Archive of Our Own

Even if I grant that wish for you, you will not be able to be by the princess’s side. Your freedom will be forfeit, and your life in danger. And you will be able to do nothing but watch. 

Knowing this… do you still wish for it?

He can feel the nausea rising from his gut, twisting his innards, an unforgiving death grip seizing painfully at his temples. His breath is faint and his vision is blurry, but he knows this to be true: someone's life is about to end.

Kudo Shinichi raises his head by a fraction, eyes struggling to focus through his glasses. The street is sparsely populated with passersby, but Shinichi knows what he's looking for, and locates it near instantaneously, a dark cloud of miasma swirling around an unsuspecting, middle-aged man almost four intersections away.

The sight— if it could be called sight at all; sometimes it seems closer to sensing rather than seeing— fills him with another wave of disconcerting wave of disgust. Shinichi stumbles as his legs threaten to give way, but even the headache threatening to split his head open fails to deter him from reaching the man.

I could stop it. I... know I could.

These are the words screaming itself into existence in Shinichi's hazy mind, even if the cold, hard evidence stacked against this claim proved otherwise. He has seen enough of staged traffic accidents and false medical deaths, enough fatal poisonings and deaths by arson, enough tragic misunderstandings, enough murders, enough endings, enough death. If only he could save one life— he knows he is not nearly enough to save everyone, his hubris has been checked time and time again— he half-shambles across a second crosswalk in a daze— the man is still alive— if he could only save one life—

This is the point where Shinichi's knees give out. His heart drops and he changes the trajectory of his fall, pivoting left, bracing his body against the wall, and suddenly—

He can breathe again.

Shinichi blinks twice, glancing around in bewilderment. The nausea is gone, the impending sense of dread is gone. Even his headache seems to have vanished into thin air, a mirage quickly dissipating in the summer heat.

He looks to the man once more. The miasma swirling around him has disappeared as well. For a moment Shinichi wonders if it's simply turned invisible; however, his instincts tell him otherwise.

The man... inexplicably, he is safe. He will not die today.

The lights at the nearest intersection change, red to green.

Shinichi turns his attention to the wall he had reached out for in his moment of weakness. The correlation between the timing of when he touched it and the sudden and complete dissipation of his headache is uncannily strong.

The wooden fence is painted completely black, and the gates are flanked by two posts, both topped with a simple crescent moon.

Shinichi glances past the gates, at the peculiar house resting quietly at the center of the plot. It seems well-maintained, though the architecture seems anachronistic– at once sporting a vaguely European style while also bearing undeniably Japanese characteristics.

There's a feeling of discomfort, different from the sharp pain he was feeling earlier, that's beginning to crawl up Shinichi's psyche. How could it be that Shinichi had never noticed such a conspicuous house, when he passed by this area so regularly? He would have to be uncharacteristically unobservant an inordinate amount of times for this to escape his notice for so long.

Shinichi gives himself a little shake. No matter.

He readies himself to take another step, intending on leaving this place, and yet he finds his feet heading through the gates, entirely independent of his own will. 

“Hey—” Shinichi says, mostly to himself, but just as he thinks he’s alone on the property, two young boys, no older than first or second grade by the looks of it, materialize out of nowhere to tackle his arms and pull him towards the house.

“A guest! A guest!” chants the two boys in unison. 

One is skinny, almost stick-like, with freckles peppering his face and an astounding grip strength for a child of that size. The other is quite stout, boulder-like, even, with a buzz cut and an equally strong grip on Shinichi’s other arm. 

“Hold on—” Shinichi finally manages, fighting desperately against the two children with extremely limited success. “There’s a mistake, I didn’t mean to—”

“Master’s guest!!” they shriek, ignoring Shinichi’s protests entirely. 

Another voice, smooth and confident, floats through a paper screen door with a hint of wry amusement.

“There is no mistake.”

The boys have let go of Shinichi by now, though he barely notices as he brings his hand up to adjust his glasses. 

Like clockwork, they each take a sliding door, opening it to reveal an older woman lazing on an antique couch, a knowing smile resting below half-lidded eyes. Her obsidian hair drapes elegantly over the kimono she’s wearing, and white smoke coils delicately around her, bearing the scent of incense and something even more nostalgic that Shinichi couldn’t quite name. Her appearance is so unbearably lackadaisical, and yet it’s so clear that she belongs here, that this is her domain. 

Shinichi, meanwhile, still hasn’t quite gotten his bearings just yet. 

“Ah, no,” he counters, mildly peeved. “I really didn’t mean to come in here. I’ll be taking my leave now, thank you.” 

He casually neglects to mention the fact that his feet moved of its own accord, and the fact that the walls seemed to have dispelled his supernatural headache earlier. How is he to explain these things to a stranger, after all?

The woman smiles patiently, and takes her time tapping her pipe against the arm of her chair. This knowing attitude of hers bothers Shinichi, somehow, the way she acts with a sense of superiority that she’s undeserving of for their first and, if the gods were willing, last meeting. And yet despite pouring every ounce of willpower he has into leaving this place, his feet seem bound to the floorboards of the house. The giggle of laughter escaping from her is another blow to Shinichi’s pride. 

“Earlier, you felt your headache dispel when you touched the fence, didn’t you?” she asks, taking a lengthy drag on her pipe. She notes the look of begrudging confirmation on Shinichi’s face before continuing.

“That’s because the fence is a kekkai — a barrier, separating the inside from the outside, warding off the unwanted. Your arrival here is no accident, but rather, is destiny at work.”

Shinichi doesn’t respond to this, either. An unimpressed expression is resting on his face, though he feels uneasy, his instincts recognizing a grain of truth to her words despite his rational brain dismissing this spiritual nonsense.

“Your name?” she shoots quickly at the high school detective. 

“Ah— Kudo Shinichi.”

The question catches him off guard, and the words slip out before he knows it.

“Written like ‘New One’?”

Shinichi dodges her gaze, unwilling to admit that her guess is, in fact, correct.

“...no comment.”

Shinichi’s refusal to answer doesn’t seem to bother the woman; on the contrary, it seems to bring great amusement to her.

“You’re very honest,” she says. “You can’t bring yourself to lie. That’s very charming, of course, but the lack of denial is as good as confirmation here.” 

She lets out a dramatic sigh, rolling over on her couch.

“And your birthday?”

“I don’t see why a stranger like you needs to know.” Shinichi stares coldly at the woman.

The woman is still unfazed, smiling broadly at him through the smoke. 

“Very good. Your wits are sharp… you have a sense of caution about you. With your name, one could take your soul… but giving out your birthday is tantamount to giving another control of your entire life.”

A muscle twitches in Shinichi’s jaw.

“So what’s your name, then?” he challenges, half out of spite, half out of a sick sense of curiosity.

“Koizumi Akako,” replies the woman easily. There’s a small pause as she mulls over the look on Shinichi’s face, before smirking victoriously. “It’s a fake name, of course!”

She gestures for the boys to come over. The two boys, who had been standing inconspicuously at Akako’s side, obediently join her, both grinning from ear to ear. 

“These children are Genta-chan and Mitsuhiko-chan,” she tells him, gesturing at each of them in turn.

“I don’t care,” Shinichi announces flatly. Finding that he no longer seems to be bound to the floor, he turns to leave, but the sliding doors fly shut with a viciousness he didn’t know was possible, nearly shearing his toes off.

“I believe I’ve already mentioned this,” Akako drawls lightly. “This encounter… is fated.”

Shinichi’s irritation is palpable, but knowing he cannot freely leave, he holds his ground. 

“I see that you’re still skeptical.” She sets down her pipe for the first time, and reaches out towards Shinichi with an open hand. “Please take out the item inside your jacket pocket.” 

At Shinichi’s hesitation, she snaps her fingers impatiently.

“Quickly now,” she says, a note of urgency entering her voice.

Caught in the flow of the moment, Shinichi removes the pocket watch from inside his pocket, handing it to the woman. 

She appraises the watch with an expert gaze, flipping open the cover casually. 

“It’s a good watch,” Akako tells Shinichi. “Seems like it’s got at least 50 years on it. It’ll suffice.”

The boys had taken this time to bring Akako a shallow basin filled with water, which they gently set down in front of her. Akako slips a plaque inscribed with a magic circle out from the sleeves of her kimono, and casts it into the water with nary a splash.

“Kudo Shinichi,” she chants. “Kudo Shinichi.”

The circular crest begins rotating slowly in the water, and Akako peers closely at it, fixated on its motions. 

Shinichi watches uncomfortably from the sidelines.

“You—”

She looks up from the basin, into Shinichi’s eyes.

“— are a harbinger of murder. An agent of death.” 

Yes, that is what he is, isn’t it? It’s just that Shinichi has never quantified the facts in such a way.

“It’s been this way since your youth. A budding interest in mysteries coincided with your high encounters with murders, and it never struck you as unusual until junior high, when it worsened significantly and you began to run into multiple murders a week, sometimes even getting as bad as multiple times in a day. You realized you were present at nearly a third of all homicide cases in all of Japan in the last five years.”

Shinichi remembers running those calculations himself, one harrowing night after a particularly gruesome decapitation.

“It’s thanks to the blood that flows through your body,” continues Akako, her voice low. “Misfortune and ill intentions are drawn to you, congealing into an intent to kill. It takes over the people around you, even those with the kindest of hearts and purest of motivations.”

“How,” breathes Shinichi, an inquiry that seems closer to a demand. “How did you know?”

Akako smiles mysteriously, that knowing smile Shinichi is beginning to despise.

“You told me your name,” she says simply. “If you had told me your birthday, I would have been able to tell you even more. The information is all there…it only needs to be deciphered.”

Her voice suddenly jumps to a much more chipper tone.

“The watch is mine, now, then!” Akako chirps, tucking Shinichi’s pocket watch into the sleeve of her kimono. 

“Hold it!” Shinichi protests. “You can’t just take it—”

“It’s payment,” Akako says. “For everything which you desire, an equal price must be paid for you to gain it. No more… no less… perfectly balanced… if you want to avoid mishaps, that is.” 

Akako touches Shinichi gently on the jaw as she speaks the word ‘mishaps’, and a shiver runs down Shinichi’s spine. 

"Mishaps of the body or the soul… quite undesirable, wouldn't you say?"

Shinichi brusquely knocks away Akako's hand, refusing to be intimidated.

"There's no way this business is legal. As soon as an investigation's made, it'll become clear that these 'payments' were coerced from people by exploiting their insecurities."

Maybe Akako had gotten a soul read on him, but he can't rule out the possibility that it had been a total coincidence. Besides which, Shinichi knows that the skill set for a talented fortune teller is the same as one for a talented detective, and more often it was he who stood on the side of the reading rather than the read.

"So let's just make things simple. Return the watch to me. Now."

"Oh? Why do you care so much for a pocket watch? You don't strike me as the sentimental type." A smile is playing on her lips again, though it seems tinged with a shadow of doubt.

"That's–"

And suddenly Shinichi feels as though he's lost his footing and is tumbling through midair, the ground pulled unceremoniously from beneath him– why did he care so much for that watch? Where did he even get it, in the first place?

"I– that's none of your business," he counters quickly, hoping his moment of disorientation wasn't evident to the woman.

An inscrutable expression rests on her face as she takes a slow, deliberate look into Shinichi’s eyes. Shinichi is tempted to break away from the gaze, but he can’t let up now, not when his watch is on the line. 

“You have a wish,” Akako croons softly. “Without it, you would never be able to enter the shop.”

“I—I don’t—”

“Tell it to me, now.” 

The two boys have sidled quietly to him, flanking him.

“Master has said that she’ll help you,” the smaller of the two says, staring solemnly into Shinichi’s eyes. 

“Master really will help you!” exclaims the other boisterously.

Shinichi looks from one boy to the other, his own skepticism conflicted by their genuine expressions. The silence in the room is unbearably stifling, pressing down against his eardrums, as though the bones of the architecture itself awaits Shinichi’s response with bated breath. 

He can see it, he can see himself splitting into two, he can see Akako’s gentle words coiling around his naive and emotional self, swayed by the possibility offered to him, while his rational self looks on with terror and cynicism, trying to reach the part of him that is tempted by Akako’s words, to stop himself from falling recklessly for a scam. But it’s like fighting through molasses, and he can’t reach himself in time— her words too sweet, his thoughts too muddled, and he spills his wish in a single breath:

“Let it be that no one ever dies because of my existence again.”

Akako smiles at this, half-lidded eyes regarding Shinichi with sympathy. 

“I shall grant you your wish,” she says with practiced ease, as though reading from a script. “But there is a price.”

“I know,” is all Shinichi can choke out.

The smile has left Akako, and her face is now impassively neutral. She raises a hand and gestures at Shinichi’s entirety, a perfect ellipse encircling him.

“Yet you have nothing with which you can pay this price. Nothing which can truly be considered yours…”

Shinichi’s mouth half-opens in protest, but there’s nothing to say against the truth. 

“...save for the time and labor which you can provide. So until you’ve fulfilled your due diligence…” Akako’s  face splits into a mischievous grin. “Consider yourself employed.” 

This snaps Shinichi straight out of whatever daze he had gotten stuck in. 

“Until I’ve fulfilled my due diligence?” he demands crossly. “So how long is that, exactly? This life and the next, with how you’ve been talking.”

Akako doesn’t respond, only laughs gently, a sound that carries softly through the silent, starry night. 

The boy recalls the smile of his beloved princess. Brilliant, charming, beloved. 

The kingdom of Clow is a quaint little country, tucked away into the ever-baking sands of a vast, unconquerable desert. One might think that such a harsh environment begets a certain harshness in its people as well; and yet it’s kindness and compassion that has brought its people this far, that has allowed its people to not only live, but even flourish in such a hostile environment.

A single hooded figure strolls through the domed houses of the town, his thick brown cloak protecting him from the sun’s glaring and deadly rays.

The figure stops before one of the domed houses, and begins fiddling with the lock. It’s identical to every other house on the street, but it’s meaningful to him— the first place he can remember safety and security. It’s his house… his home.

Upon crossing the threshold, the figure throws off his hood with a refreshing sigh, revealing a head of untamed black hair. He haphazardly tosses his bag on the floor before slipping his black gloves off. The gloves join an old picture frame in resting on top of a dresser. 

“I’m home, dad!” he exclaims softly into the dark and silent room, picking up the old photograph with a sentimental tenderness. He’s in the picture, a young and hapless child at the time, and besides him is an older man, hair equally disheveled as his son’s, though with an addition of a neatly trimmed mustache, smiling gently at the camera.

A sharp knock interrupts the young man’s reminiscing, and he frowns, head tipped to the side in confusion for a moment before he replaces the photograph on the dresser to answer the door. 

“Hello! And how may I—”

“Kaito!”

A young woman, similarly hooded, though in much more delicate fabrics, flings herself at the young man as soon as the door swings open, knocking both of them to the ground.

“Ow—what d’you think—”

“Welcome home, Kaito!” chirps the young woman, hood having fallen to the wayside to reveal bright indigo eyes and slightly tousled black hair reaching her back. “How was the excavation? You remembered to eat, didn’t you? And to stay hydrated?”

Kaito lets out an exasperated sigh as he runs a hand through his messy hair, leaving it in a state of greater chaos than it was before.

“Thank you, my princess,” says Kaito with a hint of irritation. “I’ve been just swell, now get off , you’re heavy—” 

The young lady pouts at Kaito, refusing to budge from her comfy perch on top of Kaito’s chest for a brief moment before releasing him with a small huff.

“You didn’t used to be like this, you know,” she says with a touch of wistfulness. “If you can tell me I’m heavy without so much a second thought, I wish you could call me by my name, too.” 

Kaito rises to his feet, and dips into a small, playful bow.

“There’s nothing I could call you that is more suitable than ‘princess’,” he intones smoothly, avoiding Aoko’s piercing gaze.

 Aoko doesn’t miss a beat, stands up just as quickly as Kaito, grabbing his hand firmly in hers. 

“A-o-ko!” she says with a playful pout, enunciating each syllable with meticulous clarity as she leans close to Kaito’s face.

“Ahh,” grumbles Kaito, shaking his hand out of her grip, still dodging her eyes, now with a distinctly pink tinge on his face. “Fine! Fine.” 

Kaito lets out a soft, disgruntled sigh, scratches his head sheepishly. Aoko leans ever closer, still watching him expectantly. 

“...Aoko,” Kaito finally murmurs, nearly tripping on the intimacy. 

With a smile brighter than the desert sun overhead, Aoko leans back, satisfied, reveling in the moment, holding it close to her chest, committing it to memory. 

“How the hell did you know I was coming home, anyways? I don’t remember telling you,” Kaito says, trying to change the topic. 

Aoko giggles mischievously. 

“The archaeology team arrived at the palace earlier to deliver a report! Aoko thought if they had returned, then surely Kaito would have, as well!” 

At these words, Kaito furrows his brow. 

“Hold up,” he says sternly. “You’re not saying you snuck out of the palace to come see me, are you?” 

“Mm…” Aoko debates for a moment about what to tell Kaito, knowing exactly what the troubled look on Kaito’s face meant— “Aoko did, in fact, sneak out! What are you gonna do about it, hm?”

Kaito opens his mouth to protest, but Aoko’s words cut across his.

“You know Ginzo hates it whenever I bring you up. He’d never let me see you if I told him I was  coming over. And…” She tips her head, blushing slightly, her voice becoming feathers in its tenderness. “Well… You’re an important childhood friend of mine… Aoko can’t help but want to see you, you know?”

“That’s…” 

“I wanted you to move into the castle when your father passed away, you know,” Aoko says, staring out the small circular window, at the sandstone palace off in the distance, where she lived. 

“Come on,” Kaito responds sheepishly, “You know that would never fly. I’m just some orphaned kid from off the street, and you… well…” 

There’s a silence, a silence that spans the universe and back again, an uncrossable chasm.

“You’re the princess.” 

Kaito looks away. 

“That doesn’t matter,” Aoko insists childishly, fingers playing restlessly with the fabric that makes up her silken pants. “That way, Aoko would at least get to see you just a little more often.” 

Aoko swallows and looks expectantly at Kaito, but for once he doesn’t seem to have a rebuttal. She treads on gingerly. 

“I’m… lonely,” she tells Kaito. There’s a truth here, something deeper than the oceans, sunken where the light no longer penetrates. “You’re so busy these days, I barely see a shadow of you…”

She sighs, a conflicted emotion cast over her face. 

“Aoko knows that it’s your dream to follow in your father’s footsteps, and to finish his excavation project in his stead, but…” Aoko takes a shaky breath. “But… that doesn’t stop me from wanting to see you.” 

She can’t help but feel impossibly selfish, like a little girl who knows nothing more of the world than the apple of her eye. And yet these words are not lies; no amount of time has erased her longing.

“When Aoko’s in the palace, alone at night, she looks up into the starry sky and thinks of you,” she confesses, voice shaking. “She wonders… is Kaito looking up at these same stars, even all the way out in the ruins?” She bites her lip and murmurs out a last sentence, ears burning, heart unveiled. “Is Kaito… thinking of Aoko?”

“I…!”

The word slips haplessly out of Kaito’s mouth, before his mind is able to catch up.

“I, I mean, of course I miss you… and, um…” Kaito fumbles over his words. The truth sticks in his throat, a stray fish bone he can’t cough out, not at all like those smooth and buttered lies. “...I do think of you, when I’m about to go to bed. I wonder… if you’re doing… okay.” 

And Aoko waits for him to qualify this statement, for him to tear it down with some casual dismissal, an “only because I’ve got nothing better to think about”, an “I can’t help but be reminded of your ugly face”, the way it is, the way it always it, the way it’s always been.

The qualification never comes. 

Aoko’s heart rises into her throat, and she feels almost lightheaded, a wild, reckless abandon twisting its way softly around her tongue. 

“A-Aoko has something… she needs to tell you.”

“Yeah? What is it?” 

“Well… It’s just…” 

Aoko nervously tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, heart pounding, the blood rushing through her head. She can barely hear her own voice shaking. 

“I think I… I lo—” 

The deep chime of the evening bell chooses this moment to toll; Aoko and Kaito are both knocked to the ground from its hearty reverberations.

“Oh! The castle bell!” Kaito says, breaking eye contact with Aoko and instead glancing quickly out the window at the palace. “Looks like it’s time for dinner, huh…” 

Aoko picks herself brusquely from the floor, brushing the dust off of her white-and-purple clothes, muttering darkly under her breath. 

“Why does Aoko feel that Ginzo interrupted on purpose…” 

She gives herself a little shake, before adjusting the clasp on her cloak. 

“Well, the bell’s been rung!” Aoko announces. “Time for Aoko to head home.” 

“Need me to walk you there?” Kaito asks offhandedly. 

Aoko turns him down with a quick smile. 

“There’s no need, Kaito. The townspeople are all very nice!” 

She opens the wooden door and begins taking a step out into the arid outdoors, but stops just short of the threshold. Kaito watches her silhouette against the frame of the door wordlessly. 

“And… about what I was saying…” 

The soft murmuring of a distant bazaar floats in softly from the open door. The heat from outside brushes against Kaito’s cheek. 

“Aoko will tell you next time. Next time, for sure…!” 

“Y-yeah… alright,” Kaito agrees awkwardly. “See ya, princ— I mean… Aoko.” 

And with that, the door shuts, and the soft sound of Aoko’s footsteps in the sand patters away. 

Kaito slumps against the nearby wall, slinking down to the floor, face buried in his hands.

“I can’t be having these feelings,” he mutters to himself. “Even if she’s my childhood friend, that doesn’t negate the fact that she’s…”

With gritted teeth, bearing all the consequences and responsibility of his choice upon his shoulders, he clenches his fist, and makes his wish. 

“Aoko!” Kaito bellows, but he can’t hear his own voice over the grating noise of the ruins collapsing in on itself, he can only feel his vocal cords rending from the force of his scream.

Aoko had come on a tour of the excavation with the king, catching him by surprise— and she seemed to recognize the abstracted wings carved onto the floor of the underground chamber she had stumbled into in her search for Kaito, and then had fallen into a daze— then the ground split open, Aoko had drifted, enraptured, into the chasm, and Kaito had leapt in behind her—

Kaito’s breath is running ragged, the crumbling walls kicking dust into the air that he chokes unceremoniously on— a blinding, pure light is coming from the other end of the corridor, he knows that it must be where Aoko is— her name keeps falling from his lips and still he cannot hear himself scream— Aoko is suspended in midair, her body aligned with a black crest of wings on the walls of the ruins— and before Kaito’s eyes, white wings unfurl themselves from Aoko’s body, not quite material and yet not quite intangible, either— and Aoko’s limp body falls backwards, gently, sinking into the once-solid wall as though being swallowed by the stone—

“Aoko!” Kaito yells again, and he’s stopped listening for himself, his mind is empty of everything except his beloved, and he takes an inhuman leap— wraps his arms around Aoko’s limp body—pulls her away from the wall, landing on the floor with a heavy thud.

Before Kaito can regain his bearings, a sharp chime seems to strike, clear and piercing through the calamitous clamor around them, and the wings sprouting from Aoko suddenly dissipate, countless beams of light streaking out of the ruins.

Kaito picks himself unsteadily, even as the ruins continue to fall around him. Picking up Aoko’s lifeless body, he grits his teeth, lifting his eyes to find the exit…

“One more time!” 

Kaito breaks through the rubble, and the midday sun blinds him briefly. His eyes squint instinctively, and he holds Aoko closer to him, wary of what he might find once his eyes adjusted. 

“You’re late, kid,” growls the voice of Ginzo, and Kaito whips around in shock, though he still can’t see clearly quite yet.  The familiar silhouette of the king’s black robes is recognizable to Kaito anywhere. “Aoko’s not hurt, is she?”

“What—” gasps Kaito, trying to catch his breath. 

He’s beginning to see a scene of carnage materialize slowly as the blinding light becomes bearable. The scene is littered with the corpses of countless men, decked out in unfamiliar, foreign clothing, all marked with a crow-shaped crest.

 “What happened?!” 

Ginzo doesn’t answer Kaito, only keels over against a nearby wall with a groan of pain.

“King!”

Kaito rushes over to Ginzo’s side, but the high priest Kogoro beats him to it, white robes flowing, staff in hand. 

“It looks like the blades were poisoned,” Kogoro mutters, inspecting Ginzo’s body, which had been badly scraped and cut in the tussle with the intruders. Seeing the look of abject dismay on Kaito’s face, Kogoro swiftly tacks on with determination: “I won’t let him die.” 

Shifting Ginzo’s body in his arms, Kogoro looks up at Kaito. 

“And the princess?”

“She— she, I don’t know what’s wrong with her, we were in the ruins, and—”

“C’mere,” mutters Kogoro, pressing the forefingers of his right hand to Kaito’s forehead. “I’ll read your memory, it’s faster that way.” 

Kaito watches anxiously as Kogoro narrows his eyes. 

“The princess’s feathers— they scattered?”

“Y-yeah, I think so,” comes Kaito’s quavering voice.

His heart sinks to his stomach as Kogoro lets out a sharp “Tsk!”, and Kaito clutches ever tighter onto Aoko’s body, which is becoming lifelessly cold even in the blazing heat. He doesn’t want to know the high priest’s verdict, and yet he must.

“The feathers are the princess’s memories,” explains Kogoro with a measured patience betrayed only by the frantic edge to his voice. “Everything, from the time she was born up until just now, have been scattered. Worse yet, none of the memories are still in this world…”

“What?!” Kaito bites back the exclamation, numb with confusion and panic.

“Without the memories,” Kogoro continues gravely, “the body is but an empty vessel. She cannot survive for long like this.” 

“Then what do I do?” asks Kaito, voice rising in desperation. “Is there anything I can do?!” 

Kogoro bites his lip in silence, brow furrowed, before laying the king down softly in the sand. 

“There’s no time to hesitate,” Kogoro declares, raising his staff. The crescent moon atop the staff catches the sunlight, and a soft breeze, seemingly forming from nothing and nowhere, catches the edge of Kaito’s cloak. “I can only send you to a different world once, so I’m leaving you in the hands of the Dimensional Witch. Tell her everything…” 

The breeze gathers into a powerful gale as Kogoro plants the end of the staff into the sand. 

“And find a way to save Aoko!” 

With these words, the ground itself seems to rise up around Kaito and Aoko, tendrils of the plane itself enveloping them, pulling them in. 

Kaito is plunged into darkness as the world rushes around him, and for a brief moment he can feel nothing but his own unforgiving grip on Aoko’s lifeless body, before he sees the light once more. The void gives them up to a dreary, rainy afternoon amidst an urban sprawl, and Kaito feels the two of them falling, sees the ground rising up to meet them.

He catches a glimpse of a woman with flowing crimson hair before he screws his eyes shut, bracing for impact. Unceremoniously, the two of them are thrown to the ground by gravity. Almost instantly, Kaito bounces back in an upright position, his fingers numb from the relentless pressure on Aoko’s shoulders that surely would have been painful for her had she been conscious. 

“Are you the Dimensional Witch?” asks Kaito, so desperate it felt akin to begging. 

“I have been called that,” responds the witch evenly. 

“Then—” 

Kaito takes a deep breath, lays himself bare— 

“Please, help save Aoko!” 

He is melting, dissipating, deconstructed, remade.    

The full moon graces the Shirasagi Castle of the Japan Country with its gentle beams, blissfully unaware of the carnage occurring beneath its silvery light. 

A single man stands upon the rooftop of the castle keep, overlooking the rest of the grounds, which had been rendered silent by his handiwork. His black hair, almost trailing to his ankles, is swept aside as he shoves a corpse riddled with arrows aside with his foot.

“Disgraces to assassins everywhere,” he mutters as he roughly yanks the arrows from the bodies and returns them to his quiver, letting his eyes range over the bloodied rooftop. There’s no fewer than a dozen armored warriors lying lifeless around him, and countless more littered around the castle grounds. 

“You’ve disobeyed my orders yet again, Dai.” 

The disappointed tones of a delicate voice drift lazily up to the man, who casts his gaze upon the robed figure standing at the entryway of the castle keep.

“...Hime,” the man responds, a dissatisfied grimace plastered onto an otherwise emotionless face.

With a nimble leap, the man parkours from the rooftop and lands before the woman, arrows rattling restlessly in the quiver. 

“I’ve eliminated the assassins,” he tells her flatly. “And you’ve still got complaints.”

“My orders,” the princess intones firmly, “ were to not kill anyone needlessly.” 

“Don’t you know? It’s part of the creed of warriors to kill anyone who attacks you.”

“Really?” The princess tips her head thoughtfully to the side, cupping her own face in mock puzzlement with her right hand. “I’ve never heard of such a rule.”

“Oh, shut up, will you.” 

“Dai!” shouts a light-haired woman in indignation from beside the princess. “How can you address Akemi-hime like that?!” 

“It’s fine, Jodie,” Akemi tells her gently. 

Looking meaningfully at Dai (who refuses to make eye contact), Akemi raises her voice, dramatically despondent. 

“What a shame that not all ninjas are nice like Jodie… why must Dai be so mean, hm?”

“I’m not so much mean as I am efficient,” Dai responds coldly, tapping his bow restlessly against the wooden planks beneath them. “To gain the upper hand on the enemy, I must become the most accurate archer of them all. There’s no meaning in waffling over who lives and dies.”

Akemi is stricken with a pained smile; not surprised, no, but wounded nonetheless.

“Is that so…” she muses quietly. “The truth is, here in the country of Japan… there’s not a better marksman than you. So…” 

Akemi’s hands snap together in a sequence of graceful, practiced gestures, forming a glowing seal before her.

"... there's nothing left to do but for you to leave this place," she says simply, putting the final flourishes on her charm.

Dai narrows his eyes, and his hands twitch as they instinctively begin drawing at his bow in defense (the best of which, of course, is to simply kill the opponent before they know you're there).

"Hime," he growls carefully, his voice loaded with unspoken threats. " What are you–"

Akemi's benevolent gaze turns solemn as she gives her wrist an elegant flick. Dai's arms fly up to shield himself from the spell, but the small, circular charm passes harmlessly through them, and embosses itself upon his forehead: Curse.

"Also," Akemi adds serenely, "The accuracy of your shot will lower every time you take a life."

"Akemi, you had best be—"

"Maybe you'll learn something about true strength this way," she muses innocently, tapping her lip with her finger, seemingly oblivious to the twisted mass of earth that was busy swallowing up Dai's terse form.

"Eliminating a crucial part of your armed forces?" Dai queries with as much dignity as he could manage while the bridge turns into a hungry quicksand. "I'm not sure if that's w—"

—and the twisting mass silences the man abruptly as he shoots Akemi a cold, vitriolic glare. The once-solid wood churns restlessly and takes Dai's head under with a powerful sweep, leaving only his fist clenched tightly around his silver bow. And after a moment, even this is taken into the ether.

"Is that… is that alright…?" asks Jodie hesitantly, staring disconcertedly at the wooden planks that had rippled like water just moments before.

"No need to worry, Jodie," Akemi says sweetly, turning to head back into her nearly-stormed palace. The palace hands part smoothly before her presence.

With a final glance backwards, less at anything physical and more at the gaping absence of Dai's existence, Jodie trots diligently after Akemi, taking care to avoid the train of the princess's robes.

He is returning to the very start. Smaller, younger, weaker. 

It's frigid in Ceres as always, but as ironic as it is, it isn't snowing for once.

The cold kills sound, but even by those standards the castle is deathly quiet. Perhaps it's a natural consequence of the cathedral-like structure's majesty as it floats gently in midair, tethered to a nearby mountain peak—a silence borne of imposition, of valor, of grace. Or perhaps it's the decimation of all life within the otherwise pristine halls.

The only signs of movement lie in the heart of the castle, beneath the woven panels and stone carvings, below the arched rafters and stained glass.

It's still cold inside the castle, but it had been built for human warmth. There's none of that anymore, but it's enough to melt ice, and the innermost chamber on the lowest floor contains a small circular pool with still and frigid waters. An elegant handrail circles the perimeter of the pool, which is easily crossed in several strides at its widest.

The surface of the pool is broken as a tanned blonde man emerges from the water. He gives himself a shake as he pulls himself onto dry ground, the droplets trickling down the elaborate, abstracted tattoo running from the base of his neck down to his back and arms. As he pulls on his long, buckled shirt, a woman dressed in a simple white gown floats down gently beside him, brows furrowed in sympathy.

"Is the king asleep?" she murmurs softly, glancing in askance at the pool.

"Oh, Azusa…"

The man turns his head to join Azusa in looking at the pool. Even through the distortions of the ripples, the human figure lying peacefully at the bottom can be made out clearly: hands crossed serenely at the chest, a black-and-white patterned cape rising and falling gently with the ebbing of the water, a mop of black hair and the beginnings of a beard on a peacefully dozing face.

"...yes, he's asleep," admits the tanned man softly. "But not forever."

Azusa tips her head to the side.

"No? You didn't want him to sleep forever, Amuro?"

Amuro responds with a melancholy smile as he pulls on his long white coat, patterned with blue and trimmed with fur.

"I'm powerful, but not even I can put him to sleep forever." He picks up a long golden staff, examining the blue crystal encircled by the metal. With a wistful gaze, he says to the sleeping man, "All I can do is to stop you for now, Hiromitsu…"

Turning to the woman again, Amuro wipes away the pained look on his face.

"Can I ask you to watch over him for me?" asks Amuro demurely, turning towards Azusa with open arms and a falsely cheery smile.

"Of course," Azusa responds warmly, floating into his arms.

"I'll have to change your form to make you better suited for the job."

"Go on ahead." Azusa closes her eyes peacefully. "You were the one who created me, anyways."

"Tell me when he wakes up, won't you?"

Azusa nods, and with a wave of Amuro's hand, her form seems to liquefy, pulled into a thin membrane stretching across the pool.

"As for me…"

Amuro casts his eyes around the chamber silently, taking in the scenery that was at once painfully familiar and disturbingly foreign. His first home, stained with death.

"I think it's time for me to leave, isn't it?"

With the tip of his staff, he begins tracing runes into the air, glowing a hot blue. When the circle of runes is closed, Amuro snaps his staff upwards with a flourish, and the runes seem to solidify, pushing in unison towards him, enveloping him gently.

"I won't be back."

The voice splinters, crackling for the briefest moment before the facade is replaced for the foreseeable future. Then the runes consume him, twisting in midair until nothing remains.

Nothing, save for the king sleeping beneath the icy water, just barely warm enough for life, obstructed by a pale, thin membrane swaying gently.

It's quiet here.

Kaito opens his eyes, and before him is an unfamiliar figure. 

Who is this…?

"The girl’s name is Aoko, you say?" 

Kaito nods quickly, staring at the witch from where he is kneeling in the center of the courtyard. 

“And your name is…?”

“...Kaito.”

The rain pounds steadily on, and he shifts Aoko slightly to shield her from the downpour to the best of his ability as he waits for the witch's appraisal. She stretches a hand towards Aoko, black sleeves dangling, but stops just short of reaching the girl.

"She is missing something important. Something dear to her, which is now scattered across multiple different dimensions."

Kaito nods wordlessly, desperately. This he already knows.

"Her memories are gone," the witch continues in the same clinical tone. "If her body continues like this, without her memories, death will become an inevitable reality."

"Death…" mutters Kaito through gritted teeth. The possibility had been presented to him earlier by Kogoro, and yet it took him until now to process what that actually meant. This body in his arms… it could remain limp and lifeless. Permanently.

“Shinichi!” the witch calls sharply, and a teenager who had been watching their interaction from beneath the eaves of the building reluctantly steps into the rain towards the witch. 

“Go to the storage warehouse,” instructed the witch. “There’s something I need from there.” 

With a disgruntled groan, the teenager turns and dodges into the building.

“You want to help this girl, yes?” the witch asks, addressing Kaito once more.

Kaito only responds with a fervent nod. 

“Even if there’s a price?”

“Anything,” Kaito croaks. “Take anything. As long as I can save her. There’s a way to save her, right?”

The woman blinks owlishly at him, regarding him thoughtfully.

"Of course there's a way," she responds simply. "This is a place in which wishes are granted."

Kaito lets out a sigh of relief, but he doesn't even finish his exhalation before the woman cuts in with a cold addendum.

"However… with nothing but your life and your clothes on your back… the price may be too steep for you alone to pay."

Kaito's heart drops straight through his stomach, settling somewhere between his intestines and his left thigh. He can’t quite feel the tips of his fingers anymore. He has always lived a simple and straightforward life, with few personal belongings and a little house that could barely be considered his. This modest life leaves little he can bargain with, and he doesn’t doubt the witch’s assessment that the price is something he cannot afford.

But before Kaito can even dwell on his poverty, the witch looks away, distracted by some divine disturbance which Kaito can’t quite make out. 

“They’re coming…” she murmurs, stepping away from Kaito. 

Warily, Kaito tightens his grip on Aoko, and he sucks in a breath as the space to his left and right twist and distort, stretching until it seems to rend itself apart. Two men are revealed: on Kaito’s right, a tanned blonde man cloaked in white furs with a golden staff in hand; on Kaito’s left, a man with long, dark hair dressed in black armor clutching at a silver bow. The man in furs has a pleasant enough expression on his face, though the distinctive lower lashes of the man in armor frames his pale green eyes, vicious in its displeasure.

“You must be the Witch of Dimensions?” asks the tanned man, a chipper smile upon his face, at the exact same time the armored man demands with a stoic expression, “Who the hell are you?”

The words, ringing out both in unison and opposition, gives both men pause.

“You first,” the witch requests politely.

The armored man’s eyes flash dangerously.

“Dai.” 

“And you?”

The man in furs leans into a graceful bow. 

“Tooru Amuro, wizard of the country Ceres.” 

The witch blinks emotionlessly.

“I’m sure you know what this place is.” 

“Oh, yes,” responds Amuro easily. “It’s a place where wishes are granted, at an appropriate price.”

“Correct.” The witch regards each of the visitors in turn. “Which means all three of you have some wish you want granted.” 

“I want to return to where I’m from at once,” Dai says, his words once again grating on Amuro’s “I want to avoid returning to my world at all costs.”

“Not a simple request,” the witch says thoughtfully, tracing her lip. “For both… no, for all three of you. Interdimensional travel comes with a hefty price… and yet, if the three of you split the costs, perhaps it’s possible yet…” 

Kaito’s head jerks up at these hopeful words. Dai still appears disgruntled and skeptical; Amuro is placid. 

“You see, though your wishes appear quite different on the surface, at its core they are the same. You,” the witch says, gesturing at Kaito and Aoko, “the boy, you wish to travel between worlds in order to find the girl’s feathers. You—” The hand sweeps over to Dai— “You wish to return to the world from whence you came. As for you…” 

The witch regards the wizard with equanimity. 

“Anywhere but home is enough for you.”

The rain continues, the wetness slowly seeping into the folds of black and white cloth. 

“I cannot grant these three wishes separately. But if all three of you offer up an item of great personal value, you may travel to different worlds together.”

Dai adjusts the shoulder plate of his armor, still regarding the witch with great suspicion. 

“And what price will it cost me?” He spits out the word price as if it’s acid in his mouth. 

The witch cracks a coy smile, knowing the man wouldn’t like her words. 

“That bow in your hand,” she hums melodically, pointing at Dai’s silver bow, almost taller than Kaito.

Dai glowers silently at the witch, pursing his lips, making no move to hand the bow over.

“No?” asks the witch sweetly. “I did say it would be an item of great personal value to you. You’re balking now, of all times? I’m the only one in this dimension who can send you on your way, you know!”

“Bullshit,” says Dai.

“It’s true!” chirps Amuro cheerily.

“Bullshit.” 

“I’m not kidding,” Amuro says, feigning a pout.

“Well?” The witch holds out an expectant hand. “Whatever shall you do, esteemed warrior?”

There’s a pause as Kaito and Amuro wait for Dai’s next move. Wordlessly, he thrusts his bow out towards the witch, who accepts the token graciously. It’s more than apparent that he wouldn’t hesitate to wrest it out of her hands at first opportunity, but he is helpless in this moment.

“As for you…” The witch turns her gaze upon the cloaked wizard. “Your price is the tattoo upon your back.”

There’s a moment of stunned silence, before Amuro quickly covers his surprise with a winning smile. 

“Miss,” he says politely, holding out his golden staff, “Wouldn’t this be of more use to you? Surely it would be a better price.” 

Mistrust flits briefly across the witch’s face. 

“The price is decided not by how much it’s worth to the shopkeeper, but how much it is to the client. The most precious thing to you, not to me,” she says quietly. “You know as well as I do.”

“I suppose I don’t have much of a choice, then…”

With a pained, resigned smile Amuro closes his eyes and consents to the deal. The tattoo rises straight through his thick winter cloak, flattening out slowly, fighting the years of rest upon the contours of his back.

With the bow and tattoo floating gently besides the witch, she finally turns to Kaito. 

“And you, boy? Your most precious thing… Are you willing to forsake it for the ability to hop between dimensions?” 

Kaito raises his head. 

“Yes.” 

There’s nothing more or less to his response. 

And yet there’s a look of sadness, of pity upon the face of the shopkeeper.

“You say so with such confidence, even without hearing the price?” 

Kaito’s gaze is on Aoko’s face. Gentle, almost sleeping. It feels like a century ago that she last smiled, even though he knows it’s much sooner. There’s a sharp ache in his chest that perhaps has always been there.

“Yes.” 

“I can only give you the ability to travel to different worlds,” the witch cautions gently. “The search for the feathers, you will have to do yourself. Whatever dangers you may face… I cannot help you there.” 

“I know.”

“Good,” she says softly. “You’re prepared.” 

As though on cue, she glances back at the shop just as the sliding door clacks sharply against its frame. 

“Come on Shinichi,” calls the witch. “We haven’t got all day.” 

The boy— Shinichi— has a face that could almost be Kaito’s. A little part of him absently wonders if this is how he would look with glasses. 

“What— how come there are more people than when I left you?!” demands Shinichi, approaching the witch with a pair of tiny, rabbit-like creatures in his arms— one black, one white. Two boys, who also appeared to be assistants, flank him in his approach, with one taking the tattoo and the other taking the bow. 

“Oh, you know how it is,” the witch says in a total non-answer. “Regardless.”

She gestures for Shinichi to hand her the creatures, and he does, braving the rain which shows no sign of stopping.

“This is Mokona Modoki,” says the witch, cradling the white creature with a red earring. “It can take you to other dimensions.”

“And the other one?” asks Dai, gesturing for its black counterpart. 

The witch clicks her tongue impatiently. “That’s not for you,” she says crossly. “It’s just for communication. These two…” She gives each of the creatures a pat on the head in turn. “...can communicate with each other, even in different dimensions.”

She flashes Dai a quick smile. “It’s useful,” she insists, teeth bared, before turning to the others again.

“Mokona may be able to take you to different dimensions, but it can’t control the destination. Of course, there are no coincidences in the world.” The four people before her are reflected in her eyes. “Only destiny. You were destined to meet each other.” 

The witch closes her eyes. There is only one thing left before the transaction is completed. 

“Kaito.” 

The eyes open.

“Your payment… is the relationship.”

Rain.

“Your most precious thing… is your relationship with this girl. That is the cost.”

“But what does that mean ?” Kaito demands helplessly.

The witch sighs, a breath which reaches the heavens and back again.

“Even if every fragment of her memory is returned to her… your relationship will never be the same again. Nothing from your relationship will be restored.” 

She sees the hesitation on Kaito’s face, and asks him, softly, words so delicate they could shatter with a touch: “What is she to you?”

And Kaito looks down at the one in his arms, his sky, his sun, his water, his everything. 

“She’s… my childhood friend,” he manages, trying not to think of her face, lit up at the sight of him. 

“...the princess of my country…”

The honesty is reaching down into his heart, twisting around it, squeezing it painfully. Honesty that Aoko is unable to hear, honesty that will soon become nothing more meaningful than random noise. 

“...someone very important to me.”

“I see.”

There is mourning on the face of the witch.

“But if you choose to accept Mokona, that will all vanish. That would be something impossible to return.”

She lets the words sink slowly into the earth, lets the gravity swallow it up.

“...even then?”

His hands are shaking, but he steadies them. He is much more frail than he believes, but at once stronger than he knows, as well. 

“Even then,” whispers Kaito, his voice strengthening into a rallying cry, a commandment to himself. “I can’t let Aoko die!” 

“Sincerity and determination,” the witch observes. Even for someone so timeless as her, such qualities never cease to amaze her, a marvel unmatched. “Indispensable qualities if one wants to succeed.” 

“In which case…” The witch raises Mokona above her in a grand gesture, and a pair of wings begin to unfurl from its tiny body as a magic circle flashes into existence beneath it. “You should be on your way.” 

Mokona opens its mouth wide—Kaito, realizing that it’s begun, braces himself for another dimensional shift—he feels his vision distorting, as though his flesh were being pulled like an elastic dough—the four are swallowed into Mokona’s mouth—plunged into darkness—

“The time you turned back, and the relationships you severed as payment for your wish,” a voice croaks to him from the shadows. “This existence was born to fill those voids.”

“Shinichi,” the witch says. “Go to the storage warehouse. There’s something I need from there.” 

“What do I—” Shinichi begins, but Genta and Mitsuhiko each dutifully take an arm and drag him towards the storage warehouse. 

“Genta and Mitsuhiko will show you,” Akako tells him, before turning to face her new bedraggled visitors. 

Shinichi isn’t even bothered at getting dragged around by Genta and Mitsuhiko anymore, just mumbles in disbelief as per the usual. 

“The arms coming out of the pavement was weird enough… and now people are falling from the sky?! Ridiculous.” 

Tsk, tsk, Shinichi. You should know by now that the world is much larger than you once understood it to be. Give it a bit more time, and this won’t be the strangest thing you’ve seen by a large margin.

Shinichi whips around, ruffled by Akako’s clear, singsongy voice echoing around him. 

“The hell…? How are you speaking to me?” 

Through Genta and Mitsuhiko, of course!

Shinichi can hear the smug grin in the voice, and he irritably waves off this new revelation.

“Of course,” he says drily, following the boys down the hallway. “How silly of me.” 

Shinichi tosses a casual glance backwards at the yard.

“ Who are those guests, anyways?” 

Visitors from a different world, I suppose, comes Akako’s answer. Like any of our guests, they’re looking for us to grant their wish.

“From a different world,” Shinichi mutters, squinting discontentedly. He was getting used to those sorts of nonsensical statements against his deepest desires. “Science fiction multiverse stuff.” 

A disembodied chuckle passes through Shinichi as he slides open the door to the warehouse. Genta and Mitsuhiko patter inside without hesitation.

It’s only fiction if you avert your eyes, Shinichi. It’s a reality for us. For them. 

“The storeroom feels different today,” says Shinichi, electing not to respond to Akako’s words. He follows Genta and Mitsuhiko to a pair of glass jars resting in a corner of the warehouse— glass jars which had somehow escaped his notice despite his constant cleaning. 

Not so immune to the supernatural, are you?

“That’s the whole reason I’m here, isn’t it?” Shinichi shoots back impatiently, approaching the jars. “I can only stay in disbelief for so long. As long as sufficient evidence is presented, I’m more than willing to change my mind on things.”

Of course, of course… Akako’s voice rings out lazily through the room. Perhaps we’re more similar than we think. If it hadn’t been for that man… I surely would have continued on in ignorance as well.

Shinichi sighs impatiently. 

“Met who now?” he asks wearily. 

Oh, I’m so glad you asked, Akako trills, though there’s an undertone of stiffness to her voice. Shinichi wonders briefly if the encounter with the guest has gone awry. There’s this magician, you see… the one who created the creatures in the jars before you, actually! 

Shinichi nods and reaches out towards the jars, but pulls back sharply as the glass swirls away upon his touch. The pair of creatures— one black and one white— slowly float up before him, and Akako’s  voice continues…

He had created a world… then another… oh, but I’m boring you with the details, aren’t I? Let’s put that aside for now… His name was Toichi Kuroba, and these creatures were created just for this day, when those who didn’t share his blood, and yet were the same as his descendants, would arrive at this shop…

“They don’t share his blood, but are the same as his… descendants?” 

Shinichi loves a good riddle, but Akako enlightens him before he can solve the quandary. 

You see, Akako hums softly, in our world, there are also two people by the name of Kaito and Aoko who’re descended from Toichi! But the Kaito and Aoko in our yard right now are from a different world… but their souls are the same. 

Disconcerting.

“So… I also exist in other worlds…?” Shinichi asks hesitantly. 

Quite so! Maybe there’s a world in which you carelessly chase down some suspicious criminals into a dark alleyway, only to be crudely poisoned and shrunk down into a child…

“I would never,” says Shinichi, affronted.

Ah— quit dawdling, Shinichi! Akako’s voice suddenly becomes much sharper. Bring it here, quickly now! Our other guests are arriving! 

And it does seem that way— he can hear a distant commotion from the yard, a distortion of sound, a guttural slowing and tripping, that shouldn’t have been possible without the aid of software. 

Shinichi scoops up the two rabbit-like creatures without 

“You—!” the white one pipes up. “You look like an ugly monster~”

“Oi, oi…” Shinichi mutters. “Don’t get an ounce of respect around here.” 

“No, he doesn’t just look like an ugly monster, he is an ugly monster~” 

“Do you have something against me?!” demands Shinichi, as he dashes out into the rain to join Akako. “Ah—”

There are two additional people standing in the yard now: a tanned man in white furs, and a dark-haired man in black armor. 

“More people?!” Shinichi exclaims, but he’s really only half-surprised. 

“Thank you, Shinichi,” Akako says, no longer echoing from Genta and Mitsuhiko. She reaches out for the white creature.

“What about this one?” asks Shinichi, still holding its black counterpart. 

No need, Akako murmurs to him through the boys, who had automatically taken the bow and tattoo into their arms without instruction. The black one is for us to take care of.

“This child here is Mokona Modoki,” explains Akako. “It will take you to other worlds.” 

Akako pauses here, looks down at Kaito, still knelt on the ground. 

“Kaito. Your price… for you, who left your country with naught but the clothes on your back… the most precious thing to you… is your relationship with the girl.”

Shinichi can see it in Kaito’s eyes; he doesn’t understand. And to be fair, Shinichi doesn’t understand it, either. (He can’t help but notice how similar their appearances are. Shinichi sees a carbon copy of Kaito in his mirror every morning, before he tames his hair.) 

“What does that…?” asks Kaito desperately. 

“And how are you going to collect that sort of payment?” asks Shinichi quietly, from behind her. 

Akako twists her head just enough to make eye contact with Shinichi, before turning back to face Kaito. 

“What you treasure most is your relationship with Sakura. Even if you collect every single feather, return her memory to the pristine state it was before they scattered… your relationship will never be restored.”

Shinichi hasn’t been at the shop for long, but this strikes him as a very extreme price, greater than anything he’s encountered yet. He struggles thinking of a wish that would be so costly, shortly followed by a different, but equally difficult struggle of a relationship that he could offer up. The relationship he’d be most willing to part with, of course, is his relationship with Akako, but aside from that, there’s his relationship with—

With…?

?

Shinichi frowns. 

“Why do they have to travel?” he asks Akako quietly. “What must they accomplish that they have to give all of this up?”

To look for things lost. To return home. To flee. There are a whole host of reasons, but these are the reasons for these four. 

“That doesn’t seem fair.” 

Much of life is unfair, little one. We all have wishes. Desires. It just comes down to what you’re willing to part ways with. 

“And even so?” she asks Kaito. “Even so, will you accept Mokona?”

“Yes.” 

Shinichi feels as though he’s watching a the kindling of a fire in real time; the single affirmation sparks something within Kaito; he raises his head, to meet with Akako on even terms, taking upon a new burden and yet liberated from unseen shackles in the same breath; and, taking it all within his two hands, he stares down destiny—

“—Absolutely.” 

Akako’s face, solemn and stern just moments before, eases into a sympathetic smile.

“Sincerity and determination.” Akako lifts Mokona up, letting it take flight. “Indispensable qualities if one wishes to succeed.” 

And in a split second, Mokona opens its mouth— sucks up the four humans as though they were dust to a vacuum cleaner— closes its mouth, and there’s a moment of silence, as Mokona seemingly gathers its strength, and in a spiral of light…

…they’re gone. It’s just Akako and Shinichi alone in the courtyard now, with Genta and Mitsuhiko. 

“I wish them a safe and successful journey,” Akako murmurs quietly, eyes turned towards the heavens. 

The sun breaks through the clouds, and Shinichi realizes the rain has cleared. 

“So then… are you taking… memories from her, then?” 

Shinichi still doesn’t quite understand. 

The smile is still on Akako’s face, and though the corners of her lips are turned up, Shinichi feels that there’s a shadow of something else there— sadness, maybe, or pity. 

“There are four people who are using Mokona to travel to other dimensions. Aoko is one of them, even if she was asleep during this exchange. Like Kaito, she left her country with nothing to her name… her memories of Kaito are the most precious things to her as well.” 

Akako closes her eyes. 

“She is the one who needs Mokona the most, of the four. And so it follows that her price is the heaviest.” 

Shinichi watches Akako with furrowed brows, and is taken aback when he sees her break into laughter. 

“Well, really… I should have taken Kaito’s memories of Aoko as well, but he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his wish that way. Perhaps I’m still too soft… but this should be enough.” 

It’s the first time that Shinichi has seen Akako so… distraught isn’t the right word. But somehow, this exchange felt more personal, and heavier in that way. Interpersonal relationships are complicated, they’re not Shinichi’s strength. 

“Didn’t you tell me something like this, before? That sincerity and determination are the keys to success?” 

Akako regards him emotionlessly, wordlessly beckoning for him to continue. Shinichi shifts to slide the hand that isn’t holding Mokona into his pocket, comforted by the meager solace of a familiar stance. 

“Something about understanding the value of what you’ve given up, and finding the resolve to follow through despite it all. Cradling that loss to your chest even as you progress forward.” 

Shinichi feels a bit self-conscious saying these things. The words and concepts seem so genuine when Akako’s the one speaking of them, and yet so flimsy when it comes from his own lips.

“...It's my first time meeting Kaito…” Shinichi continues reluctantly. “But even I could tell… that determination and sincerity that you keep talking about is something he definitely seems to embody. So…”

And Shinichi doesn’t know whether the following sentiment was borne of sympathy for Kaito’s loss, or of kinship with him, or whether he simply want to ease the sorrow off of Akako’s face—

“...he’d be able to achieve everything he wishes for, wouldn’t he? And everything would turn out fine for the two of them…”

“Mm, not quite!” Akako murmurs thoughtfully. “It’s closer to… ‘Nothing could ever go wrong!’” 

Shinichi frowns in response to Akako’s sudden upswing in mood. She smirks mischievously.

“The soul is the same, remember?” she reminds him gently. “Nothing can go wrong for them! It’s what Toichi and I thought, and that’s why we made the Mokonas.” She taps her finger thoughtfully against her temple. “It’s the same for the mage and the archer.” 

“Nothing can go wrong for them as well, huh…” 

If only the same could be said for me, Shinichi thinks. 

“Genta! Mitsuhiko! Please put the tattoo bow away in the storage room, please~” Akako calls cheerily. “And Shinichi, if you haven’t noticed, it’s the perfect time for a beer —” 

“You don’t look old enough for alcohol,” Shinichi grumbles, knowing full well that there was no point in opposing her and still complaining as though it would change something. “One of these days you’re going to get alcohol poisoning and I won’t call an ambulance for you!” 

“Oh, you’re such a killjoy!” Akako wails dramatically. “It’s Mokona’s first time out and about and you’re going to deny it alcohol! What a beast!” 

“You’re telling me this rabbit drinks beer?!” 

“Tsk, tsk, Shinichi… it’s not a rabbit , Mokona has a name!” 

“Mokona loves alcohol!” it chirps, quite appropriately. 

“Mokona will be staying in the shop, incidentally, so you’ll have to get along, I’m afraid,” Akako says breezily, heading back into the shop.

“You’re kidding,” growls Shinichi. “This was not in the job description.” 

Akako bursts into a delightful laughter, ringing out as the last droplets of rain slide off the nearby leaves. 

“This isn’t funny!” 

The child is not quite, but close to a perfect replica of Kaito. 

If it wasn’t for the untamable cowlick, Kaito could have mistaken him for his own image in a mirror. 

“Come out, witch!” Shinichi yells unceremoniously into the foyer of the shop that is becoming more familiar by the day. “Dinner’s cold soba today!” 

“With some Soju afterwards, surely!” Akako pipes up cheerily, hopping into the foyer at such speeds she could have simply materialized in there. The excitement, however, slides off her face as she gives Shinichi a once-over. 

“Shinichi.” 

Shinichi takes a step back warily, a frown on his face. 

“What are you hiding?” 

“I’m not… the pipe fox followed me on its own…” Shinichi replies, flustered. The pipe fox pokes its tiny head out of Shinichi’s shirt, driven by curiosity. 

Akako shakes her head, frustrated. 

“That’s not what I’m talking about. What’s in your pocket?” 

“Oh…”

Shinichi pulls out a feather from inside his pocket. 

“I found this at school today,” he explains hastily. “When I found this feather, it seemed to be coming from this girl’s back…” 

“She has wings growing from her back?” 

“Yeah, is that… is that normal?”

Akako dodges the question. 

“Are you dead set on keeping that feather?”

“Uh…” 

“The feather you’re holding.”

“Not really, no, take it if you want.”

Shinichi offers the feather to Akako, and it glides smoothly and effortlessly towards the witch— and promptly bursts into flame. 

“Be careful, Shinichi. Take care not to become / beɪt /.”

This, however, is as illuminating as a burnt out bulb to Shinichi. 

“The hell is that supposed to mean…?” he mutters to himself, frantically erasing the landscape drawing the class had been assigned that afternoon. 

“Shinichi!”

A familiar voice calls out to him, and Shinichi’s spirits are instantly raised. 

“Ran!” 

“Have you finished the drawing yet?”

“Not yet,” Shinichi replies, patting the ground beside him. 

Before Ran can even begin settling down next to Shinichi, however, a loud tearing noise coming from a nearby cluster of students catches their attention. 

It seems that one of the girls has ripped up their drawing. 

“What’s wrong?!” 

“Are you okay?!”

Concerned exclamations swell up in the distance, and Shinichi realizes— It’s her.  

The winged girl. 

“He shall be the son born to your parents,” continues the voice. 

“This boy… he is not your brother.” 

“He is you.”

“Whoa— Kaito, what happened, you’re burned all over, you need medical attention—”

The four of them had been dropped off into a world remarkably similar to the one they had come from, called the Hanshin Republic, into the care of the Megures— a kindly, fat gentleman and his loving wife— and they had been crashing at their place since their arrival— nearly three weeks, now.

Kaito stumbles past the foyer, scrambling to kick his shoes off, his right hand almost numb from the pain, in a death grip around—

“Is that Aoko’s feather?!” exclaims Megure, reaching out to steady Kaito.

Kaito nods wordlessly, pushing past Megure. 

“Aoko…” he murmurs, opening the door with what gentleness he can afford. “...Aoko.” 

Megure looks as though he wants to stop Kaito, but holds back, instead looking towards Amuro and Dai for an explanation. Amuro straightens out Kaito’s shoes, which also appears horribly burned. 

“He found it,” Amuro tells Megure simply. “As we suspected, it was in a powerful guardian spirit… just not the ones we thought.” 

“And— but the—”

 Megure fumbles for words, as quietly as he can— 

”— the burns?! How did he get injured so badly…?” 

A pitying smile dances on Amuro’s lips.

“It was inside,” Amuro repeats. “Kaito needed to use the powers of his own guardian spirit, to burn the way to the center. Naturally… he sustained flesh wounds.” 

Megure looks as though he wanted to protest, but Dai shoots him a nasty look.

“It was his choice.” Dai’s voice comes out softly, but the poison in the words could cut. “Who are we to stop him?” 

And that was the end of the conversation, if not naturally, then by Dai’s hand. Dai follows in Kaito’s footsteps and pushes past Megure as well, and Amuro too, though he pauses to shoot Megure an apologetic look. 

The door to the room where Aoko had been sleeping during these days is slightly ajar, and there’s a soft, warm glow that permeates the room. From outside the room, they can see Kaito at Aoko’s bedside, clutching her hand, watching, praying, for any sign of awakening…

The feather sinks into Aoko’s chest, the same way a porous rock might sink slowly into water. Kaito feels the soft, tender hand warm slightly, but he can’t tell whether he is imagining it or whether his senses are still accurate even through the layers of pain and exhaustion. Through his half-blurred vision, his uneven breathing, he sees Aoko’s eyelids flutter…

“Aoko…!” Kaito breathes, the relief palpable to the spectators just outside the room.

A dazed Aoko, crippled by the void in her brain, impossibly drowsy from the weeks of sleep, blinks and looks at the world for the first time. It’s all so foreign to her…

She is laying down. Warm. Cradled in softness. It's bright, but not in a way that hurts. She blinks again, feels crystals around her eyes from her long, dreamless sleep.

And the thing which demands her attention the most urgently, the person holding her hand as though it were his own…

“Who… are you…?”

Amuro and Dai can’t see the change in expression on Kaito’s face, but the way his shoulders drop slightly, the way he slowly sets her hand back down, gently, upon the soft sheets… he’s wounded. Of course he’s wounded. Surely he’d known it would end up like this, and even still… 

It hurts.

But Kaito’s always been good at hiding his feelings, and putting on a face he doesn’t mean, and so despite the pain, both internal and external, he raises his head, smiling amicably at Aoko, as though he hadn’t just been grievously injured. 

“I’m Kaito!” he says with a hearty grin, talking slower than usual. “And you… are Princess Aoko!”

Kaito sits back, gives Aoko space. He’s too close for a stranger. 

“Please listen carefully,” he tells her patiently. “You are the princess of another world. But right now, you’ve lost your memories… in order to get them all back, we have to travel through all kinds of different worlds.”

Aoko rubs her eyes sleepily. 

“Different… different worlds…?” she asks, barely understanding, not even knowing to be overwhelmed by the information. 

“Yes,” Kaito says. “But you’re not alone. There are a few more people who will go with you! Fellow travelers from different worlds…” A pause. “Like me!” 

He flashes another smile at her, hoping that it provides a modicum of assurance for her, but her lack of response bites into his confidence. 

“So…” 

Kaito can almost see the gears clicking inside Aoko’s head, tooth by tooth, agonizingly slow.

“...so, we haven’t met before, then…?”

“Ah…” The mask falters for a split second. “Yup, that’s right!”

The spectating has gone on long enough, Amuro decides. He steps into the room elegantly with a self-introduction.

“Nice to meet you, Princess Aoko,” he says, sweeping into a bow. “I’m Tooru Amuro. The scary-looking man at the door is Dai. And this here is Mokona…!” 

Kaito knows that the two men had been watching right from the start, and he’s grateful for the break. Yet there’s still something so pathetic about it all, as he quietly passes Megure again, heading out into the downpour outside, his tears getting lost amidst the rain. 

What had he expected?

That she would let him down gently about not knowing who he was? That she would even wake up with that sort of compassion built into her, when she had all the substance of a drained glass? That maybe when she opened her eyes, reality would crumble away, revealing itself just to be a mere nightmare?

The dove which approached Kaito in his dreams on the night of his first arrival nudges his cheek. His guardian spirit, which had been steadfast in its support for him, which held a familiarity that was comforting to him, despite the fact that they too, had been strangers not three weeks ago.

“Thank you,” murmurs Kaito softly, stroking its feathers, watching the licks of flame curl harmlessly over his fingers, mind still numb. 

Amuro and Dai have left Aoko to Mokona, and the two of them have settled themselves on the balcony, carefully watching Kaito from a distance. 

“I thought he would break down into tears, when she asked him who he was,” Amuro murmurs quietly. “I’ve known from the start that she was his most precious thing, and yet…” 

“He’s crying now,” Dai states flatly. 

“...probably.” 

The two of them lounge in silence, watching Kaito’s dove offer its company to him. 

“Anyone who doesn’t cry can’t be that strong,” Dai says abruptly. 

Amuro’s eyes widen at this glimpse into Dai’s inner psyche, but keeps quiet. 

“No matter how awful reality is, if you’ve had a good cry, you can always face things a bit better. That is…”

Dai crosses his arms, bringing his own guardian spirit to join Kaito’s, and Amuro wordlessly follows suit. A snow-white tiger nuzzles Kaito; a pitch-black dragon encircles him, offering shelter from the relentless downpour. 

“Crying when it’s necessary is just a different way of showing one’s strength.”

“This other you is one that is not meant to exist.”

“This disturbance will bring pain to the parents who saved you, and to this child himself.”

“Wings, huh?” 

Shinichi’s dark-skinned classmate pops an egg roll into his mouth thoughtfully. 

“So she’s the one ya saw yesterday, then?”

“Yeah, seems like she’s in Class 2.” 

“And Ran couldn’t see ‘em?” 

Shinichi shakes his head. 

“Mm… so I prolly wouldn’t be able to see ‘em either.” Heiji leans back on the steps, taking a drink of tea from their lunch. “Then she’s some kinda evil spirit or somethin’?” 

“Evil spirit…” Shinichi muses. “Somehow, that doesn’t feel quite right. Besides, she’s always been a classmate… Something like possession might be more likely.”

And it’s as if Shinichi is speaking of the devil; right on cue, the winged girl appears before the two.

“Move,” she says harshly. “You guys are in the way!” 

And in some ways this is true; the two boys are sitting directly in the stairwell, and are certainly taking up over half of a single step, but it should have been easy enough to navigate around the two. 

Shinichi frowns, but shuffles closer to Heiji with a brief apology. The girl storms past him up the steps, and slams the door behind her shut with an uncalled for amount of strength. 

“Ran told me that she was always the quiet sort of girl,” Shinichi says quietly, still looking at the door. “She was also surprised at her outburst.” 

Shinichi taps his chopsticks against the edge of the bento box restlessly. “It’s not just the heat, is it…” 

He meets Heiji’s gaze, and the two of them speak in unison:

“It’s gotta be the wings.”

The two of them part ways after lunch to attend their afternoon classes, but it’s still fresh in both of their minds, and as soon as school lets out, Shinichi hunts Heiji down once more.

“There’s got to be something wrong with the wings,” Shinichi insists (not that he thinks Heiji would disagree). 

“Ya feel somethin’ strange about it?” Heiji asks, as the two of them make their way home. 

“No, but yesterday when I got my hands on the feather, Akako noticed, and told me to be careful… ‘Take care not to become / beɪt /.’”

“What’s this / beɪt /?” 

“I… I’m not sure,” Shinichi admits. “I mean, the most obvious interpretation would be ‘bait’, but that’s… kind of unsettling, to be honest.” 

Heiji frowns, before giving Shinichi a hearty slap on the back. 

“She’s right. Be careful, Kudo. I’m gettin’ some real bad vibes from this wing stuff.” He takes the right fork at the intersection, sending Shinichi off with a casual wave. “See ya!” 

This tugs uncomfortably at the edge of Shinichi’s mind, naturally; Heiji, who is much more flippant than him about the concept of danger, warning him? Perhaps things were more serious than he had previously believed…

With these thoughts, he absentmindedly enters Akako’s shop. 

Genta and Mitsuhiko’s footsteps echo loudly in the hallway. 

“Hello!” the boys call out in unison, spirits high as ever.

“Hey…” 

“Master’s out today!”

“She’s out with Mokona!” 

“Oh, that’s a shame. I was thinking of inviting her to the festival tonight if she was around.”

“Master says sorry! She wanted to take Shinichi out to play, too!” 

“Oi, oi, I’m not some object to be ‘played with’...” Shinichi slips his shoes off, leaving them in the foyer. “How come you guys didn’t go with her? I know you’ve got yukatas, I saw them while I was reorganizing the closet.” 

The cheer in the room evaporates. 

“Can’t.” 

“...cause you didn’t get Akako’s permission?” Shinichi admits he's a bit unsettled by the sudden void of emotion in the atmosphere. 

“No. Genta and Mitsuhiko cannot leave the store.” There’s a coldness in their voice, as though reciting from a script. “ The shop may appear the same from both the interior and the exterior, but they are different. Genta and Mitsuhiko have no soul. Their bodies cannot handle the passage through the rift between the store and the outside world.” 

Their words are no less disconcerting than their demeanor. 

“The inside and outside of the store aren’t the sa—” Shinichi twitches as he senses something wriggling in his shirt, before extracting the pipe fox from it. ”You again!” 

With a heavy heart and a yukata he dug out of Akako’s closet, Shinichi heads off to the night festival, rendezvousing with Ran and Heiji at the torii gate. 

“Wow, Shinichi, ya look great!” calls Heiji, waving his entire arm so enthusiastically Shinichi wonders if it’ll fly off one of these days. 

“Absolutely!” Ran chimes in. “The color of your yukata really brings out your eyes!” 

“Ahh— it was just something I dug out of Akako’s closet, it’s not a big deal…” 

Shinichi sighs, scratching his neck self-consciously. 

“I mean, the two of you look great as well, is what I was trying to say…” 

“Aw, no need to be so shy!” Heiji slings an arm around Shinichi’s neck, dragging him towards the booths and stalls. 

“Do you like these sorts of things, Shinichi?” Ran asks as the three of them meander through the stalls. 

“Yeah, I do, actually,” Shinichi says absently, busy perusing the various booths. “But I tend to avoid these kinds of places, since… well. You know.” 

“Ah, yeah, that grim reaper curse ya got on ya,” Heiji says, eyeing one of the shooting games. 

“Well, it’s been a bit better lately, maybe because I hang around you more often now…” 

“Wow, I’m a protective charm for ya? That’s cute!” 

“Well, that’s not how I’d —”

Shinichi’s protests are cut off by a shout.

“Stop it!!” 

Through the crowd, Shinichi spots a trio of girls, and he isn’t even surprised that one of the girls in question is the winged one, who speaks up next.

“You’re the one that bumped into me!” she spits coldly.

“I’ve already apologized!” the man exclaims in return, frustrated. 

“That’s it?”

“Please, just forget about it,” the girl’s friend pleads.

“Let’s just go…” murmurs her other friend. 

“No. I demand a proper apology.” 

“Is there something wrong with your head?!”

Without warning, with nothing to herald her next move, the winged girl takes the barrel of the wooden carnival gun in her hands and swings the base of the gun heavily at the man. It connects cleanly with the side of his head, the crisp crack of solid wood against flesh and skull ringing out in the open air. The impact knocks the man to the ground, stunning him.

A silence drapes itself on the crowd and pulls sharply, as though plunging the scene underwater; the previous amicable chattering is replaced with uneasy mutterings. 

“It’s you who has a problem,” the winged girl declares. 

And for a second Shinichi feels a spike of panic— did that kill him? — before he notices something else, something more pressing, and wonders if his eyes are deceiving him. 

“Hattori… I think the wings are growing,” Shinichi murmurs to Heiji.

Heiji shows no response save for narrowing his eyes; his body is tense, ready to intervene.

There are several people gathering around the fallen man, checking on his condition. 

“What the hell,” the friend screams, dumbstruck. “Why did you do that?!” 

“I did it because I felt like it.” 

The disdain in her voice is palpable, filled with so much hate for something that seems so trivial. Her friends are panicking now, grabbing her wrist, trying to pull her away, as the crowd begins to confront the winged girl. 

“Come on, run!” begs one of them, but the winged girl refuses to budge. 

“And why should I run?” she asks. “I’ve done nothing wrong.” 

Her friend stops trying to sway her, instead just dragging her away from the scene of violence. The girls sprint past Shinichi, Ran, and Heiji, and Shinichi reaches for Heiji’s wrist without thinking. 

“They’re  growing again. The wings.” Shinichi can’t tear his eyes away from the girl. “What’s up with them?”

Perhaps it’s an accident, or perhaps it’s fate, but the girl’s gaze crosses paths with Shinichi’s staring. Upon her realization of the intrusion of a spectator, her face sours visibly, vitriol that sends shivers down Shinichi’s spine. But despite the fact that this encounter lasts barely longer than a second or two, Shinichi finds himself dwelling on this moment even into the next day. 

“Ya say the wings were growin’, right?” Heiji asks over lunch.

“Yeah… I’m pretty certain that’s what I saw.” Shinichi absently nibbles on his sandwich, still stuck in yesterday. “And after that… she glared.” 

“Yeah? At who?” 

Shinichi suddenly feels a lurch in his stomach, and he whips up his head to find— yes, of course— the winged girl standing before him, her blatant discontentment spelled across her face.

“You saw what happened yesterday?” she asks brusquely. 

“Uh, yeah…” Shinichi admits warily. 

Heiji frowns, stuffing the rest of his sandwich in his mouth..

“‘Fo what?” he asks bluntly, not even bothering to swallow first. 

The girl shoots Heiji a disdainful look, but keeps her words targeted at Shinichi.

“Didn’t you stare at me?” 

“Well, our eyes met, sure, but I wouldn’t say I stared at you.”

“Well, I think you were staring. And that irritated me. A lot.” The winged girl lifts her head a fraction. “Apologize.”

Shinichi furrows his brows, puzzled, wronged. 

“Apologize,” repeats the girl, her voice becoming frayed with frustration.

“Hold on,” Shinichi insists. “I really didn’t stare. I think there’s a misunderstanding here, and if that’s the case—”

“I don’t care! Just apologize already! Now!” 

The girl’s sudden shriek catches Shinichi off guard, but Heiji, the bystander, isn’t so taken aback.

“Oi, I don’t know who ya are, but Shinichi doesn’t hafta apologize, alright?” Heiji stands up confidently, placing himself between Shinichi and the girl. “He hasn’t done anythin’ wrong, so he doesn’t hafta apologize. Now you, on the other hand…”

“All you have to do is apologize!”

Her voice is getting shredded from the abuse she’s putting it through, and in this emotional outburst, her wings, which had only rested lifelessly along her back, springs to life. 

Shinichi doesn’t know what the implications of this are. But the wings are growing, and the horrible sense of mounting dread deep in his chest is growing, too. 

“The wings…!” he shouts, reaching past Heiji towards the girl, not even knowing what he would do to make things turn for the better.

“Shut up!” the girl bellows, and her hand flashes from her pocket, revealing a box cutter, which she swung at Shinichi with no remorse. The knife catches him on the inside of his upper arm, and pulls through his flesh with a great deal of friction. 

Her hands are shaking as she points the box cutter at Shinichi once more. 

“Everyone! Shut! Up!” Her voice, though still loud, becomes more unsteady. “Stop…”

She doubles over— her wings are pulsating, swelling— a single wing has already grown larger than her body— and through all this, she continues her shouting. 

“Stop making me so irritated!” 

She steps forward with unexpected agility, swinging the box cutter recklessly at Shinichi. 

“Apologize!” she shrieks, even as Shinichi dodges out of the way. “Apologi—”

“Hattori!!”

Hattori nonchalantly lets out a huge sigh, as though he didn’t just grab a box cutter by the blade. As though he weren’t actively bleeding out. 

“This is gettin’ outta hand!” His grip on the box cutter is firm; the winged girl is no longer able to swing her weapon around. “Aren’t ya the one who should apologize?”

At these words, the girl collapses to her knees.

“Ah— no need to prostrate, ya know?”

“No, Hattori— it’s the wings!”

“Wh-what is it?” Heiji asks uneasily. “The wings are what now?”

“They, they’re pulling away from her body,”  Shinichi says, eyes locked on the squirming mess that is pulling itself away from the girl. “There… there are tentacle things that kept it rooted to her body, and it’s—”

Shinichi yelps and leaps out of the way as the wings lunge for him. But it’s not enough— the wingspan is too huge for him to compete—

“Kudo, what’s wrong?!”

There’s a bright flash of light, as the pipe fox, who had been comfortably nestled within Shinichi’s shirt, reveals itself. Normally, it resembled a worm on a string, a skinny, furry little fellow, but in this moment it has transformed itself into a large spirit fox, the whole nine tails, and proceeds to tear the wings to shreds. 

Shinichi is knocked off his feet, barely processing what’s happening, but he doesn’t have much time to think. Though the wings are getting torn asunder by the pipe fox, the tentacles are still slithering towards him at an alarming speed. He nimbly dodges away from the tentacles, but they’re too swift, and in one fluid movement swings behind him.

Shinichi braces himself for impact, but the pipe fox is still one step ahead. The tentacles are set aflame, and crumble slowly to ash, as Akako sidles up to the scene in a black kimono. 

“Didn’t I warn you, Shinichi?” Akako says evenly. “To be careful, so that you don’t end up as ‘bait’?” 

The girl collapses to the ground, and though Heiji steadies her, Shinichi can see that there was but a void behind her empty eyes. 

“No.” 

A voice, a different voice than the croak, rings out. 

The witch appears behind the other child. 

“The future is yet to be determined.”

Aoko had run up to the castle with Sera and the magic mirror, though the perpetual sleepiness she seems stuck in is as powerful as ever. There’s a trail of carnage that made it very clear where Kaito, Dai, and Amuro had gone, carnage that made her stomach turn even though she doesn’t know why. 

The townsfolk had collectively been placed under a spell by Jirokichi, casted with the power of Aoko’s feather, but Sera had broken the spell using her mother’s old mirror. And Sera had cried over Jirokichi’s murder of her mother years ago; and Jirokichi had fallen back once more upon trickery, trying to use the resurrection of Sera’s mother as bait; but ultimately, he had been whisked away by a witch that he had wrongly imprisoned; and that was that.

There was only the feather left, the feather that Jirokichi had harnessed within his crumbling glass orb, now in Kaito’s hands. 

“Princess Aoko,” he says respectfully, allowing the feather to drift lazily over to her, before her body absorbs it, magnetic sand swallowing a metal pinball. 

Aoko is transported to the distant past…

There is a dining hall. Large, lavish. It feels like home. The feast upon the banquet table is much more luxurious than usual, though “usual” remains a gaping hole to Aoko. 

Across the table, there are two familiar figures. Familiar, not in the sense that she remembered much about them, but she feels herself at home in their presence— safe, valued, loved. 

“Happy birthday, Princess Aoko!” the priest in white tells her with an exaggerated smile on his face.

“Thank you, Kogoro!” she remembers herself saying. Kogoro… yes. She doesn’t know how, but she knows his name. 

“I’m not sure this’ll be enough for a glutton like Aoko,” says Ginzo playfully from beside Kogoro. 

“Come on , Ginzo!” Aoko hears herself grumble. “It’s way too much for one person!”

“Not for you,” Ginzo smirks. Her brother could be such a pest…

“Let’s all eat!” Kogoro suggests, defusing the tension between the siblings. “It’s such a special occasion, after all…” 

“The chef did say that dessert tonight was his finest work.” 

“A special treat, just for the princess!” 

Aoko leans forward in her seat.

“Really? The castle’s chef bakes the best desserts!” 

(Aoko wishes distantly that she could remember eating the chef’s desserts.)

Aoko glances to her left, at an empty chair, and remembers feeling flustered.

“Um… thank you for coming tonight,” she tells it shyly. She can see a reflection of herself in her spoon, upside down. “I’m so happy I can celebrate my birthday with you…” 

She remembers her heartbeat quickening, remembers turning aside to cast her gaze upon the one beside her, remembers the heat in her cheeks and the way her fingers are restlessly tracing the hem of her dress. 

But none of it adds up, none of it makes any sense…

“Why…” 

Aoko’s body, outside of her head, begins to fall and she feels herself slipping into unconsciousness, but inside her head, the image of the empty chair is burned into the back of her eyes. 

“...why is no one there…?” 

“Even though he is an existence born from rewinding time, this child can still choose a future for himself.”

“So you still intend on interfering,” growls Karasuma Renya.

“Good work,” Akako says, letting out a smoky breath. “How’s Hattori?”

“The nurse took a look… the wound seems light, so there shouldn’t be an issue.” 

“Excellent.”

There’s a soft warmth in Akako’s eyes.

And yet Shinichi is not comforted. 

“But… the girl…” He hesitates for a moment, before plunging into his recollection. “Our teacher arrived just after you left, but no matter how much she called to her, she wouldn’t respond, and would only stare blankly…”

Akako lowers her eyes, a conflicted expression on her face.

“Those wings can numb a part of the heart.”

“...numb…? Which part?”

“Mm.” Akako muses briefly on how to explain this to Shinichi. “Perhaps you’d call it something like a… ‘suppression mentality’, let’s say. The part of you that endures and accepts. If you want to exist in society, having this skill is very, very important.”

She takes a lengthy drag on her pipe, before continuing. 

“For example, let’s take the emotion of love. If you don’t know how to suppress it, even love can turn into plain violence, you see? So the feathers numb your ability to suppress, it numbs this mentality. And all the emotions which the girl usually endures and accepts… turn to rage instead.” 

Shinichi slides his hands into his pockets, but even that offers little comfort.

“...so that’s why she was so coercive.”

Still, there was something that bothered Shinichi. 

“But even then, why would a thing like that even happen to her?”

“Aha…” Akako’s face splits into a wry grin. “Asking the real questions here, are we? To put it simply, it’s to make it easy to spirit something of hers away!”

She leans forward, inspecting Shinichi’s uncertain expression. 

“Her soul.” 

Taking another drag, Akako leans back, unfazed by Shinichi’s telltale response of raising his hand to his chin. His mind must be sprinting faster than light. 

“Deeper than your inner heart lies the ‘soul’... the basis of life,” she continues. “Her soul is gone. It’s no wonder she acts like an empty husk.” 

“And what’s going to happen to her…?” 

Akako shrugs flippantly. 

“Nothing much,” she says. “She’ll just stay like that.” 

“Wouldn’t it be possible to return her soul to her? Like that time when the zashiki-doushi took the chocolate lava cake from Hattori…” 

Akako shakes her head.

“If the vessel isn’t strong enough, the soul has no way to return. Last time it only worked because it was Hattori.”

His inability to change things continues to frustrate him. 

“Are the wings some kind of demon?”

“Incorrect!” Akako says sharply, emptying her pipe of ashes. “They are… mushi .”

The pipe is empty now, but she gives it a few more taps for good measure.

“A familiar of sorts, created by a magician, in order to collect souls.” There’s a pause, as Akako considers whether to tell Shinchi the following information. “She isn’t the only one. I’ve seen others living with those wings.”

There’s an air of disdain on her face, now. 

“You see it on the news every so often. People who were acquainted with criminals always say things like ‘they didn’t seem like someone who would do that’ when interviewed. And after the crime, they act so normal, people can hardly believe that they’d done such a horrible misdeed… It does make people wonder, doesn’t it?”

And Shinichi knows exactly what Akako is referring to; no matter how many times he encounters murderers, it’s always the same. Some motive, some misunderstanding… yet the lives have already been taken, something no amount of regret can wash away.

“However, not everyone can grow those wings.” There’s a dark look upon Akako’s face. “They first have to be in a certain mental state… They must wish strongly to lose their sanity, before the wings can take root.”

Even putting aside the fact that people could be in such dire straits as to wish to lose their sanity, Shinichi couldn’t understand.

“But why would something like that even need to be created?” he protests. 

A measured silence. 

“Perhaps… the magician requires it for a spell, of some sort.” 

“There’s someone you’re thinking of, isn’t there.” 

The full moon shines brightly overhead, bathing Shinichi and Akako in pale moonlight. The chirping of the cicadas hold a long, sustained note, voices fading, one by one, until there’s only silence. 

Akako does not answer Shinichi. 

“Your wish is one that cannot be granted, Karasuma Renya.”

“Indeed.” The man concedes his defeat, in a sense. “Even Toichi couldn’t completely achieve it.”

“We can’t borrow the book?”

Kaito is standing at the Central Library’s reception desk, with the printout of the Book of Memories in hand. Aoko, Dai, and Amuro are standing a short distance away, quietly watching the exchange. 

The woman at the desk shakes her head apologetically, pigtails swaying. 

“The original Book of Memories has been designated as one of LeCourt’s national treasures,” she explains. “The book may not leave the premises of the Central Library.” 

Amuro leans conspiratorially towards Aoko, murmuring softly in her ear. 

“That’s a problem,” he hums softly, watching Kaito’s next move. 

“Well, there’s nothing we need to do with it off the premises,” Kaito says smoothly, flashing the receptionist a smile. “We’d just like to take a look at the book.” 

“That’s also impossible,” the receptionist retorts curtly.

Kaito frowns slightly, waiting for an explanation. 

“The Book of Memories holds a vast amount of magic power. There have been multiple incidents in the past, where people have tried to take it away.”

There is a pointed pause, before the receptionist continues. 

“Even so, the Watchdogs of the library have captured all the thieves without fail.”

“Since then, even inspection of the Book of Memories has been disallowed,” the other receptionist finishes. She sighs nonchalantly. “There is, however, a copy of the book which you can peruse. Would that suffice?” 

Kaito’s face lights up, despite the anxiety beginning to gnaw at him.

“That would be perfect!” 

After letting the receptionist lead them to the reproduction and pretending to leaf through it thoughtfully for a short while, Kaito reshelves the book, and the four travelers head towards the library’s courtyard to discuss their next move. 

“They wouldn’t even let us look at it,” Aoko murmurs worriedly. 

“That sure is an issue,” Amuro says crossly, leaning against a stone topiary vase. 

“What do you plan on doing?” Mokona asks, hopping onto Kaito’s open palm. 

Kaito absently strokes Mokona. 

“I’ll get it back no matter what. That’s what I said.”

“So?” 

Dai shoots Kaito a deliberate look. 

“So…” Kaito’s face splits into a smirk. “We’ll steal it.” 

After putting their heads together for another quarter hour, the group meanders back into the library. 

“Is it really okay for us to be in here while it’s open?” Aoko asks earnestly, glancing nervously at their surroundings. 

“Hm…” Kaito laces his fingers behind his head lazily. “Well, security probably tightens after hours. It’ll be much less conspicuous to be here while it’s still open.” 

“Besides, if we end up somewhere we’re not supposed to be, we can always play the ‘We got lost’ card,” Amuro adds, winking. 

“This way,” Mokona says, eyes squeezed shut in concentration. 

After leading them deeper and deeper into the library, Mokona finally instructs the group to stop before an imposing wall. 

“Here. This is where the feeling of the feather is the strongest.”

Dai raps his knuckles expertly against the wall, frowning silently to himself.

“But it’s a dead end here…” Aoko mutters, still casting her eyes around anxiously.

“I feel it here,” Mokona insists, eyes still wide open. 

“Let me take a look,” Amuro says, pushing past Kaito gently and placing a hand on the wall. He tips his head, and slides his hand smoothly across the wall, and then onto the nearest shelf of books. “Ah… I see.”

“Truly enlightening, Amuro. Tell us more,” Dai says flatly. 

Amuro shoots him a dirty look.

“I was getting to it,” he says, jaw twitching slightly. He turns towards the wall again, looking not quite at the wall, but past it, at the mechanisms shielding the entrance. “It’s a magic barrier.”

Amuro gestures curtly at the end of the bookcase. 

“If you would, Impatient One.”

Dai raises an eyebrow at Amuro. 

“I’m an archer. What do you expect me to do?”

“And I’m a mage,” Amuro shoots back, equally unimpressed. “Push it. That should break the barrier.” 

“No muscles on that skinny twink ass of yours. Got it.” 

Something akin to a vicious snarl escapes from Amuro’s throat, but coupled with the noise of the bookshelf scraping softly against the floorboards, it could barely be made out. As Amuro predicted, the wall dissipates like mist, revealing a cavernous tunnel stretching out into the darkness. 

“You see!” Amuro pipes up casually. “It’s a spell reinforced by the physical placement of wards, which consisted of bookshelves in this case. By shifting the bookshelf, the spell was disturbed.”

“That’s incredible!” Aoko says with candid amazement.

“Oh, it’s quite simple if you know the foundations of magic theory,” Amuro says easily, though the look in his eye betrays his nerves. “However, I do worry that the Watchdogs will notice their wards have been tampered with. Shall we get going?”

“The feather’s definitely in there,” Mokona confirms. 

With that, the four of them venture inside the passageway, their footsteps echoing against the stone. 

“It doesn’t seem adequately protected for something deemed a national treasure,” Dai points out skeptically, glancing around the tunnel. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Amuro says. “Look…”

The serpentine statues which line the length of the passageway give but a single crackle in warning before springing to life. 

“...they’re coming.” 

“Please step back, Princess,” Kaito says sweetly, though his eyes are calculating, focused on the movements of the statues.

He braces himself for the snakes to lunge, and expertly shatters two of the serpents with a well-placed kick. 

“Good one,” Dai barks, pleased that his protege’s skills were as sharp as ever.

“Dai, are you just going to stand around and do nothing?” Amuro demands, dodging a strike and swinging his elbow into a nearby snake.

“You and Kaito seem to have it under control!” he calls back, carefully avoiding the statues. 

“We most certainly do not,” Amuro growls, throwing a punch at solid rock, wincing as he pulls his hand back. 

“Let’s run, then.” 

Dai swiftly darts towards Kaito and Aoko, taking a wrist in each hand, pulling the two along. 

“Uh—”

Kaito glances back at Amuro, who was still stuck in the fray. 

“Oh, don’t worry about him,” Dai says flippantly. “He’ll be fine. See, look. Right behind us.” 

And he’s not exactly wrong. Amuro was, in fact, closing the gap between them.

“Dai, I will flay you alive when I get the chance,” Amuro says, sprinting at record speed, snake sculptures hot on his tail. 

Before Dai can retort, however, the four of them seem to cross some sort of barrier, and their surroundings suddenly melt, before reemerging into—

“The ruins of Clow?!” Kaito yells in surprise. “What’s it doing here? And why—” 

His brow furrows, and he wonders if it’s been too long since he had last been on site—

“Why is it so big?!” 

“Clow country?” Amuro asks, still trying to catch his breath. “That’s— that’s where you and Aoko are from, right?” 

Aoko nods, while Kaito gives a verbal confirmation.

“Yeah… did we get transported, somehow?” 

Mokona shakes its head. “Mokona didn’t do it.”

“That’s not it,” Amuro says. “This is a memory. One inside the Book of Memories , powered by Aoko’s feather. It can set traps to protect the book using Aoko’s memories.” 

“You’re so amazing, Amuro!” Mokona cries. “You’ve got it all figured out!”

“Well, that’s just another type of magic. If you learned a little bit, even you could do it!” 

Kaito and Aoko have begun the trek through the sands towards the ruins. Dai, however, lingers behind, clearly wanting a word with Amuro.

Amuro scoffs. 

“What, going to apologize for leaving me behind?”

“A ‘little bit of magic’, huh…” 

Dai pauses, letting the words linger in the arid desert air. 

“...I’m not all too versed in magic, truth be told. But I do know that sensing a trap requires greater power than setting a trap. And back at the entrance, at the bookshelves… you didn’t use your magic at all, did you?”

“I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, Dai.” 

Amuro flashes him a practiced smile, and steps past him with ease. 

“Come on. The kids will get there before us.”

“...tch.”

By the time the two men catch up with Aoko and Kaito, they have already reached the walls of the ruins. 

“So these really are just like the ruins in your country, Aoko?” Mokona asks, awestruck.

“It does look like it,” Aoko confirms, running her fingers across the facsimile of the cut stone. “There were a lot of people working on the excavation… all good people, of course. In particular, there was a well-traveled archaeologist that I remember… he was especially kind.”

She chuckles at a memory.

“My brother would always get mad at me for playing at the ruins.” 

“Probably because the excavation was dangerous, no?” Amuro prompts. 

“Well… that’s probably true, but…”

A troubled look flits across Aoko’s face.

“...why did I want to come to the ruins so badly…?”

Dai glances at Aoko’s face, perplexed and almost wounded. He turns and proceeds down the steps of the ruins.

“Let’s not dawdle. We don’t know how much time we’ve got.”

Dai leads the way through the twisted passageway, until they come to a bench, almost comically large, placed against the wall of the corridor. 

“This bench thingy is huge!” Mokona exclaims, hopping onto the bench. 

“And this clocklike object is so tiny,” Amuro says, picking up an amulet-sized trinket. “Maybe, since this is Aoko’s memory, maybe the things that are emphasized are the things that made a strong impression on her.”

He sets it back down on the bench neatly, before smiling at the rest of the group.

“Shall we continue?”

The passage leads downwards, wide steps guiding them deeper into the earth, before opening up into a huge chamber. A circular crest familiar to Kaito spans the length of the room, the abstracted wings as vivid as the day Kaito first saw it, when Aoko’s feathers scattered. This time, however, the crest is positively immense— Kaito estimates that it would take minutes to cross even at his top speed.

Before he can dwell further on the crest, however, the ruins begin crumbling once more, calling back the scenario from what seems like so long ago. The crest splits down the center, and a rumbling that cuts straight into the heart of the ruins shakes the room as the halves of the crest slides apart. 

Thankfully, the shaking stops once the slabs of stone grow still, and the four travelers are left with a gaping maw before them.

“Do you remember what was beyond the hole?” Amuro asks Aoko gently.

Aoko shakes her head fearfully, unable to tear her eyes away from the inky darkness.

“The feather is down there,” Mokona repeats.

“Well, that settles it,” Kaito says simply, stepping out to the precipitous drop. 

“W-wait!” Aoko exclaims, grabbing his arm. “You don’t even know what’s down there! I… I’ll go!”

“I couldn’t.” Gently, Kaito pries himself away from Aoko’s grip. “Please let me protect you, Princess.” 

Aoko is lost for words, but finds the voice to her misgivings after a brief moment. 

“Why?” she demands, voice cracking. “Why do you do so much to search for my feathers…?”

Kaito only smiles sadly, before turning to Amuro.

“Please take care of the Princess for me, will you?”

Dai slinks up, joining Kaito on the precipice. 

“The person I’m searching for, the one with the sword with the same crow-shaped crest that you saw when the intruders attacked… he doesn’t seem to be in this world,” Dai says simply. “I have no use in staying any longer here. Let’s get this over with.” 

Kaito’s eyes widen at this gesture of solidarity from his mentor.

“Thank you, Dai.” 

Dai dips his head into a swift nod.

“Let’s go.” 

The two leap into the hole, even as Aoko cries out for them. 

“Kaito!! Dai!!”

Amuro puts a hand on her shoulder, keeping her carefully away from the edge of the void.

“Oh, they’re both so troublesome, aren’t they?” Amuro mutters exasperatedly. 

“I can’t do anything,” Aoko whispers bitterly, gazing into the darkness, eyes tracing the emptiness listlessly. 

“That’s not true!” Mokona pipes up. “When Kaito and Dai come back, you can be right here waiting for them!”

Aoko’s lips part, as though to protest, before she forces a smile. 

“...yes,” she says, choking on the words as they come out. “Of course.”

Kaito watches the exchange between the two magicians silently. He knows of the name Toichi, a name that belongs to a powerful magician, and a distant relative from his father’s side…

Shinichi opens his eyes. 

This is… the ceiling of the nurse’s office…?

“Shinichi!” 

Ran leans over him, dressed in her gym uniform, the worried look on her face not quite wiped off by his awakening.

“What happened to me…?” mutters Shinichi groggily. 

“Ya fainted during PE, that’s what!” 

Heiji is standing at the doorway, arms crossed, obviously miffed. 

“Hattori?” Shinichi says blankly. 

“I carried ya all the way here and’ that’s all the thanks I get?” Heiji asks, affronted.

“Oh… thanks.” 

“I’ll go get a teacher,” Ran says, dashing past Heiji.

“Sorry about this,” Shinichi calls apologetically.

Heiji crosses the room in several strides, swinging his leg over Ran’s recently vacated bedside stool, arms still crossed. 

“So, a cold?” 

“Is that what you think this is?”

“Have ya got a temperature?”

“Hard to say,” Shinichi says, touching his forehead distractedly.

“Hold still.”

Heiji puts one hand on Shinichi’s neck, pulling him closer. With his other hand he sweeps back his bangs, and Shinichi quickly mirrors the movement. 

“Nothin’,” Heiji admits begrudgingly. “Do ya feel anythin’ peculiar goin’ on?”

Shinichi shakes his head. 

“No. It’s just that I haven’t caught a cold in a very long time…”

The disgruntled look on Heiji’s face shows no signs of leaving. Shinichi can’t help but feel defensive, somehow. 

“What is it?”

Heiji looks away. He doesn’t respond.

“Your friend is worried about you,” the woman in glasses tells him, later. She’s dressed in a lovely kimono, her wavy brown hair tied up into a neat bun. 

“Well, yeah!” Shinichi grumbles, keeping his steps matched with the woman’s. “Obviously! I just can’t get a read on what he’s worrying about…” 

Shinichi is hit with a sudden wave of nausea, and stumbles. 

“Sorry,” he murmurs as the woman helps him up. “I just… felt a bit dizzy.” 

His dry coughs echo in the deserted park as he continues their mellow walk. 

Ran fights her way through the crowded classroom to reach Shinichi’s desk. He is still coughing, more substantially now.

“Did you end up going to the hospital?” she asks, hands on her hips.

“It’s nothing, really,” Shinichi insists, fighting to keep down his cough.

“No!” Ran puts her foot down. “This cold has gone on long enough! We’re going to the hospital, right after school ends today!”

“But I have to meet up with someone after school,” Shinichi protests.

Ran pauses.

“The woman…?” she asks.

“Yeah. I even brought a box lunch for her…” 

“Then tomorrow,” Ran insists, grabbing Shinichi’s hands. “Tomorrow, we have to get your cold checked out.” 

“I… y-yeah, alright.” 

Shinichi can’t stop staring at his hands, tight in Ran’s grasp.

“...and then… she held my hand,” Shinichi mutters shyly to the woman, blushing wildly.

“That sounds lovely,” the woman says, her eyes warm.

As much as Shinichi wants to return her smile, he instead descends into a violent coughing fit, hacking up something substantial.

“I… I’m sorry.” Shinichi manages to get those words out as his fit subsides.

The woman wordlessly puts a hand up to his forehead, putting her other hand on her own. 

“Doesn’t feel like you have a temperature,” she murmurs, her eyebrows knit. Seeing the look on Shinichi’s face, she quickly withdraws her hand, flustered. “I’m sorry, I just… on instinct…” 

“I-it’s quite alright!” Shinichi insists. “I was just reminded… that’s the way that my parents would check my temperature whenever I was sick when I was a kid…”

Feeling flustered at sharing so much about himself, Shinichi quickly blabbers on. 

“Oh! But these days I’ve got a thermometer of my own! They’re quite accurate nowadays, you can measure it by putting it under your tongue or in your armpits but you really should —”

Shinichi’s sentence drops off as the woman embraces him. Tightly, so tightly. He can’t see her face.

“Dear child,” she murmurs sadly. “You’re such a dear, dear child.” 

Shinichi wraps his arms around her in return. He understands, in a way.

“We can stop here today,” says the woman, pulling away. “You should get going.”

“It’s alri—”

More coughing. More violently, this time. The birds fly away.

“Please.” 

The woman strokes Shinichi’s cheek gently.

Shinichi concedes unwillingly. 

“...fine…” 

On the way home, Shinichi passes by the shop.

“Hey… maybe I should check out how Akako’s doing, huh…” 

He slips inside the shop, coughing quietly. 

“It’s Shinichi! Shinichi’s back!” Mitsuhiko exclaims, poking his head out from around the corner.

“Long time no see!” Genta yells, waving at him.

“Akako’s still not back?” Shinichi asks, coughing. “Is there something bothering her?”

Before the boys can respond, the landline telephone begins to ring. Shinichi answers it on instinct.

“Hello?”

“Long time no see, Shinichi.” 

Akako’s voice comes through the phone, garbled.

“Akako!”

“I won’t be back for a while yet. The ceremony’s not going well.”

“Ceremony?” 

“To create new gods!” Akako replies, clarifying nothing. “I can’t do it in shop. Stay overnight.” 

“Uh… alright…” 

There’s a silence, before Akako continues. 

“I told you to be careful,” she says, her voice tinted with something Shinichi might have described as frustration. “I told you to be careful, and it still turned out like this?!” 

“What?” Shinichi asks, unsettled.

“It’s gotten bad, hasn’t it?” 

“I’m not sure what—” 

Shinichi brings his hand up to his mouth again, so used to the coughs that he barely processes the motion. Hacking. There’s something wet on his palm. He looks. 

Blood. 

“It’s because you met that woman,” Akako says, carefully keeping accusation out of her voice.

Shinichi wants to respond, wants to demand, to question what she needs, but he can’t. He’s coughing and he can’t stop. Darkness slides over his vision, drowning him. 

He slips into consciousness, breaking through the surface of the darkness, still disoriented. Genta and Mitsuhiko have both taken him by an arm, and are dragging him outside. They’re on the cobblestone path that leads to the street. 

“Genta and Mitsuhiko can’t go out. So we can only bring you here,” the boys say in unison, with Mitsuhiko pointing at the street beyond the gate. 

Shinichi nods numbly, still feeling overwhelmed.

“Sorry,” they say, using all their strength to throw him out of the store premises. “That person will come to pick you up.”

“That person…?” Shinichi mumbles dazedly.

Shinichi can’t stand on his own. He is falling. 

He is inches away from eating concrete, but feels a sharp pressure at his neck keeping him from landing. Someone’s grabbed him by his collar…

Shinichi tries to turn his head, but succeeds only barely. He can only make out the silhouette, but that’s enough.

“Hattori…?” he murmurs, before his eyes close once more.

“However,” Karasuma Renya continues. “I will grant it. I will pay what I must.”

The man’s open palm solidifies into a fist. 

“I will restore a life that has been lost. And now you…”

Karasuma Renya turns his attention to Kaito.

“You must pay your price.”

Kaito doesn’t know when his feet touch down, but he does realize, after a while, that he isn’t falling anymore.

“Where’s Dai…?” he mutters, whipping his head around, trying to locate his partner. 

A glimmer of light in the distance catches his eye, and he dashes towards it. 

He catches a brief glimpse of the source of light, and draws in a gasp— the Book of Memories is before him, exactly as the image on the printout appeared: a glass cover, a metal clasp, with Aoko’s feather sealed inside. But a heavy thump of a paw hits the floor with a jaw-shaking impact, and Kaito backs away as the library’s Watchdogs prowls the space between Kaito and the book. 

It’s less like a dog and more like a winged lion, Kaito muses as he contemplates his next move. Before he can strike first, however, the lion gives its mighty wings a heavy flap, and feathers, each taller than Kaito’s body, rain down around him, embedding themselves in the ground.

Kaito doesn’t have enough time to react, and the Watchdog swipes at him with one of its clawed paws, sending him flying. His breath is knocked straight out of him on impact, but he can’t stop moving. He scrambles to his feet, trying to shake his disorientation. More feathers to dodge. The paw is coming again. 

He’s the one in the wrong here, isn’t he? The Watchdog is merely trying to do its job. But he still needs the feather, at any cost. But would it be good if he could get out of this scuffle without seriously injuring the dog…?

“Don’t pull your punches at a time like this!” roars Dai from the distance, hair whipping behind him as he rushes towards combat. 

He’s too far away. 

Dai’s breath catches in his lungs as he watches the lion send Kaito flying in slow motion, his eyes fixed on Kaito’s limp body, disfigured and bloody from the lions lengthy claws, watches it soar through the air, tatters of clothing flitting away, barely comprehends the way it crumples against the unyielding earth. 

“Hey, kid!” he shouts, sprinting towards Kaito’s body, panic spiking through him.

But Kaito somehow picks himself up before Dai reaches him, swaying as he stands up once more. Yet he is standing nonetheless, and the realization that it shouldn’t have been possible with the injuries Kaito sustained sends a violent wave of perturbation through him. Kaito absently wipes the blood off his face, empty eyes sizing up the Watchdog.

Dai sees Kaito. He does not recognize him. 

With effortless certainty, Kaito takes a powerful leap, and twists with a perfectly timed midair swivel, striking the Watchdog clean on the forehead with strength beyond human proportions. The beast, nearly ten times as tall as Kaito, stumbles from the blow. There’s not a single extraneous movement in laying the beast to waste, as far as Dai can tell.

Kaito doesn’t give the Watchdog a moment to spare. The winged lion is so vast that Kaito has limitless targets, and he launches a barrage of flying kicks, executed with similar mastery. The most unsettling thing is his expression; his face betrays no pain, no remorse, no exhaustion as he continues his optimized, immaculate violence. 

With a final spinning kick containing the concentrated momentum Kaito had gathered via his flawless execution, Kaito knocks the beast to the ground, landing a short distance away. Without a single backwards glance towards the creature he had just mauled, Kaito… ‘Kaito’, if he could even be called that, strides towards the Book of Memories . 

Kaito reaches towards the book floating gently at waist height, drawing it closer to himself, with that same blank expression on his face. He stares at the feather through the cover for a moment; then, without warning, he forms a solid fist and smashes through the glass. He reverently wraps his fingers around the feather, discarding the book. What used to be the Book of Memories shatters on impact, now nothing more than a carcass of papers and glass.

Dai glares at the stranger before him. 

“Who are you?” he growls, raising his fists and squaring up in case ‘Kaito’ decides to come in for the attack. 

Kaito begins to turn towards Dai, but the illusion dissipates—the pit, the ruins, the Watchdog, all gone.

“Kaito!” 

Aoko rushes towards Kaito, unbridled concern plastered on her face.

Kaito gasps, surprised to find himself back in the cavernous tunnels, and equally shocked to find one of Aoko’s feathers in hand.

“Princess Aoko!” 

The feather, having gotten close enough to Aoko, is absorbed by her body, and Aoko’s eyelids slide shut, as her body begins to topple over. 

“Kaito, you’re wounded!” Mokona notices. “We have to get you medical treatment…!”

“I’m fine,” Kaito insists. “Let’s just go to the next world…”

“Dai…?” 

Amuro can’t quite put his finger on what’s wrong, but Dai is scrutinizing Kaito with… derision? Wariness? …on his face.

There are sirens blaring in the distance now, and Amuro gives himself a little shake. Whatever Dai was distracted by, that could come later. Right now…

“The library staff is coming!” Amuro hisses. “Hurry!” 

Mokona obediently opens its mouth, preparing for teleportation, but—

“I-it’s not coming out!” Mokona shouts, panicking. “The magic circle!”

“Ah, so that’s how it is. The book is stolen, but our escape route is cut off,” Amuro murmurs gravely. “They must be blocking off Mokona’s dimensional teleportation magic, somehow.”

Dai tuts impatiently.

“They obviously know we’ve taken the book,” he says brusquely, scooping Aoko up onto his shoulder. “Come on, let’s get out of here and find a place where Mokona can use its magic.”

“Y…yeah!”

The four of the dash back through the tunnel, past the shards of stone that used to be the serpents, past the stalactites and stalagmites, returning to the confines of the library. 

“Looks like they’ve been waiting for us all along, haven’t they?” Amuro muses, punctuating his sentence with a weak, quiet whistling.

More Watchdogs are waiting for them inside the library. The high vaulted ceilings of the library’s architecture suddenly makes sense: it’s high enough to let the Watchdogs move freely. 

With an angry roar, a Watchdog rears its head back before releasing a spout of white-hot flames. Kaito, Amuro, and Dai with Aoko in tow all quickly jump away in their own separate directions, dodging the fire. Kaito lands deftly on a nearby bookshelf.

“Kaito!” Amuro shouts, worried that those drastic movements would bode ill for the already-injured man.

“I’m fine,” Kaito calls back. “But the books…” 

He watches the flames curl dangerously around the books with a furrowed brow.

“No need to worry,” Amuro assures him. “They were created as guardians for these books! Their magic won’t harm the library…” 

“That’s wonderful,” Kaito murmurs distractedly, edging along the bookshelf.

And Dai can’t help but remember the ‘Kaito’ in the pit, the lifeless expression, the way the Book of Memories had been crudely tossed aside. 

The question ‘Who are you?’ had slipped out of his mouth at that time, carelessly, but it haunts him still—

Who was that?

“Mokona! My bow and arrows!” Dai calls at Mokona, who had hitched a ride with Amuro.

“I-it won’t come out either!”

“Looks like that type of magic has been blocked as well…” 

Dai barks out an impatient swear. 

“Kaito! Hit its leg!”  he roars, trying to keep a good grip on Aoko. 

“Got it!”

Kaito dashes along the top of the bookshelves, landing a solid sliding kick at the nearest Watchdog’s paw, throwing it off balance. He throws himself off the bookshelf and hits the ground running, joining Dai and Amuro in their desperate sprint.

“Run!” 

The Watchdogs are joined by Library personnel riding atop winged platforms, firing spells at the three men as they make a mad dash for the entrance hall. But even despite dodging all the flames, all the blows, all the spells, even despite the fact they’ve made it so far…

“They’ve flooded the entrance!” Kaito yells in dismay.

The placid, mirror-like waters they had crossed earlier to reach the library has turned into a raging ocean, waves cresting powerfully against the stone steps that they stood upon.

Dai is unfazed. 

“So we’ll swim, then.” 

“I wouldn’t be so hasty,” Amuro says sharply, removing his cream bowler hat and tossing it in the turbulent waters.

Upon contact with the liquid, the hat melts away almost instantly. 

“Looks like there’s still quite a number of techniques designed to trap us.” 

Amuro takes stock of everything around him. The hungry waves, the magicians in the distance, the Watchdogs’ flames. He sighs, almost disappointed, and loosens his shoulders, just as a nearby Watchdog rears back its head, ready to roast the thieves.

A clear, high note rings out, warbling at first before steadying out. 

Amuro is whistling.

There’s a cold, impassive look in his eye, as the note swells and forms a twisted ivory dome around them. The flames lick harmlessly around the cage.

“Mokona!” he calls, with a dangerous benevolence. “Let’s go to the next world.”

“But… the magic…”

“You can use it in here,” he promises gently.

There’s a sly, but polite smile on Amuro’s face, one meant as a vow of silence that answers no questions. Mokona tries again to open its mouth, to bring out the magic circle—

“It appeared!” 

Mokona’s relief is palpable as it unfurls its wings and swallows up the travelers, leaving an empty cage in a forest of flames. But the silence in between dimensions is uncomfortable, that persists even as they touch down in the new world, a dimension ravaged by violence, a hostile, post-apocalyptic cityscape plagued by acid rain.     

Didn’t you swear off magic, Amuro?

“Your freedom will be taken away, and you will be my prisoner. You will be able to do nothing but watch as the twisted path you have created unfolds.”

Karasuma Renya reaches out towards Shinichi, but the witch draws her sleeve protectively in front of the boy. 

Shinichi is staring at the ceiling again.

He doesn’t recognize this one.

“Where am I…?” Shinichi mutters, not even knowing if anyone was there to respond.

“It’s my house,” comes Heiji’s familiar voice. 

Shinichi rubs his eyes wearily.

“What’s… going on…?”

“I got a call from Akako,” Heiji says simply. “She told me to go there, so I could save ya.”

“What is going on,” Shinichi repeats, trying his best to think through the fog.

“Akako says…” Heiji pauses, and Shinichi hears the way his voice crumbles for the tiniest bit. “She says ya’ll disappear if this continues.”

Shinichi doesn’t respond, so Heiji spells it out for him, just in case. 

“Ya’ll die, Shinichi. Ya’ll die.” 

“Why…” Shinichi mumbles, overtaken by the unfairness of it all even despite his confusion. “Wh… oh.” 

(“Because you met that woman,” he remembers.)

“But… but she didn’t do anything to me,” Shinichi starts to protest. “And I don’t feel uncomfortable or anything…”

“Well then, what else coulda caused it?” Heiji asks. “Ya say that nothin’ weird’s been goin’ on.”

“But…” Shinichi closes his eyes. “But… she’s not a bad person.”

Heiji crosses his arms.

“That’s a little hard to say.” 

“I promised to meet her in the park,” Shinichi says, voice fading as sleep overtakes him. “I promised…” 

The leaves are falling. It’s that season, after all. The wind blows, carries those fallen leaves away with a dry, nostalgic rustling, and Shinichi can see her. 

She’s alone on the bench. It’s so long. The bench. So much negative space. The afternoon shadows stretch, pulling her figure away from her. 

She’s alone. Waiting. Looking for him. He’s not there. He’s not there. 

He wishes he could be there. She’s so forlorn. She isn’t him, she could never be him. But she is him as well.

The vision blurs. 

Shinichi is crying, or maybe he isn’t, but there are tears running from his eyes, even if he doesn’t understand, even if he’s feverish and lost and succumbing to the madness. 

“...she’s so lonely,” he whispers, his chest compressing painfully.

He forces himself to sit up, taking a moment to steady himself. His head is spinning horribly. So, so horribly. 

“I can’t let her stay lonely like that…” 

He shuts his eyes, gathering strength. 

“I can’t do that.” 

“I can’t… do that.” 

He stumbles into the park, feet unsteady as ever, but feet loyal to him. The woman raises her head, delight flitting across her face before being replaced by solemn concern, as she realizes just how ill Shinichi is. 

“Sorry…I’m late…” Shinichi breathes, panting far too much for someone who had been walking slower than a meandering stride. 

The woman is lost for words as she looks at Shinichi’s figure, trembling even as he sits himself on the bench.

“Haha… aren’t you cold…?”  he asks absently. (Shinichi doesn’t know it, but he is in a thin button-down shirt.)

The woman doesn’t respond. Her hands, clasped in her lap, tighten as she watches him. 

“You should know why you’re like this. You know, don’t you?”

Shinichi lets out a long breath.

“I do know,” he admits, looking at  the woman firmly. “I want to see you, but the closer I get, the more painful it is…” 

The woman takes her glasses off, buries her face in her hands. 

“This is all my fault.”

“I guess so, huh?” Shinichi mumbles.

“Then why do you still come?” she asks, troubled.

“Well, that’s…” 

Shinichi laughs, as much as he can, with his headache, his nausea, his uncontrollable coughing, his shaking. 

“...because you’re lonely. And I… I’m also… very lonely.”

Shinichi descends into another coughing fit, his face twisted in agony as the tremors wrack his body. He doubles over, almost falling off of the bench. 

The woman reaches out for his shoulder, but hesitates, knowing that it could only worsen things.

“Don’t touch him.”

Heiji strides into the park, cold rage on his face, kendo sword in hand.

“Hattori…” Shinichi breathes.

“I knew ya’d come and see her,” Heiji growls. “No matter what I told ya. Yer so goddamn stubborn, Kudo.” 

He turns his gaze upon the woman besides Shinichi.

“Ya really aren’t human,” he observes, coming closer still. “This woman… ya can see right through her.”

Heiji raises his sword, ready to swing at her, but Shinichi sees Heiji’s body move, anticipates his strike. Shinichi tries to shield the woman by placing himself between her and Heiji, but she grabs him roughly by the shoulder and he stumbles, tripping onto the ground. The sword passes right through her, a swing from the right shoulder to the opposite hip, and she begins to dissipate. 

“Why…?!” Shinichi, collapsed on the floor, watches her vanish with a tortured expression on his face. 

“I’m no longer lonely,” she tells him softly. “I’ve only known you for a little while. But you must also have someone… someone who wouldn’t want you to disappear.”

Shinichi stares numbly as the wind takes her form and deconstructs it, becoming nothing in the end. And even after there is nothing but silence in the air, he doesn’t move, only continues the staring with empty eyes and a broken heart. 

Finally, he addresses Heiji, who had stood with him in the wake of his destruction.

“...why did you have to attack her…?” 

Heiji sighs casually, but there’s a sharp look in his eye that betrays his determination.

“Look, I know what yer thinkin’...” He taps his sword against the earth. “It’s not ‘cause she wasn’t human.” 

He waits for Shinichi to look at him, and when he does, Heiji finishes his thought.

“I was just makin’ a choice.”

Maybe this is the closure that Shinichi needs. Maybe his body is at his absolute limit. 

Regardless, he collapses, once again. 

When he wakes up, he’s somewhere familiar again, with someone familiar by his side.

“Akako,” he says. “I don’t know why I keep doing stupid things lately.”

Akako only smiles at him, a gesture filled with equal parts exasperation and affection.

“You really have.” 

“Did Hattori bring me here?”

“He did, indeed.”

“How embarrassing.” 

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Oi, oi… you didn’t have to agree with that.”

There’s another pause. The silence is warm.

“Sorry. I didn’t listen to your warning.”

“That’s quite alright,” Akako says agreeably. “It’s what you chose. You knew the consequences if you went, you knew that if you went to see her, you’d only get hurt, and you still chose to go, didn’t you?”

She can see that Shinichi’s face is still troubled.

“No matter which side you take, your decision is still your own. As long as you don’t regret the consequences, then it’s alright.” 

She smiles, and leans closer to Shinichi, and her voice softens.

“It’s the same for Hattori, you know. He only made a choice.”

Shinichi watches her silently.

“He decided to turn his sword on that woman. It didn’t matter to him that it might have hurt you, or that you might have hated him afterwards…”

Shinichi doesn’t want to hear it. He already knows what she’s going to say. His eyes are burning.

“He just didn’t want you to disappear.”

Akako sighs, and leans back. 

“Well, now you’ve got another decision. Knowing this, you must decide how to treat Hattori from now on.”

She inspects Shinichi, still lying on the futon. 

“...do you want to know what that woman was?” she asks quietly. 

“...no,” Shinichi says finally. “Maybe she wasn’t human. But she was a kind and caring woman to me. That’s all that matters.”  

“Then, I’ll leave you with one final sentiment,” Akako says, picking herself up elegantly from the floor, and sliding the door open. “What she said before disappearing— it’s all true.”

Shinichi lifts his arms above his head, resting it above his eyes. 

“Looks like I’m gonna be working here for even longer,” he says, voice cracking.

The witch shuts the door.

“But of course.” 

“The price that Kaito must pay,” the witch intones coldly, “is his own ‘time’ and ‘freedom’. Although they share the same existence, this child is not Kaito. He shall not fall into your hands.”

“I see,” Karasuma Renya says, drawing his arm back. “That child resembles Toichi in his youth. So this, too, is as he predicted.” 

“The acid rain has fallen for fifteen years now…” says Camel as he bandages Kaito’s leg wound. “Lakes, rivers, ponds… all of it is undrinkable.”

“Even the water filtration systems have been destroyed, along with most of our houses and buildings,” adds Shiratori, who is leaning against a nearby wall.

Outside, the rain continues to fall.  

“Then, how have you guys survived all this time?” asks Mokona in confusion. 

Shiratori closes his eyes.

“There is an underground reservoir here,” he says. “But in reality, it’s not just the buildings that have corroded… even the earth itself is corrupted. We may have the water in the reservoir, but if we don’t find a way to protect it, the acid will contaminate the water, just like it has everywhere else.”

“But it seems like this building hasn’t corroded like all the other ones,” Kaito points out.

“There’s also the Tower,” Ayumi offers thoughtfully. 

“The intruders from earlier?” Dai asks. 

“That’s right,” Camel affirms. “It wasn’t so long ago that most buildings were still standing. But after these fifteen years, the Tokyo Tower and the Tokyo Government Office are the only ones that remain. They’re almost completely unaffected by the rain. As for why… I wonder.” 

“So that means the only water in this country is either beneath this building and that Tokyo Tower, where those other people came from,” Amuro muses. 

Ayumi frowns.

“You can’t really call this a country,” she says hesitantly. “Not when there are only habitable 23 districts left.”

“Perhaps it’s better to say that this is what’s left of ‘Tokyo’,” Shiratori murmurs thoughtfully.

“Tokyo…”

Kaito turns the word around in his mouth. 

Deep underground, Jugo is sitting at the water’s edge, his protective cloak sitting in a discarded heap beside him.

Staring into the depths of the water, he murmurs to himself bitterly.

“How long can we go on like this…?” 

Which happens to be a sentiment that is running around in Dai’s head, as well. 

“Aoko still hasn’t woken up,” Amuro murmurs, stroking her hair gently. It wasn’t unusual for her to lose consciousness after receiving a feather, but she had been waking up sooner and sooner as she regained more of her memories, so this… this was concerning, in a way. 

Amuro steps away from Aoko’s bedside.

“I don’t know how much longer we’ll have to stay in this country, but maybe it’s better for her to be asleep than it is for her to be awake,” he continues. “With Kaito running a fever, too…”

He glances back at Dai, who was sitting on the floor with one hand in a vigilant grip around his bow. 

“I’m not keeping you from sleeping, am I?”

He stares expectantly at Dai, who continues sitting motionlessly.

“Come on, say something,” Amuro says wearily, dropping the tension in his shoulders. “Otherwise I’ll just go talk to a wall.” 

Dai shifts his posture, a look of annoyance on his face. 

“I’ll answer that if you answer my question.” 

Amuro blinks. 

“Try me,” he says, promising nothing.

“The whistle,” Dai spits curtly. “I’ve seen you on death’s doorstep before, and even still you refused to use magic.” 

He pauses. 

“You say that you’ve got to keep traveling from world to world, because someone from your dimension might wake up and pursue you.” 

“Your memory is sharper than it needs to be,” Amuro replies politely. “But really, there’s no need to concern yourself over that.” 

“Whether there’s someone who might pursue you,” Dai says. “It’s not any of my business. It’s what you want, isn’t it?” 

Amuro smiles his defensive smile, and tips his head inquisitively.

“You put on this cheerful mask, but you always stop short of getting closer to anyone. It’s as if you don’t want to get involved with others. And that’s fine.”

Amuro says nothing, just continues to meet Dai’s eyes with composure.

“But the present you, you were worried about Kaito’s fever. You were even worried about exposing the princess to this hostile world. And in the last country, you used your magic.”

“Well, I did say it…” Amuro clasps his hands behind his back. “‘I can’t die.’” 

“That’s not the whole truth. You won’t let yourself die if it’s by your own hand,, but dying because of somebody else is a different matter entirely. If you had done nothing, we could have been captured, or even killed. And that’s why you chose to use magic.”

He pierces Amuro with his gaze.

“It was for their sake.”

Amuro approaches Dai solemnly, looking down at the man.

“I… don’t want to see anyone hurt because of me,” he says softly. “There’s nothing much more than that.” 

Camel and Shiratori poke their heads through the curtain.

“May we come in?” Shiratori asks.

“Ah, they’re already asleep,” Camel murmurs in a low voice. 

“Oh, no need to worry,” Amuro says cheerily, turning away  from Dai. “Dai and I were talking just now.”

Dai stands up abruptly, quietly grabbing Amuro’s arm before he can slip away. 

“Don’t think you can avoid this discussion,” he warns Amuro under his breath. “I’ve said it before. I don’t care about your past.”

“And you shouldn’t,” Amuro retorts. “There—”

“So stop fooling around, and think about the present, for once.” 

Dai loosens his grip on Amuro’s arm, and pushes past him. 

Amuro stands there, dumbstruck, as Dai leaves the room with Camel and Shiratori. He slumps against the wall, sliding pathetically to the floor. 

“That’s…” Amuro can’t help but laugh. “...so much easier said than done.”

“However, I have gained an unexpected power. One has become two. A single track of time has been rewound and split into two. That distortion allowed it to happen, just as planned.”

Karasuma Renya pats Kaito’s shoulders with pride. 

“All thanks to your wish.”

The glass vessel and the inky seals have lasted through the decade. But the containment has run its course, and the price long paid. Within the glass chamber, ‘Kaito’’s left eye, unconcealed by the black eyepatch, slits open. 

He raises a hand before him, achingly slow through the suspension liquid. A small glow sparks into life at his palm, and with a pulse that rocks the small, dark room, the runes inscribed around his glass vessel begin to dispel, dissolving into wisps of light before vanishing. 

With each lost rune, the pressure on the glass vessel mounts, until it cracks open as the last rune disappears. The fluid spurts out, flooding the room, and ‘Kaito’ picks himself up from the destruction. 

“Kaito…” he mutters under his breath. 

Heels click delicately into the room, echoing softly, until it splashes once. 

“So the seal cannot contain you any longer,” Shiho says quietly, arms crossed. “You’re planning on going to meet the one with your right eye?”

‘Kaito’ regards her silently, emotionlessly.

Shiho lets out a small bark of laughter.

“I’ll stay out of your way,” she says. “But you don’t have the ability to cross through dimensions. For that, you require my assistance.” 

Still, ‘Kaito’ gives no response.

Shiho raises a hand, and lines forming a sun blooms into a magic circle beneath ‘Kaito’’s feet. 

“I can only do this once,” she murmurs. 

‘Kaito’ raises his eyes, looking directly at Shiho. 

“Why?”

Shiho’s troubled face is the last thing ‘Kaito’ sees before he is whisked away into a different dimension. 

“If this dream doesn’t end now…” she begins, a mournful expression on her face. 

‘Kaito’ is plunged into the darkness, back into the same silence he had spent the last decade in. But before long the darkness splits open under a rainy sky, depositing him before a woman with long, crimson hair. 

“So here you are,” says the witch, looking at ‘Kaito’. “You do not possess the power to cross dimensions. The one who sent you here must be Shiho, no?” 

The downpour continues. Shinichi, at the gate of the store premises, stares perplexedly at ‘Kaito’. 

“Why did she send you here?” Akako asks quietly.

“She said, ‘If the dream doesn’t end…’” ‘Kaito’ reports emotionlessly. 

“I see.” Akako closes her eyes. “Like those children, it is impossible to retrieve all the fragments of the dream. Since you could come here, that must mean you have a wish.”

 She opens her eyes again, meeting ‘Kaito’’s empty gaze. 

“What is your wish?” 

‘Kaito’ stares at the witch in return. There’s something returning to his eyes, something akin to determination. 

“To go to the owner of this right eye,” he intones firmly. 

“The price for this wish has already been paid,” Akako replies. “With it being your ‘relationship’, as well as your ‘time’ and your ‘freedom’. Allow me to fulfill your wish.”

With that, Akako raises a hand before her gracefully, and her magic circle appears beneath ‘Kaito’. 

“I can send you to meet the one with your right eye,” she tells him, “But that is the extent of what I can do within the limits of interference. I can grant your wish. But beyond that…” 

“I must retrieve it,” ‘Kaito’ says coldly.

“Then, go.” 

‘Kaito’’s form begins to dissolve, spiraling away into another dimension. For the briefest of moments, those empty eyes of his meet Shinichi’s, and then— he is gone.

“‘If this dream does not end…’” Akako murmurs, half to herself. “Those were your last words to me on that day, Toichi.” 

Shinichi steps cautiously into the grounds of the shop.

“Just now… that was Kaito, wasn’t it?”

Akako hums thoughtfully to herself. 

“You could say that it wasn’t him. But you could also say that it was.”

“...is it going to cause trouble for Kaito and the others?” Shinichi asks hesitantly.

“Even if that was the case, Shinichi…” There’s a shadow across Akako’s face that made her seem much older, much wearier. “There are limits to what we can do. Instead of regretting what we can’t do, we should simply focus on the things we can achieve.”

She sighs, deeply, tenderly, with all the affection and concern in her.

“Let’s have faith in the future, and those children.”

“And if you do not obey my will, I only have to create another one of you.”

“Stop this!” Kaito demands, his voice painfully childlike. 

“It is the same as what you have done,” Karasuma Renya says simply. “In order to grant a wish, you broke a taboo. Now, pay your price, descendant of Toichi.”

“The girl is sleeping,” says Vermouth drily, unfazed by Dai’s obvious alarm.

“Sleeping?” Dai snaps impatiently, with Aoko’s limp and lifeless form in his arms. “Want to explain why she’s also not breathing?” 

Vermouth gives a long, exasperated sigh. 

“I’m not talking about her body.” 

Dai’s expression hardens.

“Not her body?”

Vermouth nods. 

“That’s right,” she drawls. “The part of her body that’s asleep… is her soul.” 

Far beneath the two, in the reservoir below, a brilliant light breaks through the surface of the water. 

Jugo, who had once again been lurking at the water’s edge, sheds his protective cloak and dives into the reservoir without hesitation, swimming until he reaches the cocoon that lay suspended between pillars. 

The light, indeed, is coming from here. However…

“What is she doing here…?” he breathes. 

Within the cocoon, Aoko’s silhouette can clearly be made out. Upon closer inspection, however, Jugo divines the truth. 

“No, this isn’t her body,” he murmurs. “It’s her soul.” 

The light that he had seen earlier, at the surface, pulses its brilliance once more. And he can see it now— there’s a feather in the cocoon, too, a feather which slowly sinks into Aoko’s body. 

…And it’s gone.

The very foundations of the building lurch once, before stilling. 

Vermouth, floors above, turns her head skywards lazily.

“Ah… look at that. The barrier protecting the Tokyo Government Office has disappeared.”

The rain, which had not let up this entire time, slowly begins eating into the architecture.

Beneath the water, Jugo stabs fruitlessly at the cocoon. 

“The power that was at the bottom of the reservoir has just been absorbed by her,” he mutters to himself, brows furrowed. “It must have drawn her here while she was sleeping. But still… why is she not waking up?”

Aoko’s figure bobs gently up and down within the cocoon, swaying with the current. 

“Is she being pulled to this sleep…?”

If that was the case…

Jugo lashes his arm out at the cocoon again, but a distant blur of bubbles breaks his concentration. Someone else has joined him in the reservoir.

Kaito struggles in the water with the thick rain cloak, but nonetheless places himself between Jugo and the cocoon.

“You’re in my way,” Jugo says coldly. “Get out.”

Kaito’s stomach lurches uncomfortably as he realizes he can hear Jugo’s voice with perfect clarity, even underwater. 

“I’ll say it again,” Jugo repeats with more urgency. “Get out!” 

And when Kaito still refuses to budge, Jugo lashes out, striking Kaito squarely in the chest. 

Kaito curses silently. The water weighs him down in a way that didn’t seem to affect Jugo at all, and it’s more than just the fact that Jugo had shed his cloak before diving. He seems entirely unimpeded as he slashes his hand out at Kaito again, with Kaito barely swimming out of the way in time. Worst of all, Kaito’s breath is beginning to run out, and in this moment, Jugo’s strike finally makes its mark, tearing through the cloak, the shirt, and the skin.

“You must be / beɪt /,” Jugo repeats, gazing at Kaito impassively. 

That’s exactly what he said to me when we first met! Kaito thinks to himself in frustration, choking on the water. What on earth is  / beɪt /? 

“What is  / beɪt /?” Jugo asks disdainfully. “You mean you don’t know?”

Kaito balks at this. 

Is he reading my thoughts?!

“ / beɪt /,” Jugo says, “is bait .”

Kaito doesn’t particularly care at this point. He swings his leg with all his might, but even then it travels through the water impossibly slow, and Jugo dodges it easily. With a carefully placed strike, Jugo stabs through to Kaito’s neck. Blood is flowing into the reservoir, from two places now, and Kaito stops moving. 

“I will kill you,” Jugo says impassively, licking the blood from his fingers. “If I drink all of your blood, maybe he’ll awaken.”

Jugo places one hand gently upon the cocoon.

“Sango…”

Kaito’s mind is dazed from the pain, but he can’t help but click the pieces together. 

Blood… Sango… those claws where the fingernails are… They’re the vampire twins Makoto was searching for…

“Looks like you know that guy,” Jugo says, grabbing Kaito’s neck. “Your fighting style is very similar. Even though he still hasn’t shown up in Tokyo, at least someone like him showed up.” 

Kaito has no more strength left to struggle, instead letting himself hang there, by his neck.

“He might even be coming very soon,” Jugo continues. “This time, I’ll definitely kill him, but before that, I’ll kill you first.”

With his knife-sharp claws, Jugo slices cleanly at Kaito’s neck. The blood is gushing out faster than before, now. The waters of the reservoir are becoming stained with red. 

Jugo leaves Kaito’s body floating limply in the water, guiding the blood into the cocoon. 

“Sango… I will awaken you. When we came to this world, you were beckoned to sleep in the waters, and I protected you in your sleep… but I fear if we stay here any longer, that guy will definitely catch us.”

He grits his teeth, desperate.

“We have to move to another world soon,” he murmurs. “Sango…”

The body which had been drifting limply behind Jugo rights itself again. If not for Jugo’s extraordinary senses, he wouldn’t have been able to sense, much less stop the leg swinging at him with inhuman speed. He blocks another flurry of blows, the neutral expression on his face sliding into one with knitted brows.

The most recent kick grazes Jugo’s face, and he too, begins contaminating the reservoir with blood. 

Don’t touch her. 

The bait lays a hand on the cocoon, right above where Aoko is floating, fast asleep.

I can’t give you the feather. I need to recover all of them. For certain.

Jugo’s eyes flash dangerously, as he extends his claws once more. 

“You seem… like someone else.”

Up on the platforms leading to the water, the residents of the Tokyo Government Office are murmuring anxiously at the blood floating lazily to the surface. 

“Kaito,” Mokona says in a small voice. “Is he alright…?”

“No…” Amuro mumbles under his breath. “Kaito…”

Without a moment of hesitation, Amuro dives into the reservoir, following the tracts of blood, swimming desperately deeper. He slows only when he sees a familiar figure in the distance, silhouetted against a cocoon glowing white…

The figure glances up at Amuro, with such venom Amuro could barely recognize him. It’s difficult to see through the murky, bloody waters, but he’s holding Jugo’s slack body by the neck, with Jugo’s left arm in his grip, torn clean out of the socket. 

Amuro drifts in the distance, contemplating his next move.

Kaito…

Jugo, however, isn’t down for the count just yet. Whipping around, he slashes once more at ‘Kaito’, drawing more blood, forcing him to let go of Jugo’s arm.

“I never would have thought that bait could be this powerful,” Jugo says impassively, guiding the blood in the water towards the rift between his arm and shoulder. “Bait is raised to be food for those who thrive on blood, after all. Without a soul, it’s nothing but a fake human.”

He turns his gaze to Amuro in the distance. 

“Are you its owner?”

No, Amuro thinks firmly in response. 

“Then perhaps it’s the hunter’s,” Jugo muses absently. 

You’re wrong, by the way.

Jugo stops to look at Amuro.

He’s… a very good kid. Always protecting Aoko, always giving it his all to look for the feathers. 

Jugo cocks his head, scrutinizing Amuro.

“You,” he says, mildly puzzled. “You knew he wasn’t human, didn’t you? Even though it was suppressed, he probably possesses a great quantity of magic power.”

Jugo’s gaze moves from Amuro to the bait, eyes soulless and devoid of life. 

“If, inside this thing, there’s something you call a ‘heart’, you should know it was given to him by someone else.”

Even so. Amuro glares at Jugo. Even though it belongs to someone else, even if it’s fake, to the one who received the heart… Everything is real!

The bait turns its head skywards. There is a small symbol, compass-like, manifesting above its right eye. The water in the reservoir parts around the bait, forming a funnel with Kaito’s body as the epicenter.

No, Amuro thinks desperately. The magic in the right eye… It’s disappearing!

“Someone is coming,” murmurs Jugo as the funnel widens. “Someone from another world.”

His eyes narrow distrustfully.

“It’s not the hunter.”

“It’s the other Kaito,” breathes Amuro, his eyes fixed on Kaito’s body.

“And as for you, the other child… You are a being who should not exist. A symbol of the distortion of dimensions. That distortion will bring misery to those around you, and foremost among them will be the parents who brought you into this world.”

Dai is standing on the precipice of the reservoir, staring into the depths of its pits, and barely comprehends what he’s seeing. 

This is incorrect. 

Dai is standing on the precipice of the reservoir, staring into the depths of its pits, and refuses to accept what he’s seeing. 

Quiet, but nonetheless sickening and wet sounds are echoing from the bottom of the now-empty reservoir. Amuro’s lifeless body is dragged around by the neck by Kaito, and half of the mage’s face has been stained with blood, as though he had cried tears of blood from one eye. Kaito’s other hand, slick with blood, is at his mouth. His jaw is moving, chewing rhythmically as he gazes stonily up at Dai. 

Dai feels the world pull away from him, as he meets ‘Kaito’’s eyes. 

“His eye…” Dai croaks, barely hearing himself through the roaring in his ears.  “It… it’s blue…”

And the truth is, it’s always been blue, but what was once a deep, rich indigo was now a clear sky blue.

Just like Amuro’s . 

‘Kaito’ jerks Amuro’s body up by the neck, reaching for the eye on the unbloodied side of his face.

“You…” 

A shudder runs up Dai’s spine, and when it reaches his hindbrain, it throws him into the precipice. 

“Stop it right now!” he bellows, landing heavily on the tendrils that suspended the cocoon in midair. He grabs ‘Kaito’’s arm with more force than he would ever dream of handling the boy with, and tears it away from Amuro’s face.

‘Kaito’ turns slowly, regarding Dai with his newfound eye.

“You ate…” Dai feels an intense revulsion for the words leaving his mouth. “...his eye.” 

There is no confirmation or denial. ‘Kaito’ whips his leg mercilessly into Dai’s abdomen, which would have sent him flying if not for Dai’s death grip on ‘Kaito’’s hand. 

“I want his right eye, too,” ‘Kaito’ says evenly. 

“Give him back to me,” growls Dai, still doubled over from the unexpected kick.

“The source of his magic stems from his eyes. He will be useless without both of them.”

Dai makes it on his feet, still holding that arm of ‘Kaito’’s in an unforgiving grip.

“Give him back.”

‘Kaito’ says nothing, but maintains eye contact with Dai as he leans in closer to Amuro’s remaining eye, teeth inches away from plunging into his flesh.

Dai makes a decision.

Dai seizes ‘Kaito’ by the neck with force so strong and sudden that Amuro’s body slides out of his slackened grip, and, disregarding all consequences for Kaito, Dai flings his body ruthlessly away. 

‘Kaito’’s body makes impact with the concrete walls of the reservoir, and a nasty snapping sound echoes up the walls. 

“Sounds like his arm broke,” Shiratori murmurs, a pained expression on his face as he watches the fray from above with all the other Tokyo Government Office residents.

‘Kaito’, however, stands up effortlessly, as though it had never happened.

“Seems like he can’t feel any pain with that body of his,” Camel observes gravely.

“Or his heart,” Vermouth says, eyes narrowed. 

“You…” Dai crouches next to Amuro protectively. “You’re not that kid. Your aura is different. And yet… you’re still the same person.”

“I will get the feathers back,” says ‘Kaito’, a broken record. “No matter what.”

‘Kaito’ whips out his right hand, and with his first two fingers, begins tracing runes into the air, glowing a hot blue. A full circle in inscriptions, and a forceful gale rushes towards Dai and Amuro, slamming into the two. 

Dai’s ears are still ringing from the impact, but the implications of this horrifying revelation is too much to stay silent at. 

“You ate his magic, too?!” 

“In order to get the feathers back, I will take the things that I need,” ‘Kaito’ says clearly. “And I will get rid of those in my way.” 

Dai is all too aware of Amuro trembling semi-conscious in his arms, of the blood streaked across his face. He isn’t one for communication, but the inconsolable rage in him must leave, somehow. 

“This guy,” Dai growls, shaking Amuro in his arms, “He changed himself, for the sake of you and your princess.” 

He thinks of the Amuro he had met at the start of the journey, the one who had sworn off magic. The Amuro at the racecourse, who had smiled from the heart without even realizing it. The Amuro on the steps of the Central Library, who had whistled for the sake of the children. 

“Just to see the two of you smile.” 

The Amuro in his arms, an eye less than he liked, wronged so horribly by someone he loved. 

“Do you understand that, kid?!”

But before ‘Kaito’ can say anything, (and there was nothing he could have said to dampen Dai’s anger), a spiral of energy pulses through the room. The witch’s magic circle blooms before ‘Kaito’, and when the dust clears, the other Kaito is standing before him. 

From within the cocoon, Sango is trying desperately to rouse Aoko’s soul. 

“Wake up,” he murmurs, his voice disembodied and insubstantial. “If you don’t wake up, your most important person won’t be able to come back.” 

Somewhere from deep within the throes of unconsciousness, Aoko hears these words echoing faintly in her brain. And slowly, in the dark, shards of her life flashes before her, all the people she’s met, all the people she can remember, and the most important person of all—

Kaito.

Aoko opens her eyes. 

And through the translucent membrane of the cocoon, she sees everything. 

The witch slides her hands nimbly over Shinichi’s ears. 

“Don’t listen,” she murmurs to the boy. 

“It hurts!”

Shinichi’s heartbroken cries echo in the void.

“My body hurts! I can’t move!”

(He is dreaming.)

“It hurts!” 

His body is crumpled on the floor, and he tries desperately to pick himself up to no avail. 

“I can’t move!”

(He is a child again, in this dream.) 

“Mom! Dad!”

Shinichi casts his gaze around desperately, but there is only darkness. 

“Where are you?”

(Shinichi is on the verge between life and death.)

(Ran had touched him on the shoulder. And maybe it’s a coincidence, but that same shoulder had brushed against a windowpane in exactly the wrong way, and he had fallen, fallen from two stories up. Out the window, meeting the earth. Blood is spilled.)

((It is not a coincidence.))

“It hurts so much… I’m scared…” Shinichi wails sadly, the tears tracing his cheek, drop after drop. “Mom! Dad!”

He cannot see anything, but he senses something. A bloody arm extends out to him. 

“Mom!” 

(And he knows he is correct. This is his mother.)

Another bloodied hand takes Shinichi’s arm gently.

“Dad!”

He is soaring, for the briefest of moments. Then, the hands vanish. A wave of panic crashes back down on the little child. He is alone again. 

He does not want to be alone again.

“Mom!” His sobs heave at his chest, his stomach is cramping from his desperate gasps. “Dad!”

We’re sorry. 

There is a voice, a voice that Shinichi at once hears with crystal clarity and yet not at all. He cannot recognize the voices, the voices that sound like bells and glass, like stars and fire. 

We couldn’t be there for you. We’re sorry…    

Shinichi hears the voices coming from above and turns his face desperately skywards. 

We made you feel lonely. We made you feel pain. We’re sorry. But we’ll meet again…

The bloody hands return, stroking Shinichi’s head gently. He feels a semblance of love, and he craves it desperately, so much so that he almost doesn’t process the words.

They are waiting for you, because the future still hold so much in store for you… People who will see you… Talk to you… Be at your side…

The hands pull away, slowly. Shinichi can’t stop it. 

That’s why…

Please…

You mustn't disappear. 

You… Our precious child… 

Another…

Shinichi tries to blink away his tears. 

“Wait,” he warbles desperately, finding the strength to pull himself to his feet at last. “Mom! Dad! Don’t leave me! I want to go with you!”

An arm darts out from behind Shinichi, this one free of blood.

(This Shinichi doesn’t know it yet, but he recognizes the visage.)

“I made it in time,” says the dark-skinned man. “It’s a good thing my appearance is so similar to Heiji’s. That kid can’t enter dreams, you know?”

Shinichi stares blankly at this man he does and doesn’t recognize. He feels compelled, but he can’t put a finger on why he does.

“If I didn’t have this appearance, I wouldn’t have been able to stop you from going, right?” The man smiles at him. “They’re calling. It’s time to go back. And next time…”

(The dream begins to fade.)

Let’s meet in a real dream.

Shinichi is tired of waking up when he doesn’t remember falling asleep.

“I…”

“You fell,” Akako tells him from the corner of the room. 

(It hurts.)

“You fell from the second story of the school. So did the window. Hattori saw you and wanted to call an ambulance right away. I sent him a message asking him to bring you to the shop instead. Time was crucial.”

(He can’t move.)

“It was almost too late. But someone met you in your half-dreaming state, just when you were about to go to the other side, right?” 

(What was on the other side, again?)

“Then, Akako, you…”

“Yes,” she confirms quietly.

(Ah, reality is sinking in now.)

“The price for that is going to be really high, isn’t it?” Shinichi asks, already drained at the conceptualization of the price.

“It is already paid for.”

Shinichi’s eyes widen in surprise.

“By three people,” Akako says, gazing off into the distance.

“Who…?”

“The first, Mouri. The second, Hattori. And the third…”

Shinichi doesn’t know if he has a third person who would value his life so much. 

“That person shares a deep connection with you. So that you wouldn’t disappear, that person paid the price ahead of time, so that I would help you when the need arose. He has spent much time.”

Akako approaches Shinichi’s bedside.

“You have already met him, Shinichi. On that rainy day, when he came to have his wish granted.”

Shinichi thinks back, recalls that rainy day. 

“That… that person who looks just like Kaito…?” He closes his eyes. Shinichi can barely remember him. “But… why…?”

Akako smiles sadly at him. 

“You should sleep,” she tells him gently. “It’ll take you a long time to recover. And even then, it will not be a full recovery.”

“Is it my pinky…?”

“Yes. Even after everything has healed, the movement in your right-hand pinky will not be restored.”

“That’s fine,” Shinichi breathes. “But… don’t tell Ran…okay…? Because… I really like to see her smile.”

He finds himself beginning to slip into a dreamless sleep, even though he still has questions. 

“Wait… Ran’s price for saving me… What did she give up…?”

“I promised her I wouldn’t tell you,” Akako says as kindly as she can.

“And Hattori… what…”

“His price was to supply all the blood that you had lost.” 

Shinichi has already fallen fast asleep. 

Akako closes the door quietly, and looks down at a bloodied Heiji in the hall. He, too, cannot hear her words.

“So you and Mouri have both become customers at my shop,” she murmurs. “In order to have your wishes granted.

Ran is crying, on the cobblestone steps leading to the street.

“Shinichi, you liar.” 

The tears are pouring down her cheeks, frustration and exasperation and weariness manifest.

“You said you’d never make me cry, but…”

She wipes away her tears, but it does nothing; the tears return, persistent.

“Nobody has ever told me that they feel lucky to have met me.” 

Accidents, injuries, deaths— they had all haunted those around her, while she remains unscathed.

“I’m glad that Shinichi didn’t die. And I’m glad that I could pay the price by taking on Shinichi’s scars….”

For a moment, she forgets all the misfortune that has lined her destiny from its inception to the present. There is something so small here, and yet so precious. She holds it close to her heart.

“Thank you,” Ran says quietly, looking back at the shop. “I feel lucky to have met you, too.”

(It is joy.)

“As long as you do not disappear,” Karasuma Renya asserts, “neither will the distortion.”

“No.” The witch rejects the magician’s claim. “The time he spends with the people he meets from now on will sustain his life.”

Aoko is battered and bloodied from her venture out into the hostile badlands and acid rain. But the important thing— the most important thing— is that she has made it back safely. 

“I will most certainly accept this as the price for the water,” Akako says from Mokona’s projection, holding a glowing silver egg in her hand. 

She carefully set the egg down somewhere beyond the screen, and her demeanor settles into something more serious.

“Princess Aoko, the man who stole your memories in the ruins of Clow, is named Karasuma Renya.”

This is only really a revelation for Dai and Aoko. Kaito and Amuro… both of them know more than they let on.

“To be precise, he did not steal your memories because he needed them,” Akako continues. “Karasuma’s true goal was to ‘scatter’ your memories.”

“But… for what reason…?” Aoko murmurs, her breath coming out in shallow puffs. 

“For the sake of his wish,” Akako responds solemnly. “For Karasuma’s wish to be granted, he needs two things. The first are the ruins that are buried in Clow Country. The other, Princess Aoko, is to have you search for your memories so that you would travel to different worlds, by crossing through dimensions, and sometimes crossing through time, in the process gaining ‘memories’ of different worlds.” 

“Memories?” Aoko may be exhausted, but she wants to, needs to understand everything.

“But Aoko slept through the beginning of the journey,” Mokona points out in confusion. “She can’t possibly remember what happened while she was asleep.”

Akako shakes her head.

“The memories that Karasuma wants are not those of the heart, but those of the body. The body can remember each and every dimension and world. That is the power that Princess Aoko holds, a power that can change worlds.”

Akako sighs, before continuing.

“For that reason, Karasuma turned Princess Aoko’s memories into feathers, and dispersed them among the worlds in order to make her go on a journey to collect them.” 

She glances over from Aoko to Kaito.

“Before that, he kidnapped Kaito, who already knew of his plan. He created a separate Kaito who knew nothing, and made the retrieval of the feathers the clone’s highest priority.”

The gaze slides from Kaito to Dai.

“He also murdered Dai’s mother, and destroyed his country.”

“And what does that have to do with anything?” demands Dai coldly. 

Akako meets his eyes, unfazed by the sparks of rage positively flying off him. 

“He did it so you would leave Suwa and become a ninja of Japan, so you would serve Princess Akemi and go on a journey someday. After all, in Japan, the only person who can send people to other worlds is Princess Akemi.”

Dai shoots a venomous glare at Akako.

“I served Princess Akemi out of my own free will.”

Akako closes her eyes respectfully.

“Yes, Princess Akemi believed that as well,” she says politely. “That’s why she sent you, even though she knew of Karasuma’s plans.”

Akako’s gaze settles on Amuro, at last. 

“Amuro, it’s the same for you. What was planned, and what was not… you probably know, by now.”

There’s a distant look on Amuro’s face as he quietly recalls his past, but he notices Aoko’s worried face as he cradles her gently, and leaves the past behind to smile for her.

“To ensure the safety of Aoko and the creation of her memories… the other Kaito, Dai, Amuro… All of you were gathered as fellow travelers on this journey.”

“And Mokona…?” it asks of her.

“The two Mokonas were created by Toichi and I, in order to stop Karasuma’s plan.” She pauses delicately. “...and for the sake of two futures.”

She moves aside, revealing Shinichi lying, heavily bandaged, on the bed behind her.

“It’s all right,” Akako assures Kaito. “You, and all of the other people who do not want to lose this child , have paid the price so that he will not disappear from your hearts.”

“Thank you,” says Kaito quietly.

Dai leans forward, arms still crossed.

“You said that Karasuma’s wish could only be granted by those ruins and Aoko’s memories. What exactly is his wish?”

“He wishes for the power to cross space and time,” Akako says darkly. “He wishes to obtain the power to manipulate time and space.”

“And with that power… what will he do?” asks Aoko.

“That, I cannot tell you.” Feeling it unfair, perhaps, she concedes more information after a pause. “However, Karasuma’s wish is a wish that anyone can dream of, but nobody can grant. This is the extent of what I can tell you. Any more than that will exceed the interference value.”

Dai sighs impatiently. 

“What is this interference value?”

Akako’s voice comes through Mokona evenly.

“At first glance, the world seems to be in chaos. While monitoring the sway of the world, it becomes necessary to maintain a balance. And if those who maintain that balance lose it, everything will fall apart. Because Karasuma made all of you go on this journey, things have already begun to collapse.”

Akako pauses, letting the weight of the words set in.

“However, anything born from that destruction also has a meaning and a purpose. Because everything is inevitable.”

She closes her eyes once more.

“Your subsequent travels were all a setup. Even so, everything that has happened stemmed from your own choices. Those who came willingly… those who came with the flow… Either way, these are the results of the choices you’ve made.”

Akako sweeps her gaze across the travelers.

“Much was lost along the way, but much was born from the journey as well. Each of you should choose your own path for yourself.”

Aoko pushes herself up into a sitting position, and Amuro naturally takes her hand and supports the injured girl.

“...I will… continue this journey,” Aoko breathes. “To find Kaito.”

Akako regards Aoko carefully.

“If you pursue Kaito and continue your journey, you will be following Karasuma’s wishes,” she warns Aoko, withholding judgement.

The clotted blood staining her hair scrapes uncomfortably against Aoko’s cheek.

“...even so, I will go on. In order to retrieve Kaito’s heart.”

“May I come with you?” Amuro asks politely. “Right now, Kaito has my left eye. Magic sharing the same core attracts one another, so I may be of help with finding him.”

Aoko frowns, looking at Amuro, trying to see beyond his facade.

“...is that what you truly want, Amuro…? You aren’t saying that just because of what I said, right? You aren’t… hiding what you really want to do?”

Amuro takes Aoko’s hand, bloodied and yet still soft, holding it tenderly in his.

“It is what I truly desire,” he tells her gently. “I can’t perform healing magic. As a magician who can’t even mend your wounds, will you still let me accompany you?”

“Whether you can use magic or not, Amuro is still Amuro.”

“Mokona wants to travel with everybody, too!” It turns to look at Dai. “What about you, Dai?”

“I want to return to Japan,” Dai says dismissively. “That hasn’t changed. But… there are some things that have changed.”

He slips his hands into his pockets.

“It’s okay to make more than one promise.”

“Dai…” Aoko murmurs softly.

“And I want to meet that person I’ve been looking for. That Karasuma Renya.”

Akako listens quietly to these desires, finally turning to Kaito.

“And you?” she inquires. “‘Kaito’.”

Kaito closes his eyes, visualizing his goal.

“There is something I want to get back,” he says firmly. “I may fail, but if I can, I want to protect her. I, too, want to go on with everyone.”

“I understand.” Akako’s image seems so small and desolate against the landscape. “Then go, do as your hearts desire.”

Shinichi’s eyes are opening, slowly, for the first time. 

Kaito lunges out, knowing he could never reach him.

“Don’t disappear!” Kaito shouts, even as he is whisked away into an unknown dimension, together with Karasuma Renya. 

The image of Kaito’s desperate face is the first thing that Shinichi won’t remember seeing. But the words will stay with him, a blessing, a prayer, an absolution.

Kaito opens his eyes. 

He’s drifting, floating in a space that he can’t quite perceive. In the distance, he spots a silhouette. Not a familiar one, but an important one. 

Shinichi is gazing into the distance absently, but perhaps he spies Kaito’s movements at the edge of his vision. He turns, and his eyes widen.

This is the first time they are meeting. The first time they are truly meeting, eye to eye, as equals, as parallels, as one and the same. 

“Kaito…” Shinichi murmurs, hardly daring to believe it. “This is…”

“...inside a dream?” Kaito finishes.

“For you too,” Shinichi observes, almost mournfully. “I wonder if I’m meeting you in a dream in order to bid you farewell.”

At these words, Kaito’s face hardens into determination, and he grabs Shinichi firmly by the upper arm. 

“Don’t disappear,” he commands Shinichi. 

“You said that before, too,” Shinichi says, perplexed. “‘Don’t disappear.’ And Akako said that you paid a price when I was injured.”

He meets Kaito’s gaze.

“Why was that?” He pauses for a moment, before continuing. “You and I, the first time we met was in front of Akako’s store… What relationship do you and I have, Kaito? Do you know?”

“...I know,” Kaito says finally. “I heard from my father and mother. But… I can’t tell you that now.”

He bows his head apologetically. 

“Changing the future is a hard thing to do. If I tell you, the path towards the future becomes uncertain again.”

“Aoko was saying that, too,” Shinichi mutters, half to himself.

“You’ve met Aoko?!” Kaito blurts, stunned at the mention of her name.

“In a dream, yes. She said she did what she could because she wanted everybody to live.”

“I see…” Kaito nods, albeit half-heartedly.

“Aoko said that in order to change the future, she had to hurt you,” Shinichi recalls gently. “It seemed like a difficult thing for her to choose.”

Kaito clenches his fist, and unclenches it. 

“Aoko isn’t a person who will carry on no matter who gets hurt,” he says faithfully. “If she tells me the truth next time we meet, it’ll be fine.”

Shinichi’s eyes widen at these words.

“That’s… that’s the same thing I told her,” he manages, once his shock subsides.

Kaito merely smiles at this.

“That’s because you and I are closer than anyone else,” he tells Shinichi.

“Closer…?” Shinichi ponders these words as though it were a riddle, but the dream begins to dissipate before he can put it together. 

“Until we catch up, please take care of Aoko,” Kaito implores with a sense of finality. “And until then…”

Don’t disappear.