"Negators are always suffering."
—Narration, chapter 48
When your story begins with your protagonist's suicide attempt and a man trying to kill himself, you know that you're in for at least a few downer moments.
Spoilers Off applies to all "Moments" pages, so all spoilers are unmarked.
Lives of Negators
- Guaranteed, a Negator's life when they awaken their powers changes them for the worse:
- Fuuko's life before her meeting with Andy. Her power killed her parents and a plane full of people when she was only eight, becoming a shut-in as a result. Later flashbacks reveal she had multiple other smaller incidents with Unluck involving classmates that likely only contributed to her dropping out of school in middle school. As mentioned above, the story proper begins with her attempting to kill herself, and the only reason she didn't go through with it was due to Andy's interruption.
- Andy himself has a pretty horrible life, as discovered later on. Even discounting Victor's past, he had it drilled into him very quickly that he would be outliving all of his friends after his old gang got gunned down in front of his eyes. Worse, in the version we see (while Fuuko is going through his memories), they die not only trying to shield him but also Fuuko. No wonder he wants to die when we first see him.
- Victor, Andy's original personality, is no slouch either in this department. His entire reason for wanting to take full control is to kill Juiz, because he can't bear to see the woman he loves suffer in an endless struggle against an unbeatable enemy. It's only thanks to Fuuko and Andy developing their abilities further that he has any hope in Juiz' goal (and even then, he's still suppressed inside Andy's head).
- And to make things worse, Juiz is still fighting, in part, because she wants to make Victor smile again. Both are working against the other for the sake of the person they love.
- Tatiana was a normal girl one second, and the next, she destroys her entire house, including her parents. She can't hope to touch people without her powers going off, and she's unable to control them for long. After that horrible experience she was located by Human Traffickers who intended to sell her due to those powers. No wonder she attached herself to Billy so hard.
- Chikara first activated his powers going home with his parents. He got to the other side of the street first, then turned to wait for his parents—and in the process, his Unmove activated and froze his parents in place in the middle of the street. He had to watch his parents die a gruesome vehicular death not knowing what was happening and he was helpless to stop it.
- Anno Un activated his powers when he went by Akira Kuno, but where most would lose a loved one, he was the one that was lost. His negation powers made it so that no trace of his physical appearance could ever be noticed by people, leading his mother to think her son went missing even when he's right in front of her. He basically watched his mother slowly lose herself in grief. No wonder he made the "Anno Un" avatar to have some semblance of a normal life.
- To make things worse, not only was he unable to meet with his mother through his double, who has passed away by the time he figured out how to do it, he lost his double restoring Rip back to his original age. And since the pen broke through overuse, Akira no longer has a way to be seen by the world unless his power is somehow canceled out.
- And the reason it even happens to Akira? Juiz and Andy has a theory for that: He had the misfortune of picking up an artifact that looked like an ordinary pen, imbued with the UMA Information's Akashic Records, but in an effort to keep that information from the world's hands, God gave Akira Unknown. It was just pure (un)luck that ruined Akira's life.
- Rip's used to be a surgeon and his power manifested while performing a surgery on his fiance, leading to his desire to use the Ark to try and save her life somehow.
- Top was a poor Brazilian boy in the slums, who simply wanted to earn enough money for his family to keep them comfortable and afloat. His friends weren't much better, and all of them trained as runners to be able to qualify as Olympic athletes. Top, being the best runner of them all, didn't want to take the opportunity away from them (all good runners in their own right), and decides to stop before he reached the finish line...which activated his Unstoppable ability, sending him lightning speed into a wall, breaking all of his bones and the bones of one of his friends. He only later finds out after waking up in the hospital that Pedro and Miguel, his other two friends, were killed on impact when Top's powers went off.
- Isshin got Unbreakable shortly before an UMA attacked her village and her father went to fight off said UMA with armor she made. Due to her lack of experience and confidence in her ability, Unbreakable didn't hold and her father ultimately died from the injuries from the fight. The event left Isshin with crippling self-doubt in her abilities compared to the past Isshins that made her unable to properly use Unbreakable to make Unbreakable armor
- Hell, even Mui counts. While she was able to ultimately keep Shen and fight by his side, she still had to watch him get impaled, hallucinate seeing his sister's ghost, and then assist him in killing him to revive him as a Jiang Shi. And Shen's life wasn't any better either before his death. Ironically though, Mui's life actually got better after these events, due to becoming the new user of Untruth with Shen's death and revival, allowing her to fight by his side as a member of Union.
- Nico’s life became a living hell when his Unforgettable power manifested. He can never forget anything. Ever. Everything he experiences will always be on his mind and he isn’t allowed any reprieve from the ever increasing amount of information crushing his mind. But the worst of it all is the memory of his wife’s expression when she died, which was when his Unforgettable power appeared. And to twist the knife further, he is unable to remember his wife’s face before that point and his memories of her when she was alive began to disappear as well. It makes his decision to betray the Union for one more chance to see his wife understandable.
- Gina's first time using Unchange as revealed in the final loop was when it activated on the air around her and asphyxiates '''40,000''' people, putting her Death Seeker tendencies Andy noted in the previous loop into perspective.
- UMA aren't safe either. Poor Spring just wanted to play games with humans but was often chased away by them due to his appearance. It wasn't until meeting one of Unbreakable's past users (Ishin's ancestor) when he finally had someone to play with, even learning language from him... until God forced him on a rampage which ended in his first friend's death. Worse, Spring was horrified enough to learn he took human lives while brainwashed to beg his friend to end his life. It takes centuries to meet someone who actually wants to play with him again and, unfortunately, it ends in his death, in order to keep God from forcing him to rampage again and hurt more humans.
- Ichico Nemuri had Unsleep activate prior to her submitting work at a university. Already, the lack of rest had taken its toll and she collapses at a train station in front of a incoming train. While an onlooker saved her life, he died in her place.
- Sean is revealed to have once been an aspiring actor. However, Unseen made it impossible for him because the power activated whenever he blinked, only discovering this during the auditions for the sequel of the film his father had been an extra. The despair of having his dream crushed from his ability lead to Sean joining a gang for the sake of being recognized by someone. In the original timeline, Sean became corrupted by gang life and was an unrepentant criminal and murderer that completely forgot his childhood memories, which ultimately ends with his death.
- The moment Phil realizes he truly does have feelings and is as human as Fuuko and his mother is exactly the moment God gives him Unfeel.
- Feng's tragedy is different in the 101st loop. Instead of being stuck as an old man, Feng gains Unfade when he proves he's the strongest martial artists and challenges every other martial artist around to try and take him down from his throne. With Unfade activated, however, he's forced to watch the martial artists he was interested in grow old and unable to continue their fight with him, entrusting their goals to their disciples. Feng couldn't understand why they were smiling despite losing to him and desperately wanted them to continue fighting him because he didn't want to be alone at the top.
- Enjin used to be a traveling ramen chef before Unburn made it impossible for him to be able to continue said path. Worse, it's implied in the original timeline that Unburn manifested before Enjin could come to the realization needed to perfect his recipe, meaning he was unable to cook the perfect ramen for his sick and dying mother before she passed away.
- Despite it being the main goal of the arc, Gina's death is pretty upsetting. After spending five chapters getting to know her, seeing her on the ground as she slowly succumbs to her wounds is really hard to watch. Andy kissing her right before she finally passes makes the whole thing feel bittersweet.
- Andy revealing to Fuuko that Gina likely always had a death wish, recalling how she'd act excited whenever he would jokingly threaten to kill her while in captivity.
- The fate of the Longing citizens. After being zombified by Spoil, they're left as undying husks of their formal selves who agree to sacrifice themselves in order to help defeat Spoil. Special mention goes to the zombified school teacher, who pulls Fuuko into a hug before running off to attack Spoil as her former students watch.
- A minor one, but Shen's reaction to the fact no one besides other Negators can speak languages other than English is pretty upsetting, as he looks absolutely distraught when he calls Mui and she can no longer understand his Chinese.
- Chikara officially joining Union is heartbreaking. While he says goodbye to his best friend Ryo before leaving his old life forever, Ryo tries to come after him so he can figure out what's going on. Unfortunately, just before he's able to catch up, Ryo's memories get erased and he heads back into school wondering why he sprinted out in the first place. It takes everything in Chikara not to respond, and he's left bawling in Andy's lap.
- The sight of Tatiana getting her heart broken heavily due to the Et Tu, Brute? she gets from Billy betraying the Union and revealing he's part of Under is utterly heart-wrenching, with Fuuko tearfully trying to reassure her that there must be a good reason for him doing this clearly just being her trying her best to believe that he wasn't truly friendly and helpful to Tatiana solely to manipulate her.
- The original timeline before Anno Un's interference had Fuuko dying due to Unseen assassinating her, resulting in everyone dying and the world ending. It's no wonder he puts so much effort into helping Fuuko and Andy in order to avoid that future happening. The anime expands on this by showing the lead up to the moment Sean stabs Fuuko right as she gives Andy a kiss to unleash a stroke of Unluck, including a shot of Andy reaching to her futilely.
- While it is revealed during their attempt to defeat Andy so he can relinquish Victor's points, the reveal of his and Latla's past is heartbreaking. They both pour years of their life into doing their best to save Latla's terminally ill sister Leila, Rip via medicine and Latla via fortunetelling. However, as is the nature with negator's getting their powers happened at the worst time. Rip gets Unrepair while applying some basic stitches and Latla's fortunetelling was horribly inaccurate in showing her vision of a successful surgery. Naturally, this leads to Leila bleeding out and perishing. Not understanding what went wrong, Rip was ready to take his scalpel to his neck for his failure had Latla not stopped him.
- While less tragic, Latla's feelings also get put on full display. Despite her protests to the contrary, her love for Rip gets put on full display as she scolds him for trying to do things on his own which nearly gets him killed by Andy before she intervened with her power. She later sacrifices herself to allow Rip to get what they think is a decisive blow on Andy, but unfortunately fail to account for Victor's aid and they die lying next to one another.
- The worst part? Leila while she was bleeding to death had tried to reassure Rip and Latla by telling them her death was meant to be and instead forget about her and focus on using their abilities to save others. Unfortunately, it's evident both of them overlooked this in their grief, and only when Rip is dying does he finally remember them, too late to fulfill Leila's true dying wish.
- The reveal of what occurred in the 1800s during the American Civil War involving Victor is finally revealed. Upon retrieving the artifact 'Remember,' Victor attacks Juiz when faced with the prospect of having to go through the loop again only to fail. He wants to kill her so she can finally forget about him and have the last loop be a peaceful one for her. Finally understanding his vision of justice, Juiz is able to use Unjustice effectively against Victor for the first time and immediately activates Remember to seal his memories, leading to his hair changing into a more familiar color. Her parting words to him are telling him she'll find a new beacon of hope while crying.
- After Juiz explains her and Victor's past along with her role in Andy's creation, she offers her life as compensation for all the pain she caused Andy. Andy then goes into his past and we see glimpses of his true memories instead of the Fake Memories he created with Fuuko. His pain knowing that he can heal and live while his friends can't if they get hurt or killed. Him staying the same while they grow old and outliving those same people regardless with no end in sight. He then reveals that he asked Nico to experiment on him when he was captured by the Union and ended up convinced that he couldn't die after Nico's efforts, which led him to stop caring about anything. It was only after meeting Fuuko that he had any hope at all.
- Many of the events during the climax of the Rangarok arc:
- Bunny, a young girl negator, starts getting cooked alive in her own costume during the Sun battle, screaming in pain the whole time.
- Despite a grand effort in stopping Sun from destroying the Ark, Juiz finally falls in battle. Victor, despite wanting to kill her to prevent her suffering, finally realizes how everyone else felt in wanting to protect the warmth they received from their loved ones, after having lost the one person he loves.
- We finally see what happens to a loop after Ragnarok and it goes to show exactly how seemingly futile stopping it would be. After using nearly everything aside from Fuuko holding off a single Sun body, countless more emerge from the actual star itself and after wreaking havoc the planet gets obliterated by colliding with it. Also qualifies as Nightmare Fuel.
- Due to Billy having to lie to some Union members to fulfil his negator requirements so he could hold of Ruin until the last moment, Chikara and Top essentially die respectively believing that Billy killed Tatiana and betrayed the Union again to kill Fuuko.
- Upon seeing her friends and planet die, Fuuko breaks down in tears clutching her chest in pain.
- Fuuko meets up with Nico in the new loop and while their meeting is fairly comical, she briefly cracks. Nico is fairly skeptical about trusting her and unlike Akira Kuna Fuuko can't be completely forthcoming with what happens to him moment without potentially causing him to avoid his future wife. A lack of his relationship with Ichico would prevent Mico from being born and may reduce his effectiveness as a scientist. After Nico grills her about Fuuko wanting him to blindly trust her, the up till now mysterious, friendly, and determined post time-skip woman breaks into tears in attempting to reassure him that she'll make him the happiest he's been in any loop. The display causes him to apologize.
- Phil's past in the 101st full stop. While he's always been essentially an experiment due to having been born in space, in this loop he contracted a disease at the age of three which led to his mother replacing all but ten percent of his body. By the time the Union encounters him, he and his mom are in danger from an unknown threat and Nico inspects his body to see him in serious disrepair. However, even without Unfeel he's shown not really caring about his own wellbeing.
- Fuuko has been searching for Andy for since she started the loop, but wasn't able to find him even with the Union's resources. He finally reappears after so long, but it's only a clone and they have to focus on the battle with Sick with Leila's operation taking up Fuuko's attention. Neither can really spare a moment for each other despite it being clear that's what they would want and the best they can do is clap hands so Fuuko can give him Unluck to intercept the accidentally summoned meteorite as they pass each other.
