In the palm of her hand, it still remained. The afterimage of that warmth—a sensation both warm and insubstantial, the touch of Haru's hand. Ever since the trial of anger ended, it had been imprinted beneath the skin of Erika's right palm, refusing to fade. When she woke, when she washed her face at the sink, when she threaded her arms through her uniform—that sensation persisted, faint but undeniable. Erika climbed the slope leading to Mikagehama Minami High School at a steady pace. Wind from Sagami Bay lifted the hem of her blazer, carrying the scent of morning tide. She quietly inventoried the emotions she had recovered. Fear. Loneliness. Regret. Anger. Four of them, each settled in their own drawer. Three remained—shame, sorrow, and yearning. Of the seven emotional domains, four still lay unexplored. And the innermost corridor waited beyond the seven realms. When counted, they were asymmetrical. The recovered side and the lost side. That asymmetry formed Erika's current outline. Halfway up the slope was a back entrance to the school store. Today she had modern literature first period, with a long lunch break. Erika paused briefly and decided to stop by the store. Yakisoba pan—the school store's specialty, the kind lined up at the far end of the first-floor shelf—buying one would free up her lunch time. She reached the shelf and picked up a yakisoba pan. One hundred eighty yen. She went to open her wallet— She searched inside her tote bag. The zipper pocket. The outer pocket. The inside again. Her wallet wasn't there. Erika stood motionless for three seconds. She traced back her thoughts. The memory of leaving it on her desk this morning replayed with perfect clarity. She quietly returned the yakisoba pan to the shelf. She turned on her heel. A small click of her tongue escaped. It was a quiet sound. But it was unmistakably something that had come from within Erika herself. Irritation—the kind of everyday, trivial emotional movement. Ordinary frustration at her own forgetfulness. This was a type of reaction that would have been absolutely impossible during the time when her emotions were severed, yet here it was, happening in the school store on a morning like any other. Erika quietly confirmed this fact as she walked back down the slope. The fact that she had clicked her tongue—that she was there, having done so—weighed slightly more than the fact that she would miss eating the yakisoba pan. --- When afternoon classes ended and evening began to settle over the classroom, Takahashi Rina called out to her. "Erika, want to go to Sugar Coast?" Her voice was a step lower than usual. Cheerful, but not forceful. The quality of the words was more of a question than an invitation. Not "Let's go!" or "You have to come!" but simply "Want to go?" Erika looked directly at Rina's face. Her bright chestnut-colored long hair waved gently. Her lustrous green eyes looked at Erika. Her dimpled chin hung at a relaxed angle. Erika immediately read the quality of that single phrase. It wasn't resignation. She had brought neither loud insistence nor force—this was an invitation in the form of "respect." You can come, or you don't have to. But I'd be happy if you did. Rina's words compressed all of that into a single sentence. "I'll go." Erika answered. Briefly, but certainly. --- Ushio-kaze Street—a shopping arcade of about three hundred meters extending from the north exit of Mikagehama Station—saw slightly more foot traffic in the evening. A quiet shopping arcade with a thirty percent vacancy rate. Yet when the twilight light fell on the stone pavement, it somehow gained warmth. Sugar Coast—the crepe shop where owner Okano Misaki worked the batter with practiced hands—Rina paused while looking at the menu and chose strawberry custard. Erika selected simple whipped cream. The two sat side by side on a bench near the breakwater. Sagami Bay was visible. The evening sea was a dull silver, waves washing ashore in regular rhythm. Holding their crepes, they said nothing for a while. It was silence, but not a heavy one. Rina seemed about to say something. Erika sensed it from the corner of her eye. Rina's mouth opened slightly—then closed. Opened again—closed again. While looking at the sea, she repeated the motion of trying to speak and holding back. Watching this, Rina's cheeks twitched into the shape of a smile. A smile that seemed to laugh at "herself unable to speak," an expression mixed with self-mockery and resignation. Erika observed Rina's profile for slightly longer than usual. Distinct dimples. Chestnut hair tips swaying in the sea breeze. The repeated motion of trying to convey something while pulling back the words. Erika knew that the "worry for Erika" that Rina carried took this form before it became words—she knew this, and that sense of knowing was truly present now. The distance was shrinking. That fact existed quietly within Erika's chest. Too vague in form to be called an emotion, yet something was unmistakably there. Not heat, but something like a subtle shift in temperature. Erika looked at her own right hand. Her left hand, not holding the crepe, rested on her lap. Rina's hand was placed on the bench right beside Erika's. About five centimeters of distance. Before thought could catch up, her fingers moved. Erika gently placed her hand over Rina's. There were no words. No words to explain the intention. Just the fact that the distance was shrinking—the desire to express that outward, a movement without a name, moved her hand. Rina's fingers froze for a moment. Stopped. Then slowly, Rina turned her face toward Erika. She was smiling quietly, with an expression on the verge of tears. Dimples formed. The corners of her eyes held light. But she didn't cry. She smiled while wearing an expression about to weep. Erika received the structure of that expression not through logic but through sensation. Joy mixed with something else—that complex face. She couldn't yet put into words what that something was—but the fact of receiving it settled firmly in her chest. A small, irreversible change. --- At night, consciousness fell. The sensation of reaching the Ash Wasteland—the gray desert spreading at the entrance to the dream realm—was familiar by now. No temperature, no humidity, no sound, no color—an infinite wilderness. The sand beneath her feet remained gray, stretching to the horizon without end. Haru was there. In a worn student uniform. Dull blue-green short hair that bounced slightly even in the windless wasteland. Pale silver eyes looked at Erika. Usually his light banter came first, but tonight was different. He read her expression for a moment—then closed his mouth. "..." Erika stood at the center of the wasteland. Her feet stopped there. Light was coming from a different direction than before. The seven paths of light each led to their respective emotional domains, but the light Erika noticed for the first time tonight—rose vertically from the ground. Not ascending upward but falling inward from a single point on the earth, a pale pillar of light. Haru spoke quietly. His voice was lower than usual, lacking its usual levity. Something like prepared silence drifted beneath his words. "The passage to the innermost corridor has opened." Erika grasped the quality of that change in his voice precisely. When Haru, usually so carefree, spoke like this—it was when he removed the mask of jokes. Tonight, Haru hadn't been wearing a mask from the start. Something caught in her chest. --- Following the pillar of light, the sand beneath her feet changed. It became stone. Dark stone arranged in regular patterns—a corridor entrance opened its mouth ahead. Haru's feet stopped. One step before the entrance. Erika turned back. Haru stood there. There was no sign of moving forward. Not unable to proceed, but—he had decided not to. "This is as far as I go." There was no excuse. No carefree tone. Just that fact, stated plainly. The guide's role ended here tonight—Erika tried to organize the meaning of those words, but before she could, she felt something move within her. A question she had kept locked away finally sought to become voice. Erika didn't move a step, looking directly at Haru. "What are you really?" Her voice was quiet but had backbone. A question she had never voiced across five nights. The three inconsistencies about Haru—his prepared tone, his familiarity with the dream realm, the distortion of his outline—she had kept them locked away not from hesitation but from measuring the right moment to ask. Tonight was that moment. Haru didn't answer. Seconds of silence flowed. The wasteland was soundless. Only the pillar of light rose quietly from the ground. Then Haru's expression changed. Erika saw it. A face she had never seen across five nights. Not joking, not concerned, not performing—the face of one feeling something deeply. It was an expression unfamiliar to Erika, yet she understood it. The face of an emotional being looking at someone with emotion. "...When you've recovered everything, you might understand me too." His voice was low. It carried weight. Not an answer, but a signpost toward one. Erika tried to grasp the meaning of those words. When she had recovered everything—Haru's true nature would be revealed. That meant that beyond recovering everything, there might be something painful waiting for Erika. That premonition was contained within his words, and she didn't want to turn away from it. That will was born within Erika—and when she tried to trace what lay behind that will, her thoughts slipped. She still didn't understand. But the question was certainly born. Erika confirmed Haru's outline. At the boundary of the entrance—his body's contour was trembling faintly. The distortion she had seen before, but tonight it seemed amplified by touching the boundary line. His existence became uncertain at this entrance. Erika turned forward. Alone, she stepped into the corridor. --- The corridor inside was long. The walls were made of stone the color of deep green approaching black, with a cold luster. The ceiling was at a height she couldn't see. Only the ground beneath her feet glowed faintly, and the passage extending forward disappeared into unknowable distance. There was no sound. Only Erika's footsteps echoed, absorbed into the stone floor. As she progressed, something began to appear on the walls. At first it was vague flickering light. Gradually it took form. A familiar form—the continuation of the memory of thorns she had touched in the abandoned garden of the fourth night. What lay beneath those dark purple brambles. A living room. A winter night, six years ago. In the image on the wall, her father and mother were arguing. The sound didn't carry, but the tension in their bodies filled the entire room. One dining chair lay overturned. The television remained off. Young Erika—ten years old then—peeked from the hallway, watching the scene. Black short bob, large brown eyes. A body smaller than her current self, pressed against the wall. The argument stopped. Silence filled the living room. In that silence, young Erika was left alone in the living room. Her father entered another room. Her mother disappeared into the kitchen. Young Erika stared at the overturned chair. She stood there for a while. Then she returned to her own room and crawled under her blanket. The image on the wall entered that room. Young Erika hugged her knees under the blanket. Both ears covered. Her father and mother's voices reached through the wall from outside—fragments of broken words. Young Erika's lips moved. There was no sound, but the shape of her lips was readable. "I wish this whole house would disappear." That was all. A single phrase, a curse melted in the mouth of a ten-year-old on a night of her limit. Erika continued walking through the corridor, watching that image. The next morning's image beg