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“…Huh…?”

After opening his eyes, Shuu blinked several times and then looked at us and our surroundings.

“Oh…” he mumbled, as if sighing, rubbed his eyes, and then pushed himself off the ground with one arm to raise his upper body.

“Shuu!”
“Shuu, are you alright!?”

Our two siblings, who’d been together with him for some time, called out to him.

“Ah… well. I’m fine… I guess.”
“Hah… that’s great,” Kanata sighed in relief.
“Sorry ’bout that. I ended up makin’ you worry,” Shuu said, looking truly apologetic, as he sat down in a seiza position. “Kanata, Sakura… and then, I’m pretty sure you’re-”

Oops, looks like Shuu still hasn’t discovered out true identities.
When I made eye contact with Mika, she decided to talk to him first.

“That’s Alim! And I’m Mika.”
“I see… so you’re Alim and Mika. I’ve seen your faces often in magazines and on posters. Looks like I caused no end of trouble… to all four of you. I’m truly sorry, and grateful.”

He prostrated himself. He was constantly practicing Judo where they bowed in a similar way. Maybe because of that, he lowered himself to the ground as if he’d done something bad.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Shuu,” Kanata told him.

“When I heard you can resurrect Rir… I managed to take back control from Surtr for just a moment,” Shuu continued, after shaking his head. “My consciousness was hazy, so I didn’t hear what you were saying, but… at one point, I could see you guys squarin’ off against me… I also devastated this region. As I thought… looks like I caused you nothin’ but trouble… I don’t think a simple apology will cut it…”

Hang on, didn’t Surtr say that he deliberately surrendered control?
I shot a sideways glance at the spear. Surtr averted his gaze… or at least that was how it felt.

“You even came from the Mephilad Kingdom,” Shuu continued, turning to Mika and me, “I really made a huge mess. I’m sorry…!”

Mika and I looked at each other. Maybe since she understood what I was thinking, she voiced a silent “please do”. As expected, she had grasped that I wanted to tell him who we really were.

“Yep. But we’re best friends, aren’t we? I don’t think you should worry that much.”
“Huh…?”

Shuu’s apologetic expression changed to one of bafflement.

Mika, to pour as much salt into the wound as she could, took a half step forward and spoke up.

“Kanata and Sakura immediately noticed, you know? Alim may be one thing, but didn’t you realize when you heard my name? Don’t tell me… did your brain completely turn into muscles?”
“Eh… huh…”

Shuu kept looking in Mika’s eyes with a blank expression. When I finally resigned myself to tell him my true name and identity, the muscle-brain let out a scream.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!? W-Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!?”

…My ears.
This was probably the most shocked I had ever seen him. And I had known him since pre-school.

“Ayumu…!?”

He pointed a finger at me. He had finally connected the dots, so I nodded.

“Mika…!?”

Just like me, she merely nodded.

“Ayumu… Mika…!? Ayumu, Mika, s-seriously? I’m not dreamin’, am I?”
“No, this isn’t a dream. I guess your muscles did finally affect your brain, you damn beefcake,” I gave him a biting comment.

After hearing that, Shuu got up on one foot while showing a refreshing smile, very different from Surtr’s expressions, and drew me into an embrace.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ayumu! Ayumu…! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! It’s you…!”
“Hang on… It may be me, but right now I am male. I’m not into guys, so get off.”
“Oh… right, sorry, sorry.”

With tears in his eyes, Shuu carefully let go of me.

Well, if it was him, I didn’t mind hugs that much. We had exchanges like this in the past. Sometimes, I wondered whether I’d consider Shuu not so bad if I were born a girl (with Mika unchanged), and as Alim, I wouldn’t mind him much either, but well… As a man, I didn’t have any interest in other men.

“Hah… well, there’s probably a lot we have to tell each other,” I told him.
“R-Right! There is, there absolutely is, tons of stuff!!”

I shoved Shuu away with one arm as he got close to my face, all excited.

“Yep. But I’m sure there are some other things we need to do first.”
“True.”

His expression immediately turned grave… or rather, serious, and he sat down in a seiza¹ once more.

“…You found a girlfriend, right?”
“Yep.”
“She precious to you?”
“…Extremely.”
“Cute?”
“‘Course she is.”
“Want to bring her back to life? With just one of her hairs, we can do it, but-”

When I got that far, Shuu bowed down even deeper than before.

“Please…! Bring Rir, my girlfriend, back to life…!” he begged me in a trembling voice.

TL notes:
There was a lengthy author’s comment that pretty much boiled down to:

-On the 16th of November of 2016, when this chapter was posted, it was one year after they started writing the series (although they only started posting it in January 2016).
-They originally planned to finish the series after around 300 chapters, but it became longer and there’s still a ton to come.
-During that one year, the series apparently got popular enough to top the daily rankings.

1. The original is 星座 (“constellation”, “astrological sign”). From context, I assume that this is an error and meant to be 正座 (“Seiza”). Both are pronounced the same way.

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