Slowly closing the magazine in her hands, Kizuki felt a heavy, stifling sensation settle in her chest. The way the plot had abruptly cut off left her feeling completely stunned and hollowed out.
More than anything, her heart ached for Kana. To think that her deep, singular devotion to Shinichi would culminate in such a tragic end was almost too much to bear.
A heart pierced through by a blade, there was no coming back from that. Death was a certainty.
Still, a part of her couldn't help but wonder: was this truly the only reward for all her desperate efforts to reach him?
Throughout the chapter, Kizuki had found herself fully immersed in Kana's world, feeling every ounce of the girl's longing. The admiration, the yearning, the quiet hope, everything Kana did was simply because she wanted Shinichi to look her way, to notice that she was special in his life.
Yet, from beginning to end, Shinichi had viewed her as nothing more than an ordinary friend. He had never even glimpsed the depth of her feelings.
Only the readers, possessing a god's-eye view, understood the tragic poetry of her final moments.
They alone knew the weight of her winding a single strand of Shinichi's hair around the ring finger of her left hand just before her light went out. It was painful. It made her want to cry.
A truly masterful work does not necessarily move you in every single chapter, but it inevitably forces you into a state of deep reflection during certain narrative peaks.
For Kizuki, this was that moment.
Meanwhile, the comment section under Haruto's account on the AniSphere Forums was already a chaotic battlefield of outcry and protest.
"I am staring at the screen in pure disbelief."
"This is just par for the course with this author. We all need to adapt as quickly as possible, guys."
"Shiori's novels always have these soul-crushing moments."
"In Anohana, it was Menma's disappearance. To the Moon was even worse; the entire story was a beautifully crafted tragedy. Now, with Parasyte... honestly, I feel like people are just dying left and right. Shinichi's mother was hard enough, but at least the plot hadn't spent that much time fleshing her out. But Kana? I truly feel sorry for her. She was far too pitiful."
"The immersion in this chapter was incredible. I felt everything."
"I refuse to accept this! I am demanding that Shiori Sensei finds a way to bring Kana back in the next chapter!"
"How is he supposed to do that? Her heart was literally skewered."
"Well, Shinichi had his heart pierced by his mother's parasite earlier in the story, right? Maybe Migi has some kind of miracle up his sleeve to save her too."
"Compared to her, the actual heroine, Satomi, feels so lacking. No matter what Shinichi turned into, Kana's eyes were always fixed on him. But Satomi? Her attitude toward him is always so full of doubt and suspicion."
"I don't even know what to say. Looking at the pacing, are we going to see Shinichi's father or even Satomi get killed off next?"
Among the followers on Haruto's account, many who usually lurked in silence were drawn out by the sheer shock of the chapter. The daily traffic to his profile surged to more than triple its usual volume. This was, without a doubt, the most discussed and high-profile chapter since the serialization of Parasyte began.
In the original source material, this specific event served as a major turning point. Many readers at the time found the cruelty of the plot impossible to stomach, and some even dropped the series after the supporting female lead was written out.
However, the soul of this work was defined by that very cruelty. It was only through these cold, harsh developments that the author could truly dissect the human nature he wished to explore.
While the upcoming chapters might feel increasingly oppressive, the depth of thought they provoked would only grow. This was exactly why Parasyte remained one of the few works in its genre to receive unanimous acclaim even long after its conclusion.
The plot wasn't meant to be satisfying in a traditional sense, and the battles weren't as flashy as its contemporaries, but it was the only one that successfully delivered its core message without ever losing its structural integrity.
The following day, internal data statistics from Kiyozawa Library were released.
1. Azure Sigil: 563,569 total votes.
2. Scarlet Mage: 487,561 total votes.
3. Parasyte: 401,754 total votes.
The staff from the editorial department and the talent management division stared at these numbers in their respective offices, many of them lost in thought.
To climb to the third rank in just three months with only twelve chapters was an extremely rare feat in the history of Kiyozawa Library's light novel serials. Furthermore, Parasyte had only begun receiving significant promotional resources from the company in the last week or two. This made the results feel even more substantial.
Among the staff, Ms. Sato felt a deep, gnawing discomfort.
Despite her years of experience managing light novel authors at Kiyozawa, she had rarely represented a work that achieved a top-three ranking in a secondary magazine.
She had acknowledged that Haruto was the top prospect of the Ascent of New Gods, but because he refused to sign a long-term contract, she assumed his value would plummet without the company's full backing.
'But third place?'
Ms. Sato took a deep breath, trying to calm the storm of complex emotions in her heart, but the more she thought about it, the angrier she became. If Haruto had gone to another publisher and achieved these results, she could have made peace with it.
Instead, he had stayed, and Ms. Hime had been the one to "pick up the treasure" she had discarded. The comparison made her feel as though everyone in the management department was whispering about her lack of foresight.
In another office, Ms. Hime looked over the results for the week repeatedly. Parasyte had bypassed the fourth rank entirely, jumping from fifth place the previous week straight into third.
She thought back to what she had told Haruto, that she hoped he could push the work into the top three. Only then would his next project be eligible to compete for a serialization slot in the flagship Kiyozawa magazine.
"If I remember correctly, Haruto said Parasyte is a mid-length work that will wrap up in about twenty-some chapters," Ms. Hime mused.
Typically, a series only gains more popularity as it continues. Parasyte had reached the top three while barely halfway through its run. What would happen by the time it reached its finale?
Azure Kiyozawa was no insignificant publication; with a circulation of six million copies per issue, it held a firm position as the seventh highest-selling light novel magazine in Japan. A work that could reach the top three here possessed a fanbase and popularity that rivaled the lower-ranked series in the Big Three magazines.
Kiyozawa, Hoshizora, and Seisawa.
In the days following Parasyte's ascent, light novel media outlets and critics finally stopped holding back. Previously, the series lacked the raw data to back up their praise, and they feared that forced hype would alienate readers. As a critic, proving a novel is good requires market data to supplement subjective judgment. Now, they had everything they needed.
Several critics began to actively mention Parasyte on various book review programs, expressing immense admiration for the plot. Two well-known commentators even went as far as to state that the work had a serious chance of ranking in the top twenty of this year's Naoki Awards.
This was an incredibly high appraisal. The Naoki Awards represented a major competitive event in the light novel industry, evaluating new serials that emerged across the country's various regions throughout the year. In simpler terms, it was the selection for the "Best New Novel of the Year" in Japan.
Unlike the Ascent of New Gods, the scope of this award was open to light novel authors of all levels, ages, and statuses, provided their work was a new serialization for that year.
Occasionally, works from veteran authors were included in the selection, as long as they had launched a new series within the eligibility period and met the popularity requirements for nomination.
Of course, long-running series with legendary popularity were not eligible. Firstly, because they were not "new" works, and secondly, because their massive fanbases and multi-million-copy sales would exert an unfair influence on the judges' objectivity. After all, even professional judges feared the backlash of a massive internet mob.
But even excluding those giants, the sheer competition from the three major magazines alone meant that over a dozen new works would be vying for the title each year.
Furthermore, the three major publishing houses also had secondary magazines with circulations in the five to six million range like Azure Kiyozawa and others. These magazines produced another dozen or so popular new titles annually.
Parasyte was now one of them, and its third-place ranking in Azure Kiyozawa was an explosive and eye-catching achievement.
Outside of the Big Three, four other mid-sized top-tier publishers also had flagship magazines with circulations comparable to Azure Kiyozawa. Their new series would also be in the running if their popularity met the criteria. Every year, the seven major publishing houses alone submitted a list of roughly sixty to seventy novels for consideration.
Under such intense competition, the fact that these critics dared to publicly claim Parasyte could reach the top twenty was a testament to their absolute confidence in the quality of the work.
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