Inoue Akira and Tennouiji Kotarou are from Rewrite, a 2011 visual novel published by Key, translated into English by Amaterasu Translations, and adapted into an anime by Studio 8bit. Elements of the following story were also inspired by Inoue's story in the now-defunct mobile gacha game, Rewrite: Ignis Memoria (which never received any English translation), as well as her appearances in the fandisc Rewrite Harvest festa!

Spoilers and references to all other heroine routes, as well as Moon and Terra.

Record: Before the Storm, Before the Rain (II)

The gears in my brain start churning.

Had Hitomi somehow tracked down the Key to Imako's house? Was this part of the Guardian work that she mentioned?

Or was it just coincidence? Just the superhuman finishing work earlier than usual?

I weigh the possibilities against each other. No, it had to be the latter. If it really was a capture-and-kill mission, Hitomi would have simply shown up unannounced.

Not even that. If Guardian were certain the Key was here, this house would have been surrounded by a whole team.

But how were we going to explain Kagari? So far, against all odds, it didn't seem as if Imako had noticed–even though she knew the Key's appearance through her dreams, and was a sharp enough person that making the connection should have been easy.

Was Kagari's perception filtering at work? Or had she already noticed, and was somehow just keeping herself composed?

Even if it was, what could I do about it?

Various potential futures spread out in my mind's eye, the branches of a tree.

"Kotarou? Akira?" Our summoner looks at us from where she had started tidying up. She looked as if her energy bar had been refilled by two notches.

Crap. Time's up for thinking.

In the end, I decide that just using the same cover story on Hitomi was the best option. Hopefully, it wasn't just wishful thinking that Kagari's mental interference was strong enough.

Inoue speaks first. "Have you confessed to her yet?"

Imako stumbled. "W-w-w-what d-d-do you mean?"

And to think that we nearly forgot that nervous stuttering was her character trait. "It was fairly obvious…is what I want to say, but the credit is all Inoue's." At my side, I unfurl the fingers of my clenched fist, trying to relax.

"A-a-and you don't think I'm weird?"

"If I do, it won't be because of your romantic preferences." Inoue replies with an impish grin. "How about some refreshments, now that you look better?"

The summoner rolls her eyes, but opens a cupboard and retrieves a box of chocolate-covered biscuit sticks.

"That's fine, but I was hoping for drinks." Inoue glanced at the desk, where several empty packets of fruit juice, flavoured milk, and sweet tea stood at attention, like bricks waiting to make up a new building.

It was a vast improvement from the time we had forcibly cleaned up the room, but still…

~~[r]~~

It was when Imako had gone on ahead downstairs (making small talk with Inoue) that Kagari takes hold of my arm, a soft grip that startled more than hurt.

"What's wrong?" A part of me felt guilty that we hadn't been involving her more in our conversations, even if it made some tactical sense to not draw the attention of others to her.

"Papa…Singing…"

Singing? I perk up my ears, but hear nothing. Maybe she was like an animal that could hear frequencies higher or lower than human range.

(Needless to say, I dared not attempt to rewrite myself with those capabilities.)

I followed her gaze, which just stared somewhere high up in the distance, beyond the ceiling. "Come on." I gently take her hand.

It wasn't as if I could do anything more at the moment.

We make it downstairs just in time to hear the doorbell ring.

"Eh? Inoue-senpai?" Hitomi's tone of surprise drifted from the entrance.

"You're not the only one who decided to visit. Come on in!"

"Don't invite her as if this was your own house." Imako and I look at each other as we utter the same sentence, in the same low tone of voice. "What happened to being busy with your part-time job?" I add.

"A bit of schedule changes." Hitomi hefts some plastic bags onto the dining table. She was not in her school uniform, but her outdoorsy hunter-green jacket, along with a plain black shirt and her usual jeans. "But it all turned out for the best. Enjoy!"

"T-This is…my favourite brand of grape juice." Imako gingerly lifts up a lime-green juice box. "How did you know?"

"Eh? You told me, didn't you? When we were exchanging messages."

"B-But I didn't expect you to remember…" A tender expression comes to the glasses girl's face. Inoue quietly nudges her, and Imako gets a hold of herself. "Thank you."

"Don't worry about it." As always, Hitomi's tone was carefree. "Oh, and since I had time, I went and got this as well. Ta-da!"

Inoue's eyes widen slightly. "I've written a review about these macaroons. They're expensive. And supposed to be really good."

"Ah…"

"Stop scaring Imako." I lightly jab Inoue.

We dig in to the treats. More small talk. Inoue tells Hitomi about how we found Imako.

"She was playing video games in her bed, and the first thing she did was shout at Kotarou for disturbing her things."

"I-I-I-"

Hitomi chuckles. "That's what I expected." She turns to the glasses girl, who still looked slightly nervous. "I'm glad to see you're better. Though if you were still in bed, I'd have nursed you back to health."

Imako turns bright red, like a tomato.

"I'd bet she'd like that." I administer a follow-up, and everyone laughs, while our summoner just stammers more.

Once or twice, Inoue's eyes flick over to Kagari, then to me, as if asking for confirmation of some kind. I give her a small nod. Neither of our two friends seem to have been paying attention to "Inoue's relative" at all.

It's when we return upstairs that Hitomi approaches me with a quiet murmur. Ahead of us, Inoue appeared to be encouraging, or perhaps reassuring, Imako. "What is it?"

"You're being followed."

"As if having to deal with Gaia wasn't enough." Sarcasm tinges my voice.

"Gaia's tracking you as well?"

"There were some suspicious birds." I tell a technical truth, leaving out the fact that neither Inoue nor I had noticed until Imako told us to our faces.

"Well, you've been put on a list of low-priority suspicious persons. It's probably not your fault, but with what happened to Lucia-senpai last night…yep." She runs forward and join the two other girls before either of them gets suspicious.

She didn't need to explain further. Too many suspicious coincidences were cropping up around me. Plus, both Inoue and I had returned from the forest unharmed, somehow…a place both organizations knew were teeming with familiars.

An exclamation snaps me back to the present. "No way!" It was Hitomi. "That's super limited edition! Where–how?"

"T-T-The usual way. I h-had some l-leftover money, s-so…"

"That's cute! Ah! You have figures of all of these! And that tapestry–it's the one you can only get from–"

Inoue nodded with a satisfied smile, looking much like a contented old man smiling on his grandchildren.

"Don't look so happy yet," I quietly say. "We still have that one big problem to deal with." Hitomi was bouncing around like a hyperactive animal, her attention drawn to different pieces of merchandise every second, while an overwhelmed-looking Imako ineffectually flapped her hands in distress like some bird or butterfly.

"I have hope." Inoue says without hesitation. "Even if the truth isn't always pleasant, I believe people have the strength to face it."

"This isn't shoujo manga, you know."

"But if I didn't believe that, I don't think I would be able to go on. When this whole thing breaks open, people are going to ask why–why can't the two groups just get along? Why fight? I don't believe the two organizations can't get along forever–and I don't believe Imako and Hitomi are doomed to fight, either, even when the truth comes out."

~~[r]~~

With the sun beginning to set, we depart, leaving the two girls behind playing their videogames.

Kagari latches onto Inoue this time. "Singing," she says again.

I tell Inoue about my non-human frequency theory, and how Kagari was staring off into space.

"I wonder." Inoue takes out her phone. "Kagari-chan. Is there anywhere it's coming from? Or…"

"Everywhere," Kagari says, "but also…"

She points in a direction, and Inoue messes about more. "Kotarou, take a look. This is where–oh no."

"Don't suddenly say that." I frown.

"We're here right now." Inoue indicates our location, my neighbourhood. "And roughly in that direction…"

The map scrolls up, eventually pausing at a certain location. "Kazamatsuri Cultural Hall? Am I missing something?"

Inoue gives me an I-thought-you-were-better-than-this look. "It's sponsored and owned by Martel. Put it together!"

"Gaia's headquarters." I slap my head with the ball of my palm. How could I have forgotten the velvet seats, the long lectures that I had sat through? "This is bad."

"Yes." There was a distinctly unhappy expression on Inoue's face. "It's as what you said."

"Er, what did I say?"

"That there might be some way to influence Kagari that we didn't know of."

"Then let's hurry up and go to Kotori."

With Hitomi's words fresh in my mind, I avoided my own backyard, and instead pushed through to the forest through an alternate route.

How convenient was it that that the Tanumas lived in the same neighbourhood?

Or perhaps…my parents, Kotori's parents, and Imako's parents were all members of Martel. All members of the upper-middle class.

Reality stinks. Living as you do in the upper strata of society, you tend to forget that.

Esaka's words.

Right.

On this path, I would probably have to face him as my enemy as well–and I doubted that simply boosting my physical parameters would be enough.

I put this away as a problem to deal with later. In the meantime, I perk up my ears and look around for any prying familiars or superhumans…to only detect one, as Chibimoth runs up to greet me.

"Hey there, little fella." I stroke its head. "None of that perception thing, okay? We're all friends here."

"Mosu…"

"That's a mammoth." Inoue said. "I can see it clearly now."

"Maybe we've gotten better at seeing through deception."

We cross the threshold to Kotori's magical world, and the mistress of the realm stands up and faces us. "Kotarou. Inoue-san. And…"

Her eyes settle on Kagari, and her expression becomes fixed.

"Yo." I greet my childhood friend. An equally strained smile comes to my face.

How could it not, after all that I had remembered?

The Kotori that I had known didn't make jokes about liking money–in fact, she didn't make jokes at all. She was a cold, precocious child that didn't get along well with others, and it was only until the very end that she stopped disliking me.

My tongue freezes in my mouth.

Inoue lightly squeezes my hand, and the warmth of it brings returns me to life. "I've brought Kagari back," I say. "And we need to ask you about some important things."

"How much do you know?"

"A lot more than last time, and yet, still not enough."

We sit down at a sheltered area that hadn't been here previously, two benches at a rectangular table below a thatched roof.

I sit facing Kotori. Inoue remains standing at my back, resting against the wood that I was leaning on. Kagari sits to my right, holding on to my right forearm as usual.

We stare at each other in silence.

It drags on.

It drags on.

Neither of us want to begin.

Even though we need to.

Even though the world was at stake.

"Kanbe-san." Inoue speaks gently, breaking the silence. "We've found out a lot of things about the supernatural since the last time, but we're still missing a few pieces. Could you tell us?"

Kotori doesn't look happy at all, but she nods.

"How did you become a druid? We know Gaia scouts out people with summoner potential, but…"

"I told you, didn't I?" Kotori's voice was flat. "Druids gain information about summoning by touching mistletoe."

"But why become a summoner in the first place? It's a heavy responsibility, isn't it? We know that this is dangerous, so why…why did you choose to take on this burden?"

I didn't think it was possible, but Kotori's expression becomes even more guarded than it already is.

Bingo. My breath hitches.

"Why should I have to tell you this? It's my personal circumstances, isn't it?" There was a tiny tremor in her voice.

"We found out the true nature of Salvation–or at least, one possible answer." I speak at last. "It's…" I glance up sideways and Inoue, and she gives me a tiny nod. Say what you think is right, her expression seemed to convey. "The existing world is wiped clean, and we start over from zero. No, correction: it starts over from zero, without us in it."

That information appears to surprise Kotori. "But…"

"That's what both Guardian and Gaia believe. But what about you, Kotori? What do you believe? What do you want?" An edge seeps into my tone. "How do we know we can trust you?"

Kotori recoils as if she's been physically slapped.

"Calm down, Kotarou!" Inoue hisses in my ear.

"Sorry, but I can't help it." Emotions that I did not know I was feeling come to the surface. I didn't even realise that I was on my feet. "I know you saved me that time, Kotori. Thank you." I bow my head formally, get the gratitude out of the way.

"So you remember. The past."

"Most of it, but not all of it. You were the one that put the Key's ribbons into my arm, I know that." The very same being that mortally wounded me also provided the means to drag me back from death. Was there something poetic in that? "Tell me," I repeat. "Why do all this? What about–"

My mind finds itself dragged back to what seemed like an eternity ago, when Kotori's mother had rang my doorbell late one evening, to tell me to bring her daughter back. But would the Kanbes that I now remembered actually allow their daughter to roam freely? Sure, they let her stop attending Martel meetings, but they still forced her to adopt a dog.

"What about your parents, Kotori?" I say quietly. "Do they know about all this? How you've been dragged into such a dangerous conflict?"

"What about your parents, Kotarou?"

"You know about my circumstances. You were a smart kid back then, and I told you that I planned to run away. You already know my parents and I aren't on good terms. Why are you stalling for time?"

Kotori slides out from between the bench and the table, moving into the open.

"Answer me, Kotori."

"I don't have to. And I don't want to." Kotori seemed to be holding together herself by a thread. "You can leave the Key here. I'll take care of it. Just go back to your normal life. You too, Inoue-san. Just drop this, and live happily with Kotarou–"

"I'm not the type of person that can let something like this go." Inoue says neutrally. "And I'm definitely not going to. You've been deceiving Kotarou all this time. Do you think pretending that something never happened will make it go away? Did you think you were protecting him by hiding the truth from him? You betrayed him, Kanbe-san! And you're supposed to be his childhood friend!"

Inoue's rising voice, and her anger, ironically, snaps me out of my own. It was the first time I had seen her like this–purely angry, and not anger mixed with sadness.

And it was on my behalf…

A wry grin comes to my face, and I put my hand on her shoulder. "Let me speak for myself." I address Kotori. "No more running. Tell me the truth."

"It's easy for you to say, isn't it!?" Kotori cries, her voice finally breaking. It twists in the air, warped by pain that I did not know. "You're just a normal person who's never faced hardship in their life! You've always had friends, haven't you? Both of your parents are still healthy and well? And you have Kotarou as well…"

It took me a few seconds to realise she was addressing Inoue, and not me.

"Yeah, that's right." Inoue's frown was an angry slash on her face. "I'm an ordinary person. A civilian who's not a superhuman, who found out that they had no talent for summoning. Is that what you're going to say? Just because I haven't suffered as much as you–that somehow means we don't deserve to know what really happened?"

"!"

"And don't get me started on Kotarou." Inoue stepped forwards, fire in her voice. "How do you think it felt for me, for the person I love to tell me that he liked someone else so deeply for so long before I came along? He told me everything, Kotori! How he confessed to you, how you turned him down. You could have relied on him, could have accepted him, but you didn't!"

"I couldn't!"

"You didn't have enough faith in him. You pushed him away–"

"It's not so simple!" Kotori screamed. "I thought…I thought he was my familiar. When I healed him with the help of the Key's ribbons using my druid techniques, I thought…" She looks right as me. "You were like a completely different person when you woke up. Cheerful, friendly, outgoing…I thought you were a familiar for so long. A familiar born of my desires…and…"

"I'm not your familiar." I reject her. "I know what a contract feels like. There's no link like that between you and me."

"I know! If you really were my familiar, you wouldn't have fallen in love with someone else!" Tears were beginning to stream down the face of my childhood friend.

"What are you saying?" Inoue demanded. "You like Kotarou, and you knew he liked you back, but you didn't accept his confession? Were you just planning on keeping him hanging for all eternity? You think that's fair to him?"

"I don't know! I DON'T KNOW!"

I look from Kotori, who was cowering with her hands over her face, to Inoue, who had one foot forward, as if ready to go on a physical attack. "Go take a break." I grasped Inoue's hand, turned her around. "Reassure Kagari that we're not suddenly about to kill each other, or something." A weak joke, but I felt it was needed. "I'll talk to Kotori."

"You mustn't–"

"Don't worry. I want the truth as much as you do. Perhaps even more." My voice was sombre, and I reached out a hand to Inoue's face, wiping a tear from her cheek. "I won't be swayed. I'm not the Tennouji Kotarou of ten years ago, and I'm not the naive Tennouji Kotarou that's been wandering around with half his memories, either."

Inoue gets my meaning. She nods and walks away.

Now alone with Kotori, I take a step towards her, and speak calmly. "Kotori."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't want your apologies. I just want the truth. What happened?"

For several long moments, she simply looks at me, before she finally begins speaking in a hoarse, teary voice.

The very same day I left, the Kanbes went on a family trip. This, I remembered.

I remembered exchanging words with Kotori, saying some made-up nonsense, before telling her a lie that I was running away to a relative, when I was actually about to join Guardian.

During the Kanbe family trip, they got into an accident. An injured Kotori stumbled upon the mistletoe, gained her calling as a druid, and gained the wisdom of the ancients.

But the reason that she took on the duty was…

"It said I would gain the power to revive my parents."

I keep my face neutral. Instinctively, I knew that dead people couldn't be brought back so easily.

Yet, Madam Rikako had so readily came to get me.

Yes. What had most likely happened, was…

Would Kotori really accept it, if I told her what she had actually done–to turn the corpses of her father and mother into familiars? She was already in a fragile state.

And yet–

If I kept this theory from her–stopped myself from saying what I thought the reality of the situation was–

–would I then just be as bad as her? I knew Kotori wasn't malicious. Her keeping me away from the supernatural–it was not just done purely out of selfishness. She had wanted to protect me as well.

"Thank you for telling me." I try to be gentle. "Just rest for now, okay?"

Kotori just nods, and heads off into a small hut.

I walk back to Inoue, who was playing some sort of hand-touching game with Kagari's ribbons. "Are you okay?"

"I am. Kagari wasn't too happy, though."

"Fighting…is bad." Kagari says, looking at me, something like disapproval on her face. "Not…not good memories."

"Sorry." I rub the head of my 'daughter', and tell Inoue what happened to Kotori. "Should I tell her? That her parents…"

"Honestly? I don't know. I don't even think you should be asking me." Her face falls. "Maybe Kanbe-san is right. Maybe I'm meddling in forces out of my control. Maybe I shouldn't–"

I wrap my arms around her gently from behind, a hug. "This isn't like you, Innoway. What happened to that brave girl who charges into dangerous forests without thinking?"

She lets out a laugh. "Gone and buried at the first sign of adversity, I'd imagine. The real me is the one that you've been seeing the past few days."

I fall silent for a moment, thinking about Inoue's feelings about Kotori. I knew she had been worried, but not…not to this extent. "I'm not going to leave you. You've given me…your everything, and I accepted it. And more than that, I feel that you've given me a place to belong. Between the two of us, I'd say that…" I take a breath. "I'd say that I'm the one who worries more about you disappearing, than me. After all, you're bright, sociable–"

"S-Stop with the flattering already."

"You're always walking forward towards a clear goal. A scoop. The next scoop. The next secret. I admired–and I still admire–you for it." I hug her a bit tighter. "It's not flattery. I'm saying what I really think about you."

Inoue opens her mouth to reply, but is cut off by Kagari hugging her from the front.

"Is this…love?" the little girl asks.

"It is, Kagari."

~~[r]~~

It was fully nighttime when we finally left, having essentially convened a war council with Kotori.

With the scope of Gaia and Guardian's capabilities in mind, I convinced her to reduce the size of her barrier, to focus on stealth instead of defence. Such a large area that was obscured from any map would eventually draw attention to itself, I said, and one summoner couldn't hope to hold off both organization with raw force, even if a power spot was involved.

I also told Kotori to, if it was possible, focus on creating a small number of high-spec familiars, instead of a large army of drones. Quality over quantity, as the saying goes. In my mind, I saw Chihaya's butler, the rumoured 'strongest familiar' of Gaia. He, too, might be an enemy that I needed to overcome.

In a small victory, we managed to convince Kagari to stay with Kotori for one night, with promises that we'd be back tomorrow to pick her up. It seemed that for the past ten years, Kotori had been quietly aiding Kagari anyway, in her capacity as a druid. After all that was said, I felt reluctant to rely on her for help, but greater things were at stake, and so I swallowed my pride.

It didn't stop me from making a mental promise to myself to free her from her duties as soon as I could. As the older one, I felt I had that responsibility.

When all was said and done, I walked Inoue back to her apartment. I asked her about her parents, and she said she'd deal with them herself, and not to worry. I promised to come running if she shouted, and she had nodded, and I had seen her off with assurances that she would get good rest before the festival began.

Finally, I was back at home, by myself.

A warm shower, and I laid down on my bed. I had a strong feeling that everything would begin and end with the festival. After all, the timing of the harvest festival always seemed to correspond to when the Key–when Kagari was active. It had been like that ten years ago, and it was like that now.

Holding my right hand above my face, I manifested my claw. Three green blades of aurora manifested, along with ghostly-green ribbons that I now knew to be the Key's.

I make a tiny cut along my left wrist, and a two-bladed red claw formed on that hand. My blood. My true ability.

With another thought, I dismissed the both of them.

My reflections turned to other things.

Summoners, and superhumans. We had learned plenty about them today, from Imako.

It was Inoue that usually did such things, but maybe I could try updating the Record myself? She had said that my writing was passable.

I reach under my bed to the spot where I had taped it–

–and was filled with terror to discover that the memory card was missing.

Immediately, I jump to my feet.

It was a diary of our experiences in the forest, as well as basically all we knew and had put together about the supernatural.

In other words, it was enough evidence to damn us both, even if it wasn't fully up to date.

Was it Gaia that raided my house? Or was it Guardian?

I sharpen my senses, and look around my room for clues.

It didn't take long.

Between my fingers, I held a single thread of gold. A single long, blonde hair that I could recognise from familiarity.

Nakatsu Shizuru.

Please have mercy on us.

I've been using 'glasses girl' to refer to Imako a lot. I know it's not really grammatically correct, but 'bespectacled' is too many syllables and too fancy a word for Kotarou's inner narration. At least, that's what I think.

As for how strong Kagari's "just-accept-it beam" is, look to her scenario in Harvest Festa.

Next time: the long awaited harvest festival.

Review please!