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Author Note:
' ' = Thoughts
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"Um…"
"My… My name is Katsumi Matsunaga."
"I'm a student of the 9th grade, class 3 of 1983."
"When I finish recording this, I plan to hide it somewhere in the classroom."
"If you're listening to this tape, you're most likely in class 3, as well."
"I wonder what the likelihood of that is…"
"It's possible that you guys are also terrified by the senseless disaster that I… that we…"
"Never mind."
"I have two reasons for leaving this tape."
"One is to confess a sin. My sin."
"I want to tell someone what I did. I need someone to listen."
"The other is to give you some advice. So that hopefully, this can all be avoided in the future."
"It's about the extra student who gets mixed up in the class, and the calamity that happens as a result…"
"How can it be stopped. In other words… Actually, I should start at the beginning."
"Our class went on a trip. We all left on August 8, for three days and two nights."
"Our homeroom teacher, Mr. Koga, had suggested that we visit a local shrine. There's an old shrine in this town called Yomiyama Shrine."
"He said that if we all prayed there, he was sure the curse would be lifted. "There were 22 students in all, myself included. We only half believed him."
"On the second day, we climbed the mountain to visit the shrine. It was so old and run-down, like it had been abandoned by the world."
"Even though it bears the name of the city, it looked like it hadn't been maintained at all."
"So we decided to clean up the grounds while we were there."
"At the time, we hoped that maybe this would lift the curse. And after we prayed, our teacher confidently declared, everything will be all right now."
"But it wasn't. It wasn't that easy."
"As soon as we left the shrine, the clear skies suddenly turned overcast, and it began to rain, complete with lightning strikes."
"As we hurried down the mountain, the first victim was a boy named Hamaguchi."
"He was kind of dumb. He was the only one who'd brought an umbrella. And we were on a mountain, in a lightning storm…"
"He was walking in front of me when… For a second, my vision went white, and I heard a huge crash."
"Hamaguchi had been struck by lightning. I still remember the smell of his flesh burning…"
"Anyway, the students panicked and bolted, leaving Hamaguchi behind, desperate to get off the mountain as quickly as possible."
"But moments after we took off, blindly running through the rain… The second victim was taken."
"A girl named Hoshikawa. In her panic, she slipped and fell off a tall, sheer cliff."
"All we could do was call for help at the foot of the mountain."
"But in the end, we couldn't save either of them. Praying at the shrine had no effect whatsoever."
"Now, this is the important part. How I ended the calamity and what you must do as well."
"Right after we finally reached the bottom of the mountain, that's when it happened. And by it, I mean… I…"
"It happened in the forest outside the lodge. I got into an argument with a guy named !@#$%."
"We ended up trading blows. And then… And then… The next thing I knew, he wasn't moving."
"He was lying under a huge tree. When I looked closer, I saw he'd been impaled on a branch. He was dead."
"Terrified, I ran back to my room at the lodge."
"It had been decided that we'd be staying an extra night. The police came to see us about the lightning and the fall. They asked me a lot of questions, but I couldn't tell them anything about !@#$%."
"I hardly slept at all that night. I was sure someone would find !@#$%'s body, and everyone would freak."
"But in the morning, there were no signs of that happening, so I went back into the forest to find it myself."
"But… it wasn't there. It had vanished without a trace."
"I was so bewildered… I asked the others what happened to !@#$%. But they all just looked at me like I was crazy."
"Who's that? I don't know anyone with that name."
"They even said there were 19 students on the trip, not 20."
"That's when it dawned on me… The guy I'd killed must have been the extra student all along."
"I know without a doubt that I killed !@#$%."
"Nothing will change that fact."
"That's why I decided to come clean here. This is my confession."
"It's been two weeks since the trip, and only I, the solo person deeply involved in his death, still remember !@#$%."
"But I get the feeling that it's only a matter of time. That's why, while my memory is still clear, I want to tell you the truth, and how to stop the calamity."
"Are you listening?"
"Send the dead where they belong. Send the dead back to death."
"That's how to stop the calamity once it has begun."
.
.
.
After listening to the recording, Kaelthorn removed the cassette and placed it away.
He was currently inside the school's A/V room. The volume of the recording had not been low. On the contrary, he had played it at maximum. The old speaker had filled the room with Katsumi Matsunaga's voice, and in an ordinary school, that much noise should have drawn someone's attention.
Yet no one came.
No footsteps approached the door. No flashlight moved across the corridor. No teacher, guard, or curious resident came to investigate. The building remained silent around him, as if the school itself had decided that tonight, Kaelthorn was the only person allowed within its walls.
'Kaelthorn: Now then, let us escalate the situation even further.'
A few minutes later, a huge orange light rose into the night sky.
Dark smoke followed.
The glow spread so violently that even people living near the edge of town could see it. Windows lit up. Sleeping rooms turned orange. The night above Yomiyama trembled beneath the heat.
Kaelthorn walked calmly down the street after leaving the school grounds.
Behind him, Yomiyama North Middle School burned.
The entire school had been set ablaze.
The flames climbed from window to window, devouring classrooms, corridors, offices, and old records that had remained untouched for years. The building that had carried the calamity for more than two decades was now wrapped in fire, its walls cracking beneath the heat as smoke poured into the sky.
Kaelthorn did not look back.
'Kaelthorn: If the Extra loses the place that gave birth to it, what will happen?'
The question was not curiosity alone.
It was an experiment.
Nee-naw!
Nee-naw!
The distant sound of fire brigade sirens began cutting through the night.
Kaelthorn had barely taken another step when he stopped.
Something had changed.
He could feel it immediately.
He had been marked.
Not by a person. Not by the police. Not by a witness. Not even by the calamity alone.
By the town itself.
The roads, the buildings, the windows, the sleeping homes, the air between them—everything had shifted its attention toward him. It was not the same as being watched by human eyes. It was deeper, quieter, and far more dangerous. The town had recognized him as something hostile.
Yomiyama itself had become his enemy.
Kaelthorn remained still for a moment.
Then his thoughts settled.
'Kaelthorn: Looks like I do not need to wait for that.'
With that, he turned and made his way back toward the clinic.
Several minutes after he left, people began emerging from their homes. Some wore coats thrown hastily over nightclothes. Others stood barefoot near their gates, staring in shock at the burning school in the distance. Voices rose one after another, confused, frightened, and disbelieving.
Yomiyama North Middle School was the only school in town.
It had stood there for years. Generations had studied there. Parents had once walked its corridors as children before sending their own children through the same gates. The school was not merely a building; it was part of the town's memory.
And now it was burning.
People began speaking at once. Some wondered whether anyone was inside. Some asked whether the fire brigade had been called. Others argued about whether they should help or stay back until the authorities arrived.
Then one man suddenly thought of something.
A suspicious person had bought the old clinic a few months ago.
A doctor who covered himself from head to toe.
A strange man who never showed his face.
And that same person had also become a staff member at the school.
The conclusion formed in his mind with unnatural certainty.
It must have been him.
The man had never met Kaelthorn directly. He had never spoken to him, never seen him up close, and knew almost nothing beyond rumors whispered after the clinic changed ownership. Under normal circumstances, suspicion based on so little would have remained uncertain.
But this was no longer normal.
This was what happened when one became the enemy of the world.
The town did not need evidence.
It only needed a direction for its hostility.
The man hurriedly pulled out his phone and called the police.
When he reported Kaelthorn, his voice carried no hesitation at all.
.
.
.
A few minutes later, Kaelthorn returned to his clinic.
After closing the door behind him, he walked toward the bed where Yukari Sakuragi was still sleeping. Her breathing remained stable, her face pale but calm beneath the clinic lights. Kaelthorn stood beside her for a moment, then slowly removed the IV drip from her arm and checked her condition one final time.
Once he confirmed that nothing was wrong, he tucked her carefully beneath the blanket.
Then space folded around her.
There was no flash of light, no sound, and no violent distortion. One moment, Yukari Sakuragi was lying on the bed. The next, she was gone, leaving only an empty space among the other beds inside the clinic.
Kaelthorn turned away and began putting away the medical equipment. The tools, medicine, documents, and devices he deemed useful disappeared one by one, removed from the clinic with calm precision. Only after the ground floor had been cleared did he move toward the stairs and ascend to the next floor.
After entering his room, Kaelthorn walked to the chair near the window and sat down.
An invisible force moved through the room. The table in front of him slid aside without being touched, and the glass display sarcophagus near the door rose silently into the air before settling in front of him. Inside it, the doll remained still, her hollow emerald eyes staring forward with their usual lifeless calm.
Kaelthorn looked at her face in silence.
At first glance, it seemed as though he was observing the doll.
In truth, his attention was focused elsewhere.
He was looking inward.
At something hidden inside his own existence.
It was one of the techniques he had created while still Ascended.
Its name was—
Null Archive: Anchored Continuity.
Most people carried weapons.
Some carried knowledge.
A rare few carried entire worlds.
But Null Archive: Anchored Continuity was not a weapon, a storage space, or a pocket dimension. It was something Kaelthorn had created inside himself—a hidden archive bound to his very existence, following him wherever he went.
Anything placed inside was removed from the normal flow of reality.
Not destroyed.
Not frozen.
Simply set aside.
As if the universe stopped paying attention to it.
Inside the archive, nothing changed unless Kaelthorn allowed it to change. A sword placed there remained exactly as it was. A book never gathered dust. Food never spoiled. A flame never burned out.
Even a dying person could be preserved in the exact moment before death claimed them.
Countless years could pass outside, but when something was removed from the archive, it would be as though no time had passed at all. For whatever rested within, the universe had been paused.
There was far more to the technique than that, but for now, this much was enough.
When Kaelthorn escaped from the Entity in the previous world, he had taken The Hollow Fortress with him.
He had also taken seven people.
Yomogawa Ayame.
Mumei.
Kajika.
Ikoma.
Takumi.
Suzuki.
And Album.
All seven currently existed inside Null Archive: Anchored Continuity.
Kaelthorn had spent an immeasurable length of time inside the Interstice, long enough that ordinary numbers became meaningless, but for them, nothing had changed. They remained exactly as they had been at the moment he placed them inside the archive.
However, Kaelthorn had not left everything untouched.
Even without removing them, he could still work on certain things inside the archive. Because of that, The Hollow Fortress had changed drastically compared to what it had once been. Its structure, systems, defenses, and internal nature had all been altered over time.
Later, Kaelthorn had taken the process further.
He had infused the Hollow Fortress with the power of the Interstice.
That made it stronger.
But it also made it unsuitable for anyone except him.
The fortress had become too wrong, too heavy, too deeply touched by the Gap Between Dimensions. Ordinary beings, even those who had already survived abnormal worlds, could no longer live inside it safely.
Therefore, even though the seven people and the Hollow Fortress were both stored inside Null Archive: Anchored Continuity, they were separated by an almost unreachable distance within the archive.
For them, Kaelthorn had created something else.
A new fortress.
One that could house others without destroying them.
For now, there would be eight people inside it.
Seven from the previous world.
And one new addition.
Yukari Sakuragi.
Kaelthorn's gaze remained on the doll for a moment longer before his thought settled.
'Kaelthorn: It is time for them to wake up.'
BANG!!
BANG!!
A loud noise struck the room door.
Someone was beating against it from the other side.
A moment later, the door burst open.
Two policemen entered the room, their expressions tense and their hands close to their equipment. Their eyes moved quickly across the room before settling on Kaelthorn, who remained seated near the window with the glass sarcophagus in front of him.
Policeman 1: Dr. Oracle, would you be kind enough to follow us to the station for an investigation?
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.
.
Meanwhile.
THUD!
THUD!
THUD!
The sound of hurried footsteps echoed through the empty street.
Someone was running.
Not jogging. Not hurrying home. Running with the desperate, uneven pace of a person being chased by something they could not afford to see. Again and again, she looked over her shoulder, her breath tearing out of her throat in broken gasps, her body moving forward only because fear had not yet allowed it to collapse. It was as if even slowing down for a moment would invite calamity to fall directly onto her back.
After turning another corner, she pressed herself against a wall and tried to breathe.
The streetlamp above flickered.
For a moment, its weak light revealed her face.
It was Reiko Mikami.
Her skin was pale, and fear had hollowed out her expression until almost nothing human remained in it. Sweat covered her body despite the chill of the night, and her lungs burned each time she tried to pull in air. Her legs trembled badly enough that standing became difficult, but she ignored the pain, because only one thought still remained clear inside her mind.
Run.
As fast as possible.
As far away as possible.
She looked around, searching for any sign of life. A passerby. A shopkeeper. A light behind a window. Anyone. Anything. But the street was empty, and the shutters of the nearby shops were already closed. For a moment, she considered banging on one of them, screaming until someone woke and opened the door.
Then a chill ran down her spine.
Reiko did not hesitate.
She ran again.
Her heartbeat pounded violently in her chest. Her legs felt as though they might give out at any second, and her breathing grew so painful that every inhale felt like swallowing broken glass. Her vision blurred at the edges, yet she continued running, because stopping felt far more dangerous than collapsing.
'Reiko Mikami: Why… Why… WHY?!'
As she screamed inside her own mind, the image of the hooded figure appeared again.
Doctor Oracle.
The man who knew the truth of the school. The man who knew her identity. The man who had looked at her and called her the Extra without hesitation, as though he had not just destroyed the last piece of safety left in her life.
She hated him.
More than anything else in Yomiyama, she wanted him dead.
'Reiko Mikami: Ever since he came here, everything has gone wrong. Nothing like this happened in previous years.'
As the Extra, Reiko Mikami could sense certain abnormal things more clearly than ordinary people. She did not fully understand that sense, and she did not want to understand it, but she could no longer deny that something inside her responded to the calamity. That was why she had felt what happened today before anyone explained it to her.
.
After such a long absence, she had finally decided to return to school.
She had still been afraid. The thought of everyone discovering her identity and turning against her had not disappeared. It waited beneath every breath, beneath every step, beneath every attempt to pretend she was still Ms. Mikami. But hiding in her room forever would not solve anything. No answer came to her no matter how long she stared at the ceiling, so in the end, she had gathered what little courage remained and gone back to Yomiyama North.
As expected, the teachers were relieved to see her return. The students greeted her warmly. Some asked if she was feeling better. Others smiled as though her absence had only been a normal illness and nothing more.
Before, those smiles would have comforted her.
Now, they only terrified her.
Because Reiko could not stop imagining what those same faces would become if the truth was revealed. Their warmth would twist into fear. Their fear would twist into hatred. The students she had taught would look at her not as a teacher, but as the dead thing responsible for their suffering.
She forced herself to ignore those thoughts and focus on work.
Then she noticed something horrifying.
There was an extra desk in ninth grade, Class 3.
And not only there.
Every class in the school had one.
At first, she thought she had misunderstood. Then she checked again. Then again. Finally, with trembling hands, she looked through the attendance registers of other classes and found the same thing repeated everywhere.
One extra student.
In every class.
The calamity was no longer limited to Class 3.
By the time she understood that, her mind had gone cold. She could not focus for the rest of the school day. Words passed around her without entering her. The sounds of students, teachers, bells, and doors became distant and meaningless. She was so lost in thought that she barely remembered leaving the school or returning home.
After locking herself in her room, she lay there staring at the ceiling.
Sunset came.
Then night.
She did not notice either.
When she finally returned to herself, she tried to sleep. But just as she moved to close the curtain, she saw a fierce orange light glowing outside.
At first, she could only stare.
Then, without knowing why, she understood.
Yomiyama North Middle School was burning.
And the one who had done it was him.
Doctor Oracle.
She had no proof. No witness. No explanation. Yet the certainty settled inside her with frightening clarity, as if the town itself had placed the answer directly into her thoughts.
The next moment, all of her hatred exploded.
She no longer cared whether she could defeat him. She no longer cared whether rushing toward him was suicide. She only wanted to kill him. So she grabbed the same knife she had used before and left her home.
She did not go to the school.
Instead, she headed toward his clinic.
Something told her he would return there.
That feeling proved correct.
As she turned left from the street and saw the clinic ahead, she saw Doctor Oracle returning as well.
The sight confirmed everything in her mind. He had burned the school and returned calmly afterward, as if setting fire to the center of the calamity was no different from finishing an errand. Rage almost pushed her forward immediately.
But before she could rush at him, a corner mirror near the street caught her attention.
Normally, she would have ignored it.
This time, she could not.
The mirror faced the street where the Doctor walked, and in its reflection, Reiko saw something that was not there in reality.
Doctor Oracle was not alone.
A woman in researcher-like attire walked beside him.
They were so close that their shoulders nearly touched, and yet that closeness did not feel accidental. It felt natural, familiar, almost older than the street around them. Calling them intimate somehow felt too small, as if the word belonged to ordinary people and could not properly describe the silence between those two.
The Doctor walked as always, hands in his coat pockets, his covered face turned forward.
The woman beside him looked down at some kind of terminal in her hand, calm and unhurried, as though walking beside him through a burning town was something she had done countless times before.
Reiko turned her head toward the actual street.
No woman was there.
Only Doctor Oracle.
She looked back at the mirror.
The woman remained.
Then something happened that made Reiko's skin crawl.
The woman in the reflection lifted her gaze.
She looked directly at Reiko.
Not at the street.
Not at the Doctor.
At Reiko.
The moment their eyes met through the mirror, Reiko's body locked in place. The woman's soft eyes narrowed slightly, and a thin smile appeared on her face. It was gentle in shape, almost affectionate, but to Reiko it felt anything but warm. It was the smile of someone who had found a specimen worth opening.
Every instinct in Reiko's body screamed.
She turned and ran.
She wanted to get away from the Doctor.
From that woman.
From that eerie pair whose presence made her feel less like a person and more like material waiting to be studied.
.
That was what led to the present moment.
Reiko Mikami had been running nonstop ever since leaving the clinic area. She rested only when her body nearly failed, and even then, she forced herself forward again after a few breaths. Each time she slowed, she imagined the Doctor and that woman appearing behind her. She imagined herself strapped to a table, cut open, examined, and discussed in calm voices as though her fear had no meaning.
That woman frightened her in a way the Doctor did not.
Doctor Oracle was terrifying because he knew the truth and treated her life like a tool.
But the woman had looked at her as though the truth itself was not enough.
As though she wanted to know what else Reiko Mikami—
Reiko shook her head and tried to throw the thought away.
She kept running.
Then she turned another corner and stopped.
The path ahead was blocked.
A dead end.
Her breath caught in her throat. She turned quickly, intending to take another route.
Or at least, that was what she thought.
The moment she turned around, she saw something that made all color drain from her face. Her feet began moving backward on their own, one trembling step after another, until her back struck the wall behind her. Her strength left her completely, and she slid down slowly to the ground.
Her heart pounded wildly.
Her body shook.
Horror wrapped around her throat so tightly that she could not scream.
Then she heard something.
Something no human would say.
???: Interesting… What else can become of you?
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.
.
Returning to the clinic.
Both police officers stood near the doorway, waiting for Kaelthorn's reply. Their expressions were tense, but the tension had already passed beyond caution and become hostility. Their hands rested near the guns at their waists, and their eyes remained fixed on him as though they had already decided what kind of person he was.
They had not entered like officers following procedure.
They had burst into the clinic without proper warning, without a search warrant, and without presenting any real evidence. They had come because someone had reported a suspicious man, and because the town itself had already begun pushing its hostility toward Kaelthorn. That was enough for them. If he refused, argued, or even asked too many questions, their fingers would likely move before their thoughts caught up.
Kaelthorn did not give them even a glance.
He remained seated in front of the glass display sarcophagus, looking at the doll inside as if the two armed men standing behind him were no more important than dust in the corner of the room. After a moment, he extended one hand forward.
CLICK!
CLICK!
The instant he moved, both officers drew their guns and pointed them at him.
Kaelthorn continued as though he had not noticed.
His gloved hand reached the glass display sarcophagus and opened it calmly, exposing the doll inside without anything between them. The officers became even more alert, their shoulders stiffening as their fingers shifted toward the triggers.
Policeman 2: We do not have much time, Doctor Oracle. It would be better for all of us if you cooperat—
Kaelthorn: She is beautiful, is she not?
The interruption was calm enough to make the room colder.
Kaelthorn raised his left hand and touched the doll's face. His fingers moved gently across her cheek, almost carefully, as if she were the most delicate object in the world and not a lifeless doll seated inside a coffin-like display.
The officers frowned.
Despite themselves, their gazes moved toward the doll.
For a moment, their expressions became strange. The doll was certainly well made. Beautiful, perhaps, if one judged only the craftsmanship. But there was something eerie about her stillness, something wrong in the hollow green eyes and the delicate face that seemed too calm for the situation around it.
Kaelthorn's hand remained against her cheek.
Kaelthorn: Her name is Nymira.
A brief pause.
Kaelthorn: Nymira — The Hollow.
.
.
Pic: Nymira — The Hollow
.
.
After introducing her, Kaelthorn withdrew his hand and leaned back in his chair.
Kaelthorn: Nymira, the guests are here. It is rude not to receive them.
The moment his words fell, something changed.
The hollow green eyes of the doll began to glow faintly.
Then her hands, which had been crossed over her chest, loosened and fell to her sides. The rose held between her fingers slipped free and dropped soundlessly into the sarcophagus.
CREAK.
One leg moved.
Then the other.
Her joints gave an unpleasant, dry sound as she began to rise, like an old marionette being pulled by strings no one could see. The motion was not smooth, not human, and not fully mechanical. It was something in between, as if a lifeless body had remembered movement without yet remembering how life was supposed to perform it.
The officers watched in growing horror.
Nymira stepped out of the glass sarcophagus and placed her feet on the floor.
Then her head turned toward them.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
Her glowing green eyes fixed on the two men, and both officers felt a chill crawl down their spines. Their instincts finally understood what their minds were still refusing to accept.
This was not a doll.
Not anymore.
One officer moved his finger toward the trigger.
Before he could press it, an eerie green flash crossed the room.
KRRRK!
For a moment, the first officer did not understand what had happened.
Then he found himself looking at the second officer behind him.
The second officer was staring back in horror.
Confused, the first officer lowered his gaze.
And saw his own back.
The realization came too late.
His head had been turned completely around.
One hundred and eighty degrees.
His mouth opened, but no proper sound came out. His body remained standing for another impossible second, while the second officer staggered backward, trembling so badly that his gun almost slipped from his grip.
Then the first officer saw something behind his partner.
A pair of glowing green eyes.
Nymira stood there.
Silently.
She raised both hands from behind the second officer and placed them on either side of his head with the delicate care of someone adjusting a doll on a shelf.
The second officer barely had time to breathe.
CRACK!
The sound of his neck breaking filled the room.
Both officers collapsed.
THUD!
THUD!
Silence returned immediately after.
Kaelthorn looked at the bodies for only a moment before his gaze returned to Nymira. She stood near the doorway, unmoving, her hollow green eyes still carrying the faint afterglow of awakening.
Kaelthorn: Hm… Not bad for your first awakening.
He stood from the chair and turned his head toward the window, looking beyond the clinic, beyond the burning school, and toward the horizon hidden beneath the night.
'Kaelthorn: Time to leave.'
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.
.
Far away from the clinic, in an alley near the edge of town, silence remained where Reiko Mikami had been.
There was no body there now. No footsteps. No breathing. No sign of struggle except for the faint disorder left behind in the narrow space. The alley itself seemed untouched, as if nothing important had happened there at all.
Only one thing remained.
A reflection.
On a broken piece of glass leaning against the wall, a woman in researcher-like clothing stood reflected where no woman existed in reality. Her long dark hair fell neatly around her shoulders, and her calm, beautiful eyes held a faint rhombus shape within them, glowing for a moment like a mark seen beneath still water.
She held the back of a pen against her chin.
Her gaze was thoughtful.
Not emotional. Not disturbed.
Curious.
'???: If the wave function collapses here, then the probability amplitude should vanish. But it does not. It survives.'
She looked down at something unseen and crossed out a line.
Then she rewrote it.
'???: No. That would violate unitarity.'
A pause followed.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, not in irritation, but in deeper interest.
'???: It is not superposition. It is not even entanglement. Those are strange, but mathematically, they still obey rules.'
The woman continued thinking, her expression gentle even as her thoughts moved through things no ordinary mind could approach. To her, the calamity was not merely a curse, not simply a supernatural disaster, and not a ghost story built from grief. It was a rare phenomenon, something that behaved like a broken rule pretending to be natural.
And that made it worth studying.
Before she could go deeper, she sensed something.
Her thoughts stopped.
Slowly, she turned her head toward the direction of the clinic.
Then a soft smile appeared on her face.
'???: Still in a hurry as ever. Could you not wait for me even a little?'
Kaelthorn had already left Yomiyama City.
She knew it immediately.
There was no resentment in her expression. No anger. No disappointment. Instead, her smile softened further, carrying a warmth that seemed strangely sincere in the middle of the empty alley.
'???: Still, how could I possibly blame you? You are the same as always, jumping from one experiment to another without slowing down enough to rest.'
Her gaze was pure.
Almost affectionate.
She accepted this about him completely, without complaint and without question. Only Kaelthorn received that kind of gaze from her. Only he could leave without waiting, act without explaining, and still be looked at as though every decision he made was something she had already forgiven before it happened.
After a moment, she turned her attention toward Yomiyama North Middle School.
The school was still burning in the distance.
Ever since she had appeared in this world, she had remained beside Kaelthorn, even if not in a way ordinary people could see. She had watched his movements, his choices, his silence, and the way every action disturbed the curse a little further. Combined with the memories she already had of him, the answer was obvious.
Kaelthorn had been experimenting.
The school, the Extra, the saved girl, the spreading calamity, the fire—all of it had been deliberate. He had not acted from anger or impulse. He had pushed the situation step by step, watching how the curse responded, how the city changed, and how far the abnormal power could be made to expand.
And she was right.
That was exactly what Kaelthorn had been doing.
He wanted to escalate the situation and increase the bizarre power surrounding Yomiyama, but he was also gathering results along the way. Every reaction mattered. Every twist in the city's laws mattered. Every death, every survival, every failure of the curse to behave as expected became data.
The woman tilted her head slightly.
'???: Normally, I would not interfere.'
Her smile remained.
'???: But I find this power rather peculiar. Knowing you, I am sure you will not mind if I take it instead.'
A brief pause.
'???: Once I am done, we will meet.'
The moment that thought settled, black clouds appeared above Yomiyama City.
They formed without warning, spreading across the night sky until the stars vanished and the moon disappeared behind a heavy, unnatural darkness. The clouds did not roll in from beyond the horizon. They simply existed, as if the sky had been rewritten in a single breath.
Then the rain began.
But it was not water.
Black dust fell from the clouds.
Fine, sharp, and glittering faintly beneath the distant firelight.
It looked almost like ash at first. Then it touched the ground.
Where the dust landed, semi-transparent black crystals began to grow.
Tiny clusters pushed out from the road like wild grass made of glass. They spread across stones, walls, signs, fences, and windows. The growth was silent at first, then became faintly audible, a soft cracking sound moving through the town like countless bones adjusting at once.
The crystals climbed buildings.
They crawled over plants.
They covered abandoned cars, telephone poles, rooftops, and streetlights.
Animals caught beneath the black rain froze as crystal formed over their bodies. Trees became glittering skeletons. Windows filled from the edges inward. The pavement split as dark crystal roots forced themselves through it and spread beneath the surface.
Then the crystals reached the people.
Those who had come out to watch the burning school did not understand what was happening until it was already too late. Black dust touched their skin, their clothes, their hair, their eyes. Crystal formed across their hands first, then their arms, then their throats. Screams began, but they did not last long.
The crystals did not merely cover them.
They claimed them.
Homes sealed shut. Rooms filled from the corners. Basements, drains, hidden crawlspaces, and underground pipes were swallowed as well. There was no safe place, no direction to run, and no shelter thick enough to keep the black rain out.
Yomiyama City disappeared piece by piece beneath a growing forest of semi-transparent black crystal.
The pace was impossible.
Within minutes, streets could no longer be recognized.
Within moments after that, buildings became vague shapes trapped beneath dark glass.
Soon, even the fire at Yomiyama North Middle School was swallowed, its flames caught and preserved inside crystal like insects sealed in amber. The smoke stopped rising. The sirens died. The screams vanished.
The entire city became quiet.
Completely quiet.
In the broken glass, the woman watched without any change in expression. The rhombus in her eyes glowed faintly as she observed the result, not with cruelty, not with joy, but with the calm satisfaction of a researcher confirming that the specimen had been properly contained.
When the last part of Yomiyama City was crystallized, she lowered her pen.
The black rain stopped.
The clouds remained for a moment longer, then slowly thinned above the crystal-covered town.
The woman turned away from the reflection.
Her figure faded from the broken glass.
And then she left, following the path Kaelthorn had taken.
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*To be continued…
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