My youth story cannot be a knight war

2. The name "α" (two in one)

Chiba Prefecture, Sobu High School, health room.

"Because my parents were busy with work when I was very young, it was actually my grandmother who raised me, and she has always been the person I am closest to."

"Just a few years ago when I was preparing for the entrance exam to Sobu High School, my grandmother suddenly became ill and was hospitalized."

"So during that time, I had been thinking about the story in my mind, and wanted to write it down and show it to my sick grandmother in the hospital. I hoped that her condition would get better after reading the story I wrote. So every day I was preparing for the exam and doing my best to write, trying to finish the story as soon as possible... This is the only thing I can do for her."

"But on the day I passed the Sobu High School entrance exam... my grandmother died in the hospital due to worsening illness. I was still in the examination room at that time, so I didn't even get to see her for the last time."

"In fact, I know very well in my heart that grandma did not break her promise to me. The one who broke her promise... was me."

"Although it doesn't make sense, I have been thinking about one thing in the past few years. If I could finish writing that story for my grandma before her condition got worse, would my grandma... not have died?"

Zaimokuza spoke of the past with a sad expression, and everyone was silent after hearing it.

"So you've been blaming yourself all this time? For not being able to see your grandma for the last time, or for not being able to fulfill the promise you made to your grandma?"

Hikigaya listened to his confession in silence, then spoke softly.

"…I don't know, maybe it's both."

Zaimokuza shook his head and spoke in a low voice.

"During that time, I was in a daze. I locked myself in my room except to go to the toilet and take a shower. Even meals were cooked by my mother and delivered to my door."

"My phone was always turned off. I didn't answer any calls from anyone. I cut off contact with everyone I knew and lived like a primitive man in a cave. Now that I think about it, I just wanted to use this self-exile to calm my inner pain and get over the grief of my grandmother's death as soon as possible."

"It was not until the day of the Sobu High School entrance ceremony that I came out of the stinking room filled with all kinds of household garbage. My appearance at that time scared my parents."

"why?"

Although he knew it was inappropriate to say this, Tobe Sho couldn't help but ask out of curiosity.

"Because the way I looked at that time was very different from the way I was before."

"How big is it?"

In response to his best friend's question, Zaimokuza was silent for a while, then spoke hesitantly.

"In about half a month... my entire body was completely swollen. Afterwards, I measured it on the scale and found that I had gained nearly 50 kilograms."

"Huh? In other words..."

Shizuka Hiratsuka glanced at Zaimokuza's graceful figure, which could only be described as "round". Not only the corners of her mouth, but even half of her left face began to twitch.

"You told us before that you used to be very thin... weren't you bragging?"

"——I've always told the truth, okay? Is it so hard to believe that I used to be handsome? Why do all of you look at me as if I saw a sow firing a rocket? Hey! Why are you guys still turning your heads away?!"

Facing Zaimokuza's fierce complaints, everyone turned their heads away tacitly, trying not to smile.

Zaimokuza Yoshiteru does have some strange qualities. When talking to him, no matter whether the topic is good or bad, it seems that the whole process always ends with a smile.

When interacting with him, it seems that everyone will have a smile on their face in the end, and there will no longer be any haze or darkness.

"…Hey, Zaimokuza."

"What's wrong? Hachiman."

As everyone laughed, Hikigaya reached out and patted Zaimokuza's shoulder, and spoke softly as he looked over at him.

"Everyone's life will always leave some regrets, this is the same for everyone, no one is special."

“But even so, human beings are ultimately a kind of life that lives in the present and looks to the future… So let the pain and regrets of the past stay in the past along with the people of the past.”

“I believe that the past should not be a constraint on the present, but a stepping stone from the present to the future.”

"...Hachiman."

Listening to Hikigaya's rare outpouring of sincerity and advice, Zaimokuza felt somewhat surprised and at the same time moved.

It turns out that this dead fish eyed guy isn't so vicious after all, and he sometimes cares about people.

But the next moment, another sentence from the other party made the smile that had just appeared on the corner of his mouth disappear instantly, and his eyes turned into dead fish eyes.

"And to be honest, your funny face is very suitable for being a comedian, but not for being gloomy all day long. That's not like you at all, so just smile more."

"After all, I now regard the various humiliations of your future self in the light screen as an indispensable entertainment in life. To be honest, it is precisely because I see that your future self is living such a miserable life that I feel that my depressed body and mind have been relieved a lot."

"Sure enough, happiness always needs to be built on the suffering of others?"

“You kid…!”

……

Amid the two's playfulness and the crowd's laughter, unknown changes were gradually taking place at the window's location.

In the reflection of the glass window, on the other side of the mirror, a pair of eyes were quietly watching everything that was happening in the health room.

"..."

"Hikigaya Hachiman" stood on the other side of the glass, quietly watching Zaimokuza Yoshiki and "himself" who were wrestling with each other with their hands and foreheads against each other, and narrowed his eyes slightly.

Unlike Hikigaya Hachiman's dead fish eyes that are always drooping and with DHA concentration almost overflowing from the eye sockets, Hikigaya Hachiman's eyes are no different from those of a normal person. With the addition of these eyes, although the two look exactly the same, he fully releases the handsomeness of his facial features, and it can be said that his appearance has been completely elevated to a higher level.

Hikigaya has never looked ordinary, but because his pair of dead fish eyes that are so strong in presence are so eye-catching, people often tend to overlook his own outstanding facial features.

If we really talk about handsomeness and growth potential, Hikigaya Hachiman's appearance can actually be said to be no less than Zaimokuza Yoshiki, and even his future self is comparable.

But at the same time, compared to Hikigaya Hachiman's eyes, which were sleepy but contained surging emotions, his eyes did not have the slightest trace of human emotion in them.

Those dark eyes were like two black dry wells, deep but without any life in them, just like the dead sea without ripples, completely swallowing up all the characteristics belonging to human beings.

"Hikigaya Hachiman" just quietly watched the two people fighting, turned silently and walked behind him, towards the door of the health room in the mirror.

He walked through the group of people gathered in the mirror, bypassed Zaimokuza Yoshiki and Hikigaya Hachiman who were fighting, went to the sliding door of the health room, opened it and walked out. Every move he made was open and unconcealed, but no one could detect his presence.

"Hikigaya Hachiman" is like a ghost, an illusion traveling between life and death, reality and illusion. He stands alone on the other side of the dead and silent realm, walking on a road that no one knows about.

pat.

The door of the health room closed with a crisp sound as he did so, echoing in the empty world.

-

In a trance, after the door closed, a sound similar to birdsong was heard in the mirror, and a huge black shadow shaped like an eagle passed through the mirror image of a group of people.

The cry brought with it a few wisps of black feathers that seemed real and illusory, floating through the reflection of the window glass and disappearing in a flash.

"Ok?"

Yukinoshita Yukino, who was smiling as she watched the two people playing, seemed to hear the sound of the door closing, and subconsciously looked in the direction where the sound came from.

The door of the health room remained closed as it had been since they came in, without any change, which made her a little confused and she thought she had heard it wrong.

Did anyone open that door just now?

【Tokyo City, Tokyo Bay coast, Keihin Industrial Zone.】

【 09:53 PM 】

【boom--! ! ! 】

[At this moment, a violent explosion suddenly occurred in a delivery room in the quiet factory area, and the sound resounded throughout the entire factory complex.]

[When the initial explosion sounded, more explosions sounded one after another. The flames and shock waves completely shattered the glass of the factory. Smoke rose from the burning factory, casting a layer of haze over the sky that was obscured by the city's light pollution.]

[“Wow!!!”]

[At the same time as the explosion occurred, screams of pain were heard from the factory. A figure with flames all over his body flew out of the door of the delivery room and rolled a long distance on the concrete floor.]

[“Ugh—Damn it! Damn Lindo warriors!”]

[Me-Gadora-Da, who resembled a tiger, rolled on the ground in pain, trying to put out the flames wrapped around his body.]

After extinguishing the flames by rolling over, Gadora, still covered in black smoke, stumbled to her feet with one hand, looked up at the burning factory, and spoke through gritted teeth.

【raging--】

[The flames burned the factory gate, and the flames soon burned the gate beams off. The iron pillars that were burned red by the high temperature collapsed to the ground, making a deafening roar.]

[In the burning fire, a pair of red compound eyes lit up, and its owner walked out of the door with the sound of footsteps, and the figure hidden by the flames gradually became clear. ]

[A pair of blue feet with flames swirling around them walked out of the door, and as they landed, they extinguished the sparks under their feet.]

[“…Are you still alive?”]

Kousaka Kyosuke looked at the unidentified lifeform No. 25, who had stubbornly stood up in front of him. His eyes narrowed slightly beneath his helmet. He pulled the data cable extending from the rear end of the Machine Destroyer he was holding from the side buckle of his belt, then threw the entire weapon away without any regrets.

【Clang.】

[The large shoulder-fired rocket launcher, which had run out of ammunition, rolled over on the ground for a few rounds, and as the smoke rose, Kousaka Kyosuke made another move.]

[He stretched out his hands and grasped the hilt of the greatsword that was fixed on his back, twisted the hilt and slowly pulled it forward.]

The blade of the greatsword, Machine Exorcist, gleamed with a cold and ferocious light under the illumination of the flames behind it, also illuminating the armor worn by Kousaka Kyousuke.

Compared to the Generation Zero suit he wore last time, this armor looked considerably bulkier. The heavy armor bore many similarities to Kuuga's Titan form. The only unchanged features were the helmet and the inscriptions and codenames engraved on the left and right breastplates, which gleamed a dark golden glow in the blazing flames.

【Generation·Zero·α.】

This is the name of the armor Kousaka Kyousuke currently wears. It's an upgrade and modification by Himena Ebina based on the GO. Besides lowering the physical requirements, which were too high for a wearer of his caliber, it also adds various equipment and functions that the GO originally couldn't provide due to funding issues. This greatsword and the bazooka I just discarded are two of them.

[‘α’, the Greek symbol for alpha in English, represents the beginning of everything in Greek culture.]

[“Hey, hey, hey! Kousaka-kun, you’re being too reckless!”]

[Hina Ebina, who was far away in the control room, saw Kousaka Kyosuke's violence through the built-in camera of her helmet. She couldn't help but put her hand over the left chest of her white coat, which was propped up by the towering human heart. She felt her heart throbbing slightly, and her vision went black.]

【“——Factory! You actually blew up the factory!?”】

[“Do you know how much it will cost to clean up after this? My superiors will scold me. And don’t throw the equipment away! That’s all money! It’s money!”]

[“Although we have sufficient funds now, you can’t——”]

[“Okay, let’s go back and listen to your complaints… Number 25 stood up again.”]

[Kousaka Kyosuke interrupted her endless complaints, looked at Gadora who had completely stood up, held the sword in both hands and pointed it at her forehead, and calmly recited the command.]

【“——Full load mode, activated.”】

[“——Demon Slayer, extreme power drive!”]

【Om—】

[As soon as he finished speaking, tiny blue flames began to spurt out from the jets on his armor, gradually becoming larger and larger, and the red light from the compound eyes on his helmet almost illuminated everything in front of him.]

The Machine Exorcist, gripped tightly in both hands, also began to transform. A dazzling yellow electric current spread from the hilt to the blade, and over time, it began to turn blue. The crackling sound of the electric current almost drowned out the sound of the delivery room collapsing behind her, like the incessant chirping of a thousand birds, making Gadora feel irritated and angry.

"But, it's just a fake imitation of Kuuga! Do you think you can make me retreat?!"

【"--wishful thinking!!!"】

Looking at Kousaka Kyosuke, whose entire body was shrouded in lightning and blazing fire, and whose voice was as fierce and majestic as the arrival of the god of thunder, Gadora forcibly suppressed the fear in her heart that she was unwilling to admit, and roared fiercely.

"Go to hell!!! Go!"

[It slammed its feet against the ground, and its body dived toward Kousaka Kyosuke amid the rising gravel. Its fists were clenched into fists, and the brass knuckles shone with a cold metallic luster.]

Seeing the enemy rushing towards him, Kousaka Kyosuke did not panic. He calmly grasped the sword with both hands and held it at his right side, ready to strike with a sword. His eyes calmly watched Gadora rushing towards him.

[Until the distance between the two of them was rapidly shortened, and a pair of mechanical compound eyes reflected its right fist raised high in front of him, he suddenly drew his sword out of its "sheath"! ]

【boom--】

[A dazzling blue light suddenly lit up, illuminating the entire dark sky at night, and then dimmed again. ]

【“…”】

[Kousaka Kyosuke maintained the posture of swinging the sword forward to the left, his body not moving at all.]

Not far behind him, Gadora also maintained the posture of swinging her right fist. Their bodies moved in sync, without any movement or sound. All around was a dead silence and the sound of burning fire.

[Click——]

A crisp cracking sound broke the tacit silence. Suddenly, a crack shone from the center of the dark silver demon belt around Gadora's waist, emitting a golden light. It then spread outwards, splitting the belt in two.

【boom--! ! ! 】

The next moment, while still standing and swinging her fist, Gadora's body exploded from the inside, and the spreading flames engulfed Kousaka Kyosuke behind her and everything around her.

[When the flames dissipated, Kousaka Kyosuke, who was surrounded by white mist, slowly retracted the sword he had swung and thrust it into the ground. The sharp blade pierced into the hard road surface like cutting tofu.]

Generation Zero α's first battle, and also Kousaka Kyosuke's first battle since being discharged from the hospital—

[Battle result: complete victory.]