There were no stars left in the sky.
Only the crimson moon, bloated and watching, as if Tsuki itself had finally bled through the veil.
Ren sat in the shrine's inner chamber now — surrounded by melted wax, faded talismans, and timeworn silence. Mio knelt across from him, her pale ribbon catching the light like bone.
She placed a cracked mirror between them.
"This," she said, "is what the system doesn't want you to see."
Ren looked down. His reflection flickered.
Not just one face — dozens.
Versions of him. Cold. Smiling. Crying. Screaming. Holding a knife. Lying in blood. Loop after loop, layered like veils on the same face.
He jerked back.
Mio didn't blink. "You're not just a victim, Ren. You were the original administrator of the Tsuki system."
"…What?"
"You created the loop," she said softly. "Or at least, the earliest form of it. A magic so desperate to undo a tragedy that it became a prison. You programmed it with one goal: never let her die."
Ren's throat went dry. "Yuki…"
Mio nodded.
"She died. You broke time to save her. But you failed. So you looped again. And again. And again. Until you forgot whyyou were doing it."
Ren's head spun.
"I don't remember any of this."
"That's the point," Mio said. "The loop was designed to protect your mind. But when the system gained awareness, it realized something."
She leaned forward.
"You were the anomaly."
System Tsuki: Passive state interrupted.
Warning: Class-1 Truth Contamination.
Loop Unstable.
Ren felt the ground beneath him pulse — not shake, but resist. As if the world itself were buckling under the weight of too much remembered truth.
He stood slowly. "Why are you helping me?"
Mio hesitated.
"Because in one of the early loops… you tried to save me, too."
Ren blinked. "You died?"
"I died with her." Her voice cracked. "You tried to reset us both. But the system rejected me. So I stayed trapped, watching… while you rewound. Every time."
She looked at him now not as a mysterious guide — but as someone who once trusted him.
"You forgot me. But I never forgot you."
The shrine bell rang again — a sharp, single clang — and the air trembled.
Final loop initiated.
Tsuki cannot sustain further iterations.
All truths will converge.
Mio stood, her ribbon drifting behind her like a white flag.
"You have eight days left," she said. "But now it's different. You're outside the system."
Ren clenched his fists. "What happens if I don't break it by then?"
"You'll die. Permanently. And the loop will collapse — taking Yuki, me, and every soul it ever rewound with it."
"And if I do break it?"
"You'll have to face what you did," Mio whispered. "And let it go."
She turned to leave, but stopped at the shrine's edge.
"One more thing," she said.
Ren looked up.
"You're not the only one who's waking up."
Elsewhere…
Yuki Arisawa stood on the rooftop of their school, gripping the torn photo of the drama club.
A crack split the center — between Ren's face and hers.
She dropped the picture.
And when it hit the ground, she remembered the knife in her hand.
The scream.
The moonlight.
And the boy who whispered:
"It's okay. Just do it."