Last night, Shun opened the drawer twice. The first time was to check the coaster. The copper-colored round plate returned a quiet weight into his palm. The second time was to check a scrap of notebook. Three things were lined up in his own handwriting: the face of a man named Minbu, the name of an organization called Chrono Falx, and a place called Kuresome Alley. The facts he'd organized hadn't changed. Today, Kaihan would move. Walking down the hallway of Hozumi Gaoka High School in the morning, Shun felt his posture straighten slightly compared to last night. He hadn't tried to straighten it. The weight of the coaster placed in his uniform's inner pocket seemed to have done it naturally. "Shun!" The moment Aki turned the corner, he came flying in with a changed expression. His necktie was loosely tied as usual, but his breathing was slightly elevated. "It's today" "What is" "Kaihan. They're moving. Apparently they're going to raid Kuresome Alley sometime today" "Apparently—where did you get that information" "Last night, the third floor of Greydbuild had lights on late. This morning, I saw two people in suits walking toward the south exit. Also, the melon bread I bought yesterday wasn't there today, but that's probably unrelated" "That last part is definitely unrelated" The three of them huddled at the end of the hallway. Akari came over, her pale chestnut-colored medium-length hair swaying. Her emerald green eyes looked back and forth between Aki and Shun. With her hand in her pocket, tension showed in her fingertips as if she were gripping something. "I heard. What's going on" "I'll organize it" Shun opened his notebook and began sorting the fragmented information Aki had laid out into three columns. Facts, speculation, unknown. Akari leaned in to look at his hands. After a brief pause, she spoke quietly. "Again, this" "Again—what do you mean" "You were doing the same thing yesterday at lunch break. But..." Akari's words trailed off. Her smile faded, swallowed by the weight of the facts lined up in the notebook. The sensation of crumpling the career survey form in her pocket was vivid at her fingertips. The three of them didn't wait for after school. Before any of them spoke it aloud, they had already decided to head to Kuresome Alley during lunch break. —— When they entered the old town district, the air changed. The bustle of the station area faded like a lie, and wooden buildings unchanged since the Showa era continued on both sides. Candlesticks lined the latticed window of the antique shop "Kaitoudou," and the sweet smell of chestnut steamed yokan drifted from the eaves of the Japanese sweets shop "Yuzuki." Kuresome Alley, barely two meters wide. The stone pavement received the midday light at an angle, deepening the shadows of its unevenness. The moment the three of them were about to step into the alley. Three men in suits stood at the entrance of the alley. "Leave it to me" He was already running before he finished speaking. "Aki, wait——" "I said leave it to me!" Shun could only watch Aki's back as he charged straight at the three members of Kaihan. An alley barely two meters wide. Aki hadn't grasped the structure beyond the corner of Kaitoudou. In less than ten seconds, "...ah" It was a dead end. Shun spoke softly. "That's a dead end" Aki answered immediately without turning around. "I knew" "If you knew, you wouldn't have turned" "Strategic dead end" "There's no such strategy" But as a result, the gazes and feet of Kaihan's three members turned toward Aki. In that gap, Akari ran toward the end of Kuresome Alley while contacting Lizette. Shun chose a narrow alley that went around the back of Kaitoudou and ran. Aki, returning from the dead end, began drawing the operatives deeper into the intricately winding alleys. The unplanned feint somehow worked. —— When Shun opened the cafe door, the low sound of a coffee mill echoed. Akari was facing Lizette at the end of the counter. Seven clocks, each ticking at different speeds, their sounds quietly settling into the bottom of the space. Lizette had already begun some kind of preparation. Her hands moved behind the counter as she posed a question to Akari. Her jade-colored eyes remained calm, but a certain tension was clearly drawn within them. "What is it that frightens you right now" Akari stopped. The career survey form in her pocket touched her fingertips. "Making a mistake" She answered briefly, but without hesitation. Lizette paused for a moment. Only the sound of the coffee mill continued. "The path not taken and the path taken in error are not the same" That was all. But something changed within Akari. It was like a single tangled thread coming loose. Not moving because someone told her to, but deciding with her own feet——Akari decided to stand before the corridor. —— Shortly after Shun arrived at the cafe, the door opened again. It was Minbu Ren. The leader of Kaihan——a man in his early thirties, slender, with neatly arranged hair and a calm expression. The same person who had stood on the stone pavement with a terminal in hand during last week's dusk in Kuresome Alley. Today he wasn't even disguised as a real estate agent. He simply entered the shop in a suit, with the quiet of someone who had come to accomplish something. "I will be installing the temporal layer liquid extraction device" His voice was calm. Not threatening, but like stating an administrative procedure. Shun couldn't say anything. The same self from the first episode——unable to say anything because he was choosing his words too carefully——stood there. What could he say. What words were right. What was a cool phrase. A rebuttal. A basis. While he was thinking such things, Minbu began walking toward the corridor. That was the moment. From the direction of the fourth door among the seven clocks hanging on the wall, something began to ring. Not a sound. But something was definitely ringing. The coaster in his inner pocket seemed to hold warmth through his chest skin. The tactile sensation of the translated book he'd read at Gakurou returned. The feel of a handwritten passage that said "the path not taken seeps in." Six episodes' worth of nights and days, and the dusk of the Kuseikawa River. Shun's feet moved. He entered the corridor to block Minbu's path, standing before the fourth door. The brass handle was red. More clearly than before, red. He grasped the handle. —— What he saw beyond the door was not a completed self. It was a self standing at countless branching points. There was a silent night. A morning when he'd put away the blank career survey form in a drawer. A dusk when his feet had stopped on the bank of the Kuseikawa River. A path home where he'd held the coaster up to the light. These overlapped and were transparent, and every version of himself had fallen. Fallen, and moved toward the next branching point. He hadn't been standing because he had confidence. He had been standing because he'd repeated the choice to get back up even after falling. That quietness descended into a place deeper than emotional outburst. Not tears or screams, but quietly, it descended. —— Shun, returning from the corridor, faced Minbu. He searched for the right words. He searched for cool words. But what came out was what remained after he stopped searching. "I won't hand this over" Three characters, a particle, and a verb. That was all. But that was all. Having met this place in a month, having met Aki, Akari, and Lizette, the self that couldn't hold his own words had finally held them, and that weight was exactly there. Minbu took a step forward. Akari was standing at the entrance to the corridor. She didn't move. She met Minbu's gaze head-on and didn't retreat a single step. The person who had said "I'm afraid of making mistakes" was standing here. Standing by choice. At that moment, a sound came from the first floor hall. The extraction device that Kaihan's operatives had been rushing to install——the machine meant to artificially extract temporal layer liquid——began to show an unstable reaction. As a result of artificial extraction without Lizette's technique never having succeeded safely even once, the device collapsed from within, releasing white smoke. Minbu checked his small terminal. He saw the numbers and made a judgment in seconds. "We're withdrawing" His voice remained calm. No anger, no panic, just the voice of someone stating a fact. Outside, Aki was still buying time by drawing the operatives into the winding alleys of Kuresome Alley. But when Kaihan began their withdrawal, the operatives who had been drawn in couldn't find their way out on their own. "...where did you guys come from" Silence. "Shall I show you the way" Aware that he was helping the enemy retreat, Aki led the three operatives to the alley's exit. Walking at the front with a mixture of bitterness and absurdity. —— After Kaihan left, silence returned to Kuresome Alley. "You hurt" "No" "Me neither. Also I gave directions to the enemy" "I know" "I thought it seemed kind of strategic" "There's no strategy in a feint that started from a dead end" "Shut up" Akari laughed softly. Dimples appeared on both cheeks. The sound of tension releasing all at once seemed to mix with her laughter. —— Back at the cafe, Lizette had prepared three warm things at the counter. Not coffee, but something with the scent of herbs. No temporal layer liquid. Just warmth. Aki confirmed something with Lizette a moment later. "Can we come again" "When you're ready, the door will be visible" "That answer again" He said it with a wry smile. But today's wry smile was slightly warmer than the night he'd first heard that answer. It was a smile that suggested Aki himself knew this, and he moved to a seat away from the counter. Naturally, a moment was created where Shun and Akari sat side by side at the counter. For a while, neither of them said anything. Only the sound of the coffee mill and the ticking of the clock hands filled the space. Seven clocks, each ticking their own time at different speeds. Akari spoke first. "Today, I wasn't scared" She said it quietly, as if confirming something. Still unable to properly put into words the sensation of "choosing for myself" that she'd felt in the corridor. But that sensation was real, and it still remained in her fingertips. Shun turned that phrase over in his mind. Not scared. Not that she wasn't scared, but that she had stood even while being scared——what that meant, she had felt in the corridor. The countless versions of herself that had fallen but moved toward the next branching point had taught her. While he was searching for those words, Akari quietly extended her hand. Akari's hand, placed on the counter. On the bank of the Kuseikawa River in the fourth episode, Shun's feet had stopped. This time, his hand moved. Not on impulse or by chance. The distance accumulated over six episodes had arrived naturally as an extension of resolve. Akari's hand was warm. Seven clocks ticking at different speeds. But in this moment alone, it felt as if everyone was in the same time, and a quietness filled the cafe. Lizette opened her mouth calmly from behind the counter. Her voice was calm. But it carried a definitive weight. "Of the seven doors, there are still four" The three listened quietly. "Beyond the remaining three——there are things that you, as you are now, must not see" In that moment, Lizette's jade-colored eyes reflected a distant time for just one beat. The stone pavement of Kuresome Alley appeared. The same alley as now, but the color of the light was different. A young man stood before a copper sign with his notebook open, and beyond him Lizette stood with the same expression. The light of 1973. Shun had heard the name Dojima Genichiro from Lizette on the night of the fifth episode——the