Ti returns to the present!
Once the shockwaves had subsided and the rain of debris finally ceased, Akishin pulled Mitsuha—who seed a bit dazed from the sheer terror of it all—out from behind the shelter of the ruined building.
"Mitsuha-san, are you alright?"
Akishin waited until Mitsuha regained her footing, ensuring she wouldn't collapse before slowly letting go of her hand.
Mitsuha stared blankly at her surroundings. Under the night sky, not far away, pillars of fire surged upward. A colossal shroud of smoke seed intent on swallowing the horizon, causing more than half the town to simply vanish.
If you can't quite picture it, imagine a scenario where hundreds of missiles detonated all at once. It was probably sothing like that.
The intermittent sound of burning filled her ears, accompanied by the clatter of falling objects, the snapping of structures, the howling wind, and the rhythmic rippling of the lake water.
She then looked up at Akishin standing beside her. Under the moonlight, his face was faintly visible. His short hair fluttered in the breeze, and as he gripped his bamboo sword, he looked like a swordsman who had stepped straight out of the Sengoku period.
"No... I'm okay... it's safe now... it's over..."
Mitsuha shook her head, forcing herself to take two steps to prove she was truly fine. She asked in a trembling, fragnted voice, desperate for confirmation from soone else.
"That's right. It's safe. It's over."
Akishin spoke firmly, a small smile appearing on his face. "Mitsuha-san, you saved everyone. You saved thousands of lives. Actually, I was saved by you as well. Thank you."
Akishin didn't know if Patch would provide a warning later. It was likely just a dead program, and there was a high probability it wouldn't. If they had continued enjoying the festival at that mont, oblivious until the teorite struck, everything would have been too late.
No matter how great his Kendo skills were, he was just an ordinary human. It wasn't like he could slice a teorite in half, right?
Faced with Akishin's gratitude, Mitsuha imdiately shook her head. "No, no, no... I only... did what I had to do. Besides, this was also his doing..."
Stopping there, Mitsuha froze. She had forgotten that person's na again. She clearly rembered it—she was sure of it—but...
She subconsciously stared at her palm, opening it slowly with hope and anticipation, wanting to rember. But she froze again. In her palm, aside from dust and a few scratches, there was nothing.
Tears welled in her eyes as an inexpressible sadness filled her heart. She stared blankly at the sky and the earth in every direction, finally fixing her gaze on the cot which now left only a trailing tail of fire at the edge of the sky. She whispered softly, "Who are you? Who are you, really? Why can't I rember your na? It feels like... I've forgotten you..."
"Mitsuha-san? Mitsuha-san, what's wrong? Hey, wake up..."
Akishin frowned, watching Mitsuha look as though she had suddenly suffered a massive blow. Just as he was preparing to use a more physical thod to snap her out of it, his phone rang. It was Yuika.
"Chishima-kun, where are you? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Why aren't you back yet..."
"Shizuka-chan... Shizuka-chan..."
Imdiately after picking up, Shizuka's extrely anxious voice ca through, leaving Akishin montarily stunned.
"Whew~"
A clear sigh of relief echoed from the other end of the line, followed by the question again: "Chishima-kun, where are you?"
The frantic edge in her voice had significantly lessened.
"Don't worry, I'm fine."
Thinking about how much Shizuka was worrying about him—that kind of anxiety clearly couldn't be faked; it ca from a sincere heart—a warm feeling flowed through Akishin.
He looked up at the cot slowly drifting away in the sky, then asked curiously, "Shizuka-chan, why are you calling from Kondo's phone?"
"My phone just fell and broke. It's completely unusable now."
Even through the phone, her deep irritation was palpable. Akishin looked toward Itomori High School, almost able to see the figure of the person holding the phone while staring out in his direction.
"In that case, I'll buy you a new one tomorrow."
"Okay."
"I want to get a new phone too. Let's get the sa one."
"Yeah, it's a promise."
"It's a promise."
...
With the help of the moonlight, Akishin and Mitsuha walked toward Itomori High School along a highway that was still relatively intact.
The road was littered with building debris, trees, and mountain rocks, silently testifying to the aftermath of the disaster.
Akishin briefly asked Mitsuha about what had actually happened and how she knew the teorite would fall, but Mitsuha simply shook her head with a sorrowful expression, saying she didn't know and seed to have forgotten many things.
Akishin could tell that Mitsuha had truly forgotten, as she didn't even rember the words she had said to them earlier that afternoon.
He didn't press her further. Instead, he asked Patch in his mind, but the only answer he received was 'Insufficient Qualifications.'
Eventually, they reached Itomori High School and rejoined Kondo's group. A figure dressed in white lunged forward and hugged Akishin tightly.
As if afraid Akishin would vanish into thin air, she held him with incredible strength. Aside from feeling the softness against his chest, Akishin found it a bit difficult to breathe.
"Cough... Shizuka-chan, aren't I perfectly fine? Don't worry, I'm actually quite afraid of dying, so I always stay in safe places... Uh, there are still so many people watching here..."
Akishin gently patted Shizuka's back. As he finished speaking, he clearly felt the temperature of the cheek pressed against his neck rise.
No doubt about it, she was blushing again.
Yet, she didn't let go. She had been truly terrified. A natural disaster was happening right before her eyes, and he was nowhere to be seen.
He had said he was going to save people, and while everyone else had been saved, he hadn't returned...
If the teorite had fallen even a little later, she might have already gone out to look for him. Even if she knew the approximate impact point, what if there was a mistake?
Was the information really accurate?
From Shizuka's perspective, it certainly wasn't!
Unless soone had co back from the future, who could have predicted that the cot would suddenly break apart and land in a specific spot?
"Next ti... you're not allowed to do anything dangerous like this again... I'm still waiting for you to confess..."
"Shizuka, what did you just say?"
Shizuka's voice was too soft. Akishin only felt a puff of warm breath on his neck but didn't catch the words clearly.
Shizuka released Akishin, stepped back two paces, and stared at him with a beet-red face as she shouted, "I said next ti you're not allowed to do anything dangerous like this! Do you have any idea how close you were to that teorite?! Do you hear ?!"
Akishin, still holding his bamboo sword, said softly, "I hear you. I'm sorry for making you worry. It won't happen again."
Hearing that gentle voice, the Shizuka who had just been shouting suddenly turned shy and looked away.
The Itomori fire departnt and governnt workers were busy organizing personnel to prevent anyone from taking advantage of the chaos to cause trouble.
At the sa ti, they were distributing tents and arranging for the elderly and children to rest first...
"Mitsuha!"
A voice filled with shock and complex emotions rang out so loudly it startled Shizuka. Miyamizu Toshiki ran out from the crowd in a panic and imdiately pulled his daughter into an embrace.
"Thank goodness you're okay, thank goodness you're okay. Why couldn't I reach your phone? I've been calling you for so long..."
Toshiki's face showed an expression of imnse relief following a great fright. He held his daughter tightly; he had been so scared. When he couldn't find her, he was terrified he had lost her...
He deeply regretted why he hadn't listened to his daughter's words that afternoon.
"Calling ? My phone was on , but it didn't ring..."
This was the first ti Mitsuha had been hugged like this by her father. She was stunned for a mont, but the concern from her family caused the sense of loss and panic in her heart to fade significantly.
She pulled out her phone, intending to say she had it with her the whole ti, and then she saw it...
The phone was bent inward right at the center!
It must have hit a rock when she fell earlier. She hadn't noticed at the ti, but looking at it now, the shape had completely changed.
It wouldn't even turn on.
Let alone receive calls—no wonder it hadn't made a sound.
Actually, thinking about it, it would have been weirder if the phone *hadn't* rung. Aside from her father, others—at least her two friends—definitely would have called. She hadn't realized it then, but now that she was calm, she saw sothing was wrong.
Miyamizu Toshiki let go of Mitsuha and stepped back a few paces to look her over. Under the glow of the public lights, he saw the scrapes from her fall.
He imdiately called for a doctor to perform a check-up—the doctors at the mont were just following the general staff to help maintain order. Since no one was injured, they had almost no work to do.
Before long, Mitsuha's two friends ca running over. The three of them hugged tightly, crying tears of joy.
anwhile, Akishin was surrounded by Yuika and the others. They walked toward the very back of the crowd to a small, empty patch of grass.
Sakurai Kaiko pulled out a picnic blanket and spread it out, then brought out various delicious foods from the van behind them.
This was preparation for dinner, or perhaps a midnight snack. Earlier, for the sake of a quick evacuation, no one had found the ti to eat.
The Kondo family, the Sakurai family, plus Akishin and Shizuka—together under the moonlight and the night breeze that carried a faint scent of charred air—they enjoyed a rather lavish dinner in the aftermath of the disaster.
The governnt organizations led by Miyamizu Toshiki were also distributing food, but those fast-food items or compressed biscuits could hardly compare to the items prepared in advance.
Once they finished eating, they set up the camping tents they had prepared and got ready for sleep.
Akishin and Seiji Sakurai took turns keeping watch through the night.
...
The next day.
Akishin was surprised to find that everyone assud the disaster avoidance yesterday was because they happened to be conducting a disaster drill.
Even Shizuka and the others thought so. The residents had thought that way from the beginning. Mitsuha's friends didn't clearly rember why they had gone to blow up the substation.
Except for Akishin, it seed everyone's mories had been altered. mories regarding the specific effort to avoid the teorite had essentially vanished.
Although many things remained incomprehensible and unexplained, everyone simply stopped thinking about them.
When larger-scale aid arrived from the city, the Japanese governnt also asked these questions, but after yielding no results, the matter was simply dropped.
No, it should be said they quickly stopped caring. This was highly abnormal for the Japanese governnt; a deeper investigation should have been conducted.
Unfortunately, they didn't. After asking, they just closed the files. The feeling was...
As if they were ignoring the incident entirely.
Like ignoring a common weed found anywhere by the roadside—an omission at the cognitive level. Would you really care deeply about a weed on the side of the road?
'Is this the power of world correction?'
Akishin couldn't help but think of this phrase, which he had coincidentally seen in a brain-taxing sci-fi mystery drama once.
The plot of that drama generally told of soone from the future who crossed back in ti to save his wife.
His wife was indeed saved, but after he left, she died in a different accident, and after that, history slowly returned to its original orbit...
What that person did was completely useless. On a larger tiscale, his journey back to the past was actually part of the future's process.
The past cannot be changed. If you truly succeed, then you would negate your own existence... The simplest analogy is "I go back in ti and kill my grandmother when she was a child."
That is a sentence structure that cannot happen. If your mother doesn't exist, then you don't exist, so how could you go back in ti?
And if you don't go back in ti, you can't kill your grandmother. If your grandmother is fine, then your mother exists, and you exist...
Thinking about it this way, Mitsuha's previous actions could be explained.
Ti Turbulence!
From her sad remark about forgetting soone's na, it could be assud that Mitsuha had ford a connection with soone from the future.
This connection might have taken the form of a body swap. It was from that person in the future that she learned about the disaster in Itomori Town, leading to the actions of today...
There might indeed be divine intervention involved, or perhaps a glitch in ti—who knew?
The point was, Mitsuha had truly succeeded in changing the future!
Once this event ended, the world's self-repairing force slowly erased the information. There was also the possibility that once changed, it was simply changed.
Before a specific future is known, the current ti is the leading edge of the tiline, and the future here is not fixed.
If a specific future were truly known, then that future would be set in stone, aning people who survived a disaster they were ant to die in might still die later.
This is the front line of ti.
Before knowing what the future holds, every period of ti is the front line.
The future holds infinite possibilities.
This is the power of world repair.
If one knows the original plot and adds just one person, it turns into a new tiline—a tiline different from the original.
To do this, one would need the ability to see the future of this world from a higher dinsion. A being from the sa dinsion couldn't possibly do it...
Cough!
Getting a bit off-topic.
Back to the main point.
After the second day, Akishin's group left Itomori Town and headed toward Chiba City.
The Sakurai couple stayed behind in Itomori. The Sakurai family ho hadn't collapsed, but it was severely damaged and uninhabitable. Even so, they didn't want to go to Chiba.
This was their hotown.
Besides, staying here with governnt placent assistance ant life was actually quite good, and they would eventually receive a significant amount of aid money.
Actually, it was that last point that mattered most. This event was truly miraculous and had drawn a lot of attention. Even for the sake of the governnt's pride, they would be settled very well.
...
The Chishima Residence!
It had been a while—no, it should have only been three days since the door was last opened, but because of the cot incident, it felt like ages had passed.
The familiar little old shop, the familiar Konishi Street, and the familiar people.
Greeting Mrs. Miyako, giving a pack of Itomori-specialty candy to Hotaru, and then inviting everyone inside.
Kaiko and Shizuka, of course, were still tagged along.
A specific house hadn't been rented yet. Akishin planned to let the Kondo family stay at the Chishima Residence for a couple of days first, then move once they found a suitable place.
After all, the Chishima Residence had plenty of rooms.
And upon hearing this, Shizuka also decided to stay for two days under the pretext of helping out.
"Kondo, you help your grandmother to the activity room first. You already know where the tea and other things are..."
"Soichi, put the luggage in the small Dojo first, over at the far end. That place used to be a warehouse..."
"Let's see... Shizuka-chan, cleaning a room is such a hassle. How about you just sleep in my room with ... Haha, kidding, just kidding, my mistake! You sleep in the room next to mine..."
Akishin organized everyone's tasks.
After a mont of chaos, everything was finally settled.
One phase had been completed.
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