Mother and Son
***
"Are you a religious person, Yoshikawa-kun?"
"Nope."
For a shrine, there's quite a bit of architecture to see.
We must perform a purification ritual called temizu before entering the main area. Fortunately, I still remember the steps to do so.
"Do you know it?"
I glanced at my partner.
"I forgot…" she curled her lips downwards.
I laughed.
"Watch me then."
Approaching a water basin, I took the ladle with my right hand and poured it over my left hand, then did the reverse. I poured some water into my left palm, rinsed my mouth, and spat it out beside the water basin. As the final step, I rinsed the ladle by letting the remaining water run down the handle.
Hoshino watched it all with an awed expression.
"Do you remember?"
She snapped out of it, somewhat irritably replying, "Of course. I wasn't just admiring your surprisingly innocent actions."
"What did that supposed to mean? Whatever, just hurry up and try it."
Ignoring her weird statement, I let her proceed with the ritual.
Just as she said, she performed the steps perfectly without a single mistake. She then looked at me with an expression that said, "I did well, didn't I?" after that. 'That's a pretty basic knowledge.'
I had a feeling that addressing it directly would greatly hurt her. That being said, praising her didn't feel right to me either, so with that in mind, I decided to pretend being oblivious to her desire.
"Let's move to the saisenbako (offering box)."
That caused her to pout.
***
We took turns putting coins into the saisenbako and made small gestures before clasping our hands together, offering silent prayers. '--I pray for endless joy.'
Peeking at the girl next to me, she had an earnest look that came across as silly.
As I was thinking that, having the urge to laugh immediately, her eyes went wide open. A broad smile quickly settled on her face.
"—let's go to that place!"
"Calm down…"
Hoshino finished her part and enthusiastically pointed in a direction.
It was an open area near a cliff, offering a not-so-bad view of Seiza village. Naturally, apart from us, there were several visitors milling around and chatting lively. Hoshino was trying to run into that location before stopping abruptly for whatever reason.
"What's wrong?" I noticed that strange act.
"Well..."
Hoshino sent a glance at my hand hesitantly. And then, seemingly deciding in an instant, she grabbed it and pulled me cheerfully toward the area. I was a bit surprised by her action, but quickly laughed it off and went along with her.
I had come to a place like this a few times with some friends. But this was the first time I came alone with a girl.
'While it didn't spark any special feeling in my heart, it certainly felt nice.'
***
In my bedroom, I lay down while staring at my phone screen.
There was a simple interface showing three card-like images with text on their surfaces.
'I'll ignore the fact that my phone also became magical…'
Earlier, beside the battery bar on the screen, I could see a percentage of accumulated minor experiences. Aside from the Intermediate and the Major progress, it didn't say anything more than that, such as what kind of experience to spark that progress, or how much they affect it.
It gradually increased when I was with Hoshino up until a moment ago. Well, it was easy to tell that the visit to the shrine was something that never happened in her original fate.
I had one Fate Aspect. With it, I could change a certain fate yet again.
There were many aspects of fate that could be altered, as said before. There were various types of points for different aspects and levels. Some examples were "Individual" fate, "World History," "Laws of Nature," "Nature of Time," "Parallel Stories," "Fictional Realms," and so on. They were also branched to different kind of abilities, leading to a seemingly unlimited number of things I could get.
Right now, I had to choose one out of three Fate Aspects: Course of Destiny, Parallel Dimension Convergence, and Thread Parallel Fates.
Course of Destiny is, as the name implied, a feature to change a course of someone's destiny to whatever they wish to. It's restricted to one world, which doesn't seem so appealing to me, given that I plan to hop between worlds, but still valuable anyway. I wouldn't be able to travel to different worlds if I didn't have that option.
Parallel Dimension Convergence serves to fuse the present world into a parallel world, similar to how my world and Hoshino's fuse together. Since it originates from the Minor Experience tier, its limitations are strictly parallel worlds devoid of supernatural elements. The likes of Highschool DxD, Jujutsu Kaisen, and such are at the Intermediate Experience level, while the completely otherworldly ones are at the Major Experience type.
Thread Parallel Fates, being the last one, is the capability to tightly bind my fate's connection with at most three parallel figures. It was more or less the same as how I was closely linked by fate with Hoshino in this world. The side effects were quite huge, though, with me being transported to the world the parallel characters were in, and the distinction that I would have an unpredictable origin destiny awaiting me.
Anyway, my choice is pretty obvious. 'It's Course of Destiny!'
That change would've tremendously helped me, so without any hesitation, I tapped the option right away.
"..."
I waited for a while, but nothing particularly unreal happened. "Huh..."
I went to my desk, conjuring an invisible book. Using my magical hands, I finished writing after less than a minute. And, just right after that, there was a knock on the door. Puzzled, I went to the front to check who it was.
"--ah?" The culprit surprised me immediately. "Mom?"
'Isn't that too fast?'
I hadn't expected her to come specifically, 'and even if I do, it wouldn't be this quickly!'