Nobita Nobi was back in school. Or at least, his body was.
But what lived behind those wide, sleepy eyes now was no ordinary child.
Reo Kanzaki was a ghost inhabiting flesh too soft for his soul. And if there was one thing he'd learned from dying, it was this:
Power isn't loud. It's silent. Invisible.
And so, he wore the mask of a loser… perfectly.
---
The first month was all about pretending.
He let Jaian shove him into walls.
He let Suneo flaunt his toy helicopters and insult his clothes.
He even let the teacher punish him with extra homework, which he finished in five minutes using Doraemon's "Auto-Solver" gadget—then redid by hand to keep appearances.
But every day, every hour, Reo was watching.
Mapping.
Calculating.
Because Nobita's body was weak. Nobita's reputation was trash. But Nobita's access—his connection to Doraemon—was a goldmine no corporation could ever dream of.
And this time, Reo wasn't starting from zero.
This time, he had a robot from the 22nd century in his closet.
---
Late one night, after faking a stomachache to skip dinner, Reo sat cross-legged on the tatami mat, a notebook on his lap, a blueprint forming line by line.
Doraemon was asleep, sprawled on his futon, his little propeller twitching like a dreaming dog.
Reo stared at him.
The cat was a relic of childhood wonder. A walking deus ex machina. But what everyone forgot—what even Doraemon forgot—was that his gadgets weren't toys.
They were power incarnate.
> "The Anywhere Door," Reo murmured, sketching. "Spatial teleportation. Commercial value? Limitless."
> "The Time Cloth. Literal reversal of entropy. If I understand the material components…"
> "The Copy Robot. Personal assistants indistinguishable from the original."
He stopped writing.
> "The world isn't ready for this tech. Hell, even I'm not ready for it all. But I don't need everything. I just need enough… to plant the seed."
He circled three gadgets. These would be the starting point.
Small. Subtle. Profitable.
Then he turned the page and drew a triangle.
At each corner, he wrote a word:
Wealth. Influence. Freedom.
And in the center:
Peace.
---
The next step was patience.
He became invisible again.
He turned in half-finished homework. Lost intentionally in PE. Flubbed answers during class recitation. Cried (real tears, from eye drops) after mock exams to keep his parents convinced.
But secretly?
He was building.
Using a duplication gadget, he made copies of future encyclopedias and hid them behind manga covers.
He snuck into Nobita's dad's study and replaced dusty novels with financial reports from the 2100s—then pretended to ignore them when the man chuckled over "how grown-up manga had become."
He built three fake accounts under aliases and began investing in penny stocks using gadgets to predict price swings—low risk, low attention.
By week four, he had the equivalent of 2.3 million yen hidden in a dummy bank account routed through an adult identity Doraemon didn't know he created using the "Paper Lives" stamp.
But all of this?
This was just the beginning.
---
Things took a turn when she appeared.
Reo was walking home after school, dragging his bag like usual, when he saw a film crew parked outside a bookstore.
It wasn't rare. Tokyo had celebrities everywhere.
But then he saw her.
She wasn't dazzling. She was devastating.
Dark hair in a ribbon. Smooth eyes like glass ink. A presence that made everything else blur around her.
Her name was Aika Hoshino.
And according to the whispers around him, she was Japan's youngest rising actress. Only 10. Already cast in two major dramas. Fluent in English. A prodigy.
And she was… his age.
Reo didn't believe in fate. He didn't believe in destiny.
But as she turned—just for a second—and their eyes met, something in him paused.
Not raced. Not fluttered.
Just… paused.
Like the world stopped so it could take a breath.
Then she was gone.
But something inside him wasn't.
---
That night, he stared at the ceiling.
> "She's the kind of girl Nobita could never touch."
He turned on his side.
> "But I'm not Nobita. I'm me."
He didn't want to chase love.
He'd sworn off attachment.
But a voice whispered in his mind—
"If you must burn again… let it be for something real."
---
Days passed.
He researched Aika in silence. Read articles. Interviews. Magazine scans. Not like a stalker, but like a tactician.
And he discovered one thing:
She hated fake people.
In an industry of lies, she craved honesty like water.
And Reo… could be anyone.
But he decided to be himself.
Not Nobita.
Not Reo Kanzaki.
Just… the quiet boy who didn't beg for attention.
And somehow, that would be enough.
---
By the end of the month, Reo had achieved four things:
1. A hidden financial web already spinning money.
2. A secret personal lab in the shed, protected by future tech locks.
3. The trust of Doraemon, who thought Nobita was finally trying harder.
4. And the spark of interest in the eyes of a girl leagues above him.
---
His ambition was clear.
No longer domination.
No longer vengeance.
But something much more dangerous.
Freedom. With peace. With love.
And the world?
Wouldn't even see him coming.
---