The floor where the Student Council was located was especially quiet. The only sound in the hallway was Genichi's own footsteps. He stopped in front of the door and raised his hand to knock.
"Come in."
The voice from inside was cool and composed. Tsubaki Shinra.
Genichi opened the door and stepped inside.
The Student Council office was much larger than he had expected. A row of bookshelves stood against the wall, neatly packed with documents and books of all kinds.
A long table occupied the center of the room, several files spread across its surface with a few pens placed beside them.
Near the window was a separate desk, and Tsubaki Shinra sat behind it.
She wore a neat Student Council uniform, her long hair falling behind her head and revealing the slender line of her neck.
An open file lay in front of her, but she clearly was not reading it. The pen rested on the paper, its ink already bleeding into a small dark spot.
"Vice President."
Genichi stood at the doorway and did not move farther in.
"You called me here specifically. Is there something you need?"
Tsubaki raised her head and looked at him.
Her eyes were still as calm as water, but Genichi had the faint sense that she was different today.
"There are some things I'd like to discuss with you."
"Discuss?"
Genichi looked at her, already guessing most of it.
Previously, in that alternate dimension, Sona Sitri had asked him whether he wanted to change masters, and he had refused.
Now the Vice President had called him here alone. Nine times out of ten, it was still about that.
He decided to make things clear from the start.
"If this is about getting me to become the President's peerage member, then there's no need to continue. I won't agree to it."
Tsubaki looked at him in silence for a moment.
Then she shook her head.
"That isn't why I called you here."
Genichi paused.
It wasn't?
"Then what did you call me here for, Vice President?"
Tsubaki did not answer immediately.
She lowered her head and looked at the open file on her desk, her fingers gently rubbing along the shaft of her pen.
It was a small movement, but it exposed the hesitation inside her.
Genichi stood by the door and waited patiently, without urging her.
After a long while, Tsubaki finally raised her head.
Her expression remained calm, but something churned in her eyes.
"I would like to ask you to be my sparring partner."
Genichi was slightly taken aback.
Sparring partner?
"In our previous battle," Tsubaki said softly, as if she were stating something unrelated to herself, "I lost."
Genichi did not speak.
Of course he remembered that fight.
Tsubaki Shinra was not weak. She was only one step away from becoming a High-class Devil.
Her Sacred Gear, Mirror Alice, was even more troublesome. If he had not possessed King of Shadows, which could swallow attacks reflected back at him, the result of that battle would have been much harder to say.
"Winning and losing is normal," Genichi said calmly. "You're very strong, Vice President. You simply ran into an opponent who countered you."
Tsubaki shook her head.
"I'm not satisfied."
When she said those four words, her voice was still calm, but Genichi could sense what lay beneath that calm.
It was not anger. It was not resentment. It was something deeper and more complicated.
"Not because I lost," Tsubaki continued, as if explaining it to him, yet also trying to convince herself. "But because I couldn't even force you to show your true strength."
Genichi fell silent.
She was right.
In that battle, he really had not gone all out.
He had not activated the Boosted Gear from beginning to end. Not once had he used Boost.
The shadows he used had only been in their most basic defensive form, and even Apparition had only been used twice.
From beginning to end, he had been probing, observing, searching for the limits of Mirror Alice.
Tsubaki, however, had been fighting with everything she had the entire time.
That feeling could not have been pleasant.
"That's why I want you to spar with me."
Tsubaki raised her head and looked at Genichi, a certain light flickering in her eyes.
It was longing. It was obsession. It was the frustration of someone who wanted to become stronger.
"Of course, you don't need to worry. I'm not asking you to do it for free. I'll pay appropriate compensation, whether it's money, grimoires, or something else. As long as you name it—"
"Sorry."
Genichi cut her off.
His voice was calm, and his refusal was direct.
Tsubaki's words stopped abruptly.
She looked at Genichi, a trace of surprise flashing through her eyes, along with a hint of disappointment she could not fully hide.
"Right now, I only want to become stronger as quickly as possible. I don't want to get too involved in anything else."
There was no room for negotiation in Genichi's tone.
It was not an excuse. It was the truth.
He really did only want to become stronger as quickly as possible.
In this world, strength was everything.
High-class Devil. Ultimate-class Devil. Maou. Each step upward meant more security and more freedom to choose.
He did not want to spend time as someone else's sparring partner unless they were willing to pay him with something worth that time.
Tsubaki looked at him and remained silent for a long time.
In that silence, Genichi could feel her frustration, her disappointment, and the sting of her pride after being rejected.
But he did not soften, nor did he explain.
Some refusals needed to be clean and decisive, leaving no room for false hope.
"I understand," Tsubaki finally said, her voice returning to its usual coolness.
She lowered her head and picked up the pen again, as if nothing had happened.
"Then I won't take up any more of your time."
Genichi nodded and turned to leave.
When he reached the door, he stopped and looked back at Tsubaki.
She sat by the window, sunlight spilling in from outside and coating her in a layer of gold.
Her back was perfectly straight, and the hand holding the pen was steady, but Genichi could see that the pen tip hovered above the paper, never quite touching down.
Genichi withdrew his gaze, opened the door, and left.
The hallway returned to silence.
Genichi's footsteps gradually faded into the distance, finally vanishing at the stairwell.
Inside the Student Council office, Tsubaki sat by the window, and the pen in her hand finally touched the paper.
She wrote one word, then crossed it out.
She wrote another, then crossed that one out too.
The page was soon covered in messy black marks.
She stopped writing and stared at the chaotic mess of ink, a bitter smile appearing at the corner of her mouth.
Frustration.
It was not because she had lost, but because she had not even managed to force out her opponent's real strength.
Her pride and self-respect had been crushed in that battle by that boy's effortless composure.
She wanted to chase after him. She wanted to become stronger. She wanted to someday make him fight with everything he had.
But that boy would not even give her the chance.
Tsubaki set down her pen, leaned back against her chair, and closed her eyes.
Sunlight fell across her face, warm and gentle, yet it could not drive away the chill in her heart.
She thought back to that battle, to the boy who had stood behind the shadows without suffering a single injury.
When he refused her, his eyes had been calm, his tone decisive, without the slightest hesitation.
That refusal had not been because he disliked her. It had not been because he looked down on her.
It was because he simply did not care.
He did not care about her frustration.
He did not care about her pride.
He did not care about her determination to become stronger.
Tsubaki opened her eyes and looked out the window.
In the distance, several students were running across the sports field, young and full of energy. Her gaze passed over those figures and settled somewhere even farther away.
There stood the main gate of Kuoh Academy, the place Genichi passed through every day on his way to school.
(End of Chapter)
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