Chapter 40: Chapter 38: Fudou Niito
Fudou Niito had always been different from the others. Even as a child, something was wrong with him—something was broken.
Explaining what, exactly, was difficult, though. It wasn't obvious at first glance either—as long as Niito tried his best to seem "normal," he managed to pass.
He wasn't coldhearted, nor was he particularly sensitive and compassionate. He wasn't a good person, but he wasn't a terrible person either. Niito simply thought of himself first. He wasn't one to break the rules for the sake of advancement, but he was calculative. He envied those who'd been born luckier and looked down on those he deemed to be below himself.
All in all, he was an egotistical person. But weren't most people like that? He just seemed to be as bad as most other human beings.
At first glance, Niito was a gloomy guy with a serious personality...who also just so happened to entertain a great many thoughts he didn't necessarily feel the need to share. This, in itself, wasn't all that strange. The world was filled with haughty people who pretended to be meek, and keyboard warriors were everywhere on the internet.
Indeed, at first glance, there was nothing wrong with Fudou Niito. He wasn't the sort of sociopath who enjoyed torturing insects and small animals. He liked manga, anime, games, foreign movies, and novels—the sort of stuff everyone else enjoys nowadays.
He was a bit of a weirdo, but he was a "normal" weirdo, just like thousands of other people.
And yet, something was wrong with him.
For instance, when Niito was a young child, he'd stumbled upon a dead cat on his way home from school. The cat had been run over by a car and was in a horrible state. Needless to say, Niito's friends had been horrified. They'd tried their hardest to avert their eyes as they went by in a hurry. Niito, on the other hand, hadn't felt scared or disgusted when he'd looked at the corpse. He had pitied the poor cat, to some extent, and he had thought the driver was a terrible person for running over it, but the bloody lump of meat itself hadn't evoked any particular emotion.
Niito was missing something others somehow had.
When he'd been in middle school, one of the girls in his class had been bullied by a bunch of boys. She hadn't done anything wrong; they'd simply picked her as their victim. They'd film everything with their phones, pushing her around, hitting her, laughing at her tears, and having fun mocking her.
The whole thing had pissed Niito off. What they were doing was wrong, so he'd decided to bully them back.
He'd never been particularly close to the girl, and he'd never had any issues with any of the boys before those events. Up until that point, they'd always treated each other like regular classmates.
However, Niito couldn't bear to see that infuriating spectacle unfold in front of his eyes every single day. So he'd decided he'd just do whatever had to be done in order to feel better. He'd gone to the leader of the group and tried to have a talk with him, but when that hadn't yielded any results, he'd punched him. The boy had retaliated, but Niito hadn't minded one bit.
It wasn't that his blows hadn't been painful—his body had hurt like hell—but Niito had simply ignored the pain and returned every hit twofold. Whenever he saw the other boy, he'd attack him. It didn't matter if it was in the corridors, in the middle of class, or on the way to school. He'd beat him up until he cried again and again.
His teachers and parents had scolded him, but no one had been able to get him to stop. Eventually, the boy had stopped coming to school, and Niito had shifted his focus onto one of the other bullies.
This is so much fun! I get why they were bullying that girl now. I've never had this much fun before... I'm really going to get addicted to this feeling!
Beating up villains in the name of justice was Niito's greatest pleasure. To his classmates, though, he probably hadn't looked like a hero. If anything, he must've scared them to death.
Niito hadn't realized that, though. He felt like his life had turned into a video game, and he simply narrated his actions to a group of invisible viewers as he enjoyed his everyday life.
Niito's in the red corner! He uses his entire body to deliver a powerful blow, and...WHAM! It's super effective! he'd think as he beat up yet another bully.
Here comes the counter-attack! Niito's in a bad position, but he doesn't let that faze him! He unleashes a megaton punch, and...THWACK! Success! He lands the blow despite its terrible base accuracy! Punch...BAM! It's a KO! Ladies and gentlemen, Niito made it!
Damn, I'm so stroooooong!
Even in the middle of a fistfight, Niito would always remain calm. He'd feel the same as when he played video games with his friends, or when he sat down to read a manga. He'd remain the same old cheerful guy he'd always been. At times, he was lost in thought and looked almost regretful, at others, he simply smiled fondly at his opponent.
At any rate, Niito had kept it up until all of the bullies had stopped coming to school. Then he'd gone to the girl, feeling like a savior.
"You don't have anything to fear anymore. I made sure the bullies wouldn't show their faces again," he'd told her, wondering if that would trigger some sort of event. Perhaps the girl would fall in love with him. What should he say if she asked him out?
His thoughts had been both ordinary and abnormal at the same time.
"No... Don't come near me!" the girl had immediately exclaimed, scared out of her mind.
In the end, only rejection had awaited him. Everything was over. He'd defeated the bad guys, and yet the people around him were scared. The teachers who'd once treated him normally now regarded him as a delinquent and scorned him. Even his family had started looking at him like he was a piece of shit. He'd ended up suspended from school for a while, and the story had even made it into the local newspaper.
Anyone could have predicted this outcome. Anyone but an idiot—Niito himself.
Not too long ago, Niito had stumbled upon a terrible Kuon no Sanka fan fiction. "I also save people whenever they get bullied. It's no big deal, but somehow everyone loves me," it read. That only ever happened in fiction. Eccentric people would be scorned and rejected. Everyone would despise them and speak ill of them behind their backs.
"I see... I get it now. Since I bullied those bullies back, I ended up becoming a bully too. No one likes bullies. It's only natural that the others would get mad at me. Dang, I messed up! I'm gonna have to do some soul-searching here," he'd said, as though he'd made a small mistake.
Sure, he was a little sad that his friends, teachers, and family seemed to hate him. As soon as he'd managed to convince himself that that was simply the way things were, though, he'd stopped minding it as much. He'd been able to tell from their reaction that something was wrong with him.
And so, he'd come to realize something.
I don't know how I hadn't noticed before, but I'm a piece of shit! he'd thought to himself in the usual light tone he always used.
If he was a piece of shit, he just had to adapt and continue living an ordinary life. As long as he copied the people around him, he'd be able to make do.
It's all good. Hang in there, me. You can do it.
What Niito was missing was a sense of reality. He lived his life like a game character, and he had no idea how to differentiate between fiction and reality.
Most people got mad when evil characters bullied the heroes. They could also empathize with their favorite characters and feel sad when they went through hardships. However, that didn't stop them from using those very same characters to shoot bystanders, destroy buildings, or commit other atrocities that would make even the villain look decent in comparison.
It wasn't anything strange, and the people doing these things were by no means evil or bipolar. They were just regular people enjoying a video game who simply wanted to have fun.
Games weren't real life. You could do whatever you wanted in those fictitious spaces. What you couldn't do, however, was bring these feelings and actions outside of a video game. Unfortunately, that was exactly the sort of man Fudou Niito was—he lived life like he was a bystander controlling a character in his image. His reality wasn't the same as that of others. It was as though he was never really there.
That was why he'd chosen to avoid involving himself with others too much. He'd found a job as a web writer so that he could stay at home.
Even when he'd learned he was ill and didn't have long to live, Niito had taken it in stride. That stuff happens, he'd simply thought. However, he'd cry thinking of his favorite characters' struggles.
Ellize and Niito were exactly the same in that regard. Something was fundamentally wrong with them. They didn't take the things that ought to matter seriously, and yet, they were strangely affected by others.
However, Niito had noticed that Ellize was slowly changing. He didn't know why. It could've been because his soul had ended up in another body. Perhaps his brain was the problem, not his mind.
Originally, Ellize had been exactly like him. However, she'd started to diverge already. Niito could feel it. He had no way to be sure, and no evidence to suggest it, but that feeling grew stronger by the day.
And that thought had given him hope—hope that maybe he too could change in that world. Maybe he'd get to witness himself change.
Niito was full of hope as he set out on a journey to help the other him.
◇
Niito got off the train and walked to the address written on the back of the game box. He expected to see a large building, since it was supposed to be the seat of a company that had produced a hit title, but he ended up in front of a multi-tenant building. They apparently only occupied one of the floors—the fifth, according to the signboard detailing the floorplan.
Niito walked in and used the elevator to head to the fifth floor. He confirmed that he was at the right place and approached the reception area.
"Hello, sir. What can I do for you?" the secretary asked him.
"I'm the freelance writer who called to schedule an appointment. My name is Fudou. Is Ijuuin-san here?"
She'd been slightly surprised by Niito's appearance, but she remained professional. She quickly schooled her expression into a neutral one. "Please wait here for a moment," she told him before calling out, louder. "Ijuuin-san! Your appointment is here!"
Niito had booked an appointment with Ijuuin, the leader of the team in charge of Kuon no Sanka, beforehand. Usually, a man like him wouldn't have bothered meeting a mere web writer, but Niito had managed to grab his attention. A few words had been enough: "Ellize, 102."
The number referred to the original Ellize's hefty weight before the game had changed. Now that his soul had taken over the character, Ellize only weighed about forty-four kilograms, and Ellize's former weight couldn't be found anywhere online. Hell, if anyone tried to call Ellize a fatty now, they'd get crucified by her hardcore fans.
In other words, someone who hadn't known the original contents of the game wouldn't react to that number. However, Ijuuin had.
He knows something, Niito thought, smiling.
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