Title: [SPECIAL 2021] Reiwa 3 Watanagashi Festival || Series: Boundless Kakera, Chapter 10
Fandom: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
Synopsis: Fleeing from the past is not equivalent to moving on towards the future. Miyo hopes to make peace with her past, seeking a familiar face in a familiar village where she left it all behind.
Note: Can be considered a companion piece to the [SPECIAL 2019] Reiwa 1 Watanagashi Festival
Pairing: N/A
Posted: June 20, 2021. Birthday of Takano Miyo. The Third Sunday of June, Watanagashi Day!
Requested By: Sanitel
In her fascination with history and folklore, Miyo knows the scariest thing to haunt man is the past.
The sort to ingrain fear, guilt, or shame. Those moments that address sins. Any reminder of unpleasant history anyone wishes to forget should the topic come up.
The Hinamizawans can attest to this notion, what with the ghastly past of their village which they prefer to sweep under the rug.
As can she. On a deeper, personal level.
Life has its start somewhere. Her's had begun as a prepubescent orphan, adopted and nurtured by he who she calls Ojichan. She chanced upon his research on a certain brain disease, one that he studied regardless of the ridicule from his peers for entertaining "absolute drivel".
Hifumi worked desperately until dementia and suicide. From there, Miyo picked up where he left off.
She allied with TOKYO, schemed in enacting Emergency Manual 34. All to validate the theories from Ojichan's scrapbook regarding the parasites and the Queen Carrier. To expose the truth to the world, succeed where Ojichan failed.
Even if that meant massacring thousands.
"Jesus was immortal not in body but in the teachings which people have faith in. In their hearts, Jesus lived on. And should my research be recognized, I shall be immortal."
"You mean, you would become God? Like that?"
"That's right. Even if it is after I die."
Everything Miyo did was all for him. She vowed to make a name for them both and be immortalized in history.
They would become God!
She lost. Bested by the Queen Carrier and her friends. TOKYO threw her under the bus when they lost, when she needed them most. They told her that nobody cared about Hinamizawa Syndrome and had only used her work to benefit their political purposes. Now that the plan was compromised there was no point.
And somehow Miyo contracted that very same disease, the only thing to shield her against a crueler fate for what she did.
Her progress toward a second chance was a long journey, like attempting to traverse the entire world on foot; it made her ache and the improbable aspects of such a feat seemed more and more discouraging. She got support from Jirou-san and Irie-sensei but two men could only do so much for her, and she had no one else.
Guilt was another issue. The disease left her with no rhyme or reason in her actions. It was after Miyo got treatment that the repercussions took its toll. She couldn't face the villagers; at least, not without remembering that they were the ones she callously deemed sacrifices to meet her own ends. Exceptions such as the Queen Carrier and her ragtag group of friends who knew her as an enemy were avoided altogether.
People rarely saw her outside the clinic. Only whenever Miyo worked as a nurse did she not play incognito. While she concealed her remorse well, it was torture to hear the villagers commend her for the help she provided them in her job, oblivious to the bitter irony.
Somewhere down the road, it became apparent that Takano Miyo's crimes proved too much to handle—much less rectify.
A decision was reached: she would move to America with Jirou-san.
Thus, the sinner was left behind. She buried the past and pursued the future. Sought the sinless, sought Tanashi Miyoko.
Became Tanashi Miyoko.
For a time, peace prevailed. Jirou-san remained steadfast at her side. They explored the wondrous places of America, welcomed to this new world where their new lives were set.
They were the leaves that flew to wherever the wind carried them. When they settled and found their place somewhere in the water amidst other leaves, they stuck together. Not a ripple nor current tore them apart.
Their undying love for one another was the ultimate glue. Marriage had been to disclose that. Even presently, she never loosened her grip on the magic that enveloped her when they became husband and wife that day.
It was also the same magic which had given her and Jirou-san more life than what they expected, in the form of twin children.
An imaginative boy, who, like the sun, glowed bright with gold head of hair and smiled at the beauties of life before him that wooed artists or would-be into sketching and painting. He wasn't an exception from that crowd. Her second offspring, an assertive yet sweet girl with short hair colored bronze, was a breed of selflessness who would defend those in need and oppose corrupted hearts. Law enforcement would help motivate her further to augment her nobility.
Wife and husband cherished the two beyond any description created from words. This blessing called family was bestowed on them and she was to thank life by teaching her kids the boundless wonders it possessed, and at the same time provide them the love and support they would need to follow in her footsteps, come the day they, too, receive this gift: the joys of parenthood.
She had so much in life, and yet less than she should.
There was a sort of emptiness inside her heart. One that expanded when her children asked things like "What was Mommy like when she was small like us? Mom, who were you back when you and Dad weren't married? What did you do in life before we were born, Mother?" as they flowed in the river of time.
Like the skies, their passing of childhood to adolescence to adulthood was ever-changing, but their questions served as the clouds that drift consistently.
Her answer would always be, "Your Mother was not your Mother, in those days," and she left it there.
They were not estranged exactly, however they did not feel as close as they should. There were things about their Mother unsaid, which kept them apart at present. If only she could tell son and daughter more about herself, to satiate their curiosity, to sew up the holes of that missing something in her heart.
But what is there to reveal? Miyoko didn't have a past.
"Mother, look what we found while cleaning the attic!"
"A photo album! There are so many pictures, see! And the girl with the elderly gentlemen here greatly resembles you! But who is Takano Miyo?"
She didn't recall bringing the photo album and stashing it away in the realm of things to be forgotten.
That was, until it reared its head years later.
Her inquisitive offspring never did get their answer. She snatched the album off their hands before she then silently walked away. But it was too late. The damage already did its job the moment her eyes laid upon the photographs that told a thousand words, each with its own story to tell.
There were stronger tides that made the river of time billow. Three of the leaves retreated into the distance, though one was eclipsed by the thick foam. It would not resurface.
Takano Miyo finally hunted her down.
She had been trapped in lonely confinement. No one could get her out the bedroom. Not even her beloved Jirou, whose efforts to bring sustenance or coax her bore no fruit. Not her children, who fretted over her desolation. Eventually, they would leave her be. Alone.
How much time passed, she didn't know. Time had been slow and fast and surreal, when she knew what was occurring around her but had no control over. Like drowning. She was drowning in tragic memories of the orphan girl and her deceased Ojichan.
No matter how she tried to get a grip and resurface, nothing worked and she would sink deeper. Burning eyes were a symptom of this curse.
And in the isolation, it wasn't the pictures alone that was tormenting her, but something much worse.
Sins.
That was to be expected from the sinner. What was not so, however, was the grave extent.
Furious strokes of red brushed the air as her blade wildly carved the small surface.
Takano Miyo howled with maniacal laughter. The volume of her voice was increasing the closer she got in completing her objective, the sacrifice of the Queen Carrier.
When the Queen Carrier perished, its loyal subjects had succumbed to a mass outbreak. Villagers clawed their own necks, or frantically roamed the rural expanse. The bodies dropped all the same. Sickly green haze would enshroud them in its strangling grasp, and thundering orange sparks lit the final moments of their lives.
Wearing hazmat masks, armed soldiers maintained their distance between themselves and the beehive.
Miyo towered Hinamizawa from a safe location as she gleefully observed everything below. The commissures tore long slits into her cheeks, her grin exposed thick rings of teeth. Amber pupils dilated as arms spread to her sides.
"I have done it! I brought forth judgement; I reached the territory of a deity, immortal throughout history! Carry on Oyashiro-sama's curse which I have made my own! For I am God!"
She welcomed her resurrection. One of many sins.
The past had its methods of haunting her. It lulled her to sleep and ensnared her with nightmares, or stabbed her in the head repeatedly with memories. But the worst was the way Takano Miyo would screech in her ears.
"Don't deny it! You wanted that, strived for that. Have done that. You wouldn't exist without me. Those centuries poured into our past, lives we lived here and in other worlds; all that had made you who you are."
"I am Tanashi Miyoko," she paced around the room repeating, like every other day she had this discussion. "I am Tanashi Miyoko, I am—"
"A poser and you know it! Look at yourself, you reject your true past, yet you wish to attain your future. Pah! You can't progress if there's nothing else to progress from."
Fingers clutched lumps of her hair. "I am Tanashi Miyoko! I am Tanashi Miyoko!"
"To move forward you tread the road of the past leading to the present and future."
"I am Tanashi Miyoko!"
"Without that, you cannot proceed. You'd keep falling without anything to stand on. You'd be trapped. Drowning with no way to resurface."
"I...I—"
"You cannot be a person who is dead."
Her mantras broke as she paused. She never heard that line before, not throughout the cruel cycle of Takano versus Tanashi. Startled eyes met a piercing glare at opposite ends of the cheval mirror.
"Tanashi Miyoko, a girl once happy and innocent, may have existed. But she is gone. Has been since she became an orphan and had undergone her reincarnation. You and I both know who she is now..."
The sentence tapered off there, though the meaning behind it continued in her mind. If the words were not any clearer, then what stood before her would blatantly present the answer. Even after she blinked and the glare vanished, her face remained the same. Her features were poisoned with age and guilt-ridden sin.
"We and Miyoko indeed share a similar face," the sinner's voice echoed inwardly, "But hers does not possess the burdens ours is stuck with forever. She will not ever, she's dead and sinless and without a past. Not like we, who breathe—marked with chapters of our lives good and bad that define our past. That much is written on our features."
She felt her heart ache. Reality flickered in the reflection.
Takano Miyo was right. She and Tanashi Miyoko were different people who lived different lives, even if they both had been the same at one point. It was in no way possible for one to assume the life of the other now.
This whole time, she had been a paradox...
She collapsed to her knees before weeping. Her eyes never strayed from the reflection.
"I must go, Jirou-san. I'm decades overdue to make amends for my sins. Please, tend the children here in America if they need anything while I am away."
"Miyoko-chan..."
"And don't call me that anymore. The both of us know that's not really who I am. Not who I should be."
"Miyok—! ...Miyo..."
She, Miyo, makes it a point to return to Hinamizawa. The restless soul that is her past beckons her. Not a gesture of malice nor torment, but a plea: for assistance in moving on.
First, she needs to pick up where she left off. Her steps toward redemption, her arduous ascent to the summit—where she will meet and seek remission from those she wronged. Only then can Miyo enter the present and embark on the trip to her future.
She's just in time for Watanagashi.
There are many faces she meets upon arriving at the festival; some new with skin rich in youth, others somewhat familiar that possess a great deal of wisdom obtainable through many years or even decades of living life, those numbers varying per person.
Then, of course, there is that particular face belonging to the shrine maiden. Camouflaging with the crowd, Miyo observes this girl. Red and white robes over her graceful form, the girl conducts the ritual. The ceremonial hoe in her petite hands plunge repeatedly into thick stacks of bedding.
For each rise and fall, wisps of black hair tipped with cerulean spring up and down from her head. Cotton spews out of the ruined futon in concert. Within those seas for eyes, that which narrow at the futon in concentration, conceal the leviathan sure to reveal itself dare if provoked.
Something about that trait is eerily familiar. Miyo swears she's met a person with such a righteous temper before. She can't place her finger on who. Definitely someone close to the Queen Carrier, she knows that much at least.
On that note, this maiden isn't the one she seeks. Can't be. She looks no older than eighteen.
But evidently she is the successor to the village miko. Rika-chan, the Queen Carrier, had to have resigned somewhere down the road Miyo never crossed.
And the new miko does bear some resemblance to her predecessor. Is she a close relative perhaps? Whatever the case, this person must know the whereabouts of Rika-chan, and Miyo intends to ask.
The maiden stops.
Torches crackle as if they applaud her. Everybody cheers, their voices quake the earth beneath and rise up to heaven, their chorus singing to Oyashiro-sama and Her disciple. The miko bows to them silently, though the bells adorning the ceremonial hoe jingle as it mimics her gesture, telling the crowd enough of her gratitude.
Praise ejects from the volcano of euphoria and laughter boiling in the masses that day, sweeping through Hinamizawa.
Miyo waits, her body inching forward bit by bit as this line of people ahead dwindles.
So many villagers waiting their turn to receive the cotton and package their sins inside before sending it away. She cannot believe that this is Hinamizawa. Reiwa 3 has undoubtedly stormed the rural land, leaving many marks in new structures, changed pathways and a larger population. This place with the river is the closest thing to unaltered from the Hinamizawa of Shōwa 58 she remembers.
Like the sluggish stream carrying parties of cotton into the distance, time goes on a slothful ride. Miyo doesn't mind this, though. She simply flows with the shrinking queue.
Finally, Miyo is at her destination. The last to not meet the new miko and receive her gift, she steps forward.
Black and cerulean strands of hair retreat behind the glowing visage that turns to greet her. Miyo swims in the seas of that inquisitive gaze. There, she can see her reflection. Momentarily.
Recognition causes the miko's eyes to bug out. In it, her image slowly evaporates the longer it takes the truth to sink in for the miko. Then hostility takes the reins and her reflection is completely devoured by the leviathan residing there. The glint flashing in those deep irises signifies its snarl.
"...Takano."
Miyo stiffens, not expecting this seething reception. "You...know me?"
The miko sneers, "Your portrait is put on full display at Irie Clinic, though I know you better from the stories Okaasan told me."
Everything clicks into place—the resemblance, hostility. Okaasan.
"You mention Okaasan," she puts in a nearly desperate tone, "Would she happen to be Furude Rika?"
"Yes. I am her daughter."
A hush falls over them after that curt, chilly confirmation.
Daughter. Her supposition about the miko being a close relative is not only true, but brings Miyo closer to the truth.
This raises another startling fact. Rika-chan, a bonafide mother. Even Rika-chan is susceptible to change just as Hinamizawa is. Change... Miyo suppresses a wry laugh. Ironic. These alterations of her old life are becoming constant now.
"See here!" Miyo shrinks when Rika's daughter pipes up venomously, "If you think you can just come here with the intent to cause trouble, you got another thing coming!"
She shakes her head vehemently, blurting, "I only wish to repent!"
"Repent? So I am expected to believe the villain who plotted The Great Hinamizawa Disaster came for a cotton ball?"
Miyo deflates at the cutting remark. Feeling subdued, she only manages a meek nod and whispers, "I also seek Rika-chan..."
This shocks her collocutor.
"My Okaasan?!" the miko bares her teeth. "I...I should have known. You plan on finishing the job!"
"No! I mean what I say, I hope to make peace and start over!"
"Don't lie to me! You just can't leave well enough alone!"
The miko stomps over to her. Miyo can almost feel herself suffocating under those ocean eyes. Words get lost in her throat as Miyo tries to regain breathing control, and she shivers. She swears she can sense the coils of the leviathan meet her skin in cold contact.
"You nearly devastated my home, my family. No. You have. Had succeeded in doing so for centuries. For those sins I'll never forgive you!" the girl roars.
Miyo chokes on a brush of air scraping her throat.
"Mirai."
That voice...
Mirai looks over to the side, astonishment appearing on her face. "Okaasan!"
Following Mirai's gaze, Miyo gapes at Furude Rika. Her indigo hair hangs in a low ponytail. Her skin seems as fair as the moon, bright like the white sundress she has on. The thirty eight years she lived have refined her appearance to befit a beautifully grown adult, with curves and all.
"I will take over from here, Child," Rika-chan declares.
Mirai opens her mouth to object, but that warning look from her mother muzzles her and she backs off begrudgingly.
Rika-chan redirects her attention to Miyo.
Emotions appear nowhere on her face. "Takano," she acknowledges, voice equally impassive.
Unblinking violets observe the sinner. All Miyo can do is stare. Those eyes carry something mysterious. Not a leviathan brimming with resent, ready to constrict its prey until excruciatingly slow suffocation. But something, under the deep she suffocates in. Miyo still feels so cold.
She can't take much more of this. Her legs buckle.
Miyo is suddenly in a groveling posture as she snivels, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
The first couple apologies are whispered clearly, then sobs and chokes garble the rest from that point. Words slip out her moving lips yet they don't come out so well. She can't even hear them. She's too busy drowning again.
Plotting massacre. Committing massacre. Murdering Rika-chan. Every two thousand lives. Per world. Her sins are weighing her down, pushing her deeper below. The centuries of her actions accumulate and make up this unbearable weight.
She keeps staring into Rika-chan's eyes. Darkness pulses at the heart of its violet expanse as it claims her mind and drags her inside itself. Her vision blurs, and her misty eyes squeeze shut after some time. The tears hang from the rims of her eyelids.
Then, Miyo feels tufts of her hair smoothed under a caress.
"Takano."
Astonished eyes snap open. Greeting her is the violet gaze but there's something different. A gleam illuminating the pupils. Telling profound wisdom beyond this woman twenty years her junior.
"I see then. Your past has been haunting you," Rika-chan rubs her head consolingly.
Miyo sniffles, "You know."
"You would not be the first," Rika-chan confirms, "All my friends have seen the other worlds as well. They experienced their sins firsthand."
"...And you..."
"I lived the entirety of all those worlds. Suffered the full extent of everyone's sins, including yours."
Images, of corpses, of the eviscerated Rika-chan flash before her eyes like a slideshow. Her vision flickers back and forth between her previous lives and her present surroundings.
A pang of panic stabs into her chest as she envelops Rika-chan's waist with her arms, anchoring herself back to reality. The flashes stop and she finds herself staring up at Rika-chan. Unharmed and grown up. This contrast to the child in her memories imbues Miyo with regret.
She tries apologizing once more. Her throat raw due to misuse, she can only make a scratchy whimper.
Rika-chan pats her head. "You deeply regret all your sins. You wish to start over, and you want to make peace with us...and yourself, don't you?"
Miyo does not respond. Instead her bloodshot ambers fix on Rika-chan's piercing stare as if to give the honest answer, that yes—it's what she desires. With all her heart and then some.
Neither break their mutual gaze.
Finally, Rika-chan takes a step back. As Miyo stares intently into the black center drawing in the mauve whirlpools, she discovers something. Imprisoned is a woman semitransparent under the vortex's grasp. On the verge of being wiped out and truly lost in darkness forever. Herself.
Rika-chan, the deciding factor to her fate, observes her silently with an unreadable expression. Miyo awaits her judgement with bated breath. The reflection in those eyes fades in and out.
Then, Miyo meets her fate.
An outstretched hand.
The faintest shadow of a smile plays on Rika-chan's lips. "Fine. I'll grant you this wish."
"What?" Miyo breathes, before doing a double take at the stronger echo to her exclamation. She soon realizes the echo belonged to a different voice.
Rika-chan regards her irate daughter with a blank look. "Child."
"Why is it that you welcome Takano so readily, Okaasan! She put you in an endless cycle of torment, did she not? For over a century, you were denied happiness because of this woman responsible! I can't understand how you give her mercy when you should be scorning her!" Mirai spouts.
Her mother's face becomes reproachful. "Still your tongue! Only I know my own feelings best."
Mirai recoils at this.
"F-Forgive me. I didn't mean to put it like that," she apologizes guiltily. "But, Okaasan," her sea eyes land on Miyo, bright with concern. "Takano hurt you once before. Who is to say she won't..."
"Child," the look from Rika-chan softens. "I do appreciate your concern. Really. But there is no need for that. Takano won't cause any more trouble."
"How can you be sure?" Mirai queries.
Rika-chan withdraws the hand reaching out to Miyo, and advances toward her daughter. "Tell me. Do you know why I named you Mirai?"
Mirai shakes her head.
"Because you are a reminder of what I sought in my entire existence, a life beyond Shōwa 58. You are my future. Child, you know my story, you know how greatly that matters to me. To lose this chance in living out this utopia would be devastating. That is, if I ever wound up confined in the past again."
"What does that have to do with Takano?"
"For me to fixate on Takano's sins and hold that against her, I relive that nightmare."
Absolute silence reigns, yet the disclosure in that answer speaks loud in the minds of all three.
Mirai suddenly takes a great interest in her own feet over her mother. Ambivalence tightens her features and zips her lips.
Rika-chan clasps Mirai's shoulder, giving a reassuring squeeze. "And I am not the only one. Takano also wants that kind of life I desire. Her resolve is genuine and clear, devoid of malice. The least we can do is support her on that."
Miyo observes the senior Furude with nothing less than amazement after that revelation. This person, who she denied a future in other worlds, is willing to provide her just that? Inconceivable are these fruits of development that contribute to a Rika warmed with such compassion, for even her past enemies. Destitute of the acrimony bred from the Endless June. Driven by maternal emotion and a need to pursue the future while moving beyond one's past.
One thing is certain, there are more changes to Furude Rika than Miyo could have anticipated.
The discussion resumes in hushed tones this time. Rika-chan extends a hand out, mouthing an order to her daughter.
Whatever has been said makes Mirai grimace. The maiden glances at Miyo, then back at the matriarch. Contemplation dispels that air of defiance she carried previously.
Mirai sighs after a while—a sign of relenting, made apparent when she hands something to her mother from one of her balled fists.
Rika-chan approaches Miyo. Like before, she proffers a hand.
Different is the cotton ball resting in her palm.
"Take it," Rika-chan prods gently.
Miyo surveys this flattened cloud of purity, the fingers of the angels from within open to her. Ready to take.
Hesitant but no less gracious, she accepts the cotton.
The sins are cradled in between.
Wind softly sings in her ears. This song from the breeze, the voice of tranquility and nature, is quite soothing.
Dawdle she does. Almost moving along with the rhythm. Straight towards the stream where Rika-chan waits, having arrived there already.
Miyo stops, sneaking a look south. She sees Rika-chan's friends. Their backs are turned, and they all leave to retire for the night. A recent recollection of their reacquaintance just moments ago briefly fogs her vision with faces—of the original members who she can recall, of extra people in their group she did not expect to meet. Just like the Furude family, their circle has expanded.
Curiosity. Recognition. Surprise. None express contempt, however, Miyo recalls the air of subtle wariness they emanate. It is to be expected, she figures as much. They do welcome her to Hinamizawa regardless, for the most part.
Furude Mirai is an exception. While parental authority has effectively shut down her hostility, the maiden stays true to her dogmatic self by keeping an eye on her. Mistrust presents itself clearly from the girl, even as she accompanies the group.
Miyo averts her gaze from the suspicious look sent her way.
"How are you feeling?" Rika-chan asks as they meet up at last.
"As though a great burden rests on me. This cotton ball is heavy..."
She cannot be certain if held in her hands is really that or a lifting stone. Sins are bundled up, pieces of cloud solidifying. Yet, the item appears as it should.
Rika-chan places a hand on her shoulder, and oddly Miyo feels no extra weight pile up. "Forgiveness can take that away. All you need to do is let go and it will do the rest. I have given you the tool to help send it off."
"You really do want to help me," she murmurs, "What you spoke to Mirai about is true. But, after everything... Surely, you must have resented me?"
There it is, the interrogation to the enigma. Silence does its part as Rika-chan's bodyguard, wedging itself between interest and reaction.
Breath brushes air, and the hush is shooed away.
"For a time I did," Rika-chan answers evenly. "I became furious when I learned of your stay at Irie Clinic. I believed you deserved something else. Had you approached me around that time instead of today, I would have been every bit the vengeful woman my daughter expected."
Miyo gulps, "Then what happened?"
"Acceptance. I came to understand whatever we do in the present cannot alter what is done in the past. Attempting to prove otherwise would be futile. Such a waste of time demands currency only the future can pay, and that trade is ludicrous. Especially for me, a woman who favors the here and now and promises of fortune that are to follow, frugal in all else before.
"Takano, I shall not forget our past differences," she hears Rika-chan affirm clearly. The solemn tone and manner compels her to believe this without argument. "But I accept what happened between us did occur and there is nothing to reverse that. Our past is part of us, what made us who we are now. All that we can do is move forward from there. I have, but will you? Will you forgive Takano Miyo, and continue after her?"
Miyo scrutinizes the cotton ball.
An echo of pulsations throb against her palms, humming in concert with her heart—growing louder as it snuggles. Takano Miyo breathes, and she listens to her with closed eyes.
She smiles. Their heartbeats merge.
Her cotton ball is gently set atop the water. The current takes it off her hands, and off they go on their ride. Miyo observes the fluffy orb as it drifts. It does not sink, it slides on the surface. Off into the horizon.
Beaming white, the last she sees of the cotton ball, shrinks and fades away.
She returns the radiant expression at the angels as they do.
Rika-chan observes her one last time, a soft smile dances on her lips. The senior Furude takes her leave with satisfaction.
Miyo gets up from the crouch she adopted while sending away her cotton ball. She finds amazement in the absence of weight her body sustained, able to easily rise to her feet now. That accounts how she can finally breathe, no longer drowning, no longer suffocating. She relishes this refreshing sensation.
Most novel is her beating heart. Everywhere denial and melancholy once riddle, Takano Miyo help sew together. Scars are undoubtedly apparent, but with them she shall live on. No more will regret and anguish tear her apart.
She departs, to truly live her life.
Whole.
Author's Note:
The request was that Takano return to Hinamizawa years after 1983 and apologize to Rika for what she did, or had attempted to do in the case of Matsuribayashi-hen. Surprisingly, Sanitel also wanted me to use the Chapter 2 timeline as a reference, which is why I used an OC (Mirai), who Sanitel also encouraged me to use.
I did plan to write a bit more—like adding in the interactions between Takano and the other club members, among other stuff. Sadly, schoolwork and finals, severe writer's block, and a tight deadline proved to be a pain.
Apologies in advance if this isn't to your liking.