Buddyfight Legends

Story 2: Meiru Amagasa

Synopsis:

A middle school student who has withdrawn from society, he is an exemplary genius who excels at Buddyfight.

As he doesn’t talk to people and doesn’t involve himself in group actitivies, he is often left alone.

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This world is boring.

I, Meiru Amagasa, first realized this right around the time I entered middle school. I no longer felt surprise or excitement for what I learned at school, for the games I played, for the after school clubs I participated in.

When I was in elementary school, everything I laid eyes on was the object of my curiosity. Whenever I discovered something new, I obsessed over it until I had achieved complete mastery. As a result, my test scores were always the best in my grade, and I won awards in everything that I tried. It got to the point where people around me called me a child prodigy.

But it wasn’t anything to write home about

At least, not for me.

Strangely enough, when you perfect a skill, you can tell what the end result will be even without lifting a finger and there is no greater ennui in this world than that.

Knowing the outcome of mathematical equations is boring.

Knowing the outcome of a shogi (Japanese chess) match is boring.

Knowing the outcome of a movie is boring.

Knowing the outcome of a Buddyfight is boring.

And so, bit by bit, “enjoyment” disappeared from my world, and before I knew it, I’d lost interest in everything around me.

That’s when I stopped attending school, and stopped going into the outside world.

This world is boring, and limited, and gray.

That was the conclusion I arrived at in the two years since I’d advanced to junior high school.

But even I had one thing in this world that I still enjoyed.

I’m talking about rainy nights.

On rainy nights, everything I hear and see becomes blurry, and I feel as though the world itself has changed. This boring world seems to be audibly crumbling away, awakening in me a feeling of uncertainty, as though my sense of what’s normal is being overturned and that, to me, is irresistible.

So on nights like this, when the rain falls hard and heavy , I always go to a nearby park and stand under an umbrella, thinking these kinds of thoughts.

Maybe I stayed a little too long this time.

It's definitely starting to feel a little chilly

I want to spend more time in the rain, escaping from reality, but I don't want to do that at the expense of discomfort. I don't want to catch a cold, either.

Well, time for me to head home.

These were the thoughts that ran through my mind, as I gazed at the endless dark sky.

◇ ◇ ◇

The blare of the alarm resounded within the Buddy Police headquarters.

Their sensors had picked up an illegal incursion from another world

The Buddy Police support staff moved frantically as they analyzed thesituation and communicated their findings.

“We’ve confirmed an incursion from Darkness Dragon World!”