Epilogue - Part One
When he opened his eyes, he saw a familiar sight. Stone walls and weeping cherry blossoms... the wards of H. Medical Center were visible beyond the parking lot.
“...I'm back.”
“I set our destination to 1:20 P.M. on May 19th, 2018, but judging by the position of the sun, it appears to be after 3:00.”
Hearing Hora's report, Kamo couldn't hold back a laugh.
“I don't care about an error that small... Man, it's cold.”
He took off his jacket, which was still wet from the rain, and rubbed his arms with his hands. It seemed that when he time traveled, he brought with him the raindrops and chunks of the ground under his feet, so for 1.5 meters around him, the ground was wet, and cut grass and dirt were scattered around.
Kamo had burned D. Cassiopeia.
The hourglass was instantly engulfed in orange flames and eventually shattered. Amamiya stared at them with the face of a living corpse.
Then he seemed to lose all will to resist, got up, and left the trailer, walking in the direction of Kojin Shrine. Of course, he was going to escape the coming landslide.
Kamo, who had come to the end of the line, whispered to Hora.
“Let's return to the future.”
Hora's response from his breast pocket was surprising to him.
“Are you sure? You haven't even said goodbye yet.”
He tapped the handle of his umbrella and looked at Ayaka and the others as they obliviously left him behind.
“Our role here is done, isn't it? I returned Ayaka's pocket watch, and we left the villa keys, netsuke, and the knife in the trailer. There shouldn't be any problems.”
“But...”
“Honestly, even if I went with them to Kojin Shrine, I don't know what I'd even say. I have to go back to the future, and the longer we wait, the harder it's going to be. I don't know how I could ever thank them for their hospitality.”
“Understood, then. I am preparing a space-time warp.”
Kamo threw down his umbrella and called out to Ayaka and the others, letting the rain pelt his body.
“I'm returning to 2018 now.”
He couldn't see Ayaka's expression as she stood several dozen meters ahead of him. For the first time, he realized he'd left his glasses in the trailer.
“Mr. Kamo!”
He heard her shout pierce the rain.
“Thank you for all you've done... You should be happy!”
Kamo's heart grew warm as he saw Ayaka run back towards him. Even though he'd wanted so badly to return to his own time, it still hurt to say goodbye. However, the next moment, Ayaka faded away into nothing.
And now, Kamo was staring up at the second floor of H. Medical Center.
“Hey, the future has changed, hasn't it?”
“Logically speaking, it should have. The Ryuuzen clan avoided their fate to be wiped out by the Deadly Tragedy of Shino, and the 'curse' caused by D. Cassiopeia has also been averted.”
Kamo smiled ear to ear.
“Now, the cause of Rena's fear is gone. Her fate of developing interstitial pneumonia should also have been averted.”
“In Rena's case, it is believed that undue stress was the cause of her illness. I am sure she is living well.”
Although his smile remained, Kamo's eyes filled with tears.
It was the curse of the Ryuuzen clan that had brought them together. Now that it was gone, Rena lived in a rewritten world, so she must have been a different person who didn't even know he existed. He had been prepared for that, but he still couldn't keep himself from crying.
“...As long as she's happy somewhere, that's fine.”
He wiped his face with his hand. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. Then he looked around, at a loss.
“So what do I do now? In this rewritten world, I don't even know where I live or what I do for a living.”
“You still have your memories from the previous world... However, within the next month, they will fade, and new memories adapted to the altered world will flow to you.”
That was a surprise.
“What, you mean I can't keep my memories?”
“It is impossible. I can only do it because I contain an entire other world.”
“...I don't want to forget the man I am now.”
“In that case, it would be wise to leave a written record.”
Hora chuckled, and Kamo's eyes widened.
“Is that possible? I don't really understand the logic, but I assumed the memories would disappear even if I recorded them.”
“Don't worry. I'll hack your PC.”
“Huh?”
“I'll keep your writing, and I shall return the data to your PC at a later date. The moment something enters into my archive, it becomes absolutely inviolable.”
“I don't like the thought of you reading my mail, but... thank you.”
“You're welcome, Kamo.”
Kamo gave a small nod, then looked up at the ward and mused aloud.
“What will happen if... we've changed the future to the point Malice is no longer born?”
“That is difficult to answer. Then, there would be no reason for you to have traveled back in time, so the reason Malice's birth was averted will also disappear.”
“In a way, it's another time paradox, huh?”
“But this world has a way of sorting itself out... I believe that one of your descendants will certainly play the role of Malice and create D. Cassiopeia.”
“So no matter what, I'm still the ancestor of a historic criminal. And this timeline's me might have to travel through time again to stop this D. Cassiopeia's Deadly Tragedy of Shino?”
“Yes, and he'll be guided by this timeline's version of me, and as a result, D. Cassiopeia's plot will be foiled... I'm starting to look forward to seeing this new future.”
“The more I listen to you, the less you sound like an AI.”
As he said that, Kamo started walking towards the lot's exit. He didn't know where he was going yet, but he felt incredibly light.
However, before he could get too far, he stopped.
“What?”
A familiar car was parked before him. It was the same make and model in the same color as the one he'd driven in the old universe. When he got closer and checked, even the license plate was the same.
He took out the key he'd left in his pants pocket and gingerly pressed the button on the remote. The door unlocked.
“...Strange, it seems your car is still here.”
It seemed Hora didn't understand either.
Kamo took the plunge and opened the door to check inside. There was a bag in the passenger seat, and poking out was a document that read “The Urban Legend That Brings Happiness: The Hourglass of Miracles – (Tentative Name)”
“How!?”
Kamo shoved his hand in the bag. He found a familiar wallet and business card holder. After pulling the driver's license out of the wallet, he sat down. He once again found himself sitting in his car at H. Medical Center, lost in thought. It was like he'd never met Hora at all.
The driver's license was his, and it showed the same address as it had before the past was changed. When he opened the business card holder, he saw nothing had changed. He still worked the same job at the same company.
“Did we fail to change the past?”
“Don't be absurd. D. Cassiopeia was destroyed before our eyes.”
“But look around us. At this rate, Rena's probably still in the hospital.”
He couldn't take it anymore. He jumped out of the car and made for the medical center.
“Oh, Mr. Kamo?”
Kamo started at the voice and turned around. There was a nurse standing by the hospital's emergency exit.
“I wasn't sure it was you, since you took off your glasses... Your wife is waiting for you. She said she wanted to call you, but she couldn't reach you on your cell phone.”
“Is my wife still in the ICU?”
The nurse seemed confused at how anxious he was.
“No, she's in the same room as she was before you left. Ward 2, Room C.”
Kamo immediately ran off.
When he asked for Kamo Rena's room at the front desk, they confirmed that she was indeed in Ward 2, Room C. He ran into the private ward out of breath, knocked, and threw open the door.
There was Rena, lying on the bed.
The first thing he saw was an oxygen mask. She had an IV in, but there was nothing attached to her nose or mouth. He crouched beside her in relief.
“Is something wrong?”
Rena put down the magazine she'd been reading and looked at him curiously. Kamo shook his head.
“Nothing. I'm just glad you're okay.”
“Yes, they say everything is going well so far... The doctor says I'm still on track to be released the day after tomorrow.”
Although Kamo nodded in response, he still didn't understand. How had they still become a married couple after everything had changed? Why was she still in the hospital?
Rena sat up on the bed, smiling mischievously.
“You look terrible. Your jacket is all wet and looks like it hasn't been changed in days.”
He looked down at his clothes and reflexively smiled.
“Ah, I'm making a mess of your hospital room. For now, I'm going to head home and change.”
For some reason, Rena was looking at him incredibly happily.
“What happened to your glasses?”
“It's a long story.”
“...I know.”
He thought he might have heard her wrong. However, Rena smiled and pointed to the drawer next to the bed. It was a drawer with a lock, meant to store patients' valuables. The key had been left on top.
Inside the drawer was a wallet and many documents related to her hospitalization. Deeper inside was something strange... an old metal glasses case. Of course, it wasn't his.
When Kamo opened the case, he let out a gasp.
Lying atop a brown newspaper was a pair of broken glasses. The frames were corroded to the point the black paint was flaking off, and the cracked lenses had turned fully yellow. But no matter how much they'd changed, he recognized them at once.
They were his glasses. From his point of view, he'd left them on the table in the camping trailer just two hours ago. They'd been on a long journey and finally returned to him.
“Are these...?”
Rena laughed, then nodded at him.
“Yes, they're what you left 58 years ago.”
Kamo understood everything. If she had these glasses, then Ayaka and the others must have retrieved them from the trailer. And then they'd told Rena everything.
His first response was to sigh in relief that Ayaka and the others had escaped the landslide.
“I guess you got spoiled about the future pretty bad.”
Rena couldn't stop smiling.
“Ayaka, who never had children of her own, was very fond of me. When I was a child, every time I came over to her house, she'd tell me stories about you, you know? She told me about Touma, the man who'd saved her life, and that... I was destined to meet you when I grew up.”
Kamo couldn't help but blush. Apparently Ayaka hadn't been satisfied with just making him a Great Detective and had also added the setting that he was her grand-niece's soulmate.
“What the heck? That's so embarrassing.”
For the first time, Ayaka's face turned sad.
“Ayaka was looking forward to this day so much. The day when she'd be able to meet Touma again after he returned to his own time... But that day never came. Ayaka developed heart disease and left this world in 2004.”
He had been with her just a moment ago. She was still a middle school girl. Kamo couldn't accept that a girl who'd been so energetic was already dead.
When Kamo looked down in silence, Rena softly continued.
“That's right... You met Genji and Tsukie at the wedding, remember? Of course, at the time, they pretended to be meeting you for the first time.”
All he remembered was a small private ceremony attended by close friends. There was no one from the Ryuuzen family present. That was a memory from a past he hadn't lived.
Kamo shook his head slightly.
“I'm sorry, but I don't remember that. It's strange, but I just came back after changing the past, so I don't know what happened.”
“It's okay, you just have to get used to the new you.”
“If you know, could you please tell me what happened after the Deadly Tragedy of Shino?”
She silently pointed to the glasses case. Kamo pulled out the old newspaper that had been under his glasses. They were newspaper clippings from 1960.
The first page contained details on the arrest of Amamiya Hiroya. He'd attempted suicide before the search and rescue team's arrival, but he hadn't succeeded and was taken away by police.
The second article was a report on his death. Amamiya contracted tetanus from the wounds he sustained during his suicide attempt, and three weeks after the incident, he died in the hospital. Although he'd made a statement confessing to the crime, the article stated he wouldn't discuss the details.
“I see, so Amamiya died after all.”
Feeling helpless, Kamo put the newspaper back in the case.
“...I think it would be better if you asked Genji for the details.”
He was surprised to hear that, but he immediately gave a nod and a smile.
“So Genji's still doing alright, is he?”
“He's doing well, and I think he knows you come back from the past around now, so he should be waiting for you at the main house back in Tokyo.”
Genji must have been in his mid-80s by now, but Kamo just couldn't picture him like that. In any case, there were so many things he wanted to ask about the last 58 years.
“I'll try to visit him tonight. I'll have to ask you to send me the address and phone number of the main house later.”
Rena picked up her smartphone as she spoke.
“Genji really took care of us after the wedding, didn't he? After I'm discharged from the hospital, we should both go visit him with Yukina.”
“...Yukina?”
He remembered now. If it hadn't been for the miscarriage, their baby would have been due this week. At the same time, he noticed many common baby shower gifts on the chair.
It seemed his first day in the new world would be full of joy.
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