At this moment, Sora was both deeply shocked and deeply confused.
The memories in his mind had not faded. They were still vivid and clear.
He was certain that before going to sleep, he and Robin had truly, unquestionably already attended Gopher Wood's farewell ceremony.
And yet now, the time and the news on his phone were both proving beyond doubt that the ceremony had not started yet.
"Did I dream tomorrow?"
But how could it have felt that real?
Sora still remembered the takoyaki he had eaten, the music he had heard, and the secret base Robin had taken him to.
None of those things could have been fake.
The moment that thought struck him, Sora immediately ran to the bedside and opened the cabinet.
Inside were the emergency measures he had prepared for Robin.
He had worried that Robin might not be able to fully control the power in her wings, so he had bought those things ahead of time.
He distinctly remembered that those things had already been taken out and used.
But now they were lying there quietly in the nightstand, their packaging still unopened.
That fact flatly denied the memories he had from before.
"Could it be that I'm trapped in a loop?"
There was another possibility as well.
Sora might have fallen into an endless loop.
Just like the main cast in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, repeating one day in August 15,532 times.
Every day, the moment he opened his eyes, it would be the same day all over again, and everything that happened during that day would be meaningless.
Because when the clock struck midnight, everything would reset completely to the way it had been at the start.
Judging from the untouched packaging, that seemed to be exactly the kind of loop he was caught in.
"This is not good..."
Usually, loops like that had some kind of key point, or required some crucial action before they could finally be broken.
But how long had he even been here? How had he suddenly ended up saddled with something like this?
"Sora, what's wrong?"
While Sora was still thinking, a voice sounded behind him.
Robin looked at him pacing back and forth in the room with such a deeply thoughtful expression on his face.
She had a feeling something bad was about to happen.
"Me? I'm fine. I'll get dressed right now..."
For the moment, Sora pushed the matter down into his heart. He intended to find out whether this really was a loop.
So, under Robin's watch, he took the clothes he had prepared earlier from the wardrobe and began putting them on.
The toned body exposed when he took off his clothes made Robin immediately cover her eyes with her hand.
The problem was that the gap between her fingers was so wide it served no purpose whatsoever.
But Sora had no attention to spare for that. The moment he finished dressing, he headed to the ceremony venue with Robin.
Along the way, he carefully observed everything around him, wanting to imprint all of it into his mind.
Unfortunately, Penacony was a planet of beautiful dreams. Most people ate, lived, and went about their daily lives inside the dreamscape.
So in reality, there were barely any people around at all.
Other than those hurrying to the ceremony like them, Sora saw almost nothing distinctive.
That made things difficult...
Still, it wasn't hopeless. If he did something different from before in advance, maybe he could find a pattern.
And there weren't many things in reality that Sora clearly remembered doing.
In reality, what he had done was...
His eyes fell on the emergency measures he was carrying.
"Robin, I feel like you probably need these right now..."
But the moment Sora took out the emergency measures ahead of time, he realized something.
Robin's wings were not shimmering in seven colors like they had in his memory.
Because of what he had said, she was looking at him curiously, wondering what he was trying to do.
The pure white wings behind her ears were just like an angel's wings—without the slightest trace of any other color, with nothing but purity left.
And right now, they fluttered lightly along with their owner's thoughts.
"What is it?"
"Nothing."
Sora turned his face forward, but there was a trace of gravity in his eyes.
The point of abnormality...
He had found it.
...
Now that he had confirmed the abnormal point, Sora naturally wanted to ask exactly why this had happened.
But obviously, now was not the time to talk about it.
There were too many eyes and ears at the farewell ceremony. There was no telling when someone might overhear their conversation.
So they had to find somewhere no one could disturb them before they could properly discuss it.
And after having lived through the events in his memory once already, a place instantly surfaced in Sora's mind.
Robin's secret base.
It was at Dream's Edge, a place few people ever visited.
If Robin herself had not taken him there once, no one would ever have imagined there was a manor hidden in that place.
And with all the music records stored inside—
Once they put on some music and started talking, it would be practically foolproof.
After deciding what to do later, Sora went through the same events that had happened "yesterday" as usual.
The farewell ceremony began, Gopher Wood's achievements were recounted, the crowd paid their respects, and then they met again at the grand theater...
Everything unfolded exactly as it had in that dream.
The only difference was that this time, Sora did not make any snide comments. Other than that, there was not the slightest discrepancy.
Because right now, Sora was staring at the person on this entire planet most likely to be responsible for the loop—
Sunday.
If he still ended up in the same loop after today, then Sora was going to have a long, serious talk with Lord Sunday.
Other people might not know, but would he not know himself?
And on top of that, with the man's little-sister-complex tendencies, Sora had every reason to suspect that Sunday had both the motive and the means.
Of course, a gaze that intense naturally drew someone's displeasure.
"Hey, why are you staring at my brother like that?"
Robin waved a hand, dragging Sora's attention back from Sunday.
"Are you plotting something in your head again?"
She puffed out her cheeks like an angry little bird about to start pecking.
Sora found it amusing. "When have I ever? Do I look like that kind of person?"
The moment he said it, he realized Robin was looking at him with suspicion.
Thinking back on everything in the past, she asked doubtfully, "...Aren't you?"
Sora choked on the spot. What exactly has my image become in your heart, hey?!
Seeing him like that, Robin finally broke into a smile.
"Hahaha, I'm kidding, of course."
But after saying that, her expression dimmed a little.
"Still, after coming back this time, I can tell that Brother is definitely hiding things from me..."
After all the things she had experienced outside, Robin naturally understood people's hearts much better than before.
She had her own standards of judgment now.
She could feel that Sunday was keeping some things from her.
But as his younger sister, there was one thing Robin was still certain of.
"Even if Brother is hiding a lot from me, I still believe he would never do anything that harms the public."
The two of them had survived the Stellaron disaster together. Having seen catastrophe before, they both had an instinctive revulsion toward it.
Robin was like that, and she believed Sunday—who had also survived that disaster—was the same.
So she believed Sunday would never do such a thing, and certainly would never hurt her, his younger sister.
And while the two of them were chatting, Sunday began ushering the Family members along behind them. It was almost time for the siblings to go forward.
Sora had just been about to say something when the progress of the ceremony cut him off.
Forget it. There were some things that could wait until they got to her secret base.
"I'll wait for you in the dream's grand theater."
With that, Sora said goodbye to Robin and went to enter the dream.
What followed afterward was also very similar to what had happened before.
The only difference was that this time, Sora waited in place for quite a while before Robin finally arrived in a hurry.
If he remembered correctly, in the previous cycle, Robin had already been sitting there waiting in her seat.
So her actions now were clearly at odds with Sora's memories once again.
From those details, it was obvious enough that she seemed to be the anomaly between these two loops.
But here in the grand theater, Sora did not point that out directly.
Once that hymn that made him sleepy finally ended again, Sora took her, just as before, to buy a serving of snacks.
Then the two of them headed together to the secret base.
And when Sora saw the place, the complete lack of surprise on his face left Robin feeling oddly defeated.
She had expected that the secret base's stark contrast with her own style would at least shock him a little.
Instead, he accepted it so quickly that Robin could only admire him.
Once they got there, Sora directly found a music record and started playing it.
With the somewhat heavy heavy-metal music playing in the background, Sora slowly told her everything that had happened today.
Naturally, Robin found it impossible to believe.
"You're saying you already lived through this day once?! That's not a very funny joke."
After all, who would imagine that someone in the universe could really be trapped in a loop?
This kind of loop might be a common trope in movies and dramas, but once it appeared in reality, that was something else entirely.
One had to remember that this universe was home to countless AEONS.
If time on the scale of an entire planet could be looped like this, then wouldn't the one responsible be far too terrifying?
Of course Robin found it unbelievable.
Sora, however, repeated the lyrics she had told him yesterday—the ones that had pulled her out of her old frustration.
The moment he finished, Robin froze completely.
She was certain that apart from herself, no one else knew those lyrics.
Because after she failed to find that song in the manor later, she had gone everywhere searching for the original version.
And the result was that not only could she not find it in Penacony—even the IPC's internal music archives did not contain it.
That was when Robin became certain that aside from herself and the manor's previous owner, no one else knew that song.
But the previous owner of that manor had disappeared long ago.
So in the universe, at this point in time, there should not have been a second person alive who knew it.
And yet she had heard it from Sora's mouth.
Sora had no reason at all to lie to her.
Which meant...
"The loop is real?!"
Once Robin understood that, she could not help staring in astonishment.
This day was truly looping. If word of that got out, it would shake the entire universe.
After all, being able to do something like this was equivalent to holding all things in the universe in one's grasp.
So who exactly was behind this?
An AEON? Or some other kind of being?
But there was no point investigating that right now. What Robin wanted to know more was:
"Then how do we break it?"
Normally, in situations like this, there had to be a way out.
For example, in Groundhog Day, the male lead redeemed and changed himself; in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, everyone held a study party together...
Which meant that as long as some certain thing was accomplished, the loop would definitely end.
So what exactly was that thing?
Just as Robin was wondering, Sora turned his gaze on her.
That look gave her a very bad feeling.
"You can't be saying..."
"That's right. The possibility of resolving this seems to lie with you."
"Me? Huh?"
Robin's face filled with confusion the moment she heard that.
She had no emotional knot in her heart, nor anything she desperately wanted to do—so why had this suddenly landed on her?
Sora did not know either.
But everything strange he had discovered had happened around Robin.
That was why he had come to that conclusion.
Of course, the more likely mastermind behind all this was still Sunday.
But that was something he would confirm later.
First, he had to make sure there was nothing wrong with Robin herself.
Robin was surprised too when Sora said the key lay with her.
But since he was that certain, he must have had his reasons.
Thinking back on everything in the past, Robin chose to trust Sora.
"If you're saying that, then I..."
Robin had intended to continue accompanying Sora through the rest of the day so he could carefully search for the key point in breaking the loop.
But at that moment, a message came through on Robin's phone.
She took it out and looked at it, and her expression instantly turned uncertain.
Because the sender was none other than her brother, Sunday.
The message asked Robin to return and help with the post-ceremony cleanup.
Now that she had just learned about the loop, how could she possibly go over there casually?
So she told a small, simple lie, then put her phone away.
"I'll apologize to Brother later. Right now, my main job is staying with you."
What Sunday wanted was, after all, a small matter.
But the loop Sora was talking about concerned this entire planet—perhaps even the whole universe.
With that weight on her mind, Robin chose to stay here with Sora and go over the day again.
"If I really do have any regrets, there might actually be one..."
After thinking for a long while, Robin finally said that.
Sora immediately perked up. "What is it?"
"It's about what you experienced twice..."
Robin's expression dimmed.
"No matter what, Mr. Gopher Wood was someone who once took my brother and me in. How could seeing him lying there on the hospital bed not affect me at all?"
And it was precisely because she had received news of that that she had returned to Penacony from the Xianzhou, hundreds of light-years away.
So if she had to name a regret, that was the only thing Robin could think of.
Sora nodded and committed that to memory.
After that, the two of them quietly waited there for night to fall.
During that time, Sunday sent Robin many messages—some expressing concern, some asking where she was.
And of course, many of them were about what was happening after the farewell ceremony.
Even though she had not gone, Sunday still told her many things through messages.
Very clearly, Sunday, as an older brother, cared deeply for Robin.
Seeing those messages, Robin's expression grew somewhat subdued.
But for the sake of more people, she still chose to stay here with Sora.
The two of them did not eat or drink. The takoyaki from earlier seemed to be the last thing either of them had eaten.
Fortunately, they were in the dream. Otherwise, the two of them definitely would have been hungry by now.
And as time slowly neared midnight, the calm here finally began to grow tense.
Was this really a loop?
Everything depended on what happened after twelve.
Second by second, time passed, and Sora focused all his attention on the relentless flow of it.
By the final second, Robin was holding her breath.
She did not know what would happen next. Would everything go black and reset into the loop again—or would life simply continue?
Then she watched with her own eyes as the clock reached midnight, and...
Nothing happened.
That's right—nothing happened. It was as if time simply continued to flow onward.
Robin quickly patted herself all over and found that she had not lost any parts, nor had her body dissolved into motes of light.
"Could it be that the loop only happened once?"
She looked at Sora in confusion.
Sora shook his head, still thinking hard himself. He had not figured out what was really behind all this either.
But right then, the sudden ringing of a phone made both of them turn at once.
Robin picked it up in confusion and discovered that it was one last goodnight message from her brother, sent in the middle of the night:
[Good night, my sister.]
"Looks like maybe the loop only happened that one time. Or maybe you really did dream what would happen in the future."
Robin patted Sora on the shoulder.
"Come on, come on. It's already the next day, so don't overthink it."
After all, time was still moving forward. That seemed to indicate that the loop had already ended.
And if that was the case, then normal people should be sleeping by now.
Unfortunately, Sora had no intention of going to sleep.
"You sleep first. Tomorrow you still need to explain things to Sunday. I'll keep watch for you."
Robin looked a little helpless after hearing that. She had no idea why there was any need to keep watch in Penacony, her own hometown.
But Sora was insisting so much that she naturally chose to go along with him.
She was not some energetic existence like Sora. She still needed normal sleep.
"Then I'll leave my safety tonight in your hands, Sir Knight."
Robin teased him with that line, then walked toward one of the rooms in the villa.
This was her secret base. Having facilities for staying overnight was only natural.
And so Sora remained alone in the living room, waiting for time to pass.
He still felt that this whole matter could not be that simple...
Sunlight spilled in through the window, and Robin woke groggily in bed.
After cleaning herself up a bit, she quickly saw that Sora was still there, stubbornly awake.
"You're up?"
Sora greeted her, and Robin gave a brief response before going to wash up.
When she had finished everything, she asked curiously, "So? Did anything happen last night?"
"No. Everything was peaceful last night."
So peaceful that Sora almost felt like what had happened the day before yesterday had been nothing but a dream.
And yet, somewhere in his heart, there was still a faint sense of unease.
The source of that unease was not the intuitive, idealistic power inside him, but something else...
It seemed to be something Ace had left behind for him after departing.
Thinking about it that way, it was kind of like a fox who was always fooling people leaving something behind for his junior to help keep him from being fooled.
But thinking about it a little more carefully, one realized that after the DGP ended, the world would be reset as well.
And looping a single day was also resetting the world back to a certain point in time.
Seen that way, the DGP and what Sora was experiencing now were actually very similar.
And because of that, Sora still had not lowered his guard.
"I can't really talk you out of anything, but I still want to say this—remember to take care of yourself."
Robin patted Sora on the shoulder. She understood the kind of person he was—some things mattered most only if he thought them through himself.
Then she returned to her room, changed clothes, and prepared to go see Sunday to finish up some of the cleanup work.
"Take it slow on the way."
Sora called out after her.
Robin responded with a light wave.
...
"Is this really all right?"
Inside a towering building somewhere, Sunday gazed at the countless living beings below and spoke that abrupt, contextless question.
His expression was calm, as if he felt neither joy nor anger.
And yet the conflict in his eyes was painfully obvious.
Just then, a crow landed on his shoulder.
"What could be wrong with it? Every order is built from something small."
The black feathers stood in stark contrast to Sunday's wings.
And the true identity of that crow was Gopher Wood, who had only just bid farewell to his body.
"From disorder, one discovers order. A tiny order absorbs disorder and grows stronger still."
The crow looked down at the bustling traffic below and spoke with feeling.
"That was how the AEON of ORDER was once born from disorder."
Sunday did not answer.
But his silence was answer enough.
"How many followers do you think the AEON of ORDER had at the height of ITS power? Do you think Penacony alone could ever compare to that number?"
Obviously, it could not.
At the peak of ORDER, countless worlds revered and worshipped it. Even if the population of Penacony were multiplied dozens or hundreds of times over, it still would not compare to the number of believers ORDER once had.
"But after the AEON of ORDER fell, didn't those worlds under ITS command abandon ORDER and welcome the coming of HARMONY instead?"
Sunday voiced what had happened after ORDER had been absorbed.
In the universe today, there were essentially no believers of ORDER at all.
Even its name was little more than a codeword.
"And that is exactly why we are doing this now."
Gopher Wood's voice was filled with longing.
"With each loop, the date will be pushed back by one day. And after each loop, these people will follow ORDER's guidance a little more closely."
The hymn of ORDER sung in the grand theater after every loop was slowly turning those disordered individuals into beings who obeyed ORDER.
Countless living beings would be trapped in these days, looping endlessly, doing the same things every day.
And once the number of deferred days reached seven, that would be the day when ORDER reached completion.
At that point, all of Penacony would be guided by ORDER forever.
And on top of that, many representatives from the Family's other star systems were currently here as well.
Once they had been tainted by ORDER and released back into the universe, they would become infectious carriers—viruses that would frantically erode every faction of HARMONY.
"When that time comes, the AEON of ORDER will devour HARMONY."
Gopher Wood's wing patted Sunday.
"And when that happens, your dream will come true."
Once all life had fallen under ORDER, there would no longer be any differences left in the universe. Everyone would return to ORDER's governance.
All people would sink into an eternal beautiful dream, and Sunday would become the god who ruled and guided them.
That had been the goal from the very beginning.
But Sunday had not expected Gopher Wood to begin this plan so early.
"I thought you would wait until the Charmony Festival a few years from now."
Sunday relaxed a little. Sooner or later, all things would fall under ORDER's governance anyway, and so he accepted the plan.
"I had originally intended to rely on the Charmony Festival as well. But time waits for no one."
Gopher Wood did not explain the specifics.
Sunday understood that since Gopher Wood had begun this plan now, there had to be other reasons, and he did not press further.
But there was one thing he absolutely had to say.
"I said before—Robin is absolutely not to be touched."
The one condition he had put forward in this entire plan was that Robin's safety be guaranteed.
Gopher Wood only turned his gaze toward Robin, who had already entered the building below.
"That is why I prepared that room especially for you."
Robin only had to hide there and wait for everything to be over.
Soon someone reported Robin's arrival, and Sunday instructed them to lead Robin to the room and have her wait for him there.
But after being shown inside, Robin discovered that this room was indeed rather unusual.
Seven-colored wallpaper covered all four walls, making it look as though the entire place had been wrapped in a rainbow.
"When did my brother's tastes turn into this?"
Robin looked at the room, which seemed completely out of place, with curiosity.
In her impression, her brother had always been serious and solemn.
Colors this bright and glittering did not suit him at all.
And that wallpaper also somehow felt a little...
Robin reached out and touched it lightly, but the instant her fingers made contact, a figure suddenly appeared in her mind.
It was a woman asleep in a dream pool inside a room.
Robin knew that face very well.
Because it was her own.
But the woman there had her brows tightly knit, as if she were trapped in a nightmare.
And those wings were flashing with seven-colored light, and just when Robin turned her eyes toward them—the brilliant colors in front of her began to flow restlessly.
"Wh-what is this?"
Robin was so startled by the shifting walls that she stumbled backward several steps.
She watched with her own eyes as the seven-colored light on the wall moved toward her as if it had a mind of its own.
But just as it was about to touch her, it pulled back with startling speed.
It was like seeing someone familiar on the street and moving to greet them, only to quickly realize after saying hello that they had merely looked similar.
And that wall had just given her exactly that strange sensation.
It was as if it had recognized her—but then, at the moment it was about to make contact, realized she was not that person after all.
The bizarre situation left her completely at a loss.
Just as Robin was still confused, the door opened and Sunday walked in with a smile on his face.
"Did something happen yesterday? Why were you nowhere to be seen at the very end?"
He meant the way Robin had suddenly disappeared after the farewell ceremony and only replied by message.
After all, the longer one remained outside, the greater the chance of being assimilated by ORDER.
As her brother, he did not want his one and only sister to sink into that kind of dream as well.
Robin gave a simple explanation and brushed the matter aside.
She did not mention Sora's loop, because Robin felt that matter might already be over.
Sunday saw that his sister was hiding something, but he did not pay it much mind.
After all, after only one night, the probability of being assimilated by ORDER was still very low.
As long as Robin stayed here from now on and did not go outside, everything would be fine.
So the siblings began chatting there together.
This was the first time Robin had realized that her brother could talk this much.
They talked from dawn all the way to evening.
She had spent all this time with him, and yet she had never known that Brother had such a chatterbox side.
But now that it was already this late, she intended to say goodbye and go check on how things were with Sora.
What she had not expected was for her brother to refuse her request.
"It's already so late. Don't go out anymore. I'll have food prepared for you, and you can rest here for the night."
"But..."
"What is it? Is spending a little more time talking with me, your brother, really that difficult?"
Faced with that question, Robin did not know how to answer.
She had a strong feeling her brother was hiding something from her.
But out of trust in her family, she only gave a small nod and agreed to Sunday's arrangement.
And after another night passed, when she awoke again...
...
Knock knock knock~
Knock knock knock~
The urgent knocking did not change Sora's expression in the slightest. His eyes were open now, darkened by too much time spent awake.
"I saw it..."
At midnight on the second day, Sora had seen everything.
The puppet of ORDER was as vast as a planet. IT embraced Penacony, and from within ITS own body countless arms spread outward.
Those hands turned time itself, reversing everything and returning all things to their starting point.
This time, Sora had truly, unmistakably seen it with his own eyes.
And at the same time, he had also seen which existences remained unaffected as time rewound.
They were himself, Hotaru, Acheron...
And also the takoyaki stall owner hidden underground not far from this manor, along with a trash can that looked oddly familiar to him.
Apart from those people, everyone else had been reversed and reset under the influence of ORDER's puppet.
Sora had finally confirmed that this was no joke, and that all of it was indeed tied to Sunday.
The puppet of ORDER had exposed everything. The one behind all this really was Sunday.
Looks like it's time to borrow a senpai's power.
Sora opened the door.
Outside stood Robin in that pure white dress from the ceremony, her arms folded and her expression annoyed.
"You lazy bum! Didn't we agree we'd go to the ceremony together?!"
"Sorry, sorry, but my stomach might be upset from something I ate last night. I need to use the bathroom. You go ahead first—I'll be right there."
With that, Sora shut the door directly behind him and entered the dream.
Once inside, he made his way with practiced ease to the manor and fixed his gaze on a manhole cover nearby.
All right.
Let me have a word with you people.
But before that...
"Senpai's, lend me your power!"
The other side consisted of existences capable of resisting ORDER's reversal of time, so Sora felt it was better to play it safe.
Nothing gave him a greater sense of security than his senpai's.
---
T/N: wait is there two robins now... also guessing the trash can represents how many days left... so 22 days left?
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