Chapter 34: The Tenth Playthrough (5)
Zhu Fujingguang is running.
He didn't know why, he just ran desperately in the darkness, all he could hear was the deafening sound of his own breathing and heartbeat.
He was filled with panic and anxiety, wanting to get somewhere quickly and find someone urgently, only then could he feel at ease.
Who is that person?
Are they Mom and Dad?
No, that's not right. His parents died when he was little, murdered right in front of him, and he still hasn't caught the killer... Hmm? Looks like they caught them? Did they catch them? Who was it? Strange, why can't I remember?
Is that Brother Gao Ming?
No, no, my brother Gaoming is doing very well in Nagano. He's a very famous policeman now. Besides, he's always very calm, rational, and strong. He doesn't need to worry about anything.
So, who is he worried about? For whom is he grieving and suffering? What is the source of this intense, heart-wrenching despair that is almost suffocating?
"hiro?"
A familiar voice suddenly came from behind him. Morofushi Kagemitsu paused for a second before realizing who it was, and turned around abruptly, exclaiming in surprise, "Zero!"
The familiar blond-haired, dark-skinned youth stood behind him, smiling at him as always, like a sun in the darkness instantly illuminating the whole world, and then reached out to embrace him.
Morofushi Kagemitsu ran over with a smile, but missed his target just as he was about to grab him.
"zero?"
Morofushi Kagemitsu turned his head in confusion and saw his young friend lying on the ground for some reason.
He was dressed in a solemn black suit, as if attending a funeral. His blond hair was scattered messily on the ground, and countless drops of blood were gushing out from the horrifying black gunshot wound in his head, quickly staining his cheeks red and wetting his golden eyelashes. But he remained motionless and completely silent.
"...zero?"
Morofushi Kagemitsu felt ice-cold all over. In a daze, he reached out to touch the blond youth's cheek to wipe the blood off his face, but his hand passed right through him as if it were transparent.
How could I commit suicide?
He remembered that Zero himself had pointed a gun at his head and shot himself without hesitation.
In a daze, the scenery around me suddenly changed. It was no longer the blood-red mourning hall, but a cherry blossom forest blooming under the moonlight.
Morofushi Kagemitsu was stunned for a moment, then suddenly stood up and started running wildly in the rain of countless fluttering cherry blossoms. The further he ran, the deeper the color of the petals became, until finally they turned into a blood-red color.
He ran up the mountain, but when he reached the top, he found no one.
He walked to the edge of the cliff and found five red petals that had been torn off and fallen into the mud, next to which was a deep scratch mark made by five fingers.
He stood on the high cliff and looked down into darkness, a bottomless abyss, as if he were staring into the abyss.
Even if it's the abyss, he will still go down.
Morofushi Kagemitsu arrived at the cherry blossom grove at the foot of the mountain and found the broken body of his childhood friend in the pale pile of rubble.
Her beautiful blond hair was once again stained red with blood and turned dull, and those smoky purple eyes, which were always so earnest yet gentle, would never open and look at him again.
Morofushi Kagemitsu lifted his childhood friend's body from the cherry blossoms that had been stained red, and gently stroked her golden hair as if touching bubbles.
"……fraud."
The blond youth silently left the emergency room and secretly hid in a dark, deserted corner of the hospital, where he took out a knife where no one could see or notice him.
No matter how much Morofushi Kagemitsu shouted and tried to stop him, the knife still pierced through his hand and plunged into the blond youth's heart.
The cherry blossom pendant, stained with the blood of two people, slipped limply from the dark-skinned hand and fell to the ground, shattering with a piercing crack.
The scene flashed again, and a door appeared in front of Morofushi Kagemitsu.
The heavy, familiar smell of blood filled the air inside the door.
【155】
【Falling Valley】
It was the dormitory of his childhood friend.
It was the dorm room of the person who had just been chatting and laughing with him, comforting him and saying that he wouldn't commit suicide.
Why didn't he notice anything amiss?
Morobuchi Kagemitsu couldn't open the door; it was locked.
The key...yes, the key. Of course he had the key to Zero's dorm room. The day they moved out, they left each other's room keys.
However, Morofushi Kagemitsu had no recollection of this at the time. He went crazy, ramming and kicking with his shoulders until he finally broke in.
Then I saw my childhood friend's body again.
The blond youth lay face down on the table with his back to him. It was hard to see anything in the dark dormitory, only the strong smell of blood filled the air.
Morofushi Kagemitsu had already remembered. His breathing became uncontrollably rapid, and he let out a sobbing, incoherent wail. He didn't want to face any of this, but he still turned on the light with trembling hands.
In an instant, the crimson blood, the blood-stained blond hair, and... the horrific, gaping wound on the other person's neck all came into his view.
Morofushi Kagemitsu staggered over, grabbed the bloodstained hand, and buried his face in the blond youth's knees, finally bursting into heart-wrenching sobs.
Slitting one's throat—what a ruthless and agonizing way to die…
He slowly felt his childhood friend's body, which had lost its heartbeat and breath, grow colder and colder. The world around him seemed to turn from spring into winter, dark and bitterly cold, and the sun seemed to never rise again.
The world spun around him, and in an instant he was transported from the icy deep sea to a scorching sea of fire.
Even more dazzling than the flames was his incredibly familiar blond hair, but the blond youth was pinned down by the falling fire stakes on the last stretch of the way to the second floor.
The hand stretched forward with all its might, but there was still one step to the second floor.
Morobuchi Kagemitsu frantically tried to move the burning wood off him, to lift him out of the inferno, and even to stand between him and the approaching flames, but to no avail.
Unable to touch anything, Moribu no Kagemitsu could only watch in despair as the flames consumed his dazzling golden hair and scorched his healthy wheat-colored skin.
He reached out his trembling hand to touch the other person, but the charred black cheek shattered the moment he touched it.
"——"
Zhu Fujingguang suddenly sat up in bed, clutching his clothes in pain and gasping for breath as if suffocating.
His heart felt like it was being physically torn apart; his whole body was trembling uncontrollably, and tears quickly blurred his vision.
"...zero...zero..."
No, no, it's a nightmare, just a nightmare. Zero is still alive in reality.
But what if Zero is still alive, and that's just his fantasy?
[If Hiro has any terrible nightmares, whenever it is, don't suffer in silence. Come find me right away or call me over, okay?]
[A pinky promise, a vow that will last a hundred years.]
Morofushi Kagemitsu wiped away his tears forcefully, took a deep breath to calm himself down a little, and then suddenly got up, grabbed the key, and headed towards his childhood friend's dormitory.
He hadn't walked more than a few steps before he started running.
In the quiet of the night, in the narrow corridors and stairwells of the school dormitory, he ran frantically, everything almost overlapping with his nightmare.
So when he knocked on his childhood friend's door but no one answered, and when he tremblingly took out his key to open the door and found the room empty, Morofushi Kagemitsu almost broke down.
What brought him back to his senses was the terrifyingly tall pile of complex books on the table, and the chaotic scene that looked as if its owner had been suddenly dragged out. Morofushi Kagemitsu's precarious rationality quickly analyzed and deduced the answer.
Just like when he woke up from that nightmare and quickly deduced that his childhood friend had gone to the back mountain.
After leaving the dormitory and closing the door, Morofushi Kagemitsu remembered the locator. He took out his phone, turned on the location device, and breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that his childhood friend was indeed in the grove where he had fought with Matsuda earlier.
After successfully finding the blond youth who was still alive and kicking, confirming that this was reality and not a nightmare, Morofushi Kagemitsu did not go out directly. Instead, he stood behind a cherry blossom tree in the darkness, quietly watching the blond youth and the curly-haired youth fight arrogantly with laughter.
He has finally calmed down and realized something.
After that, the scenes of Zero's repeated deaths may replace the Nagano massacre in which his parents were killed as his new nightmare.
It was only at this moment that Morofushi Kagemitsu realized what had happened.
Compared to his parents who left early and his brother with whom he rarely saw each other, the most important person to him now is actually his childhood friend Zero, who grew up with him, pulled him out of the darkness, stayed by his side, and spent most of his life with him.
Because they had become so familiar with each other that he took it for granted that they would be together forever, he didn't realize this until he lost the other person.
What's even more frightening is that this danger has not been eliminated.
Those horrible nightmares that are impossible to accept may reappear in the real world at any time.
"hiro?"
Morofushi Kagemitsu suddenly snapped back to his senses, quickly withdrew his hand from the tree trunk and put it behind his back, then expertly put on a smile as he looked at the blond youth who had somehow appeared in front of him.
"Z, Zero, are you guys done fighting?"
Rei Furuya tilted his head and smiled: "Yeah, after knocking out Matsuda's dentures, I felt instantly relieved. Only now do I realize that the new loop is about to begin seriously."
Morofushi Kagemitsu couldn't help but laugh as well: "Matsuda can't hear that..."
He stopped mid-sentence when his childhood friend reached out and touched his sweaty temples.
"Hiro, were you having a nightmare?" Rei Furuya asked.
Morofushi Kagemitsu: "..."
Morofushi Kagemitsu nodded slightly, lowered his eyes and said in a low voice, "Yes, I dreamed that Zero died, died many times."
"It was just a nightmare." He felt a warm hand rub his head, and then the other person sighed and gave him a big hug. "I'm still alive, Hiro, can you feel it? I'm right here, and I just had a lively fight with Matsuda."
“Hiro kept his promise and came to find me, I’m so happy.” His hand, which was hidden behind his back, was gently pulled out. “But you can’t hurt yourself, your injury looks more serious than mine. Now we have to bandage each other. Will the instructor think the three of us fought together tomorrow? Hmm, the consequences of a fight between two people are completely different from a group fight.”
"Probably not? Then I'm doomed too." Morifushi Kagemitsu's tense body slowly relaxed, and he couldn't help but laugh along with him.
That night, after bandaging each other's wounds, the two leaned against each other again like trapped animals licking their wounds, as if they could only fall asleep peacefully by each other's side.
This time, Morofushi Kagemitsu did not have nightmares again.
But his unease did not disappear.
The next morning during training, the three injured men were indeed discovered by the instructor and given a severe scolding. Fortunately, squad leader Date Wataru intervened in time to save them from further trouble, and the five men began to get to know each other.
With things progressing as before, Morofushi Kagemitsu breathed a slight sigh of relief, but then began to worry about the first hurdle ahead.
Although Zero said the first node would be easy to pass, images of blond youths dying kept flashing before his eyes, making it impossible for him to calm down.
He was so anxious at night that he couldn't sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, he would see himself standing in a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, with nothing but the bodies of blond youths in sight.
Because he was worried about affecting Zero's condition, Morofushi Hiromitsu lied when his childhood friend emailed him, saying that he was perfectly fine sleeping alone that night, but in reality, he couldn't sleep at all.
Until April 5th.
Zhu Fujingguang took a deep breath, his eyes gradually becoming serious and sharp.
Today they will face their first hurdle: the unexpected incident during Onizuka Squad's first pistol training session.
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