Izumi awoke the next morning, his heart heavy and mind foggy. The events of yesterday clung to him like a nightmare refusing to fade. Asahi was gone. Kenji was missing. The weight of it pressed down on his chest.
"I'm alive..." he whispered to himself, still in disbelief. "But why? Why couldn't I save them?"
Questions swirled in his head, each one stabbing deeper than the last. He descended the stairs quietly, his eyes hollow. At the breakfast table, he looked up at his parents.
"Yesterday's incident… never happened, right?" he asked, a faint, broken smile forming. "Yeah… maybe if I call them, they'll answer… right?"
His voice trembled, desperately clinging to hope.
His parents exchanged a worried glance. They didn't say a word, but their concern filled the silence. It was clear—Izumi was starting to question reality itself.
Meanwhile, in another home, Sota was wrapped tightly in his blanket, rocking back and forth on his bed. His voice was barely a whisper.
"Everything will be fine… Everything will be fine…"
Then, suddenly, he ripped the blanket away, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
"NO IT'S NOT FINE!" he screamed. "ASAHI IS DEAD! KENJI IS DEAD TOO!"
He thrashed violently around the room, throwing books, smashing his lamp, breaking down into tears. The door burst open. His sister rushed in and held him tightly as he sobbed into her shoulder, trembling.
Back to Naomi—she sat quietly at her desk, wearing a coat like she was about to go somewhere. Her pen danced across the pages of a small leather-bound diary, her expression unreadable.
Flashback: The night before.
Atop a building adjacent to Narita Mall, three figures loomed under the pale moonlight.
"Arghhh... Seems like we failed to capture Raidon Hiroshi," said a girl lazily riding on a white elephant. "What now, Cap?"
The masked man beside her spoke in a smooth, emotionless tone.
"Plan B."
A voice cut in sharply from the shadows behind him.
"You're really going to execute Plan B? Are you out of your mind?"
It was the hot boiled peanut vendor—Envy.
"We can't just go that far," Envy argued. "Most of the survivors are still kids. They don't even know why their friends had to die for this. I get that we have a goal, but not like this..."
"Tch. Whatever," said the elephant-riding girl, Lust. "I just follow Wrath's decision. Right, Cap?"
The masked man—Wrath—remained silent, gazing down at the evacuation center below, as if searching for something—or someone.
Back in his room, Izumi scrolled through his phone. Article after article labeled the mall incident as a simple shooting. Some even claimed animals had escaped from a nearby pet shop.
"What kind of mall shooting has a girl riding an elephant?" he muttered. "Besides... she wore the same hood as that guy..."
Frustrated, he opened his window to catch a breeze—and froze.
A man was standing outside on the street, staring directly at him.
"What the hell...?"
The moment Izumi noticed him, the man bolted into the shadows.
Heart pounding, Izumi quickly called Naomi. No answer.
Then he dialed Sota. "Check your window," Izumi said.
A few seconds of silence. Then: "There's someone… outside," Sota whispered.
Izumi's gut twisted. "So it's not just me…"
Someone was following them. All of them.
And then—a buzz.
A message popped up on Izumi's phone from an unknown number:
"Meet me at Narita Mall."