"I don't know where it comes from. I don't know why I have it," Satoru said to her. "I don't know why it gave itself to you, either."

Kayo just blinked at him, her brows furrowing in mild confusion.

Satoru pondered for a moment, placing a hand to his chin, unsure of how he would explain it to her. There was simply...too much to explain, too much to just thrust into the hands of a child and expect her to understand. Was he to explain that he was really twenty-nine years old? That his latest Revival had kickstarted in the year 2009? Could he really get away with such a thing, right here and now? This early in the morning?

...of course not. Not yet, at least. It would be too much. There was a time for everything. And right now would be the worst time to just unload all his secrets. She'd just gotten Revival. He figured he'd eventually have to ease himself into revealing the truth to her.

"When something bad is about to happen to someone," he explained, "I see a blue butterfly. And then, in a flash, time rewinds. I'm supposed to save whoever needs to be saved, during my second run through. And so I do it. That's...pretty much how it goes."

Kayo blinked again, mildly annoyed by the lack of any more information on this 'Revival.' "So that's it?" she asked him. "Time just...rewinds whenever somebody's in trouble? You don't know anything else?"

"No," Satoru replied. "Not a thing. The butterfly just appears, and then I'm sent back."

"Does it usually send you days back in time?" she asked.

Don't talk about 2009, don't talk about 2009, don't talk about 2009, "Usually minutes. One to five. I think."

"And you said you're in the middle of one right now?" she bluntly questioned, as she rubbed her eyes. She'd stopped crying, and was now just asking questions, asking things which would perhaps help her understand the situation.

Satoru scrambled to find a suitable explanation in his mind, don't lie to her, come on, think of something, before settling with a somber, "Yeah. I am."

Kayo began piecing things together. His kindness and his sociability towards her despite the fact that he had never spoken to her before. His immediate knowledge of what those tools inside the box were meant for. His daringness, his courage, his maturity — she'd always had that feeling he seemed a bit old for his age. How long had he been stuck in his current Revival?

And why was he in one in the first place?

"What happened?" she asked. He turned his gaze away, and when he did that her voice turned cold again as she rubbed her nose. "Did something happen to me?"

He turned back to her, his hand having balled up into a fist. But she kept her eyes firm on him, and gave him a look that she had normally given him when they had been less-than-casual friends.

Don't try to hide it.

When Satoru realized it was useless to try and keep up pretenses, he sighed, "It's not just you. There's a girl named Aya Nakanishi. She dies after you're supposed to. And then, after her, it's Hiromi."

Kayo's eyes widened, and all she was able to stammer out was, "What...?"

Satoru's eyes were narrow, and his expression was enough to unsettle her. "My other friend, Yuuki — he's an older guy — he is going to take the fall. He'll be imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, and years upon years later, what's supposed to happen to you and Nakanishi and Hiromi will happen to my mother," he grunted, sighing.

"S-Sugita?" Kayo stuttered. "He's supposed to die, and —" and then she remembered food, actual food on the table, she remembered crying and weeping and being inconsolable after having recalled bread and instant ramen and coins, coins, she remembered Satoru's mom patting her on the head and comforting her as Satoru would watch the scene unfold "—and your mother, too...?"

Satoru's expression was solemn. "You are supposed to be dead. And even now, with all this," he points to the assortment of suspicious tools at their feet, "I don't know if I'm even doing a good job of keeping you alive."

Kayo's expression hardened, and all she could say was, "That's why you...befriended me, all of a sudden?"

Resolutely, fearlessly, Satoru told her, "Yes. To protect you. To save you. Because I didn't, the first time."

She blinked. "Satoru...?"

Satoru ran a hand through his head as he gritted his teeth and exclaimed, "I saw you." His gaze was firm. His eyes were wide, and he looked like he was in mourning. "The first time around, I saw you. In that park, in the snow. I saw you. I would have asked you if you would have liked to come home with me, but I didn't know you, and so I left you there. I left you there, and before I knew it, you were dead. Then Nakanishi died, then Hiromi died, then Yuuki was put in jail. You died, everybody died, and I could have stopped it if I'd done things different."

Though his voice was edged, he was not at all angry. He was terrified. Because now, she was stuck in this world with him, because she'd said he was going to suffer for his actions, that he was going to die, that all he had done would only result in his death. And he didn't know what to do. Had the killer gotten to his mother, still? Had the killer known, all this time, what Satoru had planned? Had the killer been waiting just for the perfect moment to strike?

Who could it have been? Whose car was he in? He'd trusted very few people in his hometown, even more so now since there was a killer living amongst them. The killer must have been someone close. Someone close enough for him to be willing to ride in his car with him, or perhaps the killer would strike upon him and his mother while she would drive —?

"Satoru." Satoru turned to Kayo, who had the slightest hint of a worried expression on her face. "Calm down. You're breathing too hard."

"Hinazuki," he said to her, grabbing her by the shoulders, "in the timeline you talked about, did you hear anything about my mom? Anything about Hiromi or Nakanishi? Anything that—!?"

"No," she said, startled by the sudden, alien look of fear in his eyes. "No. I...no. When they called, they said you were the only one in the car. I didn't hear anything about your mother or Sugita or that other person before I came back here." He still breathed like his lungs were on fire, and all she could say was, "It was only you."

And at that, he felt mild comfort. But then he sharply turned to Kayo again, looking like he'd just realized something. "You and your mom...," he said, suddenly. "Did I...?"

Kayo scowled for a second, recalling her mother, and then said, "I told you already. You got me away from her."

"What exactly did I do?" he asked.

"Why?" she asked back. "What are you planning?"

"You're not arguing with me on this," Satoru said. "You're going to go to Sapporo, with your grandma."

"What?" Kayo exclaimed, sounding like he'd just betrayed her. "You can't be serious—"

"You know about the killer, you know about what he's going to do, you know that he's still out there. You've got to go. I can take care of the rest. You've been helpful—"

"You are not doing this," she grunted. "Not to me, not after everything that's happened—" her expression turned sour. "I'm helping you—"

"It's the only way to protect you, Kayo!" he asserted. "You can't help me, I'm not going to put your life in danger!"

"And you think I can let you put your life in danger?" she gritted her teeth. "I can help you!"

"How?" he said to her, now trying to go for low blows due to his lack of a mental filter. "You're just a kid!"

I said that out loud...

Kayo looked like she could burn villages down with her gaze alone. "And. You're. Not?"

And to that, Satoru gritted his teeth and hung his head low as he suddenly blurted out, "I'm twenty-nine years old!"

Kayo stepped back, her eyes wide and the realization coming at her like a freight train. "You're...?"

"The latest Revival hits me when I'm twenty-nine years old," he said to her, his eyes exhausted. "My mom gets stabbed in my apartment by some man in a suit and glasses. As he leaves, I find my mom's corpse, and the moment I exit the room the police are at my doorstep. As I'm running, I see a blue butterfly, and I'm walking down the street. To our school."

At that, Kayo did not know what to say anymore. All she did was stare at him, her eyes wide, her breaths shallow, and her mind completely blank.

"I had two Revivals, Kayo," he said. "Two. And in the first one, you died anyway! This is my second go at saving your life! This is the last chance I'll ever get! If I screw this up, you're dead, and so are those other kids, so's my mom, Yuuki'll still be in prison, and whoever this killer is gets away with everything!"

"But you'll die, if you go through this alone," said Kayo, simply.

"And I'm fine with that, if it means—!"

"I'm here now," she said. "I was sent back, just like you were. I'm the person who told you what'll happen to you. I'm the one the butterfly decided to send back. I am here for a reason. I won't let you go through this alone."

"And what if you die again?" rebutted Satoru. "What if your help ends up killing you? What if this killer, whoever he is, ends up killing you as well?"

"I don't care," she grunted simply. "I won't let him kill you."

Kayo held a glare which arrested Satoru on the spot.

"You saved my life. If not for you, I'd be dead, or with my mother. I remember. You bring me into your house and you give me food. Your mother sets a plate down in front of me, and I cry because I was never given the kind of food she'd give me, and I'd be given only — only coins and bread and junk food to live on. And then me and your mom and our teacher — Yashiro-sensei — you all pitch in and help me get away from my mom. Grandma comes in, she takes me, my mother's crying and I don't care, I see you running for me as my grandma drives away with me in the car. The last I see of you, we're looking at each other as the snow falls. Then, you're gone. And you're telling me I should just ignore all of that."

He had changed the future once. He had saved her life, and for that, she was forever grateful. If he was capable of changing her future, if he was capable of altering her own miserable fate, then perhaps she, in her own meager way, was capable of changing his.

Satoru opened his mouth. Ready to say something. But then he stopped, and he frowned, and he turned his gaze away. He then turned back to her. "So, what? You're going to help me take this killer down and save everybody? Including me?"

"You tried it," she deadpanned. "And it worked."

"After I messed up once."

"Then I'll keep you from messing up a third time," she said. "You're not going to take me away from this! You died once, and I'm not gonna let you die again! If you think you can go and act like some superhero while I'm supposed to just sit back and let you save me, you're wrong."

She knew that after this, nothing was going to be the same. Not for her, not for her mother, not for Satoru, not for Hiromi, not for Kenya; not for anybody.

Sheepishly, Satoru rubbed the back of his head as he gave a scowl.

He was not going to be able to do this alone. And he knew it. He loathed it. Kayo was right. If he was going to make sure that the killer was going to stay behind bars for his crimes...he had to depend on someone else. Someone who knew about Revival. Someone who knew about everything.

Someone he could trust. Someone...who was as willing to protect him as he was to protect her.

"...Kids are so reckless," he cheekily grunts to himself. "This isn't going to be easy, Hinazuki," he said. "Our struggles will only begin from here. The moment something bad happens to you, you're out of the game," he said. "That's the only condition. Are you sure you're gonna be okay with this?"

Kayo had never felt so tiny and yet so large at the same time.

"I'll be okay with it."

A/N

DUN DUN DUN OH HOW THE TURN TABLES

What will happen? How will events change!? Will Kayo save Satoru from his impending demise? Will Satoru and Kayo be able to rescue everyone from the clutches of fate? Will the murderer be found? Will this story be updated at a regular pace!? Tune in next time on Eraserball Z!

Seriously, a massive thanks to everybody who's reviewed and stuck with this story despite my abysmal pacing!

Hope you all liked this very late chapter, and here's to a chapter coming at a relatively earlier date, next time! :D