Quick heads' up the fic ignores the golden epilogue and all spin offs, also a bit bleak but hopefully not pretentiously so

Chapter 1: Prologue

Yu Narukami sits at the end of the hotel bed. He's restless, can't bring himself to sleep when the dream is over. Lately he's repeated words in his head that a former friend once accused. That there was no justice, just the selfish posturing for adventure. The hero just wants to escape the uncaring world. Villainy and heroism was just people looking for something to do.

Yu tightens his fist, wishing for a sword. Something for his thumb to rub across. To know that it was real in these dark moments where it doesn't. That at one time he was important, that he was chosen for something more. Now he feels just empty, frighteningly understanding more and more the criminals he helped put away.

Yu Narukami is losing it.

[]

Two years. Two tears of longing, of completing one's purpose, of subsisting but not living. Yu Narukami had solved the mystery, he had stopped the fog and the machinations of higher powers and came out proud at what he's done. He left Inaba a hero, a friend to the whole town and savior of the world. Now here he is on the same train two years later, more broken then when he first arrived.

Yu looks out the window of the train, at the countryside passing by. Making pathetic attempts at a plan of what to do when he arrives at Inaba. Something the teachers, guidance counselor and his parents wished he did more of. But it was difficult for Yu to pick a college, a career or put effort into studies when he saw no point in it. Fighting a goddess to decide man's will makes mundane adult life seem like such a bitter after climax. When he moved to another town he tried to keep his spirits up. He tried to study, to make friends but it felt so fake. He felt like he was missing something.

Yu thought it might've been the action so he tried out some clubs. He tried out for Kendo, but he couldn't deal with how it contrasted from the grittier life-and-death brawls of the T.V. world. Boxing worked out better. There were things to learn, no prior knowledge to invalidate the lessons being imparted. Yu thought he might've found something to fill the hole in his life. Til in the heat of the moment he near turned an opponent's face into hamburger.

Yu dropped physical competition then, realizing he was chasing for a substitute that couldn't match the real thing. Sparring with others when he was a seasoned veteran just wasn't fair to them. But what use is a soldier in peace time? What's Yu supposed to do now?

Fighting makes him feel a bit better but its not as if he could become a mercenary. Yu doesn't want to kill, he just wants to feel alive. Vigilantism is unrealistic so what else is there? Ask Naoto for a job? Chasing down serial killers would just be a pathetic attempt to relive the past.

Yu shakes his head to get rid of the thoughts and rubs a hand through his hair. He pulls his cellphone out of his jacket pocket to stop thinking about poor career prospects and instead look at the numbers he hasn't texted in months. He's gonna reach Inaba in ten minutes and yet none of his friends know about it. He slowly felt more estranged from them. Distancing himself from perhaps the only people that could relate to him. He didn't return to Inaba to catch up with old friends. His coming to Inaba was just a spur of the moment decision. He told his parents some story of going with some friends to the beach but instead came here. Just trying to see if he could find something here. And If not then Yu feels that all thats left is to go into the other world, walking as far as he could until he was sure the investigation team couldn't find him and just laying down in the meadow. Offing himself by just waiting for the shadows to descend and do it for him. His mangled body over the telephone wires. His corpse the same as that brisk spring day when he found what living really was.

If there were no shadows willing to kill? If they were all tamed then all the better. The town and friends that gave him life wouldn't have to see the blankness of death in his eyes. Yu doesn't want them to see the blankness of his current eyes now. Instead he would just lay on that grass and sleep. Sleeping until he never woke up. The dream of adventure was done, it was time for sleep. Letting unconscious wrap around him, letting the flowers of the collective unconscious be his tomb.

Yu Narukami needs help.