Seeing past-self's hidden message had shaken something loose in him — a slight tremor. He sat quietly for a while, then re-read all the pages that had contained hidden content, committed their messages to memory, tore the pages away, and held them to the candle's flame. The candlelight flickered, casting deep shadows across his face. He had made a decision, leaving himself no retreat.

What past-self had anticipated, what he had prepared — Ma En felt he could no longer know the full scope of it. Perhaps these hidden contents were only a small part.

Perhaps past-self had still believed, firmly, that future-self would be able to escape whatever schemes came his way and become "the rabbit that jumped from the magic hat."

But now was not then. What had been hidden had surfaced; the faint ripples were about to become towering waves. Matsuzaemon had already begun to move. All the threads pointed toward a far more intense confrontation. Ma En didn't believe that if he lost his memory again, there would be another chance.

If he hadn't encountered so many connecting threads, if the Room 4 Ghost Story still seemed like a vast, still lake with only undercurrents churning below, he might also have chosen to leave some hints and exits for future-self. But now, he thought, his only path was to burn his boats — only by committing completely could he grasp a thread of hope in a current that allowed no hesitation.

Ma En didn't know whether past-self would have called his current actions reckless. In many respects, present-self clearly differed greatly from past-self. Even so, he believed that when past-self had left these hints, he had also left the decision itself to future-self.

Past-self was not trying to direct present-self on what to do or what path to follow — just as present-self would not impose fixed rules or predetermined routes on future-self. Even when cognition and thinking had changed in many places, something fundamental about how one treated past, present, and future had to remain constant.

So Ma En burned the contents. He watched the flames expand rapidly. In a flicker of false vision, he thought he could see past-self nodding, smiling.

He came back to himself in the next instant. He tipped the ashes into the toilet and flushed several times. Returning to the desk, he continued working through the materials — including the blank Seven Transmutations of the Profound Mystery Records and the paper ball that had saved him more than once. He soon discovered that the paper ball's slightly unusual content was actually excerpted from the most commonly available explanations of the Twenty-Four Solar Terms. But at some point in the process — whether by inspiration or accident he couldn't say — certain words had been dropped, certain punctuation shifted, and the result was a new interpretation.

Setting aside the original meanings of the Twenty-Four Solar Terms, the "Beginning of Summer" and "Grain Full" in the paper ball carried a surging dynamism — like a particular kind of life being born from something internal, growing, ultimately reaching maturity. He fixed on the word for eye, and naturally recalled the strange perspective he'd experienced at Sanchoumoku Park — like an entirely new eye growing from within his own thinking, drilling out from his physical brain, from beneath bone and scalp, to produce something otherwise incomprehensible.

He couldn't help wondering: had what he experienced that night been exactly what the paper ball described? If so, it was only "Beginning of Summer." Not yet "Grain Full."

But the paper ball covered twenty-four special symbols and characters, and though all the materials pointed toward the Twenty-Four Solar Terms, Ma En couldn't understand how past-self had arrived at the answer: these twenty-four symbols or characters correspond to the solar terms. He could speculate, could even scrape a few fragments of memory to the surface — enough to know that these twenty-four strange symbols and characters were part of the Seven Transmutations' content. But from where he stood now, too many things remained incomprehensible. His past self's reading and interpretation of the Seven Transmutations contained a logical chasm he couldn't see the bottom of, making it nearly impossible to recreate the original circumstances.

And from a fresh angle, the same challenge applied. He had no inspiration.

Ma En could have addressed an endless string of questions to past-self. But past-self couldn't answer anymore. Perhaps this would become work he'd have to carry forward: the questions, and the answering of them himself.

He recorded his thoughts incrementally. As he worked, a temptation took root somewhere inside him and seemed to murmur: if you reshape your spirit and your psychology — revert to your original self — you could certainly answer these questions.

Yes. He'd considered it the previous evening: restoring himself to his former shape. And it wasn't impossible to do. Only painful.

At first, he hadn't had the hesitation he had now. If, when he'd returned to Room 4, he hadn't been occupied with writing that story for Hirota-san, he would certainly have taken out the psychological tests and mental reformation questionnaires and begun correcting himself, bit by bit. But he hadn't done it then — perhaps because, even at that moment, his concern for Hirota-san had outweighed his concern for himself.

During the earthquake, he'd only taken these materials with him. Probably because something in him had silently assigned them greater weight. Or perhaps some unnamed premonition had guided his hands toward these documents rather than toward the self-reformation tools.

Looking back now, he didn't feel regret. His hesitation came in part from recognizing a fact: I don't actually care about self-reformation as much as I thought I did. And he felt it was less the influence of bizarre things than his own instinct — an internal self issuing a warning to the urgent surface mind.

After more than two hours of concentrated study, Ma En finally shed completely the slight tremor he'd felt when he'd first seen the hidden message. Now he could return to it with a cooler, sharper, more rational mind.

And he became more certain: he had to visit Asuka — even if doing so might put that girl in great danger. Past-self had chosen Asuka knowing this risk. And despite knowing it, past-self had still chosen her as intermediary. There had been an unavoidable reason for that. Just as there was now.

How confident had past-self been that Asuka wasn't one of the monsters? Where had that conclusion come from? Present-self couldn't understand — having grown distant from her since becoming himself, he'd lost part of the picture. But he still trusted past-self's judgment. His only concern was for Asuka's safety.

And not going to find Asuka wouldn't make her safer. On the contrary, Matsuzaemon's scheme would cause more people, including Asuka, to suffer fear and harm. It seemed that the moment Asuka had encountered past-self, the moment she'd decided to pursue the secrets of the Room 4 Ghost Story, the danger had become unavoidable.

Ma En let out a quiet internal breath, packed all the materials back into the briefcase, picked up the briefcase and umbrella, and left the hotel suite.

Standing in sunlight again, the sky was slightly clearer than it had been that morning. The earthquake's aftershocks in people's hearts seemed to be slowly subsiding. People on the street looked fully returned to their ordinary lives. Perhaps many had seen the news programs — but obviously, very few had been able to read their secrets.

Ma En merged into this ordinary flow of people, and felt, faintly, that he didn't quite fit. He walked the same road, could make contact, could speak with them — and yet still felt as if his daily life and everyone else's were separated by some invisible wall.

He didn't let the feeling affect him, and he wouldn't complain about its cause. He had once wanted to return to ordinary life — but if this world genuinely contained bizarre things that visited undeserved disasters on people, he didn't mind returning to his old path.

Because this was no longer just his own delusion, his own strange fascination. What he was pursuing was a reality that was actually happening.

Following his plan, he stopped at a clothing store first.

Bunkyo District's main street held a variety of shops — domestic Japanese brands and foreign imports alike. He had no strong preferences; he found a shop that caught his eye. The name appeared to be a Western-language pronunciation he didn't understand. A brand he'd never heard of — but the shop's atmosphere was calm, and after the greeting at the entrance, the staff left him alone.

He actually disliked overly attentive shop assistants. Being free to browse by himself suited him better.

He checked the shop's formal wear prices, selected a dark-colored suit, a light shirt, and a deep red tie — the kind of thing his past self would have worn. If there were differences, they were in tailoring details and small decorative choices; of course, nothing here was identical to what he'd had before. He also had no strong attachment to his former clothes. Wearing something similar to what he'd worn then was simply about bringing himself, body and mind, into the right condition.

Yes — though the details differed, once he tried everything on, he felt no awkwardness, found it more natural and comfortable than what he'd been wearing. Maybe changing clothes would also reduce, slightly, that sense of dislocation and not-quite-fitting among people.

Sure enough — some past things can be discarded. But others require careful consideration before letting go.

He stood looking at his reflection, thinking this. The figure in the mirror briefly disoriented him. In the narrow changing room, that deep red tie had once frightened him — he could still remember how resistant he'd felt not long ago, how afraid that his old self would catch up with him. But thinking about it now, that had been excessive alarm. Compared to the enemy's schemes, compared to the terrifying Matchmaking God, his reflection was entirely ordinary. Entirely ordinary.

And this is what handling serious business looks like.

Ma En smiled at his reflection, as his reflection smiled back. They looked at each other as if they'd already exchanged a thousand words. What floated in the silence was Ma En's encouragement to himself.

He folded the clothes he'd taken off — a gift Hirota-san had specifically chosen; he wouldn't carelessly discard them — and stepped out of the changing room with the umbrella and briefcase. The female shop assistant, who had been waiting nearby, quickly approached.

Ma En gave her a slight smile. "I'll take this entire outfit. And please wrap these clothes up for me as well."

The shop assistant's eyes met his. From within Ma En's black, clear pupils, she seemed to see her own face distinctly. A sensation arose in her that she'd never experienced before — as if this ordinary exchange had been placed inside an uncommon space. She suddenly found she couldn't clearly see this customer's face; she could only remember these clear eyes holding her reflection, and a tall silhouette.

Even under the lights, that silhouette seemed to have most of itself concealed in background shadow — only that deep red tie was vivid, bleeding, burning, riveting.

The style and the color were entirely ordinary in themselves. But at this moment, on this man's figure, they seemed imbued with a strange life.

The shop assistant felt slightly dazed. Looking again, the man in front of her was simply an ordinary, well-built male. The strange sensations seemed only to have been her error. Even so, she couldn't stop noticing that tie — and she felt certain that of all the men she'd encountered, none could have worn that particular tie and carried that particular quality.

If she'd had to put words to it: a presence very easy to pass over in a crowd, but one that, once truly seen, gradually revealed itself to be wrapped in something uncommon.

"Are you all right?" His voice reached her, cutting through the fog.

"Ah — yes." Her expression flickered for a moment, then settled back into a professional smile. "Will you be wearing these out? I'll remove the tags for you."

"And please wrap up these clothes." Ma En reminded her.

"Of course, one moment." She moved briskly to the nearby counter and returned shortly with scissors and a bag.

She carefully clipped the tags from Ma En's new clothes, then folded his old things, shaped them with cardboard and clips, and tucked them into the bag.

When Ma En paid and stepped out, she stood at the shop entrance watching him disappear into the crowd.

"What are you looking at?" Another assistant came over, following her gaze — and saw only people passing, nothing more.

"Didn't you notice? That customer — he was just—" The assistant who'd seen him off couldn't find the right words. "So strange."

"Strange? That customer? Ah, that one? Of course I saw him. Nothing different — just an ordinary person." Her coworker said, then asked with a knowing smile: "What's wrong? Did you fall for him? Obviously you did. When a woman becomes attracted to an ordinary man, that man becomes different from all other men in her eyes."

"Don't be ridiculous. That's not what I felt — it was another kind of... another kind of... anyway, something very specific." The assistant shook her head. "You definitely didn't look carefully."

"Oh—" her coworker asked meaningfully. "So what's his name?"

"I didn't ask." The assistant seemed a little regretful. "I should have. I just forgot."

"Well then, nothing to be done — though you never know. Maybe he'll come back if he liked the service, liked the clothes." Her coworker shrugged and went back inside.

The assistant didn't dwell on it. She only wondered: would she ever encounter that man again? Then she buried the thought and returned to work.