Prologue
The siren blared.
Red Code 23 — an alert that an intruder had been detected at a facility-managed incident site, along with a corresponding assembly order.
All Espers residing or temporarily stationed within the facility, excluding those too young to engage in combat, were required to converge at the GPS-transmitted coordinates as quickly as possible.
Key personnel had already been deployed in response to the emergency, but the signal had been sounded as a precaution against any unforeseen developments.
And among the crowd pressing closer toward the coordinates, one brown-haired Esper stood out — walking with conspicuous anxiety, like someone sounding the alarm all on their own.
He had a youthful face that looked barely past twenty.
Every familiar face he passed greeted him lightly, calling him Turner.
“This is bad, Turner.”
“Just what kind of person would—”
“…Whoever it is, when they’re caught, I’m going to request solitary confinement. A single cell.”
Turner said this with his eyes brimming with tears.
The curse he used sounded awkward to anyone listening, yet his voice was full of fierce determination.
A red-haired man passing by couldn’t hold it in and burst into a boisterous laugh, playing along as he strode ahead.
“…I hear solitary these days is basically a luxury hotel stay.”
“I’ll go lie down in it myself. I was finally getting my calculations to line up, and some crazy bastard just—”
He grabbed his own head with both hands, only for his wrist to be seized by a short, dirty-blonde-haired man passing by.
The man arbitrarily took hold of Turner’s fingers and used them to press a button on the metal watch strapped around his own opposite wrist.
A low humming sound followed, and Turner’s hair shifted slightly.
The faint relief of a minor headache lifting washed over him — but only for a moment before Turner yanked his wrist away with a jerk.
“Wh— what do you think you’re doing, just— you! The facility discourages that, so why are you just doing it on your own—”
“Like I care. Who’s even paying attention.”
“I care! I normally hold back and tough it out, only doing it once or twice when I really have to — and just for a headache—!”
“Yeah, yeah. If anyone comes after you, just say the stress was unbearable because the project you’ve been running for years was on the verge of falling apart. Say, ‘Is that so?’ and just walk away. Who’s going to bother catering to guides who don’t even do anything.”
As they drew close to the coordinates, the crowd ahead began to slow to a stop one by one.
Espers and facility staff who had already arrived were wrapping up their assessment of the situation and setting up a perimeter.
The man called Turner stamped his feet impatiently and pushed past the people standing around blankly, making his way closer to the incident site.
A lower-ranked facility staff member was forcibly pushing people back, telling them to wait until the situation was resolved — Turner fumbled with his hands and passed him a personnel tag.
It seemed to be an unexpected item; the staff member muttered for him to wait, then called out to another staff member standing at a distance and ran off to hand over the tag.
Seeing the staff in the distance scrambling in confusion, Turner grew anxious in turn — he gnawed restlessly at his nails while waiting for access clearance, when an unexpected piece of news lodged itself in his ears.
Among the murmuring of Espers milling about, one name rang out with startling clarity, like a beam of light.
“I heard the intruder is someone called Rodeo — who’s that?”
“Wh— what did you say?”
Turner rushed over to a blonde woman he wasn’t even particularly close to and asked urgently.
He only knew that she had been transferred to this facility not long ago; he couldn’t even properly remember her name — but it didn’t matter.
Turner flew at her with wide eyes, as if he’d heard a ghost’s voice, and clutched the hem of her clothes.
The woman, who seemed to have rushed out and thrown on a zip-up hoodie, still picking sleep from her eyes, let out an awkward laugh with a flustered expression.
“Who said that?”
“Oh, uh… Turner, right? No, it’s just — there was something on the facility staff’s radio… They’re going on about a registered name, Rodeo — Esper located—”
Before she could even finish, Turner was already sprinting toward the center of the incident site.
A staff member happened to be running over just then, saying the clearance had come through, to return the tag.
If the intruder is Rodeo, then this isn’t an intrusion — this is…
At the place he reached at a dead run, Turner saw him — a honey-blonde-haired man being carried away on a stretcher.
Rodeo. Twenty-seven years old.
The same clothes from that day, ten years ago. The same face from that day.
The case is closed…
Introduction to the New Society
In a hospital bed bearing nothing but a name and a barcode, lay a tall man who appeared to have just woken up, without a single injury on him.
His fairly solid frame — somewhat lean — showed through even under the patient’s gown.
His honey-blonde hair, slightly wavy and just barely covering his ears, was sticking up at the back, suggesting he had been asleep for several hours.
In contrast to the steady, reassuringly stable vital signs coming through, Turner’s face — standing beside him, carefully choosing his words — looked anything but.
“I practiced a lot… but it’s still hard. I— I’m Turner.”
The man looked at Turner, then at those words, snapped his head to the other side and let out a short, “Huh,” of a laugh.
“So ten years really have gone by. The little kid I saw thirty minutes ago has grown this much.”
Turner lowered his head, his expression drained of any humor.
A brief silence settled, and then the man looked at Turner with soft, gentle eyes — as if to console him — and spoke.
“I’ve had all my examinations. Nothing injured, nothing wrong. It’s just that ten years have passed while this body stayed exactly the same. My lifespan hasn’t even shortened.”
“Still, Rodeo…”
“Never mind that. You’re holding a position at the facility now, aren’t you? An Esper at your age — that’s impressive. I knew you were talented.”
Turner, who had only been mumbling, waved his hand in dismissal at Rodeo’s words and kept shaking his head.
“Talented? Hardly — I only took charge of the project to find Rodeo because I had to take responsibility for the mistake I made. I time-warped a person and spent years unable to figure out even what time period I’d sent them to… The only thing I managed to determine was that it was the future, within thirty years — that’s all I found out…”
“Hey, an eleven-year-old can make mistakes. When you’re still supposed to be testing your abilities and training, how are you supposed to have control? Do you even know how old I was when I was still a time bomb? Compared to me, you’re a genius. No wait — even without the comparison, you’re definitely a genius. You’re twenty-one and you already have a project you’re in charge of? ‘In charge’ is just a title — that means you’re the leader, doesn’t it?”
Still treating him like the eleven-year-old child he once was, Rodeo’s stream of praise lightened the atmosphere considerably, and Turner released the hands he had been clutching together and scratched the back of his head with one hand.
Rodeo smiled with what looked like pride and opened his mouth again.
“Let’s just wrap this up as a clean, ten-year jump with the body in one piece — and be grateful for that.”
“…Ah, but still — I had everything prepared in case you came back. A home, a car, the pay was being deposited on par with your fellow agents from your year, and the facility had already taken care of the full compensation payout since it was classified as a disaster—”
“Prepared? Why?”
“You came ba— …Sorry?”
“Just send me back to ten years ago. Can’t you send me to the past? Is it too complicated?”
Turner’s face fell with a sudden oh no as he scratched his head.
“I can do it… but that’s not possible, Rodeo.”
“Why? Like you said — it was a mistake. It should be corrected.”
“It’s just—”
“Ah, is the facility blocking it because I might go back and say I’ve seen the future? I’ve only been thrown into this time for a few hours — what would I even know about the future—”
“There’s a— there’s a law. Any temporal manipulation involving Espers and Guides… sending to the future, returning to the past — all of it is prohibited. If you do it, it’s illegal, and it’s an immediate prison sentence.”
Rodeo narrowed his eyes.
The gaze that had been looking at him like a small child vanished in an instant, replaced by a cold, scrutinizing look — as if checking whether Turner might be lying to him for some undisclosed reason.
“For reference — this law was proposed and enacted based on my opinions and recommendations.”
“…….”
“What I mean is, I cannot send you back in secret.”
The tip of his tongue, moistening his lips, passed slowly over the corner of his mouth and disappeared.
Then Rodeo pressed his palm against his forehead and let out a long, heavy breath.
He seemed to be trying to collect himself, but his fingers were trembling slightly.
Turner listened to the breathing growing gradually more shallow and quickly opened his bag.
“Just a moment. I brought this just in case — Rodeo, please put this on.”
What Turner held out before Rodeo, who was forcing himself to breathe deeply and slowly exhaling, was something made of metal.
“A… watch?”
“It’s called a Decorker — it’s a portable remote Guiding device.”
“…Remote? Guiding? A machine?”
“Yes, the Decorker calibrates the wavelength to the highest possible match rate, so if things get urgent, press this button firmly. When the light at the bottom turns green, Guiding will begin right away.”
“What?”
Rodeo stared at him with an expression of complete incomprehension, so Turner grabbed Rodeo’s wrist and fastened the band onto it without hesitation.
“It’s real, and it’s completely harmless, so please don’t misunderstand.”
Before Rodeo could even stop him, Turner took hold of Rodeo’s fingers and pressed the button firmly, and the device immediately emitted a yellow blinking light from the part touching his skin.
Five seconds. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds.
But even as a full minute approached, the light did nothing but blink.
Rodeo had been peering at his wrist in anticipation of some remarkable feat of modern civilization — and his expression gradually deflated.
There was no need to even evaluate the device’s worth; his body already felt somewhat settled on its own.
“…Is it normally supposed to take this long?”
“Ah — no, that’s strange. Usually even at its slowest it takes three seconds…”
“Then is it broken? Good grief. I thought a thousand years had passed, not ten. You shoved something not even commercially available at me because you were desperate, didn’t you? Worried I’d cause another incident.”
“That’s not it… Hmm, if the wavelength is particularly finicky, it could be doing this because it’s searching for the best-matched Guide. Like if the best-match Guide isn’t currently in a state where they can perform Guiding… For now, since it’s not an urgent situation, I’ll try turning off the best-match setting.”
Rodeo’s expression went blank.
“What?”
“It’s genuinely not harmful. Please don’t worry…”
“This thing draws directly from a Guide?”
“There we go.”
Turner moved his hands quickly and adjusted the settings, then pulled Rodeo’s stiffened fingers over and pressed the button again — the device emitted a green light within a single second, and for a brief moment, the honey-blonde hair shifted slightly out of place.
“……?”
“The match rate is… goodness, it pulled a 30% match. How on earth was that the best available… Still, do you feel a bit better?”
