Now and Then, Here and There

Shuuzou “Shuu” Matsutani is a regular middle-schooler with friends, a quiet crush, and a love of kendo. After a discouraging loss to his rival, he climbs a smokestack to catch the sunset and meets Lala-Ru, a reserved blue-haired girl wearing an unusual pendant. Shuu tries to reach out to her, but her distant replies leave him doing most of the talking—until strangers arrive with a single purpose: take Lala-Ru.

When Shuu impulsively intervenes, he’s pulled into a harsh desert world ruled by soldiers and defined by scarcity. Shuu learns that Lala-Ru can produce water through her pendant—an ability that makes her invaluable in a land where water is precious—but the pendant soon goes missing, and suspicion falls on him. Caught in the machinery of a militarized dystopia, Shuu is forced to endure brutality, hunger, and the realities of war as he clings to one goal: protecting the girl he tried to befriend.