“Grandma, I’ve come to visit!”
A middle-school-aged girl called out as she opened the door of a private hospital room; the room’s sole occupant, an elderly lady, was sitting up in bed.
“Oh my, if it isn’t Yurika. Make yourself at home.”
Kurita Maika had turned sixty only a few days ago, but she had needed to stay overnight at the hosopital to undergo tests for her chronic illness.If all was well, the doctors would be discharging her tomorrow, but her granddaughter Yurika, kind and honest girl that she was, still came to visit.
“It was kind of you to come visit little old me, Yurika.”
Maika had a warm smile for her granddaughter, but Yurika could only smile back sheepishly.
“Actually, I only visited because I happened to be nearby. Sorry to disappoint.”
“Oh my, does it have something to do with what you have there?”
In response, Yurika happily revealed what she held: the paper shopping bag from a local game store.
“Were you out buying a game?”
“Not exactly. I have the game already, and this is its companion book.”
Maika’s eyes widened as she realized what it was that Yurika had purchased.
“This is “The Silver Saint and the Five Oaths”? Why is this…”
It was the dating sim Maika had been obsessed with when she was much younger, still a child even.
But as a wave of nostalgia washed over her, a pang of sorrow followed it; this game was what took away her beloved brother Hideki and childhood friend Asakura Anna.
They happened to win a vacation for having bought the game but became involved in a tragedy: the flight they took mysteriously disappeared and remained missing to this day.
“Actually, I’m playing its remake right now.”
“Its remake?”
“Yep! Apparently a long-time fan of the game was put in charge of making this remake. They updated everything about the game but kept a similar artstyle because it was still popular on the net and to pay homage to the original.
“Oh my, you’re right… It really does look quite similar to the original.”
“I think they said this new artist is actually the daughter of the original illustrator, and she said in an interview that she was also a huge fan of the game, so when they asked her to draw for the remake, she immediately agreed.”
Maika answered with an “I see” as she began looking through the companion book. She had played this game over forty years ago, back when she was in middle school, so it was a great coincidence that her granddaugther, a middle schooler, was now playing the remake. But regardless, Maika had fond memories of this fun game, and she found herself smiling again.
“Fufufu, I suppose something like this could happen, couldn’t it… Oh my, what is this?”
As Maika flipped through the book, a certain illustration on one of the pages caught her eye.
“Isn’t this girl the heroine? So why is she..?”
The heroine of “The Silver Saint” was Cecilia Reginbars, a beautiful girl with silver hair and lapis lazuli-colored eyes. She lived as a commoner until her father, Count Reginbars, adopted her after her mother passed away, and that marked the beginning of her rose-tinted school life.
But with that backstory in mind, this illustration of the heroine… could not be anything but bizarre.
Unlike the heroine Maika knew, this one had black hair and black eyes and was wearing a maid uniform, and she appeared to be the maid serving tea to a blonde-haired girl Maika had never seen before.
And yet the two appeared perfectly happy with bright smiles on their faces. What even was this…?
“That’s… oh, that was cut content, but it was still drawn by the original illustrator.”
“This was cut content?”
“I heard people only found out about it recently, but apparently it was a big controversy among the development team back then. In the end, there was only this illustration, and it never made it to the full release.”
“Is that how it is…”
Maika subconsciously stroked the heroine’s head in the illustration, feeling amused. After all, although the game finished on a positive note, the heroine’s journey was anything but: from losing her mother to her rocky relationship with her father, and then having to go through the perils of high society before becoming involved in the battle against the Demon King…
But what about the girl in the illustration? She was exuberant and very happily enjoying her life. If this girl was the heroine, the plot certainly would have been something more interesting, or so Maika thought.
“I’m going to buy a drink, grandma. Do you want anything?”
“Hmm… I would like black tea or green tea, please.”
Yurika then left the room in search of a vending machine. Maika suddenly felt winded, and she leaned back into her bed with the book in her arms. She slowly closed her eyes as she let out a gentle sigh.
(Who could have guessed that there would be a remake of that game… Fufu, perhaps I will play it again once I’m out.)
Those halcyon days of youth were truly fun times… The three of them would go back and forth over the choices, but Hideki was always in shock from picking the most ridiculous option every time… Anna and Maika had laughed themselves silly over it….
“Onii-chan, Anna-onee-chan, if only we could play the game together again, one last time…”
Maika began drifting off to sleep as she quietly murmured her earnest wish.
Suddenly, a strange discomfort came over Maika.
(Why is the bed… so cold and hard..?)
Had she rolled over and fallen out of bed? Maika felt herself awakening as she had such thoughts.
“Ah, uh… wha..?”
Maika made a strange noise as she opened her eyes; not only was she not in the bed of her hospital room, she was actually lying in the dirt.
“Eh? Huh? Wait… what’s going on? Huh? What happend to my voice?”
The situation had left Maika utterly confounded, but more than that was her voice, completely different from what she remembered. Having recently turned sixty-years-old, Maika’s voice should have been huskier and lower in pitch, and yet she was now much more shrill, sounding like she did as a child.
“Aaa~… That’s… me, right? That’s how I sound? But wait, more importantly, where even is this?!”
Maika got to her feet and looked around; she seemd to be in a city, but… the buildings around her were derelict and dilapidated, like the slums she sometimes saw in movies or TV shows. For a moment, she wondered if Japan had places like this, but something else quickly took her attention: why were these buildings so tall? Why were the roofs so high up, and why were the doors and windows so large? Why had someone built everything so big?
(This is quite the mysterious place… But why am I in a place like this? Maybe this is all just a dream… right?)
But when she pinched her cheek, a surefire way of determining if she were in a dream, the stinging sensation came across very clearly, and she involuntarily rubbed at the pain.
And that confirmation scared Maika; by nature, humans fear that which they do not understand, and at this moment, Maika completely lacked any semblance of understanding.
The street around her was gloomy place with ruined buildings lining the sides. Not a soul was in sight, and yet it may not be safe to make a noise. In the end, Maika froze up in fear of the potential danger when she decided to try and call out.
But it was then that Maika suddenly remembered the granddaughter that had come to visit, and she fell deeper into panic.
(Th-that’s right..! Is that girl doing okay? I can only hope she didn’t also get lost here with me. Oh, my darling, my precious… huh?)
Maika… could recall neither the name or the face of her granddaughter. Considering she already could not remember this much, it may only be a matter of time before she completely forgot.
“What is going on..? My name is Kurita Maika. I turned… sixty, recently. And then… then…”
Maika quickly realized she no longer remembered most of her life. She could vaguely recall important points like her recent birthday, her marriage, the day her daughter was born… and the grandchild that was in middle school? But it seemed most of her memories, everything that made her the person she was now, were missing. Of the memories she could recall most clearly were…
“Everything up until middle school is so clear… What’s even happening?”
It was as though she traded her adulthood memories for being able to vividly recall her life through middle school.
“What’s going on? I don’t understand… Help… Mommy… Onii-chan… Anna-onee-chan..!”
Unbeknownst to her own self, Maika was speaking more like a child. It appeared that she was regressing mentally seemingly as a result of losing her adulthood memories.
Maika’s eyes welled with tears, but as she looked down to try and stifle the crying, another shock awaited her. This time it was her own feet; she had been wearing socks in the hospital room, but now she was barefooted.
Wait, no, that was not the problem. The surprise had to do with —
“It’s so small… Why are my feet so small now..?”
In a panic, Maika felt all over her body with her hands. Her eyes widened further with each touch as she slowly began to understand her predicament: Maika had regressed in age and became a child once more.
“Huh? Wha..?”
The realization rendered her completely speechless. She looked down at her hands; nobody could possibly mistake such small fingers and frail arms to be that of an adult’s. And the clothes she wore, if one could call them that, hung about her like tattered rags.
It finally dawned on her that the buildings had not gotten larger; rather, she herself had become smaller.
(Wh-wh-what the heck?! I’ve got the body of child, but my mind is still an adult’s?! What am I, some sort of anime protagonist?!)
Maika, despite the regression into a middle schooler, reflexively questioned the absurdity of her situation and remembered a certain series that had been popular at that age. Could this be the APTX — No, no way!
(It’s not even just becoming a kid again anymore! Wait, is that my hair… Why the heck is it pink now?!)
She could see some vagrant strands of hair just outside her far peripheral vision and realized instead of her familiar chest-length black hair, she now had shoulder-length peach-pink hair.
(Does this mean I’m a main character or something?! Am I the leader of some magical girl team?!)
Maika vividly recalled another anime from her middle school years, a magical girl series that aired every Sunday morning that was popular with children and some adult males. Each girl had a different hair color, a strange characteristic considering the show was supposed to take place in Japan.
She could not help but call out the strange details, but really it was all a desperate attempt to cope with her current situation.
And so it was just a matter of time before she hit her limit and finally snapped.
“Hic, hic… Aaaah! What… what is going oonn?!”
In the middle of an alley, Maika broken down into tears. As though reflecting her turmoil, rain poured down from the sky, but Maika continued to cry, unimpeded by the change in weather.
Her cries subsided after a time, having calmed down. A puddle of water nearby caught her attention; in it, she saw a girl with peach-colored hair and a tear-streaked face staring back at her. The haphazard nature of this impromptu mirror, along with her own devastated emotions, made it hard to determine whether she was cute, but she was very clearly around middle school age – probably about ten-years-old.
And yet this made no sense to her, the person in the reflection was not anyone she knew, least of all Kurita Maika.
Just as she was about to reach her breaking point and dissolve into tears once more, something suddenly pulled on Maika’s arm.
“Kyaaa! Wh-who’s there?!”
“…Come this way.”
Maika looked over to see a boy with unkempt purple hair hold her arm. Tattered rags draped from his small frame like her, but his other hand clutched a a sword with a broken blade.
Fear crept unbidden into Maika’s mind; the sight of this boy holding a naked albeit broken weapon had triggered internal panic, and as someone who lived in modern Japan, Maika was instinctively afraid of a shady-looking stranger approaching her in a place like this.
“L-let go of my…”
“…Hurry up. We need to get out of here.”
“Huh?”
The boy held fast and pulled harder; Maika had no choice but to follow along.
“Uh, umm, where are we going?”
“…It’s not safe here.”
He probably meant this abandoned city, reaffirming Maika’s initial assumption that they were in a slum of some kind.
“…Some men were watching you as you cried your eyes out.”
“Ah?!”
Maika made a noise of surprise in response. Someone had been watching her cry? Since when? And from where?
“They would’ve moved in to take you if you started crying again.”
“Is that… why you helped me?”
The boy stayed quiet without answering yet kept his tight grip on her.
Maika found herself slowly becoming unafraid of the boy.
“Um, thank you for the help, but… why did you help me?”
“…”
The boy stayed quiet. As Maika began to suspect he was a less talkative kind of person, the boy suddenly replied back in a low voice.
“Mom and dad… they used to say you should always help a crying kid.”
“Your mom and dad said that? That’s why you helped me?”
The boy once again stayed silent.
“I see… You have such kind and wonderful parents.”
“Yeah… They were the kindest people I ever knew.”
His emphasis on the past tense left Maika unable to reply. From his ragged, worn-out appearance, it was clear what his current situation entailed, which meant his family must be…
“…We’re here.”
“Huh? Oh..!”
Maika suddenly realized the boy had actually dragged her out of the slums; the gloomy and decrepit roads had become the clean streets of a Middle Ages European town under the glow of an late afternoon sun. Various people went this way and that, populating streets with their presence, making the earlier downtrodden ghetto seem like a bad dream.
While she was not yet completely in the clear, Maika still sighed in relief.
The rain had also stopped at some point.
“Um, I really appreciate everything you’ve done. Thanks to you… huh?”
When she turned to give her thanks, the boy had disappeared, as though he never existed in the first place.
“Huh? No way, where did he go? Did he go back?”
She had not expected the boy to abandon her as soon as he had taken her out of the slums. Maika’s relief and gratitude evaporated, as though leaving with the boy, and she could feel her anxiety and fear returning.
“I guess I don’t have to worry about being kidnapped, but why couldn’t he stay with me a little longer…”
Maika sadly mumbled as she stared back towards the slums.
He had left her alone in an unfamiliar city, but… that was an outcome she should have expected. In the first place, how was Maika supposed to explain to him that she was actually an old lady who was resting in a hospital bed that suddenly found herself at that place? As far as he knew, Maika was simply a lost child who wandered into the slums, a child that he simply needed to lead away from danger.
Maika leaned both hands against a nearby wall and wearily hung her head.
“Ugh… I guess there’s no way around it. I’ll have to talk to other people…”
Despite having escaped danger only moments ago, Maika found herself wishing for even a little help. Thankfully, it did not take long for Maika to discover there were others besides the boy that were willing to help her.
“Oh dear, oh my, is something the matter? Might I be able to help?”
A female voice called out to Maika; perhaps the owner had become worried after seeing a young girl lean precariously against the building. Maika turned to address the speaker: a woman wearing a worried expression.
Judging by the outfit, the woman looked to be from a church; she wore a habit and an anime-ish air hung about her. Something about this nun triggered a sense of deja vu in Maika.
(Huh? This woman seems familiar…)
“Do you feel unwell? Are you hurting somewhere?”
“Oh, um, no, that’s not it…”
But how was she supposed to respond? As Maika floundered on how to answer, the nun looked her over as though checking her condition. After a moment, the nun seemed to have realized the situation, and she carefully nodded her head.
“Could it be that, there is no place for you to go?”
“Ah, um…”
Maika found herself once again at a loss for words, as she had not expected someone to notice her condition. Then again, her appearance was an obvious indicator; the haphazard rags she wore identified her as a vagrant child without a home to return to.
But as she carefully thought about how to reply, the nun gave her a gentle smile.
“In that case, would you like to come to my orphanage? There will be food for you there.”
The nun gently reached out to Maika, who stared absentmindedly at the proffered hand. It took a moment before Maika remembered her current situation, and so she panickedly grabbed the nun’s hand.
“Uh, umm… yes… please.”
“It will be wonderful to have you, dear. By the way, I am Anabelle, but please call me Sister Anabelle.”
“Thank you, Sister Anabelle. It is nice to meet you”
Maika exhaled with great relief upon seeing Sister Anabelle’s smile; for now, she had secured a place to sleep, but… another feeling of deja vu came over Maika like a bolt from the blue.
(Wait a minute… I’ve definitely seen her before, but from where..?)
But try as she might, neither memory nor person came to Maika’s mind.
(It should be hard to forget someone this pretty and with such beautiful flaxen hair, so why can’t I remember where I’ve seen her?)
Perhaps she had been someone Maika met as an adult? But even as she continued asking herself, this would not be the day Maika found the answer.
But it was only a matter of course that she would not remember; after all, Maika was only trying to recall the people she met in her previous life.
And then, some days from now, Maika would finally realize the truth about this world.
And it was some time after that would she have an encounter with a certain maid…
Headcanon TL 
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