Villain: Your Heroines Were Delicious - Chapter 120 - 41

Chapter 120: Chapter 41

In the depths of the absolute void, time had ceased to exist. Seijirou drifted in the silence, his consciousness fraying at the edges.

He was ready to let the darkness consume him, to succumb to the final, peaceful sleep of the forgotten.

“Seijirou…!”

“Seijirou!”

A voice pierced the vacuum.

It was insistent, vibrating through his non-existent ears with annoying tenacity.

“Go away!” He tried to sink deeper into the nothingness, to pull the shadows over his head like a shroud.

“Seijirou, Wake up!”

“Leave me alone,” Seijirou’s mind snarled. “Go away or I’ll beat the hell out of you. Just let me sleep.”

He glared at the infinite void, as if trying to scare what wasn’t there.

Just then, the darkness fractured.

No, light didn’t return, everything is still an endless darkness and void, but a presence manifested in front of him.

Seijirou’ eyes widened seeing the presence having fully manifested and gained form, “Y-You… You are…”

Opposite to him stood a man who was his perfect mirror image.

Same height, same features, same ash-blonde hair. However, this version radiated a feral, predatory aura that Seijirou had only ever seen in the game’s CG illustrations.

He knew, even without any introduction, that this was the “Game Seijirou”—the villainous delinquent as he was meant to be.

Seijirou took a deep breath before he let out a dry, hollow chuckle. “So, the original is here. Are you finally coming to take back your body? Have at it. I’m tired, I just want to go back.”

The Game Seijirou looked at him with an expression of pure, unadulterated disdain. “Take it back? You idiot. What is there to take? This body was always yours.”

“…huh?”

“Did this void messed your brain and turned you into a dumbass as well? That body is originally yours, what is there to take?”

Seijirou blinked, his thoughts sluggish from shock and disbelief, “What are you talking about? Originally my body? Fuck, I’m an ordinary guy from another world! I played a game, I died, and I transmigrated into this skin! What do you mean this is originally me?! Stop messing with me and just get on with it! Take this body and return me to my old world!”

“Is that so?” The other Seijirou snorted, stepping closer. “Then tell me, ’ordinary guy’—what is your name?”

“The fuck kind of question is that? My name is…” Seijirou started, then stopped. What was his name again? He knew he was an ordinary guy living in that other world, but…his memories seems to end at that?

He searched the deepest part of his memory.

He looked for a surname, a childhood home, a face in a bathroom mirror.

There was nothing.

He couldn’t remember his name, he couldn’t remember his face, he couldn’t remember his parents, he couldn’t remember any friends, it was like he has no memory of his life before except his memory as Kageyama Seijirou.

He knew he was a gamer, he knew he lives alone, he knew he used to stream himself playing games online, he knew he used to play the game about this world…but that’s it.

He knew those, but there were no details further than that.

The more he searched, the more he realized the “other world” feel so incomplete, like he was an NPC dropped into that world and was given a background setting by a game developer.

What…the hell?

“Retsu told you the truth, didn’t she?” the game Seijirou continued, his voice sharp. “She called you ’real’ from the moment she met you in your childhood. But if you only recently ’took over’ this body, how could she have sensed the ’real’ you back then? The clues were right in front of you, but it seems you didn’t even discover it”

Could it really be true? Was he truly the real Kageyama Seijirou?

Seijirou felt a cold jolt of realization. “But…If I am the real Kageyama Seijirou… then what are you?”

The mirror image shrugged. “A ghost? A remnant of the code? A fragment of your own subconscious? A highly advanced AI? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that this world isn’t as simple as it seems.”

“…What, what does that mean?”

Game Seijirou sighed, “I don’t know. However, I believe that this world is connected to that other world. And since Retsu believes that this world is fake, and only the two of you are real, just like you, she probably is also from that world. But unlike you, she couldn’t remember anything.

Seijirou frowned, the gears of his mind finally turning. “…wait, could it possibly be…”

“If what you’re thinking is the same as what I’m thinking, then yes,” the other Seijirou said. “The two worlds were most likely once a single reality. Perhaps due to a whim of a god, or a cosmic catastrophe, the world was split apart. One became the world of mundane physics, the world you thought of as ’real’, and the other became this fragment—the world of Ki and Spirit, the world of a game. And because this world is a fragment, it feels ’fake’ to someone like Retsu who instinctively remembered the original world.”

Seijirou nodded at that. Indeed, that’s what he thought too. If that’s the case, everyone here should’ve been from that world too, but couldn’t remember anything.

“Seijirou, you are special. So special that you were taken to that other world to play a ’game’ that was probably a chronicle of the original world’s potential future, and were brought back after you achieved an impossible ending.”

“Special? The game made me a villain,” Seijirou muttered.

“In that script, yes. But here, you aren’t.” The other Seijirou pointed toward the vast, dark horizon. “I’m sure you already know this, Seijirou. Those girls, those friends, they aren’t looking at a character. They are looking at the soul that spanned two worlds to return to them. They will never let you go. They will not forget, they will never forget.”

Seijirou took a deep breath.

The exhaustion that had nearly drowned him evaporated, replaced by a crystalline, iron-hard determination.

The “Void” no longer felt like a grave; it felt like a chrysalis. “I understand. I know who I am now. Thank you.”

The other Seijirou smiled, a look of grim satisfaction. “Good. Now get out of here. There are people waiting to scream at you for being late.”

Seijirou turned to walk away, but paused. He looked back at the figure standing in the dark. “One more thing… you aren’t actually the ’Game Seijirou,’ are you?”

The figure’s smile widened, a smile that look cryptic and ancient. “Who knows?”

Seijirou stared for a moment longer, then shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m going back.”

As Seijirou’s presence vanished from the Void, the appearance of the second figure shifted.

The feral delinquent dissolved, replaced by a towering, beautiful woman with long golden hair and eyes like molten suns.

She wore a golden laurel wreath and a white toga, radiating a divine, overwhelming light.

She watched the spot where Seijirou had disappeared and let out a long, weary sigh that vibrated through the dimensions.

“I didn’t tell him the whole story, but this should be enough.” she whispered. “Good luck, Kageyama Seijirou.”

*

*

*

The sun dipped toward the horizon, bleeding a bruised crimson across the mountain peaks as the twentieth day drew to a close.

Outside the jagged mouth of the cave, the air was unnaturally still, the only sound being the frantic, dry rustle of the blackened talismans.

Ichibei stood with his hands tucked into his sleeves, his eyes fixed on the impenetrable darkness of the cavern.

The “Mirror of the Void” was a place where time didn’t exist, but out here, every hour was a heavy toll.

“Twenty days,” he muttered, his voice gravelly. “It has been twenty days, and still no movements.”

He then looked at the sky, which was already turning dark and turned towards her granddaughter standing beside him, “Retsu, it’s getting late. Take a rest, at this rate, your body would collapse before he returns.”

Retsu didn’t move. She stood like a marble statue carved into the mountain rock, her gaze never wavering from the entrance.

Her skin was a sickly, translucent pale, and the dark circles under her eyes looked like bruises.

She hadn’t moved, slept, or even rested since the moment Seijirou stepped across the threshold.

“Go back to the manor, Grandfather,” Retsu said, her voice a hollow, raspy whisper. “I can wait twenty more days without collapsing. I will be the first thing he sees when he returns.”

Ichibei stared at her, seeing the manic, terrifying depth of her obsession. Her metabolism was surely eating itself alive just to keep her upright.

“You are reaching your limit. Even for a Ki Grandmaster, twenty days with no rest or sleep is dangerous.”

Retsu didn’t respond. She didn’t even blink.

Ichibei sighed, shaking his head in a mix of pity and frustration. “I will have the disciples bring food and water.”

With a single step, he vanished into the mountain mist, leaving her in the absolute silence of the peak.

The moment the old man’s presence faded, the strength Retsu had been feigning shattered.

She swayed, her knees buckling as her center of gravity shifted and the world began to tilt at a violent angle.

The twenty days of sensory hyper-focus and total sleep deprivation finally struck her like a physical blow.

Her heart felt sluggish, its beat a muffled thud against her ribs.

Not yet, she snarled internally. Not while he’s still in the dark.

She reached into her sleeve with trembling fingers and withdrew a long, silver acupuncture needle.

She didn’t have enough Ki left to stimulate her nerves, and her body was too depleted to react to standard pressure points.

So with a desperate, jagged motion, she drove the needle straight through the center of her own palm.

The metal pierced through flesh and tendon, protruding from the back of her hand.

She didn’t cry out. She watched the dark crimson blood drip onto the white mountain sand, hoping the raw, agonizing pain would act as a lightning bolt to her nervous system.

But the plan backfired.

The sudden shock of the self-mutilation was the final straw for her overtaxed brain.

Instead of waking her up, the pain sent her reeling, her vision began to dissolve into a swirl of grey and black motes, and her legs felt like lead.

“Oh no…” she whispered, her body leaning forward, falling toward the dirt. “I can’t… I need to be… the one…”

Just as the darkness was about to claim her completely, a sudden, explosive change occurred.

The air in the near the cave was shoved aside by a massive, golden-silver pressure.

A shockwave of pure, refined intent erupted from the cave, blowing the blackened talismans into dust.

Through her fading, blurred vision, Retsu saw a figure stepping out of the abyss.

He didn’t look like the boy who had entered, nor the boy she watched grow up.

Right now, he radiated a calm, overwhelming heat, his white Gi fluttering in a wind generated by his own presence.

His eyes were no longer those of a confused wanderer; they were the eyes of a king who had claimed his throne.

’Ah, he’s finally back.’ With that, Retsu’s body finally gave out, but she didn’t hit the cold ground.

A pair of strong, warm arms caught her mid-fall, pulling her into a solid, firm chest.

She felt the steady, powerful thrum of a heartbeat—a heart that had stopped and started again for her.

The scent of him and the familiar heat of his skin washed over her, the most beautiful sensation she had ever known.

“You’re late,” she managed to mumble, her voice barely a thread of sound.

“I’m here, Retsu,” Seijirou’s voice rumbled against her ear, filled with a depth and warmth that hadn’t been there before. “Sleep. I’ve got you.”

With those words, the last of her strength evaporated, and Retsu plunged into a deep, dreamless sleep, cradled in the arms of the man she had loved more than the world.