Chapter Text
Yoisaki Kanade felt bad.
She didn't know how to feel.
Well, that feeling of nothingness wasn't necessarily something new to her. Kanade could feel her heart deflate as she looked across the city. Tokyo was a truly a beautiful place, her eyes scanned far and wide. People watching from the top of Tokyo Tower wasn't something she thought she would enjoy. But here she is, silently, she rested her feet into the metal below, balanced herself gingerly on the steel sitting. The wind blowing through her long silver hair like a lost flag over the ocean. Kanade tapped her fingers onto he metal, allowing the metal to ring out a familiar tune. Maybe she should get some work done, she has put this project on delay for quite a while now. As Kanade meticulously places her laptop on her lap, it's soft clicks drowned in the gusts 300m above ground.
"Hoshino-san sent me this a year ago and I haven't even cleaned up the drums yet."
-
Kanade felt joy.
She doesn't know what to think of that.
Listening and finally completing the song that Hoshino Ichika wrote all that time ago felt surprisingly fulfilling for Kanade. She worked with Hoshino for a couple of their songs before Tenma Saki's public death announcement and the song she just finished was put on hold indefinitely. After meeting up with Hoshino, Kanade just couldn't let herself slide. Finding the time to walk up the red metal tower, she decided to finalize the draft of the song and maybe send it back to Hoshino.
Kanade silently sat down at her desk, she lived alone in the real world, not having much at all. Hell gave days off so she might as well use them. Mafuyu was still doing her research in their little world so Kanade ended up spending a rare weekend alone.
"Well I talked to Hoshino-san, I wasn't alone all day."
A voice commented in her head, "Yeah you pop up for 30 seconds and dipped. Nice convo, Yoisaki."
Kanade blushed at the thought, she was undeniably nervous about meeting up with Hoshino Ichika. Much less talking about something so personal to her. Now she's hesitant on whether to even finish her job, all she had to do was hit send.
Her laptop blinked with an innocent earnestly, a white washed screen with her and Ichika's email was neatly titled, "Song." In her drafts with a singular wav file and no other words attached.
This was normal between the two, they often kept words to a minimum, more likely due to thier silent introverted personalities than the lack of a common topic. Kanade can't help but feel she should probably make more friends. Sure Mafuyu and Mizuki are great, Ena is well, always a joy to see on the streets of Shibuya once in awhile when she is there for whatever reason. Kanade can't help but think of them as very friendly co-workers. She doesn't need to make more friends, they were perfect but she wants to. Yoisaki Kanade wants to make friends, she doesn't want to live alone like this! Maybe she'll move in with Minori and Haruka, maybe she should as Emu for help.
While Kanade was busy pondering her future, her fingers were growing fidgety, Kanade tried to relax by spamming the tab and enter buttons of her keyboard. it doesn't normally matter if she was on her Digital Audio Workstation but on while on her email....
She eventually did find out that she did send that email. To say the least, she paused. For a very, very long time.
-
Yoisaki Kanade was relieved that Hoshino-san liked it.
The final mix she sent to Hoshino Ichika was welcomed with open arms. The song was also soon posted online as a tribute to Tenma Saki on their socials. This random email from nowhere sparked a series of message and responses from both parties with Ichika eventually gaining information on Kanade's phone number. Their conversation soon shifted over to LIME and as such Kanade earned her first extra contact outside of her group.
As Kanade reread the series of texts from Ichika over and over again. She felt a sense of... Familiarity. Hoshino-san isn't anything like Mizuki or Ena. How she talked in front of her was translated straight into text. Direct, polite and professional. It took Kanade a while to notice it's similarities to Mafuyu's speech patterns. Maybe that's why she found such comfort in Ichika's presence.
Hoshino Ichika herself wasn't very versed with the ways of supernatural things. As such she conveyed her thoughts to Kanade. Kanade silently tapped the screen of her phone. She wasn't sure how to reply to Hoshino. Hoshino Ichika had asked her whether there was anyway to revert the amnesia, given that Kanade did tell her that the current Saki was the real Saki. Hoshino-san verbalised her thoughts over text. She said: "If Saki did forget everything. She would never call me Icchan... Well, it might just be a impromptu nickname but she has gone back to calling me Ichikaa-san again."
Truth be told. Kanade also had no idea what was happening. She only followed what Mafuyu had told her to do, Mafuyu also wasn't going to tell Kanade anything about what her master plan was and Kanade was effectively left in the dark since she gathered Mizuki and the others in that room.
Whatever it was... It must be some kind of memory seal or memory stealing. What would Mafuyu gain from that though... If she was worried about Kiritani Haruka she could have just killed off Hanasato-san by now...
Things just weren't adding up to Kanade. Maybe she was missing something. Something minimal yet substantial. Kanade was going to visit Mafuyu tomorrow anyway. She might as well snoop around her office while at it. Mafuyu probably doesn't mind....
Probably
-
Yoisaki Kanade appreciated the fact that Mafuyu didn't mind.
If Mizuki or Ena were to walk in, they are going to see a worked up Kanade comically teleporting around the room looking for anything related to Saki's case. Mafuyu only looked at her with a confused yet concerned look.
Kanade left empty handed. As expected there was nothing about the case. Even asking Mafuyu directly yielded no results all she did in response was smile back and say nothing.
As Kanade sighs and plops back into her chair. As she was about to give up her search, she found out a certain black haired guitarist started posting song covers again. A motivated Hoshino Ichika started popping around social media again with guitar covers of W/X/Y and Konayuki. Kanade couldn't help but smile. Her previous history garnered fast attention and those video, albeit posted on their main Leo/need channel. Grabbed more than a quarter of a million views in less than 24 hours of it's premieres.
Reinvigorated, Kanade continued her search. She knows she'll probably find nothing. Her future was as bleak as she has always thought it would be. The fate of the world doesn't rest in her hands. What happens after death is nothing more than a pitch dark void. Whatever she might do, whatever music she might listen it'll all fade as the silent scream of the dead grasps at her neck. She can't help but feel like nothing in life truly holds any value to her. If the world were to collapse at it's seams. Kanade fears she won't fear at all.
But does that even really matter anymore?
-
*Months into the future*
Yoisaki Kanade feels.... Pain.
It's a relieving kind of pain. Imagine getting into a onsen after a long day of work. It felt a little like that. The pain seared into her chest hurts like shit. The concrete walls of the building she laid in was crumbling at its best and reduced to dust at its worse. The deafening rumble in her ear muted everything she could hear. She couldn't hear the shouts for help from innocent bystanders. She couldn't hear the cries of her name in the distance. She couldn't hear the crackling flames that were mere inches away from engulfing her. Everything was so numbing, even the prominent burning sear on her chest was slowly disapating into nothing.
Was this the death she yearned for? Was it death she yearned for? Yoisaki Kanade couldn't even answer herself, questions that she had years and years to find to answer to all came down crumbling like this.
Kanade gathered the last of her strength to look around the place. She could feel her head growing light from the gasoline. The sharp pain in her chest now nothing more than a itch compared to her burning limbs. The flames licked at her body..
"Itai naa...."
Kanade closed her eyes, she hears the final piece that she has never mixed, she hears the sound of powdered snow, she hears the calming voice of her friends. She smiles to herself. Seemingly glad with the music that surrounded her.
And yet everything is silent.