"Hah...!"
Early in the morning, I jolted upright in bed.
"A nightmare... maybe?"
Before I woke up, I had definitely dealt with Ellen, then fallen when the [Wind] Kaguya and Yuzuru had placed on me came undone.
But now that I was awake, the fact that I was in bed meant it had all been a dream, right?
At least when I looked around, I was definitely in a room in the spirit mansion.
So what the hell had just happened?
"Ugh...! This memory is..."
Unfamiliar memories poured in on their own and gave me a headache.
They were memories like the ones from my dream, and yet they felt off somehow. Different.
"Tobiichi is... gone?"
Right. In those memories, Tobiichi Origami didn’t exist.
Everything else was the same, but the story flowed with only the hole left by Tobiichi Origami’s absence.
No, to be exact, that gap had been filled by a "reversed Tobiichi."
"[Devil]..."
A spirit who operated as a spirit hunter under the designation Devil.
That spirit’s appearance was the Tobiichi I knew very well.
The only difference was that she had long hair.
Long-haired Tobiichi had appeared about six months ago under the designation Devil and started hunting spirits.
I had rescued Natsumi during that process and filled up her favorability.
That was the history of this world I had just remembered.
I looked out the window, wondering if some [Eden]-like thing had happened again, but there was nothing unusual.
In other words, these were my real memories.
Then what I had just gone through was all a dream?
Seriously?
"...No way."
Everything was still there in vivid detail: killing Ellen, taking care of the Demon Prince, and before that, seeing Tobiichi’s reversed form and deciding to help Itsuka-kun.
The sensations from that time were still painfully clear.
"The world changed."
That was the only answer I could come up with.
I didn’t know if it was because I had experienced [Eden], or because this body I had possessed had gone through dozens of loops and experienced regression countless times.
Either way, my instincts told me time itself had been turned back.
"Was that even possible...?"
This was on a completely different scale from [Eden].
Altering history.
Something that had only been done inside a barrier spreading across the entire world was impossible unless time itself was being manipulated.
"Manipulating time...?"
The moment that thought came to mind, one spirit popped into my head.
The woman called Tokisaki Kurumi, the worst spirit in history.
Since her angel [Zaphkiel] had the power to interfere with time, there had to be a bullet for reversing it too.
With that, she could turn time back and alter history.
But I had no idea what her purpose or intent was in doing something like that.
And I had no clue why Tobiichi had been erased from the process.
"...No point thinking about it."
Right. The history of this world now was simply one where Tobiichi had never gotten involved with Itsuka-kun or the rest of us.
I’d just treat her like she didn’t exist and move on.
Tobiichi wasn’t that important to me anyway, so I could just ignore it and live my life.
"Maybe I should wash up first..."
It was a shame Ellen hadn’t died, but there’d be another chance later.
For now, I decided to wash off the cold sweat clinging to my body.
Shaa...
As the cold water soaked me, all my stray thoughts melted away and flowed down with it.
"Come to think of it, how are the others going to react?"
It was a genuine question.
Would everyone be unaware of it like last time with [Eden], or would they remember something and wonder why Tobiichi had disappeared?
Honestly, I thought it was natural to have at least one question like that when history changed.
"Sigh. Why am I the only one worrying about this?"
In cases like this, most people usually wouldn’t remember anything, so I shouldn’t get my hopes up.
I was probably the odd one out.
"Hieta, are you still washing up?"
While I was washing my hair, I heard Mayuri’s voice.
"Yes. What is it?"
"No, just hurry up and come down. Breakfast is ready."
"Understood."
I’d gotten so lost in my thoughts that I guess it had taken a while.
*
As peaceful a classroom as ever.
Still, one seat being unnaturally empty was pretty noticeable.
The seat Tobiichi always sat in was empty, so it felt oddly hollow.
"Itsuka-kun?"
For some reason, Itsuka-kun was staring at Tobiichi’s seat.
In the memories that had flowed into me, Itsuka-kun definitely seemed not to know about Tobiichi, but now he was acting like he did, which felt a little strange.
Even Tohka was staring at Tobiichi’s seat just like Itsuka-kun.
"Huh? Why?"
"Why do you keep staring at one seat?"
"Ah, it’s nothing. But why are you doing that, Tohka?"
"I don’t know what’s going on, but... somehow it feels like something is missing, and that’s bothering me."
"Something’s missing?"
Could Tohka also vaguely remember Tobiichi’s existence?
But she only seemed to feel that sense of wrongness. Nothing more.
While I was thinking that, Tamae-sensei, who had come in at some point, started calling roll.
"Higakieta-kun~?"
"Ah, yes."
I almost missed attendance because I was lost in thought, but Mayuri, sitting beside me, nudged me, so I managed to answer.
"Thank you."
"Don’t mention it."
As the roll call continued, Itsuka-kun kept looking at the empty seat beside him with a strange expression.
"Tonomachi-kun is here... then next is Nakahara-san~"
"...Huh?"
When Tamae-sensei called Nakahara’s name, Itsuka-kun reacted.
More precisely, it looked like he was reacting to the fact that Tobiichi’s name, which should have been between Tonomachi-kun and Nakahara-san, wasn’t called.
Startled, Itsuka-kun looked confused, and the teacher asked with a puzzled expression,
"Oh? Did I make a mistake?"
"Ah, no, that’s..."
"Shido, are you okay?"
"You’re acting weird today, Shido."
Tohka and Rinne worried about him from the side, but he shook his head and said he was fine.
Then, with a look like he’d made up his mind about something, he asked,
"Sensei, what happened to Origami?"
"...What?"
There was no way he could know Tobiichi in this altered history, so I reacted this time to how naturally that name came out.
"Origami-san...? Who in the world is that?"
Tamae-sensei said that with a completely baffled look.
That reaction made sense too, since there was no student named Origami enrolled at this school.
This was the history of the changed world.
There was a chance the Origami Itsuka-kun mentioned was someone other than the Tobiichi Origami I knew, but I could tell that chance was even slimmer.
After all, the expression on his face when he heard that Origami didn’t exist looked less like shock and more like he’d gone a little out of his mind.
If I assumed Itsuka-kun still had memories of the previous world, then that reaction made perfect sense.
It would be shocking enough to realize someone you knew had vanished.
But what was most suspicious was why he was crying.
"Shido? Are you really okay...?"
"Huh? Y-yeah, I’m really fine."
A few tears had gathered at the corners of Itsuka-kun’s eyes and were dripping one by one onto his desk.
His expression looked both relieved and a little regretful at the same time.
It wasn’t the face of someone who had just realized an acquaintance had disappeared. That emotional mix made me suspect something had happened between him and Tobiichi before the history changed.
At the very least, Itsuka-kun must have seen Tobiichi become reversed, so something probably happened while they were dealing with that.
Then the real question was whether he still had memories from after the history changed.
To find out, I quietly asked Itsuka-kun,
"Itsuka-kun."
"What?"
"Do you know what happened yesterday?"
"Yesterday...?"
Itsuka-kun tilted his head like someone who had no memory of yesterday at all.
That was enough for me to be certain.
He was similar to me, but unlike me, he didn’t have memories from after the history change.
In other words, his memories had been overwritten, and everything before that was gone.
In my memories, yesterday Mana had tried cooking because she wanted to use her strength for the first time in a while, and we’d almost all died from it.
There was no way he could fail to remember something that intense unless Itsuka-kun had dementia.
To confirm whether my guess was right, I asked him directly.
"Itsuka-kun. I have one question."
"Huh? What is it?"
"What happened after Origami... no, after Tobiichi Origami reversed?"
"What...?"
The moment I asked, Itsuka-kun’s pupils shook violently.
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