Chapter 8: Your Best Nightmare
The dimly lit room had once been a prison cell.
Now, it was an interrogation chamber buried deep beneath an Army baseâwhere a single man sat in chains.
The leader of the Syndicateâs extremist faction, Illicit Stimulus Black Dope, was a shadow of his former self. Once an unsettling, inscrutable figure, he now looked haggard, the weight of defeat etched into his face. Specialized restraints neutralized his enhanced physique, leaving him powerless.
The other extremists had been either locked away in separate cells or had their memories altered, reintegrated into society as civilians. But he remained here. Alone.
While the Corporation specialized in science and the Army straddled the line between science and the occult, the Syndicate was purely supernatural. A faction leader like him could harbor untold secretsâhence the extreme precautions.
Yet, judging by the hollow look in his eyes, such concerns seemed unnecessary.
There was no fight left in him.
Just a broken man, shackled in a cold, desolate cell.
But thenâ
Creak.
The heavy door groaned open.
"âŠThree minutes."
A tall woman in a black suitâthe base commanderâspoke to the blonde sister standing behind her.
"Wrap it up in three, Overdose. Not a second more. And youâ" She narrowed her eyes at empty air beside the sister. "You too. Understood?"
"Fufu~ No need to be so tense, Commander~ âȘ" Overdose smiled, playful yet unreadable. "I merely wish to let this gentleman see his face. Nothing more~"
The commander clicked her tongue, stepping aside with visible reluctanceânot just for the sister, but for the unseen presence beside her.
At the sound, Black Dope lifted his headâ
âAnd froze.
His breath hitched. His lips trembled.
"Why�"
Not at Overdose.
But at the empty space beside her.
"WHY, DEMON!? OUR MODEL DEMON, DEMONIQUES! YOUR OBSERVATIONS WERE MEANT TO BE FLAWLESSâPERFECT!!"
A voice that shouldnât exist answered from the void.
"Now, now. Perfect doesnât mean absolute."
The words dripped with casual amusement.
"If you try to 'improve' a prophecy, straying from it is inevitable. Your current predicament? Merely the result of trying to avoid himâthis worldâs so-called protagonistâdestroying you. Did you really think victory would come just by blindly following a script?"
"Ghkâ!!"
The air itself trembled, vibrating with an impossible frequencyânot high, not low, but something else entirely.
The voice continued, almost conversational.
"Admittedly... this is odd. Statistically unlikely. For fate to deviate this much, there must be external interferenceâsomething from outside this universe. Hmm. Most likely, something slipped in fifteen years ago, around the time you tried to prevent his birth."
Had the voice belonged to a visible form, one might imagine its owner furrowing their brow in thought.
"Not that I did nothing. I corrected the deviating threads of fate where I couldâgentle nudges to stop a butterflyâs flutter from becoming a storm. But then that âmagnetic flux disruption,â or whatever you called it, happened. The moment his destinyâthe one meant to bind him to meâwas distorted beyond my ability to repair."
Lost in its own musings, the voice seemed to forget Black Dopeâs presence entirely. Words spilled from the empty air, layered and fragmented, as if racing through possibilities.
"The strain on the world in that instant was... extraordinary. Time itself nearly stalled."
"I even corrected this priestâs defeat. By all rights, it should have led to the worst possible outcome, as always."
"Yet it was overridden. Fate redundantly rewritten, bloated, then shattered by an overwhelming narrative force."
"Every attempt to restore the story only burdened the world further. No meaningâjust strain."
"With each adjustment, time slows. Stretches. Lags. This stagnation cannot continue."
"If fate stalls, the universe cannot progress. The laws of time will collapse. In the worst case⊠causality may loop."
A sigh, almost weary.
"Which is why I left the Corporation. At this point, quality must take precedence over quantity. We canât afford to wait for the âoriginal storyâ to begin a year from now."
Overdose stepped forward, raising her hand above the priestâs headâlike a sacrament of last rites.
"So, apologies, but sheâll be the final boss now. You might have qualified as one of the Four Heavenly Kings in the original script, but... this timeline ends here. Still, thank you, Black Dope. If not for you stealing meâback when I was just a Risk-Class C entityâfrom the Corporation, I wouldnât be put to better use."
Her palm descended.
Shadows swallowed his face.
The priest choked out a plea.
"W-wait...! Overdose, pleaseâ! Remember everything Iâve done for the Syndicate...!"
"Oh, I do," she murmured. "Merely reciting your name conjures endless memories of your glorious achievements. And as Iâve always saidâ"
Her voice trembled with something between reverence and cruelty.
"I admired you most of all."
A soft, breathless laugh.
"Ah, how tragic. Ah, how unbearably regrettable. Ah, how it pains meâ!"
A final whisper, tender yet merciless.
"Ah, what devotion I must possess, to sacrifice someone as magnificent as you with such resolve..."
"N-no...! IâI still have value! I can still serve the Syndicateâstill contribute to this world! StopâI'm not some kindling to be burned hereâ!!"
Then.
The nun placed a hand on his head and spoke to the demon.
"We offer this one as a sacrifice."
ăAccepted. The immense love you hold for this one shall serve as our fee. Commencing processing now.ă
An indescribable sound filled the air.
When it faded, the nun held a diamond in her handsâonce human, now crystallized into something beyond recognition.
She turned to the woman in the black suit behind her.
"It has shrunk somewhat⊠but this should still hold sufficient value, yes?"
The commander studied it in silence before replying.
"âŠIndeed. A diamond of this size exists neither in nature nor through artificial means. With an item of such worth as collateral, even my modest promissory noteâLove King Speakâcan claim this entire city as its own."
Beyond the prison bars.
Beyond the endless rows of hospital rooms, filled with wounded agents in the medical ward.
The commander clenched her teeth.
(âŠJust a little longer. It will endâI will end it. SoâŠ)
Even if this choice led to her own ruinâ
(Hold on just a little longer, Hoshizumi⊠and you too, Zaijou.)
She clung to the belief that, at the very least, they could still reach a future worth saving.
Thereâs no need to overthink this.
Thatâs right. If someone like meâsomeone who could never shine like Misora GotendĆ or Nishizaki-san, never stand as the protagonistâs ally or main heroineâthen the choice is obvious.
I should step aside.
Right here, right now.
Return this position to the real heroines. Let them take my placeâno, let me give back what was theirs to begin with.
Honestly, whatâs with this love nonsense? Itâs disgusting.
I was a man.
No matter how much this body is a girlâs, my core is male. And not just any maleâin my past life, I was already an adult, mentally pushing late thirties.
Unbelievable. Absurd. This has to be some kind of mistake.
Itâs just a lapse in judgment. Thatâs all. Nothing more than the hormones of this adolescent girlâs body temporarily messing with my brain.
Think about it rationally.
Why on earth would Iâof all peopleâfall for a guy? Even if he is the protagonist. Thereâs no reason. If I were to date anyone, itâd obviously be someone like Nishizaki-san or Misora GotendĆâactual, beautiful girls.
And really, when you get down to it...
Whatâs so great about Moribe Sabaki anyway?
His face? Decent, but plainâthe kind that grows on you. In terms of pure looks, there are plenty better.
His demeanor? Lacking presence, carrying himself with zero confidence. Hardly protagonist material.
Heâs not even that good at communication. His tone is blunt, but only because he struggles to find the right words, leaving him terse and awkwardâ
No. Thatâs not it.
His personality, too...
The only thing you can really praise about him is that heâsâ
âŠKind.
...
So, in shortâ
Just say it already, Zaijou Kirizami.
Tell him: I know who you really are.
Tell him: Use that power to save the person who gave me my life.
Tell him: Please, donât waste it on someone like me. Be happy with her instead.
I called Moribe-kun out to an empty school hallway, away from prying eyes.
I stand before him, ready to say itâ
"âŠâŠâŠâŠ"
Come on.
"âŠZaijou?"
Say it.
"Uh, so... âŠ"
But my lips wonât move.
"...Ah, hey... did I mess up again the other day? Not making excuses, but I really didnât mean toâ"
...Seeing his dejected expression, I tried to explainâbut my breath caught before I could speak.
"...N-no, itâs not your fault, Sabaki. I just... suddenly had something come up..."
"Oh...? Well, if thatâs all... Youâre not sick or anything, right?"
So pleaseâ
Stop.
Stop worrying about me like that.
Itâs fine. Itâs fine, itâs fineâ
Itâs okay to like him. Heâs saved me so many times. Of course Iâd feel grateful.
But thatâs not love. Itâs just friendship.
So itâs fine.
Even if he ends up with Misora GotendĆ or Nishizaki-san, we wonât drift apart.
We can still stay friends.
...As friends.
...Forever.
Lost in vague thoughts, I murmured absently:
"Hey... weâll always be friends, right?"
"Huh? Well, yeah, of couâ"
He cut himself off mid-sentence.
A flicker of unease.
But before I could dwell on it, he spoke again.
"âNo, actually... Hey, you free after school?"
"Eh? Y-yeah..."
"Then... meet me behind the school building. Thereâs something I gotta tell you."
The bell rang, signaling the end of break.
Something I gotta tell you.
What? What? What? What? What?
I donât know. I donât know. I donât know. I donât know. I donât know.
But maybe.
I donât know. I donât know.
What if.
I donât know. I donât know. I donât know.
âI donât want to know.
Because I donât want to.
It canât be that.
So I followed him quietly, unnoticed by anyoneâ
And eavesdropped on his conversation with Nishizaki-san.
"Wait, really?! So youâre confessing to Zaijou todayâ?"
No.
No, no, NO.
I ran.
Left my bag. Skipped afternoon classes. Sprinted all the way home.
I collapsed onto the floor of my tiny apartment.
My hand pressed against my pounding chestâ
But this wasnât from running.
It wasnât.
I swallowed this monthâs entire supply of pills and shut my eyes.
It turns out, all of that was just a dream.
I woke up.
An unfamiliar ceilingâ
No.
A familiar ceiling.
There were no bandages on the desk. No pills.
The closet was filled with plain, unfashionable menâs clothes.
A game console lay on the floor, its cables tangled. Next to it, the packaging of that series was tossed aside.
...A dream.
Yeah. Just a dream.
It had to be a dream.
A terrible nightmare, really.
I should get up. Start the day.
I used to think my life was dull and meaningless, but nowâ
Now, it feels like I can do anything.
All those worries, regrets, struggles, and anxieties about the futureâ
They donât matter. They were never real. They were just... fleeting illusions.
So I should get out of bed.
Open the curtains. Wash my face. Step outside.
It was just a dream.
Just a dream.
I didnât do anything wrong.
Itâs okay if I forget.
Itâs fineâ
I can leave this bed.
The face in the mirror was just an ordinary, unremarkable young manâsâ
Someone who would never fight for anything.
Never bear the fate of the world.
Never stand beside heroes or heroines.
Just a normal, normal, normal guy.
I kicked off the covers and sat up.
Gasping for air, I turned to the mirrorâlike surfacing from water, desperate for light.
âAnd there, staring back at me, was a pink-haired girl with hollow eyes.
A stranger.
Noâme.
Relief crashed over me.
"Ah... ah... ah...!"
My hands trembled as they roamed over my skin, my hair, my faceâconfirming it. This is real. This is me. This is the girl he loves.
And with that certaintyâ
Despair swallowed me whole.
"No... no, no, no...!"
I shook, breath hitching, crushed beneath the unbearable weight of my own happiness.
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