3 – The same day, ~2 PM

Asai Kei and Haruki Misora went down the two elevators, across the dimly lit corridors, and out the same small door that they had entered, leaving the hospital. It only took one glance to notice a significant difference between the Sakurada they knew and the one of the dream world.

Immediately outside of the exit, the road to their right was cut off by a massive, starkly white wall. The wall looked like it was made of a dense mist, and no matter how far up they craned their necks, they couldn’t see the end of it. Looking around, Kei found that the wall encircled the town. All of Sakurada was enclosed within a white wall that barreled endlessly into the sky.

“This is amazing,” Kei commented, turning away from the wall on his right to look at the rest of Sakurada.

He heard Haruki softly mumble something. Her voice was as indifferent as if she were throwing bread crumbs to a flock of pigeons. “It’s reversed.”

“Yeah. It really is backwards.” The white wall wasn’t the only noteworthy difference to the town.

The hospital was on the near-eastern edge of Sakurada. Leaving the hospital, further east would be on the left and the west would be to the right. At least, it should have been.

Normally, that meant that for anyone exiting the hospital, the ocean would be to the left. The coast was only a single bus stop away, about 1000 feet off in the distance. But when Kei looked in that direction, he saw the town of Sakurada. It was the opposite of reality, as if flipped in a mirror. Sakurada stood before him with the east and west entirely reversed.

As such, Kei only had to leave the hospital in order to find the significant differences between the dream world and the real world. The dream world was both surrounded by a giant fog wall and mirror imaged.

Kei walked up to the white wall, reaching out his hand. At first, his hand sunk in, feeling only a soft resistance, like a pillow. But the further he went, the more the wall pushed back, until he reached about a foot in and couldn’t move any further.

Well, what the heck.

Wasn’t the dream world supposed to be a replica of the real world, or had he been sold a scam? If there was no outside of Sakurada, there was no point even being in the dream. He certainly couldn’t try his experiment with Souma Sumire under such conditions.

“What shall we do now?” Haruki asked.

Kei shrugged, responding, “Guess we’ll just have to do our Service Club work for now.” The only way to understand the world would be one piece at a time.

“But what would the point be, when we cannot exact our experiment to take Souma Sumire out of Sakurada?”

“Pointless or not, we can’t just brush off Service Club work. Besides, there’s still one last thread I need to tie up.”

“Which is?”

“It seems most likely that the girl who tipped Nonō-san off about this world is Souma. For whatever reason, Souma pushed Nonō-san into coming here with us.” Kei couldn’t deny the intentionality, and if there was intent, he couldn’t ignore it. He had no idea what Souma’s complete intentions could be, but it all had to tie back to the grand reason behind why she died and came back to life.

Kei scrunched his eyes in thought. Why was Nonō-san brought here? What could Souma Sumire want from that?

He didn’t have the slightest clue. Opening his eyes back up, he found Haruki looking up at him. She was there, both motionless and emotionless, like some kind of old stone monument. Her unfeeling eyes glittered like jewels, and they reminded him of the Haruki Misora from two years prior.

It was only the beginning of autumn, so the weather was dry, and the temperature was unoppressive. There was no longer a powerful midsummer sun to beat down upon Kei. But even so, he couldn’t stop a faint rush of discomfort.

Haruki clearly felt negatively about Souma.

He knew that. But that was all he knew. He was incapable of digging deeper, finding the problem at the core of it all. And it hurt to not be able to understand Haruki.

Hey, Haruki?

He wanted to get her attention. But then what? He didn’t know what would follow, only that he wanted to call her name. But before he could do anything more…

“Then we should get going, Kei.”

Haruki Misora suddenly smiled. Kei was thrust from the first moment he met her into the present, as if he had just leapt forward two years in time.

“We have dinner plans together.” Her innocent smile continued throughout her statement.

The two of them had agreed to the condition of eating dinner together a maximum of twice a month.

✽

The hospital room was furnished with a large window, but the curtains were drawn, making the room fairly dim. Souma Sumire glanced at the curtain, but lacked the drive to get up and open it, opting to just leave it as it was.

She knew that if she looked beyond the cloth and the glass, she would find a blue sky. She would see the dream world, complete with Asai Kei. She didn’t have to look for herself to know that Haruki Misora would be right there by his side.

Just visiting the dream world was a massive risk. Agents for the Administration Bureau were crawling throughout the hospital, and Souma didn’t want to be discovered by the Bureau yet. But those thoughts were quickly accompanied by another.

None of that matters.

The Bureau would discover the existence of Souma Sumire before long. Souma, the girl with the ability to see the future. She knew of ways that she could continue to hide from them, but there was something that took a higher priority.

Even so, the Bureau wasn’t the only reason she was reluctant to visit the hospital.

The very hospital Souma Sumire sat in was the one she was born in. It was the place where she had nearly died during childbirth. As she understood it, her own umbilical cord had wrapped around her neck. She carried no memories of nearly choking to death, but regardless, whenever she was in the vicinity of the hospital, breathing became just a little more difficult.

She changed her mind, deciding to open the window. A breeze would ease the breathing process. Her mind made up, she began to rise from the bed, only for the curtains in front of the window to vanish entirely. Without a sound, and without leaving a trace, they disappeared. Then, the window’s lock was unlatched, and the window opened.

A breeze blew in, gentle enough to only ruffle her bangs. At the same time, a small blue bird flew in the window. The bird spun around the room, landing on the bed opposite her.

“Should I kick up the breeze a bit?” the small blue bird asked. Its beak was unmoving, but its voice was clearly audible.

Souma shook her head. “No, this feels nice. Thank you.”

Faster than could be perceived, the bird was gone, replaced by a single man. He was fairly gangly, looking around 20 years old, sitting cross-legged on the bed. He smiled. “It’s been quite some time, Sumire-chan. I’m so happy to see you again.”

“You’re right. It has been a while.” She tried to smile back, but couldn’t quite pull it off. She ended up looking out the window to hide her face. “I see you’re still playing the god, Tyltyl.”

The man, Tyltyl, chuckled lightly. “Well, it’s my job. If you ask me, you’re the one who’s more like a god here.”

“You think so?”

Gods had a world of their own, just like how kings had a country. At least Tyltyl had the dream world to call his own. She almost thought to point that out, but stopped herself. She could hear his response with her future sight regardless.

But this world isn’t mine.

And she knew how true those words were.

“You seem quite upset,” Tyltyl remarked.

In as light a tone as she could manage, Souma responded, “A certain boy will be having dinner tonight with a certain girl.”

“The boy you like, and a girl who isn’t you?”

“It’s not something you have to go to all the trouble of figuring out.” She even knew what they would be eating. A meal set of sautéed chicken in balsamic sauce, mimosa salad, and pumpkin soup. They would both order the same thing.

Souma focused her gaze on Tyltyl. “Oh yeah. Mytyl forgot her message.”

“Message?”

“Yeah. Telling Kei not to go out at night.”

“Oh, you’re right. I forgot, too. I’ll let ‘em know later.”

Geez. If he had told them like he was supposed to, then Kei and Haruki wouldn’t even be eating dinner together.

Tyltyl spread his arms out in an exaggerated, theatrical display. “Now, was your only reason for coming here just to complain about that?”

“As if.” Souma had actually come to fulfill a request. She wanted to do as they had been asked to her utmost ability. But explaining all that would have been incredibly annoying, so instead she said, “I just came here to glimpse your future for a while.”

“Ah. And can you see it?”

“Yeah. I’m watching it now.”

Souma Sumire’s ability was activated via conversation. She could see the future of whatever person she talked to. It didn’t work when she was alone, and she couldn’t use her ability on herself. In that way, her ability was inferior to the Witch that had been imprisoned by the Administration Bureau. But as long as she read the future of someone close to her, she could indirectly see her future.

It’s kinda weird, actually. I thought I had gotten this ability so I could see my own future.

Abilities were full of such contradictions. The Reset as a perfect example. Haruki got the opportunity to start things over, but had no agency over the events that recurred.

Of course, there were exceptions. Kei’s ability was exactly what it showed, that he could remember everything he experienced. Of course, that came with a limitation of its own. Anything that he remembered, he could never forget. His memory was thorough, after all.

“What d’you think of my future?”

In response to Tyltyl’s voice, Souma turned her attention to his future as it presented itself to her.

Everything’s still fine.

There was no need to say anything to him.

“Same as usual. Mytyl is the same Mytyl.”

“That girl’s pretty resistant to change. Always has been.”

“Even despite your best efforts?” Souma took another look out the window. She appreciated the large mist wall surrounding the mirror-imaged city.

Tyltyl gave a light shake of his head. “Sometimes, it just feels like nothing I do will ever make a difference.”

“That’s not true. Your efforts will be rewarded.”

The god of the world smiled. His expression carried a hint of sorrow. “Do you… plan to save Mytyl, Sumire-chan?”

“I won’t be doing anything. It’ll all be Kei’s prerogative.”

“But that boy can only ever follow the actions of the Script.”

The Script. A perfect truth. An unavoidable and ever-approaching future.

Like I care about any of that. The existence of the Script didn’t take away from Kei’s determinations and actions.

Just as Tyltyl was about to speak again, Souma barged in. “Sorry. Shut up for a moment.” She knew what he was going to say.

Would you like me to provide a dinner guest?

The very idea was stupid. As if that would solve anything.

Tyltyl’s gaze bored into her. “There was no need for you to die two years ago. If you truly couldn’t stand living, you should have just run away here. I could have changed the world for you, to be just the way you wanted it.”

She probably should have told him to keep quiet again. But if she did, then she wouldn’t be able to see his future.

“Look, Tyltyl, I don’t hate this place. I think this is valid as a form of happiness.”

“Thank you. I quite agree.”

“But there’s nothing for me there.” Running away wouldn’t get her any closer to the one, true, and absolute goal she was aiming for.

Tyltyl tilted his head, as if trying to get a better look at her expression. “Y’know, I’ve always wondered about you. What exactly are you going for here?”

“Can’t tell.”

“With your ability, you could do anything, right?”

Souma Sumire shook her head. “Not really.” Reality was quite the opposite. She was actually approaching a dead end. She wouldn’t be able to accomplish her goal. She saw failure in the future. “I’m walking along the knife’s edge of what’s actually possible.”

The singular pursuit of that goal was what drove Souma Sumire to her death, back to life, and to that very moment.

Tyltyl chortled dryly. “To think that you would speak of possibilities. That’s like some kind of crazy joke.”

✽

Their instructions from the Administration Bureau were simple. They were to recreate the events from the real world into the dream world. In that time, they were to look for any differences between the two worlds.

Kei and Haruki had a reasonably priced omelet rice lunch at a Western restaurant, walked around the shopping district, and looked around a secondhand bookstore as well as a store selling imported accessories.

Everything was precisely the same as it had been prior to their reset. The time it took to be served their omelet rice, the titles of the books lined up in the bookstore, and the woman they passed in front of the accessory store wearing a dark blue dress. The exact things that happened in the real Sakurada were happening in the dream world.

A single person couldn’t possibly be doing this on purpose, Asai Kei thought. Katagiri Honoka had been asleep for nine years. She couldn’t possibly have obtained any information about reality, much less to the extent present in the dream. The only viable conclusion was that the nature of the dream world to reproduce reality was not a conscious effort on Katagiri Honoka’s part, but simply a byproduct of her ability.

It was almost 5 PM, and Kei was walking alongside Haruki on the way to a park. Kei noted a crushed and empty can on the side of the road. Every single detail was matching reality, to the point that it was almost easy to forget that the world itself was a mirror reflection.

They stopped at a red light and were caressed by a wind blowing on their right side. The trees swayed in the wind, their leaves rubbing and giving off a light, dry rasp. The leaves were slowly losing their moisture and drying out.

Kei thought about how trees gathered up and stored water, being more moist during the hottest of summer days. On its face the idea didn’t make much sense, but the more Kei thought it through, the more natural it felt. After all, the tree would desperately need to soak up moisture to make up for the high temperatures. Then, around the fall time, when the temperature dropped, there was no need to hold on to all that moisture.

After the leaves lost their strong summer light source, they would wither and fall to the ground. But that would allow them to decay into the ground, creating a nutrient-rich soil. In that way, the leaves were entrusting themselves to an efficient system that allowed the tree to survive the winter. It was a cycle of profound devotion.

“What are you thinking about?” Haruki asked.

“I was just thinking about God,” he answered.

“God, you say?”

“If there was a God, that meant there was something that personally created the world and all the rules that govern it. I just wonder if that creator is sad when the leaves fall in autumn.”

Haruki remained silently in thought for a while. The slight shifts in her eyebrows told Kei that she was thinking spontaneously. It was a form of expression he had seen quite often over the past few weeks, starting somewhere around the second half of summer vacation. Something in her was changing. Like how she had changed to cooking without the exact specifications of a recipe.

The light turned green, and Kei began moving forward. Haruki lagged behind, ending up one step behind him. He slowed down ever so slightly, waiting for her to fall in line beside him.

In what was hopefully a conclusion from the previous contemplation, Haruki asked, “Do you believe that a world without withering leaves is inherently happier?”

Kei angled his neck. “Dunno. But at the same time, dead leaves don’t fit into the paradise that I see in my head.” There would be no harsh winters, meaning no fall to prepare for them. But summer was just a little too hot. Spring was the perfect fit for his Eden.

Looking quite convinced of something, Haruki nodded. “Are you thinking about the ability that created this world?”

“Yep. I’m thinking about the god of this world.”

The world they were in definitively had a god. One that was strong, smart, and capable, everything that a god should be. Mytyl had called the god Tyltyl.

Mytyl and Tyltyl. The sibling protagonists of The Blue Bird. But why The Blue Bird? Why would they be continuing the search for a Blue Bird of Happiness that had already been discovered? Mytyl was already to the point of carrying it around with her.

When Haruki spoke, her voice was soft and carried great care, as if she were examining every word with a magnifying glass to ensure its authenticity. She was clearly determined to choose the perfect wording. “Assuming that the all-powerful god truly exists… is it not strange that this world ended up so similar to reality?”

“Yeah.” Curious to hear her answer, Kei asked, “A human was given the same power as God. That power could have allowed them to craft paradise just as they wanted it, yet reality remained nearly the same. Why do you think that is?”

“I can think of two reasons,” Haruki proposed. “One is that the paradise the god imagined looked just like reality. The other is that the god never intended to create a new paradise. It seems likely that those are the two explanations.”

Thinking it through, Kei couldn’t provide any additionally sufficient explanations. “I think you’re probably spot on.”

Either paradise and reality were one and the same, or the god didn’t create a paradise. Both seemed possible, yet were a strict dichotomy. Kei wanted a clear answer as soon as possible. He wanted to know what it meant when a human became a god, what it felt like, what they thought and what they did.

Tyltyl. He wanted to meet that person.

Kei turned right before a bridge, walking down a riverside road. They would reach their park destination before long. The roadside river was beautifully paved with light brown stones. After a few steps down it, Kei noticed something.

“I found a third one.”

First, Sakurada was surrounded by a great, white wall. Second, it was a mirror-image.

Of course, he was speaking of the differences between the real world and the dream world. The third difference was walking towards them, footsteps clacking on the stone.

She was a tall woman with a small rucksack hung across her back. Her long hair was tied back from her neck down. She had narrow eyes that lent to the image of a harsh glare coming from her at all times.

“Well, hey. It’s been a minute,” she said.

She looked exactly the same as the first time they had met.

Ukawa Sasane.

They hadn’t crossed paths with her on the same day in reality.

The three of them sat down on a park bench. It was the park with the clock that was five minutes slow.

“Want some Pocky?” Ukawa Sasane asked, holding out a red cardboard box in her right hand.

The whole scene felt so nostalgic.

Kei had met Ukawa roughly two years before. They had made a promise together, becoming compatriots for a short while.

“Sure, I’ll have some.” Kei pulled some pocky from the box, taking the opportunity to glance at Ukawa’s left hand. There weren’t any rings on it, indicating the girl was not preparing to use her ability in the immediate future.

“Isn’t college already on by now?” Kei asked, biting into his Pocky. Ukawa was three years his senior, and had been accepted to a college outside of Sakurada earlier that spring. They didn’t get to see each other very often as a consequence.

“The classes are so boring,” she shared, giving Haruki a Pocky stick before tossing one in her own mouth. She broke it in two with a soft crunch. Swallowing the rest, she continued, “Figured I’d give myself something of an extended vacation. I could skip up to two months of my gen ed classes while still getting the credits. There’s just no interesting professors there.”

“Sounds like a real bummer.”

“Well, college is about studying what you’re interested in. The individual classes aren’t all that important.”

Kei nodded in understanding. “You have some chocolate on your lip, Ukawa-san.”

“Ah. My bad.” Her red tongue poked out to lick the chocolate off her lip. “Well, anyways, I was looking for you.”

“Oh? Whatever for?” Kei’s mind raced back to the promise he had made with her those two years ago. A single promise that he had never intended to keep. I wonder if the dream world version of me made that same promise. He figured it was pretty likely. Without the pretext of that promise, they wouldn’t be able to have such a friendly conversation.

But her answer to his question had nothing to do with that promise. “I’m working my part-time job right now. Actually, even this conversation is on the clock.”

Kei wondered what her part-time work could have to do with anything as he bit into his Pocky. “Then, uh, shouldn’t you get back to work?”

“Well, this was the job. Go to a hospital, get to bed, and meet up with you in the dream.” She brought another Pocky from her right hand into her mouth. “Basically, what I’m saying is I’m from the real world, like you.”

Kei nodded. “Gotcha.” It only made sense. In the present day and time, Ukawa had been sleeping in a hospital bed. That accounted for why he never met her in the real world. “So I’m guessing your employers are the Administration Bureau, then?” Without that kind of connection, she would’ve had a hard time getting into the dream world.

Ukawa Sasane nodded. “Mhm. Been working with them for the last two years, actually.”

That much, Kei knew. In fact, he was personally responsible for her alliance with the Bureau.

Two years ago, Kei had been looking for an ability that could bring Souma Sumire back to life. He was willing to use any and all avenues to do so, eventually deciding that he would raid the Administration Bureau for their information on abilities.

On paper, the Bureau was supposed to have information on every ability within Sakurada. Of course, realistically speaking, that was impossible. For starters, the Bureau didn’t even know about Souma Sumire’s ability yet.

But nonetheless, it was true that the Bureau held the largest information repository on abilities. So, if Kei wanted an ability to bring someone back to life, there was no better place to go.

Now, Asai Kei wasn’t naive enough to believe the Bureau would just hand out information to some middle schooler. He ended up using some rather forceful methodologies as a way to extract information from them.

Kei built up three compatriots, though that may have been a generous way of wording it. They were Haruki Misora, Sakagami Yousuke, and Ukawa Sasane.

Haruki Misora was following behind Kei, whatever that meant.

Sakagami Yousuke wished from the depths of his soul to bring Souma back.

Ukawa Sasane agreed to help Kei due to her somewhat unique sense of justice.

But ultimately, the plan failed. On a surface level, the Bureau acted as though the entire incident had never occurred. But that was only on the surface.

The Bureau had two ways of dealing with troublemakers. One was to kick them out of Sakurada. By leaving Sakurada, memories of abilities would also disappear, meaning there would be no further incidents. That was the route Sakagami took. He transferred to a different high school outside of Sakurada, only visiting for a short period each summer.

Their other method was to make the problematic individual into an accomplice of the Bureau. A great example of that was the informant known as The Operator. The Operator had caused a significant deal of trouble with his ability at some point in the past. Kei wasn’t privy to the details, but evidently he had attacked people as a means to steal information, which sparked a rumor about a vampire living nearby a certain mountain. Once the Bureau found out about his situation, they turned him into an information broker working as their eyes and ears.

Ukawa similarly worked as an accomplice of the Bureau until her graduation from high school. Kei had assumed she shifted to the other category when she had begun attending college out of town, but that evidently wasn’t the case.

Notably, Kei and Haruki were not punished in those degrees. In a sense, they were accomplices of the Bureau, but only by their own choice. They had simply been left alone. With what Kei had learned, he theorized that the woman who called herself a Witch had covered for them. After all, she had her own purposes for them in her future, so they needed to be protected from the fallout.

Ukawa Sasane glanced at the clock that was five minutes late, saying, “Yeah, working for the Bureau… At first, I didn’t like it one bit. But now, I don’t mind it all that much.”

Kei wondered if she was only trying to make him feel better, but immediately rejected the notion. Ukawa Sasane was a girl that always said exactly what she thought. A good trait of hers was the determination to never lie.

“So what have you been getting up to lately?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing really, same old stuff.”

“Still the great champion of justice?”

“Always. Feel free to make me your role model.”

“Y’know, I never said it out loud, but you always have been a role model of mine.”

Ukawa Sasane was driven by two cardinal beliefs. The first was that above all else, she believed in justice. The second was that justice could only be understood from intuition.

A single glance could tell you that something was right. Similarly, that glance could tell you something was wrong. Everyone could intuitively know what was just and what was evil from within themselves. That was what Ukawa Sasane believed, and her philosophy drove everything she did.

It made her into a woman that barged into every problem she saw and acted in the way that felt right to her. She championed the justice that came from within her.

Taking out another stick of Pocky, she said, “Well, on to work matters, I suppose.”

Inwardly relieved that she didn’t ask about Souma, Kei asked, “What do you mean by work?”

“Just wanted to hear your input on the differences between the real world and the dream world. Anything stick out to you?”

“Well, I think the differences are obvious enough at a glance.”

“Well, the whole town’s covered by a white wall, and left and right are reversed.”

“Quite.” Kei hardly needed to go the distance to explain that.

“Nothing else?”

“Just meeting you here. Everything else has been exactly the same as what we experienced in the real world.” All exactly, precisely the same, without even a minute difference.

“Gotcha. Well, I’m gonna take a look around. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.” With that, Ukawa stood up from the bench.

As she began to leave, Kei called out to her. “Say, Ukawa-san. What’re you gonna do once you know all the differences?”

There would’ve been no point to sending her to the dream world without a secondary objective. Otherwise, she was just an unnecessary middle man to Kei’s report.

Ukawa Sasane put another stick of Pocky in her mouth. “Well…” It broke with a slight crunch. “Depending on how things go, I might have to grind this world into dust.”

With that as her answer, she turned away.

Kei and Haruki killed some time in the park before heading out to a small restaurant at around 6:30.

The restaurant had an unusually large menu, making it unclear what nationality or theme was the main focus. They both ordered a sautéed chicken meal set, but the businessman at the table across from them was eating boiled fish.

One wall of the restaurant was decorated with pictures of an oriental country beside some wooden masks that made Kei think of African tribes. Next to those items, various English newspapers were pinned up.

Kei thought of the restaurant as something of an old storeroom. Various odds and ends all crammed together in one place, each a special memory that couldn’t be thrown away. The only thing all the items had in common were that they were all different. But altogether, they created a strangely pervasive atmosphere of unity. It was like packing the entirety of a random stranger’s life into one complete decor.

Kei and Haruki spent about 40 minutes on their supper. The sautéed chicken in balsamic sauce had a vivid, gamey taste, making each bite stand out strongly. Across the table, Haruki poured water from a blue glass bottle into her water glass. Cute bubbling sounds exuded from the bottle.

Kei noticed the window from behind her that gave a wonderful view of the night sky. He tried looking for stars, but couldn’t find any. Perhaps it was cloudy, or the stars weren’t bright enough to penetrate the old glass.

“Want anything for dessert?” Kei asked.

“No thank you. I could not possibly eat any more,” Haruki answered. She took a sip of water.

Kei was also quite stuffed, and didn’t want to get up immediately. He stifled a yawn. For whatever reason, he had begun feeling quite tired. He began sharing the first thing that came to mind. “You know, when I see Ukawa-san, I remember this one dog.”

It was a story he hadn’t shared prior to the reset.

Normally, Kei did his utmost to ensure that his actions strictly remained the same between resets to the greatest degree possible. He wanted to make sure that the future wouldn’t change, and followed all of his previous actions accordingly. He decided to break his self-imposed rule due to being in the dream world. They were just asleep in hospital beds, so the conversation shouldn’t have had any effect on their futures.

That in mind, he continued, “Back in elementary school, there was this dog at a house on my route to school.”

Haruki placed her glass on the table. “This was before you came to Sakurada?”

“Mhm. It was in the town I used to live in.”

Haruki nodded, then fixed her gaze on Kei. Their eyes met directly. Keeping her gaze, Kei said, “It was a really big golden retriever. It had a red collar and was tied up with a thick rope, but it never barked. Whenever I passed by, it would stare intently at me. I figured the dog must have spent most of its life just staring at things.”

Kei rather liked the dog he always passed by in elementary school. Every now and then, he would stop in place, staring back.

Just making eye contact with a dog wasn’t real communication. That was a common mistake to make. But still, as Kei stood in front of that dog, he felt that he was exchanging countless words with it. He could see the intelligence in the dog’s eyes, and felt that it could understand and accept almost anything.

Kei felt a strange empathy and admiration for that dog. Of course, it was very one-sided.

“I think Ukawa-san reminds me of that dog.”

“I do not believe that her face resembles that of a dog.”

“Well, it’s more in spirit.”

Haruki slowly blinked twice, then spoke. “Is that dog still alive in your old town?”

Kei shook his head. “It died when I was in my fourth year of elementary school. Got in a traffic accident.”

Kei had spent some time staring at the empty dog house when the owner came outside. Apparently, the dog had run away.

Kei had never even heard it bark a single time. It was such a quiet dog. But one day, that dog bit through the thick rope that held it in place. It had bared its fangs time and time again, won its freedom through violence, got in an accident, and died.

Of course, Kei had no idea what the dog could have possibly been thinking.

Maybe he could gain some kind of understanding from putting on a collar, or maybe there was just an unbreachable wall between humans and dogs. Perhaps that dog was incomprehensible even to other dogs.

Whatever the case may have been, one day they dog tried to go somewhere, and died.

Something about Ukawa Sasane gives me that same sense of danger.

And it wasn’t just his intuition.

It was actually a particular conversation they had had two years prior that tipped him off to the excessive danger emanating from her.

✽

Two years before. Asai Kei was making moves in the effort to bring Souma Sumire back to life.

His immediate goal was a powerful ability that would help him extract information from the Administration Bureau. The only valid method he could imagine to effectively get what he wanted was blackmail.

Once Kei learned of the powerful ability Ukawa Sasane held, he asked for her cooperation.

He told her straight that his express goal was to bring a girl back to life.

Her response was, “Do you think it’s right to bring a dead person back to life?”

Her voice wasn’t reproachful. Rather, it was an innocent, straightforward question, the kind you might ask when you didn’t know the answer to a test question.

Kei replied, “Absolutely.” His justification quickly followed. It was sad when people died. It could never be wrong to rid the world of sadness. He explained his reasoning.

Ukawa’s head tilted questioningly. “I dunno. I think it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. Sure, it’s sad when people die, I won’t argue with you there. But I can’t confidently say that bringing a dead person back to life is inherently right. That said, I think that means we need to give bringing her back a shot.”

Ukawa Sasane grinned, her voice resounding with confidence. “That’s how good and evil works. When you face something head-on, you can just know whether it’s right or wrong. That’s the power of the human heart.”

From that moment, Ukawa Sasane’s cooperation with Asai Kei was solidified.

It was a thoroughly absurd conversation. Ukawa Sasane agreed to bring Souma back to life purely so she could discover her gut reaction about the morality of the act.

Kei asked a question. He just had to know. “Say… bringing someone back to life ends up being a mistake. If your heart determined it to have been a mistake, what would you do?”

“Hm, I wonder. Probably turn on you right away, for starters.”

“What if you only know after we’ve already brought Souma back?”

“Doubt I’d be that slow about it. But, in that case…” Ukawa’s voice was entirely calm. She popped a few chocolate-covered peanuts into her mouth as she spoke. “If that happened, I’d have to rectify my mistake. Either I kill her, or I die trying. Those’d be the only real options.”

Kei could understand the logic. After making concession upon concession, it’d only be right to kill the person you brought back with your own hands. He couldn’t agree with it, but it was an emotionally logical process.

Except for one part.

“How does your death atone for your mistake in that case?”

Ukawa tilted her head, looking confused. “Now that you mention it, it kinda doesn’t. Oh, except for one thing.” Her gaze suddenly turned serious as she said, “I can’t stand the thought of being unjust. I always need to be aware of any missteps. But if I make a mistake, and I can’t correct it, I may as well die.”

Kei didn’t know her very well at that point. But after spending more time with her, he began to see the truth behind that statement. Ukawa Sasane was the very essence of a great champion of justice.

She believed entirely in her own sense of judgment, without allowing the slightest flaw or impurity.

There was no self-interest, no malice, just a pure and unwavering belief in her ability to leave all decisions to her emotions. It made her extremely dangerous. As long as she believed herself to be in the right, she could kill someone. And the second she was convinced that she was in the wrong, she could even kill herself.

She spoke with a faint smile. “Asai. I want you to make me a promise.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re not gonna go off and bring this girl back to life on your own time. I get to watch over every single step. Without that, I can’t make the proper and just call.”

“Understood,” Kei nodded.

Of course, that was a lie. He had never intended on following through with that promise.

Kei doubted she would actually follow through with killing a girl or herself. But at the same time, he didn’t know enough about Ukawa to be absolutely certain everything would be okay. If there was any possibility of danger, it would be worth keeping away from it.

But he still needed Ukawa’s ability.

So Kei made a promise that he had never meant to keep.

✽

Kei looked at Haruki as she sat across from him, thinking aloud. “I wonder what Ukawa-san thinks of the dream world.”

A One-Handed Eden. An easygoing paradise.

It was possible that Ukawa would judge the world to be a mistake. If she did, then she truly would grind it all to dust. She was a great champion of justice after all, an arbiter of good and evil.

Looking at him from across the table, Haruki tilted her head. “I do not understand what defines justice for that woman.”

I think I might get it a bit.

Of course, even that thought of his could have just been a simple misunderstanding. The same self-important misunderstanding that an elementary schooler had with a neighborhood dog.

Ukawa Sasane had a sense of justice entirely determined by emotions. That wouldn’t be something Kei could understand just by thinking about it.

Just as he was going to suggest they get going, his cell phone rang. He glanced at his phone monitor, finding the name of the caller.

For an additional two rings, he simply stared at the name.

“Who is it?” Haruki asked.

“It’s Tyltyl,” Kei answered.

Tyltyl. The name of the dream world’s god.

Kei didn’t have such an auspicious individual’s phone number, as might be expected. How, then, did the name of someone he didn’t have the number for show up on his phone?

Then again, the person in question was God. All things considered, it wasn’t much to be surprised at.

Kei pressed the answer button, putting the phone to his ear. Before he could say anything, a voice spoke to him.

“Nice to meet you. I am Tyltyl. I’ve got a word of advice for you.”

Tyltyl spoke with a man’s voice and mannerisms, which came as something of a surprise. Kei had considered it highly probable that Tyltyl was the one with the ability to create the world, that being Katagiri Honoka. But upon further reflection, it was also possible that she gave herself the form of a man in the dream world.

“It’s nice to meet you. I am Asai Kei. What is your advice?”

“It’s forbidden to go out at night in this town.”

Kei glanced at the restaurant’s clock. 7:30 PM. It was already nighttime. Not exactly the ideal moment to get that advice. “We’re in a restaurant right now. Would it be alright for us to head straight home? We’d only take about 20 minutes.”

Kei’s apartment was only five minutes away, but Haruki’s house was quite far off. Even taking the bus would include the time waiting at the bus stop, so it was about the same travel distance either way.

“An interesting proposition. Under most circumstances, you would make it, but there’s always the chance you don’t. It’s so capricious, after all.”

Capricious?

Kei didn’t have the slightest clue what he could have been referencing. “What do you mean, we may not make it?”

“The vast majority of this world is under my control. But there’s just one thing I can do nothing about. It goes quite wild at night.”

“I don’t really understand. What do you mean, it goes wild?”

“Explanations are such a bother. Just a glance will do so much more for your understanding.”

Fair enough. It wasn’t the time to be bickering over small details anyway. “In any case, we’ll get home as soon as possible. If it’s not too much to ask, getting a taxi called for us outside the restaurant would be quite nice.” He figured he could at least ask a god for that much.

“Well, a taxi or a jet, it’d make no difference to me. It really is my fault for such late notice. As such, I’ll be taking you home this evening. In fact, I’m the one who takes anyone home that doesn’t make it in time,” Tyltyl shared. Sure enough, there were still several other patrons at the restaurant. “Now then, let’s be off.”

At Tyltyl’s word, the chair beneath Kei vanished. He tumbled downwards, having lost all his support. Before he fully registered anything, he thudded hard onto his back. If Haruki hadn’t been in front of him, he probably would’ve screamed.

He opened his eyes which had reflexively closed.

But he couldn’t see anything. His only surroundings were darkness. It wasn’t a deep darkness, but the sudden shift of lighting was too much for Kei. His eyes stung from the adjustment.

He then heard Tyltyl’s voice echo from the phone still in his hand.

“Made it.”

It was when he heard those words that he got a grip on the situation. He was in his apartment room. In the slightest of moments, Kei had returned home.

“Ah, and here’s a present for you.”

Something hard hit his head and fell to the floor with a clang. Kei put up his left hand to cradle his head. It really hurt.

“What was that supposed to be?” He couldn’t even see what had hit him in the darkness of his room.

“Cookies. You asked me for them, right?”

Indeed, Kei remembered having told Mytyl he wanted cookies earlier. “Thank you very much.” There certainly wasn’t any need to have dropped it on his head, but that much wasn’t something to fly off the handle about, and the presentation came off as a cute, godly whim.

“Think nothing of it. Bye now. Don’t go outside.”

Before the phone call could end, Kei raised his voice. “Wait, I have two things I want to ask you!”

“Hm? What would they be?”

“Well, for one, why is there a great, white wall around this town?” If not for the wall, he could have experimented on removing Souma from Sakurada.

“Exactly why you might think. Perhaps you could call it a bird cage. An isolated little world for the Blue Bird.”

Kei couldn’t make anything of the response.

“Now, the second?” Tyltyl asked.

“Tyltyl… are you Katagiri Honoka?”

There was a slight pause before his answer. “Not quite. Katagiri Honoka is Mytyl. But that girl doesn’t remember that anymore.”

Ah, I get it, Kei thought. The god of the world, Tyltyl, Mytyl, and Katagiri Honoka. The most accurate way to define their relationship was probably the word distorted. But Kei had been thinking about gods since he was a child, and what a person might do if they became one.

“Was Mytyl the one who created you?”

“You only got two questions, as I recall. Now then, good night.” Those were his final words before the call ended.

With a sigh, Kei took off his sneakers. He held them in his hands as he stood up.

Even without being able to see, he knew how to find the room’s light switch. He turned on the fluorescent light and put his sneakers at the entrance.

Well, what now?

Considering his options, Kei turned around to find a tin of cookies on the ground and Haruki sitting on his bed. Evidently, she had gone alongside him from the restaurant.

She glanced around. “This is your room.”

He was slightly more shocked than when his chair had instantly vanished. “Haruki… If all the lights suddenly go out, then it’d be a good time to scream.” He hadn’t even known she was there until he turned on the light.

With a completely serious expression, she nodded. “Understood. I will make sure to do so next time.”

Kei let out another long sigh. Seriously, what is this world’s god even thinking? A young girl deserved to be sent back to her own home.

“Did something happen?” Haruki asked.

“Well, a lot of things happened, but I didn’t even get to pay our check.”

Dream world or not, there was no reason not to pay for food that he had eaten.

Kei scrolled through all of his contacts, but didn’t find Tyltyl. He couldn’t even see the call in his recent calls list.

There were plenty of questions he had, but above all else, he wanted Haruki to get home where she belonged. It was way too risky to go against instruction and head outside of his own accord.

Haruki looked up at him from her seat on the floor. “Did Mytyl create Tyltyl?”

Figuring that Haruki must have heard at least one side of his phone call, Kei nodded. “Most likely. Tyltyl told me that Mytyl was Katagiri Honoka-san. That means she made this whole world.” It only stood to reason that she had created the world’s god as well.

Kei continued, “Katagiri Honoka-san is probably omnipotent in this world. Omnipotent enough to create a god, I would imagine.”

“But if she is omnipotent, why would she need to create a god?”

“I dunno. I guess it just felt like the most natural way to make things happen.”

“What kinds of things?”

“To make this world into Katagiri-san’s Eden.”

It was obvious. Rather than becoming God and ruling with all power and authority, humans were happier to live peacefully under a god. Rather than personally changing the world to one’s tastes, paradise was a world that automatically adapted to one’s needs. Katagiri Honoka created a god that could make her happy. She granted it the name Tyltyl.

“So that made Katagiri-san into Mytyl. According to Tyltyl, Mytyl doesn’t even remember that she’s supposed to be Katagiri-san.”

That was also quite believable. Once she created a god for herself and an environment that she could be happy in, there was no benefit in remembering that she had prepared it. It was always nicer to receive a birthday cake from someone who made it for you than to make it for yourself.

Haruki nodded in response to Kei’s explanation. “I understand.”

“Good. But, there’s still a bit of a problem.”

“What would that be?”

“I don’t think Ukawa-san will like this one bit.”

The facts laid out a world that she would most likely reject.

Katagiri Honoka created a world, and within that world she created a god, purely for the sake of bringing herself happiness. Though Kei didn’t fully comprehend Ukawa Sasane’s sense of justice, he got a gut feeling that the world they were in would certainly go against it.

“Do you believe that Ukawa-san will try to destroy this world?”

“If she finds out what connects Tyltyl and Mytyl, it’s pretty likely. I’ll be honest though, I don’t completely get her.”

On top of that, he currently didn’t have the evidence to claim that the dream world was worth protecting from Ukawa Sasane. Many others would likely take objection to the existence of such a world. That was the issue with a paradise that could be so easily constructed. A One-Handed Eden.

“Well, nothing we can really do about it right now. I don’t really get much about Mytyl at the moment, either.”

Making a judgment call on right or wrong without having all the facts and perspectives was a dangerous game. Besides, Kei was of the opinion that any effort to be happy was valid, so long as it didn’t cause trouble for others. He was sure the revival of Souma would brush many other people’s ethics the wrong way.

Best to prioritize what’s right in front of me, Kei thought. For now, he was faced with time that he could spend together with Haruki in his room.

Kei turned to look at Haruki. She was squinting, appearing somewhat tired.

“If you’re sleepy, feel free to use my bed.”

Haruki shook her head. “No, thank you.”

“Okay. Well, how about we spend some time practicing our lines for the school play, then?”

Nothing more productive to do came to mind, and even in the dream world the script for their play was so conveniently located inside of Kei’s room.