Chapter 39: Title

“Um…”

If things continued like this, they would never make any progress, so Yukina was the first to break the silence.

She mustered all her strength, raised her head—Ephnel’s back and the shadow at her feet intertwined—and said in a small voice:

“About what happened just now… I’m sorry…”

“Hmm?”

Ephnel put away her phone and turned around, her dark eyes showing no fluctuation.

Yukina’s throat moved, but the words she wanted to say got stuck.

Seeing the black-haired girl before her with her brother’s face, Yukina felt a sense of disorientation.

Her heart was in turmoil, and she couldn’t calm down at all.

“Yukina?”

“Huh?”

Yukina snapped out of her daze and met Ephnel’s direct gaze.

She hastily bowed her head.

“Yukina, you didn’t do anything wrong, so why are you apologizing…?”

“I-I just suddenly said such awful things to you… I’m sorry…”

Yukina pursed her lips, choosing her words carefully.

“All this time, Onii… Onii-chan, you’ve been silently protecting me and this city, but I only thought about my own feelings. I lashed out at you just because I was confused and lost. I’m really, really sorry…”

Ephnel smiled again, but Yukina didn’t dare to look up at her.

The sound of footsteps approached.

Through her hanging bangs, Yukina saw Ephnel’s feet appear in her line of sight, and then the hem of her clothes came to stand before her.

She was so nervous she didn’t dare to breathe.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind… And I’m the one who should be apologizing. I’ve been so selfish all this time, hiding so many things from you.”

A light weight settled on her head.

A hand was placed on it, stroking it gently.

“As an ‘older brother,’ I’m a failure. I hope you can give me a chance to start over—as an ‘older sister’.”

“…”

‘Older sister.’ This person, both strange and familiar, could say such things so calmly.

Yukina hung her head, looking at their two shadows stretched out by the light on the floor.

She should be retorting right now—’That’s not true!’

But the words she wanted to say shattered before they could leave her lips.

She still couldn’t face Ephnel frankly.

The scene from her dream was hazy, but in that blurry dreamscape, Ephnel’s deep gaze still lingered before her eyes, refusing to fade.

Ephnel was her brother, the brother who had stopped watching over her, stopped caring for her.

In truth, her brother had never changed; she was the one who had misunderstood and been suspicious.

At this point, Yukina had no choice but to accept this fact.

But…

Her feelings for her brother and her feelings for Ephnel were supposed to be two completely different emotions, absolutely impossible to conflate.

Yet at some point, Yukina had started to get them confused.

That day, a year ago, when she had run blindly, slipped, and fallen into the water, Ephnel had saved her.

The look in Ephnel’s eyes from that day was still deeply engraved in Yukina’s heart.

She didn’t yet understand what love was, but she had been helplessly captivated by that gaze.

That day was special to Yukina, but now, that special feeling had nowhere to go.

This game of avoidance—Ephnel took a step forward, and she took a step back—it seemed like everything had returned to how it was.

She couldn’t peer into that corner of her own heart.

The elevator slowly came to a stop.

The characters “1L” appeared on the clean LCD screen.

Yukina suddenly spoke.

“Um…”

“Hmm?”

Ephnel turned around, her gentle gaze enveloping Yukina.

At that moment, the elevator doors opened to both sides.

Like surfacing from the depths of the sea in one breath, a cacophony of sounds rushed into her ears.

“O-Onee-chan…”

Yukina’s voice was low and thin, so much so that one might miss it if not listening carefully.

Finally, she had tried to say it.

It was easier than she had imagined.

“Should I call you that?”

“It’s fine. You can call me whatever you want. The title isn’t the most important thing.”

Ephnel smiled, a gentle smile like sweet syrup that threatened to soften Yukina, to drown her.

“Because to me, you’ll always be my little sister, no matter what.”

Even though the atmosphere was heavy, which she hated, Yukina was inexplicably reminded of their deeply intertwined lips.

Her gaze was drawn to Ephnel’s jade-like neck, that tender skin seeming to beckon to her.

It was precisely because it was Ephnel that the distant yet close feeling was just right.

Once she realized that she and Ephnel had unknowingly spent so much time living together, this feeling could no longer be just a fleeting taste.

It surged up from the bottom of her heart, unstoppable.

Yukina covered her mouth and hastily lowered her head, her flustered gaze escaping from that gentle trap.

“Um… Onee-chan…”

A strange form of address.

“Don’t you need to go back to headquarters? Miss Canary left right after she brought me here.”

“I don’t think so, probably… I’ve already handed the details over to Canary and Ayse. Well, if you’re interested, you could actually go and have a look. It just so happens that I have some other things to do.”

Was her brother always this good at smiling?

But her tone was as if the two of them were about to part ways.

When and where had her brother become like this?

“I want to go…”

Yukina lifted her eyelashes and said.

If it was a place where Ephnel had given her all, Yukina wanted to see it, no matter what.

“I… still want to know more about you, Onee-chan.”

…

After finishing the procedures at the hospital, night had already fallen.

Ephnel drove Yukina to the headquarters.

“The one and only, most important mission of an ‘Agent’ is to fight Erosion Organisms… But even though I say that, in reality, it’s not something that can be summed up so simply.”

Ephnel held the steering wheel with one hand, her gaze drifting to the traffic light at the intersection, then to the rearview mirror.

The starlight of the night sky hung at the edge of her vision.

The headlights of the car behind them were a bit glaring.

After a pause, Ephnel continued slowly.

“Whether it’s to more efficiently complete the mission of fighting Erosion attacks, or to do our best to avoid unnecessary losses, ‘Agents’ need to undergo a large amount of combat training and study some related courses during their off-duty time. Battle is our mission and our destination…”

Now, Ephnel was no longer Yukina’s older brother, but her older sister, the Chief Agent of this city.

If Ephnel as Yanase Naoto still had many secrets and would keep her distance from Yukina, then now, Ephnel would no longer choose to continue walking down that dark path.

She told Yukina many things, one by one.

“But as you’ve seen, even after countless rigorous training sessions, even an excellent Agent like Shion can end up seriously injured or even dead. Such situations are not uncommon. So, I have similar worries for Yukina… To be honest, I absolutely don’t want you to become an Agent. That’s also the reason I was reluctant to tell you about your situation…”

The things an Agent had to do, the reason for an Agent’s existence—even these well-known facts, Ephnel didn’t omit a single detail.

With an air of “absolutely no concealment,” she gave Yukina a detailed explanation all at once.

Yukina just nodded quietly, barely saying a word.

She didn’t know how to respond either.

Listening to Ephnel’s simple explanations, even though Ephnel was intentionally or unintentionally downplaying the severity, Yukina could still touch the cruelty buried beneath her words.

Ephnel was an Agent.

And she was an ordinary person.

Yukina worried that if she opened her mouth, the anxiety in her heart would spill out.

“Well, but, occasionally, Agents will actually participate in some of the research department’s experimental projects or attend some events. For example, I hold regular concerts, and another senpai, Seiran, often attends press conferences… And the people at headquarters, you should still remember Yonomikenami. She’s my manager and also a combat operator… In short, everything I’m doing now can probably be considered ‘work,’ just the kind you can’t easily skip out on. When we get to headquarters later, I’ll give you a tour. You’ll probably understand a little better then. Besides that, if you have any other questions, feel free to ask. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

…

TL Note: Onee-chan – “Older sister.” The new term Yukina is hesitantly using for Naoto/Ephnel.