Report 203

Plot
The third term begins, with Kazuomi and Chizuru as the class representatives this time. Arata manages to barely pass all subjects, so there'll be no more re-tests for him. However, Kazuomi reminds him he still has to pass the entrance exams. With less than one month of school left for the seniors, Arata and Chizuru each feel a bit of melancholy.

In the ReLIFE Laboratory, Ryō overhears Kento explaining how the ReLIFE memory erasure works to the Division Chief, and finds out that he also wanted to find a way to preserve Arata's and Chizuru's memories of each other. The first pill each participant takes contains a virus-like mechanism, and each person's virus is unique. The people they come into contact with get infected, and at the end of the experiment, the virus causes infected people to lose memories of the carrier. ReLIFE employees are given antibodies against the viruses of the test subjects, and the test subjects are also given antibodies against the viruses of the employees. Therefore they will remember each other even after the experiment is over. But test subjects 001 and 002 were not given antibodies to each other because the need was not anticipated. By now Arata and Chizuru would have accumulated way too much of the other person's virus and there's no known way to remove it.

Ryō then hears the Division Chief wonder if it is accurate to compare the memory loss mechanism with flu or common cold in the sense that it is more likely to happen the closer you are with the other person.

Trivia

 * Events in the first half of this chapter took place on, and was the second day of school for the third term. It is not explicit whether the second half of this chapter took place on the same day or a later date.
 * Ryō Yoake turned 28 on, which was between Report 202 and 203.
 * While the actual terminology used in this report was antibody, the mechanism described closer resembles that of a vaccine. It is common in many fictional works to get the two concepts mixed up.