Amelia Watson's Another Worldline: After the Time Loop, It's You
Amelia Watson, the time-traveling detective, finally escapes the endless time loop. She thinks she's found the perfect, peaceful worldline to settle down in—until she realizes her next-door neighbor and new partner is Iris, the girl she was absolutely forbidden from getting close to in any other timeline!
Amelia knows the rules. In every single loop she's experienced, the cool, perfect, and secretly obsessive detective-in-training Iris has confessed her love for her. And every single time, that
Amelia Watson's Another Worldline: After the Time Loop, It's You - The Price of Truth and the Time-Eating Cage
The cold air before dawn seeped into the underground archive of Urashima-dou Used Books.
Watson Amelia clenched her trembling fingers beneath the dim fluorescent lights. Her brown hair, bouncing at her shoulders, hung a little heavy in the damp air. Her amber eyes, unable to meet the silver gaze of Iris Ashford sitting before her, traced the grain of the wooden floor instead.
The shop owner, Ujikie Nodoka, had set down two steaming cups of barley tea before heading upstairs. She'd left behind only the words, "Take your time." As a peripheral collaborator with the Temporal Phenomena Research Society, the thirty-four-year-old used bookstore owner was accustomed to these kinds of "complicated consultations."
The underground archive was saturated with the scent of old paper. The bookshelves lining every wall were packed tight with handwritten research notes on temporal anomalies and ancient documents from the Edo period. Only the low hum of the ventilation fan filled the silence.
Iris had her glossy, waist-length black hair in its usual style—a single braid on the right side. Her silver eyes, which normally lit up the moment she saw Amelia, now simply waited, quiet and still, for Amelia's words.
The tears Iris had shed last night, chasing after her on the station platform, were still seared behind Amelia's eyelids.
*"Senpai disappearing is far scarier than any nightmare."*
That cry had shattered four thousand loops' worth of Amelia's self-denial.
*I must not be liked by anyone. When I get close, everyone becomes unhappy.*
After losing people again and again across four thousand loops, that was the iron vow Amelia had forged.
And now—it was beginning to melt.
"...Can you see my neck?"
With trembling hands, Amelia shifted her shirt collar just slightly.
On her nape, a faint trace of an old burn scar. A wound from the early loops, back when she still understood nothing. The skin was slightly taut, just a little paler than the surrounding area.
Iris stood up. Then, kneeling before Amelia, she gently reached out her hand.
"...May I touch it?"
Amelia gave a small nod.
Iris's slender, supple fingers touched the burn scar. The sensation of cold fingertips. Amelia's entire body trembled faintly.
"I looped four thousand times."
Her voice wouldn't come out right.
"The same three months, four thousand times. I couldn't change anything. I couldn't save anyone. And in all of that—you always tried to protect me, and went out of control."
Iris's fingers stopped dead.
"...Do you know the term 'canon timeline'?"
Amelia spoke an old term she'd had on loan from the Temporal Phenomena Research Society for far too long.
"It's the most stable worldline within the flow of time. In that canon timeline, you—there was a serial disappearance case called the September Knot Incident, and you... destroyed the evidence."
"...I destroyed evidence?"
"To protect me. You got it into your head that the culprit was targeting me, acted alone, and erased all the evidence. As a result, the case went unsolved. Seven people vanished and never came back."
Her voice trembled.
Four thousand times.
Four thousand times, she had seen the same ending.
The sight of Iris burning evidence as she wept.
The moment Amelia tried to stop her and couldn't make it in time.
And the sensation of the world returning to the beginning once more.
"That's why I—in this worldline, I tried to keep you away. I didn't want to make you do the same thing again. I didn't want... to lose you."
Tears spilled over.
Four thousand loops' worth of loneliness and terror overflowed as wordless sobs.
A truth she had never told anyone.
Memories no one had ever understood.
Now, for the first time—she was putting them into words.
Iris listened in silence.
From her silver eyes, too, tears streamed quietly down.
And the moment Amelia's words broke off—
Iris stood and embraced Amelia from the front.
Wrapping both arms around her back, tight, so tight.
The beat of Iris's heart transmitted directly into Amelia's chest. Warm. Soft. From her black hair came the faint scent of shampoo.
"The me right now... loves you, Senpai."
A trembling voice sounded by her ear.
"Is that... a crime?"
—No.
No, no, no.
The wall around Amelia's heart crumbled completely.
Four thousand loops' worth of the vow "you must not love anyone" was melting away in Iris's tears.
"...N-no... that's not... Iris... I..."
Words failed her.
For the first time in her life, Amelia clung to someone.
She wrapped her arms around Iris's back and held on. Like a child, she cried out loud.
Four thousand loops' worth of tears soaked into Iris's shoulder.
"I... I love you too...!"
She'd finally said it.
The true feelings she'd been too afraid to even admit to herself.
Iris tightened her embrace even more.
"...Senpai, please don't go off alone anymore."
"Yeah... I won't leave you again. I swear."
In the corner of the underground archive, the two shared a long, long embrace.
An eternal moment, as if time itself had stopped.
The scent of old paper. The faint buzz of the fluorescent lights. The rhythmic rotation of the ventilation fan.
Everything became a gentle backdrop enveloping the two of them.
—That was when it happened.
*Brrrrrrring—!*
Amelia's smartphone shattered the silence of the underground archive.
The name displayed on the screen was *Yarimizu Hayato*.
Wiping her tears with the back of her hand, Amelia pressed the call button.
"Watson-san! It's an emergency!"
Yarimizu's voice was more urgent than ever before.
"It's the abandoned Strike Park bowling alley. In the underground machine room—a visible temporal rift has appeared."
"...Visible?"
"Yes. I confirmed it on the surveillance camera footage. Inside, the missing persons from the cases so far—five people, including Saeki Shiori, are floating. Watson-san, this is already beyond what we in the police can handle. But if it's you—"
His voice was shaking.
Yarimizu, who had been completely obstinate in denying the occult, was asking for help for the first time.
"I believe you. Your story about time rewinding—I believe all of it now. So—please, help us."
Amelia stood up.
The tears had vanished from her amber eyes. In their place burned something else—the flame of absolute refusal to give up, forged across four thousand loops.
"Let's go, Iris."
She squeezed Iris's hand back.
This time, she would protect her.
This time, she would save them.
Four thousand failures—this time, she would turn them into success.
Strike Park was on the outskirts of a residential district in eastern Fuchigami City. Closed in 2018, it was now an abandoned ruin, owner unknown. Shattered window glass, rusted signs, weeds overrunning the parking lot.
As they descended the stairs to the basement, the air changed.
Heavy. Viscous. As if time itself had stagnated. Amelia's chrono-sense was screaming, having long since passed the point of mere alarm. The pulse meter on her left arm kept vibrating, displaying abnormal values.
She pushed open the heavy iron door of the underground machine room.
—There it was, before her eyes.
Five meters in diameter. A fissure of light, torn into the air.
There were no words to describe it. The air was ripped open, and beyond it stretched another space-time. From the edges of the rift, a faint pale-blue light leaked out, and the surrounding dust danced slowly, as if in slow motion.
And—inside.
Five women, including Saeki Shiori, floated as if drifting through water. All of them had their eyes closed and appeared unconscious.
"...This is..."
Iris gasped.
"A time-eater—the common name for a temporal rift. Once you enter, the time distortion swallows you, and you can't return."
As Amelia took a step forward, Iris grabbed her arm.
"Senpai, you can't be—"
"I have no choice but to go."
"No! If I lose you too, Senpai, I—"
"Iris, I believe in your chrono-sense."
Amelia placed her hands on Iris's shoulders.
"You can visualize the rift's structure. Calculate the flow of time inside and the time until it closes. I'll—go inside, bring everyone back."
"But—"
"Four thousand times, I couldn't save anyone."
Amelia's voice resonated low.
"But this time is different. I have you. I have—a place to come back to. You."
Tears welled up in Iris's silver eyes again.
And then—she nodded. Firmly, strongly.
"...I understand. I absolutely will not let you die alone, Senpai."
Iris closed her eyes.
In that instant—
Her silver eyes began to glow faintly from within.
Chrono-sense, full activation.
In her vision, the structure of the rift became visible. The flow of time appeared like bands of light. The swirling distortion of space-time. The difference in temporal progression speed relative to the outside.
"Senpai! Time inside is progressing at three times the rate outside! And—we have thirty minutes until the rift closes!"
"Plenty of time."
Amelia broke into a run toward the rift.
"Senpai—!!"
—She dove in.
The world inverted.
The sense of up, down, left, right vanished. Chaos where past and present intermingled. Before her eyes, four thousand loops' worth of her own memories flashed back—burning buildings, vanishing people, Iris screaming and crying—
(—But.)
(This time is different.)
Amelia sharpened the sense she had cultivated through her loop experience: the ability to not get lost within time.
Four thousand times, she had repeated the same span of time.
Within that, she had acquired the skill to not lose her sense of direction even inside temporal distortions.
She could see.
Within the warped space, the positions of the victims, clear as day.
The first one.
Amelia reached out and grabbed the woman's arm. Pulled her close. Toward the rift's exit—she threw her.
Outside, Yarimizu was standing by.
"Catch her, Yarimizu!"
"W-Watson-san!?"
The woman's body was hurled out of the rift. Yarimizu frantically caught her.
The second. The third.
Amelia rescued them one after another. The weight felt like her arms would tear off. Her muscles screamed. But—she didn't stop.
Outside, Iris maintained her chrono-sense even as blood dripped from her nose.
She was visualizing the rift's aperture, slightly slowing the speed of its closure. An exertion of power beyond her limits. Light overflowed from her silver eyes, her braid came undone, and her black hair fanned out.
"Not yet... don't close yet...!"
The fourth.
And then—the last one. Saeki Shiori.
Amelia swam to her and held her body.
In that moment—
The rift began to close rapidly.
"Iris!!"
"Senpai—!!"
Iris thrust both hands into the rift.
Blood spurted from her fingertips. Her nails peeled back. Even so, she tried to pry open the space-time rift with her bare hands.
"Don't you closeeeee!!!"
Iris's scream echoed through the underground machine room.
Her silver eyes blazed brighter than ever before.
The rift's closure—stopped, for just an instant.
Amelia did not miss that instant.
Carrying Saeki Shiori, she pushed through the rift with the last of her strength—!
—*BOOOOM!!*
Amelia's body was slammed against the concrete floor.
Simultaneously, the rift closed completely. The pale-blue light vanished, and the original silence returned to the underground machine room.
"Senpai, Senpai...!"
With bloodied hands, Iris clung to Amelia.
"...I'm okay. I made it back."
Amelia stroked Iris's head.
The five victims lay on the floor. All were unconscious—but breathing.
They were saved.
This time—she had saved them.
Yarimizu stood there, dumbfounded.
"...This is, well..."
His 182-centimeter frame was trembling. His neatly parted black hair was disheveled, and the furrow between his brows had deepened further.
"Need an explanation?"
Supporting the blood-soaked Iris, Amelia grinned.
Yarimizu blinked several times.
And then—
"...No, I'm fine."
He was dead serious.
"I'm sure there's some kind of trick to it. I still can't comprehend it—but, certainly, fiv
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