A/N: Greetings, this is the first thing I've written in years (everything prior to this being terrible), so your mileage may definitely vary, however I'd dare say that I put at least some effort into this so if at all possible, give it a chance.

There are three main characters to this story: Yui, Ritsu and a third person that is not ready to be revealed yet, it is however a canon character. There will be no explicit romance, but there will be enough implications, much like in the original work.

The story itself is heavily inspired by Back to the Future as well as Steins;Gate, and so some similarities will be apparent, however even those that have seen either of those works should not lose any enjoyment of this story, provided that they enjoy the genre.

Shout-out to TastyChainsaws for beta-reading, he may be evil, but like Hannibal Lecter, he's quite pleasant otherwise. Look at his stories if you dare, his profile is in my favorites.

THE TEMPORAL AXIS

Chapter 1 – Time's arrow

It was cold that day, so cold that some people might say that it would be preferable to stay at school than to endure the trek home. The school in question, Sakuragaoka High School, is where the story begins. In the school's music room.

Hirasawa Yui was a third year student and a member of the Light Music Club, she played lead guitar and was also in part responsible for the vocals in their band, Afterschool Tea Time. She was of average height, her hair relatively short, brown and almost always adorned with a pair of yellow hairclips; to match her hair, her eyes were also brown. Yui was the kind of girl that was perpetually optimistic and happy, she would take everything that came at her with a smile and never wither, with such a carefree way of life she would often slip into being air-headed. In somewhat of a contrast to her outlook, one of her favorite things to do was to laze around, as she was at this very moment.

Yui was sitting at a table filled with empty plates and teacups. She was surrounded by three of her band mates and closest friends: Nakano Azusa, Kotobuki Tsumugi and Akiyama Mio.

Azusa was a short twin-tailed girl with black hair and copper colored eyes; she was the band's rhythm guitarist and the biggest driving force behind any practice that the band ever got. She was a year behind the rest of the club as she had joined it after seeing the band's freshman reception concert. Azusa was often called 'Azu-nyan' by Yui, who seemed to be very fond of her.

Tsumugi, called Mugi by her friends, a nickname given by Yui, was the band's keyboardist. Her personality gentle and cheerful; her hair wavy, long and the color of wheat; her eyes like sapphires; Mugi was a wealthy girl who may have unwittingly been the cause of the club's lax atmosphere by bringing and serving her friends tea and sweets every day.

A shy, timid girl, Mio was definitely the face of Afterschool Tea Time. She played bass guitar and was also the other person responsible for vocals when she could muster the courage, but her popularity stemmed less from that and more from how extraordinarily beautiful the girl was. With raven-black long hair, stormy-gray eyes and being the tallest member of her band, few people could deny this.

The four of them had assembled in the music room, like they do every day after class, but today was special, today was Friday, January 15th 2010; Mio's eighteenth birthday. Mio's friends had all kept quiet throughout the day, though Yui had a hard time keeping her excitement in, so that they could shower Mio with congratulations and gifts as they came to the music room. Mio did not want to make a huge deal about her birthday; she just wanted to spend it with the four of her friends.

Four. That of course means someone was missing. Tainaka Ritsu, Mio's long-running childhood best friend, was inexplicably late. For now, everyone had assumed that Ritsu had something special in mind and so didn't question her absence. Instead, plans for tomorrow, when the real celebration was going to be held, were being discussed.

"I really hope that we get nice weather tomorrow!" Yui cooed.

"Don't worry Yui-chan, it may be cold outside but as I've heard we will be getting sunny weather in the following three days." Mugi assured her.

"Yeah, that's what I heard! But last night I saw lightning outside my window. I thought it was really strange because this morning as Ui and I walked to school I couldn't see a single cloud anywhere!"

Azusa looked at Yui strangely, "That is pretty weird, there was no mention of any storms, and like you said the sky was clear. Are you sure it was lightning, Yui-senpai? It could have just been a car."

"I know Azu-nyan!" Yui smiled at Azusa, "But it was a really intense flash, and I heard a boom outside too, it scared me! Didn't anyone else hear anything?" She eyed her friends.

"Not me." Azusa replied.

"Me neither." Said Mio.

"I didn't see or hear anything." Mugi confirmed.

"But Ui told me she did hear something! What could it have been?" Yui raised one of her eyebrows, looking up.

"Well it doesn't really matter, as long as we don't get any storms in the following days everything should be-"

Crash!
Mio was interrupted by a loud opening of the door, there stood Tainaka Ritsu.

The band's drummer and the club's president; standing a couple of centimeters shorter than Yui, and like her having shoulder-length brown hair, though a different shade and bangs held up by a headband. Golden amber color in her eyes, Ritsu had an energetic and upbeat personality which caused her to often act on a whim and live in the present. That is except when there was nothing to do, or at least nothing to her liking. Ritsu could then switch into being laid back very easily.

"Yo! Man it's cold outside, I think we should just stay in here where it's warm for the rest of today!" She dropped her bag on the couch and seated herself in the sole empty chair at the table.

Silence.

"Hey Mugi! Aren't you going to pour me some tea? Considering how cold it is outside it's amazing I've made it this far!" Ritsu was clueless as to why everyone was looking at her, as if they were expecting her to say something.

Mugi broke the silence. "Ricchan, don't you have something to say to Mio-chan?"

"Huh? I don't think so… was I going to ask her to help me study for the entrance exams?" Ritsu still had no idea.

The faces of most of Ritsu's friends were now filled with concern; Azusa additionally showing the slightest hint of contempt. The music room was growing tense.

"Mio?" Ritsu looked at her questioningly.

Mio's eyes were tearing up slightly. "Ritsu… you forgot about it, didn't you?" she said in sad monotone.

Suddenly Ritsu felt like someone had just stabbed her with a knife in the gut, her expression turning into shock only to be quickly replaced by an apologetic grin. "Oooh! That! Right! Happy birthday Mio! I got you… uh…" Ritsu ran over to her bag, digging through it.

She came back empty handed, it was true, she had completely forgotten about Mio's birthday. Ritsu opened her mouth as if to say something but Mio wouldn't even look at her; she just stared down at the table. Ritsu remained quiet, she was really worried now. She had expected Mio to just hit her over the head and forgive her like she always did, but nothing came, just silence and the occasional sniff.

"Mio-chan…" Mugi went over to Mio in a futile attempt to comfort her.

"Jeez Ritsu-senpai… I knew you were careless, but that you would do this to your best friend. I never would have thought that!" Azusa pouted at her. Yui just remained in her chair, still wearing the concerned expression.

From that point the mood in the music room had darkened significantly with no remedy in sight, everyone just sipping their tea and not saying much. Soon enough it was decided that it would be best to split up for the day. The group did not walk home together like they always did, instead everyone immediately went their separate ways, they did agree that they would still meet up tomorrow for the celebration though.

Yui looked back. Ritsu was still standing at the entrance to school grounds, as if lost. Yui ran back to her.

"Ricchan!" She yelled. "Ricchan, are you alright? You look really terrible."
"Yui… I don't know, I think I really screwed up this time. Mio would usually hit me when something like this happens but today she just ignored me." Ritsu said with weary eyes.
"Ricchan… I know that Mio-chan must be really mad at you, but cheer up! I'm sure Mio-chan will forgive you, you just need to make it up to her tomorrow!" Yui gave Ritsu a warm smile; she did not lose her optimism.
Ritsu was quiet.
"Ricchan… please come to! If we lose our captain, what will we do?" Yui did not give up. "I know! Want to come home with me? I'll play you some music on Giita and Ui will make us something delicious to eat, I'm sure it will make you feel better!"
Ritsu finally gave in to Yui's cheerfulness; she sighed and faintly smiled. "Sure."

As they walked to Yui's house Ritsu seemed to regain her enthusiasm, by the time they reached the front door she was almost as energetic as always. They quickly got inside to escape the cold.

"Ah, Onee-chan, welcome back!" Ui, Yui's younger sister, said as she heard the door open.

If one didn't know better, they might have called Yui and Ui twins. While it was true that they were extremely similar in appearance, in truth they were born a year apart. Ui could be easily told apart from Yui by her short ponytail; and while sharing her sister's kindness and skill with the guitar, Ui was the more responsible of the two, actually being the one to take care of their residence as their parents were seldom home.

"You're back early today- Oh, Ritsu-san?"
"Pardon the intrusion!" Ritsu grinned at her.
"Ui, Ricchan had a fight with Mio-chan. I wanted to cheer her up so I invited her over!" Yui told her little sister.
"Oh, I see… Well I didn't know you were coming home early so I don't have anything ready. I could make you two lunch now if you want though."
"Thanks Ui! That would be great!"

Ritsu and Yui sat down on the couch in the living room, leaving their things next to it while Ui retreated to the kitchen. Yui took out her guitar out of its case while humming to herself. She started playing a tune but then stopped abruptly. "Ricchan… how do you play a 'C'?"

"You forgot again? Isn't this like the fifth time?" Ritsu grimaced at Yui.

"E-he-he…" Yui closed her eyes and pressed her palm against the back of her head.

Suddenly, Ui called out from the kitchen. "Onee-chan! I don't think I have enough rice for all three of us!"
"Oh! Ricchan and I can go buy some more for you! Right, Ricchan?"
"Uuh… yeah… sure…" Ritsu didn't look all that happy about it.

Still, they got their coats back on. "We'll be right back!" Yui called, and they stepped into the cold once again.

"Do you know a store around here?" Ritsu asked Yui as they were walking towards the road.
"Yeah, just past the park! There's a general store at the bottom of the hill!" They began their journey down the road.

As they were passing the park Ritsu started thinking aloud. "Hmm… you know I really need to get Mio a present for tomorrow, I don't want her to sulk at me for the rest of time." She pinched her chin.
"We could go all the way to the shopping district so you can pick something out, Ricchan. We can get the rice on our way back!"
"Yeah I guess so, I don't think we can be more frozen than we already are anyway."
"But you have to apologize to her too, Ricchan! You really hurt Mio-chan today."
"Yes, yes I know! Don't worry Yui, we've had some intense fights in the past. It'll work out!"

They were about to reach the top of the hill when they noticed something peculiar. The bushes next to the road appeared to have been run down, a trail of flattened shrubbery leading off into the woods.

Yui was worried. "Ricchan… what happened here?"
"I… don't know. It looks like someone lost control of their car and veered off into the forest. Should we go take a look? Maybe they need help." Ritsu said as she looked on into the forest.
"Yeah."

They tagged after the trail of razed hedge. At the end of it they did indeed find a vehicle, and a quite unusual one at that. The car sported a metallic silver color and only two doors. And while its design didn't make it appear very modern it still gave off a feeling of ominousness.

"De… Lorean?" Ritsu was reading the Latin inscription on the car's back bumper, leaning on the back body which was extremely cold to the touch. "I've never seen this kind of car before or heard of this manufacturer. Yui, have you ever seen anything like this? "
"No captain, never!" Yui was staring at the vehicle intently.
"Wait… weren't we supposed to-"

They ran to the front of the vehicle, noting that it was almost completely undamaged save for some mud that had collected on the hood. Also uncanny was the fact that the driver's seat was on the left and not right like is usual in Japan, but more importantly and to Yui and Ritsu's bewilderment, both the driver seat and the passenger seat were empty. They looked at each other.

"Did… the driver already go to get help?"
"I don't know, Ricchan."

"You don't suppose they ran off into the forest, do you?" Ritsu looked at the trees in front of the car, even in daytime the forest looked very uninviting. But it was what Ritsu and Yui found behind them that really unsettled them. There, in between trees, was a complete set of clothing, arranged as if a person was wearing them, it was soaked in thawed frost that had collected on it the night before.

"What… is this?" Ritsu was staring in confusion.
"They're clothes, Ricchan." Yui said, standing behind Ritsu.
"I can see that, but look at them! Why are they arranged like this?"
"I think we should leave, Ricchan." For the first time in a while, Yui was discomforted, her perpetual smile replaced with what could almost be called a frown.

"Well… let's take one last look at the car." Ritsu approached the door again, intent on trying to open it. As she pulled the handle though, to her surprise the door started rising instead of opening towards her as she had expected, producing a mechanical noise as it did so. "Whoa!" Ritsu narrowly avoided being hit on the chin.

"This is one strange car." Ritsu peered inside the vehicle, it was almost completely devoid of any items, but what caught her attention was what looked like a control panel, situated below the ventilation. The panel had what looked like two displays, the top one appeared to be turned off while the one below it was displaying the current date and time, to minute precision, in green color. Under the displays was a small numeric keypad. Ritsu didn't know what to make of the panel, it looked like a clock but it also appeared too sophisticated to be merely that. From the control panel a handful of wiring protruded and connected to the back of the vehicle, which was sealed off by a metal chassis.

"Ricchan, you shouldn't do that, this isn't our car." Yui watched Ritsu from behind as she climbed inside the car and into the driver seat. Ritsu then saw something that made her blood warm up: the key was still in the ignition.

If I were to show up in this tomorrow Mio would probably think it's the coolest thing ever!

Ritsu was now seriously considering taking the vehicle for herself, she was still about 7 months from being able to get a driver's license but she did ask her father to teach her some things in advance and she believed that she could drive this car.

"Come on Yui, get in!"
"Ricchan?" Yui was staring at Ritsu, unsure if she was being serious.
"Get in I said!" Ritsu was eying her excitedly, evidently completely serious.
"You want us to steal this car?"
"Steal is such an ugly word… salvage! We're salvaging it!" Ritsu was trying to justify her intentions.
"But it doesn't look like it has been here long; someone could come back for it!"
"Naahh, I don't think so. Look at that, whoever owned this car must have given up on all their stuff in order to become one with nature; they even left their clothes behind! Either that or this forest is some kind of gateway to hell, or it consumed them, either way it would be a waste to leave this car here! Trust me, it'll work out!"

Yui did not like this, there was nothing to convince her that it wasn't stealing, but on the other hand this whole situation was surreal and frightening to her: finding a vehicle seemingly abandoned by its driver after veering off into the forest, along with about everything else that they had owned. She didn't want to stay here any longer and so she reluctantly scuffed over to the other door.

"Watch your chin!" Ritsu called as Yui opened the door, settling into the passenger seat. They both then shut the doors.
"Ricchan, can you actually drive?" Yui asked, worry spread across her face.
"Sure I can, this looks like a pretty standard automatic transmission setup. This is the gear lever, and it's set to park now which means I can start the car! What I'm not sure about is this display here, it looks pretty complicated for a clock."

Ritsu tried pressing some random numbers on the keypad, but nothing happened other than a beep being produced. She then hit the return button and suddenly the upper display lit up, now showing 'July 3, 1985 17:32', in red.

"Oh, it's to enter the date… but why are there two displays?" Ritsu still didn't quite understand. She stopped for a moment, as if she were in thought, then entered a different set of numbers, the date 'May 3, 1996 07:30' appeared on the display.

"Ricchan, what are you doing?" Yui asked her, her voice meek.
"I'm just trying to figure out what this thing is, I have no idea what it could possibly be used for… oh well, it doesn't matter."

Ritsu turned the key and the dashboard came to life as expected, but when she tried to actually start the engine… nothing happened; the key wouldn't go any further.

"Huh?" Ritsu inspected the dashboard, but couldn't find anything wrong with the car. "I can't start it." Then she noticed something, there was no fuel gauge, instead there were two gauges with a battery icon, the one with a smaller icon was showing brimming full, the other about 75% full.

"Oh! I get it! This sucker must be electrical!" Ritsu exclaimed with the excitement of someone who had just made a scientific breakthrough. She shifted the lever into the R position and released the brake, indeed the tachometer shot up to about 1000 and the vehicle started slowly cruising backwards, soon reaching the edge of the forest where Ritsu slowly set it back on the road.

Ritsu wanted to do this carefully, she noticed three positions at the bottom of the transmission control: L, S and TS; TS was the very bottom position, slightly more distant from the rest. Ritsu figured that TS would limit the vehicle to the first three gears, and so shifted into that, but as she did a loud beep went off, as if to give a warning. The beep had given Ritsu a scare and caused her to release the brake, what happened after this neither her nor Yui were prepared for. The car exploded forward, reaching 100 kilometers per hour in mere seconds. Ritsu couldn't do anything; both Yui and she were paralyzed by the sight in front of them, a medium sized truck, they were set for a head-on collision.

Yui saw the speedometer, it was showing 114 kilometers per hour, she knew there was no way they could survive this, she clenched her teeth and closed her eyes tightly. Then everything went white.