Comics, daily stories

Looks like we're both having bad luck; we can't talk any more.

The two men frowned as they looked at the letter.

Nomiyama flipped through the paper and looked at the back.

It was a pleasure chatting with you.

I'm going to die.

【goodbye】

Nomiyama stared at the words several times, and finally looked at the person next to him.

He seemed to have finally waited for this moment, and felt a great sense of relief.

"My life is in danger."

"Ah."

The River at Time 281, Snow at Night

【life】

In Nomiyama's view, this word can actually be described in a very simple sentence.

【Fate】is what we must do to live.

Just like eating, humans can only escape the fate of being eaten by dying.

Nomiyama believed he was still alive and kicking, his heart pounding with blood, his senses sharp and clear, and his mood stable and cheerful.

He has many lives, but if we're talking about those that have existed throughout his life, it's probably the one who's still waiting for him in the past.

"How to do it?"

Yukino Yukinoshita, seeing him lost in thought, asked him the important question first.

Nomiyama snapped out of his reverie, stood up, and looked down at the Sanzu River: "My communication with her was anchored in time by this bamboo tube. During the time we exchanged the bamboo tubes, we were in real time. How much time passed on her side was the same time passed on my side. We were both living in our own present moment."

Yukino Yukinoshita pondered, noticing his downward movement, and gradually realized what he was thinking.

She stood up and followed, somewhat surprised: "Your plan is this bamboo tube?"

Nomiyama raised his hand, staring at the bamboo tube in his hand: "In all these years, this is the only thing I have ever seen that travels through time. I don't know where she got it from, but if we're talking about transcending time, this is indeed the only thing I can think of."

Yukino Yukinoshita stood by the river, gazing at the water, her voice earnest: "What should I do? How can I help you?"

Nomiyama gripped the bamboo tube tightly, turned to look at her, and gave his answer: "I can't help you right now. I need to go into the river and see if I can follow the pull of this bamboo tube into time."

Yukino Yukinoshita looked at him for a moment, and finally nodded.

She neither denied it nor asked any further questions, but simply said, "Be careful."

Nomiyama smiled, said nothing more, and simply took a step forward, stepping into the Sanzu River.

Yukino Yukinoshita stood by the river, quietly watching the undulating water.

Things are certainly not as simple as a conversation, and going through time is bound to be risky, but...

Go, go and make your soul whole, go and save her, go and save yourself.

I'm here waiting for you to come back.

The river's speed began to slow, and a sense of weight emerged amidst the fluid flow.

Yukino Yukinoshita watched the river water gradually distorting, remaining silent.

You can't step into the same river twice, because the river is constantly changing and the combination of water droplets is different every moment. What he's doing now, this so-called time reversal, is essentially trying to step into the same river twice.

He wants to return to that river from a thousand years ago.

With a slight change in expression, Yukino Yukinoshita moved her feet and walked to the passageway over the river.

At the other end of the aisle, he was walking towards us, his clothes soaking wet.

Yukino Yukinoshita frowned as she looked at him, who was constantly dripping wet.

The marks of time are flowing over him, and images of him occasionally surface around him.

His expression was one of struggle, not pain, but rather, a sense of recollection.

It failed? Was this a chain reaction caused by touching time?

Nomiyama knew that time wouldn't be that simple, so he was just trying it out first. If it worked, then of course everything would be fine.

He stepped into the Sanzu River, gripped the bamboo tube tightly, sensed where it wanted to go, and then closed his eyes.

Engage your body and move forward in the direction you sense.

But he stopped moving after only a few seconds.

He opened his eyes and looked at the flowing river in front of him with a complicated expression.

He sensed the destination of the bamboo tube, but his physical body couldn't cross the river of time; it was too heavy.

With a little effort, he jumped out of the water, then walked onto the passageway and started walking back.

Some images began to appear beside him, but he ignored them and didn't look at them much. This was the lingering feeling that time had brought him, some flashes of the past.

These memories of the past are not important now.

As he took a step, Nomiyama frowned, for even though he didn't want to look, those memories still surfaced in his mind.

How about I become your wife?

"We can go to Xinghai."

Which is better, roast chicken or roast fish?

"Yuko seems to like you."

"I discovered a new type of poisonous fish yesterday, want to try it?"

"Won't you get bored staying on the mountain all the time?"

"Oh right, you don't even know what boredom feels like."

"I noticed Bai Yujing has been spying on you a lot lately, so I went and beat her up."

"I'm so bored, Kazehaya, come out and play with me."

Nomiyama's pace slowed down, and his brows furrowed more and more deeply.

Finally, he stopped walking, his brows no longer furrowed, and he stared blankly ahead.

There stood a person; she had long, jet-black hair and bright red eyes.

This time, she was no longer flamboyant or arrogant, and she was no longer wearing the black samurai outfit, but instead a pure white kimono, the Shiromuku.

She smiled gently: "Kazehaya, wait for me, we'll meet again."

The figure disappeared.

Nomiyama opened his mouth, then closed it tightly. He had no choice but to squat down and cover his head with his hands.

A thousand years of memories exploded in an instant, and the face that I could never remember finally became clear.

She was happy, she pretended to be sad, she was angry, she was sulking, she was arrogant, and she muttered to herself.

My mind is filled with her.

Yukino Yukinoshita finally snapped out of her daze and walked quickly toward him, past where he was standing, as he was in pain.

She reached out, intending to put her arm around him to comfort him, but was forced to stop.

Nomiyama reached out to stop Yuki's movements.

He shook his head, stood up, and calmed his rapid breathing.

He looked down at the bamboo tube still in his palm and remained silent for a while.

Finally, he looked at Yukino and said, "I have a plan."

Yukino Yukinoshita waited quietly for him to continue. Normally, to avoid worrying herself, he wouldn't say something like that, but would choose to do it silently.

Now that he's said it, it means he'll have to handle the rest himself.

Nomiyama gripped the bamboo tube tightly, his expression calm: "Remember what I told you? Qi is a kind of almost omnipotent power. My body can't cross the river of time, but my Qi can. When I communicated with her last time, I left a tiny bit of Qi attached to the bamboo tube. Now, that bit of Qi is still there. Qi can exist beyond time."

Yukino Yukinoshita stared into his eyes: "Anger is just anger. Even if you send it over, it won't do any good."

Nomiyama agrees with this statement, so he says, "So I need to send a part of my thoughts over there, wrap them in air, stuff them into a bamboo tube, and then cross time through the bamboo tube."

Yukino Yukinoshita paused for a moment: "So, you need my energy because you currently have too little to do this."

"Do not."

Nomiyama refuted this claim, his eyes filled with complexity: "Your qi can't do it, not because of the quantity, but because there's a slight difference between us. Time, in a sense, is a kind of rule. If you want to participate in the operation of the rules, you must first have some connection with the rules. Your connection with the rules is too weak."

Yukino Yukinoshita finally understood why he had brought these things up with her.

He is a born god; he once acted on behalf of the rules. What he needs is what originally belonged to him.

It is the part of that mountain that belongs to the gods.

Nomiyama looked at her for a while, then reached out, hugged her, and took a deep breath: "Wait for me to come back."

Then he let go, turned around, and walked away.

Suddenly, the sky over Chiba became clear and cloudless, and something heavy began to distort space.

A knife cut through the distance, its tip pointing directly at the boy.

Nomiyama looked at the girl standing in mid-air with a sword in her hand, and was not surprised: "Yuko."

He turned his head and looked at the other two people who had appeared because of his aura: "Gong Yu, Yang Nai."

All the members of the Yukinoshita family from Chiba appeared here the instant the strange event occurred on the mountain.

Yukinoshita Miyami didn't have time to consider anything else; her eyes were filled with panic as she asked, "Kazehaya, what are you going to do?"

Nomiyama answered truthfully, "I need that spirit to go up the mountain."

"No!" The voice of rejection was resolute. Yukinoshita looked at him with a deep frown. "Once you go up the mountain, all those memories will resurface. You will no longer be the person you are now. In fact, if the you who has returned to godhood finds these memories useless and troublesome, it is possible that you can simply sever them."

Nomiyama said seriously, "I will keep these memories from all these years."

“What’s the use of that!” Yukino Yukinoshita shouted, then took a deep breath and stared at him intently. “Determination is nothing but a slave to memory, and personality is nothing but an appendage of memory. Tens of thousands of years of memories can instantly reshape your entire being. These years of memories are too short and too insignificant.”

Yukinoshita Miyabi thought of the years of waiting, and of him who was indifferent to everything. Panic spread across her face: "No, Kazehaya, you can't go back."

She stepped forward, grabbed his hand tightly, and gradually tightened her grip: "I disagree."

Nomiyama looked at the person who was still pointing a knife at him. No one in this world could stop him, but sometimes, it wasn't about stopping him.

Kitahara Yuko didn't loosen her grip on the knife, still coldly staring at him: "What do you want to do?"

Nomiyama remained serious: "Go save her. I've found a way to travel through time."

Kitahara Yuko shook her head: "My sister is already dead, she doesn't need you to save her."

Nomiyama remained silent.

Kitahara Yuko gripped the knife tighter: "I didn't stop you from traveling all over the world with Yukino before, because that was your decision. As long as you're willing, I have no reason to interfere with your decision."

Her voice grew colder: "But things are different now. I risked my life to let you go down the mountain. If I let you go back down and turn back into that emotionless stone, what does my life mean? What does my death mean? I can't let my sister become a ridiculous joke."

Nomiyama looked into her eyes: "I may not be able to go back to the way I was before."

Kitahara Yuko's expression remained unchanged: "Nomi Yamazaki, don't lie to yourself. This memory may seem beautiful and fulfilling to you now, but to you in the past, it was just a useless memory that had no meaning whatsoever."

"Using ten years to unlock an instinct that has been around for over fifty thousand years, Nomi Yamahata, do you think this is a fairy tale?"

Nomiyama paused for a moment, then said, "Your sister has made a move."

Kitahara Yuko looked at him coldly: "There is no second Yukishiro Yukiya in this world."

Nomiyama responded, "So I went to bring her back."

Kitahara Yuko remained silent, the tip of her knife conveying her stance.

Nomiyama looked a little tired: "You can't stop me."

Kitahara Yuko did not deny this statement: "I know I can't beat you, and I know I can't stop you, but Chiba is only so big, and I'm not necessarily slower than you."

She gave her answer: "I'm not as good as my sister, but if I fight with all my might, I can still shatter that ball of energy."