The Raven Dark Hero 1

Chapter 1: The man who longed to be hero

TL: SummerPeanut

Author’s note:

※Corrected the description for self-evaluation!

※Azusa Haruka’s words and actions towards Kouki have been made slightly milder

April 2070 AD. New Tokyo Port area.

Suou Kouki, a boy who was raised by a very ordinary father and mother. He is also an ordinary 17 years old that attends a high school in Tokyo.

His appearance is above average. While his academic ability is average, he is confident with his athletic ability. He is not gloomy nor bright personality-wise and even though he is not the type that would gather the attention in his class, he is also not the type bullied either. An ordinary high school student that could be found anywhere that is not especially diligent but also has no conduct problems. That is how he evaluated himself.

And, unfortunately, he had not awakened his “gift” ability.

On that day, his fate...and the fate of the world...began to change dramatically.

April 7th, morning.

"Bon appétit…”

Suou Kouki munched on a loaf of freshly baked bread languidly while yawning.

His home was a 20-year-old house. His father had bought the house because his relatives who had originally lived there were moving away, and it was a perfectly ordinary property.

Today is the start of a new school year, and Kouki will be a sophomore in his high school.

During the spring break, he spent his nights playing social games, leading a life where day and night was reversed for him. But on this particular day his mother had beaten him awake, and he reluctantly dressed up before finally sitting down in the kitchen.

On the TV morning news, there was an update on the currently trending topic of the “Nature Stranger”, a specialist unit of the National Defense Force, defeating the “phenom monster” that had appeared in Tokyo.

The Nature Strangers are a unit made up of only "elementalists (people with nature abilities)" from among the soldiers of the National Defense Force, and they are a five-member unit garbed in costumes that are not like that of soldiers but more to appeal to children.

The five members are the leader Red (fire), the cool Blue (water), the kind-hearted Green (wind), the mood-maker Yellow (thunder), and the goddess of healing White (light), and they are now nationally known as “heroes”.

In this country, there are two organizations that fight against phenoms and the supernatural criminals, filths.

The first is the "National Defense Force". This group of specialists employed by the country was originally the Self-Defence Forces reformed to counter the phenoms with various authorities given under the newly stipulated law. This is also the organization that was the first to be acknowledged as an army in Japan.[1]

The second is the police. The organizational structure is the same as that of the conventional police but it has special investigators such as the Anti-Phenom Task Force and the Anti-Filth Crime Task Force. Incidentally, two-thirds of all police officers are specialists in one way or another but the more capable ones tend to be in the National Defense Forces.

Both of these organizations belong to the nation and although they have slightly different parent organizations, they are officially cooperating with each other and have never been on bad terms.

Roughly speaking, the police deal with various everyday matters involving phenoms and violent criminals like filths, while the National Defense Force deals with cases that cannot be dealt by the police and matters of a national scale.

These people who fight for the country, for people, and for justice are called gifted(or specialists).

“Nature Stranger….. Wearing those full body tights, are they not embarrassed at all…”

Kouki muttered so but he didn't really mean it.

He wasn’t able to awaken his ability. Basically, a gifted would develop their gifts by the age of 15. The probability of awakening is one out of every ten people, and that gift is known to be alms from God.

In terms of probability, the number of people who have their own gift is not small. However, there are many different types of gifts, some of which enriches our lives, some contributes greatly to society, and also those that can be dangerous if misused.

It is said that only one in a thousand people awaken to a gift that would be chosen to enter the National Defense Force, and most people only awaken to a gift that makes their daily life a little better.

Because the timing of the onset of the abilities by the age 15 varies from person to person, the government conducts regular checks to prevent any missed discovery of a gifted. If an individual is recognized as a gifted person, his or her gift will be examined, and the government will give priority to those who have awakened a useful gifted ability, and will place them in jobs that match their gift. This is also one of the aspects to prevent gifteds from committing crimes however the number of crimes did not decrease.

If a talented gift owner who was appointed by the government quits his or her job...and runs away, the government will label them as "stray filth" and treats them as criminals even if they have not committed any crime.

In fact, many stray filths tend to become criminals or terrorists, and there are even vicious criminal organizations centered on filths, making them a threat to the world along with phenom.

Ever since he was a child, Kouki wanted to be a specialist(hero). He wished so strongly...very strongly.

It wasn't that he had a strong sense of justice or that he really wanted to protect someone. He just wanted to be a specialist, because he wanted to use his gift in a cool way, because he wanted to be admired and respected. His desire for so was really strong. Although his motives may have been impure but his feelings were, again, really strong.

However, after graduating from secondary and before entering high school, the result of his final ability test was...no ability.

Even since then, although Kouki had been treating his family and friends as per normal on the surface, deep down he felt that everything had become irrelevant.

Apathy. He couldn't even find the meaning of life anymore. But he felt that suicide is foolish, not to mention he doesn’t have the guts to do it.

“...I, don't give a shit about everything anymore…”

Kouki who was eating his bread as he murmured suddenly felt a shock running through him.

“As if you can not care about everything! Your brain is already bad so hurry up and go to school and prepare yourself for lessons!”

My mother, Makie, was standing with a tray under her arm.

“Mom, that hurts! I’m not stupid, you know? I was ranked 75th out of 150 students in the end of the year test during my first year!”

“Your everything is average! Aren’t you just like your father?!”

Sitting beside Kouki while reading the newspaper was the father, Sadaharu. An awkward look was reflected from his face.

“Ah! I didn't mean to speak ill of your father, okay? R-right! He can do just about anything on average! Just being able to do so is incredible!”

“.....do you really think so? Dear?”

“Of course, dear...”

The two of them gazed at each other hand in hand...

“...so stupid. I’m leaving first~”

It was a little painful for high school boys to see their parents so lovey-dovey even at their age.

With this usual scene beside him, Kouki opened the entrance door and headed for school.

The irregular rest time during the vacations had taken its toll on him. Thus he still looked sleepy. But today is the new school year. What if he met a cute new student and ended up going out with her....heheheh...and such fantasies filled up his head. He is still a normal boy who has just reached puberty.

Although he is mostly apathetic, he probably still has the same average libido like most do. While he is fantasizing, a group of three consisting of a man and two women approached him from behind.

“Good morning, Kouki! You seem to be in a good mood this morning.”

“...Yo, Hiro. I was definitely in a good mood until I saw your face…”

This man's name is Sanada Hiro. Not only is he so picturesquely handsome, but his name is also hero.

Seeing him Kouki unconsciously leaked his sarcasm while gazes mixed with anger were sent to him from both arms of Hiro.

“You're still so strict on Hiro-sama as ever, Kouki-san. Oh, I thought you along with your personality prefer not to interact with people?”

“Huh...Kouki, Hiro is always taking care of you just because you're his childhood friend. You should be more grateful to Hiro.”

Ijuin Haruka, the female student who is entwining herself to Hiro's right arm. Her father is the director of a large hospital, in other words she is a well-bred young lady.

Meanwhile the other girl entangled to his left arm is Asakura Azusa. She is in the tennis club and a winner for the city-wide tennis tournament, popular among males and females. She is also a childhood friend of Kouki and Hiro.

These two beautiful girls do not hide their fondness for Hiro and are always acting together. Most of the time they are like cat and dog but when a common enemy (mostly females who showed interest to Hiro) appeared, they would collude together to the point as if they could explode with a skylab hurricane.[2]

From these two’s perspective who always followed Hiro, Kouki is someone who abused his position as his best friend and is rude to Hiro despite his kindness to him.

In other words, these girls think they themselves are more than enough for Hiro. They truly believed so. They say love is blind or something...

By the way from Kouki’s perspective, Hiro is nothing but a hindrance that brings annoying troubles to him.

“They're as noisy as ever. Please don't get involved with me.”

“Hahahaha! What an enjoyable morning!”

“There’s no way it’s enjoyable! You thick-headed harem bastard”

“...excuse me, I can’t pretend not to hear that… I don’t find it pleasant to be mentioned on the same line with the word harem...”

“What! Kouki! Did u say something?!”

(Oh, shut up. It's going to be another morning like this~ I'm getting sick of everything...)

The delusions Kouki had in his head was blown away. ...However, it is at times like this that the wheel of fate starts to move.

As Kouki walked, a figure suddenly jumped out from the corner of the street and collided with him.

“Whoa!”“Kyaa?!”

As he was deep in thoughts (mainly about complaints to Hiro), he couldn’t even catch himself before hitting the ground.

“Oo..ouch. Be more care...”

His mouth stopped as he was about to utter his complaints. There was a beautiful girl with short-cut hair landed on her rear similarly to him.[3]

(C-cute. Huh? She’s wearing our school uniform but was there such a cute girl again? Don’t tell me, she’s a new transfer student?)

Kouki almost fell in love at first sight with the beautiful girl who bumped into him. The situation itself is the classic template and he felt some kind of string of fate as well but...

“Are you okay?”

It was not Kouki but Hiro who gave a hand to the beautiful girl who was still on the ground.

“Eh? Oh...I’m fine. I’m sorry for bumping you”

The beautiful girl apologized to Hiro with a blush on her cheeks.

(...I'm the one who bumped into her though...)

“Are you hurt anywhere? ...Huh? Seems like we're from the same school. It's weird though, I think I would have met a girl as cute as you at least once before…”

It was a remark that would make one flabbergasted but Hiro had no intention of hitting on this beautiful girl, nor did he want to act cool. He just purely said what he had on his mind and this is the reason why he is called the harem mass production machine.

Kouki was looking at the scene with a certain confidence on his face.

It's always the same. There's no way that anything dramatic will happen to me. Those kinds of things can only happen to a hero like Hiro.

As he came into his own conclusion, Kouki got up and left the place as quickly as he could.

“Ah, uhm…”

The beautiful girl tried to call out to him. But her voice did not reach Kouki.

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TL’s note:

1. Apparently Japan isn’t allowed legally to have an army. Someone tell me how is JSDF not an army.
2. 
3.