On Monday, November 24th, Masashi finally returns home at around 6 in the morning.

The first thing he does after getting home is to go to Sakuta’s place.

He rings the bell and Sakuta asks from the other side, “Who is it?”

“It’s me, Sakuta.”

“Morning senpai.”

“Where’s Kaede?”

She’s getting ready for school. I told her that you’ll be coming today.

“I see.”

After a few minutes, Kaede walks out of her room wearing her school uniform.

“Is Masashi-nii-san here yet?”

“See for yourself.”

“Masashi-nii-san!” Kaede exclaims and runs at him.

Masashi quickly catches her into a hug.

“How’s my favorite imouto?”

“I’m good, I was going to go to school but I waited till you came back. I wanted to go to school with both you and Onii-chan.”

“I know, Sakuta told me.”

“So, are you ready to go to school?”

“I’m ready to go to school.”

“Good, I’ll make breakfast and then we’ll leave.”

By 7:45 the trio is out the door.

Kaede’s walking ahead as Masashi and Sakuta are walking behind her.

Halfway to the school Kaede hears the giggles of some of the girls and gets startled, hiding behind both Masashi and Sakuta.

“They’re not laughing at you or anything.”

“Really?”

“If you think that making people laugh is easy, you’ve got another thing coming,” Sakuta says.

“Yeah, it honestly more of a talent. One that I have an abundance of.”

“That talent seems to be more geared toward shamelessness senpai.”

Kaede just looks at both of them bantering and giggles a little.

“Let’s go back for today, you’ve tried hard enough for today.” They can both feel Kaede trembling a little.

“I’ll get you pudding.”

“Yes!” Kaede exclaims at Masashi’s offer.

…

The next day goes similarly as on the 26th of November Kaede seems especially desperate to go to school.

“I have to go all the way to school today. I’ll go to school today.” Kaede says holding on tightly to her bag as her hands are trembling a little.

“You don’t need to rush things, you know?” Sakuta says to Kaede not wanting her to force herself.

“I-I’m not rushing.”

Masashi notices a bruise forming on her neck and quickly feeds her a health potion.

“Here drink this.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a magic drink. It’ll give you strength.”

“Really!” Kaede exclaims and drinks the whole thing in one go as Sakuta gives Kaede a concerned look.

“Kaede are you sure that-“ Kaede doesn’t let Sakuta finish and starts running off outside.

“Hold it!” Masashi quickly holds on to her as she’s about to run out of the building.

“Let’s just go slowly Kaede.”

“No! You don’t understand! I don’t have the time to take it easy.” Kaede struggles out of Masashi’s grip and keeps on running.

Sakuta catches up to them and Masashi says, “That confirms it. She knows.”

They follow after Kaede until she reaches the street light and freezes there again.

“W-Why? Why can’t I go on?” She says in a whiney voice, sobbing.

“I want to go to school, so why am I freezing up?” Even after the health potion, she’s getting more bruises.

“Kaede…”

“I’m not going home.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not taking you home. Drink this first.”

Kaede holds on to the vial with both hands and drinks it. As the bruises disappear Sakuta says, “Kaede, let’s take a small break before going to school.”

“A break?”

“A break. We’ll go to a special place with your Masashi-nii-san. What do you say?” Sakuta asks turning to Masashi.

“Sure let’s go,” Masashi says knowing that Sakuta’s talking about the zoo.

…

They take a few hours to reach the zoo with Kaede hiding behind both of them since they’re taking the train.

At the zoo, Kaede gives a heartwarming reaction when she realizes that they’re at the zoo.

The three of them spent the rest of the day at the zoo.

Kaede spent at least half the time looking at the different types of pandas.

Masashi spoiled her rotten at the food court, getting her whatever she wanted to eat.

At the end of the day, Sakuta got Kaede a yearly pass saying that she can come again as many times as she wants.

“Really? I can come again?”

“Really.”

Masashi just looks at this scene with a thoughtful smile on his face.

The three finally go back when it’s late.

On the way, Massahi talks to Kaede.

“Hey, Kaede.”

“What is it Masashi-nii-san?”

“You won’t forget me will you?”

“What are you talking about nii-san? Of course, Kaede will remember you.”

“Pinky promise?”

“Pinky promise,” Kaede says bringing her pinky to cross with Masashi.

They walk together in silence for a while before Masashi continues.

“You know Kaede, the power of someone’s will is unbelievably strong.

“People can do impossible things here just because they want to.

“If someone just wants to be ignored by everyone then they’ll become invisible.

“If someone feels jealousy towards someone, they’ll become that person.

“It’s even possible to travel through time as long as one has the will to do it.

“It’s even possible to forget anything and everything as long as they want to.” Kaede stiffens with the last sentence.

“Kaede… I hope that you know that you won’t forget me as long as you fight it.

“As long as you have the will to make something happen, it will happen.

“That’s how this works. You wanted to forget everything so that’s what happened.

“If you ‘want’ hard enough anything will happen. Just ‘want’ hard enough that you don’t disappear and you won’t.”

With that Masashi goes quiet as Kaede is deep in thought about his words.

The three walk in silence for a while before Sakuta says, “We’re here.”

“I-It’s school!”

“Keep it down, It’s late.”

Sakuta climbs over the wall to go to the other side as Masashi shows off in front of Kaede by jumping up to the ledge of the wall in one go.

“Woah! Masashi-nii-san is so cool.”

“Come on.” Masashi gives Kaede his hand.

“But…”

“It’ll be fine. We’re just taking a peek.” Sakuta says.

“Just a peek…”

With that, they go around looking through the school.

“With this, all the goals in my notebook are done.”

“All of them?”

“With Pandas and school, it’s all done!”

“I guess we should celebrate then,” Masashi says.

“Yes!”

…

At home, after the little celebration, Masashi talks to Mai for a while before Mai teleports to him.

“Hey, baby.” Mai happily greets Masashi with a smile on her face

Masashi doesn’t say anything and just hugs her.

“How are you?”

“Scared.”

Mai doesn’t say anything and just rubs Masashi’s back, comforting him.

“Everything will work out fine. Trust Kaede. You told her about the power of ‘will’ in this world. Trust that she has enough will and love for her Masashi-nii-san to not forget you.”

“I do. I really do. But I’m still scared that she’ll wake up tomorrow and have no memory of me.”

They talk for a while longer as Mai comforts Masashi as they both fall asleep.

…

The next day Masashi as Mai teleports back to the spot she came from, Masashi goes to Sakuta’s house early, before Kaede wakes up and rings the bell.

“Masashi-senpai? Why are you so early.”

“I want to see Kaede.”

“She’s asleep, I was just about to wake her up.”

“I see let’s go,” Masashi says before going into the house and walking to Kaede’s room.

“What’s going on?”

“She might be gone and I’m scared. That’s what’s fucking going on.”

Masashi gently opens the door to Kaede’s room, with trembling hands.

“Kaede, It’s morning, wake up,” Masashi says in a gentle voice.

She turns around a little and gets up, Opening her eyes the first thing she sees is Sakuta’s face.

“Morning, Onii-chan… Woah! You’re Onii-chan right?” She says in a different tone from before.

She turns around and sees Masashi’s face and asks in a little defensive voice, “Who are you?”

“You don’t remember me?” Masashi’s voice is completely flat, not betraying an ounce of emotion.

“Should-“ Kaede is interrupted by a major headache.

“Ahhh” She screams before holding on to her head.

“Feed this to her.” Masashi hurriedly hands Sakuta the potion.

Sakuta does just that and Kaede’s headache lessens for a while as it completely disappears.

“Masashi-nii-san?” She says in the same tone of voice that’s different from ‘Panda Kaede’

Masashi just hugs her tightly and says, “Yes, yes it’s me, your Masashi-nii-san.”

“Thank you for not forgetting me.”

Mai could feel his relieved emotions from the bond as she said, ‘I’m happy for you. I guess your Kaede got to exist too, huh?’

“I’m so happy.”

“Onii-chan… Save me, ack.” Kaede looks to Sakuta for help as Masashi just smothers her in a hug.

Sakuta just looks at Kaede with a relieved and gentle smile.

Masashi just ignores the dings in his head for now.

…

At the table, Masashi is serving breakfast as Sakuta asks Kaede, “So you remember now?”

“Yep.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

Masashi puts down the plates and sits in front of Kaede.

“You remember me?”

“Masashi-nii-san.”

“When did I first meet you?”

“A year and a half ago.”

“How long have you missed school?”

“More than two and a half years.”

“Exactly, you’ll have to work hard to catch up to the others.”

“Yep, I’ll work hard.”

“Let me know if you ever need any help from me.”

“Of course.”

With that Masashi, Sakuta and Kaede take Kaede to her school.

This time she’s able to easily go there without any problems.

She sits in the class and talks to a few people, bringing out the social butterfly inside her.

(A/N: This climax felt unfulfilling to me. I’m not gonna rewrite it, cause no. I’ll see if I can do better in the next world/arc.)