I don’t understand.
"What... do you mean by that?"
"I’ll give you my points. So...."
-Kill me.
And yet she had wanted so badly to live.
He had shown her so many things, so she could adapt to her new life.
Why was she suddenly saying she wanted to die?
"You’re... joking, right?"
Say it’s a joke.
Please.
"I’m not joking. I mean it."
"Why? At least tell me the reason."
"I knew you’d say that. You’re kind. That’s why... if I ask you, you won’t be able to refuse."
"Uro..."
Uro looked straight into Junpei’s wavering eyes.
It was a cruel request. It would become a curse for him.
But if someone was going to end her life, it had to be Junpei.
"I... hated the people in the light. They took for granted what I could never have."
She hated them, and envied them too.
She wanted to reach that place.
"So when I got a second chance, I wanted to try living like that. What did it feel like? What kind of thoughts let them live like that, and smile so easily...."
"Then take it back quickly. It’s not too late yet."
"It was my first time. Wearing nice clothes, eating good food, putting on makeup.... I was happy. But something about it felt wrong."
It was like wearing clothes that didn’t fit.
Like being comfortable in your own naked body, but forcing yourself into something else anyway.
Of course that would feel wrong.
"I didn’t even know why myself, but when you showed me the stars, I couldn’t help thinking it."
That I could never live like you, not until the day I died.
That my fixed life no longer had the strength to change.
I could imitate it if I tried, but I had no desire to deny myself that completely.
"That I’m still just a filthy human who belongs in the dark."
"That’s not true."
"Thanks to you sharing your light with me, I might shine a few times. But will that last forever? I’ll just go back to how I was before. Coveting what I can’t have, mocking my miserable fate like the trash I am..."
"Real trash doesn’t talk like that. Uro... you’re someone who deserves to live...."
Uro gently pushed away Junpei’s hand as he tried to comfort her.
No matter how much Junpei tried to understand her, he could never know her better than she knew herself.
Just as Uro could never fully understand Junpei.
The back of that jujutsushi she had seen that day, disappearing beyond the sun.
She had spent her whole life admiring that image, and now, at the very end of her own, she had met someone similar.
That made her a little happy.
And admiration is the feeling farthest from understanding.
From the moment she heard his story, saw the stars, and admired them, Uro had thought that even if she were given a hundred more chances, she would never understand the way he lived.
So there was only one thing she could do.
"It’s a harsh request, isn’t it?"
"If you know that, if you know it then..."
"You’re too soft-hearted. If you’re the strongest, then act like it."
It’s said that stars shine brightest when they die.
Even a shabby, tiny star should be enough to reach the great sun beside it.
"Uro..."
"If I don’t die, then you’ll have to dirty your hands again to gather 1000 points. One person, two people, three people.... You went out earlier for that too, didn’t you? To find out where the other ‘targets’ are."
"......"
"Please don’t do that. What’s so great about my life that you’d force yourself like this?"
If she, with her 105 points, did not die, Junpei would have to kill even more people.
As the price for saving her.
Even if Junpei himself chose that, Uro could not bear to see it.
It felt as if Junpei would be stained by her darkness.
"You’re someone I acknowledged, so keep shining brightly."
"......"
"I’ll say it one last time. Kill me."
I can’t shine on my own.
If someone like me has to become ‘someone,’ then I want it to be someone special to you.
Even if it has to be this way.
"There’s no one else. No, if it’s not you, I don’t want it."
At the tearful voice, Junpei could not bring himself to refuse the request.
---------------------------------------
‘Poison’ is the field Junpei is most confident in.
It’s hard to create with pure cursed energy, but if refined within the structure of a shikigami, he can manufacture neurotoxin, paralytic poison, and all sorts of other vicious poisons useful in battle.
Of course, among them was a highly lethal poison made for emergencies.
"...I never thought I’d use it like this."
Euthanasia.
A poison that grants death without pain.
It takes a long time to refine and is easy to neutralize with reversed cursed technique, so he doesn’t usually use it, but cruelly enough, this was the first time it had come in handy.
‘Higuruma-san. Did you know this would happen?’
Please help her accept death.
He had carried out the final request left behind by that man perfectly, yet he felt no joy at all.
Wasn’t the last words of a jujutsushi supposed to become a curse?
It was awful.
"...You really have no regrets?"
"None."
"I’ll ask one last time. Do you still want to die?"
"...Yeah."
Junpei’s face twisted as if he were about to cry at any moment.
Realizing that no matter how much he tried to persuade her, he could not change her mind, he covered his face with trembling hands.
Uro closed her eyes with a liberated expression.
Looking back, what she had wanted was not to live, but to become ‘someone.’
The lingering attachment from her previous life was the sorrow of mocking an identity that had never even been given a proper name.
Now she understood what kind of person she was, and what she wanted to become.
Reality is not as sweet as one imagines.
Only after looking back too late did she realize that the road she had walked was stained with the pain and blood she had shed.
She had made other people cry blood for it, stolen someone else’s body... It was not a life worth clinging to so desperately.
The woman who had longed for life now sought to complete herself through death.
Thud!
Something was injected down her throat with a very slight, stinging sensation.
So this is... the end.
My second life is coming to a close.
‘This is the last time, but now I can look at the same place as you.’
I want to entrust myself to you and become noble.
If you remember me as a good person, I can smile.
My body ends, but my life will live on inside you, in memory, as that version of me.
The ‘someone’ I became for you will be remembered that way, and soon that will become me.
I’d be happy if you didn’t forget me and told many people about me.
If more people remember the whole of ‘me,’ wouldn’t that alone make my life worthwhile?
Her mind grew hazy, and her vision clouded over.
She couldn’t tell whether it was from the poison or from tears.
Before she knew it, words were spilling from her mouth without order.
"I wish I had met you a little earlier."
"I... think so too..."
"Could I have become a good person? To you, was I a good person?"
"Yes...! Of course. Yes."
"As expected, you’re... kind."
She lifted her weakening right hand and stroked his cheek.
Even his unnamed girlfriend would probably allow this much.
It was embarrassing, but she wanted him to think of it as a selfishness indulged before death and accept it without fuss.
"Ugh....."
Before long, his cheek had become wet.
How strange.
"The flowers were beautiful."
That fragile, beautiful creature she could never approach carelessly.
She was grateful to be able to touch it once more.
"The stars were dazzling."
Back when she used to roam the night streets doing shameful things.
She was grateful that she could look up at the stars she had once only resented with different eyes.
"I hated the people who took all of this from me."
"It’s okay to hate them. As much as you want..."
"I wanted to ask why they hated me so much, why they kept pushing me into the dark... but it’s too late now."
So she was grateful.
She delivered the words she had never managed to say.
"Thank you for taking all my hatred and lingering attachment with you. And I’m sorry."
"....."
"I’m fine with this. If I can become someone to you through my death, if that makes you even more brilliant... I’d really like that."
Her eyes slowly closed.
Her body had no strength left, and her consciousness was slipping away; the end was drawing near.
Still, it didn’t hurt. It wasn’t scary.
The sensation of dying for the second time was unlike the first life; it came gently, warmly, kindly.
"Hold me...."
At those words, Junpei pulled Uro into a tight embrace.
His trembling arms squeezed her body as if he would never let her go.
At that pleasant pressure, Uro smiled brightly for the first and last time.
"Warm..."
Those were her final words.
"Uro..."
"....."
"Uro..."
She slept with her eyes closed and never woke again.
Leaving behind the cruel reality, she drifted off to a dream world with no pain and no darkness.
"This is... too much.... This is too much..."
Junpei buried his face in her shoulder and murmured softly.
At least it was a relief that she could not see his face on her final journey.
"Higuruma-san... this is too much....."
Truly.
It was the worst feeling.
{Player Ranking}
1st. [Yoshino Junpei - 530 points]
2nd. [Kashimo Hajime - 482 points]
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From ‘Fourth’ to ‘Roku.’
From ‘Roku’ to ‘Uro Takako.’
This story is without question a tragedy.
However, the second sequel is-
Before I called his name
He was only
A gesture.
When I called his name,
He came to me
And became a flower.
Like I called his name,
Someone suited to my color and fragrance, please call my name.
To him I go, and I too
Want to become his flower.
We all
Want to become something.
You to me, I to you
I want to become an unforgettable glance.
A story that met an ending a little warmer, a little kinder than this.
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