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Section 1
## Illustrations
## Konohana Kagura
Scans: zhangtn
"I want to know who killed me."
We cannot speak to each other. We cannot meet each other's eyes. I can see nothing and hear nothing. So turning around is absurd.
Yes. Right now I am being assessed. Among the many students alive and bustling on the school grounds, is Kamino Konohana an ordinary human being or not?
I must not repeat the failure of my childhood. I no longer want to spend trembling hours alone beneath cold stares. I only want to go on being an ordinary girl.
And yet. I cannot pretend I did not hear what the boy just said.
Before the gaze I turned back in spite of myself stood a boy in the familiar uniform of Tsukishin Academy's upper division, wearing a composure that did not match his age, looking straight at me.
"Thank you for hearing me."
The boy, who very likely no longer existed in this world, said that, and smiled.
□
The story must be traced back to the day before. The place has not changed. The old building of Tsukishin Academy's middle division. This is the roof of that old building—a place I have favored since my middle-division days, and still favor now that I have entered the upper division, a place that lets my heart grow still.
"I only brought you along today because Kazeka insisted I look after you for the sake of face. What is this attitude supposed to mean?"
By the time I entered the middle division, I was already completely used to being alone.
"…Does the Go-Home Club have a president? Can you even come up with the dues?"
At some point, without realizing it, I had begun to feel at ease once I confirmed a person and that person's shadow.…
## Kagura Fragment
When the boy's consciousness woke, the first sightseeing view to enter his eyes was a boundless vermilion sky. The sun, the clouds, even the wind were dyed the same color, and a world gathered into one invaded his vision.
The boy remembered. This was the scenery called a burning sky.
The hour when the sun finishes its work and slowly descends from the stage.
The shadows of trees and buildings were drawn long, and the figures of people passing in front of him crossed one another as if dancing—
Before long, the boy noticed.
He himself had no shadow, as if the world had cast him aside. As if he had fallen into this crimson world and become a solitary silhouette.
The boy moved his body and held both hands before his eyes.
These were certainly his own hands. Things he saw every day.
Once he had that small thread, broken images began to play without pause.
The boy checked whether each memory was there.
His own name—he still remembered it.
Digging as far back into memory as he could, the boy confirmed the brief images of himself. Things concerning him were, for the most part, intact. Proof that he truly existed was recorded in his heart.
This was the campus of Tsukishin Academy. The place he came to every day. The place where he himself was.
It was all right. He remembered. This was neither a dream nor a hallucination. He could understand that it was real.
The boy went on checking.
As if watching a film, he read from distant memories toward newer ones.
Soon—
The boy discovered a loss in his memory.
A sandstorm covered the images as they played. Something was missing from the boy's heart.
The boy, in order to fill…
## Rinne Kagura
Looking back afterward, I think—I definitely liked the girl named Kuga Rinne. To put it another way, this was a fondness I felt for her alone. So although my encounter with Rinne may have been chance, no one can deny the possibility that it was also arranged beforehand. If I am allowed an expression that matches my age and feels embarrassing—this was fate.
The first scene took place in late October, before winter had yet arrived.
□1
That day, my classmate Toya Yugo and I stood before the new middle-school building of Tsukishin Academy. It was not a thing special enough to be worth mentioning. Toya was one of the few classmates I could tease as I pleased, and we were often together. And the two of us, just like that, were now in uniform, standing at the foot of the stairs of our own school building. (Translator's note: the first-person pronoun used by the protagonist of this chapter is 「僕」, a masculine form. The translation does not distinguish it, and this is noted here.)
"…Are we really going in? Wouldn't it be fine to come back tomorrow?"
Even at this point, Toya was still checking with me. Toya had reflexes acknowledged by everyone in the middle division and a build blessed by heaven, and yet his face was now clouded with unease.
"If you're scared, go home by yourself. Basically, I don't believe I ever said I wanted you to come along. I'm the one who forgot something."
The only thing out of the ordinary in this scene was the time. The school building rising before our eyes was completely wrapped in darkness. Aside from the two of us, not a single figure could be seen. Because night had already fallen, so…
## Konohana Kagura Fragment
Another clear morning. The three of us walked the road that led to school.
"Sis, can I borrow this uniform a little longer?"
My little sister, close at my side, swung the skirt of the uniform.
Yesterday morning, while I was still asleep, she had come into my room and taken my old uniform. After I entered high school, I could not even get my arms into the sleeves.
"I'm not going to wear it. Do as you like."
"Though I like Konohana in her middle-school uniform too."
The boy in the high-school uniform followed behind me and my sister as we walked side by side. His line, full of regret, was of course ignored by me.
I ignored him on purpose. My sister—Mashiro—did so as a matter of course.
Only I could see the boy and hear his voice. I could not even be sure that, under these circumstances, it was appropriate to present us as three people walking down the road.
—The boy who declared he had been killed by someone. The boy who felt familiar to me.
No matter how I searched my memory, I could not find the boy's existence there. If the boy was not lying, then the time I had spent with him had slipped from my mind like sand.
Doubting one's own memory is not so simple a thing.
And yet—even a balloon that has been cut loose leaves, there, some residue that it once existed. Even if that residue is a tiny fragment one notices for the first time only after someone else points it out—
A month had already passed since the boy appeared before me and forced the fragments of the anomaly in front of my eyes. He still had not told me his name.
"I could tell you, I suppose, but in the end I still want Kono…
## Afterword
I have never been good at writing afterwords. Just as I said above. I cannot think of a single interesting thing. I no longer know how many times I rewrote this just to fill two pages of an afterword. At that rate, it feels as though it would have been better to have no afterword at all—but at the start, one does at least have to offer a greeting.
How do you do. Or perhaps you have been waiting a very long time. I am Hisaya Naoki.
I have published short stories in magazines before now, but this is the first time I have had the chance to write a novel in the form of a book lined up in a bookstore. The moment one writes an afterword is, of course, before printing, when the book does not yet exist. I might imagine myself saying, please be sure to read it—but even so, I am deeply moved.
Sakura Kagura was not originally something Seikaisha asked me to write. The path of the story wound and turned, and there was a time when I held the thought that Sakura Kagura might lose its chance to be published just like that. Then Mr. Ota of Seikaisha said, "Then publish it at my place!" Mr. Ota read the manuscript at once and offered valuable opinions. I am truly grateful beyond words.
It is not only Mr. Ota, who served as editor. That Sakura Kagura exists at all is also thanks to the help of many people. Mr. Kishida Meru, who drew the illustrations—Konohana and Mashiro on the cover are truly wonderful. There is also Mr. Hayashi of Seikaisha, and all the staff who took part in this book even though I never had the chance to meet them. And please allow me to offer my most sincere thanks to all of you who now actually hold Sakura Kagura in your hands like this. Truly, thank you very much…