While Setsuna Ogiso sank into confusion and self-reproach, Touma Kazusa sat alone before a piano in another world.
The piano lid was tightly shut. She did not play a single note, merely sat stiffly with both hands clenched around the hem of her clothes, her knuckles whitened from the force.
That Memory Copy titled "White Album" was like the cruelest possible spoiler, laying bare before her eyes the hidden, turbulent emotional entanglements she might experience over the coming years—entanglements that would ultimately become unforgettable pain.
Unlike Setsuna Ogiso, who tended toward introspection and self-blame, Touma Kazusa's reaction was more direct, more intense, carrying her usual awkwardness and defensiveness.
"What kind of joke is this?!"
She lowered her head. Her smooth black bangs obscured her eyes, making her expression impossible to read, but her tightly bitten lower lip and faintly trembling shoulders revealed the raging turmoil within her.
"How could something like that... possibly..."
That version of herself in the Memory Copy, clumsily concealing her feelings, painfully struggling between friendship and love, and ultimately choosing to leave the country and lick her wounds alone in a foreign land!
That pitiful and tragic version of herself, who had missed everything by arriving one step too late and could only entrust her longing to music!
"What is this... a prophecy? Or a curse?"
An indescribable mixture of anger, shame, and overwhelming sorrow surged through her chest. She felt an offended fury, as though her most private emotional diary had been exposed to the public;
yet at the same time, she felt profound grief for that future self, so utterly miserable and battered.
At last, she suddenly raised her head. Her eyes, usually so indifferent, now burned with suppressed flames.
Almost mockingly, she spoke in the Chat Group:
Touma Kazusa: "I finished it."
Touma