The afternoon had settled into an unsettling quiet. The wind brushed gently, yet coldly, across the cityscape, weaving through empty alleyways and rustling through bare branches as though whispering secrets.
The sky was cast in a muted gray, thick clouds obscuring any hint of sunlight and casting shadows across the streets. Distant sounds, a dog barking, a faint siren, echoed faintly and faded as quickly as they came, amplifying the eerie stillness.
It was the kind of day where time seemed to pause, hanging heavy with an inexplicable weight, as if something significant were lurking just beyond the silence.
From his vantage point on the hospital rooftop, Tomoya watched Esmeralda and Zach as they departed, their figures gradually disappearing into the distance.
They had come, as Tomoya knew they would, to speak to Takumi, hoping he might grant them access to the ruins of the Takahashi manor. But as expected, Takumi had refused, his response curt and his demeanor wary. The weight of the grimoire, buried deep beneath the manor’s rubble, seemed to be a silent guardian against the detectives’ growing curiosity.
Tomoya, however, had his own reasons for guarding the secrets of the grimoire—secrets he’d uncovered through his own bizarre journey, beginning with a confrontation he still couldn’t fully understand.
Though Takumi was aware of the event, he showed little interest in the grimoire Tomoya referenced—or perhaps, he feared confronting yet another fragment of his past that he had only partially allowed himself to forget.
Tomoya could still recall that day with perfect clarity: a brief but unforgettable meeting with a time traveler, a mysterious woman who had known far more than she should. She had spoken of events that hadn’t yet come to pass, of a future drenched in secrets and inevitabilities tied to the grimoire.
Her knowledge had both astonished and unnerved him, leaving him grasping at the delicate threads of time and fate, desperate to understand the role he would play.
Her image flickered in his mind like a ghostly apparition, taunting him with riddles he still hadn’t solved. "If only I could see her again," he muttered to himself, almost as if speaking the words aloud might summon her back.
Tomoya ran a hand over his neck, feeling the tension knotted there, as he cast his gaze back to the horizon, taking in the colorless expanse. The sense of urgency within him had grown sharper, a steady pulse thrumming in his veins, warning him that his time was running short.
He exhaled a long, measured breath, knowing he had little choice but to follow the detectives, shadowing them until he could gauge just how close they were to uncovering the secrets he guarded.
"I’m running out of time," he hissed under his breath, the words a bitter acknowledgment of the impending confrontation he could no longer avoid.
Keeping his distance, Tomoya trailed after Esmeralda’s car, his own vehicle blending inconspicuously among the others on the road. Zach had veered off, taking a different route, leaving Esmeralda alone.
Tomoya’s mind raced as he followed her, scenarios flashing through his mind, each one more troubling than the last. As he pulled his car to a stop at a safe distance, hidden just enough to evade her notice, a chill ran through him as he took in the surroundings.
Esmeralda was standing in the shadow of the manor’s ruins, and he could barely believe what he was seeing. His heart sank. "What is she doing here?" he whispered, the words filled with a tension he rarely felt.
He parked cautiously, making sure to keep out of sight, his eyes fixed on Esmeralda. With her alone in this forsaken place, he knew he couldn’t let her venture too close. He was driving an inconspicuous car—a borrowed model, courtesy of a friend who owed him a favor—one the cops wouldn’t recognize.
His breath quickened as he watched her from a distance, struggling with a mixture of anger and fear. She was meddling with forces she couldn’t possibly understand.
As Tomoya prepared to step out of his car and confront Esmeralda, a sudden movement caught his eye—a woman standing behind a tree, her presence strikingly familiar. He narrowed his gaze, waiting for his vision to adjust in the dim afternoon light. It took only a moment before he recognized her: Jess.
Memories of his childhood stirred as he watched her, still and silent, half-hidden behind the massive, gnarled tree that had witnessed so much of his past. His lips moved as he muttered her name, almost in disbelief. "Jess?" He whispered to himself, feeling the weight of old memories return with unexpected force. "What is she doing here?"
The sight of Jess, unexpected and shrouded in the haze of familiarity, left Tomoya unsettled, forcing him to re-evaluate what he thought he knew about this moment. Just when he thought he had a firm grasp on the situation, her sudden presence added layers of complexity he hadn’t anticipated.
"What the hell is going on here?" he murmured, the question hanging in the air like a silent echo of confusion. He squinted at the scene unfolding in front of him: Jess stood motionless, a vigilant yet subtle observer of Esmeralda’s movements as she inspected the exterior of the manor.
Tomoya recognized her intent, and it unnerved him. Esmeralda seemed oblivious to Jess’s watchful presence, caught up in a phone conversation that, while brief, punctuated the moment with a tension Tomoya could almost feel.
Hesitation anchored Tomoya in his seat, deciding against confronting either woman. He chose, instead, to watch. Esmeralda finished her call and, after glancing around, headed back toward her car, unaware of the shadowed exchange happening mere feet away.
Jess remained, alone, her gaze now distant as if lost in the recesses of time. The sight of her standing at the edge of the manor’s grounds was haunting. A subtle flicker crossed her expression—an almost painful familiarity that Tomoya couldn't shake. It was something he had glimpsed before, something long buried and half-forgotten, tugging at his memories, yet frustratingly just out of reach.
Tomoya lingered in his silence, mesmerized by Jess’s stillness, but his mind began to churn, pieces of a half-formed puzzle emerging from the depths of his past. He had encountered Jess several times at the hospital, yet today, in this isolated setting, she seemed almost ghostly.
Her face, framed by the shadows of the trees, stirred in him a vague recollection of someone, someone elusive, someone he couldn’t quite place. Could it be that his memories, clouded by the years, held the key to understanding her significance? He sensed that he was standing on the edge of an uncharted abyss of his own history, and Jess was its haunting figure.
As he watched, Jess made her way slowly toward the manor gates, her steps deliberate. She paused there, her gaze fixed on the manor as if recalling something deeply personal. The manor loomed like a guardian of forgotten stories, its silent walls imbued with secrets she seemed to feel more deeply than words could express.
Suddenly, a flicker of movement caught Tomoya’s attention, breaking the eerie stillness that had hung over the scene. A white car came into view on the opposite side of the road, its occupant stepping out with a nonchalant grace.
"Fuck!" Tomoya cursed under his breath, eyes widening as he recognized the figure emerging from the car—Zach, striding with an air of confidence that contrasted sharply with the tension gripping Tomoya.
Zach crossed the road with purpose, his every step radiating authority, and headed straight toward Jess, clearly intent on a confrontation of his own. Tomoya’s heart raced as he watched the unexpected interaction unfold, suddenly realizing he had underestimated just how tangled this web had become.
Tomoya sat in silence, watching as Zach drove away with Jess in his car. His gaze followed them until they disappeared down the winding road, his mind reeling with questions. Why would Zach take her, and what did he hope to accomplish? He could only sit there, frozen, grappling with the fragments of information he had on Jess.
This woman, now Scott's fiancée, was bound to him through a forced promise—an expected pregnancy binding her future. She had been the final wedge that drove Scott to sever his fragile connection with Samantha, pushing Samantha’s will to its breaking point. Beyond that, she was a shadow, a face from the fringes. That was all he knew of her, all he thought he needed to know. Or so he’d believed.
Yet, as he remained in his car, Tomoya felt a shiver crawl through him, an unrelenting urge to know more, to dig deeper. His hand hovered over his laptop, fingers tingling with anticipation as he considered the forbidden steps he was about to take.
His heart pounded, each beat coaxing him closer to the screen, pushing him to unveil whatever lay beneath the surface of Jess’s life. Something in her manner, in the secrets that seemed to cling to her, ignited a familiar itch, one that only deep research could satisfy. It unsettled him, but the moment Zach had taken her away, Tomoya knew that whatever shadow Jess cast in Samantha’s life was far more complex than he’d assumed.
Taking a breath, he opened his laptop and began accessing the police database, a feat that took minimal effort given his tech expertise. He wove through encrypted files with ease, careful to avoid triggering any security alerts as he scoured the system. Soon, a web of documents appeared on his screen, offering a glimpse into Jess’s life that lay hidden from ordinary eyes.
She had been an orphan, shuffled through a series of foster homes, each more ruinous than the last. A fractured childhood, punctuated by neglect, marked the years of her youth. She had few connections, and those that existed told stories of abandonment and survival rather than stability. It was as though each page on his screen bled a part of her past that she had fought to leave behind.
Tomoya’s fingers paused as he came across a particularly well-guarded file, marked by one of the detectives who had recently handled her case. It was the kind of document that didn’t appear in standard searches, and he could sense it held something significant.
With a final keystroke, he bypassed its security, and the contents opened before him. What he saw left him in quiet shock. Jess, as it turned out, had once lived at the Takahashi manor. Not as a visitor, but as a child of one of the manor's household staff. Her name was buried in the official records of the manor, a mere footnote in its history.
And as far as police files recorded, hers was the only body that had not been recovered from the ruins of that fateful night when the manor crumbled to the ground.
Tomoya's pulse quickened as he pieced together the implications. Jess—the one who now stood at the center of Scott’s life and Samantha’s heartbreak—might just be the child of a maid who had known the Takahashi family intimately.
Among the children that had lived and perished in that manor, he distinctly remembered there was only one girl. His thoughts spiraled, conjuring a picture of Jess as a girl haunted by the echoes of the Takahashi family, entangled in the secrets left to smolder in the ruins.
A gasp escaped him as his laptop beeped, signaling him to close the file before the cops' cybersecurity system detected his intrusion. Tomoya's fingers flew across the keyboard, frantically shutting down the program, his heart still racing from the revelation.
Just as he closed the last screen, a final detail flickered on his display: the name of the detective who owned these hidden files.
He stared at the word, a new layer of intrigue settling over him, as though fate itself had woven her into this story. The detective’s name was unmistakable.
"Dryzza?" he whispered, barely audible, as if saying it aloud might confirm the strange, tangled fate he was uncovering.