"You..."
Kento Nanami stared blankly at the hand Yoru extended toward him, his mind falling into a brief void.
For a moment, he even forgot the searing pain in his body and the terrified civilians surrounding them.
That secret buried deep in his heart—one he hadn't shared even with his closest comrades—had been spoken so casually by this youth.
It felt as if his very soul had been laid bare by the other man.
"Get up first. It's not safe here yet."
Ignoring Nanami's shock, Yoru grabbed his arm and pulled him up from the puddle-soaked ground, helping him lean against a relatively intact wall.
"Moon Breathing, Sixth Form."
After settling Nanami, Yoru didn't even draw Shiranui. He simply picked up a stray piece of rebar from the ground.
"Perpetual Night, Lonely Moon - Avici."
With a swing, the ordinary rebar transformed into a cold, full moon.
Countless small, dense, dark-purple crescent blades swept toward the remaining ordinary curses like a violent storm.
*Squelch! Squelch! Squelch!*
There were no screams, no spray of blood.
The curses that had been clawing and gnashing moments ago shattered into primal cursed energy particles the instant they touched the crescent blades, as if shredded by thousands of invisible knives.
In less than ten seconds...
The suffocating swarm of curses in the B3 exit underground passage was wiped clean by Yoru.
Done, Yoru tossed aside the rebar—which had twisted and deformed under the power of the Breathing Technique—and walked back to Nanami.
He looked at the civilians weeping in relief and then at Nanami, who was still staring at him with a complex gaze.
"What's wrong?"
Yoru smiled slightly, a hint of comforting warmth in his clear red eyes.
"Do I seem like some kind of mystic suddenly?"
Nanami clutched his wounded abdomen and swallowed hard, his voice raspy from blood loss and agitation.
"Who... are you, exactly?"
"How do you know about Malaysia?"
"That was... a dream even I had almost forgotten."
Facing Nanami's interrogation, Yoru's smile faded, replaced by an air of sorrow and compassion that seemed to span endless ages.
In the lull of battle, the only sounds in the passage were the stifled sobs of civilians and the faint, distant booming.
Yoru turned and looked Nanami straight in the eyes.
Through the 'Transparent World,' Yoru saw more than just Nanami's torn muscles and fading cursed energy.
He saw the tragedy of another timeline.
He saw Yu Haibara being torn apart by the Land Deity.
He saw Nanami cradling the shattered remains of Haibara, howling in despair.
He saw the original Shibuya Incident, where a half-burned Nanami mechanically swung his blade through hordes of transfigured humans, only to be turned into a pile of mangled flesh by Mahito's malicious touch.
"Nanami, do you know?"
Yoru's voice was soft, yet it struck Nanami's heart like a heavy hammer.
"In another possible world... you died here."
Nanami froze, a flicker of confusion and disbelief in his eyes.
"Another world?"
Yoru nodded, his gaze deep as he looked into the darkness at the end of the tunnel.
"In that world, I didn't return to 2007."
"So, Yu Haibara died in that mission to exorcise the Land Deity."
"And you, unable to accept your comrade's death, chose to run. You chose to go south and become an ordinary salaryman."
Nanami's body began to tremble uncontrollably.
Because everything Yoru described was something he had either lived through or rehearsed in his mind countless times!
"But in that world, you eventually returned to the jujutsu world."
Yoru turned his head, watching Nanami's face go pale with shock.
"Because at your core, you are someone who cannot stand by while the weak suffer."
"Unfortunately, in the Shibuya of that world, I didn't make it in time."
"To protect civilians just like them, you exhausted your last bit of strength. Mortally wounded by a Special Grade curse, you ultimately died at Mahito's hands."
Yoru's voice grew low.
"The last image that flashed in your mind before the end..."
"...was that golden beach in Kuantan and a house filled with unread books."
"Your final words were, 'I'll leave the rest to you.'"
*Boom!*
It felt as if a bolt of thunder had exploded in Nanami's mind.
He stared intently at the sorrow in Yoru's eyes. He could tell that the youth wasn't lying or joking.
That sorrow was so real, as if he had truly witnessed Nanami's death with his own eyes.
"How could that..."
Nanami murmured to himself, an unspeakable bitterness and shock churning wildly in his chest.
Those memory fragments, previously blurred by the merging timelines, surged back like a tide under Yoru's guidance, becoming perfectly clear!
He remembered!
In 2007, amidst the ruins of the shrine shrouded in the toxic miasma of the mutated Land Deity, in the final second before he and Haibara met their certain end...
It was the man before him who had turned into a streak of dark-red lightning.
Crossing two hundred kilometers, he had blocked the lethal bone spear with Water Breathing's 'Dead Calm' and incinerated the monster with 'Burning Bones, Summer Sun'!
And in the infirmary, Nanami remembered himself weeping as he bowed deeply to him, vowing to become stronger than those rotten oranges!
"I remember now... Senior... Yoru..."
Nanami muttered to himself, the unspeakable bitterness and shock swirling in his chest. He looked at Yoru, his eyes finally moistening.
"But this world is different."
Yoru suddenly reached out and grasped Nanami's right hand, which was spasming from overexertion.
It was a hand without a trace of cursed energy, yet it was warm and powerful.
"I changed the past, and I've changed the future."
Yoru's gaze became steady and brilliant again, like the sun piercing through the darkness.
"Nanami!"
Just then, a vibrant, anxious shout echoed from the other end of the underground passage.
A young man with short black hair, his body also covered in blood, came running toward them, panting heavily.
"Yu Haibara is still alive. He's alive and kicking."
Yoru looked at the approaching figure, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"Nanami! Are you okay?"
Haibara rushed over.
Seeing Nanami covered in blood, his eyes reddened instantly. But then he saw Yoru standing nearby, and a brilliant smile broke across his face.
"Senior Yoru! Thank goodness! I knew as long as you were here, Nanami would be fine!"
Looking at his best friend, who still wore that carefree, simple smile, Nanami was completely stunned.
"And you are alive, too."
Yoru gripped Nanami's hand tightly, his voice carrying an unquestionable strength.
"Nanami, stop thinking about running south."
"Since you've taken up the blade again, since you've decided to protect these children..."
"...then come with me. Walk north."
Yoru let go and turned toward the center of the Shibuya battlefield, where explosions still roared.
"Go find your new self. Go sever all the curses and injustices in this world."
"Go create a future... where everyone can safely reach the beaches of Malaysia."
Listening to Yoru's words...
...and watching that silhouette which seemed to radiate boundless light in the dim tunnel...
...Nanami's heart, which had long been worn down by reality and filled with the chasms of despair, suddenly began to beat with unprecedented intensity.
South?
North?
He looked down at the nicked blade in his hand, then back at the civilians who, despite their tears, looked at him with gratitude and awe.
His eyes suddenly felt a bit hot.
"Honestly..."
Nanami took a deep breath, enduring the searing pain in his abdomen as he slowly stood up straight.
Using his blood-stained hand, he readjusted the goggles on his nose.
"Someone like you really loves to increase other people's workload."
Though he complained, the fire in Nanami's eyes behind the goggles—a fire that hadn't been seen since the Haibara incident—burned brightly once more.
He looked at Yoru and gave a heavy nod.
"Fine."
"I'll go with you."
Yoru smiled.
He knew that from this moment on, the 'Nanamin' whose fate was so regrettable in the original story had been completely reborn.
"In that case..."
Yoru gripped the hilt of Shiranui, the red light in his eyes flaring.
"Let's go back and save Yuji from that monster's control once and for all."
[ Author's Note : If you're loving the story, a power_stone, review or comment means the world!
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