Chapter 8: Your Best Nightmare

The dimly lit room had once been a prison cell.

Now, it was an interrogation chamber buried deep beneath an Army base—where a single man sat in chains.

The leader of the Syndicate’s extremist faction, Illicit Stimulus Black Dope, was a shadow of his former self. Once an unsettling, inscrutable figure, he now looked haggard, the weight of defeat etched into his face. Specialized restraints neutralized his enhanced physique, leaving him powerless.

The other extremists had been either locked away in separate cells or had their memories altered, reintegrated into society as civilians. But he remained here. Alone.

While the Corporation specialized in science and the Army straddled the line between science and the occult, the Syndicate was purely supernatural. A faction leader like him could harbor untold secrets—hence the extreme precautions.

Yet, judging by the hollow look in his eyes, such concerns seemed unnecessary.

There was no fight left in him.

Just a broken man, shackled in a cold, desolate cell.

But then—

Creak.

The heavy door groaned open.

"…Three minutes."

A tall woman in a black suit—the base commander—spoke to the blonde sister standing behind her.

"Wrap it up in three, Overdose. Not a second more. And you—" She narrowed her eyes at empty air beside the sister. "You too. Understood?"

"Fufu~ No need to be so tense, Commander~ ♪" Overdose smiled, playful yet unreadable. "I merely wish to let this gentleman see his face. Nothing more~"

The commander clicked her tongue, stepping aside with visible reluctance—not just for the sister, but for the unseen presence beside her.

At the sound, Black Dope lifted his head—

—And froze.

His breath hitched. His lips trembled.

"Why…?"

Not at Overdose.

But at the empty space beside her.

"WHY, DEMON!? OUR MODEL DEMON, DEMONIQUES! YOUR OBSERVATIONS WERE MEANT TO BE FLAWLESS—PERFECT!!"

A voice that shouldn’t exist answered from the void.

"Now, now. Perfect doesn’t mean absolute."

The words dripped with casual amusement.

"If you try to 'improve' a prophecy, straying from it is inevitable. Your current predicament? Merely the result of trying to avoid him—this world’s so-called protagonist—destroying you. Did you really think victory would come just by blindly following a script?"

"Ghk—!!"

The air itself trembled, vibrating with an impossible frequency—not high, not low, but something else entirely.

The voice continued, almost conversational.

"Admittedly... this is odd. Statistically unlikely. For fate to deviate this much, there must be external interference—something from outside this universe. Hmm. Most likely, something slipped in fifteen years ago, around the time you tried to prevent his birth."

Had the voice belonged to a visible form, one might imagine its owner furrowing their brow in thought.

"Not that I did nothing. I corrected the deviating threads of fate where I could—gentle nudges to stop a butterfly’s flutter from becoming a storm. But then that ‘magnetic flux disruption,’ or whatever you called it, happened. The moment his destiny—the one meant to bind him to me—was distorted beyond my ability to repair."

Lost in its own musings, the voice seemed to forget Black Dope’s presence entirely. Words spilled from the empty air, layered and fragmented, as if racing through possibilities.

"The strain on the world in that instant was... extraordinary. Time itself nearly stalled."

"I even corrected this priest’s defeat. By all rights, it should have led to the worst possible outcome, as always."

"Yet it was overridden. Fate redundantly rewritten, bloated, then shattered by an overwhelming narrative force."

"Every attempt to restore the story only burdened the world further. No meaning—just strain."

"With each adjustment, time slows. Stretches. Lags. This stagnation cannot continue."

"If fate stalls, the universe cannot progress. The laws of time will collapse. In the worst case… causality may loop."

A sigh, almost weary.

"Which is why I left the Corporation. At this point, quality must take precedence over quantity. We can’t afford to wait for the ‘original story’ to begin a year from now."

Overdose stepped forward, raising her hand above the priest’s head—like a sacrament of last rites.

"So, apologies, but she’ll be the final boss now. You might have qualified as one of the Four Heavenly Kings in the original script, but... this timeline ends here. Still, thank you, Black Dope. If not for you stealing me—back when I was just a Risk-Class C entity—from the Corporation, I wouldn’t be put to better use."

Her palm descended.

Shadows swallowed his face.

The priest choked out a plea.

"W-wait...! Overdose, please—! Remember everything I’ve done for the Syndicate...!"

"Oh, I do," she murmured. "Merely reciting your name conjures endless memories of your glorious achievements. And as I’ve always said—"

Her voice trembled with something between reverence and cruelty.

"I admired you most of all."

A soft, breathless laugh.

"Ah, how tragic. Ah, how unbearably regrettable. Ah, how it pains me—!"

A final whisper, tender yet merciless.

"Ah, what devotion I must possess, to sacrifice someone as magnificent as you with such resolve..."

"N-no...! I—I still have value! I can still serve the Syndicate—still contribute to this world! Stop—I'm not some kindling to be burned here—!!"

Then.

The nun placed a hand on his head and spoke to the demon.

"We offer this one as a sacrifice."

『Accepted. The immense love you hold for this one shall serve as our fee. Commencing processing now.』

An indescribable sound filled the air.

When it faded, the nun held a diamond in her hands—once human, now crystallized into something beyond recognition.

She turned to the woman in the black suit behind her.

"It has shrunk somewhat… but this should still hold sufficient value, yes?"

The commander studied it in silence before replying.

"…Indeed. A diamond of this size exists neither in nature nor through artificial means. With an item of such worth as collateral, even my modest promissory note—Love King Speak—can claim this entire city as its own."

Beyond the prison bars.

Beyond the endless rows of hospital rooms, filled with wounded agents in the medical ward.

The commander clenched her teeth.

(…Just a little longer. It will end—I will end it. So…)

Even if this choice led to her own ruin—

(Hold on just a little longer, Hoshizumi… and you too, Zaijou.)

She clung to the belief that, at the very least, they could still reach a future worth saving.

---

There’s no need to overthink this.

That’s right. If someone like me—someone who could never shine like Misora Gotendō or Nishizaki-san, never stand as the protagonist’s ally or main heroine—then the choice is obvious.

I should step aside.

Right here, right now.

Return this position to the real heroines. Let them take my place—no, let me give back what was theirs to begin with.

Honestly, what’s with this love nonsense? It’s disgusting.

I was a man.

No matter how much this body is a girl’s, my core is male. And not just any male—in my past life, I was already an adult, mentally pushing late thirties.

Unbelievable. Absurd. This has to be some kind of mistake.

It’s just a lapse in judgment. That’s all. Nothing more than the hormones of this adolescent girl’s body temporarily messing with my brain.

Think about it rationally.

Why on earth would I—of all people—fall for a guy? Even if he is the protagonist. There’s no reason. If I were to date anyone, it’d obviously be someone like Nishizaki-san or Misora Gotendō—actual, beautiful girls.

And really, when you get down to it...

What’s so great about Moribe Sabaki anyway?

His face? Decent, but plain—the kind that grows on you. In terms of pure looks, there are plenty better.

His demeanor? Lacking presence, carrying himself with zero confidence. Hardly protagonist material.

He’s not even that good at communication. His tone is blunt, but only because he struggles to find the right words, leaving him terse and awkward—

No. That’s not it.

His personality, too...

The only thing you can really praise about him is that he’s—

…Kind.

...

So, in short—

Just say it already, Zaijou Kirizami.

Tell him: I know who you really are.

Tell him: Use that power to save the person who gave me my life.

Tell him: Please, don’t waste it on someone like me. Be happy with her instead.

I called Moribe-kun out to an empty school hallway, away from prying eyes.

I stand before him, ready to say it—

"…………"

Come on.

"…Zaijou?"

Say it.

"Uh, so... …"

But my lips won’t move.

"...Ah, hey... did I mess up again the other day? Not making excuses, but I really didn’t mean to—"

...Seeing his dejected expression, I tried to explain—but my breath caught before I could speak.

"...N-no, it’s not your fault, Sabaki. I just... suddenly had something come up..."
"Oh...? Well, if that’s all... You’re not sick or anything, right?"

So please—

Stop.

Stop worrying about me like that.

It’s fine. It’s fine, it’s fine—

It’s okay to like him. He’s saved me so many times. Of course I’d feel grateful.

But that’s not love. It’s just friendship.

So it’s fine.

Even if he ends up with Misora Gotendō or Nishizaki-san, we won’t drift apart.

We can still stay friends.

...As friends.

...Forever.

Lost in vague thoughts, I murmured absently:

"Hey... we’ll always be friends, right?"
"Huh? Well, yeah, of cou—"

He cut himself off mid-sentence.

A flicker of unease.

But before I could dwell on it, he spoke again.

"—No, actually... Hey, you free after school?"
"Eh? Y-yeah..."
"Then... meet me behind the school building. There’s something I gotta tell you."

The bell rang, signaling the end of break.

Something I gotta tell you.

What? What? What? What? What?

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

But maybe.

I don’t know. I don’t know.

What if.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

—I don’t want to know.

Because I don’t want to.

It can’t be that.

So I followed him quietly, unnoticed by anyone—

And eavesdropped on his conversation with Nishizaki-san.

"Wait, really?! So you’re confessing to Zaijou today—?"

No.

No, no, NO.

I ran.

Left my bag. Skipped afternoon classes. Sprinted all the way home.

I collapsed onto the floor of my tiny apartment.

My hand pressed against my pounding chest—

But this wasn’t from running.

It wasn’t.

I swallowed this month’s entire supply of pills and shut my eyes.

---

It turns out, all of that was just a dream.

I woke up.

An unfamiliar ceiling—

No.

A familiar ceiling.

There were no bandages on the desk. No pills.

The closet was filled with plain, unfashionable men’s clothes.

A game console lay on the floor, its cables tangled. Next to it, the packaging of that series was tossed aside.

...A dream.

Yeah. Just a dream.

It had to be a dream.

A terrible nightmare, really.

I should get up. Start the day.

I used to think my life was dull and meaningless, but now—

Now, it feels like I can do anything.

All those worries, regrets, struggles, and anxieties about the future—

They don’t matter. They were never real. They were just... fleeting illusions.

So I should get out of bed.

Open the curtains. Wash my face. Step outside.

It was just a dream.

Just a dream.

I didn’t do anything wrong.

It’s okay if I forget.

It’s fine—

I can leave this bed.

The face in the mirror was just an ordinary, unremarkable young man’s—

Someone who would never fight for anything.

Never bear the fate of the world.

Never stand beside heroes or heroines.

Just a normal, normal, normal guy.

---

I kicked off the covers and sat up.

Gasping for air, I turned to the mirror—like surfacing from water, desperate for light.

—And there, staring back at me, was a pink-haired girl with hollow eyes.

A stranger.

No—me.

Relief crashed over me.

"Ah... ah... ah...!"

My hands trembled as they roamed over my skin, my hair, my face—confirming it. This is real. This is me. This is the girl he loves.

And with that certainty—

Despair swallowed me whole.

"No... no, no, no...!"

I shook, breath hitching, crushed beneath the unbearable weight of my own happiness.