My youth story cannot be a knight war

He said this with a smile, without a trace of gloom or darkness for his impending end.

"This is my choice. I have never regretted it. So I shouldn't cry, I should laugh instead~"

"Come on! Smile."

"..."

The corners of Zaimokuza's mouth twitched a few times, and then under the other party's gaze, a smile slowly appeared on his face, a smile that looked like he was about to cry.

"Hmm~ Very good."

"Ugh?"

Suddenly, "Zaimokuza" opened his arms and hugged him. Zaimokuza felt the warmth coming from in front of him and was completely stunned.

"My story is over now."

Leaning down to his past self's ear, "Zaimokuza Yoshiteru" whispered softly.

“But never feel sad, because the story will never end, it will just go on and on.”

"And what follows is your story."

Tears finally fell from Zaimokuza's eyes at these words, his voice thick with a raspy accent.

"In the future, I..."

"Go back to your time and those who love you."

He released his hands, slowly took a few steps back to increase the distance between them, and with most of his body already dissipated in the dissipating light, "Zaimokuza Yoshiki" smiled.

The next moment, the smile was drowned out by the shining light, and a few words were spoken.

"This time, you must protect everyone around you~"

"Yoshiki Zaimokuza."

After saying this, he turned and walked behind him, towards the bright light, and then his figure gradually blurred in the light until it disappeared.

Under the tearful gaze of the white-haired boy, the man named Zaimokuza Yoshiki left.

The light then bloomed even more dazzlingly, completely engulfing everything in front of it.

(BGM: Homeward Journey · Qingshan Daerma)

……

In the dim room with the curtains drawn, the early morning sunlight shone through a tiny gap in the curtains, illuminating the boy who was sleeping on the table.

Zaimokuza Yoshiki lay on the table in front of him, his face pressed on a piece of manuscript paper, tears flowing from his tightly closed eyes, soaking his face and the manuscript paper his face was resting on.

At a certain moment, his eyelashes began to vibrate and tremble, and then his closed eyes slowly opened under the sticky tears, and his vision gradually became clear from blurry.

What came into view was the door of the room that he was already familiar with. Zaimokuza opened his eyes and lay there with his face resting on the table, motionless.

"...!"

Suddenly, his dull eyes trembled, Zaimokuza raised his head from the table and looked around.

The familiar wardrobe, the familiar ceiling, the familiar bed, and the familiar table in front of me.

All of this was just like every day in the past, when Zaimokuza would sit at his desk day and night thinking about the story, then he would just lie down in front of the desk in a state of sleepiness, and would not wake up until dawn.

But all this was different. Zaimokuza clutched the clothes on his left chest tightly with his right hand, feeling the throbbing from his heart. The surging emotion still lingered and was unwilling to leave.

It was an emotion that could not be calmed for a long time after witnessing the entire story. This emotion in his heart was completely incompatible with the tranquility that he was familiar with every morning, which made Zaimokuza unable to ignore it.

"So all... was just a dream?"

Watching everything and listening to the tranquility outside the window, Zaimokuza murmured.

But the next moment after he said this, everything suddenly changed.

The morning tranquility outside the window, which was originally characterized by a slight background noise mixed with human voices, suddenly disappeared completely, and extreme silence spread. The whole world seemed to have turned into a silent and eerie realm in an instant.

Before Zaimokuza could react, a new abnormality occurred.

The next moment, the whole world came alive.

It was a wave that seemed to overturn the entire surface of the world. Countless voices with different emotions gathered together and sounded from far to near, forming a chaotic and grand sonata. Even closing the windows could not block this wave of sound.

Starting from Chiba Prefecture in Japan, this wave of sound began to spread rapidly to the whole world at an extremely fast speed. Everywhere was filled with surging human voices. In less than a minute, the entire earth was caught in the tide of human sound.

Even some areas that were constantly ravaged by war were caught up in the same atmosphere at this moment. Some of the enemies and friends even threw away their loaded guns that were about to be fired, and hugged each other with tears in their eyes on the battlefield filled with war, jumping and cheering without paying attention to each other's positions.

People cheered, roared, cried...all kinds of sounds came together to form a warm wave that boomed into the sky. The tranquility of every region and country in the world disappeared at this moment, and only endless human voices lingered.

"This is……"

Listening to the sounds coming from outside the window, Zaimokuza turned his seat in astonishment, not knowing what was going on.

Pa~!

The door handle of the room was suddenly turned and then opened violently. The other side of the door hit the wall directly, making a loud noise.

A panting couple was standing at the door of Zaimokuza's room. When they saw Zaimokuza sitting in front of the table, a layer of crimson quickly filled their wide eyes.

Looking at his parents who suddenly opened the door and rushed in, Zaimokuza couldn't help but open his eyes wide and spoke in a somewhat bewildered manner.

"Dad, Mom—Ah!?"

Before he could finish his words, the parents in front of him opened their arms and hugged Zaimokuza at the same time. Zaimokuza's mother hugged her son, while Zaimokuza's father hugged his wife and son together, holding them tightly and not wanting to let go.

This time Zaimokuza was really stunned. Before he could say anything, he heard his mother sobbing.

"Yihui—that's great! That's great! I'm so glad you're okay!"

"...Stupid son! Stop trying to be a hero!"

Zaimokuza's father let out a hoarse growl from his throat. He hugged his wife and son tightly, as if he wanted to squeeze them into his chest.

"Could it be——"

As he listened to his parents' words, Zaimokuza's dazed gaze gradually came back to his senses, and widened to the point where it could no longer be opened.

"Isn't all this a dream?"

"Hope no のはな system い だ tie が ～ the current servant ら の chest の中 に あ る か ら ～ determinate し て San る こ と は な い ～生きる力! Hope の は な system い だ——"

At this moment, the cell phone on the table suddenly rang with an incoming call and kept buzzing.

At the same time, messages kept popping up on the lit page, and names of people flashed across the screen one after another. Zaimokuza picked up his phone and looked at the flashing information stream, muttering:

"By the way, Hachiman, Buchou... everyone!"

……

“Huh~!”

Panting due to the intense exercise, Zaimokuza put on his own clothes and ran along the street leading to Sobu High School, never stopping for a single moment.

On every street along the way, countless people were standing and talking excitedly. Some of them inadvertently glanced at Zaimokuza who was running past them, and their eyes immediately widened to the size of the bells hanging on Santa Claus' chest.

"Hey! Could that person be——"

"There's no mistake, it's really him! It's Zaimokuza-san! No, it should be the past Zaimokuza-san!"

"Where is he going? Let's follow him!"

I don't know who spoke first, but immediately people started chasing Zaimokuza who was running in front. There were only a handful of people in the beginning, but within a few minutes it became a river-like stream of people, all chasing the figure running in the front of everyone. It was quite similar to the scene in "Forrest Gump" where the crowd chased the running protagonist.

But Zaimokuza didn't take it to heart at all. He just gritted his teeth and kept running, weaving through people's exclamations and gazes again and again, running towards his goal.

Regardless of physical exertion and nothing about the outside world, Zaimokuza just ran ahead of the crowd, running through the streets and alleys, running near the Shinkansen tracks, and running along the winding slope.

After running for an unknown amount of time, Zaimokuza finally stopped and held his breath as he looked at everything in front of him.

In front of him was the open gate of Sobu High School, but no students were in class at the moment and everyone was gathered at the school gate.

At the same time, countless cars came from nowhere and blocked the school gate. Reporters carrying their cameras bombarded the few people standing in the front of the student group. They were sweating profusely from responding to the reporters' fanatical questions.

His trembling pupils reflected the appearance of those people across the crowd. Zaimokuza's throat moved, and the emotions churning in his chest turned into a call full of countless emotions that came out of his mouth.

"--Everyone!!!"

Zaimokuza's call seemed to have some kind of magical power, causing everyone who heard the voice to stop their actions and stop the symphony of words.

The next moment, everyone looked behind them and saw the boy standing opposite Sobu High School. The expressions on almost everyone's faces froze instantly when they saw him.

But not all people were like this. Some people, after hearing Zaimokuza's voice, directly crossed the crowd and walked towards him with quick steps.

clap clap clap...

She was a beautiful female teacher in a white coat. She lowered her head, her long straight black hair hanging down to cover her expression, and her steps echoed in the silent street.

Looking at the woman who walked quickly towards him, Zaimokuza's face twitched and there was genuine joy in his eyes.

"Hiratsuka-san—"

Snapped! ! !

Intense pain accompanied by the crisp sound of flesh colliding came from the left cheek. Hiratsuka Shizuka's unrestrained slap directly made Zaimokuza stagger. He covered his face and turned his head, his expression perfectly interpreting the meaning of the word "confused".

"……well?"

"you this--"

The female teacher, who was still waving her hands, was trembling all over under everyone's gaze. She suddenly looked up, revealing a pair of red eyes filled with tears.

"——Stupid student!!!"

41. Such a blessed new world

(BGM: Homeward Journey · Qingshan Daerma)

"You—stupid student!!!"

When that slap hit his face, not only Zaimokuza Yoshiki, but everyone else present was stunned. All that remained at the scene was the increasingly rapid sound of reporters pressing their camera shutters and the echo of Hiratsuka Shizuka's curse with a trembling ending.

After saying this, Shizuka Hiratsuka finally raised her lowered face. Her eyes were filled with tears and bloodshot, staring intently at the dazed student in front of her.

Zaimokuza covered the side of his face that was beginning to swell up, and looked into Hiratsuka Shizuka's eyes. All he could see in them was deep anger. There was neither the pride that a teacher should have towards an outstanding student, nor the joy of having survived a disaster.

"—"

But the next moment, Zaimokuza froze with his hands covering his face, his long black hair flying in front of him, and Hiratsuka Shizuka suddenly opened her arms and hugged him.

The switch from anger to hug was seamless, the change took not even a second. Shizuka Hiratsuka hugged Zaimokuza tightly with her arms, her hoarse voice accompanied by tears flowing from her eyes.

"You idiot! Stop trying to be a hero! Your future self, come back to me eventually!"

"You said a bunch of nice things and left, then pushed everything onto Kousaka! If you really want to say goodbye, then say it to your future self!"

Her slender arms tightened their grip around Zaimokuza, and Hiratsuka Shizuka spoke with a choked voice.

She was now speaking not only to Zaimokuza, who was embracing her, but also to another person, who had the same name as the student in front of her.

But the other person with the same name will never come back.

For Shizuka Hiratsuka, both of them are her own students, and this fact will not change, no matter in the past or in the future.

But in the end, only the past returned, while the future disappeared to the other side of time and space to save the world, leaving behind only a general farewell.

"What do you mean the next part is our story... You idiot whose head is full of literature when writing books! Pay attention to yourself!!!"

"Ugh?"

Listening to Hiratsuka Shizuka's rapid-fire words, Zaimokuza didn't even have time to think about the meaning of her words. He froze in place because of what she said.

"Hiratsuka-sensei, are you..."

The last words of Hiratsuka Shizuka were replaying in his mind. Zaimokuza turned his head stiffly and looked at Hiratsuka Shizuka who was hugging him and sobbing softly, and said with a dazed expression.

"You know? Could it be that... Teacher, you saw everything?"

"Hiratsuka-sensei wasn't the only one who saw it."

A clear and cold voice sounded from the side. Zaimokuza, who was still in a daze, looked in the direction of the voice and saw a stunning black-haired girl walking in front of him with a graceful step.

"minister?"

Looking at the other person who approached calmly, Zaimokuza spoke hesitantly.

"It's not just Hiratsuka-sensei, we all saw it."

Staring into Zaimokuza's eyes, a ripple flashed in the depths of Yukinoshita Yukino's dark blue eyes, and a smile slowly appeared on her expressionless face.