01 / 01
Section 1
## Illustrations
## Prologue
Open your eyes and there's a beautiful girl. If anything could shake off sleep, this should be it. No matter how low your blood pressure, you'd snap awake in an instant. Once upon a time, whenever Takuto sighed something like that, his childhood friend would only roll her eyes. All he wanted was to state a truth. A shame, really. That said, Sakurai Takuto was not especially fond of sleeping in. This year he was a second-year in high school, and he was rarely late. So oversleeping today was only a coincidence. "Ahhh…" He sat up in bed, messy hair and bleary eyes, and let out a vacant groan. After rubbing his eyes several times, he finally got them open. And then he saw something that should not have been there. "…Earth?" He stared for ten seconds. "Earth!?" Floating before him was the planet called Earth. Behind it, space. The deep-blue sea and the white clouds were beautiful. It really was Earth. More jolting than opening your eyes to a beautiful girl. Sleep vanished in an instant. "Good morning, Elect. So, uh… this is my bed, right?" Which meant Elect was not human. Only his mouth still worked. He tried to resist with words. The lunar city, Moon Dahlia. "Anyway, why did Elect crawl into my bed…?" A space base where clusters of mechanized cities mingled with streets in the style of medieval Europe. The one assigned to look after Takuto in the lunar city. Thanks to that, his mind cleared at once. Once he had calmed down, Takuto let out a slow breath. Puff…
## Chapter 1
"Huh? There's no money in my wallet. No way—why!?" Takuto, about to pay, looked thoroughly wretched. The walls around him were decorated with glittering posters of beautiful girls, and the current season's dominant-anime figures stood on the register counter. On that counter lay the light novels and manga released today. The gentle-looking woman at the register watched him with a troubled face, but no matter how hard Takuto stared into his empty wallet, money was not going to appear. After school he had swaggered into the anime shop, only to find, at the register, that the money in his wallet was gone. "I'm sorry. It should be here. I was sure I brought money…" He turned the wallet upside down and shook it. Nothing. When a slip of paper fluttered out he almost relaxed—until he saw it was only a family-restaurant coupon. Damn it. Takuto's shoulders sank in disappointment. The clerk looked at him with pity. An awkwardness beyond words hung in front of the register. Suddenly the school badge on Takuto's uniform shone. From somewhere, a girl's voice rang out in electronic tones. "'Master, have you forgotten that you spent all your money three days ago?'" The clerk looked around in shock. But in front of the register there was only Takuto, and herself. Elsewhere, the girl's voice went on without a care. "'You were heartbroken over the finale of that late-night anime, said you were going to spread the faith, and impulsively bought the DVDs of the previous series, didn't you? That's why you're broke now.'" "Ah, right. Thanks, Shelly. Mystery solved. …As if! Haven't I told you a hundred times not to start talking out of nowhere!?" …
## Chapter 2
"'Well then, Master. Let us discuss your plans from here. What do you intend to do?'" Shelly, in the form of a pin, tossed the subject out from the left breast of the military uniform. Takuto was now in the guest room Elect had prepared. After the Lily incident, Takuto had been brought to the central tower in the central district. It was the supreme command of the space-base era, and also the lunar city's central control facility. Because it required constant maintenance, the Maidens of the Moon now used it as a residence, and Takuto, as an Imperial Army inspector, had ended up living in the central tower as well. The guest room prepared for him was medieval in style, of a piece with the carriages. Landscape paintings hung on the walls. The floor was black-and-white tile. By the window hung deep-red curtains that looked expensive, and a bed with a canopy. Look closely, though, and the landscapes were holograms. According to Elect, the black-and-white tiles were gravity-control reactors. And outside the window, of course, was outer space. It looked medieval. In truth, it was still the future. Only the bed was an ordinary bed. Aside from the canopy, it was the most twenty-first-century thing in the room. Takuto leaned against the edge of the bed and answered Shelly with, "Let me think." Only Takuto and Shelly were in the room. After showing him the way, Elect had left with a single line: "I'll go prepare the welcome party. Please wait a moment." Takuto thought for a while, then made up his mind and told Shelly. "First, let's look for a way back to the twenty-first century." "'That is the crucial point. Miss Lily was only playing the part of a rebel force, but what will actually happen cannot be fore—"
## Chapter 3
The next day. Takuto knelt facedown on the bed in the VIP room, sunk in dejection. He had been like this since he got up. "'Honestly, how long do you intend to mope? Even a sage's afterglow has gone on too long.'" Shelly's exasperated voice came from the military uniform on the hanger. Advised, Takuto slowly raised his head. "…Because of me. I kissed Elect without asking. I can't face her." "'So that really is the only thing you're down about…'" Afterward Sylvia had come saying, "I've come to collect the princess," and after a reconciliation in every sense of the word, Elect had been handed over to her. In the end Elect never woke, so he had not spoken to her since. Because of that, as time passed he felt more and more that he had "done something that could not be undone," and that was why Takuto was miserable. "'You don't need to brood quite so hard, do you? In fact, Miss Elect looked happy. Rather than regretting what has already happened, there ought to be something more worth thinking about.'" "Something I should think about? …Ah. You mean a way home. True, yesterday we didn't find anything." "'Wrong. I mean Master's feelings.'" Caught off guard by the remark, he found himself speechless. Shelly, who had expected that, went on. "'Rather than regretting the kiss, you ought to think about why you kissed her.'" "…Shelly, enough. I don't want to talk about this." "'You like Miss Elect, don't you?'" "…" "'By my estimation, it was love at first sight the moment you met. Master has been mindful of Miss Elect all along. Is that wrong?'" Takuto fal—
## Chapter 4
—Like a dream. It probably was a dream. After all, he was standing in front of himself. The place was a spaceship cockpit. Instruments and monitors stood in rows. At the center, a gauze screen. But beyond the screen was not outer space. It was a dazzling world of light. "You've got to be kidding me—the consciousness-convergence system is negative!? An accident like this can't happen! I'm going to be left in Area Skuld. Don't tell me I'm about to turn into stardust!?" As if taking it out on the machine, he hammered the instruments with his fist. "This is that bastard Gerald's doing, isn't it… Damn it. Being the spare wasn't enough for you." Takuto thought, Ah… The one before him was not himself—Sakurai Takuto. It was Roy Grieves. A strange dream. Takuto had become a being of consciousness alone, drifting inside the cockpit. Second Lieutenant Roy stared at the instruments and the monitors. "For now, it seems a wormhole can be opened… but the position coefficient can't be fixed. Are they ignoring our timing entirely…? At best, the moment we return to normal space, we'll fall." Hearing him say it, Takuto understood the situation whether he wanted to or not. This was probably what happened before the interstellar transport crashed. After this, the transport would fall to the Moon, and somewhere along the way a future reincarnation would occur, and then Takuto would meet Elect. Second Lieutenant Roy let out a breath. A long, deep sigh, as if he were wringing out his soul. "So this is as far as my fate goes. Well… so be it. I've killed hard, destroyed hard, and scraped by until now. At last it's my turn." He lifted his head and sank deep into the seat. Slowly…
## Epilogue
Twelve hours after the dimensional gravity furnace shut down. The place once called the lunar city was almost entirely ruins. With the energy field gone, nearly the whole city lay exposed to outer space. The atmosphere had misted away, the gemlike buildings had decayed, and the rich pasture and grain had all vanished. The city was incomplete. Just as the moon waxes and wanes. The only thing that still kept its original form was the area around the palace in the central district. The few remaining mechanical satellites had raised a local field to block harmful cosmic radiation. But the palace itself, after the assault-maneuver ship passed through, was on the verge of collapse. Among it all, only the fountain had been spared, and Takuto sat on its rim. A life-support pack on his back. A syringe of cardiac stimulant driven into his body. Hemostatic patches on his skin, and bandages wound over them. This was the full set of human lifesaving gear Elect and the others had prepared after learning from the crash of the interstellar transport. Because that gear was stored inside the palace, they had chosen to end the lunar city. After watching over Elect on the ballroom floor, Takuto had used the lifesaving gear and barely endured twelve hours of ruin. "Shelly, how much operating rate does the dimensional gravity furnace have left?" He looked up at the sky and asked, and an answer came back through the noise. "'About four percent. As expected, it can drive only a few mechanical satellites at most.'" A faint operating rate still remained in the dimensional gravity furnace. In Elect's place, Shelly had spread an energy field over a small area. Hope had not vanished. Shelly as she was now could not perform a phase shift on Elect's level. But so long as she—