked utterly flustered. She hugged her knees and turned her face away.
“Heee… So it just kind of happens naturally, huh?” Luna poked at the grains of rice with her chopsticks, eyes sparkling with teasing delight.
Yuzuki refused to meet her gaze. She cleared her throat once and lowered her head, clearly trying to escape the conversation.
“Whoa, Yuzuki, your face is bright red.” Luna laughed and leaned toward her.
At that moment, I quietly reached over and stroked Luna’s thigh under the table. She flinched and glanced at me, but when I said nothing and simply continued eating, she looked down again and silently picked up her chopsticks. I ran my hand slowly down her back in praise, then gave her backside a light, playful pat.
From the very start of the morning, research equipment was being carried into the academy in an endless stream. Every time a transport vehicle loaded with heavy machinery rolled past, the ground trembled faintly. Voices giving orders and confirming deliveries echoed everywhere.
I watched the scene in silence.
Beside me, Father, who had been standing quietly, suddenly spoke.
“How’s the atmosphere at home these days?”
I pulled my gaze away from the equipment and answered briefly. “Fortunately, there don’t seem to be any major problems. At least not yet.”
Father raised one eyebrow, then turned his head. “…I see.”
After that short exchange, we stood side by side without another word. Only the mechanical noises around us filled the silence. Father and son remained like that for a long while.
Just as Father had said, the research lab was being merged into the academy. Thanks to that, I saw his face at the academy more often lately, but it had become much harder to see him at home. He claimed he was busy going back and forth between the lab and the academy to handle the merger… but honestly, it felt more like he was using it as an excuse to stay away from the house.
A little later, Father spoke again, his voice quiet.
“At first, I hoped you would choose a partner you wouldn’t get emotionally entangled with. Someone who could maintain just enough distance to be useful for the project. That way, once the research was over, you could end the relationship cleanly.”
I listened in silence.
He smiled bitterly and continued. “But I never expected you to choose Luna. Or rather… maybe it was Luna who chose you first. Either way, I couldn’t bring myself to tell you to end things once the research was finished.”
“You don’t need to worry so much, Father. In the end, it’s something I did. I’ll take responsibility.”
Father gave an awkward laugh. “…It’s good to see you have a sense of responsibility, but as a father, that’s a very strange thing to hear.”
I smiled wryly. “Then why did you suddenly bring Luna home like that?”
“…Well, because I trusted you. At least if you were living under the same roof, something might come of it. Besides, it looked like the two of you had already talked it through…”
His words left me momentarily speechless. Neither Father nor I knew exactly what the two of them had discussed that day. It wasn’t the kind of thing we could casually ask about.
“And I didn’t bring Luna home on a whim. The academy merger was one issue, but there was something even more important…”
Father trailed off for a moment, then said, “There was a possibility that the Outers might target the research lab. I couldn’t leave Luna there any longer. It would have been too dangerous.”
Surprised by the unexpected revelation, I stared at him. So that was what he had meant by bringing her home for her safety.
“The Outers are targeting the lab?”
“Yes. Thanks to you, we obtained interesting data from the Black Knight’sDracore. After analysis, it seems that thing had been aiming for our lab from the very beginning.”
I licked my lips and asked, “What could the lab possibly have that they’d want?”
Father closed his eyes for a moment, deep in thought, then spoke slowly. “There’s no solid evidence, but if there’s one possibility… it might be because of the Origin.”
“Origin…? What is that?”
I had never heard the term before. Was there something like that in the lab? I tilted my head, looking at Father.
He nodded and quietly explained. “The Origin is the very first Outer ever observed by humanity, and at the same time, it is the first Dracore. It is the prototype for every unit we operate today.”
“…The name really is literal.”
“However, while the Dracores we use now are artificially created and refined by humans, the Origin was made by modifying a pure, untainted Outer. Because of that, it still retains the unique special abilities that the original Outer possessed.”
I pressed my lips together tightly. An instinctive, unpleasant image flashed through my mind.
“So maybe the Black Knight was after that?”
“It’s possible. We don’t know how it located the Origin, but if it was targeting the lab, the most likely reason is the Origin’s power. On top of that, that thing had the strange ability to pilot a Dracore directly.”
“…Exactly what kind of ability does the Origin have?”
Father took a breath, then lowered his voice. “The Origin possesses an Outer Force related to ‘rifts.’”
“Rifts…?”
“Yes. When humanity first discovered it, the Origin was creating dimensional rifts that allowed the Outers to invade our world. The rift zones we manage today are ultimately traces left behind by the Origin. Completely repairing a cracked dimension is nearly impossible, so the idea arose to use them in reverse instead.”
Father finished speaking and looked up at the sky. A gray-tinged cloud drifted quickly overhead.
“In any case, after securing that thing at the cost of countless sacrifices, we were able to trace how the Outers approach our world. The rift suppressors we use now were also technologies born from research on the Origin.”
I mulled over his words, and one possibility suddenly occurred to me. “Then… if the Origin has that kind of special power, couldn’t we use it in reverse to close the rifts?”
Father remained silent for a long time. Then he quietly shook his head. “It would be wonderful if we could. But operating the Origin is practically impossible.”
I tilted my head again. “Why? What’s the reason?”
A bitter smile touched Father’s lips. “The Dracores we handle today have gone through multiple rounds of functional restrictions and optimizations to account for human limitations before finally reaching a level where they can be operated stably. But the Origin is a prototype that was created without any consideration for human limits whatsoever. The required capabilities are simply not realistic.”
I licked my lips and asked carefully, “How unrealistic are we talking? What kind of synchronization rate would it need?”
“It’s not simply a matter of the synchronization rate number. In theory, to properly operate the Origin, at least three pilots must participate in coupling simultaneously. Only then can the burden be distributed enough to endure. But even two pilots coupling becomes unstable in reality. Three or more simultaneously… that’s almost impossible.”
His words essentially meant they had created something beyond human control.
Father paused for a long moment, then looked at me quietly and added, “But… perhaps you could do it. You’re special. And you already have the perfect partners ready…”
I stared at Father’s face in silence. The words sounded like a joke, but there wasn’t a trace of humor in his eyes. He was completely serious.
Maybe that was why I couldn’t find my voice for a moment, overwhelmed by a strange sense of bewilderment.
“…Father?”
He lifted the corner of his mouth slightly and added in a low voice, “You definitely said earlier that you would take responsibility for those two, didn’t you?”
His gaze shifted toward a black transport case being moved on a distant trailer.
“As it happens, the Origin is being transferred to the academy right now as well. If it’s something we can’t avoid anyway… we might as well gather the necessary data while we’re at it.”