The noon bell breaks the silence in Class 2-A.
Chairs scrape across the floor.
Desks knock together, and plastic lunch lids snap open as conversations rise around the room.
Aina remains folded over her desk.
Sayuri closes the Classical Japanese book beneath her cheek.
“Come with me.”
Aina lifts her head.
The movement takes longer than it should.
“Where?”
“The infirmary.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are not.”
Aina attempts to focus on her.
“I’m not?”
“You look terrible.”
Several nearby classmates glance over.
Sayuri lowers her voice.
“You have dark circles beneath your eyes, and you nearly fell asleep four times.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
“The final instance was contemplation.”
“It was not.”
Aina reaches into her school bag and hooks two fingers through the handle of her lunch tote.
“Food will restore my energy.”
Sayuri folds the bag flap over her hand.
“You can eat afterward.”
“Sayuri—”
“Stand up.”
Aina searches her face for room to negotiate.
Sayuri’s posture offers none.
“You become intimidating when you’re worried.”
“I am not worried.”
“You’re furrowing your eyebrows again.”
Sayuri presses the back of her fingers to Aina’s forehead.
A tired smile touches Aina’s mouth.
Realizing what she has done, Sayuri withdraws her hand and straightens.
“That is irrelevant.
Stand.”
Aina pushes her chair back and rises.
For a moment, the classroom shifts several inches to the left.
She braces against the desk until it returns to its proper place.
Sayuri notices but says nothing.
Students pour into the hallway toward lunch.
Sayuri remains beside Aina, quietly adjusting her pace to match the shorter, uneven rhythm of Aina’s steps.
Their sleeves brush.
Rain replaces the fluorescent light.
Ren had held her beneath a black sky, arms locked around her as water ran through her chestnut hair.
Her voice had broken against Aina’s ear.
“I don’t want you to become a memory.”
The corridor returns before Aina can decide whether the image was a dream, a hallucination, or something worse.
Her knee gives way.
Sayuri catches her forearm and draws her upright.
“Aina?”
Aina looks down at the hand supporting her.
For an instant, she expects rainwater to be running over Sayuri’s fingers.
There is none.
“I’m okay.”
“You almost fell.”
“I tripped.”
Sayuri surveys the spotless hallway.
“On what?”
“…The architecture.”
Sayuri’s expression empties of patience.
“It was unexpected,” Aina adds.
Sayuri shifts her hold to Aina’s wrist and rests two fingers over her pulse.
“You need rest.”
“Fine.”
Sayuri keeps hold of her as they continue toward the infirmary.
A question follows Aina down the corridor.
Do you remember being Ren?
It reaches the back of her teeth and remains there.
✦ ✦ ✦
The infirmary occupies a quiet room on the ground floor near the administrative wing.
Sayuri knocks once before sliding open the door.
The duty nurse looks up from her paperwork.
“What happened?”
“She barely slept.”
“I slept,” Aina says.
Sayuri gives her a level look.
“…Poorly,” Aina concedes.
The nurse directs Aina to the nearest bed, takes her temperature, and checks her pulse.
“No fever.”
“I told you.”
Sayuri folds her arms and ignores the remark.
The nurse examines the shadows beneath Aina’s eyes.
“You are severely exhausted.”
Aina produces the polite smile she uses whenever she wants an adult to stop worrying.
“It was a difficult night.”
“Studying?”
“No.” The answer cuts through the room more sharply than she intends.
The nurse waits.
Aina lowers her attention to her lap.
“Bad dreams.”
Sayuri sets her lunch bag on the nearby chair with excessive care.
The clasp touches the seat without a sound.
The nurse nods.
“Lie down until lunch ends.
Longer, if you need it.”
“I have afternoon classes.”
“You will not absorb much in this condition.”
Aina prepares to argue.
“She’ll stay,” Sayuri says.
The nurse smiles at her.
“Good.”
Aina lacks the strength to resist both of them.
A white curtain separates the bed from the rest of the infirmary.
Behind it, Aina unbuttons her blazer, removes her shoes, and slides beneath the thin blanket.
The pillow carries a faint trace of lavender detergent.
Sayuri takes the blazer before it can fall.
She smooths the fabric, drapes it over the back of the chair, and brings the chair beside the bed.
“You don’t have to stay,” Aina says.
“I know.”
“You haven’t eaten.”
“I brought lunch.”
“You could eat in the courtyard with everyone else.”
“I could.”
“But you won’t?”
“No.”
Sayuri unties the floral cloth around her lunch box and spreads it neatly across her knees.
Aina has trusted that certainty for most of her life.
Today, it hurts for reasons she cannot separate from rain, blood, and names that do not belong to either of them.
Sayuri lifts the lid.
Rice, pickled radish, and cherry tomatoes occupy their own precise sections.
Aina peers over the blanket.
“You packed too many tomatoes again.”
“There are six.”
“That is excessive.”
“It is a nutritionally balanced quantity.”
“For a rabbit.”
Sayuri lifts one with her chopsticks.
“You are currently under medical supervision for exhaustion.”
“That has no correlation with tomatoes.”
“You cannot prove that.”
A laugh slips out before Aina can stop it.
The sound is rough with fatigue, but genuine.
Sayuri watches her for a moment, then returns the tomato to its compartment.
“You truly didn’t sleep.”
Aina turns toward the wall.
“I tried.”
“Was it another nightmare?”
Another.
The word catches Aina’s attention.
Had she told Sayuri about the others?
She cannot remember doing so.
“What kind of nightmare?” she asks.
“The kind that leaves you looking like this.”
Aina draws the blanket closer.
“What if it wasn’t a dream?”
The faint click of Sayuri’s chopsticks against the lunch box breaks the silence.
“What did it feel like?” she asks.
“Something that had already happened.” Aina searches for words precise enough to trust.
None come.
“Something remembered—but not by me.”
“A memory?” The word is too clean.
Too certain.
Aina closes her eyes.
“I don’t know.”
Sayuri does not immediately respond.
When Aina looks back, Sayuri’s lunch remains untouched.
Her expression is controlled, but one edge of the wrapping cloth has been folded twice beneath her thumb.
Then Sayuri asks, “Was I there?”
Aina’s thoughts scatter.
Too direct.
Too close.
She cannot say: You held me.
I asked you to stay.
I watched you die beneath a black sky—or perhaps you watched me.
She no longer knows which death belongs to whom.
“You appear in most of my dreams,” Aina says instead.
Color reaches Sayuri’s cheeks.
“That is not an answer.”
“It is still true.”
Sayuri aligns her chopsticks along the edge of the lunch box.
Aina regrets the claim—not because it is false, but because it exposes a truth she has spent years disguising as friendship.
Beyond the curtain, the nurse turns a page.
The wall clock continues its measured rhythm.
Tick-tock.
Tick-tock.
Tick-tock.
For three beats, the infirmary disappears.
A paper calendar tapped beside an open doorway.
Gray rain blew across the woven-straw flooring.
A chestnut-haired woman clung to Aina—or to the woman whose body she occupied—and sobbed into her shoulder.
“Mayumi…”
The name belonged to her and did not.
The woman with Sayuri’s amber eyes wept as if the world beyond the doorway had already ended.
Then the white curtain returns.
Aina recoils beneath the blanket.
Sayuri places the lunch box aside.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“You reacted to something.”
“I’m tired.”
“Aina.” Sayuri’s brows draw together.
Without thinking, Aina reaches from beneath the blanket and presses one fingertip lightly between them, easing the familiar crease.
“You’re doing it again,” she murmurs.
Sayuri’s prepared response arrives a beat late.
“So are you.”
“Doing what?”
“Pretending.”
Aina lowers her hand.
Sayuri waits without looking away.
There is no accusation in her expression—only concern stripped of its usual restraint.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” Aina whispers.
Sayuri says nothing, leaving space for her to continue.
“I close my eyes and see places I’ve never visited.
People I know, except their names are wrong and their lives aren’t ours.” Aina gathers a fold of the blanket between her fingertips.
“I can’t tell whether I’m dreaming them, remembering them, or creating them because I haven’t slept.”
Her voice weakens.
“Every time I come back, it feels as though I’ve lost someone.”
“Who?”
Aina turns her head and meets Sayuri’s amber eyes.
You.
The answer fills the narrow space behind the curtain, but Aina cannot give it a voice.
Saying it might fracture what remains of their ordinary lives.
Sayuri reaches across the bed and covers Aina’s hand.
At the contact, another fragment breaks through.
Ren had held her in the rain, her voice shaking beside Aina’s ear.
“Chiyo, forgive me.
I dragged you into this.”
“Aina?”
Aina turns her palm beneath Sayuri’s and threads their fingers together.
Sayuri accepts the hold without hesitation.
“You’re here,” Aina whispers.
Confusion passes over Sayuri’s face, but she does not question her.
“So are you.”
A tear travels into Aina’s hairline.
She turns toward the pillow before Sayuri can see another.
Sayuri asks nothing more.
She remains beside the bed, her hand joined with Aina’s.
Aina closes her eyes.
The shrine dojo beneath gray rain.
A narrow street glowing beneath a smoke-blackened sky.
Kagura reaching through the sparks before burning timber crashed between them.
An armored man with Ryosuke’s face kneeling beside her.
A fourth figure obscured beyond the flames.
Aina’s fingers close around Sayuri’s.
Sayuri answers with steady pressure.
“Breathe.”
Aina tries, but the first attempt stops high in her chest.
“Inhale…” Sayuri waits.
Her pulse remains even against Aina’s palm.
Aina draws in air.
“…Exhale.”
The familiar rhythm gives her something simple to follow.
Breath by breath, the infirmary reassembles around her: lavender detergent, filtered daylight, the clock beyond the curtain, and Sayuri’s warm hand around hers.
Whatever waits behind Aina’s closed eyes does not disappear.
For now, it comes no closer.
✦ ✦ ✦
The infirmary door slides open beyond the curtain.
The nurse looks up.
“Yes?”
“I brought something for Tanaka.”
“Are you in her class?” the nurse asks.
“No.
We belong to the same club.”
A carton touches the nurse’s desk, followed by the soft crinkle of packaged bread.
“I’ll see that she receives them.”
Ryosuke thanks the nurse and turns toward the door.
Behind the curtain, Aina’s next breath falters.
“Inhale,” Sayuri reminds her.
Ryosuke’s footsteps stop.
The nurse follows his attention.
“You may check on her briefly, if you’d like.
She needs rest, so keep your voice down.”
He waits for Aina to answer.
“It’s okay,” she calls from behind the curtain.
Only then does Ryosuke retrieve the food from the desk.
“Briefly,” the nurse repeats.
He nods and approaches the bed.
When he draws the curtain aside, his attention drops to Aina and Sayuri’s joined hands.
Sayuri releases Aina and places both hands neatly in her lap.
The loss of warmth is immediate.
Something closes behind Ryosuke’s expression.
He becomes straighter, quieter, and almost painfully formal.
“You came,” Sayuri says.
“I brought her lunch.”
Ryosuke sets the food on the bedside table.
“Eat before you sleep again.”
Aina studies his face.
“How did you know I was here?”
“You weren’t at lunch.
I asked someone from your class.”
“We don’t normally eat together.”
“No.” His attention passes over the shadows beneath her eyes.
“But I expected this.”
Sayuri’s posture sharpens.
“What does that mean?”
Ryosuke looks only at Aina.
“How many?”
The question reaches something Aina has been guarding since morning.
“How many what?” she asks.
“Fragments.
Memories.
Flashes.
Nightmares,” Ryosuke says.
Aina’s hand gathers the blanket.
“Since last night?”
Sayuri rises from her chair.
“You will explain how you knew to ask that.”
Ryosuke continues waiting for Aina’s answer.
“…Five,” she admits.
His composure slips for a fraction of a second.
“Five in one night?”
“I think so.” Aina presses her palm against her ribs.
“Some of them may have been part of the same one.
I can’t arrange them properly.”
Ryosuke lowers his voice.
“The first night is usually the worst.”
Silence encloses the bed.
Sayuri places one hand on the back of the chair.
“The first night of what?”
Ryosuke finally looks at her.
Exhaustion shows through before his expression closes again.
“Seeing things that haven’t happened to you.”
Aina pushes herself onto one elbow.
Questions crowd forward faster than she can order them.
“You’ve seen them too?
For how long?
Do you know what they are?
Did you see the dojo?
Have you heard footsteps when no one was there?”
“One at a time,” Ryosuke says.
“Then answer one.”
Sayuri moves between him and the bed, narrowing the space available for his interrogation.
“She is exhausted.
If you know something, stop making her extract it from you.”
His jaw shifts.
“I started seeing fragments last year.”
“Last year?” Aina asks.
He nods.
“And you never told us?” Sayuri’s voice remains controlled, but each word lands cleanly.
“Not once?”
“What was I supposed to tell you?” His restraint thins.
“That I wake remembering your blood on my hands?”
Sayuri’s fingers miss the chair rung when she pulls it closer.
A rare imprecision.
Ryosuke notices.
So does Aina.
Sayuri restores the chair to its proper position.
“You could have begun with the truth.”
“I didn’t know whether it was the truth.”
Aina catches on the distinction.
“You don’t believe they’re memories?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what do you believe?”
Ryosuke looks toward the closed curtain.
“I believe they feel like memories.
That doesn’t prove they are.”
The answer should disappoint her.
Instead, relief loosens something inside Aina.
He has no explanation either, but at least uncertainty no longer belongs to her alone.
“Did you see a fire?” she asks.
Ryosuke returns his attention to her.
Aina continues carefully.
“A narrow wooden street was burning.
Wind drove sparks between the buildings, and people were trying to escape.”
The color recedes from his face.
Sayuri remains beside the chair, but her attention shifts somewhere beyond the infirmary.
Aina watches Ryosuke.
“Someone called me Setsu.
Another girl was there—Kagura.”
Sayuri’s hand rises toward her shoulder before she lowers it again.
“She had your face,” Aina tells her.
Sayuri says nothing.
Aina looks back at Ryosuke.
“The burning eave collapsed on top of her.
You reached her before I could.”
His gaze drops to the blanket.
The muscles along his jaw tighten, but he does not deny it.
“You were the armored man beside Kagura,” Aina says.
“Your sword was still secured at your waist.
You looked at her injuries, then at the fire, as though you were already measuring the remaining ways out.”
Ryosuke braces one hand against the bedside table.
The milk carton trembles beneath his fingertips before he pulls his hand away.
“It took me months to see that much,” he says.
“I saw it last night.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Aina’s voice rises despite her fatigue.
“I felt the timber fall on her.
I felt another wound open in my own chest.
I could still smell smoke after I woke up.
I went to the dojo, and something was inside—”
“You went back there alone,” Sayuri says.
Aina stops.
“That is what you were trying to tell me this morning,” Sayuri continues.
“Before homeroom.”
“I told you?” The question draws the remaining color from Sayuri’s face.
“You said you returned for your history notebook and thought you saw someone near the dojo.
When I pressed you, you blamed the moonlight.”
Aina searches for the conversation.
She remembers reaching the classroom.
She remembers Sayuri beside the window and the dark circles reflected faintly in the glass.
After that, there is nothing until Classical Japanese.
“I don’t remember telling you.”
“You spoke to me for several minutes.”
Ryosuke’s attention settles fully on her.
“How much of this morning do you remember?”
“I don’t know.” Aina presses two fingers to her temple, trying to impose order on scattered impressions.
“Arriving.
English.
The note Sayuri passed me.”
“Nothing before class?” Sayuri asks.
Aina finds no answer in the blank space.
“Not clearly.”
Sayuri draws the chair closer to the bed, its legs aligned with the floorboards before she sits.
Her irritation has not disappeared, but worry now weighs beneath it.
Ryosuke lowers his voice.
“What was inside the dojo?”
“I don’t know.
I heard footsteps and breathing.
Then another fragment took over.” Aina searches their faces.
“Why did the pain follow me?
Why could I smell things that weren’t there?
Why do we have different names?
Why am I seeing so many of them at once?”
Neither answers.
Her brief hope collapses beneath their silence.
“You don’t know,” she says.
Ryosuke looks down.
“No.”
Sayuri settles into the chair again, but she does not reach for her lunch.
“I have seen pieces too.”
Both of them turn toward her.
“A sliding doorway,” she continues.
“Crimson hair disappearing through it.
Someone calling out.” She arranges the edge of the floral cloth across her knees.
“They last only a second or two.
I remain conscious, and they have not caused pain.”
“Since when?” Ryosuke asks.
“Yesterday.”
His concern deepens.
“Both of you started at the same time.”
Aina follows the implication.
“But yours began a year ago.”
“Yes.”
“Why only you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why now?”
“I don’t know that either.”
The answers come without defensiveness.
That frightens Aina more than another theory would have.
Ryosuke takes the black notebook from beneath his arm but does not open it.
Its cover is worn at the corners from months of handling.
“I wrote down everything that remained after I woke,” he says.
“Names, places, weather, anything that repeated.”
Aina looks at the notebook.
“Will you show me?”
“Not here.”
“Why?”
“Because some of it concerns you.
All of us.” His attention moves briefly to Sayuri.
“And because you need sleep more than you need another hundred questions.”
“I already have another hundred questions.”
“I know.”
“Do they stop?”
Ryosuke takes too long to answer.
“No.”
Aina’s stomach drops.
“But chasing them makes it worse,” he continues.
“I spent months trying to force the missing pieces into order.
I stopped sleeping properly.
The fragments became louder, but not clearer.”
His warning loses its earlier distance.
“Don’t chase them,” he says.
“Let them come naturally.
They will come whether you want them to or not.
Write down what remains afterward, but don’t force yourself back inside.”
Aina looks toward his notebook again.
“Is that what you do now?”
“It’s what I should have done from the beginning.”
The five-minute warning chime rings.
Beyond the curtain, the hallway fills with footsteps, sliding doors, and conversation.
The ordinary school day continues within a few feet of them.
Sayuri stands.
“She needs rest.”
Ryosuke nods and turns toward the curtain.
Before leaving, he pauses beside Sayuri.
His voice lowers, though the infirmary is quiet enough for Aina to hear.
“She will be afraid to sleep tonight.”
Sayuri looks at Aina, then back at him.
“How do you know?”
“Because I was.” He leaves without another word.
The curtain settles behind him.
On the bedside table, condensation gathers along the milk carton beside the unopened bread.
Sayuri remains beside Aina’s bed, one hand resting on the chair Ryosuke vacated.
Aina lowers herself onto the pillow.
She has more questions than she did before.
At least now she knows someone else has spent a year asking them.
Finally, Sayuri lowers herself back onto the chair.
Her lunch box sits on the stand beside her, the food untouched.
She turns her gaze to Aina.
“What did he mean?”
Aina closes her eyes, exhaustion settling over her features.
“I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Try.”
“I can’t…”
A quiet crease returns to Sayuri’s forehead, her usual composure straining against the terrifying unknown pulling her friend away.
Sensing the shift, Aina reaches out from beneath the covers.
Without a second of hesitation, Sayuri reaches back, taking her hand and lacing their fingers together with a firm, protective grip.
“I will,” Aina whispers, her pulse fluttering against Sayuri’s palm.
“When?”
“When I know what is real.” Aina’s voice shrinks, fragile against the quiet room.
“Until then… can you stay?”
Sayuri encloses Aina’s hand in both of hers—warm, solid, and unyielding.
“I was not leaving.”
A sudden heat burns behind Aina’s eyelids.
She turns her face toward the window to hide her tears.
A beam of warm, golden sunlight filters through the thin curtain, resting over her shoulder.
Aina closes her eyes.
This time the past does not reach her.
Sayuri remains beside the bed—not dying in rain or mud, only here.
This girl.
Seventeen.
Deeply worried.
Furrowing her brows in that familiar, quiet habit.
Holding her hand as though letting go is not an option in any life.
Gradually, Aina’s breathing slows into a soft, steady rhythm.
Her grip on Sayuri’s hand subtly loosens as exhaustion pulls her beneath the surface.
✦ ✦ ✦
Beside the bed, Sayuri watches Aina sleep.
She takes in the dark smudges carved beneath Aina’s lashes, the faint tear tracks on her pale cheeks, and the subtle tension lingering in her shoulders.
Gently, using her free hand, Sayuri reaches out and brushes a stray lock of crimson hair away from Aina’s forehead, her touch extraordinarily tender.
The sleeping girl shifts.
Her brows draw together, and a broken whisper slips into the room—
“…Not again…”
Sayuri’s hand stops above Aina’s hair.
The murmur reaches somewhere older than thought, sending a sharp shiver through her.
A doorway flashed behind her eyes—tall, dark timber slick with rain.
Beyond it waited a field beneath a weeping sky.
Rain fell through ash as a pale, cold hand slipped from her grip.
A sharp, physical pain tears through her chest, so sudden and severe that her breath breaks into a ragged gasp.
Sayuri presses her free hand over her heart.
The pain feels borrowed, yet her body recognizes it.
She focuses on the infirmary ceiling until the crimson fire and falling rain recede, leaving sterile quiet and filtered afternoon light.
Beside her, Aina remains asleep, her chest rising and falling in a slow, fragile rhythm.
Sayuri’s gaze drifts slowly toward the white curtain.
The space beyond it is empty.
Ryosuke is long gone, carrying his impossible burden in silence.
But his words linger in the air like smoke.
“All of them.”
Cold prickles along Sayuri’s spine.
Ryosuke was not talking about dreams.
He was talking about lives.
Her attention returns to the bed.
Aina still holds her hand, and Sayuri does not pull away.
Instead, she threads her fingers more securely through Aina’s, offering them both something present while ghosts wait in the dark.
Beyond the curtain, the nurse speaks quietly.
“Suzuki-san, you may remain until she falls asleep.
After that, you need to return to class.”
“Understood.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Across the school, students settle in for afternoon lessons.
Inside Class 2-B, Saki sits at his desk, his gaze fixed on the black pen resting beside his notebook.
He picks it up once more and shuts his eyes, trying to force the static in his mind to clear.
Smoke.
Flames.
A dark-haired boy standing in a burning street.
The images refuse to connect.
Ryosuke returns to Class 2-B moments before the afternoon bell, his face pale and worn.
Saki holds Ryosuke’s pen out toward him.
“You dropped this.”
Ryosuke accepts it, his fingers deliberate and precise as he retrieves the object without letting their skin touch.
“Thanks.”
Saki studies the exhaustion carved into Ryosuke’s jaw.
“You look worse than before.”
“I am fine.”
“That sounded unconvincing.”
Without offering a rebuttal, Ryosuke sets the pen down onto his desk, his posture rigid.
Saki looks toward the window, watching the afternoon light wash over the courtyard.
Then, leaning in slightly, he lowers his voice to a bare murmur.
“Have we met before?”
Ryosuke’s hand stops mid-air.
“No.”
“I saw something when I touched your pen.”
Ryosuke turns his head, his dark eyes locking onto his classmate.
But Saki no longer looks merely curious; his calm mask has fractured, leaving his eyes wide and visibly frightened.
“Fire,” Saki whispers.
For the first time, alarm breaks through Ryosuke’s control.
“There was a girl with brown hair.”
Ryosuke’s eyes harden, a fierce barrier snapping into place.
“Stop.”
Through the static in his vision, Saki leans closer.
“Who was she?”
“I said stop.” The raw, commanding force vibrating beneath Ryosuke’s voice startles them both.
A few nearby classmates turn their heads, glancing curiously toward the back row.
Catching the attention, Ryosuke lowers his voice.
“Don’t force it.”
Saki’s question comes too quickly.
“Force what?”
“The memory.”
The word leaves Ryosuke before he can contain it.
He turns away, but the single admission is enough.
Saki’s expression shifts from fear to a sudden, chilling realization.
“You know what it was.”
Ryosuke offers only a heavy, unyielding silence.
Before Saki can press him further, the sliding door clatters open and their mathematics teacher steps inside.
“Take your seats, everyone.”
Chairs scrape as students face forward.
Saki does not—not immediately.
He sits motionless, looking down at the school bag beside his desk.
Attached near the bottom zipper is a brass dormitory key, a small acrylic tag dangling from the ring.
Third Floor — Residential Access.
He arrived at school long before sunrise, morning mist still clinging to the trees.
A dormitory supervisor directed him toward the assigned residence, squinting at the paperwork without questioning it.
At the dorm entrance, he exchanged his outdoor shoes for the assigned indoor slippers and carried his belongings upstairs.
He entered the quiet suite and placed everything inside the empty bedroom assigned to him.
The second bedroom door remained closed.
He has not yet met the student residing on the other side of the wall.
Saki’s fingers reach down, his thumb stroking the cool metal of the key he received that morning.
The ghostly roar of rain echoes inside his mind again.
A chestnut-haired girl turned beneath a smoke-blackened sky.
Sparks tore through the air.
Someone shouted her name with raw, agonizing desperation—
“Kagura!”
The memory shatters and vanishes into the dark.
Saki turns the key until the residential code catches the light.
When he speaks, the faint Kansai cadence he has restrained since morning slips through.
“…This is going to be a problem.”