Kido Hikaru's Journey Home

How awful, to die in such an embarrassing way.

As Kido Hikaru lay at death's door, he saw a blurry, distorted shadow. He didn't want everyone to grieve over his death, and he didn't want Yoshiki to be left alone, so he made a wish to the shadow.

"Lord Chuno... please stay by his side for me..."

Kido Hikaru never expected to open his eyes again, his body lifeless and every bone broken.

He had lost his human identity, but regained his awareness as a soul wrapped in impurity.

When he awoke, he wasn't on the cinnabar mountain of Shuri. He was in a hellscape beyond anything human.

A kindhearted ghost referred Kido Hikaru, and he became part of Hell. He worked hard to earn the chance to travel to the living world on business.

He was no longer alive, so he couldn't see his mother and Yoshiki again, but just visiting and making sure they were all right would put his mind at ease.

While Kido Hikaru pursued his own goals, a divine beast from Heaven told him he didn't belong to this world.

Kido Hikaru found himself a new goal.

He would return. He would travel between worlds and find his way home.

And so begins the story of a boy traveling through different worlds to get home.

World One: Hozuki's Coolheadedness

World Two: Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun

World Three: The Morose Mononokean

World Four: Natsume's Book of Friends (ongoing)

World Five: The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. or Mushishi [tentative]

P.S.

The anime adaptation of Hikaru Dies in Summer is out, so I'm celebrating with a fanfic.

Important: The protagonist is the real Hikaru, the Hikaru who dies from the start! He is not Hikaru possessed by the remnants!

The idea came from one of my theories about the plot, which many people rejected. But I think the premise is really compelling, so I decided to write it. Hikaru returned to his own world in the form of impurity. In short, in every world, the dead Hikaru exists in a nonhuman form.

This will probably be a slice-of-life story, not a hot-blooded or action-heavy one. Hikaru was an ordinary human boy when he was alive, so his combat ability is low. He is a traveler passing through different worlds, and his goal is to get home. When he's in other worlds, he treats them like stopovers on a trip, so the story will probably be fairly low-key.

The story won't cover the plot of Hikaru Dies in Summer (probably?). The story will end when Hikaru returns.

A note from the author, moved here after I wrote it in an afterword and it disappeared:

I looked closely at the latest chapter and Tanaka's explanation of the remnants, and suddenly realized MML had made me eat my words.

Souls swallowed by remnants are sent to the other world. Doesn't that make remnants soul-guides, with the added ability to purify impurity?

I thought remnants were like outer gods, beings that drive people insane. But then you tell me remnants are actually underworld officials, guiding the souls and impurity they swallow to the other side to await reincarnation.

So if my theory that Hikaru's soul was swallowed by a remnant is right, then he was guided to Hell as soon as he died, without having to suffer the hardships of wandering the human world as a ghost [I've been stabbed in the back again. So they're not underworld officials who guide souls, but the reincarnation cycle itself??]

The thing is, while I was getting stabbed in the back, I realized that most of my earlier ideas about Hikaru can actually fit the new lore. Hikaru just ended up in the wrong hell, and my earlier setup was only partly explained, so I can fill in the rest later with a flashback and some revisions. Thank goodness for me.

Anyway, I've sorted out the new lore and am comparing it with this story's setup. My brain's a little muddled, but I'm not crazy yet, haha.

-- Blurb written on 2025.7.18 --

Revised on 2026.8.8

Theme: Don't let grief over the dead consume you