Chapter 58, Eighteenth Cycle (2)
After dealing with Rintaro Okabe's matter, Rei Furuya put down his phone, lay down on the bed, closed his eyes, and rested for a while.
He reached up and brushed his hair back, placing the back of his hand on his forehead.
It's very hot.
Oh no, this fever seems a bit serious, even though I took medicine.
Looks like I'm going to get scolded by Hagi again.
I don't know why, but the things that are remembered after Hagi has a dream are more or less different each time. Even in the thirteenth cycle, when all previous memories were wiped, he still remembered that he had a fever on the first day in subsequent reincarnations.
The previous low-grade fever was fine, but this time, although it didn't reach the level of a high fever, it was definitely not a minor case that could be ignored. It would definitely be noticed and cause concern.
Aside from a slight loss of control during the graduation photo shoot after the time rewind, nothing seemed amiss, and Hiro was successfully fooled...
He's getting more and more skilled; he'll be in big trouble if he gets caught.
Rei Furuya thought to himself, "I'll admit my mistake, but I'll never change my ways."
After everything is over, it doesn't matter if everyone angrily beats him into a pig's head.
If Matsuda still wants to fight him then, he will let Matsuda win.
But the teeth still can't be knocked out...
Rei Furuya subconsciously knew that he was waiting for Kenji Hagiwara to come over after he finished dreaming, but in reality, he gradually fell asleep due to mental exhaustion and a high fever.
My dreams are filled with a jumble of fragmented memories. Sometimes they are the smiles of those four people, sometimes their corpses, sometimes four graves, sometimes the cherry blossom badges of the police, and sometimes countless red butterflies fluttering wildly all over the world.
Under a gloomy sky lay countless dilapidated skyscrapers, and swarms of scarlet butterflies dominated the entire world.
The butterflies fluttered onto the four corpses, quickly devouring them, then landed on their tombstones, gently fluttering their wings and scattering countless tiny scales, making him feel even more suffocated and oppressed as he was surrounded.
And those three sentences echoed repeatedly throughout the entire world.
May you all have a bright future and a promising career.
"Oh no! The bomb timer has restarted! Everyone run!"
“Brave officer, I must commend your courage…”
The sounds grew louder and louder, eventually becoming a chaotic jumble that was impossible to discern. Only emotions continued to accumulate, eventually turning into some unknown substance that polluted the mind.
"May the brave officers be praised! Before the bomb, you, Cheng Chong, dare to be new and have one. You must not start your brave timer. The future is not good. I am full of energy. Run!"
Then came the world-destroying flames and deafening explosions. The heat and flames instantly melted everything, like a scene from a legendary apocalypse.
There is no living person here except him.
The destruction of the world should have been a matter of a moment, but he experienced it repeatedly.
Again and again, over and over, until the body gradually became numb, the consciousness grew heavier and heavier with exhaustion, and then slowly fell into the dark abyss.
"Not yet." The blond youth sighed, then suddenly grabbed a rock to steady his falling body.
"I know they are dead, and I also know they are still alive."
"Even if it's a dream, I won't give up," he said.
The blond, dark-skinned youth climbed out of the abyss step by step, like the legendary fallen archangel Lucifer emerging from hell after transforming into the demon king Satan.
Archangel Lucifer fell from the heavens to hell to oppose God for questioning God's authority, and after his fall, he became the devil Satan.
Jesus said to them, “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Lucifer, the wisest and most beautiful archangel of the six wings, the radiant morning star, the son of glory, how have you fallen from heaven? How have you, the morning star who defeated the great powers, been felled to the earth? You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to the heavens; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mountain of assembly, on the highest north; I will ascend above the highest clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ Yet you will fall into hell, to the deepest depths of the earth.”
“No, I will not fall.” The blond youth said firmly, “Even if I am temporarily in hell, I will never truly fall.”
“But if you consider yourselves gods,” he suddenly laughed, “then I will have no choice but to slay the gods.”
He stood up and forcefully waved away the overwhelming swarm of butterflies, struggling forward through the red sea of butterflies as if going against the current.
He still has many important things to do, and it's not time for him to relax yet.
Wake up.
He knew exactly what he wanted to do, and he was very firm in his goals and determination.
So, after an unknown period of time, when the blue butterfly finally appeared, he immediately stretched out his hands.
He caught it.
The blue butterfly suddenly burst forth with a powerful blue light the moment it touched his palm.
One by one, the red butterflies that came into contact with the blue light shattered and disappeared, and the world that had been covered up gradually revealed its original appearance.
Light pierced through the thick clouds, and dawn broke.
"What a lovely dream." The blond youth smiled and gently touched the blue butterfly's wing with his finger.
“Good boy,” he said, “but this is just a dream. I will try my best to bring you into reality.”
So, it's time to wake up.
*
Rei Furuya opened his eyes and saw the familiar ceiling.
That's right, it's the ceiling of the police academy's infirmary.
Jianggu Ling: "..."
He glanced guiltily at the clock hanging on the wall.
It's 6:30 a.m. now, and he's only been asleep for less than two hours.
At this point, since everyone who was drunk was probably still asleep, there was only one person who would come over, discover his fever, and take him to the infirmary.
After all, he hadn't even locked the door while waiting for the other person.
The fever-reducing patch on his forehead was still working. Furuya Rei felt much more awake and better, and thought he was probably all better, so he got up and tore off the patch.
In autumn and winter, dawn comes late. The sky outside the window is not yet bright, and you can clearly see a red flame flickering in the darkness.
Kenji Hagiwara was leaning against the outside corridor, smoking.
He lowered his head slightly, his half-length black hair obscuring his eyes, and the swirling smoke blurred his expression.
Seemingly sensing that someone was watching him, Kenji Hagiwara turned around, paused for a moment after seeing him, then immediately put out his cigarette and walked in.
"Awake? How are you feeling? Are you feeling better?" As he spoke, he placed his hand on Furuya Rei's forehead.
"It's all over now, I'm perfectly fine, don't worry," Furuya Rei said. Not only could you smell the strong, almost frightening, smell of smoke on him, but you could also see that the corners of his eyes were red.
...Have you been crying?
Rei Furuya realized something was wrong.
“That’s great…” Kenji Hagiwara breathed a sigh of relief, a relaxed smile appearing on his face, before he immediately became serious again.
“Well then, let’s have a good chat.” Kenji Hagiwara pulled up a chair and sat down next to him.
“Zero,” he said.
Rei Furuya's heart skipped a beat.
Normally, Hagi would only call him Furuya, and in more serious situations, he would simply call him Furuya. He would only call him Zero in critical moments.
"How many times have you reloaded your save file so far?" Kenji Hagiwara asked, looking directly into his eyes.
Rei Furuya was no stranger to this question, and he was about to answer it when he was interrupted again.
"Stop lying to me. I now have incredibly detailed memories of five lifetimes in my mind, no longer the dreams that were easily forgotten before," Kenji Hagiwara said.
Rei Furuya's original lines were all blocked.
Wait, why does Hagi also have complete memories?
Was it done by the system? Hiro certainly had a good reason that time, but what's the purpose of restoring Hagi's memories this time?
If this wasn't done by the system, but rather a butterfly effect that happened to be created by a combination of details, then what is the reason?
Unlike Hiro, although both have five cycles, Hiro died twice in his five cycles. If we're talking about consecutive integers... then Hiro was the last person to see him die five times in a row. This might be because his emotions exceeded his limit, and under the combined influence of causality, the distortion of the world line, and his close relationship with him, he gained the memories of the previous cycles.
Is Hagi the same?
But that doesn't make sense either. If that's the case, then Hagi witnessed his five deaths in the fifteenth time loop, so how could it have taken until the eighteenth time loop?
If we're talking about integers like five, then Hagi is someone who becomes a ghost after being the "last" to die five times in a row, right?
While Furuya Rei was brainstorming, reality didn't forget Hagiwara Kenji.
Of course, he remembered how he had tricked everyone into thinking it was his first time reloading a save file, and even later he had lied to people, saying that he was completely unaware of the fact that he hadn't reloaded a save file or gone through a cycle of reincarnation.
“Okay, I’ll confess, this is the seventh time I’ve reloaded a save,” Furuya Rei said.
The two playthroughs before the second save point, which are not in Hagi's memory, didn't seem to involve anything particularly important, and were similar to what happened later. So there's no need to add to Hagi's stress and guilt.
"But Hagi, tell me first how you suddenly gained these five reincarnation memories? Did something say or do something to you in your dreams?" Furuya Rei asked seriously.
Kenji Hagiwara shook his head: "No, it's the same as before. The difference is that this time I had a dream that went through five cycles, and I still remember it clearly when I woke up."
Then, he got angrier and angrier as he spoke.
"The first time I didn't know anything, but the second time you were honest with us. You said you came back from the future, and that this was a save/load game, and that we needed to work together to change our inevitable future. All of that was true. The only thing you lied about was that you actually lied to us and said it was just the first save/load."
"Then, during your third reincarnation, you lied to me and said it was just the hippocampus effect? You said it was just a déjà vu phenomenon that most people in the world experience, and you even joked that it might be a parallel world that I saw through my dreams. You used a lot of technical terms and complicated theories to make me believe that it was probably the future of a parallel world."
“During the fourth cycle, you said it was quantum consciousness in quantum mechanics, that it was called precognition, that I had a precognitive dream, and that you only worked so hard because you had such a precognitive dream.”
"You lied to me again during the fifth loop, saying it was just the first time I reloaded a save! And my memories have become increasingly confused with each dream loop, making me a bit disoriented myself, so I really fell for your trick." Kenji Hagiwara glared at him with his arms crossed. "You liar, Furuya! Your credibility with me in this regard is now negative!"
Damn it! He was completely fooled by this bastard, actually letting this guy risk his life alone and end up dying...
Although he did have many doubts at the time and sensed something was wrong, in any case, those real scientific theories were more believable than this absurd thing of repeatedly loading save files and going through cycles.
Moreover, once Kofuya puts on a serious act of disguise, it's really hard to find any flaws. In addition, the time between each reincarnation is too short, and they are too busy to meet or contact each other. As a result, every time he realizes something is wrong, he dies before he can solve the mystery and take action, and everything is reset to zero and start over.
Rei Furuya coughed guiltily and whispered, "Actually, it wasn't exactly lying. Those things were true too. I just hid some other things..."
Kenji Hagiwara's gaze gradually sharpened.
Rei Furuya immediately lowered his head and obediently admitted his mistake: "I'm sorry, I won't do it again next time."
"...You really shouldn't do that again next time, but there's no need to apologize."
Kenji Hagiwara sighed helplessly, got up and sat on the edge of the bed, then reached out and hugged the blond young man on the hospital bed.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, and I understand how hard you’ve worked. I’m the one who should apologize and thank you,” he said.
"But, Furuya, you really can't go on like this anymore. I can't let you keep dying and reloading saves because of me." He said in a low voice, "I really don't want to see you and Jinpei dragged into this anymore..."
“No…” Furuya Rei wanted to refute.
“Listen to me, Furuya,” Kenji Hagiwara interrupted him softly. “I’ve been thinking about how to solve this problem and how I can help.”
"Don't tell me you don't need to worry and that you're fine, or I'll really get angry. Everyone feels pain, sadness, and exhaustion. Even if a wound heals, it doesn't mean the pain you once felt didn't exist. Besides, there's a limit to how much humans can endure. Furthermore, even if you're incredibly strong, we'll still worry because we're friends. Of course we'll worry and want to help. It's only natural for friends to help each other, right? I can't possibly say something like, 'Don't worry about whether I live or die,' or you'll definitely get angry."
"But all of this is so difficult. You've tried everything I could think of, and you must have considered all the possibilities I hadn't thought of. I originally thought I couldn't be of much help. Maybe all I could do was give you a hug and say thank you sincerely. Or maybe I could find everyone to discuss it together, work together to find a solution, and keep an eye on you so you don't do anything reckless again."
"But after gaining the memories of these five reincarnations, I just went outside and thought about it for a long time, and then I thought of a way that might solve the problem."
Although Kenji Hagiwara said this, his tone was incredibly firm, clearly indicating that he had made up his mind.
"You may not agree, but this time, Kofuruya, please listen to me and give it a try."
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