Chapter 1

……

Yuuta-kuuun! I love you I love you I love you I looooove you! I love you soooo much! I’d love you even if the world was destroyed and I was reincarnated!

……

Oh? You aren’t even trying to fight back? Have you lost your will to fight?

If that’s how it’s gonna be, then Onii-chan’s gonna mow you down and make you succumb to a love that’s deeper than the ocean and higher than the mountains~!

—Hinata-kun.

…… (curls up like a roly-poly)

What are you doing.

Well, I thought you were gonna like, kill me or something… I was thinking I should at least try to avoid a fatal wound…

I wasn’t going to hit you, Aniki. I already know it’s useless to hit you—It’s just going to make my hand hurt.

Huh~? But hit me! How can you claim you’re from Kansai when you just throw away the tsukkomi act?!

I Kansai I know whatcher on ‘bout~?

And that's all, folks… ☆

Phew, I feel so alive! I knew that was all I needed!

I’ve been conditioning myself to believe that every act of violence from you is actually an act of love, so it’s way way way more painful if you ignore me, okay?!

Ah, Sakuma-senpai is kinda like that too. Like, he acts all annoying on purpose so that his little brother will repay him with violence and insults. It’s like he’s satisfied as long as he gets some kind of reaction.

Yup ♪ I feel like I’m really starting to understand Sakuma-senpai more and more nowadays. Sorry about that—You even let me be your little brother sometimes, but I’ve still got that older brother mindset.

That’s okay, isn’t it? It’s better to have both experiences so we know how each other feels.

With that kind of experience, we’ve got Sakuma-senpai and them completely beat, in a way. It’s not really a matter of win or lose, but—

If we don’t take those small victories, we might just break.

…And that’s why you decided to betray UNDEAD after they’ve been way better to us than anyone else, and set them up?

Just because if we could beat them, we could be a little more confident in ourselves?

…You already know the answer to that, Aniki.

Yeah, I do. Between us in the desert and you guys in that hotel-looking place, it always felt like someone was watching us. If we’d have made any mistakes, they might’ve suspected us and crushed us.

So that’s why you decided to play the bad guy and pretend to trick UNDEAD.

And you did it—You destroyed UNDEAD. And those people watching us—the Administration, probably, felt relieved and brought the SDS to a close.

The heck is an SDS? Wait no, I kinda get what it is.

It’s that new game console, right? Aha, but I did have a lot of fun playing it though!

We got a once-in-a-lifetime experience out of this! And it made us even stronger because of it.

Yeah. Even if we’re still no match for the idols we look up to.

Now don’t get all self-deprecating on me, ‘kay? Well, if we start thinking we’re all big and tough, we’ll stop putting in effort—And then we’d go kaput.

Hakaze-senpai really heaped on the compliments back in the desert. The battles were pretty much all really similar to variety shows, so I got to show off my skills.

And whenever I did a good job, Hakaze-senpai gave me so many compliments, never even holding back. When you look around, you see there’s way more people like that than we ever thought.

So if we kept moping around and denying ourselves, it’d be rude to everyone who sees us and appreciates us.

Well yeah, I get that much.

We’re incredible. We’re strong. We’re not those poor little kids stuck in a cycle of oppression anymore.

But I still don’t really feel like it yet.

I sure fooled everyone in UNDEAD. I tried to bring out the big guns and everything. You know, since you have to take something seriously if you want to actually see what you’re made of.

As a result, I beat UNDEAD—Even though most of it was thanks to being able to completely suppress Sakuma-senpai using his secret order.

We stabbed them in the back, and it was totally fine even if we made them sweat, made them hate us—

That’s what war’s all about. UNDEAD isn't so weak an opponent that you can win against them without going all out, and it’s not like we’re super strong, either.

So I hit them with everything I had. And my attack went right through to them.

It went right through to them, Hinata-kun. I don’t really know how to say it, but I’m so, so happy about that.

I know exactly what you’re trying to say. When I was running away from Hakaze-senpai after stealing all his Coins, I just felt so exhilarated.

Hakaze-senpai always looks so cool and stuff, but when I turned to look at him back then, he was just standing there dumbstruck with his mouth hanging open.

We won! We did it~! We beat one of the strongest units at Yumenosaki, UNDEAD! That’s how strong we are now! That was the only thing going through my head ♪

But I was satisfied with that much.

That’s the difference between you and me.

……

You can try to zero out a negative. But if you don’t know how far away that zero is, you’ll just keep going on forever.

And you don’t know exactly how much we’ve lost up to now—how far we’ve fallen.

And according to the theory of gravity, we’ll just keep falling. Even if you just want to maintain a balance, you have to keep aiming higher and higher. It’s like you’re paying off a loan all the time.

That’s why you can’t stop.

…Yeah, you’re right. I couldn’t stop.

But for me though, I only set out to add a small positive to our pile with anything I try to do. It’s easy-peasy. Just like those Desert Coins—if I have just a single one, I’m satisfied.

There’s no point in trying to make more and more forever, right?

So that’s why you give away the stuff you’ve earned to whoever without even hesitating, huh?

Yup yup! I bet we really knocked the Administration’s socks off too. Just when UNDEAD lost all their Desert Coins and was supposed to fall into ruin—

“~… ♪”

They managed to survive!

Yep… Just what kind of magic trick is this?