There once lived a kid—and that kid was me. All I wanted was to laugh beside friends on sunny days that felt like they would never end. I dreamed of kindness, of never being cruel, of never wearing the smirk of those who hurt others. But years later, I became something else entirely: a villain in the flesh, a devil ripped straight out of a storybook, leaving only suffering in my wake. All those innocent dreams shattered the moment I began my first days of school. It was then I learned the truth: dreams are nothing but disgust.
"From the very start, I was different. Too different. Every classroom I entered, every playground I stood on... I was the joke. The monster. The cursed child. They laughed, they pointed, they whispered. They called me names I still hear in the dark. And it didn't stop with the children—oh no, even the teachers... even the parents... they looked at me with that same disgust. The shame followed me everywhere all because of my unique red firey hair."
His eyes darkened, haunted by the echoes of voices that once ridiculed him.
"They went further than just words. They framed me—time after time—for things I never did. A broken desk, a stolen notebook, a ruined exam paper... always me. They even dragged my name to my parents, convincing them that I was rotten, that I was trouble. I wasn't beaten in the streets—but I was beaten in the heart. And... Do you know what that does to a kid who just wants to be loved?"
"I thought I'd rot there, in that pit of hatred. I thought that would be my life: a walking curse. But then... at seven years old... I met Mahitaro."
"You were the first hand that reached out to me. The first one who didn't laugh. The first one who looked at me like I wasn't trash. You stood beside me when others wouldn't. You smiled at me... and suddenly, I wasn't a monster anymore. My grades started rising because I wanted to keep up with you. People started treating me better—only because you let me stand in your shadow. You made me... someone. Someone who mattered."
"Mahitaro, you don't know... you couldn't possibly know... what that meant. To me, you weren't just a friend—you were salvation. I looked at you and thought... 'This kid is proof that Gods exists.' You were a light that made the cruelty vanish. My only friend. My only hope. My only truth. I respected you more than anyone, more than myself. You were the first person I trusted in this world."
"And then... came him. Your brother."
"When I met Yasuke, I thought, 'It can't be real. There's no way life could give me two people like this.' But it was. And soon it wasn't just me and you—it was the three of us. You, me, and your brother. My greatest friend, and the brother I never had. I didn't just come to your house to see you—I came because being there felt like home. Your family welcomed me. I wasn't just Gekidō anymore. I was one of you."
"We became the trio, didn't we? The three shadows always together. The teachers knew us. The families in the neighborhood waved when they saw us walking. Everyone thought... 'Those three are inseparable. Those three are light itself.' And for the first time in my cursed little life... I believed it too. I believed I had escaped the darkness. That maybe I wasn't damned after all."
"That was the beginning. That was the radiance. The life I thought I'd always wanted. But Mahitaro..." "...you don't know what it's like to have paradise in your hands... and then feel it ripped away loop after loop after loop."
"That... was Part I of my life. A kid cursed by fate, redeemed by friendship, lifted by love. But the story doesn't end there. No... Part II was where everything I cherished... began to bleed."
Scene 2: Gekidō's Backstory – Part II: The Breaking of Paradise
"It started with whispers—arguments I could hear but didn't understand. Your brother's future. His grades. His teachers telling him to push harder, your parents pressuring him more than he could bear. I didn't notice how close he was to breaking. None of us did."
"I remember that day in the classroom. I remember Yasuke standing in front of the teacher, his fists shaking, his voice louder than I'd ever heard it. He shouted that his life wasn't theirs to control—that his future wasn't something they could decide. The whole room went still. Even the bullies stopped laughing. For the first time, Yasuke wasn't quiet. He wasn't composed. He was furious."
"And then it happened. His desk shook, his hand flew forward, and the pencil... drove straight into the teacher's arm. I'll never forget the sound—the cry of pain, the children screaming, the way Yasuke's face twisted with something I couldn't understand. Not anger. Not hatred. Just... despair. The kind that makes you forget the world around you."
"That same morning, Mahitaro, you told him not to worry. You were only eight, but you looked up at your older brother and said it with the kind of calm only you could give: that he didn't need to fear grades, or the weight of the future, because you'd be waiting at home. You promised him he didn't have to be alone in the storm."
"But that promise never reached him. The fight in the classroom twisted everything. I saw it in his eyes—the decision already forming. He ran. Not away from the teachers, not away from punishment, but away from himself."
"I chased him. My legs weren't fast enough, but my heart screamed louder than my breath. I followed him out, through the halls, up the stairwell. And there it was. The railing. The place. The moment."
"The contraption was already there—the rope, the silence. No body remained, only the hollow absence it left behind. But I knew. Even as a child, I knew: Yasuke was gone. And that future... it was the one not even you could save him from, Mahitaro. So I pretended to blame you in that loop—not out of hatred, but to sharpen your resolve which you already know!"
"I ran to you, Mahitaro. You were my only friend, my light. If anyone could stop this, I thought like the stupid waek child I was that it had to be you. I knocked, I begged. I told you what I'd seen. But you... you were already crumbling as you had been told already by the time I had made it there. You looked at me like you weren't even there anymore. You told me I needed to rest. And then you shut the door in my face."
"After that, every time I came back, it was the same. The door slamming. The silence behind the wood. And then the writing... first on the outside, then on the inside. Carved words of guilt, of madness. You weren't Mahitaro anymore—you were a ghost, punishing yourself with every breath you had left."
"And then... one day, the door didn't slam. It didn't open either. It just... hung there, slightly ajar. And when I stepped inside, I saw it. The rope. The stillness. You... my greatest friend, the one who saved me from my own despair... you were hanging there, gone from this world."
"Your parents didn't weep. They didn't just blame themselves, or the world. They blamed me out of confusion and stress going mad. They screamed that my cursed hair had poisoned you. They told me I had killed you, that I was the devil child who destroyed everything he touched. And then they tried to force the punishment themselves—pounding on my door, swearing they'd tear me apart."
"So... I did it for them. I tied the rope. I ended it. I thought it was over."
"But then... I woke up. Back in February. Back before it all. February 22nd, 2007—the day that would repeat, the day that would curse me forever. I thought it was a second chance. But it wasn't. It was the beginning of the loop. The endless cycle. The day paradise died."
Scene 3: Gekidō's Backstory – Part III: The First Loop
"The rope had closed around my neck. I felt it. The air leaving. The pounding of blood in my head. I was sure it was over. That the world would never have to see me again. But then... I woke up."
"The calendar read February 22nd, 2007. The same day. The same month. The same air outside, the same chalk smell in the classroom, the same parents screaming downstairs. I thought—I thought it was a miracle. A second chance. I told myself: Maybe I can save Yasuke this time. Maybe I can stop Mahitaro from falling into despair. Maybe... maybe I can finally matter."
"I remember the way the sun hit the windows that morning. I swore it looked different, warmer, like it was blessing me. I skipped down the street with a smile on my face, clutching my schoolbag so tight it hurt. I was going to fix everything. That day wasn't going to end the same way. It couldn't."
"And for a while... it worked. I was careful in class. I sat near Yasuke. I tried to joke with him, tried to keep his mind away from grades, away from the pressure. I even raised my hand for the first time in years to answer questions just so the teacher's eyes would be on me instead of him. I thought—this is it. This is how I save him."
"But when the teacher pushed again... when they told him he wasn't working hard enough, wasn't pushing far enough, wasn't good enough—his eyes went dark. I saw it. The storm inside him. And no matter how much I whispered, no matter how much I begged him not to listen, the pencils were already in his hand."
"And it happened again. The scream, the stabbing, the panic. He ran. I ran after him, legs burning, throat raw from shouting. But when I reached the stairwell—when I saw the rope again—it was too late. The world didn't care what I tried. Yasuke still died."
"That night, I went to you again, Mahitaro. Just like before. I told you what I'd seen. I begged you to stop him, to help him, to listen. But you were already breaking. Already writing on your door, already drowning. And I thought—maybe tomorrow I'll do better. Maybe tomorrow I'll say the right words. Maybe tomorrow I'll save you both."
"But when I hung myself with fear to try again once more, it wasn't glory. It was the same day again of dread in pure flesh. February 22nd. Yasuke alive. The fight waiting to happen. The rope waiting on the railing. And I thought: this is it. This is my chance. Again and again and again with failure in the end."
"Each time, I tried something new. I grabbed his arm before he could throw the pencils. I yelled at the teacher instead. I begged your parents not to pressure him. I dragged you into the hallway and screamed at you to listen, to please do something. But no matter what I did, Yasuke still died. Sometimes later in the day. Sometimes sooner. Sometimes the rope. Sometimes a different way. The world was cruel enough to change the details, but never the ending."
"And every time I failed, the day reset. Every sunrise was a curse. Every February 22nd was a tombstone carved into the sky. And do you know what I told myself, Mahitaro? I told myself it was fine. That I just needed one more try. That one of these loops had to be different. That one of them would finally let You and Yasuke live..."
"But they never did. Yasuke always died. You always fell apart. And I... I started to realize the truth."
"There was no saving anyone. The loop wasn't a miracle. It was a punishment. A cage. And I was just the red-haired devil locked inside it, doomed to watch paradise break again and again."
Scene 4: Gekidō's Backstory – Part IV: The Weight of Repetition
"It wasn't just once. Not twice. Not ten, not fifty, not a hundred. I lost count after the first few hundred. But every single time, Mahitaro... every time, the story ended the same way. Yasuke's scream, the flash of pencils stabbing into a teacher's arm, the sound of footsteps pounding down a hallway. And then silence. Always silence, followed by a rope. One for Yasuke, one for you."
"At first, I thought my failure was about timing. Maybe I said the right words too late. Maybe I didn't grab you fast enough. Maybe I should have stopped Yasuke before he even raised his voice. That's what I told myself: If I just get it right, if I just move faster, if I just choose better... I can save them. That hope kept me alive in the loops."
"But time doesn't change when the world is already decided. I learned that the hard way. Because no matter how I shouted, no matter how I threw myself between Yasuke and the railing, no matter how I tore the rope from your hands or smashed every window in your room... you always found a way. He always found a way. And I... I always failed."
"After dozens of loops, something inside me broke. I stopped screaming. I stopped clawing at the rope. I stopped tearing pencils out of Yasuke's hands. Instead... I started listening. I stood in the hallways and let things play out. I let Yasuke cry out his pain, the same lines he always said—how his parents never stopped arguing with teachers, how his future wasn't theirs to decide, how he didn't want to be suffocated by their expectations. He'd rage, he'd shout, and I'd stand there, frozen, because I already knew the end. And then you, Mahitaro... you always spoke those same words, the ones that should have been enough. Face the storm with calm. I'll be waiting at home for you when you return."
"I used to think those words were magic. They sounded so warm, so strong. Like if anyone could save Yasuke, it would be you. But the storm never passed. The words never reached him. And each time, he still left. Each time, I found the rope swinging. And each time... you followed him."
"And so I let it happen. Over and over, I just... let it happen. Because fighting didn't change anything. Because hope was poison. I started telling myself: maybe it's kinder to let you believe your own words, to let you be that little brother full of hope instead of tearing it away with my panic. Maybe I should just let you be you, even if it always ended the same way. So I did. I stopped interfering. I stood beside you in silence. I let you say your piece. I watched Yasuke's eyes glimmer with that fleeting gratitude before he disappeared into the darkness. I let you smile through your tears, promising to wait at home. And then... I held my breath. And waited for the rope to tighten."
"Do you understand what that does to someone? To hear the same words, the same promises, the same goodbyes repeated a thousand times? They stopped being words at all. They became rituals of death. I could close my eyes and mouth along with you, every syllable etched into me like scars. I could tell you what Yasuke would do before he did it, which step he would take, which look would flash in his eyes just before he was gone. It was like I wasn't even in control anymore. Like I was just another part of the script because I was never in control when you really think about my dear Mahitaro."
"And the cruelest part of all? Sometimes I wanted to hear those words. Sometimes I wanted you to promise him again. Because in that fleeting moment—before Yasuke was gone, before you gave up—there was still warmth. There was still a fragment of love. It was the last piece of you that the loops hadn't stolen from me. And I... I clung to it. Even if it killed me. Even if it broke me. Even if it meant I was just letting you walk to your death again."
"I began to wonder if this was what hell really was. Not fire. Not punishment. Just... repetition. The same heartbreak on repeat until you can't tell the difference between memory and reality. Until grief becomes your only language. Until the people you love are nothing more than ghosts, performing the same tragedy again and again while you're forced to watch. That's what I lived through, Mahitaro. That's what you left me with."
Scene 5: Gekidō's Backstory – Part V: The Creation of a Cruel Plan
There comes a point, after enough repetitions, where grief no longer feels sharp.
It dulls, calcifies, becomes part of the bones. That's what Gekidō realized after years of loops — he no longer screamed when Yasuke ran, no longer wept when Mahitaro's body swung limp in the dark. He simply stared. As if the loops had wrung every emotion from him and left behind only a husk.
"Do you know what happens when you run the same story thousands of times, Mahitaro?" "The boundaries start to tear. I began to see things. Flashes. Possibilities. Like cracks in the loops themselves. At first it was small—what Yasuke might say if he lived another five minutes, what your parents' faces looked like if they didn't receive the call that their sons were dead. But the more I looped, the deeper it went. Until finally... I could see entire futures with newly loop charged powers."
"And one of those futures... was yours."
"You lived, Mahitaro. You survived. Yasuke was gone, but you... you walked forward. Except... something about you was broken. You had forgotten him—your brother's face, his voice, even the memory of his soul. You carried a hollow space inside you, and that hollow space became your shield. It allowed you to endure. To keep breathing. To live in a world that had already taken everything from you. And I realized—" "that the shock that stole those memories wasn't just Yasuke's death. It was me who had caused that future. I only understood later, when I began to see the reasons unfold. Each loop gave me something—new energy, strange abilities that shouldn't have been mine. And with every return, those powers grew. What I thought was my way of breaking free was actually the very thing that set everything in motion. All that looping... it was the true beginning of it all. I just didn't realize the power stuff up until now as well."
"In that future... you killed me. Accidentally. A moment of confusion, of despair, of horror... and I was gone. And the pain was so great that your mind erased everything. Yasuke's suicide to. Me. All of it. A mercy formed from trauma."
"That was when I understood. Maybe I couldn't save Yasuke. Maybe I couldn't save myself. But I could save you. And the only way to do that... was to make that future happen but add some new things onto it all. To force the future to happen but with new things added to the plan. To give you the strength to survive by giving you the very thing that destroyed me: the loop itself."
"I chose to let you kill me. To let you bear the shock. Because in that moment of unbearable grief, the power I had carried all these years would pass to you. The loops would begin anew in your hands. You wouldn't know it at first. You wouldn't even remember me. You would simply keep walking, thinking you were alone, until the power awoke inside you. And by then... you'd be strong enough to carry it all. That became your resolve—formed from the suffering I forced on you. But it wasn't meaningless. It was part of the plan, one of the biggest pieces to create that future as everything was meant to make you suffer to give you that very resolve otherwise it all wouldn't of really mattered. The future where the three of us can finally laugh together... and stay by each other's side. It all began by letting that future happen. Your death was the spark—resetting everything anew, born from the slightest shifts in the plan. I kept fragments of the loop, scraps of power, and twisted it all into something greater... something meant for suffering. I hated it. But loops... they change you, no matter how much you fight it. And in doing this to you, I lost something. I felt nothing. For that—I am sorry. Truly. But that's the past now... And we can't turn back. Even if I wanted to, I could repeat this a thousand times over. But I'm no fool—I won't keep repeating what's already been buried in the past. What's done is done. And yet... everything that came from it, every scar, every change, every breath of suffering... it all carried us here. That's the truth I can't erase. And overall... it had to happen."
"I needed you to carry it, even if it meant cursing you with the same despair that ruined me. Because in the end, Mahitaro... I believed you could do what I never could. I believed you could endure long enough to find the one path—the single future—where we are all saved. Also the function never activated during the high school days, even though that was when I intended it to. So when you didn't understand, I had to change it. I had to send you back further than ever—so that the function would awaken in a new matter which I never told you but It's fine, anyways... And you could finally understand a past I lived with my own two hands. The whole loop was meant to give you resolve for the incident that's coming. And even now, I don't know if you can truly prevent it.
With the resolve I tried to forge in you by playing the role of the villain you showl move forward.
It's only a guess, but hopefully this final gift—from me not as a villain, but as your closest friend—will be enough. Through the power itself, my memories will speak for me, not in words but in the truth of what I endured. And when you see them, you'll understand me more, even if you hate me today. You'll know what I went through, something not so different from what you've faced yourself. That will alone, that recognition of our shared pain, may give you a new resolve—proof that we've always been alike, more alike as best friends than either of us realized.
Even if you despise me for the role I played, at least you'll know why. And if it doesn't work—if my hope is misplaced—then I can only pray that the resolve you already hold will be enough. Because I don't expect you to forgive me. Not after everything. Not after the way I twisted myself, searching for meaning in endless, suffered loops. But at the very least... I want you to know that everything I did, even the lies and cruelty, came from the one truth I couldn't let go of: you were my friend."
"You don't know what it does to someone, to gamble their entire existence on a friend. To give them not only your power, but your despair. I told myself I didn't feel guilty—that my suffering had burned guilt out of me long ago. That it was justified. That it was worth it. But the truth is... I did it because I was afraid. Afraid that if I didn't, all of it—all the loops, all the pain, all the deaths—would mean nothing. That I would vanish without ever proving our friendship mattered. So I forced you, Mahitaro. I shackled you to my world of loops. Because I needed you to remember me. Because I needed you to suffer. Because I needed you to save us."
"I don't even know if that makes me your friend... or your executioner."
Yet behind those tears was the faintest, cruelest glimmer of hope — that Mahitaro's resolve might still forge a future where all three of them could be together again.
This chapter was, at its heart, Gekido speaking to himself — a rare, unguarded glimpse into his past after Mahitaro had gone off with his older brother and he thought to himself in mind. It was less about what he said aloud and more about what he carried inside, the reminders he needed to fuel his resolve. For a character like Gekido, someone so often shrouded in mystery and silence to think such things to himself in a such a tone, it might seem strange that he would think back so much, or reveal so many layers to himself. But it was that unsettling, almost sinister conversation with Mahitaro that stirred something buried within him, forcing these memories and confessions to rise. In truth, this chapter wasn't written to show Gekido explaining himself to others — but to finally let the reader see behind the mask, if only for a moment. With that, this chapter draws to a close. It serves as both a revelation and a quiet farewell, leading us into the final episode of this story. Until then, dear reader — the end awaits.
TO BE CONTINUED...