For all these years, it wasn't as if Satsuki had never seen a woman's body before. But openly entering a women's changing room—this was a first for her.
If it had been the Satsuki who had just reincarnated, she might have felt excited or embarrassed in such an environment.
But now, she had long since transcended the bounds of humanity. After realizing the situation, there was hardly any fluctuation in her emotions.
Then, Satsuki entered together with the other club members.
The young girls chatted among themselves about recent happenings at school while casually removing their uniforms without any restraint.
Satsuki had originally intended to simply grab a random outfit from the rack on the other side to change into.
But at that moment, Shizuka Kusanagi approached her, her face flushed red.
"Onee-chan, I have an extra set of clothes here."
"Oh?"
Satsuki turned her head and glanced at Shizuka, not thinking much of it.
"Our body types are quite different. Will it fit?"
That statement sounded a bit like humblebragging—strictly speaking, Shizuka's appearance was already quite outstanding and adorable for her age. But her youth was undeniable. Compared to Satsuki, she was still just an unopened bud.
Hearing this, Shizuka's face grew even redder, her tone completely different from her usual lively self.
"It's fine… that outfit will definitely suit you, Onee-chan."
As she spoke, Shizuka took a deep breath as if gathering her courage. She opened her personal locker and carefully took out a neatly folded set of clothing.
"Hmm~ Host, why does this outfit look so familiar?" the system suddenly popped up in her mind upon seeing it.
Familiar—of course it was familiar.
Because the outfit Shizuka had taken out was clearly a women's qipao.
However, this wasn't surprising. During important tea ceremony performances, women were required to wear qipao.
But for a middle school student like Shizuka, such attire was undoubtedly too mature and clearly unsuitable.
Moreover, judging by the size, this qipao did not appear to have been prepared for her.
Satsuki glanced at the garment briefly. Compared to such attire, she had always leaned toward lightweight and shorter kimono styles—less restrictive, more revealing in subtle ways, and far better suited to her own preferences.
Still, given the occasion, she did not refuse.
Changing from a school uniform into a qipao was somewhat troublesome. But for Satsuki, with her 360-degree vision from the Byakugan, it posed no real difficulty. Even the hidden zipper on her back could be pulled up by herself.
When the fabric settled over her body, the difference in sizing became obvious. The qipao, not made for her proportions, clung along her frame and traced the lines of her figure. The fitted cut pressed along her chest and hips, outlining curves that the design had not originally intended to emphasize.
After stepping out of the dressing room, the commotion Satsuki caused was only to be expected.
On the spot, several club members lost focus and poured tea outside their teaware. Realizing such a basic mistake, they nervously glanced at the seniors supervising them—only to find that their seniors' attention wasn't on them at all.
Since Satsuki didn't have her own tea set, she could only take the role of a guest this time. Even so, being a guest was far from simple.
Drinking tea itself was a simple act. But once elevated to the concept of the "Way of Tea," it came with strict rules and etiquette. The spirit of tea ceremony was embedded within these seemingly cumbersome procedures.
...
Tokyo Haneda International Airport
A blond young man raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight and glanced at the time on his wristwatch.
Compared to the surrounding Japanese passengers, he appeared quite tall. However, his build was extremely lean, almost like a bamboo pole.
He wore a blue shirt on his upper body, left unbuttoned, and long jeans below, giving off a laid-back, tropical Latin vibe.
He let out a yawn, seemingly still struggling with jet lag.
"I didn't expect Erica to become the seventh one. And that guy actually ran off to Japan of all places… what an unsettling fellow!"
After muttering a complaint, the young man continued walking, talking to himself without concern.
Behind him, a familiar figure appeared—Miss Lucretia, the "Witch of Sardinia."
"Perhaps she felt it would affect your position as leader in Northern Europe, so Erica chose to leave voluntarily. After all, the achievement of slaying the war god Verethragna is far too astonishing."
"Well, to be honest, I'm still quite surprised. That guy actually has that kind of ability. Even with the help of Prometheus' Grimoire, achieving that still requires a great deal of luck."
The blond man laughed heartily.
"Speaking of which, I'm more interested in the witch who decided to return Prometheus' Grimoire."
"She is, after all, the descendant of an old friend of mine. Lord Salvatore, please go easy on her."
If a magician were present and heard the young man's name, they would likely be utterly shocked.
Salvatore—this name held absolute recognition and authority throughout the magical world.
One of the seven Godslayers, the King of Swords who ruled the magical associations of Southern Europe. He had defeated the Celtic king of gods, Nuada of the Silver Arm, and obtained the qualification of a king. Revered as the strongest swordsman in Europe and acknowledged as a leader by local magicians, he was an anomalous genius who knew nothing beyond swordsmanship.
After hearing her words, Salvatore suddenly asked:
"Erica is, after all, a member of the Copper-Black Cross. For her to come all the way here—Miss Lucretia, do you really know nothing about her purpose?"
At this question, Lucretia revealed a teasing smile.
"Perhaps she heard about the preferences of a certain 'King' and decided to keep her distance out of respect."
"Hmm—am I really that terrible as a King?"
"A battle-loving King like you causing trouble for others is perfectly normal," Lucretia replied mercilessly.
Salvatore was well aware of his own temperament. He had always felt that becoming a King was somewhat unreal. Most of the time, he simply wanted to act as a knight who cared only for battle.
"From the sound of it, Erica probably won't accept my challenge."
Lucretia answered this foolish proposal without hesitation.
"Perhaps Your Majesty could try changing your target—such as the Marquis Voban in Southern Europe or the Cult Leader in Jiangnan. They would be far more suitable opponents than Erica."
Salvatore pretended not to hear.
"Well, forget it. I'm not that battle-crazed anyway. Let's just treat this as a chance to escape those gloomy old geezers and take a vacation. As for things like the Gorgoneion, they can dump that trouble on whoever they like. I'm not interested."
Chapter 22: It's Been a While Since I Experienced Such a Low-Level Attack
By the time the tea ceremony club's activities ended, it was already around seven or eight in the evening.
A proper tea ceremony session had taken a full four hours from beginning to end. Although Satsuki had anticipated how cumbersome it would be, actually going through it still left her somewhat speechless.
It could only be said that Yuri Mariya truly lived up to her shrine maiden upbringing. She possessed an almost obsessive pursuit of etiquette and ritual. With her earnest personality, every single movement was executed with rigid precision.
During the process of instructing Satsuki, she was meticulous to an almost excessive degree.
Still, it would have been better if her probing spiritual power had not been quite so obvious—
Because Satsuki's Tenseigan had already noticed quite a few foreigners tailing her these past days.
Her joining the tea ceremony club made her an excellent piece of bait—one that could lure these people out.
After politely declining the invitation to walk home together with Shizuka and the others, Satsuki headed alone toward another street.
Before long, several groups of foreigners surrounded her.
The location had been carefully chosen—a bridge spanning a river that ran through a residential district.
The industrial housing area was far from pleasant. Ongoing construction made the environment even more desolate.
Wild grass overgrew along the riverbanks, spreading chaotically across the shore. The moment Satsuki stepped onto the embankment, four men appeared ahead of her, and three more blocked her from behind.
Both her path forward and her retreat were completely cut off. There were no pedestrians, no passing vehicles.
"Gentlemen, it's nearly dusk. What business do you have stopping me?"
Though these men clearly meant trouble, Satsuki spoke softly, as if she cared nothing for the situation she was in.
Each of the foreigners was tall and strongly built.
Like ANBU from Naruto, they all wore masks, though their clothing lacked uniformity.
There were traces of spell power on them, but in the eyes of the Tenseigan, they were nothing more than the bottom tier among the bottom tier.
Erica alone could likely handle more than a hundred of such people.
Still, judging purely by physique, they were intimidating enough.
The most eye-catching among them was a Black man who appeared particularly dangerous. He stood around one hundred ninety centimeters tall and likely weighed over one hundred kilograms. If someone claimed he was a heavyweight fighter, no one would doubt it.
He wore a sleeveless shirt, and venomous spider tattoos crawled across both shoulders.
In response to Satsuki's question, the group offered only one reaction—no nonsense, no words. They moved without a sound.
Satsuki was slightly surprised. For villains who so obviously looked like minor thugs, their discipline was unexpectedly decent. They even understood the principle that villains die from talking too much.
Unfortunately—they had chosen the wrong opponent.
The burliest Black man approached from the front and suddenly threw a straight punch toward Satsuki's face. To ordinary eyes, it was respectable enough.
But to Satsuki, there was nothing acceptable about it—neither speed, power, variation, footwork coordination, hip drive, nor breathing rhythm.
Thus, she merely shifted her foot three inches to the right, almost imperceptibly. The punch brushed past her cheek and struck empty air.
Caught off guard by the miss, the man did not retract his extended fist. Instead, he reached for her shoulder.
However, Satsuki's right hand had already been prepared. From below, she struck sharply upward against his chin, then followed with a kick.
Despite restraining nearly all her strength, the blow still sent the massive man flying. He crashed directly into a concrete wall dozens of meters away, smashing a human-shaped crater into it. His eyes rolled back, and he lost consciousness instantly.
"Oh? No bones shattered. Protected himself with spell power, did he?"
The thought flashed through her mind just as a sharp whistling sound cut through the air from her flank.
The Tenseigan clearly saw it—a slender sword summoned from thin air through summoning magic. Farther away, someone had even produced a handgun.
The fusion of magic and technology manifested in a rather peculiar way.
Satsuki's body retreated swiftly, evading the slash from the foreigner on her right. Her elbow shot sideways, smashing into his left chest.
Crack.
The sound of bone shattering rang clearly in her ears. The foreigner wielding the blade nearly died on the spot.
Before he could collapse, Satsuki grabbed his arm, yanked his body downward—she was not tall enough otherwise—and drove her other fist into his face.
Cheek. Jaw. Bridge of the nose.
Three rapid strikes left the tall man nearly fainting from pain.
But Satsuki had not finished using him as a sandbag.
After knocking him unconscious, she executed a swift sliding step, positioning herself behind his body.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three gunshots followed in rapid succession, all striking the man's abdomen.
Satsuki glanced at the wounds. A small-caliber handgun. Not fatal.
Without hesitation, she grabbed the unconscious man and, after a brief gathering of force, hurled him directly at the shooter.
Both men were knocked off the bridge and sent tumbling below.
Four remained.
Perhaps shocked by the hand-to-hand combat Satsuki had displayed, the four men now looked at her with deep wariness.
For a moment, none dared to initiate an attack.
Reading their unease, Satsuki spoke expressionlessly.
"If you won't come at me—then it's my turn."
The words had barely fallen.
A single whoosh cut through the air.
Then—
"Ugh…!"
Another scream burst from a foreigner's mouth.
His body bent like a lobster, arching grotesquely. At his chest, Satsuki stood in a bow-step straight punch stance, her fist pressed firmly against him.
A massive force seemed almost tangible, tearing through his back, shredding the fabric of his clothes before slamming into the steel support of the bridge. One corner of the structure snapped apart as easily as paper.
To achieve such destruction through pure physical strength alone—the remaining foreigners were utterly horrified.
"This guy's a monster…" one of them muttered in Italian.
Two of them turned and fled in terror. The last one remained frozen in place, too stunned to move.
Satsuki tilted her head slightly, her golden eyes narrowing.
"Tenseigan—Oppression."
Thud.
Thud.
In the next instant, the two fleeing men were struck by an invisible force and blasted backward, crashing into the concrete wall behind them—just like their first companion.
Finally, Satsuki walked step by step toward the last foreigner—the one who had not acted from beginning to end due to his lack of skill.
Though he stood over one hundred eighty centimeters tall and Satsuki was only slightly above one hundred seventy, as she approached, he felt an unprecedented terror.
It was as if what walked toward him was not a human—but a monster.
Under that crushing pressure, before Satsuki could even speak, he made a move that startled even her.
He threw down his weapon and dropped flat to the ground in a full prostration, shouting in broken Japanese:
"Please forgive me!"