Shadow_120

The story introduces Yuto Arisaka, a quiet, introspective high school senior attending the Hanabira Summer Festival. He plans to confess his feelings to Aira Tsukishiro, his cheerful childhood friend. The setting is lively and colorful, filled with traditional Japanese festival elements—lanterns, food stalls, and fireworks.

As Yuto spots Aira and contemplates confessing, a sudden and mysterious explosion occurs on the festival hill where fireworks were set to launch. Blue light bursts across the sky, chaos unfolds, and Yuto hears Aira shout for him to run before she is swallowed by the explosion.

Moments later, Yuto wakes up in his bedroom, completely unharmed, with his alarm going off. It's Sunday, 7:00 AM—exactly one week before the explosion. The chapter ends with the realization that he’s been sent back in time.


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Themes and Purpose:

Emotional Hook: The chapter builds tension with a relatable scenario (unspoken love), then shatters it with a sudden tragedy.

Mystery & Intrigue: The supernatural twist (time reset) raises immediate questions.

Character Setup: Yuto is established as thoughtful and hesitant, while Aira is lively and compassionate.

Tone: Melancholy and suspenseful with a hint of romantic nostalgia, typical of anime-style time loop dramas.

Looping time

For a girl who'd died dozens of times, Aira Nishimura was awfully good at pretending everything was normal.

The next morning, she greeted Yuto with her usual smile—bright, teasing, and way too energetic for 7:30 AM. She tossed him a canned coffee as if they were two carefree teenagers, not time-looping anomalies tangled in cosmic deja vu.

But Yuto saw it now—the slight tremble in her hands, the way her eyes lingered on things a second too long. She remembered more than she let on.

"Aira," he said as they walked to school, "how long have you really been looping?"

She didn't look surprised. She just sighed and took a long sip of her drink.

"Longer than I wanted. Not as long as I needed."

Flashback: The Rooftop, One Loop Ago

Aira stood under a bruised-purple sky, clutching a charm necklace. A storm raged in the distance, thunder growling like a living beast.

Beside her, a girl—Kana—held out her hand.

"You don't have to do this alone, Aira."

But Aira shook her head, tears streaking down her cheeks. "If I break the loop, I disappear. That's the trade."

In the classroom, the day was business as usual. Or as "usual" as it got when you had two loopers, a sidekick who talked to microwaves, and a student council president (Yuki) who may or may not be running a secret organization.

Yuto and Aira sat side by side, pretending to take notes during math.

"Ever feel like we're the only sane ones left?" Aira whispered.

Yuto raised an eyebrow. "You're saying you're sane?"

Behind them, Hiro and Kana were passing notes—actual paper notes like it was 2004. Kana's note read:

"Yuto glowed slightly when the bell rang. Scientific anomaly or caffeine overdose?"

Lunchtime came—and Aira vanished.

Yuto found her exactly where he expected: the abandoned music room.

She was seated at the piano, not playing, just resting her fingers on the keys like they were bones of something long dead.

"You followed me," she said softly, not turning around.

"I would've followed you through a hundred timelines," Yuto replied.

She finally looked back at him. Her smile was cracked glass.

"I'm not supposed to be here," she said. "Not in this loop. Not in any loop."

How she'd died in Loop Zero—before the system ever activated. How a fragment of her memory clung to the loop. How she rebuilt herself—faint echoes at first, then full awakenings. How she started remembering him.

"How did you keep it together?" he asked, shaken.

"I didn't," she said. "I broke. Over and over. But I kept smiling, because that's what you remembered about me."

Yuto stared at her. "You remembered me before I remembered you."

"Every time," she whispered. "Every time, I found you again."

He reached out, fingers brushing hers. "Then this time, let me remember you. All of you."

They walked home that evening beneath blooming sakura trees, the petals falling like soft snow.

Yuto asked one last question. "If you're not part of the system, how are you still here?"

"I think… someone left a door open. And I slipped through."

A masked figure stood in the school's science lab, examining a burning pocket watch.

"She's waking up," he murmured. "And so is he."

"Soon, we'll see who really belongs in this loop."

Chapter 12: Aira’s Secret