Takemura Itsuki

“Ichika still doesn’t remember how she was isekai’d here, you know.” Haruto smiled painfully behind his visible hairs. “Please, narrate to her the story of her isekai when I’m gone.”

“Bu—”

“I know it might be a little harsh on you, but, you see, I won’t be here anymore, and I promised her, so…”

Haruto stood right on top of the bricked roof of the narrow rectangular roof. On the other side of the roof was the dark sky, with a thick layer of smoke rising up from the other side. There were other flames of smoke rising up all around the town, which covered the dark sky twinkling with little stars with the translucent horrific gray gas rising up in thin layers. I could see Haruto standing, wearing his usual white shirt over a black pair of lowers, along with brown boots.

“Wait, you’re not going anywhere, Haruto!” My right foot moved up and dashed toward him.

SNAP!

My eyes opened.

“TADASHI! TADASHI! TADASHI! TADASHI!” My ears were filled with the roaring cheers of the crowd which sat all around the amphitheater, some standing and some sitting. Some were standing and shouting, some were sitting and smiling, and some were just chatting with each other. The amphitheater was filled with the indistinct chatter in the middle of the cheers.

I stood right at the edge of the circular amphitheater, with some people behind me in the audience’s area. They too were cheering up, chanting Tadashi’s name as they raised their fists beside their frowning eyes and open excited mouths. My narrowed expressionless dead eyes turned to the edge. I then turned my head to the back, and looked at a middle-aged guy with a black mustache and no beard shouting the same way, with a little kid beside him. The father was busy cheering for Tadashi, but the kid—who too was glaring at Tadashi—turned his head down at me. As he caught the dark aura emitting from my eyes, the five year-old guy turned his head to his father, a little scared as he compressed his lips inside. I then turned my head to the front. “Yeah… I still gotta fulfill my best friend’s promise. At least… I today remembered that… he wore white and black on the day of his demise.”

“AND NOW COMES IN THE RANK FIFTEENTH, THE DEFENDING CHAMPION OF THE RANKINGS THIS SEASON, TAKEMURA ITSUKIIIII!”

“Imma slay this damned game in a minute,” I murmured to myself as I turned my head down and started to walk, wearing my same black shirt with a black pair of lowers. My black scabbard, with a red dragon embroidered on its apex to the top of its handle, was hanging on my waist beside my left hand, moving a little right and left as I walked. I then moved my head up, my eyes covered by the shadows of my black hair.

“Booooooo!”

“You’re gonna lose today!”

“You’re shit in the name of the defending champion!”

“Give us Kurayami back!”

“We want Kurayami!”

“We want Kurayami!”

“We want Kurayami!”

The crowd soon was chanting, “We want Kurayami!” I turned my head to the back, looking at all the crowd rising their fists, frowning in disapproval. I then turned my head to the front again, my narrowed eyes fixed on Tadashi, who stood right in the middle of the amphitheater. He wore a crimson shirt and a black pair of pants. His confident and determined eyes were fixed on me as I walked toward him in my black ankle-length boots.

“We want Kurayami! We want Kurayami!”

I moved my right hand to the front at him for a handshake just as I was about two-four steps away from him. I then stopped and stood right in front of him, my hand raised at him for a shake. His right hand moved up, glided slowly at me, and soon, the two hands met and held each other. He was glaring at me with his determined lustrous eyes. My head was tilted down, my eyes still covered with the darkness of my hair. I then slowly turned my head up as the darkness started to fade away from the upper end of my face slowly. What soon revealed were my narrowed uninterested eyes glaring at him.

“Good luck,” Tadashi said.

“Good luck, man. Good luck.”

***

Shiratori Haruto

“What… have I done…? D-Damn…”

My eyes were open in shock as I was sitting alone in the classroom filled with the yellow afternoon sunshine. I was sitting in the right back corner of the room. On the left front, there were a couple of girls who were discussing something serious among themselves. The one at the center was taking up her bag from the ground as the other three were standing in her front. “And you won’t even believe what he did afterward!” The one standing at the center said.

The one at the front stood up while loading the bag onto her shoulders as she commented, “Today’s boys are so mean!”

“Yeah,” Another one commented as the group turned to my right, walking all the way from the front of the classroom discussing to the door.

“He literally slapped her then!”

“What?!”

“Really! I couldn’t believe it!”

“I know, right?! But all of it happened right in front of my eyes!”

“No, I just…”

Their voices faded away soon as they exited the door and went away. My head was on the table, my eyes wide open as I looked at the white tiled floor toward the shadows of my table and my own body.  “She… must have been so disturbed for such a long time…” I thought.

I remembered my mother’s smiling, and then Yashiro-senpai’s serious face came to my mind as he stood wearing his same brown overcoat.

“I gotta do something now. I… gotta remember everything… I wanna be done with this damned memory loss thingey going on. At last… I waited for this life for so long…”

“… ‘For so long’?”

“I just had a feeling that… this life was something precious to me… that this life was something which I had waited for so long, worked so hard for, and gone through a lot for. But, you know, that day… I felt like that the peaceful life which I had… I might lose it forever. Even though I had forgotten all of my memories, I can bet that… the feeling… I was never able to forget the feelings which I had.”