Chapter Text
She waited, standing near her desk for a call that had never failed to come. There was no counting how many calls she’d recieved or knowing for how long she’d been doing this. When you’re in a time loop concepts such as days don’t have any meaning. The moments she’d been repeating could have stretched into weeks even if she was only experiencing the same day. She flexed her hands and stared at her phone. The kind of stare that was so direct your eyes start to unfocus.
“Aoi!?” She cried. Aoi spoke to her the same dialogue. The call cut off and Nene threw her phone at the wall with enough force to crack it. She leaned over and heaved short breaths, trying to sort out her thoughts. Nothing had changed and Nene didn’t know what to do. What had gone wrong? Why was this happening? How can she fix it? She didn’t know!
It struck her then. To prevent Kou and Mitsuba from going to the Red House, she needed to intercept them at the school. She couldn’t let them meet Tsukasa. That must be where everything was going wrong.
She held up the chain to look at the cursed hourglass hanging around her neck. Her time here was already running out. She never got any time to process anything. Always jumping from one place to another without a chance to breathe. In the next moments as she found herself fading away into the hourglass again and time rewound, her hope weighed her down like an anchor. At that point you can’t really call it hope.
Nene blinked and in front of her appeared the entrance to the school. She was inside surrounded by the cubby holes students placed their shoes in, facing the doors that begn to creak with movement. It was Kou and Mitsuba; perfectly normal, alive and well.
She ran to stop them. “No!” She yelled, “Don’t come in!”
“Huh?” Exclaimed Kou, hand still resting on the door. “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”
“Just please! Go back, go home, you can’t stay. I won’t let you!”
Mitsuba stepped back, surprised and slightly judgy. He was about to open his mouth, but Nene was all too aware that she needed to get them out of here now. Tsukasa could be here, standing off the side, waiting, and she had to protect them. Without caring that she looked insane she physically pushed them out despite their protests. Neither resisting nor obliging her they stumbled forward, confused. Upon seeing her expression though, they gave up and willingly left. Walked up to the school gates and went back home.
She watched them go every step of the way. Unable to believe she’d done it, but relieved nontheless.
“Ok…” Kou had said as he turned away, “Don’t stay here too long. Go home too.” She’d nodded.
Nene came to, not unlike when she traveled through time, but this felt different. Her eyes felt heavy and her feet were wet and cold, but her front was warm. She was standing in water. She was in a strange basement, she could see the stairs leading up the door.
It looked like the Red House…
Nene glanced down to see her friend. Aoi could hardly stand, leaning on her for full support. Nene had been so out of it she hadn’t even noticed.
“Nene… Please. Snap out of it.”
“Huh?” She didn’t understand. Aoi began to slip and fall from her.
“Aoi!?”
As her friend fell down an unpleasant feeling crawled up her arm as something slid out. What was she holding? Uncomprehendingly she looked down at Aoi and the thing in her hand. At her other friends lying on the floor and staircase. No. Oh God. No, no, no. NO.
Desperation and fear loomed greater and greater over Nene as she walked backwards into the well behind her. Her head hurt and she couldn’t keep walking straight. It couldn’t be real, none of this was real, the world had tipped off its axis and everything was WRONG. It was that thing that had done this. This was no god, it was a monster. The cause of every curse and mistake.
She fell, but someone caught her against the well. She tilted her head back. It was Hanako and she screamed.
The hourglass flipped. She was in the school festival again. A lively crowd and a multitude of different stands and booths selling various items and foods. It was bright and sunny, people parted around her laughing. Her legs gave out and she flopped forward with zero strength. Nene stared at her hands in front of her as she knelt unable to breathe. This was worse than dying. She was the only one left alive.
Had she done that? Had she really risked everything just to be the one holding the knife in the end?
This was the consequence of wanting something you weren’t supposed to have.
She had been warned not to go back in time. It never worked out, no one had ever succeeded in achieving what they wanted. They only ended up worse than before with a lifetime of regret. She bent down forward into the ground and covered her head, not even caring about the people staring at her or the dirt in her hair.
What was so wrong with wanting to be happy with everyone she loved? So much so that just saving her friends from death was an impossibility. Nene didn’t even care about her own lifespan anymore, she would do anything to have a chance to sacrifice it for everyone. But that didn’t even seem to be an option.
She just couldn’t believe that it was wrong to want to be happy. She knew it wasn’t, that’s not how life worked. And yet here she was without a clue how to solve all this. Nene wouldn’t give up, but she was lost.
“Yashiro. Are you alright?” A voice cut through her despair. She couldn’t believe her eyes. It was Akane.
He stepped forward and stopped right in front of her. “I finally found you.” Her face was still hot, but she’d started to calm down.
“What are you doing here…?” She sniffed.
He ignored her quesiton and pointed at her. “…You should stop using that hourglass.” She looked down at the object in her hands.
“It may seem like the key to solving every problem. But it’s really just a piece of crap that baits humans with the promise of going back in time and tricks them into making pointless changes. All so it can warp the present.”
She knew that, but there was no other option. There was nothing else to do within her power.
“Akane. I… What should I have done?” Nene questioned. He held out his hand. She lifted the chain from around her neck and handed it to him.
“You were counting on me. You trusted with your watch and the yorishiro. But I-“ She choked up and the words wouldn’t come out. She cried.
“I couldn’t do anything right.” Nene clutched her hands to her chest then ran her hands through her hair and named the friends she couldn’t save one after the other.
Akane paused. “I feel bad about that.” He finally said. “I know it was the only choice but you’re not one of the clock keepers. It was too much to ask. I’m sorry.” She couldn’t look at him anymore. “But your efforts, Yashiro, weren’t all for nothing.”
She wiped her tears, “What?”
“This is the first day of the school festival, right? In that case, here’s what’ll happen after school tomorrow. First, Kou and Sousuke Mitsuba will go to the Red House. That part will not change. Next, President Minamoto will realize Kou is in trouble. And he and I will go to the Red House. But… we’ll find that you can Aoi are already there.”
“Me and Aoi?”
He confirmed, “Yes. You’re going to conspire together to manipulate us and chase us out of the Red House. Using yourselves as decoys. And as a result, the one who mkaes it safely out of the house will no longer be you, it’ll be me.”
Hold on. Nene was confused. “Wait… what are you talking about?”
“The future you were about to live out,” Akane declared, “I came here from the future you created. And now we’re going to fix ths mess.” She stared in amazement as he motioned for her to follow him. She got up and began to walk.
“We’ll go to the big clock and undo all of the changes.” He continued.
They walked the path to the old school building, where the big clock resided. Entered the tower and climbed up the wooden steps.
“But Akane, how can we change it back? I thought we had to know what the clock keepers changed, or-“
“We do know. You told me, Yashiro. When you saved me from the house. You said the change Kako made was on Hanako’s fourth birthday. You were sure of it.”
Come to think of it, Nene thought back to when the adult Hanako had said something of the like. Right before he went crazy.
“Wh-what happened after that? What about Aoi?” It wasn’t just her that stayed in the house then, but her friend too. Surely Akane of all people wouldn’t suggest…
“She didn’t make it out of the house.”
With him in front of her climbing the steps, she couldn’t see his expression. They reached the top of the tower.
There it was. The clock that was supposed to turn back time. It didn’t have a story like the hourglass where the user was doomed to a horrible fate, but knowing the supernaturals, Nene had experienced too much to think that there wasn’t a catch.
“Okay. Time to go the past. It’s all you, Yashiro.” Akane smiled. Nene startled and panicked. His words gave her a heart attack. Why wasn’t he doing this mission? She’d already failed!
“All me!? WHY!?” She stared at him in horror.
“If we so manage to change the world back to the way it was, and the school festival disaster comes up again, we might end up having to repeat this whole cycle. I have to jump back to a different time, so I can stop that from happening.” He explained logically.
“Oh… that makes sense.” She managed to reply feebly.
“Your destination is the Red House on Novemeber 15, 1959. Kako or Mirai should be there causing some kind of intereference and you’ll have to stop them. Then we should be able to return to the present we came from.” She thought about the other clock keepers and shivered. There was no way she would be able to stop them. If she failed again...
Akane must have noticed her hesitation. “Nervous?” He asked.
“Yeah. I don’t know if I can do it all on my own. I mean, I’ve tried so many times already.”
He thought to himself for a moment. “Knowing you, Yashiro, you’ll do just fine.”
“Huh?”
“I wouldn’t have said this before, but I was really underestimating you,” He looekd off to the side nonchalantly, “I thought you were lovesick and brainless. And you never learned from your mistakes. I always wondered why Aoi would pick someone like you to as her best friend.” Nene was shocked by his rudeness. She might have been like that once, but she’d grown a lot as a person!
“But… we’ve been through a lot now. And you are definitely lovesick and brainless.” Oh, come on now. “But I’ve learned that you’re kind, and you have the guts to be strong when it counts.” Hearing something like that from a person like Akane made her so grateful she forgot his insults.
“That kindness is something I don’t have. On Amane Yugi’s fourth birthday, if anyone is going to tamper with honorable No. 7’s past, I can’t think of a better person for the job.”
Now he was just creeping her out. He was never like this.
“Akane is saying nice things about me…”
“It’s a pep talk.” He deadpanned.
“You do want to see him, don’t you? Your dear No. 7.” That was a temptation if not anything else. She wanted to seem him so bad after so long. He’s someone she could trust even if he made questionable and awful choices sometimes, the Hanako in this present wasn’t someone she knew. Thinking about it made her want to cry.
“Yes.” Nene admitted.
He smiled again. “Good. Then without further ado, let’s get started.” Akane pulled out his stopwatch and above the big clock appeared the mark the symbolized his power over the present time. The gears creaked and groaned.
Nene looked up in awe, “The big clock actually started moving!”
“You can’t use the big clock unless you charge it with a clock keeper’s power.” He explained, “If you had my watch and the key I thought the other clock keepers would be willing to help, even if I wasn’t there personally. But I guess they’re more stubborn than I thought. I’m sorry.” He lifted his arm up like a referee. “Okay. Counting down.”
NOW?
“What!? Already!? But I’m not ready yet!” Why couldn’t he give her time to collect herself! He started to count down from 5.
“I have so many questions!” Akane wasn’t listening to her. The clock ticked. And then it stopped.
The face of a clock glowed on the ground around her. A beam of light showered from above and she was lifting up off the floor. She reached for Akane and shouted his name. Clearly, she didn’t have a choice in the matter. She was going.
“See you later! In our old world. The world where we’re all together again!” She formed a fist bump. He hesistated before fist bumping her too.
“Yeah. Stay safe out there.” Then she was gone.
Nene had done a lot of falling in her lifetime, and a quite a bit more as of late, what was up with that? She sailed down through multiple clock faces and prayed that this time would be the time she managed to save her friends from death and return to the right timeline. Finally, she fell through the last one.
Is that a house below her 100 meters away?