Shattering Humanity-Chapter 126: Love At First Strike

What is a mirror?

’A reflective surface, typically made of glass and mixed metals to reflect a clear image.’

Mirrors reflect light from the sun, in the same way as the moon reflects light from the sun.

"Serve this mirror as my soul, just as you serve me, with a clean mind and body." - Sun Goddess Amaterasu

Platinum.

A metal given to humans, from the stars.

The most rare, most durable, and most damage resistant of all precious metals.

A ’Critical Metal’.

A ’Noble Metal’.

It’s used in all types of ways and helps humans survive, it helps to keep constantly advancing technology, and to continue saving each other.

Compounds from the metal can be used to fight cancer cells.

It’s in catalytic converters that turn harmful fumes, into less dangerous gases.

Patinum plays an important role in glass making. Glass making that leads to mirror making.

Now, that the economic world is on pause, in Leviathan’s apocalypse, platinum is the most important material to create the SunSwords.The steel blades conduct and retain heat to fight off an ice alien invasion but without platinum, the cold steel is useless in defeating the invaders.

But, due to the alien enemies being made of ice, using the rare metal to collect energy, and power the ’toaster-like’ holsters.

Platinum is a metal you can’t just search for specifically. Finding platinum is more than just luck, it’s fate.

Humans have symbolized the whitish, silver hue as the color of true love, purity, truth, and strength. It’s not just each of those descriptors individually, but combined all into one.

All this time, that platinum was floating through empty space, waiting to crash into the Earth.

Then it has to wait for humanity to begin and wait for humans to notice it’s value.Even when humans want to find it, the platinum still has to wait to be found. The hope to find platinum is returned by the platinum itself hoping to be found.

Platinum. The ’Someday’ Element.

{17 Years Before Levi’s Invasion. Within Hanabi City.}

A young man, 28, with curly platinum hair and platinum colored eyes, is running to catch a city bus. He’s wearing a dishwasher’s uniform and has tired bags under his eyes.

He doesn’t make it to the stop in time. He starts running after the bus, but as he crosses the street in a hurry, the man gets hit by a car and he rolls over the car hood comedically.

As the man is on the ground holding his side, a tall gorgeous light skinned woman, 29, with a built figure, chiseled jaw, purple hair and beautiful purple eyes, gets out of the car. She looks exactly like ’a future Takamagahara member’ except with purple hair.

Woman: "Oh my God! What the hell is wrong with you?! Didn’t your parents teach you to look both ways and to the left twice before crossing the road?!"

She sees the attention that the accident has drawn and hurries over to help the man up. In a familiar moment that would repeat itself 20 years later, the man looks up and sees an angel helping him up. He chuckles at the blame being thrown at him from the angel helping him.

Man: "I guess I’m sorry... that you hit me?"

With his arm around her, the strong woman basically carries him to her car and puts her ’victim’ in the passenger seat. She runs to the driver’s side and takes off, leaving the people who witnessed the accident confused.

From inside the nice car with a leather interior, the two strangers process the situation they’re in.

While at a red light, the woman looks at the man’s platinum eyes with the sun perfectly shining on them, making the man’s eyes actually sparkle.

After really getting a chance to fully look at him for the first time, she blushes and the man looks at her.

Man: "Green light..."

There’s a honk from behind them and the woman panics and presses down on the gas. Another moment of silence happens before the man finally speaks.

Man: "Uhhh, I’m Gaman by the way. Soo, where are we going?"

The woman pulls over to the side of the road and she tries not to look at the man she fell in love with at first sight.

Woman: "I’m Nozomi. Where were you going in such a hurry that you needed to steal a sympathy ride from me?"

The man, Gaman, stares at her in amazement of her inability to take any blame for the accident.

Gaman: "My dumb job, it’s only a 15 minute drive from here. I usually wake up early and have time to walk there but my power got shut off last night while I was asleep, making my alarm clock obviously useless."

Nozomi: "Damn, that blows. Well, if you hate your job so much, the salary can’t pay for electricity, and since I owe you one for hitting you with my car, why don’t you quit that place and come work for me at my new pet store?"

The swift job proposition shocks Gaman.

Gaman: "Wait, wait wait, where did all this come from? And ’you’ own a pet store?"

The young beautiful woman smiles with a shining tooth smile.

Nozomi: "You can even live upstairs in a connected apartment on the 2nd floor. We have a generator set up, so you won’t ever lose power, and I’ll just deduct your rent from your pay every week."

The struggling single man silently thinks about the opportunity given to him.

Nozomi: "My parents still ’work’ there but they gave me total ownership of their pet shop as a graduation present after I obtained a degree in both business management and sports medicine.

They are both retired now, but still love to help out around there and see the animals. My father already has a bad back and my mother is only 55 inches tall. I went to school for both those fields, so I would know the best ways to help keep the family business afloat and also know of a way to soothe the muscle pain of my slowly crippling father."

Gaman: "Wow, you’re actually amazing. I barely finished high school and that was because I just wanted to play sports. Once there were no school sports, I lost interest in learning new things all together and refrained from doing anything different from my daily work routine for the past ten years. Wow...I-I never thought about that until now. I actually suck."

The young, beautiful, successful woman, with a bright future ahead of her gives the depressed man a sympathetic side eye, the looks forward. She grips the steering wheel tight enough to make a noise with the leather wheel cover.

Nozomi: "Well, you still have your whole life ahead of you, start learning again and instead of being told what to learn, like in school, you’re a big boy now.(giggles)You can pick any subject, topic, or skill that you want to focus on and gain knowledge from it. Sooner or later, that quest for information will inspire a peak of a new interesting topic that you want to know more about and you’ll already know it is closely involved with to the first topic you were comfortable with."

The confident woman flexes her bicep and the two look deep into each other’s eyes.

Nozomi: "But don’t forget to balance that gained strength of your brain, with gained strength for your body’s muscles."

Gaman: "You work out too?"

The woman gives a cocky smirk and lifts the bottom of her button up shirt, revealing her fit and toned 6 pack.

The bright red man drops his jaw looking at the fair, tan skin of a woman, with proof of her vivacity. She gives a wide smile while side eyeing him and puts her shirt back down, making the man close his jaw.

Nozomi: "I started doing high level intensity workouts after school to create that balance. Once I started studying hypertrophy and proper muscle building techniques, my gains started becoming more visible a lot faster. I was doing it just to be strong enough to do the heavy lifting and laboring work that my parents couldn’t do or were struggling to do. If they weren’t in my life, I wouldn’t have had the idea in the first place. Sometimes, all you need is to focus on someone you care about, who would also benefit from you bettering yourself, and suddenly it’s not only about you."

Gaman bites his lip and gives her HIS not so braggadocios backstory.

Gaman: "My biological father abandoned my pregnant mother, when she was already 8 months into pregnancy with me. She went into a coma after giving birth to me and never woke up. Since they eloped, I didn’t have any other known family, so I was given to foster care. I’ve never had someone else to worry about, ever. Most of the time I don’t even worry about myself.

I wasn’t good at sports but I loved playing every chance I got. I always thought sports teammates stuck together through hard times, but because I sucked, I was never accepted and got heavily mocked and secretly hazed. The entire reason for even trying the bare minimum in school, was so I could have a sanctuary away from the foster home, but I couldn’t even get accepted or noticed there."

The venting man holds back tears, trying hard to not embarrass himself in front of the strong and successful woman next to him.

Nozomi stays quiet, listening.

She can easily tell that this is the first time he’s told someone how empty and hopeless he feels inside.

Gaman: "When I graduated, I was given $1200 and was simply told ’good luck’, by my foster parents for 18 years.

I took the first apartment I could find and the landlord ended up screwing me over and took my deposit and charged me extra on last months rent after blaming me for damages to the building that I didn’t even do. Making me unable to pay for the electric bill."

Nozomi: "Even more of a reason to accept my offer of both a new job and a new place to live. Listen, a strong guilty conscience runs in every generation of my dad’s family. So either you take the job and key or you’re getting behind this wheel and getting your payback that way."

Gaman: "You’re insane."

She smiles and raises her eyebrow.

Nozomi: "You don’t even know."

Gaman looks around at her signs of success and the overall better lifestyle she lives compared to his sad life. She turns her blinker on and starts driving again.

Gaman: "Why are you being nice to me? I’m telling you, you don’t want my help. I’m nothing special as an employee and not that smart as a person. I have no special skills or enthusiasm to better myself. I’m just trying to ’run out the clock’ and die without anyone missing me."

Nozomi: "Hmph, sounds like you need me in your life then? Plus, all that other stuff you mentioned doesn’t matter, whether it’s true or not. The only qualification questions are, ’Do you love animals?’ and ’Would you ever mistreat an animal?’."

Gaman: "I do love animals, and I could never hurt a poor animal that isn’t acting aggressive towards me. I’ve tried saving the strays by my apartment, but my landlord doesn’t allow any fur covered animals."

Nozomi: "Then that settles it!"

Gaman: "Settles WHA-?"

The purple haired driver pulls an unprompted and illegal U turn, heading in the opposite direction of Gaman’s work.

Gaman: "W-Where are you taking me?!"

Ignoring his fearful question, the spitting image of an older, 29 year old Itsuka with purple hair and both purple eyes, smiles with tears in them.

Nozomi: "I’m so happy to have finally found you, platinum."

Gaman: "Found me?

She wipes her tears away and looks back up in enthusiasm.

Nozomi: "Hey, separate question, and it won’t affect your hiring."

Gaman: "What hiring?! I haven’t actually agreed to anything."

The woman comes to a screeching halt to the curb in front of her pet shop. She turns with all honesty and asks the most random question ever asked.

Nozomi: "What’s your favorite word? Mine is ’Someday’."

{Inside ’Hanabi’s Pet Heaven’.}

Nozomi pulls her new kidnapped employee into the building. The sounds of tweeting birds and fish tank filtration systems can be heard as soon as they walk in. The young man with an all platinum hair and eye color palette, looks around and sees the different areas with small animals in their shared enclosures. The necessary products needed to take care of the individual species’ are easily findable, accessible, and close by for customers.

Nozomi: "Hey Ma, I got my first hire as owner!"

Gaman looks around and doesn’t see who she’s talking to.

Gaman: "Where is your mother?"

Ma: "Down here, you smartass."

Gaman looks down and jumps back from the sight of the tiniest woman he’s ever seen.