Shido felt himself sinking—
No, rather, diving.
Before his eyes stretched an endless deep blue, more beautiful than the open sky. Specks of light swayed like waves, making that blue appear profound and transparent, like a gemstone.
The distance slowly lengthened. His field of vision gradually expanded. Yet the deep blue world seed to have no boundary, extending endlessly toward an unseen horizon.
It was a strange sensation.
There was resistance when he moved his body, but he was not restrained.
His mouth and nose could not breathe normally, yet he felt no suffocation.
Like a fish swimming through the sea, Shido imagined a tail fin that did not exist and continued diving deeper.
—Glug.
(Shido-san. I want to redo everything. I want to reset everything that has happened until now back to zero.)
(Hm?)
Suddenly, a bubble slipped past Shido. Within that hazy bubble, he saw Kurumi, who had told him of her long-cherished wish not long ago.
(Is this… my mory?)
Shido could not help thinking that. Using that as a trigger, he gradually rembered the reason he had co here.
(That's right… In order to dig up my sealed mories, I used Michael on myself.)
He continued diving. One soft bubble after another gradually filled his vision. As far as he could see, each bubble had Shido's past engraved within it.
His encounters with the Spirits. The little pieces of his everyday life. Joyful mories, happy mories, helpless mories, bitter mories—countless recollections dyed the transparent bubbles in all sorts of colors. (TL:Is this an Inside out ref lol~)
Seeing them, Shido vaguely understood. This mysterious ocean was not sothing that existed in reality. It was rely a manifestation of his own subconscious.
(Have I… been here before?)
He felt a sense of déjà vu, as if this was not his first ti in this place. His intuition told him that he had once sunk into this realm before. Only, unlike this ti, he had not entered by his own will. Back then, his body's abnormal state had caused him to sink here by chance, and his consciousness had been extrely hazy.
[My Shido has returned] (TL:this was the end of Origiami's arc)
At that mont, a bubble far larger than the others appeared before Shido's eyes. Within it, a brown haired girl turned back and smiled. That mont had been frozen inside the bubble in its most beautiful form.
Although Shido was sowhat surprised, he did not find it unexpected. After all, he himself understood clearly that it was in that very instant that he had truly realized his feelings for the girl.
However—
(Ah… it's actually sparkling… This is bad… It feels so embarrassing.)
Luckily, there was no one else here besides him. Shido could not help feeling grateful for that.
[But there is one thing I can say with absoloute certainty. Ryougi Yutsuki right now..is in love with you.] (TL:this was Shido's burst arc)
(—!?)
His descent ca to an abrupt halt. Like car hitting a wall, Shido slamd on the brakes, his face filled with disbelief.
He noticed a bubble whose color was sowhat dim, yet whose size was in no way inferior to the previous one, hidden deep within this sea of mories. And inside it, he saw that familiar brown haired girl wearing a charming dance dress he had never seen before, offering him a kiss of her own accord, filled with boundless passion and love.
(Wait! What is this?! Yutsuki confessed to ? Where? When? What happened afterward? Why don't I rember any of it?!!)
Shido searched the surrounding sea desperately, hoping to find even the slightest clue related to it.
(—What are you doing, Itsuka Shido?)
Hadn't he co here to recover his mories about Takamiya Mio? After calming himself down, Shido could not help scolding himself.
(But if I miss this chance…)
After struggling internally for a long while, Shido finally cast one reluctant glance back at the bubble behind him. Then he hardened his heart and continued diving without looking back.
The bubbles of mory continued flashing before Shido's eyes.
Gradually, the mories traced back to before he t Tohka.
—Itsuka Shido, as an ordinary, inconspicuous high school student, lived a plain and uneventful daily life.
—Itsuka Shido, as a middle school student burdened with grave sins, took it upon himself to save all living beings and the world, letting himself run wild.
(Shido accelerated his descent.)
—Kotori was granted a Sephira Crystal by "Phantom" and beca a Spirit, causing the great fire five years ago.
—Itsuka Shido was adopted by Kotori's parents.
—Itsuka Shido spent a lonely childhood alone in an orphanage.
(…)
Like flipping through an old photo album, even mories Shido himself thought he had forgotten were recorded deep within his mind.
An indescribable emotion welled up inside him. It was sour and bitter, spicy and sweet, so complicated it could not be sumd up in a single word.
But at the sa ti, he felt warmth in his heart.
Feelings of happiness and misfortune were born from comparison. One felt unfortunate because others possessed things one did not, and one felt happy because one had obtained things others did not. If one only looked at what one already had, it all felt natural.
Now, looking back at his own life from a third person perspective, Shido finally understood.
He had been far, far happier than he had ever imagined.
Finally, after an unknown amount of ti, he reached the deepest part of the deep-blue sea. Waiting for Shido there was a heavy, enormous iron gate.
Because he had used Michael in reality, the tightly locked gate slowly opened as Shido approached.
On the other side of the gate was bottomless chaos, as if it could swallow all light into itself.
(So these are my sealed mories…)
Shido could not help thinking that. This was the deepest part of his subconscious. The chaos beyond the gate was undoubtedly hinting to him that the mories after this point did not belong to "Itsuka Shido," but to another unknown life.
If that was the case, was he still Itsuka Shido?
(Well, I've already co this far. There's no reason to back down now.)
After taking a deep breath, Shido charged into the gate in one go.
"—!"
In an instant, the floating sensation that had soaked his entire body vanished. Replacing it was the feeling of his feet standing firmly on solid ground.
"Wh-what happened?"
Unable to adapt to the change in environnt right away, Shido looked around in slight panic.
The sun hanging high in the sky. Rows of buildings. Noisy streets. A city full of people coming and going constructed a completely different atmosphere.
"Am I… back in reality?"
Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, Itsuka Shido murmured in confusion.
No.
He quickly denied that possibility. If this were reality, then he should still be aboard the Fraxinus EX.
(So, even though this place looks different from the ocean just now, it's also a dream projected from my subconscious?)
Looking more closely, the faces of the passersby around him were sowhat vague, and the city scenery differed slightly from the Tengu City in his mories. Even the school uniform he was wearing was a completely different style from Raizen High's.
(So this is my past mory?)
Shido could not help thinking that.
However, just as Shido had regained his bearings, an abnormality occurred.
He saw a point of pure white light flare up in the distance of the city.
In that instant, the world seed to reveal an unprecedented silence. Noise was swallowed away, and a shocking roar destroyed his eardrums.
The point of light expanded rapidly, forming a scorching-white sphere upon the earth.
Like a bubble of chewing gum being blown up, the sphere of light continued expanding on a scale that could not be laughed off. Buildings, living beings, even the earth itself—everything was rcilessly destroyed.
It was a scene of absolute despair beyond common sense.
Those with deep faith might have called it divine punishnt from a god who had given up on humanity. Conspiracy theorists might suspect it was a nuclear attack by an enemy nation. Those bound by common sense might treat it as a waking dream.
"—Guhah!"
In the next mont, an enormous shockwave swept over Shido's body and blew him away like a leaf.
Fortunately, the shockwave soon cald down. Shido's body landed in a flowerbed without much danger, and he did not suffer any serious injury.
"Wh-what happened?"
Shido crawled out of the flowerbed. Then the sight before him robbed him of words.
There was nothing.
That single sentence was enough to summarize everything.
Buildings, hos, cars, utility poles, plants, roads—and people too.
Not a single elent that could be associated with a city existed anymore. A vast wasteland stretched endlessly like an ocean, reaching all the way to the horizon.
Lowering his head to look at his feet, he saw that the boundary between the wasteland and the city was less than a hundred ters in front of him. If the sphere of light had expanded just a little farther, he would undoubtedly have died.
In an instant, cold sweat broke out across Shido's entire body.
(A spacequake…)
Shido naturally knew this phenonon. It was the natural disaster that accompanied the appearance of Spirits.
However, the scale of the spacequake before him far surpassed any he had ever seen.
(Why didn't the spacequake alarm sound?)
That question rose in his heart. Yet before he could reach a conclusion, his body acted first.
"Is anyone there? Is anyone still alive?"
Perhaps he was hoping there were survivors hiding underground beneath buildings. Perhaps the kindness and sense of justice in his heart had taken over. Or perhaps he simply did not want to accept this reality, which was far too cruel.
The boy did not run away. Instead, he stepped into the wasteland of his own accord, trying to search for any remaining life.
(What is this?)
Shido could not help feeling astonished. This was not his decision. Although he felt grief at this spacequake that seed so real, he also understood that this was rely a reenactnt of his mory. No matter what he did, he could not change reality.
But at this mont, his body was completely outside his control, moving on its own according to the script of mory.
And so, ti passed for who knew how long.
The sun hanging high in the sky gradually sank toward the west. The city behind him was almost out of sight, and his body had long since beco covered in sweat.
Just as the boy gradually began to think of turning back, a vague figure appeared in his vision amid the sand and dust blown up by the strong wind.
"You over there! Are you all right?"
Like a disaster victim who had discovered an oasis in the desert, the boy ran over in delight.
However, Shido's heart tightened with tension.
Because he knew clearly that, in a spacequake of this scale, the only one who could possibly have survived was the Spirit who had caused it.
Once he approached close enough to see the figure clearly, the boy stopped in a daze.
It was an unbelievably beautiful girl.
Silky long hair as clear as gemstones.
A delicate face pure and flawless.
A graceful, immaculate body without a single stain.
Although the girl before him was completely naked, she did not appear to have been hard by the spacequake. There was not the slightest visible wound on her body. She was so out of place in this desolate world.
Looking at her, rather than dirty thoughts, what filled the boy's heart was intoxication and worship toward beauty.
The boy thought that even if she claid to be an angel who had mistakenly descended to the mortal world, he probably would not doubt her.
"You are…"
Perhaps hearing the boy's voice, the girl slowly raised her head. Her clear eyes t the boy's.
In that instant, Shido felt his heart beat violently at an unimaginable speed.
He could not look away.
Nor could he close his eyes.
The boy's attention, heart, body—everything he had was stolen away in that single instant.
Then, Itsuka Shido understood.
This was probably the mont when the boy nad Takamiya Shinji fell in love.
User Comments
0 comments from readers