Chapter 0 — Prologue

A young boy woke up in a dimly lit inn room after a long sleep. He rubbed his eyes, trying to shake off the intense fatigue he was suffering from. Strange. He hadn't done anything too taxing recently, but never mind.

A torrential rain was striking against the windows with force. A modicum of light from the overcast sky cast a faint glow upon the futon where the young man had been sleeping.

He looked to his right, where futon sheets had been carefully arranged. Weird, this gap was supposed to be occupied by the girl without whom his life wasn't worth living. The girl he had spent the past four years with.

"Marie, are you up already?" he asked, his voice calm and flat.

He stood up and scanned the room, but—nothing. Marie wasn’t here. He checked in the bathroom, and still nothing. Maybe she was playing a prank, like she usually did?

He searched the room and all around the inn but to no avail. Marie was simply not there. The only thing he found was a letter addressed to him, a letter from Marie... He sat down on the futon and opened the letter carefully.

"To my dear Harumaki Yuuki,
I hope you woke up well. It's been ages since you woke up without me by your side. You've always been the early riser between us, after all. Still, it must have felt a bit weird, right? Because it definitely did for me."

Yuuki read the letter carefully, recognizing Marie's handwriting. Although he appeared calm, Yuuki's body felt heavy. Why a letter? They had always said everything to each other face-to-face, so... why change it now?

"You must be wondering why I'm writing this to you. Well, it's not to give you good news... as of today, I can no longer stay with you.”

Yuuki's deep blue eyes locked on that sentence, while the rest of his body froze. He had never felt like this. Was it a glimpse of his ever-absent emotions? Or just a reminder that losing her meant not having anything anymore.

"My greatest fear is losing you, and unfortunately, being by your side would do just that. For your safety, we can’t see each other anymore.
I’m happy I met you. I had so much fun when we were together. Thanks to you, I have so many good memories that I could write a book about them. Without you, I don’t even know if I would feel like I’ve lived—"

Before Yuuki had even finished reading, he ran out. His instinct kicked in, his place was by Marie's side and nowhere else. He crossed the corridors of the inn and then the streets of Kyoto in the pouring rain.

"Marie... Where are you...?" His low voice followed each of his steps, cutting out between each inhalation and exhalation.

She would keep on leaving, because Marie had always been strong-willed. She would always be able to keep on living. But what about him? Yuuki was different from her; his will had never really existed except for a thought that became his only purpose: being by Marie's side.

Yuuki fell several times but got right back up continuously. He ignored the fact that his knees were scraped, that he was hungry, and that he was out of energy.

He searched everywhere—for several hours, days, then weeks without success.

At birth, just like more than 80% of humanity, he had been blessed by the 'nameless goddess‘ and given a Kikai—an opportunity. A special ability meant to guide each blessed human toward their ambition. But here, that was not the case for Yuuki.

He could read the thoughts of those around him, fly wherever he could, and teleport to any place he previously visited. But the Kikai entrusted to him only let him visualize Marie's sadness as she wrote the letter.

If his Kikai couldn’t help him reach his only ambition, what could? If he lost the only one that mattered, was there a point anymore?

Yuuki had no answer; all he did was wander around with the same, blank, emotionless expression he always had. After several weeks of searching, Yuuki stopped under a large tree to shelter from the snow. He was freezing on his own in the middle of one of the coldest winters in recent years. In reality, Yuuki didn't feel like living anymore.

Marie had been the only light that broke his emptiness; with her gone, it was absolute once again. His body, covered in healed wounds and frost, was crying out to be warmed and nourished, but Yuuki felt nothing.

His gaze was as cold as the snow he was staring at. He felt like his heart was about to give out—before a voice whispered in his ear:

"Yuuki-kun... My dear Yuuki-kun... It's been a long time."

The voice belonged to a woman, not Marie, but someone deep within Yuuki's mind.

"Marie... She left you all alone. But I'm here. I have always been, and I will always be by your side, Yuuki-kun."

She was right. She was still here, she'd never left him, but what else was there to it? They shared Yuuki's mind since his birth, but differently from Marie, the void was still present with her.

Yuuki took the letter out of his pocket and opened it again, scanning its content for the first time in weeks. He found the line where he had stopped and continued reading:

"I know you; you will probably try to find me. It's fine, but you will end up failing. We were destined to go separate ways. My only regret would be that I couldn't tell you goodbye properly, at the very least, I can tell you my deepest wish:"

Yuuki spotted a subtle fold at the bottom of the letter, hiding a long list:

"Eat well and sleep well so you can grow up big and strong! Cover up well in winter—you never caught a cold, but I would feel at ease if you did. Go and relax under the cherry blossoms from time to time, just like we used to. Go to the beach sometimes, or to the mountains; travel and discover new landscapes. Go to school, make good friends, and create unforgettable memories with them. Be kind to them, and be honest about who you are and what you want. You aren't forced to smile; you can also feel sad sometimes. Never forget that you are human too. It hurts that we won't be together anymore, but I want you to live, and above all, to have fun. And if, by miracle, our paths cross again, I'll gladly hear every story you have to tell! That's my deepest wish and also an unbreakable promise. You wouldn't let me down, right?
Marie, ******** ******."

Yuuki's eyes stopped at the last line. The emptiness he felt had been slightly filled with a new ambition: to fulfill Marie's wish. So he stood up and marched onwards.

Little by little, without even realizing it, it became his way of life. He clung to her words, and a few years later, the solution to her last wish came to him from a soul with whom he had formed a deep bond.

An opportunity to create a miracle: to fulfill Marie's last wish, a wish that also became his own. The Erabareshimono no Kyousou—The Tournament of the Chosen, a team combat tournament for high school students, where the winners got to make any wish they wanted.

He, who was blessed by the nameless goddess, saw what was for him the true meaning of his Kikai. More than just a tool for achieving his ambition—it was an opportunity, an opportunity to transcend his destiny.

And so, five years after his separation from Marie, Yuuki went to Tokyo. He enrolled at the prestigious Narukami High School with a single goal in mind: to win the Erabareshimono no Kyousou.

To be continued...