#i used bold for rei and italics for sakuhi at the end to try and make it less confusing?

[heiseidominantation]

Heisei Cataclysm "Drowsy Disconnection" (Sakana Kana & AREN)

[Saturday, December 14, 20XX at 8:00: A Drowsy World]

My mom didn't come back yesterday either. When I had examined the living room, the bedroom, the Japanese-style room, the closet, the toilet, the bathtub, the refrigerator, the washing machine, and found no trace of my mother, I began to eat.

When it came to meals, I've been eating slices of bread left on the table with butter and jam. The moment I ate sticky oil and fat, I would feel sick, but the hunger of waking up beat it out. There were two slices of bread left. But they might get moldy before I finish eating them.

I tied the strings of my sneakers roughly and went out in a fake fur jacket. The reason why it was too bright outside the window was that the snow piled up late at night and reflected sunlight all over the place.

It was a dead quiet residential area. The sound of the door-hanger was so loud that it scared off the birds flying around it. I held my breath and headed for the park, a five-minute walk away. 

I made room to sit through the snow on the bench. It was the first time since I was born that it was snowing so much in Tokyo.

The weather and the news were all over the place. Over the past few years, the weather had been abnormal almost every year, hot or cold, rain or no rain.

We were all quite used to it, and the announcer's tone of reading the prepared manuscript with a "No Abnormal Weather Death" once in a hundred years, sounded like white noise. 

The mountains of snow, melted by the sun and sparkling with drops of water, seemed to still allow cold time to flow inside them. I put my hand in the snow and made a snowball about the size of a rice ball. My wool gloves, which weren't waterproof or anything, were already damp and cold just from making one snowball. The snowball worked well. It was heavy, cold, and solid in my hands. It was my handmade weapon. When I put it right in front of the pliers, I felt reassured and made snowballs one after another. I made a lot of them so that I would be okay in case I got attacked. Two and a half dozen of them.

It was reaching the time when the winter sun was about to rise to its highest altitude. When I had become exhausted, I hung my wet gloves on the back of the bench and laid down on a bench that wasn't so wide. As the snow absorbed the temperature, the strong sun continued to shine on me and the snowballs. In the fold, I slept for a while.

I was awoken by an unpleasant dizziness, like a rat rumbling about in my head.

…?

Dozens of eyes were on me in the slightly angled sunlight. Streamlined green ears and empty red eyes. Snow rabbits. A platoon of snow rabbits, all turned to me, were lined up in front of the bench.

"...!"

What came to my mind was eerie anger.

Who made these? And for what purpose? 

There must have been someone who was messing around while I was in my own world and wanted to mock me behind my back. The snow rabbits kept looking at my confusion with innocent eyes. I couldn't stand being looked at like an animal in a show-house. I trampled the snow rabbits with the bottom of my sneakers. The rabbits, made of fragile crystals, lost their shape surprisingly quickly, and became mud-mixed clumps, stained with dirt and clinging to the ground. Their southern leaves and red fruit eyes were buried in the snow, and even though they lost their bodies, they were staring at me. I destroyed all the snow-rabbits in good faith, and left the park without turning a blind eye.

It was a strange woman who greeted me when I got home. She was wearing a long-sleeved black T-shirt with a lock-like print. Her hair, which seemed to be deliberately shaggy, had a creepy color like potatoes that had dropped iodine. There was a lot of jumbled metal hanging down from her leather pants. No matter how you looked at it, everything about her was completely different from my mother, who was supposed to meet me at my house. I could see the glare of her eyes from her bangs, which covered half of her face. I felt like a small animal stared at by a natural enemy, so I hurriedly closed the door before the woman's hand reached me. She was across the door, and I staggered back, feeling that I might be attacked just by touching the door. I retreated a few steps and bumped into the gate and heard a loud crash. I crouched down on the spot. 

I thought the neighbors would come out to see what was going on because of the loud noise, but no matter how long I waited, there was no sign of anyone else passing by. In the closed bathroom window, a black shadow appeared for a moment and disappeared immediately. If whoever was in there caught me, I would be killed.

But while I was away from the front door, the silhouette came out of the house, assimilated into the darkness, and my fear became a greater fear, not knowing when the figure would come upon me. As I was about to scream, I kept staring at the front door, clutching the hem of my fur jacket like an astronaut holding onto the handle of a weightless spaceship. 

I've been having delusions about my mother's dead body lately. If I've been having delusions about my mother's dead body, then maybe this person was a delusion too.

If I opened the door again, maybe she would already be gone like smoke. Otherwise, I would be killed. But even the thought of being killed was just a delusion. 

While I was crouching in front of the gate, the sun had set and it became dark.

I had to choose between going home, going to the park where the rabbits were waiting, or going to the city where there were a lot of dangerous incidents. 

I was tired as if I had been crying for an hour. I stood up, as if it were nothing, and shook off the drops of water at the bottom of my jacket, and opened the front door. There was no one there. Not that person, or my mom.

Thud.

Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud.

I heard light footsteps from the second floor, where nobody was supposed to be. I had hoped the sound of footsteps on the first night were me hearing things. 

The sound of footsteps the next night were light. 

The sound of footsteps the next night after that were nothing more than the grin of a Cheshire cat that mocked me.

The next night, too. And the next night after that, too. 

One night after another, one night after another, one night after another, one night after another, one night after another, one night after another, one night after another, one night after another, one night after another, one night after another.

And the next, and the next, next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next.

A thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud.

Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud. 

The footsteps grew louder.

—Whose footsteps was I hearing?

[Sunday, December 15, 20XX at 8:00: The White Girl]

As I thought, my fears didn't exist once I woke up. That person and my mother, who was dead with her internal organs scattered all over the room, were all just a delusion. But my mother didn't come back yesterday either. So I checked the living room, bedroom, Japanese-style room, closet, toilet, bathtub, refrigerator and washing machine, but found no bloodstains. 

I wanted warmth in the cold house. I thought I saw a black cat. The neighbor's black cat used to come to the garden. I wish the cat would come and see me again. If he came, of course, I was going to invite him into my house.

The bread on the table was spotted green and blue. I opened the jar of jam, but the sweet smell only burned my heart.

I decided to go out without saying anything. The door latch was as cold as if it had been in a freezer, and I almost got frostbite just by touching it with my bare hands for a moment. I realized that I had left my gloves on the park bench. I didn't want to go back to the park when I thought of those rabbits, but I couldn't touch anything with my cold fingers.

My feet followed the same path as yesterday. The sky was gray in a mixture of colors, like a brush-washing bucket of paint. 

I picked up the gloves that were on the ground. They were a little unreliable to survive the full winter, and although they were thin cheap gloves for wool, fortunately they weren't torn or frayed. Only a little bit of dirt was on them, but it was no problem. It was fortunate that they had fallen on the ground without snow. 

Around the bench, the remains of the snow rabbits remained as they were yesterday. The bench was located a little far from the promenade, and there were no signs of being trampled down by others.

"…!"

On the rough ground, there was a shadow of a lump of snow. And there stood a beautiful snow rabbit. The surface of the white fuselage was slightly melted and small, but both the green ears and red eyes remained the same as they were when they were miraculously created. I thought I had broken everything yesterday, but if there was anything left, I felt something of an attachment.

It survived.

A genocide. And it was the only one to survive. But, within days, it would melt into the sun and disappear. 

I thought of making another snow rabbit with the scattered southern leaves and red fruit. I looked into the shade of a green tree looking for as beautiful snow as possible. 

This is...?

They were a pair of gloves different from my own. This pair of gloves were thrown on a clump of snow. There was no trace of any other footprints in the vicinity of the pliers. In other words, the owner of the gloves was likely to be the creator of the snow rabbits.

Would they be sad?

There was only one snow rabbit left. There was a white pompom on the glove, which looked like a rabbit's tail.

"Ah…"

I heard footsteps stepping on the snow and looked back. Standing with her eyes wide open was a girl about my age in an ivory coat. From the gray background, the girl seemed to be floating.

"Did you break them?"

"..."

I didn't know what to say or whether to answer, so I just stood there staring at the girl.

I was afraid of her reaction to finding out I broke the rabbits. I was sure she would hate me, and I was sure she would be afraid of me. I thought that if I gave her her gloves, she would quietly walk away. But I couldn't move as if time had stopped.

The girl's eyes were red. They were the color of the southern sky. The girl acted unexpectedly in front of me, who was acting like a fool. She fluttered past me, sat down on the bench, and held out her right hand after rummaging in her coat pocket. 

There was a nostalgic, tickling smell in my stomach. It was a pork bun. My head was filled with hunger, and I hadn't eaten anything since morning. I could see that my mouth was dripping with thirst. The girl split it in two and offered me another steaming one.

"Want one?"

I didn't have to go back to my house that day. For the girl, who too had no parents, and was as kind as a goddess, said she would let me stay at her house.

The girl, who stood in the bathroom only once in the middle of the night, must have noticed that I was crying in the futon laid in the living room, but she said nothing.

And I was fine with that. The girl and I had just gotten to know each other, and I didn't really want to be seen crying.

The next day, when I woke up in the evening, my eyes were red and swollen like a snow rabbit, but the world I saw was so bright and vivid that I couldn't believe what had happened the day before. The weight of the tears that I shed so much that my pillow was soaking wet were the weight of my heart leaning toward madness.

[Wednesday, December 18, 20XX at 16:45: We Don't Have Names]

"Twilight Romantics!"

"That doesn't make sense. Rejected."

"Dangerous Enchanters!"

"Absolutely not."

"Tomatsuri City Angels!"

"Are we on a rampage?"

"JC Paradise☆"

"Horrible."

"Rainbow Dreamers?"

"You're just saying anything now, aren't you?"

"Infinity Dragon Knights!"

"Where's the dragon?"

"Sheesh… Then what kind of name do you think we should have, Akari?"

"Was that really the kind of discussion we were having in the first place?"

After school. At the Mnemosyne coffee shop, Akari and I were staring at each other across the table.

Even though junior high school students like us were taking over a box seat by the window, only ordering all-you-can-drink jasmine tea and making a fuss, Sana-san, the only clerk aside from the owner's grandpa, was polishing glasses at the counter without saying anything.

It's because he has a big heart ♪ ...No, not really.

Well, I guess it's because there were no other customers. Besides, even if we asked him to do so, there were only two people in our group who were mainly talking. Me, Amemiya Lislette, also known as Liz, actively proposing our team name, and Mitsuoka Akari, who was holding her chin in amazement, rejecting each suggestion with a single stroke. Repeatedly.

The other two were Tokido Haku, who was usually quiet, and today's first new customer— Fuyuto, a boy who didn't talk much aside from with Haku.

Well, Fuyuto-kun might be nervous since it was his first time meeting anyone other than Haku. And that was a recap of the situation.

"You should try coming up with something then!"

I crumpled up the back of the test sheet that I had spread out on the table to come up with an idea and threw it across the box seat.

"Ouch!"

A dark voice rose, and a golden head appeared from behind the backrest. 

Oh, I could see it, I could see it. The blood vessel mark of anger. By the way, this guy was Kamise Kyou.

""Our team's name, Glorious Celebrities"... Seriously?"

"I don't remember hanging out with you guys! If you're playing detective, do as you please, but do it away from me!"

...I was told earlier that this wasn't a bar.

"Oh, Kyou, isn't it? You didn't attend class in the afternoon, so you were reading manga here, right? See, all of us but our guest Fuyuto, are girls, so we might need a boy's helping hand."

Right? I asked him with sparkling eyes.

"Tsk…"

Kyou clicked his tongue with a vicious look and turned his eyes back to the manga sequel he was reading. 

Don't forget to shift your body to a position where you won't be attacked by my waste paper.

"Geez~!"

When I glanced at Akari, she seemed to be paying no attention to our daily conversation, and was looking out the window and stirring her tea.

Kyou-kun~? I'm asking you to support your love, you know? Really!

Well, maybe that's also why I'm trying to make them laugh. I'm conscious of things like that.

"Back to the discussion."

Look, Akari brought me back to the topic.

"I don't know why the topic became about naming the group, but... I want to make sure if Fuyuto-kun's mother is alive or dead."

The two silent ones in our group nodded solemnly.

—They really do look alike.

When I first heard that Haku was taking care of an unidentified boy at home, I thought Huh? I can't believe this! I have to stop this! and a flame of half justice and half jealousy burned in my heart. But when he was brought in front of me, and I was told about Fuyuto's strange experiences, I no longer felt that way.

This kid looks like he could be her younger brother.

I think it's easier for people to believe that they're close to each other if they're lied to. I couldn't bring myself to hate someone who looked like Haku. The fact that Fuyuto was one year younger than us may have also been the reason why the sense of crisis was getting lighter. 

As expected, if younger people rely on you, then it's natural to think you should do something to help, right?

"I may be repeating things, but to sum it up, first of all, Fuyuto-kun came home from school and found his mother's body in the living room."

I felt that the lights in the store were getting darker. The sound of Kyou turning over the pages of his manga sounded like white noise. When he talked about this, Fuyuto had slightly hazy eyes. If I looked straight at him, something in my heart may have been destroyed.

"I immediately called the police, but by that time, the body had already disappeared. I thought it was a prank, and that was it. But my mother didn't come back that day. ...That was the only time I had ever seen her corpse."

Fuyuto looked dissatisfied. Akari continued.

"Well? He told himself many times that it was a delusion, and he doubted himself many times. But his mother didn't come back on Tuesday. The next day, too. And one day, when Fuyuto came back from the park, a stranger was at his home."

"They were wearing black clothes, and had long hair."

"Fuyuto-kun thinks that they killed his mother, though there's no basis for it."

That's right. ...I can't explain, but it looked like someone who did that."

"I see... It's hard to make sense of, but I can't fault you because the range of things that can be translated into human language is so small."

Akari, I don't know what you're saying.

"By the way… To clarify my position, I think it's most natural to think that Fuyuto's mother's dead body is a hallucination and that she can't go home for some other reason."

I fell down on the table in spite of myself.

"Hey, wait… I've listened to you this far, and that's all you have to say!?"

"Listen to me until the end. When such an occult story is introduced, I think like that first. I didn't say I wouldn't cooperate."

"Then, Akari…"

The person who leaned slightly was Haku who was sitting next to me. Akari twisted awkwardly, holding her teacup, as if to escape from Haku's sparkling gaze. She must have thought she was cutting her off. Akari continued to choose her words.

"I'm saying this, but I don't know Fuyuto-kun at all. I listened to what Fuyuto-kun had to say, and I'm not saying he's lying, but it's easy for humans to see things that don't exist. ...But I've also known Haku since I was little. And if Haku wants to look into it, then spending a little more time on this case is nothing."

"Akari!"

Haku's smile was my favorite, and I could feel my happiness floating out. It was like pouring well-steamed jasmine tea into a teacup. 

"Thank you…!"

Yup, it's kinda funny! For me, who was cooperative from the beginning, I received a normal reaction. But as soon as Akari, who wasn't enthusiastic about it, said she would do it, she received such a smile!? I didn't know how to feel.

"Of course, Liz, too."

She added to me alone, in a voice that was audible but unheard of. 

Ugh, sheesh, I feel like this is all I need… 

…I-I'm such a coward!!

[Wednesday, December 18, 20XX at 17:10: A House of Corpses]

"Twilight Romantics," "Dangerous Enchanters," "Tomatsuri City Angels," and so on. In any case, we, Haku, Fuyuto, Akari and myself, left Mnemosyne and went to Fuyuto's house for reconnaissance. We left in a hurry.

…But I invited Kyou to join us, too, you know?

"Aren't you worried about letting girls go there alone~?" I said.

And he didn't show up. 

I hope he cries and regrets everything when we're found dead.

Akari said, "It's better to be careful. You'd better have a weapon with you just in case". So I thought we should head back to the school and grab a tennis racket and a bat... But once I suggested that, I was surprised when Sana-san suddenly went down to the back of the shop and brought out a wooden sword. He seemed to be good at kendo. It was a historic wooden sword, so he said that just holding it could be a charm. There was no pattern. It was just a wooden sword for practice, but it certainly felt like it was being used in color. 

If it hadn't been for the storekeeper, he would have followed us if we had asked him to join us. I think he would be more reliable than Kyou, but since we might have to confront the killer, we just asked for Sana-san's sword. 

Kyou's an idiot.

As a result of the consultation, the wooden sword was currently being held by Haku. 

Haku has been our leader for a long time, after all! When I saw Haku holding the purple bag with a wooden sword, I couldn't help but think "This is making me feel something…!" and so on.

Fuyuto's house, the Yuzuki residence, was located in a quiet residential area, well away from the center of the city, and in a nutshell, it gave the feeling of a "good house~". It must have been a legacy of his late father, but the mother who lived here with Fuyuto and didn't let go of it may have had a fairly high-income job.

We opened the gate and the four of us clumped together in front of the entrance.

There was a murderer waiting in front of the door, and as soon as I unlocked it, we were attacked!! Gya—!!!

…Just kidding, I have an active imagination. We broke into Fuyuto's house without any obstacles. "Sorry for the intrusion", we whispered in low voices. 

An empty, wide corridor. A house with few things and no sense of life. I think I'm a bit disappointed. I was expecting a real killer, and to shout at that moment, "What Fuyuto saw wasn't a hallucination!". It's hard for Fuyuto to keep memories that may or may not be hallucinations forever.

"Solo action is a death flag."

In honor of Akari's knowledge of horror movies, the four of us stuck together and looked around the house one after another.

I mean, I was the one who screamed mainly, and Akari told me to keep it down. But I knew Akari would be the same if she just let herself scream. 

Haku and Fuyuto cuddled together like cat siblings without parents and went through the house. Haku's parents haven't lived together for a long time, so maybe that's something they can both relate to. 

We, the boys and girls, were no longer sure what to do, and sat side by side at the living-room table, as we walked about the house, which seemed spacious enough to live in together, but not spacious enough to explore.

Here, Fuyuto's mother…

It didn't feel very good to think that, but Fuyuto had been in and out of this living room even after the discovery of the body, and he had taken out a plastic bottle of tea with an unexpectedly calm face. No one seemed to feel relaxed enough to boil water for tea time, though.

"If you said you called the police when you first saw the body, you'd be looking into the Luminol reaction."

Before I knew it, Akari, who was the least enthusiastic, was in charge. 

Come to think of it, if she didn't know the culprit after reading a book to challenge the reader, she was the type of person who would go back to the beginning and read it again…

"At that time, about twenty police officers and doctors came to my house to look into it, so I think they did it."

"About six hours from the crime to the discovery of the body. If it was that short a time, it's possible that the crime was committed just five minutes before and the criminal could have been hiding right next to Fuyuto-kun. From the time Fuyuto-kun reported it to the time the police rushed in, that would be enough to gauge it."

"...I don't remember much. But it didn't take them more than half an hour."

Akari seemed to be working really hard to get the truth, but even if I participated in the mystery contest, I wouldn't be able to say anything to get to the bottom of it. I pretended to come up with a good idea without any concrete plan, and suddenly came out of the living room and looked upstairs into the stairs.

—Thud.

My eyes glued to the darkness on the second floor at the end of the stairs. I could hear a noise now. As I concentrated my attention, I heard the noise again.

—Thud, thud, thud, thud…

Behind my ears, which were about to be drawn to the stairs upstairs, Akari's voice came back to me.

"Solo action is a death flag."

[Wednesday, December 18, 20XX at 17:52: A Mystery Behind the Ceiling]

It wasn't until I turned on the light that I realized. The realm of "dusk" was long gone. Right now, it was "night". Of course, it wasn't completely dark outside the window. Since it was a residential area, you could see the lights in the windows of other houses. But it was dark, aside from the light in the house and the lamppost.

The garden of the Yuzuki residence, which seemed to have a home vegetable garden, and the sloping road where snow still lingered, were just beyond the wall with insulation, just beyond the window.

Was it always this dark at night?

Did the house next door always look like that? It feels different when I see it during the day. I can't remember it looking like this.

I closed the curtains, as if something were looking at me from within.

"Liz, you can hear footsteps, so you're searching for them, aren't you!? Don't run off!"

"Ehehe."

When I went back to the search site with a blank answer, I saw that the door on the second floor was open, the closet had its contents taken out, and the inside wall was exposed.

"Geez, now I have nothing to do!"

Even though I'm a "Mystery Stray Sheep" (I just thought up that title), I was more than capable!

...And even with the ability to investigate a capable monster, nobody could find the culprit of the footsteps? Maybe it's a punchline where no one was there, after all?

I wondered if my thoughts were conveyed to Fuyuto…

"There's only one place I haven't looked yet!"

The inhabitant of the house cried.

...And where is that place?

Fuyuto, hiding only above his neck, stood on his knees, and was rattling something on the top of the closet. We couldn't do anything about it. 

According to Fuyuto, if you removed the ceiling of the closet, it was connected to the back of the ceiling. It seemed like a small space only a child could fit in on his own, but we even opened the toilet lid and checked the inside, so we couldn't go home without checking.

"...Ugh."

There was an extraordinarily loud rattle with Fuyuto's murmur, and plaster dust fell from the ceiling.

"Hey, are you alright?"

Akari hurriedly watched Fuyuto.

"I'm alright. ...I just hit my head."

Fuyuto pulled his head out of the ceiling and held out his arms in front of us.

A black and white creature? It looked like a black ball of hair and looked up under the light. Its standing triangular ears trembled as if to look around.

"...A cat!"

It was Akari who yelled in fear. She's been scared of cats since she was a kid, after all.

"Wow…"

On the other hand, Haku leaned forward with big eyes shining in interest.

As for me, I was a cute maiden who was tickled when I heard there was a cat, but I couldn't express my feelings as honestly as Haku, so I looked into Fuyuto's hand diagonally behind her. Haku put her face close enough to the black cat and gently touched its dusty fur with her fingers.

"He's weak…"

Indeed, the cat's breathing was weak, and its fur looked lustrous and limp.

Ugh, I'm worried. I'm the type of person whose heart pricks when I see such a weak existence. Just looking at it hurts.

"Fuyuto, by any chance, was the sound of footsteps…"

"Yes, I think it was this fellow. When I opened the closet before, I went into the ceiling the day the police came."

"We need to give him something!"

I controlled the standing Haku with my hands.

"Do you have any bonito flakes here, Fuyuto?"

"We do… There's a pack on the shelf above the kitchen."

"Akari and I will prepare lukewarm water and dried bonito flakes, while Fuyuto and Haku will follow the cat. Also, there were a lot of towels in the closet, so you can make a cat bed with them."

"Y-Yes…"

On the way down the stairs, pulling the still-solid Akari by force, I heard Haku and Fuyuto talking.

"Cat-san... It was cold, wasn't it?"

"He has a name. Kuro."

"You named the black cat… "Kuro"?"

"Yeah, because I found him in my family's garden. In the clover field. Kuro as in Clover."

[Wednesday, December 18, 20XX at 18:9: A Black Beast]

According to the name Fuyuto came up with, the cat, Kuro, drank the water and ate the bonito flakes so easily that it was too light. I carefully divided the yakisoba bread in Haku's bag, dipped it in water, and he also ate it well. Kuro wanted food so much that I thought about giving him other ingredients from the Yuzuki residence, but…

"There are a lot of foods that you shouldn't give cats."

Akari's admonition stopped me. I thought I should look it up on my phone, but for some reason, our phones didn't have internet connection. I wondered if that was the kind of place this was (I thought at the time).

When Kuro was tired of eating, he fell asleep. He curled up like a black salmon and slept. Even though he was an animal, I was wondering how he could sleep so hard in front of other mammals (like us). If it was true that sleeping required physical strength, it was thought that individuals in danger of their lives wouldn't sleep like this.

"So you were just hungry. Seriously, you really worried us."

I don't really care, but Akari, that's not a line you should be saying when you're standing more than five meters away from Kuro.

As for the future of Kuro, we had little thought of any other option, and he was taken in by Fuyuto at Haku's house. Even though nothing came out of our investigation, we couldn't leave him in such a mysterious house where Fuyuto's mother had died or someone we didn't know suddenly appeared. 

It had been dark outside the window for quite some time now. We put on our coats and scarves and carried our bags, leaving the Yuzuki residence to harvest the sound of footsteps and a cat.

"I'm sorry. I think I'm lost."

It was a while after Fuyuto was walking us through the residential area that he said that. I think the three of us had question marks on our heads.

"You're lost…? But this is Fuyuto's house, right? Did you ever get lost on your way back to the station?"

Akari raised a perfectly natural question. But the three of us, except Fuyuto, must have thought somewhere in our hearts.

—Where are we? Is this really the same road as the one we took to get there…?

"I don't know why, but this road is different. I think something feels wrong."

The black cat, wrapped in a towel around Fuyuto's chest, was awake, and his triangular ears stood up as if to observe the surroundings.

"Then what should we do…? For the time being, should we go back for now?"

Haku grabbed Akari's sleeve, which looked around her at a loss.

"No, we can't go back."

"We can't go back…?"

"—There's something…"

Akari and I gasped. A low growl, like a motor noise, came out of the darkness.

"W-What is that…?"

The owner of the growling noise appeared in front of us, who had kept a close distance from each other. It was a black beast. All I could think of was a dog, but it seemed sinister for a dog, and its fur fluttered like a black flame. The growl was undoubtedly directed at us. The emotions lit up in its red eyes were probably similar to what we humans called hatred.

—And there wasn't just one. There were still some beasts behind some of the streetlights. They were glaring at us. A whirling, whirling, sound whirled along. Fuyuto hurriedly hugged the little creature in his arms. I guess he was trying to intimidate the beasts, but Kuro was a cat and his body was much smaller.

If he tried to run away… It was a scary thought.

"Well, if we can't go back, let's head towards the city center. It's not too far of a walk all the way here."

At my suggestion, Fuyuto, holding the cat tightly in front of his chest, shook his head.

"No."

"No…?"

"It feels strange here. Let's go home. I should've told you this sooner, but I don't know this area. This is somewhere none of us know."

"Even if you say that, we have to run through those wild dogs to get home, you know!? And furthermore, you're holding that cat. Even Akari can't run very fast…"

"...I'll do something about it."

The one who murmured low was Haku. In her hand, yes— she borrowed a wooden sword from Sana-san! We didn't meet the killer, but we had our weapons ready. 

...Wait, but… A wooden sword is just a wooden stick, right? It was hard to imagine that such a thing would get through this pack of wild dogs.

"You won't know until you try."

Haku, presumably trying to intimidate them, held up her wooden sword in front of the wild dogs.

Then… Huh, huh? The wild dogs looked frightened for a moment. Haku approached the wild dogs one or two steps at a time. We were looking at the wild dogs as if they were going to jump at Haku…

Haku took one more step, no, half a step toward the dogs. The rumbling became one step lower, and the dog standing right in front of her took a step back.

Huh…? This is…

By any chance, by any chance, it was really working, right? Just as I could feel hope bloom…

"It's shining…!"

Akari exclaimed in surprise. She put her hand on the vines of her glasses and put them back on her ear as if she were looking with her own eyes.

—Yes, the wooden sword was shining. A sweltering, spell-like pattern loomed over the blade of the sword. Akari's glasses also reflected a greenish light. I wondered if it was painted with night-light. Or is this what Sana-san meant about it being a "historic wooden sword that worked like a charm"? I didn't really understand it, but now was our chance!

"Everyone, stay behind Haku! Let's just run through it!"

Fuyuto immediately nodded and ran to Haku. He might have thought that he had to protect Kuro in his own way.

...Yup, those guys should be fine. I couldn't say the same for the oldest of our group, who kept her mouth open by reflecting green light on her glasses.

"Hey, Akari! Open your eyes! Wake up!"

With Akari's arm in my right hand and Haku's two bags in my left hand (I'm sensible, you know), Haku and Fuyuto exchanged glances.

…Now! Make our escape!!

[Thursday, December 19, 20XX at 1:23: Marginal Night]

It was a great night. I could hear dogs growling all night outside the house, and we couldn't connect to home appliances or smartphones.

But I think everyone probably thought that if there were the four of us (and one extra), we wouldn't be afraid.

"That was just like "The Evil Dead"."

Akari said, gloating. 

You know, if I hadn't pulled Akari's hand and helped you out of the situation, you would have been like "The Evil Dead" in parentheses, right?

We had escaped a pinch but the reminder of it was always next to us, so that's why everyone's tensions were running high. We talked about a lot of things all night. Many things like when Haku, Akari, and I first met. We told Fuyuto a lot of our memories like that. I counted my memories one by one, as if I were longing for them.

In the morning, the wild dogs disappeared. I noticed that my cell phone's signal was back. I had received a lot of calls from my parents, but if I said I stayed at Haku's house and forgot to check my phone, they would be convinced.

We parted before dawn in a cold winter when we could easily wake up from sleep, and the four of us went to the station and took a shower at our respective houses.

But that morning— We never talked about the spectacle of last night.

[December XX, 20XX at XX:XX: The White Singer]

"...Shinjuku… Riding on board, thank you very much…"

Most of the passengers were replaced at the terminal station. A pregnant woman had left, and a girl who was standing in front of her took her seat, turning up the volume of her earphones and concentrating on her smartphone screen.

…Artificial era, perfect crime, brainwashing anticipation 3 turns later…

She tapped the screen to match the beat that made her feel like hitting a drum. The white singer, "Hakua" swam smoothly through the gap between her notes dancing on the screen. She tapped on the screen at the right time, and when the combo was connected, an animation cut-in would be included and words of support would be sent.

…Even the punishment blamed on the altar…

In this rhythm game, you accumulated "fire power" to prevent the revival of chaotic beasts. That was the kind of game it was. The "fire power", which was accumulated by players from all over the country, was displayed in a corner of the screen in real time.

She forgot who recommended it to her at first, but now it was an app that was exploding in the number of users. The amount of "fire power" was also increasing to an extent that it was comparable to the beginning. On the internet forums, people were whispering, "It's about time there was a new development". Everyone was looking forward to the next step of "operation". According to Hirota's prediction, it would be something like…

Once the beast of chaos was prevented from being revived, it would somehow descend into this world. And a new song that's been added, would fight against a stronger enemy, and all over Japan... no, everyone in the world would fight together.

I'm so excited…

Hakua praised Hirota for clearing the song with a full combo with a well-made synthetic voice that couldn't be distinguished from a voice actor. The number of "fire power" rose by the amount of Hirota's score. Hirota began to choose songs that she could play with the rest of her physical strength, biting her overwhelming satisfaction.

[Thursday, December 19, 20XX at 9:05: A Chipped Memory]

"Please hand these prints to the back seat."

Class members shouted loudly in the morning classrooms where the noise never stopped. The winter sky, seen through the dewy windows, was gray and muddy, and I was about to cry. It's been cold since this morning, and I wondered if it was going to snow again.

"Liz-chan… Liz-chan? Are you awake?"

I was half in a dream, and replied with a "Hey?".

"I'm talk-ing to yo-u! Please hand these prints to the back seat~"

I was staring at the print that Nene had pressed into my hand for a while.

"Liz-chan? Is your brain rotting today?"

"No... I'm alright. I just woke up, that's all."

I finally started to move my sleeping brain in fear of her getting angry and shaking her pigtails. I took one from the bundle of prints that said, "Enhancement of school patrols," and I turned around to send it to the back seat.

"...Eh?"

There was no one there. There was no one sitting in the back seat. There was nothing on the handle next to the desk. Only that seat in the classroom was as empty as a forgotten room. My wandering gaze for help hit Mitsuoka Akari. Akari's seat was on the right side of the seat behind me, which was vacant.

"Akari, who sits in this seat again?"

"What are you talking about? Yoshikawa-san, right?"

"Eh…?"

"Yoshikawa Azumi-san. She transferred to another school last month. Have you forgotten that already? You can be really rude sometimes, you know."

I was told with half an eye as I hurriedly searched for memories.

Come to think of it, there was... No, there definitely was someone like that. She was serious, she wrote old texts with her country, but she was missing something. She had natural brown hair. And sometimes she made her own lunch. 

This isn't good! If we had lunch together, how would I forget this much? Why…?

…I mean, was this kid really there?

"Look, I'll handle the prints."

I was still stunned when Akari robbed me of my bundle of prints.

"Liz, are you okay? I hope you're just half asleep…"

"Akari, you know, what were we doing last night again?"

"Yesterday? We were texting."

"...Is that so?"

"I didn't go out with you because you said you didn't finish your English assignment. See?"

Akari's smartphone screen certainly showed Akari's text exchange with me. The timestamp was definitely from last night. 

"I don't know what Liz is saying in general today."

"Liz-chan, don't you think you should go to bed early today~? Before you make a big mistake in chemistry or physical education."

I stood up with my dizzy head in my arms, and the chair fell with a thud throughout the class. The noisy classroom suddenly calmed down. Akari and Nene, who were talking lightly, looked at me with a surprised face.

"...I'm sorry, I don't think I can do this today. I'm going home."

I put the stationery and notebook spread out on my desk back into my bag with little use.

"...L-Liz-chan, I was joking when I said that you had better leave early…"

"It's not like Nene is to blame, really. It's just that I can't do this."

I couldn't stay here for a second because I had a headache and it was too much. I didn't even check the contents, as I fastened the magnet bracket on my bag.

"I'm sorry, I'm not feeling well, so I'm leaving early."

"Eh? Wai... A-Amemiya-san…"

I left the classroom without listening to my homeroom teacher's hasty reply. The hustle and bustle of the morning home room was overflowing into the empty hallway.

[Thursday, December 19, 20XX at 12:25: Disappear Into the Midwinter Sky]

I was supposed to have walked aimlessly. I didn't even have an umbrella with me in the flickering snow, but I didn't feel like going home. When I saw the log of last night's texts with Akari on my smartphone, I thought I couldn't just go home. It was cleverly hidden. Someone was hiding something from the world. And I was going to wrap it up in the silent snow and pretend it didn't happen.

I found myself in a residential area separated by a wall about the size of a height. I didn't remember any friends living around here. 

...No, I think I came to this park a few times when I was little. But I've never set foot in a residential area like this.

After I turned the same corner many times, I didn't have the confidence to go back to my original path anymore. I went as I wished, and stopped in front of a detached house. It was a beautiful house with elegant creamy walls and wood-grained lines as accents. There was a nameplate that said "Yuzuki." 

Do you read it as "Yuzuki"? Well, there must have been a happy family living there.

I don't know why I thought of doing so, but I turned the door latch open and stood at the door of the house, which was a little above the ground. There was no sound. I put my hand on the doorknob and tried turning it around. It was, of course, locked.

Well, that makes sense...

It was the middle of the day on a weekday. It was no wonder that the whole family was away from home. After thinking about it, I stopped ringing the doorbell.

If the residents of this house were just taking a nap, it wouldn't be unnatural for them to say, "When I woke up and opened the front door, there was a suspicious junior high school student ringing the doorbell who had nothing to do with this house". If I kept this up, they might call the police. I felt a sense of crisis, but when I turned my back to the front door, I found a way to the side of the house. 

Come to think of it, when I saw this house right in front of me, I thought it was a layout with a garden.

It's cold...

I shuddered from the core of my body. The snow, which had just begun to fall, was gaining momentum. 

But, just a little more...

I felt it was a waste to leave, so I thought I'd just peek through a narrow path like an eel bed between walls and eaves.

"Wow..."

I sighed in spite of myself, for there was an unexpected green carpet in the snowy garden.

The distinctive shape of the leaves could be seen even by me, who wasn't particularly familiar with plants. It was a clover field.

Of course, in the cold months of December, it wasn't so lush, but it gave a feeling of perseverance. Nevertheless, the winter scene had an unexpected impact. I was so touched by the clover field that I looked for a four-leaf clover (it wasn't that easy to find). At first I wanted to go home, but it was such a simple thing that my heart felt a little relieved.

Oh...

As I tried to pass in front of the front door, I noticed that the door was slightly open.

Did they come back or was there someone inside? When I was wondering which one it was...

"...!"

My mouth was blocked as if I were being held back. The person who was covering my mouth with the ease of holding a cup ramen lid felt like they were putting little effort into their arms. The next thing I felt was warmth. It was like the feeling I had when I was taking a bath. The reason I felt like I was bathed in hot water was because the blood that came out of my throat was so different. And then all my senses grew more and more distant.

It's dark. It's cold. It's painful. I'm scared. I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared.

I felt like my body was being torn apart in the distance. Finally, at the last moment, my brain began to resist the "world" at least a little bit. It was the last moment when my senses were stretched. I finally remembered everything.

The person who was sitting behind me all the time. The person who protected me and everyone last night. The person who had a smile stuck to her face like a lingering scent. 

Why did I forget? Why did I ever forget? 

Tokido Haku. 

Even though there was only one person like her in the world.

Even though she was my favorite person in the world.

[Thursday, December 19, 20XX at 13:12: Waking Up With a Cat]

I must have been the one who had the strangest experience. I woke up alone without remembering what had happened in a strange house. I could see snow falling through the curtains of a big window. The room was heated, but cold air seemed to pour in through the window. The light coming through the window was white and bright. I could hear the sound of snow falling. It was a horrible room with extremely few objects. The inhabitants didn't seem to be very good at cleaning, and I could see the dust flying in the light. There was no furniture except a table, a chair, and a plastic shelf. There was a futon for me on the floor that felt so wide.

The first thing I thought was that I had been kidnapped (my family was barely a wealthy family), but the idea was denied in a second.

In the space between the mattress and the quilt, a black cat entered and slept peacefully, with my arms as a cushion and my stomach moving up and down in a certain rhythm.

Where's the kidnapper who kidnapped a cat?

The cat wasn't my cat... but it reminded me of the neighbor's cat, who often went into my garden and played with me, so I named him Kuro and sometimes fed him. Kuro was a very thin-limbed cat with a kitten-like heart, but when he was put on my arm, he was heavy. I tried to pull him off my arm slowly so that I wouldn't wake him up, but I couldn't. When he realized that I had woken up, he yawned and stretched once at a time, and shuddered, and walked in a light rhythm into the kitchen between us. 

I dragged myself out of the futon. It was chilly, and I put on a knit cardigan that I had placed next to my pillow (whose was this?). There was an open door between the living room and the kitchen, leading to the corridor. It wasn't such a big house. 

Just as I looked into the hallway on the left from the kitchen, I saw the front door, and the corridor on the right that led to three doors. One door was locked. The other door was the bathroom and toilet. I opened the last door.

It seemed like a girl's room. But there wasn't anything like a row of stuffed animals by the bedside, or lace curtains. Instead, there was a steel bed, a simple desk for an adult man, and a white curtain covering the window with an armrest chair in front of it. The room was a thick indigo, and that's summing it up together to the minimum extent necessary.

But it turned out to be a girl's room, as peeping out of her school bag on the desk was a smartphone with a strap, and on the wall rack were a white coat and a formal dress-like dress.

If it were a girl's room, there was one different thing. There was something leaning against the desk. A long, deep purple bag used by people of unsophisticated social standing. The mouth was folded back and fastened with a red string with a tuft. It seemed to contain a treasure sword used for Shinto rituals. The foreign object, which was so far removed from the casual arrangement around me, attracted my attention that I took it in my hand and untied it. A wooden sword with a streamlined, beautiful figure appeared from the inside. It was used, and it was candy-colored. The blade of the sword was bare, and there was no incised information to identify it.

—No. As soon as I thought about it, my eyes caught the light on the surface of the wooden sword.

...? What...

The green light, which could only be described as a sudden birth, slipped the blade like a ribbon and raised some characters. A magic spell. The moment I traced the characters with my finger... Memories that I lost at least once flowed into me.

[Thursday, December 19, 20XX at 16:56: Gather Together]

A thin fingertip stirred water and starch prepared in a glass bowl. The water and starch, which had been divided into two layers, had been stirred like a lie and became a misty liquid. Sana quickly stirred the contents of the wok and poured water-soluble starch. Chinese bean paste with plenty of ingredients for cabbage, yellowtail, shrimp and bamboo shoots. He tilted the pot and put it on the crispy side of the yakisoba, the ankake yakisoba now ready.

I scooped up the soaked yakisoba with a large spoon.

"Mm!"

It was so good that I couldn't help but groan. He was definitely better at cooking than my mother. I wanted to eat here every day.

"But are you sure this is okay? I should be paying you."

"Think of it as thanks. You helped me out. Thank you, Kyou."

"N-No, even if you say it's as thanks... It wasn't a big deal."

In the second half, my words were said with my mouth curled up. Sana was sitting across from me on the street, watching me clean up the ankake yakisoba.

"Aren't you gonna eat?"

"I'm full, so don't worry about me."

I helped Sana put a game app on his phone. He said, "I can't install this game on my cell phone for some reason," so I looked at it and it turned out he was trying to play a game exclusively for smartphones with a feature phone. It was a common occurrence.

First of all, I created an account with Sana's feature phone, put a browser that could camouflage a User agent on his laptop with Mnemosyne's equipment (until now, his role was to start Excel for accounting once a month), and then logged in with Sana's account and created an environment where he could play on his PC.

It was nothing to me, just routine manipulation, but Sana was surprised as if he had seen magic. And if I could eat such a good meal, I would continue to install browsers for him any day.

"That reminds me, Kyou, did anything happen at school today?"

When I finished eating Sana's ankake yakisoba, he asked me. 

What's with that question? It's like a father who can't find a clue to his adolescent daughter's conversation.

"Not really... Come to think of it, Liz left early in the middle of morning homeroom. But she didn't come here, did she?"

"Oh, no, she didn't. ...Kyou, do you remember the name Tokido Haku?"

"Huh?"

Then the door chimed at the Mnemosyne coffee shop, and the first customer aside from me, rushed in. A boy with blue eyes in a fake fur jacket. The boy grabbed an arm and brought Mitsuoka Akari with him. Akari, who I knew, seemed to have been forced to come here by the boy, and she was confusingly comparing us with the boy.

"Welcome, Fuyuto-kun, Akari-chan."

Sana seemed to know the boy's name.

[Thursday, December 19, 20XX at 19:27: The 〔Reverse World〕]

—Serenity, serenity broken—

Someone was singing. The melody was like a children's song. But it had ill-fated lyrics.

Just around the corner. In that twilight-filled school. On a TV that zapped in the middle of the night. Every night, in my dreams.

Someone was singing. Someone was dreaming. Someone was killing someone. Someone was having a hard time with someone. 

I want to hurt you in the worst way possible.

I want to give you a scar that won't ever heal.

Because if I don't do that, we'll soon forget.

No matter how you do it, you will soon rewind and appear before me again. Like a clock that keeps going round and round in the same place.

You were very pretty yesterday.

You were very wonderful yesterday.

Look, this is your eyeball. I'll roll it on my tongue and taste it for you. I want to decorate it with colorful organs. It's a special party, after all. 

I love the moment when I cut you apart, who everyone has cherished. Don't faint even if it's a long-lasting pain. I want to enjoy this until the end. And spread the brain plasma about.

Isn't this red dress wonderful, too?

It's a parade that repeats every night. Memories of the future hidden in my dreams. You can't leave. I can't leave.

Because I'm…

I am…

I'm (I am) in you.

—Today, I woke up from an unpleasant dream. 

One where I lost everything and found myself in the dark.