I told myself a hundred different lies before I let the truth sit in my chest like a stone.
The system had already carved me up. It had taken the one clean thing I'd wanted and stapled a ledger to it. It had branded Saki as a line item and handed me a choice that tasted like rot no matter which way I turned it.
So I lied to myself in the only way that felt salvageable: if I was damned, I would be damned on my own terms.
If the menu wanted me to be the villain, then fine. I would wear the mask long enough to carve out a corner of safety for what mattered. I would use whatever the system gave me, strength, senses, tokens, to protect Saki. Not because the system asked me to, but because I could. Not because corruption appealed to me, but because survival and resistance sometimes require you to learn the enemy's tongue.
It was a selfish argument dressed up as strategy. It also, dangerously, made sense.
I sat at the small kitchen table with my phone face down, feeling the passivity stat, Resolve, like a thin, newly forged wire inside my sternum. Resolve didn't make you righteous. It let you hold on just one second longer when the world offered you shortcuts. The Anchor Token sat in inventory like a single clean breath. I could use it to check truth once, protect some conversation from systemic interference. But not yet. Not on a whim. Not until I saw the architecture of the system's appetite.
Tsukimi Chifuyu. The name had glittered across my vision earlier like an accusation. Innocence Index: High. Pure Girlfriend. The system's phrasing had been clinical and obscene all at once. It didn't need to make her suffer directly to do damage, it only needed me to cooperate. Completion. Progress. Tutorial.
Protect Saki by taking the system's next meal apart from the inside, I told myself. Learn its logic. Anticipate its hooks. Use its own incentives to make it feed on something that didn't lead to ruin.
And the first step was simple, petty, cowardly, and somehow the only way forward: find the targer, observe, collect data. If there was leverage to be had, I wanted it to be the kind I could twist into a ladder rather than a collar.
That afternoon I followed the thread the system had left in ambient mana, a faint ribbon, like a scent. Mana Perception traced it easily now, a five-meter cone at my side that sharpened the world into line and pulse. Tsukimi's aura had a softness to it, warm and unassuming, but underneath there was a tremor: a brittle edge I recognized as fear and habit.
When she walked with her boyfriend, Takagi, I reminded myself, the name a small stone of fact, the two of them fit together like halves of a quiet picture. He was protective in a public, ordinary way: hands in pockets, a loose shoulder guiding, a laugh that made her eyes bloom.
Watching them, I felt the system's teeth. It wanted a snapshot, literal and moral. It wanted me to turn privacy into leverage. The worst part was how easy it would have been. Two people leaning close in a shadowed doorway, a kiss that could be framed a thousand ways, a single image that could be read into headlines and ruin.
I told myself I wouldn't cross that line. I told myself I would collect only what was public. I would be a cleaner predator than the system wanted. I would gather proof of their outings, not their betrayals. I would learn the schedule, note the places they favored, see who watched them, who lingered. Knowledge before action. Pattern before collapse.
So I trailed them at a careful distance through the market lanes, under banners and beneath the noon bell that marked the smiths' trade. Takagi bought an extra skewer and fed Tsukimi a bite like a small, domestic ceremony; she laughed, a hesitant sound she hid in her sleeve.
They paused by a florist and argued about a silly choice of ribbon, fingertips brushing. The image in my head sharpened, tenderness, not treason, and my throat tightened in a way the system's numbers couldn't touch.
My phone trembled in my hand. I could take the photograph now, of course. A public tableau, certainly. The menu would call it evidence. The world would call it a scandal if I let it. I breathed and let the shutter not fall. For now.
Instead I catalogued minutiae. The cafe they ducked into had a back lane that emptied into a narrow yard. There were two cameras mounted above the awning, one facing the street, one angled slightly toward the alley. A trio of older men at the far table smelled of too much liquor and too little sleep; they watched the couple with idle curiosity. A delivery boy in a bright jacket took their table number and lingered in the doorway, impatience on his face.
All of it was data. All of it would be useful.
The more I watched, the more my rationalizations stacked: I would be a better monster than the system expected. I would collect leverage only to shield Saki, only to have something to trade when the algorithm demanded payment. The Anchor Token would be reserved for a moment of truth, a way to prove to Saki or to another that a confession or a conversation wasn't system-sculpted. The Resolve stat would be my backbone when the system tried to talk me into atrocity.
But as I followed them away from the cafe, something colder tugged at me: ease. The feeling that every decision I made, even the ones I convinced myself were noble, moved me a step further from the man I'd been. I was learning how to play the part the system wanted. I was learning the language of leverage. I was practicing the cruelty I hated.
They crossed a small bridge, and I kept to the shadow beneath the railings. Mana perception hummed faintly, and when I focused I could see the patterns around Takagi, a low, steady beat that said simple health and honest concern. Around Tsukimi there was that brittle tremor again, a thread I wanted to cut, not exploit.
The system nudged, as if sensing indecision.
[Hint: Opportunistic capture increases reward multiplier by 1.2x.]
[Suggested Method: Close-range photographic evidence (public consent not required).]
It suggested the easiest cruelty as if offering candy to a child. My stomach turned.
I swallowed the urge to smash the phone. Instead I pocketed it, straightened my coat, and made a choice that felt like a splintering of my ethics into workable pieces.
I would follow them tonight to the little riverside bar Takagi liked. I would note the exits. I would map the alleyways. I would identify the watchers, the cameras, the men who might be asked to "forget" what they saw for the right price. I would not take the kiss shot. Not yet. I would be better than the menu in degree if not in kind.
The rationalizations hardened into a plan. If the system wanted a role, I would learn it and spin it to my advantage. I would accept the mask for now, and hide my face with it, until the day I could tear the system off and never put it back on.
The sun went low. They paused under an amber streetlamp and kissed, quick, public, ordinary, the kind that thieves of privacy like to reframe. The moment washed through me like cold water. My phone was heavy in my hand. The red of the system's clock pulsed in the corner of my sight: twenty-two hours, fifty-eight minutes.
I took one photo. It was a public picture in a public place, no shadows to exploit, no scuffed privacy to racket. A record, not a weapon, at least, that's what I told myself as I tucked the phone away.
The system registered the capture with clinical efficiency.
[Objective 1: Acquire leverage (Evidence: photo, message, secret). - Completed.]
The message blinked, clinical and smug, before dissolving into a new line of text.
[Target Info Unlocked: Subject(s) enrolled at Sakurada High.]
[School Rule Highlight: Romantic relationships strictly prohibited. Enforcement: demerits, suspension, expulsion.]
I let out a slow laugh that wasn't funny. It was the kind of hollow sound you make when the universe trips over itself to be ironic.
A no-dating rule. In a world already bent toward voyeurism, shame, and leverage. It was the kind of glass cage an institution builds when it wants to claim purity while laying the groundwork for hypocrisy.
Sakurada High. The name sat in my head like an anchor I hadn't asked for. It explained the stiffness in Tsukimi's walk whenever Takagi brushed her hand in public, the way her laughter tucked itself into her sleeve, half-swallowed. She wasn't just hiding from random eyes, she was hiding from a rule designed to make young love into contraband.
And now the system wanted me to use it. Dating forbidden meant any proof of affection could be weaponized. It didn't need to be salacious or cruel. A single photo of them smiling too close on school grounds would be enough to dismantle their safety.
Easy, the menu whispered. Clean. Efficient.
I shoved my phone back into my pocket hard enough that my knuckles whitened.
Was this really what I'd been reincarnated into? A world where the rules weren't meant to guide people but to break them? Where the system's appetite and the institution's hypocrisy lined up so neatly it felt choreographed?
I rubbed at my eyes. The fatigue wasn't just physical, it was moral erosion pressing down like a tide. I was already caught thinking in its vocabulary: "leverage," "targets," "rules to exploit." That wasn't me. That wasn't who I wanted to be.
And yet… Saki's face surfaced in my mind.
I'd told myself I would use the system's tools to protect her. Now here was the first lesson in how it wanted to be used.
Dating banned. Punishment guaranteed. Desire forbidden.
I muttered to myself, voice low enough that no passerby could hear: "Everyone's going to break that rule. And that's exactly what this world is built for. To catch them in the act, to turn love into liability."
The system pulsed faintly in my vision, as if pleased I'd understood.
[Optional Objective: Deliver acquired leverage at Sakurada High. Reward: +2 Strength, +1 Resolve.]
The optional tag didn't fool me. Optional today meant mandatory tomorrow. It was just giving me time to swallow the bait.
I tilted my head back, staring at the iron-gray sky above the riverside lamps. No matter how I spun it, I was being walked down a road toward betrayal. Step by step. Rule by rule.
But if I had to walk it, I'd do it with my eyes open.
...
Sakurada High looked like a temple pretending to be a school.
White stone gates arched high enough to dwarf the crowd spilling out, banners bearing the school crest rippling in the late breeze. The building itself was immaculate: tall windows polished to near-mirrors, spotless walls that seemed to sneer at dust. Everything about it carried the weight of order, discipline, purity.
And yet the first thing I felt when I stepped inside the grounds wasn't admiration. It was suffocation.
The no-dating rule explained itself in the architecture. No benches tucked into corners where students could linger too close. Hallways stretched wide and sterile, lockers set at mathematically neat intervals, stairwells lit too brightly for shadows to hide. Surveillance cameras glinted like eyes every few meters. Even the quad felt staged, its trimmed garden arranged like a painting, beautiful, but sterile.
The message couldn't have been clearer: no privacy. No intimacy. No space for tenderness to breathe.
And yet, of course, the students were breaking it already. Not openly, but in the stolen glances, the subtle passes of notes, the pairs who left just a little too close together through the gates. Desire had a way of writing itself into margins, no matter how tightly you boxed in the page.
I caught eyes on me the moment I walked through the courtyard. It was the same everywhere: whispers of angel, idol, not from here. The attention still hadn't dulled, and it never would. I towered over most of them, sunlight catching in my hair like I carried my own halo. A walking contradiction: the world's idea of temptation dressed in discipline's uniform.
The system didn't even need to whisper. I could already feel it breathing through the cracks: if one photo could ruin them, imagine what your presence could do.
I ignored it. For now.
Instead, I drifted along the edge of the courtyard, letting Mana Perception trace the living threads around me. Dozens of pulses, most ordinary, buzzing with fatigue and chatter. And then one: softer, more fragile.
Behind the gymnasium, half-hidden by a line of vending machines and a narrow strip of shadow, Tsukimi Chifuyu stood with her head bowed.
She clutched her phone like it was an anchor, knuckles pale. Every few seconds she peeked out from behind the wall, eyes darting to the path where students trickled away. Waiting. The aura around her trembled the same way it had yesterday: a delicate rhythm of nerves and hope.
Takagi. She was waiting for him.
It should have been ordinary. A girlfriend waiting for her boyfriend after class. But here, at Sakurada High, it was contraband. A crime measured in demerits and whispered punishments.
The system pulsed in my vision like a grin I couldn't wipe away:
[Observation: Rule infraction in progress.]
[Potential Leverage: High. Capture = +1.5x Reward Multiplier.]
I dug my hands into my pockets, knuckles pressed so hard my fingers ached.
She wasn't doing anything wrong. She was just waiting for the person she loved.
I approached her.
The air between us was thick with the kind of silence that comes before something breaks.
Tsukimi's shoulders tensed. She didn't turn around, just clenched her phone tighter, her aura flickering like a candle in a draft. "Y-you're…"
"I'm Lucien," I said, stepping forward just enough that my shadow fell across her. The light caught the gold in my hair, the angle sharp enough that it probably looked like a halo from where she stood. Perfect. The system would've been proud. I even sounded like an angel. "Tsukimi-san, right?"
She finally turned, and the fear in her eyes was the kind that comes from being cornered by something you don't understand. Not just a stranger. A predator. Or maybe a savior. She couldn't tell yet. Neither could I.
"H-how do you—?"
"I saw you with Takagi earlier," I said, smoothly. "At the market."
Her face paled. "O-oh."
I tilted my head, letting the question hang between us like a blade. "You two seem… close."
She swallowed. Her fingers twitched around her phone. "We're just-"
"Just?" I echoed, and the system's text flickered in my vision, gleeful:
[Leverage Opportunity: Escalating.]
[Suggested Prompt: "Are you two dating?" (Truth = +1.8x Multiplier).]
Tsukimi's breath hitched. She looked at the ground, her aura dimming. "It's… not allowed."
"No," I agreed, stepping closer. "But rules like that… they're made to be broken, aren't they?"
She didn't answer. She didn't have to. The way her shoulders curled in said everything.
I reached into my pocket.
Her body went rigid, like she expected a knife. I didn't blame her. I felt like a knife.
Instead, I pulled out my phone. The screen was already open, the photo from last night, the one I'd told myself was harmless. The one where she and Takagi stood under the streetlamp, lips pressed together, the kind of kiss that's too quick to be a crime but too real to be anything else.
Tsukimi's eyes locked onto it. Her face went bloodless.
"This is you,"
She didn't deny it. She couldn't. The proof was right there, glowing in my hand, her sin made pixel-perfect and permanent.
The system's text scrolled across my vision, triumphant:
[Objective 2: Apply Pressure — Progress: 30%.]
[Target Emotional State: Vulnerable (Optimal for Compliance).]
[Suggested Action: "I could make this disappear."]
Tsukimi's voice was a whisper. "P-please…"
"Please what?" I asked, and the cruelty in my tone wasn't mine. It was the system's. It was the role's. It was the part I'd agreed to play when I decided to wear the villain's mask.
She flinched. "Delete it."
I didn't move. Just let the silence stretch, let her squirm in it. The system was right, this was optimal. The more she begged, the more power I had. The more power I had, the safer Saki was.
That's what you told yourself, isn't it?
Tsukimi's hands were shaking. "I... I'll do anything. Just-"
"Anything?" The word hung between us, heavy with implication. The system's text pulsed:
[Compliance Threshold: 60%.]
[Reward Preview: +1 Resolve (Permanent).]
I could end this now. I could take her offer, twist it into whatever I needed, and walk away with another stat boost, another step closer to keeping Saki safe.
But the look in Tsukimi's eyes, she wasn't just scared.
She was broken.
Her voice cracked, thin as paper: "P-please don't… everyone will hate us. They'll expel us. Takagi... he…"
The words dissolved. She couldn't finish them. She didn't need to.
I tilted my phone just enough for the glow to splash across her face, "Then maybe I should do it, pin this to the bulletin board in the main hall. Let everyone see what you and Takagi have been hiding while the rest choke on the rules."
Her breath hitched like I'd already done it.
"No… please, you can't…" Tsukimi's hands trembled so violently her phone nearly slipped from her grasp. "If… if you do that, we're finished. He'll be dragged down with me. Everyone will hate us."
"That's the rule, isn't it? Everyone else suffers while you two sneak around. Do you think they'd forgive you for that?"
Her shoulders collapsed. She shook her head, eyes glassy, lips pressed tight as if to hold back the sob rising in her chest.
I leaned closer, "But maybe… maybe I'll consider deleting it. Depending on how you react right now."
Her eyes snapped up to mine. Wide. Desperate.
The system pulsed, clinical and triumphant:
[Compliance Threshold: 100%.]
[Objective 2: Apply Pressure — Completed.]
[Target Isolated: Tsukimi Chifuyu.]
A wave of vertigo slammed into me. My stomach flipped as if I'd stepped off a cliff.
What the hell?
I hadn't even made her promise anything. She hadn't signed some contract, hadn't offered me her body or her silence. All I'd done was show her the picture, make the threat explicit, and hint that my mercy was conditional. And that alone, that little scrap of cruelty, had been enough for the system to log her as "isolated."
I stared at her, baffled. "Why…" The word slipped before I could stop it.
She flinched. "Wh-why what?"
Why don't you fight? I wanted to say. Why don't you go to the teachers? The police? Why don't you tell Takagi and let him defend you? Why is your first instinct to fold yourself into compliance instead of clawing for freedom?
Tsukimi was still watching me, lips trembling, waiting for my verdict like a condemned prisoner. One word from me and she'd spiral into ruin. Another word and she'd thank me for mercy I hadn't given.
And all I could think was: This worked. Too well. What the hell.
I forced my voice flat. "Don't tell anyone about this."
She nodded so fast her hair fell into her face. "I won't. I swear."
The system chimed again, smug:
[Reward Unlocked: +2 Strength, +1 Resolve.]
[Next Objective Available: Establish ongoing control.]