chapter 16

I woke up in a bed inside the headquarter’s medical facility .

The room was filled with the smell of drugs .

I stood there absent-minded for a few moments, then I raised my body .

What first came into my mind was questions about Roll’s well-being .

What happened to Roll after that?

I quickly got out of bed and left the room .

The corridors of the medical facility were pure white . Since the air conditioning was used everywhere in the organization, it felt pretty refreshing .

I listened carefully, searching for Roll’s presence .

I heard two sounds in the next room on the right .

All the other rooms were empty .

I stood in front of that room .

Is it all right to simply enter, I wonder……?

When I thought about that, the door in front of me opened and Chiyaku-san showed up .

Chiyaku-san is a tall woman with brown hair .

She’s always clad in a white rob . Her glasses are always slightly off, and she has a terrible bed hair today as well .

“Oh, Shion-kun . You woke up .

Do you feel any pain?”

I just realized that all my wounds were healed . Did Chiyaku-san heal me?

My clothes were changed too and I was wearing now something that looked like white pajamas .

“Thanks to you, Chiyaku-san, I don’t feel any pain . ”

“Because there was an emergency with Roll, I only treated you lightly . If there are places I didn’t heal properly, please tell me . ”

“It’s all right . Nothing hurts now anymore . Thank you .

……Leaving this aside, is Roll inside?”

Chiyaku-san looked at me as I tried to peek inside the room, she smiled and repositioned her glasses .

“Yeah, she is inside . I somehow managed to save her life . It was a truly dangerous situation .

She’s already awake so you can go see her . All she did was worry about you too .

Then, I’ll be off since I got work to do .

Tell Roll to earnestly rest her body . ”

Chiyaku-san only said this much, then turned her back at me and started walking .

Without seeing her off, I quickly opened the door in front of me .

“Roll!”

There was a bed in a corner of the room .

Roll was sitting in it, reading a book .

“Oh, it’s you, Shion . Is your body all right now?”

Roll closed the book and said this, as I approached her with unsteady feet .

“What about you, Roll, are you all right…… . ?”

“All my external wounds are healed . I’m quite lively now .

But my spinal cord was damaged and the lower half of my body is currently paralyzed .

Even with Chiyaku-san’s powers, it will take a month to completely recover . ”

Then, this means her life is not in danger anymore…… The paralysis will heal too in a month .

“Tha-that’s great……”

“No, it’s not . This way our summer vacation will come to nothing .

*sigh* And there were so many things I wanted to do with you, Shion…… . ”

As I watched the lively Roll in front of me, I almost started crying because of relief .

I somehow managed to stop the tears, which accumulated in the corner of my eyes, from overflowing .

“Why are you about to cry now!?

Geez . Someday, you’ll receive this sort of injury too, so this overreaction is kind of bothering me . ”

Roll said this, trying to pretend to be tough, but I reflexively embraced her .

I couldn’t hold back, no matter how deplorable this looked .

Because all she did was to save me, Roll ended up in this awful situation .

“I’m sorry……, I’m so sorry……Because of me……”

Roll gently brushed my hair . Her hands showed kindness .

And she smelled really good .

“……It was inevitable . It wasn’t your fault, Shion . ”

I had the impression that Roll’s heart was beating faster than usual .

Did I surprise her with my sudden embrace?

Because not letting her go for such a long time was kind of embarrassing, a short time later I separated from her .

Since I did it reflexively, now that I thought about this embrace, I felt a little embarrassed and my face became hot .

Roll too, maybe in a lack of prudence, showed a slightly red face .

“A-ahem . ”

Roll coughed once, then started to talk again .

“For the time being, while I’m not around, we can’t have you do nothing as well, so, if you receive any shade requests, you can take them .

Also, you can’t ignore your training just because I can’t see you .

As foe me, I’ll devote myself to getting better . ”

“Understood . ”

“Also, I’ll have a lot of free time, so come visit me once in a while . ”

Roll joked a little with her last words, but I answered her with a serious expression .

“I’ll visit you every day . ”

“Still, you don’t have to visit every single day . ”

She laughed as she replied to me, but I, nonetheless, decided to visit her on a daily basis .

I was also hospitalized in the past, so I know that staying in a hospital is really boring .

All you can do is watch TV or read books .

Anyway, I have a debt to Roll that is impossible to pay back .

___________

After that, I chatted a little longer with Roll, and she also told me about our mission’s report .

The mission ended in failure, but the Boss didn’t blame us . Moreover, he personally came to Roll to apologize .

It seems that he completely miscalculated the SDF’s reinforcements .

The box was collected by the SDF, but because we reduced their battle potential quite a bit, the Boss said we were even .

I don’t really know whether we were even or not though .

I must become stronger .

This time, I was nothing but a burden .

Supposing that Roll did this mission alone, she would’ve finished it successfully as always .

Now this Roll can’t move for an entire month .

There are many challenges I must pass .

For now, since I got permission for shade missions, I will do as many of them as I can .

I looked at my Anonymous phone terminal .

There were more than 100 mails in my inbox, inviting me for shade missions .

Until now, I refused all of them because Roll ordered me to, but I’ll accept as many of them as I can from now on .

I must gather actual combat experience .

As Roll told me, I won’t neglect my training, but I also want to get used to actual fighting .

Also, this user-unfriendly ability of mine .

I must learn to properly control it .

I left Roll’s hospital room, and I started to walk towards the training quarters .

The time indicated on my phone terminal was 9pm .

I decided to go train for a while .

My motivation pierced through the ceiling .

I must at least become strong enough not to hold Roll back, I won’t even consider otherwise .

I thought about this, as I walked towards the training room .

That’s when my phone terminal’s ringtone resounded .

A message .

I thought about who could’ve sent it, and I looked at the sender’s name .

Doing so, the screen showed the characters for ‘Tameiki’ next to the sender . The subject box was left empty .

A message from Tameiki-san?

I was first surprised by this, but, then, I opened it .

All that was written in the body of the message was the word ‘Come’ .