Chapter 6: Speaker

Tsubame ordered the most expensive items on the menu. Otonashi-senpai didn’t care about the cost. He ordered a simple tea. Shiori refused to order anything.

“Shio-chan,” Tsubame chided, “our senpai is treating us. Order something. Be sociable.”

Shiori glared at Otonashi-senpai and clutched the handbag containing the book and bookmark close, as if the boy across from her might try to snatch it.

Tsubame sighed. “She gets like this. I hoped strawberry cake would lighten her mood. She loves it. Couldn’t get enough in junior high. She gained so much weight I feared she’d need new school uniforms.”

“Tsu-chan!” Shiori exclaimed.

Otonashi-senpai looked between the two girls, mildly confused.

“Forgive her. She gets in this mood. Very focused. All salty and not sweet.” Tsubame waved at Shiori. “But embarrass or irritate her and she acts normal again.”

Shiori glanced at Otonashi. She had stopped clutching her handbag while worried Tsubame would confess everything about the strawberry cake incident last year.

“Now,” Tsubame said, sipping expensive 100% apple juice, “Explanations are in order.”

“Explanations?” Otonashi said flatly.

“Well, Shiori has questions,” Tsubame said, “and you ought to explain why you followed two girls around town.”

He tilted his head. “You make me sound creepy.”

Tsubame smiled. “You followed us. Maybe not closely, but you were nearby after those things chased us for blocks. You’re part of this weirdness. A senpai disappears and everyone forgets him. Even I forgot him, and I never forget a face. Amidst it all, you appear.”

Tsubame waved her fork at Otonashi’s face, like a hardboiled TV detective about to break the case wide open. Except she was so short that her legs swung as she sat in her chair. And her fork held a bite of a tea cake. And she had to look up to make eye contact with Otonashi, so she couldn’t be intimidating.

“So,” Tsubame said, spinning the fork to take a bite of tea cake, “man, that’s tasty.” She smiled as she chewed. “You’re involved in this. You knew how to fight those things.”

Otonashi waved a palm-up hand over the table in a gesture of admission. “So?”

“So, you want something from us, probably from Shiori.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You haven’t called me ‘princess’, but you called her princess. Twice.” Tsubame popped another debonair bite of cake into her mouth.

“You want something from Shio-chan,” Tsubame said. “Maybe the book, maybe the bookmark, or maybe you just want her. She’s available, you know.”

“Tsu-chan,” Shiori said in a warning tone.

Tsubame shrugged and continued her negotiations. She wanted answers, and flirty manipulation was her best tool. She and Otonashi-senpai chatted while Shiori thought.

It had been a confusing day, and she finally had time to think. Shiori loved Kawamura’s books. She knew them by heart. Motohara had given her the elusive last book before he disappeared.

The last book was about her. As she considered that, her whole confusing day started to make sense. Otonashi had spoken like thunder, like the spells in Kawamura’s books. She had been attacked by dark shadows that Otonashi had called ‘Kryptics’, one of the pernicious evils in Kawamura’s books. Shiori knew this story. She had read it, and now she was living it.

“I’m not answering your questions,” Otonashi said, “I’m here for the Princess.”

“And I’m the official advisor to Princess Shiori,” Tsubame said with a smirk. “Tell me why you were following us.”

What was he after? Was Shiori really a Kryptopedian Princess? While the others argued, Shiori thought furiously. Motohara had to have been taken to Kryptopeda. Heroes in her books had been pulled from another world. Shiori had wondered if the author meant them to have come from Earth. Was Motohara one of those heroes, called upon in times of great upheaval in Kryptopeda?

Shiori couldn’t explain it, but she wanted so badly to see Motohara through that mirror. She had known him for a short time, but wanted to go be with him. She was done being chased and confused.

“I need to talk to the Princess. Alone.” Otonashi said with finality.

“We’re leaving,” Shiori said suddenly, cutting through their conversation.

“But I haven’t finished my cake,” Tsubame whined.

Otonashi scowled, his eyes growing unfocused. He was getting ready to cast a spell, if her guess was right. “You’re in danger, Princess. I need time to explain, I need you to come with me.”

Shiori pulled a book from her bookbag, silent and unnoticed. She moved to stand, and that was when Otonashi spoke the spell.

Shiori should have realized what was happening when he spoke spells in the playground to destroy the Kryptic shadows. She had read about Speakers who could command man and nature with their secret knowledge. Otonashi wasn’t just an outlander, he was a Speaker.

The spell he spoke was more delicate and careful than the battle magic he had used in the playground to destroy the Kryptics. This was quieter, targeting Shiori and Tsubame specifically. No one else in the café would hear the spell. Shiori anticipated the spell, and heard the word: “syzefxis.”

The girls were bound to their chairs like by invisible chains. Shiori had her book out, and she read aloud: “… introduced as the topic of the conversation. In other words, the post-position 'ga' focuses on new information or a specific thing, while 'wa' sets the…"

“What?” asked Tsubame, confused why Shiori was reading from a random section of their Kokugo Japanese Textbook. Tsubame struggled against the invisible spell, but other patrons in the café didn’t notice. As Shiori read, the invisible bindings went from harder than steel to weaker than cotton candy.

Tsubame stood, tearing the bindings, then Shiori stood as well.

Otonashi was much taller than Shiori. Even sitting his head was nearly as tall as hers standing. He met her eyes. “You know how to block spells,” he said, more impressed than annoyed. “How?”

Shiori matched his gaze. “I may not be from your world, but I’m going to get Motohara back from it. I’m not a Speaker like you but while I can’t speak spells I know the rules of this world. You’re a stranger here. I’ve read about what your kind can do.”

Shiori held up her school textbook. “I’ve got power here. I can unweave the spells that protect you.”

Tsubame looked between Otonashi and Shiori, confused. “Hey, Shio-chan, glad you’re being social and talking. But, yeah, what are you talking about?”

Shiori continued, “You’ll let us leave. If not, I’ll start unweaving your protections. I’ll call down the authorities of this world.”

“If you would just...” Otonashi said, placating and frustrated.

Shiori reopened the school textbook to read from it.

“Fine, not here. Can we make a deal?” Otonashi said, raising his hands in a pleading gesture. “At the school grounds tomorrow. Noontime. An emporia. You know what an emporia is if you know I’m a Speaker. I must talk with you, alone. Please.”

Shiori narrowed her eyes. “You let us leave. You protect us if the Kryptics return. You don’t bother us until tomorrow. In exchange, I will meet you for an emporia tomorrow.”

He sighed in relief. “We have a deal.” The word ‘deal’ echoed, but only for Shiori and Tsubame. No one else would hear the promise spell of a Speaker but the recipients of the promise.

Shiori nodded, turned on a heel, and left the café while Tsubame followed with smaller, faster steps.

“What happened in there?” Tsubame asked. “I have no idea what you two were talking about. How did you stop that thing that pinned us to our chairs?”

Shiori looked back at the café. When they were safely away and Otonashi was out of sight, she stowed her textbook and looked at Tsubame. “I need to explain a lot to you. Motohara’s been taken into the world in my books.”

Tsubame seemed about to doubt Shiori’s words, but after her experiences today she was open to the idea. “You need to tell me what’s going on.”

Shiori started walking home. “I just got involved in a thousand-year-old war.”

Tsubame nodded. “But you have a date with Otonashi-senpai at noon tomorrow!”