Summary:
Even when she was young, Nobara had a tendency to stand out. She married foreigners like Fumi and Saori and left her small village at the first chance she got. Nobara promised to see the girls again one day, but a lot has happened in her life since then. As the effects of Idle Transfiguration take hold, Nobara wants everyone to know that it wasn’t so bad after all.
Plot:
Fumi, Nobara’s childhood friend, moved to their small village in the countryside around the same time she started elementary school. Everyone in her class had either a red or black backpack, which made her light blue one stand out. However, young Nobara wanted light blue, approached Fumi for a trade, thus beginning their friendship.
Fumi returned her backpack after school, and Nobara kicked her own out of annoyance after beating some boys up against a jump rope. Afterwards, Nobara stopped by Fumi’s house to play supersmash brothers with her dad all the time. Nobara didn’t like the people in the village and only really hung out with Fumi.
Their village was so small that it was harder to be a stranger than to make friends. At first Fumi thought it might be a good thing, but Nobara didn’t like it. A few years later, a neighbor brought her red bean rice to celebrate her womanhood. This made her uncomfortable and helped her understand why Nobara didn’t like it in the small town.
One day, when they were still children, Nobara took Fumi to her “secret base”. This place was actually the house of a girl named Saori. Saori was older than Fumi and moved to the village behind her. Saori was always home and greeted Nobara and Fumi whenever they randomly visited. Fumi believed that Nobara had changed and become more refined after meeting Saori.
After several incidents where the villagers vandalized her house, Saori moved out of the village. All Fumi remembers about saying goodbye to Saori is Nobara’s disheveled crying face. It was the first time she had seen Nobara cry, so she couldn’t hold back anything else.
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In June 2018, Nobara received approval to transfer to a school in Tokyo. Nobara’s grandmother resisted the decision, which made her enroll late. Nobara and Fumi met to say goodbye as the former were about to board the train out of town. Excited to escape from the village, Nobara resolved never to return. Fumi was disappointed that Nobara didn’t shed tears for her like she did for Saori. This selfish way of thinking was so embarrassing and guilt-inducing for Fumi that it was difficult for her to speak at that moment. They hadn’t even talked about Saori since the day she left.
Nobara catches Fumi’s attention and tells her that when they meet again, the three of them should be together. Nobara blushes with emotion and after a while Fumi breaks down in tears and agrees with her.
Currently, Saori works in the office late at night. Her co-worker points out something dangerous is happening in Shibuya, but Saori ignores it. Saori tells her about her time in the countryside and how she met a young girl named Nobara. If Nobara and Fumi saw her today, Saori thinks they would be disappointed.
Meanwhile, Nobara holds her face and reminds that everyone in the village was crazy. She used to believe that a lot of people were crazy and interfered in other people’s lives. That was until she attended Tokyo Jujutsu High and learned that being crazy wasn’t so bad after all. He takes pictures of all his friends and apologizes to Fumi that he won’t be able to meet her again in the future.
Nobara looks at Yuji’s worried face and tells him to make sure everyone knows it wasn’t that bad. Just then, Nobara’s face swells up around her left eye and explodes from the effects of Idle Transformation. Yuji watches in horror as Nobara’s eye pops out of her head and her blood splatters onto his face.