Satoru Fujinuma is a shut-in manga artist (or so he insists) with a weird power called 'Revival,' which sends him back in time just before something terrible happens.
One day, his mother Sachiko realizes the identity of the kidnapper behind a series of child abductions in Satoru's old Hokkaido hometown. Satoru dismisses it as paranoia. That night, he comes home to find his mother stabbed and dying. Wrongly accused of her murder, Satoru's panic triggers Revival—but this time it's different. He'
Erased IF: The Day I Didn't Open the Door - Empty Shell
Friday morning.
The classroom air should have been the same as always. The heated room, the murmur of voices, someone laughing.
But to Fujinuma Satoru, everything felt distant.
His messy black hair hung over his eyes. With sleep-deprived brown eyes, he stared at his own hands. His fingertips were trembling slightly. Not from the cold.
(*This is bad.*)
He muttered it inside his head.
He knew the reason. Yesterday, he had asked Kenta. *Don't leave Michi alone this week.* But Kenta's baseball team surveillance was scheduled to start on Saturday.
(*Friday is the gap.*)
He went over it again and again in his mind. They talked on Wednesday, prepped on Thursday, and it was supposed to start Friday. But they didn't make it in time. Just one day. A single day.
How massive that was.
"[serious]Fujinuma-kun."
A voice came from beside him.
He turned his head. Kobayashi Hiromi was staring intently at him from behind thick, silver-rimmed glasses. His narrow eyes were more serious than usual. His neatly trimmed black bob was tilted slightly.
"You're pale. And your hands have been shaking for a while now."
"[cold]...It's nothing."
"That's a lie."
Hiromi's voice was low and calm.
"You're too bad at lying. Or did you think you could hide things from me?"
Satoru didn't answer. If he opened his mouth, he felt like he'd say too much. Right now, all he could do was wait for time to pass.
(*Please—let her come.*)
He prayed in his heart.
He stared at the back door of the classroom. Michi always came into the classroom just before the bell. Shrinking into herself, looking at no one, heading straight for her seat.
If she would just come like that today—
The chime rang.
Their homeroom teacher, Yotsuya-sensei, entered the classroom. Thirty-eight years old, male, science teacher. He stood in front of the blackboard as usual and opened the attendance book.
"Good morning. Let's start homeroom."
The murmuring died down.
He began taking attendance. Students called upon answered "Yes."
"Kaya."
Silence.
"...Kaya-san is absent today."
The teacher said just that and called the next name.
Satoru's body froze.
A chill spread from his fingertips. The classroom lights seemed to dim for a moment. The surrounding sounds vanished. Only his own heartbeat sounded terribly loud.
*Thump.*
(*She didn't come.*)
Something started spinning wildly in his head. The conversation with Kenta. The strategy meeting. Talking to Michi at the children's center. That scar on her left wrist. The man in the black coat he saw on the embankment path.
It all connected in his head.
No. It wasn't connecting.
(*I overlooked it.*)
Friday was the gap. He knew that, and he did nothing. He could have called Kenta. But he didn't.
This was no time to be saying "what a pain."
Even after class started, nothing reached Satoru's ears. The writing on the blackboard looked blurry. His hands, opening his textbook, wouldn't obey him.
(*This is the worst.*)
The same words repeated in his head.
(*If Michi, today—*)
Thinking beyond that, his chest ached as if being squeezed. A twenty-nine-year-old adult, in a child's body, just sitting at a desk. Unable to do anything. Anything at all.
"[whispers]...Are you okay?"
Hiromi asked in a whisper.
Satoru shook his head.
"[sad]I'm not okay."
His voice trembled. It was a weak voice, surprising even himself.
Hiromi was silent for a moment, then nodded slightly.
"[serious]Let's talk after school."
Hearing those words, Satoru shook his head again.
"[whispers]...No. I have to go right away after school."
"Where?"
"Kaya's house."
Hiromi gasped.
"[scared]Don't tell me—"
"I don't know yet. But I'm going."
Saying just that, Satoru looked outside the window. Snow was starting to flutter down.
The sky was overcast in leaden gray.
---
After school.
The moment the chime rang, Satoru stood up. He dashed out of the classroom without even grabbing his bag.
"[surprised]Fujinuma-kun!"
He heard Hiromi's voice from behind, but he didn't look back.
He ran down the hallway. Raced down the stairs. He couldn't spare the time to change his shoes at the shoe lockers.
(*Hurry.*)
Only that repeated in his head.
He went outside.
The cold wind stung his face. Snow was dancing, visibility poor. His exhaled breath was pure white.
He ran north along the embankment path by the Misono River. The snow accumulation narrowed the path to less than a meter. Streetlights were sparse, and past four in the afternoon, it was already dim.
Only the sound of crunching snow could be heard.
*Crunch.*
Just his own footsteps. Nothing else.
(*No.*)
Something was wrong.
As he ran, Satoru realized. It wasn't just his own footsteps. Much farther away, another sound was happening.
*Crunch.*
In the same rhythm.
He turned around.
About thirty meters behind him on the snowy path, someone was standing.
A black long coat. A hood pulled down deep.
He couldn't see a face. No, the face part alone was blurred. Like TV static, he couldn't even grasp its outline.
But—
"[cold]You know the future, don't you?"
Only the voice was heard clearly.
A low, hoarse voice. In the quiet of the snow, that voice alone was chillingly clear.
Something clicked into place in Satoru's head.
(*It's him.*)
The culprit.
The real perpetrator of the serial child abduction murders. The one Mom found in 2006 and was killed by.
That wasn't all.
"You know the future"—those words meant.
(*The corrective force of fate knows about my ability.*)
And it was interfering through this guy.
Before fear, anger came.
"[angry]...You bastard."
His voice shook. But it wasn't from fear.
The man didn't move. He was just standing there.
That, in turn, was terrifying.
Beneath the hood, something seemed to laugh.
Beyond the static.
"[cold]If you know, did you think you could stop it?"
The voice clung to his ears.
"Too bad."
The man took one step forward.
Satoru's legs moved on their own.
Before thinking, he was running.
A full sprint. Kicking up snow, north, north along the embankment path.
(*Michi—*)
He screamed in his heart.
There was no sign of footsteps chasing him from behind. The man wasn't pursuing. He was probably still standing in that spot. But that was precisely why it was terrifying.
As if he knew there was no need to chase.
---
He arrived at the Kaya house.
An old single-story house at the northeast edge of town, near Kamui Forest. An isolated house, over two hundred meters from the nearest neighbor.
The front door was half open.
Swaying in the wind, it creaked, *creak, creak*.
"[scared]...Michi."
His voice was hoarse.
He pushed the door open.
In the hallway, a school backpack lay fallen. Several textbooks from inside were scattered on the floor where snow had blown in. Japanese, Math, Science—
"[crying]Michi!!"
Shouting, he ran through the house.
Kitchen—empty. Dishes piled up in the sink. On the dining table, a half-drunk carton of milk.
Living room—no one there. The TV was on. On the screen, the evening news was playing. "Temperatures are expected to drop further from tonight," the weather forecaster was saying.
A small Japanese-style room that seemed to be Michi's room—
The futon was left laid out. By the pillow, a worn-out stuffed animal was placed. A small rabbit plushie.
No one was there.
Her mother wasn't there either.
Only the heater was emptily warm.
"[crying]Dammit...!"
He returned to the hallway and fell to his knees in front of the backpack.
He didn't make it in time.
That fact slowly, surely, spread through his entire body.
His fingertips grew cold, his chest tightened, his eyes grew hot.
(*Revival.*)
He tried to activate Revival.
Summoning the afterimage of the blue butterfly. That sensation of the moment time rewinds.
—Nothing came.
Once more.
—Nothing.
A third time.
He closed his eyes, concentrating desperately.
(*Go back. Please. This time for sure—*)
But nothing happened.
The feeling of the power was nowhere. As if trying to grasp sand, everything slipped through his fingers.
Completely sealed.
The corrective force of fate had stopped Revival.
"[crying]...Why?"
His voice trembled.
"I... if I had just... just properly asked for Friday too..."
It's all my fault.
When Kenta said from Saturday, I should have asked separately just for Friday. "Please do Friday too," that's all I needed to say.
(*I—*)
On his knees, he couldn't move.
Snow blew into the hallway, piling up on the textbooks.
---
How long had he been like that?
Minutes, or perhaps tens of minutes.
Satoru slowly stood up.
(*Think.*)
He told himself in his head.
(*It's not over yet.*)
Michi was taken. That was certain. But, still—
He picked up the backpack fallen in the hallway. With trembling hands, he gathered the scattered textbooks. Japanese, Math, Science, Social Studies.
When he picked up the last one, a single piece of paper fell out from inside.
A small, folded memo sheet.
He opened it.
In a child's round handwriting, just one word was written.
*'Thank you'*
The date was yesterday.
(*Yesterday—the day I talked to her at the children's center.*)
His chest grew warm.
But that warmth quickly cooled.
Thank you—writing just that, and today, she vanished.
He stood the backpack in the corner of the hallway. He didn't even know why he did it. He just felt he had to.
He left the entrance.
Outside was already growing dark. The snow was starting to dance more fiercely.
He searched his pockets. Of course, there was no cell phone. It was 1988. There was no way to contact Kenta. No way to contact Hiromi. He'd have to go back to the shopping district for a payphone. In that time, he didn't know where Michi could be taken.
(*There are two options.*)
One, turn back here and call Kenta and the others.
The other, continue pursuing alone.
The culprit was a young man living on the north outskirts of town—Hiromi had said so. Towards Kamui Forest.
Satoru clenched his fist.
The bad habit of a man who had shouldered everything alone for twenty-nine years was rearing its head again.
He was deathly bad at relying on others. If something happened, he'd manage it himself, trying to do everything alone.
(*But—*)
This time, he was truly alone.
He couldn't use Revival. No Kenta, no Hiromi. No phone. No weapon.
All he had was an eleven-year-old body and twenty-nine years of memories.
The snow grew even fiercer.
He stared in the direction of Kamui Forest. The primeval forest sinking into twilight. That place, whose name means "Forest of the Gods" in Ainu, is traditionally warned against: "Do not approach Kamui in winter."
(*I have no choice but to go.*)
Satoru took a step forward.
Faint footprints remained in the snow. An adult's, and a child's. Two sets, side by side, continuing north.
The faint path leading to Kamui Forest.
"[whispers]I'll definitely save you."
He remembered his promise to his mom.
This time, it's my turn to save someone.
Even if I'm alone.
In his pocket, he clutched the memo he had picked up earlier. The words 'Thank you' crumpled with a small crunch.
Satoru broke into a run.
Towards the blizzard.
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