Chapter 170: Opportunity

The advantage of being of one body and mind was that Hiroyuki did not need to explain his thoughts to Taiga for the latter to understand them clearly. Yet Taiga found it hard to chime in with any casual remarks; what could he even say?

"Who am I?"

Wasn't this the ultimate philosophical question?
What kind of conclusion could two young fellows like them possibly hash out here?
Hiroyuki had almost plunged himself hopelessly into fear and guilt. Just thinking about it, if he had been able to transform during those previous incidents, the difficulty level of those quests would have dropped straight to beginner status, easily cleared with minimal effort.
Yet it was because he had been holding them back...
Wait?
Hiroyuki abruptly sat up straight, turned his head, and asked Taiga, "When exactly did you wake up?"

"Huh?"
Taiga was caught completely off guard by the question. He let out a single "huh" and was momentarily struck speechless. His silence seemed like a careful recollection before he said uncertainly, "Well... around the time of the rocket base, I guess. I woke up a bit then, but I was just in that hazy state... Can you even call that being awake?"
Under Hiroyuki's gaze, Taiga grew increasingly guilty and quickly added, "It was only after we entered Noah's Dream Sanctuary that I felt a bit better."

Hiroyuki's train of thought was quite simple: since the two of them were now merged into two-in-one, their emotions should, at the very least, resonate to some degree, even if they weren't completely synchronized. Could all that fear, anxiety, and guilt possibly have originated entirely from his own consciousness as "Hiroyuki"?
At this thought, Hiroyuki immediately felt there was something fishy going on. He probed tentatively, and seeing that Taiga was stumped by his question, he became even more certain of a certain suspicion in his heart, pressing further: "Are you planning to go back? What do you think about this? That thing my father—your father—mentioned, about letting you go back to take the Inter Galactic Defense Force exam, the kind without the black box."

Taiga simply lowered his head and counted ants.
Hiroyuki nudged Taiga with his elbow. "Do you think our current strength is enough to handle the Defense Force exam without any issues?"
Hearing this, Taiga's momentum flared up instantly. He stopped counting ants, clenched his fist, and declared, "Shouldn't be a problem."
He said it with absolute conviction.
"There's no problem with combat. Combat is an instinct or common sense to me. I can fight, and I should be very strong."
Even though he, like Hiroyuki, had lost his past memories, it wasn't as if he had directly regressed to infancy. Many amnesiacs still knew how to walk and write, and their language skills were basically fine; they didn't need to relearn everything from scratch.
Without the black box meant that this time Taro wouldn't deliberately fail him. With Taiga's strength, the combat portion wouldn't be an issue, leaving only the written test to be somewhat troublesome. No matter how outstanding Taiga had been in the past, this trip amounted to a factory reset, and he would probably have to cram a mountain of subjects.

Yet that wasn't the real issue.

The first sentence Hiroyuki had asked was—"Are you planning to go back?"
Hiroyuki judged others by his own standards. He himself could no longer go back; although he never denied that he was Hiroyuki, he knew in his heart that the past was irretrievable, and his current predicament was largely the side effect of his decision to "play the role of Hiroyuki."
What about Taiga then? When interacting with Soya Homare and the others, Taiga keeping him pushed to the forefront was something Hiroyuki could understand. But what was the deal with Taiga still keeping him at the forefront when dealing with the Captain, Zero, and even his biological father, Taro?
Hiroyuki had already taken a stroll through the Land of Light, and yet Taiga hadn't made a single peep. Hiroyuki had assumed Taiga was still fast asleep, but looking at it now, hadn't he been awake for a long time? He had merely been in the state of someone on a freezing winter morning, glancing outside before pulling the covers back over his head and going right back to sleep.

Chastised by Hiroyuki's "you're being far too unloyal" gaze, Taiga buried his head directly into the throw pillow in his hands.
"I was just... not used to it."
Hiroyuki wasn't used to no longer being purely human, but could a Giant of Light easily get used to becoming a four-dimensional entity?
This wasn't a matter of "turning back," nor was Taiga his old self anymore.
When it all came down to it, everyone had changed.
Taiga also felt that he hadn't behaved very honorably. Although he was half-asleep, he had allowed himself to drift in that hazy state—in truth, he could have jumped right out of the covers the moment he threw off the blanket—yet he had still left Hiroyuki out in the cold to bear the brunt of things. But who could blame him when Hiroyuki had woken up first?

Just like Hiroyuki, Taiga had also read the script.
What was his goal? What was his vision? In truth, he agreed with the answer provided by the screenwriter. His objective was to grow into someone who could face up to his identity as the son of Taro, whether that meant achieving great deeds on Earth, protecting universal peace, or fighting against Tregear. The ultimate goal was to prove himself worthy of the identity of "Taro's son."
In the original drama, he had never thought about trying to understand Tregear precisely because it wasn't in the same direction as his goal.
Realizing this, Taiga felt a sense of sudden enlightenment. Thinking back on the awkwardness he had kicked up in the audio dramas and stage plays over past years, he felt a bit red in the face. How childish; he wished he could just delete those memories. Once this matter was laid bare, it wasn't anything profound, and Taiga's mindset settled down as well. His original purpose had been to be "Taro's good son," but now, his goal had transformed into "being a good version of himself." This new goal encompassed the previous one; as long as Taiga did a good job being himself, he would naturally fulfill the role of "Taro's son" as well.

And so, the path before Taiga opened up wide.
For exactly one second.
"Being a good version of yourself"—this goal was far vaster than "being Taro's good son." The boundaries of the original goal had at least been within reach, but now this new objective had suddenly expanded beyond all limits, and Taiga instantly stopped thinking.

When both people wanted to run away, it simply came down to who could escape more thoroughly.
Now that the crux of the problem had been located, the next step was to find a solution. The experiences of predecessors were still worth referencing, Hiroyuki thought.
"How about I go jump off a building and see what happens?" Hiroyuki asked tentatively.
"That definitely won't work. The one who doesn't want to transform right now is you. What use would it be if you jumped?" Taiga still had his face buried in the throw pillow, his voice muffled. "If we're really going to jump, we need to swap—I'll go jump."

"Then I'd definitely be able to watch you jump down with a clear conscience." Hiroyuki directly crossed out that option. "Can a Giant of Light even be killed by a fall?"
Using that method wouldn't force his hand.

The two young fellows continued to sit side by side in the void, sighing heavily.
"Actually, I think this whole thing is quite simple."
Taiga felt that they needed to sort the matter out from the beginning; jumping straight to a conclusion definitely wouldn't work.
"Hiroyuki wants to protect the Earth too, right?" Taiga intended to tackle the issue from the angle of Hiroyuki subconsciously refusing to transform.
"Of course. It's my home, after all," Hiroyuki nodded.
"Just like now, if monster disasters happen on Earth, and monsters keep appearing to destroy the city..."
"..." Hiroyuki smacked his lips with a subtle expression, beginning to count on his fingers: "Uncle Oda, Beelzebub, Fuma, Titus, Geed..."
There was even Tregear, and Taro...
Taiga choked as well.

Right, the lineup on this current Earth was far too all-star. If a monster appeared that even all of those people together couldn't handle, and Hiroyuki had to be coerced into transforming with him just to solve it, Taiga would rather such a monster didn't exist. After all, the destruction caused by a monster that powerful would be quite substantial and could lead to massive casualties.
"If none of them were around, it would be fine... opportunities would be everywhere," Hiroyuki said, half-jokingly and half-regretfully. These people were all brought back by him, yet now they had become his safe haven for slacking off.
However, speaking of this, Hiroyuki vaguely caught a sliver of inspiration. He paused and then said, "Wait, isn't the inside of this Dream Sanctuary...?"

Taiga also lifted his head from the throw pillow.
The two of them suddenly realized that the territory they currently inhabited—this dream of a deity—wasn't it precisely a place where Fuma and the others couldn't extend a helping hand and they had to rely entirely on themselves?
They could perhaps pin all their combat duties on Uncle Oda, sitting back and waiting for him to successfully pass the trial, transform into Nexus, and eliminate that meatball-shaped Space Beast, while they continued to slack off.
Yet, it was entirely possible for the situation to develop in the exact opposite direction... which was that Uncle Oda's trial might not go smoothly. Perhaps in a little while, pressed by the circumstances, they would be forced to take action—either fighting alone, or teaming up with Nexus to fight the Space Beast!

This was... an opportunity!