CHAPTER 97: CHAPTER 18

It was late at night, long after the dinner they had ordered arrived.

Seijirou had decided to stay the night in one of the private rooms on the third floor of the new base, insisting he needed to be close to Renji, Shou, and Sakai while they recovered.

Of course, Haruka, Suzune, Emi, and Yukina had all insisted on staying with him, claiming solidarity, though their true motives were complex and varied.

Seijirou was lying on a spare bed, his bruised body aching, but his mind wide awake and churning.

He kept replaying the humiliating scene: the feeling of Ayano’s fist connecting, the crack of his own ribs, the sheer power that had rendered his physical perfection irrelevant.

He sighed, his breath catching painfully.

He realized the bitter truth: he had become complacent.

After dominating street gangs and defeating a few low-level Karyoku users—like the cult leader Basuta—he had subconsciously begun to treat supernatural powers as nothing more than a minor enhancement, only slightly stronger than his normal peak human adversaries.

He had been so arrogantly confident in his own raw, unenhanced strength that he hadn’t seriously considered the possibility of a thorough, crushing defeat.

He had constantly claimed he needed to learn Ki, yet he never really put any genuine, disciplined effort into finding the method or a teacher.

And now, the consequences of his lack of effort was laid bare: his loyal friends were battered, he was thoroughly humiliated, and the girls who rushed to his defense got beaten up for his weakness.

He clenched his fist until his knuckles cracked, a sound barely audible in the quiet room.

Never again. He would never allow today’s incident to happen again. He would never again lose due to a lack of necessary power.

One month.

He had made that promise to Ayano and he would use every moment of that month.

He would learn Ki, he would master it, and he will thoroughly crush that Saint Shinomiya Highschool.

*

*

*

Outside Seijirou’s door, in the semi-darkened hallway, Emi, Yukina, Haruka, and Suzune were gathered.

They stared at each other, their eyes wide in a silent, mutual acknowledgement.

Suzune was the first to speak, a faint, contented smile on her face. "It seems like everyone else had the same idea."

Yukina chuckled softly, her voice teasing. "Speaking of ideas, what are you doing here, Suzu-chan? I thought you were ’saving’ yourself for the wedding night."

Honestly, this became an inside joke in their group considering how Seijirou had never once touched Suzune.

Suzune looked smug, tilting her head coyly. "Fufu~, not anymore I don’t. Let’s just say that a certain lifelong wish has been fulfilled some time ago."

Yukina and Emi stared at her, genuinely shocked.

They knew that despite Suzune being the closest, most devoted girl in Seijirou’s inner circle, he had always maintained a degree of physical distance from her.

There had been teasing and touching, yes, but he had never "gone all the way."

But now, it seemed their good friend had finally convinced Seijirou to help her climb the stairs of adulthood.

Yukina wiped an imaginary tear from her eye. "I’m so proud of you, girl! Finally, your stubbornes paid off!"

Emi also nodded excitedly.

They were really glad for her, and also felt bad. In the past, even though they knew Suzune has been in love with Seijirou, they had let themselves get swayed by his sweet words and ended up in his bed.

They felt like they betrayed their friend.

Just then, Haruka spoke, bringing the conversation back to the logistics of the present moment. "The door is right there. Should we go in together, or one by one?"

Yukina shrugged, her easygoing nature returning. "Doesn’t really matter to me. I’ve slept with Seijirou together with Emi from time to time, so I’m used to company."

Emi offered a simple nod of confirmation.

"I also had sex with Seijirou together with my mother during my first time," Haruka stated with the same deadpan neutrality one would use to discuss the weather. "So I also have no problem with it."

The hallway fell into a stunned, horrified silence.

Yukina, Emi, and Suzune stared at her, eyes wide in absolute shock.

Haruka tilted her head, confused by their reaction. "What?"

Yukina shivered dramatically, her voice low with genuine revulsion. "No, Haruka. Something is fundamentally wrong with you. That’s your mom!"

"So?" Haruka raised an eyebrow, genuinely unable to grasp the issue. "She’s a woman, I’m a woman. He is a man. At the end of the day, we were both okay with sharing a bed with him."

Suzune stared at Haruka, deep in thought, as she imagined doing it along with her own mother with Seijirou. Her mother probably wouldn’t mind right?

She blushed profusely.

"Damn, and I thought I’m kinky enough." Yukina whispered.

"You are Seijirou’s toilet, you drank his pee." Emi muttered.

"Yeah, but she lost her virginity in a threesome with Seijirou and her own mother! I could never!"

Just then, the door to Seijirou’s room opened, startling the girls.

Seijirou walked out, looking tired but alert, and stared at the four girls huddled outside his room.

"Are you all going to stand around gossiping, or do you want to come in?" he asked, his voice rough. "If not, go find a couch and go to sleep. I’m not running a hostel."

Without a moment of hesitation or a single word, all four of them—Suzune, Yukina, Emi, and the unflappable Haruka—walked past him and entered the room, sealing the door behind them.

"My first time doing it with five people, kinda nervous."

"Shut it, Yukina."

*

*

*

At this moment, in an ancient, sprawling Japanese-style estate, kept in immaculate condition, in a brightly lit washitsu (traditional room), Kobayashi Rindou sat formally on a zabuton cushion, facing her grandfather, Kobayashi Eijisai.

Eijisai was a striking figure, an old man with a dignified bearing, long white hair tied back neatly, and a flowing beard.

He was dressed in a simple, high-quality kimono and was currently studying a complex endgame on a portable chess board, a hobby he had enjoyed after he retired from the military.

Eijisai carefully moved a rook, then looked up, his eyes sharp and penetrating.

"Rindou," he began, his voice deep and measured. "Tell me. How exactly did you come to know the terms Ki and Karyoku?"

Rindou answered honestly, holding his gaze. "I first encountered an individual using Karyoku during that incident with Basuta, the cult leader. I didn’t think much of it then because Seijirou was able to beat him without issue."

Eijisai’s eyes widened momentarily, showing a flicker of surprise but was quickly masked by decades of military discipline.

He recognized the name Basuta from intelligence reports, a perverted and delusional, low-level, practitioner.

His conracted entity has already abandoned him though, so they didn’t bother with him.

Still, it was a surprise hearing that a completely ordinary person can beat him. They normally wouldn’t even be able to touch them.

Rindou continued, detailing the escalating threat. "But earlier today, Seijirou fought someone far stronger, someone using a Karyoku, and he was soundly defeated. Afterward, the school nurse, Shirohara Retsu-sensei, informed us about both power systems. She also mentioned that you are a member of a hidden organization called the Grand Order."

Eijisai stared at his granddaughter for a long moment, evaluating her sincerity and the gravity of the situation.

After moments of silence, he finally nodded. "Indeed. Everything that woman said is true. I am a member, and the organization is real."

His expression then darkened. "But hear me, Rindou. That woman, Shirohara Retsu, is extremely dangerous. Do not trust her, and do not get close to her. She is far more volatile than any Karyoku user."

He had met with that moment when she was young, and that complete indifference and disregard to all life in her eyes was chilling.

That woman is not a human, and every time ’it’ tried to act human and imitated human actions, a sense of uncanny dread would always wash over him.

Rindou nodded, her own recent memory of Retsu’s predatory grin and the surgical knife reinforcing the warning. "I understand, Grandfather. Retsu-sensei was indeed terrifying."

Of course, she wasn’t really planning on distancing herself or anything. She finds Retsu-sensei quite pleasant to talk to, and she believes that Retsu-sensei only acted that way earlier because she saw Seijirou getting harmed.

Eijisai returned to his question. "What then, Rindou? What do you intend to do with this information now that the world has been revealed to you?"

"I want you to teach me Ki," Rindou requested, her voice steady.

Eijisai didn’t answer immediately. He stared at his granddaughter intently and leaned back slightly. "Why? What purpose does this serve? You are the President of the Student Council, a pillar of order, and someday you’d be a police officer just as you dreamed of. Why would you sacrifice your safety for this chaos?"

Rindou’s gaze softened with genuine concern. "I want to help Seijirou-kun. I don’t want to see him get hurt like that again."

Eijisai frowned deeply. "Wasn’t it only recently that you were always hating on that brat? And now, suddenly, you’re willing to involve yourself in the dangers of the supernatural just for his sake?"

Rindou hesitated, as the real, complicated reason for her care of Seijirou began to surface.

"Grandfather, do you still remember the dreams I was having before I started high school?"

Eijisai nodded, recalling the vivid, disturbing nightmares Rindou used to describe. "The dreams of tragedy, yes."

Rindou explained, her eyes distant, reliving the dreams. "In that dream, I couldn’t move, nor could I speak, but I would always see another version of myself—a Rindou who was always in some terrible trouble. Her fate always ended in tragedy. But there would always be this unknown man who would try and save her. And whenever he failed, he would turn back the time, trying different methods to save her, again and again, for hundreds, maybe thousands of times. He would always save her. Until eventually, he succeeded. And that version of me and that unknown man lived happily ever after."

Rindou sighed dreamily, a look of overwhelming love spreading across her face. "I couldn’t quite explain it, Grandfather. That feeling of overwhelming love. Enduring thousands of trials and deaths just to save me. It was simply breathtaking."

Eijisai looked at his granddaughter skeptically. "And you truly think this unknown man, this hero from your dreams, is that Kageyama Seijirou?"

Rindou nodded firmly, without a shadow of doubt. "At first, I thought the unknown person might be my junior, Tadano Taro, because he was kind and tried to help me. So I tried to get close to him."

She did get close to him, and Rindou even felt a familiar feeling, as if they have known each other for awhile.

"But when Seijirou saved me from those thugs some time ago, it was like a dam broke in my heart. A torrent of unknown feeling and intense familiarity burst forth. At that moment, I knew, with absolute certainty: Ah, this is him."

Eijisai observed his granddaughter’s gentle smile, noting the unmistakable look of someone who had fallen deeply, irrevocably in love based on a profound, perhaps supernatural, connection.

He shook his head slowly. "Rindou, a dream, is, after all, just a dream. Why ruin your ordered, normal life for someone you barely know based on a fictional feeling?"

Rindou shook her head decisively. "Maybe it was just a dream, Grandfather. Maybe it was a real memory. But that doesn’t change the fact that Seijirou is now very important to me."

In fact, she also remembered that she, along with some other faceless women, wrote a letter to that unknown man.

[In a world written in sorrow, you became our unwritten hope.]

[Where fate gave us endings, you gave us beginnings.]

[You held our hands when the story let us go.]

[Now, even if the game ends, our hearts will always belong to you.]

That letter, for some reason, would always invoke an unknown feeling in her chest, and she couldn’t resist crying.

She would also dreamed of the other her, always telling her to "Don’t forget, you must never forget".

Although Rindou doesn’t know what was she supposed to not forget.

Eijisai’s experienced eyes saw no waver in her resolve, so he sighed and finally stopped trying to dissuade her. "Rindou. Are you really willing to abandon your safe, normal life and fully commit yourself to the harsh, brutal world of the supernatural?"

Rindou nodded, meeting his gaze with the unwavering conviction of a warrior. "I am sure."

Eijisai sighed, leaning forward and accepting the inevitable. "Very well. Your father and I always knew you possessed the Spirit Circuits. It seems now is the time to utilize them. Prepare yourself. We will begin your Ki training tomorrow."

Rindou grinned as she bowed.

"Thank you, grandfather!"