Chapter 33: The Split

When Haruto came out of the mirror platform that was breaking apart, the city was no longer in one shape.

To the left of him, a row of buildings curved around in a corkscrew, their bricks spiraling out and floating in space like discarded plans. To the right of him, the road curved down into itself, revealing steps that descended forever into crackling static. And above, the sky wracked between three moments of day — gold, purple, and black, layered like film negatives one over another.

The countdown flashed at the corner of his eye:

6:58:01

And then, suddenly:

6:57:17

Too fast.

A sickness washed over him. Time wasn't supposed to leap like that. Not so sharply. Not so rapidly.

Haruto staggered forward, palm pressed against a wall that was not quite there. His fingers slipped through plaster as if it were mist, or more accurately, memory that was trying to erase itself.

The city groaned. A tower above melted into mist. Below, a fissure split the street, showing further streets stacked under it, like timelines upon timelines.

He turned a corner and halted.

Before him, three of him had run down branching alleys. One wore his middle school attire and held Ayaka's notebook in his hand. One had an open wound on his shoulder and was limping along. One had turned around and stared at him with his eyes. That one had his mouth sewn shut. With thread.

They all had no expression, like instructing him to look at them and what they have become.

Haruto whispered, "No….

Then all three vanished into darkness.

He was no longer in his city. He was in its memory, or rather its destruction.

"You're late," a growl said behind him.

Haruto spun around.

A child where there should be none, a girl with a scarf that was too large and was wrapped three times around her neck and had eyes that flashed green and gold.

Hina? No. Not really.

She smiled sadly. And vanished as if she'd never been there.

Haruto kept the watch against his chest. The ticking had stopped. The quiet that enveloped him was complete, so silent it vibrated.

He moved with no direction, no map. The streets curled like origami in reverse, folding themselves back in ways that defied space.

He passed by a noodle store twice. First time: closed down. Second time: his mother working there, humming. Third time: on fire. On the fourth pass, abandoned and moss-covered, like it had been empty for a decade.

He passed by a beggar scrambling for coins who changed into his homeroom teacher in mid-sentence.

Two schoolgirls skipped down the road arm-in-arm, then wavered like a bad signal and turned into faceless mannequins in uniforms.

Childhood shadows played a reverse game of hopscotch on a wall,

And crows flew back above.

He found the hall not by preference, but compulsion. A thin, long corridor was wedged between a subway entrance and the gymnasium, where there had previously never been a hallway. White lights buzzed overhead like flies trapped in a net.

Mirrors on the walls. Placed at random. Each showing a different Haruto.

One held Ayaka’s hand. One stood in a graveyard. One clutched a blood-soaked scarf.

Then, he saw the now, himself, exactly as he was.

And Hina behind him.

She knocked.

Haruto turned. Nothing.

He looked back.

The mirror-Hina pressed her palm to the glass.

“I’m still here,” she whispered. Her voice layered. Like two people speaking at once.

Crack.

The mirror fractured, and screamed.

Then silence.

All the mirrors shattered at once.

The shatter left him windless. Glass rained on him but never touched the ground. Hanging.

The world blinked.

And he was elsewhere.

A street that no longer existed. The vending machine at the corner. The bookstore with the broken sign. A cat, sitting and licking at its paw.

And her.

Hina sat alongside the curb, cradling her head, eyes closed. Her lips moved too fast for words to keep up.

"Too many timelines… too many endings…"

Haruto knelt. "Hina?"

She looked up.

Two pairs of eyes.

Not metaphorically. Not figuratively. Her face smeared between two shapes. One serene, wise. The other frightened, empty.

Space around her pulsed. Light distorted. Then, bifurcated.

Two Hinas. One kneeling, confused. The other standing, calm.

Haruto stumbled back.

"Haruto?" the standing one whispered.

"Who is he?" the kneeling one asked.

He looked at them. Same scarf. Same tone of voice. But different heft. One weighed history. The other possibility.

He didn't understand.

But he could feel the truth in his bones: something in the system had finally snapped.

Too many memories, too much doubt. And now, even those he cared about were tearing apart.

The sky churned. A thousand gears turned in sequence.

A tear opened up above.

Correctors descended — lovely, abominable. As if made from reality itself's rules. Their forms radiated algorithmic patterns. Their faces were void, yet mirrored. Haruto saw himself in each of them.

Three of them. In synchronized motion.

They cleared the street with static waves.

One on the standing Hina.

ANOMALY CLASS: INCOMPLETE.

Another on the kneeling Hina.

ANOMALY CLASS: EXPIRED.

Their hands became jagged prisms. Beams of crimson light center on both.

Haruto stood between them.

"Stop!"

The Correctors did not move. Time froze around them, but not for him.

He had seconds.

He whirled around. Both Hinas now stood before him.

The one standing: serene, unruffled. "You know me."

The one kneeling: afraid, lost. "Please…"

Two options. No right option.

Haruto stalled — and the ground beneath his feet shattered.

Reality stretched. Time staggered. And both Hinas took a step forward toward him.

The standing Hina's gaze was resolute, but at the tip of her fingers was a tremble. "You know me," she said again, this time in a quiet voice. "You held my hand on the bridge. You said I wasn't a shadow.".

Hina, kneeling, uttered not a single word. She just looked up, her eyes wide with confusion, tears welling up instantly. Her words, when she finally spoke, were strained. "I don't remember you… but I want to."

Haruto looked at them, his heart racing so loudly that it overwhelmed the sound of the world crumbling.

Memories arose like fog: Hina whispering secrets beside a vending machine, oozing from a dysfunctional hand, holding Ayaka's journal with a wince as if it hurt to hold. Another of hers, smiling inside the echo chamber, uncertain but always there.

Both lived. Both were incomplete. Both contained pieces of his reality.

His hand extended. Shook.

The standing Hina extended hers.

The kneeling one reached up, like a child straining for the face of a parent.

He saw himself in both.

Then, with a swift breath — he made up his mind.

Fingers closed. He felt warmth brush his palm.

He dared not look back at the one he left behind.

Air howled. The Correctors struck.

A flash of white overwhelmed all.

He ran.

Streets curved around him. Time folded around him in moist cloth. The girl walking by his side stumbled once, but he held tight.

They moved by a dilapidated noodle store. By a dusty classroom frozen in the middle of a lesson. Down a stairway without a destination.

Then — cover. A wrecked bookstore, broken back and shattered windows, pages dancing like wings.

Still inside.

She fell beside him, gasping.

Haruto watched her. Saw how she clamped down on her lip as though she were actually Hina thinking. But her eyes — did they flicker?

"Did you choose me… or the idea of me?" she gasped.

Those words sliced him deeper than any crack.

He said nothing.

He couldn't.

For part of him remained uncertain.

Outside, the sky yawned wider.

The countdown blinked again:

6:55:00

The loop hadn't simply snapped.

It had forked.

And Haruto had forked with it.