The Hidden 1996 Story

This flow follows the forgotten failure of the 1996 strategy and its influence on the 1998 class.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

Sakuma’s Selection

The Chosen Absence A Quiet Student Sakuma is selected as the student treated as absent during the 1996 active year. Pressure Without Explanation The role is meant to prevent deaths, but the social burden rests on one adolescent who cannot openly protest without endangering everyone.

The Role Abandoned

Isolation Breaks A Public Plea Sakuma can no longer endure being ignored and demands that classmates acknowledge him. Disaster Resumes The deaths begin soon afterward. The class interprets the sequence as proof that the strategy failed because the absent student broke the agreement.

Sakuma’s Suicide

The Human Cost Death After Disaster Sakuma kills himself after the calamities begin. His death may be counted among the people linked to the class. A Warning Erased The event disappears into the larger memory loss surrounding the year. Later students receive only fragments of the story and cannot fully understand its danger.

Reiko’s Lost Class

The Head Teacher’s Fate A Teacher in the Range Reiko Mikami is head teacher during the failed 1996 year. Her position places her inside the danger zone. The Hidden Death The restored history says she drowned in Yomiyama River after the second semester began. Her later appearance as assistant teacher reveals the phenomenon’s ability to return the dead.

The 1998 Echo

Repeating the Failure Another Double Strategy The 1998 class tries to alter the number of absent students, as though a procedural adjustment can correct the past. Another Teacher at Risk Reiko’s return repeats the unresolved 1996 pattern. The class unknowingly places the former casualty at the center of a new disaster year.

spring 1996

early second semester 1996

January 1997

1996 school year

June and July 1998