Artisan
Epilogue
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This world was a failure too.
She wanted to save them. She so badly wanted to save them but she'd failed.
It had been Keiichi's turn. She'd called that from the start but she hadn't been able to control the game board well enough. Stopped Keiichi leaving. Stopped the parasite in his mind from waking up that day but it had woke up anyway. Or had it? It was hard to know. And hard to know if it even mattered.
She'd done too much. And too little. She hadn't been there when Keiichi had fallen down the stairs but how easily it could have all gone wrong. He could have hit his head, or broken his neck. He could've been dead when his parents scooped him off the ground. He'd been lucky to get away with just a shattered kneecap. Lucky to be forced to walk on crutches for at least two months – but he'd never make it to the end. She'd died. Hinamizawa Syndrome would swallow up the town of two thousand and he'd be loss to the mass hysteria, the mass madness just like everyone else, just like Mion and Rena and Satoko and her only saving grace was that, in this world at least, none of them had gotten mixed up with the circumstances of the cursed.
But that wasn't entirely true, was it? Rena had, sort of. She'd seen the painting and it had frightened her, frightened her badly. And she'd frightened Keiichi, who'd in turn gone to Mion seeking answers. And Mion had given them as best she could – and at least that hadn't gone pear-shaped like it did in almost every world.
The one seeking answers was the one that was cursed. That made her the most heavily cursed of them all, seeking them in each and every world.
Seeking them…and never finding them.
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The crystals overlapped. This world joined the other tried and failed worlds.
The things that were the same between them: the deaths and disappearances of the first few years, regardless of what little things changed in between them; the deaths of Tomitake and Takano in the fifth year; her own death some days later though the number of days varied.
The differences: sometimes Keiichi was in Hinamizawa in Showa 58 and sometimes he wasn't. Sometimes Rena returned in Showa 57 and sometimes she did not. Sometimes Shion arrived in May or June of Showa 58 and sometimes she did not. The club activities changed every time. The game at the toy store only changed if Keiichi wasn't there (and now she'd proved that could occur even with Keiichi in Hinamizawa). The person in which the parasite was stirring in June of Showa 58 was different.
And then there were the assumptions. The deaths were always the same, and yet the parasite awoke in different people, sometimes. That meant the parasites were a natural phenomenon, based on luck and uncontrollable, while the deaths had a force of will behind them. Not whimsical like Mion's club activities. Meticulously planned like the toy store tournament.
Somebody planned her death. Just like somebody planned the death of her father and the disappearance of her mother, the death of Satoko's father and the disappearance of Satoko's mother – but that was one of the holiest theories. That and the death of Satoko's aunt and the disappearance of her brother.
Satoko had had level five Hinamizawa Syndrome at the time of her parents. Doctor Irie believed there was no doubt she'd pushed her parents from the cliff under that influence. He and Nurse Takano (and Rena, ignorant though she was) were also fairly sure Satoshi had succumbed to level five Hinamizawa Syndrome when he disappeared. Whether that was before or after his aunt's murder was another story. She hadn't borne witness them. And now there was no hope of saving the people from those four years, even if she solved the riddle.
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A new crystal appeared. Her next destination. She was in no rush though. She had time. She could think things over. Hanyu would wait as long as necessary and the power, the pathway, the door was there.
Will you try again?
She would. She was still sure she would. She'd failed. But she'd learnt a few new things. That she had to watch out for more than just her friends directly. She had to watch out for their families as well. The people around them. The whole of HInamizawa through that ripple effect. Had to watch out for them all because she was the only one who knew the horror that was waiting for them all.
And then Yamainu. They'd failed to save Takano, but that could mean anything from them dismissing her words as the words of a child or being unable to combat such a force. She should have checked to see if they'd existed in the aftermath of Takano's murder as well, but she hadn't. But she could do that in another world, if she failed again.
Making plans for her next failure. Was that how flimsy her hope was?
And she needed a better way to keep the Maebaras in Hinamizawa once they arrived. Delay that part at least. And then maybe Keiichi wouldn't be as fragile as Rena was, as Shion was. But how? Howhowhow –
She breathed. The crystals didn't have the answers. They would be in new worlds. Future worlds.
She would find the one that held their happily ever after ending.
She breathed again. And touched the crystal.
It rippled and swallowed her, and she awoke at the start of the February of Showa 58.
It wouldn't be long before the Watanagushi festival arrived again. And her death. Again.