In this crossover anime, Yoshikage Kira longs for a peaceful life.

Chapter 121 Nino: I'm shivering with anger. I'm training. What are you doing?

After adding him on LINE, Yoshikage Kira suddenly asked:

Do you want to continue watching the movie?

Yoshino Junpei paused for a moment, then nodded:

"Ah, I plan to watch this movie. I think it's very interesting and I don't want to waste this opportunity."

Shimazaki Yuna blinked, so Yoshino Junpei is probably the type Kira-kun described as 'tired of a peaceful life and seeking excitement'?

When she watched this movie, she didn't find anything interesting about it.

And also.

Isn't he being a little too calm?

After all, someone had just died in front of him, and he could even see an 'explosion'. Wasn't he afraid at all?

Or was this person abnormal from the very beginning?

Yuna Shimazaki didn't know the answer, nor did she really want to know.

“Yuna”.

Yoshikage Kira pulled the girl back to her corner seat. "Sorry, I made a mess of it by accident."

"It's okay."

The girl shook her head slightly, her bright purple eyes gazing tenderly at Kira Yoshikage, a faint smile on her face. "In the end, it's their fault, not Kira-kun's."

Kira Yoshikage gently took the girl's small, jade-like hand in his hand and asked softly:

"Yuna, do you know about psychic powers?"

Shimazaki Yuna's eyes brightened slightly as she asked curiously:

"Psychic power? Is it something similar to magic, commonly found in light novel settings?"

"similar,"

Kira Yoshikage:

"Battle aura, magic, spiritual power, spell power, divine power—whatever you call them, they are all essentially different manifestations of spiritual energy."

"In this world, there exist special human psionicists who possess psionic abilities, and there also exist 'spirits' composed of psionic abilities. The birth of 'spirits' is closely related to humans. For example, people's fear of urban legends such as 'Slit-Mouthed Woman' and 'Hanako' is why they actually exist."

"Wait a moment!"

Shimazaki Yuna tightened her grip on Kira Yoshikage's hand slightly, her voice trembling, "So the Slit-Mouthed Woman and Hanako really exist?"

"Ah, almost all the 'vengeful spirits' in well-known urban legends actually exist. To put it simply, 'spirits' are all based on negative human emotions, so most of them are vengeful spirits or 'cursed spirits,' and only a very small number of the deities enshrined in shrines are 'benevolent spirits.'"

Shimazaki Yuna subconsciously glanced at the bizarre monster on the big screen:

"Do those earthworm-like people really exist?"

"That's not it."

Yoshikage Kira shook his head and explained softly, "The most important factor in generating 'spirit' is not confirmation, but falsification."

"If something cannot be disproven by humans, then it may actually exist. For example, the Kuchisake-onna (slit-mouthed woman) in urban legends—while no one can prove her existence, no one can disprove it either."

"Because it cannot be disproven, people's fear of the Slit-Mouthed Woman will gradually solidify into the image of the 'Slit-Mouthed Woman'."

"But the fear that movies bring is different, because movies can be falsified from the very beginning."

Shimazaki Yuna seemed to be deep in thought.

While movies can be very scary, the actors in them are real people. Viewers know the movie is fiction before they even enter the theater. Although they may feel fear, they don't worry every day that the stories in the movies are real.

In contrast, urban legends that appear out of nowhere, without any names or actors, are often much more difficult to disprove. Even if someone manages to disprove them, it's impossible to convince everyone.

Inevitably, some people will raise doubts: what if the so-called "falsification" is just a lie released by the government to appease the public? And even if we assume the worst, who can prove that the evidence you use to falsify the claims is genuine?

Therefore, to disprove something, you not only need to disprove the thing itself, but also need evidence to prove that you are disproving it.

This is like the classic nesting doll problem:

How can you prove that you are you? And how can you prove that your father is your father?

Even if you provide countless pieces of evidence for classic urban legends, as long as someone still raises doubts, the story remains questionable and cannot be completely disproven, and new 'Slit-Mouthed Woman' stories will continue to emerge.

After all, it has always been this way: it takes only a mouth to spread rumors, but it takes a lot of legwork to refute them.

Conspiracy theories have always been popular and enduring, no matter where they are.

Yuna Shimazaki couldn't help but mutter to herself:

"Isn't this almost unsolvable?"

Humans cannot prove that ghosts do not exist, because things that do not exist cannot be proven.

But those who believe in ghosts don't need evidence; they don't even need to believe that ghosts actually exist. Just doubt is enough to make ghosts exist.

As for science.

Science cannot explain everything.

Even in the technologically advanced 21st century, at least 70 billion of the world's 60 billion people still adhere to various religions.

Even among the remaining 10 billion people without religious beliefs, the vast majority are not staunch atheists; they still doubt the existence of gods and ghosts.

This kind of doubt is itself a belief in gods and ghosts—if you don't believe they exist, why doubt them?

Yoshikage Nikichi said softly:

"It is unsolvable, but it is not completely unsolvable."

"People cannot disprove urban legends, but not all urban legends can become widely circulated. Since the Meiji era, there have probably been tens of thousands of urban ghost stories in Japan alone."

"Of these urban legends, only about a dozen have truly survived and become widely known. The vast majority of forgotten urban legends are essentially 'dead.' They will never be born unless someone talks about them."

"The same goes for gods; they will gradually disappear as long as no one believes in or worships them anymore."

"Japan claims to have eight million gods, but there are only 80,000 shrines across the country today, and a large portion of them enshrine the same gods. If you count them carefully, there are probably only a few thousand gods who are still being worshipped. The vast majority of gods have long been forgotten in the long river of history and have completely disappeared."

"The same fate has been experienced by the yokai that have been widely circulated in Japan since ancient times. Shigeru Mizuki's 'Complete Collection of Yokai' includes 718 kinds of yokai in two volumes, but this is still not all the yokai that have been born in Japanese history. Many more yokai have long been forgotten."

"But even among these 718 kinds of monsters, how many people can remember them all? Most people can only remember a few of the most famous ones, such as the Kappa, the Flying Head Ban, and the Nurarihyon... The vast majority of the remaining monsters are no longer talked about by people."

"Compared to gods, monsters have a very weak presence in modern times. Various urban legends have basically replaced their ecological niche, and as time goes by, monsters will probably be completely forgotten sooner or later, and then monsters will face true 'death'."

Yuna Shimazaki inexplicably recalled a famous quote she had seen online:

A person will experience death three times in their lifetime.

The first time is when the heart stops beating; biologically speaking, the person dies.

The second time is at the funeral, when acquaintances come to pay their respects, which signifies that all of this person's social status has been erased.

The third time is when you truly die, when the last person in the world who remembers you dies.

From a biological perspective, monsters may never have truly lived, and their deaths would not be mourned by relatives or friends.

Therefore, monsters do not need to experience the first two deaths.

For them, there is only one true death: when there is no one in the world who can remember them anymore.

"That,"

As if struck by a thought, Shimazaki Yuna asked curiously, "Does the degree of belief people have in these 'strange' things also affect their 'formation'?"

Yoshikage Kira gently kissed the girl's fair hand, and whispered an explanation into her slightly flushed cheek:

"Of course there will be an impact, and it's not just that people's 'degree of faith' differs, but also that different individuals have different 'faith'."

"In Japan's widespread understanding, vengeful spirits are divided into five levels based on their strength. The lowest is level 4, followed by levels 3, 2, 1, and then the Special Level. For example, the Slit-Mouthed Woman can only become a Special Level spirit by absorbing the 'doubt' and 'faith' of hundreds of millions of people in Japan."

From a dialectical perspective, this can be understood as 'quantitative change is a necessary preparation for qualitative change, and qualitative change is the inevitable result of quantitative change.' The quantitative change of 'doubt' from hundreds of millions of people ultimately led to the 'qualitative change' of the Slit-Mouthed Woman.

"If only ten million people believe in the existence of the Slit-Mouthed Woman, then the Slit-Mouthed Woman might only be level 1. Because the decrease in quantity will also lead to the decrease in quality."

"But some people can bring about a qualitative change with just one person, and can create a top-level vengeful spirit by themselves!"

Kira Yoshikage paused slightly; he was referring to the God of Pure Love.

According to the theories of the sorcery world, a sorcerer's magical power does not produce 'curses' because their magical power flows into themselves.

But the God of Pure Love is an exception.

His magical power was so immense that, without his awareness, he successfully created a wife who was far superior to the vast majority of magical spirits.

From a psionic perspective, the idea that sorcerers cannot create curses is a false proposition.

It's never a question of whether or not it's possible, but rather a question of whether or not one wants to.

Sorcerers channel their magical power into spells, so no excess magical power flows into curses.

But what if a sorcerer doesn't use their spells, but instead focuses on creating curses?

That's how the lake god of Shuchiin Academy came to be.

The sorcery community's insistence that 'sorcerers' cannot create 'curses' is nothing but a self-imposed lie. The lie itself may not be well-intentioned, but the result it produces is indeed good.

As long as sorcerers insist that their magical power cannot produce curses, this lie can become a reality.

Even if it's only temporary.

Yoshikage Kira wasn't so bored as to expose their lies, as that would only cause trouble for his peaceful life.

however.

These words, however, had a different meaning when they reached Shimazaki Yuna's ears:

Can one person's 'belief' create a top-tier vengeful spirit?

The girl murmured to herself, recalling the girl in military uniform who claimed to be her daughter.

That was indeed the daughter she created, to whom she had poured all her heart and soul, as a farewell to this world.

Although Kira-kun prevented her from parting from the world, her daughter was still born safely.

and so.

Does she exist only because of her own belief?

Does that mean she also has that talent?