When Hachiman got up from the ground, spitting out the dust from his mouth with a series of pfehs, he suddenly realized that something was wrong.
He raised his head, discovering that the surrounding scenery had undergone a change at some unknown point.
They were no longer inside that dilapidated principal's office, but had once again appeared within that wooden waiting station where the bus schedule board could not be seen clearly.
The sky had once again turned from night into broad daylight.
The buildings of the town were all perfectly intact, without any change whatsoever.
In short, everything resembled a complete reversal of time, returning to the moment when their group had just arrived in this space and the meteor had not yet fallen.
"This is..."
He looked around in confusion, finding it difficult to comprehend.
"There's nothing strange about it."
Unlike him, who appeared slightly disheveled, Asakura, who was sitting at ease on a platform bench, spoke composedly: "Since this space exists with 'Itomori Town' as its main body, then the instant the meteor falls and Itomori Town is destroyed in a physical sense, time reaches its end—it's just like how a video naturally has no subsequent content after it finishes playing, and will only mechanically loop from the very beginning."
"In other words, are we essentially trapped inside a video that is continuously playing on a loop?"
Hachiman grumbled helplessly: "Although I don't know what kind of person is watching the video, it feels truly fanatical... Rather than an audience member, it feels more like a voyeur."
"It's merely a metaphor, don't say such strange things," Asakura rubbed his temples. "Damn it, now that you've put it that way, even I am starting to care about it."
"It's truly unbelievable."
After learning about Asakura's ability to send them out at any given moment, Komachi looked a lot more lively than she did at the very beginning—although she had also appeared quite sunny and optimistic when they initially explored this pocket of space, even Asakura, who was unfamiliar with her, could tell that a certain portion of the girl's cheerfulness was forced out of theatrical compliance. At this moment, the girl's expression was noticeably far more natural: "How exactly is a space like this formed? Could it still be that collective unconsciousness thing or whatever?"
"Looking at it now, that is already highly improbable." Asakura shook his head: "Since we know this place is Itomori Town, which realistically existed in reality in the past, that basically eliminates the possibility of the collective unconscious. After all, relying solely on the collective unconscious of a single town with at most tens of thousands of people simply cannot generate a space of this caliber."
"So as expected, can it really only be explained by a saying like 'the supernatural cannot be explained by common logic'?" Komachi was clearly somewhat unable to find closure regarding this answer.
"Komachi... With that siscon over there staring at me like that, if I were to call you Hikigaya, we wouldn't know who is being called, right?" Asakura ignored Hachiman's strange gaze, speaking to the girl: "Is that omamori still in your hand?"
"Of course not... Huh? Clearly all the other objects collected during our exploration have vanished, so why is the omamori still inside my pocket?"
The girl, who initially believed her pocket would still be completely empty, unexpectedly dug out the Miyamizu Shrine omamori she had grabbed from the curtain earlier.
Facing the searching gazes of the Hikigaya siblings, Asakura instead brought up an unrelated topic.
"Setting aside which one of us holds the correct memory regarding the Itomori Town news, even if we go primarily by your memories, being able to achieve a situation where the town is mostly destroyed during a disaster of a meteor strike caliber, yet the residents suffer almost zero casualties, can already be considered a miracle in a certain sense, can't it?"
"Well..." Hachiman committed to neither confirming nor denying.
Indeed, compared to the scale of the natural disaster, the number of victims was small to the point of being somewhat abnormal.
"But miracles are never free."
Asakura continued: "The larger the scale of a miracle, the greater the price that needs to be paid."
"That truly is severe." Hachiman lamented.
The atmosphere grew slightly heavy.
"As a side note," Asakura then continued: "Using 'gaining other superpowers' as the price, I triggered a miracle that saved the world, you know."
"That is not severe in the slightest! Rather, it's entirely a good thing! Return the respect I felt for you in that split second just now!"
Hachiman stumbled in his steps, unable to keep himself from shouting out.
Asakura pondered for a brief moment, and then spoke with absolute righteousness.
"You're welcome."
"I am completely not thanking you!"
"Let's get back to the main topic."
"Who on earth is the one derailing the topic?!"
"Always being so furious like this isn't good for your kidneys."
"Generally speaking, it's supposed to be bad for your liver! Wait, you're just joking around, right?"
"...Let's talk back about this space."
"It's just a joke, right?!"
"Brother, you are being so noisy. At a time like this, it is better to properly listen to Asakura-nii's explanation."
"Komachi, listen to me. I am merely considering the future happy life of your sister-in-law..."
"It doesn't matter. Although Komachi thinks you are great, Brother, if you keep going on with those dead-fish eyes, the probability of us having an oldest sister-in-law in the future isn't very high." Komachi looked askance at her older brother: "Especially given your current lovey-dovey situation with Saika."
Hachiman's momentum instantly deflated. He could only mutter stubbornly on his own over there, murmuring strange things like, "Can that be the same?", "Saika is different!", "Someone this cute must be a boy", and "Yooooo"....
"In any case, despite the fact that even the town name 'Itomori' cannot be preserved, the name 'Miyamizu' managed to remain. Furthermore, even though everything has reverted to the very beginning, the omamori did not vanish in the 'reversion'. Looking at it this way, it is already quite obvious who is paying the price after triggering the miracle."
Asakura ignored Hachiman's gradually fossilizing soliloquy and simply continued speaking.
"Asakura-nii, are you saying that the shrine maiden lady who dreamed that the meteor would fall..." Komachi looked thoughtful.
"Hey, hey, Komachi, pay some attention to me too. Your brother is very sad..."
"Onii-chan, Asakura-nii and I are discussing official business right now. Go play by yourself first."
"..."
Spurned by his younger sister, Hachiman shed tears as far as the eye could see, standing to the side entirely enveloped in a low-pressure aura, intensely missing the tenderness of Totsuka Saika.
"If we say this is the 'price', then it also means that the shrine maiden lady ought to be somewhere within this space as well, right?" Komachi asked Asakura: "Or perhaps, the other party is that 'voyeur' who is currently watching the video?"
"Hmm, I feel like it isn't quite that simple..."
Asakura stroked his chin: "In any case, where we need to go next has already been determined."
"Are we going back to the school?" Hachiman asked: "After all, it was the evacuation shelter mentioned in the news when the meteor fell. If this were a game where we have to unlock the next step of the plot, it feels like the probability of the key being hidden there is relatively high, right?"
"No," Asakura shook his head, his gaze sharp: "This time we are going to the shrine. Specifically, the Miyamizu Shrine located halfway up the mountain, which we passed by earlier but didn't visit because we thought climbing the mountain would be a hassle."
"Even though that's the case, it feels like a real hassle, being in a place so far away..." Hachiman sighed.
"Right?" Asakura also nodded his head deeply.
"You are both boys, aren't you? Pull yourselves together for me!"
Komachi shouted with her hands on her hips in dissatisfaction: "Don't act like such deadbeats!"
Hachiman: "Lately, I was praised by Hiratsuka-sensei, who said I am a child who can achieve things as long as I want to do them."
Asakura: "Isn't that entirely sarcasm pointing out that you have become so devoid of drive that you don't do anything at all..."
"Huh? Is that actually how it is? Damn it, that unmarried, aging spinster teacher—"
Hachiman was deeply shocked.
"Rather than that kind of thing, let's set off quickly, otherwise heaven knows when we will finally reach the shrine." Komachi urged from the side.
"That's true. If we fail to arrive before the meteor falls, then we will have no choice but to wait for the next loop."
Asakura also nodded his head in agreement.
"Speaking of which, didn't you say this space might be related to Komachi and me, which is why we were brought inside here?" Hachiman asked curiously: "But looking at it now, it seems to have absolutely no relation at all, right?"
"Connections can potentially exist across all aspects. On a large scale, it could be that a certain relative of yours is related to Itomori Town; on a small scale, it could be that an item you bought at some flea market originated from Itomori Town. A lot of times, this kind of connection won't be presented out in the open in a highly intuitive manner. After all, reality isn't an anime or a novel that will pull out a gun that is guaranteed to fire just to show it to you."
Asakura explained: "As for the rest, let's talk about it on the road as we walk."
Hearing this, the Hikigaya siblings made no further delays either, following behind Asakura as they set off toward the mountain.
That being said, during the actual journey of rushing along, Asakura did not actively say anything further.
Hachiman was not the type to possess an active personality either.
Komachi was originally a master at livening up the atmosphere, but right now she would look down at the omamori in her hand from time to time, constantly wearing a thoughtful expression, and didn't spare much mental energy to chime in with quips.
"The pitcher is afraid~ yeah~"
Feeling that the atmosphere was somewhat dull, Asakura began to hum a song.
"Ah... Komachi knows how to sing that song, you know~" the girl said happily.
"Then shall we hold a live performance right here?" Asakura asked.
"Hmm, we don't have a microphone." The young girl looked troubled.
"Then let's skip it for the time being." Asakura nodded.
"Speaking of which, yesterday... ah, Komachi means yesterday before entering this space, Asakura-nii went to attend the fireworks festival, right?"
"Yeah, that is indeed the case."
"Did you go together with your girlfriend?"
Komachi asked in a highly gossipy manner.
"That's right." Asakura admitted.
Hachiman glanced at him. In his impression, when Asakura was at Sobu High, there seemed to be quite a few girls around him as well.
"But the fireworks festival is at its liveliest and the fireworks display is at its absolute best on what should be today... I mean, the third day, right? Why didn't Asakura-nii choose to go on a date with his girlfriend on the third day?"
The girl asked inquisitively.
"...The more I experience, the more I can understand that humans have limits." Asakura looked into the distance.
Occasionally, thoughts like 'Why must my spell be [Snake], instead of [Sturdy] or [Hard]' would cross his mind.
The support from the evil god didn't seem to strengthen his physique by much; what was meant to be drained would still get entirely drained.
Particularly since Hitori herself seemed to inherently possess somewhat of a masochistic streak, her endurance had made substantial progress after adapting to Super Fusion, to the point where Asakura felt like his waist was about to snap.
After careful and repeated consideration, he ultimately gave up on the third day of the fireworks festival—even though there were originally quite a few candidates he could have invited—and instead directly packed his bags, commencing the second half of his national urban legend pilgrimage according to plan.
"So you're giving up on being human?" Hachiman asked hesitantly.
"The progress hasn't quite reached that fast yet."
☆
"We've finally arrived!"
Setting aside Asakura, who had been continuously using [Candle] to quietly burn away a portion of his own exhaustion, the Hikigaya siblings were truly on the verge of collapsing from fatigue when the torii gate of Miyamizu Shrine finally materialized before their eyes.
The exact instant they stepped inside the torii gate, a breeze brushed past from behind them, passing through the vermilion wooden pillars and whipping up everyone's thin summer attire.
The chirping of cicadas rang out, and stone steps stretched out beneath their feet, covered in a light layer of moss. On both sides, cedar trees towered high, their shadows overlapping as sunlight filtered down through the gaps, scattering onto the ground like tiny flakes of gold leaf.
The shrine was not particularly large. The roof was a dark greenish-blue, and the grain of the wooden beams was distinct, its unembellished, mottled surface silently narrating a history settled by time.
The passing wind caused the wind chimes hanging beneath the eaves to tremble gently, producing a crisp, clear ringing sound that was almost imperceptible.
Within the purification fountain before the shrine, clean water flowed gently, and a bamboo water ladle rested quietly on the stone edge, its surface reflecting a faint light.
The originally serene world seemed to instantly become vivid and alive.
Because the transition was far too abrupt, even the Hikigaya siblings instantly perceived that something was amiss. Even though they were still panting heavily and their legs were shaking from exhaustion, they had already alertly shrunk back behind Asakura.
Seeing that identical, cowardly appearance of theirs made Asakura unable to help but inwardly marvel that they truly were biological siblings.
Passing through the front courtyard, Asakura and the others walked straight into the inner shrine.
There, an elderly woman was currently kneeling in a seiza posture, patiently untangling dozens of strands of colored cords one by one, before binding them back together with a steady, exquisite craftsmanship.
Hachiman's dead-fish eyes seemingly revealed no change, yet Asakura instinctively sensed that the guy was currently ninety percent likely to be complaining in his heart with some rude remark like 'To think it's actually not a shrine maiden'.
Komachi also recalled the appearance of that shrine maiden lady she had seen on television, and couldn't help but shake her head again.
No, this old lady was definitely not the appearance of the shrine maiden mentioned on television.
Just as the Hikigaya siblings were still feeling hesitant about this, Asakura had already stepped into the room.
"Are you satisfied now?" he asked the old lady.
"It's not that simple." The elderly woman shook her head.
"It will be exactly the same no matter how many more times you watch it." Asakura stated instead.
"No matter how many more times I watch it, it will never be enough." The elderly woman said softly.
She paused the work in her hands and gazed out the window. From this vantage point, one could very clearly see the area below the mountain, taking the entirety of Itomori Town into their field of vision.
"Itomori is my home. It is the place where I was born."