My youth story cannot be a knight war

Then, in order not to harm the world, the man begged himself to kill him.

Baruba had promised him that he would free that man from the dark power of Yamaddam, but at the same time he had buried the last of his own humanity with his own hands.

But the memory of having seen the light was deeply engraved in Baruba's heart, making her unable to adapt to the original darkness.

She knew very well that these feelings and memories were the source of all her pain, and that feelings were the most unnecessary thing for Gurongi...but Baruba just couldn't give them up, nor was she willing to give them up.

She is a Gurongi, but she also possesses a human heart. The darkness that comes from the essence of her soul makes Baruba unable to extricate herself, but that human heart has always told her about the beauty that truly existed in the world.

Perhaps it was because her soul was so contradictory that she could no longer completely transform into the form of Gurongi, nor could she become a complete human being. From then on, she became a strange existence wandering between the two major races.

Fate was truly ridiculous and cruel. After so many years had passed, another person with the same soul and appearance faced the same fate, even right in front of me...

...Is this the karma that belongs to me?

"Ha~"

Baruba smiled as she whispered the word she had learned from reading books, and the blood flowed more violently from the corner of her mouth.

A fair hand reached out and stroked the alienated face of "Kousaka Kyosuke". Her eyes were as hazy as if there was a layer of morning mist floating around, and her voice was barely audible.

"Fate is predetermined. If that's the case..."

Baruba suddenly opened his arms and hugged the "Kousaka Kyosuke" in front of him.

"Then let another person step onto the altar of fate."

As soon as she finished speaking, countless white vines burst out from her back, tearing apart the elegant white dress and enveloping the smiling Baruba and the roaring and struggling "Kousaka Kyosuke". Countless swaying and enchanting roses bloomed.

The vine spread over every piece of land and every building that still existed in the harbor, and then roses bloomed on the vines one by one. For a moment, red became the only color in this world.

But this crimson is not the red of blood, but the red of roses, the color of blooming life.

"The agreement between you and me is now complete..."

"KUUGA."

15. Towards a New Future (7k)

"I once, indeed, hated you... Dad."

Watching the faint white particles appearing on his fingers, Kousaka Kyosuke silently put his right hand into the outer pocket of his windbreaker and spoke softly.

"I hated you for slapping me when I said I wanted to be a police officer like you. I hated you for leaving Kirino and I alone at the amusement park management office for hours. I hated you for not even being able to take a photo with us when we started school... There were all sorts of other things, but I can't remember them all anymore."

"And the thing I hate the most among all these things... is definitely the fact that you gave everything to me before you died."

"Thanks to what you said, I haven't had any free time since that day. Not only do I have to study harder than others, but when others go out to travel, I have to work part-time to supplement the family income. Fortunately, Kirino has her own income as a magazine model, otherwise I might have to pay for her school..."

The burning cigarette released a large amount of smoke, covering Kousaka Kyosuke's eyes as he spoke.

"It was relatively better after that, but around the time you passed away, Mom also fell ill, and Kirino was also mentally traumatized. It was then that I took care of the remaining matters."

"For example, I took Kirino to see a doctor, helped Mom contact the hospital for hospitalization, and earned money for both of our medical expenses myself. Then, I had to move to deal with the hyena-like media. On top of that, I had to balance my studies and part-time jobs. I even had to deal with some distant relatives with ulterior motives who were interested in the pension you left behind... I was only seventeen when I did all this."

"I lost my life, my fun, my friends, and had to get up early and go to bed late every day, with no more than five hours of sleep, and I was constantly scheming against everyone. This kind of life lasted for about a year... I have to say, that period was truly unforgettable. At one point, I even considered just finding a rope to hang from the roof beam and jumping out."

"But if I leave too, what will happen to Mom and Kirino? Are we going to have to watch them live with the criticism and strange looks of others? So there's no other way. I can only make do with this."

"..."

Listening to Kousaka Kyosuke's narration, which was almost like a soliloquy, Kousaka Daisuke lowered his head, and his hands on his knees unconsciously clenched his pants tightly.

"During that time, I probably hated you more than ever. You left behind such a mess, and I have to pay for it."

"……sorry."

For the first time, Kyosuke Kousaka heard the man who had always been an upright man in his memory say these words to him, and his tone was so humble and apologetic.

"If I were eighteen, I would probably feel relieved to hear you say that, but I don't need it now."

The cigarette had burned to the end without him noticing. Kyosuke Kousaka flicked the butt away, looked down at his open palm and said.

"To me now, all this is just a little bit of wind and frost."

He was only about 25 years old, but the lines on the palm of his hand were full of ravines. If you didn't look at his face, the rough calluses and knuckles made him look like a weathered middle-aged man.

"And besides hatred, I learned something else during that time...that is responsibility."

"I've forgotten where I heard this, but I remember it was something like 'admiration is the furthest distance from understanding'... So at that time, a thought popped up in my mind: have I ever really understood you, Dad?"

"So with this in mind, and wanting to fulfill your last wish before you died, I enrolled in the police academy."

Having said that, a smile appeared on Kousaka Kyosuke's face for the first time, with a glimmer of memories lingering in the depths of his eyes.

"Life at the police academy was pretty interesting, I guess. There were interesting classmates, a group of five troubled kids who kept challenging me to competitions after I crushed them in every subject, but they kept losing. There were also interesting instructors who were always organizing special training and activities with youth-themed themes... To be honest, because of you, Dad, I always thought the police academy was a Spartan military training institution, but once I got there, I discovered it was just a sanatorium full of mental patients."

"With official training institutions like this, it's no wonder the Metropolitan Police Department's performance has been declining over the years. I have a feeling that if things continue like this, sooner or later even civilian detectives will become the Metropolitan Police Department's saviors."

"…That's normal. The Metropolitan Police Department headquarters has always been known as a retirement home for professional teams. The capable people are actually in the branch police stations."

Kousaka Kyosuke, who has been called the "light of the Metropolitan Police Department", made a profound and sharp assessment of the current situation of the Metropolitan Police Department, and Kousaka Daisuke, a veteran detective, nodded in agreement.

It was a rare occasion that the father and son reached a consensus on something. They looked at each other, and suddenly their two cold faces with similar expressions smiled together.

"~"

"During that time, it was a pleasant surprise, but after graduation... everything changed."

The smile on the corner of his mouth gradually faded, and Kyosuke Kousaka's expression was gloomy for a moment. He raised his head and looked at the endless darkness above his head except for the light.

"In my first year after graduation, I lost my senior... He was investigating a case that turned out to be a drug trafficking operation disguised as smuggling. He was stabbed in the back with broken glass by a drug trafficker. By the time I arrived, it was too late."

"Then I took over the case he was responsible for. I spent nearly six months tracking the entire Nagano Prefecture. Finally, through information provided by an insider, we took down the drug trafficking gang and their protectors. I was also the one who returned his police uniform and the reward for solving the case to his family. As a result, I received a slap in the face from my wife, who was seven months pregnant."

"It was then that I perhaps truly understood the difficulties of being a police officer, and I also began to understand why you, Dad, were so depressed at home."

"Because of my outstanding abilities, I was quickly appreciated and promoted by my superiors. I also began to take on many difficult cases. I handled and resolved them one by one. It was also during this process that I learned to smoke. Due to the busy caseload, I went home less and less often..."

He turned his head and looked at his father who was also restraining his smile, with an expression on his face that seemed to be neither a smile nor a smile.

"Do these actions sound familiar, Dad?"

"...Have you ever regretted being a police officer?"

Kousaka Daisuke did not answer his question, but just asked a seemingly ambiguous question.

"I regretted it, and I regretted it many times."

Kousaka Kyosuke replied, giving his answer without any hesitation.

"But I can't stop anymore... because I've finally become you, Daddy."

"That was when I stopped hating you and couldn't hate you anymore."

"..."

salsa——

Kousaka Kyosuke slowly turned around, and white particles had begun to appear on his face. Seeing this, Kousaka Daisuke closed his eyes, and after a long silence, he let out a long sigh.

There was relief hidden deep in his eyes, and he spoke in a dry tone:

"You, are ready to make up your mind, right?"

"I've been prepared for this, but this time, I won't regret it."

Lifting his hands from his windbreaker pockets and watching the particle streams beginning to appear on both arms, Kyosuke Kousaka's eyes contained no fear of impending doom, but only relief.

"I used to think I had become your dad... but then a fool told me that I was wrong."

"It was that idiot who taught me how to be kind to those around me, how to smile. It was also him who freed me from the constraints of my heart... I feel really sorry for him, not only because I left him alone to face the future, but also because I didn't fulfill the promise I made to him."

"It seems that you have really made a very good friend..."

Kousaka Daisuke said softly, to which Kousaka Kyosuke smiled, his tone firm.

"You're wrong. I'm the only one in the world, the best friend... From this point of view, I'm much luckier than you, Dad."

"Indeed. So...are you ready to say goodbye?"

"no need."

The father and son stood up from the bench one by one. In response to his father's question, Kousaka Kyosuke shook his head and said with a smile.

"That idiot doesn't need to be sad, he just needs to keep smiling, at least when I can see him."

"...Then let's go. I'll listen to you slowly for the rest of the conversation later."

"Ah~ I still have a lot to say to you, Daddy——???"

Kyosuke Kousaka's expression suddenly froze, the dispersion of particles in his body suddenly stopped, and then a new change occurred again.

The golden light started from the soles of his feet and quickly spread to his entire body. The warm light even turned Kousaka Kyosuke's pupils golden.

At the same time, a powerful force began to surge out from within his body, as if a hot spring had appeared out of thin air in his body, and the overflowing power repaired the weakness and damage in his body.

"What—what happened?"

He looked at the light blooming from his body with an uncertain look in his eyes. On the contrary, although Kousaka Daisuke who was standing in front of him had a slight change in expression at first, a look of realization immediately appeared in his eyes.

Looking at his son's unprepared expression, his face turned into one of relief and joy.

"It seems that you don't need to come here so early."

……

What is life?

There was a long time when Baruba had been thinking about the true answer to this question, and it all started after she killed that man with her own hands.

There are many different definitions of life in modern philosophy. Among idealistic philosophies, the most well-known is probably that life begins with the soul, and that spirit precedes matter and therefore precedes the world.

This is the statement that Baruba is most interested in among similar books that he frequently reads during this year.

If the essence of life is the soul that is independent of this material world, then is the body just a shell that houses the soul and can be replaced at any time, and the most essential part always belongs to the soul?

As a plant-type Gurongi, Baruba has her own unique insights on this point, because she can also use her abilities to create clones similar to her original body, just like the unidentified life form No. 25 who once died at the hands of Zaimokuza.

During an experiment to kill time, she successfully created a clone with a strength very close to her own body, and even transferred her consciousness to it. After the original body lost consciousness, it became an acquired clone.

This successful experiment confirmed the partial correctness of Baruba's idea. The definition and existence of life are indeed inseparable from the soul and even the spirit.

To a certain extent, Baruba successfully achieved a different kind of immortality on her own. As long as she still has an avatar in this world, the distance between her and death will always be the opposite.

On this basis, she came up with another idea:

If one were to fill one's own body matter into another corpse that was about to die, or had already died, would it be possible to save a life that was about to die?

Even, is it possible to bring the dead back to this world?

But not long ago, another old friend who had also survived from the ancient times to the present day, used herself as an example to tell Baruba the answer to the second question, as well as evidence for the first question: lost life cannot be brought back, life can only be continued.

And now, Baruba has made the same choice as Miou.

Countless vines spread out in all directions with Baruba's body as the center. Their paths were densely intertwined like spider webs, covering the burning buildings, the ruined harbor, and even the cement and asphalt were invaded.

Her body and the body of Kousaka Kyosuke were also trapped inside. The toughness of these vines was incredibly strong. No matter how violently the latter, whose mind was now dominated by dark forces, struggled, she still could not be torn apart. She could only roar as the two of them were entangled in the sea of ​​vines into a long cocoon shaped like an eggshell.

When both were covered by vines, countless gorgeous and enchanting red roses bloomed on the vines throughout the entire harbor and even in Jiangdong District. The enchanting red was breathtaking, and the petals were blown high into the sky by the sea breeze.

But slowly, this layer of scarlet that was so dazzling that it was almost glaring began to be replaced by another color.

It was pure and spotless white. At this moment, all the red roses began to lose their original color from the base of the branches, and the brown and black tones of the vines themselves began to turn white. As a result, the sea of ​​flowers covering the entire Jiangdong District became pure white.

In the dilapidated Tokyo, where only black and gray remain, a third, completely opposite color is emerging. Looking down from above, a grand white rose blooms on the desolate ruins.

And in the long cocoon surrounded by vines, warm white light was blooming from the gaps in the vines. Under the light, countless white roses bloomed even more vigorously.

This is a sacred sacrifice, the roses and vines are the altar, and the scope covers the entire Jiangdong District.

At this moment, in the cocoon that envelops the two people, the greatest chemical reaction in the world is taking place, like the reproduction of a living system, but if those are the creation of life, then this is a rebirth of life.

Kyosuke Kousaka's body had already reached its limit due to the long-term use of the G1 system. Whether it was as detailed as the internal organs or the most basic cell division, everything had reached the theoretical maximum value for humans. Conventionally speaking, he was an old man on the verge of death, and it could be said that his death was a natural end.

This is not because of a significant reduction in life expectancy due to an epidemic, nor is it due to excessive trauma that is beyond recovery, but rather the decline of the natural life mechanism itself, which there is no way to reverse.

But this irreversible iron rule was completely overturned at this moment.

Now that his body has reached its end, everything from the invisible cells to the atoms and molecules that make up the entire carbon matrix, as well as the most basic known units of existence such as quarks, have been reborn. A powerful external life force has reversed this body that has reached its end, causing the entire body's physiological structure to "regress" on a physical level.

However, during this process, the strengthened nerve groups that had spread throughout Kyosuke Kousaka's body experienced a completely opposite decline, withering rapidly, and then turning into pure nutrients that were absorbed by the body. What was manifested externally was that the surface of the alienated body gradually turned into ashes and fell off, revealing the original human appearance.