Rise of Mana: Renewal of The Will

There's always a question in my mind that always bothered me all the time...

Why do we trust others?

I was just a man with kind of a smart brain just having my dream job as a scientist. Science was the thing that kept me alive when my dad tried to kill me when I was 14... Doctors eased the pain of critical bleeding that occurred because my dad shot me with a gun, the doctors gave me some painkillers, a medicine made of science.

Science piqued my interest, so much that I'm now working at one of the best science research facilities at Yokohama.

Why did my mom trust him?

My mother was also a victim of my own dad's abuse, but she still calls that not as abuse, it's clearly abuse, why does she still stand for him, is this what they call Stockholm's Syndrome? Whatever happened in my mom's mind was just so messed up to even remarrying dad after he got back home after he was imprisoned and left me there alone.

Whatever happened in the past, and whatever on my mom's mind will have to stop bothering at that point.I left the house when I was 15 and luckily my grandparents are kind enough to keep me in their house and even pay my tuition and helped me to get to this point.

I feel I can trust people again now since not all humans are like that... after I saw that my grandparents are that nice to me and I do have to open my eye since I have to be more mature.

That's what I think...

But all that was just torn apart when my best friend raped my girlfriend just in front of my eyes when I was just going to get home. I knew that he stalked her, but she already rejected him tons of times, but look at the condition now.

Not only that, one of the girls in the office was pointing at me at the mistake she did and I get fired at that instant, in that mistake she did, she almost burned down the office. Now I'm a neet, living by myself in Akihabara.

What happened to my girlfriend, you ask?

She's long gone, I tried many times to console her and be with her. And it's a fact that it's my mistake not to protect her on her way home. But in the end of her suffering, she gets the rope on her neck.... if you get what I mean. She cannot withstand the pain.

I was not there, not to even be with her...

I'm now shoving myself with mangas and animes as much as I could, something both my grandpa and I loves to read and watch when I'm living at their house, to hopefully run my mind away from what happened.

I used half of my pension money to pay the rent and bought all the things I need to fortify myself from the outside world and from anything that could remind me of what happened in my past.

Is it the end?

Did I die from malnourishment? Since I'm eating only cup ramen? Did I suffer from the nightmare of the past and finally get the same end as were my girlfriend got? Oh, I tell you, it didn't end that wat. I swear it, it didn't end that way.

Because I often play games and watch anime and read mangas about some stuff like alchemy and witchcraft. It made me thinking of doing what I'm really aspire to do since I'm young. That is to research a new medicine.

I spend some of the pension money I used to invest on some stocks and bought a nice and private laboratory where I live now and bought some appliances and raw chemical compounds.

I will turn my anime-infested brain back to my science user self and turn my goals into researching the cure of illnesses.

At least, that's what I planned to do for the rest of my life...

Until... I saw some of kindergarten students trapped in a bank robbery nearby when I was doing grocery, they're just standing still, shocked in front of a guy with a gun. What I see on that scene, in my mind, was myself when I get a gun pointed at my head by my own dad.

Without anymore thinking, I run at them, since they are pointing a gun at them. They're already putting their fingers on the trigger, going to shoot them. I rushed in front of the kids and stopped some bullets for them. I painfully withstood the pain, and rushed to grab the children and run away as fast as I can from the bank to the nearby police officer standing outside, they're safe now. At least I hope so.

"Are you okay, sir? Call the ambulance!!"

I heard a voice with a tone of worry. Oh, that's the police. It's gonna be fine from them now, that's what I thought.

I gazed my eyes on my body, smuthered in blood with bullet shots everywhere I look. I smiled, At least I died protecting someone this time...

And I do know, what I did is not enough to amend the sin I made for not protecting my girlfriend. I hope she's welcoming me to the other side with a smile and I expect my grandparents come to embrace me and tell me that I did my best in this life.

My body feels like it's burning and I'm very exhausted. Rush of my memories of my life comes trough my mind. All my dreams and ambitions just got torn to bits and my only relationship I have was ripped apart by my best friend friend. But, at least, I did my best, right?

Or did I really?

The last thing I saw, is one of the kids that I saved, and the girl was sobbing heavily.

"Thank you...for saving me..."

I smiled at her, it's okay... her gentle voice will be the best parting gift to the end of this worthless life and guide me in the darkness of the death. I think I heard some quote that says:

"An elephant dies leaving its tusk, a tiger dies leaving its stripes, and a man dies leaving his name"

The meaning was "Everyone who has died will surely be remembered according to his deeds and efforts in the world"

Well, that doesn't have any meaning at all now, because I don't know what'll happen now? But at least I know...

My name is Matsuoka Masayoshi...

I died as a hero... *chuckles* no... a loser...

>End of Chapter