A little while later I leave the mall and head home. I stayed longer than I meant to — it’s already evening outside.
The mall sits right by the station, so the foot traffic is heavy. The streets are packed with what look like kids on their way home from clubs and adults coming off work. Once I’m home, I’m flopping on the bed and digging into the LN I just bought.
Weekend homework can wait — I’ve got till Sunday. I’m thinking about that while waiting at the crosswalk for the light when a scream tears through the air.
“KYAAAAAAAA—!”
I turn toward the sound, and what I see is — a man in head-to-toe black, hood up, maybe a few years older than me, slashing at a woman’s arm with a knife.
Can’t tell if he’s drunk or strung out on something nasty, but he is not normal. The woman’s scream sets off a chain reaction; the whole crowd erupts into outright panic.
The place is full-on chaos and I have no idea when I’m next. Worst case, I die. I need to get out of here, now.
“D-don’t come any closer—!?”
But then I hear a voice I recognize, close by. And even though my own life is on the line, my feet stop on their own.
I look toward the source — and there, of all people, are Tsurugi Riona, whose pencil case I picked up a few hours ago, and her older sister Tsurugi Reona. Just my luck — apparently they got caught in this too.
“R-Riona, hurry, get up—!?”
”…Sorry, my legs gave out. I can’t stand. Don’t worry about me, Nee-chan — just go.”
“There’s no way I’d leave Riona behind and run.”
So the younger one froze up. And even more unluckily — the man notices. Still wrapped in that weird not-quite-here haze, he locks onto the two of them as his next target.
While he’s busy with them, I can get away. In a situation like this, no one’s going to blame me for ditching two girls I don’t really know.
“Someone — please — help Riona…”
But hearing that voice — that thin, almost-extinguished voice, right there — there’s no way I can pick the option that leaves them.
If I screw this up, today could be my deathday. But I am one hundred percent certain that if I bail now, I will regret it for the rest of my life, however long that ends up being.
And hey — if I’m going to die anyway, dying protecting two gorgeous girls has got to be the coolest possible exit. Resolve locked, I throw my full weight into a flying tackle from the side just as the knife is coming down.
”…Good. Just barely made it.”
The two of them stare at me with the kind of expression you’d give a literal savior who fell out of the sky — but it’s way too early to relax. The guy still hasn’t said a single word, but he’s clearly furious at being thrown off balance, and the instant he steadies himself, he comes at me instead.
I duck the knife, block with my bag, weave the wild swings — I’m hanging on, but I won’t last. Still, the stalling does its job. The cops, called by someone in the crowd, finally arrive on scene.
“Police. Drop the weapon. Hands where I can see them. Don’t make this any worse.”
Anyone watching would expect that to settle the guy down. Unfortunately, no. The moment he reads the situation as turning against him, he wheels around and goes for the still-frozen-on-the-ground Riona instead.
This is bad. Without thinking, I throw myself into the gap between them.
The next instant, fire rips across my back.
“GGGAAAAAAAH—!?”
Getting stabbed turns out to hurt a hell of a lot more than I’d imagined. Ah. This might actually be it. I might really die. But I traded my life for theirs, so I guess that works out.
If there’s a next life, I want to reincarnate into a sword-and-sorcery isekai where I get to flex cheat abilities all I want and be drowning in girls for once.
Slipping out of consciousness, that’s the dumbest possible thought I had time to have.