I suppose that drowning is indeed one way to kill witches, but right now I could care less as I stare curiously at Shun, who has gone back to glaring at his feet morosely as soon as he has finished his outburst of a sentence.

"How long has he been like... er... that?" I whisper to Hiroki, who is beside me.

"Like a few minutes after you guys went in and it was just him and me. It was kind of scary to be honest but I'm not sure what we can do about it..." Hiroki whispers back.

I'm not sure either. I remember what Shun and I had discussed earlier, perhaps less than an hour earlier. We talked about the darkness that had been somehow "installed" into him. The darkness that we want to remove but don't know how to. The answer might lie in coma-san—I mean, Ikoma-san's mind, but do we have time to mindhack the unfortunate comatose man right now?

I look at the others and know that we don't. I glance over at my best friend Izumi, whose mind is infested by witches, sad Anna who is still silently sobbing over something, and Daisuke who is uncomplainingly lying there, not knowing that everyone has decided to leave him for the last. Poor dude, it must suck to be him.

We need to get them out first. We simply don't have the time to pause for anything else. Shun may have become all dark and weird but as long as he isn't causing any problems and is just sort of moping by himself, we can solve him later, right? Surely he can stay okay for just a little longer. Of course he can. I've believed in him for so long, and I know that I can believe in him one more time.

"You guys be fast, I'll look after him. Don't worry," Katsuki assures me. I smile wanly and can't help but notice that he's randomly making a three-colored rubber band jump rope as he speaks. The ultimate multitasker.

Yes—Katsuki the multitasker will definitely make sure that Shun stays all right while we go rescue the rest of our classmates. We'll just have to be fast. I trust Katsuki. I trust Shun. Everything will be fine.

I didn't realize how much I'd regret this choice later as I sink into Anna's mind.

–

As Natsumi and I stand there in the fading autumn daylight, I think back and marvel over how little I actually know about Anna.

I mean, I know that she studies her head off and is a teacher's pet to boot, that she wants to excel at every school subject and hates it when useless people (me) hinder her progress in mock-missions. I know that she spends her nights in libraries, uses a pinkish kind of lotion that smells like cherry blossom petals and likes to have her long, straight hair pulled back and tied up so that her huge pimply forehead shows. I know that she wears wire-rimmed glasses, has long legs like a gazelle and a shapely nose and a sharp, grating voice and acne problems.

I know all this, but I don't know the real her. I don't know what her favorite food is, if she has any favorite artists, what her family is like, what her past is like, what she wants her future to be like, what makes her cry and what makes her smile like the sun, and which does she think came first: the chicken or the egg?

Actually the last question isn't even important, but either way the point is: I know practically nothing when it comes to Anna. She's just sort of there, always being annoying and huffing and complaining about how we are inconsiderate roommates who make it impossible for her to study because we won't stop chatting, or how we are not hardworking enough and will taint the name of the school and make it hard for graduates to find a good job because our school won't be taken seriously by prestigious companies.

Personally I think she's planning too far ahead, and in the wrong direction. Our school's reputation isn't what will help us get in prestigious companies—our mindhacking skills are. But Anna seems really adamant on going about it in the traditional way: good grades, good school, good reputation, good company, good pay. Yes, good pay. Money is one thing that Anna really seems to like—I've seen her borrow self-help books on ways to make big money from the library. There's nothing wrong with that, I like money too—but it can get kind of unnerving when it seems to be the only thing that makes Anna excited.

Maybe that's why I'm almost surprised to find that Anna's mind isn't entirely made of bills and coins from different currencies. Natsumi and I stand in front of a small, wooden cottage, beside a vast rice field. The air is crisp and yellow-orange, the sun is setting, and there is some oldies-sounding tune blasting from the radio of a vintage yellow car that is innocently sitting by the rickety road. The curtains that are billowing out the windows of the cottage are a faded golden-yellow as well, with small flowers printed on them.

Natsumi immediately plods over to a window and peeps in, while I linger a little to appreciate the tune that the car radio is playing. We were taught in our mindhacking classes that radios in people's heads, especially car radios, tend to play songs that have not yet been written, songs that reflect on the subject's state of mind. I think Mrs. Sato even once told us that if we find ourselves on a street in someone's mind and have no idea where to go, we should hail a car and listen to what's playing on the car radio—it's usually very reliable.

I listen to the melody quietly. It is a sad, nostalgic waltz, a waltz that seems to tell of something that could have been, but isn't. A waltz that is rueful, that is practically spilling over with regret.

What is Anna so regretful about? I wonder that as I join Natsumi, who is gesturing wildly at me from the window.

"There's a calendar on the wall," she says excitedly, "I'll help you climb through the window so you can get it."

You might wonder what's so exciting about there being a calendar. You see, a calendar is even more useful than a car radio. In one of Mrs. Sato's classes, we learned that anything that has pages with pictures and is flippable would be one of the best things you could find in someone's mind—more than 80% of the time, it tells you what you need to know. When in doubt, always look for something with pages, no matter a picture book, a magazine, or in this case a calendar.

Natsumi bends down and lets me climb on her, since she's the bigger one of us two and if we did it the other way around I'm pretty sure I'd snap like a twig. I clamber clumsily through the window and step into the room, feeling the old, wooden floorboards creak and groan under my feet as I go. The room is a normal, basic lounge, though everything seems old and worn-out, but in a cozy way instead of a way that makes you feel all disgusted. I snatch the calendar and hand it to Natsumi, who helps me climb out. Technically I could have used the door, but I don't see one anywhere.

We sit down, backs against the cottage wall, and flip to the first page. And come face to face to what looks like a younger Anna. She is all bright smiles and toothy grins and is surrounded by hordes of other little girls, looking like they're having the time of their lives.

"Is this Anna when she was, like, eleven?" I whisper.

"It's not Anna," Natsumi corrects me, "you see the mole under her eye? Anna doesn't have that. And the eyes are wrong, she looks too... happy to be Anna."

"Oh," I say, feeling dumb. I've never been good with recognizing faces.

"She does looks like Anna though," Nastumi adds quickly. "Maybe it's her little sister."

It is indeed her little sister, we realize, because the girl suddenly exclaims to her friends: "My nee-san (older sister) is here to pick me up! See ya tomorrow!" then runs happily towards an older girl, who is undoubtedly the Anna we know. Now that I have to real thing to compare with, I realize that there are indeed differences between Anna and the little girl. For one thing, the eyes are different like Natsumi said, and for another, the little girl looks too... not-smart to be Anna.

I feel like a terrible person for thinking this. I don't even know why I'm thinking this, why I can tell that Anna's little sister isn't quite all there. Perhaps it's something subtle in her movements, in the strangely distorted way she walks, the way her voice sounds a bit too slurred for an eleven-year-old.

"Time to go home, Nanako," we hear Anna say to her little sister.

Nanako looks up at her big sister with a big grin that reaches her eyes, but Anna does not return the grin. Her serious eyes trail all the way down until she is looking at the ground. At the wet puddle on the ground.

Nanako continues to grin like nothing is wrong, but we can almost hear Anna's thoughts.

My little sister is eleven years old, and she has just pissed her pants in the public.