I want to be a Hero (Epilogue)

They were back at the Kurobane Group's building. Sophia crashed out on the first sofa she saw; meanwhile, Itsuki rested his back against a wall. He stared at Reiji’s back. He held his arms crossed behind him, but it was easy to see the small twitches and tremors on his hands.

It was nice to see that jerkass acting human for once. He didn’t take too lightly to Itsuki seeing his more human side.

He took one of his hands and guided it to his pocket, picking up a phone. Itsuki hadn’t even heard it make a sound to notify Reiji. It was impossible to hear the words on the other side, but he saw Reiji’s body relax forcibly.

Yet, something strange was in the air. Reiji’s emotion died immediately. He was silently fuming and seething since he got rescued from that Bleeding Zone; that display of coldness and composure was not in Itsuki’s bingo book.

“Itsuki. You are excused for the day. A friend of yours, Madoka Onguuchi, has been stabbed and hospitalized.”

Reiji had spies and plants everywhere. The news was on its way to him the moment the girl was stabbed. Itsuki blinked once, then twice. Thrice. Four times.

He continued to blink. His heart beat increased momentarily, before it slowed back to normal.

It took a few moments for Itsuki to process those words. He held on to the wall on his back.

His mouth dried, as his tongue felt painfully numb. His eyes didn’t move from Reiji’s position, nor did they respond to stimuli.

“Madoka was stabbed.”

He repeated those words like a rehearsal. He tried to metabolize them into his brain.

Madoka, that sweet girl, has been stabbed?

Back in his days at the Fujiwara Senki, they were never truly close to each other, but they were still part of the same gang.

Back in those old days, Itsuki was a wreck. He drank beer like it was water, he engaged in violence much more often, and relished it.

He felt alive, deplorable, but alive. Those feelings kept him warm at night, that violence, the want for revenge.

Itsuki was atop a large wooden box in the gang hideout. He was forced into that childish play by their leader; she had won fair and square, so it was only fair that he joined because of the terms of their fight.

Yet they were so painfully childish in the way they went about things. Sprouting bullshit about justice, doing the right thing, and helping others.

Once upon a time, he would’ve agreed to their idiotic ideals and actions. Today, he was just too tired to care and waste words on them.

By his side, a six-pack of beer. He was down to his fourth can already.

He tried to numb his feelings and body by getting drunk, but while it helped him at the start, he could no longer feel himself getting drunk anymore.

He chased that feeling of numbness and freedom, but it eluded his hands so much.

He hated that bitter taste, but it had become like a safety blanket for him. Drinking forced him to get calm, relax his stressed nerves.

With the opening crack sound of another cold one, Itsuki felt an immediate wave of dopamine run through his system. Even the sound of it was good.

“When will you stop being a bum and pick yourself up? All you do all day is drink and get into fights.” The blonde idiot walked up to him, one hand on her waist, and the other holding a bag that looked very familiar. Itsuki merely ignored her. He lacked the patience to babysit those middle schoolers for now.

“Hey, answer me! You don’t even go to school! What do you want to do with your life?” She asked, outraged and pouting at him. What did she think she was? A fucking dog?

“I dropped out of school before my grades went to hell because of that. Fuck my life if I can get my hands on that bastard. I don’t plan on lasting long either way.” All that mattered to him was snapping that asshole’s neck.

Get his hand wet with his blood. Discharge all that violence within his chest.

Who cared if he lived long enough, if he vanished like a fallen leaf, or if he fell down and wasted away?

A life without her was not worth living, anyway.

School was meaningless. He wasn’t planning to go back to a normal life, not ever since his father kicked him out. Fucking cunt.

He even disowned his only son.

Itsuki would kill that bastard and be done with everything, go and die in a ditch.

As he took the can to his mouth, it was slapped away. It landed several feet away from him, wasting its contents on the floor. Itsuki looked down at the blonde. Her face was red and fuming at his dismissal of her words.

“Hey. Contrary to you, rich girl, I have to work for those-” She cut him off.

“Fine if you want to waste your life anywhere else. But not here in the Fujiwara Senki!” She threw the bag at Itsuki, who grabbed it as it opened up. He saw his clothing, the few belongings he had, fall towards the ground.

The hood he wore before running away from home. Two pants, and a few changes of underpants.

Most important of all, his uniform when he was in Higan.

_A portrait of her.

His heart raced, and he moved on instinct. All the other things in the bag fell on the ground, but not his uniform, still pristine when compared to the varying states of dirtiness his other clothes were in.

“Talk all of your shit all you want, but I can see those uniforms! You'd better take care of yourself and change your damn outlook, or I will kick you out of this gang myself!” Madoka was not one to curse, not so openly, so the words came out as a surprise.

Itsuki opened his mouth to retort in rage, but a lollipop was forcibly inserted in his mouth, as well as a ribbon was thrown on his face. “I will only believe in your words, your will, if you abandon your past! Until then, you are not gone! Look at us like children all you want, but you are not much better!”

She turned around and stomped out, her steps loud and clear. Itsuki growled as he moved the lollipop to the side of his mouth. “Why even give me a ribbon?!”

“Put it on your damn hair or something!” She shouted from afar. Itsuki trembled in rage and turned around to pick up another can of beer. But his pack was gone.

Without him noticing, she slipped the beers away from him. He placed his hand over his face and clawed it, leaving clear, almost bleeding, five marks across it.

He suppressed a scream of rage.

Dealing with this bullshit was not in the terms that mdiget presented him!

Yet, on the next day, for some strange quirk of fate, he had returned to Higan.

A golden ribbon in his hair, and a lollipop in his mouth.

“Hey, look at this gay fucker! Wearing ribbons and sucking on a lollipop! Hey big guy, what else do you like to suck? Want to suck my lollipop?” A group of wannabe thoughts stopped him in the middle of the way towards the entrance and placed a finger on his chest, ridiculing him and making a scene.

Itsuki didn’t give a single fuck about those children. He sidestepped them and tried to make his way towards the entrance.

Yet, one of them tried to grab the ribbon, but he moved his head just in time,

For some reason, that action filled him with immeasurable rage. He didn’t even like the blonde idiotic, yet why did he feel wrathful after a thug tried to grab it? He wasn’t even mad when a hobo stole his shoes when he had to sleep on the streets for the first time.

Yet this felt unacceptable.

Later that day, Itsuki dragged those thugs towards the outer areas around a Forbidden Zone, and beat them up until their lips were busted and their cheeks split.

He couldn’t let them ridicule him and mess with him, but not with the stuff that girl gave him.

He didn’t know why he reacted that way.

Maybe it was because she was a good person, and it made him look up to her, want to protect her, as he believed good people didn’t deserve to suffer.

A gift from her was an extension of her, and it should be defended the same.

Itsuki went back to the hideout that day with many thoughts in his head.

Without realizing it, he was changing.

Who would even stab someone like Madoka? A girl so sweet?

He had a hard time comprehending it.

A part of him tried to flare up, burn up with so much hatred and rage that it would turn him into a demon, but a more subdued part of himself talked him out of this.

He felt dizzy.

He wanted to go back to the Fujiwara Senki, provide help to Momo, and go after the bastards who stabbed Madoka.

Yet, his rationale didn’t allow him. It would be starting a spiral all over again. Itsuki held his face.

Conflicting thoughts and emotions in his heart and mind. Loyalty and betrayal. Violence and acceptance. He felt like he was being torn asunder from the inside out.

His eyes burned, but he showed no weakness. He moved out of the room. Reiji had already dismissed him.

Once again, his victory, saving his comrades, had turned bitter.

Again, he lost. One more to the pile.

Couldn’t things align for him just once? If he were with the Fujiwara Senki, could he save them?

If he were with them, would things turn out for the better?

His eyes were filled with tears.

He held his face, his nails close to his eyes. He started to become dizzy, emotions of self-hatred swelling up in his chest.

A deep disgust lodged in his throat.

How come he trained, he toiled, he worked hard, pushed himself into danger, and he never became strong?

Never strong enough to protect others. Never strong enough to help himself. And in the one time he did pull himself together enough to save someone… another one was hurt, as if to just bitter his day.

His shoulders tensed, and then relaxed with the weight of shame and guilt.

When would he win? When he could feel like he owned his own life and was not the plaything of fate, who seemed so insistent on hurting him?

He stumbled on the streets. Aimless. The city became a blur in his view, his head overtaken by thoughts and emotions spiraling out of his control.

As his vision blurred, he dug his nails into his skin.

Without realizing it, he stumbled on the sidewalk and fell. His nose hit the floor first, and it got dislodged as blood came out of it.

The streets were empty, so there was no one to see him, nor see his tears.

The skies looked tempestuous over the dark night sky. It immediately began to rain, as thunder roared.

The world seemed to mock him there.

A boy who failed to protect the girl he loved.

A boy who failed to achieve vengeance.

A young man who was not strong.

Did his choices matter at all in that twisted game of a life?

He couldn’t protect anything or anyone. Blood slipped by his fingers. Was he ever strong at some point in his life? Rather than just… whatever type of person he was, whatever type of man he had become.

“All I wanted was to be happy…” Flashes of her face came to his mind.

“All I wanted was closure.” The marks of his vengeance stained over his body, an eternal reminder of his choices.

His left hand held the right side of his face, his right held his left.

He tried to stop the tears, but they could not be stopped, as they were washed away by the rain.

“I wanted to make a difference, I wanted to do good… then why is it for naught?” Why couldn’t things to alright, just once?

Just goddamn once?

God, why?

Yes. God, why?

“Please, if a god is listening to me, please, just allow me to be strong once, please, I want to matter. I am so tired, so tired of being on the sidelines. Please, I. I can no longer go on like this. What should I do?”

Faith was never his strong suit.

After everything that had gone wrong in his life, his faith in any kind of god was shaken to its core. Yet, now, on the ground, reflecting on life, he wailed like a lost child.

A child without direction, who has suffered too much, and continues to suffer.

A child who tried to make castles of sand, but every time he made progress, it was washed away by the waves.

Sobs and saliva got stuck in his throat as he cried, his nails dug deep into the sides of his head.

His lips curled in pain as his chest began to hurt.

Oh god, why? Why him of all people?

How much more should he fall, how much more should this pain go on before he could make progress?

If suffering made people strong, why wasn’t he already invincible?

Why does this life insist on taking away from?

Why were his actions so meaningless?

In the end, no one heard his cries, nor his pain, nor the blood that mixed with the water pouring down on him.

Itsuki Kusanagi, at the end of the day, of every day, of every day since things had gone wrong, was unimportant and easily forgotten like tears in the rain.

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Pub: 20 Nov 2025 22:39 UTC

Edit: 20 Nov 2025 22:41 UTC

Views: 116