Into the Land of Twilight

The sky was painted in an endless, suffocating shade of deep sunset vermilion.

The sun hung motionless at the edge of the jagged horizon, heavy clouds of bruised purple and crimson brooding low over the wasteland.

Stretching before them like an infinite beach were endless rolling dunes.

Yet it was not sand.

Broken plastic umbrellas, faded stuffed animals, single rubber boots, dried-up ballpoint pens, frayed commuter pass holders...

A century's worth of lost articles, forgotten by their owners and never claimed, accumulated into an ocean of debris.

"WAAAH! What is this place?! Everything under our feet is a lost thing!"

Beside Koharu, Taiga cried out in horror.

With every step they took, the brittle plastic and rusted metal clattered and groaned: clack, crunch, clatter...

"P-Pockeeey! A weird button got jammed in my wool-pock! Get it off me-pock~!"

Poking out from Koharu's yellow cape, Pocke flailed its mitten paws in distress.

"Hush, Pocke, be quiet. ...Ayame, are you all right?"

Koharu looked back. Ayame held her neat violet ribbon steady against the wind, inspecting the terrain.

"The footing is atrocious. However, there is something far more alarming to observe. Look at the clocks jutting from the dunes."

Ayame pointed toward dozens of alarm clocks, mantel clocks, and wristwatches half-buried in the debris.

Whether giant grandfather clocks or delicate watches, every single set of hands was frozen dead at five o'clock.

Whenever the wind blew, a sorrowful, music-box-like chime echoed faintly through the wasteland: ding... dong...

"Meow."

Sliding between their boots, a calico cat padded into view.

It was Miiko, the resident cat of the Lost-and-Found Hall.

Pricking up her fluffy tail, Miiko trotted ahead across the ridge, pausing to glance back with an encouraging meow.

"Miiko! Are you guiding us?"

Miiko purred loudly and continued leading the way.

Yet after trudging through the dunes for several minutes, something terrifying began to happen.

Every time the icy wind whistled through them, a numbness crept into the very core of their minds.

"...Wait."

Walking at the front, Ayame abruptly halted.

Her slender fingers reaching to open her notebook trembled faintly.

"Ayame, what's wrong?"

"...My mother's birthday... What date was it again...? Every year, we watch shooting stars from Stargazing Hill... a day so precious to me... yet I cannot recall the date..."

Panic flickered across Ayame's violet eyes.

"M-Me too!"

Taiga dropped to his knees, clutching his head with both hands.

"My soccer jersey... what number was on my back?! And Grandpa's name... was it Gen? Or am I a dog?!"

"Taiga is a human-pock! Just a big glutton with a sharp nose-pock!"

Pocke shouted, but even Pocke's voice quavered with fear.

A freezing mist began creeping into Koharu's mind as well.

(The bakery... the taste of melon bread... what did it taste like? Mom and Dad's faces... they're blurring...)

"Do not surrender!"

Ayame shouted, gripping her fountain pen with fierce resolve.

Upon a pristine page of her violet leather Unforgettable Notebook, she scrawled with trembling, determined strokes:

Koharu Hoshikawa. Ayame Kujo. Taiga Inukai. Pocke.

We are the Lost-and-Found Detectives of Tsukimizaka Elementary.

We will bring Kanata Yomi home and return to our town together, without fail.

Ayame raised the open book high before her chest.

"Read it aloud! Whatever is inscribed upon these pages cannot be extinguished by any darkness! If you forget, read it again and remember!"

"Yeah...! We are the Lost-and-Found Detectives!"

"We're bringing Kanata home together!"

As the three children and their spirit shouted the words in unison, the creeping fog in their minds shattered like brittle glass.

Miiko let out a sharp meow, gazing up at a colossal silhouette rising on the horizon.

Towering above the endless dunes, piercing the crimson heavens, stood a gargantuan clock tower constructed of pitch-black iron.

Its enormous hands pointed fixedly at five o'clock.

"Over there...! Kanata is at the very top of that tower-pock!"

Pocke's red yarn crackled with tingling sparks of static.

---

Yet as they drew near the base of the tower, the earth began to groan and buckle with a violent shudder.

"Wh-What's happening?!"

The moment Taiga braced himself, the mountain of lost things beneath their feet erupted like an exploding volcano.

Black mist coiled into a furious vortex, swallowing thousands of discarded relics.

Rising from the darkness was an army of colossal Strays.

A nightmarish spider monster fused from dozens of broken umbrella ribs.

A centipede of worn leather dress shoes and sneakers crawling across the ridge.

And an enormous golem made of rusted alarm clocks, ringing a discordant death knell.

Give them back... Give them back... HAND OVER YOUR MEMORIES!

A chorus of agonized, weeping roars shook the desert air.

"P-Pockeeey! It's a clearance sale of monsters-pock!"

"There are too many! Even the Star Lantern cannot purify such numbers all at once...!" Ayame retreated, holding her notebook close.

The only stone stairway leading into the clock tower was completely blockaded by the writhing horde.

If they were surrounded, their memories would be drained dry before they ever reached Kanata.

And that was when—

"Koharu! Keep your eyes forward and RUN!"

CRACK!

With a resounding impact, the lead shoe monster was knocked flat onto its side.

It was Taiga.

Spotting an old leather soccer ball among the debris, he had hammered a blistering volley strike right into the creature's face!

"Taiga?!"

"Leave this bunch to us! Kanata is waiting for you! GOOO!"

Taiga rubbed the bandage on his nose, baring his sharp canine tooth with a defiant grin.

"Inukai, that is reckless! You cannot possibly face them alone—"

"I'm not alone, President! I've got your brilliant deductions at my back!"

Taiga's declaration made Ayame's eyes widen in astonishment.

A fearless, proud smile bloomed across her lips, and she leveled her fountain pen like a commander's baton.

"...Indeed. The circumstantial evidence is dire. However, the probability of victory is never zero!"

Scanning the terrain and the monsters' clumsy movements, Ayame barked out rapid-fire orders:

"Inukai, the wind is blowing from our left! The umbrella creature's structural joints are severely brittle! Kick up sand to blind their vision, and herd them toward the ravine on the right!"

"ALLL RIGHT! The whirlwind reindeer dribbles right through the defense!"

Taiga kicked up blinding clouds of dust, drawing the swarm's fury across the dunes.

Ayame identified every weakness with razor precision, providing flawless tactical support.

Working in breathtaking harmony, the two of them carved an open path toward the tower.

"Go, Koharu!" Ayame yelled, looking back. "You are the only one who can bring Kanata home! I believe in my partner!"

"You two... please stay safe!"

Wiping away her tears, Koharu sprinted toward the stone staircase with Pocke.

"Who do you think we are?! Don't you dare underestimate the Lost-and-Found Detectives!"

With Taiga's thunderous war cry and Ayame's ringing commands echoing behind her, Koharu charged up the spiral stairs of the clock tower.

---

Reaching the top of the winding staircase, Koharu emerged onto a vast, open observation floor swept by icy winds.

Overhead, massive brass clockwork gears meshed silently together, reflecting the eternal sunset glow.

And right in the center of the hall—

Resting beneath a massive circular pane of glass was a capsule shaped like the face of a clock.

Bathed in an eerie, pale blue light within the glass, a solitary boy lay in deep slumber.

Silky silver hair, his navy coat, and his deep blue muffler.

"Kanata...!"

Just as Koharu rushed forward—

WHOOOOSH!

A cascading waterfall of black fog plunged from the vaulted ceiling.

The vortex parted, revealing the towering silhouette of Wasurena, blue forget-me-not blossoms gleaming like poison in her shadowy hair.

Have you returned, little mitten?

Layered voices hissed with freezing cruelty.

It matters not how many times you crawl here. That boy has already forgotten his very own name. This is the realm where all things fade into nothingness.

"Liar!"

Koharu flared her yellow cape, shouting with every fiber of her being:

"Kanata never forgot! He remembered his mother's muffler! He refused to steal anyone's memories and shattered the mask with his own hands!"

Wasurena's shadowy visage twisted with fury.

Insolent pest! Then I shall erase you first!

BOOOM!

Wasurena brought down her arm, unleashing a tidal wave of black fog straight at Koharu!

"Star Lantern, open!"

Koharu hoisted the Star Lantern, erecting a barrier of golden light.

Yet Wasurena's dark pressure in this realm was infinitely more terrifying than in the school gym.

Sizzle, crackle... The lantern's radiant shield was steadily compressed inward.

Tendrils of black mist coiled around Koharu's limbs, their arctic frost penetrating through skin and muscle straight into her bones.

(My... my head... it's so cold...)

Her thoughts began to freeze.

Her most precious memories slipped away like sand between her fingers.

(Why... am I standing here...?)

The orange light flickered, shrinking smaller and smaller.

(School...? A girl with straight black hair and a violet ribbon... who was she...?)

(A noisy boy with a bandage across his nose... who was he...?)

(The smell of fresh bread... Mom... Dad...)

"Koharu! Hold on-pock! Wake up-pock!"

At her chest, a voice cried out in desperate agony.

A ball of red yarn was patting her cheeks with tiny mitten paws, hot tears splashing onto Koharu's skin.

"You are Koharu Hoshikawa-pock! You love the crunchy edges of melon bread, you're clumsy and forgetful and nosy... but you never abandon anyone's lost things! You are my coolest, most wonderful partner in the entire universe-pock!"

"Poc... ke...?"

"Don't forget-pock! Koharu is the one who found me-pock! Koharuuu!"

Pocke's frantic cries were on the verge of being swallowed by the roar of the dark tide.

The light was fading from Koharu's amber eyes.

And then—

TWEEEEEEET—!

A pure, piercing note from a wooden whistle soared up from the base of the tower.

It was the Calling-Back Whistle, entrusted to Taiga by Lady Shiori.

The miraculous whistle whose song could reach the depths of a lost soul across any distance, so long as their name was held in the heart.

TWEEEEEEET—!

Riding the soaring note came a raw, cracking shout through the gale:

Koharuuu! Don't you dare give up! If you forget our names, I'll never forgive you!

Taiga's voice.

And then, another ringing, fierce command:

Koharu! Remember the evidence! Inscribe every single promise you have ever made!

Ayame's voice.

Those words struck Koharu's frozen heart like an arrow of pure dawn light.

Thump. Her heart surged back to life.

The encroaching frost shattered into sparkling dust.

"I am..."

A blaze of fierce golden fire ignited in Koharu's eyes.

"I am Koharu Hoshikawa! The detective of the Tsukimizaka Lost-and-Found Detectives!"

---

"Star Lantern... kindle your flame and BLAZE FORTH!"

Koharu cried out, and a solar flare of blinding radiance detonated from the lantern at her chest.

FLASH—!

The clinging shadows vaporized instantly, sending Wasurena's giant form shrieking backward.

GYAAAGH! The light... The light will not fade...!

"Pocke, all at once!"

"Leave it to me-pock!"

Pocke snapped onto her left hand, its white cuffs sparkling with stellar brilliance.

And that was when it happened.

From Pocke's red knitted body, a slender thread of crimson light unraveled, drifting into the air.

A glowing, warm thread connecting an object to its owner—the thread of memory.

"P-Pockeeey?! A thread of memory is coming out of my own body-pock!"

The glowing red thread floated gracefully through the air, sinking straight through the glass face of the clock capsule.

And it anchored itself directly over sleeping Kanata's chest—leading straight into the inner pocket of his navy coat!

"Over there...!" Pocke shouted.

"My missing other half... is inside his coat pocket-pock!"

"In Kanata's pocket...?!"

Koharu leaped forward, throwing herself against the glass capsule.

She pressed both hands flat against the surface.

Behind the chill of the glass, Kanata lay motionless.

The instant she touched the glass, the brilliant light of the Star Lantern and the warmth of Pocke's red thread poured through the barrier, flowing into Kanata's heart.

Ba-bump...

In that blinding flash, a torrential flood of forgotten memories came rushing into Koharu's mind.

Deep within her soul, a heavy, rusted lock snapped open with a resounding clack.

(Wait... this... this memory is...?)

Five years ago, in the depth of winter.

The evening of the Tsukimizaka Winter Festival, festooned with swinging festival lanterns.

At the bend in the slope as the five o'clock chime rang out, a little boy with silver hair was weeping in the freezing shadows, all alone.

And slipping her very own red mitten onto his trembling, frozen right hand was five-year-old Koharu herself—

'I promise I'll come back for you! I'll remember forever!'

"I... I met you before."

Tears overflowed from Koharu's eyes, streaming freely down her face.

"From a long, long time ago...!"