My youth story cannot be a knight war

"You're certainly no longer the child who yearned for heroes, nor am I the same person I am now... but that doesn't mean you're not a hero."

His clenched fingers rubbed the quilt, and Kousaka's eyes were so deep that it was difficult to understand, just like the emotions in his heart, which even he himself could not understand.

"To protect humanity, you're willing to burn your own life, even turning into a monster. Besides Zaimokuza, who else in the future will be more worthy of the title of hero than you?"

"You've already become the hero we all dreamed of becoming when we were little."

He looked up at the dim ceiling, insects flying in the dim spotlight. The sky outside had grown dim again without him noticing. He could faintly hear the howling of strong wind coming from outside the closed window, as if a rainstorm was about to come.

At this moment, Kousaka suddenly thought of another person, a person who would walk side by side with him in the future and stand side by side with him. Although he had never met this person in reality, after looking at his future self in the light curtain and getting along with him for so long, under the sense of substitution and empathy effect, the other person could be regarded as his "old friend" to some extent... right?

It was such a weird feeling. He hadn't met the other person in real life yet, but when he thought about meeting such a guy in the future, Kousaka suddenly started to have a headache for no apparent reason. He covered his forehead with his hands speechlessly and rolled his eyes upwards.

…Is this a side effect of excessive empathy for my future self? Especially those parts of me that were brutally persecuted by the other person?

But no matter how reluctant he is, he has to meet the other person in reality. Kousaka is not a child who is completely ignorant of the world.

In the future, he and his opponent would become the two pioneers and guardians of the human race against the Gurongi. Although it was unclear why there hadn't been a scene where a mysterious organization affiliated with a country drove a helicopter into the school in full view of the public and kidnapped him and his opponent, when the "story" played on the screen was completely over, Kousaka knew what would happen just by thinking with his toes.

You and the other person must meet at that time. Even if neither of you has this intention, there will be countless people who want you to meet.

By then, my name and the other person's name will probably be the number one search rate on major international Internet sites for several months in a row. Needless to say, given our current life situations, even the little things I did when I was a child and pulled up other high school girls' skirts out of mischief will be dug up and read by others... No, I'm afraid it has already started.

At this moment, the phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated with the unique feeling of receiving a new message. After Kousaka took out the phone and took a look, his face immediately darkened and the corner of his right eye twitched severely.

The source of the information is JNN's website. Clicking on it reveals the headline, "Latest Exclusive News! Kousaka Kyosuke's Elementary School Teacher Appears for Interview — The Hero's Childhood You Don't Know: The Cold-Hearted Sharpshooter Was Quietly Born!" Below it is a photo of Kousaka pitching a baseball at a school sports meet during his elementary school days. It's unclear how such an old item was found.

As expected, the news media's speed in digging up information is unmatched across all industries. Even Pheidippides, whose deeds in Greek legend established the Olympic marathon as a global event, would be outmatched by them. After all, no matter how fast a person's legs are, they can't outrun the journalists' athletic prowess.

When he thought about how all the little secrets he had hidden would become public knowledge and even topics of conversation, including his hobbies and interests, and even the various unspeakable websites saved on his phone, Kousaka suddenly lowered his head, his figure turned pale, and he felt completely hopeless that life was not worth living.

He finally understood what kind of mood the brother in the news was in who had a car accident and was determined to format his phone even with his last breath.

Unfortunately, that brother ultimately couldn't escape the data recovery methods from a third party, and even the content was directly recorded and became part of the case file... and Kosaka guessed that this was his future.

"...Are you feeling the same as me right now?"

Kosaka said with a bitter face.

"Zaimokuza."

……

Chiba Prefecture, Sobu High School, Service Club.

Of course, Zaimokuza, who was at Sobu High School, could not hear what Kousaka, who was at another school far away in Chiba Prefecture, said, but just like what the other party said, Zaimokuza's current mood was indeed worth talking about.

Because he felt like he was going crazy, or the world was going crazy. In any case, there must be a big problem somewhere.

"The ignorant archaeological team made a grave mistake they absolutely must not make. They personally broke the seal set in ancient times, awakening the bloodthirsty demons from their long slumber. This resulted in the death of the warriors who protected humanity. Humanity paid a heavy price for this. Fortunately, a new hero inherited this power and became the second warrior to fight against the monsters..."

"After untold hardships, the hero finally mastered the true power of the belt that had merged with his body. He successfully transformed into the true form of a super ancient warrior. With the help of the newly acquainted sharpshooter police officer, he defeated the enemy he had once been unable to defeat and made a new friend..."

"Monsters attack wave after wave. In the battle, the hero gradually gains new powers. These are the four elements that represent the composition of all things in the world: blue water, cyan wind, purple earth, and red fire. He uses these powers to protect the smile of the girl whose father was taken away, maintain his friendship with his friends, keep the promise he made to his mentor, and heal a friend who had been trapped by a knot in his heart for many years..."

"In the battle against a venomous monster, the hero collapsed, gravely wounded. As his consciousness faded, he received help from a girl who had survived from the ancient past, freeing him from years of guilt and pain. After bidding farewell to his long-lost friend, he gained the ultimate element, the supreme element representing the power of the soul. With this power, evil was easily annihilated..."

"But the hero isn't perfect. When the people he met on his journey were brutally murdered by monsters, his heart was consumed by hatred and rage. He wielded his immense strength to brutally slay the monster responsible. Upon slaying the monster, the hero saw the true darkness within himself. His enemies weren't just the monsters, but also himself. The most terrifying demon in the world lurked within the hero, poised to devour him once the light within faded..."

"At the same time, the monsters' attacks intensify, and the truth behind their murderous deeds gradually surfaces. All of this is intended to bring the darkness that descended long ago to this world. To this end, the traitorous monsters awaken the once-defeated king. The hero and his companions rush to stop them, but they are powerless against the powerful power the traitor has gained. Ultimately, the traitor is slain by the hero's destined enemy..."

The manuscript papers fell from his trembling fingers, and on top of the papers scattered on the ground, Zaimokuza's whole body trembled violently at this moment.

If possible, he truly hoped he was just having a ridiculous nightmare. But every word written on these manuscripts was like a nail, tearing this absurd reality apart and hammering it into Zaimokuza's brain through his eyes, leaving him with no escape.

“What the hell… is this!?”

The one who made this sound was not Zaimokuza, but Yukinoshita Yukino.

This girl who always sticks to her own principles in everything and faces the world with a cold and rational shell can no longer maintain her composure. Words with a slight tremor fall from her moist lips that have lost their color, and even her navy blue eyes are filled with strong ripples.

But a few pages of manuscript paper, a few sentences recited by Zaimokuza, shattered her disguise. The message contained in these words was completely unbearable, like a tsunami sweeping across the shore, destroying everything. Not only Yukinoshita, but also everyone else in the service club had the same expression.

"…Explain yourself, Zaimokuza."

Her brain was starting to swell from the excessive emotional impact and information she had received. Shizuka Hiratsuka covered her forehead with her hands, and asked the person involved with a twitching mouth.

"Why is it that the image displayed on the screen earlier is exactly the same as the content on the manuscript you wrote down?"

"You...did you know something from the beginning, Zaimokuza-kun?"

Ye Shan picked up one of the fallen manuscripts and read the handwritten words on it. His pupils contracted violently, and he couldn't control his emotions and asked. He had to know the truth. All these developments were too bizarre, like a huge net that enveloped everyone, and no one could escape.

"I, I really don't know what's going on!"

Facing everyone's questioning looks, Zaimokuza spoke somewhat incoherently. He felt like his brain had completely shut down. No matter how his thoughts turned, it was like a clicking old disk. He even began to lose track of what was reality and illusion.

"I just had a dream a few days ago, and after waking up, I thought it was a very interesting dream! So I wrote down what I barely remembered from the dream, and wanted to ask the minister and others to take a look at it as a manuscript! To see if it's suitable for writing as a new story, but..."

Now it seemed that what he had written down was more than just interesting; it was simply earth-shattering and soul-shattering. Zaimokuza clutched his head tightly, feeling as if even the white matter in his brain had been completely dried out by the intense heat rising from his skull.

What the hell is going on? Why is the content of the future exactly the same as what I wrote down? Did I foresee the future that hasn’t happened yet in my dream?

Wait, if that's the case... Zaimokuza was suddenly stunned. He immediately fixed his gaze on the manuscript papers scattered at his feet, the light in his eyes so bright that it seemed to ignite the air.

"That's right! If these developments are exactly as Zaimokuza wrote—doesn't that mean these papers also describe an even more distant future!???"

It was like a flash of lightning exploding from his brain, and Tobe Shoya's eyes suddenly widened. For the first time in his life, he felt his brain suddenly become sharp, as if he had just opened his eyes and could not understand the atmosphere.

His exclamation also woke up everyone, and everyone realized that if all future developments were the same as what Zaimokuza had written... then they could now know the distant future that even the light screen had not yet displayed through the contents of these manuscripts!

While Tobe Sho was speaking, Zaimokuza had already bent down to pick up the scattered manuscript papers and stacked them one by one according to the page numbers, from the smallest to the largest.

But when he got to the sixth page, his movements suddenly stopped. His eyes stared at the page in his hand, his pupils contracted uncontrollably, and he muttered to himself.

“Nothing… at all???”

The page was blank, so bright and white that it seemed to reflect the faces of all who saw it, with astonishment and disbelief evident on it, like a mirror of all beings.

"Yihui, is this all you wrote down?"

Silently withdrawing his gaze from his own light screen, Ebina looked at the blank paper in Zaimokuza's hand, frowned slightly and spoke softly.

"No! I remember it clearly! I wrote many pages, nearly twenty pages in total! But why—"

"Why, everything I wrote down is gone!"

Zaimokuza held his head with one hand. This time he felt like he was really going crazy. Everything that was happening before his eyes was completely unreasonable.

It had only been about three days since he wrote this stack of manuscript paper, so Zaimokuza remembered very clearly how he excitedly bent over the desk when he woke up from the dream and was inspired. He used the tip of his pen to condense the words and then wrote down the remaining scenes in the dream one by one on the manuscript paper. Now he even remembered clearly the excited face reflected in the standing mirror on the table. It was impossible for him to forget how many pages he had written.

But now, everything from page six onward was blank. With each turn, the white pages seemed to mock Zaimokuza's memory, his heart growing cold. Until Yukinoshita pulled the stack of documents from his hands, Zaimokuza mechanically repeated the same action for who knows how many times, like a teacher grading papers late into the night.

Is this some kind of ghost story? Or has reality finally gone completely crazy? Zaimokuza's mind was in a mess. In order to verify it, he began to try his best to recall the dream he had originally had, hoping to find some fragments to support it.

But something even more shocking happened. As Zaimokuza tried hard to recall, the initial content of the dream began to gradually become clear. All the scenes matched the scenes played on the screen before, except that it was from a first-person perspective.

But when the memory came to the battle in Waichang Village, all the remaining images were like a bridge with the front road blown off by explosives, leading straight to nothingness. All the images after that seemed to be shrouded in a layer of haze, and were even gradually disappearing from the mind.

"Damn it! What the hell is going on!?"

Unable to bear it any longer, Zaimokuza clutched his head and roared. He felt as if the world had suddenly changed, becoming so unfamiliar, even himself. Everything seemed shrouded in a dark gray haze that gradually permeated his mind into reality. Before all this began, something had already quietly occurred, but no one had noticed.

Ebina silently held his shoulders. Seeing Zaimokuza like this, Yeshan could only choose to remain silent and swallow all the questions he wanted to ask back into his throat.

"Hikigaya-kun, can you guess anything?"

Taking out half of the stack of documents in her hand and handing it to Hikigaya who was silent in front of her, Yukinoshita was also full of doubts. All this was really too bizarre.

Right now, she and the man before her were the only ones who could think straight. They had to discuss this privately to see if they could uncover any clues. And although she hated to admit it, this man had the potential to be admitted to the world's top university, a science major. His logical thinking was undoubtedly exceptional, and he might be able to uncover some truth that no one else could.

"What do you think of the dream Zaimokuza-san told you about? Why is the content he wrote down based on the dream exactly the same as what was played on the screen before? It's like—"

"...predicting the future, right?"

Looking at the blank manuscript paper in his hand, Hikigaya softly interrupted Yukinoshita. The girl hesitated for a moment and nodded in agreement.

"That's what I would normally think, but Yukinoshita, have you ever considered another possibility?"

"What do you mean?"

Looking up, facing Yukinoshita's puzzled face, Hikigaya spoke word by word:

"What if—this isn't actually 'predicting the future,' but 'live broadcasting'?"

"...Hikigaya-san, please speak humanly."

"Then you might as well expand your thinking. The problem isn't Zaimokuza, but..."

Hikigaya didn't say anything else. He just folded the manuscript in his hand and stuffed it back into Yukinoshita's arms. Ignoring the confusion on the other's face, he turned around and looked at Zaimokuza who was surrounded by people behind him. His face became completely gloomy at that moment.

Everything that had happened before flashed through his mind at that moment, not only the light screen, but also reality. Hikigaya suddenly looked at the sliding door of the service club, his eyes dark and uncertain.

That was exactly the direction that "Zaimokuza Yoshiki" walked in from just now. Everyone deliberately ignored what had just happened, because everything that was happening now was confusing to begin with, and there was no point in adding more doubts on this basis.

The dream that Zaimokuza had before that predicted the future, the appearance of the light screen and video, the future scene, the future "Zaimokuza" appeared here, he saw me at that time... Hikigaya clenched his fists, he found that these seemingly boundless and unconnected things actually always had a unified reference point.

——That is [time].

The dream Zaimokuza had a few days ago predicted something that hadn't happened yet; that was the future; the scene displayed on the screen and video was also the future; the future "Zaimokuza" appeared in the current Service Club; that was also the future. Essentially, these were all things happening at the two ends of a single timeline.

And before that, the "Zaimokuza" that belonged to the future saw me, and that was...

"The 'past' and 'future', which should never have met... at that moment, intersected."

With his hands clenched into fists, Hikigaya could only feel cold sweat running down his back, soaking his undershirt.

——The problem isn’t Zaimokuza, but this entire world, the point in time where all of them are now, and this entire timeline.

The problem is not with a certain individual, but with the entire world. This is such an outrageous and bold inference, but Hikigaya intuitively feels that this is probably the truth behind all the changes now, and it is also the only plausible explanation.

Before this, the appearance of videos and light screens clouded everyone's ability to think, making everyone think that this was the source of all the changes, but in fact everyone was wrong.

The video and the light screen were never the true source of the anomaly. Something had been quietly happening long before these two mysterious objects appeared, and they had simply uncovered the true mystery of the anomaly. It wasn't that Zaimokuza hadn't written down the contents after page five, but that they were probably still "unwritten."

The dream he had was probably not a dream...it was because he saw things that would happen in the future. The reason why he couldn't remember what happened afterwards was because the things that happened afterwards "had not" happened yet.

Zaimokuza probably didn't forget what happened afterwards, but his memory had been modified by some force. By this world, by this timeline connected at both ends, the order of cause and effect of all things had been completely reversed.

So he did not predict what would happen in the future after "seeing" it, but the things "had" happened, so he knew it.

Finally, the truth was figured out, but because of this, Hikigaya felt what it was like to be truly terrified.

——The normal operation of the world has been tampered with unknowingly. The upper and lower ends of the originally linear timeline have been forcibly connected like a Möbius strip. The future and the past influence each other. What kind of power can do this?

Moreover, if I continue to think on this basis... Hikigaya glanced at the scene on the light screen in front of him without leaving a trace.

The light screen showing the future scene...is this "future" really not the "present"?

And if this inference is correct, then we... Remembering the information he had learned through the light curtain before, Hikigaya's clenched fist trembled slightly, and the nails of his fingers pierced into the palm of his hand.

Komachi...

If some things really have already happened... then is this moment in time where we are now "now" or -

"past"?

14. Laughter (6k)

[Kyoto Prefecture, Kitauji High School. 】

【 10:48 AM 】

Although it's the weekend, the school isn't as quiet as usual. Instead, it's incredibly lively. People are bustling about the campus. Students have changed out of their regular school uniforms for a variety of casual clothes that showcase their youth. Couples, usually more secretive than the other, are walking hand in hand on campus today. The dean, who usually arrests couples like drug dealers, has chosen to turn a blind eye.

This isn't just because there are visitors from outside the school, including prominent alumni, but also because today marks Kitauji's 40th anniversary and the inauguration of its sixth president. With these multiple buffs stacked against them, even the school officials, no matter how much they dislike those couples, can only choose to ignore them.

To celebrate the school's 40th anniversary, the school's music hall, previously used only for the school's classical orchestra, was opened to all students today for the first time, allowing them to perform their talents on stage. This was intended to improve the perception among other schools that Kitauji is "second-rate in everything except music" and to increase future student enrollment.

[And for today's anniversary, the school has reportedly invited the head of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's countermeasures headquarters, responsible for handling incidents involving unidentified life forms, a figure now invariably associated with the Metropolitan Police Department—Kousuke Kosaka.]

After the incident of Unidentified Lifeform No. 35 led to the resignation of the former Superintendent and a sharp drop in the Metropolitan Police Department's popularity, the department, whose reputation had become synonymous with "empty payroll," directly promoted Kousaka Kyousuke to the forefront in an effort to revive its reputation. They used every possible means to shape his image, even more so than the entertainment industry's efforts to create top idols. The various publicity methods and intensity were overwhelming.

Almost any time you open your phone, you'll see news reports about Kousaka Kyousuke's career, all over the news platforms. Photos of him from every angle, 1 degrees of coverage. To the uninitiated, you'd mistake them for the cover of some fashion and entertainment magazine, rather than an officially sponsored news outlet. Aside from the fact that he's a GO and G equipment user, which remains a closely guarded secret, all his other deeds are publicly available. Even the incident where he was late for his police academy graduation ceremony because he was helping an elderly woman across the street is clearly documented. The intensity of his portrayal is truly deification.

This isn't just the Metropolitan Police Department's strong backing; even the various chaebols and political circles are contributing. Tokyo, Japan's hub, has seen its GDP plummet to an extremely dangerous level due to the frequent incidents involving unidentified life forms over the past year. Given this drastic decline, if no effort is made to stabilize public sentiment, the consequences will be unwelcome. Therefore, the various factions that normally clash for personal gain have united as never before, mobilizing all their might to aid the Metropolitan Police Department in restoring the public's sense of security and public confidence.

However, everything has two sides. This kind of shaping power also has certain side effects. Under such a huge amount of traffic, if the recipients do not have certain skills, they can easily suffer from the backlash of the traffic and cause the collapse of the house.

But Kousaka Kyosuke really held on. His work history since joining the company was already quite impressive. It's said that when the publicists opened his profile, after spending about ten minutes looking at it, they all gave the same answer: no need to embellish it, just copy it as is.

His achievements were too brilliant, and his resume too clean. In a world where the Japanese police force is largely dominated by scoundrels and scoundrels, he was like a clear stream piercing through the quagmire. The phrase "untainted by the mud" perfectly captures the essence of him. It's said that one of the publicists, after reading Kousaka Kyousuke's resume, thought he was hallucinating and burst into tears afterwards.