Paradise! — Proofread & Polished Version
Blue skies.
White clouds.
A rainbow-colored world dotted with trampolines. Railings of candy canes. Playgrounds sculpted
from sugar and sweets.
This was the Sugar Bean Paradise.
Here, you could play without restraint! Look at those Sugar Bean Men — bouncing, tumbling,
colliding — so cheerful, so competitive, so alive.
Rivers of jam flowed quietly under bridges of marshmallow. Contraptions whirred and spun,
running twenty-five hours a day. The Sugar Bean Men shoved, tripped, and toppled each other
in endless chaos. This was the perfect world — the one every heart, young or old, had once
dreamed of.
But—whatever you do—don't look beneath the rivers of jam and milkshake.
That's not something a Sugar Bean Man should ever see.
And if you've been captured and brought here by the strongest Sugar Bean Man…
Then may heaven have mercy on you.
In Touta's original world, Sugar Bean Man had been just a game — a silly, harmless
competition. Sure, some players were jerks: tripping others off bridges, grabbing them just
before the finish line. But it was all in good fun.
Cheerful.
Harmless.
Here, things were different.
This pocket dimension shifted with Touta's will. The gameplay rules stayed the same — but the
cost of losing had changed.
If you lost, you died.
Now, at the starting point — a red-and-white candy-tiled platform — a lost soul appeared.
It was the same madman who had once hunted Kume Chinatsu. The one Touta had already
killed.
The spirit blinked, dazed.
He had been chasing a girl, hadn't he? Blessed by spirits, unstoppable. So how—where was he
now?
The world before him was a child's dream — bright, candy-colored, full of laughter.
Then memory struck.
That thing. That pink monster in a bean-shaped suit.
He spun around frantically—and there it was.
Barely a meter away stood a tall, round, pink Sugar Bean Man.
Snap.
The Sugar Bean Man snapped his fingers — though how those soft, squishy digits made sound
was a mystery.
"Are you ready?" asked the creature. Its voice was a jarring mix — a deep man's tone layered
with a child's pitch.
"What?" The killer blinked, stunned.
"Are you ready for the match?" Touta pointed down the track. Beyond the spinning platforms
and rolling boulders, atop a distant hill, shimmered a golden gate.
"What? Who the hell are you?! Where am I?!"
The man stumbled backward, panic rising, then lunged forward in blind defiance.
Touta barely moved. One plump arm swung — and the corrupted soul was launched across the
track like a rag doll.
"You don't want to play?" the Sugar Bean Man asked calmly.
The killer gawked in terror. Play? Who would play this monster's stupid game?
Realizing he couldn't win, the man scrambled backward, dragging himself across the candy-tiled
floor until his back hit the railing. His breath hitched; his eyes rolled with madness.
Touta tilted his head. "Your soul's nearly shattered. What happened to you?"
He was genuinely curious. In a year of purifying spirits, he had never seen one like this.
The figure before him hardly looked human anymore — barbed wire crisscrossed its skull, eyes
gouged and unseeing. Its flesh was bloated and grey, caked in grime, its feet bound in cement
blocks crusted with algae. Rags clung to waterlogged skin.
Disgusting. Polluted.
And this wasn't even its original body.
It had been taken over — twisted by a grudge spirit.
Touta sighed. "…Poor soul. It was thoughtless of me to drag you into a match."
He stepped closer, his voice softening. "Come. Let me send you off properly — to the paradise."
He extended his rounded hand.
"Please, join my paradise. Here, you can be happy forever. And I promise — I'll find the grudge
that defiled you. You can rest easy."
The candy-colored world shimmered softly.
The broken spirit looked up. His bloody tears fell as syrup to the ground, sweetening the air.
The Sugar Bean Man's pink form no longer looked monstrous. It seemed… gentle. Comforting.
"I… I…"
The spirit trembled.
Touta was the nightmare of all spirits — but for the innocent, he still carried compassion.
"No more struggle," he murmured. "Leave it to me."
He lifted the shattered soul and gave him a gentle shove.
The man stumbled back, toppled over the candy rail, and plunged into the ocean of pink
milkshake below.
A splash.
A frenzy.
Then stillness.
As he sank, the soul's panic turned to horror. Beneath the creamy surface floated countless
corpses — twisted, skinless humanoids, hulking beasts, hags tangled in hair. A graveyard of
spirits. The losers of past matches.
He sank deeper. The barbed wire melted away, the cement fell off.
The milkshake sea swallowed him whole.
Then — light again.
Laughter.
From the pink sky, a new Sugar Bean Man fell — this one purple — splashing onto firm ground.
Dazed, he blinked. Around him, a crowd of Sugar Bean Men waved and cheered. One reached
out a hand.
This wasn't the racecourse anymore.
This was the Paradise.
Ferris wheels turned. Roller coasters soared. The Sugar Bean Men played endlessly beneath a
rose-tinted sky.
He was home.
The purple Sugar Bean Man grasped his new friend's hand, joy flooding his heart. They ran off
together toward the nearest ride, laughter echoing through the air — pure and unburdened.
[Unnamed Grudge Spirit — Purified]
Watching from the shore, Touta nodded in satisfaction.
The pink sea shimmered softly under the eternal daylight of his paradise.