Author Note: Yahaha~ I'm back with my first published one-shot~ This is made within... Eight hours I guess? Ah well.
Also, this contain spoilers to ~Refrain~
Please enjoy~
Disclaimer: I don't own Little Busters! Never!
"Once upon a time, there lived a man named Kyousuke. He's a courageous leader of a group of people called the Little Busters. This is the story about them."
The world we live in. I always thought that it's the only world that exists.
I mean, how could there be another? One world is good enough for me.
Well, I just noticed that the world doesn't care about my opinion.
Because I was forcefully dragged into another world.
The day when we goes on a field trip. The day the bus we're riding in crashed.
That fateful day, a group of students, called Little Busters, had discovered the existence of another world.
A world where nothing happen, that's the name we have given to it.
We created that world, no, we modified that empty world to fit our one wish.
Our only wish, is for Riki and Rin to become stronger. So that the two of them could life normally, without a trauma, just living peacefully without the burden of seeing the death of their classmates.
The current them couldn't face the fact yet.
The fact that the students besides them inside the bus are all going to die.
I couldn't let them see that fact. Not until they're stronger. Making both Riki and Rin see it head on is just going to give them a mental trauma.
So, within the rift between life and death, we live in that fake world.
We made the world exactly like the original world was. From minor things like the pebbles to major things like gravity. It's a perfect copy of the world where death await us.
After much consideration, we set the timeline right at the start of the new semester.
It was before the new members had joined.
At that time, there was only the five of us.
I made a plan. A plan to strengthen the two.
They always depend on us. Both Riki and Rin.
I couldn't lead them forever. If they does not gain independence by the time this place is gone, the harsh reality would crush them to pieces.
Because the moment this world crumbled, we all gonna die... We would disappear, just like that.
No one is going to save us. No one can.
The least we could do is make those two live happily.
I was watching him. I was watching as Riki ran away from his room, running from Komari.
"That's... That's..." Riki had fallen. He just couldn't stand the look on Komari's face. It's just too sad.
When Komari remembered her brother, she broke. Something had cracked within her head.
Riki couldn't take it. He ran away, leaving the broken girl inside his room, as she stared at empty space around her trying to see something that doesn't exist anymore.
"Will you give up from just that?" I asked him, who has fallen.
"I-I couldn't... I couldn't... How can I help her?! Don't put her burden on me!" I looked at Riki.
He couldn't take the burden and ran away. He's just too pitiful, so I choose reset time from the beginning.
One step at a time. Every time I reset, he seems to be stronger than before.
Before I know it, he was strong enough to help Komari.
To save her from her endless circle of remembering and forgetting the memory of her brother.
Riki make her see reality, that her brother isn't there anymore.
I'm proud. He had overcome it.
As the days passed by, I keep watching.
I keep on watching him as he struggle to help Saigusa. He has fallen. Over and over again. Reset. Fallen. Reset. Fallen. Reset.
It repeated on and on and on.
I want to help him. I want to thrust my hand to him, to help him.
But I can't! I mustn't! I have to endure it!
He isn't going to improve if I helped him... Real and true independence isn't given after all.
So I just watch.
3 years had passed, but the endlessly repeating semester isn't over yet.
I had to reset so many times that I had lost count of how many times I had to do it.
The good thing is that he is improving slowly.
Little by little, he's getting stronger.
He had offered his hand to Saigusa, giving her a chance to save herself.
He given Noumi the courage to go and check on her mother.
He struggled to drag Nishizono back from the endless blues, and he succeeded.
He stay with Kurugaya, and make her learn about how it felt to love, and be loved.
I watched as he did all of that.
He had gotten far.
I smiled.
Now, it's time for the final phase to take place.
The last test.
I separated both Riki and Rin who had started dating. It hurt my heart to separate those two lovebirds, but it must be done.
I watched as he struggled to endure it. This is the last and final wall that he must climb.
But, in the end, the result are the same.
He ran away.
That's it, I realized. It's impossible to do it. Those countless resets are worthless.
He didn't change at all, he's still as weak as he was before.
I threw my only hope out of the window.
I abandoned the mission.
The mission had... Failed.
"Let's just have fun in this fake world until it disappear. Yeah, that's right. It's useless. He couldn't become stronger, he just can't let go of us. Rin is the same. She's still as anti-social as she was before. I... I will protect them... I will..." at that moment, Natsume Kyousuke has decided. He's going to protect them as long as he could.
And so, they keep on living in that fake world.
Treating it like a real one.
No one objected. They have also given up. They're sick of repeating things over and over again.
So, we just live.
Until the day where there would be no tomorrow.
We live.
And then, it happened. The world crumbled.
They were forcefully returned to the previous world.
It's dark. I tried to open my eyes. After a few try, my eyelids opened. I used my eyes to look at my surrounding.
All I could see is some trees' roots and a bus that looked barely like one.
I realized that I was laying on the ground, a few meters from the bus.
Everything is dim. Everything around me blurred. My body aches all over.
I felt like dying.
"It's over, huh?" I said sadly. I know it would happen, no matter how hard he tries to prevent it. Everything's over.
No one's going to save him. No one's going to save us. No one can.
I closed my eyes. Keeping it open will just hurt him more.
He couldn't look. He couldn't look at all of his precious friends. Because he know what will happen next.
With that last though, he heard an explosion.
It sounded so far, yet so close to him.
I could feel my body burning.
I couldn't think of anything anymore. The pain is just unbearable.
I could hear a scream, I don't know from where, I just did.
"No! No! No! No! No! No! No! This...! THIS IS A LIE RIGHT?! I MUST BE DREAMING! RIGHT?! RIGHT?!"
I wonder whose voice shouted that.
Well, I couldn't care less.
I'm about to die after all.
As I felt the embrace of darkness around me, one memory appeared inside my hazy mind.
I remembered about the photo we had taken near the bridge. At the photo, everyone is smiling happily.
I wish... That we could smile like that again.
Then, everything fade out into nothing. Just pure darkness.
A light. I see it. A bright light.
I slowly opened my eyelids. I was laying in a white room.
Inside it, I could see the members of Little Busters, except Riki and Rin.
"We died, huh?" I asked them.
They, the ones who had created the world along with him, just smiled. Just like in that photo we had taken.
I smiled too.
"Everyone... I'm sorry." tears started to fall from my eyes. I don't feel like sobbing or anything like that.
I just shed some tears.
"You did nothing wrong, Kyousuke." Masato said as he patted my shoulder.
"That's right, Kyousuke-san. Everything is alriiiiiiight now~" Komari said as she hugged him.
I cried. For the first time I could remember, I cried for real.
The tears that had fallen and the ones that still falling, they're different from the one he shed when he sees some passionate manga things.
It's real tears. Filled with many emotions.
Sadness, sorrow, anger, happiness, relief, ecstasy... All sort of emotions is stored inside each of them.
Everyone, who should be hating and mocking him right now did anything but that.
They comforted him in their own ways.
Masato gave him a manly hug.
Kengo cried like a baby while hugging him tightly.
Komari offered him sweets, and it's tasty too. Afterlife foods sure is good~
Saigusa tried to brighten the atmosphere by doing some jokes on Masato, who started to chase her around the room.
Kurugaya teased him, saying that if she had a camera, she would have taken a picture of this and spread it to the web.
Nishizono is doing just that, taking photos of his crying face.
Everyone...
"Thank you." after being comforted like that, I had wiped my remaining tears.
I'm their leader. I shouldn't burden them with my crying face.
"Thank you." I said it again.
Everyone showed a smile.
Then, a light appeared in my vision.
I looked at each of them. Being their leader, I still have one more order I want to give.
"LET'S GO!" I shouted with all the strength I could muster.
"""YES!""" they replied loudly.
We started to walk, towards the light.
Together.
"And then their spirits went to another world. To a happier world where they waited for the last two members of Little Busters to come back." I told the story of Kyousuke to the young girl who's sitting on my lap.
"Is Kyousuke-san and the rest of the Little Busters still waiting for the two of them, ojii-chan?" the girl asked him.
"Who knows. Maybe they still do. Maybe not." I answered my grandchildren question.
"One thing I know, they would accept them with open arms the moment they come back." she nodded enthusiastically at her grandpa's words.
"I hope they come back. Living without everyone is just lonely." I watched as she said those words, tears started to form in her eyes.
I felt a fist hit the back of my head.
"Riki, don't make Rita-chan cry!" my old wife who still has the energy that she had when she's still a teenager, said.
"Ow... It's going to break someday, Rin." I said while rubbing the spot she'd hit.
"Oba-chan! Don't be too hard on ojii-chan!" Rita-chan scolded her grandma.
"Aww... So cute..." I laughed at the scene.
To see Rin get scolded by her own grandchildren is just too cute.
*BONK*
She hit me another time.
"Ow... Anyway, Rita-chan, something tells me that the two last member will return not long from now." I said softly.
"How did you know that, ojii-chan?" the young girl asked in confusion.
"It's just a feeling." I shared a sad smile with Rin.
"...?" Rita-chan just get more confused.
"By the way, isn't it time to sleep yet?" Rin asked her grandchild.
"But I don't want to sleep~ I want to play more~" she said that while pouting.
"Now, now, listen to your oba-chan. You don't want to get hit, wouldn't you?" I scolded her lightly.
She froze and looked at her grandma's fists.
Rin raised her left fist, and punched me.
"Ow..."
"Hahaha!" both Rin and Rita-chan laughed together.
"Okay then. I'm going to sleep~ Good night~" with that, she walked out of our room, heading to her parent's.
I stared at Rin's face.
She had tears around her cheeks. They flowed down as she watched the back of our grandchild and they keep on flowing out of her eyes.
"Let's go, Rin. Kyousuke and the rest is waiting." I reached my hand toward her.
She taken it silently, and lay along with me on our king sized bed.
We closed our eyes and went to sleep.
But we didn't wake up.
As the darkness spread around us, eight lights came to our vision.
"Everyone, we're home."
"Welcome home, Riki, Rin."
With that exchange of short lines of words, we followed those bright lights.
Towards a world where happiness reside.