A thought surfaced all at once in Yuya Shinohara's mind.
So Nagisa Furukawa, after her death, had arrived in that world. There, she had become the girl and met the robot Takasaki.
"My feelings will turn into spheres of light and shine in the world on the other side. The power of each one may be faint, almost imperceptible, but if they gather together, they can become something mysterious and immense."
That was what the girl told the robot.
Yuya did not find that fantastical development abrupt.
After all, the first season of the anime had already given them the ghostly Fūko. The second season had even included a story about a cat becoming human to repay a kindness. C had always been a fantasy romance at its core. Besides, the girl in the lonely world had been foreshadowed since the very first episode of the first season. Now that the revelation had finally arrived, it did not feel forced at all. If anything, it felt like a major piece of setup finally returning to its rightful place.
In other words, that scene meant the girl was the lonely world itself. Her consciousness could be reflected in the real world as the spheres of light that appeared around people who found happiness - the so-called orbs of light.
And once enough of those orbs were gathered, a miracle could occur.
A miracle.
But what kind of miracle?
In the anime, the girl lying in the snow began to hum Dango Daikazoku.
A beam of light descended from the sky and shone upon the robot.
"That is the song you always sang for me," the girl said, looking at him.
The song the robot sang for the girl.
But Nagisa Furukawa already knew how to sing Dango Daikazoku. She did not need Takasaki to sing it to her.
Then, if Takasaki had truly been singing that song for someone…
In an instant, goosebumps rose all over Yuya's arms.
The girl was Ushio.
The robot's body began to crumble. He was leaving that world.
"Goodbye, Daddy."
The girl looked at the robot with quiet tenderness.
Yuya's eyes blurred with tears at once.
He finally understood that setting.
After dying at the end of episode twenty-one, Ushio had arrived in that world alone. There, she had grown into the girl. And in that place, she had met the projection of her father Takasaki's consciousness - the robot standing before her.
Now, she was sending him back to the other world so he could fulfill his mission.
The soft piano melody of Dango Daikazoku began to play.
At the very moment the robot disappeared from the lonely world, Takasaki, in the real world, caught within that stream-of-consciousness sequence, stood once again on the slope where he had first met Nagisa Furukawa. As she was about to walk away, he turned toward her back and shouted:
"Nagisa!"
Yuya's tears fell before he could stop them.
With Ushio's help, the robot had left the lonely world. That act awakened the Takasaki who had been lost within himself, making him stop believing that his meeting with Nagisa Furukawa had been meaningless, that if they had never met, none of those tragedies would have happened.
Even knowing every tragedy that awaited them in the future, he chose to call out to Nagisa Furukawa before she could leave.
If the protagonist Takasaki wanted to bring about a miracle, then at the very least, he had to wish for that miracle from the depths of his heart.
And was the miracle Takasaki wanted truly a world where he had never met Nagisa Furukawa?
Yuya understood the purpose of that stream-of-consciousness sequence in an instant.
In the anime, Takasaki ran toward Nagisa Furukawa, who had almost walked away for good, and embraced her.
The soundtrack swelled, and the world regained its colors.
The boy and the girl finally had expressions on their faces again.
Cherry blossoms drifted across the sky, and Takasaki broke down sobbing.
Yuya kept wiping his eyes with a tissue.
At that moment, among C fans all across Japan, those who fully understood the scene, those who only half understood it, and even those who had not understood it at all could not hold back their tears.
Whether one understood the almost science-fiction mechanism behind the plot was a matter of personal interpretation.
But the emotion revealed through the anime's soundtrack did not depend on that.
That image, the seiyuu's performance, the sheer weight of giving Takasaki one more chance to choose after the death of his wife, the death of his daughter, after he had lost all hope and still knew everything…
Even then, he would choose to embrace Nagisa Furukawa.
Even if that meant his future life would remain steeped in pain. Even if he never found happiness again. Even if he became the same kind of hollow, defeated adult his own father had once been, someone who expected nothing more from life.
Even then, in that moment, he would embrace Nagisa Furukawa.
"Nagisa, I'm right here."
"I'm so glad, Takasaki… you finally spoke to me. I was afraid you might think it would have been better if you had never met me," Nagisa Furukawa said with a smile.
"I used to believe too much in science…"
Yuya cried and laughed at the same time.
Who needed science to watch anime?
To hell with science.
In that moment, nothing mattered more than the sight of those two, both carrying their memories, embracing before the slope where they had first met.
They had chosen each other.
Even knowing the tragic fate that awaited them, they still chose each other.
"I am so happy that I met you, Takasaki. I was truly happy. So please, do not lose your way anymore. No matter what waits for us from now on…"
Nagisa Furukawa spoke with gentle certainty.
"Please, never regret that we met."
With that single sentence, the theme of the entire anime was elevated to another level.
Yuya loved fantasy.
Kantoku Sora, this was it. Your script direction was correct.
Let this anime keep following its mystical path. There was no need to explain anything with science anymore.
And what about the orbs of light gathered throughout so many episodes?
Their purpose could not be limited to merely allowing the protagonist and heroine's consciousnesses to have that conversation at the point in time where they had once met.
Something like that still could not be called power.
Much less a miracle.
"Let me take you there. To this town, the place where wishes come true."
The narration echoed.
At that instant, the excitement in the hearts of countless C fans reached its peak.
What did that mean?
Wishes?
Was the miracle of the orbs of light the power to grant a wish?
Then came the cry of a baby.
The screen was wrapped in a hazy glow. The newborn child looked like a scene from a dream.
Takasaki woke from that dream.
At that moment, he had returned to the time when he was helping Nagisa Furukawa through childbirth.
Ushio was crying in his arms.
Nagisa Furukawa's eyes were closed. She lay motionless, with a serene expression on her face.
"Nagisa!"
Takasaki collapsed into sobs. The memories from the dream - Nagisa dying, Ushio dying - surged into his mind all at once.
"Takasaki…"
But this time, Nagisa Furukawa opened her eyes.
"Just now… were we together the whole time?"
The memories of the dream left him unable to tell what was real.
"We were together the whole time," Nagisa Furukawa answered firmly.
"Mother and daughter are both safe. Congratulations."
The midwife's words made the hearts of every anime fan watching that scene in front of their televisions melt in an instant.
The music of Dango Daikazoku began once more.
The baby's cry sounded clear, strong, full of life.
In the room, Nagisa Furukawa, Takasaki, his in-laws, and everyone around them gathered beside little Ushio, singing the melody of Dango Daikazoku.
Yuya simply stared at the television screen, dazed. Inside him, emotion kept rising with every note of that song.
The anime's images began to shift one after another.
Nagisa Furukawa and Takasaki raising Ushio together.
That child did not suffer through a sorrowful childhood. She lived a happy life.
A baby, then a small child, then five years old.
She ran through a field of flowers, her face filled with a radiant smile.
Nagisa Furukawa did not fall ill again. She and her daughter were both healthy.
Takasaki's father was released from prison, and father and son reconciled once more.
Every character who had appeared since the first season flashed across the screen.
In the final stretch of the episode, the anime devoted a long sequence to song and imagery, showing the future lives of all its characters.
All the grief the audience had accumulated over the previous two episodes was healed in that moment.
The episode ended with Ushio asleep in the forest, and Fūko finally finding her.
Then the ending theme began to play.