“Huh?”

I feel a strange sense of wrongness… Tokyo?

“Yotsuha, did you just say Tokyo?”

“Heeey, Mitsuhaaa!”

It’s Saya. When I look up, she’s waving wildly from the back of the bike Teshigawara’s pedaling. It brakes, skidding a bit on the asphalt.

“Did you talk to your dad?! How’d it go?!”

Teshigawara’s leaning forward. I can’t respond. I’m confused. I don’t know what to think anymore. The mayor wouldn’t listen to a word I said. Not only that, the guy asked his own daughter who she was. I made him do that. Is it because I’m in Mitsuha? Is that why it didn’t work? In that case, where is she now? Yotsuha says Mitsuha went to Tokyo yesterday. Why? When was “yesterday”?

“Hey, Mitsuha?” I hear Teshigawara’s puzzled voice.

“What’s wrong with your sis?” Sayaka asks Yotsuha.

Where is Mitsuha? Where am I, right now?

What if…?

I lift my eyes. Beyond the houses, the rolling outlines of mountains build on each other, and beyond them, there’s a misty blue ridgeline. The mountain I climbed. The body of the god at the peak. The place where I drank the sake. A light, cold wind blows up from the lake, stirring Mitsuha’s newly short hair. The strands stroke my cheeks softly, almost like someone’s fingertips.

“Is she… there?” I mutter.

“Huh? What? What’s the matter? Is somethin’ up there?”

Yotsuha and Saya and Teshigawara all follow my gaze. Mitsuha, if you’re there—

“Tesshi, let me borrow your bike!”

Even as I speak, I grab the handlebars, wrenching it away from him. I straddle the seat, then kick off.

“Hey, wha—? Mitsuha!”

The seat’s really high. Standing up to pedal, I start climbing the hill road.

“Mitsuha, what about the operation?!”

As I get farther away, Teshigawara yells after me. He sounds like he might be about to cry.

“Get ready, just like we planned! Please!”

My shout echoes through the hushed town. Severed from her body, Mitsuha’s voice rebounds between the mountains and the lake, filling the air for a moment. As if chasing that voice, I stomp on the pedals with all my might.

Someone’s tapping my cheek.

It’s a very faint pressure, probably just the tip of a middle finger. Whoever it is, is being gentle, trying not to hurt me. The fingertip is very cold. Chilly, as if a moment earlier it had been touching ice. Who in the world would wake me up like that?

I open my eyes.

Huh?

It’s really dark. Maybe it’s still night.

Another tap on my cheek. No… This is water. Drops of water have been hitting my face. When I sit up, I finally notice.

“…I’m Taki!” Without meaning to, I say it out loud.

As I climb the narrow stone steps, the evening sun lances straight into my eyes.

I must have been in the dark for quite a while. Taki’s eyes sting and tear up. When I’ve climbed all the way to the top, my guess is confirmed: I’m on the mountain of the body of the god.