Almost as expected, Sango was here.
Like a parodic imitation of Sisyphus, if I come close to the truth, my stone falls back down. Does that mean the end of the script is the truth, or perhaps, there's some sort of causality preventing the end to ever happen?
My eyes were filled to the brim with possibility. I didn't have to ponder alone, now there was Sango.
'Though… what happened to Satoru?'
Sango definitely had some hand in what happened to Satoru, though, to what extent is unknown. I glanced at her face. She had a casual inviting smile, gleaming with innocence. Anyone who looked at her would never know what she did.
'I wonder, if she remembers what she did before she gained sentience.'
"Friend B, by any chance, do you know what happened?"
I felt this question would come sooner or later.
"I felt like I closed my eyes and the next second I was at home. Say, is this part of the script?"
Her eyes weren't concerned, and her tone was unassuming. This wasn't a simple algorithm mistake, nor a computational error: shouldn't she be more concerned? Does she know something past what I've told her?
This amused me, because to some extent she knew this would happen; now, she was trying to get more information out of me.
Was she a friend or a foe, that was what needed to be determined in this repeat. This had turned to a war of attrition.
We were standing in-front of my house when Satoru and Sumiko walked past. He paid no heed to what was going on, but Sumiko was different. She looked quizzically at Sango, and she seemed somewhat different than she was normally. I've seen her millions of times; I could tell if a strand of hair was out of place; yet this time before me is a Sumiko I've never seen despite those millions of times. Her pink hair was a mess, her uniform was untidy, and she wasn't nearly as close to Satoru as before. It seems like more than one thing had changed.
'Perhaps, if Sumiko had changed too, then what about…'
"Good morning, Sumiko-Chan"
Sango's demeanor changed slightly, but the air around us changed. It became tense. As if something annoyed Sango, but her face didn't change in the slightest.
Sumiko seemed a bit confused, like she woke from a nightmare, cleared up when she saw Sango.
"You! I should have known not to listen to your words, is this what your key amounted to? And him! What part does he play in this charade?!"
Sango's eyes sharpened at Sumiko's words. Sango eyed Satoru walking nearby and signaled Sumiko with her eyes to go to a place where their conversation wouldn't be overheard. Sango grabbed my arm, and we went inside my house, Sumiko followed us after telling Satoru to go ahead to school.
Inside, they sat at the table in the living room. I excused myself to make tea.
Instantly Sango changed into a cheerful tune, she delighted in the presence of everyone.
"This is the official second meeting of the Friends group!"
She clapped as she said this.
Sumiko was not impressed.
"Answer me! What did killing Satoru prove?"
I almost dropped one of my teacups.
'They killed Satoru!? Why?!'
Sango smiled, and calmly explained
"Killing him was to prove the validity of Friend B's claim, that Satoru is a key. However, I would not have assumed that the restart would happen, but it was within reason. For Satoru to die would mean the world must restart due to losing a key aspect of itself."
'She killed someone because of that? What kind of ass-backwards logic is that?! But more than that Sumiko played along?'
I came back with the tea after a brief respite of silence and spoke up.
"Who killed him."
Sumiko pulled her legs close to her chest, while Sango confidently crossed her legs and spoke up
"It was me, Sumiko provided me an opportunity: a key to his house and the time he would go to sleep. With this information it was easy to get in and killing him was easier than I thought. Of course, some anatomy diagrams helped me along the way; but a simple slice brought use here."
'Bullshit, she must have plunged a knife straight into his heart. If it were a simple nick or slice, he would have bled out for hours. It was just accroaching night when the restart happened. But, Sango murdered Satoru? Not just anyone could do that.'
A psychopath, someone who demonstrates little to no empathy or has no moral compass.
Sango is a psychopath, through and through; but, this possibly leads some credence to her partially remembering what she did to Satoru in the past.
Yet, if that were the case, then wouldn't that mean that everyone could remember their past partially, if not fully?
What consequences could that possibly have?
I took a sip from my teacup and briefly closed my eyes to take imbibe the tea and opened them up to see a familiar ceiling on a familiar feeling bed.
'Fuck.'