Cascading Memory
Flash!
The summer world stretched behind in passing milliseconds, signs and buildings gone in the blink of an eye. Footsteps and heartbeats pounded in Jade's ears, with not a second of space left for the spoken word. Not that anyone had anything to say, anyways, beyond empty bits of "excuse me" and "sorry" to the unknowing passerby – but even then, the Dan and Betas were silent today. Who cared about talking when they had a mission to do? This wasn't a normal mission, after all.
This was the Kagerou Daze Battle Strategy. Its objective was to ensure the future existed.
But where did it all begin? The rush of adrenaline, though spilling energy into Jade's steps everywhere she went, did nothing to her stream thoughts. So she remembered where it began, in between dodges of the passerby and winding sidewalk turns. She remembered when Dave rested his ability.
It started with Shintaro's Pesterchum memo that morning, red text recounting stories of timelines dead and gone. There were as many ended Routes as there were threads in a sweater, none of the happy ones timelines the Betas had seen. Jade could imagine the bloodsoaked, lifeless ends in her mind's eye. That could happen soon, seeing as the summer wasn't any longer than a week now. So what would they do about it? They'd do this. They'd do this mission, no point sitting around mourning a changeable fact of the world. The gardener's form blurred, ten other forms blurred, they zoomed past again.
It boiled down to Jade's personal objective for this multi-part mission, and those of her friends. Keeping the chatter and arguments down was hers, as all teams were bound to disagree somewhere. Rose would be drawing out whoever the Snake of Clearing Eyes was possessing from under the snake's control, a side-effect found weeks ago on a concrete rooftop. Dave was to keep movement quick and easy, armed with a carbon steel training sword if necessary. And John, with the largest job of all in Jade's bewildered opinion – he'd be the one to open doors and bust people out when needed.
All that in a single day, perhaps more. All that in the direction of a lab dug beneath a high school building, and all to the downfall of the snake possessing someone named Kenjirou Tateyama. She could see that high school now, in between the trees and street lamps. So it took one last bout of flashstepping –
Wait, no, not into that –
– mob of white shirts and white jackets. They filled up the streets, blocked the sight of buildings, and all Jade saw for miles was pale skin and clothes. She couldn't spot a single opening where Dave could move them out of this ever closing crowd. Were all these people waiting here, waiting for a crew of kids in hoodies? Did Momo's power slip out of her control, and everyone just a fan or fan-to-be? Jade didn't know. She didn't care. Not while there were a thousand cold hands reaching towards the cluster that had become her and her friends, nor while Dave's training sword was ripped from his hands onto the ground. Not as Jade remembered that Konoha wasn't allowed to join them, not as everything was already going wrong.
But what she did care about was the claustrophobia growing in on her, before there was no more sky or pavement or tree. Just white. Just skin, just hands and a million cries of "let me go", the vanishing spots of fresh air to breathe. This couldn't kill anyone. This couldn't even knock a person out. Even so, the grand question for paradox space remained:
Was this how it had to be?