I had known Kazuma since middle school—a quiet, hardworking guy who kept to himself.
Since entering high school, he had grown fond of Hana Miyashiro, the leader of the Kendo club.
Her strong, passionate personality, and the way she carried herself, had earned my respect as well… and it was easy to see why Kazuma admired her so much.
But he never acted on it.
She was clearly out of his league, and he seemed content just to be around her, sharing casual conversations and occasional training sessions.
Still… I couldn't ignore the warning signs that this world carried.
Having glimpsed enough stories, I knew the patterns—the way people's moral compass could warp when pushed by fear, greed, or strange laws.
I know that Kazuma is going to buy her as a sex doll and let other people use her for money.
What might have been harmless admiration escalate into something horrifying.
I couldn't pretend I was innocent myself.
In my previous life, I had acted out of rage and betrayal.
I had made terrible choices, mistakes I couldn't undo, driven by my own sense of vengeance.
I had hurt people deliberately, and I knew I was scum for it.
But here… around me, the insanity was not personal.
It was systemic.
Everyone I saw, even people who seemed normal at first, was slowly being influenced by something beyond reason.
The world around me was twisting… morality, sanity, and freedom were all being stripped away, piece by piece.
And I couldn't ignore it.
Kazuma…
A guy I've known since middle school.
Quiet, diligent, the type who apologized even when something wasn't his fault.
Someone like him would never hurt anyone — not intentionally, not even in some distant, twisted alternate timeline.
Yet the world around us was changing so fast, twisting so violently, that even people like Kazuma were beginning to act like strangers.
The manga I once read — a strange, obscure series that predicted events with nauseating accuracy — showed a version of him doing something terrible.
Impossible. Absurd.
But the real terror is… everything else in that manga has already come true.
People around me have started behaving irrationally, as if their moral compass had been yanked out of their chest.
Some became aggressive.
Some apathetic.
Some disturbingly obsessed with impulses they never had before.
Kazuma, too… was starting to change.
Not suddenly.
Not dramatically.
Just small things — a shift in the tone of his voice, a moment where his eyes didn't look like his own, hesitations where he used to be firm.
And the worst part?
I was the only one who seemed to notice.
I wanted to scream that something was wrong, that everyone was slipping into madness — but I knew what happened to people who spoke too loudly.
The government called them "instability risks." Everyone else called them "missing."
Deep down, the truth was obvious: they were taken.
Silenced.
And this new law — this insane policy built around something they called Color of Love Dolls Modification — was the core of the problem.
A "scientific breakthrough," they said.
"A method to enhance society," they said.
But everyone knew the rumors.
That the government had discovered some… phenomenon.
A frequency? A wavelength? A color that didn't exist on the spectrum until recently?
Something capable of altering human behavior.
Something capable of rewriting personalities.
Something they should've never touched.
I'm horrified — not because a fictional prediction might come true, not because of what individuals might do, but because I can feel reality tilting.
People are breaking.
Something is forcing them to.
And only I'm still sane enough to realize it.
For now.
Why weren't other countries reacting the way they should?
If a nation suddenly began enforcing insane laws, isolating itself, and its population started behaving like crazy sex maniac versions of themselves… that should have triggered global outrage.
Sanctions. Pressure. Something.
But there was nothing.
No criticism.
No warnings.
Not even a whisper of concern.
Just silence.
It felt impossible — like the world had collectively turned its face away as Japan slid into madness.
The only connections left were financial ones: money-transfer systems, stock exchanges, and the bare minimum of international banking.
Everything else — diplomatic channels, media lines, research cooperation, foreign aid — had been severed cleanly, as if someone had taken a pair of scissors to the world map.
People who had money or influence had already fled long before the law was announced.
They sensed something was wrong, something fundamentally wrong, and escaped while they still had their minds intact.
But the rest of us…
We were left behind. Watching everyone around us twist into something unrecognizable.
I couldn't understand it.
Why was my sanity still intact?
Why were the people I knew — classmates, teachers, neighbors — sliding into erratic, monstrous behavior?
Who was doing this?
Why were they doing this?
And why wasn't it happening to me?
A sharp voice cut through my spiraling thoughts.
"Oi, Kyoshi… are you even listening?"
Kazuma's voice.
It pulled me back into the present like a cold hand grabbing my shoulder.
I blinked and forced myself to focus.
The hallway was buzzing with students from Class A‑1, first-year. Kazuma stood next to them, trying to look normal, but even he had that faint, unsettling flicker in his eyes.
"I have no interest in the kendo club," I muttered, shaking my head.
Kazuma sighed — the same tired sigh he'd always had — but it carried a strange stiffness now.
He joined the rest of our classmates, who were chatting and laughing as though nothing was wrong with the world.
Everything felt like a stage play where I was the only one who remembered the script was wrong.
I hated that I had no answers for any of my questions.
When we entered the classroom, a sharp voice cut through the ambient chatter.
"Eww! You're such a creep, reading that in class while staring at us!"
The words came from a girl with glasses, short black hair, and piercing brown eyes.
Without hesitation, she delivered a swift kick to a boy who looked fragile, with long black hair and a gloomy expression.
He stumbled to the ground, eyes flashing with suppressed anger, but said nothing.
"That guy, Irie… how many times is this now?" she muttered, her voice carrying a mix of exasperation and disgust.
Around her, other girls murmured, shaking their heads, their expressions a mix of irritation and contempt.
The boy didn't meet anyone's gaze.
He crouched to pick up the book that had slipped from his hands.
Before he could grab it, the girl stepped on it with her shoe, pressing it into the floor, her lips curling into a mocking smile, as if she were looking down on an insect.
"Sigh… again?" Kazuma muttered under his breath, shaking his head.
He walked past them and went to his seat, not bothering to intervene.
His indifference made it clear that this scene, as unpleasant as it was, was far from unusual in their daily lives.
I stepped forward just as Eriko's fist arced toward the boy's face and caught her wrist firmly before it could land.
"Eriko, that's enough," I said calmly.
"Confiscate his porn magazine and follow the proper protocol. Inform the teachers—they'll handle it the right way."
Eriko Yamane, with her short black hair and piercing brown eyes, glared fiercely at me.
"Kiyoshi… why are you always stopping me from teaching that creep a lesson?"
I held her gaze, my tone measured but firm.
"I'm not protecting him. I'm protecting you. What you're doing… it's not good for you."
For a moment, she didn't say anything, only staring at me silently.
I could see the genuine conflict flicker across her expression.
Then, with a small huff, she shook her wrist free from my grip.
"As if I need you to keep me safe," she said, her voice sharp but tinged with frustration.
"Hmph…"
She turned away and returned to her seat, her ears faintly reddened—a sign of her anger or perhaps embarrassment.
The classroom watched quietly; the tension hung in the air like a thick fog.
I glanced down at Irie Kakeru, still crouched and about to retrieve the book from the floor.
I sighed, shaking my head, and bent down to snatch it before he could.
"Kiyoshi! Give back that book!"
Irie lunged toward me, hand outstretched, but I sidestepped him effortlessly and walked straight out of the classroom.
His footsteps stopped at the doorway—he wouldn't dare chase me further.
He'd already been suspended once for this exact behavior, and yet here he was again.
Some people simply never change.
Eriko Yamane… she don't like him.
I'd known her since middle school.
She acted like a delinquent—loud, fierce, quick to anger—but she wasn't a bad person.
A little hot‑headed, maybe.
She let her emotions get the better of her sometimes, and that's exactly what I wanted to protect her from.
If she kept butting heads with someone like Irie Kakeru… something bad could happen.
Something that I knew would happen, if the story of this world was allowed to play out exactly as the manga had shown.
I made my way to the teacher's office and handed the confiscated book to our homeroom teacher.
His brows furrowed briefly before he sighed and called Irie out of the classroom for disciplinary action.
I hated that guy.
Even before the world turned into what it is now, Irie Kakeru was rotten from the core.
Nothing about him changed after everything started to change—if anything, he only got worse.
When I returned to the classroom, the bell rang.
The teacher began the lesson, students settled in, and I slid into my seat.
I kept my eyes on the blackboard, but my focus was somewhere else entirely.
A faint, translucent blue screen hovered in front of me—visible only to my eyes.
[Synchronization in Process… 99%]
Still at ninety‑nine.
Same as yesterday.
Same as the day before that.
I whispered under my breath, "When will this reach a hundred…?"
It had appeared when I was five years old—on my birthday. A loading screen. A system. The only miracle I had in this collapsing world.
For ten long years, it had remained stuck like this, refusing to finish loading, refusing to activate.
This system might be the only thing capable of saving me… maybe even saving others.
Every day, I feared waking up as someone else—someone empty, twisted, brainwashed like the rest of society.
Everyone was changing… losing their sanity, losing their humanity. And I alone… stayed the same.
Why?
Why was I unaffected?
Why was I still me when everyone else was turning into something else?
I clasped my shaking hands under the desk.
"Please… hurry up," I murmured.
Because in this world, the government didn't just eliminate people who opposed them.
They also eliminated anyone who could potentially oppose them.
This wasn't order.
This wasn't law.
This was insanity.
Pure, terrifying insanity.
And I feel like was stuck in the middle of it—utterly alone.