To say that the evening was stressful would be an understatement.

The moment I got home, I was assaulted by that giddy anticipation one has when waiting for a reply from their crush. At least that’s how I imagine it feels. It wasn’t pleasant in the slightest.

It wasn’t like Futaba promised to contact me or anything like that. As far as I knew, she could just show up out of nowhere and erase my memories within a second if she deemed me a threat.

But the fact that she left me her phone number means something… right?

On the other hand, I didn’t think she left me with her contact just so I could pester her about Ayumi’s situation. In fact, pressuring her more would probably backfire.

That’s how I found myself stuck in mental limbo. I wasn’t able to do much of anything except suffer for the rest of the day, checking and rechecking my phone like some dopamine addict. Eventually, I fell asleep from pure exhaustion.

Due to the poor sleep I had that night, I felt exceptionally groggy the next morning. While I was pondering whether to meet Shiina for lunch or not, I finally got the anticipated message on my phone.

“I’ve got some important findings to share. Can we meet up at your place?”

Since she had already been to my house not too long ago, I didn’t bother questioning if she knew where it was.

“It’s fine,” I replied before putting on my uniform and waiting.

Not even two minutes had passed when the doorbell rang.

“Morning, Takeya. Looks like I’m back her again!” My classmate, Kotori Futaba, said politely, as she bowed on my doorstep.

She was wearing a heavy coat on top of a turtleneck shirt, black shorts, tights, and a pair of sneakers. Despite her mundane smile, I could still feel a different vibe coming from her. It left me on edge.

“Uh… good morning to you too, Futaba. Seems like it, yes.”

I led her to the living room and ventured to the kitchen to fetch some tea I had prepared beforehand. I was a bit nervous to find out what sorts of things Futaba had learned since yesterday. But that nervousness was overpowered by the realization that Futaba wasn’t a normal girl. She was an angel, capable of supernatural feats I couldn’t even comprehend. In fact, she could have easily come here just to erase my memories.

That’s why, no matter how innocent she might look or sound, I can’t let my guard down.

I returned to the living room, teacups in hand, to find the girl playing around with a certain item I had left there.

“Oh, I’m sorry I picked this up without asking,” she said with surprise as if she had been caught doing something naughty. “I thought this snowglobe was super adorbs, and I was curious since it wasn’t here the last time I dropped by.”

“Ah, it’s fine, don’t worry,” I said as I handed her a teacup. “Yeah, this wasn’t supposed to be here in the living room. It’s mine, you see.”

“Yours?”

“My sister gave it to me a long time ago. I brought it down from my room earlier. It helps me… calm down sometimes.”

“I see.”

The way she said it made me feel reassured.

I sat down while Futaba took a sip of her tea. The very moment she placed her cup to the table, something changed—her entire aura shifted into something powerful and otherworldly.

“Now, let us get right to business,” the angel said with an enigmatic smile.

This change was enough to spike my heart rate.

Damn, her personality-switching ability is impressive. It’s like I’m speaking to a completely different person. Is she doing this on purpose?

I bet she’s doing this on purpose.

“Before anything else, let me apologize for the incident yesterday. In my haste, I did not realize you were directly in the path of that ball,” she said with a polite tone.

“Nah, don’t fret it. It wasn’t that serious.”

“Then, if all is okay on that front, let us discuss Ayumi’s situation…” I was so hesitant to hear what she had to tell me, I barely took notice of the slight pause in her speech. “I should be forthright with you before I proceed. I had significant doubts something like you described could have happened to Ayumi in the first place.”

“Well, I’m not at all surprised. That was a last-ditch attempt at getting some help. Honestly, I don’t even believe something supernatural could—”

“That is not what I am referring to,” she said, interrupting me.

“Huh?”

“Takeya,” she said with authority. “The reason why I was placed at your school in the first place—it was to monitor Ayumi.”

“Wait, say that again? You were monitoring Ayumi?”

“Yes. My mission was to survey her activities and report them to my superiors.”

“Wait. Wait just a minute,” I said, although the girl was very much waiting already. “Why Ayumi? What possible reason could angels have to monitor her?” Then, I stopped myself. “Is it because we were getting too close to finding out about angels in the first place?”

What the hell. Does everything in this world revolve around her or something?

“No, nothing of the sort. Sadly, I cannot answer your question, for I do not know the answer myself.”

“You… don’t know?”

This is getting weirder and weirder by the second.

Futaba appeared to be taken somewhat aback by my straightforward question. “Angels are not in the habit of inquiring about their missions. I merely did as I was told. However, I did report on Ayumi’s recent ‘field missions’, like your trip to the minka, but no order was given to act upon them. Which means that my superiors were not troubled about that, or else they intentionally chose not to have me intervene.”

“So you’ve been following us around?”

“I was supposed to. However, lately, there have been some… distractions.”

“Distractions?”

“You must have heard about them in class. The ‘supernatural incidents’.” Oh yeah, those… “Their recent frequency is not normal, to say the least, so we have been swamped dealing with them. In normal circumstances, it is vanishingly improbable that Ayumi would interact with an angel without my knowledge. However, there have been enough blind spots that such an event could have happened. That is precisely why I took your request.”

All this preamble already raised way too many questions, but I decided to refocus on the matter at hand.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“So? Did you, you know, take a look at her?”

“I found an opportunity to take a look at Ayumi when I was erasing her memories. However, the situation proved to be a bit more intricate than I had anticipated. That is why it took me so long to report back.”

Although her tone barely changed and her words were ambiguous, I got the impression that the situation was not only complex, but dire.

The angel took another calm sip of her tea. “If I may be a bit blunt, Ayumi’s memories are not normal.”

“Huh? Not normal? What do you mean?”

“An explanation is in order, I believe. Say, do you have a pen and paper at hand? It will be easier to explain that way.”

“Sure?”

I went to fetch some black pen and a blank piece of paper from the entrance cabinet and gave them to Futaba. The girl drew two straight parallel lines on it.

“In normal humans, there are two types of memories, the surface layer and the deep layer.” As she spoke, she wrote “surface layer” above the top line and “deep layer” above the bottom line.

“The surface layer is a fallible and moldable interpretation of the person’s experiences. It is easily distorted and corrupted. When angels modify or erase memories, this is where they act. The deep layer, however, remains beyond our influence. In it, every aspect of a human’s conscious experience since birth is recorded without any filters.

“When angels erase or fabricate memories, we are manipulating the surface layer. We can even alter it in such a way that the human’s imagination will construct a false memory from a simple core impression. Something like this.”

She put her index finger on the top line, the so-called “surface layer” and, like magic, a piece of the line changed color from black to blue.

“Woah!”

“So we modify the memory, changing it from ‘black’ to ‘blue’. Do you get it so far?”

“I-I think I do.”

To be honest, I’m still reeling from that magic trick.

“Now then, with that background established, I can explain the problem with Ayumi’s memories. In essence, they are a patchwork of modifications to her surface layer. Her deep layer is almost absent.”

Once again, she directed my attention to the two lines on the paper. This time around, she touched the top line, turning it blue. Then she touched the bottom line and swung pieces of it off the paper. What resulted was the top line being entirely blue and the bottom line being filled with holes.

Probably sensing my confusion, the angel summed up her explanation to a single shocking sentence.

“In other words, almost all of Ayumi’s memories are a fabrication.”

My mind spun, and I felt my heart drop a million miles. “Hold on, how’s that possible?”

Only after asking that question did I disarm the angel.

“To be frank, I have no clue. I have never encountered a situation like this before. The only explanation I can offer for the absence of a deep layer is by a complete lack of consciousness, like a comatose state. However, Ayumi has been leading a normal life for as long as I have been monitoring her, so that cannot be the case.”

“So is that why I noticed something weird with her? Someone replaced the real Ayumi with this fake and implanted memories into her?”

“It is a stretch, but I cannot rule that possibility out. Having no original memories is irrelevant in her day-to-day life. She might have some difficulty in recalling certain events with clarity, but that is the extent of it.”

So that explains why she had trouble remembering stuff during this last week.

“So that’s it? We’re stumped? Will we ever figure out what’s wrong with Ayumi?”

“Not exactly. I did find a few more clues.”

I urged her to continue, which she did after another sip of her tea.

“Her deep layer is not entirely devoid of original memories. Approximately every three months, I discovered a few fragments. Unfortunately, most of them were created when she was asleep, rendering them useless to us. That said, I could only find thirty-four of these fragments and nothing prior to that. That means Ayumi’s memories only extend back to around—”

“Eight years ago,” I said, interrupting the angel.

She raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“Eight years and six months, to be exact. As I recall, that coincides with how long you two have known each other for, correct?”

I nodded in agreement.

Eight years and six months.

The day I met Ayumi flashed back in my mind. Even if the current Ayumi isn’t the real deal and the real one has memories before that, there’s no way those two dates are a coincidence.

But what could all this mean?

Without giving me time to think further, the angel continued her exposition.

“This is not the only peculiar aspect I found. Her deep layer has been perfectly normal since last Sunday evening. Using the coma analogy, it is like she awoke from her coma that evening and has been living a normal life ever since. However, just before her deep layer becomes normal, there is a distinct gap in her surface layer of a few hours.”

“Wait, a gap?”

“My conclusion is that someone erased her memories for that period.”

“Erased? So that means she met an angel last Sunday?”

“In all likelihood, yes.” The angel paused. “However, if it was an angel, then their work was particularly rushed or… sloppy.”

That’s a particularly unrefined word coming from her.

“No angel skilled in their craft would erase only the surface layer, even if they were in a rush. We always leave some sort of impression to facilitate the creation of a false memory. Otherwise, if the person attempts to remember those memories, they would turn up blank, and it would lead to confusion. My only explanation is that this was the work of an amateur.”

“Even angels have amateurs in their ranks?”

“Yes, but I can only think of a few scenarios where she could have met one; none of which are very probable. This situation is unprecedented, even for me

“So, what can we do? All we have is a theory that an amateur angel erased her memories. This says nothing about what happened to the real Ayumi.”

“We are not exactly out of clues yet,” she replied with a hint of a smile on her face. “I am aware that the two of you have been going around angel-hunting for a while now.”

Though she said it with a somewhat casual tone, I couldn’t help but detect some amusement peppered in there.

“That’s Ayumi for you,” I replied, trying to evade the question.

She smiled back at me.

“However, Ayumi has a conspicuous lack of memories in crucial moments throughout the last few weeks. The logical conclusion is that, by some miracle, you encountered an angel—albeit an amateur one—and Ayumi had her memories erased as a result.”

Pausing to take the last sip of her tea, Futaba returned to me with a question.

“So, Takeya. I wager you were with Ayumi that evening. Do you have any recollection of what happened last Sunday evening or anything before that that might relate to angels?”

I was about to reply, but when I tried thinking back to that day, my mind went blank. No matter how much I rummaged through my memories, there was nothing there.

The more I tried to, the more I became aware that the memories were probably my imagination rather than actual memories.

“No, I can’t remember anything,” I said defeatedly.

“I am sorry to hear that. Had this been the work of a competent angel, you would not have endured such trauma… However, all hope is not lost. If you do not suffer from the same condition as Ayumi, then I will be able to recover your deep memories, which should shed a light on what transpired a week ago.”

The angel’s unspoken request was clear, but it still made me hesitate. After all, who would willingly let a paranormal being mess with their memories like that?

But still, that is the only hope I have. If I am the key to solving this crisis, then I will gladly bare it all for Ayumi… That thought sounded much weirder than I expected.

“Okay, Futaba. If that’s the way to solve this, then you are welcome to poke around.”

“Thank you, Takeya,” she said as she stood up to stand next to my chair. “I will place my hands on your head, read your memories, and return them simultaneously, okay?”

Giving my approval with a nod, the angel did just as she described.

“Relax. This will not take long,” Futaba said in a calming voice.

It’s kind of impossible to relax in this situation, you know.

I did my best to release all the tension from my body, and closed my eyes. After all, staring at the midriff of my classmate while she had her hands on my scalp wasn’t exactly relaxing.

Eventually, those frivolous thoughts faded into darkness. For a while, I saw nothing and thought nothing.

Then, all at once, a flood of memories invaded my consciousness. There were thoughts and emotions that felt foreign, yet familiar at the same time.

They invaded my mind so violently that I thought I was going to break.

The incident in the other city.

Stalking Shiina until we found out where she lived.

Meeting the angel in that innocuous street.

The conversation in that park.

And Ayumi’s revelation that she wasn’t a normal human, which had been interrupted by the archangel.

When the incoming information finally stopped flowing, my brain was overwhelmed. I had trouble forming complete thoughts. As the pieces came together, that feeling that something was amiss, the phantom who followed me throughout the week, had vanished.

And in the wake of its dying breath, I remembered everything.