Chapter Two : Blurred Lines
"I can't believe you actually said that. What the heck went though your mind during your introduction?"
Naofumi looked at me, while I sat on the couch. Motoyasu had been lying down on the bed, checking out the new menus and status screens that they were taught about from the ministers after introductions had finished. Ren sat to an adjacent seat, fiddling around with the same thing. From what it looked like, Ren was taking this more seriously than Motoyasu, trying to studying up on all of the mechanics that he could possibly get by himself. He expertly swiped through everything quickly, nodding to himself as he went on. That was Ren being him, as usual.
—No, saying that would be incorrect. It would be more better to say 'like before'.
I bent my spine forwards, clasping my hands together. Naofumi had his own menu too, but he was more focused on making light conversations as he chuckled. I had my menus out too, though it was probably due to everyone else's presence. I really didn't need to understand something I already understood.
I still didn't have a firm grasp on my situation, and announcing that I was an ally of justice back in the throne room had been a slight error. It was my intention to be an ally of justice this time around. Though, I really had meant to say a highschool student, but I suppose my mind had different ideas.
I don't know what came over me.
"I wasn't thinking," I responded back. "Though, I supposed it did bring some relief to the crowd to know that there was an 'ally of justice' in the group of heroes."
"Relief? Their faces twisted when you retracted your introduction back to a normal highschool student like Ren," Motoyasu jumped in. I looked over to see that he had already made himself at home in this room, propping up his leg over the other and his hand was softly tending to the back of his neck. "I gotta admit. I don't remember ever needing to hold in a laugh that badly before!"
"Well, I thought it was weird at first," Ren said. "When you have the first three supposed Heroes introduce themselves as normal students, then the last one comes out guns ablazing with being an legitimate hero, there's going to be some eyebrow raising for one of the sides of the spectrum."
"There wasn't any harm done by Itsuki though," Naofumi defended. "He said he wasn't thinking. Probably defaulted to some roleplaying from a game, didn't you?"
"That would be a wonder I'd like to see," Motoyasu grinned. "Even the most played MMORPGs don't have many roleplayers nowadays. The players just want play their games and grind away. People only type for battle communications or to do business with the community, but even that is streamlined to pings with can make with your mouse and keyboard shortcuts."
"... Type? Mouse? Keyboard shortcuts?" Ren looked at Motoyasu with a concerned expression. "Motoyasu, I thought you said you were 21 years old."
Motoyasu sat up, closing the menus and returning the stare with furrowed brows. He was just as confused. "I am 21 years old. What brought my age up in this conversation!?"
"Ah, so you're part of the early group that loves the vintage technology," Ren nodded. "I assumed that people only took interest in them once they hit their late years, where the modern games would be too intense for their fragile mind."
"I have absolutely no idea what you're rambling on about, but if you think Emerald Online is an old game, then you must be super secluded in your room and the internet alongside having a slow passage of time. It came out only a year ago, and it's been growing ever since!"
"Never heard of the game, and I consider myself a game enthusiastic. Are you sure it's popular? I think I would have heard about it if it was."
Motoyasu turned to us two bystanders of the conversation, pushing himself of the bed to stand proudly. His loud shouting grabbed my attention. "Naofumi! Itsuki! You guys know about Emerald Online, right!? Tell him that he has a screw loose in his head or something! No one can call themselves a game enthusiastic and not know Emerald Online!"
"Uhm..." Naofumi sheepishly laughed as he feigned his hands up. "Sorry, Motoyasu. I've never actually heard of the game either, though I can't really call myself a hardcore gamer. I play casually. I'm more of a reader than a gamer." He scratched his head before Motoyasu continued.
"Well, you can just depend on your big brother Motoyasu here to help you! This world is basically one big game, like Emerald Online! It's quite literally Emerald Online, and I'm pretty good at it!" Motoyasu's eyes bounced from back to the original topic at hand after being derailed, as his daggered direction were pointed to me alongside a single finger. "Itsuki! Tell me that you've heard about Emerald Online, at least!"
"Wait a minute, Motoyasu," Ren interjected, standing up to confront Motoyasu. "I don't know about you, but this world's more like Brave Star Online."
"What the hell's Brave Star Online!?"
"I think you're the one living underneath a rock, Motoyasu," Ren rebutted while throwing out his arms. "How could you not know about the pinnacle of virtual reality gaming?"
""Huh!? Virtual reality!?"" Naofumi and Motoyasu exclaimed in harmonizing unison, as the former played in mezzo-piano, while the latter sung in fortississimo.
I clapped my hands in a half-hearted attempt to orchestrate a fermata, which they heeded to. They all turned to the conductor. "You two shouldn't worry about that too much. You two aren't talking within the same level of the conversation anyways," I revealed, making everyone have question marks over their heads. I didn't want the confusion to go on much longer since I already knew the reason for the discrepancies. "Everyone here is from a different Japan, therefore a different world. That's why none of us know your famous game, Motoyasu, and I promise you that the popular game that Ren has in mind doesn't exist in our worlds."
I continued to look over my menu as the room went silent.
—Ah, I haven't eaten yet. I wonder what they had for nourishment for the Heroes before at the castle. I remember a feast after one of the waves had a good array available. Though, would they bring out the same quality of food on normal days, especially when we haven't done anything yet...? I might need to ask them ahead of time and see what they're willing to make. I think the sandwiches were pretty good, though it's hard to mess them up in the first place.
Naofumi's words grabbed my attention by the ears, dragging them back to the conversation I briefly stood out on.
"Itsuki, don't you think that's a stretch!?" Naofumi asked, deeply dazed by the relatively huge jump in logic. The belief was bad enough to warrant Naofumi to stand from his seat. "It's just games! There's the chance that we're ignorant of each other's area of expertise…. Very, very ignorant," he emphasized.
"You just came to this world too!" Motoyasu supplemented. "Can you even prove what you're talking about is sensical?"
Ren simply looked at me as if I was crazy and went off the deep end, but he held back his personal comment.
If they kept talking to each other about their worlds, they're eventually figure it out naturally. Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything that would perhaps cast a drift between us, but my mouth began to oblige before I had the chance to think. "Alright, I'll prove it." I closed the menu, preparing the final blow that would convince them of my offered explanation and truth. "Everyone. Tell me who Japan's prime minister is right now. All at the same time."
"Masato Yuda." "Gataro Yawahara." "Enichi Kodoka."
Everyone stared at each other, baffled by the the answers that the others had given.
"That settles it," I said. I crossed my arms, as I turn my blankness to a soft, satisfied smile. "It's impossible to have more than one prime minister for Japan at once, right? Yet, we have three different answers."
"What about you? Who's about your prime minister?"
Ren's question threw me off guard. I had thought that it was proof enough to let them these differences, but he had been more perspective than I realized. If I had been summoned next to Naofumi or Motoyasu, there was a chance that Ren wouldn't be on my case this hard since I would have defaulted to asking them where we were, though it was probably in his nature.
—Had he been this perspective from the beginning? Then how did we get tricked by…
—Huh? 'We'?
Grey clouds began to cloud my thoughts. Why did I just consider 'we'? Who did we get tricked by?
My initial answer was to say the king who antagonized The Shield Hero, labelling him as a criminal and a demon. The minute I laid my eyes on the king, I knew. That would be the sole reason as to why my first thoughts was to start an assassination attempt on the old man, but something wasn't right. There was no way that after we depart from the castle, the king would be able to do something to us without being noticed, but my memories were telling me that the king was a natural enemy to Naofumi.
Hold on. Why was I thinking about the betrayal against Naofumi? What did that have to do with us being tricked?
It was soon clear that I didn't have the entire story yet. My eyes narrowed onto itself, struggling to keep themselves from breaking out of my skull. However, I didn't let any of my realization and confusion show. I would need to reaffirm this later on when I had time to myself.
—This lack of memories is proving to be more troublesome than I thought.
In the midst of my dilemma, I ended up telling Ren an honest answer.
"I don't remember."
In my eyes, it must have been a year or so since I ever thought about my previous world. With everything that happened so far, I didn't bother remembering anything trivial from my Japan. Information such as who my prime minister was simply faded into the background, never to be acknowledged again.
—Ah, that's right. I'm technically not 17 years old anymore.
"Ha?" Naofumi raised a concern. "You don't even know your own prime minister?"
"Sorry, I don't." I shake my head much to the skepticism that Motoyasu and Ren are giving off. I tried to lessen the blow. "If you gave me a list of names that had my prime minister's name on it, I believe I could determine who he was. All I know is that I haven't heard of those names back in my world at all."
"Ah, right. You're still in high school, right? You probably don't care much about politics." Naofumi offered a solution, though it might have been proven redundant since Ren had been younger than me. In turn, I gave my best answer.
"Probably."
"... Probably?" Naofumi was at a loss. I didn't understand what was so shocking, so I nodded and softly reaffirmed his parroted words.
"Probably."
Since the castle staff offered rooms for each Hero to have their own separate area, we left on our way, diverging our paths to the rooms that had been next to each other. Since Motoyasu had already claimed the bed, we simply allowed him to take the room while we moved ourselves. After say our partings to each other, we went into our rooms.
It was already dark out. The moon was shining brightly as I stood near the small balcony that came with my chamber. If everyone else had done what I was doing, we would have been able to see each. However, it appeared that I was the only one enjoying the night this closely. I believed Naofumi had his balcony doors opened as well, but he wasn't there.
The cold breeze was a refreshing take to my skin as I breathed in the relaxation. This was the calm before the storm, and the day after today would be the prelude to what spirals into Naofumi's descend in the townspeople's eyes. There was something off about this situation that unnerved me.
… Naofumi Iwatani, the Shield Hero.
I know he is going to be betrayed and casted off.
I don't know by who. Rather, I cannot remember who betrayed him no matter how much I amused myself into thought.
If I remembered that I was summoned into this world once, if I remembered falling into my darkness of justice once, if I remembered that I fell in battle after the Shield Hero helped out of it once, then I should have been able to look into the details that bridged the gap between each fragment. Despite the logic, I couldn't. It was blank. I remember Ren, Motoyasu, and Naofumi properly, but I don't remember what happens to each one of them. I don't even remember the majority of what happened to me while I was being consumed by my misinformed justice. To think that a simple misled ideology could result in my fight with...
I hesitated to say the Shield Hero, even though I knew for a fact that he helped bring me out of that darkness.
What did I forget and what did I not know at all?
In any case, it had to do something with this bow I found in my list of branching weapons.
As I opened up my menu against by focusing on the imaginary icon in the bottom left of my vision, I immediately scrolled to the name of the bow that I saw during our conversations that made me raise an eyebrow. This was when Motoyasu was being compassionate about Naofumi's unfortunate class of being a Shielder, as he explained that the classes that had a shield as its primary weapon were garbage. Though, he couldn't be further than the truth. He simply has a rough early game for lack of a better term, in more ways than one.
I saw the name of the bow, but I couldn't take it out to check up on the mysterious weapon at the time. I had no recollection of ever touching this bow, but it might have been due to my broken memories. With all the other bows, I had a good idea of how I could have obtained it, but not this one. Only this one had drawn a blank. Sitting back down on a nearby chair, I summoned the weapon to take shape onto my existing bow, as it took a blacken figure along the limbs, draping it with a golden strained pattern. Of course, the red orb that was with every transformation stayed near the sights. With this, I took a look at what the menus had to say about this specimen.
Dial Core of the Dragon Era
equip bonus : none
passive skill bonus : Temporal Reversion (Alpha)
passive skill bonus : Resurgence of Recollection
Now, I have confirmation, but an oddity to assist with it.
The passive bonus must have been the factor that sent me back, so I didn't even need to equip the bow to have its effect. Reading it, I understood what temporal reversion meant immediately. It was a fancier way to say 'time rewinding', but there wasn't anything else that could help me know about this ability. There wasn't anything that referred to it, nor was there any mentions was what it does attached to the skill. It was simply written as Temporal Reversion and that's it, but what interested me more was the word in the brackets.
—Alpha, as in the first letter in the greek alphabet.
Ah, I remember. If I was referring this world as a game just like how Ren and Motoyasu was looking at it right now, the word 'alpha' had meaning behind it if it was attached to a video game, though I couldn't tell what it implies. Instead of thinking of it as a general sense, it should be—
—Alpha, the first build of a video game.
Does this mean this is the first version of this skill? Would there be others? Could I upgrade this to further step up the current iteration of this skill? What were the limits of this skill? Was this still active right now? What triggers this skill? There were many things that couldn't be answered.
If it was only the first version, it would probably explain why the skill wasn't entirely perfect. My memories were basically running on loose strings right now.
And so, I looked at the second passive skill, Resurgence of Recollection. Literally translated to normal words would be something along the lines of a resurrection of memory.
I had absolutely no idea what this was supposed to be. What did a resurrection of memory even mean? Since both of them were passives, I couldn't activate them like normal skills to find out what they do. I had to leave that skill alone for now.
Speaking of loose strings, I needed to concern myself with the king's assassination and how I'm going to pull it off. I don't have the numerical stats to be able to perform it off properly, and it'll take a few days to take myself to a point where I can use the core bows that I would need for the bare minimum of the operation. I'll need to level myself again from scratch, but this took too long.
By the time I'm prepared, Naofumi will already be outcasted, but I couldn't simply sneak into the king's chamber in the middle of the night and shoot him between now and there. I scrolled down the menu and looked at the name of the bow I wanted to use.
Lethal Poison Bow (Level Requirement not met)
equip bonus : +1% attack damage
active skill bonus : Lethal Shot
Shadow Bow (Level Requirement not met)
equip bonus : +5% stealth, +5% speed
active skill bonus : Shadow Boost
If these bows did what it was advertised on their titles and effects, then I could very well kill the king like this, regardless if I wasn't strong enough. It'll be a slow and quiet death, but a death nevertheless. Even if I can't save Naofumi before his betrayal, I can end the source before it gets too bad—
—Wait, why couldn't I just tell him about what's going to happen?
The idea popped into my head, flanking from the front.
If the Dial Core of the Dragon Era truly sent me back in time, then all events will be the the same and cemented in as long as I play the role of what I did the first time around. Naofumi's betrayal occurred outside of my hand, so as long as time coursed through, the event will be inevitable.
Unless I tell him beforehand.
—However, a dilemma arises.
If I told Naofumi about the betrayal, would Naofumi get as strong as he was before? I remember that he was only able to meet his precious allies from being betrayed, so if I stop that, Naofumi won't get strong nor will he ever meet the same allies again. Though, that's not a guarantee. It wasn't as if I could find them and introduce them to the Shield Hero. I barely remember their faces, but it might be the bow's fault for that. If I warned Naofumi of the betrayal, he could stay as his cheerful self instead of the bleak and brooding Shield Hero he began as. It wouldn't limit where his strength would stop and the four Heroes will possibly be on good terms.
This is what people called a butterfly effect, isn't it? One action will roll into another, and the smallest and simplest of choices can make the greatest change down the road.
Though, it reminded me of the original problem.
The king wasn't the one that betrayed him, as he merely played the loudest for Naofumi's requiem. With the logic I thought about of the king, I thought about the other possible answer. Someone else created the composition, and the king merely read the sheet. Would Naofumi believe me if I simply said that someone was going to betray him, but I didn't know who?
I pointed my bow, back in its base form, towards the opened balcony door, as if to shoot it at an imaginary target. I feel the energy being drawn to create an arrow, attempting to figure out if I can still wield this bow or not.
If I can't see the end, I'll need to fall into a default route and play it safe. I already remember very little about the events surrounding this little story of ours, and if I mess it up even more, I won't be able to determine a good opportunity to kill the king. Hopefully, I'll be able to remember by repeating my possible actions again, though not strictly.
I instinctively fire the shot anyways, like it was natural. It flew across the night skies like a shooting star, disappearing into the darkness.
—Sorry, Naofumi. For your sake and for our righteous justice, I need you to fall to your lowest. This is how we'll defeat the darkness, and this is how we'll win.
—I'll still need to repay my debt to you, regardless if you are not the same Naofumi that I knew.
"Dammit, why did I lose!? There's no way that my justice could lose to such wickedness!"
I turned around to hear the screaming emerge behind me. It sounded like a child who had his favourite toy taken away from him. I almost pitied the boy of curly blonde hair, crumpled up along the ground like some puppet that lost his strings. As if there was a spotlight on him, everyone who stood before him had been staring at him. I couldn't label a name to each person where each of their emotions lied differently, seeing the boy collapse on himself like this.
Though, I was able to recognize one person in the crowd. It was the Shield Hero, so the fallen person in front must be the evil one, right? Despite this, he was the one screaming for justice to be properly served.
Though, I quietly laughed at his idiotic question. It was easy to know why anyone would lose a fight. If a person loses, that simply meant that they didn't have the power to overcome the person who won. It is basic logic.
"…"
One girl from the group that was facing off with him stepped forwards toward the boy. Her hand had a glistering chakram held. Surely, she knew how to use it, but it felt unnatural for her to have it. It was as if the original intention was not for her use. I couldn't see her face clearly, as her braided pigtails took my attention away. It was such a beautiful shade of green, but that wasn't the point. I didn't know what her plan was. She, alongside her allies, had already won. What was she doing? Was she going to interrogate him now?
"Please…" A tear dripped down to the side of her face, falling onto the still ground. "Please stop this…"
"Not yet…" The boy tried to stand up. His arm was shaking with his weapon held tightly in his hand. His body was beaten up, and it was obvious that he had already lost. There was no reason for him to try. "I'm not done yet! My justice… My justice…! I'll use my justice to save everyone from evil!"
"You're mistaken. There is no one justice that exist for everyone."
—There was something reminiscent about her voice.
"It's only the losing side that gets branded as evil, no matter what they were fighting for. That's the harsh reality behind what justice is."
"I… I haven't lost yet! I'm not evil! It's impossible for me to be evil! Everyone who goes against me… They're the evil ones, not me!"
His glaring red eyes looked to the girl intensely. A single glance could have killed if she wasn't careful, but she wasn't afraid. Not anymore. She was no longer the meek girl that he first met. She changed, all for the sake for the person that saved her in the first place, so that she could save him.
However, it was hard to look at the boy with a straight face. Even with the strength, his burning eyes had been greatly retracted, weakened by the water it was leaking. His tears were flowing stronger than the girl in front, though he couldn't explain why, yet he tried to keep a strong shell. It was already starting to crack, as his emotions began to be blurred.
"Putting the blame on others is easy. Pushing people away is easy. It's always easy to spiral down to a dark path where all you know is to point fingers, even without the ideology of justice."
—Something about that voice...
The girl took all of the steps forwards, closing the distance between the two combatants. The boy simply stood still as the girl came closer to him. It would have been simple to shoot her with his bow at point-blank range, but for all the talk that he did, he didn't move. He didn't even react to her approach.
What was the girl going to do once she got there? I couldn't tell, but there was somewhere in my mind that knew what she did.
An embrace.
The girl came to embrace him, wrapping her arms over his shoulders. Soon, she was sobbing as much as he was.
"But, you can still change! No matter what happens, anyone, no matter their sin, can still turn back! I believe in you! You're… the person that saved me after all."
—Those words...
Her weapon transformed into a flowing light, returning to the bow. The weapon in the boy's hand had been reverting its normal shape. It was as if a huge weight had been taken off. It only took this one moment to shatter the shell he had fortified endlessly and religiously. His mind seemingly struggled to break free, but his body wasn't listening as it stay still. Her voice, hopelessly clinging onto their future, caressed him softly once more, as she nudged through her emotions.
I didn't realize that my own arm had been reaching out to the heartfelt scene, trying to grab what was not there. I wanted to walk up to her, but my feet were frozen in place. It kept trying to stretch, but there was no result to come from a meaningless attempt. There was an empty emotion, but it was like something was trying to crawl its way out of my throat.
"I'll always believe in you,—"
— Who are you...?
"Itsuki-sama."
I woke up with a fright that morning, but I didn't jump up in a panic. I simply opened my eyes to sit up as if it was a casual thing to do, yet the symptoms of a midnight horror had occurred. I couldn't understand it myself. I was in a state of disbelief.
What nightmare did I have that made me gasp this heavily in the morning? I felt chills down my spine, and my body couldn't stop shaking. I couldn't recall a single thing that happened in the dream that would cause me to act in a frantic state. My mind must have blocked it out subconsciously since it couldn't take it. I held my face, trying to calm myself down and regulate my breathing back to normal, only to find an unusual wet feeling from from my eyes.
I was crying.
— Why was I crying?
Because...
I… missed her.
— Who exactly... was I missing?
Afterword
Goddammit, I have exams soon! Why am I doing this!? Look, no more updates until the month is over! I really need to study!
Username does not check so far!
Alright, memes (kinda) aside and a bit of a longer afterword to describe my plans.
I'm really happy that this was to many people's liking! Thanks to LunarRin's help, I was able to understand Itsuki's character a bit more and I hope to give him the justice that he deserves with this boost. However, this boost in information made me wary on whether I was causing Itsuki to go down the OOC pathing or not.
And then this concept came to mind to play the safe game, but an interesting safe game. I supposed I technically didn't make it entirely clear within the first chapter, so this ain't a chapter two retcon.
Thus, you might have noticed the direction I'm trying to take this. This is certainly inspired by "Reprisal of the Spear Hero" and "Redemption of the Sword Hero", but I didn't want to make an simple "Itsuki-version" or a rehash "but with Itsuki" of the two works. If I did, I would feel like I would be cheating him out of an interesting story.
Sometimes, people can pull this off to excellent degree. I am not one of those people. Maybe Itsuki would have had an interesting story if he went down a similar path, but that's not a story I could tell with confidence.
You can see some of the major changes already. In "Reprisal", Motoyasu completely remembers Firo, and attempts to track down Malty [I'm calling her Malty, screw off] immediately after meeting the king. In "Redemption", Ren remembers Eclair and his initial party members. In "Recourse", Itsuki gets none of that, only the bare minimum. You might see how bad it is if you pay attention to how I word things.
[Also, press F to pay respects for Rishia.]
Obviously now, "Recourse of the Bow Hero" will deal with significant alterations and decisions, unseen by the other two timelines of Motoyasu and Ren. Though, the beginning portion might have some already travelled ground being covered, so forgive for that. This is dangerous path of potential OOC, but I'm willing to take the risk. If I do trigger the tripwire, please tell me and mark it up to AU to forgive my transgressions. I'll be using various other anime series to help me out on this, but saying what they are will be a slight spoiler to my plans. I hope this excites you.
(I'm such a tease.)
Anyways, thank you to LunarRin, Shiranai, Comrade Broseph, Qinlongfei for giving a review. It really helps me out to learn what people are liking and what people see as flaws in my writing. It strongly motivates me to work on the next chapter as soon as possible (though this is probably the worst time to motivate me).
Also Qinlongfei, I'll be keeping Motoyasu at 21 years old for two reasons. Why? One, I can end the afterword with consistency this time around without sounding like a broken record. Two, I'm pretty lazy to change it back.
