A cherry tree—or rather, a sakura tree—stood before him, resting in a vast plain that
seemed to mock the very idea of limits.
"Why?" Shiro asked aloud.
He no longer felt any pain. The dust and grime that had covered him were gone. Beside
the tree flowed a small waterfall, with only a modest amount of water running between
countless stones. Shiro walked forward without thinking too much about it.
Did everything that happened before no longer matter? Was he dreaming? Was this
after death? Can I come back from death?
He was now so calm that he could joke within his own thoughts. A faint smile slipped
from his lips, even though, after everything he had experienced, he would normally be
vomiting and scanning his surroundings for his pursuers.
Shiro walked forward peacefully. In front of the cherry tree, he saw a well-kept wooden
table, with a sheet of paper and a pen resting on it. Shiro… crouched down in front of it
and picked up the pen.
"What is all this for?" he asked out loud.
He began to write. Write what? He simply… moved the pen in an incoherent manner.
Shiro lifted his gaze as he made a poor scribble.
"A window…?" he said, looking ahead.
A solid window floated in front of him. Wherever he was, his consciousness remained
intact. When the window opened, wind passed through that dull opening. A strangely
strong wind, which stopped as if it were a joke. Shiro frowned, trying to hide his
embarrassment.
Right after that, everything went dark—just like that. Shiro could only hear voices in the
background, as if he were underwater. A female voice was the first he could distinguish.
"W-wait, is that him?!"
That voice was interrupted by another, more serious one.
"We'll see what we can do. He looks interesting, I suppose."
Voices he did not care about echoed around him. Shiro, in a nearly blind state, strange
as it felt, regained his sight. He was turned over, floating in a corridor. Instead of walls,
there were endless lines moving in an ethereal manner.
"You were hard to find," a melancholic voice spoke from his left.
Shiro turned his gaze as best he could toward that side. Long black hair, a strand falling
almost over the eyes. For some reason, it reminded him of himself. This person had
green eyes. Shiro spoke calmly, though with concern in his tone.
"I feel nauseous, being like this is strange… could you put me down, please?"
The man let out a light laugh. He spoke again, his voice oddly mismatched with his faint
smile.
"You're going for a ride. I have no reason to explain anything to you, and you're
obligated."
After a few seconds, he added,
"There's someone you won't be able to see today who wanted to tell you something."
He said it with complete disinterest. Shiro, who understood nothing but remained calm
for some reason, replied,
"All right… what is it?"
The black-haired man waved his fingers as if controlling a simple puppet. Shiro was
thrown out of the corridor, now drifting alongside the ethereal lines, swaying as he
moved. He heard the message.
"Have a good day… and a good night."
That was the last thing he heard before being launched through the yellow ethereal
lines, as if they were waves.
"Wait… I didn't ask where this is…" he said to himself, beginning to spin as a kind of sea
passively swallowed him.