My youth story cannot be a knight war

"So I have a special plan for you to make sure you never get in my way."

The golden blade turned into light fragments in Hikigaya's loosened hand and dissipated its original form.

But these light particles did not disperse, but instead gathered towards the palm of Hikigaya's outstretched hand. A faint card emerged in the light, and the blue-black card back reflected a deep and strange light.

Pinching the emerging card with two fingers, Hikigaya slowly turned the card over, with the card face facing Xu Guoliang.

On the front of this card, countless chains intertwine, with a cube rotating at an angle in the center. In the upper left corner of this pattern, a golden bird-shaped emblem resembling a figurative totem shines with golden light.

"This card was made just for you."

Holding the card, Hikigaya uttered a single word with an indifferent expression:

""seal up"."

Seal vent

The moment the melodious Chinese characters sounded, a dazzling light burst out from the card. The golden bird emblem in the upper left corner suddenly spread its wings as a male voice with the same tone as Hikigaya's sounded, as if it had come to life in an instant and evolved into a living creature.

The entire card dispersed in the light and turned into a stream of light that flowed into the golden blade that pierced Xu Guoliang's chest. Under the infusion of this light, the entire blade burst out with a dazzling reflection.

"Well!?"

A huge pressure suddenly descended upon the wounded body. Caught off guard, Xu Guoliang uttered a muffled groan and stared down at the flashing bloody blade in front of his chest.

Then, the blade that pierced him lost its fixed shape under Xu Guoliang's gaze, and turned into four golden rays of light that flew towards him and hovered around him.

When the light faded, four concave and convex objects like building blocks were suspended in the air. These "building blocks" extended with faint lights connected to Xu Guoliang's body, swaying like ropes.

"As you can see, I will seal you away, and this is a seal that cannot be broken."

Putting down his hands, Hikigaya stared at Xu Guoliang silently, with a light in his eyes that no one could understand.

"Don't expect to break through the seal from within. This is an absolute seal that even constrains time... Unless the main body of the seal is destroyed from the outside, you will never be able to escape."

The use of three "absolutely" in two sentences as modifiers and emphasis shows how certain Hikigaya is of this fact.

"Just wait in peace in this purgatory seal constructed by time and space."

He paused and said.

"When we meet next time... that will probably be the end of the 'story'."

"I've always...believed in you."

In response to Hikigaya's words, Xu Guoliang did not show any panic about his fate. He just lowered his head and spoke in an almost inaudible voice.

Hikigaya heard it, but said nothing. He just silently raised his right hand towards Xu Guoliang, with his palm facing him.

At the last moment, Xu Guoliang raised his head and stared at Hikigaya with his palms outstretched. Rage gushed from his eyes, and he roared with unprecedented passion:

"——That guy, he believed in you until the very last moment!!!"

""close"."

Hikigaya responded to Xu Guoliang's angry questioning with this cold and ruthless word.

The golden blocks burst out with light and suddenly closed towards Xu Guoliang in the center along the extended light lock.

Until the last moment when his vision was completely blocked, Xu Guoliang did not move his gaze away, still staring at the man in front of him who was completely different from the man in his memory, as if he wanted to find something familiar to him.

But when the blocks closed together for the last moment, what he saw was still that pair of eyes, cold and dark, without any light in the pupils.

The completely closed block swallowed up Xu Guoliang, then floated in the air, and its size quickly shrank until it finally shrank into a small cube.

The six sides of this cube are engraved with the golden bird emblem, which looks exactly the same as the pattern on the card that just disappeared.

pat.

The cube fell to the ground, and the crisp sound echoed in the gradually cracking space.

"goodbye……"

Staring at the small cube, Hikigaya withdrew his hand and watched in silence.

"Kamen Rider Teller."

"唳~!!!!!!"

A sharp cry drowned out Hikigaya's whisper, and the ground in front of him suddenly cracked open, sending even the cube flying into the air.

A huge golden shadow spread its wings and rose into the sky from the bottom up, with its magnificent wings spread out, wantonly showing its supreme majesty to this space that was about to collapse after losing its creator. The cry shook the crumbling structure of the space.

The figure flew towards the suspended block, and the bird's beak, sharp as a razor, opened, swallowed it, and then suddenly closed.

Hikigaya did not see this scene. At the moment the ground cracked, he turned around expressionlessly and walked behind him, leaving the magnificent golden bird behind him to spread its wings and fly.

With every step he took, the ground in that area cracked and arms with sharp nails stretched out, swaying behind him like rising seaweed.

It wasn't just the ground. All the outer walls of the space in all directions, up, down, left, and right were broken open by countless arms and claws with the sound of cracking. They swayed layer by layer and stretched out towards Hikigaya, the only life that existed in this space.

Those ever-present voices increased the volume of the roar, revealing the extreme bloodthirsty desire and greed, as well as the hatred of unsatisfied desires.

"Just continue to be patient."

Hikigaya stopped and looked up at the various arms scattered throughout the space. There was no fear or timidity in his eyes due to the scene before him that was comparable to a demon being released from a cage. Instead, there was only the most extreme coldness.

"Soon, the bloody feast will begin."

And now the biggest obstacle on this road has been removed by himself. Without anyone realizing it, the hero who has been protecting the world has fallen silently.

A world without its guardian, along with all the lives within it, can only be slaughtered.

——Already, no one can stop me.

"from now on--"

Slowly turning his gaze to the driving book in his left hand, Hikigaya calmly announced to the world.

"The ending of the story is decided by me."

“???!!!!!!”

Amid the demons' roars, this pure white world completely collapsed, and countless impatient black shadows rushed in, drowning all hope and light.

Click, click, click, click——

……

"Please, please remember quickly, please stop it..."

In the darkness, someone's voice echoed, and the tone sounded like crying and praying.

"Now, you are the only one left. Everyone... please."

"Please... stop my brother."

0. Fight for My Sins

Everything I do, from the beginning to the end, always has only one purpose.

I will use my own will to completely deny the self-evident correctness of this world.

……

In an empty, white yet dark room, a man in a black windbreaker stood silently in the center of the room, looking forward with a crescent-shaped purple light flashing in the depths of his eyes.

In his right hand, a silver-white book was floating in the air and spinning endlessly. The originally tattered cover of the book was now completely new, flashing silver-purple reflected light in the blooming blue light, reflected in the eyes of the viewer.

As he watched, the countless suspended beings controlled the book, causing imperceptible vibrations. Even the blue light that had been flashing on the cover began to flicker, and a faint noise similar to a computer overload could be heard.

"Are you still unwilling to give up resistance?"

Feeling the human-like resistance waves emanating from the Control Book in his hand, Hikigaya Hachiman's eyes remained calm, and he just said calmly.

"But, this is ultimately a meaningless and desperate resistance."

“Cry~!!!”

The cry of birds filled with utmost majesty and primitive brutality resounded in this empty and strange space. Invisible and formless, a huge bird-shaped black shadow spread out from the reflection of Hikigaya's feet despite being in a dark place, and its huge wings spread out, covering the entire left and right diameters of the room.

On the bony protrusions of the winged black shadow, opposite hues of red and blue suddenly lit up. These two different balls of light burst out from the black shadow and shot in right-angled curves towards Hikigaya, who was standing in the center of the room.

The two rays of light collided with each other in an instant, doubly pinching the Book of Control of Thousands of Living Beings floating in Hikigaya's palm. The impact of the two powerful energies with different properties created a spherical energy magnetic field, wrapping the Book of Control inside and squeezing it.

Under the heavy pressure of this energy magnetic field, the Control Book activated its own defense mechanism and burst out blue-purple lightning to resist, but the energy reserves of the two sides were very different. One side only relied on the rootless wood stored before, while the other side was connected to an almost endless energy depot.

However, in less than a minute, the lightning that controlled the book gradually weakened in the pure purple magnetic field created by the mixture of red and blue energies, until it was finally completely suppressed, and the trembling of the entire book also stopped.

"cough!"

Someone's painful cough sounded from the driving book, and then it disappeared as the driving book became calm.

The book that suppressed the resistance fell onto Hikigaya's open palm below. He lowered his head and stared at the book in his hand, which no longer looked unusual. A golden glow shone in the center of his dark pupils.

After glancing over the structure of this driving book, the strange light in Hikigaya's eyes gradually dissipated over time, and finally returned to its original color after about two minutes.

“…I see. That’s what’s going on.”

The hand holding the driving book fell to his side. Hikigaya lowered his head and looked at the bird-shaped black shadow still dancing under his feet with a cold and dull look in his eyes.

"Aside from the most important functions of starting the story and gaining the power of faith, the rest of the abilities to select the 'protagonist', choose the stage location, restart the story, and observe the future timeline have been damaged... This is your resistance. Those 'supporting characters' are another matter. Is your real purpose to prevent me from taking action against the person who will become the 'protagonist' in advance?"

"You went so far as to destroy a portion of the Control Book with your own hands just to stop me... You did a great job, Xu."

While he was praising people, the lines on Hikigaya's face were as cold and hard as iron, faintly reflecting a cold light as sharp as a knife.

He knew that the facts were completely opposite to what he said, and Xu Guoliang's move had caused him considerable trouble.

This means that Hikigaya only has the right to choose whether to open the "story" or not, and he has completely lost the possibility of getting involved in other areas.

Not only can you not use your own judgment to restart in the event of a "bad file" after starting the "story", you can't choose the "protagonist" as you wish. Once the "story" is started, there is no possibility of starting over again. You can only choose this world line and go all the way to the end. You can't even observe the results in advance.

From now on, once the "story" begins, no one will be able to clearly know in which direction this world line will develop, because Xu Guoliang personally locked this visible result into a conceptual black box full of chaos and uncertainty. He left the beginning and ending of the "story" to the characters inside to compile, and also cut off the possibility of other outsiders intervening in advance.

Just as Hikigaya said, this was a very beautiful "master move". Since he had lost the right to sit at the table, Xu Guoliang chose to overturn the table completely, which not only cut off the possibility of everyone playing chess, but also left the outcome of the game to the free decision of the chess pieces.

Hikigaya's comment on this is:

"I'm sorry, but your efforts are meaningless."

He spoke calmly to the dark shadow under his feet.

"Because the ending of the story has long been determined by the 'fate' we all hate the most, even if you change the beginning, the final result will not change."

"It doesn't matter who the 'protagonist' is, your hopes are doomed to be dashed... just like I once did."

Looking up, Hikigaya stared at the darkness ahead. Suddenly, countless reflections lit up in the darkness, and the brilliant light like a kaleidoscope shone in his black pupils.

Those flickering lights are square mirrors, and each mirror reflects a different figure, both male and female.

Gazing at these figures of different nationalities and regions, Hikigaya narrowed his eyes slightly and suddenly raised his palms to face the countless mirror lights flickering in the darkness.

As he raised his open palms and closed them, the reflections in five of the mirrors dimmed and were swallowed up by the surrounding darkness.

Before the five mirrors disappeared, one could vaguely see a young man wearing a black windbreaker in one of them, and a white-haired young man wearing a brown windbreaker in the other. Their clear faces were eventually lost in the endless surging darkness.

The other three sides were all women. The figures of Yukinoshita Yukino, Yuigahama Yui, and Hiratsuka Shizuka all disappeared one after another. When the representative mirrors of each person dimmed, the light reflected in Hikigaya's eyes decreased a little.

“…The legacy of the previous story shouldn’t exist in the next story.”

Putting down his hands, Hikigaya said softly.

After the two mirrors disappeared, Hikigaya looked around at the mirrors that reflected countless people and muttered to himself.

"This number of alternatives should be enough..."

"Were those men and women allowed to leave based on the 'bonds' you mentioned? Or was it 'emotions'?"

A clear and indifferent female voice suddenly sounded in the darkness behind Hikigaya. Hikigaya's expression did not change at all when he heard the voice. He just glanced back.

The thick darkness behind him basically blocked his eyes' ability to see, but with the light he brought, Hikigaya could see a blue skirt swaying in the darkness, and underneath it was a pair of slender legs wearing black socks. Judging from the fair and delicate skin, it was easy to tell that the person was very young.

Of course, it's only limited to appearance.

"I thought you weren't going to talk."

He withdrew his gaze and spoke indifferently.

"Have you been aware of my presence for a long time? Or are you not surprised that I'm here?"

The owner of the legs continued to speak in the darkness, with a pair of clear but lifeless eyes faintly flickering.