Were they testing the speakers?

It was still bright outside, but there was music playing already.

The cheap, dubbed BGM collection of festival music could be heard from the Furude Shrine in the distance.

...It sounded so exciting to her.

This was what she had wanted to join in on all this time.

Rika held her hand.

Let's go together.

Let's go to the Watanagashi festival.

All of us.

Together.

Yeah.

...They had almost too much energy left.

It'd been a long day, and many things had happened... but they still had the energy to go to the festival.

It was, after all, the special day of Watanagashi.

The curse of Oyashiro-sama had been lifted,

and no tragedy would ever occur again...

It was the first peaceful Watanagashi, the first one without a tragedy since the dam conflict.

The villagers had noticed that the phone lines were disconnected during the day, but it was fixed so quickly that they didn't pay much attention.

They heard the Self-Defense Force helicopter near the mountains, but rumor had it that they came to the wrong place for their training.

The elderly villagers laughed and said that the young men of the national defense force need to pay more attention.

Some people say the Self-Defense Force even came to the Irie Clinic.

The villagers didn't even get suspicious about that. They assumed that the Irie Clinic had started doing physical check-ups for the SDF.

There were pieces of broken glass on the roadside near the village border, as if there was an accident.

Some people wondered how anyone could have had an accident when there was no obstruction on the road.

The elderly people said to each other that they always had to drive carefully, even on a familiar road.

But it looked only like a trace of a normal accident,

so they didn't get suspicious.

The rest was a ghost story.

The villagers heard an extra firework to signal the festival taking place.

It wasn't an echo.

The people in charge of the fireworks were puzzled,

but when Rika said Oyashiro-sama must have shot the extra firework, the villagers simply believed that was true.

It was the night of Watanagashi, the biggest festival of the year.

The villagers forgot their worries and enjoyed themselves.

The club members were doing great as usual.

They were doing so great that they were all taken to the main tent and yelled at by the mayor.

That was a normal Watanagashi night for the villagers.

But there was one thing that was very different.

...The girls fought for a unimaginably long time in many different worlds for the sake of this night. However, nobody would ever know that.

...Ohh, there was another big change too.

Rika Furude said that she wants to go to a pool in the summer.

It's unusual for her to say she wants to do something.

She wants to see the stars.

She wants to go on a camping trip.

She wants to look at the sunflowers.

She wants to make the school into a haunted house... etc.

There are so many things she wants to do over the summer break.

...Right.

Rika Furude, for the first time, is making plans for after June 1983.

Because this is the first summer break she's going to experience after one hundred years of repeating the same life, she will now experience an all-new summer vacation.

Who would stop her from getting excited about that?

Rika Furude is looking forward to waking up before Satoko to rip the page off the calendar at the end of June.

Rika Furude's infinite future has begun.

There are infinite possibilities, yet she can only make one choice.

But that's why it's a great world.

Let's talk for a moment about the people who fought with Rika Furude.

Mion Sonozaki has vowed to study hard so she can continue her education after the summer break.

According to Keiichi, even that may not be enough time for her...

However, how can the legendary club leader, Mion Sonozaki, fail an entrance exam?

She will more than likely find a way to get into the school she wants to go to.

Hopefully, it isn't an illegal one.

Anyhow, she's looking forward to enjoying her final summer break. So she has tons of plans.

The club members can't get away from Mion, even during the summer.

Once you're involved with her, she'll always find a way to get at you.

No matter how much you want to be alone, you'll never go back to spending a boring summer by yourself.

Keiichi Maebara has been asked by Mion and Chie-sensei to be their next class president.

He was also asked to be the next club leader, too... but he declined immediately....

Keiichi likes the club because Mion runs it.

He continued saying that "it's Mion's club" until she got mad.

Keiichi can't understand why she's so angry.

Well, Keiichi wouldn't be Keiichi if he wasn't dense.

So things are rather lively around him again today.

His good name continues to spread, even in Okinomiya.

Rena Ryuugu is growing more energetic every day too.

Satoko, Rika, and Hanyuu spend every day in fear of being abducted by her.

...Still, she's been acting more mature lately.

She takes care of her younger classmates, and she's almost like a mother figure to the class.

She is like a mother to all of the club members, too.

...After hearing that, Keiichi said that he'd be a father for the class!

As usual, Rena thought about that too much, and blushed.

Satoko Houjou is as lively as ever.

She used up most of her traps on the mountain during the battle with the Mountain Dogs, so she's setting up new ones for the next event.

Rumor has it that some members of the Bloodhounds were so impressed with her trap techniques

that they asked her for some lessons.

There is supposed to be a training area near Mount Fuji, and they asked her to set up her traps there.

...That's not a very good idea.

The Sea of Trees really will become a forest of no-return.

Either way, Satoko keeps saying how she wants to fight against the Bloodhounds next. She's invincible.

Also, she's become a great cook.

That's because Hanyuu has been teaching her.

According to Hanyuu, Satoko is a quick learner, as compared to Rika.

Satoko's dream is to master fried chicken, which is her brother's favorite, and welcome him home with it.

...I'm the only one who knows this.

But her dream may come true very soon.

...As for her brother,

Satoshi Houjou has yet to return home.

His condition is unchanged.

If there's been any change, it's in Shion Sonozaki.

She goes to the clinic on her days off.

Nobody knows why she goes there, but she seems to be very happy, so nobody pays much attention to it.

Mion has teased Shion by saying that maybe she's planning on getting implants, but Shion just smiles.

Also, for whatever reason, she's been visiting her relative's clothes shop and buying up all kinds of men's clothing.

...Lately she's even started buying more than just men's clothing, but... why is she so excited when she visits the clinic with a maid outfit that's not in her size?

...The truth is shrouded in mystery.

...The biggest change is probably that Shion babies Satoko nowadays.

She tries to make Satoko call her 'Nee-nee', which only annoys Satoko.

Kyousuke Irie has two jobs now. On one hand, he is a respected doctor, and on the other hand, he is an evangelist for maids.

...The Irie Clinic was supposed to be closed,

but the villagers pleaded with the authorities not to shut it down.

While Irie isn't originally from the village,

he and everyone else feel that he's one of the villagers now. He's an indispensable part of village life.

The conservative attitude toward Hinamizawa Syndrome is gone, and now it is being researched very proactively.

The syndrome is being researched so passionately

that, hopefully, in the near future, all the victims of this disease will be freed for good.

Also, later on, Irie will publish an advanced article about the influence of the brain on human behavior, which will surprise people in the medical world.

I won't go into the details here, but it'll talk about how one should hate the sins instead of the sinner.

The deceased Hifumi Takano and Miyo Takano's names will be mentioned in that article.

Jirou Tomitake still visits Hinamizawa every season.

He is still known as the fighting, traveling photographer, and he continues to walk around the village looking for good picture spots.

However, he isn't seen in the village as much as before.

His bicycle is always parked around the back of the clinic, so maybe he spends a lot of time there.

Some villagers say maybe he's sick and being treated, but his bright smile proves they are wrong.

Miyo Takano hasn't been seen since that day.

Nobody knows where she has gone... but obviously, Tomitake isn't worried, so she must be doing fine.

She'll probably show up one day out of nowhere, and start telling ghost stories to scare some kids.

As for Mamoru Akasaka... what happened to him was pretty funny.

His wife and daughter followed him in secret.

They pretended to run into him at the festival.

Rika called him "Papa~☆\

Akasaka's wife smiled, but she choked his neck with her braided hair.

Her arms were folded, but her braid moved like a tail!

Squeeze!

...She tortured a man who destroyed a special forces unit without even using a weapon.

Rika continued to tease him, making the situation even worse.

However, Akasaka's family liked Hinamizawa, and they said they wanted to come back.

Akasaka's daughter and Rika grew so close that they seemed like sisters...

Kuraudo Ooishi has gotten back into playing mahjong.

For whatever reason, Akane Sonozaki has joined his table too, and there's rumors a riot squad almost got dispatched to the mahjong parlor one time.

His colleagues say Ooishi has calmed down quite a bit.

It's probably because he has reached closure within himself.

But his colleagues know nothing about that.

He's planning to move to Hokkaido when he retires, but he wants to come back every summer.

His bright second life is waiting for him.

Tatsuyoshi Kasai hasn't changed much, compared to the others.

...To some people, this was a life-changing event, but... for Kasai, it was just another episode added to his tales of heroics.

According to Kasai, this incident was just a little bigger than usual.

If this was just a little unusual, then what in the world would be needed to impress him?

Shion insists that he will tell her, but Kasai only tells her that that's a secret.

Also, he regretted exposing that part of his past.

Shion keeps begging him to tell her all about it, but he simply ignores her.

Let me talk about myself, too.

I, Hanyuu, am doing great in my new life as Hanyuu Furude.

I'm finally getting better at playing games, and now I'm taking the role of the club's dark horse, a position formerly reserved for Keiichi Maebara.

I have a bad habit of believing everything I hear, so Mion and the others always tell me some strange things.

Thanks to that, I am getting tougher, to put it in a good way.

Shrewd, to put it in a bad one.

But then, I need to, otherwise I wouldn't survive in this club.

I'm going to continue to learn a lot of stuff through these club activities so I can live in this human world.

Sunday, June 19th, 1983.

Night falls on my longest day of the past thousand years.

The club members are having a blast.

A lot of people are here.

The stall vendors are still doing business.

The speakers are blaring rough, yet exciting, festival music.

I've known all of these.

But how wonderful it is to actually feel and hear them in person.

I thought I knew.

I thought I knew, because I've been following and watching them.

But that was completely different.

I knew of it, but this is the first time I've actually experienced it.

We had a takoyaki-eating contest.

There was no octopus in it, but it was still very tasty.

We had a shaved ice eating contest.

I would have enjoyed the shaved ice if I had eaten it more slowly.

I bought a candied apple for the first time.

Everyone took a bite from it.

It was tasty.

And it was fun.

We played a shooting game.

I didn't know how difficult it would be to shoot a target.

But it was fun too.

Also, we played a shady lottery game.

It was one of those things where you pulled a string and got a prize.

Nobody got a good prize.

We all complained about it to the vendor.

That, too, was just so much fun.

Then it was time for the dedication dance.

Of course, we go there early,

so we commandeered the best seats.

I snuck out and stood where I was told to.

I could see better than the other club members.

This was the spot where the object of worship sat.

This was where I was supposed to be during the ritual dance.

No, this was where I thought I had to be.

But seeing the dance from that spot wasn't fun.

Therefore, I returned to where I was,

and sat with everyone else.

They saved me a spot.

Everyone rubbed my head while asking me where I went.

I apologized by saying "au au".

That made me very happy.

I watched the performance in the crowd of people.

It was the best dance I've witnessed in the past thousand years.

I couldn't keep either my happiness or my tears from flowing out...

After the dance was over, a handful of cotton was passed around to all the villagers.

We let the cotton absorb all the filth and sins of the past year, and washed it down the stream.

Cotton is cotton.

Obviously, it's not human.

We use cotton instead of a human, so that nobody is sad.

In other words, this is the way to purify sins without making anyone suffer.

"Here you are, this is for you, Hanyuu-chan.

Do you know how to do it?"

"Yes, I do.

I go like this and drift it down the stream, right? Au au."

The girl who gave me the cotton took the letter 'i' from her name during last year's Watanagashi and washed it down the stream. By doing so, she was freed from her suffering, and began a new life.

We drifted our sins down the stream.

It's not the same as pushing our sins onto the cotton. Instead, we wash away our own sins, and forgive ourselves.

We forgive each other, we help each other, and that's how we create our own story.

I put my cotton in the stream gently...

The cotton went down the stream...

into the world

where sins are cleansed.

I let my bare feet soak in the clear stream,

as I watched the long, long line...

of cotton flowing down stream in the dark,

surrounded by people sending their cotton flowing down the wondrous stream.

This is a complete world where all the Fragments were put together.

This is an ideal world.

What else is there?

What else do you need?

Hanyuu Furude...

still wants more.

Because...

We can be even happier than this.

We can be happier if we wish to be.

Not a long time from now.

But in the near future.

...Then when is it?

I told you, it's in the near future.

We will be happy then, too.

...See?