Chapter 2 – Truth

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How easy would my life be had I not known anything?

How happy would I be if only I had stayed ignorant?

There are some things in the world that we’re better off not knowing.

But nothing in the world is simply not worth knowing.

No matter how painful that knowledge may be.

No matter how unhappy that knowledge will make you.

We had no choice but to know.

But only after I learned the truth did I realize.

That I was trying to convince myself.

To believe that I was glad to have learned the truth.

But deep inside, I couldn’t help but feel…

That ignorance truly was bliss.

◆

I still remember that day.

A man visited my shop telling me he wanted eyes.

His child had lost hers in an accident and he wanted artificial eyes that could see just as well as real ones.

So I gave him what he wanted.

It wasn’t that I chose the Relic to give him.

The Relic chose its owner—it chose him.

He had accepted them with tears of joy.

Grasping at straws as he was, he didn’t think it was the least bit suspicious.

His mental state was so frayed that he had lost all capacity to doubt.

Perhaps unconsciously he feared that doubt would cause the miracle before his eyes to disappear.

He accepted the Relic with no hesitation.

“However, you must be careful. This Relic will cause its user to see things that are better left unseen.”

But my warning didn’t seem to have made it to the man’s ears.

It was like that with everyone.

They were so focused on getting their wish granted that they never considered the misfortune that was soon to follow. 

But now that the Relic had chosen him, there was nothing that I could do.

My role was to give Relics to those who had been chosen.

How a Relic was used depended on its owner.

And as for the consequences of using the Relic…that too, depended on to its owner.

◆

This didn’t make any sense.

I had opened the door to the small shop at the end of the alley.

The path her was familiar. The shop was one I knew well.

I hadn’t made a mistake.

This was the same place.

The inside of the shop looked the same too.

But there were still some differences.

The products were different.

The atmosphere was different.

The person who greeted was different.

And more than anything—

This wasn’t Tsukumodo Antique Shop.

But I definitely hadn’t heard her wrong.

I heard her welcome me to Tsukumodo Antique Shop.

“Who are…”

I turned once again to stare at the woman in front of me.

Her long hair reached down to the floor, and unlike a certain someone, it was tied up in a ponytail. The dress she wore was the complete opposite of hers as well. Her gloomy expression was of course different from the determined and confident one that I knew. She was about the same height as her though.

But the atmosphere around this woman was totally different. Unlike her, who you’d never forget if you ever met her, the woman in front of me was like a mist in many ways.

Why was I comparing this woman to Towako-san? They were totally different people…

“I suppose I should say pleased to meet you—Kurusu Tokiya.”

She greeted me by name.

As if to show that she knew who I was.

I searched through my memory.

She was acting like we knew each other.

I didn’t remember her at all.

At least…I was pretty sure I didn’t

My memories were like a fog; nothing clear was coming to mind.

I had a feeling that I knew her, and also a feeling that I didn’t.

“…Have we met before?”

“You could say we have. You could also say we haven’t.”

Her vague response didn’t sound like she was messing with me.

“I’ve…been here before?”

That was the feeling I was getting.

“Yes”, she nodded.

But no way I could believe that.

I didn’t remember anything about this place.

There was a vague sense of familiarity, but no memories.

But I couldn’t rid myself of this feeling.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had been here before.

“It’s only natural, I suppose. The reality that you were once here, and the reality that you once met me no longer exists.”

“…No longer exists? What does that mean?”

She didn’t seem to be lying.

Nor did she seem to be making fun of me.

“Who on earth are…”

“My name is Kuon Sekka.”

I has absolutely no memory of anyone named Kuon Sekka, but what she said next shocked me to the core.

“I am the owner of Tsukumodo Antique Shop.”

“Tsukumodo…?”

I knew it. I hadn’t taken the wrong path.

But why was she here instead of Towako-san?

“I’d prefer if you didn’t stare so much.”

“Oh, s-sorry. That was rude of me.”

“That’s not what I mean. It’s because your eye is quite polluted.”

“Huh?”

“Your right eye, I mean. It seems to have absorbed a lot of curses.”

I reflexively put my hand over my eye. Did she know this was Vision somehow? No, I didn’t have to question it, she did know. But what did she mean by “polluted”?

“I believe it would be best to take it out for now. I’d feel safer that way too…”

“… Alright.”

I didn’t really get what she was talking about, but I took out my artificial right eye anyway and set it on the table. Having Vision on me wasn’t necessary right now, and more importantly, I wanted to keep talking to her.

“…Where is Towako-san?”

I was getting the impression that she knew where Towako-san was.

And if I could get in touch with her, maybe she could explain what the hell was going on.

“Towako is in Tsukumodo Antique shop.”

She said her name in a familiar way. Did that mean she did know her after all?

“Yes. Towako is something of an old friend of mine.”

She answered my question even though I never even voiced it aloud.

“You’re saying she’s in Tsukumodo Antique Shop?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then what is this place?”

Not where.

I found myself asking what this place was.

It wasn’t intentional, but that’s what I really wanted to know.

I just didn’t understand what this place was.

“This is Tsukumodo Antique shop. Not Towako’s, but mine. But unlike her, I haven’t hired any employees.”

I’ve heard of sister shops before.

Was she saying that’s what this was?

But that wasn’t my main issue.

The problem was why the shop was here.

The door I opened belonged to the shop that Saki and I worked at, the one where Towako-san was.

“This shop is only open to those who seek Relics. It is a place where for only those that Relics have chosen.”

“That…Relics have chosen?”

“That’s right. I’m talking about true Relics”

“True…relics?” All I could do was repeat what she said.

Kuon Sekka continued, “There are two Tsukumodo Antique Shops. One real, and one fake. I am the owner of the real one, and Towako is the owner of the fake. In some ways they are the same place; in some ways they aren’t.

“There is only one entrance, but the shop a person enters depends on them and on the Relic.”

A special shop—

“People naturally seek out Relics, but just because they do doesn’t mean they can get them. They must be chosen by the Relic first. Only those who have been chosen can enter my shop—all others are sent to Towako.

A special power—

There were two shops, but only one entrance. The chose its customers and divided them based on whether they had been chosen by a Relic.

It was almost as if…

“Tsukumodo Antique Shop is itself a Relic that has the power to admit only to those who have been chosen by Relics.”

Disbelief and acceptance both hit me at the same time.

Acceptance because a seed of doubt had begun to sprout within me as I listened to her talk. But honestly I just couldn’t hide my surprise. How could the entire store be a relic?

Seeing that I was at a loss for words, Sekka-san stared straight at me.

“So tell me,” she quietly asked. “—What is it that you seek?”

Suddenly, a painful noise rushed through the back of my head—

I’m opening the door of a small shop at the end of an alley.

Inside the shop, I see blonde, blue-eyed dolls, compasses without maps, chipped ceramic tableware, and a jar with its lid tightly sealed with a cord. A large antique clock displays both the time and the date. A dresser with four mirrors is crammed in between everything else.

And there, surrounded by all these strange old items, is a single woman.

Her hair, long and black. Her smile listless.

Something flickers at the edge of my vision.

I look down.

It’s a person.

No, I’m holding this person in my arms.

Who is this?

Who am I holding?

My lower my gaze further down.

—-!

With the pallid complexion of someone on the edge of death, in my arms is…

Snapping back to reality.

What was that just now?

What did I just see?

Was it the future?

Given the static noise that rushed through my head and the images that cut into my vision, it could only be one thing.

Vision was showing me the future.

“It happened again…”

I was seeing impossible futures again.

When did this start happening?

When did Vision start acting so strange?

It must have been from back then. Visionstarted acting weird after the time Asuka trailed and attacked me and Saki.

I saw futures that never happened, futures that had nothing to do with me, and futures that played out differently from what I had seen.

Now it was happening again.

Vision showed me entering this shop just now.

But that was in the past.

The date was today, but the time was one hour ago.

I knew that from antique clock I saw inside the vision. That’s how I knew that what I saw wasn’t the future, but the past.

More than anything else though, was the fact that  I was alone right now.

But in the vision, I had her with me.

And not just that…

I shook my head in denial.

What on earth was going on with Vision…?

“There’s nothing wrong with Vision.”

“Huh?”

Sekka-san answered my unspoken confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said. There’s nothing wrong with Vision, because unlike machines, Relics never break down or degrade.

“But I just…”

I didn’t think she was lying, but that didn’t mean I was just going to blindly accept everything she said.

Was I really understanding what she meant?

“Would you like to know?” Sekka-san suddenly asked me.

Asking if I wanted to know…

I couldn’t even ask her what I was supposed to know.

She probably knew everything.

The things I didn’t know, and everything I didn’t know I wanted to know. All of it.

I could always ignore her and leave.

But my own heart wasn’t going to let me.

“Why don’t you take a seat?” She gestured to a chair.

Although I had been anxious to know how Towako-san was,  I couldn’t find a shred of resistance in me and followed her instructions.

“I’m sure you won’t believe me right away, so why don’t we have a little chat first?”

She started with that and brought out a pack of cards. Then, with a practiced hand, she shuffled the cards and placed them in front of me face down.

“Don’t worry. These are ordinary cards, not Relics. Take one please.”

I did as she said and took a card.

“Turn it over.”

I flipped the card over and saw that it had an illustration on the front.

The illustration was of two plain wooden dolls—the Switching Dolls.

“You’ve run into this Relic before, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me about the experience?”

“My…experience?”

I didn’t really get what she was trying to do, but I went through my memories anyway and told her about what had happened that day.

“Saki and I went to a concert hall together, and that’s where we found out that one of the performers had these Switching Dolls. She used them to steal her sister’s singing ability. She was under the impression that the doll stole her sister’s voice at the beginning, but…”

Suddenly, a painful noise rushed through the back of my head—

A girl is standing on the stage, Maria.

Her solo is over. The audience applauds.

Maria’s mother comes on stage.

She looks proud, as if this was her own achievement.

Suddenly.

The lights on the stage go out all at once.

This is not an act.

This is not a power outage.

The emergency lighting shines over the stage like a spotlight

And on the stage…

A heavy stage light has fallen, crushing the people below

“——!”

What…was that? Vision just showed me something—the exact same scene saw at the concert hall that day.

But why was it showing me an event from the past?

“Did you see something?”

“Wha-!?”

She knew l that I saw something?

“I’d like for you to tell me about it.”

I told her about the vision I just saw.

“Take the next card.”

After I finished talking and simply asked me to continue without comment.

“Huh? Oh, Okay…” I picked up another card like she asked.

This time it was an illustration of an expressionless mask—Masquerade.

“Tell me about your experience with this Relic.”

“This one belonged to a classmate of mine. He hated himself and used this mask to switch places with another person.”

Suddenly, a painful noise rushed through the back of my head—

Kishitani is standing there, hands covering his face.

I can’t see his face clearly, but from the parts peeking out from between his fingers I know this is him.

He slowly removes his hands from his face and it begins to peel away like special effects makeup.

There’s a mask in his hands.

My eyes move from the mask to Kishitani.

His face under the mask looks almost like an unfinished doll…no, I should be more specific. His face looks like it belongs to a corpse, entirely without expression.

“——!”

It happened again. Why was Vision showing me these things? Why did it keep bringing up the past?

“What did you see this time?”

I told her about the vision I saw.

She listened without comment, and once again had me turn over another card and had me talk about my experience with the Relic illustrated on the front.

I told her about the story of the puppets who had their lives upturned by Wind-Up Key and String, and also told her about how Saki had gotten possessed.

I told her about Spectacles, which allowed one to see what the eyes of others had seen, and about the fortune teller who met her death.

I told her about Mind’s Voice, which allowed one to listen to the innermost thoughts of others, and about the gambler that used it.

I told her about Chest, which perfectly preserved anything stored inside, and about the old woman that used it to hide a child.

I told her about Light, which increased one’s presence, and Shadow, which decreased it, and about my teacher and former classmate who had used them.

I told her about the composer who used the Mirror of Serenity to create a perfect silence and so failed to hear someone dear to him crying for help.

I also told her about Statue and Notebook along with other Relics I had encountered in the past.

And each time, a painful noise would rush through the back of my head and I’d see the same Vision as when I first encountered the Relic.

I wasn’t even given time to ask why this was happening. All I could do was follow her instructions like some kind of hypnotized doll.

Until finally there were only three cards left on the table.

The one I picked up next was the lucky Fortune bangles.

“One bangle stole luck from others, and the other blessed you with even more luck if you shared your own fortune. The girl with the first bangle used it for her own happiness…well, until those two showed up on the scene and used Otodama to shatter the glass ceiling.

Suddenly, a painful noise rushed through the back of my head—

We’re in the gym, but I quickly turn my gaze upwards.

I can see something glittering in the air.

A few seconds later I realize those are shards of glass from the broken ceiling.

In those few seconds, those glittering crystalline shards have turned into deadly. weapons

The falling glass dyes my vision red.

“The two sisters with the Fortune bangles escaped unscathed, but the rest of the students were heavily injured by the glass.”

I told her about what Vision showed me and about how that incident ended.

“Next one.”

I obediently picked up another card.

The Relic this time was Censer.

“This one belonged to a girl a year below me at school. Her boyfriend died an in accident and she used the Relic to meet him in her dreams. In the end though, she couldn’t leave the dream behind. I tried to help her…but there was nothing I could do.

Suddenly, a painful noise rushed through the back of my head—

I’m in a cold and sterile room.

Nanase is sleeping on her bed.

At least, it looks like she’s sleeping.

Nothing seems particularly strange.

It’s not clear what has led to this scene.

I see Nanase lying quietly on the bed and nothing else.

Quietly, ever so quietly, almost as if she were a painting—

—She met her death

Suddenly, a painful noise rushed through the back of my head—

The traffic lights starts to flash.

A car is coming straight toward us.

I get on the crosswalk after Saki. She is a few steps ahead of me.

The car is still headed towards us.

The light is red, but the driver keeps going.

The driver isn’t going to stop.

They’re not even going to slow down.

The car comes crashing into the sidewalk.

Right where Saki is.

Right in the middle of the crosswalk where she stands.

All she did was cross the road when the light turned green like countless pedestrians do every day.

—Her body is thrown into the air like a ragdoll.

“Tell me what you saw just now.”

I told her about Nanase’s quiet death in the hospital room and the vision of Saki in the traffic accident that I had been once been forced to see.

But why did I see that one? I knew for sure that was…

“Next”

I was starting to have some doubts, but Sekka-san wasn’t giving me any time to think. She simply pointed to the next card. 

I picked up the final card.

This one was Pendolo, the pendulum that allowed one to call forth coincidences.

“This belonged to a girl named Mineyama. She…”

A few seconds of silence passed.

My memories weren’t coming to me right away.

It was almost like there had been some kind of breakdown. I was at a total loss for words.

“She…”

“She what?”

“She was a girl, but she liked Saki, and…”

“And what?”

“…And she started making moves on her. That made Saki uncomfortable so she had me pretend to be her boyfriend to get Mineyama to give up. That’s when Mineyama started to use Pendolo to create coincidences and cause me all sorts of problems. She was hoping Saki would see how uncool I was and lose interest in me.

Yeah, she never beyond harmless pranks.

She made me trip over my shoelaces, drop my coins when I was buying a ticket, flip my plate over when I was getting food…just…those kind of harmless…pranks

“Nothing more?”

“That’s it…yes.”

That was all. That should have been everything.

“You remembered something else too, didn’t you?”

“Wha-!?”

“Tell me about that.”

My memory had actually been disrupted for a moment earlier.

Two sets of memories had popped into my head at the same time for some reason.

The first was the one I had talked about just now.

The second one…was completely different.

In that memory, Mineyama tried to used Pendolo at a construction site to collapse steel beams and kill me.

But that didn’t happen in reality.

Because in that memory, Pendolo had also been destroyed.

But as the fact that Towako-san showed up with Pendolo in the fight with Shun proved, it wasn’t broken at all. Not even Towako-san had the ability to repair a broken Relic.

My bet was that I was remembering this because I had seen it with Vision. The things I had seen with Vision were just getting mixed up with my actual memories.

—Actually, I also tried to use my Relic to kill you.

Mineyama’s words suddenly came back to me. But she had only been saying that because she didn’t do it. And also—

Suddenly, a painful noise rushed through the back of my head—

It was Vision again, but this time…

I saw myself bump into someone and fall off the pedestrian bridge.

I saw a giant block of concrete fall from above and crush me.

I saw a truck careening towards me after its tire exploded.

I saw that same truck explode a minute later.

…Something was wrong. This was making no sense.

Why was Vision showing me all this?

None of these visions had anything to do with Mineyama.

I saw all of these when Asuka attacked me earlier today.

All of them—the bridge, the concrete block, the truck—were from today.

So why was I seeing them now?

And why did I see Mineyama as well?

Was Vision really broken after all?

“I’ll say again. There is nothing wrong with Vision. It’s not the least bit broken.”

“Then why…!?”

“I’ll tell you why.” She looked at my right eye where it had been placed and poke clearly, “What you’re seeing aren’t glimpses into the future shown by Vision.”

“…Huh?”

I couldn’t believe my ears.

What…did she say just now?

Was she saying that the things I seeing weren’t futures shown by Vision?

“Vision has the power to show the future, but not all of the future. What is it limited to?”

“Futures of death.”

“That’s right. Now, were all the visions you saw like that?”

“They were. Just like I was telling you earlier.”

“Yes, and that’s why I’m asking. Let’s take Fortune for example. A good number of people were injured in that incident, right?”

“Yes.”

“There were only injuries, yet Vision showed you the future?”

“That’s because I…”

Was it because I did something?

I had the power to take action and change the future after I saw a vision of the future.

But protecting Saki was taking everything I had at the time, so I hadn’t tried to help the other students. Still, there had been no deaths.

Even though I hadn’t done anything to change the future.

“Let’s take Masquerade for example. You saw that boy’s future after he became someone else, right? Was that a future of death?”

“To kill one’s self and become another person is a kind of death, right?”

“Can you really say that boy truly died?”

“Well…”

She wasn’t wrong. That probably couldn’t be considered a “true” death. But if Vision showed me his future, didn’t that alone mean it counted as a death?

“Let’s take Censer for example. Your underclassman is stuck in her dream, but she’s still in the hospital receiving plenty of medical care, right?”

“Yeah, but…”

It was true that she chose to live in the dream and that she was still inside of it. She wasn’t going to wake up, but her body was still alive and well. But still, couldn’t that be considered a kind of death too?

“That’s not all”, said Sekka-san thrusting another truth at me. “Was the fake death that you were forced to see inside the dream also a future of death?”

“That’s…”

I had been feeling that something was off too.

This was the true nature of the doubts I had been having.

The image of Saki’s death that Nanase showed me in the dream was, without a doubt, fake. So why did I see the future with Vision?

Even though it was within the dream.

Even though it wasn’t even real…

“Can you really call that a true death? After all, you were the one who chose to believe it was real, am I wrong?”

“I…did?”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell her she was wrong.

Because I was starting to have my own doubts.

Now that I was looking at them again, cracks were starting to appear in the things that I had once accepted without question.

“One more question. What is your experience like when you see the future with Vision?”

“…A painful noise runs through my head and an image of the future cuts in over my vision.”

“That’s not how Vision works.”

“Huh?”

“The noise only affects your sight. There is no headache when someone uses Vision to see the future.”

True, Vision was a Relic embedded in the eyes.

There was no reason for it to cause a headache.

…But since that was how it worked for me, I accepted it as the truth. I believed it to be the truth.

“Additionally, the scenes of death that Vision shows are always from the perspective of the person who’s dying. Vision allows you to share the dead person’s “eyes” so you see what they see at the time of their death. You will never see their deaths from a third person perspective.”

It was coming back to me.

The many futures I had seen with Vision to date.

I saw that old woman kill me with a rock.

I saw myself die after losing a bet.

I saw that killer murder me.

Those were all futures of my death.

However.

I also saw that young woman get pushed off a building.

I saw the maid desperately claw at the wall as she collapsed while suffering from an illness.

I saw my classmate erase her own existence.

I saw the fortune teller die when the ceiling caved in on her.

I saw my underclassman quietly as she sank further into her dreams.

I saw my old classmate jump off the school rooftop.

I saw a girl, unable to endure heartbreak, throw herself into the river.

I saw students cut up by falling glass shards.

I saw a girl and her mother crushed by a falling stage light at the concert hall.

Those were all other people’s deaths.

And also.

I saw Saki struck with illness.

I saw her sink into darkness as that puppet possessed her.

I saw her die in a traffic accident.

Those were the futures of Saki’s death.

They were all, with the exception of my own deaths, not seen from the perspective of the person dying. It was almost like I had been watching their deaths from a distance…it was like…it was almost entirely like…

“I was seeing the deaths from my perspective…?”

In other words, the only way this would make sense was—

“That’s right. The Relic you own…”

—Was not Vision?

“There’s no way that could be true!”  I denied it immediately.

No, it just wasn’t true. It absolutely could not be true.

That was the only thing I wouldn’t accept.

It didn’t matter how many doubts I had, it didn’t matter how many cracks I was seeing, that was the one thing that I could not accept.

Because Towako-san herself had given me Vision and told me how it worked.

This Relic is called Vision and it shows you deaths that will happen in the future, she said.

She had no reason to lie.

That’s why I knew that Vision…I knew…

“I knew….?”

That was when I finally realized. I remembered.

“That’s right. If the Relic you possess truly is Vision, then there’s a lot that becomes hard to explain.”

…That’s right. It was strange. Nothing made any sense like this.

“Why are you still able to see visions of the future?”

I suddenly raised my hand to my face.

My fingers touched my now empty eye socket.

She was right. I shouldn’t have been able to see the future at all.

Of course I shouldn’t. I didn’t even have Vision on right now.

“…Then what were all the visions that I had been seeing up to now?” I managed to choke out the question somehow.

The reality that I had accepted so easily, that I had believed so naturally, had collapsed.

It felt like the ground beneath me was crumbling and I was on the verge of falling apart.

“It looks like preparations are complete.”

Sekka-san nodded as if she had been waiting for this moment,

“…Preparations?”

“You’re having doubts now. The beliefs that you had up until now have been shattered. It was possible that what I’m about to do would have been meaningless if you continued not having any doubts.”

She placed a large, dark colored earthenware jar in front of me. It was shut tight with its lid sealed tightly with a cord.

It went without saying that this jar was a Relic.

“This is…”

Startled, I suddenly moved to stop her from opening the jar.

“Don’t open that! You can’t. It’s dangerous. There’s a calamity sealed inside the jar. If you open it…”

Then I came back to my senses.

…Why was I still able to remember the Calamity Jar? I was almost certain that I had been forced to forget everything and leave my memories inside the jar.

“That’s right. This Relic is the Calamity Jar, but that wasn’t always the case.”

She quietly corrected me and took my hand off of the lid.

“People are forgetful creatures. Where do you think forgotten memories go?”

“What do you mean?”I had no answer to her sudden question.

“The events that we cause, our thoughts, our pasts…these all things that actually exist. Even if we forget them, it isn’t as if they cease to exist. Memories are the same. Even if you can’t remember them, they still exist. All memories are kept in another world known as the Sea of Memories.”

“……………”

“This Relic was originally called the Oblivion Jar. The inside of the jar is connected to the Sea of Memories. Its function is to allow people to take the memories they don’t need, or don’t want revealed, or want to forget, and leave them in the Sea of Memories.

“However, people used it incorrectly and left things besides memories into the jar. What happened though, was that those thrown into the jar used its power to steal sealed memories. The power of the jar itself never actually changed.”

It seemed she wanted to explain why it came to be known as the Calamity Jar.

“But time passed, and thanks to the efforts of one priestess, the ones trapped in the jar were purified. It is thanks to her that we are now able to use the Oblivion Jar.”

“What are you planning to throw away?”

“…I’m not throwing anything away. I’m getting something back.”

“Getting something back?”

“If one can store things in the jar, then one can also take things out. More than anything, the fact that you were able to come here means that the Oblivion Jar has chosen you. It means the time has come for you to know.”

“…What is it that I need to know?”

“Everything. What happened to you, and what happened to her as well.”

—Along with all of the things that you have forgotten.

Instinctively my hand reached out to the jar.

“Anyone who opens this jar will be able to see the memories they have forgotten. However, there are some things you would be better off not knowing. This jar contains a lot of painful memories for you.”

Please forget the truth that you learned—

The moment the thought came to me, I pulled my hand back like I had touched something hot.

The priestess’s words were overlapping with Sekka-san’s.

That priestess had summoned darkness by knowing the truth, and it was possible that I was attempting to do the exact same thing.

It was possible that what I was about to get involved in was a taboo.

Seeing my doubt, Sekka-san spoke up.

“All I can do is give. You are the one who chooses.”

If Towako-san had been here, I was sure she’d have stopped me. She didn’t approve of anyone using Relics. All they brought was misfortune, after all.

But I needed to know the truth sealed in here.

I just had to know. Something inside me was insisting on it.

What had happened to me, Towako-san, Sekka-san, and Saki?

The answer was hidden in my forgotten memories.

Sekka-san had said that there was so much that I didn’t know. She said that I had forgotten.

What was it that I had accepted and believed? And what was it that I had forgotten?

This Relic had the answers I needed.

I wasn’t going to pull my hand back from the jar again.

There was no turning back now.

And so, like the priestess who had once faced a hidden truth, I opened the lid.

The lid to the once forbidden Oblivion Jar—

◆

I still remember that day.

The day he first arrived here.

Half his face was covered in blood, the other half covered in tears. He looked up at me and begged.

Please save her, he said.

I knew of one Relic that could grant his wish.

But I didn’t think it was realistic.

Relics choose their owners.

I no reason to believe that Relic would ever again choose another owner.

But still, he had come to this shop.

That’s why I thought it was another Relic that had chosen him.

But I had been wrong.

That Relic did choose him.

And once a Relic chose its owner, I had to hand it over.

Even it led to misery; even if it led to death.

That was the reason for my existence.

The name of the Relic that chose him was Phantom.

Let us start from there.

The story of the truth that he had forgotten…the truth had been hidden inside him.

◆

There was once a girl who wished to die.

Then that girl said that she didn’t want to die as much anymore.

But a killer that trampled on that dream.

He took my right eye and then tried to take the girl’s life.

There, the wounded girl said at the very end.

“…I don’t want to die”

She had once said that there was nothing she liked.

She had once said that no one would miss her.

She had once said that there was no point in protecting her.

She had once said that everyone wanted her dead.

She had once said that she had nothing.

In her deep despair, she had wished for death.

But at the very end, she said she didn’t want to die.

The same girl who had once wished for death said she didn’t want to die.

That’s why.

I wanted to grant her wish.

I wanted to help her.

I ran away from the killer holding her in my arms. I ran looking desperately for help.

My phone had gotten lost somewhere during the fight.

That’s why I was looking for someone to help. Why then, did I run deeper into the alley, I don’t know.

I didn’t have the luxury to think about that.

The only thing in my head was to find a way to save this girl in my arms whose life was fading fast.

The place I finally ended up at was a small shop at the end of the alley.

The door to the shop was open, as if it were inviting me in.

There was a woman standing in the shop.

“Please save her!”, I begged.

Half my face was covered in tears, the other half was covered in blood. I looked up at the woman and begged.

“Call an ambulance!”

I implored the woman in front of me.

But all she did was quietly shake her head.

What that was supposed to mean?

Not understanding, I looked at the girl in my arms.

Her face was as expressionless as a doll.

I was too late. That’s what this woman, and this girl’s expression was telling me.

“…That’s not true. She’s just expressionless in general, so she’s still…”

As if to refute the words coming out of my mouth, her arms fell down powerlessly.

She didn’t move. She didn’t show any response.

I didn’t make it in time. The strength left my legs and I sank down to the floor.

I wasn’t able to save her. That truth stained deep into my chest like poison.

“…What is it that you seek?”, the woman suddenly asked.

Under ordinary circumstances, I would have gotten angry that that was what she had to say in this situation, but I had regained control of myself.

What I seek? What did I come here looking for?

What else?

I was looking for a way to save her.

I ran into this shop looking for a way to save her life.

But it was already too…

Suddenly my eyes fell to a certain object.

It was a “needle”.

A rust colored red needle with a pointed tip. The other side was rounded and had a hole in the middle. This needle looked a lot like a clock hand.

“Phantom.”

“Huh?”

“Phantom is the name of that Relic.”

“Relic?”

“To be clear, I don’t mean articles of fine art or antiques. They’re magic tools created by powerful magicians and mighty ancients, or objects that gained power after long exposure to their owner’s grudges and natural spiritual power—many “cursed items’ are often times, in fact, Relics.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of them before. For example: a stone that brings good luck, a doll whose hair grows night after night, a mirror that shows you how you’ll look in the future…?”

As she explained, she took the Relic that she had called “Phantom”—the one that looked like a large clock hand—and handed it to me.

“What is this?”

In response to my question, she said:

A clock hand to turn back the world—

“By using this, you will return to a certain point in time, and everything that had happened will become an illusion. However, everything that happened will be forgotten, and no one will realize that the word has been turned back. That’s why in most cases, people will take the same actions, make the same choices, and arrive at the same results.

“That said, if one takes a different set of actions, their life will be able to go in a different direction. Not that the person themselves, or anyone else for that matter, will know.”

This sounded like some sort of fantasy.

Not one part of it was believable.

But I still asked.

“…How do you use it?”

As if she had predicted that I would ask, the woman answered without an ounce of hesitation.

“Plunge Phantom into her chest and take her life. With that, you will become the owner of Phantom, and her life will become the trigger to turn back the world. Then, any time she dies, you will be presented with the choice to turn back the world. In cases where you are already dead, the world will automatically turn back when Saki dies.

“However, a person can only become a trigger to turn back time only once. In other words, until you choose to let go of Phantom, she will continue to be the trigger that turns back the world.

“—You will become fully responsible for her life.”

It was like she was testing my resolve.

I looked at the girl in my arms.

The girl who could no longer move. Her life was almost extinguished and there was no longer any way to save her.

But if I used this Phantom needle, she could have a chance to redo everything.

Responsibility for her life.

I probably wasn’t understanding the weight and the meaning of that responsibility.

But I still didn’t hesitate.

I wanted to save her no matter what.

“…Yeah I’ll do it. I’ll take that responsibility.”

“I understand. However, I’d like for you to be careful. Fate will not abide distortions. It will have its vengeance.”

“…Fate?”

“That’s right. Fate is predetermined in the world. It is by all accounts absolute. People can change that predetermined fate, but fate will not forgive it, and retribution is sure to follow. If man uses an overwhelming power to change fate, then the retribution will be just as overwhelming. That retribution…that sin…is much bigger than you think.”

I looked down at the girl in my arms.

The girl who said she wanted to die.

The girl who said she didn’t want to die as much.

The girl who wished for life.

I didn’t know myself why I was going so far for her.

But the fact was that I had met her.

And when she said she wanted to die, I got upset.

And when she said she didn’t want to die as much, I was overjoyed.

When she said she didn’t want to die, I felt bitter.

And when I realized that she was going to die, I was heartbroken.

I wanted to help her.

I didn’t want to brush this aside as fate.

If fate meant that she was going to die like this, then of course I was going to change it.

I wanted to give her another chance to live.

I wanted her to live again—to live a happy life this time where she wouldn’t want to die.

That’s why.

I plunged Phantom into her chest.

—Do you want to turn back the world?

I heard a voice from somewhere ask.

I had let go of my hesitation long ago.

I replied to that voice and chose to turn back the world.

And so the world turned back.

Without anyone realizing.

As if nothing at all had happened.

Back to the day I first met her.

And so began the story of a world gone mad.

◆

“If I could alter fate, I would.”

Everyone’s had thoughts like that before.

But we all live frantically within the bounds of fate, with nothing ever changing.

No doubt he also lived the same way.

Until he obtained a certain power, that is.

But he did obtain it—

—an item known as a “Relic” that had the power to alter fate.

And alter it he did.

He altered the immutable force that was fate.

But who could blame him?

If fate could be altered…

If unpleasant fates could be changed…

Anyone would have made the same choice.

But fate would not forgive him—it would not forgive them.

Never would it forgive.

And so fate took its retribution.

Retribution against the boy and the girl that had dared to distort it.

◆

The second world.

The Oblivion Jar showed me my own actions after the world turned back for the first time. It was like I was an observer to my own life.

Since my memories were erased, I did all the same things as before without realizing the truth.

I woke up in the morning, went to school, and attended classes. After school I worked hard at my part time job handing out tissues.

Then I met her.

And she told me I was going to be attacked by a killer.

That was the first small difference.

The world was starting to change.

When I made plans to get away from her, she said that she would protect me.

We went to the tea shop and then to the arcade.

I looked her straight in the eye and uncharacteristically said I hoped we could meet again.

She didn’t say that she wanted to die this time.

But the incident still happened.

I saw Shinjou collapsed on the floor, covered in blood.

She told me to stay with Shinjou and ran off somewhere else. She was going after the killer.

I chased after her and and lost my right eye.

Then Towako-san appeared.

She drove the killer away.

I had lose my right eye, but Saki at least had remained alive this time.

The world had changed.

Fate had changed.

With her new chance at life, Saki really had avoided her fate of death.

Turning back the world had been worth it.

This was the world I had wished for.

Those were my true thoughts as I watched this second world.

However…

Not everything went as I hoped…it was too early to breathe a sigh of relief.

When the killer appeared again before Saki, he…

It was true that the world had changed.

But the ending was all the same.

And so the world turned back again.

I chose to have Phantom turne back the world.

All according to my wishes.

In order make sure Saki’s death never happened.

◆

People are forgetful creatures.

That’s why memories fade.

Even if they were important.

Even if they left a deep impression.

Even if they were never supposed to be forgotten.

Eventually people will forget.

But people revise their memories.

Consciously, or perhaps unconsciously.

That’s why memories of the past are what they are.

They mix with other memories, get tinted by our own impressions, and slowly get painted over.

For example, this is why two people could have different memories about how they met.

It makes sense, doesn’t it?

After all, their first meeting happened exactly once.

That is an unchanging fact.

But if two people have differing memories about how they met.

…It means they must have misremembered something

It’s nothing more than trivial differences in memory.

But in his case, it was different.

Their first meeting hadn’t happened just once.

That’s why if perhaps memories of their first meeting differed…

It was simply a difference in the truth.

Trivial differences in the truth.

A difference of which ‘first meeting’ they remembered.

◆

The world turned back.

Without anyone realizing.

As if nothing at all had happened.

The morning of the day I met her—

I woke up as usual, went to school as usual, worked hard at my job passing out tissues as usual.

Since my memories were erased, I did all the same things as before without realizing the truth.

I met her,

I met the killer,

I lose my right eye,

and then Towako-san appeared.

She drove the killer away,

But when the killer appeared again, he—

And so the world turned back again.

Phantom obeyed my choice again and turned back the world.

Just as I had wished it.

In order to make it as though Saki’s death never happened.

◆

I didn’t want to get involved, but Towako went behind my back anyway and tried to change the future.

She employed the two at Tsukumodo Antique Shop and tried to protect them.

But the future did not change.

Even if the particular events were different, the end result was not.

Maino Saki died, and Kurusu Tokiya used Phantom to turn back time.

That’s all there was to it. They repeated this cycle over and over.

Without anyone realizing.

The world was turning back with regularity.

As the wheels of madness continued to turn.

◆

The third time, the fourth time, the fifth time…

I lost track of the countless worlds.

I saw all sorts of futures.

And met with all sorts of incidents.

There was a time that Saki was met with an unknown illness.

There was a time where she burned to death along with the fortune teller.

There was I time I was separated from her forever inside the Jar.

There was the time she was swallowed up by the mysterious darkness.

There was the time she lost her life in the traffic accident.

Not just that.

There was a time I lost my life in an accident.

There was the time my life was cut short when I lost a bet.

And between all of this, I met a lot of people.

A middle school girl burdened with her worries.

An engaged couple.

A composer and the woman who took care of him.

A boy who wanted to get rid of himself and become someone else.

An old woman who hid a child inside a chest.

A doll that entrusted it’s memories within String and Wind-Up Key.

A girl who couldn’t overcome the death of her boyfriend.

A student worried about her lack of presence, and the teacher that caused her to lose her precious existence.

A girl who, unable to endure heartbreak, threw herself into a river.

Students from another school who got caught up in an incident and were heavily injured by falling glass.

A girl who hurt her mother to carve her own path in life.

With every loop, there were some people I met, and some that I did not meet.

And with the people I did know, there were events that I did know about and events that I did not know.

The Oblivion Jar showed me that the futures of death that made me think Vision was broken were actually real memories.

My thoughts were in utter disarray.

Were the memories inside my head the things the current “me” experienced? Or were these memories from a previous “me” in a previous iterations. I had no way to confirm one way or another.

What was the truth? I couldn’t tell anymore.  

Suddenly, a painful noise rushed through the back of my head—

That’s when I realized.

The reason why I was able to see futures of death even without Vision.

It was because what I had thought was the future was actually the past that I was revisiting with Phantom.

Whenever I encountered a similar scene, the memories still buried deep in my mind came back up.

The painful noise in my head was because the memories that should have been erased by Phantom were being dragged out of the deep recesses of my mind—the place Sekka-san called the Sea of Memories.

That’s why I was able to see the future without Vision.

That’s why I sometimes saw futures that weren’t always accurate.

That’s why the visions always felt so real.

That’s when I understood.

The reason Saki’s death in a vision caused my heart to ache.

The reason Saki’s death in a vision pained me.

The reason Saki’s death in a vision terrified me.

Because I had experienced all of it before.

It was neither premonition nor foresight, but actual reality.

My heart had understood that it was reality.

That’s why it pained, it ached, it feared.

◆

Phantom does not leave memories behind.

All memories sink deep into the depths of the Sea of Memories when it turns the world back,.

However, the paths walked were not a lie.

It cannot entirely undo everything.

Those memories become faint remains and leave traces in our minds.

Sometimes these memories are suddenly recalled due to some trigger.

But people use déjà vu, a sense of foreboding, precognition, memories of a past life, and similar phrases to explain it away.

It’s not that different from people who convince themselves the Relics they encounter are fake, and that Relic phenomena are simple coincidences.

That’s why no one realizes.

No one realizes that the world is turning back.

No one except a handful of people.

◆

And so the world turned back again.

Time after time after time.

Without anyone realizing.

As if nothing at all was wrong.

The morning of the day I met her—

I went to school as always, and worked hard at my job passing out tissues.

Since my memories were erased, I did all the same things as before without realizing the truth.  

Then I met her.

I met the killer.

I lost my right eye.

But at the very end, she said this:

She said that we couldn’t change anything.

Could it be that she had known everything—?

◆

Now he knew.

The various things that he needed to know.

But what he knew now was just the bare minimum.

Nothing more than his past.

One could hardly say he knew everything.

He certainly didn’t know about the hidden truth.

Nor did he know about the thoughts surrounding it.

Nor did he know about what the future would bring.

He didn’t know a single thing.

◆

I could no longer grasp how many times it had been.

But there was one particular scene that stood out to me.

It was a scene of me facing Towako-san.

I had once again failed to protect Saki and she had once again gotten killed.

Towako-san spoke to me.

She asked me to let go of Phantom.

I heard her say this in one of the countless pasts that I had seen.

But I did not oblige her.

Because Phantom was the only way I had of protecting Saki.

To oblige her meant admitting that it was alright for Saki to die.

I wasn’t even going to consider it.

Towako-san should have known that too.

So why—?

“Argh!”

Suddenly, the painful rush through the back of my head became stronger—

That snapped me out of my thoughts, and made me fall out of my chair. My hands and knees were on the ground. My breathing was ragged and my sweat was dripping down onto the floor.

But I wasn’t done yet.

The Oblivion Jar still had a lot to show me.

I hadn’t seen everything yet.

“I seems you’re at your limit.”

But Sekka-san put a stop to that idea and placed the lid back on the Oblivion Jar.

I looked up at her.

“Forcibly taking back your memories puts quite a strain on the mind. This is about the limit for you.”

She seemed to understand that it would be too much for me to try and remember everything.

Meaning she also knew what I had remembered.

“Did you know about all this?”

“Yes.”

“Towako-san too…?”

“Yes.”

“But why…?”

“Because we know about Phantom. We know that the discrepancies in memory that most people would dismiss as déjà vu are Phantom Pains—the traces of memories that Phantom erased. Knowing about these traces means that we can recognize them, and from there we can remember. If you forget that you have forgotten, then it’s impossible to remember. But if you know that you’ve forgotten, then it’s possible to remember. That’s why it’s technically possible for anyone to recognize the phenomenon and remember. That includes you too, of course.”

What she was telling me was important, but it wasn’t what I wanted. What I wanted to know was…

“Why didn’t Towako-san ever tell me?”

If she knew, then why didn’t she ever tell me the truth?

Why did she lie to me and say that my Relic was Vision?

It was almost like she didn’t want me to realize the true nature of the memories, the Phantom Pain.

“I’m not the one who can answer that question for you.”

Sekka-san wasn’t going to answer me.

Because that was for Towako-san to answer.

But I already knew what the answer was.

Because I had seen the truth inside the Oblivion Jar, I knew.

She knew it too.

But even still there was a reason why I had to ask anyway.

“Did Towako-san try to get me…to throw Phantom away?”

“………”

But just as she said herself earlier, Sekka-san wasn’t the one who could tell me.

“Where is she?”

“Tsukumodo Antique Shop. Not this one, of course.”

“I…see.”

For some reason, a stupid thought popped into my head all of a sudden.  

Towako-san had said something to me once before.

—A Relic that could grant all my wishes, or maybe if there was a Relic that could alter the abilities of other Relics, I think I’d like that.

What was her wish?

What could she do with a power strong enough to change Relic phenomena?

I had some idea.

And I knew that she had in fact obtained a power like that.

A Relic that had to power to alter Relics—or more accurately, to alter the phenomena that they produced.

Its name was Grimoire

◆

As the boy left, he took the Relic that he had believed to be Vision and turned to me.

“If this isn’t Vision, then what on earth is it?”, he asked.

The Relic he held was called the Fatima Eye.

It was the opposite of the Evil Eye, the Relic that man had used to transform his bloodlust into a deadly curse.

Fatima Eye absorbed Evil Eye’s poisonous bloodlust and neutralized the curse for its owner. It also had the power to cancel the curse for anyone that fell in sight.

There was also one more power, something like a side effect.

Specifically, when the Fatima Eye absorbed a curse from the Evil eye, it could also turn the curse right back on the person who sent it.  

My explanation seemed to have resolved some of the boy’s lingering doubts. He nodded in understanding and left the shop.  

And with that, my role was over.

His desire had been to know the truth.

The Oblivion Jar chose to show him the truth.

That’s why I gave him the Relic. That was my role.

What he did next was up to him.

Towako wasn’t the only one waiting for the right time.

I had also been waiting.

For the day that this Oblivion Jar would be purified.

What was it I wonder, that caused Towako to obtain Grimoire right at the same time?

Was this yet another trick of fate?

No one knew the answer to that.

Not me, and not Towako-san.

That’s why all I could do was give.

I wasn’t capable of doing anything else.

But if I could have one thing.

If I were allowed just one wish.

I wish Towako…

◆

After I walking out of Tsukumodo Antique Shop, I turned around and went back inside.

A familiar interior. Familiar products. The familiar part-timer and shop owner weren’t there, but this was definitely the Tsukumodo Antique Shop I knew.

Inside the shop, I took a key off the shelf and headed down to the basement.

The basement storeroom was the only place where real Relics were kept in a shop that only ever sold fakes. Towako-san had strictly forbidden us from entering it.

But I unlocked the door and went inside anyway.

There I saw that Grimoire had been casually left on a shelf.

It was just there right next to the other Relics.

Like it wasn’t even important.

Like it wasn’t even what Towako-san had been looking for this whole time.

I wanted to believe that was the message Towako-san was sending.

I took Grimoire and quietly opened it.

The words scrawled across the page were in a boys handwriting.

These were the magic words that Shun has written down.

Moving on from that, I turned the page.

But between the page Shun had used and the next blank page, there were signs that a page had been ripped out.

I looked around and saw a balled up paper on the ground.

I picked up and uncrumpled it.

“……….”

I gulped.

It was familiar handwriting.

I knew for sure it was her handwriting.

But the page had been ripped out.

It was that fact that only barely saved me from what I was seeing.

Clinging to hope, I looked at the paper one more time.

I couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be true. I was still hanging on to the thinnest thread of hope.

For now Towako-san still had a paper-thin amount of hestiation.

But would it turn into resolve?

I picked up another Relic in the storeroom.

This one was a camera that could take pictures through time.

I took Camera and pointed it at Grimoire.

The torn-out page had been her first attempt.

It was proof that she had changed her mind.

I turned the dial.

My hands were shaking.

But still I turned the dial.

To the future.

I took a picture of the blank page.

The shutter whirred, and a blank piece of paper slid out of the camera.

The white paper distorted bit by bit and image was starting to appear.

I waited, praying that it wouldn’t show me anything.

The words on the page were slowly becoming clearer.

I waited, praying that they weren’t the same words.

The ten seconds I waited felt like an eternity.

This picture was going to show the future.

The words that would be written on that page in the future.

They were—

“—What are you doing here?”

I heard a voice from behind me and slowly turned around.

There she was. Towako-san herself.

“I told you before not to come in here, didn’t I?”

A whole mess of words mixed and jumbled in my head.

But I couldn’t the chaos in my mind into words.

“What’s wrong?”

Towako-san was calm, as if nothing were amiss—as if all my thoughts about her were wrong.

The only things spinning in my mind right now were questions for Towako-san.

I wanted to ask.

I wanted to be certain.

I wanted her to deny it.

But I couldn’t.

I was too afraid. I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

Because I had noticed Towako-san’s eyes subtly glancing to see if Grimoire was still there—

“…You didn’t come back to the hospital, so I was wondering if something happened. I thought you might be here.”

The words I managed to sputter out were completely different from the ones spinning in my head.

“I see…sorry about that. I must have been pretty exhausted myself because I was asleep next thing I knew. I didn’t hear the landline ring, and since my cellphone was broken earlier…”

Towako-san answered questions that I hadn’t even asked in quick succession.

“Oh…Okay”

“Did Saki wake up yet?”

“No, not yet. The doctor says she might wake up tomorrow though.”

“I see. Alright then, I’ll bring her a change of clothes and visit tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.”

“You’re tired too, right?” Go home for today.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks for your help earlier.”

I left Tsukumodo Antique Shop feeling like I had to run away.

I ran out of the shop and walked along the night road.

My hand was in my pocket touching the crumpled up photograph.

It was the photo of the future that I had taken with Camera.

The subject of the picture was the blank page in Grimoire.

The picture had been taken while the page was still blank.

I took the picture out of my pocket and opened the now-wrinkled photograph.

I looked at it one more time.

I looked at it again and again, unable to believe it, hoping it wasn’t real.

But the truth wasn’t going to change.

The future I saw in the photograph wasn’t going to change.

I crumpled the photo in in my hand.

The sharp corner drew blood as it cut into my palm.

But the pain in my hand, and the pain in my lips that I had been anxiously chewing couldn’t compare to the pain in my heart.

I raised my hand with the photograph up high, but then powerlessly put it back down.

My eyes were burning now that I knew what Towako-san’s goal was. I wanted to cry.

“Why…?”

Speaking aloud made me want to cry even more.

The words I saw in the photo…

Those were the magic words that were going to be written in Grimoire in the future.

It was written in Towako-san’s own handwriting, the proof of her resolve.

In the photograph were the exact same words in the torn page that had represented her hesitation.

Phantom will not turn back the world when Maino Saki dies.

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