Chapter 45: The Mantis Blocks the Chariot

Just as the police were securing the rocket launch site, Yuki was being carried onto the ambulance and rushed to the hospital.

He protested that he was fine, but Senior Ayu dragged him into the ambulance regardless. Seeing Yuki perched on the stretcher, poised to bolt at any moment, Ayu took out his phone and snapped a picture, showing it to Yuki. Only then did Yuki realize, belatedly, that his appearance was hardly convincing.

Anyone seeing a face streaked with dried blood, clearly once bleeding from every orifice, would never believe he was “fine.”

Yuki was bewildered himself, guessing it was caused by capillaries rupturing when the rocket’s internal pressure dropped suddenly. It wasn’t serious, but it looked horrifying.

He glanced up at Senior Ayu’s dark expression and could only obediently shut his mouth, once again being led back to the familiar hospital ward.

Then came a barrage of examinations.

At that moment, Yuki really empathized with Senior Ayu—he hated these checkups too.

This time, Senior Ayu took care of his admission, and the doctor handling registration, seeing that familiar medical record appear on his desk for the third time in a month, was already resigned.

After all the tests, nothing was found, but he was kept under observation for a day.

So Yuki returned to a hospital room whose ceiling he knew all too well, pulled the covers over his head, and slept for twelve straight hours. When he awoke, dusk had fallen. Yet he didn’t want to get up, nor did he want to sleep again. He reached for his PAD by the pillow and started browsing the news.

First, the Institute of Cosmic Technology had come under investigation, ostensibly for tax evasion. The news photo showed the company president, still drunk, handcuffed and being dragged out of an izakaya by two policemen.

With the employer arrested, the security team disbanded on the spot, which explained how Senior Ayu managed to join the group heading to the rocket launch site that night.

The second news item.

Judging by its popularity, it should have been the day’s headline, but it had been bumped to the second page by the president’s arrest.

Yuki glanced at the headline and felt as if a block of ice had slipped into his stomach, chilling him to the bone.

The headline read:

“Breaking: Space Station Struck by Space Debris, Astronaut Couple Tragically Lost”

Below were the black-and-white photos of the two victims.

Yuki forced himself past the discomfort in his stomach and continued reading.

“The space station was struck by a five-meter foreign object around 12:20 a.m., shattering several modules. The Kujou couple were performing maintenance in one of the affected modules and subsequently disappeared.

“Experts speculate the sudden pressure differential hurled them into space. Preparations to search for their remains are underway…”

All thirty or so other staff on the station were unharmed, and the station itself had not suffered catastrophic damage as depicted in the drama.

Why them—why only them?

Yuki wasn’t wishing for more casualties, nor hoping the victims would be replaced. His wish was for no casualties at all.

Had anyone died in this disaster, he would have grieved—after all, he had struggled so much to prevent it.

But not a single person on the station was injured, except for those two, who died in another manner. It was as if some higher-dimensional will whispered in Yuki’s ear: Your struggles are meaningless; the wheels of fate cannot be stopped by a mere mantis.

You’ll only be crushed to pieces.

An indescribable tide of emotion engulfed him, and his eyes went red.

For a moment, he wondered what advantage his “foresight” ever gave him. Was it simply a spoiler? So he could reserve a front-row seat to witness the inevitable deaths, clear and unambiguous?

The little one was dead, only by another method;

The Kujou couple couldn’t be saved either—he had risked so much using the power of the eldritch god, nearly dragging himself and Taiga down together. All his frantic efforts, fierce as a tiger, had only changed the manner of their deaths.

Clutching his PAD, Yuki sat numbly on the hospital bed. The helplessness, frustration, and loss at being toyed with by cosmic fate surged over him, muddling his thoughts. At some point, tears streamed down his face, and he didn’t notice someone approaching, gently ruffling his hair.

“…??”

Yuki snapped out of it, looking up at Mr. Hazumizu, who had brought over a chair and sat by the bed.

That feeling again…

If he had to describe it, it was as if he’d been hit by a stack of debuffs in a game—unable to move, health draining away, the screen awash in red, death imminent. Then suddenly, a dispel and holy healing descended upon him.

The clouds parted; the sun shone through.

Yuki felt instantly lighter, revived in a flash.

“…”

This wondrous sense of comfort—he’d experienced it once before.

Once might be an illusion; twice, it surely wasn’t.

Yuki began to suspect that Mr. Hazumizu truly possessed some kind of occult power, capable of influencing others’ emotions or minds—a psychic ability.