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“See you later Fubuki!”
Fubuki waves goodbye to her new friends. They’d just tried a new cafe that opened up, and it was delightful, with very spicy takoyaki.
Now she just has to head back to her dorm, which was…
Now where was it again?
Fubuki heads to one of the maps of the cultural district. Her dorm is right by Charlie’s Pearls. Or is it Pearly’s Charms? It’s in the East, so if the sun’s setting now, she should head left of the sun.
Wait is it left if she’s facing towards the sun or away from the sun?
Oh dear, she'll just have to find another trainee from the WDO to give her directions.
Fubuki begins walking and hears moaning from an alleyway. She heads over and sees another trainee!
But she’s covered in blood.
“Oh no, are you alright?” Fubuki asks. There’s no weapon, but the trainee has clearly been stabbed through the abdomen.
The trainee tries to say something, but just coughs up blood. Then her eyes close and she stops moving.
Fubuki desperately tries to find a pulse, checking every spot she thinks it can be.
It’s no use, the trainee is dead.
So Fubuki rewinds time.
When she finishes, she’s back at the cafe.
“Excuse me!” She says, sprinting over to the alleyway. She gets there just in time to see the trainee get stabbed by another trainee, a boy with a metal blade for an arm.
“Help! I need an ambulance!” Fubuki cries, and the boy with the metal arm turns, looking panicked, and runs to stab her too.
So Fubuki rewinds time.
“I need to borrow a telephone!” Fubuki says. “Please, call an ambulance!”
“Eh? Are you ok?”
“Not for me! There’s someone in the alley!”
Fubuki runs off again, this time footsteps are behind her and someone screams at the sight of the trainee’s body.
Fubuki looks up and notices the boy with the blade for an arm (though at the moment his blade is gone) get into a taxi with a flower pattern on the back.
“Wait! Stop!” Fubuki cries, and the taxi does. Fubuki points to the boy. “He’s the one who stabbed her!”
A nearby officer moves to apprehend him, but when Fubuki turns to her friends, one shakes her head.
“She’s dead.”
So Fubuki rewinds time.
She’s… so tired…
Fubuki gets up and runs toward the alleyway, but collapses, the entire world spinning around her. She coughs and there’s blood all over her hands and uniform.
Then everything goes dark.
-
Fubuki wakes up in the infirmary of the WDO.
“Ah, you’re awake.”
Fubuki looks up and sees a little boy with a purple bowl cut sitting next to her and reading a newspaper.
“I have some questions for you,” the boy says.
“Before that! There’s a girl in the alleyway who’s about to die!” Fubuki says.
“Reika Nightshade,” the boy says solemnly. “Yes, she was attacked hours ago. She bled out before anyone found her body.”
“No!” Fubuki says. “I failed.”
“So I was correct, you did use your powers because of that situation.”
“Yes! The boy with a blade for a hand did it. He–”
“That would be Kazuto Copper,” the boy says. “I’ll bring him in. You’ve done a good job detective and– why are you crying?”
Fubuki only just noticed the tears in her eyes herself. “Ah, well it’s because I failed to save the girl.”
“But you did help us apprehend the culprit,” the boy says. “You should be proud.”
“Proud? But I can do something no one else can do. I should have found a way to save her.” Everyone’s always talking about how she would not be here without the strength of her forte. They’re probably correct, so she should be using it to save people, right?
“Miss Clockford,” the boy says. “Detectives cannot save everybody. What we can do is make sure the culprit doesn’t hurt anyone else, and bring closure to those who must bare the weight of not knowing what happened to their loved ones. You’ve done that. There’s no need to worry.”
Fubuki sighs. She does not particularly feel better, even after that. “Thank you for your kind words,” Fubuki says, but you can’t know what I can do. You can’t know what I could have done to save her. If I could have gone back further. If I could have gotten help there quicker.
Despite what this boy thinks, it’s Fubuki’s fault that girl died.
“I’ll leave you alone for now,” the boy says.
“Oh, dear, I didn't even get your name,” Fubuki says.
The boy simply smiles. “I don’t have one.”