The morning started without any problems.

Takeshi, Ophélia, Aoi, and Nyx left the apartment together. Akari saw them off from the kitchen with a comment about how she’d left fruit in the fridge for when they got back.

On the way to school, Ophélia walked beside him for the first ten minutes. She was quieter than usual. Not in an uncomfortable way, just quiet.

They arrived at school, and the day started normally.

The problem happened during second period.

Takeshi had history class, and Ophélia had another subject in the opposite wing of the building. That was normal, since Ophélia’s schedule differed from his during several blocks.

What wasn’t normal was that when Takeshi went to the bathroom between classes and took four minutes, by the time he returned to the hallway, he couldn’t locate Ophélia anywhere.

’She’s probably in the classroom...’

She wasn’t.

’Maybe in the hallways...’

He couldn’t find her there either.

’I should probably text her...’

She didn’t reply.

Takeshi waited thirty seconds, but before he could send another message, the sky turned red.

He saw it through the hallway window. The color spread from every direction at once, the clouds darkened, and the noise inside the building suddenly dropped.

Then the entity appeared.

Sanity started falling on its own.

Takeshi didn’t wait to see more and searched for the reset button.

He activated it.

[LOADING SAVE POINT]

Takeshi remained seated for a moment with his hands resting on the desk. The classroom noise was normal. Students copying notes, the teacher writing on the board, a chair scraping across the floor in the back row.

’This isn’t good.’

The problem was that he didn’t know the exact moment the death had happened. He only knew it had been between second and third period, while she was outside his field of vision.

In the next iteration, Takeshi didn’t go to the bathroom between classes. He also didn’t lose sight of the wing where Ophélia had her class. He positioned himself in the central hallway where he could see the entrance to that section without actually being inside it.

For fifteen minutes, nothing happened. Students entering and leaving different classrooms. A teacher carrying papers. The usual noise of the building.

Then he saw Ophélia leave her classroom before the period ended. That was strange. She started walking toward the side hallway, the one leading to the emergency exit of the north wing.

Takeshi moved, but he didn’t make it in time.

He didn’t see exactly what happened because the side hallway had an angle that blocked the view from where he stood. He only saw Ophélia turn the corner, and then, ten seconds later, he heard the sound of the building change.

The sky turned red through the window ahead.

Takeshi used the reset button again before the entity fully appeared.

[LOADING SAVE POINT]

Takeshi closed his eyes for a second.

’The side hallway in the north wing. Ophélia goes there on her own, without anyone leading her there. That can only mean the killer is waiting there or somehow guiding her there.’

In the next iteration, he needed to be in the side hallway before Ophélia arrived.

The problem with the side hallway in the north wing was that there were no obvious reasons to be there during class hours. It was a service hallway connecting two sections of the building, and students rarely used it. If Takeshi stood there doing nothing, it would draw attention.

He looked for an alternative. There was a storage room door halfway down the hallway that was usually left slightly open. If he positioned himself near that door with a book in hand, he could pretend to be looking for something without seeming completely out of place.

In the next iteration, he tried it. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

He arrived at the side hallway ten minutes before the moment Ophélia had appeared there in the previous iteration. He leaned against the wall beside the storage room door with an open book he wasn’t reading.

Five minutes passed.

Then he heard footsteps.

They weren’t Ophélia’s footsteps. They were coming from the opposite end of the hallway, from the direction of the emergency exit. Slow, controlled footsteps, with brief pauses between each one.

Takeshi looked up from the book.

At the end of the hallway stood a figure with short hair and a school uniform. From that distance, he couldn’t clearly see the face because the lighting in that section was dimmer than in the main hallway.

The figure stopped when it saw him.

There was a second of stillness.

Then the figure stepped back toward the emergency exit and disappeared.

Takeshi didn’t follow. If he left the side hallway, he’d lose his position, and two minutes later, Ophélia appeared through the entrance to the north wing, walking in that direction.

Takeshi moved toward her before she reached the spot where the figure had been.

"Ophélia."

She stopped and looked at him with genuine surprise.

"What are you doing here?"

"I was looking for a book in the storage room."

He pointed at the door.

"Why did you leave class?"

"They sent me to get materials from the cabinet in this section."

She showed him a slip of paper with a note from the teacher.

Takeshi looked toward the end of the hallway, and it was empty.

"I’ll get what you need..."

he said.

"Go back to your classroom."

Ophélia looked at him for a moment.

"Why?"

"Because the cabinet is a mess, and it’ll take you longer on your own."

It was a weak excuse, and he knew it.

"Tell me what you need, and I’ll bring it to you."

Ophélia explained what she needed. Takeshi went to the cabinet, found the materials in two minutes, and brought them to the entrance of the north wing, where Ophélia was waiting.

For the rest of the day, Takeshi didn’t lose sight of the wing where Ophélia had classes.

No other attempts occurred.

After school, Takeshi walked home with Ophélia. This time they didn’t go to the shrine. They went straight back to the apartment, with Aoi and Nyx following twenty minutes later.

What Takeshi did notice was something else.

During lunch, Ophélia had sat beside him without anyone suggesting it. It wasn’t the first time, but this time she had specifically chosen that seat.

Later, in the hallway between third and fourth period, Ophélia had sent him a message asking where he was.

And when Takeshi had gone to pick her up outside her classroom at the end of the day, Ophélia had already been waiting at the door before he arrived. As if she had calculated how long it took him to cross the building.

When she was near him, Ophélia seemed calmer than usual, more direct in conversation, and spent less time looking away when they spoke.

That night, at the apartment, while Nyx and Aoi argued quietly in the kitchen about something related to the student council, Ophélia sat on the living room floor with the blue-covered book and read for an hour without saying anything.

At one point, she looked up and found him staring at her.

She didn’t look away immediately. She looked at him for a second, smiled, and then returned to the book.

Takeshi looked toward the window.

’What’s going on with her?’