Two days had passed since the Trial of Solitude ended. Standing on that lake, the water surface solidifying only beneath her feet, the moment Haru's voice reached her from a distance and something stirred deep in her chest—these memories floated thinly on the surface of her consciousness even during the day. Erika did not call this emotion. Could not call it. She simply felt something stored in a drawer occasionally trembling faintly, like a record being retrieved. Since touching the core of solitude at that lake, another change had occurred within Erika. She had become aware of people's gazes. Until then, she had received her classmates' stares and her teachers' glances only through a thin filter. Now—not yet as emotion, but—gazes had begun to "reach" her. Not pierce. Reach. That sensation. It sometimes caught like a thorn, if she was being honest. Yesterday, she had stopped abruptly while walking down the hallway of Miage Hama Minami High School. From the third-floor window, Sagami Bay was faintly visible. Beneath the cloudy sky, a sea surface nearly gray. A sight that she would have previously processed as mere data—"cloudy. Low-illumination sea surface"—now pressed faintly somewhere in her chest. There was a sensation of pressing. But she still didn't know what it was. And that morning, when she arrived at school, Takahashi Rina was sitting in the window-side seat of Class 2-B—right next to Erika's seat—waiting. Bright chestnut-colored long hair in waves, a figure full of vitality. Dimples appeared on her chin when she smiled. Her powerful voice echoed down the hallway, and classmates would wryly smile and say "it's Rina again"—that type. The friend closest to Erika, the one who had been worrying about her most clearly. "Erika," Takahashi Rina said. Rina leaned in to look directly at Erika's face the moment she sat down. Deep green eyes directed straight at her. Her usual cheerful tone was slightly different. The will to properly confirm something showed through the bottom of her voice. "You've been expressionless for days now. Did something happen?" Takahashi Rina asked. Erika observed Rina's face for a beat. She wasn't angry. Wasn't blaming her. Just looking. Eyes that didn't stop looking. "I'm always like this," Erika answered quietly. She didn't lie. But she couldn't explain either. No matter how she tried to verbalize the fact that "emotion has been stripped away," it didn't feel like it would get through. Rina fell silent for a moment. A pause as if thinking about something. Then she stood up with a clatter. "Let's go to the rooftop during lunch," Takahashi Rina said. It was a declaration. Not a consultation or a suggestion. Erika simply answered, "Understood." --- At lunch, the two stood in front of the fire door on the fourth floor. Rina twisted the lock with a nonchalant expression—using that method the students shared among themselves, the one that exploited the lock's weakness. The door creaked open. The rooftop was windy. The smell of salt spray blowing up from Sagami Bay. The sea was visible in the distance. Beneath the gray sky, the sea surface gleamed lead-colored. There were no benches, only a concrete floor stretching out. Rina walked without hesitation to the railing, took a deep breath toward the sea, and said just one thing: "Watch this." "Uwaaaaaaahhhhh!!!" Takahashi Rina shouted. It was a shout from the depths of her being. The volume was genuine. That voice that stood out even in the hallway flew straight up into the rooftop sky—or should have. The sea wind blew back forcefully. Rina's shout came almost entirely back at her face. Her hair plastered against her face with a whoosh. Rina stood frozen in place for a moment, mouth still open. Then she turned around, made a slightly bitter face, and laughed. Her dimple deepened for just an instant. "...The sea wind took it all away," Takahashi Rina said. Erika watched the scene in silence. There was no emotion. But she noticed that her eyes followed Rina's "scream therapy"—which she had attempted with such dignity only to be completely blown away by the sea wind—for slightly longer than usual. Rina turned her back to the railing and dropped down onto the concrete floor with a thud. She didn't say "you sit too," just left a small space beside her. Erika silently lowered herself next to her. Only the sound of the salt wind flowed between them. There were no words between the two. Rina tried to say something, then stopped. Tried again, then stopped again. Erika observed the motion of her opening and closing her mouth from the corner of her eye. Eventually, Rina spoke while looking down slightly. Her voice sounded wrung out. "You don't have to force yourself to smile. You're you because you're you," Takahashi Rina said. It was brief. The form of words not prepared in advance. Because of that, something reached Erika—not as emotion, but as thought. She quietly considered what Rina had felt while continuing to sit beside her, speaking those words. She looked at Rina's profile. Her hair swayed in the wind. The way her chestnut-colored hair tips caught the light and wavered—Erika observed it for a much longer time than usual, her gaze fixed. She didn't know why she was doing so. To lose a person who continued to exist like this. This profile. The outline of the words "I don't want to lose it" was quietly born as thought. It wasn't emotion. But it was the first form of recognition. It was quietly recorded within Erika. --- Night came. A six-mat room on the second floor. Outside the window, a deep indigo sky. Erika lay on her bed and counted seven stains on the ceiling. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—they seemed to appear slightly clearer than before. Rina's profile from the rooftop lingered at the edge of her consciousness. Those words. That wrung-out quality of voice. She closed her eyes. Consciousness sank. --- Gray ash touched her soles. No temperature. No sound. A single color of ash. The entrance to the Dream Realm—this wasteland she had been visiting since her emotions were stripped away. This was her fourth descent. Seven paths of light extended to the horizon. Each was a passage to one of the seven Emotion Territories. Haru stood in his usual place. Worn school uniform. Faded blue-green short hair. Pale silver eyes looking at Erika. His usual carefree bearing, but Erika noticed immediately. The timing of his light banter was delayed by just one beat. "Yo. You came again," Haru said. His tone was as usual. But the lightness that usually followed those words—"So, where are we going?"—didn't come right away tonight. Just a brief pause. Erika didn't miss it. He knows something. Or he's concerned about something. Erika filed away that observation and turned her gaze to the third path of light. "Let's go," Erika said. Haru followed. He didn't try to walk ahead tonight. That too was slightly different from usual. As they progressed down the path, the scenery began to change. The gray desert faded, and in its place, the remnants of grass—shapes like withered stems—began to protrude sparsely from the ground. The soil color shifted from light brown to dark. The quality of the air was different. Heavy. As if there was moisture somewhere, but not the sensation of humidity—something else touched the surface of her skin. The Ruined Garden of Records—the Emotion Territory of regret—came into view. It must have been a garden once. The traces of stone pavement remained faintly on the ground. Trees that should have been arranged at equal intervals were now only withered forms. And covering all of it—the trees, the stone pavement, the outlines of the dried flower beds—were thorns. Black-dark green thorns covered the entire space as far as the eye could see. Their thickness varied, from thin vines to things as thick as an arm, tangled together in disorder, filling the entire space. "Touch them and they cut. Cut them and they multiply," Haru said briefly. His explanation was minimal. His flat voice indicated this was the rule of this place. "Each individual thorn holds some memory. Touch it and the memory plays," Haru said. Erika looked at one of the thorns. As she approached, she could see something floating on its surface. Not quite an image—the very texture of memory. Something floating with the resolution of sensation rather than visual resolution. Erika reached out her hand. Her fingertip touched the thorn's surface, and memory flowed in. Spring of first year middle school. The day a transfer student arrived. A girl with bright chestnut-colored hair, laughing with a cheerful voice. That girl remaining alone in the classroom after school, looking out the window. Erika had tried to call out to her. Her feet wouldn't move. She had come to the doorway and turned back. That afternoon—Rina's first day as a transfer student—the memory of Erika not calling out to her. Pain came. Not across her body's surface, but running along the inside of her outline. Like air touching a wound, like the sound of an emotional vessel with only its shape remaining creaking. Erika recognized it as "the form of regret." Not emotion. But as evidence that regret had existed here, the pain reached her. She touched the next thorn. The memory of Rina's birthday—winter of second year middle school—played. Erika had tried to go buy a present, hesitated in front of the store, time passed, and ultimately gave her nothing that day. Rina had laughed and said "it's fine." That smile should have pierced her chest—but at the time, Erika had directed her consciousness elsewhere before processing that "pierced" sensation. That memory now flowed from within the thorn. Pain accumulated. The next thorn. A day when Rina was looking down during class. Her shoulders trembled slightly as she gazed out the window. Erika had noticed. She had noticed and said nothing. Should she have called out? She didn't know. Or rather—there had been fear in calling out. The memory of pretending not to see. Erika's hand began to stiffen. Her fingers lost their strength. The accumulation of pain pressed against the inside of the emotional vessel. The total amount of regret toward Rina—delivered to Erika as a record with overwhelming mass. Had there been this much regret toward Rina? Erika processed this as thought. Each one was small. But accumulated like this, it became so heavy. Her hand trembled. At that moment, a presence appeared beside her. Haru stood beside Erika and gently placed his hand over the back of her hand holding the thorn. Not pressing down forcefully, just—overlaying. His hand covered hers from above. "You can just let go. You don't have to cut," Haru said. His voice was low and quiet. He assisted in the motion of releasing the thorn. Erika's fingers, one by one, separated from the thorn's surface. Her hand came free. Erika held the sensation of that contact—the temperature of Haru's hand overlaying hers—in the foreground of her consciousness for about three seconds. Then she deliberately pushed it to the back of her thoughts. The very fact of pushing it away was evidence that she had been paying attention to it. Erika quietly recorded this. Haru's voice, with something seeping into its usually low bottom, said: "How far can we go today," Haru said. Light words. But beneath them—concern. Beneath the form of his carefree voice, concern was definitely mixed in. Erika read precisely that this concern was directed at her. Something like warmth ignited faintly in her chest. It had no name. She couldn't quite call it emotion. But something was definitely there. --- The center of the garden drew closer. Where the traces of stone pavement gathered—where a fountain must have once stood—a withered pedestal remained. Not a drop of water. Only moss, faintly lingering. Right beside that fountain pedestal, a single thorn was a different color from the others. Dark purple, nearly black. Whil