My youth story cannot be a knight war

"..."

Feeling the gazes of everyone in the rehearsal room focused on him, Aqua said nothing. He just looked quietly at the curtain in front of him, his hands supporting himself on the floor, his nails almost digging into the cracks in the board.

[Snap.]

In the dark night, the first sound of footsteps was heard on the rooftop of a high-rise building. A man in a black hoodie rushed to the top floor, panting slightly and glancing around.

"..."

The scream that had just rang in his ears had fallen silent halfway through his rush to the rooftop. The man, knowing what this meant, fell into a temporary silence.

But he immediately regained his spirits, and his eyes, faintly gleaming with a blue light under the brim of his hat, scanned the rooftop. All he saw was the cement floor without bricks, the exposed and uneven iron-gray steel bars, and a wooden box in the corner that was covered with dust after being exposed to the sun and rain. A mirror with half a corner missing was placed diagonally on the wooden box.

Even though there was no one in sight, the man did not let down his guard at all, because his skin under his clothes was covered with goose bumps due to the surging sense of danger, and the sixth sense of dangerous auras of living beings was constantly sounding alarms in his mind.

He felt that there was a vicious and bloodthirsty aura lingering on the rooftop, like an evil spirit hidden in the air, silently hiding and waiting for the moment when he would reveal his flaw.

The man glanced around silently, his cold gaze like a boning knife scraping across every inch of the land.

——Buzz buzz buzz!!!

"!?"

A violent noise suddenly exploded in his ears. The extreme sense of crisis made all the hairs on the man's back stand up, and his pupils quickly contracted.

An almost inaudible cracking sound followed immediately into his ears, and the man jumped up and did a backflip without hesitation. Some sharp weapon blended into the night and cut open his hooded clothes hanging upside down in the air. A faint smell of blood entered his nostrils.

The man flipped skillfully onto the ground, and his neatly cut clothes and hood fell lightly beside him. Then he immediately raised his head and looked coldly in the direction of the attack.

At this time, his appearance was completely exposed after the hat was no longer covering him.

This was a man whose appearance could be described as "handsome" with a neutral adjective. His soft golden hair, reminiscent of ripe rice and wheat at harvest time, fell along the side of his face. There was a tiny scar on his fair left cheek, from which faint drops of blood were oozing.

The man's eyes glowed faintly in the darkness. Even more astonishingly, two patterns resembling witchcraft hexagrams appeared within his pupils, adding an eerie and strange quality to his handsome demeanor.

"……well?"

Ruby, who was sitting in the office lounge, blinked her eyes as she looked at the close-up face that was almost right in front of her. Her mouth with moist lips gradually opened into an "O" shape.

If she was asked if she was familiar with the face in front of her, she would be familiar with it, because the other person was probably her only blood relative in this world, and they also shared secrets that could not be told to the world.

"Old old old old——"

The blonde girl was muttering incoherently, her pupils spinning so hard that it was impossible to see clearly, only blurry lines could be seen.

“——Brother!???”

At this moment, an idea completely occupied the mind of the girl, who was actually about 28 years old.

My brother——became a character in the story?

Facing everyone's anxious gazes that were like an interrogation, Aqua looked at the face in front of him that was undoubtedly his own, without any change in expression.

However, the pupils of his eyes had completely dilated. Compared to knowing that he had become the so-called "protagonist", he immediately thought of what he could do after gaining popularity through this "outbound" event.

For example, revenge.

Overly turbulent emotions violently washed over his heart. His brain, completely occupied by this thought, had been deprived of the ability to control his own expression. In the eyes of outsiders, he appeared to be "unmoved by praise or criticism".

Dark emotions lingered in the depths of his eyes, and the pupil of his left eye, which had been normal, began to show the same hexagram-shaped characteristics as his right eye.

【“…”

The man named Hoshino Aiku Aikai stood up, wiped the blood flowing from his cheek without changing his expression, and squinted his eyelids to cover his pupils.

But this time he made an unexpected move. Not only did he not walk towards the direction of the attack, but he walked towards the wooden boxes piled in the corner of the rooftop behind him.

Reaching his right hand into his pocket, Hoshino took out a black square clip and slowly raised it forward.

The tilted, worn mirror in front of him reflected his appearance and the entire square folder in Hoshino's hand.

A golden emblem is engraved on the front of the card holder. The pattern carved from an unknown metal emits a faint hue even in the dark night. The emblem is lifelike and looks very much like a creature that is familiar to the public.

It is a figurative totem of a bat, and on the right edge of the card holder, you can see a card with a blue seal tucked into the interlayer.

Holding up the square cardholder engraved with the bat emblem, Hoshino said to himself in the mirror with a cold expression:

"henshin."]

"!!!"

At this moment, everyone in the world suddenly stood up straight, staring intently at the mirror-shaped curtain in front of them, with incredible colors dancing in their eyes.

As for the word "henshin", no one will forget who it originated from.

The first man who uttered this word in front of the whole world has passed away, but the memory of him, which has gradually become blurred in the minds of the world, has revived again like an ear of wheat watered by spring rain when another man uttered this word.

It was a memory burning with blazing flames. In a small church in Nagano Prefecture in the future, the man had a silver belt around his waist and said the same words with a determined look to the demon that took people's lives.

At this moment, the man named "Hoshino Aikyuu Aikai" in the curtain overlapped with the man named "Zaimokuza Yoshiki".

It's back, the palpitations and excitement that made the blood beat faster, now echoing in the bodies of all those who had witnessed that scene.

"No way……"

Amidst the murmurs, a dazzling white light shone from the curtain, illuminating Aqua's face, which showed its first change of expression.

A belt of the same color as the man in her memory emerged from the light and appeared around the waist of her future self.

"Aqua, you are..."

Kurokawa's eyes were completely dull, and her words came out of her throat with difficulty.

"……main character?"

While chewing on these two words, the cute pink phone slipped from Ruby's loose palm to the ground. It displayed the newly opened address book interface, and the name "お兄さん" was about to be dialed.

[“Hu~Hu~”

With anxious gasps, the woman who was traveling with Hoshino climbed the external stairs leading to the rooftop. She was already exhausted from the rush and had to take one step at a time to get up.

Suddenly, the woman who was climbing with sweat all over her forehead felt a bright light in front of her eyes, and a white light lit up from the gap in the rooftop in front of her.

The woman was startled when she saw the light, and she gritted her teeth and quickened her pace as she climbed the stairs.

But the moment she stepped onto the top step of the stairs, the dazzling white light disappeared. In the eyes of the woman who turned around, two huge black shadows with wings covered everything in front of her. A tall and slender shadow spread from the ground of the rooftop to her booted feet.

Then the dark shadow at her feet suddenly disappeared in the distorted light and shadow. The woman looked at the empty rooftop in front of her. There was no abnormal emotion in her voice caused by this scene, only deep worry.

"Please...Aqua."

"Well--!!!"

Hayato Hayama covered his head with his hands, lowered his head, and his whole body trembled violently.

"Hayato! What's wrong with you!?"

His huge reaction made Yuigahama Yui panic. She walked to Ye Shan's side and looked at the sweat constantly flowing from his forehead. She was so anxious that she didn't know what to do.

"Hikigaya-san, call the emergency number, quickly."

"……I see."

The voice of others was stretched and distorted in Ye Shan's ears. His lowered face was shaking violently, and the pupils of his eyes were dilating and shrinking.

There was no mistaking that voice—it was this voice!

There was absolutely no way Ye Shan would make a mistake. When "Hoshino Aiku Aikai" in the curtain was attacked just now, the noise that suddenly sounded was the same sound that had been haunting him all these days!

Finally, I found you——

The others couldn't guess what Ye Shan was thinking at this moment, but everyone could see that his condition was very wrong. Yukinoshita Yukino frowned and immediately asked Hikigaya to call the hospital, and then she planned to go over to check on the former's condition.

Even though he and Hayama didn't get along, Hikigaya wouldn't throw a tantrum at this moment. He immediately took out his cell phone and opened the screen.

However, just as he opened the phone interface, Hikigaya, who happened to glance at his screen, suddenly stopped all movements, and his right thumb stopped on the number 9 and no longer pressed it, making the number incomplete.

"...Hey, Yukinoshita."

"What's wrong? What happened——"

Just as she grabbed Hayama's wrist that was holding her forehead with both hands, Yukinoshita turned around after hearing Hikigaya's murmur, and what she saw made the words she had yet to say choke in her throat.

"No way……"

Yuigahama stared blankly at the figure emerging from the curtain in front of her, and her eyes subconsciously turned to the other side.

Including Hikigaya and Yukinoshita, their eyes also turned to another person present.

"?"

Ye Shan, whose headache had gradually subsided, felt the gazes from all around him. He raised his head with a little confusion, just in time to meet three pairs of different eyes.

Yukinoshita's eyes were filled with complexity, Yuigahama's were filled with surprise, and Hikigaya's eyes twitched.

"I feel like...this time the principal will probably end up laughing until his jaw dislocates and he's hospitalized."

what are you guys saying?

With this doubt in mind, Ye Shan raised his head and looked at the curtain that belonged to him.

Then, his mind went blank.

3. The Fortune Teller's Prophecy and Encounter (5K)

[Kyoto Prefecture, Nishikyo Ward.

07:58 AM

"Sheng Hui, 300 yen in total."

"Thank you."

Taking the pancake wrapped in oil paper from the waiter, the man in a baseball cap politely thanked him in his not-so-fluent Chinese, nodded and paid, tugged at the backpack strap on his right shoulder, and turned to walk towards the door.

While chewing the pancake for breakfast, the man came to the door of the store and reached out to hold the door handle.

"...Last night, a missing person occurred near Kyoto Sangyo University in Kita-ku, Kyoto City."

The TV hanging by the store door was playing the morning news channel at that moment, and the words said by the female host in a beautiful office lady's outfit while holding documents in her hand made the man's five fingers that were about to touch the door handle freeze in mid-air.

"..."

The man couldn't help but widen his eyes slightly under the baseball cap. He immediately raised his head and stared at the host's report on TV.

"The missing person is a female student at Kyoto Sangyo University. She lived alone in a small apartment just two kilometers from the school. According to the information leaked by the police after they cordoned off the scene, there were signs of a very messy struggle, suggesting a break-in, but none of the victim's belongings were stolen..."

"According to the landlord who first discovered the incident, he heard a shrill scream erupt from inside the tenant's apartment. Upon opening the door, he found the room in shambles, with no victims or suspected perpetrators. This incident bears a striking resemblance to several others that have occurred in Kyoto Prefecture in recent months, suggesting the possibility of a gang-related crime..."

The right hand holding the pancake slowly dropped from his mouth. The man had completely lost his appetite after listening to the reporter's report on the news. He lowered his head and covered the upper half of his face with the brim of his baseball cap.

His left hand gripped the door handle, squeezing it so tightly that the wooden handle began to crack.

"Disappearance incident?"

Mumbling these words, Nan Yunya, who was in the student union room, stopped shaking the glass in his hand. The carbonated soda in the glass splashed from the rim in the sudden stop, wetting the white cuff of his wrist.

"Are you kidding me? How can that be considered a normal disappearance? They were screaming so loudly. Are all the people near that apartment building deaf?"

Nan Yunya gently placed the glass back on the table, a hint of disdain flashed across the corner of her mouth, and her narrowed eyes were filled with deep contempt for the people and the police behind the curtain.

"As expected, this country's police system, from the Metropolitan Police Department headquarters down to the local district branches, is filled with useless people who just sit there and do nothing. People like Kousaka Kyousuke are the rare exception."

Nanyun Ya, who watched the whole picture of the "disappearance case" mentioned by the news anchor from a God's perspective, knew very well that this was not something that could be explained by a disappearance at all. It was probably the same as the Tokyo in the previous "story". This time, a supernatural event that could not be explained by science should have occurred in Kyoto Prefecture.

This time the opening is completely different from the last one. If the last one was an American horror opening that directly slapped various horror elements on people's faces like a cake, then the opening of this "story" also added a kind of Eastern suspenseful atmosphere.

Although everyone now knew that a mysterious force similar to Gurongi was behind all this, they had never even seen its true form. This atmosphere of the enemy in the dark, while we were in the light, was a terrifying otherworldly force that could never be compared to Gurongi's undisguised killing spree.

"From this point of view, the newly appeared enemy should have nothing to do with the Gurongi. Those primitive people with their brains full of muscles would not resort to such methods..."

Nan Yun stretched out his hand and tapped the table in front of him, rolling his eyes to the rhythmic "click" sound, and his brain began to diverge.

"And this time, is the incident taking place in the future like last time, or... has it already happened in the past?"

"and……"

He turned his gaze back and looked at the man in the baseball cap who opened the restaurant door and walked out through the curtain in front of him, and he couldn't help but subconsciously frowned slightly.

"Why do I feel like... I seem to have seen this person somewhere?"

While eating his breakfast, the man in the baseball cap walked towards the nearby bus stop. However, anyone could see that he was very worried at the moment. The feeling of worry that could not be relieved was emanated from his indifferent back as he walked.