OtakuOni: Chapter Fourteen

Chero and Dino walked out from their hiding place in the hallway that led the the Japanese room.

“What is happening? Why are we over there? When we are here?” Dino asked.

“I see! So this is one of those past memories we are supposed to get when we break a clock,” Chero said.

“Oh…? That thing Hime was talking about? I thought only one person could see one memory? And we didn’t even break a clock,” Dino said.

“Mm….I-I see…Then…what on Earth?” Chero asked.

“What? You’re here too?” a voice asked.

Chero jumped. The couple turned around to see Kiki walking towards them.

“Ki—Wait! You can see us?” Chero questioned.

“I have no idea what you are talking about, Chero. I just heard your voices and came back. And I didn’t see that monster you warned us about.”

“Oh…” Chero said.

“Well…we…” Dino started.

“I-I see! Listen. We were looking for you guys! What happened to the others?” Chero interrupted Dino.

“Oh…They split up, too. There are a lot of rooms we cannot open…so we’re bound to run into each other eventually. I’m going to go and check the next room now,” Kiki said.

“I see! Thanks, we’re going to look around now too, ok?” Chero said.

Kiki nodded and hurried off somewhere else.

“Chero…why--?”

“Dino! This is terrible! Somehow we’ve wound up in the past—“

“What?” Dino questioned.

“I’m sure of it. The way I was acting with everyone…That is the way I acted in the beginning when I was still trying to get everyone from coming here in the first place,” Chero explained, “Also…this is the second time loop. Everything I did and said was useless. I still was not used to going back in time and made a lot of mistakes.
“I shouldn’t have said all those thing there…I was wrong from the beginning. I didn’t even know where the key was yet.”

“I’m sorry…” Dino said.

“Ne? Why are you apologizing?” Chero asked, tilting her head in confusion.

“When your past self, tried to warn me…I didn’t listen and laughed when you got so desperate to stop us…” Dino replied.

Chero smiled and laughed, “That’s ok! That was because I didn’t know how to explain myself. How could anyone believe what I was saying when all I said was, ‘Just believe me!’”

“I’m still sorry. Even if I could not have known…What should we do now?” Dino asked.

“We need to get back to our timeline. But if we are seen by our past selves…we could mess up the future for the worse. We need to hide out until the group is back together,” Chero explained.

“Where are we going to hide? And isn’t that thing still lurking about now too?”

“Oh…well…in that case let’s go to the third floor. I did a pretty good job at keeping everyone away from the piano room in this loop. So, in theory no one should show up…” Chero said.

“Alright. Let’s go there then…If we do run into the enemy, we can handle it somehow,” Dino said.

“That’s right! We’re actually pretty strong now, ne? Let’s just do our best to not be spotted by our past selves!”