Hi.

This time I decided to mess with time.

Because reasons.

Enjoy.

There were many rumors surrounding the abandoned villa in the mountains. Once owned by the wealthy Nishikino family, it had sat abandoned for five years since the disappearance of nine high school students in the same area. From the outside, it appeared to be in complete disrepair. No one had set foot inside since the sudden disappearance that tagged the building as a haunted hotspot.

And for that very reason, nine high school students had made the trip from their seaside town of Uchiura to visit the haunted villa.

Chika led the way, confidently following the overgrown path up the hill. Even the road leading up to the villa had been without care, and weeds grew profusely in the dirt. "Look! I can see the top of the villa-we're almost there!" She shouted glancing back at the rest of her friends. She faced forward again, keeping an eye on the path so she wouldn't lose her footing.

"The place where µ's vanished without a trace five years ago…"

Normally, a destination with such a strange and mysterious past would not even be considered as a potential place to visit for a group of aspiring school idols. With the building's main attraction of being where nine high school students went missing, no one in their right mind would even bother looking into it. But, as Chika was researching past Love Live competitions to see which groups won and why they were victorious, she found something interesting. Something she felt was worth researching: the school idol group that made Love Live popular five years ago.

The idol group A-Rise, during their post-victory interview at the end of the Love Live competition five years ago made mention of a rival group that they had looked forward to competing with. It was a group that they had competed against before, and one that never made it to a second match. However, what made this particular article stand out amongst the others was a video clip of the interview. Chika clicked on it, planning on moving onto another, more interesting page once the clip had finished.

"And what do you think would have happened if they hadn't missed the preliminaries?" The interviewer asked. The camera focused in on the leader of A-Rise.

"They would have beaten us. If they had returned, I'm quite confident we would not stand a chance."

That caught Chika's attention. A-Rise was famous now, as a professional group of idols. They had been what inspired her and the rest of her group to pursue the same glory at Love Live. And yet, the video clip brought several questions to her mind. What if that other group had won the preliminaries? Would they have gone on to ultimately win Love Live instead of A-Rise? And who were they anyway?

She brought these questions to the other group members. It was almost as if they felt the same questions nagging at them, with how readily they accepted the suggestion to disregard training for a bit to do more searching on this mystery. A few days passed as each of the girls searched in their own ways; Kanan, Dia, and Mari even making the trek to Tokyo to glean any information out of the students still there.

It was Hanamaru who finally discovered the article that would lead them to the abandoned villa. Searching the local library for news clippings from five years ago, she discovered what little information had been found related to the disappearance.

A training camp held in the mountains, at one of the villas owned by the Nishikino family. µ's member, Nishikino Maki, allowed for the group to stay for two-day training session. A day after said training camp was to end and the students return to their homes, attempts to contact the nine were made. No responses came back, and search parties were sent to the villa. There was no evidence of a struggle, no damage had been done to any of the buildings.

"It was," the article said, "as if they had simply vanished into thin air."

So now, five years after the incident, Aqours stood in front of the villa. They were hesitant to go inside, even though Mari had pulled strings and gotten permission from the Nishikino family to explore the building. After a few minutes of milling about in front of the villa, they decided to sit down and have a short picnic. The tense mood generated by the monument standing a short distance away slowly vanished as they ate and chatted with one another.

Chika stared at the building as she chewed, only half-listening to the other girls' chatter. It was strange that the building appeared to be in such fine condition. From what Mari had told them about her conversation with the Nishikino, the villa had been left alone since the disappearance five years ago. The road leading up to the villa had certainly not been kept in pristine condition, and yet the building itself didn't look old or dirty or abandoned even. She noticed that the bushes lining the walls were trimmed and neat, something that should not be the case if it had been completely neglected for five years.

Like when she had first made contact with the mystery, she felt a nagging sensation at the back of her mind. It was like something was pulling at her, from inside the building.

"I don't feel hungry anymore zura." Hanamaru said abruptly, putting down her sandwich. The others stared; the first year was starting to get a reputation for eating a lot of food quickly, but this was only her first sandwich.

"Does your stomach hurt?" You asked. "Maybe you ate one of Yoshiko-chan's- "

"Yohane!" Yoshiko interrupted indignantly.

You stared at her for a second, then continued. "Yoshiko-chan's sandwiches."

"No, it doesn't hurt. I just feel like…" Hanamaru gestured at the building, unable to come up words to describe her feeling.

"I think I've been feeling the same thing." Ruby mumbled. "Someone's calling for help…or something."

Hanamaru nodded in agreement. The two first years stared in the direction of the building, waiting for one of the older members to tell them what they should do.

"We've come all this way," Chika said, getting to her feet, "so we should go inside."

"What? Are you crazy?" Riko asked, getting up as well. "We know it's haunted, and we're all feeling weird, so by common sense, we should leave."

Chika turned to look at her friends. Fear was the main emotion on their faces. Fear of an unknown, something they didn't understand and didn't want to understand. She felt it too, the same desire to turn tail and run home, to where she was comfortable. But there was something here. It was important, somehow, though she didn't know how. And if they were all being affected by the whatever-it-was, surely her friends could feel that importance too.

"I, for one, am certainly not going back without exploring this place." Kanan said. "Chika's right. We've come too far to do nothing."

Agreement was drawn, albeit grudgingly from the others. They cleaned up the picnic, storing whatever trash they had in plastic bags, and packing up the reusable supplies into their backpacks. Chika put her hand on the doorknob, and glanced back at her friends once more. She took a deep breath, and pushed down and in at the same time.

A feeling of what she could only describe as a ripple washed past her. Without knowing how she knew, she understood that something in the space of the villa had changed. "Is everyone okay?" She asked, as soon as the strange wave had passed. When she didn't get an answer, she turned to look behind her. But her friends, who had just been standing behind her, were no longer there.

Honoka awoke in her futon. She'd been waking up in the same position, in the same pajamas, in the same room, for the past five years, give or take. She sat up, stretching, and looked around her for her friends. The futons nearby were empty. That wasn't unusual. The time loop meant that she would always be the last to wake, no matter what.

For the time being, she decided to go wash up and get changed. She made her way to the second-floor bathroom, and opened the door. The fact that she hadn't passed or heard anyone yet was a bit unsettling, but she pushed it aside. They had all been trying to do things that would get them out of this loop, so if everyone else went outside while she slept, that wasn't that big of a deal. She changed out of her pajamas into her exercise clothes, which had once again been folded up, neatly packed in her travel bag. There wasn't much variation in day-to-day clothing when she only had two sets and her pajamas.

She walked back downstairs, still not seeing anyone. Honoka was starting to feel even more uncomfortable now. Even if they had been locked in a single day for the past five or so years, at least they had the memories of being looped, and all nine of them had been together. Being alone now was terrifying.

"Hello?" Honoka called out nervously, as she slowly put away the futons by herself. She closed the closet, deciding to go outside and see if she could find anyone. "Are you all practicing out here?"

The outside of the villa was empty as well. She could hear the animals in the forest going about their daily lives, but it was far too quiet by her standards. She was suddenly aware of how alone she was.

Chika retreated from the mansion, closing the door quietly. She should have gone home. Now she was painfully alone, and she didn't understand anything either. She tried to head back down the path, which had become foggy even though the day was so nice. The fog enveloped her a short distance down the path. When she came out of the fog, she was facing the villa again, though she hadn't turned as she walked away.

"I'm locked in." She said aloud, as the realization came to her. "And if I'm trapped, then so are the others. Which means they're somewhere in here." That gave her a glimmer of hope, small though it was, and she returned to the villa's entrance.

"Hello?!" She shouted, trying to be as loud as she possibly could. "I'm right here, so if you hear me, come find me!"

Honoka walked cautiously to the front of the villa. She'd heard the stranger, but hadn't recognized the voice. It was strange that she had become so fearful of change, but the last five years had been spent doing almost exactly the same things every single day, which was also the same due to their time loop. She peered around the corner.

A strange girl wearing a strange uniform stared up at the villa, frowning slightly. Something about her was familiar, for some reason, though Honoka knew they had never met before. Mustering up her courage, she walked up to the girl. "Hello." She said, her voice calmer than she felt. "I'm Honoka. Who are you?"

Chika looked at the other girl. She was on guard, as she was taught to be when meeting strangers. But she felt something familiar about this girl. "Ah!" She pointed at Honoka, who jumped back, startled. "It's you! You're the one who was calling to me!"

Chika: So this time around, we're doing the afterword in pairs and by alphabetical order.

Dia: I guess it's me and you first then. *sighs*

Chika: What's wrong, Dia-san? You don't want to be paired up with me?

Dia: It's not that. I'm just a bit...disappointed that this is the only time I'm mentioned this chapter. I would say spoke, but Mari-san didn't talk either.

Chika: Really? I thought you were both in the chapter a lot.

Dia: ...you were the main voice, you know.

Chika: *has nothing to say*

Dia: *has nothing to say*

Chika: *turns to the readers* Want a mikan? *offers some*