"Let me tell you a story."
"There was a guy who went somewhere unfamiliar, then discovered he was trapped in the same day. Every time he woke up, he lived through that same day again."
"The same people, the same things—even the animals behaved the same way every day, over and over."
"Then what?"
Uchiha Hikari sat up straight. She quite liked listening to stories. When she was little, only her mother had ever told her any.
"Then he started indulging himself, doing things he'd always wanted to do but never dared. By knowing everything in advance, he amassed a fortune and even won the affection of some beautiful women in a very short time."
"He felt freer than he ever had before, trying everything he'd always wanted to do but never dared..."
"Eventually, he fell into despair."
Uchiha Hikari asked again, "Why? He'd already gotten everything he wanted!"
"Because when he woke up the next day, everything went back to square one. He was trapped in the same day. He couldn't even kill himself. When he woke up, that same day would begin again."
"Even if he found someone he loved during that endless cycle and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, every time he woke up, he was just a stranger to her."
Uchiha Hikari fell silent.
She could put herself into that story, into those days.
She had once been the same, locked inside a cage that never saw daylight. As long as she didn't die in battle, she had to keep fighting.
Repeating it endlessly, with no tomorrow in sight.
But...
"That's different!"
"No, it isn't," Kazan interrupted.
"Everything you can dream of is something you can understand. Even the ways you grow old and die are no different."
"Everything will only