NOVEL NEXT Chapter 87
Chapter 87. Kouzuki Karen
My sister always used to say, like a catchphrase, “I have to work hard so everyone can keep smiling!”
Her smile, like the sun, turned everyone around her into smiles, evenly distributing the vitality to live. Everyone adored my sister, and I was proud to be her little sister.
“Can I become like my sister too?”
“Yeah, yeah, you definitely can! After all, Karen is such a hard worker.”
My sister’s warm hand touched my head, gently stroking it.
With my sister here, with our family here, every day was filled with laughter.
I believed without a doubt that such days would continue forever.
“Huh?”
That’s why, when I was first told that my sister had died, I didn’t understand what was being said at all.
My sister, who was always flying around Japan, often didn’t come home, and I thought she was just busy as usual this time too.
However, a man in black told our family in front of us that my sister had died.
That couldn’t be.
That sister of mine, dead? Impossible. After all, my sister was one of the most powerful people in the world. Besides, she had a reliable lover by her side.
So, there’s no way she could die…
With a confused mind, I listened to every word the man in black said about why my sister had died.
I wanted to hear that it was a lie, that my sister was still alive. And then,
“…Why…?”
I couldn’t help but ask that question at what was told.
Such a thing, such a thing shouldn’t be allowed to happen…
The man said that my sister wasn’t killed by a monster.
Then by what?
――By a human.
My sister, who loved people from the bottom of her heart, who tried to bring smiles to everyone, was killed by the hands of the very people she tried to protect.
“…”
I clenched my hands so hard in frustration that I lost feeling in them.
Next to me, my mother broke down in tears, and my father, holding her up with his arms, gritted his teeth and shook with rage.
…
“…Ugh… ugh…”
Seeing my parents like that, my vision twisted and distorted.
My sister is gone. The feeling that our family is no longer a family.
A sense of loss, as if a very important piece of us had fallen away.
(Will I… never see her again…?)
At that moment, I finally realized that I would never see my sister again.
I would never see that sunny smile again, never feel the warm hands that gently embraced me.
“Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah!!!”
I couldn’t hold back my emotions.
I screamed, and screamed, and screamed until my throat was hoarse.
I wanted to be with her more! I wanted to go to so many places, to laugh together, just the two of us, with our family.
More, more, more!
Everything was too late.
I was disgusted by the endless flood of emotions that came after losing something, and I covered my ears and cursed myself.
Then, one day three years later, a boy came to our house.
He had white hair, and for some reason, just being near him made me uncomfortable.
When I asked him what he wanted, the boy said this:
“Your sister is still being used by humans.”
Leaving me confused by his sudden words, the boy continued.
“How about it? How about it? In exchange for providing you with some information, there’s something I’d like you to help me with.”
Saying that, the boy took out a photo from his pocket.
“Ugh!”
In the photo, my sister was floating in a liquid inside something that looked like a large test tube.
Two years, two years since that day.
How long I had waited for this day.
To exterminate the lunatics who continued to research my sister’s body like a lab rat, I honed my combat skills and secretly crushed the research institutions involved behind the scenes.
And today, as the final step, after skillfully guiding my sister, I will crush this research institution where Gotoba is and kill him!
Thinking about it now, perhaps from the very first stage of approaching my sister, they had already decided on the failure of the experiment and the use of my sister’s body. Things had gone too smoothly for them.
But today will be the last day they wear those ugly smiles.
I will gouge out their bodies with this spear, stab them over and over no matter how much they scream, and finally tear off their heads and raise them on my spear.
The day has finally come to clear my sister’s regrets.
…And yet, why is this boy getting in my, no, my way!
“Hah!”
A spear thrust from ultra-close range.
Not only was it difficult to avoid, but it was even hard to see, yet the boy in front of me easily dodged it by leaning his upper body backward.
Forcing the muscles in my arm to move, I swung the spear down from that position, but the boy dodged to the right.
I took a step forward to pursue.
At that moment, the ground exploded.
“Tch!”
Again!
I had seen it several times before, but the man ran his fingers through the air, carving characters in the sky. Then, flames and lightning would shoot out from those characters.
And what was annoying was that all the attacks were moderated.
If the opponent was serious, I would have already been incapacitated. That’s how far apart our combat skills were.
“Don’t mess with me! If you don’t want to fight, then get out of the way! You who know nothing, you who have nothing to do with this, don’t stand in front of me!”
The boy received my shout with a serious expression.
“…I won’t move. After all, I only allow happy endings.”
Changing his serious expression to a slight smile, the boy said.
“I will stop you here. …However, you also have something you can’t suppress, right? So――”
As if accepting everything, he spread both arms wide,
“Now, at this moment, unleash all your power. Your hatred, your malice, I will take it all.”
“Moveeeeeee!!!”
I was infuriated by the sight of him speaking as if he knew everything without understanding people’s feelings, and I charged in a frenzy.
Cutting through the wind, I held my spear and dashed.
With the same momentum, I swung my spear, which the boy avoided with a backflip while carving characters in the air.
“Run, lightning.”
Lightning shot out from the characters, aiming for my legs.
“Hah!”
Just before it hit, I dropped my body to jump vertically, spinning my spear in the air to take a throwing stance.
The opponent was that absolute being. He wasn’t someone I could defeat without intending to kill.
(No more holding back… I will cut down anyone who stands in my way!)
“Longinus!”
And then, the spear was released.
Drawing a red tail, it flew straight towards the boy.
“Ugh! This is really something!”
Just before the spear hit, the boy tried to offset the power by layering characters, but it only lasted a few seconds.
The spear destroyed the characters and pierced through the boy’s abdomen, who had a look of shock, before stabbing into the ground.
“…You, who care so much about your sister, are truly a kind-hearted person. That was a splendid strike.”
While spitting blood, the boy narrowed his eyes and smiled, staggering as he happily muttered.
“Why, even in such a state…”
At the sight of the boy, I voiced my doubt.
No, let’s stop. I don’t have time to think about such things now.
Finally, I passed by the boy who had fallen to the ground and pulled out my spear.
I decided to take one last look at the boy’s face and turned around.
But as soon as I turned, the boy’s body, which had fallen to the ground, dissipated into mist.
“Huh…?”
A dumbfounded voice leaked out.
But that’s understandable.
After all, the body that was there until just now suddenly disappeared. My mind couldn’t keep up with this incomprehensible phenomenon.
Clap clap clap
Next, what I heard was applause.
But the place it was coming from was strange.
From behind… furthermore, from the left and right, from the air, applause echoed from various places.
The applause that should have been celebrating sounded terrifying to me.
With a fearful expression, I looked up at the sky.
“Why…”
“I told you, didn’t I? I will stop you.”
The boy floating in the air walked lightly through the sky.
“Honestly, it seems like one of me isn’t enough to stop you without injury.”
Another boy who appeared from the right shrugged his shoulders and raised his hand.
“So, for now, I’ve made it a hundred times. This should be enough.”