My youth story cannot be a knight war

【"call--!"】

[He was wrestling with his thoughts, and after taking a deep breath to suppress the fear rising in his heart, he grasped the Titan Sword with his trembling right hand, and walked towards the opponent with the sword in hand...]

……

【Wakaba Kindergarten, Toshima-ku, Tokyo. 】

[“I’m interrupting here with an urgent news report. Newly emerged unidentified life forms No. 21 and No. 4 are fighting in a quarry downstream of the Sumida River. Please do not approach that area. The police have already cordoned off that area—”]

[Snap! ]

[The mug filled with tea fell to the ground, making a crisp shattering sound.]

[As the mug shattered, the lost scalding liquid also spread on the spotlessly clean floor and was then absorbed by the floor with good absorption properties.]

[But Yuigahama Yui no longer cares about this matter. She is alone in the classroom office, staring blankly at the urgent news broadcast on the TV news channel in front of her, letting the tea spread around her feet in her indoor shoes, and soon soaking the soles of her indoor shoes. ]

[——"There is something I need to solve. This is something that only I can do in this world, so this is all I can do today. Please tell the children that Brother Yihui will come next time!"]

[——"Don't worry! It's not dangerous. It's just a normal part-time job."]

[“What’s nothing… what’s an ordinary part-time job… that idiot!”]

[“Why… did you lie to me again…”]

【Thinking of what the white-haired young man said when he said goodbye to her, Yuigahama Yui lowered her head and remained silent. Her white hands tightly grasped the hem of her apron, and her shell-like white teeth tightly bit her rosy lips until a noticeable mark was left.】

[I should have thought of this earlier, right? What kind of things in this world can only be done by certain people? Thinking about what Zaimokuza told me about his other identity, the answer is obvious. ]

[That is fighting, fighting against those terrifying monsters that plunder lives as the unconfirmed life form No. 4.]

【Kara.】

[Yuigahama Yui opened her drawer. In the drawer, besides some notebooks with recorded data, there was only a framed photo.]

[The photo frame was placed on top of a book. The white edges of the frame had turned yellow and oxidized. It was obvious that the frame was quite old, but the glass on which the photo was mounted was still shiny. It was obvious that its owner often took care of it and wiped it.]

【“…”】

[Yuigahama Yui reached out and picked up the photo frame that she had always taken good care of, and gently stroked the surface of the glass of the frame. ]

[This photo is arranged from left to right in a female-female-male-male order. On the far left is Yukino Yukinoshita, who is wearing a black school uniform with pleats, black stockings with white trims, long black hair, red bows on both sides of her hair, and a white scarf. She looks helpless, and Yuigahama Yui, who is wearing the same school uniform, has short pink hair, and smiles with her eyes closed, with her arms around her neck.]

[Then on the right is Hikigaya Hachiman, wearing a black winter school uniform for boys, hunched over, a black scarf, and a pair of striking, DHA-rich eyes. And then there's Zaimokuza Yoshiki, with his arm around his shoulders, wearing a brown windbreaker, his hands and face covered in fingerless gloves and a pair of black-framed glasses, and smiling very happily.]

[This is a group photo of the Service Club. This photo is exactly the same as the one Yukinoshita Yukino keeps in the drawer of the research room at Jonan University. It is obviously not a unique copy.]

[“Small business…”]

[Yuigahama Yui reached out and gently stroked the photo with a dazed look in her eyes. Her fingers touched the photo through the glass of the frame. Hikigaya Hachiman, who was hugged by Zaimokuza and couldn't break free, looked helpless. His dead fish eyes were still vivid after so many years. When she looked into his eyes as a teenager in the photo, she even thought that he was looking at her too.]

【Tick.】

[A drop of clear water fell on Hikigaya Hachiman's face, and was then wiped by delicate fingers. ]

[“Xiaoqi, please——”]

[Yuigahama Yui held both sides of the photo frame with both hands and held it against her chest, lowering her head deeply, her thin shoulders shaking from time to time, and crystal tears fell from her lowered face like pearls from a broken string, splashing on the red tea that spread on the floor.]

[She spoke softly, her gentle voice carrying a faint and barely audible cry.]

[“Please bless Zaimokuza and our friends…”]

49. Failure (8-in- K)

Chiba Prefecture, Sobu High School, health room.

"..."

After closing the door of the health room to block those who wanted to rush in, everyone present fell silent as they watched the video on their mobile phones showing Yuigahama Yui crying while holding a photo frame. Many people subconsciously turned their heads to look at the other person standing next to Zaimokuza who was lying on the bed.

Hikigaya Hachiman.

"Hey, hey, hey, stop joking..."

Hikigaya Hachiman looked at the crying big dumpling version of Yuigahama Yui on the screen of his mobile phone. His dead fish eyes rich in DHA nutrient twitched, and he felt that the scene at this moment was filled with an inexplicable sense of déjà vu.

He remembered that he had seen this kind of scene many times before, basically when watching Korean soap operas and Japanese idol dramas.

When the heroine/hero encounters a major setback, they will take out a necklace or a photo from their pocket or clothes, look at their old self and someone in the photo with sad expressions, reach out and touch another smiling person in the yellowed photo, and cry softly, saying "Oppa" or "Mr. So-and-so". The tears are so real and the sadness in their eyes is enough to break the heart, thus drawing all the audience into a heart-wrenching sad past.

When Hikigaya first saw this kind of plot in the first grade of elementary school, he was so moved that tears streamed down his face. He sat on the sofa in front of the TV with his mother and sister, wiping his tears with tissues. He kept saying that this plot was too sad and touching. Did the screenwriter receive some kind of mental stimulation? Why did he have to write such a sad past that made people feel so heartbroken? He also blamed the bystanders for not helping and made sarcastic comments. He really hated himself for not being able to become a character in the story to change this cruel plot.

But times have changed, and after being bombarded with countless similar TV plots over the years, Hikigaya Hachiman, who now faces this kind of plot, has been able to achieve a state of mind similar to "If the mind is calm and peaceful, the sky will fall without being startled". He can watch this kind of plot from beginning to end with a pair of unwavering dead fish eyes without blinking. The only feeling and experience after watching it is that his eyes are so dry.

Even the two women sitting next to him and the cat on his head who kept wiping their tears could not shake his determination. After these touching plots, he even calmly commented that the roles of tool man and memory man turned out to be so miserable. This way of dying was quite interesting, but it was less sensational and more thrilling and suspenseful, and it seemed a bit off topic. The director's ability to conceive needs to learn from the writing methods of those minotaur moderators, similar to the plot of the next door "Tianyun Niehai", which is heartbreaking and can arouse other people's sexual interest and so on...

After finishing the evaluation, he could still calmly crack a melon seed with one hand and throw it into his mouth, allowing his mother, who was deeply moved by the plot, to give him a death stare, his sister to slap him in anger, and his cat to bite his hair madly. Even when his body was tempered, he remained true to his heart, without any ripples in his heart. He could not help but sigh that he had eventually become those bystanders who he hated the most when he was a child.

However, the reason why he felt no wavering in his heart was because he knew clearly that the plots were just fictional stories, and those emotions like sadness, touching, happiness, joy, anger, etc. were nothing but carefully created "fakes", and those tragic deaths of characters and sad pasts in the play were nothing but phantoms born out of nothingness. It was really stupid to be moved and confused by them.

To put it in a way that people can understand, this kind of plot is already out of date!

After years of being bombarded with soap operas, people's perspectives and aesthetics have long been honed to the level of the Eagle in The Return of the Condor Heroes. After all, in this age of free agency, who would be moved by such a suffocatingly clichéd plot? No screenwriter, save for diehard Qiong Yao fans, would resort to such tactics.

But no matter how old-fashioned and ridiculous the plot may seem in the eyes of today's people, it may not be the same once it becomes a reality.

Hikigaya Hachiman, who had been tempered by this kind of plot for many years, could imagine with his knees what would happen next after watching the scene in the video where Yuigahama in the future was crying while holding a photo of him and saying his name.

But what made Hikigaya feel frustrated and suffocated was that this time he seemed to have become one of those tools that he had evaluated himself in the past, who never appeared in the main drama and whose only use was to lead out hidden side plots.

"Forget it... I just mentioned my expectations for my future self. Am I going to die inexplicably like this? I don't even have a chance to appear on the stage?"

Hikigaya Hachiman couldn't help but cover his face with one hand, his tone full of dejection.

"Well, Hikigaya, at least you know what might happen to you in the future. If you are sick, I suggest you go to the hospital for a check-up right now. If it is due to an accident, then you can avoid it in advance after knowing it!"

Shizuka Hiratsuka rarely comforted Hikigaya. She reached out and patted his shoulder. Her tone was full of kindness and her eyes showed concern for a dying person.

This love and care hurt Hikigaya's fragile heart, and he didn't know whether he should say the curse words he wanted to hold back.

"… Let's continue reading. We might be able to find out what will happen to Hikigaya-san in the future, so we can come up with a plan to save him from death."

It was rare that Yukinoshita Yukino did not mock Hikigaya. Instead, she frowned and looked at the video and spoke seriously. Hikigaya keenly felt through his intuition the worry about himself hidden under the cold voice of this girl, and he couldn't help but feel a little bit of emotion in his heart.

As expected, no matter how cold-blooded she is, Yukinoshita will not stand by and watch her members die. She is such a kind girl.

"He was a member of the Service Club after all, so we have to know the cause of his death. If it was a ridiculous death like "he saw a toy car at a traffic light and mistook it for a dump truck, and was frightened to death", it would really damage the image of the Service Club. Although I think this kind of death fits the impression that Bipenguin-san gave me."

"—"

The touch in his heart disappeared without a trace in an instant. The corners of Hikigaya's eyes and mouth twitched violently. He stared at Yukinoshita Yukino who said such extremely hurtful words without changing his expression.

...Sure enough, "she should be caring about me" is a complete illusion. We should not have any expectations about the idea that "cold-blooded creatures actually have feelings". How could this extremely vicious and cold-blooded woman have such rich empathy!

【Tokyo, downstream of the Sumida River, quarry. 】

【boom--】

[“Ugh!”]

[The dark red ball hit Zaimokuza's right shoulder and exploded. The powerful shock wave generated by the explosion caused the Titan form, which had been invincible in the last battle with No. 20, to retreat several steps. It could only stop after the potential energy of the impact was removed.]

[But even so, the power of the sphere explosion and the residual high temperature still turned the bright shoulder armor on the right shoulder black, and a white mist rose. Zaimokuza endured the discomfort and stepped forward again with the Titan Sword in hand.]

[Very good, the purple form's defense is strong enough to block it! Just block the attack and defeat it in one go!]

[“Hmph~”]

Giiga seemed to see through Zaimokuza's thoughts. He sneered and then blasted another black and red ball from his mouth. This time, the ball hit Zaimokuza's chest. Amidst the spreading flames, Zaimokuza took another step back, feeling as if his chest had been struck by a heavy hammer. A sharp dull pain and tightness spread across his chest.

[“Gu…”]

Zaimokuza felt a sweet, fishy taste spread in his mouth. He forced himself to swallow the blood welling up in his throat and steady his somewhat unsteady body before heading towards Giiga again. However, this time his steps were no longer as resolute as before, but rather hesitant.

[“As expected of purple power, it’s pretty durable~ How about this?”]

【"drink!"】

Giiga looked unfazed at Zaimokuza, who continued to walk towards him with determination. He raised his right hand to cover his mouth again, and a red fireball formed between his mouth and palm, leaving a noticeable trail in the air before spraying towards him.

[But this time the fireball was no longer aimed at Zaimokuza's upper body which was covered by armor, but at the area not covered by armor, namely his abdomen! ]

[“Woooooo!”]

[This attack was effective. The impact and high temperature after the fireball hit Zaimokuza's abdomen blew him to the ground. Zaimokuza covered his abdomen with his left hand, which was emitting white smoke, and gasped in pain. He held the Titan Sword in his right hand and inserted it into the ground, trying to support his body and stand up with difficulty.]

[“It’s time to end this boring battle——”]

Giiga didn't give Zaimokuza another chance. As he stood up, he condensed another fireball. This time, the color of the fireball deepened, the red waves turning yellow as they converged, and finally, the yellow-white fireball condensed into the size of a football. The flames swirled around the black ball in the center like liquid. The astonishingly high temperature caused the air around the fireball to continue to heat up, completely distorting the scene.

【“!?”】

Zaimokuza, standing up, felt a chill run down his spine upon seeing the fireball condensed by Giiga. An unprecedented sense of danger urged him to dodge quickly, but just as he stood up with the support of the Titan Sword, a large yellow and white fireball shot towards him as the opponent roared in anger!

【Bear--】

【Fight! 】

[Looking at the fireball flying towards him with terrifying force, Zaimokuza realized that he could not dodge it, so he gritted his teeth and held the Titan Sword in front of his chest with both hands, trying to block it.]

[A pair of purple compound eyes reflected the approaching fireball, and then it exploded in its field of vision, and the white flames engulfed everything in front of it! ]

【boom--! ! ! 】

[A white column of fire shot out from the center of the quarry and shot straight into the sky, like the first eruption of a dormant volcano after a long time. The raging fire spread fiercely to the open space of the quarry, igniting all flammable items and licking all buildings. Even the police who blocked the battle area a kilometer away could see a terrifying flame rising from the quarry in the distance, and the astonishing high temperature spread in all directions. ]

[“Uooa ...

[A scream of agony also rang out from the spreading flames, the sound so loud that it even temporarily overwhelmed the sounds of explosions and collapses of surrounding buildings.]

[The white flames wrapped around the body of the Zai Mu Zao fell heavily beside the river bank of the quarry. The silver-white armor on his body turned completely black, and scorching hot mist rose from the surface. It was even faintly visible that some parts of the armor were burned red by the fierce fire. ]

[“Ah—woo—”]

[Zaimokuza rolled on the ground in agony, using the sand on the ground of the quarry to put out the flames on his body. The sand that touched his armor made a burning "sizzling" sound. The incomparable pain in his body made him completely unable to breathe, and he could hardly even scream.]

[The intensity of the burning pain was second only to the time when Zaimokuza was shot through the eye by the Fourteenth's attack. And unlike the last time, the injury was short-lived and concentrated. This time the pain was a systemic and continuous injury, making him feel like he was in a fiery hell.]

【clang.】

[The purple-gold Titan sword spun and stabbed into the ground far away from Zaimokuza. Soon after it escaped from Zaimokuza's control, the indestructible blade quickly turned back into a motorcycle handlebar that had been pulled out in a twisting and flashing process. The black and white handlebar was lonely and stuck upside down on the ground in the quarry, surrounded by burning flames and sparks. This scene was quite similar to Duchamp's Dadaist art style.]

[Unlike the great victory in the first battle when it was released, Kuuga's Titan form suffered a crushing defeat in the second battle.]

[Not to mention that he couldn't even touch the enemy, the armor on his body, which had superior defense power than other forms, was useless in front of the scorching flames.]

[This also reveals a huge problem, that is, while the Titan form has excellent defensive performance against physical attacks, it is extremely restrained in the face of this special attack. ]

[Patter. 】

[“Ugh!???”]

The crisp sound of footsteps echoed in his ears. Even though flames were blazing and crackling all around him, the soft sound of feet treading on the gravel still resonated like thunder in Zaimokuza's ears. He groaned in pain, and the sound immediately drew his attention. Then he saw Giiga appear not far ahead.

[The moment the purple compound eyes met those orange-red eyes, the fear accumulated in the long battle with Gurongi surged up from his heart uncontrollably, and Zaimokuza subconsciously stepped back a little distance with his hands.]

[Buzz—buzz—buzz—]

[Just as Zaimokuza retreated in fear, the pure purple spirit stone on his waist suddenly flickered and stuttered like an appliance with poor signal reception, and the color kept switching back and forth between red and purple. Not only that, even the armor covering his upper body became dim.]

[Finally, the spirit stone turned from purple to red, the armor on Zaimokuza disappeared, and the color of the compound eyes and the pearls also returned to the previous red. It was unexpectedly transformed from the Titan form back to the full-powered form.]

[“Hmph, is that all your strength is?”]

Seeing Zaimokuza exit his Titan form and transform into his all-powerful form, Giiga said this with disdain, his hands clasped at his waist slowly loosening, then repeatedly clenching and opening.

[Not only that, its dark red skin seemed to be glowing, and steam began to rise from the surface of its body. The sudden scorching heat made the sand under its feet begin to make crackling sounds, and some of the sand even began to crystallize.]

One can imagine how high Giiga's body temperature is right now, definitely comparable to a steel furnace. The dark silver belt interwoven with crimson at its waist also began to glow red. Finally, its body actually ignited with a blazing flame with a "Teng" sound!

Giiga, engulfed in flames, spoke again, as if the flames burning within him were merely a facade, devoid of any image. However, the blazing red sand beneath his feet proved to be undeniable; the heat was genuine.

[“Although your strength is not that great, since you can allow me to use this form, you are qualified to know my name.”]

"Remember, I am the Destroyer who harnesses the man-devouring flames with my silver body, Me-Giiga-Gi!"

【"--drink!"】

As Giiga roared, his fists clenched at his waist, the flames burning all over his body quickly gathered in front of him, and the extremely hot fire gathered in front of him into a basketball-sized ball of fire.

[Moreover, the flames emerging from the body and the air continued to rotate and merge into the fireball, but the size of the fireball continued to shrink contrary to its normal state. At the same time, the color of the flame gradually deepened, from red to orange, then to yellow, and then to white, and from white to cyan——]

Finally, when the surrounding flames stopped converging and the flames on Giiga's body died out, the color of the fireball remained fixed at a pure blue without any other colors.

[The small blue fireball was suspended in the air, burning quietly. Unlike the previous flames that violently and wantonly vented their power to the surroundings, it was as quiet as a fallen leaf - but this did not mean that its power had decreased.]