A pure white space stretched endlessly to the horizon, without a single break in its emptiness.White flowers—unlike anything she had ever seen—bloomed in countless numbers across the ground, so beautiful they seemed unreal.Yet Makoto Fujimiya walked straight through them, unconsciously crushing the blossoms beneath her feet.
"...Where am I?"
Confusion clouded her expression as she glanced around.This dreamlike field of flowers was silent except for the hollow echo of her footsteps.
She knew she should feel guilty for trampling such delicate beauty, but her legs refused to stop.
"But… why am I even in a place like this?"
With every step she took, a heavy sense of helplessness washed over her. Something about this scenery felt familiar, yet she had no memory of it at all.
Then—something strange caught her eye.
Nestled among the white flowers was a hole.A hole carved right into her own chest, about the size of a human hand.
"What? Why is there a hole…?Wait—how am I even alive with a hole like this?"
She stared at it in shock.But there was no pain.No blood.Nothing at all.
She placed her hand over it, as if to hide it, but nothing changed. The hole remained, impossibly empty.
"What is… going on?"
Her mind felt blank—just like the world around her.No matter how hard she tried to recall something—anything—nothing surfaced.
All she could do was keep walking, without knowing where or why.
Then, faintly, she heard it.A soft, flowing sound. Like running water. A river?
She looked around for the source, but saw no river, no stream—nothing.
And then—
"Meow…"
A cat's cry echoed within the sound of flowing water.
Makoto froze, scanning the shimmering white horizon.There—beyond the wavering air—something appeared.
"A… cat?"
Even from a distance, she could tell it wasn't an ordinary cat.It was large, with fur that shone silver like liquid metal, its body flickering like a heat haze.It looked less like a real creature and more like an illusion—light bending to form the shape of a cat.
But that wasn't the strangest part.
"It has… two tails?"
She murmured the words aloud—and the cat suddenly lunged toward her at incredible speed.
She had no time to dodge.
The silver cat dissolved into particles of light, which shot straight into the hole in Makoto's chest.
In that instant, a burst of blinding radiance exploded from the hole, swallowing Makoto in pure white light.She couldn't even close her eyes as streams of symbols—letters, digits, languages she didn't recognize—poured into her body.
And beyond that torrent of light…
She thought she saw the vague outline of a person.