Failing to save the girl you love dozens of time is Hell.
Anime
- The reveal in Episode 23 that Karen Travers has traveled to the past literally dozens of times to try and save his childhood friend Alice Ichijo from death who he secretly had romantic feelings for and failed every single time. This was alluded to in Episode 16 when Karen says "I've failed once again" after Alice died as an Other, but seeing his repeated failures makes it that much more emotional. What's more, all of Yuito's team is present to witness this past event and are feeling Karen's emotions, which causes them all to reel in psychological pain and causes them to cry.
Video Game
- Karen's character episodes take the above a step further by revealing what ultimately broke him in the original timeline: after a long time of investigating, researching and raising a resistance with Fubuki, they were found out by New Himuka. Authorities arrested their allies and then proceeded to use Alice to hunt them down, knowing how much she meant to them. Karen had mostly given up at this point but Fubuki, who knew that his friends were in love, couldn't bear the thought of them being forced to fight. He told Karen to run and when Karen refused to leave him behind Fubuki trapped him in ice. He then flash froze himself and Alice, killing them both instantly. Karen, who desperately tried to stop him, was just a second too late and had to watch the two people he loved most shatter.
- Karen's greatest and only wish was to live in a world with both Alice and Fubuki. Until the very end he never found a timeline where his wish could be fulfilled. The only time line that saw them both alive was the one where Karen never existed in the first place.
- Naomi. She was scouted into the OSF, but could have chosen not to join based on her connections as a Randall. It's implied she did it to be there for her sister, but this choice costs her everything. In order, she's painfully transformed into an Other when she takes a bullet meant for Kasane and gets beaten within an inch of her life by Yuito in self-defense. She's left to go crazy before being transported to the Supernatural Life Research Facility, where she's able to maintain lucidity as a human...by being given drugs made from human brains, which she considers a Fate Worse than Death. Even after Kasane makes it clear she still loves Naomi as a sister, Naomi can't help but admit she'd rather die than live life effectively as a cannibal. Then, before Kasane or Karen can find a way to reverse the metamorphosis, she's abducted by the Melone sisters to be used as a weapon against Seiran, and forced to watch her sister fight to save her. Kasane wins, but the Togetsu Design Children pick that moment to show up to take Kasane back to Togetsu by force. Naomi decides to go out with a Heroic Sacrifice, taking down a small army of Design Children with other human-born Others like her. It's telling Naomi only considers this a moral victory because she was able to perform 'one last act of humanity' and protect her little sister before dying. She tries to give Kasane some moral encouragement before dying, and it sticks, but the normally stoic Kasane finally can't take any more grief in her life and breaks down bawling. Everything Kasane fought for up until that moment, and she loses her beloved sister anyway.
- Nagi. He started off excited and gung-ho to join the OSF alongside his best friend Yuito, and everything steadily went to hell from there. First, he sees Naomi, whom he had a crush on, turned into an Other firsthand, while sustaining injuries that led him to being hospitalized. Then, he's given a government personality rehabilitation that initially seems to alter his memories into him believing that Naomi was killed in action—while acting rather blasé about her death at that. Afterwards, the next time he sees Yuito, he tries to kill him under brainwashing from the personality rehabilitation, and ends up killing Seto instead, even while Seto was trying to snap him out of it and keep the government from sinking their hooks into Nagi. But alas, Nagi undergoes further brainwashing that eventually leaves him stark raving mad, literally trying to take Yuito's head off. And after Yuito fends him off, his brain starts to shut down from sheer stress, and all he can do in his last moments is tearfully ask Yuito if there was anything he could have done differently. Plus, unlike Naomi who at least got to protect her sister, Nagi was merely a pawn until ultimately discarded.
