By the time the students arrived at school the next morning, the area near the back gate was fenced off by yellow tape. Police officers had been ducking under that tape for some time as they came and went from the scene. Inside this restricted area, there was another, smaller taped-off space; within it was a huge lump of smoking ashes. The only things that hadn’t burned away completely were a few pieces of melted plastic and the charred remnants of some thicker old covers.
The fire had started in the middle of the night. Fortunately, the residents nearby had noticed it quickly, and the fire department had put out the blaze before it could spread to the school building. The only damage had been to the library committee’s belongings out in back.
In the morning, the police had arrived to examine the scene. This was a huge event for a high school, of course, so a crowd of onlookers watched from a distance.
“A fire?”
“Wow, looks like it was going for a while.”
“I’m just glad it didn’t burn down the building, too…”
While most of the spectators whispered excitedly to each other, there was one group of onlookers who didn’t say a word—the members of the library committee, the people who’d spent their afternoon bringing those books here, just watched in stunned silence.
Misuzu and Ruri were part of that group. Ruri’s eyes were still and cold, like lumps of burnt-out charcoal that would never catch fire again. She was staring at a small piece of a book cover, one of the few scraps that survived the blaze.
It was a chunk of that beat-up old novel Naomi had wanted to buy.
From the rooftop, the sky was an unbroken field of blue. The city, and the mountains that surrounded it, looked the same as ever.
The world kept on turning, no matter what happened.
“If you knew it would happen…” Naomi’s voice shook slightly, different from the way it had trembled the other day on the riverbank. “Couldn’t we have prevented this?”
“That would have thrown history off track,” Sensei replied flatly. “Our goal is to save her life. To make that happen, we need your relationship to develop as recorded. The fire was a necessary part of that process.”
Naomi raised his hands reflexively. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to grab Sensei by the collar, or just throw a punch at him. He’d never done either of those things before to anyone. But even as he reached out, he realized it was pointless. His hands slipped ineffectually through Sensei’s body, quickly losing their momentum.
He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t even vent his anger on this man in Ruri’s stead. With no outlet to escape through, his anger swirled around in his head aimlessly, feeding on itself.
Memories of the days they’d spent preparing for the book sale flashed through his mind. How they’d gone around asking people to help them out, and that first sweaty trip back with that cart full of books. The way everyone had chipped in to help.
They’d worked so hard. All for nothing.
And Sensei had known all about it from the start.
“The used book sale was canceled.” Naomi looked up. Sensei was staring down at him; he flinched slightly. There was strength in those eyes. This man had chosen his path, and he wouldn’t be diverted from it. He was absolutely determined to reach his goal.
Naomi could understand that. He was Sensei, on some level—it made sense that he could follow the man’s thought process.
Sensei was desperate.
Just as Naomi had thrown himself into gathering those books, Sensei had thrown himself into his plan. He knew the fire would be a sad, painful event, but he was convinced that it was necessary.
“The canceled sale depressed her deeply. I wanted her to cheer up, so I made a conscious effort to talk to her more often than before. It brought us closer.”
Sensei paused for a moment, then issued his next order.
“You’re going to do the same.”
With those words, he strode past Naomi and disappeared. There would be no further explanations. He expected Naomi to simply do as he was told.
It was the correct answer, after all—according to his notebook.
10.
NAOMI WATCHED his desk clock closely. It was a digital model with large numbers and read 11:58.
He didn’t want to leave too early or too late. He’d decided to wear a sweatsuit for this, as he felt it might involve some exercise. He had a backpack on too, but it was empty. He couldn’t decide what to pack.
As midnight ticked closer, Naomi looked down at his hands. He wore the God Hand on his right. That had been his biggest worry at first, but fortunately, the crow transformed itself into the glove without complaint, just like it did during his morning training sessions.
As the display silently switched to 12:00, Naomi stepped quietly out of his room.
He took care to leave the apartment as quietly as possible. Their old, heavy front door tended to squeak at the slightest provocation, so he closed it carefully and locked it behind him.
When he turned around, he found Sensei standing in the hallway in front of him.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Naomi froze up. A jolt of fear ran through him; he felt like a zebra staring down a lion. Swallowing, he clutched the wrist of his gloved hand.
“I’m going to use the God Hand,” he squeaked out, “to recreate those books.”
“Don’t be an idiot!”
Sensei strode up to Naomi and glared down at him.
“I did explain how that thing works, didn’t I? Information-dense objects are exponentially harder to create or modify. And a single book is packed full of information. Are you planning to copy out every single page, word by word? Do you know how many hours that would take?”
It was a barrage of words. He wasn’t yelling, but there was a clear, cold anger in his tone.
“Even if you somehow succeeded, you’d be altering the course of history. If the used book sale isn’t canceled, my manual won’t be useful anymore. You won’t end up dating her. And we’ll have no way to predict how the accident might play out.”
Naomi flinched again. Sensei’s words were hitting home.
“If we can’t save her, it would be your fault.”
It was true, of course. Everything he was saying was the truth. Sensei knew the correct choice. He had the right answers. Saving Ruri’s life was far more important than a used book sale.
Which meant—
“The reason…”
“What was that?”
Naomi was going to be wrong.
“The reason we’re preventing this accident…is so Ichigyou-san can be happy.” He stared back into Sensei’s eyes with the fiercest expression he could muster. “But right now, she’s miserable.”
There wasn’t any rational logic behind this choice. Naomi knew he was letting his emotions take over. This wasn’t the safe path; it led directly into the unknown.
To the best of his ability, Naomi avoided taking risks. He didn’t like challenging himself unless the outcome was predictable. His mind screamed at him to stop.
But he was still going to make the wrong choice. He was heading down the path of risk and uncertainty, where failure was more likely than success.