That is the identity of chuunibyou...and yet, I’ve chosen to embrace that identity. I’ll accept it. I’ll accept the full reality of being a chuuni, warts and all. I’ll accept that split second and its painful ephemerality.
Chuunibyou is bound to end. One day, it will, without question, become an unfortunate mistake to look back upon...and that’s fine. That’s how it should be. Like how flowers are truly beautiful because they’ll eventually wilt—like how life is truly precious because it will inevitably come to an end—the transitory nature of chuunibyou, a split-second existence, allows it to shine brighter than anything.
If an end is sure to come, then all we can do is resolve ourselves to enjoy it to the fullest. The path forward would be to enjoy the ending of chuunibyou—to enjoy the advent of our adulthood. Refusing to allow your values to change and evolve would be a terrible mistake—they can only stretch so far before the stagnancy becomes untenable—therefore it’s much better to let nature take its course and guide your chuunibyou toward its conclusion.
Growth is inevitable. Change is inevitable. Endings are inevitable. Final volumes are inevitable.
Of course, you already understand all of this. Isn’t that right, Kiryuu Heldkaiser Luci-First?
No— Isn’t that right, Kiryuu Hajime?
☆
It was midnight, and the school grounds of Senkou High were deserted.
The man we were waiting for appeared exactly when he’d promised, on the dot, stepping through the gates with a slow, self-assured stride. All of us knew that he could have moved around by any number of extraordinary means if he’d so chosen, but he walked with his own two legs anyway. It was like he was savoring the moment—like he didn’t want to let it go. He walked up to us, moment by moment, step by step...
“So...where are the others?”
...until he stopped dead center in the middle of the courtyard, opening our exchange with an understandable question. The only people here to meet him, after all—the only actors onstage for the final showdown—were me and Tomoyo. Hatoko, Chifuyu, and Sayumi were nowhere to be seen.
“The other three aren’t coming,” I said. “We talked to Leatia and had her help them drop out of the War.”
They’d done so at my request, specifically. I’d asked them to let me and Tomoyo be the only ones who’d participate in the final battle.
“Bwa ha ha! Did you, now?” Kiryuu asked with a confident grin. “Can’t say I didn’t see that coming. I knew it would turn out this way from the very start. The three of us were always going to be the ones who’d be around to mark the end of this story.”
He was grinning. Kiryuu Hajime was smiling the same way he’d always smiled, acting like the same person I’d always known him to be...but for some reason, it seemed different to me now. There was a terrible emptiness to his smile that I’d come to recognize.
“Kiryuu...” I said. “Everything you told us about inventing the literary club—about how we were all just characters in a fictional story that you were writing...that was all a lie, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, you figured it out? Way to make this boring,” said Kiryuu.
I didn’t reply.
“I figured that it would make for a pretty compelling hook if you took the bait...but it’s not a huge issue that you didn’t. Truth is, it was actually supposed to be a joke at first. You took it so much more seriously than I’d expected though. You were actually freaking out, and I just couldn’t resist pivoting. Rest assured: The only part of you and your friends that I tweaked was your powers. I didn’t alter your personalities or backstories at all,” Kiryuu said with a calm, composed chuckle. It almost felt like he was saying that even us realizing he’d been lying had been part of his plan from the beginning.
“You can stop now, Kiryuu,” I said. “You don’t have to keep forcing yourself to smile like that. You don’t have to keep pretending that each and every little twist that turns up was all part of your master plan.”
I hadn’t meant to say that so directly. The words had flowed from my lips unbidden...and Kiryuu fell silent.
“I’ve figured it all out,” I continued.
The pieces had all fit together...or so I’d like to say, but really, that wasn’t true at all. In fact, it was the exact opposite of the truth. The truth was that the pieces had been so scattered—so hopelessly, outlandishly mismatched—that they’d seemed like they could never possibly fit together at all...which, in a roundabout sort of way, was exactly what had led me to the truth.
“W-Wait a minute, Andou,” said Tomoyo. “Why’re you acting like you have all the answers? Would you please explain yourself already? You haven’t explained anything since you had your little revelation, so I’m still totally clueless...”
I hadn’t told Tomoyo about the truth I’d come to understand yet, and I hadn’t told the other three either. I couldn’t tell them. How could I? How could I possibly explain a twist as terrible as this one? How could I possibly reveal an ending this embarrassing? In truth, Tomoyo was the last person I ever wanted to disclose it to...but unfortunately, she was also the one person whom I had a clear and unambiguous responsibility to tell. She was his sister, after all. She was a member of Kiryuu Hajime’s family—someone of irreplaceable importance to him.
“Kiryuu...I can say it now, right?”
“Guiltia...what are you—”
“I can explain everything now, can’t I? Everything you’ve done up to now, and what you’ll be trying to do from here on out... I can pull back the curtain and expose it all, right?”
I knew that this was something I had to say, one way or another. Kiryuu would never be able to say it himself. If I didn’t put an end to all of this, then nothing could possibly stop him.
“Wh-Why’re you dancing around whatever it is you’re trying to say, Andou...? Stop dropping hints and explain yourself! What did you figure out? What has Hajime been trying to do all this time?!” shouted Tomoyo.
I turned to look Kiryuu in the eye. He returned my gaze, his deeply, irregularly colored eyes meeting mine. “Kiryuu. The truth is...”
“The truth is...you didn’t have anything in mind at all, did you?”
“...Huh?” Tomoyo grunted. She blinked, several times. “Wait...Huh? Wh-What? What do you mean, Andou?”
“I mean what I said. Kiryuu...doesn’t have anything in mind that he’s working toward. He wasn’t thinking about that at all.”
Tomoyo stared at me in blank, dumbfounded silence. I couldn’t blame her for that. Who knew how much of a shock the revelation must have been for her? Who could have guessed that the man who’d been pulling all the strings behind the curtain—that Kiryuu Hajime, a man of unfathomable motives and intentions who was practically dripping with an aura of mystery—had not, in truth, been thinking about what he was doing at all?
Of course none of the pieces seemed to fit together. After all—none of them had ever been meaningful in any real way.
“Though, actually, it’s probably not strictly true that he wasn’t thinking about it,” I continued. “If anything, I’d bet he’s been thinking about it harder than anyone else ever could.”
He’s probably taken this more seriously than anyone. He’s mulled it over, pondered the possibilities, and racked his mind for solutions more desperately than any of us.
“He’s thought, and thought, and thought...but in the end, he just hasn’t been able to come up with anything,” I said. “He hasn’t thought up an ending to this story.”
“An...ending...?” Tomoyo repeated.
“I mean, just look at the situation we’re in now. Isn’t it kind of obvious that everything’s jumped the rails? Why’s the final battle happening between three people? Like, did we just forget about the whole Final Eight thing, or what? Wasn’t there supposed to be some big, grand significance to there being eight people here? And while I’m at it, wasn’t everyone in the Final Eight supposed to get a wish granted? When did that stop being a thing?”
The whole idea was that the War would move on to its next stage once only eight Players remained, but Kiryuu had brought the numbers down to six in one fell swoop by taking out all of his former allies at once, and ultimately we’d ended up pushing them down further to three before anything could begin. What was happening here? It was a mess. It was such a mess, I could barely even believe it. The longer the story carried on, the more it tore its own internal logic to shreds.
“W-Wait, Andou... What do you mean, an ending to the story? What was he trying to do this whole time, then?” asked Tomoyo.
“Basically...Kiryuu’s chuunibyou led him to try to be an author,” I explained.
Kiryuu was a high-level chuuni, and he had a highly developed inclination toward authorship as well. He was just as much of a chuuni as me...or, well, if I’m being honest, he was such a high-level chuuni he put me to shame. There was only one thing he could’ve been trying to do, considering that.
“In the end, all he was trying to do was tell a good story.”