Chapter 4 – Halfway Around the Possible Worlds of A Million Days

Let me preface with this:

Today, Michiru will die.

The Fifth of October A

I woke to a morning that I had been dreading from the bottom of my heart.

From the curtain rail rollers, I knew the calendar date had changed. They were in different positions than from the morning of the fourth of October. Every night, I pulled closed the curtains, and the curtain rail rollers would all end up in slightly different spots on different days. 

By paying attention to these minute differences in the objects in my room, I could know which yesterday had become reality. This wasn’t limited to curtain rail rollers.

For instance, the direction in which the kitchen faucet faced.

For instance, the order in which the books were piled on top of each other.

For instance, on a certain yesterday evening, the location where my schoolbag had been placed.

The fourth of October C hadn’t been chosen. A day I wished for so desperately could never be chosen. That one fact alone, a tragedy that I should have long become accustomed to already, caught in my chest and refused to move. Emotions far too large and heavy suddenly leaked out from my eyes.

Most likely, some part of my heart had become soft.

I’d wanted to believe in such innocent, pure fantasies like ‘fate.’ 

And even as I lifted my body, I couldn’t muster up the energy to leave the bed. I knew I had to prepare to go to school, and yet all I could do was sit motionlessly, my knees growing wetter and wetter.

It shouldn’t have been like this.

Since last night, no, even before that, even before the end of the fourth of October C, I had steeled myself for the inevitable. And yet.

I wasn’t allowed to hope for a future where a single reality played out and was chosen- if only miracles like those could occur. Altogether, the Fourth of October had occurred 6 times. There was no chance I’d win such a slim, one in six lottery, was there?

But I’d wanted to believe. Because if I hadn’t believed that that innocent, pure fourth of October C would continue, then the following days starting from the fourth of October D would all feel pointless and dull.

For the first time in my life, I skipped school. 

I knew that the instant I distanced myself from everything I considered boring and tedious, I would have nothing left. Which is why no matter how painfully stale the ever-repeating days became, no matter how difficult they were to endure, I still made an effort to at least attend school, but now, even that felt repulsive.

Would I to nonchalantly head to school, see Michiru, who knew nothing and remembered nothing, and get hurt once more? As if.

That question alone was a drug easily powerful enough to push me back into the depths of my bed.

A loud, muffled knock suddenly resounded from the front door.

Naturally, the only one who’d ever visit would be Yuuka, and I’d locked the door before sleeping, so I could ignore her without worry. But I wondered why she’d visit at this time of day. Maybe the school had contacted her regarding my absence. Doubtfully, I lifted my head and rubbed my eyes. I crept out from the midst of my slumber. The digital watch near my pillow read 12:30. Since I couldn’t dream, whenever I accidentally fell asleep then woke up again, it always felt like I’d inexplicably jumped several hours into the future. 

Another somewhat reserved knock sounded again. The first knock probably seemed loud only because I was half asleep, I mused as I forced my body up. 

The reflection I saw in the mirror looked straight out of a horror film. Half-open eyelids and eyes swollen from crying, pajamas wrinkled and slovenly from sleep, hair twisting and turning off into whichever direction it pleased. …My image was frightening beyond belief. Even true love would surely be chilled to its core at the sight of me.

Well, it was only Yuuka anyway. I walked to the door, lightly running my fingers through my hair in a mostly futile attempt to tidy it up, and turned the doorknob. Blinding sunlight flooded through the doorway.

“Huh? Why are you-“

I squinted my eyes against the radiance, and in my limited vision, I saw… a silhouette that I hadn’t anticipated. The unmistakable silhouette of Michiru. I didn’t know why, but Michiru was here.

Even true love would surely… 

“Waahhh.” With a shocked what!? and an ahhh! both trying to force their way out of my mouth, the sounds got caught in my throat and mixed together, and a weird noise ended up escaping my throat. Now that I’d shown such disgraceful behavior to Michiru, death didn’t seem like such a bad option. I was so embarrassed. I wanted to die.

“S-sorry. I didn’t mean to surprise you like this.”

“Don’t look at me! S-stop! Don’t look…” I ducked, cowering behind the half-open door, clutching my head. Like a turtle curled into its shell, I tried to escape Michiru’s gaze even if only by a little. 

If the front door was the entrance to the underworld, then the side I was on was hell, and I was an undead spirit. Specifically, in terms of my appearance. 

“What’s wrong? Are you not feeling well?” Michiru’s voice came from above my huddled form.

Once more, I wanted to shout don’t look! but a disheveled girl hiding her hair while repeating ‘don’t look at me… don’t look at me…’ bore far too much resemblance to a B-tier horror film. While it might’ve been okay with Yuuka, telling Michiru to straight up leave was extremely difficult. I didn’t have it in me to say that.

“M-Michiru-san… please spare me and look away…”

What was I even saying. I was like a pathetic warrior begging for the enemy to have mercy on her. Yet I wasn’t a warrior, making my words truly nonsensical.

“Sorry. Even when I asked the teacher, all they said was that you had an unexcused absence so… I was worried.” Without hesitation, Michiru ignored my pleading and boldly strode into the room.

I felt so shameful that my eyes welled with tears.

Lamenting that that one day hadn’t been chosen- no, it wasn’t anything as beautiful as lament– it was a bitter grudge, due to which I had neglected the day in front of my very eyes, causing my friend to worry about me. I was deplorable.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I just overslept a little.”

Half-resigned to my fate, with my back still turned to Michiru, I frantically tried to clean up my appearance, combing my hair with my fingers and scraping off the remnants of tears from my cheeks. My hands, stiff with tension, moved clumsily like blobs of goo.

“Ayaka, you’re quite the liar, aren’t you.”

It was exactly as Michiru said. Who would ever believe that these bloodshot, red eyes were due to nothing more than oversleep? It was a childish lie that couldn’t even trick an elementary schooler.

As a bitter smile formed on my face, Michiru looked at me worriedly. Only then did I realize. …What was I doing? I shouldn’t be grieving a day I’d lost.

“Wait here for a second. I’ll go make preparations real quick.”

Right now, I would clutch onto that happiness in front of me, clutch onto it so tightly that it would never escape.

By the time we left the house, a light rain had begun to fall outside.

There was something about how the moisture clung to my skin that felt unpleasant. 

“So something really did happen. Sorry. You don’t have to go out of your way to walk with me.”

“It’s no problem. I was really happy that you came to see me.”

I could spend as long as I wanted shut up in my room, crying, but that wouldn’t change anything. If I valued that lost day that much, then I should act now in order to grasp that happiness once more. 

Her left hand felt slightly warm in mine, filling me with hope that I might soon find the warmth I so desperately desired.

“Really? Are you sure you’re not pushing yourself?”

“Well, maybe I am, just a little. But I’d much rather this than than make you worry about me.”

Another lie, but this time, she was holding my hand. Meaning my lie would be exposed in no time.

“Nah. This is just me being selfish.”

I blinked. “Selfish?”

“Yeah. When I didn’t see you in school, I felt really unhappy.”

I wondered how Michiru was able to talk about her emotions so directly.

Why couldn’t I convey my own feeling honestly to Michiru?

But I was a little relieved.

Because I was certain that Michiru’s cheeks were dyed the same color as mine.

A speeding car raced past us, skidding through puddles and splashing up muddy water in its wake. Michiru had brought an umbrella, but all her efforts were extinguished in that one instant as I became drenched from head to toe. My hair, soaked in water, became unbearably troublesome to deal with. If I had a gauge to measure my depression, it would’ve been at the highest possible value. Even at my age, I was once more reminded of the saying ‘bad luck always comes in pairs.’

Michiru’s flustered voice pulled my depressed self back into reality.

“H-hey, Ayaka…!”

Michiru tugged on my arm. As I followed her gaze, I saw an absurd, unrealistic scene spread before me. The slight discomfort from the rain shower, along with the peaceful atmosphere, was instantly obliterated. 

The car which had showered me with mud continued to speed wildly, climbing straight onto the ramp of a carrier car stopped in front of it and continuing forward. It didn’t slow down in the slightest. What the hell was happening!?

Without losing any speed, it rammed straight into the driver’s seat of the carrier car before falling into the opposite lane, its front left headlight shattering into what seemed like a thousand pieces. 

An incoming car from the opposite lane, unable to stop in time or turn away, collided headfirst into it. -Was this still reality?

Thunderous rumbles overlapped with the screams of onlookers as the entire area shook. The two of us, at a complete loss, stood stock still, watching. We only gripped each other’s hands tighter. Because other than that, frozen with fear, there wasn’t a single other thing either of us were capable of doing.

This event alone would already be huge catastrophe, but for the two of us, the true tragedy was what followed.

The fallen car exploded. Its fuel tank had probably caught fire. Thick, black smoke rose into the air as the explosion knocked nearby people to the ground. Agitated by the shockwave, the driver of the car behind the first lost control of his vehicle. The car barreled around wildly, zig-zagging in every which direction, and somehow, the car ended up speeding directly towards the two of us.

It was almost purely out of reflex.

Holding firmly onto Michiru’s hand, I frantically jumped out of the way.

I didn’t have time to do anything else. 

The car climbed up the shoulder, and unfazed by the guardrail separating the sidewalk from the road, crashed headlong into a telephone pole before finally grinding to a halt. The poor telephone pole instantly filled with cracks, the top half breaking off diagonally. The helplessly dangling telephone lines were luckily still suspended, but barely airborne. We’d been standing there barely a second ago, but we didn’t have time to feel relief or fear.

In the brief fraction of a second where I shut my eyes from the collision and rumbling and vibrations, I felt a sharp blow against my skull. There wasn’t any pain. Because before I could feel any pain, a whirl of events unfolded in front of me in rapid succession, almost too fast to follow. At that point, it was too late for me to do anything. But at the same time, due to my absolute memory, I was aware of every tiny detail.

As I received the blow to my head, I became dazed, until someone- well, of course I knew who it was. Michiru thrust me away, launching me aside. I didn’t have to think about why. My gut told me. That the area had become dangerous.

Ah, this is no good…

I stared as a part of the hood of the car, which had created this whole mess to begin with, became dislodged from the explosion, watching it fly directly towards the place where I’d just been, where Michiru still was. To me, the whole process seemed to take a long time, but in reality, it happened almost instantly.

“Michiru! Michiru…!” Half-crazed, I screamed her name.

But there was no way she could respond.

She no longer a possessed a mouth that could reply.

The hood, spinning at high speeds through the air, had fallen onto her, ripping her into shreds.

Perhaps god was the compassionate one, or perhaps it was the car hood, but whoever or whatever it was, they raised up that sharp, gleaming body of steel and hid away the corpse, along with that unbearable pain, hid it away from my eyes, instead informing me of the tragedy that her body was beyond salvation in the most roundabout way possible: by painting her fresh blood across that metal.

Something dark obscured my both my eyes. I wondered why I felt something slippery on my fingertips. 

It was my own blood, oozing out of the wound on my head, covering my vision and and hands. My sight had quite literally gone dark.

Amidst the greatest misery and misfortune I’d ever known, there was one single saving grace.

By some miracle, I’d been spared from seeing Michiru’s corpse.

If her body hadn’t been obstructed from view, I would’ve clung onto the faintest of hope that she might still be alive, and looked. I didn’t have the resolve to carry that memory for eternity. Driven to the brink by such a grotesque scene, who knows what I would’ve done.

I found out later, but apparently I’d been struck on the head by the passenger mirror of car that had run rampant. According to others, the mirror had traced out a parabola in the air, smashing directly into me. Not that I cared.

　　　　　★

If only the two of us had never met.

I was in the hospital, awash with regret.

If only I had gone to school this morning like every other day, today would’ve concluded without a single mishap. Of course, tomorrow would be boring and tedious, but the occasionally pleasant days would also continue. If only I hadn’t clung onto that kiss, Michiru wouldn’t have come to my room, and I’d still be able to see her smile.

I sat on a bench in the waiting room. I didn’t shed a single tear. I only trembled.

Why had I obsessed over that kiss?

Why had Michiru died, and not I?

Why, in the midst of a life shackled away in countless chains, had I found something precious to me?

I got forty stitches in my head. My entire face was wrapped in bandages, like a mummy. I was in too much of a shock to react to anything. This reality had to be a lie. I couldn’t accept it.

Tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough.

Tomorrow, the fifth of October B would begin. I’d be able to see Michiru again. To see her light, beaming face, to touch her soft, gentle hand, all that would again be within my reach.

No words could express how thankful I was for my special privilege.

It’d been the same as that time with Yuuka. Just like with that time, I would redo it all. To lower the probability that the worst possible today would be chosen, even if only by the smallest degree. I would take advantage of the special privilege I’d been given to the greatest possible extent. If that was a sin, then so be it. I certainly couldn’t care less. 

During the night of the fifth of October, I prayed.

Please, god, please just don’t choose the fifth of October A.

I probably wouldn’t stop praying for the next few days.

Starting today would probably follow several, sleepless nights.

The Sixth of October A

But there was only one sleepless night. 

Because the long-awaited fifth of October B never came.

After the first iteration of the fifth of October followed the sixth of October. For anyone other than me, that would be the most obvious and normal of course of events. But for me, it was frighteningly rare. A tomorrow which I hadn’’t yet experienced came several days early. An irregularity that normally would’ve made me jump with joy, but today alone made me gnash my teeth in frustration.

Only a single fifth of October. A fifth of October that had already been chosen.

I didn’t shed a single tear.

But a part of my heart wept bitterly at the knowledge.

This cruel, malicious fate would never allow it. Never allow me to see Michiru again. As I succumbed to derangement, I remembered all the unlucky things in my life up to now, expecting that the worst was still yet to come.

I was wracked with grief.

But I uttered not a single sound.

If I let out a scream now, I probably wouldn’t be able to stop myself from screaming curses until my throat collapsed.

If I cursed now, I would probably wouldn’t stop cursing the world until the end of the world itself.

Screaming meaningless incantations. Pointless words screamed by a me who had never known how to use magic.

Indeed, in order to cover the reality that Michiru had died, I needed magic. I couldn’t accept such a reality. I had to search for some incantation that could reject reality.

After over ten hours of fumbling blindly through the darkness of my memories, I found, in seventy-five years worth of recollections, a single piece of magic.

　　　　　☆

That magic was surprisingly close.

“You called?”

On that evening, I called Yuuka. The fact that I called someone who would’ve come even had I not called meant it was an emergency- and it was a crisis in every sense of the word. Even if I were held at gunpoint, I could not accept Michiru’s death. Burning with a desire to prove that my belief wasn’t for show, I was driven by a necessity to act for Michiru’s sake. To show that it wasn’t too late to act even now, because I would try everything in my power.

Even Yuuka’s aloof behavior that I normally never paid attention to now annoyed me to no end.

“You’re a witch, aren’t you.”

I knew. Michiru had taught me that.

Witches existed in this world. No one would ever believe such an unexpected claim, nor did I possess the ability to confide in another person, but they certainly existed. That hypothesis explained one of the supernatural phenomena I’d experienced.

“…Aya-chan, I don’t know what you’re saying.” Yuuka craned her neck in feigned puzzlement, raising her voice. She sat down on the bed, swinging her knees back and forth like a child. “But more importantly, I heard that a major accident happened in this neighborhood. Apparently, a lot of cars got involved in it. Have you heard?”

Ignore it. Both her nonsense words, and the pain that was gouging out my heart.

“I know how you’ve been lying about these repeating days. You’re using magic, aren’t you?”

I shoved my face directly in front of Yuuka, my expression hardened with resolve. The first step to blackmailing Yuuka and forcing her to obey was to make myself look bigger, so I had no other choice.

“Ooh, you’re making my heart race.”

“Cut the crap.”

“Sorry, but fantasy is outside my area of expertise.”

“When was it again, where you died on a twenty-third of May that wasn’t chosen?”

“Oh, that must’ve been when you called me first thing in the morning, right? You sounded so cute then.” Yuuka giggled in the most revolting way possible.

I knew I’d never get anywhere like this, so I drew away from her. “That day, I told you about the accident, so you were able to avoid a day where you should’ve died. Right?”

Yuuka leaned forward. “Hold on a sec. Aren’t you mistaking me for god or something? Well, no matter what happens or doesn’t happen, I’ll always be someone who loves Aya-chan dearly and be there for you, so I might seem like a god to you, but I’m not, so how would I ever be able to select the day that gets chosen or anything?”

“You don’t have to play dumb. Did you forget? Well, I don’t forget. I already realized. On the morning of the twenty-fourth of May, something happened that shouldn’t be possible.”

On that day, I had thought this:

Yuuka was extraordinarily fortunate. Because in a lottery where five of six twenty-third of May’s would lead to death, Yuuka had escaped unscathed.

But that was the wrong conclusion. The reality of the situation was different.

“On that morning, I woke up in my own room.”

“An evening filled with passion and amor hadn’t been chosen. You’re right, that is a tragedy.” Yuuka acted as if this whole thing was a theatrical play, nodding seriously as she continued to feign ignorance.

“In order for you to live, I had to wake up in your room. Or at least, that should’ve been the case.”

In the six iterations of the twenty-third of May, there were only two variations.

Variation one. Minase Yuuka leaves her house to meet an old friend, then calls her cousin while on the road. However, while heading towards her cousin’s house, she gets into an accident. Her cousin, tired of waiting for her, falls asleep in her own room.

Variation two. Just before leaving her house, Minase Yuuka receives a mysterious phone call from her cousin that she usually looks after. Warned of her supposed death, she cancels her plans to go outside at the last minute, and later welcomes her cousin at her house where the two spend the night.

Variation one occured five times while variation two occurred once, for a total of six times. These were the two classifications of the twenty-third of May.

“I woke up in my own room, which, while unfortunate, meant that you had no choice but to die.”

Looking at only the hard facts, this was an inevitable conclusion.

Yuuka craned her neck, looking very interested. “So, does that mean I’m a zombie right now?”

“I’d say you’re a creature far more vicious than that.”

For instance, a witch.

“On the days where you didn’t come, you didn’t see my corpse, did you? What if I didn’t actually get into an accident on those days, and you didn’t know about it?” Yuuka asked.

Of course I’d already considered that from the start.

On the morning where I’d woken up in my own room, I’d thought that Yuuka was dead. Upon calling her and hearing her voice, I’d been relieved from the bottom of my heart. She was alive, and that was all that mattered. The day where I’d stopped her from going outside had been chosen, but even had I not done anything, she wouldn’t have encountered an accident. That there were also twenty-third of May’s like that. Back then, I’d stopped thinking once I reached that conclusion.

“Then, on that day, why didn’t you come to my house?”

She’d gone out of her way to call me, saying that ‘today, I’ll be a little late-‘, so the human known as Minase Yuuka should have come to visit that day. As long as she didn’t get into an accident and die.

“…” There was power in Yuuka’s silence. 

I was about to enter a forbidden territory. Even for a witch cursed with unforgetting, it was unforgivable.

But that wouldn’t stop me. Behind me was Michiru’s death. Which is why I could never turn back.

“You chose a day that never occured.” I declared.

In this world, each day repeated, and while I didn’t know how many times each would repeat for, it was clear that a single day was chosen to become ‘the past.’

I wouldn’t know which day would be chosen until the following day. I wouldn’t know, but there were things I did know as well. For instance, that a day must be chosen from one of the repeated days.

Yuuka had violated the rules of this world.

She chose a fake day. She forced a day onto the world.

How powerful of an existence would be capable of such a feat? Not even the richest or most influential human on the planet.

I couldn’t read Yuuka’s expression in the slightest as she stared at me intently for three seconds… before breaking out into a leering grin.

“You’re quite the detective, Aya-chan.”

She admitted it.

Sweat dripped down my back and face as I clenched my fists in triumph. Starting now. One important condition to ridding myself of this garbage reality was in this very room.

She and I were the same… or probably not, but at the very least, we were both existences who had strayed off the ordinary path, living on the outskirts of humanity.

“In order to delete the realities you didn’t want chosen, my warning was necessary, right?”

The true reason that Yuuka always listened to my stories of past iterations was to reliably avoid troublesome outcomes, such as the end of someone’s life.

“On May of- um, what day was it again?- I was really surprised to when I got your phone call. Not only did my insurance against a one in a million accident work properly, but I also got to hear your frantic voice so worried about me. That was a happy miscalculation.”

It wasn’t a meager power that only let her choose between days that had occured. No, it seemed to transcend that completely. She could choose possibilities that had never occured in the first place. It was far closer to omnipotency. But as that hypothesis entered my mind, a voice which promptly rejected that omnipotence.

“It’s nowhere as powerful as what you’re probably imagining. My magic is more like, stitching together patchwork.”

Yuuka explained her magic casually, without putting on any airs. Her magic only allowed her to cherry-pick events from individual days to form a reality. In other words, she could mix and match things that had already occured, but she couldn’t form realities out of thin air.

“Aya-chan, if you hadn’t created a day where I lived, then I would’ve met my genuine end right then and there. Alright, how about I give the great detective who saved my life her reward? Shall I return you to yesterday?”

Her words exceeded all my expectations.

I would’ve given anything and sacrificed everything for Yuuka to say that, and yet here she was, speaking those words as if they were nothing at all.

“Is that really possible?”

“I’ll just cut out today and connect it to yesterday.”

“No way…”

“There’s a ton of wondrous and strange things in this world, you know. It’s just that you’ve always believed your special ability to be ‘absolute memory,’ so you thought that there was nothing else anomalous about the world.”

In my defense, the fact that I alone couldn’t forget anything already made the world anomalous enough. 

“Is that wrong?”

“It is. What do you think memories are, in general?”

“Vicarious experience, I guess. Of the past.”

When we humans remember something, we recall sensations and feelings, much different to reading a book or watching a movie. This is precisely the reason that an experience’s weight can be falsified based on one’s moral values, or in other cases, memories can directly contradict with actual events.

Yuuka sighed and shook her head. “You’re completely off. By nature, around eighty percent of a human’s memory is comprised of visual information, ten percent is auditory information, and the remaining space is occupied by the other senses. All this information is verbalized and stored as memories. That’s the important bit. It’s verbalized information. With me so far?”

“Isn’t it more precise to say that language indexes the memories?”

Yuuka nodded, seeming satisfied, before continuing. “We also use words as a sort of key to remember things. Known as declarative memory, we change senses and experiences into words, eliminating small details. Otherwise, the well-developed yet unwieldy organ known as the brain wouldn’t be able to maintain such massive amounts of information. Thus, humans forget. Sounds kind of like Buddhism, now that I think about it.”

“It’s exactly Buddhism. What are you trying to say?”

“You’re different. At the very least, you can’t forget. You also don’t need to use words as a key. The reason, as you just stated, Aya-chan, is because your memories are a vicarious experience. A reliving, if you will.

“The true nature of your memory is that when you remember, you’re re-observing the past as you once experienced it. It’s something like rereading the pages of a book. Human memories are something completely different, a completely different dimension. Just think about it. Human vision has a focal point. Just because something is visible doesn’t automatically mean it becomes part of memory. For instance, even if something enters a human’s vision range, it might be in the peripheral, or the person might not be paying attention, so they don’t see it.”

I couldn’t see how this woman, saying these logical, intellectual words, could possibly be the Yuuka I knew, but her speech struck a chord with me.

If you tried to look at the corners of your vision, you’d lose focus of the center. The inverse was also true. A natural result of the biological structure of the human eye.

“But for you, Aya-chan, when you close your eyes and try to remember, you can recall everything. You can re-observe everything however many times you want, even if you never saw it originally. The fact that you never questioned that is proof enough of your ability. Your absolute memory is a bonus to a more otherworldly power. The fact that you can’t forget is just an annoying side-effect.”

Facing a truth that I hadn’t ever realized until now, I was filled with a suffocating horror. A cold, liquid sensation of unhappiness seemed to clog up the back of my throat, rendering me nearly unable to breathe. My legs felt unsteady. What I’d always believed to be a peculiarity of my absolute memory was actually a unique ability to observe and experience the past as many times as I wanted.

No, wait, that wasn’t the problem.

“For the time being, I’ll assume what you’re saying is true. Then how are we supposed to redo yesterday? It’s already been ‘chosen,’ hasn’t it?”

“I’m a witch, remember? And if I can see it, then I can find a way there. If I have you, Aya-chan, the best telescope I could hope for, then I can easily find ‘yesterday.’ After that, patching yesterday to today will be simple.”

It felt like a dream. I could retry yesterday, and perhaps even destroy the reality where Michiru had been lost.

“And what’ll happen to today’s sixth of October A?”

“Who cares?” Yuuka shrugged without hesitation. I was of exactly the same opinion. A day without Michiru was meaningless to me. Absolutely no value to me at all.

“I wouldn’t mind if today was erased altogether.”

The witch Minase Yuuka began chanting in a booming voice. “Today will not be chosen. I will not choose today. I, as a witch, have already declared this. Thus, this conversation as well as any event after this will all become null upon today’s conclusion. For the remainder of today, you can do anything you want, Ayaka.”

She laughed obscenely, her profile mirroring that of a demon, and I secretly shivered in fear. Well, no, she was actually a demon. She was a witch who had tamed her inner demon.

Did I hesitate? As if. I wouldn’t think twice even if I had to sell my soul. I would save Michiru through whatever means necessary.

“Well then, what will you do? In this remaining time, will you try and think of a way to save Michiru? Or, will you try committing murder in an act of defiance? Today, you can do things today you’d normally never get to experience. Or, what about trying some lewd things with your cousin? Mm. That sounds like a pretty good idea, if you ask me. There are some perks in it for me too. Mhm.”

“What are you talking about.” I had no purpose, nothing I wanted to do, in a world without Michiru. “I’m not waiting any longer to go back.”

I rapidly made my way to the kitchen, grabbed a knife, gripped it until my fingers turned white, then squeezed my eyes tightly shut before finally returning my stare to the blade’s edge. A torrent of primal fear washed over me, but my resolve wasn’t so fragile that it would be dulled by such petty emotions.

“Aya-chaan. That’s a pretty clever idea, but are you really sure?”

For me who didn’t dream, if I lost consciousness then woke up again, I would feel like I jumped into the future.

My heart never wavered. I closed my eyes and plunged the blade into my throat. It ripped through my aorta. It felt about as painful as a papercut. I thought that dying would involve more agonizing pain, like being burned alive, so it was quite literally the letdown of my life.

But I was relieved. If this was how dying was, then I could die as many times as I wanted.

While I basked in reassurance and relief, life poured out of the cut I’d made. 

Yuuka, for whatever reason, seemed to be enjoying herself. A smile, devoid of any humanity, surfaced on her face. 

“Ah, Aya-chan… I guess you just proved that no matter what bitter and painful struggles you go face, you’re not even allowed to die properly.”

The Fifth of October B

Waking up was not pleasant. It was a sensation akin to someone was pulling out all my eyelashes.

My head hurt. My body was heavy. When I became fully conscious, I noticed I was lying in bed.

I had no perception of time.

When had I woken up yesterday? I couldn’t even answer as simple question as that. Had I hit my head on the corner of my bed while sleeping and lost my memory? For a moment, I fiddled with that silly fantasy. I couldn’t recall the last thing I did.

As the owner of absolute memory, it was the first time in my life that I’d experienced something like this. I felt dizzy and faint. Good thing I was lying in bed. I calmed myself, closed my eyes, and slowly began to order my thoughts.

Being unable to recall something and forgetting something were two separate things, therefore-

Therefore, it was important to recall the events I could remember. I put a hand to my lips, first remembering the feeling of my last kiss. 

A kiss- our hands linked as we returned to the classroom, then our hands waving farewell in front of the school gates as we parted- I remembered the morning of the fifth of October, and how the day of my first kiss had been lost. Then after that…

Within my narrow mind, an entire day’s worth of events were suddenly revived, various images and scenes flashing before my mind as if I were watching a spinning lantern.

Then after that, after that… Michiru died.

In an effort to find magic that could deny reality, I called out to Yuuka, and she granted me my dearest wish. I had acquired a second chance at the fifth of October.

I unrolled myself from bed and got up. I opened the curtains. The morning light represented a chance of a lifetime. I could hardly believe it. Soft, pure sunlight came forth to greet me. …It was raining.

It shouldn’t have started raining yet. This was the first time I’d seen the weather change. It was probably due to the fact that the second fifth of October had been forcibly started. Today was certainly special. What was I saying? I chided myself. Maybe I was still half-asleep.

My body rapidly grew colder, and I shivered. Until now, I’d never experienced even a single day where the weather was different. Could such a small magic really affect the weather itself?

Propelled by a foreboding premonition, almost entirely by reflex, I turned to the clock on my bed stand. 1:01 p.m. I’d completely overslept. My throat turned dry and frigid. My despairing brain matter seemed to gush out all at once, and I would’ve vomited then and there had not my stomach been utterly empty.

Late– the single word echoed throughout my heart and mind.

On the fifth of October A, at this time, where had I been? What had I been doing…?

I didn’t want to remember. How I stood at the scene of the accident, covered in blood, crying my heart out.

By the time my brain even registered the sound of the front door loudly slamming shut, I was already outside, shoes not even worn properly as I ran as fast I could, my legs tripping over themselves, about to collapse at any moment. Passerby’s all turned to stare at me. Every single one.

Gasping for breath, I ran towards the school, a route I knew by heart.

I didn’t know the probability of Michiru visiting me today, but if she had come already, then she’d undoubtedly have turned back by this point, heading back to school, where it wouldn’t be out of question for her to have encountered that gruesome accident again. If such a thing as fate truly existed, then those course of events would surely have taken place, meaning that my oversleeping would have lost me my hard-earned, invaluable opportunity.

As I continued forward, the pungent smell of something burning grew more and more distinct. Though it was raining, the air was dusty, shaken by a commotion that was tinged with unpleasantness. I saw the passenger vehicle, emitting a dense, black pillar of smoke. 

It looked more like a battlefield than a car accident.

An apocalypse reeking of gasoline, fine shards of glass littering the ground. The police still hadn’t arrived, and no yellow tape had been stretched around the site yet. Nevertheless, the gathering crowd watched from afar, for there wasn’t anyone apparently brave enough to approach. Yellow tape or not, no one could be fooled into thinking that the place of the accident was somehow safe.

I crossed the invisible boundary between safety and danger. A single voice called for me to stop, but I ignored it. I dodged a restraining hand, and I sprinted forward.

“Michiru!”

My hair fluttering behind me, I rushed in to check for any sign of Michiru. 

On the opposite side of the car that had toppled onto its side. A pair of bare feet. The tip of a pair of petite, feminine feet. Someone had collapsed there. …I had to check.

I wasn’t afraid.

I carefully avoided the pools of gasoline and did my best to ward off the tornado of soot emitting from the flaming passenger car, verifying her safety.

A tiny groan escaped from her lips. She was alive.

She- wasn’t Michiru. It was a woman who looked slightly older than Yuuka. She’d likely crawled out of the driver’s seat, only to be injured by the detached door. Blood streamed down her face as she moaned in pain.

When I’d ascertained that Michiru hadn’t gotten entangled in the accident, I was flooded with relief. For an instant, I considered abandoning this woman, but my mind froze in that split second of indecision, and by the time I regained my senses, I discovered my body moving towards the woman on its own.

“Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

After a pause, she gave the tiniest of nods. I lent her my shoulder. I’d never supported someone heavier than me, especially not someone who could barely walk, and she staggered against me. My legs were shaky as I took my first step towards safety.

“Ayaka!! Let go of her!!”

In the distance, standing in the front row of the spectators, I caught sight of a pale-faced Michiru, shouting.

Michiru… was alive. Thank god she was safe. I nearly cried.

Ahead of me was a mere ten meters of hazard. What a simple, happy ending.

“Ayaka!!”

Michiru started running towards me, looking frantic.

What was she in such a rush for?

Time seemed to slow down, each second dragging into minutes.

Just a few centimeters further and I’d be able to reach her hand. I could hold her once more.

Ah, was she coming to help carry this woman? -How stupidly wrong I was.

I couldn’t speak. Strength surged through my entire body, sparks flew into my eyes, my back burned… I reached out my hand. Towards a hand swimming across the sky, brushing against its fingertips.

“Stop! Aya, duck!”

A thunderous roar drowned out Michiru’s shrieks, and they never reached my until the very end.

My back burned… why was it burning again? But I didn’t have time to wonder, and the last thing I heard before my consciousness cut out was Michiru’s voice. The reason for loss of consciousness was simple- it was because I was dead.

Every naive, innocent thought I had right up until that moment was blown away by a gasoline explosion, killing me along with Michiru and the woman.

Wasn’t I a reliable savior! 

But, that was fine. I could undoubtedly redo everything.

Because a day where I died would never, under any circumstance, be chosen.

The Fifth of October C

I leapt awake.

The curtain rollers indicated that it was the fifth of October. I verified with the calender. It was barely 6 a.m.

I breathed a sigh of relief. This time, I had a little more space to work with.

I could still make it in time. I could change reality.

Could I really…?

Sure, I might make it in time. But, could I really change reality?

I knew. That this world repeats. A single calender repeated several times, but only a single day would be chosen and become part of history. In the midst of these repeating days, people did things or didn’t do things by pure whim. Events differed in each iteration. Natural phenomena such as earthquakes or the weather, or things prepared in advance like love confessions were exceptions.

A chill ran down my back. 

There were things you couldn’t change in this world.

Both instances of Michiru’s death involved that accident. If it was a traffic accident, then I could change it. If an event was due to mere coincidence, then even I had a reasonable margin to intervene.

But, what if it wasn’t something I could change? In Japan, the odds that a single person is involved in a traffic accident is 0.0011%. Naturally, since humans live comparatively long lives, there’s nothing strange about someone encountering a car accident at some point in their lives. But on the flipside, the percentage that someone is involved in a traffic accident two days in a row is 0.000000013%. One in eight billion. Infinitesimally smaller than winning even the slimmest lottery. 

Could I simply chalk Michiru’s death up to an unfortunate coincidence? Or perhaps…

Today was the third fifth of October. My deepest fears became reality.

School ended, we parted ways at the school gates, and after a short while, I passed an ambulance, heading in the opposite direction as me. Needless to say, wild imaginations of my worst nightmare whirled through my mind. I instantly turned around, breaking out into sprint towards the station that Michiru normally used. If I simply waited for tomorrow without verifying anything, it would be too late to act. Miracles didn’t occur twice. 

But as I reached the front of the station, the only trace of Michiru I found was the familiar sight of her bag. Her belongings spilled out of its half-open brim, scattering all over the ground.

I nearly lost my composure, but at the same time, an unattended bag didn’t necessarily mean that Michiru was in dire trouble. She’d clearly fled, but this wasn’t the worst case scenario- yet. As I deceived myself, I received a call from Yuuka.

By the time I reached the hospital, I found Michiru’s mother sitting on a couch in shock. Clutching onto Michiru’s bag, I explained who I was, and we waited together.

“Aya-chan, believe. Stay strong.”

Yuuka’s words echoed from somewhere above the heavens.

A long time passed.

A very long time where I did nothing but pray.

The sun made its way west, sinking towards the opposite side of the hospital ward, below the purple curtain, until the day turned into a starless, pitch black night, where I once again was informed of Michiru’s death. So what if I believed? I still had to contend with the reality of fate.

I knew the method to ensure this day wouldn’t be chosen.

The Fifth of October G

The seventh fifth of October.

I felt at ease once I arrived at school. My punishment for losing focus came swiftly- at the stairwell, Michiru crashed into a student playing a prank and fell down forty stairs. Her elbows and knees were thoroughly scraped during the fall, which concluded with Michiru hitting her head and losing her life.

The Fifth of October H

I caught Michiru’s arm as she was about to fall at the stairwell. We tumbled down the stairs together, and I was able to change neither my helplessness nor the fact that Michiru hit her head and died.

The Fifth of October Y

At first, I was somewhat dubious, but I was certain now.

Fate had decided that Michiru would die. Inevitable events like the weather or natural phenomenon couldn’t be affected by humans, remaining perfectly consistent every iteration. They had already been predetermined.

But that didn’t make it an acceptable reason. I couldn’t give up.

I’d realized a while back.

About my special ability.

A day where I died couldn’t be chosen. If I died before the conclusion of today, today wouldn’t be chosen. And if there wasn’t an available day to be chosen, the next calender day wouldn’t come. Because I would no longer exist to observe tomorrow if today was chosen.

A sort of survival bias came into play in the choosing of a day.

As long as I continued to die, I could redo today as many times as I wanted. However, I couldn’t accept this reality.

Not observing something was the equivalent of it not existing at all.

When I closed my eyes, the world ceased to exist.

I drew open the curtains, bathing in the morning sun, in triumphant spirits as a plan to save Michiru once and for all began to form in my head.

-But it didn’t work. It didn’t work today either.

The Fifth of October Z

I did everything in my power to avoid the pattern from the fifth of October A, scrutinizing every last detail, only for the day to unfold just like the fifth of October C.

The difference was that this time, Michiru was still alive at 10 p.m, which was the deadline I’d set for myself. The doctor explained Michiru’s precarious state, staring anxiously at her mother who donned a brave front.

That was when I understood.

Today, Michiru was probably beyond saving. Even if by some miracle she survived today, she wouldn’t be able to open her eyes again. She’d never fully recover. Michiru’s accident would be chosen, and this truth alone would carry into tomorrow. And by that point, everything would be too late.

“Aya-chan, believe. Stay strong.”

“…”

I didn’t need to be told that by Yuuka. No matter what circumstance, my determination would never falter.

It was almost 10 p.m, after which I would force myself to become Sleeping Beauty. I only had to do one thing.

Squeezing my bag close to my chest, I ran. To a place where no prying eyes could find me. This was a hospital after all, and if I wasn’t alone, I might end up being saved. Failure was unforgivable. I wouldn’t care in the slightest if someone else’s matters or problems weren’t chosen, but in this case, even a single misstep was unforgivable. 

I paid no heed to voices calling me to stop, my feet pounding across the floor.

…Ah, I should’ve put a fruit knife or something in my amulet. Soon, I arrived at the courtyard. I hid in the shadows of the trees, praying no one would find me, and took out a design knife from my pen case. The blade was two centimeters long.

It wasn’t a pleasant death.

The Fifth of October AA~

Since the number of days had surpassed the number of letters in the alphabet, I appended a second digit! What a splendid feat! It was a base-26 number system! I did it! I wasn’t happy in the slightest!! Please save me…

Looking back at the past days amounting to slightly under one month, I could conclusively say that, for the me of seventy years, this had been the most tedious and pointless month of them all. I already had come to terms with the fact that living for solely my own sake was utterly boring. But this was the first time where I realized that living solely for the sake of another was equally, if not even more dull.

Even though at first, it had been relatively enjoyable, even though I’d gotten the chance to experience so many new things, even though they were days I should’ve never been able to grow tired of, my life right now was beyond miserable…

How many times had we lost our lives?

How many different ways had I taken my life, died and died, greeted a new day then died again, clinging onto the belief that one day I could welcome a tomorrow that would conclude while I still lived, repeating the same day again, repeating and repeating, unable to form even a single day worthy to be chosen, and failed again. 

Like a chick who had the misfortune of being born a male, a day would begin, and by the time half the day had elapsed, I had already ended up at the bottom of the meat grinder.

After telling her about my ability and the world’s secrets, I informed her of her own inevitable death.

I no longer cared about the means. I held back nothing, begging, pleading for her to run away with me. If I couldn’t confront fate, then I would run away, as far away as necessary, run away forever if need be.

But the instant that I took Michiru’s hand and began to run, from a crevice between dark thunderclouds came a bolt of lightning that robbed her of her life.

Lightning? When I turned at the sound of thunder, staring at reality in the face, an involuntary chuckle slipped from my mouth. Something inside me broke. It was absurd. No matter how many times I repeated a day, wasn’t the weather supposed to stay constant?

I wanted to scream that this wasn’t allowed, but there wasn’t a single person who would notice my protests. No such person would appear. There wasn’t room to negotiate. Only the feeling that I, standing alone, had been so easily betrayed.

Thinking back, the gasoline explosion had been much the same. Reality wasn’t an action movie, and no car that underwent routine public inspection exploded so easily. Something like that couldn’t be rationalized by simple misfortune- it had been due to the interference of a being beyond understanding, a being far beyond humans. It was an insanely wild theory, yet still logically consistent.

If such a being did exist, then it was pointless for a mere human like me to fight against them. That being must surely be god. And if not, then fate, or perhaps the will of the world.

That didn’t bother me in the slightest. Who my opponent was was of no concern. For the sake of protecting Michiru and her future, I would do anything. I wouldn’t let anyone touch a single strand of her hair.

Searching for some means of survival, I turned to fictional books. Numerous books featured characters who solved seemingly impossible obstacles by going back in time or crossing into parallel dimensions, through countless efforts of trial and error until they achieved their long-desired future. I tore through whatever books I could get my hands on, whatever caught my eye. I thought that if I could use even one book as reference, it would be like a godsend, but wherever I looked, I only found characters possessing incredible, otherworldly powers that I lacked.

A day began. Then ended. Variations appeared in each day’s course but the end result never changed. I passed over a year’s worth of time in constant repeat. At some point, for the first time, my own perception changed.

Saving Michiru was impossible.

I was simply a human who couldn’t forget, having no ability beyond that. I had no superhuman strength nor exceptional intelligence. Nor friends.

Forget going back ten years in the past to prepare- I didn’t even have the freedom to go back to yesterday. I didn’t possess the ability to communicate with a me from a parallel world and ask for advice, or forcibly alter this worldline and fundamentally change future possibilities. I didn’t have a powerful battlesuit stored anywhere. No allies that I could rely on.

Therefore, in order to achieve a happiness that I was undeserving and unworthy of, I needed to pay a proportional compensation.

If I simply fell asleep and waited for the next day, such a tomorrow would never arrive for all of eternity. I couldn’t go back into the past, so I wouldn’t let tomorrow arrive. For all of eternity!

And in that most repulsive moment, a switch was flipped within me and my mind danced in revelation.

I would give up on tomorrow.

I would throw away the day after tomorrow and the day after that as well. This week and this month and this year, I would throw all of them away.

I had no need of a future beyond the fifth of October. If tomorrow never arrived, I’d be able to meet Michiru every morning. For only a few hours, of course, but a few hours where we’d be together. Compared to a future where I bereaved the death of the one I loved more than anything else, or to the fairytale about two lovers who could only meet once a year in the night sky during the Star Festival, this future was unsurpassably luxurious, to the point where I wanted to embrace it and never let go.

As I gazed down at Michiru’s corpse, coming to terms with her death today, I ended today in an oh-so-familiar fashion.

The first thing I did the following morning was visit Michiru’s home.

I knew I’d only be causing her trouble, but the scarcity of time pressed me on.

Michiru, still bleary-eyed from sleep, welcomed me at the door, while her affectionate mother didn’t seemed perturbed by my rude intrusion, going so far as to treat me to breakfast. On this day, I learned that Michiru ate western-style breakfasts.

“Why’d you come pick me up today?” Michiru asked.

“I woke up early today, and I wanted to see you. Was I a bother?”

“Not at all, it’s just… that’s quite the detour.”

The walk to school was refreshingly pleasant. The gentle sun shone warm rays of light on us as we walked surrounded by a brisk, autumn chill.

“But more importantly, want to eat lunch together? I made a bento,” I ventured.

“Woohoo! Obviously yes!”

Michiru reached out and gripped my hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world, our linked hands childishly swinging back and forth.

Ah, this was bliss. I was in bliss.

“I don’t think that’s so obvious. You’re really popular, after all, Michiru.”

“Today, this Michiru-chan belongs to Ayaka and Ayaka only!”

“You’re a smooth talker, aren’t you… well, I’ll believe you.”

If only tomorrow could be even more fun. …That was a stupid thought, I suppose.

The hand held in mine suddenly grew limp.

“Michiru…?”

The sound of blood splattering onto the ground wrenched me back to reality.

A large motorbike had swerved onto the sidewalk and rammed into Michiru. The massive, front tire bared its fangs, ruthlessly devouring Michiru’s collarbone. 

I attended school showered in lukewarm blood. The fact I’d paid for today with Michiru’s life became glaringly apparent, and I recoiled in horror.

The Fifth of October ALM

And, so what?

No matter the price, I couldn’t stop here.

I repeated, and she died. No- it was because she died that I kept repeating. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The subject and object had long since melded together.

My heart no longer shook when I gazed down at Michiru’s corpse. 

I didn’t need my heart.

It should been obvious ever since that rainy day where I made Hamano Aria cry. If I had a goal, the means didn’t matter. A witch didn’t hesitate to take the wicked path.

I repeated, and continued to repeat, reaching the one-thousand and first fifth of October.

-Today was one turning point.

-The atmosphere in the classroom felt different.

Michiru, who should’ve slid in at the last moment and barely avoided being late, was already there, but her expression seemed somehow grim. The always beaming Michiru looked serious to the point of being unapproachable, and furthermore, she was sitting in my seat.

“Good morning, Ayaka.”

“Morning…”

It seemed like she’d been waiting for me.

Somehow, I knew that she had something she wanted to tell me. Was she angry? After all, recently I’d been doing nothing but commit terrible crimes. Unable to accept the facts, I was continuing to redo today, rationalizing my actions as self-sacrifice. I’d already become numb to the value of life.

“Follow me for a second.”

I was right. I followed Michiru out of the classroom. We walked down the corridor. Moving against the stream of students heading to class, then down the stairs. Toward the second floor filled with classrooms, empty due to the declining population, into a single room. 

As soon as we had entered, Michiru whirled around to face me, and abruptly crashed into me.

A rejuvenating numbness that made me feel like a teenager again spread throughout my body. My lips buzzed fiercely where her lips touched mine. My voice broke as I objected.

“W-why…”

“Hmm, that’s not right… The Ayaka I know would’ve pouted and said something like ‘I don’t like it when you’re forceful like this.'”

Not only had she stolen my lips, she’d even complained. The sliding door was still open. I didn’t feel a single fragment of romance.

The girl in front of me wasn’t the Michiru I’d known up to yesterday.

She was the first person ever who remained my friend even as the calendar day changed, the person I wanted to be closer to than anyone else, the person who I had previously only kissed a single time, but she was a counterfeit in opposition to all of that.

She went straight to the point. “Hey, Ayaka, this world repeats. Right?”

“!?” I froze. My throat constricted. “Why, do you say that.”

“I remember. What kind of person you are, Ayaka. The curse as well. You can’t forget, right? Neither fun things, nor painful things.”

My eyes were saucers like a deer in headlights, and I found myself unable to move.

Leaving me frozen, Michiru continued on ahead. “So, this world repeats. Around five times per day on average.”

I was sure that my heart really stopped for a second in my shock. Without a trace of exaggeration, I could firmly say that a feeling like my pulse had been dislodged ran through my spinal cord and throughout my body.

“Did I… tell you?”

My mind raced frantically, dredging up memories. From the day I met Michiru to now. The one-thousand nine-hundred sixty six days from the sixth of April A to fifth of October ALM, I recalled them in a heartbeat. I had indeed exposed my own secret to her. Just a single time, but it hadn’t been chosen. But I’d never told her about the secrets of this world. Truly, never a single time.

“Yeah, you told me. I’m not lying. I remember. About what’ll happen today, and about yourself.”

If I didn’t doubt Michiru, then- “You’re saying that my memories are incomplete?”

“If you ask me, I think they’re pretty complete.” She snickered. A face I’d never seen before. “It’s magic. Time-leap magic.”

The one standing there was a witch in the guise of a girl. Some creature wearing my best friend’s face that had transcended humanity.

I’d thought it was just a deja vu magic that let her mysteriously know the afternoon weather. At some point, she’d told me. That she’d become a witch. While I had believed her, a part of me hadn’t fully believed.

“I’d forgotten until now, but I come from the future. I returned so I could see you again, Ayaka.”

Strangely, I was convinced.

That was the reason for her afternoon weather deja vu, and why she’d inadvertently called out to me even before we’d known each other. Perhaps that’s why she’d always fretted over someone like me ever since.

I couldn’t begin to imagine how far into the future she had come from. She must’ve returned from a future where she’d overcome the fifth of October and come to help me find a solution. I desperately willed my imagination to accept that explanation.

“I know what you’re doing, Ayaka.”

In other words, the person who’d come from the future had seen through every one of my twisted actions.

“Are you going to stop me?”

“Nope.”

Her reply was swift. She was grinning.

“Why would I stop you? You’re doing it for my sake, and if it makes you happy then by all means.”

She looked mature, like an adult, to the point that I couldn’t picture her as the same Michiru. She must’ve come from a future so farfetched and distant, so different from what I knew.

“By the way, what iteration is it right now?” she asked.

“You don’t know?”

“Unlike you, I forget things.”

“The one-thousand and first. One thousand and one fifth of Octobers.”

Apart from Yuuka, it’d been around thirty years since my last conversation with another human about the hidden aspects of this world. 

“Is this the first time we’ve had this conversation?”

“You should know that.”

“Because your reaction when we kissed was super refreshingly cute.”

“…idiot.”

Michiru, her eyes sparkling mischievously, resembled yesterday’s Michiru almost to a T, where if I judged solely solely on outward appearance, I wouldn’t have believed that she’d come from the future.

The intercom buzzed to life, carefreely announcing the start of class.

As if it were only natural, the two of us ignored the summons to ordinary life. 

The desks and chairs in the empty classroom were arranged in neat, orderly rows. Almost like a funeral, where they bid farewell to a coffin containing all of ordinary life.

I couldn’t hold back my questions. A feeling like I was clinging onto my sole lifeline.

“Tell me. Why did I have to repeat today over a thousand times? What’s really happening?”

“Ayaka, do you think god exists?”

But Michiru only circled around the answer that she surely knew, and like a slimy snake, the answer slid easily out of my grasp.

“There’s no way god exists.”

To me, this world was hell. And because it was hell, if there really was a Creator, he could only be the devil.

“Yeah, you’re right. God doesn’t exist. Then, whose fault do you think this is?”

“I don’t like it when you’re teasing like this.”

“Hehe. Alright, I’ll tell you. It’s the world’s fault. You could also call it fate,” Michiru said definitively.

The world. I suppose I did figure as much. That’s what I’d always thought. We’d turned the world into our enemy and fought. Rebelling with powerless fists against an absolute power that had surpassed all possible human intellect in an incessant war.

“What exactly do you mean by the world…”

Even if the whole world becomes my enemy!- there were times I’d encouraged myself with those overused cliches.

“For instance, let’s take something like those lottery machines at shopping districts.”

“I’ve never seen one of those in my life.”

You only saw them in manga and movies. If you turned the handle, a single colored ball would fall out. Depending on the ball’s color, you might get the top prize, free tickets to an onsen, or bottom prize, some pocket tissues, and so forth. 

“Neither have I.” Michiru giggled softly.

Even at a time like this, hearing her familiar, gentle way laugh made me feel at ease.

“Don’t get off topic. Chance decides the color of the ball that falls, right?” I said.

“Yeah, exactly. This ‘chance’ is the question in doubt.”

The world was a massive billiards table, or perhaps a series of dominos.

Ever since the creation of the universe, the world has always been nothing more than the ultimate domino chain, dominated without exception by the rigid laws of physics. Things that might look complicated at first glance were simply the culmination of physical law upon physical law. For humans of remarkably limited intelligence, such order was impossible to see. For us observers, they were a multitude of coincidences- ‘chance.’ But to an all-powerful, all-knowing being, they would see a set of pre-established events in motion. Such a being could command even ‘chance’ to dance in the palm of his hand. Chance wasn’t real.

“But, how is that connected to you losing your life?”

“Probably because I’m about to become a witch,” Michiru said casually, as if that was all there was to it. 

Michiru had formerly said. That she would become a witch. It was an extraordinary statement, but if we were talking about extraordinary, then repeating each day an average of five times probably took the cake. We were equal in that regard.

But, I digress.

“Wait a second. What do you mean, that it’s because you’re about to become a witch?” My voice trembled.  

Are you not a witch already? Didn’t you come to save me with your magic wand?

“I mean what I said. The previous me became a witch today. I time-leaped and went back in time, so the current me hasn’t become a witch yet.” Michiru seemed composed. Altogether a different person from the one I’d known since yesterday. “This world does not allow witches. I’m about to become a new witch, so the world is working frantically to stop it.” 

Her words were unmistakable.

Chance turned into inevitability. Because Michiru could not be permitted as a witch. I didn’t know who it was, but something had no intention of allowing irregular existences known as witches in this world.

If that was the case, then whatever that being was, they knew. That this world repeated each day an average of five times. That I alone remembered all iterations. That here, another irregularity had joined the fray.

That irregularity took a deep breath. They regained their composure, and began gathering information once more to rid themselves of this ever-repeating world. An irregularity who, after repeating for over one thousand iterations, had long since become numb to sensation.

“One more question. Why did you only remember your time-leap today?”

“That’s probably because this world is collapsing.”

The sky beyond the window was clear and blue, the autumn sun glittering high in the sky. Like every fifth of October, the wind was slightly chilly, indicating an afternoon rain shower.

“To be honest, I shouldn’t remember. When I returned to the past, all my memories of the future should’ve been pushed into my subconscious, never to be accessed again. But because you repeated this world over a thousand times, the world broke.”

Something that shouldn’t have happened had happened. 

“The world took Michiru away, so it’s the world’s fault. Not mine.”

We were both uncompromisingly stubborn. The world, and I.

Instead of losing Michiru, I preferred that tomorrow never arrive. Likewise, if it meant preventing the birth of a witch, the world didn’t mind ripping apart spacetime or tearing down one or two laws of physics. 

Neither of us would concede, so we went around in circles.

“Because I will never let you die.” I pronounced each syllable clearly and coldly.

Michiru’s next words surprised me. “I see… So this is how you saved me, huh.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Nope. The Ayaka I knew didn’t remember what happened on the fifth of Octobers that weren’t chosen.”

Forgot? Me?

Impossible. Well, it was true I didn’t know what would happen in the future. At the time of the cultural festival, which was already a distant past by now, I never in my wildest dreams could have imagined that Michiru would disappear. If you told me that I’d repeat today over a thousand times, I would’ve thought you were crazy and laughed.

Wait, that meant that the two of us were still together in the future… My smile threatened to tear apart my face.

“Are you okay? Your face looks red.”

Michiru was worried about me. Even if it was for a completely difference reason.

“M-more importantly! The fact that you came from the future, doesn’t that guarantee that at some point, you’ll survive today and make it into the future?”

Perhaps that was a slightly optimistic, naive view.

At Michiru’s small hesitation, I could see that the answer was not nearly as bright as I hoped.

“The future diverges. I can’t guarantee that this future doesn’t lead to a dead end.”

“I see…”

“But I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen!”

It was impossible to put into words how uplifting those words were.

Things impossible for one person could be managed with two.

What an innocent misconception that was. I would realize my mistake a meager few hours later. 

“Liar.”

Once again, I was stuck mumbling resentful words at her corpse.

If the witch Michiru really could have done away with fate with a wave of her wand, then she wouldn’t have needed to deliberately tell me everything. Without sharing the information, she could have solved everything alone while feigning ignorance. The tenderhearted Michiru wouldn’t have wanted to burden me with responsibility. She wouldn’t have let me know. Since if she told me just once, I would never forget again.

There would’ve been no need for me to learn about the depressing nature of fate.

But she only knew about the world’s secrets- she couldn’t use magic yet. In the face of fate, she was merely swept along. Not so different from myself. Just like the witch burdened by a curse of unforgetting, spending a thousand days without advancing a single step forward- powerless.

The Fifth of October ALS

But nevertheless, her appearance brought about a warmth in my heart. 

My repeating of the fifth of October resembled a journey across a desert. No matter how far I traveled, all I could see were the same piles of sand stretching into infinity, as if I had made no progress at all. Beneath the scorching dry days, once I finally collapsed of exhaustion, I found small creatures in the sand. That might be myself, or someone I treasured.

The one thousand and seventh fifth of October.

The Michiru who’d remembered was like an oasis.

Today, I’d been blessed with remarkable luck, and the day continued until dinnertime. No such absurdities, such as a rampaging car on the way to school, or falling down the stairway because of some idiot playing a prank, or a sudden thunderstorm followed by a bolt of lightning, occurred. I wanted to offer up my greatest thanks to the ordinary. 

“You like animal videos, right?”

Michiru was looking at the iridescent surface of a video disc as she asked me that question. We were in my room. I had a T.V, albeit a small one, hence her question.

“Did I mention that before?”

I didn’t remember saying that. Though admittedly, I did somewhat enjoy looking at videos of animals.

“Yeah. You don’t remember?”

I’d never told her, but perhaps I’d tell her at some point in the future.

It was a strange feeling. Normally, one might feel disgusted at the thought of someone knowing things about you that you’d never talked about, but I wasn’t normal.

“Do you not like them anymore?”

“I do.”

Besides, I wasn’t in any position to criticize. For the longest time, I’d hidden my memories of repeating days from Michiru.

Though fairly obvious, each person’s experience of the world was different. Equally obvious was the fact that each person held different knowledge, and that each saw different scenery and events.

A group of people might all ride on the same train, but only the person thinking about buying a new smartphone would be paying attention to other passengers’ hands, while the one who’d gone to meet their treasured person might only be staring outside at the weather. If someone had boarded holding their child’s hand, they would find their gaze inevitably drifting to other parents with children or pregnant women, while commuting students’ eyes might constantly stop on uniformed passengers.

The outside scenery was always the same, but not two people looking outside would see the same thing.

A single, objective world changed based on one’s interest or position.

Which is why that even if Michiru knew things I hadn’t told her yet, I wasn’t particularly shocked.

“Yay! This one seemed really interesting, so I wanted to watch it together!”

The girl beside me, flashing her white teeth, had a presence far too big for me to entirely comprehend. 

If I could fully internalize the fact that each day repeated, then further accepting the fact that there was a girl who knew the future wasn’t that strange. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

“Haven’t you already watched that in the future though?”

“Nope. That was a different video, with a different person.”

I’d already expected as much, but even for someone with memories of repeating days, my views were vastly different from someone who had come from the future.

We didn’t see the same scenery. Similar, but not the same.

“Hey, Michiru.”

I was afraid to confirm, but I wanted to know what she saw. What kind of world she lived in.

Holding back the tremble in my voice, I mustered up the courage to ask. “How many times have you time-leaped, Michiru?”

Aizawa Ayaka has experienced countless iterations of the same day up until now.

How many iterations of this timeline had Inaba Michiru repeated?

“I don’t know.” Her eyebrows creased, troubled, as she laughed ambiguously. “Unlike you, I forget.”

Upon time-leaping, one couldn’t keep all their memories intact. Their future self’s personality and memories would mix with their past self, and distinguishing which trait had come from where was remarkably difficult. Which is why things like how many times she’d time-leaped for, or from when and to when the time-leap had occurred, would grow increasingly fuzzy with every time-leap. Though if she had possessed the curse of unforgetting, that might be a different story.

“Look, it’s starting.” Michiru pointed to the screen.

The distribution company’s logo appeared on the screen, in synchronization with the adorning fanfare.

“Even if this was the hundredth time, I’d still enjoy it. As long as we’re together,” Michiru declared.

That was a lie, I thought.

That was a lie, but I didn’t feel annoyed. It was a lie birthed from kindness. It was an attempt at consolation. That she would feel enjoyment even if this was the hundredth time- impossible. But it was a matter of feelings, so I felt no childish impulse to strike back.

Because if she truly enjoyed it, then she should’ve had no problem watching the same movie again.

How nice it must be for the me of the future.

She must’ve been happily watching an uplifting, cheerful movie. Or perhaps her interests had changed by then.

“Hey, Michiru. Did I really say that I liked animal videos?”

A close-up shot of a tree in dense, lucious forest played on the screen. 

“Yeah.”

On its branches, a southern, brightly colored adult hummingbird managed the nest while the chick pestered for food.

“I’m not really familiar with the genre, but animal videos are pretty interesting, aren’t they?” Michiru continued.

They were indeed soothing.

But this was different.

The baby hummingbird desperately begging for food was commendably lovable, and the adult bird truly lived up to the beauty it was nicknamed- flying jewels.

“…”

The camera abruptly moved, panning swiftly upwards along the tree, focusing on a python. The audio turned deathly quiet. The hush of the jungle stirred up the tension and fear.

Could you really consider this an animal video? If anything, it was more of a nature documentary.

“Woah.”

Michiru was entranced. 

I said I liked animals, but my interests were more along the lines of a talented penguin performing or a tamed wild animal acting harmlessly. I also liked videos of cats messing around with their own reflection. I liked them so much that I hounded Yuuka to buy me a year-long pass to the zoo.

“Michiru-san…?”

“What?”

“I feel like this is different.”

I most certainly had not been talking about a goosebump-inducing movie where a helpless mouse gets consumed whole by a ruthless, merciless jungle snake. Certainly not about horrifying scenes where a beautiful butterfly writhes helplessly, shaking back and forth between the strings of a spider’s nest. 

Where I was about to vomit out the entire contents of dinner.

“It’s not. My Ayaka would love this.”

Why did she sound so confident…

Nature scenes of massacres and predation filled the screen.

On that screen was displayed a primal nature that human civilization had abandoned in the recent past. A primal nature that was the splitting image of the enemy that we were up against.

At some point, I dozed off, leaning against Michiru. By the time I woke up, the nature documentary had ended, and the television was playing some stale variety program.

Right beside me, close enough to where I could feel her breathing, was Michiru’s white, bored looking face. She was like a porcelain doll in her beauty, but her expression was robotic, her pupils reflecting a sea of despair. It was the first time I could empathize with her from the bottom of my heart. 

We were the same.

Like me, Michiru was tormented by a feeling of powerlessness.

She could pretend to continue daily life and avert her eyes from reality as much as she wanted, but she would not survive today.

As I absently gazed at her profile, our eyes met. In a split second, light returned to her lifeless pupils and her expression blossomed with color like a blooming flower. She welcomed me from my slumber with her usual smile.

“Good morning, Ayaka. Still sleepy?”

“Yeah.”

Though I gave a small nod, I didn’t feel like lifting my leaden body, nor even attempt to untangle myself from her arms.

I wanted to stay like this for a while longer.

Peacefully, like a fish swimming deep in the ocean, I wanted relax in this long, calm moment. I wanted to feel her warmth right beside me, in this sheltered room. 

“Are you gonna keep sleeping? I’m going to bite you if you do,” Michiru said teasingly.

And even more than that, for some reason, I didn’t want to leave Michiru alone. I didn’t want to let her go.

“Don’t do that. Because… because I’m sick.”

“Sick?”

On a rainy day, when Michiru had come to check up on me, I’d accidentally let it slip.

“I can’t forget anything I’ve seen. I’m sick with that disease.”

At that time, Michiru had called it an amazing ability. Not a disease, not a curse. An amazing ability. I had recalled that moment countless times, and each time I was saved by it. Now, I wanted to hear those words one more time. Once more, I wanted to confirm that my memories hadn’t deceived me.

“I see. So you can remember everything, huh.” Michiru pretended she knew nothing, nodding her head gently.

“Yeah. It’s repulsive, isn’t it.”

Or perhaps it was possible that I wanted her to affirm my curse. If even Michiru affirmed what I believed, then my power would truly be a curse. Knowing that, I could draw power from this curse I’d had since my birth, and find an escape from this never-ending hell.

“It’s not repulsive. I think it’s an amazing ability.” 

She spoke lightly, as if trying to brazenly show that her words were the undeniable, absolute truth.

The words I wanted to hear more than anything else in the world were so generously given to me.

Just like on that day.

My cheeks burned.

Tears leaked from my eyes.

She’d approved it. Approved something that I’d resented beyond measure.

She believed me, accepted me, and praised me.

“I think, you’re amazing, too. Your magic too, Michiru. I believe in you, you know, that you came to rescue me.” My throat shook and my voice turned shrill.

An endless deluge of tears welled up in my eyes.

“Ehehe, is that so.”

As I looked at the girl who’d come so far on her journey, my frozen emotions and desires began to thaw, my chest tightening into a tiny ball.

I opened my mouth. “So many things I don’t know about, that you know… things I couldn’t even begin to imagine, all those days that you had to experience, I really respect you for that.”

“…What’s wrong? You’re acting kind of strange.”

Tears I couldn’t stop overflowed and streamed down my face all the way to my chin. 

The emotions inside me grew stronger and stronger, unable to be contained and banging against my chest, but my voice was shaking too much and I couldn’t form proper words.

“From now on, I want to be with you for a long time. I- I would really enjoy that, a-and, I would be really happy.”

Unable to be indifferent to the me who couldn’t stop their tears from overflowing and streaming down her face, Michiru used the back of her trembling finger and stroked my cheeks, wiping away the tears.

“Isn’t that-” I began.

Her eyes grew moist as she wrapped me in an embrace as if to hide her face.

Isn’t that allowed, the word that should have followed melted and disappeared into the air.

Her warmth was still warm, but I had long grown accustomed to the tragedy that had repeated itself for over a thousand days, and as I sensed the appointed time drawing close, I cried myself to pieces as I could only beg, wrapped in her warmth. Somehow, some way, please don’t die. As my voice wavered, all I could do was affirm that she was still alive.

Michiru had come to save this miserable me. And yet.

“Michiru, I’m begging you, so, d-don’t die…”

I couldn’t save her.

I couldn’t save her- on the contrary, here I was causing her distress, all while being irresponsibly helpless.

“Don’t say unreasonable things.” Her tearful voice was pained, her smile bitter as if she had accepted her fate, and I wanted to tell her that everything would be okay, even if I’d be lying.

“Why… you became a witch, didn’t you? You time-leaped… went back into the past… but you can’t use magic right now…”

Unable to see her face, my deepest thoughts turned into mush as I sobbed into her chest. If she’d been able to keep her magic, maybe she could’ve easily overturned this fate. Maybe she would’ve been able to wave away any imminent danger like a sleight of hand.

“Why did you come then…”

“I wanted to save you, Ayaka.”

You damn fool. She couldn’t even see where she’d been going.

I couldn’t find comfort in that honesty.

Thank you for worrying about me. Thank you for coming to save me. Words I couldn’t muster blended into my weeping, choking in my throat.

“Did you know that this place is hell?” I hiccuped. 

Small, gentle teardrops splashed near my hands. Teardrops that weren’t mine fell onto the carpet, forming translucent circles. As if to hide evidence of her tears, she pressed her hands over mine.

“When I thought about you living all alone in this hell, Ayaka, I couldn’t bear to sit still.” Her voice was more gentle than anything I’d ever heard, kinder than anyone I’d known, something I desired more than anything else in the world. 

It gripped my heart, wrenching and painfully shattering it.

“That was stupid. This is none of your business,” I heard myself say.

“Yeah.”

She’d come rushing empty-handed into this ceaseless, repeating world for my sake. 

Comedy was a wonderful thing.

Any tragedy becomes comedy if repeated enough times. If this was a comedy, all I needed to do was laugh, but this was reality where I couldn’t laugh, and it was never-ending. 

If this was hell, then I would squeeze her hands so tightly that at the very least, she could never leave me. Let alone her warmth, I wanted to squeeze her hand so tightly that I could feel the blood rushing through her veins. Exactly the way liars do it.

“Just leave me alone. I like being alone. I wish you’d left me alone.”

“Yeah, I know.”

This witch of a girl was kinder than anyone and would absolutely never let me go.

“I hate you.”

“Yeah. We’re always together, after all. Because I’ll never let you be alone.”

She truly was a fool.

Today’s calamity was a gas leak. Flammable gas had leaked from the neighboring gas pipe, robbing us of both our oxygen and way of escape.

Normally, the security mechanism would have worked. The gas valve would have worked to shut off the leak. Gas levels would never have risen to dangerous levels. But the security mechanism didn’t work. Because of an unlucky coincidence. 

　　　　　★ 　★ 　★

Eventually, we became trapped in a stalemate. But in no way did that meant we could give up.

Ever since I first met the girl known as Inaba Michiru, I changed.

She taught me different things. She remained my friend on the next day as well. Before I met her, I never knew the fun pleasure of trifling chats. It was the first time I experienced the loneliness after parting. She taught me everything.

Giving up on Michiru was the same thing as giving up on my own future.

As I once decided before, I fought back by refusing to allow today to be finalized. Accepting my own weakness, I gave up on tomorrow. If I tried to stand up against the world, I would only be hurt. I allowed the tides of fate to push and pull me as they pleased, accepting everything that occured. This way, my heart wouldn’t be abraded away. 

Around three thousand six hundred days… Within ten years, I’d stopped going to school. In these everydays that never changed for the better, as long as I played it safe, each day would play out in the same fashion.

Then in thirty-six thousand days, on the hundredth year, I finally stopped meeting even Michiru. I’d gone through every single pattern with her, meeting and exchanging conversation, doing things together, until of all things, I’d grown fed up. But even though I didn’t know why I continued to repeat today, I was unable to forsake her completely and flee into the next calendar day. Because once I did that, I could no longer remain myself. 

After a little over a thousand years had elapsed, Yuuka began to frown whenever she saw me. My debilitating condition was plain as day to her.

One day, I decided that the fifth of October would be the last day of my life, pretending to give up on everything, craving eternal sleep.

Another day, I grew tired of giving up and pretended to fight. Fighting meant trying all possible means to victory. If that were the case, then perhaps a more appropriate description would be knowing that I couldn’t ever fully win, so I resorted to flailing about in desperation.

The sole reason I was able to continue living like this was my obsession with the idea that if I crossed into the next calender day, I’d never be able to go back again, along with a reluctance to return to my original self who’d lost all her humanity. I was playing a righteous hero who’d sealed away their monstrous self. Wasn’t I awe-inspiring?

I went delirious more than once or twice. 

Perhaps I’d been crazy from the beginning. No sane person would’ve ever attempted this repulsive loop.

Before I reached the two-thousandth year, I could no longer force my body to wake up before dusk. I couldn’t bear even the time that my consciousness spent awake. I’d been driven up against the wall, but nevertheless, every night before I fell asleep, I made sure to end each day with the same, proper ritual.

I couldn’t forget even a single day. Every record of my days filled with inactivity dulled in my memory, yet each memory brazenly remained. I tried to remember how to be cheerful only to be beaten down, while my collection of failures continued to pile higher even now. Despite my failures, I never chanced upon a breakthrough. Fate was meticulous. It had so scrupulously constructed a siege that not even water could slip through. In addition, we were far too powerless. These truths only threw me into further discouragement.

No matter what philosophic view I took on the situation, there was no way to prevent my mental state from deteriorating. 

I spent longer and longer periods of time in deliriousness, where I became convinced that my prayers had become reality, and at several points, nearly crossed the fatal time threshold of 11:59 p.m, but each time miraculously succeeding in killing myself. 

I no longer had the willpower to struggle for Michiru’s sake.

I’d long since given up on Michiru and the belief that I’d be able to regain my footing someday.

In the course of a million yesterdays, I’d exhausted all my vitality necessary to live tomorrow.

It was already too late for anything.

The Fifth of October BJHYF

The sound of rain. Indicating the afternoon.

The fifth of October is sunny followed by rain, clearing up a slightly at dusk. Near the area of my home, the rain begins at 11:23. Near the area of school, 11:59; at the nearest station, 11:37. I knew all that, yet I didn’t know how I could see tomorrow. Until I knew that, I would continue today. As far as the fifth of October was concerned, I knew everything.

“Woah, Aya-chan, you’ve become considerably sexy overnight…… Hey, did something happen?”

“…”

Evening, like clockwork, Yuuka came.

For a while now, Yuuka had said the same exact thing, word for word, upon seeing me. She must’ve noticed my haggard figure. I was worn out to my core, and had no desire to match her frivolous talk.

“…”

“Oi, can you talk? Say something-“

Ah, forgive me for everything, okay? Today’s going to end. Help me reach tomorrow, okay? What convenient, self-serving demands. She sat down to snuggle with me as I leaned lifelessly against on the bedside. 

She’d probably guessed. She, with her own peculiar instincts, had probably guessed what was happening inside me.

“…”

But I didn’t want to say anything. The reward wasn’t worth the effort. That in order to speak, I had to remember was something I found repulsive, and besides, even if Yuuka was the most understanding person on the planet, even if she could somehow fully comprehend my misery, she wouldn’t be able to empathize. I wanted sympathy. I wanted empathy, no matter how insignificant, to the point that I could almost taste it.

“Looks like a pretty serious illness. Maybe I can help.”

Speaking of which, how had my first retry gone…? I couldn’t remember clearly. This me couldn’t remember clearly… Indeed, this must be precisely what ‘forgetting’ felt like. 

But, I had a certain feeling that someone had helped me. Why couldn’t I remember? Because it hadn’t been chosen, and thus hadn’t happened? Wait, no, that wasn’t right. I had an ability that let me remember unchosen events.

In that case.

I had an intuition. That there was value in talking.

“Michiru, will die.”

I should have known anything and everything, and yet a new, unfamiliar development unfolded before my very eyes.

“It seems like no matter how many times I repeat today, that has already been decided.”

I had definitely crossed a threshold just now. The tower composed of vestiges of each day, stacked on top of each other, had collapsed, spilling out of me in a whimper. 

“Michiru… I… can’t save Michiru.”

Where even to begin… That on the first fifth of October, I’d lost Michiru. That in order to save her, I’d resolved to repeat today until I saved her. That I’d exhausted every single one of my options. That in order to delay her fated death, I’d already repeated the same day for thousands of years. Like I was recounting someone else’s tale, I emotionlessly relayed each event followed by the next until the end.

“I see. Exactly how long has it been?”

“I don’t know… about that.”

Who cared? Nothing would come from knowing.

“Try counting.”

I hadn’t kept a calender of this distorted spacetime, so I couldn’t immediately know how many days and months had elapsed. No, that was a lie- I knew. I just didn’t want to know.

In the end, I hadn’t been able to save Michiru even a single time. Well, perhaps I’d been able to save her at some points, but I hadn’t been able to save myself at the same time. They were times where I tried to sacrifice myself to protect her, but all that resulted in was me dying before her.

“1095776 days.” 

If I had a dollar for each time I killed myself, I’d be incredibly rich right now. I laughed internally at my dark joke. I’d been cowering in place for over a million days, unable to advance even a single day ever since.

“Hmm. Isn’t it about time you gave up?” Yuuka said indifferently. 

I had no way to guess whether she was only acting or if she truly had no interest, but in a small corner of my heart, I thought that it was a completely justified opinion. I didn’t get angry. I hadn’t the energy in the first place, and if our positions were reversed, I probably wouldn’t able to understand why I was doing such weak-headed things. Something must be wrong with me if I had attempted to achieve an impossible outcome millions of times. 

Something must really be wrong with me.

I shook my head weakly. I had lost every single one of my options. That including giving up.

“Why won’t you give up?”

I said nothing.

“Why do you keep choosing that girl?”

Silence.

“Choose me already.”

More silence.

“I’ve loved you for five years now.”

Nothing.

“Say something.”

Nothing left my mouth. Yuuka’s tone was pleading, almost like a last resort. But, nothing left my mouth. The surface of my heart had become numb to both emotion and sensation, almost all traces of feeling having been erased. 

As I was a monster of memory, only my memory remained lucid, and all my senses of human reasoning and instincts became replaced by objective judgment from past experiences. That was the current me. Utterly useless.

Without anything to stir my heart, I couldn’t even search the recesses of my memory to learn what kind of person I’d been.

Other than the most primal anger, nothing could trigger myself to feel emotion.

“I’ll kill her.”

An anger from seeing my most precious person snatched away from me without warning. 

Give up? You don’t even know how I feel. You love me? Just keep blabbing on.

“I’ll kill your precious person.”

I picked up a kitchen knife- which reminded me, this was the same knife I’d used when I first chose death- and pointed it to my heart.

Pointed it to my heart, but I couldn’t push it in. The arm that was supposed to kill me had stopped moving.

I was terrified.

I was terrified of dying. Terrified of the blade’s edge. Terrified of a death that I should’ve grown accustomed to a long time ago.

Ah, I see. I remember. I was acutely self-aware. I realized. I am more precious to myself than Michiru. 

From the very beginning, my life had been more precious to me than Michiru’s. 

The reason I’d been able to choose her life over mine on that first day was merely because I’d convinced myself that my life was worth nothing. Ever since my parents had abandoned me, I’d never valued my life equal to a human’s, listlessly passing diluted days as my heart continued to wear down. That’s why I often used my body to achieve my wish of destruction that I’d had from the beginning. It was a pointless hypothetical, but if I could somehow return to that very first day, I probably wouldn’t choose this dead-end road. 

Only after I’d well crossed the point of no return had I realized it, and thus chosen this path. If that hadn’t been the case, I would’ve turned back while I still had the chance.

Such a shallow motive easily buckled in the face of an instinct screaming for me to live.

I didn’t want to die.

It wasn’t my duty to die for Michiru.

No one would discover my betrayal here and now. Even if someone did discover it, all would disappear from everyone’s memory come tomorrow. No one had the right to criticize me.

Even if I did lose Michiru, I had an absurdly long life ahead of me where I still might discover another dazzling person to illuminate my world. Would I really throw away that chance and let it all end here?

Even if my memories of now never faded, time would heal my wounds. Even wounds unable to be buried by forgetting would eventually become a past too distant to reach, concealed by an adequate amount of acceptance.

I didn’t want to die anymore.

I was flooded by a torrent of thoughts of self-preservation, and I quickly faltered. A thought that I’d ignored once, a decision I’d rejected once, all began to swarm and press against me in droves, buffeting me as I found myself tied up in discord. Memories of thousands of years chained and weighed me down like rocks. Almost like I was living in someone else’s body, I felt my desensitized judgment lean heavily towards the short-sighted choice. -It was fine to give up already, wasn’t it?

But in the last moment, the thing that stopped the spineless me from capitulating was-

“Ehehe, I got to taste Ayaka.”

On that day, lasting just a single second, was the longest kiss of my life.

The bewitching smile of the girl I couldn’t save was a lifeline to my fracturing heart.

If I gave up here, Michiru would stay dead. People couldn’t live with the dead in the forefront of their thoughts. The heart would ache too much. They needed a certain, different pillar of support beside them. That support, while they were unaware, would replace the dead as their most precious thing. If I wanted to continue thinking of Michiru as my most precious until the day I died, I couldn’t stop here.

Could I live the rest of my life in pure regret, unable to forget this decision? As if. Impossible. I’d end up killing myself at some point. And if that was the case, then dying now was so much more preferable…!

Strength filled my arm, ready to kill.

But ultimately, the blade was unable to steal my life. 

It should’ve been a decisive, assassin’s dagger yet it was unable to reach my life.

A hand was gripping the kitchen knife’s blade. That hand was bleeding in the place of me. A shock that seemed to rejuvenate this me of a thousand years overlapped with my heartbeat. 

“…Yuuka, you-“

“Ouch!”

“What are you doing!!”

“Oh, Aya-chan, you’re finally back.”

“W-who cares about that!”

The fresh, vivid color of blood violently awoke me. Crimson dripped from Yuuka’s white hand onto the floor. I could only fluster around in a disgraceful confusion. No matter you cut your hand, you couldn’t instantly die because of it. Experience taught me as much.

“It’s fine. No worries.”

“There’s no way you’re fine.”

The blade had gone deep into her hand. She must’ve been gripping it with all her strength. I hurried to retrieve a pretty towel and tied it tightly around the wound. This wound needed stitches.

“We’re going to the hospital.”

“I told you, I’m fine.” Yuuka smiled blithely. 

“It might leave a scar!”

“It’s fine- it’s fine-“

What part of this was…! Because of me, another person important to me had gotten hurt in front of my eyes- I was fed up with it all! Why! Why did I let this happen!

As I nearly burst into shouting, Yuuka continued in a carefree, to the point of being callous, voice. “I mean, today absolutely won’t be chosen, right?”

“Ah…”

I was speechless.

Yuuka afforded me only the tiniest pause, continuing to press on. “I’ll say this again. Choose me.”

I couldn’t choose her.

I couldn’t settle with choosing her.

“You… are you saying all that, knowing, knowing that I, for a different girl’s sake, was able to die over a million times?”

“Yup.”

“And you would be happy if that girl, who died a million for another, told you that she was switching to you.”

It was supposed to be sarcastic.

If it shut her up, then that was perfect. I thought that, and yet.

“Of course I’d be happy. Just today, I can see how much you’re struggling. I can see how tired and weary you are. So one day in the distant future, when I get my old Aya-chan back, I’ll have won against Inaba-chan.”

Yuuka puffed out her chest. Her tone was so magnificently grand and refreshing that I couldn’t help but avert my eyes.

I didn’t find it annoying to be loved this much. At the same time, a part of me that found it extremely annoying didn’t allow it, hated it, thinking that someone like me had no right to compare Michiru and Yuuka.

I didn’t want to think anymore.

I didn’t want to balance anything on a pair of weighing scales.

If I weighed two things, I would be filled with regret whichever way the scales tipped.

Fundamentally, any human’s decisions were just a pair of scales, weighing choices. The only reason I’d been able to get away without thinking about that was just because of the numerous times I repeated one day. I’d been cherry-picking up to now.

“Go home,” I said without any real force.

It was supposed to be a plea. If Yuuka said that she’d be watching over me until the calendar changed, I wouldn’t be able to refuse. I wouldn’t be able to die in front of her. Under no circumstance could I every show my pitiful corpse to this uncorrupted, idiotic woman who still clung onto such naive ideals.

Yuuka never restrained herself when it came to me, but even still, she always prepared to return home by the time I entered the bath. I never let her stay over a single time. And she upheld this bare minimum rule. But today, she knew my condition. That I’d already died for a million times. Would she still continue to follow that rule even today?

“Go home. I’m begging you, so please go home.”

“If I leave, you’ll die, won’t you?”

I didn’t have a choice. If I failed even a single time, Michiru would never see tomorrow again.

“…” 

I shook my head no.

“I see. I believe you.”

I lied again. Even if I had no words to lie with, gesturing was simple. A lie so crude that if I met her eyes, I would surely be exposed, but my hair thankfully obstructed my vision.

“Alright, I’ll be going. I’ll come a little earlier tomorrow. If you ever encounter anything difficult, you can always talk to me anytime.”

Once she’d finished her kind words, she left.

All she needed to do was pin me down and wait until 11:59 p.m, where my forced sleep along with tomorrow would arrive, and yet she didn’t do that. And I betrayed her feelings.

I picked up the knife from the floor, still stained with her blood. There were so many things I wanted to apologize for, but the wound on her hand wouldn’t be chosen so, somehow, it should be forgivable.

Now, one more time. Once more, begin the fifth of October. This time, I will save Michiru.

A long-lost fire was rekindled in my heart. 

I knew how. I was accustomed to it. Knew, in more detail than any other person in this world, how to advance into tomorrow without even the slightest pain.

I held the knife in a reverse grip, raised it to my chin, perpendicular to my neck. Then, in one stroke-!

“I figured it might be dangerous so I came back… the only way you know how to fight is to take your own life hostage, so why won’t you give up? No one will blame you for being powerless, you know.”

I opened my eyes.

It was Yuuka again. My cousin who always remained by my side. Wound upon wound. It should have been excruciatingly painful, I knew it must’ve hurt beyond belief, and yet here she was gripping the blade of the kitchen knife. A small loop. Once again, she held my life in her hand.

“…Sorry.”

Relentless tears slid down my cheeks and fell between my legs. 

I was like a child with a tendency to steal, caught red-handed. Not only had been betrayal been easily discovered, my efforts had been stopped in their tracks. An apology would never be accepted, but all I could do was apologize and pray for forgiveness. There was also a relief of not having to die. It was already futile. The fire inside me from earlier had been extinguished. I couldn’t stand anymore. I’m sorry, I apologized again, this time to Michiru.

“Don’t apologize. We both lied to each other. I knew already. Earlier, when you didn’t force me to go to the hospital, I knew that you’d do it.”

I didn’t feel frustrated or vexed.

Instead, resignation controlled my heart.

“Hey, Aya-chan. Don’t tell me that someone like you who’s lived for over three thousand years is willing to die for such a little girl like her.”

But Yuuka disregarded both my apology and broken heart.

“Haven’t you found something else more precious to you by now?”

I hadn’t. 

I’d never been able to make a single friend. Even when I did, they were no longer there the next day. But Michiru became my friend every day. She was there for me on the next day. Even my parents had left me. But Michiru was always there for me. The fact that I’d reached the edge of this hell didn’t change a thing.

“She’s not just a little girl. One day, she’s going to become a witch.”

As my final parting words, I talked about a shining future. At some point in time I couldn’t quite remember when, Yuuka had talked about a witch that could make into reality whatever she could see… I think. In my hazy, somewhat lacking memories, I recalled such a figure. So I selfishly begged that this witch of the lowest standing Minase Yuuka would see that future and guide me there.

“You will use your magic wand and save me.” And then, I inserted a self-serving statement at the end. “This prophet standing here prophecizes it.”

I took a dig at my classmates from three thousand years ago.

　　　　　☆

“I give up, I give up,” Yuuka mumbled.

At first, I wasn’t sure what she was saying.

“Ah, jeez. It’s my loss. It’s seriously my loss,” she said unhappily, tousling her hair, and in the next moment, her entire air changed. Confidence returned to her face and she puffed out her chest. 

“We’ll have Inaba-chan become a witch. If her dying today is the reasoning of the world, then we’ll just have to use powers beyond reason.”

“What are you saying. Is that even possible?”

Michiru had always said that before. That she’d become a witch someday. She’d said that because she was about to become a new witch, chance had bared its fangs and she lost her life no matter how many times I repeated.

“If everything you’ve told me is true, then Inaba-chan has the potential to become a witch. In that case, I can help you out.”

“…”

How could I possibly believed something like that? Those words couldn’t be serious. Even if I believed her, my expectations would only be betrayed.

But I was already broken. I’d been beaten down until not a single centimeter of my skin had been left unscathed, and at this point, an additional failure or two wouldn’t affect me.

“Of course, to achieve something that immense, my power alone is completely insufficient. You’ll need to contribute something too.”

“What do I need to pay? My life? I’ll give that with pleasure.”

How many times had I done that already?

A different Ayaka looking at the current me would be disgusted.

“Your memories. I need every one of your memories of the fifth of October up to now.”

If not, the moment that the calendar date changed, my mind would age insanely fast and I’d die, I suppose.

Additionally, the me from the first fifth of October and the current me were two different people. No today would ever be able to reconcile those two me’s. Therefore, while that discrepancy still existed, a fifth of October couldn’t be chosen.

“That’s… awfully convenient.”

“It’s not. It’s the anthropic principle. You’ve heard of it, I’m sure.”

I was a walking dictionary, and answered in like. “It’s one way to explain why the universe is the way it is. According to the anthropic principle, the reason is because humans, through observation, have made it so that other universes cannot be chosen.”

Physics and astronomy show that during the forming and expansion of the universe, the physical laws and constants were extremely lucky and favorable towards humans.

The anthropic principle is one explanation that scientists developed to explain that ‘luck.’

“Yeah. There might be universes where humanity was never created. Universes that might be too hot or too cold, for instance, where life could never form. If we imagine infinite parallel universes, then those universes would might exist somewhere.”

“So what you’re saying is, even if those universes existed, they wouldn’t exist for us, since we wouldn’t know.”

Deserted places no one knew about. Universes that wouldn’t change whether they existed or not.

(T/N: In case my translation wasn’t clear, which, let’s be honest, it wasn’t, here’s a gross oversimplification: ‘Life’ (aka humans) forming from the universe is incredibly unlikely, to the point of being almost impossible. So then, how did life form? Some might answer that we got extremely lucky. The anthropic principle would answer that we didn’t get lucky at all- if another universe had been formed, we wouldn’t be around to ask that question. The only universe where we’d be able to marvel at how lucky we were is precisely a universe where we got ‘lucky.’ The idea of parallel universes is much the same idea. Parallel universes without humans might exist, or they might not. But because there’s no observers in those universes, them existing or not existing is the same thing.)

Yuuka explained the current situation following the anthropic principle. “It’s the same thing with tomorrows without Aya-chan. There are a bunch of possible tommorows, some where Aya-chan exists, and some where Aya-chan no longer exists. However, for tommorows that Aya-chan has observed, Aya-chan must exist. You cannot not exist.”

Imagine strapping cameras onto rabbits on a savannah, with the camera taking constant photos. None of the rabbits have ever returned with a picture of a lion. That doesn’t mean that lions don’t exist on this savannah.

Rather, only rabbits who hadn’t encountered lions in the first place could safely make it back alive with the camera.

“And in these million days, I haven’t let a single tommorow pass, huh.”

I wouldn’t have minded a lion. You could still escape from lions, and some rabbits would surely remain to tell the tale.

My natural predator wasn’t something that soft. That’s why we had to erase myself from tomorrow. That was the only method in which today could be appended to tomorrow.

“Exactly. You’ve been using this theory this whole time. A day where you die can’t be chosen. The reason is super simple- Aya-chan can’t observe a future where she dies.”

One’s own death and another person’s death were two fundamentally separate notions.

One could observe another’s death. However, it was impossible for one to confirm their own death. Absolutely impossible. Because the subjective consciousness necessary to observe would already have been lost.

Which is why it couldn’t be chosen.

There were most certainly tommorows without me. But, those tomorrows only existed in places invisible to me. I could only choose tommorows where I was living, that I could see, where I could think.

“So here’s what I propose. We have Inaba-chan become a witch for us, then we have her use your memories as compensation for her magic and have her falsify her fate.”

“First of all, assuming that somehow, by some miracle, Michiru actually does manage to become a witch. How can you be sure that my memories are for her magic?”

She repeated. The anthropic principle. “Because it can’t be anything else.”

Michiru’s magic would be powered by my memories. Because it couldn’t be anything else.

“The reason isn’t due to her, it’s due to you, Aya-chan. Let’s say that you and Inaba-chan gather together and manage to make it to tomorrow- Inaba-chan’s magic would have to consume all of your memories as compensation. According to the anthropic principle.”

Assume multiple parallel universes that branched off. There would be various Michirus.

There’d be worlds where she could use magic freely without any cost or compensation, worlds where she’d have to perform a ceremony and sacrifice her lifespan to use magic, worlds where she drew from the vast, circulating life force that existed throughout the air and nature… and perhaps a world where she could exchange someone’s memory for magical power.

“I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but it’s already too late for you to reach tomorrow and survive at the same time. The amount of memories you have are way too much, and you’re on the verge of shutting down completely. For example, the amount of time you spend awake has rapidly decreased, right?”

If Michiru’s magic happened to follow a system other than one that consumed memories as fuel, it would spell my doom. Which is why those worlds couldn’t be chosen. Only in the world where Michiru’s magic used up my memories could I live. At the present point in time, Michiru’s current undetermined magic was forcing all those infinite possibilities to converge into one outcome.

“Ah… so that’s how it is.”

I understood everything.

Understood that every event from the time I met Michiru all the way to now had been an inevitability. On that first day, the day that Michiru claimed she’d time leaped, she’d called out to me three days out of three. That was an inevitability necessary for all possibilities to arrive at a single future.

I also couldn’t forget the thirteenth of April, where Yuuka was involved in a traffic accident. An event as unlikely as a traffic accident had happened every single day without fail. Undoubtedly, at that time, Yuuka had been deemed as a key player. Fate had been waiting for us to lower our guard. 

And Michiru and me becoming close was also an inevitability. If we hadn’t become this intimate, would I really have chosen to repeat the fifth of October?

Only because I regarded Michiru as irreplaceable had I repeated today for a million days. I ceaselessly rejected the bastard known as fate, denying the possibility of a single day being chosen, while I continued to long for the next day. And finally, these repeating days had stacked up taller and taller into a tower, and today, it had reached the necessary height.

All because of the anthropic principle.

Inaba Michiru’s magic itself didn’t matter. But if it didn’t have a convenient side effect for me, I would be unable to observe events for the rest of eternity. And outcomes I could not observe, and thus, impossible to be chosen, would automatically be excluded.

“Can I leave it to you?”

“Aya-chan? Who do take me for? I’m Minase Yuuka-san, you know.”

Attempting to stitch together the current Michiru, who’d lost her magic after time-leaping, to her original fate where she’d first become a witch… or something like that. I didn’t really get it.

“Will it go well?”

“Tha depends on you and her. I know it sounds cliched, but fate can be changed. However, at the end of the day, what reality you create depends on yourself. It’s always been like that, right? For instance, Aya-chan, you’re always doing your best to increase the chance that a favorable day will be chosen. This time is the same.

Ultimately, the anthropic principle is a theory. It contains merit, of course, but it’s not the only law that makes up reality, and not everything is predetermined. So we have to try our best.”

Yuuka’s encouragement was filled with power. Powerful words, almost like an incantation. She was a witch too, after all.

“Resolve is a wonderful thing, isn’t it, Aya-chan. Even if you’re scared, the only option is to continue to push forward. This will be your last chance. Since you’ll be losing all your memories related to the fifth of October.”

“The first time I’ll forget something, huh.”

I laughed dispassionately.

An Ayaka that could forget was no longer Ayaka. I will die here.

I asked Yuuka a question I’d always been curious about. This was the only time I could ask. Since she’d probably only answer if everything she said would be erased.

“One last question.”

“Ask away. I’ll tell my beloved Aya-chan anything she wants to know.”

Because I’d forget, undoubtedly. Yuuka’s love for me might seem free, but it most certainly wasn’t without bounds. Apart from a few exceptions, I had never lost my memories, and yet in these fifth of Octobers, I had come to realize that so many things had been hidden away from me, to the point where I had barely scratched the surface.

“Why did you help me on the sixth of October?”

“Oh dear. I don’t remember that happening. I’m not you, after all. I’m just a normal human whose mind is slightly more flexible… but let’s see. If I had to guess, it’d probably be because I had deja vu.”

Yuuka gently brought her hand to my head. In an almost caress, she ran her face down from my head to my brow. From my brow to the top of my eyelids. She lightly moved her hand downward, closing my eyes. Her hand was warming than anyone else’s, I thought.

In the end, what did I really amount to? I relied on Yuuka for anything and everything. Like a selfish child who got their way by throwing tantrums. The only thing I’d done was wait for fate to fold and for Yuuka to solve all my problems.

Nevertheless, I was filled with a strange feeling of fulfillment. I’d been rewarded for my efforts, and for the first time, I was able to touch the tangible results of my blood, sweat, and tears. Perhaps I was being a little greedy, but I basked in a sure feeling of accomplishment. Good luck, tomorrow me.

“Good night, Aya-chan. Work hard, ‘kay?… Whether it goes well or not, I hope tomorrow is filled with happiness.”

The Fifth of October A’

My heart surged, and I opened my eyes.

I felt like I’d awoken from a long dream.

But I suppose that that feeling was merely just a feeling. At any rate, I didn’t dream. I’d never dreamed a single time from the day I was born to now.

A nostalgic fragrance wafted towards me.

It was the ordinary, morning smell of my room that I was so accustomed to, yet for some curious reason, this morning, the scent was overpoweringly nostalgic that it made me feel faint. The corners of my eyes were moist with tears. The upper half of my body, reflected in the full-length mirror, was slovenly from sleep, looking completely unlike myself.

“Good morning! Aya-chan!”

A key turned noisily in the front door, unlocking it, and it swung open. I tensed reflexively, pulling up the bedsheets to conceal my upper half. A familiar face enthusiastically rushed into my room.

“What time do you think this is…” I buried my face into the covers to hide my tears and replied in my usual, listless manner.

She opened the curtain and sunlight spilled into the room, illuminating the digital clock. It was 6:42 a.m. I’d slept slightly later than usual.

“I’m hungry, Aya-chan.”

“You stayed up all night, didn’t you… Sit tight. I’ll cook something to help with the fatigue.” I recalled the ingredients I had in the fridge and came up with a menu. The sentimental feeling was replaced with one of routine and normality.

A meal that could help with fatigue, one that wouldn’t cause indigestion even if she took a power nap. In that case, I should probably go with pork miso soup, topped with sliced raw onions- easy to eat and would revitalize stamina. A perfect dish suited for this season where the days were constantly getting colder.

“By the way, how did you get into the house?” I called out as I stuck my head into the refrigerator.

I’d locked the door before I went to sleep.

“Tada! A duplicate key!”

She waved it around deliberately showing it off. A keyholder in the form of a popular, animal mascot was attached to it. The character’s balance was awful, with one protruding ear looking like it’d fall off any time.

“Eh? I never gave you a duplicate key though.”

“Your memory doesn’t encompass everything, Aya-chan.”

Well obviously. I was a human child who slept every night. But there was no chance I’d give her the key while I was asleep. And me giving her a key while I was awake was even more out of the question.

“You didn’t. I got this one specially made. It was five-hundred yen at the shopping mall.”

“That’s a crime.”

“Isn’t this nice?”

Well, whatever. 

I didn’t particularly care about Yuuka entering and leaving as she pleased. She wasn’t someone who’d steal stuff, and besides, there wasn’t anything to steal in the first place. Nor was I hiding any deep, dark secrets anywhere in the house. They were all stored in my head. Like poems, for instance.

“Oh, that’s right. I think Inaba-chan will be stopping by in a bit.”

“Huh!?” A shout escaped my mouth.

“She called me earlier. Apparently, she mistook your notebook for hers and took it home.”

“T-that’s-“

I bit my tongue, fumbling my words… 

“She said that she really wanted to see your sleeping face, so she’s probably coming soon. But too bad you woke up super early today. How unfortunate for her.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier!”

No sooner had those words left my mouth, a knocked sounded from the front door. That had to be Michiru.

Once I confirmed that Michiru was indeed standing on the other side of the door, I was struck by a realization.

It hadn’t even occurred to me until now, but the day where we’d kissed hadn’t been chosen. Somehow, I’d failed to notice it entirely. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt, but I felt unexpectedly calm. It felt as if that day was already a distant past. Like an event that had long since drawn to a close.

Ah, I see. That fleeting, sentimental feeling from when I’d woken up was because of this. 

A feeling relief in coexistence with a twinge of loneliness- a indescribably strange feeling.

　　　　　☆

It was still morning, and the roads and sidewalks were crowded. Everyone was in a hurry towards their own destination. A flurried atmosphere hung over the streets, as if they’d be scolded for dilly-dallying. And yet, I found the scenery peaceful, playing out like a painting of everyday life.

“Wai- wait for me, Ayaka.”

“Oh, sorry…”

“What’s the hurry for?”

Before I knew it, my pace had rushed and frantic. It almost felt like I had to rush. Like if I stopped, they’d catch up to me. Who was they? Why were they chasing?

As I suspected, something had been strange from the moment I woke. It was hard to put into words, but it was filled with unease, and everything I saw seemed to be uncertain and hazy.

“Sorry.”

You don’t have apologize- alright, let’s do this!”

Michiru grabbed my left hand. Her warm fingers entwined with mine, and I felt a tingling sweetness from the touch of her fingertips. But I couldn’t bring myself to immerse myself in that sweetness. Why are you letting her walk near the road? Those were the only thoughts that filled my head. 

No matter how many times I revisited my memories, I couldn’t shake that feeling of unease. 

I knew something must’ve been causing this abnormality, but I couldn’t even begin to fathom what that might be.

Normally, I could find out after just thinking about it for a little while. After all, I couldn’t forget. If I methodically sorted through my memories one by one, I would arrive at the cause without fail. Being unable to know left me feeling creeped out.

A clarification of the true nature of my unease came from the opposing side of the road. It came in a flash, when we were stopped by a red light at an intersection.

It was an irrational hunch- if hunches were ideas that burst forth from a hazy unconscious, then I, who was unable to lose the memories where hunches were born from, should experience only rational hunches, however- the hunch emerged from a sea of bewilderment that had seemingly appeared from nowhere.

“Michiru… this place might be dangerous.”

Of course she’d doubt me, but I told her nonetheless. I had faith in Michiru.

Immediately after, a roaring motorized bicycle broke free from the traffic, rushing into the four-way intersection with slowing down. The reckless car would obviously crash.

Starting from the six o’clock position, the rampaging vehicle rear-ended a cooper that had initially started from the three o’clock, whose left front light shattered as the cooper itself slid, from where we were standing at the four o’clock position diagonally towards the ten o’clock. 

In a delicate moment longer than the blink of an eye but shorter than a breath, I saw a multitude of snapshots of a scene flash before my mind, a scene that I felt I’d seen somewhere before. I knew the outcome of this tragedy. I’d seen it before.

“It’ll be fine.” 

In my hallucination, I heard that faint voice.

With a start, I returned to the present only to notice that my left hand was hot. The voice had been Michiru’s.

“It’ll be fine. As long as we’re together.”

She gripped my hand tightly, so tightly that it hurt, facing forward.

The road was as usual. The autumn air was chilly, the blue sky was blindingly clear, the foliage was so green it seemed like an illusion.

“What was that, just now.”

Traffic came and went in an orderly fashion, and pedestrians walked briskly as usual.

But earlier, I saw it. I definitely saw it. A tragedy that chilled me to the very bone, and now had utterly vanished. The intersection was crowded as usual, without an accident in sight. I couldn’t find any trace of broken glass or nor hear any car horns nor smell any pungent gasoline. 

“A dream,” Michiru said. 

A human undergoes REM sleep around five times per night. In the midst of that, they will hallucinate in a phenomenon known as dreaming. Michiru claimed that what I saw in the moment before was something akin to that.

“You’re lying. There’s no way.”

“Yeah, I’m lying.”

I don’t dream. I have never dreamed a single time up to this moment.

Apart from Michiru and I standing there in complete petrification, there was nothing out of the ordinary in this busy traffic scene.

“It was a dream. What you saw, Ayaka.”

At Michiru’s oddly definitive words, I blinked in daze, turning to stare at Michiru. What in the world was this girl? Nothing in her expression seemed any different than the face I’d become accustomed to seeing, only if I had to say, the light reflected in her round eyes were a color I’d never seen before. 

What was that, earlier…

Even after that, the sense of discomfort didn’t disappear throughout the entire day.

I went to class, desperately trying to maintain my composure all while suppressing the tumult of unease in my heart.

I was filled with an impatient frustration, as if I were sitting on my hands in the face of a tragedy I had surely witnessed earlier.

Like filling the bathtub up with water, then letting the tap continue run as the water overflowed. Like the tragedy would truly occur if I did nothing.

As we walked through the hallways, I was stricken with fear. It almost felt like someone would crash into us and we’d fall down the stairs.

The passing rain shower, which had started to fall at around noon, terrified me. It almost felt like a bolt of lightning would strike Michiru.

It felt like the library bookshelf would collapse on us, or that the floor would give way without warning, and that the ceiling would cave in. 

My feelings were based off of nothing. But even then, I couldn’t find solace in the fact that nothing did occur. I couldn’t overlook the overwhelming sense that something was out of place. A paranoia built up inside me, that if things continued as were, I would find myself in a grave predicament.

Almost as if I were in the stomach of a monster-

If a classmate who rarely spoke all of a sudden began to shout that an earthquake was coming and that we should all flee, I might be led to think that they were using drugs. I’d take their temperature, check the dilation of their pupils, and measure their pulse. I’d probably even take them to the infirmary.

Sitting in the classroom, I considered such a scenario. I was practically sick.

The world I lived in was peaceful, the time slowly ticking away until class ended. Despite that, since morning, my heart had been in continual turmoil, like a rowboat in a storm. 

“Are you doing anything today?”

Perhaps Michiru knew about my worries, or perhaps not, but she spoke in her usual, cheerful manner.

“I don’t…”

“Want to take a detour home?”

“Sure, but…”

It’s raining. I’m not really in the mood. Numerous protests echoed in my mind, but in the end, a feeling that I had to be with her triumphed over all. Speaking of which, was it possible that I was somehow unconsciously faking an illness, and that the strange vision I’d from earlier as well as my incessant unease were symptoms of that? Since I couldn’t muster the courage to tell Michiru that I was lonely and helpless and wanted her by my side, so my unease and anxiety became amplified… Nah, there was no way such silly motivations could actually…

“I have an umbrella.”

The rain shower from noon hadn’t ended. In the distance, a weak beam of sunlight shone through a thinner section of clouds, which on the contrary, only highlighted the surrounding darkness.

As we left the building together, my fears were finally realized. Lightning struck. No time elapsed between the flash of light and the roar of thunder.

“Michiru-“

The brilliant, white light blinded me, and at the same time, the deafening noise shook my entire body. My eardrums stopped working.

I’d seen this scene before.

It felt like I was watching something from one of my nightmares- if I did dream, that is.

Absurdities began to unfold one after the other like a bad joke, and tragedies I’d gotten tired of looking at took their turns in succession, playing out in front of me.

The white darkness covering my vision gradually faded. In reality, it was only for an instant. But the flashback seemed to last an eternity.

“Wha… W-what?” As my sight returned, I whirled around, scanning my surroundings.

“Oh, just now? Yeah, that surprised me. The lightning was really close to here.”

Her voice sounded blurred and faint in my ears, still recovering from the noise. “Eh… Ah, yeah.”

I’d escaped a tragedy that should’ve occured.

Wait, what? Should’ve occured? Why did I think that…?

“Come on, let’s go.”

We began walking, the two of us under one umbrella. At some point, the sound of thunder faded.

I followed Michiru towards the park next to Konohama High School. Towards the edge of the pond. In my mind, I traced out dots beneath the well-maintained trees where sunlight might filter through on a sunny day. Right now, only sparse raindrops splashed onto the ground. Occasionally, large drops of rain would splatter against our nylon umbrella. The distant gazebo on the opposite shore was submerged in a mist of water.

“Um, Michiru, does something seem strange?”

“Hmm, strange? What exactly?”

“I don’t know. It’s like, something feels off. Like something bad is going to happen.”

My feet stopped moving by themselves. For a split second, the sound of rain against the umbrella grew distant, then returned to normal.

The autumn rain was cold, and a part of the afternoon air felt ruthless. Michiru stood right next to me, and yet I felt as if I’d left her behind, and while that was obviously just my imagination, my forlornness only deepened.

“…Ayaka, it’ll be okay. I told you this morning too, didn’t I? It’ll be okay.”

She reached out her hand and caressed mine. She stroked my stiff hair, patted my ear, and rested her palms on my cheek.

“It was all a dream, ‘kay?”

“But I saw it.”

I was an obstinate person. So I argued, causing Michiru trouble.

The patter of rain sounded against the umbrella intermittently. Thunder rumbled from afar, a dim noise which sounded like a moaning wild beast. It was a ferocious voice that made me freeze up.

I closed my stiff eyes, not reopening them until the sound had died away. Only to find myself looking directly into Michiru’s eyes, as if she’d been waiting to ambush me. She handed me the umbrella handle. What did she…

“Trust me. I made everything into a dream.”

I had no evidence whatsoever. Only her words, and yet I knew that those were incantations of a magical spell.

Michiru wrapped both my cheeks in her hands. Her touch was warm and gentle. I desperately wanted to nuzzle my cheeks against hers- in other words, she’d won easily. She won me over completely.

That alone was enough to erase all of my unease. What a fool I was.

“‘Cause I’m a witch… right?”

No one and nothing could harm Michiru.

The power to deny events that should occur.

“That’s true… yeah.”

Because Michiru, my treasured friend, was a witch.

She finally became one. Became the witch that she always said she’d become one day. Became an existence that might look the same as always, but was fundamentally changed.

An existence that could distort even fate.

Accidents, plots, enemies, even fate, nothing could ever hurt her. Not even the world. She stood on two legs, towering above all else, and no one could knock her down. 

Though I didn’t know who it was, I was filled gratitude from the bottom of my heart towards the person who’d made Michiru into a witch.

I waved goodbye to Michiru at the station, then headed home. Even though I was reluctant to leave her, I was no longer uneasy.

At some point, it had stopped raining, and the evening sun peeked out from a gap in the thin clouds. 

I was greeted by a familiar scenery, one that I knew like the back of my hand.

At dinnertime, Yuuka came to visit. We talked about silly things, and during our conversation, I idly complained about the odd feeling of foreboding that had accompanied me throughout the entire day. 

A day like any other. Time passed in one of these lovable, boring everydays. Slowly, soundly.

And, at the usual time, I went to bed. I peacefully fell asleep amidst a quiet, autumn night.

A day where nothing happened.

A day where something should’ve happened.

A day where nothing at all happened.

That was my fifth of October.

And with that, in a curious turn of events, the fifth of October concluded in a single day.

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T/N: This was probably the translation I’m least proud of because of how confusing it probably read, especially in terms of the mechanics behind Ayaka’s abilities and repeating and whatnot. I’ll do a quick rundown of that to clarify anything that might not have been clear.

-Ayaka’s true ability is that she can essentially relive her past experiences. That’s why she can remember every detail even if she didn’t notice that detail when she initially experienced it. To extend Yuuka’s analogy, if going through life is like reading a book, Ayaka’s power is that she can re-read the book as opposed to normal humans who can only try and recall what they read. 

-Ayaka must be there to observe days. This is the world/fate’s ‘survival bias,’ that is, the world needs Ayaka to observe the repeating days so that the world can then choose from those days. In that case, the world can never choose a day where Ayaka dies because then Ayaka will no longer be around to observe the next day

-Ayaka’s idea on the fifth of October Y was probably to try something along the lines of knocking herself unconscious for the day/closing her eyes during Michiru’s death, hence the line ‘not observing something was the equivalent of not existing at all,’ but obviously that doesn’t work

-Michiru’s explanation of ‘chance’: every single object, including you and me and lottery machines, follow the laws of physics. Meaning that if some objects are arranged in a certain way (in a closed system, but this is irrelevant I’m only saying this so my high school physics teacher doesn’t yell at me), for example, a billiard ball collides with another billiard ball, they will always, with 100% absolute certainty, end up in a particular arrangement. If we extend this idea, to say, the entire universe, then given one initial state of the universe, the universe should, 100% of the time, end up in one arrangement (i.e if there are a million identical universes, then all of them should end up in the same exact final state). In other words, given enough processing power and enough information, you should be able to predict the future up to the end of the universe(this idea is known as Laplace’s Demon, and isn’t entirely correct but it’s mostly true). Hence, science basically accepts that free will doesn’t exist

-Michiru’s loop: Michiru is also always repeating, but unlike Ayaka, her loop never ends (based on her explanation, anyway). She dies on the fifth of October, Ayaka makes that day cease to exist, they remain together for a while, then at some point in the future, she time-leaps back to a time before she met Ayaka and repeats this whole process again. She keeps no memories between time-leaps (only subconscious ones), and the only time she remembers is after Ayaka has repeated 1001 times. However, since those days aren’t chosen, she doesn’t remember remembering 

-As a side note, Ayaka describes a ‘forced sleep’ at the end of every day, so she presumably can’t stay awake and see what happens

-The anthropic principle (which I described already, but this is in the context of the story): Firstly, fate/the world is not omnipotent. For instance, fate tried its best to kill Yuuka, knowing that she would be a key person in Michiru becoming a witch. How the anthropic principle applies here: essentially, in order for the world as we know it to exist, Ayaka must exist. After one million iterations, Ayaka cannot make it into the sixth of October, so by the anthropic principle, any world where Michiru’s magic doesn’t consume Ayaka’s memories no longer exists to Ayaka, so for Ayaka, there can only be one outcome. 

-Yuuka’s magic, in her own words, is that her brain is slightly more flexible than a normal human’s. Meaning that as long as she can ‘see’ a possibility, she can interweave it with other possibilities. Since Ayaka can ‘see’ a future where Michiru is a witch, even if in a different reality before she time-leaped, Yuuka can stitch that reality with the current one

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