FLASHBACK
Kusuke's phone buzzed.
Again.
He glanced at the screen.
Haruka. For the third time that night.
He didn't answer. Let it buzz once… twice… almost a third time before swiping, more out of curiosity than concern.
"What."
Haruka's voice came fast, breathless, fractured.
"The system- Kusuke, it's getting worse. I saw him talk to air while we were stranded on that island. You have to do something."
Kusuke leaned back in his chair, already tired of this.
"I thought I told you to stop bothering me."
"You can't ignore this!"
"I can. I will," he said, flat. "I don't care about the monkey."
Haruka's voice cracked. "But I do."
A pause.
Kusuke blinked once. "Your attachment is noted. Irrelevant, but noted."
"You said it yourself, something's inside him. That means he's not safe. That means he's been replaced, or possessed, or maybe it's already too late and we're just talking to a shell-"
He cut in. "Oh my god. Are you crying?"
"I care!" she shouted. "Unlike you! I'm not going to sit here while some digital parasite eats him alive!"
"You're a drama queen," he muttered. "There's no devouring. The system cohabitates. Think of it as a parasite with etiquette."
"You're talking about him like a project-"
"He is a project. But not the important one."
"He's not just a project-!"
Kusuke's tone dropped, sudden and razor-sharp.
"He's not yours."
Silence.
Then he went on, detached and final "He never loved you. Never noticed you. You wrote yourself into his life like bad code and now you're angry it didn't compile."
"You don't understand what's happening-"
"I understand exactly what's happening." His voice snapped like dry ice. "Makoto's system is alive. It makes him… novel. But Saiki made it clear he gives a damn. And I may hate the monkey, but I respect my brother. …Somewhat. If Saiki cares, I'm out."
Haruka's breath hitched. "You're stopping?"
"I'm pulling surveillance. No more bait. No more data. I won't use you anymore. He's Saiki's mess now. You're done."
"You can't-" her voice cracked again, raw and rising. "If we stop now, the real Makoto might be gone forever!"
"Then file a police report," Kusuke said, already moving to end the call. "This isn't my problem anymore."
"But he could be-!"
Click.
The call ended.
For one moment, the world was quiet.
Then Haruka, sitting alone in her room, walls lined with printed screenshots and notebooks scrawled with obsession, three phones long dead from overuse, let hers fall. It hit the floor with a dull thud.
She didn't reach for it.
She didn't move.
Kusuke's voice echoed in her mind like a knife twist.
"I respect my brother. …Somewhat. If Saiki cares, I'm out."
No.
Her throat burned. Her pulse pounded in her ears.
No, no, no.
She dropped to her knees like something inside her had cracked in half. Mascara streaked black tears down her face as she gasped for air, shaking.
"Why are you all letting him get away with this…" she whispered. "That thing isn't even Makoto…"
She rocked slightly, digging her nails into her arms, harder and harder trying to feel something sharp enough to break the spiral.
This wasn't him.
Her Makoto didn't ignore her.
Her Makoto didn't look at Saiki like that.
The lights flickered.
Then they went out.
The mirror warped, no longer her reflection, just a smear. A shadow. And from it came a voice, quiet, steady, unbearably calm.
"You're right."
Haruka froze.
Her mouth went dry. Her chest seized.
"That's not your Makoto. That's the soul of a trespasser."
She turned wildly, eyes darting. No one. The room was suffocating, the air thick like smoke.
"He's changing the narrative. Ruining the story. Ruining you."
"Wh-who are you?" she breathed.
"I am the rules of this world. And I can help you fix this."
"…Fix it?" she rasped.
"This was meant to be Saiki's story. He was never supposed to be in a relationship. That was the path. That was the plot. Not this."
Haruka clutched her head, tears still falling. "What about Makoto…?"
"Makoto was never meant to be with Saiki. He was supposed to stay just a side character."
Her vision spun.
"And the Makoto you love isn't even real. That soul isn't his. It's wrong."
"No…" Her voice cracked. "No, no, that's not- he's just confused-"
"He's not confused. He's corrupting everything. The world is glitching. The ending is breaking. This isn't a story anymore. It's chaos."
"Then what do I do?" she begged. "Tell me how to fix it-please-"
"You must remove the foreign soul. Eject it."
She didn't understand. "How…?"
The answer chilled her blood.
"You have to kill him."
"…What?" Her voice was barely air.
"Only death forces a system reset. Kill the imposter, and the original will return. Your Makoto will come back."
"I-I can't kill someone," she sobbed. "I can't! he still looks like him, talks like him, what if you're wrong- what if-"
"Are you really going to let him vanish forever? Are you really going to let that thing steal your Makoto's face, his life, his place in the story?"
The mirror returned to normal.
The lights flickered back on.
But the voice remained.
"Think carefully, Haruka. You only get one chance to make it right."
And she did think.
Long and hard.
Her knees curled to her chest. Her sobs turned silent. Her face blank.
And still, the system waited.
She didn't sleep that night.
She just sat.
Forehead to the wall. Arms around her legs. Eyes dry now.
Makoto's smile still lingered behind her eyelids. Not the one from when she last saw him. Not the crooked grin fans loved.
But the first one.
He'd been laughing. She was twelve. On the floor. Her parents yelling down the hall. He was the only light in the room.
She had memorized everything after that.
Every outfit. Every show. Every pause between his lines.
She never needed him to see her. She only needed him to be.
And now he was gone.
And no one else saw it.
Not Saiki. Not Kusuke. Not the world.
Just her.
"That isn't the real Makoto."
The system hadn't lied.
Her Makoto had smiled like sunshine. Like clean air. Like safety.
Now there was something else inside his skin.
And if no one else would save him-
She would.
Even if it meant burning down the imposter.
Even if it meant dragging Makoto's corpse through fire just to see that smile again once.
"You only get one chance to make it right."
The voice was still there.
Like a lullaby. Like a knife.
And Haruka, shattered in the dark, finally whispered back:
"Okay."
Because if she couldn't save him-
She'd make sure no one else could ever take him away. Not that system that replaced the original Makoto.
PRESENT TIME
The laughter rolled across the beach like a tide she was never meant to ride.
It washed over the sand, warm and careless, leaving her untouched.
It made her teeth ache.
From the shadowed slope of the dunes, Haruka crouched low. The coarse grass scraped her palms when she leaned forward, steadying herself. The bonfire below breathed in restless bursts, casting faces into light for a heartbeat before letting them drown in darkness again.
She didn't blink. Not with him in sight.
Makoto.
Even from here, he burned. The fire clung to him, made him too bright, too alive. And wrapped around that brightness, thin as breath, constant as heartbeat, was his ssyste, halo of shifting code and light. No one else saw it.
But she did.
She always did.
Especially after the rules had been bound to her.
A breath that wasn't hers slipped into her mind.
"Target confirmed"
The voice came from far below her consciousness, smooth and low, like a whisper sinking through water. Mechanical. Measured.
"It's wrong. He's wrong. You know that. He doesn't belong here"
Her gaze never left him. Makoto knelt, brushing the sand aside with slow, deliberate motions. Her throat tightened.
Her footprints.
He was touching something she had left behind. Following her trail.
"He's hunting you, Haruka. Don't let him get close. Strike first"
The wind shifted, carrying her scent back toward him. She saw the moment it reached him, his head tilted, shoulders tensing.
"He smells you. Do you understand what that means? He knows you're here"
Static bled into her thoughts, soft at first, then sharper.
"Target status: THREAT. Elimination recommended"
Makoto's system answered in kind. She felt it, like a ripple through bone, two frequencies clashing, his glitching while hers cut sharp and cold.
And then
"Makoto." Saiki's voice sliced through the night. Makoto stilled, crouching over her fading trail for one last moment before brushing it smooth, erasing her presence.
The wind roared back, angry now. The bonfire choked and died, throwing the beach into chaos.
She remained crouched in the dune's shadow, unseen. The voice in her mind lowered, steady and patient.
"Next time, there won't be someone to call his name"
Below, Aiura flung salt in frantic arcs, chanting words that fell empty on the air. Haruka's lips twitched, almost a laugh. Raw. Dangerous. She drew a slow spiral into the sand beside her, each curl deliberate.
The fire sputtered again. Screams followed. Shouts.
Perfect cover.
The wind halted mid-breath.
Waves flattened into a mirror.
The fire's glow fell to embers.
She could feel her own pulse in her teeth.
Makoto moved through the sand as if searching for something. Each careful step sent trickles of grains whispering down the slopes, glinting in the moonlight. Close enough now that she could see his system clearly, its light wrong, orbiting him like a predator in disguise.
He hesitated, one foot lifted toward her.
She nearly stood.
Nearly let him see her.
Nearly obeyed.
"Now" the voice purred, velvet sharpened to a knife. "He's alone. No witnesses. One step forward and it ends"
Her nails dug into the damp sand. She could feel the ghost weight of the knife in her bag, cold and certain, though she hadn't touched it. Her heartbeat stumbled, too fast, off rhythm, wrong.
But Makoto turned away, back toward the fire.
Haruka slipped further along the ridge, keeping pace above the chaos below. They were running now bags abandoned, sandals scattered driven by the wind. Her wind.
When Kaidou finally coaxed the fire back to life, they saw nothing. No one.
For a moment, she let herself stand at the edge of the dunes where the light could almost touch her. Pale against the dark. Still as glass.
Watching.
Waiting.
Later, she moved down the empty hallway like a shadow unsticking from the wall. The muffled thump of footsteps and voices still lingered far below, most of the students gathered on the beach or in the lounge.
She didn't pass their door by accident. She slowed, leaning toward it, the carpet swallowing her steps.
Inside, Saiki's voice was steady, low. "Tomorrow night. It'll happen then."
Her system thrummed in her skull.
"Tomorrow night, at the mountain his system will be at its weakest"
Makoto's voice rose in surprise, muffled but clear. The conversation spilled through, a meteor, volcanic eruption, convergence. She absorbed every word, every implication.
"He is already compromised. You caused the instability. One push, and it will fail completely"
Perfect cover.
"The terrain will fracture. Heat will distort visibility. Saiki's attention will be divided between the meteor and the eruption. This is when you remove the anomaly."
Remove the anomaly. That was all the imposter was. An error in the code. A piece that didn't belong here.
When the voices inside quieted, she moved on, up the stairs to her room. She closed the door without turning on the light. The darkness felt honest. Moonlight spilled in through the balcony, painting a silver slash across the carpet, catching the edge of her bag where the knife waited.
Her fingers hovered above the zipper.
"the volcano is unstable. Loose rock. Sharp drop-offs. Even a light shove will suffice. Gravity will finish the work"
She pictured it, the imposter stepping too close to the cracks on the ground, watching the sky while Saiki was too focused on preventing the eruption.
The voice pressed closer.
"If physical elimination fails, force his system into overload. You are already causing his glitches. Push until it collapses. Once his system breaks, his body will follow."
She sat on the edge of the bed, letting her breathing match the rhythm of the words. Makoto's signal pulsed faintly in the distance, flickering, unstable. Every time she neared him, it worsened without effort.
"At the moment of convergence, planetary magnetic fields will spike. His system will attempt to compensate. That is when you flood it. Interfere directly. Corrupt his core commands."
She smiled faintly at the image, his light guttering out like a candle in wind.
"Why there? Why then?" she murmured.
"Because he will believe he is safe with Saiki. Because you will be close enough to touch him without suspicion. Because the world itself will hide the sound of him falling."
Her pulse steadied. This wasn't just opportunity. This was inevitability.
She unzipped the bag and slid the knife free. Moonlight clung to the blade, cold and clean.
"Do not hesitate. If you falter, he will learn. And if he learns, you will lose."
She set it down on the bedspread, a quiet promise. Tomorrow, she would walk with them to the volcano like she belonged there. She would wait for the moment the fire lit the sky.
And then she would act.
"Proceed with purpose. Tomorrow night, you will correct the error."
Makoto's system would fail.
The imposter would fall.