As I walked down the familiar flight of stairs, I was greeted with the same sight that greeted me yesterday and saw that Shiro was walking behind me with a smile.
As we walked towards the chairs, I saw that my father was about to ask the same question he did yesterday.
"Aki, are you ready for school tomorrow?" asked my father as I morphed my face into one that is sad.
"Don't be so sad, it will be fun from what I heard" said my mother as me and Shiro got on our seats.
"Sigh, well I'm not in pain anymore so maybe it would be fun," I said as I noticed that I said one wrong thing in that line and cursed in my mind.
"That's the spirit, now go eat your food, we don't want you to be weak and frail again," said my father as he scooped up a bowl of rice for me and filled it near to the brim.
"Oh honey, what if he can't finish his food?" said my mother.
"I'll eat his leftovers," said my father as my mother chuckled.
I then repeated the same actions as yesterday trying to replicate it the best as I can and luckily enough, the interaction generally went the same as yesterday with me only noticing some small little changes that I could remember.
As I carried Shiro back to his room and kissed him on the forehead, I went back to my room and hurriedly put on my Gtech Glasses and surfed the web.
"… There seem to be no signs of systems, no signs of the monsters from the rifts, Zoran, how do I get in contact with Zoran right now? Wait… is he even the one who can loop? Can he loop again? Is this a one-time thing?" I muttered and started to rack my brain trying to remember all of the stuff that will happen tomorrow.
"When it was morning, I woke up with a weird feeling on my soul, after that, I got the power to somehow give Gifts, then the system" I muttered and opened my status.
[Akihiko Tanaka] [Title: ]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Hunter]
[Gift: Hardening(Epic) Teleportation(Epic) Shape Shift(Epic) Bug Manipulation(Epic) Air Cannon(Rare) Flight(Rare) Fist Enlargement(Rare) Knife Hand(Uncommon) Flame Body(Common)]
[Body: D]
[Mind: B]
[Energy: S]
[Skills: ]
"The Gifts I got yesterday is still there, but the Gifts of my undead isn't retrieved, but my soul is full so maybe there are some hidden mechanics I don't know, maybe in the future my undead could also go back in time with me if the loop repeats. But the unknown stuff is skills, do they also go back in time with me?" I muttered and sighed at the unknown variables that rapidly appeared out of nowhere.
"I also haven't considered what would happen if I have too many Gifts, would it break my mind or soul? … This is much more dangerous than I have thought, tomorrow, I need to confront Zoran and if he is the looper, I'll kill him in an instant, he won't be able to catch up to me even if he runs away with my ability to create undead, steal Gifts, and much more" I muttered and lied down on my bed with a contemplative look.
"Let's just take care of this tomorrow" I muttered and took off my glasses, lay them down on the table beside me and closed my eyes, and went to sleep.
(The Next Day)
As I was taking a shower inside the bathroom, I started to think of what may happen with Zoran.
Either he will act he didn't loop, or he will say some stuff that will indicate he did loop and that's when I will heal him and instantly kill him with the bug, but if he's not that looper… then I might be facing a secret force I wouldn't be able to contend with.
If one of my theories is true, then he might have reverted time on a universal scale and the being backing that looper might as well be God.
But how did I get entangled in this loop? There should be some clues I could find, and the only one I could think of is the incident that happened yesterday when I woke up with that pain in my soul.
Ability to bestow and take Gifts, Loop, System, Necromancy, how are these three all connected to one another?
Are they even connected at all in the first place? What if all of these things came from different sources of power? Why would those sources of power even give us these powers in the first place?
As I sighed at how dark this world seemed to be, I put on my towel and walked back to my room to don on my Hope Academy uniform.
I did the normal stuff like last time, I ate breakfast, waited for them to finish, and after a while, I was back at the time when we were about to ride the car towards school.
"Let's go!" shouted Shiro as we stood in front of the car.
As my father entered the car and turned on the car, we followed right after him and got on our respective seats, and just like that, we drove off while we talked with each other along the way.
We first stopped by Shiro's middle school and said goodbye to him while I started my near-perfect act.
First, I started to force my body to produce sweat and acted like I was nervous and slowly escalated the sweat when we got closer and closer to Hope Academy.
"Haha! You're sweating buckets right now Aki" said my father as he looked at me from the rearview mirror.
"Really?" I said while wiping off the sweat from my forehead.
"Don't worry too much, it will be fine" said my father as he parked the car beside Hope Academy while tons of students walked by our car.
As I got out of the car, I heard my parents shouting "Goodbye!" while they drove away towards the Hospital.
With them now gone, I walked towards Hope Academy with bated breaths preparing for what was about to come and what my future plans will go on from now.
With each resounding step I took, I felt my heart pounding harder but also calmer as I finally entered my classroom and was greeted by the same sight as before.
With a casual glance, I went to sit down on my previous chair and waited for Sora to arrive and finally Zoran.
And just as expected, I saw Sora walking in with a shy demeanor, far from the iconic aura he don on when the war started against the monsters where he rushed towards the monsters with a fearless look.
As he sat down on the chair beside me, I greeted him with a casual "Hello" and told him my name.
"Hello, my name is Kamiya Sora, my family name is Kamiya," said Sora as he went for a handshake which I shook and this time, the weird feeling didn't happen and that confused me more because what changed?
"It's nice to meet you Sora, I hope we could become the best of friends," I said and waited for Zoran, and this time, he appeared at the same time as before and that gave me some doubts if he is the looper.
"Hello" greeted Zoran towards us as he sat down on the only vacant seat left.
As we said the same stuff as last time, we said our names and Gifts, talked about New World and this time, it seems like Zoran isn't the looper which just made me further confused than before because if he died at the same time… no!
I saw how he died right before my eyes but that's the problem! I should have looped the moment he died but I saw him die!
But that theory may be wrong because I don't know the specifics of the loop, but I'm now sure he's not the looper.
And just like last time, the system appeared and this is when I noticed a tiny little thing.
They can't see each other's status!
The moment I realized that people can't see other people's status, I remembered the weird feeling that happened when the system appeared which means something has changed about me that I don't know, and this time, I'm sweating buckets of cold sweat as I might be connected to the ploys of the source of this system.
Soon, the whole classroom got riled up from the sudden appearance of a system and just like last time, I shouted "ORCS!" at the top of my lungs while pointing at the rifts in the distance.
Then like clockwork, Zoran gave me a spear, Sora lifted both of us up, then with a leap, we flew out of the window as students flooded out of the building and this time, I planned to kill tons of students to amass my Gifts.
As Sora let us go, I pierce the spear to the head of a hobgoblin and continued my onslaught and as I prepared to become a secret assassin while keeping my vision on Zoran in the distance who was clearly alive… my vision suddenly turned into the black void and regained it back in the same moment and was greeted by the sight of my room.
"What?"
AN: This is 1582 words, you're welcome.
I hate myself, why did I decide that timeloops would be a fun idea to write! But because of my massive 6head, I already accounted the potential hate crimes I will do to myself in the past, present, and future.
Future authors, don't be like me, don't do some dumb shit and write things that are too hard, but I'm already experienced with writing new genres because duh, I'm a SSS Rank Timeloop Author kekekekekeke! You'll get what this means later once I reveal the plot and how much hints I have dropped inside this ANs.
But beside that hate, I also love myself for keeping this story 1st person, because this arc's main point is mystery and lack of knowledge, I'll do the occasional 3rd person here and there when I need to give some plot to the readers, but most of the time we will be stuck with Aki.
The Sword of Damocles hangs above each and everyone one of you with its ever present threat of despair, so send me some power stones with your power of friendship and save the thousands perhaps even millions to come who will read this masterpiece immortalized in the tunnels of time.
(March 29, 2022 – 125th day of writing)