More than any of the theorizing about the mechanics of timefreezes or what caused them, this was the key takeaway here: that they did—or at least could—come to an end. Granted, we still didn’t know how to make things start moving again, but the simple knowledge that we wouldn’t have to be trapped in a world out of time forever was enough to make me feel as if a heavy burden had been lifted off my shoulders. I assumed this revelation would come as a huge relief to Akira as well—but perhaps I was wrong.
“Gotcha…” she said. “Guess it was only a matter of time, huh…?”
She didn’t seem all that happy about it.
This was not the reaction I’d been expecting. Hell, I’d figured she might literally jump for joy, or at the very least breathe a heavy sigh of relief. But come to think of it, she’d prefaced her previous question with “if” I was right about all of this, hadn’t she? So maybe she just wasn’t fully convinced. Which might be the more responsible way of going about this, to be quite honest. Better for her to stay skeptical in case my theory ended up being wrong rather than get her hopes up only for them to be dashed even harder in the long run. I could understand wanting to be emotionally cautious in that regard. And yet, judging from the grave look on her face, it sure seemed like there was more to it than just that…
“So…you went for the legs, huh?” she muttered, her gaze fixed on the ground. She slowed her walking pace just a bit. “You didn’t go for the head, or the chest… You purposely chose to hit ’em in the legs, huh?”
“W-well, yeah, I mean…assuming it really was me, that is,” I answered hesitantly, unsure how to interpret her tone of voice.
Akira didn’t say another word. Her face just went cold and expressionless, though in a way clearly different from apathy or resentment. I wasn’t sure what exactly she’d been trying to confirm by asking me this—maybe she was just curious to know the reason why, plain and simple. In which case, I could probably hazard a guess, even if I obviously had no recollection of actually doing the deed.
“But, uh… Yeah, I don’t know,” I said. “Guess I probably was just looking for a way to deal some damage without going too far, as bad as that sounds. Because no matter how much I hated those two, I’d never actually want to kill another person. And obviously hitting them in the chest or the ribs could easily be fatal… So yeah, I’m guessing that’s probably why I went for the legs.”
I tried to approach it from the angle that I was still thinking somewhat rationally back then. A pretty big assumption, admittedly. I figured I’d probably broken bones with the first guy, then held back with the second. That, or I got cold feet the first time, but then my anger won out the next. Either way, it was still an indefensible act. The mere thought that I possessed the ferocity and malice to beat two unarmed classmates with a metal bat sent a chill of terror down my spine. And yet, there was still a part of me that wanted to believe they’d simply gotten what was coming to them after how ruthlessly they’d tortured me.
“Yeah, figured as much,” Akira said brusquely, then scoffed. I had no idea what was going through her head right now; I wondered if maybe I’d said something to set her off or offended her by accident. She stretched out her back as she walked, gazing off into the distance. “Oh, hey! Check it out—there’s a mini-mart over there. How ’bout we go grab ourselves some lunch?”
“Oh, uh. Sure. Sounds good to me.”
Akira trotted off at a brisk jog. There was no longer any sullenness in her tone or her gait. She seemed completely back to normal again—but I couldn’t help feeling like I’d been bamboozled. What was that unsettled feeling I’d sensed from her just now? And why did it feel like she’d completely shrugged off everything we’d just discussed regarding the timefreeze? She’d left me with quite a few questions and concerns on my mind, and I didn’t feel great about it.
After traveling through Fukushima, we pressed on into Tochigi. At last, we were in Kanto—the final leg of our journey was now upon us. We were now making our way through the town of Nasu, right along the border with Fukushima. An endless road through fields and farmlands stretched beyond our sight.
Three days had passed since our conversation about the timefreeze, and in that time, I’d been trying to mentally organize everything we knew (or thought we knew) about the phenomenon. So far, I had it boiled down to three main points.
Point #1: I’d most likely experienced at least two other timefreezes in the past—the first when I was in elementary school and the second when I was in junior high.
Point #2: I had no recollection of what happened while time was stopped during either of these instances. I was quite certain I hadn’t simply blocked everything out.
Point #3: In all likelihood, this timefreeze would eventually come to an end. This was predicated on the assumption that I was right about Point #1. Obviously, I didn’t know how long the previous two had lasted, or if it varied, and there was certainly no guarantee this one would end just because the other two had, but it shouldn’t go on forever.
And from these three points, I could draw a single conclusion.
Whenever a timefreeze ended, I lost all memory of it happening.