Mahitaro had begun to feel something he never thought possible in this warped place.
Belonging.
The more he walked its streets, the more he sat in its classrooms, the more he laughed beside Yasuke and the red-haired kid, the less it felt like a dream. The warmth of their bond burned into his stomach. For fleeting moments, he forgot that his memories screamed otherwise. For fleeting moments, he let himself wonder if maybe—just maybe—this was the life he was supposed to have lived.
But the unease never left him. It lingered like a shadow at the edge of his sight, whispering of truths he wasn't ready to face.
That morning, he noticed the date. A plain calendar tacked to the classroom wall, marked with nothing but neat black numbers. His eyes widened when he saw it: the same day, the same month, the same number burned into his mind from the "incident."
His stomach dropped. His skin went cold.
This wasn't coincidence.
This was the day.
The hours bled together in anxious haze. He drifted through lessons, barely hearing the teachers. His hands trembled against his desk. He stared at Yasuke's back, at the red-haired kids smile, clinging to them as though they were lifelines—afraid of what the day would bring, afraid of what he already knew.
Then it came.
The final bell. The soft shuffle of students packing bags. But instead of heading home, Mahitaro found himself drawn toward a voice echoing down the hall. A voice sharp with anger, trembling with rage.
He followed it, heart pounding, until he reached a classroom.
And there it was.
His parents.
Younger, but still them. His father's face dark with frustration. His mother's voice raised, desperate. And before them—Yasuke, standing straight but shaking, his fists clenched at his sides.
They were fighting. Screaming, even. Words blurred together in fury: grades, future, expectations, failure. The teacher tried to step in, but his words only fueled the fire. The argument rose to a fever pitch, voices clashing like blades, until—
"Stop it!"
Yasuke's voice broke through, sharp, desperate, louder than all of them. His heart heaved, eyes burning with tears. "Stop fighting about my future like I'm not even here! Stop—STOP—using my grades as weapons against each other! It's not about me, is it? It's about who wins between you!"
His words fell into silence for a moment. A silence that shattered in the very next breath.
Because Yasuke snapped.
He stormed forward, his hand sweeping across the teacher's desk—pencils lifting, scattering—and in a blind fury, he drove one into the teacher's heart.
The room froze.
The teacher staggered back, collapsing against the blackboard with a strangled gasp. The metallic tang of blood filled the air.
Mahitaro's heart stopped.
It wasn't framing.
It wasn't an accident.
It was rage.
And Yasuke—his brother—stood there trembling, his hand still gripping the pencil, his eyes wide in horror at what he had just done.
"Yasuke—!" their mother screamed. But her horror wasn't only at the teacher's body. It was at her son. Her eyes filled not with fear for him, but of him.
Then she slapped him. The sound cracked through the room like thunder.
"Monster," she whispered.
Yasuke's face crumpled. He stumbled back, his voice breaking. "I... I didn't... I just..." He looked at Mahitaro, who had pushed his way inside the room without even realizing it. His brother's trembling eyes met his, searching for something, anything.
But the words Yasuke spoke were shards, cutting each one of them.
"What right do you have to look at me like that, little brother? You don't understand." His voice shook, equal parts fury and despair. "You don't know what it's like to be crushed between them, to hear their voices tearing you apart every night, to feel like nothing you do is enough."
He choked back a sob, then laughed bitterly, a broken sound. "You think we're close. You think blood makes us brothers. But you'll see. No matter how much you love someone, it all ends the same. Arguments. Blame. Futures that don't matter. And now... now I've proven it."
"Yasuke—stop—" Mahitaro tried to step forward, but his own legs betrayed him, still the weak, weak legs of his childhood self.
Yasuke shook his head. His face softened for just a moment. His eyes glistened.
"You'll end up just like me. Unless..." His voice broke. "...unless you learn not to trust them. Don't trust them. Don't trust anyone who calls themselves family but uses your life as a weapon in their war. Don't make my mistake."
He turned, his hand trembling as he reached for the door. Before he stepped through, he glanced back, his smile broken but gentle.
"Sorry I yelled. I love you, little brother."
And then he was gone.
Mahitaro's stomach tore open. He knew that look. He knew that tone. He had seen it before, in other lives, other faces. Yasuke wasn't running to escape. He was running to end everything.
Suicide!...
The word slammed into Mahitaro's heart hard and with fury.
He stumbled forward, tripping over his too-small legs as he tried to chase after him. Tears blurred his vision. His lungs burned. He looked to the wall as he passed—and there, the calendar caught his eyes again.
The date.
The day of the incident.
But this time, it wasn't about him being framed.
It wasn't about cruel fate.
It was about Yasuke—his brother—snapping beneath the weight of his parents' endless war.
And Mahitaro understood.
This was the beginning.
This was the root.
Everything tied back to this day.
His breath came in ragged gasps. His mind screamed. He had been sent here by the red-haired kid, not to relive a lie, but to see this moment. To understand the truth buried in the past. And now he understood... That the read haired student wanted him to understand a past they forgot and the fury and despair moving foward is what caused everyone forgetting it but one part still made no sense because why everyone even him the one who could loop through it all.
If he let Yasuke walk out now, the future he knew would unfold again. The cycle would return. The despair would consume them all.
But if he could stop it—if he could save his brother—then maybe, just maybe, this endless nightmare could finally break.
Mahitaro clenched his fists, his small nails digging into his palms.
Not this time.
Not again.
He would not let Yasuke vanish. He would not let this life fall apart.
And as he pushed himself to run faster, he whispered into the air, half to himself, half to the memory of a brother he barely knew:
"I won't lose you again."
Scene 2: The End of a Brother!
Mahitaro ran with everything he had, his lungs burning, his childlike legs stumbling against the cold floor. His heart pounded in his stomach as though it wanted to break free, as though it already knew what was coming.
And then he saw him.
Yasuke, his older brother, stood at the balcony railing. But instead of leaning toward the edge like Mahitaro feared, instead of preparing to leap, he was clutching something far worse. A knife. Its metallic glint shimmered under the pale sunlight.
Mahitaro's heart froze. His first thought had been jumping. But this—this was far more pitiful. Far more grotesque.
"Brother—! Please!" His voice yelled, desperate, reaching out like his trembling hands.
But Yasuke only turned his head slightly, his hollow eyes avoiding his younger brother's gaze. His lips quivered, and then he whispered words that would carve themselves forever into Mahitaro's soul.
"...Cover your eyes. I don't want you to see this. If you don't... then don't blame me for what happens next."
His voice was broken, fragile, and yet filled with an unbearable finality.
Tears blurred Mahitaro's vision. His small legs tried to carry him forward, but Yasuke raised the knife in a shaking grip, and with a pitiful, bitter smile, began to speak:
"My life... it's been nothing but suffocation. A pitiful existence, rotting from the inside out. And maybe—just maybe—the world needs to see it. To see where despair leads, to see what happens when even love from family... isn't enough. If they see me like this... maybe they'll understand. Maybe they won't follow the same path."
"Don't say that! Please, don't—!" Mahitaro screamed, his voice raw. His small hands clawed at the rope Yasuke had tied around the railing, the crude contraption he had set up. He tried to undo the knots, but Yasuke shoved him back with all the strength left in his trembling body.
"Don't, Mahitaro! Don't save me—you can't! You'll only hurt yourself more!"
And then, with the knife flashing in one final arc—Yasuke moved.
The world seemed to split apart in that instant. The knife. The rope. The sudden blur of his brother's body lunging forward, away from the balcony, away from his reach.
Mahitaro fell to his knees. He couldn't see where the body went after it flying off the back railing. It was gone. Vanished into the unseen depths below.
But what remained was worse.
Swinging from the rope, hanging grotesquely against the school's balcony, was Yasuke's head. His face still etched with sorrow, his final note fluttering faintly in the wind beneath it.
Mahitaro's scream ripped the sky apart. A scream louder, harsher, more agonizing than anything he had ever uttered in his life. His throat tore as he cried out, the sound echoing across the school walls, shaking the air.
"I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE LOOPS! I DON'T CARE WHY THIS HAPPENS! I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING—JUST GIVE HIM BACK!"
His childlike fists slammed against the floor. His heart convulsed with sobs. He didn't care about mysteries, or powers, or fate. He didn't care why his brother had abilities, why he had abilities. None of it mattered. Only the loss.
And then a shadow stepped forward.
The red-haired kid.
He looked at Mahitaro with hollow eyes, his lips curling into bitter words. "...It's your fault."
Mahitaro's blood turned cold. His tears burned hotter. "No—it's not—he—he chose—!"
But the kid stepped closer, grabbing him by the shoulders, pushing him toward the railing with brutal force. Mahitaro struggled, his small fists weak, powerless.
Sirens wailed in the distance. His parents screamed behind him.
And together, Mahitaro and the red-haired kid slammed their fists against the damaged contraption of the railing. The metal shrieked, bent, then snapped.
The railing broke.
Mahitaro fell.
And with him—Yasuke's severed head, tumbling into his arms, as if the world itself mocked him, forcing the weight of despair into his grasp.
The red-haired kid fell too, his tears streaming freely, his voice breaking with regret.
"I'm sorry, Mahitaro—I'm so scared of dying! I never even told you my name...!" His cries mixed with the rush of wind, with the void swallowing them both.
And then he screamed it, his voice raw, his final truth:
"Gekidō Jakuna! That's my name—I'm sorry—I'm sorry I never told ever since we met I just hate the meaning of my name maybe thats why I'm saying this before death because I'm a pitiful coward!"
The words echoed into blackness.
Mahitaro awoke.
But not as he was before. This time, it was his eight-year-old self who gasped awake, trembling, the memory of Yasuke's head still burned into his mind. The sound of sirens still filled his ears.
He stumbled, fell to his knees, and vomited. Not once. Not twice. Again and again, bile, mucus, acid—until his throat tore, until the taste of bitterness and blood coated his tongue. He convulsed violently, his body unable to stop.
The stench was foul, the sound grotesque. His tears blurred with his vomit, his cries muffled by the acid in his throat.
And then he saw it again. The head. The railing. The blood.
He gagged and gagged until there was nothing left.
He stood up, swaying, his small hand reaching for a shard of the broken railing. His voice was nothing but a croak:
"Why... am I the only one...? Why am I the only one... living this?"
And then, with trembling hands, he struck his throat. Blood spilled in hot torrents, painting the ground. He gasped, his voice a gargle, before collapsing into a pool of gore.
But then—he awoke again.
Alive.
This time, he did not vomit.
This time, he did not scream.
This time, he did not rage.
He only looked at Gekidō Jaakuna, the red-haired kid, who stood before him trembling worryed why he looked so sad not understanding his advanced adult thoughts.
And Mahitaro smiled.
Not a smile of warmth. Not a smile of hope. A smile broken, twisted, that never reached his eyes.
And in those eyes—there was nothing.
No despair, no anger, no grief.
Only silence. Only darkness.
Mahitaro's will was gone.
TO BE CONTINUED...