Chapter 53: Chapter 52: Takeshi and [ERROR].

Takeshi returned to the bench in three strides.

Ophélia was still sitting there, leaning forward with one hand pressed against her right side. The fabric of her uniform had a dark stain spreading at a speed Takeshi registered immediately. Eclipse vanished from his hand on its own.

He dropped to his knees in front of her.

"Can you heal yourself!?"

Ophélia tried something. Takeshi saw it in her concentrated expression, a genuine effort, and then nothing. The wound kept bleeding at the same pace.

"I can’t."

She finally said.

"I was never able to do it on myself."

Takeshi pulled out his phone and sent a message to the student council group chat with their location and three words: "Ophélia was attacked."

Then he opened the system panel and searched the shop for healing drinks.

"Drink this!"

Ophélia took them, but nothing happened.

’Why the hell not!?’

The deity’s voice appeared directly inside his head.

’That doesn’t work on her. It only works for you.’

Takeshi clenched his teeth and closed the panel.

He remained kneeling in front of Ophélia with the phone in his hand and no options left. He looked at the wound.

’Damn, that’s a lot of blood!’

He looked toward the street and shouted.

"Help! Somebody, anyone!"

There was no one nearby, and the stain on Ophélia’s uniform kept growing.

"Hey..."

Ophélia’s voice made him look back at her.

"Don’t make that face."

"What face!?"

"The face of someone looking for a way out that doesn’t exist."

She paused to breathe with obvious difficulty.

"You already checked every option..."

Takeshi didn’t respond.

Ophélia lowered her gaze toward the ground for a moment. The ice cream cone was there, ruined, both scoops mixed together on the concrete. She looked at it for a second before looking back at Takeshi.

"You gave me the best day of my life..."

She continued.

"Remember that... please..."

Takeshi opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

Ophélia closed her eyes.

There was no other movement. The hand she had pressed against the wound slowly loosened and fell to her side. Her posture did not change all at once, but gradually.

Takeshi remained kneeling in front of her without moving.

The phone in his hand still had not received any replies. The street remained the same. A store halfway down the block had music spilling out through its open door. The afternoon sun was still in the same place as before.

Takeshi looked at Ophélia and did not think anything specific for several seconds.

Then he heard the trumpets.

The sound came from above, directly from the sky, clear and sustained, with a volume that neither increased nor decreased. Takeshi looked up.

The sky was red.

Not the red of a sunset. It was a uniform red without any gradient, covering the entire horizon from one end to the other. The clouds that had been there before were still there, but now they were darker, almost black against that background.

The trumpets continued.

Then that thing appeared.

It was so large it covered most of the visible sky from where he stood. It had a shape that was not completely solid, with edges moving irregularly, like something that could not fully exist in one place at the same time. It had parts that resembled limbs, but matched no known anatomy, at impossible angles, with sizes that held no proportion to one another.

It had no clear center point. There was no specific place to look because it occupied too much visual space all at once.

Takeshi stared at it.

[Sanity: 75%]

The number dropped without him doing anything.

[Sanity: 60%]

The trumpets continued. Whatever was in the sky did not move anywhere, yet it was not completely still either. It had [ERROR] staring at him with [ERROR] the size of entire buildings.

[Sanity: 45%]

Takeshi understood that [ERROR] had come to bring the end.

[Sanity: 30%]

He lowered his gaze and saw [ERROR] in his hand. He immediately opened the shop.

[Sanity: 20%]

The trumpets grew louder.

[Sanity: 10%]

Takeshi selected the reset button and spent the eight points.

The last thing he registered before pressing the button was [ERROR] in the sky.

[LOADING SAVE POINT]

He was sitting at a desk.

Class was still in session. The teacher was talking at the front of the blackboard with a marker in hand. The students around him were taking notes or staring ahead. The classroom light was white and steady. Through the window he could see the high school courtyard with a normal sky above it.

Takeshi looked at his hands resting on the desk.

He opened the system panel.

[Life: 100%]

[Sanity: 5%]

[Points: 20]

’Five percent?’

A constant background noise appeared inside his head that did not correspond to anything in the classroom, along with the sensation that the space around him was not completely stable, even though visually everything remained still, and a difficulty connecting what he was seeing with what he was thinking.

He did not know what happened when sanity reached zero.

He raised his hand.

The teacher looked at him.

"Fujimoto?"

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

The teacher nodded and continued speaking. Takeshi stood up, left the classroom, and closed the door behind him.

The second-floor bathroom was empty at that hour.

Takeshi walked in, turned on the cold water at the sink, and opened the system panel. He searched the shop for sanity pills.

He bought seven with the points he had available and used them one after another.

[Sanity: 75%]

The background noise in his head faded, and the feeling of instability dropped to something manageable.

[Points: 13]

Takeshi closed the panel and rested his hands on the edge of the sink.

The water kept running. He looked at his hands.

’After Ophélia’s death... that thing appeared...’

He did not know who had attacked Ophélia.

He did not know what he had seen in the sky, what connection it had to the trumpets, or whether it would appear again.

He did not know if the other student council members had received the message he sent before everything happened.

He did not know how much time there was between the class he had just awakened in and the moment Ophélia and he had left the school.

The water kept running into the empty sink.

Takeshi found no answers.