3

Asai Kei sat at a bus stop bench, wondering if he should go climb a mountain to watch the sunset. Souma Sumire had done the same once. She climbed a mountain to watch the sunset, fell into a river, and died.

Did she fall into the river before seeing the sunset? Maybe after? At the very least, Kei wanted to believe she had the chance to watch a gorgeous sunset first. Then the beautiful scenery could have been the last thing on her mind.

To get there, he would have to wait about 15 minutes for the next bus. Then, it’d be a 20 minute ride to a stop a good halfway up the mountain. Another 15 minutes of walking later, he would reach an open area with a great view to the west. There was only about an hour until sunset, so he would just barely make it in time.

Not like the sunset will change anything, of course.

It certainly wouldn’t save anyone.

It was possible that Haruki would never again be able to use her reset. Kei tried to dredge up even the slightest feeling of satisfaction about that, but couldn’t manage it. All the thought did was tug him back down into sadness.

Do I really want to feel sad? Kei thought. As he thought about it, it became clear that yes, he did. If anything, he wanted to grieve deeply to the point of crying, if he were able to.

Kei checked the time on his cell phone. As he stared at the display, the cat strap swinging from the phone caught his eye. The cat was mostly black, with white spots around its paws and mouth. Previously, the cat had been part of a keychain holding the key to the place once Kei called home, an apartment building in a faraway town, with his parents. The day he had decided he was in Sakurada to stay, he threw away that key.

All that remained was the cat keychain. At one point, the metal attachments had broken off, leaving it functionally useless. So, Kei had bought the simplest strap he could find and hooked the cat onto it.

I don’t even really like this thing all that much, Kei thought, smiling bitterly. Regardless, the cat held significant meaning to him. It was a gift from his mother, and used to hold his house key. It was a cat-shaped reminder of the life he had left behind.

As soon as Kei had bought his own cell phone, putting the cat strap on it just made sense. But now that it was actually on, something didn’t feel right about it. But he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what felt so wrong. It was the perfect size, and it was cute enough. He didn’t have any problems with cute things. Perhaps it was just a bit undignified to demote it from a house key holder to a cell phone strap.

Kei had thrown away his house key without any thoughts of going back. Perhaps honoring that meant the cat should go on something more significant. But what would count as significant?

Kei pushed down with his fingertips as he held the cat. It squished down vertically, the face looking like it was surprised by something. As he stared at the cat, a thought crossed his mind.

Should I have just told Haruki to reset today?

At the time, his reason for holding off until the next day had been fairly straightforward: He just wanted Haruki to be capable of resetting on her own. Kei wouldn’t be able to be with her at all times, and there were a variety of situations where she could need to reset at her own discretion. Then, of course, there was the obvious fact that the fewer restrictions on an ability, the better.

But Kei wasn’t entirely certain that was his only reason. He felt that there was a deeper, more emotional cause behind his lack of instruction.

After all, Souma Sumire had died thanks to a reset.

She was alive in the previous timeline… then dead in the following one.

Kei knew exactly what had happened. He also knew that there was something inside of him that was scared of Haruki’s ability. He couldn’t avoid that fact forever.

I really took everything for granted up till now.

When a reset was performed, everything else happened in exactly the same manner. That was how it was supposed to work. Kei had researched that concept extensively. Every word in the newspaper was the same as before. Sports matches had the same outcomes, and stock prices kept the same values. The same traffic accident would happen in the same faraway town, and the same child would trip and fall right in front of him at the same time, in the same place. He had wholeheartedly believed that a reset in and of itself wouldn’t change the future.

Changing the future came in the form of outside influences, abilities that carried over new information to an older time. Kei was the one and only outlier. Or at least, so he had thought.

Then Souma Sumire died.

Something had changed, and Kei hadn’t done anything.

Maybe someone else had an ability that carried over. Maybe there was an infinitesimally small chance of minute changes between resets that could meaningfully affect future events. Or maybe he hadn’t been paying attention, and a slight variation in his behavior had changed her fate.

He didn’t know why things had happened the way they did. All he knew was that using a reset could lead to unintended consequences.

With that in mind, there was no way that I could just up and call for a reset.

Put less charitably, he didn’t have the courage to take responsibility.

Kei closed his eyes. Tomorrow, I’ll make sure to tell her to reset. I have to, he thought.

Right around then, the cell phone in his hand began ringing. It was the default ringtone. Opening his eyes, Kei saw a phone number on the display that he didn’t recognize. He pushed the answer button and heard a familiar male voice as he brought the phone to his ear.

“I’m calling as a representative of the Administration Bureau,” the man said. It was Tsushima. Tsushima Shintarou, the Bureau employee, to be exact.

“How did it go?” Kei asked. He had been awaiting Tsushima’s call.

Kei had consulted Tsushima asking for the Bureau’s help regarding Souma. Although indirectly, Souma’s death had been related to a reset. That should have put it within the Bureau’s jurisdiction, and if he got lucky, the Bureau could possibly save Souma, even from death.

Tsushima’s response was emotionless. “The Administration Bureau has concluded that Souma Sumire’s death was not related in any way to an ability. As such, we will not be getting involved.”

Pushing down his disappointment, Kei asked, “How?”

“There is no clear causative relationship between Haruki Misora’s ability and Souma Sumire’s death.”

“That can’t be possible. She was alive before we reset.”

“The only proof of that is your claim.”

Kei clicked his tongue, though not loud enough to be heard. “So what, you’re calling me a liar?”

“The possibility cannot be denied.”

“But you’ve gotta have the resources to investigate if I’m telling the truth, right?”

“I am unable to answer that question.”

Kei was about to start screaming, but he bit back his words. Yelling and shouting wouldn’t change the Bureau’s decision. Getting mad wouldn’t bring Souma Sumire back. At the end of the day, Tsushima hadn’t made any of those decisions personally. Tsushima wasn’t the one to fight over it.

Find a way to move things forward. Following a deep breath out, Kei asked, “Okay, so if I could find a way to prove my claim, then would you help Souma?”

After a moment of silence, Tsushima answered, “No. That would be impossible.”

“Says who?”

“Sorry, that wasn’t the best way to put it. Even if you were to prove your claim, the Administration Bureau will not take action. Her death has been classified as an accident unrelated to any ability.”

“That doesn’t even make sense. Who decided that?”

“It was not a personal decision. It was the Administration Bureau’s.”

Rationally speaking, it was a just decision. The reset ability affected the entire world. It would be impossible to micromanage and deal with all of the possible fallout of such a massively powerful ability.

At its core, Kei believed the Administration Bureau was extremely fair. If they couldn’t save everyone, then they wouldn’t focus on saving a single individual. There were no favorites, no exceptions, and no alternatives. The Bureau existed for all of Sakurada, and could not prioritize a single person’s happiness.

There really isn’t anything wrong here.

For a public institution handling Sakurada’s abilities, they had made the right choice.

Kei’s desire to save Souma Sumire was inherently selfish. It was personal, something that existed only to benefit him.

“Please just tell me one thing,” Kei prompted.

“I will if I am able.”

“If the Bureau really felt like it, could they actually save Souma Sumire… a girl who’s been dead for two weeks?”

Was an organization dedicated to managing abilities capable of such a feat? What could one do with all that information, all those abilities at immediate disposal?

“I cannot answer that question,” Tsushima answered. The call promptly ended.

Kei went through his phone’s recent calls list, redialing the number that had just called him. He half expected nothing to happen. Certain numbers were set up to only allow outgoing calls, after all. To his surprise, the call connected and began ringing. It rang seven times before connecting him to an answering machine.

Hello, this is Tsushima. I can’t answer the phone right now.

Kei quirked his eyebrows in surprise. This is Tsushima-san’s personal number? It was more than a little surprising, especially considering the nature and content of the phone call.

Perhaps, in a way, it was meant to be some kind of message from Tsushima. That man was rather odd for a Bureau employee. Kei was quite confused, but hung up without leaving a message, registering the number in his contacts list.

The bus showed up to the stop exactly on time.

✽

Kei had stopped for a while at a bridge crossing over a valley stream, which put him back a bit on time. When he finally arrived at his initial destination, an open area with a western view, the sun was already sinking into the horizon. Shadows stretched over the city as neon signs and car lights took increasingly sharper contrasts.

The sun hung low in the sky with a magnificent orange glaze. Moving up, the sky slowly transitioned into a beautiful gradation of red, purple, and blue, leading into the dark blue of night. Layered clouds floated through the sky, their bottoms shining pink from the sun’s glow, their tops shadowed a deep purple.

The complete and awesome beauty filled Kei’s mind. Along with it came questions. Was Souma privy to the same view? If she was, what did she think in response?

But those questions were unanswerable. He hardly knew anything about Souma Sumire. As he stared at the sunset, memories of his first meeting with her flashed through his mind.

He had been sitting alone atop the tetrapods when she suddenly appeared, asking a question.

Are you crying?

Thinking back, it had been a fair question. Something about watching the sunset alone made him want to cry. But why? Perhaps the end of a day made him more aware of certain realities. It reminded him that all things had to end. Not even the moon could relay that truth as effectively.

As he watched the sunset, a sudden noise came from behind him. At first, he waved it off as the trees swaying in the wind. But then he heard it again, from a lower position. It was the sound of grass being stepped on.

Souma. The likelihood of it being her was all but zero.

He turned around to find a lone girl. Of course, it wasn’t Souma Sumire.

It was a girl he didn’t recognize. She was probably a high schooler, looking at least two or three years older than him at a glance. Her long hair was tied up behind her neck, and she was clad in a simple white T-shirt and jeans, though the lighting almost made her look covered in black. She had a small rucksack slung over her shoulder, and her left hand was adorned with three rings on her middle, ring, and pinky fingers. The rings looked more like crude lumps of metal than anything else, with no special decorations or settings.

He met her gaze. The girl’s eyes were somewhat narrow, lending to an off-putting glare.

“Hey, you. What are you doing all the way out in a place like this?” she asked. It was as though she felt compelled to speak since their eyes had met.

“I came here to watch the sunset,” Kei answered honestly.

“Woah. Why?”

“I dunno. I just felt like it.”

“Izzat right. You’re weird.” She reached into her pocket, pulling out an instantly recognizable red package of chocolate. “You eat Kit-Kats?”

Kei figured the girl could do with a reality check. Who was weirder, someone who climbed a mountain to watch a sunset, or someone who randomly offered Kit-Kats to people they just met?

A bit dazed from the sudden shift, Kei nodded. “Sure, if you’re offering.”

The girl tore open the package, split the Kit-Kat across the divider line, and handed one of the two pieces to Kei. “Help yourself.”

“Thank you very much.”

The pair stood side by side, nibbling on Kit-Kats as they watched the nearly set sun sink into the horizon. Kei had to wonder how exactly he got to the point of eating Kit-Kats with some older girl with mean eyes. He could hardly keep up with the roller coaster of emotions. He had been planning on capping the day off by thinking about Souma and Haruki. He sighed internally.

The girl with mean eyes spoke back up. “Wow, I get it now. It ain’t bad to watch the sunset every now and again.”

“Yeah.”

“By the way, I heard of a girl dying somewhere around here. Didja know her?”

That came as a shock. The nonplussed reaction that came out of Kei’s mouth in response almost shocked him even more. “When was that?”

“‘Bout two weeks ago. August 31st, right at the end of the month.”

“Yeah, I know her. She went to my school.”

“Woah.” The girl’s gaze dropped down from the sky, directed towards Kei. “What was her name?”

“Souma Sumire.”

“How d’ya write that?”

“‘Souma’ is written with the character for ‘together’, followed by the character for ‘flax’. ‘Sumire’ is violet, as in the flower. Souma Sumire.”

The mean-eyed girl smiled. “You sure knew her well. Were you an item?”

“No. Why would you think that?”

“Well, she might’ve gone to your school, but at best that would usually mean you just knew how to say her name, not the characters to write it with. If someone can just spout off the kanji characters, you can assume they knew the other person pretty well.”

Her conclusion was only slightly misplaced. It was true that Kei and Souma were fairly close, or at least he hoped to assume so. But regardless, he knew how to write out her name before he ever met her in person.

“I just so happen to have an ability that lets me do that, is all.”

“Ability?”

“I can remember everything.”

“Woah.”

Kei didn’t tend to bring up abilities in conversation, but there was no reason for him to hide anything. For the moment, he was more concerned in figuring out who the heck the girl in front of him was. He didn’t like the amount of info that was getting pulled from him while he got nothing in return. “So, why are you here?”

The mean-eyed girl licked her chocolate, answering, “A girl lost her footing and fell into the river. Obviously, it’s dangerous, so the place needs correction.”

Correction? “What, like putting up a railing?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Why would you be the one doing that?” That was more along the lines of a state worker’s job.

The girl shrugged, “Emergency response. To put it your way, I happen to have an ability that lets me do that.”

“Huh? What kind of ability?”

“In the blink of an eye, I can– okay, maybe that’s stretching the truth a bit. But I can put up some railing in a minute or so.”

“Your ability lets you create railing?”

It was foolish to try and put limits on Sakurada’s abilities, but Kei had a hard time imagining something like that. It was quite the extreme case.

“It can also shred through clouds, and punch a hole in the moon. I mean, not that I’ve tried that, but I’m pretty sure I could.”

“I’m not really getting it.”

“Eh, not like you have to. Oh, hey, want some Koala’s March?” she asked, digging through her rucksack.

Kei shook his head. “No thanks. I’d better not.”

“But they’re really good.”

“I’ll spoil my supper if I eat any more.”

“Hm. Well, more for me.” She quickly extricated a box of Koala’s March from her sack, breaking open the seal. She stuck her index and middle finger into the box, pulling out a cookie with a printed koala holding a bugle. “So, I came here to fix up a dangerous bridge, but after walking all the way here, I couldn’t really find a place where a middle schooler could just fall in,” she said, popping the cookie into her mouth.

Kei had been thinking the same thing. Souma Sumire had fallen into the river, so he had stood on the bridge thinking about it. How exactly did she fall down? The bridge already had handrails, and it wasn’t really somewhere that you would normally lose your balance. Of course, the mountain trail was packed with dangerous places off the marked trail. It was possible she had deviated from the path and found herself in a dangerous area. But he didn’t have the information to prove anything.

The mean-eyed girl chewed on her Koala’s March, swallowed, and spoke back up. “Then I found you. Makes me think that the girl who fell into the river might just have committed suicide.” Her story took a very sudden turn.

“How do I have anything to do with what happened to Souma?”

“You kinda looked like you were about to die, too.”

She said it so impassively that Kei could hardly register what had just come out of her mouth. He repeated it in his mind. I’m… gonna die?

She continued, “It was like you were just looking for a reason to give up on everything. It seemed like a natural conclusion from looking at you, like when you feel that the wind is strong or see that the sunset is pretty. You looked like you were gonna die.”

Kei put a hand on his cheek. He had no idea what kind of face he was making. Of course, he knew how wrong that was, but he had spent so much time alone that he had become used to relaxing his face, not bothering to emote.

He was happy that it wasn’t Haruki Misora who came to see him. He wouldn’t want her to see him making such a depressing expression.

The mean-eyed girl’s gaze glimmered with slight satisfaction as she said, “So I made my conclusion. However it happened, that girl Souma-san died, and you, her boyfriend, were gonna follow after her by suicide.”

“You couldn’t have been more wrong.” It was more of a delusion than a conclusion. Not to mention how unfounded it all was.

Besides, no matter how depressed he was, or how lonely, death would be a blatantly stupid option. Even if he wanted to die, suicide was such an inefficient way of dealing with a problem. He didn’t have the hubris to take that kind of step. To put it another way, he doubted he knew enough about the world to actually claim that he knew the real depths of despair.

Looking slightly downhearted, the girl replied, “Weird. Everything else I figured was accurate, even down to you knowing her name.”

“What would you have done if I was actually planning to die?”

“Save you, of course. It’s why I gave you that Kit-Kat.”

Her story was getting wilder and wilder, and Kei was starting to have a hard time holding on to the flow of conversation. “You thought that giving me a Kit-Kat… would stop me from trying to die?”

“Who would even wanna die after eating something so yummy?”

“That’s your logic?” She believed a little too heavily in the power of Kit-Kats.

“Well, it was more like my way of telling you to chill out.”

“What, so something sweet to get me to chill out?”

“‘Have a break!’”

She quoted the famous Kit-Kat catchphrase, albeit with very poor English. This girl is weird, Kei thought.

As their conversation played out, the sun finished setting. Without a sunset to watch, Kei had no reason to stick around. “I need to go home now. Thank you very much for the Kit-Kat.”

The girl murmured a slight assent, before saying, “Be careful in the dark. Don’t get lost on your way down.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“I gotta get going too, actually, so I’ll just head down with you.”

“Sure.” He didn’t have a reason to turn her down.

As if in afterthought, the girl flippantly asked, “Hey, what’s your name?”

“I am Asai Kei. And you?”

“Ukawa Sasane.¹ Want some Koala’s March?” she asked, holding out her box of cookies.

It took all the stubbornness Kei could muster to keep himself from snickering. “Okay. Thank you,” he replied, sticking his hand in the box.

He had climbed the mountain so he could mourn Souma’s death before this strange girl with her Kit-Kats and Koala’s March had barged in. She completely ruined the sentimental atmosphere. It was all just a coincidence, of course. But something about it resonated with him. It was like someone was whispering in his ear, telling him that he couldn’t grieve forever.

Or maybe chocolate actually was as powerful as that girl believed. Even if it wasn’t absolute, that small tug could have been exactly what was needed to pull him away from death.

1. Ukawa’s name is written with the characters 宇川, literally “kanji character” and “river”. ↩︎