When he saw the mirror in front of him, he took a closer look—really stared at who he was now, and what kind of identity he had ended up with.
And what he found was fucking ridiculous.
He had transmigrated into Hikaru, a full-blown psycho who had impregnated an idol and killed her not long after knocking her up.
What the actual fuck?
Why the hell had he transmigrated into a goddamn murderer, of all fucking people? Out of billions of souls, why this sick fuck?
Then it hit him—memories came crashing down like a tidal wave, searing his brain with raw, unbearable pain.
He nearly howled out loud from the overload but somehow forced himself to stay composed.
He didn't want to end up looking like some lunatic or complete fucking idiot in a public place like this.
Not here. Not now. He had to endure it.
When the agony finally started to fade—at least enough for him to think straight—he began digging through the fragments of Hikaru's memories, trying to figure out what made this bastard special.
And more importantly, how he could twist this shitty situation into something he could actually use to his advantage.
Power, influence, women—everything that should belong to him—he was going to take it all back.
This world? It was going to be his, piece by piece.
When he made that promise to Ai Hoshino about stardom, he hadn't been lying.
Not even a little.
He truly planned to become a director in this world, using the anime knowledge from his past life to create movies like nobody here had ever seen before.
The heroines and protagonists of this world?
They'd become his actresses and actors, standing under his spotlight, playing on his stage.
Ai Hoshino's value as an actress was practically limitless.
If he wanted to shoot something like Oshi no Ko in the future, she'd be indispensable.
And even beyond that—if there were no Sakura Matou or Sakura Tohsaka around—he could easily mold Ai into his own version of Sakura for his future Fate movie projects.
A gold mine like her?
There was no fucking way he was letting her slip away.
And the best part?
She was already a woman who had been shaped into a star.
Even if the canon story said she had no talent for acting, he knew better.
Who was he in his past life?
He was a goddamn director.
He could judge talent just by watching someone behind a screen—and Ai Hoshino had it, no question about it.
The way she could fake a smile so perfectly, so naturally, to the point even ten thousand rabid fans couldn't tell the difference—that was real talent. That was the kind of acting directors would kill for.
If anyone still thought she couldn't act, they were either blind, stupid, or both.
Even Hikaru—the creepy bastard whose body he now owned, the one who stalked and killed her—stood as proof of how deep her spell could run.
That guy had been completely obsessed, lost in her act.
The anime said she had no real potential as an actress?
Bullshit.
Either that was a lazy-ass plot hole, or Ai simply had no interest in acting seriously and half-assed her way through it.
Frankly, he didn't give a damn which it was.
All that mattered was that he could see it—the truth.
From the short conversation he had with her at the bar, he had already realized it:
Ai Hoshino was a born actress, whether she knew it or not.
And he was going to make sure the whole damn world saw it too.
Of course, he wasn't completely lost in his ambition.
Somewhere in that scheming mind of his, he still took the time to dig through Hikaru's memories, comparing the world he lived in now with the anime screens he used to watch back in his past life.
And what he found honestly threw him off.
Hikaru in this world wasn't some psychotic, knife-happy killer. Hell, not just him—a lot of shit had changed. The entire world was tweaked, shifted in ways that made it feel almost familiar, but not quite right.
Take Advanced Nurturing High School from Classroom of the Elite, for example. Back in the anime, it was hyped up as this god-tier academy where graduates were practically guaranteed jobs anywhere they wanted.
You get out, you basically get handed a golden fucking ticket to life.
But here?
It was just another elite school.
Prestigious? Sure.
Influential? Yeah, a bit.
But that's it. No "guaranteed success," no "walk into any company and they'll suck your dick just because you graduated." Reality wasn't some power fantasy.
And honestly? That made sense.
Because if a real-life school like that ever existed—where teenagers were secretly turned into guinea pigs, tested under brutal pressure, and lied to from the start—you better believe the world would fucking lose its mind.
Do you have any idea how many parents would riot?
How many lawsuits would fly? How fast foreign countries would start screaming about human rights violations?
Shit, the governor of Japan wouldn't just get fired—he'd probably wake up one morning with a drone strike blowing his whole goddamn house into dust.
And the U.S.? Oh, you can bet your ass the U.S. would jump on that shit instantly. "Protecting freedom" or some righteous excuse, they'd flatten Japan again without even blinking—while other countries would swarm in, slicing the place up for their own gain while condemning Japan publicly just to look good on the world stage.
And no, that's not exaggeration.
That's cold, brutal fact.
That's just how the world fucking works.
From the very beginning to the bitter end, the whole fucking idea of a school where companies automatically bent over backwards to hire students, and where the government blatantly shit in everyone's face by covering up the school's brutal, psychotic nature—it was never going to happen in the real world.
Not when the world police, human rights organizations, and basic common sense still fucking existed.
Unless, somehow, the Japanese government had collectively gone full retard or had God-tier backing—like fucking Campiones and Heretic Gods personally covering their asses like in Campione! anime—then yeah, maybe they could've pulled that bullshit off.
In that scenario, they could have laughed in the world's face while everyone bent the knee to their god-powered nation.
But sadly—this wasn't that world.
This was just a normal-ass, boring, realistic anime setting where fantasy, magic, and supernatural bullshit didn't exist.
Yeah, Fuyuki existed on the map, sure, but there were no whispered rumors of gas explosions, no weird Holy Grail Wars blowing up half the city.
Clock Tower was a thing too, but it wasn't some secret magic mafia—it was just a fucking university with an impressive-sounding name. No magic associations, no ancient mysteries lurking under the fucking library.
Everything in this world was grounded.
No power fantasy, no "chosen one" bullshit.
Even his former teacher—who hilariously shared the same name, Shidou, from Highschool of the Dead—wasn't some scumbag rapist piece of shit here.
No, he was a real teacher, a guy from an elite, respectable background, a man who actually gave a damn about his students.
Miyamoto Rei? Yeah, she wasn't dealing with any sabotage bullshit either. Nobody was trying to screw her over or rig her grades so she'd fail to graduate.
This world...
This world was so fundamentally different from the twisted, chaotic hellholes his favorite anime sometimes portrayed.
Hikaru—himself—was doing fucking great here.
He had a social circle.
He knew Utaha and Eriri personally.
He had even helped Miyuki Shirogane become Student Council President when they hit third year, pushing him into the seat with nothing more than a casual recommendation.
Hikaru himself had graduated from Suuchin Academy—yeah, the real fucking deal—not just as some faceless graduate but as a former Student Council President too.
The thought of it made him grin with a sharp, manic edge.
As long as Miyuki remained President, everything would go smooth as butter.
It would be easy to rope Kaguya in, getting her to invest in his future film projects or appear in his TV series once the time was right.
Everything was lining up perfectly.
All he needed now... was to play the board right.
Place the pieces exactly where they needed to be.
And when that happened?
The world was his for the taking.