Failure

This was a place no conventional instrument could detect.

Its concealment was unexpectedly strong. The background's colors were pure and monotonous—not completely dark, but instead radiating a cold, tranquil glow like the Milky Way.

Rinne Sonogami's consciousness remained here.

"Everyone... forgot... no, it was as though they had never existed..."

Rinne hugged her knees and closed her eyes. This boundless void only made her heart feel lonelier. Her true purpose had already been achieved, so perhaps this counted as a peaceful rest.

"This anomaly called me vanished from the world... Everything has returned to how it was..."

But Shiori had survived. Once she returned to reality, Huanyue-chan would surely escape despair. Her mission was complete.

As for Shiori... Rinne believed she would surely bring Huanyue happiness... probably.

"This... is enough, isn't it?"

Rinne murmured softly.

Yet in the end, she could not help but call the name of the one she cared about. "Huanyue..."

At that instant, Hibiki sounded beside her ears like something tearing.

"Oh? I'm here."

A familiar voice, Hibiki, sounded beside her ear.

Rinne felt her heart tremble slightly. She tried to keep herself calm, but the trembling seemed beyond her control and would not stop.

Had she been so reluctant to part, missed her so deeply, that she was hearing Huanyue's voice beside her ear?

This really was...

"Hey, hey, hey—one, two, three, one, two, three—"

Qian Huanyue had actually wanted to shake Rinne with her hand so she would feel her presence.

But seeing the other girl so rarely confused, she withdrew that thought.

Forget it. She would first see just how far this girl could keep talking to herself.

Rinne felt that voice in her "mind" becoming even more brazen, pounding her heart until it was impossible to calm. Yet at the same time,