The house was quiet now.
Mahitaro's sobs had dried against his brother's shirt, the storm of his despair finally quieted into trembling silence. Yasuke had left the room, muttering something about calling the school, convinced—wrongly—that all of this was bullying, that the pain was something he could solve with a teacher's intervention.
Mahitaro hadn't stopped him. He couldn't. Words meant nothing in this spiral; no truth could ever leave his lips. No one would believe him if he said he had died a heap of times before. No one would understand the red threads looping through his existence, pulling him back into despair again and again.
He turned toward the door.
And there he was.
The red-haired kid leaned against the frame, the fading daylight bleeding crimson through the window behind him. His smirk was the same—exactly the same—as the one Mahitaro had seen in that twisted loop, the smirk of the kid who had pushed him even further back, the kid who had sparked the fire that would one day consume his life.
That smile froze Mahitaro's blood. He knew what words were about to follow. He knew because they had already been spoken once, in another time, another place.
"You're him," Mahitaro whispered, his throat tight. "Aren't you?"
The red-haired kid tilted his head, the smirk widening into something crueler, deeper, ancient. "Yes."
The air thickened. Mahitaro's heart tightened. He could hear Yasuke's muffled voice in the kitchen, hear the click of the phone being lifted, the faint hum of life continuing outside these walls. But here, in this doorway, time seemed to stop in effects.
Gekidō stepped forward, eyes gleaming with mockery. "I've been acting like my eight-year-old self this entire time. A little humiliating, I'll admit. Pretending to be the wide-eyed fool I once was... but necessary. Necessary to fool you."
He chuckled softly, a sound too sharp to belong to a child. His voice carried the echo of someone older, deeper—someone Mahitaro both hated and recognized.
"I had to be convincing," he continued, walking closer, his eyes never leaving Mahitaro's. "Every smile. Every laugh. Every hesitation. I mirrored my past self perfectly—down to the way I kicked pebbles down the road, the way I raised my hand in class, the way I even pretended to be scared when I wasn't. It all had to be flawless. Otherwise... you would've noticed."
Mahitaro's heart hammered in his stomach. This whole time... this whole time he's been watching me. Measuring me. Waiting.
"Why?" he forced out.
Gekidō crouched slightly, lowering his voice. For the first time, the smirk faltered—not into kindness, but into something colder. Calculated. Almost... pained.
"Because I had to get close enough," he whispered. "Close enough to study you. To see what kind of monster you'd become. To see what I had to stop before it happened again."
Mahitaro froze. "Monster...?"
Gekidō's eyes darkened, his smirk flickering back into place like a mask snapping tight. "Don't play dumb. You think you're a victim in all of this, don't you? Crying about your endless suffering, your loops, your despair. But you and I both know the truth. You become something worse. And I... well, I'm here to make sure that truth doesn't repeat even if I'm the only one that remembers and well you, well for you... You remember nothing of course and soon your questions will be answered."
The words slithered into Mahitaro's mind like venom. He wanted to scream, deny it, tear Gekidō apart with his bare hands—but some part of him hesitated. Some part of him remembered the endless loops, the deaths, the moments where his rage had burned hotter than his will to live.
He whispered, trembling, "Then why—why save me? Why stand here pretending? Why not kill me now like those other times...?"
For a moment—just a moment—Gekidō's mask cracked. His eyes glimmered with something Mahitaro couldn't name: sorrow, regret, maybe even care.
"Because," he said, his voice heavy, "as much as I hate you on the outside... on the inside, I can't. I care, Mahitaro. For you. For your brother. For all the lives that were ruined. I care... even when I wish I didn't."
The confession pierced Mahitaro's heart more sharply than any knife. He stumbled back, shaking his head, tears welling unbidden.
And then Gekidō straightened, his smirk snapping back into place like armor. His tone sharpened, words cutting like blades.
"But caring doesn't mean forgiving. Caring doesn't erase what you will become. That's why I'm here. That's why I traveled back with you when I cast you into this loop. That's why I mirrored myself so perfectly. Every move I've made has been to set up this moment. Because soon, very soon... all your questions will be answered."
Mahitaro's lips parted, trembling. "What do you mean...?"
Gekidō's eyes gleamed. "I mean that after what just happened—after you clung to your brother, after you finally changed one thread of the future—you've already set the stage. You've already altered fate. And when you save your brother... that's when you'll be ready to hear everything. That's when I'll tell you what you need to know."
Mahitaro's knees weakened. The world tilted. He could barely stand.
"Four parts," Gekidō whispered, holding up four fingers. "Four truths. Each one heavier than the last. And when you've heard them all... you'll finally understand why I had to do this. Why I had to break you. Why I had to send you back."
The air went still. Mahitaro's breath caught. And in that silence, the smirk returned, sharper than ever.
"Come outside," Gekidō said. "It's time to begin."
And before Mahitaro could move, could breathe, could even think, the red-haired kid turned, stepping out into the twilight, his figure swallowed by the fading glow of the dying day.
Scene 2: Part I: The Truth of the Framing
The world outside was quiet, the late afternoon sun bleeding through the clouds like bruised gold. Mahitaro's small legs carried him after Gekidō, though each step felt like walking on shards of glass. His ribs ached—not from the run, not from exhaustion—but from the weight of knowing what he was about to hear.
Gekidō didn't speak at first. He simply walked with a precision that seemed too deliberate, too controlled, too much like the version of himself Mahitaro had come to fear and hate. The smirk on his face never left, but it no longer held cruelty—it was a mask, thin and imperfect, for the pain underneath.
Finally, he stopped by a low fence that overlooked a small, empty park. The swings swayed faintly in the wind, making hollow, lonely creaks. Mahitaro's gaze followed them, and he swallowed, realizing how fragile everything felt—how small he was, how powerless, and how little he had ever mattered in the grand scheme of it all.
Gekidō turned to him. "You've seen it, haven't you? Everything. Every loop. Every death. Every time someone died around you, no matter what you did... no matter how close you were, how fast you acted... they still died... Like me because I have the same ability!"
Mahitaro's throat tightened. He tried to look away, but Gekidō's eyes held him in place, like two steel traps clamping around his heart.
"It wasn't... luck. It wasn't mistakes," Gekidō continued, voice trembling slightly. "Every single time, you thought it was your fault. Every time you screamed, cried, begged, tried to stop it... it wasn't. You couldn't have done anything. The victims... all of them... their deaths were random."
Mahitaro's heart stuttered. "Random...? But... I—"
"They were random in occurrence, yes," Gekidō interrupted gently, "but not in the lesson. Every death... every failure... every despair... was meant to show you something. To prepare you. To make sure that when the time came, you'd understand the truth. You weren't just being tortured for sport... not entirely. I needed you to feel it. To experience it, personally."
Mahitaro's knees buckled, and he fell to the ground, the wind cold against his face. "Why... why did you do this to me?" His voice broken. "Why send me... all the way back... to relive it?"
Gekidō crouched in front of him, his shadow falling long across the grass. His eyes softened—not entirely—but enough to betray the mask he carried.
"Because," he whispered, almost like he was confessing to himself as much as to Mahitaro, "you never understood. You never understood why it began. You never understood why I... why I had to do all of it."
Mahitaro's hands dug into the dirt, fingernails trembling. "Tell me... please."
Gekidō inhaled slowly. "Do you remember the day you were first framed? The 'incident' at school, the one that changed everything? The beginning of all your loops?"
Mahitaro nodded slightly, the memory flashing like a blade in his mind. The day he had thought would define his life forever—the day the first chain of despair had wrapped around him.
"That day... it wasn't just about you," Gekidō said. "It was about me, too. And about everyone else caught in this web. The framing, the lies, the death of that classmate... all of it... it was meant to start the chain. The chain that would teach you how fragile life is. How easily it slips away. How even someone trying to save the world... or just one person... can fail."
Mahitaro's vision blurred with tears. "But... I did everything I could. I tried to save them!"
"And that's exactly why it had to happen," Gekidō said softly, almost mournfully. "No matter what you did... no matter how fast, how smart, how precise you were... I ensured that some death would always occur. It was cruel, yes... but necessary. You had to see that life isn't a puzzle you can solve with reason alone. That even heroes... even you... can't always save everyone. And that despair... that helplessness... is a lesson. A lesson only experience can teach."
Mahitaro shook his head, bitter and trembling. "So... it was all... to teach me?"
"Yes," Gekidō admitted, lowering his eyes. "Every loop, every death, every tragedy... it was meant to show you why. Why I had to send you back. Why I had to make sure you lived it again. Because... the truth is... if you hadn't, if you had gone on, unaware, you would have made the same mistakes. You would have followed the path that led to the deaths I wanted to prevent—and yet... still caused so much pain. And all of this is why I entrusted you with my one true ability—the same one I once failed to use to save the past version of myself, the version you and me and your brother cared for. But that story... you'll only truly understand it when you save your brother. I activated a hidden function within this power, something only I, as the original wielder, can do. Through it, I can convey my memories—my despair—so you can see everything I endured and understand why all of this mattered. Only by saving your brother will the full purpose of it all become clear to you."
Mahitaro's stomach heaved. He wanted to scream, to lash out, to tell Gekidō to stop speaking, but his voice was stuck, paralyzed by the weight of all the lost lives, the futility, and the lesson behind it all.
Gekidō stepped closer, hand trembling on Mahitaro's shoulder, a gesture both gentle and accusing. "I sent you this from your thirty-seven-year-old self... because only someone who had truly lived through despair, who had faced death a hundred times over in repeated memories—memories not of my making—could understand. Know this: I used those memories to make it seem as though I was that fool, the naive version who had framed you for that students death when In truth it was not me to set more events to the stage, and you were the one who had been framed... but there was more beneath the surface, more than you could truly understand. You... had to know why it began and that was difficult not long after because you began giving up on everything so I sent you further back after because it seemed like the only option. And now, seeing your brother alive, holding him, choosing hope... now you are ready to understand the rest because that adds more to the hopeful future I'm aiming for. The lives, the randomness, the futility... all of it. Were to save the ones I care about and you to my dear friend Mahitaro and the loop abilitys special loops function Yatzukae that is meant to make you suffer and makes sure you do to make you understand all this stuff so that you need to understand it all."
Mahitaro's voice finally came, small, breaking: "All this... all this pain... it was... necessary? All the deaths... the screams... the nightmares... it wasn't... meaningless?"
Gekidō's smirk softened again, just a little, the mask cracking. "No. Not meaningless. Never meaningless. But that doesn't make it any easier to bear. And that... that's the tragedy. The irony. You've been sent to learn the hardest lesson: that even when you save someone... even when you fight, even when you survive... the world still takes from you. Still tests you. Still leaves scars that no one else can see."
Mahitaro's fists clenched the grass beneath him. His teeth ground together. "Then... why? Why not let me die? Why not let me stay in those loops forever?"
Gekidō looked away briefly, eyes glimmering. "Because I needed you to understand. To see the patterns. To see what it means to cling to hope, even when the world doesn't deserve it. To see your brother alive again... to feel despair, and yet... survive it. That is the only way to break the cycle. That is the only way to rewrite the future without becoming... the monster you feared you'd become."
Mahitaro's lips trembled. "So... it's all... my fault? That it happened?"
"No," Gekidō said firmly, shaking his head. "Not yours. Not fully. But it was... our fate intertwined. Mine, yours, your brother's. I caused the first domino to fall—but you... you are the one who can stop it from toppling the rest. You are the one who can save everyone... and change what seemed impossible. That's why I sent you back. That's why all the deaths, the framing, the despair... it had to happen."
Mahitaro's stomach heaved violently, tears streaming down his face. "So... all this pain... all of it... was for me to understand?"
"Yes," Gekidō whispered, voice raw. "Not for revenge. Not for cruelty. But so that you could survive, so that you could save your brother... so that someday, someone would understand why the world can break you... and why, even then, you must keep moving forward."
Mahitaro fell silent, staring at the ground. He couldn't speak. He couldn't even breathe properly. Every loop, every death, every nightmare flashed before his eyes—Yasuke's hanging, the severed heads, the hollow faces of those he had tried to save. And now... it wasn't just despair. It was clarity. Brutal, unrelenting clarity.
Gekidō stepped back slightly, his eyes still fixed on Mahitaro. "This... is only Part One. Only the first truth. Soon... you'll understand the framing. Soon... you'll understand everything that came after it. And only then... will the real choice be yours."
Mahitaro swallowed, trembling. The weight of what he'd heard settled deep in his heart. And as he looked at Gekidō—the kid who had haunted his past, his future, his every loop—he realized the depth of the lesson he'd been forced to endure:
Pain, despair, and death... all were teachers. And now, Mahitaro had no choice but to listen.
Scene 3: Part II: The Cruel Mechanics of Fate
The wind whispered through the empty park, carrying with it a cold emptiness that mirrored the hollow cavern of Mahitaro's heart. He sat on the grass, knees pressed to his himself, and let the world blur around him. Every sound—the distant laughter of children, the rustle of leaves—was drowned out by the thundering echo of what Gekidō had just told him.
Gekidō crouched across from him, eyes fixed, unwavering. "Do you understand now?" he asked softly, voice carrying a weight no child should hear. "Do you see why everything started? Why the deaths... the despair... the endless cycles?"
Mahitaro shook his head slightly, though the tremor in his body made the motion almost imperceptible. His throat burned, but no sound came out. The world felt like a vast, unfeeling machine, and he—small, eight-year-old him—was a single, insignificant gear being ground between its cogs.
Gekidō's eyes glimmered with something bitter, almost guilty. "The first death... the framing incident... it wasn't meant to target you specifically. Not at first. It began because someone had to pay the price for imbalance. The first domino had to fall. And it... fell on your life. Everything spiraled after that."
Mahitaro's stomach tightened. "So... it wasn't... me? It wasn't something I did wrong?" His voice hollow, a whisper against the cruel wind.
"No," Gekidō said. "It wasn't your fault. But you became the focal point. You became the one who would experience it all. Every death that followed, every 'accident,' every time someone near you was taken—yes, you could reach out, you could try, you could fight—but the outcome... the outcome was always designed to teach you. You couldn't stop it. No matter how fast, no matter how strong, no matter how clever... someone else would always fall. Because you are the cog to fix everything I could not and everything thus far only someone like you could, the only one strong enough to hold expectations I could not."
The words pierced Mahitaro's heart like jagged knives. His mind spun through flashes of memories—his friend crushed beneath the bus, his friend Eruto's neck bursting into blood, the random kid with cancer who had stumbled into the chaos he couldn't prevent. Every moment, every life lost, came rushing back in violent, searing waves.
Gekidō's voice softened, almost unbearably so. "And yes... you may have saved someone. Perhaps even someone you cared for deeply. But in that very moment... someone else—someone equally innocent—would die. It was never personal. It was the mechanism of fate itself. You were never meant to save all, only to understand the weight of being powerless, and the consequence of intervention."
Mahitaro's small hands trembled, clutching the grass beneath him as if he could hold the world together through sheer grip alone. "All... all those people... all the deaths... none of it mattered?"
Gekidō shook his head, his smirk now gone, replaced by something fragile, pained. "It mattered... only in what it taught you. Every loss, every scream, every futile attempt to stop the world from hurting... it built a pattern. A lesson. One you couldn't understand at thirty-seven because by then, despair had hardened you, numbed you, made you... blind. You had to relive it as a child to see it with clarity. To feel the helplessness, the grief, the futility—so that the moment you finally acted, you'd understand everything that had come before. You'd finally know why it all began. nd you speaking to your brother now... it actually stopped him from taking his own life. But it won't stop the fate that's still coming. Know this: the terrible fate I speak of isn't about grades, or the pressures that come with them. No... it is the death of someone you would never expect. Something you will come to understand in time—just know all this for now."
Mahitaro's stomach twisted violently. "So... all those loops... all the times I killed myself... the despair... it... it was... for nothing?"
"No," Gekidō said firmly. "Not nothing. Every death of yours, every scream, every broken piece of your soul... it all built the context. You had to know what it meant to lose everything, to fail, to live under despair, to feel utterly powerless. Only then... could you truly change the future. Only then could you stop the chain of destruction that began on that day—with me, you, and your brother. A day I could never change, no matter how many loops I endured. All of this was meant to toughen your resolve, so that when the moment comes, your suffering and torment will transform into bitter determination, driving you forward.
When that moment arrives, my memories—filtered through the special function of the loop ability—will reach you. They will show you the pain I endured, strengthening your resolve even further. But it's not just that... they will reveal the situation in full, guiding you to act at the perfect time. Once you inherit these memories of torment, the loop ability will fade—but the torment itself will linger, not only in the ability for the right moment but it still lingers in my mind today but thats just a thing I forced my pitiful self to endure. It has turned me into someone who could even hurt a brother-like friend of mine, pushing them toward survival and growth through acts of murder—just to forge the resolve necessary to survive what's coming."
Mahitaro's eyes, wide and hollow, searched the sky as if it might answer him.
Mahitaro's vision blurred, tears streaming unchecked. He could see Yasuke's hanging, the severed heads, the spiraling despair... and now, the truth. It crushed him, suffocated him, yet demanded that he had understand.
Gekidō's voice grew quieter, raw with regret. "And I... I acted as your tormentor because... I had to. I had to mirror your past self perfectly. Every gesture, every word, every small cruelty... to ensure the chain remained intact, so that when the time came, you would act with all the weight of your experiences. I pretended to be your eight-year-old friend... but I wasn't your friend, not truly. I needed you to trust me, to rely on me, to unknowingly witness everything, so that when the truth came... it would make sense. And it has to hurt, Mahitaro. It has to break you a little, so that you never repeat my mistakes."
Mahitaro shook, clutching his face, sobs rcoking his body. "So... all this pain... all the deaths... the screams... the helplessness... you did it... for me... to understand?"
"Yes," Gekidō said. "I did. I hated you while doing it. I despised myself while doing it. But... I loved you, in the way I knew how. And I loved your brother too. Enough to manipulate time itself, enough to endure my own despair, enough to ensure that one day, you would understand, and... perhaps... change the course of our tragedy."
Mahitaro fell silent, the full weight of it pressing down on him. Every loop, every death, every scream... every moment of despair he had endured... now had meaning. But meaning did not make the pain lighter. It only sharpened it, carved it deeper.
He looked up at Gekidō, voice barely a whisper. "And... the victims... all those who died... it... it wasn't my fault?"
Gekidō shook his head slowly. "No. Not yours. Not fully. But it was your lesson. And I... I will bear my part of it forever. But you... you are the one who will carry it forward. You are the one who can break the chain. You are the one who can save your brother, save yourself, and finally... rewrite what was broken."
Mahitaro's body shook. The world around him felt impossibly heavy. The weight of every death, every scream, every loop... bore down on him like a mountain. And yet... beneath it all, he felt a faint ember of clarity, a fragile hope that, maybe... just maybe... he could save Yasuke, save the future, and make all this suffering worth something. And prevent and learn of what the red haired kid spoke of...
Gekidō stood, the smirk flickering, just a shadow of its former cruelty. "And now... the next part begins. The truth isn't finished. There are still choices to make, still paths to follow. But now you understand... the heart of it. The framing. The deaths. The loops. And why I did it all."
Mahitaro swallowed hard, tears still streaming, voice raw: "I... I understand... but it hurts so much..."
Gekidō's smile softened, almost imperceptibly. "Yes. That's the point. It should hurt. And that pain... that despair... is what will make you strong enough to change everything. And if you're curious about what I'll be doing after all this... well... I ended up wasting the last remaining specs of the loop ability I had left after giving it to you, keeping only a small portion reserved for the whole loop-torment process. Because of that—and because I sent you even further back because of your weaknesses which I never actually expected, forcing the loop on your eight-year-old self in this timeline—not just to strengthen your weaknesses, but to reveal a truth I nearly hid from you forever cause I felt bad hiding it from you. But that's not all... I also wasted a lot sending your thirty-seven-year-old self back to your high school days. Acting as the villain wore me out so badly that I accidentally used some of the last remaining specs of the ability on that Barisu Vultari freak. Part of me... kind of enjoyed slipping into the enemy role, especially because your ambush pushed me to take my performance to an entirely new level. So, I'll admit—it's partly my fault... but also yours. Damn it, Mahitaro, you really made me waste a lot but thats my fault because I had to fool you all this time. But... anyways, back to the subject Mahitaro my old friend as my guess is that I'm gonna have to live which I'm fine with but like I said... Back to the subject."
The swings creaked again in the wind, lonely and hollow. And as Mahitaro sat there, stressed, trembling, yet burning with a fragile fire, he realized for the first time in countless loops that the world was cruel... but maybe, just maybe... it could be rewritten all thanks to his enemy.
Scene 4: Part III: The Mirror of Memories
The sky above was heavy with clouds, grey and unyielding, as if the world itself mourned alongside Mahitaro. He sat on the backyard grass, trembling, hands pressed against his knees, and Gekidō crouched before him, close enough that Mahitaro could feel the faint heat of his presence. The silence between them was thick, loaded with all the weight of the loops, all the weight of countless deaths, all the weight of a fractured childhood.
Gekidō's eyes were unreadable, flicking from Mahitaro's hollow gaze to the distant horizon as if searching for a memory hidden in the clouds. "Do you remember," he began quietly, voice low and deliberate, "how every loop you've ever lived... always felt like it was you experiencing it, and yet... something always felt off?"
Mahitaro swallowed hard. He remembered it—every loop, every fragment of memory. The loops were endless mirrors, each reflecting his own pain, his own failures, his own despair—but always slightly wrong. Faces that should have been familiar, gestures that should have been natural, words that should have carried warmth... all twisted just enough to feel alien.
"That's because they weren't wrong," Gekidō continued. "They were... intentional. Every moment you endured in these loops—every scream, every failure, every death—was designed so that you would feel something. That's why I played my role in a way that reflected what you would forget in the future. Soon, you'll understand why. It all stems from my failures—my failures to save you and your brother—despite looping countless times with that ability and still falling short. Which lead to you forgetting this loving past. Every detail, every gesture, every thought... I watched. I studied. I knew what would trigger your memory, what would stir your fear, what would make your soul shatter enough that you would feel everything. Not as a child, not as a adult... but as yourself., moved foward with my caused despair."
Gekidō's lips twitched into the faintest hint of a smile, tinged with bitterness. "Yes. I was always there. I acted as your friend, as Gekidō—the red-haired kid. Every smile, every laugh, every small kindness you thought you remembered... I mirrored your eight-year-old self perfectly. I made sure nothing was out of place. Every glance, every gesture, every hesitation... crafted to deceive you, to teach you, to break you in the right way, so that you could finally see the truth."
Mahitaro's heart hammered against his ribs.
Gekidō nodded, eyes glinting with both pain and a cruel precision. "I had to. You could never have understood the depth of your suffering without seeing yourself in all its forms. Every loss, every death, every fragment of hope twisted into despair... it was necessary. And now... after what you just did with your brother... after that moment..." His voice softened, fragile. "...you've begun to break the cycle and who knew you being depressed would be the simplest thing to a good future, well at least in my eyes..."
Mahitaro's head shot up, confusion and hope mingling in a storm inside him. "Break the cycle? How? I... I didn't even know what I was doing... I just... I just hugged him. I told him he wasn't alone. I—" His voice caught, tears spilling unbidden. "...I just... loved him."
Gekidō's gaze softened. "Exactly. That is why it matters. That moment—the hug, the words, the connection—it was real. Not manipulated, not mirrored, not twisted by fate. Your love for him, your choice to act despite everything, has created a ripple that the loops themselves cannot contain. That moment has begun to undo the perfect reflection I constructed. The pain, the despair... the endless cycle... is starting to falter because you acted with truth."
Mahitaro pressed his hands to his face, sobbing quietly. Memories of the loops, the deaths, the betrayals... everything collided. Each scream, each cry, each failure. And yet, for the first time, they were not meaningless. For the first time, he felt that maybe, just maybe, his actions could matter.
Gekidō continued, his voice almost a whisper, yet resonant with a gravity that pinned Mahitaro in place. "Do you understand now? Every time you tried and failed... every time you died... every time you watched someone fall... it was always leading to this. Leading to your choice now. You have learned. You have seen the weight of despair, and now... you have acted differently. That... is why you are not broken. Not entirely."
Mahitaro looked up, his hands trembling, eyes wide and raw. "But... all those deaths... all those people... they suffered. They... they—"
Gekidō's voice hardened just slightly, the edge of the harsh truth cutting through the sorrow. "Yes. They suffered. And yes, it was cruel. But you could not save them all. Not then. Not now. The important part is that you understand why. That is what I wanted you to grasp. You cannot undo the past... but you can change what comes next. You can protect what matters, because now... you know the cost of not acting. You know the weight of despair. And you have chosen... differently."
Mahitaro's heart heaved. He remembered every death, every scream, every betrayal... and for the first time, he didn't feel entirely crushed. Not entirely hopeless. The love he had felt for his brother, the hug that had broken through the endless cycles... it was a spark in the suffocating darkness.
Gekidō's expression softened, his eyes glinting with something like relief. "And that is why I did all of it. Every manipulation, every mirror, every false friendship... every moment was designed to make you understand the cruelty of fate, the fragility of life, and the power of your choice. You... your heart... your actions... are the only things that can rewrite what is broken. That is why you were sent back. That is why I orchestrated everything."
Mahitaro closed his eyes, tears streaming freely now. The weight of it all—the despair, the grief, the manipulated memories—was almost unbearable. But beneath it all, a new, fragile determination took root. For the first time, he felt a sense of purpose stronger than fear. Stronger than despair. Stronger than all the loops combined.
"I... I understand," he whispered, voice trembling. "...I... I won't let it happen again. I won't... I'll protect him... and I'll protect the future. I... I'll make it right."
Gekidō's eyes softened further, a glimmer of something genuine beneath the usual smirk. "And that is why I sent you back. Not to break you... but to make you whole enough to save others. The past was never meant to destroy you. It was meant to teach you. And now... you have learned. Now... the choice is yours. And all of it was done because I... Your childhood friend you do not remember played the role of a villain."
Mahitaro opened his eyes, facing the wind and the grey sky. He could feel it—the convergence of all his memories, all his grief, all the despair and sorrow... and within it, the faint, flickering warmth of hope. Every loop, every death, every manipulated moment had led him here. And for the first time, he realized... he was not powerless.
He stood slowly, his frame trembling, but upright. Gekidō stood as well, a shadow of his usual sharpness softened by the truth laid foward over the horizen. The world seemed impossibly heavy, and yet... the burden was finally one Mahitaro could bear.
And somewhere deep within, a quiet, fragile, yet burning determination whispered: This time... I will save them. This time... I will change everything.
Scene 5: Part IV: The Convergence of Time
The wind swept across the schoolyard, tugging at Mahitaro's hair, pressing cold against his skin, but he felt nothing except the raw weight of what had just happened. His stomach heaved, lungs burning, tears streaking down his face, and yet... for the first time in decades of endless loops, he felt... Alive.
Gekidō stood a few feet away, the red-haired kids usual smirk softened, almost unrecognizable. His eyes were darker now, deeper, haunted by countless memories of what had been and what could have been. He took a slow breath, and spoke, his voice carrying the weight of every single loop they had endured together—and apart.
"Do you see it now, Mahitaro? Do you see why it had to happen this way?"
Mahitaro's hands clenched into fists, nails biting into his palms, but he could not speak. The storm of memories—the pain, the loss, the betrayal, the endless despair—swirled around him like a living thing. Faces flashed before him: Yasuke's pale, broken form; the severed heads he could never forget; the laughter of children that had once been his torment; the warmth of moments he had never known, yet had desperately longed for. Every loop collided into a single, suffocating wave.
Gekidō took a step closer, voice low, almost tender. "Every loop... every death... every time you tried to save someone and failed... it wasn't random. It wasn't meaningless. It was a reflection of how fragile life is. It was a lesson in weight. In consequence. In love... and in loss. You felt despair because despair is the only thing that truly teaches you what it is to care."
Mahitaro's body shook. "But... it killed them... all of them... everyone I tried to save... Why? Why make me suffer like this?"
Gekidō's eyes glimmered, almost impossibly sad. "Because... you had to see. You had to understand what it means to stand at the edge of helplessness and still choose to act. You had to feel grief so completely, so utterly... that when the moment came, you could embrace hope anyway. And now... now you have. You saved him. You saved Yasuke. You held onto him even when everything screamed at you to let go. And now the incident showl be stopped in time!"
Mahitaro's knees buckled, and he sank to the ground, memories pressing down on him like stones. He could see the faces of all those who had died in other loops: friends, strangers, loved ones, those he had tried to save—and failed. Every scream, every pleading look, every final moment... they swirled around him, a storm of grief that threatened to drown him.
"But now..." Gekidō continued, voice shaking, "the cycle... it is breaking. Your actions—the choice to embrace your brother, to act with love and hope instead of despair... it has started to unravel the loops. Every time you chose differently, every time you acted out of truth instead of fear... the chains that bound you weakened. The endless repetition... it is beginning to fade."
Mahitaro's tears fell freely, his face wet with the storm of emotions. "I... I tried... I didn't know if it would work... I just... I just wanted him to be safe... to not feel alone... to not die like I did... like I've seen him die a thousand times im memory..."
Gekidō knelt beside him, placing a hand gently on Mahitaro's trembling shoulder. "And that is why it matters. That is why it all matters. You see now, don't you? The loops... the framing... the despair... it was never about punishing you. It was about showing you what true love, true courage, looks like. You had to carry every loss, every death, every memory... to understand what it means to save. And now... you have. You are the first one to truly break it."
The sky seemed to shift above them. Clouds parted just slightly, a thin golden sliver of sunlight illuminating the horizens. Mahitaro blinked, staring at the light, the warmth cutting through the cold emptiness that had long enveloped him. For the first time, he felt... possibility.
Gekidō's voice softened even further, almost a whisper now. "Do you feel it? All the grief, all the despair... all the memories of pain... they are converging into one point. And in that point, there is something you have always overlooked... hope. Love. Family. Choice. You are not bound by the past anymore. You are bound by what you choose to do next."
Mahitaro's stomach heaved violently. Memories of his thirty-seven-year-old self—the beaten-down supermarket worker, the adult crushed by endless cycles, the life of silent suffering—flooded him. And yet, they no longer seemed insurmountable. They no longer seemed final. Each memory of failure, each looped death, now served as a lesson carved into his soul, guiding him, strengthening him, teaching him the meaning of choice.
"I... I can change it," he whispered hoarsely, voice breaking. "I... I can stop it. I... I can save him. I can save... everyone."
"Yes," Gekidō said, his eyes glistening, something almost like pride—or relief—shining through. "Your actions showl now be the act strong enough to shatter the cycle. Strong enough to rewrite the future."
Mahitaro clenched his fists, the tension in his body cracking like thunder. He could feel the weight of all the lives, all the deaths, all the despair... and yet beneath it all, a fragile, trembling flame of hope burned. A flame that he could now protect, and carry forward.
Gekidō leaned back slightly, letting the silence stretch between them. "The loops are breaking, Mahitaro. And with your brother safe, with your choices rooted in truth... the pain, the despair... it will no longer control you. You will carry the grief, yes... but now it will guide you. And that... is what will save all of you. All of us..."
The wind lifted, carrying the echoes of laughter, cries, and whispers of the past, the present, and what could be. And Mahitaro, trembling and soaked in tears, finally looked at Gekidō.
"I... I understand now. I... I will protect him. I will protect them. I... I won't let this happen again."
Gekidō's smile returned, faint and bittersweet. "That is all I ever wanted you to know. That is why I sent you back. The despair, the loops... the suffering... it was all preparation. And now... you are ready."
The clouds above parted further, sunlight spilling over the backyard. The wind whispered through the trees, carrying away the remnants of countless loops, countless deaths, countless failures. And in that moment, Mahitaro felt something he had never truly felt before: control. A choice. A future he could shape.
He rose to his feet, trembling, His brother's hand rested on his shoulder curious what the 2 kids were up to after coming from inside after calling the teacher, firm, warm, steady. Gekidō watched silently, knowing that this moment—the convergence of grief, love, memory, and hope—was the hinge upon which everything would turn.
For the first time in a thousand lives, Mahitaro's eyes held light. Not naive, not untested. But resilient. And as he looked toward the horizon, toward the uncertain road ahead, he whispered, voice steady and raw with emotion:
"This... this is the moment we change everything. And we won't let it fall apart again."
The wind carried his words, fragile but unyielding, across the empty schoolyard. The loops trembled. The past quaked. And the future... began to shift.
TO BE CONTINUED...