Chapter 39: The Tenth Playthrough (10)
The sports meet was a complete success.
Rei Furuya single-handedly won almost half of the championships in the events he participated in, living up to his title as the top student in the police academy. This also convinced some students from other classes who witnessed it firsthand, leaving them in awe of how such a not-so-tall and strong body could unleash such terrifying energy.
His four close friends from the same period were not overshadowed by him at all. In fact, even before the sports meet was over, they began to receive a steady stream of offers from various departments.
Unfortunately, all five of them had decided where they would go before the sports meet even started.
Finally, the principal gave a speech at the end of the sports meet. The Superintendent General of Police did not appear at the police academy today because of what happened last night.
Rei Furuya let out an exaggerated sigh of relief from the audience, then turned to Morofushi Kagemitsu behind him and whispered, "Great, it seems we don't need to desperately hold Matsuda back anymore."
Matsuda Jinpei, who was in front of him, didn't turn around, but he gave him a hard elbow.
They stood in order of height, so Matsuda Jinpei was at the front, Furuya Rei was second, Morofushi Kagemitsu was third, Hagiwara Kenji was fourth, and the tallest, Date Wataru, was at the back.
At this moment, Kenji Hagiwara finally learned that the reason Matsuda Jinpei became a policeman was to punch the Superintendent General of Police. He was stunned and even during dinner that night, he was still complaining that Matsuda Jinpei hadn't told him such an important thing. He was even more concerned that Furuya Rei knew about this but he didn't.
Matsuda Jinpei was speechless: "You didn't ask me, and this is just the initial idea. I'm not a child anymore. I'm not going to actually run over and punch the Superintendent General."
Kenji Hagiwara pretended to cry, ignoring everything: "Waaah, am I no longer Jinpei's best friend? Or is it true that childhood friends can never beat new friends?"
Furuya Zero: "..."
Morofushi Kagemitsu quietly moved closer to his childhood friend, put his hand on the blond youth's shoulder, and tilted his head with a smile, saying, "I support the childhood friend party, you know."
“Hiro…” Furuya Rei looked helplessly at his childhood friend who was acting with Hagiwara Kenji.
"Why are you making a scene with Master Jing too?!" Matsuda Jinpei's eyes widened.
Date Wataru: "..."
That's why I've already said I don't really understand you childhood friends.
And Matsuda, do you have some kind of misunderstanding about Morofushi? Most of the time, he's the one who loves to watch the fun and cause trouble, okay? He's also the one who loves to tease Furuya the most!
But while we can have fun and joke around, we can't forget about serious matters.
Rei Furuya poked at the pork cutlet rice in his bowl with his chopsticks, then suddenly looked up and said, "Matsuda, teach me how to defuse a bomb."
Matsuda Jinpei paused for a moment, then immediately raised an eyebrow: "So you're finally going to learn how to defuse bombs? Although you did a great job defusing a bomb under my guidance last time, bombs aren't things you can just touch casually."
Rei Furuya gave an example: "But what if I encounter that bomb-monger again, like last night?"
Matsuda Jinpei pointed to himself and said matter-of-factly, "Is there even a question? Of course, we should leave it to the experts. I'm about to join the explosive ordnance disposal unit. A mere bomb can be dealt with in three minutes! So next time something like this happens, remember to call me, understand?"
"Me too! Me too! I've decided to join the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit with Jinpei!" Kenji Hagiwara eagerly raised his hand, resting his chin on his hand and laughing, "Although I'm not as good as Jinpei, I'm quite skilled with bombs too!"
Despite Matsuda Jinpei's words, he still agreed to teach Furuya Rei how to defuse bombs, and his reward was the large pork cutlet in Furuya Rei's bowl.
Rei Furuya, whose bowl contained only white rice and a few pieces of vegetables: "..."
“Then I’ll learn it too.” Morofushi Kagemitsu smiled.
Date Wataru was a bit stumped by this. He was about to say that his department probably wouldn't be able to handle bombs, so he wouldn't have to learn it. But when Furuya Rei looked at him with serious and expectant eyes, he silently swallowed his words of refusal.
Just like how he originally planned to work at the local police station where Natalie worked, but after receiving a recruitment offer from the Metropolitan Police Department's First Investigative Division, and after several serious considerations and discussions with everyone, he finally chose to work directly at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's First Investigative Division.
"Okay, let's study together then." In the end, he could only helplessly continue studying with them.
*
Kenji Hagiwara was responsible for teaching the completely inexperienced Kagemitsu Morofushi and Wataru Date, while Jinpei Matsuda was responsible for teaching Rei Furuya, who had already been taught once.
However, for Matsuda Jinpei, the teaching process was both easy and not so pleasant.
"You learn way too fast! You can learn all the types of bombs after just one explanation? That's absurd!" Matsuda Jinpei was starting to doubt his own abilities. "Do I really need to teach you? You could just buy a book and look at a tutorial, wouldn't you know how?"
“That’s different, because Matsuda’s technique is the most perfect,” Furuya Rei said.
He spoke so sincerely and matter-of-factly that he immediately stunned the four people next to him.
"Oh, oh!" Matsuda Jinpei stammered for a moment before raising his chin and laughing, "Of course! You have good taste!"
Kenji Hagiwara immediately yelled, "Whoa! Jinpei's shy! His ears are even red, hahaha!!!"
"I didn't!!!" Matsuda Jinpei instantly bristled and turned to chase after Hagiwara Kenji.
The quiet and focused atmosphere of studying was suddenly shattered.
Rei Furuya burst out laughing.
In the still noisy classroom after school, the blond youth rested his chin on his hand and leaned against the desk, watching his friends play around and eventually yell and scream without any regard for their image. His smoky purple eyes gradually softened and became nostalgic.
Graduation is approaching, and he can finally relax a bit and think about the future.
The more we think about the future, the more beautiful and precious the present moment seems.
Without a doubt, this is his most precious memory.
It was the best years of his youth.
*
September 25th.
There's less than a week left until I graduate from police academy.
Rei Furuya wasn't wearing his police uniform today; instead, he was fully armed in camouflage.
They are about to hold a wilderness rescue training exercise today.
The training location is in a relatively remote mountainous area with lush vegetation and complex terrain, making it very suitable for training in wilderness rescue operations.
Police officers often work in very difficult environments, and no one knows what they will encounter in their work. The only certainty is that they will always go against the tide to save people in danger when death is at stake.
Therefore, this kind of outdoor training that integrates physical, mental, and spiritual aspects is also essential.
When we arrived at the remote mountain area by bus at eight o'clock in the morning, the sky was overcast and looked like it was going to rain at any moment.
"Has it been raining too much lately?" Kenji Hagiwara sighed. "It feels like it's been raining all month. There's mud everywhere. Luckily, we don't have to clean the bathhouse anymore."
"There's no signal here." Rei Furuya glanced at his phone.
"Because it's designed to simulate extreme weather and terrain, as well as wilderness rescues in situations without signal, even if the phone has a signal, it will still be confiscated," said Ida Ko.
Just as he said, before training began, the instructors confiscated almost everyone's communication devices.
The training content is actually very simple. The instructors pretend to be victims and hide in different places in the mountains. The trainees need to find the instructors and successfully rescue the victims by completing a series of tasks assigned by the instructors.
Just like a typical extracurricular activity group, this time it was a rescue team of five people.
Rei Furuya, Kagemitsu Morofushi, Wataru Date, Kenji Hagiwara, and Jinpei Matsuda naturally formed a team this time as well.
Because their abilities were clearly superior to others, it was only natural that they were assigned to be in charge of the most difficult area.
"Furuya and Morofushi go up for the search and rescue, Hagiwara and Matsuda go to the left, and I'll go to the right. Once we find anything, fire a signal flare immediately. The rest of you, head over there right away," Date Wataru said seriously. "Any problems? If not, we'll set off immediately."
"No!" the four of them said in unison.
"Alright, then, let's begin!" Date Wataru said in a deep voice.
*
"It seems the instructor isn't with us." Furuya Rei quickly confirmed this.
“Yes, I didn’t find any suspicious traces on the road either.” Morofushi Kagemitsu nodded.
Rei Furuya jumped onto a rock on the mountaintop, looked around for a while, and stroked his chin, saying, "Our instructors are probably hiding with the squad leader."
When Morobuchi Kagemitsu saw him standing on the edge of the cliff, he instinctively felt a pang of fear and quickly pulled him back before looking in that direction with him.
But before he could ask why they said that, a strange loud noise in the distance made the two of them change their expressions and turn around to look behind them.
"What was that sound?" Morifushi Kagemitsu's eyes widened. "It sounded like... a collapse or an explosion?"
Rei Furuya's face instantly darkened: "Damn it! That's a dam!"
There was no time to think about why the dam collapsed. Even from a distance, they could see the floodwaters, which had accumulated over half a month of rain, suddenly cascading down the mountain like a giant white snake, rapidly devouring all the trees and rocks along its path and sweeping towards them.
It seemed unlikely that the impact would affect those on the mountain; it would only glide past the left side of the mountain they were on, but—
"Zero! There's a village downstream! There are many people in it!" Morofushi Kagemitsu suddenly turned around and said anxiously, "I saw it on the way here! At this rate, it will definitely flood that village, which isn't on high ground!"
They weren't the only ones who saw this scene and thought about it; the once quiet forest below immediately became noisy.
Morofushi Kagemitsu received no reply. He noticed that the blond youth's eyes were fixed on a spot to his lower right.
He looked in that direction and easily spotted a huge rock in a particularly prominent spot, below which was a narrow riverbed sandwiched between two mountains, a veritable chasm.
Morobuchi Kagemitsu was stunned for a moment, and the instant he met those purplish-gray eyes, he understood what he wanted to do.
Morobuchi Kagemitsu took a deep breath and then smiled.
“Let’s go, Zero!” he said.
*
On the sloping cliff halfway up the mountain.
As Furuya Rei carried a tree branch, which had been simply made into a stick, out of the forest, Morofushi Kagemitsu had already dug a large pit under the boulder and placed a relatively flat stone not far away.
Rei Furuya thrust his stick into the large pit beneath the boulder, wedging it against the rock in the middle.
They were moving quickly enough, but the floodwaters in the distance were already rapidly approaching the foot of the mountain.
It's not too late!
Rei Furuya gripped the end of the stick, his eyes resolute.
He had just shouted his plan to the squad leader and instructors across half the forest; the follow-up work was now up to everyone.
He and Hiro used leverage to pry the boulder down and block the river channel, forcing the floodwaters to change course and rush toward the uninhabited mountainous area on the right, thus preventing the village downstream on the left from being submerged.
but--
Fangtani Rei opened his mouth: "hiro..."
"Even if I wanted to run now, it would be too late." Morofushi Kagemitsu interrupted him, stood with him, grabbed the wooden stick, and began to press down hard.
Rei Furuya gritted his teeth and increased his strength, watching as the towering boulder, several meters high, began to be slowly pried open by the combined power of the two tiny humans.
“Although we have determined the escape route, if the flood is successfully contained, our area will definitely be affected at that moment, and it is uncertain whether we will be able to escape,” said Morofushi Kagemitsu.
“We will survive,” Furuya Rei affirmed.
The ground began to tremble, the sound of the flood was deafening, and the sound of boulders rubbing against sticks was also very grating.
Finally, their bodies suddenly felt light and they fell forward, the shadow of the boulder in front of them vanished instantly, followed by a loud crash.
The boulder fell and landed right in the middle of the riverbed between the two mountains.
Rei Furuya and Kagemitsu Morofushi turned around at the same time and ran desperately up the mountain to the side, but almost simultaneously, they heard the devastating sound of a flood behind them.
It's too late.
“Zero! If I forget everything again! No matter how many times! You must tell me again!!!” Morofushi Kagemitsu suddenly grabbed his hand and shouted.
Rei Furuya gritted his teeth and shouted back, "Fine! No matter how many times, I'll tell you everything again! Even if I fail a thousand times, ten thousand times! I will not hesitate to reload my save and save everyone! I will never give up!!!"
He seemed to see the blue-eyed youth smile, but his eyes were very complicated, though he didn't have time to see it clearly.
"Boom—"
As the floodwaters swept in, Rei Furuya felt as if his body had been instantly shattered.
To make matters worse, at this critical moment, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head, as if he had been hit hard by a stone.
This caused him to lose consciousness instantly, and his original plan completely failed.
When Rei Furuya regained consciousness, the only thing that reminded him of was the pain that even the chill couldn't dispel, and that he was still alive and hadn't started a new cycle.
He coughed violently, his rationality quickly returning, and almost subconsciously he immediately began to think about and analyze all the information around him.
His head hurt, and his eyes seemed to be covered with blood and mud, or perhaps his brain was damaged, making it difficult for him to see clearly.
His body was still being washed by the rushing river, his hands were in pain, and someone was holding him tightly, very tightly.
"Zero! Zero!!!"
Ah, it's Hiro, it's Hiro who caught him.
Rei Furuya struggled to open his eyes and saw the blue-eyed youth grabbing a swaying branch in the floodwaters with one hand, while trying to pull him into his arms with the other.
However, the current was too strong, and Morofushi Kagemitsu didn't seem to be in good condition. Therefore, no matter what he did, he couldn't pull the powerless blond youth any closer. He could only barely hold onto him to prevent him from being completely taken away by death.
Rei Furuya felt dizzy and weak, and could sense how bad the situation was; it was beyond saving.
Is this his tribulation?
Yes, he's bound to face a calamity, and it seems like he can't escape it this time.
“Hiro…you let go…” Furuya Rei took a deep breath.
“Zero!” Morofushi Kagemitsu suddenly interrupted him, forcing a weak, almost unpleasant smile at him, but still insisting on finishing his sentence.
He said, "When you were little, you said my name was beautiful, that just looking at it and hearing it made you feel the light and all the beautiful things in the world. But I actually wanted to tell you that back then..."
Rei Furuya struggled to stay awake, desperately trying to hear what his childhood friend was saying amidst his throbbing tinnitus and the deafening roar of the flood.
"Actually, for me, Zero is the sun that represents light. Your blonde hair is, and so is your name. Zero's blonde hair and name have always been the coolest in the world to me."
“Zero, did you know? Actually, the character '景' (jǐng) also means 'shadow', which in classical Chinese represents shadows.”
"What I'm trying to say is, Zero, if you weren't here, if there were no Zero, then I wouldn't be who I am today."
"If Zero isn't here, then Hiro won't be light anymore, and the scenery will become shadow. Without Zero, I'd probably be forever shrouded in an inescapable shadow."
"So, Zero, please, please hang in there a little longer, okay? Don't give up on this world and on me so easily, don't abandon me like you did before..."
Hiro's voice began to choke up. Was he crying?
In the chaotic and dim light, Rei Furuya suddenly saw glaring blood flowing from Hiro's hand to his own. The blood and tears mingled with the water and choked him, making him feel extremely salty and bitter.
Hiro was injured too, he thought.
Rei Furuya instantly regained his senses.
"I'm sorry, I swear I will never do that again." He realized once again how deeply the previous timeline, where they were like strangers, had cast an unimaginable psychological shadow on Hiro.
Rei Furuya looked up and gave his anxious childhood friend a reassuring smile, saying earnestly, "Hiro, I promise you, I'll tell you everything as soon as we get back. It's okay, it's just starting over. I'll be more experienced next time, and we'll work together again. We'll definitely succeed next time."
"Crack—" The branch supporting the two of them made a sound of straining under the weight, and it looked like it was about to break.
Jiang Guling paused for a moment, his gaze gradually hardening.
Regardless, he still didn't want Hiro to experience death again.
Moreover, perhaps deep down he was thinking that if Hiro didn't remember those sad and painful memories, then Hiro wouldn't suffer from PTSD, and wouldn't be constantly awakened by nightmares and feel pain and anxiety.
Even if Hiro doesn't remember any of this, it doesn't matter. When he tells Hiro everything again, they can continue to work together just like this time. Hiro will definitely believe him.
“Hiro… let go…” Furuya Rei couldn’t help but say.
His consciousness and vision had become blurred again, and his only remaining obsession was to keep Hiro alive, so he began to struggle.
But Rei Furuya felt the hand gripping him tighten even more, almost crushing his bones, and even began to tremble violently.
"Shut up! You bastard Zero, shut up! I won't let go! I absolutely won't let go!!!"
Rei Furuya snapped out of it, but was stunned by his childhood friend's almost shouting and yelling at him for the first time, before realizing that something was wrong with his emotions.
This was the first time he'd seen Hiro so angry with him, reacting so intensely… Wait, given Hiro's personality, he might act first in order to ensure he also retains the memories in the next loop…
The image of Hiro's suicide flashed through Rei Furuya's mind in an instant, and his heart immediately jumped. He nervously tried to open his eyes wide and look up to see his childhood friend's expression.
But the moment his vision cleared, Rei Furuya was completely stunned.
He saw Hiro crying, and his expression was one of unprecedented sadness and anger.
"Of course I know Zero is strong! Of course I believe you will never fall into true despair! You will definitely find the path to success! You must have already thought about the next cycle in an instant, right? You must be thinking right now that it would be good if I failed this time and didn't have the memories next time?! But, but what about me? Have you asked me what I think?"
Rei Furuya opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a single word.
"What do I have to do for you to understand? Those memories are more joyful than painful for me, and I really don't want to forget everything I've experienced with everyone so far! And all those wonderful memories of training hard and supporting each other with Zero, those most precious memories—what if I can't remember them at all or my memories are incomplete if I have to do it all over again?!"
Rei Furuya was completely stunned, staring blankly into his eyes as he listened to his painful roar.
"I don't want to forget any of this!!!"
In those blue cat eyes, brimming with tears, he saw a terrifyingly intense despair and obsession, as well as an extremely fragile hope and plea.
"I don't want to forget you, Zero..."
"Snap—"
The branch broke completely.
And so, the last glimmer of hope in those eyes was completely extinguished.
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