Micchi Versus the New World - Chapter 139

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Chapter 139

My head pounded every time something exploded in the distance. I woke up with a start, gasping for air. It wasn't another dark room. Instead, I was stuck to a chair in some large, fancy-schmancy throne room. Restraints anchored my wrists to the armrests. Sunlight poured in from a tall window behind me and a circular sunroof above me. A nice, long red carpet stretched from the shut doors all the way up to…

"Chika," I muttered.

The one we had been looking for all this time sat with one leg up on her marble throne. She shifted the reedgrass from one corner of her mouth to the other. Clenched tightly in her right hand was a wooden sword, a bokken, which she had propped on and tapped rhythmically against her shoulder. In the other, she twirled a navy blue gakuran hat.

"Yo, Anya." Chika regarded me without so much as an ounce of emotion. "Almost time for the big fight. You can practically hear the little squirts getting closer and closer. Ririko and Kaoru are with 'em, too. It's going to be the biggest playground fight ever. One to remember."

"Why the hell are you doing this? We don't have to fight, Chika! Micchi and Yui… they just want to be with you again! Same goes for me, I… I…"

"I know, but there isn't much time. I don't have much time," she said somberly.

"What do you mean? Why don't you have much time?" I asked.

Chika stood up. It was only then that I noticed the three empty chairs like mine down to her left and one to my right. She turned to me with that same expressionless demeanor. However, this time around, it was just very slightly tinged with sadness.

"I'm dying," Chika said at last.

The words didn't register in my head. Almost like I refused to understand them.

"What…?" I uttered the only thing that came to mind.

"I've been dying since I was seven years old, and I'm living on borrowed time. There's no magic in this world that can cure it. Not even the gods I beat bloody can change my fate." Chika walked a few steps towards the throne room doors and stopped.

"And you kept this from us?"

"How could I? You wanted me to tell Micchi and Yui, a bunch of elementary school brats that would rather be anywhere but home, that their big sister was going to bite the dust?" she asked.

I swallowed the urge to fire back a snide comment.

"So, what the hell is this all about then? You brought us to this world and superpowered us because you… pitied yourself? Why hide away in this place? We could have spent whatever time you had left together!" I flexed against the restraints, but they didn't break and instead bit into my flesh.

"Because, Anya… Having your heart ripped out of you fucking sucks." Chika faced me with tears streaking down her cheeks.

I was so surprised to see it, that I couldn't even say a thing.

She continued after a deep breath and asked, "Do you remember Sachi?"

"Of course, I remember Sacchan…" I clenched my jaw.

"I'll show you, Anya. I owe you that much." Chika came within inches of my face. Her eyes flashed red. Instead of blinding me, a strange force sucked me through.

I came to, sitting in a dilapidated classroom. Most of the desks were broken in one or two legs. Trash littered the floor. The blackboard was scribbled with obscenities and stupid faces. The clock was perpetually stuck at 8:29 AM. It was that way because Chika had pulled the batteries off for shits and giggles.

"Motonari? But—"

"We're in our memories," Chika said from my right. She had her feet kicked up on the desk, teetering on the back two legs of the chair.

A group of kids erupted into groans and whoops behind me. I whipped around. Sitting in the corner of the room was us. Our younger selves. Even Eri was there. I'd remember that bob cut and bangs anywhere. If she was still around, then this memory was from our first year at Motonari.

They were playing Old Maid. My younger self had just lost. She had her head in her hands, teeth clenched, and miffed about losing. We hadn't met Micchi and Yui yet. For the most part, we spent our time staying late after school to mess around or fuck up other schools in the district.

"One more time!" younger Anya said.

"You loser, just suck it up and admit you're bad at the game!" Eri teased.

"Hahh? Call me a loser again!" Anya reached across the desk to grab Eri by the collar.

"Why not? Let's play again," past-Chika suggested.

And that's what they did.

"You remember who lost this time?" Chika asked as she twirled the gakuran hat.

"You did," I said.

After all, that was how we ended up meeting her.

It came down to the last draw. I had one card and the old maid left and the worst poker face ever. Chika must have known back then. She snatched the old maid, and I drew from her the matching card to win.

As was tradition, the loser went to buy some drinks and snacks from the vending machines. After telling her what each of us wanted, she headed out. My memories should have ended there, but present-day Chika got up and followed her past self.

"What are you waiting for?" Chika asked me.

I followed after her, but not without taking one more look at my past self and Eri. Things were so much more simple and fun back then.

"Your sickness. You kept it a secret all this time?" I asked.

"Yeah." Chika nodded.

The two of us followed the younger Chika out of Motonari Middle. No company would service our school with vending machines. It would all get stolen anyway. So, whoever lost always had to go across the block to the baseball field.

There were almost always people playing there. This time, however, a real match was happening between two teams. Past Chika, with her hands jingling the coins in her pocket, became distracted by someone coming up to bat. She walked past the vending machines and up to the chain-link fence to watch. A girl our age. Sachi Himura.

The match was in the last inning. Bases were loaded for Sachi's team, and they needed her and all three runners through to score one more point to win over their opponents.

Everyone fell silent. I even held my breath. This was my first time seeing it after all. The pitcher threw a hard fast. Sachi was faster. She struck the ball and it went far. Home run. The team burst into celebration, and Sachi took a leisure stroll around the bases. They mobbed her at the home base. She deserved it.

The ace was coming over to the vending machines to grab a celebratory drink, but past Chika was already waiting.

"Think fast!" Chika pitched a water bottle.

Sachi, being a seasoned baseball player, caught it easily.

"Tch. No wonder you took so long." I scoffed in the direction of Chika's present self.

"Thanks." Sachi didn't leave immediately. She sidled up to past Chika and leaned against the vending machine to catch her breath. "I'm Sachi. Guessing you saw my miracle home run? I play around here pretty often and haven't seen you before."

"Chika. I go to Motonari down that way. And, yeah. Couldn't help but watch. Thought you were pretty damn cool. If you told me you always hit home runs, I'd believe you." She grinned.

"I wish. My dad used to play for a team that made it to Koshien. As you can see, the apple didn't fall far from the tree."

Sachi's team was coming out of the field. Her teammates waved and beckoned for her to come back for a celebration photo.

"I gotta go. Thanks for the water, Chika!" Sachi shook the now empty bottle..

"You wanna hang out sometime? Maybe teach me a few pointers to hit a home run, too?" Chika asked, trying to squeeze out another second to hang out with the ace.

"Sure! Like I said, I play here pretty often. You know where to find me." She smirked.

That was how it started. How Eri and I ended up meeting Sachi, too. She was easy to get along with. Always had stories, always making us laugh. We started calling her Sacchan, and she even eventually hung out with us at Motonari. All of us learned right away how important baseball was to her. To her family, too. Whenever she was around, there was no violence. Didn't want to risk anything happening to her. It was the most normal school experience we could have ever asked for.

Memories passed by me, like watching the shifting from within a fast moving car: the four of us going to the arcades together, attending Sacchan's young women's league, and hanging out at each other's houses.

"Too bad we were all walking curses, and being friends with Sacchan got her caught up in all of it." Chika sighed.

I knew exactly what she meant.

"That wasn't your fault," I tried to reason with her.

"No? See for yourself," she said.

Almost a year had gone by. Sacchan was rising to fame through baseball, but that came at a cost.

"What do you mean I can't hang out with them? Those are my friends! They aren't violent like you think!" Sacchan argued in our defense.

Past Chika was hiding behind a pillar just outside of a community sports center. Sacchan had just come out of practice. She was being confronted by her teammates and coach.

"Sachi… Those girls are in Motonari for a reason. They had to do a lot wrong in their youth to be put there," her coach, a stern man with a soft demeanor, said.

"We're just worried about you," one of her friends, a pony-tailed girl, added.

Another friend pulled out a phone. "Does this look like they aren't violent?"

Present Chika and I were close enough to see. It was a video of us in a full-blown brawl with another school.

"And she went on staying as our friends even after that," Chika said.

"Shit…" I clicked my tongue. "Fucking Sacchan. Why didn't you just cut ties with us? You had your whole future ahead of you, girl…"

"Because I was selfish." She gazed in the direction of her past self.

After Sacchan's coach and friends left, young Chika emerged from her hiding place. The two of them locked eyes, then glanced away in shame. They ended up heading to the baseball park where they had first met, just lying in the middle of the field where the pitcher would be standing.

All of a sudden…

"Sacchan, I'm dying," past Chika blurted out.

"What? Where did this come from?" Sacchan asked in shock.

"When I was seven, they discovered a tumor in my brain. I've gone through three surgeries and it keeps coming back. I'm scared… I don't want to die," she mumbled in a quivering voice.

Overcome with emotion, Sacchan drew the crying Chika into her arms and stayed like that.

I stared at Chika— my Chika who watched on without an expression. No hint of how she was feeling.

"You told her…  so she would stick around," I said.

"It was the worst mistake of my life." Chika looked away.

It was because Sacchan stayed that the fateful day that changed everything came to pass.

The memory shifted again, and we were back in the classroom after school. Just me and Chika.

"Guys, bad news!" Eri burst through the door, panting. "It's Sacchan… Those punks from Sugita High… they got Sacchan…"

Our past selves didn't hesitate. They booked it out of school and got an alleyway behind an arcade we frequented. Sacchan was lying on the ground, surrounded by a couple of girls and boys. One of them lifted her bat high above his head.

"No, stop!" past Chika cried.

The kid smashed it down on Sacchan's right ankle. She shrieked in pain. I remembered it. How agonizing it must have been.

We didn't hold back. Chika most of all went batshit insane and must have broken a couple of their teeths.

"Apparently, one of the Sugita ringleaders had a little sister who was up against Sacchan and her team later that week. They caught wind that we were friends with Sacchan, singled her out, and did this," Chika explained.

"If you found out, why didn't you tell her coach? Or the police?" I asked.

"You think they'd believe a little shit-stain like me? Well, they eventually investigated but didn't find a connection. Sacchan ended up in a cast with a fractured ankle, and her team lost without their ace. Two months later…"

We visited Sacchan in the hospital almost everyday. She was despondent. Always looked out the window. The light in her eyes was gone. Her baseball career was put on pause. She needed crutches to go anywhere. One day, during a rainy spell, she was walking home alone from school when a car struck her dead.

Chika and I stood at her funeral for the second time. Our younger selves were dressed in black. I was crying my heart out. Chika… that must have been when she steeled her heart.

The giant picture of the happy-go-lucky batter sat at the very front of the room. Countless flowers were laid across her casket and tables, including her miracle home run bat. It was finally mine, Chika, and Eri's turn to lay flowers down.

But the unthinkable happened.

To the horror of everyone in the room, Chika snatched the bat. I must have blanked out that memory, but I was seeing it again now. We ran. We ran to Motonari, tears flicking off our cheeks as rain showered over us like the day Sacchan was hit.

We stopped at the courtyard of Motonari. Eri and I were too tired to keep going, but Chika had slowed to a stop and stared up into the sky.

"Chika… You okay?" Eri asked.

Chika collapsed to her knees, clutching the bat to her chest and cried. She cried and cried until she couldn't any longer, and I didn't see her cry anymore after that.

The rain washed away the memory, and we were back in the empty throne room.

"Sometimes, I wonder if I was stronger… would I have been able to protect her? Or maybe if I never asked to hang out, would she be at Koshien by now? At least I could have watched her from afar," Chika said.

After seeing all that, I knew that no matter what I say would allow Chika to forgive herself. I didn't have that power.

"What's the end game here, Chika? You started all this because you blame yourself for what happened to Sacchan?" I asked.

"I'm going to die anyway, but it isn't going to be by this stupid disease. Micchi will do it. Yui's too soft. But Micchi, I've seen how strong she's gotten. I made her hate me, despise me, all so that she wouldn't feel the same hurt when I'm gone," Chika said.

For the first time since Chika first left, anger bubbled to the surface of my being.

"You… fucking… dumbass! Do you have any idea how badly that's going to fuck her up? Put that on yourself! Don't put that on Micchi! You can't betray her feelings like that… if you won't tell her, then I'll tell her the truth when she gets here!" I yelled.

"I know. That's why I'm going to have you sleep quietly until it's all over." Chika struck the magic circle around my seat with her bokken.

A beam of light surrounded me. Burning pain rippled across my skin. It hurt so much that I could only scream. Something began to leave my body. It coalesced into a finger-like crystal floating between us. I recognized it. The shape reminded me of what Chika ripped out of the bat, Sacchan. Something like that… was in me… all along…?

The light vanished. My entire being felt a whole lot weaker.

Another heavy crash boomed outside, but it was a lot closer this time. Like right outside of the throne room close.

"Already here, huh? We taught 'em well, didn't we?" Chika shut her eyes to squeeze out one last tear and fastened the gakuran hat onto her head.

"Chika, wait… Ever since you saved me back then, I… I've always…"

"See ya, Anya." She flashed a childish grin over her shoulder, like when we were just brats without a care in the world. "Thanks for being by my side all those years."

As my vision blurred, Chika turned around to the doors groaning open. Micchi and Yui rushed in first. Of course, they did. Always rushing in without thinking.

For once in your life, don't fight, I wanted to tell them.

But when that last thought crossed my mind, I'd already passed out.