Date a Live:This is not the date I wanted! Chapter 577 577: Him of the Past, Me of the Present

Itsuka Shido's world beca pitch black.

Darkness so deep he could not see his own hand stretched before him. His shouting voice turned into bubbles and scattered into the distance. His five senses first grew sharp, then gradually beca cold and dull.

Takamiya Shinji had died.

Shido understood that very clearly. This world that had suddenly beco empty was the symbol of the end of Shinji's life.

Having played through Takamiya Shinji's life, Shido's feelings were extrely complicated. He rejoiced at the eting between the two of them, blessed their romance, felt anger at their circumstances, and finally sorrow at their separation.

He could not feel as if he were an outsider. Shido had once tried to change these events, yet the tragedy still reached its conclusion against his will.

This was not the present in which he existed. It was the past that existed only within mory. Even if he tried to forcefully change sothing, it would hold no aning.

(And I…)

—!

Suddenly, this empty world began to move strangely. It started collapsing from so unknown corner. As if to avoid dragging Itsuka Shido into it, a powerful pushing force surged up from below, like a canon launching Shido's consciousness upward.

He rose.

He continued rising.

Although there was no convenient reference point for direction in this world, Shido instinctively had the impression that he was constantly moving.

Finally, after reaching a certain boundary, the hollow sense of emptiness vanished. In its place ca the floating feeling of being surrounded by warm water.

Raising his head and looking around, he realized that at so point he had returned to that deep blue sea filled with colorful bubbles. Beneath his feet, the door that had been opened like a skylight had vanished to who knew where. Only the seafloor buried in sand and mud remained.

"It's over…"

Just as Shido thought everything had ended, several tiny bubbles suddenly erged from cracks in the mud at the bottom of the sea.

They were transparent and dazzling, like diamonds carefully polished.

"Are these… Mio's?"

As if understanding sothing, Shido carefully held those bubbles in his palms.

—Don't die!

—Please don't leave !

—I will revive you! I absolutely won't let go again, and I absolutely won't make another mistake!

—So please, don't leave my side again.

Mio's pleas turned into emotions and flowed into Shido's heart.

After that, Mio, who had lost the one she loved most, cried as if a huge hole had been torn open inside her heart.

However, cries of despair could not bring about any change. The world that had lost its color would not return. The hope that had disappeared could not co back.

And so, one day, Mio stopped crying.

She began acting for a single purpose.

To revive Takamiya Shinji.

Of course, rely reviving him would not be enough. A human body was far too fragile. Even if he escaped that one death, there still existed countless forms of malice in the world that could easily drive her beloved into a corner.

Murder, accidents, natural disasters, disease—even if he avoided all of those, one day, Shinji's lifespan would still co to an end. He would grow old and die, leaving her side.

Having already experienced one separation, she could not bear to experience that despair again.

Using her own power, she absorbed Shinji's corpse into her body and reconstructed it there, nurturing a new body. In this way, the newly born Shinji would have the chance to accept her power.

To avoid Shinji absorbing too much power all at once, she initially gave him only one ability.

—The ability to absorb power.

Afterward, she divided her own power into several parts, purified them into crystals that humans could absorb, and entrusted them to others.

Then, one day, when the steadily growing Shinji gathered all of those powers one by one—

Shinji would possess enough strength to never be hard by anyone.

He would beco an eternal life.

And when that ti ca, Mio would be able to remain by his side forever as his lover.

"Haah… I see."

Shido sighed in realization.

Although Takamiya Shinji had died, his life had not ended. It had rely changed form and continued to exist as the person nad "Itsuka Shido."

How strange.

Shido had originally thought that after learning the truth—that he was nothing more than a substitute prepared to revive Shinji—he would feel extrely angry. But now that it had co to this, his heart was strangely calm.

Perhaps it was because the mory bubbles before his eyes were simply too pure.

For the sake of reviving and granting eternal life to just one person, Mio dragged countless others into this.

Kotori lost control and burned down a town.

Origami lost her parents and stepped into a world filled with gunfire.

Nia suffered endless torture and nearly lost her life.

Mukuro broke with her family and wandered alone through space.

Kurumi accidentally killed her closest friend and beca a mass murderer stained with blood.

And not only them. The other Spirits, along with many people he did not know, had their lives turned upside down because of Mio's decision. (TL: Yoshino and Natsumi original fate was the saddest btw, it's ironic to say becoming a Spirit 'save' so of the girl)

All of this, for the eternal life of one person.

That idea seed twisted to Shido. Yet for Mio, it was a wish she would realize even if it ant abandoning everything and being hated by everyone.

One could imagine just how important Takamiya Shinji was to her.

"Ha, you really were loved, Shinji."

Shido could not help laughing softly as he murmured.

—I am not worthy of her love.

Suddenly, a low voice sounded beside his ear, responding to Shido's words.

Turning toward the voice, the boy with an appearance similar to his own, the one nad "Takamiya Shinji", stood silently behind him.

When had he appeared beside him? Shido could not help wondering.

No, perhaps he had always been there.

It was just that Shido had always feared being replaced by him, so he had ignored him, rejected him, refused to see him—until finally, he had driven Shido away in a form nearly resembling a haunting.

"Why… do you think that?"

Shido was not frightened. He asked softly, as if speaking to a familiar family mber.

—I was only an ordinary person. I had no powerful strength, nor any qualities worth ntioning. I rely happened to survive that disaster and happened to be the first to appear before Mio, becoming a special existence in her heart.

"Shinji" lowered his face and answered in a very dejected voice.

"That's not true. It's because you didn't care about her identity and treated her as an ordinary girl that she opened her heart to you, isn't it?"

—That was only my insignificant inferiority complex and vanity.

"Shinji" smiled self-mockingly.

—The mont I first saw Mio, I fell in love with her at first sight. But I soon understood that she was a special existence, while I was only an ordinary person, incapable of becoming special. So I had to treat Mio as an ordinary girl. If I didn't, I would not have the right to stand by her side.

Hearing Shinji's words, Shido pressed his lips together with a bitter expression.

"You don't need qualifications to love soone."

—You do. Resolve without power is nothing more than cruelty that hurts others.

"Shinji" declared firmly.

—At that ti, I had no power at all, yet I kept painting beautiful fantasies for Mio. I made her trust for no reason. But in the end, not only did I fall so low that Mio had to protect , I also left her with painful mories.

As he spoke, "Shinji" looked up at Shido. His expression carried envy, and also a little grief.

—You seem to worry that if you recall the past, you will be replaced by . In truth, that is nothing but a needless fear.

—Takamiya Shinji died long ago. He died thirty years ago. What stands before you now is nothing more than an afterimage woven together by the brain after collecting "Shinji's" mories.

—And taking ten thousand steps back, even if I truly were Takamiya Shinji's soul, I would not replace you.

—You are stronger than , tougher than , and more excellent than . You have done everything I could not do. Why would I do sothing like that and hurt others again?

"That's not true. I'm also a pretty useless person. Without everyone's help, I probably would have died countless tis already."

Shido smiled wryly and shook his head.

"I really respect you. Even without power and without anyone's help, you still wanted to protect Mio."

—That was rely forcing myself. If the person Mio t had not been , she surely could have lived a happier life.

Shido shook his head and denied it firmly.

"No one could replace you. It was precisely because you refused to let go of Mio's hand until the very end that Mio fell in love with you and wished for you to stay by her side."

"I won't deny you. Even if the ending was painful, we cannot say your love for Mio was wrong just because of the result. And even if there was truly a mistake, that mistake was not yours."

[Although you yourself never noticed it, the past known as Takamiya Shinji must also be an indispensable part of you as Itsuka Shido.]

In that instant, Shido seed to understand the aning behind Yutsuki's words.

It was precisely because Takamiya Shinji regretted his own powerlessness that Itsuka Shido possessed the power to save others.

It was precisely because Takamiya Shinji had once lost the ordinary daily life he disliked that Itsuka Shido could understand how precious and hard won that daily life was.

It was precisely because his lover's expression of despair and collapse had been the final sight Takamiya Shinji saw before death that Itsuka Shido could never ignore Spirits who had fallen into despair, no matter what.

Perhaps Itsuka Shido was not Takamiya Shinji.

But precisely because there had once been Takamiya Shinji in the past, the current Itsuka Shido existed.

No wonder he had been rejected by the dream before.

Shinji was the root that ford him. Trying to deny that root in order to confirm his own identity was simply laughable.

"Maybe, just as you said, my heart contains soone else. So I can't beco you. But like you, I don't want that person to ever show such a painful expression again. So—"

As he spoke, Shido stretched his hand toward the figure before him.

"Let's go save her, together"

…

"Shinji" did not answer. He rely gripped Shido's hand silently and firmly.

In an instant, the entire seafloor world, including the figure before him, seed to lose its color, bleaching into a blank page. It was as if signifying the completion of this dream.

—Thank you… Itsuka Shido.

—Truly… thank you.

"—!?"

With the lingering echo still in his ears, Shido opened his eyes and woke from the dream.