Chapter 4 : The Search Continued

“Kid... You know about Itomori, don’t you? That’s where—”

Tsukasa interrupts loudly. “Itomori?! Taki, don’t tell me—”

“What, wait—? You mean, the one where the comet...?!”

Even Okudera-senpai speaks up, eyes wide.

“Huh.?”

I don’t understand what’s going on and look around at the others. They’re all watching me dubiously. The shadow of something that’s been trying to surface in my mind this whole time rustles stealthily, growing more and more ominous.

The cry of a kite trails through the atmosphere, lonely enough to freeze the blood.

A row of DO NOT ENTER barricades extends as far as the eye can see, throwing long shadows over the cracked asphalt.

A sign with vines tangled around it reads, In accordance with the Disaster Countermeasures Basic Act, this area is off-limits. KEEP OUT. —Reconstruction Agency.

And below me lies Itomori, devastated by some unimaginable force and mostly swallowed up by the lake.

“.. .Is this really the place?”

Okudera-senpai walks up behind me, her voice trembling. Without waiting for me to respond, Tsukasa answers, sounding desperately cheerful.

“It can’t be! Like I’ve been saying, Taki’s confused.”

“...This is it.”

I tear my eyes away from the ruins below me, scanning my surroundings.

“It isn’t just the town. I remember this schoolyard, the mountains around us, the high school... I remember all of it perfectly!”

I have to shout the words to convince myself. Behind us is the school building, black and sooty, with some of its windows broken. We’re standing on the grounds of Itomori High School, looking out across the lake.

“So you’re saying this is the town you were looking for? The one where your friend online lives?” Tsukasa shouts, that parched smile still clinging to his voice.

“That’s not even possible! That disaster was three years ago. Hundreds of people died! You remember it, right, Taki?!”

At that, I finally turn toward Tsukasa.

“...Died?”

I meant to look at his face, but my gaze goes right through him, then through

the high school behind him, only to dissipate into the distance. I know I must be looking at something, but there’s nothing there.

“Three years ago...she died?”

Abruptly, I remember.

The comet I saw over Tokyo three years earlier. Countless shooting stars falling through the western sky. I thought it was beautiful, like something out of a dream. I got all excited about it.

That’s when she died?

Don’t.

I can’t acknowledge that.

I search for words. For proof.

“That can’t be true... I mean, look, I’ve got the journal entries she wrote.”

I retrieve my phone out of my pocket. Spurred on by the inane fear that the battery will die forever if I take too long, I flip through it in a panic and pull up Mitsuha’s journal entries. They’re really there.

I rub my eyes, hard. For a moment, the letters seemed to writhe.

“Wha...?”

First one letter, then another.

The words Mitsuha wrote begin dissolving into meaningless symbols. Before long, the text flickers like a candle flame, and then it’s gone. One by one, her entries disappear entirely. It’s as though an invisible man is holding down delete. As I watch, all her sentences vanish.

“Why...?” I ask very quietly.

The kite’s cry echoes again, high and distant.

Three years ago in October, right around this time of year, Tiamat, a comet with a solar orbital period of twelve hundred years, made its closest approach to Earth. It was a satellite on a grand scale; its super-long orbital period put Halley’s Comet’s seventy-six to shame, and it had an orbital radius of 10.4 billion miles. Not only that, but it was projected to pass within roughly seventy-five thousand miles of Earth—closer than the moon. The tail of this shining blue comet would stream across the dome of the night sky for the first time in twelve hundred years. The mood of the entire world was festive as it welcomed Comet Tiamat.

Until the very moment it happened, no one anticipated that the comet’s nucleus would split in Earth’s vicinity. Or that a rocky mass about 130 feet in diameter was buried in its icy core. The comet fragment became a meteorite, plummeting to Earth at the devastating speed of almost twenty miles per second. Tragically, it struck Japan—a residential area called Itomori.

The town happened to be holding its autumn festival that day. The collision occurred at 8:42 pm. The point of impact was near Miyamizu Shrine, which must have been lined with festival stalls and teeming with people.

The meteorite instantly destroyed a wide area, centered on the shrine. The destruction wasn’t limited to houses and the forest. The impact gouged a huge hole in the ground, forming a crater nearly half a mile across. One second later, magnitude 4.8 tremors rocked locations three miles away. Fifteen seconds later, the blast wind tore through, inflicting enormous damage on the greater part of the town. The final death toll was more than five hundred, a third of the town’s population. Itomori became the site of the worst meteorite disaster in human history.

Since the crater had formed right beside Itomori Lake, water rushed in, ultimately creating a gourd-shaped body of water, New Itomori Lake.

Damage to the southern side of the town was relatively light, but even the thousand or so residents who escaped injury moved away, one after another. In less than a year, the town was having trouble functioning as a municipality. Fourteen months after the meteorite fell, for all intents and purposes, Itomori was gone.

—These are textbook facts, and of course, I knew most of them already. Three years ago, I was in middle school. I remember actually watching Comet Tiamat from a hill in my neighborhood.

.. .But that’s weird.

It doesn’t make sense.

I lived in Itomori as Mitsuha, several times, right up until last month.

That means that what I saw, the place where she lived, wasn’t Itomori.

The comet and my swapping with Mitsuha had nothing to do with each other.

It’d be normal to think that. It’s what I want to think.

However, paging through books in this city library near Itomori, I’m hopelessly confused. For a while now, in the deepest corner of my mind, someone’s been whispering, This is where you were.

        Vanished Itomori—Complete Records

        Itomori—The Village That Sank in a Night

        The Tragedy of Comet Tiamat

I flip through tome after tome with titles like these. The photos of bygone days in Itomori unmistakably show places I’ve been. This is the grade school Yotsuha goes to. Miyamizu Shrine is where their grandma is the chief priestess. This pointlessly big parking lot, the two snack bars right next to each other, the convenience store that looks like a barn, the little railroad crossing on the mountain road, and of course Itomori High School... At this point, I recognize all of them clearly. Seeing those ruined streets with my own eyes has sharpened my memories.

It’s hard to breathe. My heart is struggling, beating irregularly, and refuses to calm down.

It feels as though the vivid photos are silently absorbing the air and any sense of reality.

Itomori High—Final Sports Festival

The photo above the caption shows high schoolers in the middle of a three- legged race. The pair on the end seems familiar. One has straight-cut bangs and braids. The other girl’s hair is bound up with an orange cord.

The air gets even thinner.

I feel as though hot blood is oozing down the back of my neck, but when I wipe it away with my hand, it’s transparent sweat.

"--Taki.”

I look up. Tsukasa and Okudera-senpai are standing there. They hand me a single book. Foil letters in a weighty font are stamped on its thick cover:

Itomori Comet Disaster List and Catalog of Victims

I turn the pages. The victims’ names and addresses are given by district. I run my finger down them. I keep turning pages. Finally, my finger stops on names I recognize.

Teshigawara, Katsuhiko (17)

Natori, Sayaka (17)

“Teshigawara and Saya...”

As I murmur, I hear Tsukasa and Okudera-senpai suck in their breath.

Then I find the names that prove it all.

Miyamizu, Hitoha (82)

Miyamizu, Mitsuha (17)

Miyamizu, \btsuha (9)

The other two peer over my shoulder at the list.

“That’s her.? It has to be some kind of mistake! I mean, she’s—”

Okudera-senpai sounds as if she might burst into tears. “She’s been dead for three years.”

Trying to deny her words, I shout, “Just two or three weeks ago, she—!” It’s hard to breathe. I inhale desperately and continue. This time, it comes out

as a whisper. “She told me we’d be able to see the comet.”

I somehow manage to tear my eyes away from the letters that spell out

Mitsuha.

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