Time’s Tangle: Shards of the Forgotten Future
How would you mend time if it hurt someone you love? What if each change cost you part of who you are? This saga dives deep into those ripples.
Protagonist Kana Doi, a third-year student, dreams in spirals. Every so often, she glimpses hints of a day that’s not yet come, filled with empty seats where friends once sat. It haunts her sleep. After spending weeks running from that dread, she finds an old pocket watch in the attic, clicking but stuck at 12:17. That’s when her time begins to break.
Kana wants one small wish: stop her younger brother, Jun, from being in the place where she foresees tragedy. She sets the clock at noon, puts on her faded school uniform, and is swept ten years ahead. The light stings. The city she knew is grey, familiar faces harder to find. Even her best friend Mika can barely meet her eyes. Has the future warped so far?
A stoic figure, Kou Minase, finds her hunting through an empty arcade. Kou travels through time, too, except without any plan. He just wants to find where ‘he fits.’
Kana and Kou strike a deal. ‘I’ll help you find your brother,’ Kou says, voice low, ‘if you teach me what makes the now worth saving.’ Isn’t that an odd trade? Mika, desperate to keep the past from ripping the group apart, tries to anchor them by asking what memories they’d trade just to fix one thing.
With Jun always just out of reach, Kana repeats the loop. Save Jun from the traffic accident, another falls sick with despair. Turn again, but now Jun’s new friends vanish. Each ‘fix’ costs her more moments. Her room fades a little—posters wither, her favorite cup won’t appear. Mika’s smile is thinner with each jump.
Kou grins, sad, watching the clock hands spin faster. ‘Aren’t you scared you’ll blink and all of this will slip, Kana?’ he asks. She ignores him at first. But one evening she wakes forgetting the reason for today’s tears.
The school holds only shadows on a Friday that should have been sports day. Mika drags Kana up to the roof, sinks down beside her. ‘Would Jun want you living in a puzzle,’ Mika asks, ‘or sitting here, with us?’
Kana snaps: ‘Then what should I do? Watch him vanish again?’ Mika says, ‘Let’s steal tonight back. Just tonight.’
The future’s a shatter: duplicates of Kort’s lost memories waggle in. The trio join forces—with Jun’s childhood memory as a key—hoping they can stitch a bit of joy, if not save every piece. All the while, the world grows less solid, timelines crashing, faces skipping with static.
The arc’s near end: Kana stands at that street crossing as the light ticks red. She realizes the best way to hold on is not to disrupt, but cherish. ‘Time may forget us, but I won’t,’ she tells Kou and Mika. But then the gears lock again, flashing white—and Jun is nowhere on this side. Cliffhanger hits: Did she finally break time, or did she save everyone but lose herself?
