4 – The same day, 1:30 PM

Asai Kei walked home alone. He just wanted to take a shower, forget everything else, and go right to sleep. But the day still wasn’t over yet.

Souma Sumire’s voice echoed inside of his head.

Good work, Kei.

She had said there would be four total instructions. First was to pick up trash, second was to go buy ingredients for chicken curry, and the third was done that morning, to drop off his paperback at Haruki’s house. But that still left one more.

Souma Sumire’s voice almost sounded like it was whispering into his ear.

It’s time for my last request, Kei. Would you mind letting me borrow your shower?

What the heck was the shower about? It was the one thing he had never been able to make sense of.

According to my future sight, I simply must take a shower in your room.

Kei had a hard time imagining any secrets lurking in his cramped little bathroom space that could manage to affect the future.

This is really the end. I’ll tell you everything I know, just like I promised. And I’ll make you some fantastic chicken curry while I’m at it.

Once he heard that, Kei realized how hungry he was. He hadn’t eaten at all since his tuna salad crepe the day before.

I’ll be at your place around four. That was the last he heard.

Kei stretched and took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. He wanted to calm his shot nerves.

He still had some time, so he decided to head home and do some vacuuming.

As his little apartment room came into view, so did a small, blue car parked on the side of the road. Kei sighed internally at the sight.

The car doors popped open, letting out two Bureau employees. The Index and Urachi Masamune.

Urachi spoke up first. “Heya, Asai-kun. Been a while.” His ever-present smile was pasted onto his face.

Kei smiled in return. “It has been quite some time. Do you have some business with me?”

“Mhm. I’m here for two reasons, in fact. One is business, and the other personal. Which do you want first?”

“Whichever you prefer.”

“Well then, let’s just speed through the business. I hate to do this, but as a member of the Administration Bureau, there are some items in your possession that I simply must confiscate.”

With a frown on the inside but a smile on the outside, Kei asked, “I’m not sure that I could own anything so important. What are you speaking of?”

“You don’t have the slightest clue?”

“Well, I don’t think so.”

The Index shook her head tiredly. “He is lying.”

Urachi shrugged, his smile never wavering. “It’s not good to lie.”

“I suppose I wasn’t confident enough.”

“Anything coming to mind yet?”

As if it could be anything else. “Pictures, maybe?”

“Precisely. Your instant photographs that would let you visit a future seer for 10 minutes.”

The pictures were taken by Sasano Hiroyuki’s ability, and let anyone enter the world of the photograph by tearing it.

Kei had been given a picture of Souma Sumire. He had torn it to take her out of the photograph, but had utilized a reset in doing so, which meant he still possessed the original photo.

“Mind if we take that back?” Urachi asked.

“I’m afraid you can’t.”

“Oh, how troublesome. Things will get very involved if you try and resist.”

“That isn’t quite what I meant. I’ve already torn my photo of Souma Sumire.” He had ripped it the previous night just in case he found himself in the very position he was in.

Urachi turned to look at The Index. “He is not lying,” she confirmed.

“I see.” Urachi nodded. “I thought something was up. You always just so happened to be at the place you needed to. As if you knew the future or something. I suppose using your photo to meet the second Witch only makes sense.”

That wasn’t the case at all. Kei had literally just torn the photo. He didn’t actually see Souma. The photo’s ability would only activate if he tore it in the area containing the picture. But there wasn’t really any need to go on explaining that.

Urachi met Kei’s eyes with a gleeful smile. “So, I understand you no longer have any pictures of the Souma girl. But what of the other Witch?”

“The other one?”

“The first Witch. The Nameless System. Whatever you want to call her. Don’t you have a photo of her as well?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Oh, nothing concrete. It would just be really annoying if you did. Better to check.”

Liar. Urachi Masamune had to know how the Witch escaped from her building back in August. The only conclusion to draw would have been that Kei had a picture of her.

With an intentional sigh, Kei responded, “Yes. I have one.”

“Have you torn this one?”

“Not yet.”

“Then I will be reclaiming it.”

So far, everything went as Kei had figured.

“Do you own any more of Sasano Hiroyuki’s pictures?”

“No. That is the only other picture I have of Sasano Hiroyuki.” He wasn’t lying. The picture of the Witch was the only other one he had. That should have satisfied Urachi Masamine’s expectations.

Urachi nodded with satisfaction. “Very well. If I take that off your hands, then my work as a member of the Administration Bureau is complete.”

That worked for Kei. The less he had to talk in front of The Index, the better. “Then please wait here. I’ll go retrieve it.”

“Not yet. I’d like to take care of my personal business first.”

Kei wasn’t sure what the following conversation would include. He struggled to keep his smile up. He was just so tired. He had to get it over with. “What would that be?”

“Purely for my own curiosity, how much of today’s events do you understand?”

“I don’t really understand anything.”

Of course, The Index immediately responded, “Lie.”

With nothing else to do, Kei appended, “All I have are guesses.”

“Well, I’d love to hear your guesses.”

“Alright.” Without bothering to weigh his words, Kei shot straight. “You’re the culprit.”

“The culprit? Of what crime?”

“Like you don’t know? The four ability outbursts taking place over the last two days.”

Urachi Masamune shook his head. “Those were accidents. They didn’t have some kind of culprit.”

“But an intentionally caused accident can certainly have a culprit. You and your ability created the perfect storm for those accidents to happen.”

Kei couldn’t think of anything else.

Urachi’s expression remained unchanged. That only seemed natural. He couldn’t have made it to where he was if a single high schooler could upset him that easily. “What an interesting proposition. Please explain.”

“I don’t think there’s much else to say.”

The Operator had made a particular comment the previous day.

To some degree or another, every ability user has had an ability outburst at least once. That, of course, was the first time ever using it. When it was accidental, when the user didn’t know what would happen.

“You rewound the time of the ability users back to before they knew about their ability. An ability user who doesn’t know about their ability will inevitably have an outburst.” That was the long and short of how the incidents happened.

Urachi tilted his head. “Now, what would make you propose something so outlandish?”

“Because I have evidence.” It was already laid out the night before. Kei took out his cell phone and began scrolling through menus. He pulled up an image that had been attached to The Operator’s e-mail report. “Recognize this?”

Urachi tilted his head. “Hmm. Looks like a picture of a girl. A sweetheart of yours?”

“Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t know her. This girl experienced an ability outburst at a traffic intersection yesterday.” The resulting traffic accident opened the file for ability outburst incidents.

“What of it?”

“I was there when it happened. I saw her.”

She was running from the other side of the road as he picked up trash. Then she fell while trying to cross the street. Kei remembered every detail.

But the girl running in his memory looked around 10 years old. The girl on his phone was maybe a middle schooler, certainly at least a few years older.

“So, why is the girl in my memory different from the one in the photo?”

The Operator had placed the girl at 13 years old, but she had gained her ability at 11. If the girl Kei saw at the intersection was 11, then everything fit together perfectly.

Urachi shook his head. “Surely you must be mistaken.”

“I’m afraid that would be quite impossible.” Categorically impossible, given his ability.

Kei was sure Urachi did the same thing to the boy at the supermarket, but he couldn’t tell much of a difference from the photo alone. That said, the boy had gained his ability just a month prior. A single month of age would have been hard to place by sight alone.

But Kei had more than sight. The boy had been arguing with his mother.

“You said you’d get me some if I got good grades on my test!”

“Aren’t you talking about last month’s test?”

As it turned out, neither the mother or the boy was wrong in their argument. The boy was simply working off of month-old memories.

Urachi Masamune tilted his head. “Let’s just assume you’re right. I’ll grant that the ability users were caused to outburst by rewinding their time. But how does that make it my ability’s fault?”

It was time for the clincher. “Because I know your ability.”

Kei had met Urachi Masamine a total of three times, not including the present. The most recent encounter had been in the dream. They had run into each other in the study of the old man who continually transcribed the Script.

The second time was in Kei’s second year of middle school. Urachi Masamune was right there during his assault on the Administration Bureau, back when he was intent on finding out if The Index had information on an ability to bring people back to life.

To think it’s been four years since our very first meeting. Urachi had been the very first ability user Kei met on his visit to Sakurada.

Kei spoke. “Thank you so very much for fixing my keychain.” He was referencing the small keychain with the cat on it, now attached as a strap on Haruki’s cell phone. That keychain had broken during Kei’s initial visit to Sakurada four years prior when a metal fitting snapped off. But then Kei met an ability user at the train station who fixed it right up. Urachi Masamune. “It’s always bothered me that I never got the chance to thank you.”

Urachi chuckled. He held his forehead, whispering, “I told you to get on home. You should have done as I said and left this town.”

Kei, of course, remembered his words from four years ago.

There you go. Make sure you get home before it’s too late.

“So you remember that,” Kei said.

“‘Course I do. The boy that The Nameless System threw a fit about calling? I had to take every precaution. I went to that station so I could get a good look at you.”

“I didn’t even know about the existence of abilities at that point. I didn’t think too much about what you had done. But I think I’ve got it now.”

In a lot of ways, Urachi Masamune’s ability was much like Haruki Misora’s Reset. It just had a much narrower scope. It didn’t include so much as the entire world.

“You rewind a target’s time. A keychain, a human, or anything else, you recreate its past state. That’s what you can do, right?”

Kei couldn’t think of anything else.

Urachi nodded. “Well, it’s true that I have that ability. But possibility alone doesn’t make me a culprit of any kind. That’s just your conjecture.”

“You’re right about that.”

Given the situation, the culprit was most likely Urachi. But so what? Pressing the matter wouldn’t change anything. Anybody could have done it. That wasn’t the heart of the issue.

“So, Asai-kun, do you know how the Bureau will deal with these incidents?”

“They’ll erase all information of abilities from Sakurada.”

“Oooh. How’d you know about that?”

“Read about it in the Script. I know about the first year.” Anyone who read that much would know about the Bureau’s trump card.

For the first time Kei had ever seen, Urachi stopped smiling. “Everyone forgets about abilities when they leave Sakurada… when they cross the Border Line. That was the rule devised by that pair. And now this town will become just like the rest of the world outside of it. With one single exception.” Urachi pointed at Kei. “Asai Kei. The only exception. The only one in 40 years.”

Not even leaving Sakurada would cause Kei to forget about abilities. The strength of his memory was greater than that of the Boundary Line. That caused the Bureau to strong-arm him into staying within the city four years prior.

That being the case, it wouldn’t matter if every other person within Sakurada forgot about abilities. It wouldn’t matter where the Boundary Line moved. Asai Kei was different. He would always remember.

“You’re the outlier. A memory ability stronger than the Boundary Line that shouldn’t have even existed.”

Kei nodded. He already knew that. “I had thought you might just show up with a knife. I can’t remember anything if I’m dead.”

Urachi Masamune smiled once more. “I can get the same thing done without a knife. I’ll just send you back to a time before you were born. How d’you think that would go?”

Asai Kei smiled. “I don’t think that’ll happen, given how limited your ability is.”

“Oh? Limited how?”

“I don’t have specifics, but I would say your ability can manage two, maybe three years. At most, five. I just don’t see any more than that being possible.”

“And why would you think that?”

“Because there was one exception among all four ability outbursts.”

Ukawa Sasane. The only person who wasn’t rewound to cause her ability outburst. In fact, she didn’t have an outburst at all. Most likely, she just used it because she was persuaded to, like she always did.

“From what I was told, Ukawa-san acquired her ability five years ago. Seems to me that you couldn’t rewind that much time.” Urachi had to resort to persuasion tactics on her.

“I see.” With a nod, Urachi put a hand to his chin, tilting his head. “So what makes you say two or three years as opposed to something more exact?”

“Well, the keychain that you fixed for me broke again.” The metal fitting had snapped in the exact spot it had the first time. Kei had ended up replacing the fittings with a strap before gifting the cat to Haruki Misora. “It was fixed up rather nicely, but there was still a small scratch left. Eventually, the strain broke it again. Considering the scratch, and how long it lasted after repair, it couldn’t have been rewound more than three years.”

Then, of course, there was no reason to assume that Urachi had used his ability to the fullest extent on just a simple keychain. So it was safest to bet on five years as the max, with Ukawa Sasane as the data set.

Urachi Masamune nodded in satisfaction. “How very enlightening. My curiosity has been well rewarded.”

“That’s just wonderful.” The only reward Kei had gotten was more exhaustion.

Urachi Masamune leaned forward, looking into Kei’s eyes. “Just one more thing.”

Still more? “What could that be?”

“Is there some way to turn you into a normal boy without any abilities?”

Matching Urachi’s grin, Kei shook his head. “Not unless you go get that knife. I don’t know how you could take my memories away.”

The Index confirmed that his words were not a lie.

End of Chapter 3