The Seven-Colored Scar: Komaru Kurikomas Time Reversal
Komaru Kurikoma died. She was stabbed protecting her beloved senpai. But when she opened her eyes, she had returned to one week before her death.
'This time, I will protect her.'
Komaru trembles as she checks her phone. In seven days, her senpai will be murdered. She knows who the killer is. But no one believes her. If she talks about the future, they'll just say she's crazy.
So Komaru decides to act alone. But every time she changes something, the future shifts. At first it's small things—di
The Seven-Colored Scar: Komaru Kurikomas Time Reversal - The Seventh Day's Rock Bottom
Darkness.
Only the cold feel of concrete kept Komaru tethered to reality.
Her fingertips twitched faintly.
Pain at her wrists. Rope marks.
Her throat burned with thirst. Two days. Not a single drop of water. Her stomach spasmed. Hunger had passed beyond pain. Now it just sat in her gut like heavy mud.
(*—What time is it?*)
Tsukimori Housing Complex, Building C-4. Underground storage room.
A windowless eight-tatami concrete block. Her sense of time had shattered long ago. Sakuya had taken her smartphone.
From the ceiling vent, a faint draft. Cold, damp. The smell of mold and rust clung to her lungs.
Then—the inside of her left arm seared.
Heat.
"—"
A scream that never became sound.
She looked down. Under her long-sleeved cardigan. A violent pain, like an invisible brand crawling across her skin. Komaru scraped her body against the floor, desperately clutching her arm.
The pain subsided.
With trembling fingers, she pushed up her sleeve.
In the dim light, red lines surfaced on the inside of her left arm.
One, two, three… she counted.
(*Six…*)
And beyond them.
A new line, etched clearly.
The seventh.
Red lines marking the number of Regresses—Regre Marks.
(*I'm… going to die again?*)
Her heart hammered.
How had she died last time? The stun gun's shock. Darkness. Then—her memory cut off. Even in this loop, she had already died once.
Komaru pressed her left hand to her head.
(*I've died and come back six times. Lost my memories six times.*)
Holes in her memory.
What had she lost?
She thought.
Elementary school field trip. The lunch was sandwiches. She remembered.
Middle school entrance ceremony. Cherry blossoms in full bloom. The wind flipped her skirt. Embarrassing. She remembered.
Mom—.
Her thoughts stopped.
Mom.
Her face wouldn't come.
"No… way…"
Frantically, she reached into her skirt pocket. Sakuya had taken her smartphone, but an old flip phone—a spare family device—remained deep in the pocket. Power off. Two days. No calls from anyone.
Her fingers trembled.
She pressed the power button. The LCD glowed pale blue. The home screen appeared.
A family photo.
Father, mother, and her middle-school self. A summer festival, maybe. Wearing yukata, holding shaved ice. All three smiling.
She recognized her father.
She recognized herself.
Mother—.
A smiling woman was in the photo.
Black hair to her shoulders. Gentle eyes.
But Komaru—couldn't understand who she was.
"Who… is this person?"
She had memories. Cooking meals for her. Helping with homework. Scolding her. *'Komaru, you really are stubborn,'* she'd said, exasperated.
But the face alone had been scooped out completely.
Like a puzzle piece had vanished entirely.
The face of the person who gave birth to her—she didn't know it.
"No…!"
Komaru clutched the flip phone to her chest and curled up. Tears spilled, soaking into the dry concrete.
She was losing herself.
Memories—the most essential thing shaping a person—were scraped away with every Regress.
Every time she tried to protect her senpai, she herself disappeared.
—*Screech.*
Iron screaming.
The door opened.
"Hey, Komaru. Bored yet?"
She looked up.
White fluorescent light invaded the underground storage, dragging long shadows with it.
A silhouette against the backlight. Soft brown hair. Drooping eyes. A gentle outline.
Sakuya.
A plastic bottle in one hand. The other hand shoved in his pocket.
Sakuya approached slowly and crouched before her. Matching her eye level. A gesture unchanged from long ago.
"Thirsty, right? I brought water."
He opened the cap. Clear water swayed inside the bottle. Komaru's throat spasmed.
Sakuya twisted his lips—and smiled.
"But no. Seems like you still don't get it."
He raised the bottle and took a mouthful. His throat moved as he swallowed. He exhaled, refreshed, then—dumped the rest onto the concrete floor.
Water splashed. It wet Komaru's cheek.
"Ahh, what a waste."
A light tone.
A cheerful voice, like a child whose prank had succeeded.
Sakuya tossed the empty bottle aside. The sound of plastic bouncing on the floor echoed through the sealed room.
Komaru clenched her teeth.
"Sakuya-kun… how much of this is you still sane?"
"I'm sane. Always have been. Ever since second grade. Always."
Sakuya pulled something from his pocket.
A thin silver chain. An old bracelet with handmade ornaments.
The one Shizuru-senpai always wore. Her grandmother's keepsake. Always swaying on her left wrist when she read.
"You know what this is, right?"
Sakuya dangled the bracelet from his fingertips, swinging it before Komaru's eyes.
"Shizuru-senpai. Such a nice person. When I said 'Komaru's calling for you,' she followed right away with a worried face. Completely defenseless. So easy."
Before Komaru's eyes, the silver chain glinted.
Sakuya opened his hand.
The bracelet fell carelessly to the concrete floor.
A small metallic sound.
"Stop—"
Still bound, Komaru reached for the fallen bracelet. Her fingertips barely touched it. Cold metal.
That hand.
Sakuya's sneaker stomped down on it.
"Ow…!"
The bones in her fingers creaked.
"Tonight, I'm going to kill Shizuru-senpai."
Still stepping on her hand, Sakuya crouched down. With his free hand, he gently stroked Komaru's hair.
"Amagi Hill observation deck. They say you can see the stars beautifully there. Thought I'd show her a nice view at the end. I think she'll get a really good look at my knife."
"Stop it… that's wrong…!"
"It's not wrong. Everything I do is for you, Komaru."
The fingers stroking her hair traced behind her ear and touched her nape. Fingertips cold as ice. Goosebumps erupted across Komaru's entire body.
"Back in elementary school, you gave me an eraser. That made me so happy. I always thought only Komaru was on my side. But lately, all you do is look at Shizuru-senpai. Why? Am I not enough? I thought you promised to look only at me. That day, when you gave me half your eraser, I thought we became one. I don't need a world without Komaru. But in the same world, having Komaru's eyes not see me—that's even worse. So I'll erase every annoying thing in your sight. Then your eyes will see only me again. Everything will go back to how it was."
Despair crawled up Komaru's spine.
(*He's serious.*)
Sakuya stood. His sneaker lifted away. Komaru's fingers were swollen bright red.
"Well then, I'm off. Wait for good news."
The iron door closed. The lock clicked.
Footsteps faded.
Silence.
With her swollen fingers, Komaru gripped the silver bracelet on the floor.
"Senpai… Senpai…!"
She screamed and cried. Until her voice gave out. No one to help. The soundproof walls swallowed her voice and erased it.
(*At this rate, Senpai will be killed.*)
This time, her powerlessness sank into her bones. She'd gathered evidence. Asked teachers for help. Fought alone. All useless. Meaningless before Sakuya's twisted affection.
Shizuru-senpai would die. In this loop too, her own helplessness would let her die.
—Then.
"…I just have to die again."
Regress.
If she died, she could redo the seven days.
She had information this time. Sakuya's killing method: showing his knife at the Amagi Hill observation deck—stabbing, then. The crime would happen tonight. Doumeki-sensei could be an ally. Sakuya's confinement location: this underground storage room.
(*I can move far more advantageously than before.*)
But—.
Her left arm throbbed.
The seventh Regre Mark.
(*I'll lose more memories.*)
The price of Regress. The memory tied to the strongest emotion in this loop would vanish.
Just as her mother's face had.
What would she lose this time?
The after-school moment she first spoke to Senpai?
The night they watched the stars together?
Or—.
This very feeling of wanting to protect Senpai?
Just imagining it drove her mad with terror.
Forget Senpai's smile? The desire to protect her—gone?
(*That wouldn't be me anymore.*)
Dying and returning terrified her. Losing more of herself terrified her.
But—.
She pressed the bracelet she held to her chest.
(*As long as Senpai lives.*)
(*Even if I forget myself.*)
That was enough.
Komaru raised her face. Tears still streaked and messy, she stared into the depths of the darkness.
(*I have to find a way to die.*)
Regress only activated through her own death. No rope to hang herself. No height to jump from.
No water. No food. But no time to wait for death by weakness.
Sakuya would kill Senpai tonight.
Komaru crawled across the floor. Dusty concrete. Groping blindly, she rummaged through the junk pushed into the corner.
Cold iron touched her fingertips.
A rusty toolbox.
She opened it. Old wrench. Bent nails. Torn wire. And—rusty pliers.
(*With these… I can cut the rope.*)
She gripped the pliers with trembling hands.
The blades were rusted. The edge was dead.
She pressed the pliers' blades against the hemp rope around her wrists.
She put strength into it.
—*Snap.*
A single fiber severed.
(*More.*)
Her hand slipped. The tip of the pliers gouged the back of her hand. Skin tore. Blood seeped.
Wincing at the pain, she clamped the rope again.
With dull pliers, she cut the tough hemp rope, severing it fiber by fiber.
*Snap. Snap. Snap.*
Monotonous, mechanical metal sounds echoing in the darkness.
(*Protect Senpai.*)
That thought alone was the thin thread supporting her frayed spirit.
—How much time passed?
*Snap.*
A response.
The rope severed.
Deep welts and abrasions on her freed wrists. Blood still seeped from the wound on the back of her hand.
With her freed hands, Komaru untied the rope around her ankles.
She stood.
Her body, left unable to even turn over for two days, felt heavy as if it weren't her own.
Her legs tangled. She put a hand on the wall. Her vision warped. Sparks flickered in the darkness.
Extreme dehydration and starvation.
She took a step.
Her legs trembled. Her knees nearly buckled.
Crawling, she reached the iron door. She placed her hand on the cold iron plate.
She pounded it with her fist.
A dull sound.
"Someone…!"
Her voice was hoarse, swallowed by the walls.
The iron door didn't budge. No handle inside. Hinges on the outside. A completely sealed room.
The soundproof walls returned silence, as if mocking her despair.
(*I can't get out.*)
She collapsed on the spot, as if her strings had been cut.
Escape was impossible.
She couldn't leave this underground storage room on her own.
(*Then how do I die?*)
To Regress, she had to die. But there was no means of suicide in this sealed room.
All she had were the rusty pliers.
Stab her neck? Slit her wrists?
(*I'm scared.*)
Fear of pain paralyzed her limbs.
(*But—better than Senpai dying.*)
With trembling hands, Komaru pressed the sharp tip of the pliers against her left wrist.
Red scars running horizontally. Regre Marks.
Tracing those lines, she dug the pliers' tip in.
Sharp pain. A trickle of red blood ran down her arm.
Then—.
—Faintly, she heard a siren.
Distant. A police siren echoing from above ground.
Komaru stopped her hand and looked up.
(*Police? Why?*)
Had someone reported it? In this housing complex?
Or—.
(*Doumeki-sensei?*)
The gruff student guidance teacher's face flashed through her mind.
In the night shopping district, he'd pressed a hundred-yen coin into her hand.
*'Your eyes look like someone's chasing you. What happened?'*
He had definitely asked her then. With worried eyes.
If, after that, he'd grown concerned about Komaru and tried to contact someone—found it suspicious she wasn't coming to school, filed a missing person report…
(*But help won't come.*)
The siren quickly faded, and silence returned.
In this soundproof sealed room, she couldn't expect rescue.
Komaru looked down at the pliers in her grip.
(*I'm going to die here.*)
But—if she died now, she'd make it in time.
After Regressing back, she'd have a chance to stop Sakuya.
The problem was losing more memories.
(*What will I forget this time?*)
Her feelings
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