"Getting further and further away, from 1%."
"Holy crap, did one text message jump almost 0.12?"
"Each one is more significant than the last."
"Brooch and Assistant are getting along better and better (misunderstanding)."
"Since Felis hesitated, it means she probably knew the content she was about to send, and perhaps it wasn't quite right?"
"He really isn't checking."
"He's adapting faster and faster."
Behind him was still the floor-to-ceiling window, and he was still in Felis's house.
Okabe Rintaro covered his still dizzy forehead, and after a moment of adjustment, he raised his head again.
The figures of Felis, Mayuri, and Hashida Itaru were nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was the figure of a... man in a suit, seemingly wiping something.
"Um..." he couldn't help but ask.
"Hm?" the man turned his head.
"Who are you?" Okabe Rintaro asked.
"Huh?" the man showed clear confusion at the question.
Just then, with a click, the sound of a door opening nearby came, followed by an incredibly happy voice:
"—Dad!"
Running over happily and embracing the man, calling him 'Dad', Felis appeared.
"Dad...?" Okabe Rintaro was stunned.
"Are you talking to Kyouma?" Felis looked up and asked the man.
"Ah." The man nodded, then turned his head and said to Okabe Rintaro, "Well then, if you'll excuse me."
"You two chat."
With that, he slowly walked away.
Eerie music pulsed intermittently, and a very strange feeling surged through Okabe Rintaro's entire body.
Mayuri and Hashida Itaru, who appeared from somewhere, suddenly walked out, exclaiming.
"Felis's father seems very distinguished," Mayuri exclaimed, watching the man's retreating figure.
Hashida Itaru also nodded and said, "As expected of Felis-tan's father."
"That—" Okabe Rintaro finally snapped out of the strange feeling and called out to the man before he completely left:
"Do you know the IBN5100?"
He had come for the IBN5100, which had once disappeared. Although he couldn't understand the situation yet, he clearly remembered this much.
"...Hm." A hint of surprise flashed across the man's face. "That's a nostalgic name."
"I'm looking for it," Okabe Rintaro said.
But the answer the man gave was not the one he had hoped for.
"Unfortunately, I sold it a long time ago."
"Could it be," Okabe Rintaro still held a sliver of hope, "that it was enshrined at Yanagibayashi Shrine?"
"Shrine?" A confused voice, and... "No, it wasn't like that." A negative answer.
"Well then, if you'll excuse me."
The conversation ended there. Okabe Rintaro didn't try to keep him, and the man had no intention of staying.
The dark door gently closed with a click as the latch caught the strike plate.
"Here it is again, this strange feeling."
"The father who wasn't there before appeared, and the IBN5100 wasn't enshrined in the shrine."
"So Felis rescued her father who fled overseas with his capital, keeping this runaway landlord in the local area?"
"No matter how you think about it, that's the only possibility, right? That's why she didn't want Brooch to see the content, but then she hesitated, because she wasn't sure if she could stop it, and maybe the outcome would be worse."
"But their relationship seems to have surprisingly remained unchanged?"
"Every time they jump worldlines, the main relationships don't really change much."
"Because if they changed, the plot would be very difficult to advance, right?"
"I feel like Brooch is really bad at talking, and his way of asking questions is also poor."
"College students are like that."
Sunset.
Road.
Okabe Rintaro, Hashida Itaru, and Mayuri walked on their way back.
As he walked, he pondered the situation.
"Before Felis sent the D-mail, the IBN5100 was enshrined at Yanagibayashi Shrine and then disappeared."
"But this time, it wasn't enshrined at all."
His voice echoed in his mind.
The few patterns he had summarized from sending D-mails multiple times also floated in his mind.
"Every time an email is sent, something changes a little."
"Somewhere I don't know about..." he couldn't help but think, "something might have changed."
A small butterfly flapped its wings, gently flying upwards.
The ending theme suddenly began to play, even though the scene had not yet concluded.
Okabe Rintaro stopped, and the stream of people passed by him.
"Perhaps..." he suddenly had a premonition:
"We have already done something irreversible."
[The restricted sight is so merciless.]
"Okabe, Okabe—" Mayuri's call snapped him out of his deep thoughts.
Mayuri beside him said, "Mayushii wants to buy the 'Sword of Sorrow' doujinshi and has to go to Nakano, so she's leaving first."
"Sword of Sorrow?" Hashida Itaru casually asked, "Koga Cloud?"
[The rule of the twelve covenants, inescapable.]
"Going to Nakano, that's quite a detour." Bringing his thoughts back to reality from the previous content, Okabe Rintaro briefly considered the distance and said casually.
"Mm." Mayuri nodded and said:
"I wish there was a Toranoana chain store here too."
[Because I prayed for the peace of tomorrow.]
"Huh?" Okabe Rintaro was stunned. "What are you talking about?"
He couldn't help but point his finger in the direction he remembered:
"Toranoana, isn't that—"
But his words abruptly stopped halfway.
"Eh?" The store he remembered was now just a fan whirring loudly.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..."
The doujinshi that should have been neatly arranged suddenly collapsed into reality.
A plain, ordinary, perhaps commonplace electronics store, the kind you could see anywhere, replaced the Toranoana in his memory.
[Into the precious event horizon in my hands.]
"Okabe, what are you talking about?" Mayuri said, utterly bewildered.
"How could Akihabara have that?" Hashida Itaru even spread his hands.
And so, Okabe Rintaro's expression froze.
"—" He suddenly turned his head, his gaze sweeping around.
Left turn.
Right turn.
Looking back.
In front.
Behind.
Buildings, buildings, buildings, buildings, buildings, buildings—
Not a single place looked familiar from his memory; not a single place was the Akihabara he had once been in.
—
The sound of the ending theme suddenly grew louder, and the song echoed powerfully at this moment.
[The imprisoned covenant, the outline of false testimony emerged.]
[The world of life, engraved blind time.]
[Flutter, butterfly.]
[Miracle butterfly.]
[Everything is dedicated to you.]
Beneath Okabe Rintaro's suddenly constricted and trembling pupils, beneath his slightly parted lips that could not close for a long time, on his incredulous face... the scene transitioned to the ending theme.
[Tearful butterfly.]
[Dazzling butterfly.]
[Everything, now rewritten.]
The shattered glass fragments, at this moment, reassembled into an hourglass once more.