Truth? What was... the truth?

Reo didn't understand.

"You can't remember the last time that you saw your real mother Hinako Tachibana because you intentionally forgot.

"You can't remember the real appearance of the 'mother' that accompanied you here for so long because you never truly looked at her for who she was."

Seiji talked to Reo using the gentlest—yet serious—tone he could.

"You're dreaming, Reo-chan. This is your dream world, not reality. You've been having a really long dream."

Reo didn't know what to say.

She heard what Brother Harano said to her, but she didn't understand.

'I'm dreaming? How is that possible...'

"In this dream, you believed that your mother Hinako Tachibana was still alive and treated another person as your mother. Even if she told things to you herself, you couldn't accept it.

"You treated her as your mother, but you didn't actually listen to her at all or see her for who she truly was.

"This was a terrible thing to do to her."

'This can't be,' Reo thought. 'This can't be possible...'

"Her name is actually Mayuzumi Amami. She was your mother's high school cla.s.smate. You forced her to act as your mother, which made her suffer.

"She didn't hate you for this. She just felt that having you continue like this wasn't good, so she hoped that you would be able to become braver and stronger, so that you didn't have to dream anymore, so that you could face reality."

'It's false. This is all a big lie...'

Seiji looked deeply at Reo, who was obviously confused.

"Look at me!" he suddenly boomed.

Reo trembled involuntarily, spooked by the abrupt noise. She focused her gaze on the boy in front of her again.

"Don't run away, because this is impossible to run away from! Don't avert your gaze, because you must look at it! Don't think that this is just a lie, because this is the truth!"

Seiji looked into Reo's eyes and continued in a powerful voice: "Even though you are just a child, if you meet with something like this, you still need to face it head on.

"This is cruel. This is painful. However, it has to be this way, because there's no running away from the truth. Be brave, be strong, Reo."

If possible, Seiji would have preferred to use white lies to fool her and let her know the truth once she was slightly older.

But due to the mysterious power, this was no longer possible.

'I'm sorry...' he apologized inwardly.

"I know that you don't want to accept or admit it, but... you saw it for yourself, and you actually realize it as well. It's just that you've always been lying to and deceiving yourself.

"If things continue like this, your heart will eventually break. I want you to get better! I'd like to be able to play and laugh together with you in real life rather than living like this in a dream."

Seiji tried his utmost to express his heartfelt feelings within his message.

"Brother Harano..." Reo looked at him; she felt his heartfelt intentions.

"Listen well, Reo-chan," Seiji said. "The truth of the matter in real life is actually... your mother Hinako Tachibana has actually died already. Together with your father Kazuya Tachibana... you were there at the scene."

Reo's mind went blank upon hearing this.

'Mommy... is already dead? Together with Daddy? Impossible...'

However, some memories gradually resurfaced.

b.l.o.o.d.y streaks, broken car seats, a terrible stench, snacks scattered all over with blood trails on them...

"Wahhhhhhh!" She was scared to the point where she suddenly screamed.

That was because those memories were so clear; it was if they had really happened.

They had indeed happened!

She didn't want to admit it, but that was what her memory was telling her.

This was the truth.

"Reo..." her bloodstreaked mother said, looking at her. "I'm sorry..."

Her eyes lost the light of life.

"Mommy!!!!!"

There was nothing but icy darkness. In it, something tremendous and fearsome rushed over her...

*Boom!*

Seiji broke out of the apartment.

He was forced to do so, as Reo had transformed into her dark form and integrated into the apartment.

He wanted to say something more to her, but numerous monsters suddenly appeared, forcing him to escape.

From outside, he could see that the entire apartment had turned into what resembled a monster nest. Many gigantic tentacles with eyes and sharp teeth were waving from the apartment building, and countless gray-black shadowy figures were flying out from there. The apartment's resident NPCs had also transformed into monstrous forms.

Even his Iron Man armor could barely stand up to their attacks. Seiji immediately imagined himself in a huge robot that was equipped with a full array of gatling guns and floating cannons!

It managed to impede the monster nest's attacks, but the effectiveness was limited.

With the monster nest as the centre, darkness rushed out in all directions. It turned everything it touched into something out of a Lovecraftian horror. Just looking at them would drain anyone's sanity meter at a rapid pace!

Fortunately, Seiji had a resolute spirit, so his sanity value would drop rather slowly.

He suddenly had the idea to imagine a filter!

Seiji immediately installed a filter for anything too disgusting or horrifying in the robot's display screen...

'Hey, it seems even worse now that everything is only mosaics!'

He tried switching the filter to holy light mode, but to his chagrin, it almost blinded him.

Then he tried switching to a beautifying mode like what many cell phone apps could do... er, he supposed that he could tolerate this.

'Let's go with this then!'

After Seiji took care of the matter of his vision, he was able to fight wholeheartedly.

However, the rate of everything darkening was too quick. Enemy monsters were multiplying exponentially, and humongous monsters were beginning to appear as well.

He really wanted to cast some sort of ultimate ability to clear everything away, but he was unable to use such high-level spells in the soul realm without Natsuya's support.

Just as Seiji was beginning to get disadvantaged, a long monorail, several gigantic airs.h.i.+ps, and approximately ten strange-shaped flying dragons arrived.

On the monorail, the airs.h.i.+ps, and the dragons were countless numbers of well-armed characters from Honey Candy Girl!

Girls armed with swords, knives, guns, staves, claws, cannons, whips, axes, hammers, and spears... well, there were only girls because Mayuzumi could only draw girl characters.

There were also various ferociously impressive mythological creatures!

As they approached, all these characters drew their weapons, jumped down onto the ground, and began attacking the monsters while making cool poses!!

This was an impressive sight to behold.

It seemed just like a royal army!

"Haruta-kun!" Mayuzumi waved from on top of the monorail to the huge robot.

"Sensei!" Seiji had his robot wave back at her.

Beside Mayuzumi was the angel-attired "Seiji." He carried Mayuzumi in his arms as he flew down from the monorail and approached the robot.

Seiji welcomed them into his robot's c.o.c.kpit.

Mayuzumi's complexion didn't seem so good.

She had been suffering from nightmares all these days. Fortunately, she resisted to the best of her abilities. With her strong resolution, she was able to persist.

Meanwhile, she continued to persuade NPCs to fight for her cause. With the number of Honey Candy Girl characters that she had gathered, it was basically an army.

'Amazing!' This was Seiji's honest opinion.

"Reo is inside that apartment that's turned into a monster nest. We need to defeat the monster nest! We have to find her and be able to talk to her again." He immediately briefed the situation Mayuzumi.

"Sensei, try to use your imagination to prevent the darkness from spreading. If that's not possible, then just command your army to the best of your ability!"

"Okay!" Mayuzumi nodded in agreement.

This was to be a battle.

Their objective was to suppress Reo's dark form and do their best to convince her.

The Honey Candy Girl army began their fierce offense. Every character had enormous strength and excellent cooperation, which further improved their combat strength.

Seiji was astounded that Sensei had successfully "trained" them to such an extent.

The monsters that were transformed by the darkness were instantly destroyed like they were nothing more than cannon fodder. Numerous ultimate abilities the likes of which were rarely seen in anime were continuously being cast, lighting up the sky with dazzling flashes.

If only a picture could be taken of this scene, it would definitely seem like an epic scene of an army of heroes facing off against the minions of evil!

Seiji wished that there was some background music playing for this scene.

To Seiji's surprise, some heart-pounding music blared throughout the city due to his pa.s.sing thought!

Seiji wasn't sure if it was just a mistaken impression or not, but to him it seemed that the Honey Candy Girl characters' attacks grew even fiercer after the music started, as if they were affected.

Even if it was just a mistaken impression, what they needed the most right now was momentum!

At the climax of the music, Seiji had his robot shoot out a large number of missiles towards the monster nest, which destroyed countless numbers of monsters and tentacles with explosions, helping to push forward the line of combat.

"Reo, we won't be losing this battle!" he yelled spiritedly.