Prologue
The sky was filled with black smoke.
Flames consumed what remained of a city that had been reduced to a sea of rubble.
Buildings collapsed, roads lay shattered, and explosions continued to shake the horizon. The war was still raging, but the outcome no longer mattered.
Because above the burning sky, a missile was flying.
Not an ordinary missile.
A nuclear warhead.
If it reached its destination, millions of lives would vanish in an instant.
Inside the cockpit of a fighter jet illuminated by countless red warning lights, a man stared directly at the warhead without the slightest hesitation.
His name was Izumi Yanagi.
A thirty-eight-year-old soldier.
Alarms blared endlessly.
His aircraft had already suffered critical damage.
System after system was failing.
Yet Izumi did not care.
His eyes remained fixed on the target ahead.
The nuclear warhead.
"Hah..."
A quiet breath escaped his lips.
Instead of fear, a faint smile appeared on his face.
"So this is the end."
His hand slowly brushed across the control panel of the aircraft that had accompanied him through countless battlefields.
He had lost track of how many times this machine had saved his life.
How many times he had returned from places that should have become his grave.
But this time was different.
This time, he knew he would not be coming back.
Strangely enough, he felt no sadness.
Instead, a sense of nostalgia slowly filled his mind.
Memories long buried began to resurface.
He saw himself as a child.
It was a day he would never forget.
Their house had been crowded with guests.
People arrived carrying flowers and gifts.
Flags fluttered along the streets.
Everyone was smiling.
Everyone was cheering.
Because his father had just been promoted to the rank of General.
A hero of war.
Young Izumi stood by the front door with shining eyes.
The moment a military vehicle stopped in front of the house, he ran toward it as fast as he could.
"Dad!"
A tall man wearing a uniform covered in medals laughed loudly before lifting the boy into the air.
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"I'm home, Izumi!"
The child's eyes were filled with admiration.
Military uniforms.
Medals of honor.
The cheers of the people.
To him, they looked magnificent.
It was then that he had his first dream.
One day, I want to be like Dad.
That night, his father gave him many gifts.
Not robots.
Not toy cars.
Not the games children his age usually enjoyed.
Instead, he received miniature tanks.
Fighter jets.
Battleships.
Helicopters.
And hundreds of toy soldiers.
His eyes immediately sparkled.
He became so absorbed in playing with them that he almost forgot about dinner.
"Dad, what's this?"
"That's a tank."
"What about this one?"
"A fighter jet."
"And this?"
"A battleship."
Question after question poured from his mouth, and his father answered every single one with patience.
That night marked the beginning of everything.
The beginning of his love for the military.
The memory shifted once more.
This time, he saw his mother.
A gentle woman who always smiled whenever she saw his curiosity.
If his father gave him toys,
his mother gave him knowledge.
Every week, there would be a new book waiting on his desk.
Books about survival.
Books about military history.
Books about battlefield strategy.
Books about firearms.
Books about tanks.
Books about warships.
Books about fighter aircraft.
Books about missiles.
Even books that explained nuclear weapons.
While other children read fairy tales before bed,
Izumi read vehicle specifications.
While other children memorized fictional heroes,
Izumi memorized the names of fighter jets and weapons systems.
The more he learned,
the greater his admiration for human warfare became.
To him, weapons were not merely tools of destruction.
They were the pinnacle of human ingenuity.
Proof that humanity could create something extraordinary.
Time continued to pass.
Izumi grew older.
The memories accelerated.
Training endlessly.
Studying late into the night.
Entering a military academy.
Graduating at the top of his class.
Becoming a soldier.
Then an officer.
Then a warrior of countless battlefields.
He witnessed victory.
He witnessed defeat.
He witnessed death.
Again.
And again.
And again.
His comrades fell.
His superiors fell.
His subordinates fell.
Yet every time war tried to break him,
he loved it even more.
War was his life.
The battlefield sky was his home.
Weapons were his passion.
And the battlefield was the place where he felt most alive.
In the end, he became like his father.
No.
He became something greater.
A true soldier.
Suddenly, the alarm dragged him back to reality.
BEEP!
BEEP!
BEEP!
Izumi blinked.
The nuclear warhead was now directly in front of him.
The distance between them had become dangerously small.
Too small.
He knew exactly what would happen in the next few seconds.
Yet there was no fear within him.
Only peace.
He had lived the life he wanted.
He had achieved his dream.
From a boy playing with toy tanks...
To a soldier facing a nuclear weapon head-on.
A faint smile appeared on his lips.
"I guess..."
His grip tightened around the control stick.
"...I lived a good life."
The engine roared one final time.
Izumi pushed the throttle forward.
The fighter jet shot ahead like an arrow toward the glowing warhead in the distance.
Closer.
Closer.
And closer.
Until—
A white light filled his vision.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!
The light swallowed everything.
His aircraft vanished.
His body vanished.
Even sound itself vanished.
Only darkness remained.
A silence so complete that it felt suffocating.
...
Izumi slowly opened his eyes.
All he could see was an endless void.
No sky.
No ground.
No stars.
No direction.
It was as if the universe itself had disappeared.
"Hm."
He calmly observed his surroundings.
No panic.
No shock.
Only an attempt to understand the situation.
Then a voice echoed through the void.
Soft.
Melodious.
Yet so majestic that the empty space itself seemed to tremble.
"Interesting."
Izumi turned toward the source.
For the first time since opening his eyes, his expression changed slightly.
A woman stood not far away.
Her long hair flowed like starlight.
The white dress she wore appeared to be woven from entire galaxies.
Her golden eyes contained something beyond description.
Beauty.
Terror.
Divinity.
All intertwined into a single existence.
Izumi had witnessed many things throughout his life.
Nuclear explosions.
Battlefields.
Death.
Yet he had never seen anything like this.
Even her existence felt irrational.
As though reality itself refused to comprehend what stood before him.
The woman smiled faintly.
A smile capable of toppling kingdoms and dimming the stars.
"Very few souls continue walking toward death when everyone else chooses to run."
Izumi stared at her for several seconds.
Then calmly asked,
"...So I'm dead?"
The woman nodded.
"Yes."
"Hm."
Izumi slipped both hands into his pockets.
"Not bad."
For the first time, the woman's expression froze.
Then—
She laughed.
A laugh so beautiful that it felt unreal.
"Fufu..."
"I like that answer."
It had been a very long time since anything had captured her interest.
So long that she had forgotten what curiosity felt like.
Yet the human standing before her was different.
He was not afraid.
He did not beg.
He did not cry.
He was not angry.
Even after learning that he had died, the only thing he said was—
"Not bad."