The morning of September 3 greeted Tokyo with a heavy smog.
Silence reigned inside the Orion Residence penthouse, if one ignored Ai's soft breathing — over the past two days, she had worn herself out no less than I had during the fever.
I stood by the panoramic window, savoring the long-forgotten sensation of having my own body back. One hundred ninety centimeters of height. Normal male hands. And the Six Eyes, once again scanning reality in its full breadth.
But the moment I turned around, that peaceful mood evaporated.
The living room looked as if someone had celebrated a victory over a Demon King here — and on a very limited budget. Kevlar scraps from Marin, empty pizza boxes, towels tossed everywhere, and a mountain of Takemichi's textbooks that looked like new life had already started evolving on them.
— "Alright, System," — I summoned the interface in my mind. — "Let's clean this place up. Where are those famous Frieren skills? I need the Clothing Cleaning Spell and something that'll make this trash take itself out."
A familiar chime rang in my head, but instead of a list of spells, a dry notification appeared.
[Sync System: Request denied. Skills from the "Frieren" template are locked for the current shell.]
I froze, and beneath the blindfold, my eyes flashed dangerously.
— "Listen here, tin can," — I said. — "Let's clear up one thing. I paid a shitload for that template. I spent two days lying there with a fever pushing forty, rebuilding my mana channels. And now you're telling me my S-rank template just evaporated?!"
[Sync System: Negative, Host. The "Frieren" template has been successfully stored in your "Soul Wardrobe." You may switch to it at any time once your mana channels are stable. However...]
— "What do you mean, however?" — I could already smell the catch.
[Sync System: Elven-type domestic magic is a form of delicate, filigree-like energy manipulation. Satoru Gojo's mana is too aggressive and too highly concentrated. Attempting to clean clothes with it would be like trying to dust a vase with a tactical nuclear strike. To use Frieren's "peaceful" skills, you must assume the appropriate form. Put simply: if you want clean floors and herb-searching magic, kindly return to the body of a little elf girl.]
I distinctly heard the crunch of the fist I had clenched without realizing it.
— "So in order to wash dishes, I have to turn back into a meter-and-a-half-tall girl with twintails?" — I asked. — "Are you screwing with me?"
[Sync System: The System does not possess a sense of humor. The System is merely concerned with the preservation of your property. In your current form, your maximum output would be erasing the dirty plate from reality along with part of the table. Would you like to activate "Red" to disinfect the kitchen?]
— "Take your sarcasm, shove it straight up your #!@*#!$&!@$, then twist it a couple more times and $%!";%;"№;№"#@!!!" — I roared so loudly that the glass in the panoramic windows gave a pitiful rattle.
— "So the Strongest's magic is only good for war, and for housework I have to put on a skirt? Great. Just fucking fantastic."
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POV: Takemichi
Takemichi Hanagaki felt like a man who had been sentenced to death — except they had not only forgotten to blindfold him, they had also made him dig his own grave with a school ruler.
He stood in the entryway, gripping the straps of his backpack so hard his knuckles had turned white. The school uniform he had spent half the night furiously scrubbing in the kitchen sink still smelled faintly of dampness and cheap soap.
Two days.
He had missed two goddamn days of the second semester.
For a normal teenager, that would have been a free ticket to a happy little vacation. But for Hina Tachibana's boyfriend, it was an official death sentence by dismemberment-through-glare.
— "I have to make it there..." — he whispered feverishly, adjusting the bucket hat pulled down almost to his chin. — "If I don't turn in geometry today, Hina will think I... that I joined a gang again. Or that I stopped loving her. Oh God, she'll just erase me from reality."
— "Hanagaki, have you really decided to commit an act of self-immolation in the schoolyard?" — came a lazy, vibrating voice from behind him.
Takemichi jumped in place, nearly dropping his backpack, and spun around.
By the window, arms crossed over his chest, stood Satoru.
The real one.
That same terrifying white-haired monster who had single-handedly cleared the square in Yoyogi — not the melancholy elf girl who had spent the last two days eating broth by the spoonful.
— "Satoru-kun! You... you finally stopped being a loli!" — a spark of hope flashed in Takemichi's voice.
— "Stopped?" — Gojo gave a crooked smirk and adjusted the black blindfold. — "If by 'normal' you mean a state where I can blow apart a city block, but can't magically heat up my own coffee without putting on a frilly dress — then yes. I'm in my ideal, fucking form."
He took a step forward, and Takemichi instinctively shrank his head into his shoulders. Even in passive mode, the aura of the Strongest pressed down on the mind like a concrete slab.
— "The Association's bloodhounds are prowling downstairs," — Satoru said evenly, looking straight through the wall. — "And the Public Safety Bureau has almost certainly already posted someone at your school. To them, you're the cheapest and most accessible ticket to me. Are you sure your geometry assignment is worth ending up in an interrogation room?"
— "But Hina..." — Takemichi sniffled, and tears shimmered in his eyes. — "She's the only normal thing I have left. If I lose school, I lose her. And without her... what's the point of all this magic and all these gods?"
Gojo stayed silent for a few seconds, as if the Six Eyes were scanning the very soul of the sniveling hero.
Then he simply stepped aside, clearing the way.
— "Go on, lover-boy hero. Mask, glasses, limp — just like Ai taught you. But keep this in mind: if they corner you... don't expect me to come flying in on a pink cloud within five minutes. I've got half a ton of trash in the living room and a System I dream of annihilating."
— "I'll manage! Thank you, Satoru-kun!" — Takemichi shouted, then shot out the door like a bullet before the Strongest could change his mind.
The school greeted him with its familiar hum and the smell of chalk.
Takemichi almost believed that his disguise as a limping masked pensioner had actually worked.
He slipped through the gate, trying not to make eye contact even with the guard.
No one turned around.
No one shouted, Look, it's that kid from the Princess Peach memes!
Almost made it... — his heart hammered in a hard-techno rhythm. — I just need to change my shoes, hand the notebook to the teacher, and run straight back to the safe concrete bunker...
He rushed into the shoe-changing area, breathless from tension. His locker, number 142, was tucked away in the far corner, out of sight from prying eyes. His hands were shaking so badly that the key slipped off the keyhole twice.
Click.
Takemichi yanked the locker door open — and instantly recoiled, letting out a sound like the squeak of a strangled rubber duck.
Inside the narrow metal locker, folded into some inhuman pose, sat a boy.
Tousled blond hair. A gaze completely devoid of intelligence. And a jaw moving with a steady, wet chewing sound.
He was enthusiastically finishing off a sausage roll, having smeared ketchup all over the collar of his wrinkled shirt.
— "Oh." — The boy lifted his muddy, unfocused gaze to Takemichi. — "Finally. I thought you wouldn't make it before recess. Hey..." — he held out the drool-slick remains of the sausage. — "Want some? I've been sitting in here for an hour already. My whole body's gone numb as hell."
— "Y-you... who are you?! What the hell are you doing in my locker?!" — Takemichi stumbled backward until his spine hit something hard and cold.
— "That's Denji," — said a voice from above, one that sent an icy chill down his spine. — "And he has very specific ideas about ambushes. Just like I have very specific ideas about patience."
Takemichi slowly turned around, his neck creaking.
A man in a flawless black suit towered over him. His face looked as though it had been carved from frozen granite, and the shadows beneath his eyes were so deep that it was obvious this man had not slept since the founding of Tokyo. A katana hung at his waist, and in one hand he held an open ID with a golden seal.
— "Aki Hayakawa, Public Safety Bureau. Special Division," — he said, and in that gaze Takemichi read his own obituary. — "We need to have a very serious talk about your 'white-haired friend' and why he thinks he can play with space in the middle of the city."
Denji finally spilled out of the locker, stretching until his spine cracked.
— "Hey, Aki," — he mumbled around a mouthful, licking his fingers. — "If he starts crying, can I kinda... y'know... do the thing? You promised that if we caught him fast, we'd go to that café with the decent curry."
— "Behave like a human being, not a starving stray, Denji," — Aki snapped, grabbing Takemichi by the shoulder with a dead man's grip.
— "Move, Hanagaki. We don't have much time before your master notices his favorite pack mule is missing."