How much time had passed since I'd drifted off to sleep? My eyes fluttered open on their own. As I groggily rubbed them, a sense of wrongness washed over me.
Forcing my heavy eyelids open, I saw a small, pale hand with slender fingers. The sight of something so alien sent my heart into overdrive, its frantic rhythm pounding in my head.
I squeezed my eyes shut and took slow, deep breaths, trying to calm myself. You knew this was coming. Why are you so surprised?
I had to face the reality staring me in the face.
Yesterday, I was just a guy scrolling through online forums, waiting for the maintenance to end on my favorite mobile game, Blue Archive. It was the day my most anticipated character, Misono Mika, was finally being released after a long, long wait.
I launched the game the second the servers were up, eager to be the first to welcome my beloved character. And that's where my memory cuts off.
When I opened my eyes again, I wasn't in my studio apartment. I was in a room so beautiful and ornate you could have told me a princess lived there and I would have believed you. It wasn't just the scenery; my voice, my body—everything was different. I stumbled to the full-length mirror in the corner of the room... and after a long period of denial, I finally accepted that this was all real.
"...But what's the current timeline?"
It might sound strange, but judging by the development of this body, it wasn't too far in the past from the original story's timeline. It could be that the main story is already underway, or maybe it's about a year before. There's even a slim chance it could be a year before that.
The fastest way to figure things out in a situation like this is always the same: check the phone. The beauty of the information age is that a quick glance at the news on your phone can tell you so much.
With that thought, I picked up the phone charging on a desk that was, in a very Mika-esque fashion, an impressive combination of white and pink. I tapped the screen, and the lock screen appeared. Thankfully, it wasn't a pattern or a password, but fingerprint recognition.
"...Ah?"
As soon as I unlocked it, I saw a notification from MomoTalk, the messenger app in the Blue Archive universe, displayed clearly on the top bar. I instinctively swiped down and was forcibly reminded of a fact I had completely forgotten.
[Nagi-chan☆] I'm on my way there right now.
Mika had a childhood friend she'd known for over ten years named Kirifuji Nagisa.
Startled, I quickly tapped the MomoTalk notification and scrolled up to read Nagisa's messages from the beginning.
[Mika-san, you're a little late today.]
[...I can't say you've always been a model student, but I don't recall you ever skipping school without notice. If something is wrong, please don't hesitate to tell me.]
[Mika-san?]
...
[...Afternoon tea without you is so quiet, it's rather nice. For the record, Seia-san agreed. But for some reason, Seia-san also seems unusually distracted today.]
[Something is definitely wrong. Mika-san, are you okay? Please reply as soon as you see this. I'm so worried about you I can't even focus on my studies.]
[This won't do. School is almost over, so I'll come to your house.]
[I'm on my way there right now.]
"...Wait. Right now?"
I checked the time the last message was received and compared it to the current time. About an hour had passed. That meant Nagisa could ring the doorbell at any second...!
This was bad. I was completely unprepared for this. My head was already a mess with this whole transmigration thing, and now I had to deal with Mika's friend?
Let's be real, there's no way Nagisa, who had been friends with Mika since they were kids, wouldn't notice something was off. No matter how hard I tried to imitate Mika's way of speaking, could I really fool Nagisa, who heard it every day? I can guarantee you, I'd be found out immediately. Even if I had the latent talent of a world-class actor, I could never cover for the gaps in my memory.
"...Should I just start crying first?"
Cry first. Your opponent will feel reluctant to attack you, and they'll be more inclined to sympathize with whatever you say.
It was an exaggeration, of course, but it was a better plan than trying to greet Nagisa with a smile and a shoddy Mika impersonation.
The other option was to just not see her, but unless I planned on avoiding Nagisa for the rest of my life, running away was the worst possible move. It was still a better option than a bad Mika impression, but we were really just choosing between the lesser of two evils.
Ding-dong—
While I was debating, the inevitable happened. Still in my pajamas and with my hair a mess, I opened my bedroom door and went outside.
All the lights in the house were off. In the game Blue Archive, adults other than the parents of the students, Sensei, and Gematria rarely make an appearance. The 'rarely' is just in case I skipped over a part where they did. It's safe to assume they don't exist.
However, the existence of parents and the concept of a family home are clearly implied, so as soon as I saw Nagisa's MomoTalk, I wondered how I should deal with Mika's parents. But the house was empty. I went to the entrance to check, and besides various pairs of shoes that I assumed were Mika's, there was nothing in the shoe cabinet or by the door.
Should I be relieved? It seemed Mika lived alone in this house.
"...What do I do?"
Ding-dong— Ding-dong—
Nagisa's insistent ringing urged me on. I pulled a pair of slippers from the shoe cabinet and slid my feet into them.
I saw feet that were at least a size 40 smaller than my original ones. Even in these small details, the feeling of my former self being erased created a strange sense of unease. Or maybe it was just because I was in a fragile state of mind.
"Maybe it's better to just pretend I have amnesia..."
Wait. That's not even an act, is it? How much do I really know about Mika's past?
No matter how much I simped for Mika, there were clear limits. Everything I knew about her was just officially released information. If I pretended to know things I didn't, I'd be caught easily. It seemed like a better path to pretend not to know even the things I did.
I placed my hand on the doorknob and carefully applied pressure. Honestly, given Mika's strength, I was being extra cautious. I wanted to avoid breaking something because I couldn't control my power.
Meanwhile, in my head, I was quickly trying to figure out how to act the moment I opened this door. To cut to the chase, I was now certain that the amnesia angle was the way to go.
Trying to maintain a relationship that doesn't even exist in my memory is just arrogant. No matter how hard I tried to act like Mika, it was realistically impossible, and unless there was something wrong with Nagisa, there was no way she wouldn't notice.
It would be a terrible thing to do to Nagisa, who would lose her decade-long childhood friend overnight, but I had my own problems to deal with. It's not like I asked to be transmigrated into Mika's body.
So, I'm sorry, Nagisa. Rather than give you, Sensei's certified queen of suspicion, any more reason to doubt, I'll just choose to say... mol?
Click! Squeak—
I have a correction to make. My previous thought, that Mika's reflection was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life, I think I have to retract that.
If Mika was a princess who had been adored by everyone her whole life, Nagisa had the air of a duke's or a marquis's daughter, admired by other noble ladies in high society. Her appearance was the very definition of a 'Tea Party' character.
Her hair color... should I call it a light fawn? The understated color seemed to complement her aristocratic features. A section of her hair was braided like a headband, and a flower ornament on the left side drew my attention. If my memory serves me right, one of Nagisa's hobbies was gardening, which made the ornament seem all the more fitting.
At first glance, her sharp eyes gave off a cold and calculating impression, but her warm, chestnut-colored pupils softened them somewhat. You can't judge a person by their eye color alone, but they were undeniably comforting to look at.
In Nagisa's case, her impression before and after her in-game illustration change was quite different, but seeing her in the flesh, her face was somewhere in between the two. Not in a vague way, but more like a combination of the best parts of both.
What more can I say? Nagisa was a girl as beautiful as Mika. From this, I could guess that most of the named female students in Blue Archive possessed an absurd level of beauty.
"...Hello, Mika-san. You... don't look very well. Surely you haven't been sleeping in this late, have you?"
Having seen me with her own eyes, Nagisa seemed to relax, letting out a small sigh.
...But what am I going to do, Nagisa? This isn't the time to relax. This is when you should be on your guard.
I don't know when it will be, but if the day ever comes that I return to Earth, I'll beg for your forgiveness on my hands and knees until they're raw. If that day never comes, well... I guess we'll just let it slide.
So forgive me, Sas—
Ah, that's not it. Forgive me, Nagisa.
"Um... are you perhaps Nagi-chan?"
"Eh?"
For a moment, a cute sound escaped Nagisa's lips, and I almost let out a laugh, but I desperately held it in. This was the moment for an all-out performance.
"The person saved as Nagi-chan in my messenger said they were coming here, so I was waiting. I thought you might be able to tell me who I am, and what kind of person I was."
"Wait, just a moment. Mika-san, what in the world are you talking about? Why are you speaking as if you're seeing me for the first time today? I don't understand at all... And what am I supposed to tell you..."
The moment I saw Nagisa's face harden, I cheered inwardly. I was fully aware that I was doing something terrible to her, but this was the right thing to do. I'll have to pay the price for this someday.
"...No, right? Please, just tell me you're joking. It's not funny, a prank this malicious. And besides, it's so sudden. Just yesterday, you were smiling like an idiot and saying 'see you tomorrow'..."
"...I'm sorry. But I don't remember anything at all. Everything in my head is a jumbled mess."
"H-haha... Mika-san, really... Did you think I'd fall for something so... ugh..."
Just like me when I first possessed this body, Nagisa, who had entered the denial stage, suddenly closed her eyes. As her knees buckled, the halo floating above her head flickered out.
Thanks to Mika's outstanding physical abilities, I was able to catch Nagisa the moment I saw her fall. But the thought that I had done something so drastic as to make her faint made me feel a pang of guilt. The fact that I had to continue this act, and fully intended to, made that guilt nothing more than crocodile tears.
In any case, I couldn't just stand here forever. I lifted Nagisa into a princess carry and closed the front door.
And so, on my first day of transmigration, I knocked out my favorite character's best friend.