When the exam ended and they returned to Advanced Nurturing High School—
Even with her eyes wide open, Nanase Tsubasa's heart still felt strangely dazed.
It wasn't that she was still caught up in the exam's parting sorrows.
It was simply that, out of nowhere, she couldn't stop replaying a certain scene from that other world.
To meet the clear condition, Nagumo had picked a desperate commoner with nowhere left to turn, offered him a fortune, and let him volunteer to give up his life...
She knew rationally that if the man hadn't sacrificed himself, their mission would have failed and things would have gone badly for all of them — in fact, a world had already been destroyed once before, in part because of her.
But "the destruction of a world," to Nanase Tsubasa, had always just been a broad, weightless unit of measurement, lacking any real sense of reality.
It was only when Nagumo actually had the Phantom Legion ninjas bring that gaunt, hollow-eyed commoner before them that the death of one specific person collided with that unimaginable, sweeping term inside her, tearing her apart with the contrast.
Of course, Nanase Tsubasa didn't think there was anything wrong with what Nagumo had done.
Given the situation at the time, making that choice had been unavoidable.
Honestly, even if she herself had been the one making the call, to play it safe, she probably would have made the exact same decision.
But building off that thought, she couldn't help letting her mind wander further:
What if the roles were reversed?
What if, someday, it was the very world they now lived in that faced destruction...
Then would the almighty Black Sphere, or the presiding god, essentially be playing the same role as Nagumo — handing them that same brutal "pick one" choice?
Nanase Tsubasa wasn't entirely sure.
But having just personally felt the crushing weight of a world on the verge of collapse, her mind couldn't help running wild like a horse off its leash, wandering into all sorts of scattered, unwelcome thoughts.
There were too many thoughts at once, tangled like a knot of thread, and she had no idea how to even put something this heavy into words.
On top of that, she, Shiranami Chihiro, and Yotsuya Miko were all part of the same batch that had won the Resurrection Trial.
After they returned to school together, she watched Amikura Mako bring Honami Ichinose over to meet them, pulling Shiranami Chihiro into tears of relief and joy.
Nanase Tsubasa decided there was no need for her to personally seek out Chris to report the Resurrection Trial's results.
Given Honami Ichinose's overflowing sense of responsibility, the moment she learned the outcome she'd surely share the information with Chris and the others herself.
Rather than tag along and waste time for nothing...
Nanase Tsubasa would rather have some quiet, find somewhere with nobody around, and sort her thoughts out properly.
So when Ichinose gently tried to get her to stay, Nanase Tsubasa forced a smile, exchanged a few brief words, then politely turned down the invitation to the gathering and went back to her dorm alone.
"Haah..."
Lying flat on her soft single bed, Nanase Tsubasa stared blankly upward, eyes wide open.
Gazing at the clean white ceiling above her, she realized her mind had gone completely blank.
After a long while, the girl let out a quiet sigh.
Just as she was about to close her eyes and rest her weary spirit for a while—
"Knock, knock."
A crisp knock rang out at her door.
Nanase Tsubasa rolled over on the bed, brow furrowing. She really didn't feel like getting up.
But thinking that whoever came looking for her at a time like this couldn't possibly be unimportant, she got up anyway and walked over to answer the door.
She pulled it open, and there stood Suzune Horikita, holding an elegant insulated bento box. Nanase Tsubasa's eyes widened slightly in surprise.
"Senpai...? What are you doing here?"
Suzune Horikita held the bento out to her, expression composed, tone cool.
"I noticed your name never came off the school's newly published 'Intruder List.' I honestly thought... I'd never see you again."
"Then Chris just told me on Line that you're alive and won the Resurrection Trial, so he asked me to stop by and check on you."
Suzune Horikita paused, her gaze drifting off to the side. "I wasn't sure what to bring to celebrate your survival, so I just brought you a bento I made."
Nanase Tsubasa was caught off guard by the gesture. "Th-thank you, Senpai..."
She hurriedly took the still-warm bento with both hands, stepped aside to let Suzune Horikita in, then hurried to the small bar counter to pour a cup of warm water for her.
But after handing Horikita the water, Nanase Tsubasa suddenly caught the gap in what had just been said, and asked, confused:
"Senpai, what exactly is this 'Intruder List' you mentioned?"
Suzune Horikita took the cup, sipped it lightly, and explained without rushing:
"The Black Sphere exams we've been through before never lasted very long. Even the time we faced the Godzilla rampage, real-world time didn't exceed twelve hours."
"But this time, because you all nearly went past the time limit inside the Resurrection Trial's dungeon, you were gone from reality for so long that a lot of people assumed your group had already died and failed the exam."
"To calm everyone down, the school went along with some students' suggestion and set up a real-time Intruder report — a way of giving the whole student body some kind of answer." Suzune Horikita pointed at her phone. "The instant the number of missing people on there changes, everyone knows immediately that a Black Sphere exam has ended."
Nanase Tsubasa rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "I see... so if a name on that list never gets cleared... does that mean, in a sense, it's a 'death list'?"
Suzune Horikita made a small sound of agreement. "Maybe that's part of the intent, from the school and the Black Sphere both."
"But I think of it as a kind of indirect reminder to the students — at least letting everyone know who's still out there fighting for their life. That's not necessarily a bad thing."
Nanase Tsubasa nodded in agreement.
Seeing that Nanase Tsubasa seemed emotionally steady enough, Suzune Horikita moved on to the real question:
"I heard from Chris that this time you were dragged in as an Intruder, forced into Shiranami and the others' Resurrection Trial. What actually happened over there?"
Nanase Tsubasa fell silent for a moment, images of the madness inside [The Cabin in the Woods] flashing through her mind, then slowly began to explain:
"Honestly, the overall process wasn't all that different from the ordinary exams we usually go through — facing all kinds of monsters with different mechanics."
"The only difference was we had an extra layer of identity there — one of the 'Chosen' for an evil god's sacrifice. The rule the Black Sphere gave us was that if we didn't die according to the ritual by a set deadline, it would enrage a sleeping ancient evil god, and the entire Earth would be destroyed."
Hearing this, Suzune Horikita's fine eyebrows shot up. "Earth... destroyed?"
"Isn't that a little much..."
Horikita couldn't help but push back. No matter how absurd the enemies they'd faced before were — even the Darkness Devil, which embodied a kind of root-level, primal fear — its horror had only ever come from how it bent the rules of judgment.
If you were talking about raw physical destructive power, even Godzilla's Atomic Breath, fired nonstop, could at most level that one district of Tokyo in a short amount of time.
Jumping straight from that to "destroying the entire Earth"... wasn't something off about that scale?
Nanase Tsubasa sighed, smiling wryly. "Senpai, honestly, my first reaction was exactly the same as yours."
"But that's just how it was. There was nothing we could do about it."
The girl opened her bento box while recalling the memory with a lingering shudder:
"I didn't see it myself, but from what Senpai Shiina and the others in the Mirror World described... because we ran out of time, an honest-to-god hand bigger than a mountain range reached up out of the ground, and then that entire world's crust started to crumble apart..."
"Thankfully, the Resurrection Trial wasn't a complete dead end. The presiding god's only real requirement was that we 'stay alive.' In the end we found a monster that could open a connection to hell. There was a hiccup along the way, but the system ultimately ruled that we'd cleared it."
Suzune Horikita pressed her lips together, digesting the sheer weight of the information. "So what did you get for clearing it?"
Nanase Tsubasa thought it over, and answered honestly, holding nothing back:
"Thirty S Points each, one extra Resurrection Count, and... a newly unlocked system feature."
"The Black Sphere told us during the settlement that, as a bonus reward for being the first ones to clear the Resurrection Trial, they'd later arrange a special 'teacher' for our whole group."
"A teacher...?" Suzune Horikita's face was full of confusion.
For people in their position now, seeking out some mundane, worldly teacher would be pointless.
Given the attitude the Black Sphere and the presiding god had shown so far, since this was framed as a "clear reward" earned by fighting for their lives, this teacher couldn't possibly be some run-of-the-mill nobody. They had to be someone capable of meaningfully strengthening their odds of survival.
"Could it be... a mentor sent specifically to teach us deep Ripple techniques, or how to use Ki?" Suzune Horikita guessed boldly.
"Mm... maybe?"
Nanase Tsubasa wasn't sure either. She picked up her chopsticks and started eating the bento in small, careful bites.
And sure enough, the instant it hit her tongue, Nanase Tsubasa could tell.
This was absolutely something Suzune Horikita had made with her own two hands, not some careless thing grabbed off a convenience-store shelf.
It tasted surprisingly good.
After privately marveling for a moment at this ice-queen senpai's unexpectedly domestic, deft-handed side—
Nanase Tsubasa swallowed her food and, as though something had just occurred to her, glanced over at Suzune Horikita and asked:
"Oh, right, Senpai Horikita..."
"Since you're clearly so good at cooking, why don't you just make a bento for Senpai Chris too?"
Suzune Horikita tilted her head slightly, a flicker of confusion showing through her cool, composed eyes.
It took her several long seconds before the gossipy implication buried in that question fully registered...
Suzune Horikita frowned faintly and shot back, "Why would I go out of my way to bring him a bento?"
Watching her play dumb so stubbornly, Nanase Tsubasa was honestly taken aback.
"But... isn't it obvious you like Senpai Chris?"
"If you do, this is exactly the kind of everyday little detail you could use to show off your homely charm and naturally build up some favorability. That's basic girls'-romance strategy, you know..."
Suzune Horikita went quiet.
She clearly hadn't expected that a feeling toward Chris she thought she'd hidden perfectly would get read this completely, this fast, by a transfer student.
She had to admit — Nanase Tsubasa really was a terrifyingly sharp observer of people.
Having her heart exposed like that, Suzune Horikita didn't get flustered or defensive.
She simply held her water cup and explained, a little helplessly:
"I'm just not the type who likes spending my limited energy on things that don't need it."
"Kei Karuizawa did come find me privately once, trying to drag me along to confess to Chris together with her... but I've always believed that when it comes to feelings, it's best to just let things happen naturally."
Suzune Horikita looked Nanase Tsubasa straight in the eyes.
"Compared to playing these little schoolgirl jealousy games, don't we already have far more important things to deal with right now — things that are quite literally life and death?"
Nanase Tsubasa opened her mouth, chopsticks frozen midair.
Part of her wanted to fire back:
Senpai, true 'letting things happen naturally' is the broad-minded peace you earn after giving everything you have and then calmly accepting whatever result follows —
Not just doing nothing, the way you're doing, and sitting around hoping opportunity falls out of the sky by luck!
But then she reconsidered.
Aside from that first period when she'd met Suzune Horikita, when the other girl had visibly struggled because of her lack of strength —
after going through Chris's special training and guidance, Suzune Horikita really did seem to rarely fall into that kind of self-consuming, tangled state of mind anymore.
This almost transcendent state of pure, absolute calm and reason...
Maybe, just maybe... the path Senpai Horikita had chosen really was the right one, for her.
With that thought, Nanase Tsubasa didn't let herself dwell on whether her guess might be wrong.
She set down her chopsticks and, like an earnest underclassman seeking guidance, asked Suzune Horikita sincerely:
"Senpai, how exactly do you keep your state of mind steady, day to day?"
"How do you manage to have worries and pressure weighing on you and still not let it touch your plans for the present or the future at all?"
"I've noticed you hit rough patches and frustrations plenty of times too, but the next day you're always right back to looking completely unbothered... I'm genuinely curious how you pull that off."
Hearing this request for guidance, the pale skin at the tips of Suzune Horikita's ears reddened, almost imperceptibly.
She hid the flicker of strangeness quickly, but the attentive Nanase Tsubasa still caught it.
Under Nanase Tsubasa's curious, hungry gaze, Suzune Horikita took a deep breath and spoke slowly:
"A calm heart was never one bound by rules and restrictions. It doesn't go still just from harsh discipline, or physical training."
"It comes... from a sense of absolute security, born out of peace within yourself."
Suzune Horikita turned the conversation around, her gaze sharpening as she looked at her. "Nanase... is something weighing on you right now?"
Having her state of mind read so precisely, Nanase Tsubasa pressed her lips together, the line of her mouth drawn taut.
A tangle of choices and moral doubts clogged her throat. In the end, she chose to confide in her senpai:
"Even though we made it back alive this time, and won the Resurrection Trial..."
"The other-world classmates and teachers who took the exam alongside us are stuck forever in that hopeless hell..."
"And there's something else. I originally wasn't bothered by that Earth that was going to be destroyed. But when I saw President Nagumo, right there in the exam, coldly pick out an innocent commoner and offer him a fortune to make him volunteer to sacrifice his life..."
The girl's hands twisted tightly together. "I couldn't stop wondering — someday, could we... could we actually be that so-called 'voluntary sacrifice,' in the presiding god's eyes?"
"My mind's such a mess right now. I can't settle down."
Suzune Horikita's gaze grew distant.
She looked down at the floor, her voice unhurried. "Honestly, I don't fully understand this self-torment of yours."
"Because in this world, there's really no such thing as truly 'sharing someone's feelings.' So-called empathy, most of the time, is just a kind of arrogant self-satisfaction."
"So I'm not even sure whether what I'm about to tell you will actually work for you."
Hearing this, Nanase Tsubasa's expression turned serious. "Senpai, just say it... I'm listening."
Suzune Horikita straightened up slightly, then threw out a question that caught Nanase Tsubasa completely off guard:
"Is there someone you truly love?"
"Huh?" Nanase Tsubasa's mouth fell open, frozen.
Part of her wanted to say the name of her childhood friend, Eiichiro Matsuo. But the words caught in her throat — thinking back over everything she'd been through recently, she just couldn't get them out.
After a long hesitation, she could only lower her head in defeat and answer honestly:
"I'm not sure anymore..."
"After Eiichiro died, I wanted revenge for him so badly that, under extreme mental strain, I even started showing signs of a personality splitting off to represent him... I always assumed I loved him, that that was why I had to avenge him."
"But after enrolling at Advanced Nurturing and going through these Black Sphere exams... facing real, actual life-and-death stakes... that personality representing him just vanished, like it had never existed at all... Now I'm honestly not sure anymore."
Hearing this answer, Suzune Horikita's brow relaxed slightly.
With her sharp mind, she'd already pieced together the key to what was really knotting Nanase Tsubasa up inside.
"Since you're saying all that yourself, the answer's obvious — it means you never actually loved him."
Suzune Horikita laid it out with a serious expression:
"The reason you had that dissociation, bad enough to trigger an actual personality split, probably wasn't really about him — it was because he was your childhood friend, and because your upbringing left you with an unusually strong sense of justice and responsibility."
"You pinned his death on your own failure, so you used revenge to numb the guilt."
"But when a person truly stares death in the face, the brain strips away every pretense and instinctively brings up whoever actually matters most to them."
"And what came to mind for you in that moment definitely wasn't him."
"R-really?"
Nanase Tsubasa's gaze wavered.
Her face was full of indecision and confusion. "Then what... what should I do now?"
Suzune Horikita looked at her, thought it over for a moment, then gave her the answer Chris had once given her:
"Follow your instincts."
"That's the secret to how I stay calm, even in the worst situations."
At first, Nanase Tsubasa didn't grasp the deeper meaning behind that.
But she sat quietly, turning the words over for a few seconds.
Then, suddenly—
Nanase Tsubasa's eyes went wide, her cherry-pink lips parting on their own, her whole body freezing in place, completely stunned.
Follow your instincts...
Senpai's instincts — the ones she meant — could that possibly mean exactly what she thought it meant?!
"A teacher?"
"On top of the basic S Points and Resurrection Count, the Resurrection Trial's clear reward also includes some unknown 'teacher'?"
Honami Ichinose's information-gathering speed was simply on another level. Chris's group had barely finished dinner in the cafeteria — before anyone eager to pump the survivors for details could even suggest splitting up —
and already the general shape of this senior-year Resurrection Trial dungeon, along with a full list of the settlement rewards, had come through Line straight to Chris's phone.
Not long after that—
Arisu Sakayanagi, walking beside Chris, and Amanatsu Kazuha, trailing behind them, both felt their phones buzz in their pockets too.
Of course, this wasn't Ichinose messaging each of them individually.
It was simply that she'd selflessly shared the file in every group chat at once, and everyone got the group-file notification sound at the same time.
Still, this much public information was more than enough for those present to work out the situation.
Kei Karuizawa glanced at her screen for a second, then picked up right where Chris had left off:
"This reward 'teacher'... is it going to be like those professional survival coaches the school paid a fortune to bring in before? Or is it just some ordinary NPC filling a dead teacher's slot, like Hoshinomiya?"
Amanatsu Kazuha clasped her hands behind her back and countered with a smile:
"Senpai Karuizawa, since the presiding god's calling this the reward for clearing a hidden dungeon, this teacher's value clearly can't be that simple."
"Who knows — maybe this new teacher brings us some kind of rule-breaking 'change'~"
"'Change,' huh..."
Kei Karuizawa didn't commit either way.
Unless this new teacher could give them an entirely new power system, and also open up Hyperbolic Time Chamber access alongside them, grinding out proficiency together day and night without rest—
then given how insanely often the Black Sphere exams came now, practically three a day —
with only a handful of days in between, no matter how brilliant the teacher was, there was no way they could turn out a student capable of tearing monsters apart with their bare hands in that short a window, right?
Unless it was Teacher Kaido...
Crack you three times with a bo staff, and a Devil Fruit user suddenly grasps Conqueror's Haki infusion, hitting a full Devil Fruit Awakening on the spot!
If the 'famous teacher' was operating on that level...
then fine — that really would be something to write home about.
While Kei Karuizawa and Amanatsu Kazuha were still trading uncertain guesses about the 'teacher's' identity,
Arisu Sakayanagi, as the current daughter of Advanced Nurturing's board director, had a much more concrete channel for gathering information.
She dropped her usual lazy smile and spoke up:
"That's definitely worth looking into."
"Since none of us know when the Black Sphere is even going to have the school confirm this 'teacher's' identity... let me go probe the school administration for information first~"
With a brief goodbye, Arisu Sakayanagi waved and turned to leave, not a hint of hesitation in her step.
Watching Sakayanagi walk off, Kei Karuizawa couldn't help clicking her tongue, muttering under her breath:
"Like the school's actually going to know anything useful."
"I used to think the school's leadership was on equal footing with the Black Sphere, some kind of partnership. But look at Director Tsukishiro — he barely knows more than the rest of us, and he still got forcibly picked as an Intruder and dumped into an exam by the Black Sphere same as anyone."
"He's still MIA right now, status unknown. Even if Sakayanagi's dad is also a board director, that doesn't count for anything! Is he supposed to order the Black Sphere around or something?"
Listening to Kei Karuizawa's grumbling, Amanatsu Kazuha just smiled, a knowing look in her eyes:
"Senpai, maybe her father really is just a board director."
"As the director's daughter, in a game with the whole school as the board, it's only natural she'd carry a bit of a 'protagonist' streak. It makes sense she'd care this much about internal staffing shakeups."
Kei Karuizawa's eyebrow lifted slightly.
"Put it that way, and it actually explains why Sakayanagi knew about Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's secret background right from the start, huh?"
"So she really was a young lady who got in through connections all along."
Still, despite saying all that, there wasn't a trace of real awe or surprise in Kei Karuizawa's tone about Sakayanagi's background.
After all, they were all grasshoppers tied to the same rope now, living day to day with no guarantee of tomorrow.
Even if you were the biological daughter of Neon's own sitting Prime Minister, that would mean nothing in front of the Black Sphere!
Could you really get your dad to order the Black Sphere to exempt you from the exam?
Once that sank in, Kei Karuizawa quickly lost interest in Arisu Sakayanagi's special background.
She turned instead to look at Chris beside her.
Originally, she'd wanted to share her own good news from today with him.
But on second thought — all she'd walked away with was a contract beast and a scant few dozen S Points. That meager haul, bragged about in front of someone like Chris, who could casually drop close to a hundred points on special-grade gear...
To him, that probably wasn't anything worth celebrating at all!
If she kept chattering on and on about it, wearing some overjoyed, never-seen-the-world expression on her face...
wouldn't that just make her look painfully unrestrained?
Like she was making a huge deal out of nothing?!
But... this really was one of the most memorable moments of her whole life so far.
After all, it was the first time she'd farmed points in a dungeon completely on her own, purely through her own effort, without leaning on anyone else's protection!
After turning it over and over, unable to shake the urge—
Kei Karuizawa finally decided to go share the good news with Chiaki Matsushita instead.
As her best friend, and, in a sense, her guide through the Black Sphere's rules.
Kei Karuizawa figured this was exactly the moment to go find her.
She couldn't just toss her best friend aside the second she had a guy she liked, right? That would be way too fickle.
So, at the elevator, right after exchanging a quick goodbye with Chris—
Kei Karuizawa didn't notice something.
Amanatsu Kazuha, walking behind them, didn't head toward her own dorm along the usual route after stepping off the elevator.
Instead, in a shadowed dead-end corner, she casually scooped up a kraft paper bag that had been left abandoned by the roadside.
Then the red-haired girl turned and slipped smoothly into the dim stairwell, moving quickly downward into the dark.
Meanwhile, on Chris's end—
after returning to his own dorm, Chris pulled out his phone and gave Ryuuen, Katsuragi Kohei, and the others a brief rundown of the Resurrection Trial's reward system in the Line group chat, since they'd come asking.
Once he'd calmed that group of impatient people down—
Chris pulled up the surveillance feed centered on Arisu Sakayanagi, mostly out of curiosity.
Right now, this little princess of Advanced Nurturing still hadn't quite shifted her mindset.
She was still instinctively thinking like someone raised in a political household navigating the game, overlooking the fact that she herself now held one of the scarcest, most irreplaceable kinds of value in this entire world.
In reality, given how things currently stood, it was no longer a matter of qualified players struggling on the edge of death needing to read the outside world's mood and fall in line.
It was the people outside — the ones who didn't even qualify to enter — who now had to live in their shadow and watch their expressions.
But thinking it through, it wasn't hard to understand why Sakayanagi still clung to that old mindset.
After all, Arisu Sakayanagi had grown up in an easy, sheltered environment her whole life.
Her family got along with her well, with deep emotional bonds between them.
On top of that, with Deputy Director Tokinari Tsukishiro having now been picked twice by the Black Sphere as an Intruder, and currently out of contact entirely — most likely already dead —
after witnessing the Black Sphere's indiscriminate strikes firsthand, it was only natural that she'd worry about her father's safety and need a while to wrap her head around all of it.
Still, Chris believed that with her intelligence, it wouldn't take her long to work out exactly who actually held the power here.
Chris rubbed his chin, quietly running the numbers in his head.
Once she'd fully let go of her illusions about real-world power, and thrown herself entirely into this presiding god's space, where only strength counted for anything—
he could get his plan moving.
Chris intended to pull out core elements from the Falling Devil of [Chainsaw Man], the unspeakable evil god of [The Cabin in the Woods], and even the world of [Shin Ultraman]...
then fuse all of it together with the current world, to serve as the final, ultimate exam ground!
This would be a genuine, honest-to-goodness world-saving battle — the perfect capstone to this current phase of his cultivation plan.
Chris even found himself indulging a bit of mischievous daydreaming.
Once, at the tail end of the final battle, right after everyone gave everything they had and finally beat Zetton—
he'd suddenly reveal his true identity and scare everyone half to death, saying:
Actually, the real final boss you were all facing this entire time — was me, Chris!
Then, amid everyone's despairing, shell-shocked stares, he'd casually laugh it off and claim it was all just a joke...
He could just picture it — that one twist alone would probably be enough to scare quite a few people to death on the spot.
Chris shook his head and chuckled to himself.
"Knock, knock."
A crisp knock at the door suddenly cut through his train of thought.
Chris turned his head and used his trained clairvoyant eyes to scan through the door.
Standing in the hallway outside was a red-haired girl — Amanatsu Kazuha.
After thinking it over for a moment, Chris walked over, pulled the door half open, and asked, feigning confusion:
"It's this late — why aren't you in your own dorm? What are you doing here?"
Amanatsu Kazuha stood outside the door, beaming.
She didn't answer right away. Instead, she raised her hand and openly showed him the kraft paper bag she was carrying, printed with a high-end custom logo.
"Obviously, I'm here to keep the promise I made you before~"
The girl tilted her head slightly, her tone playfully petulant: "Senpai, don't tell me you're the type who forgets important things easily, and actually forgot our little agreement from the mall?"
"Because if that's the case, I'll really be hurt, you know... waaah."
Watching her overly theatrical little act, Chris twitched the corner of his mouth, at a loss for words.
Still, he stepped aside, clearing the doorway to let the girl in.
Chris crossed his arms, half curious whether this underclassman was just putting on airs, or if she genuinely had the nerve to walk alone into a room with a man, like a lamb strolling into a tiger's den.
In response to that—
Amanatsu Kazuha stepped through the door without a shred of hesitation.
She wrinkled her delicate little nose, sniffing at the air like a cat.
Her very first line was:
"The room's so clean and tidy... and there's no sign of that typical boys'-dorm smell?"
Amanatsu Kazuha turned around, leaning in close to Chris from behind with her hands clasped behind her back, smiling. "Senpai, come on, tell me — you knew I was coming, so you specially cleaned up ahead of time just for me, didn't you?"
"Because if not, I'm going to badmouth you something fierce in my head, you know..."
Chris rolled his eyes and headed toward the mini fridge:
"Don't go flattering yourself. Sorry to disappoint you — I just happen to like keeping things clean."
Amanatsu Kazuha didn't seem to mind. She turned, quickly and discreetly scanning the room's layout, then walked over and settled onto the sofa, speaking up:
"Though... I really did want to check under Senpai's bed, see if you've got any of those must-have magazines boys always keep hidden away."
"But I guess since it's my first time in a boy's room, I should act a little more ladylike — wouldn't want to leave Senpai with a bad impression."
Chris pulled a bottle of iced tea from the fridge, sighing helplessly:
"You're already planning on changing clothes in my room, and you're still worried about details like that?"
As he spoke, he handed her the bottle:
"Here, iced tea. If you wanted it hot... sorry, not happening."
"Hot iced tea isn't fit for human consumption anyway."
Amanatsu Kazuha didn't stand on ceremony either. She reached out, took the beaded, damp bottle, twisted off the cap, and tipped her long neck back for a sip.
"Ahh... so refreshing."
She set the bottle down and, as if just making idle conversation, brought something up:
"Speaking of which, when we were getting outfits custom-made at the mall that time, didn't Senpai Sakayanagi swear up and down she'd show you her exclusive maid outfit?"
"So, has she actually followed through on that promise yet?"
Amanatsu Kazuha pursed her lips, putting on a troubled expression: "If Senpai hasn't gotten around to showing it to you yet, wouldn't what I'm about to do today make me look pretty poor-sport, stealing my senior's thunder like that?"
Chris leaned back against the edge of the desk, watching her thoughtfully:
"And if I told you she really hasn't worn it for me yet — would you turn around and leave, out of embarrassment?"
A flash of slyness immediately crossed Amanatsu Kazuha's eyes.
She narrowed her eyes, made a show of thinking it over, then said slowly:
"Heh, well, if that's the case, then I really can't leave now~"
The girl lowered her voice, like a sly little fox with its paw already in the cookie jar: "Sneaking around behind strong-willed Senpai Sakayanagi's back to try something this forbidden... Senpai, doesn't that just make it all the more thrilling?"
"Ahh, what a shame, though."
Amanatsu Kazuha sighed. "I didn't get the chance to memorize Senpai's exact measurements back at the shop. Otherwise, I definitely would've had a set made in the exact same style as hers..."
"Then I could've walked in wearing her exact same design, right in front of you! That way it'd sort of count as helping Senpai test the visual effect of the outfit early — and I'd feel a little less guilty about 'jumping the line,' you know~"
Listening to this outrageous little scheme of a speech—
Chris fell silent for a moment.
Then, without holding back, he gave Amanatsu Kazuha a thumbs up, praising her with genuine sincerity:
"You really know how to play the game."
Amanatsu Kazuha's lips curved into a smile, tinged with more than a little pride.
Without any more chatter, she picked up the kraft paper bag and stood, turning toward the bathroom at the back of the room.
As she pushed the door open, she glanced back and gave Chris a playful little wave:
"Well then... I'll go ahead and borrow Senpai's bathroom to change, if that's alright~ Please wait for me, breathless with anticipation!"
Before she'd even finished speaking, there was a soft click.
The sound of the bathroom door shutting echoed through the quiet room.
Since the dorms Advanced Nurturing High School provided its students all came with a private en-suite kitchen and bathroom as standard, high-end fittings,
the bathroom door, which doubled as the entrance to the shower area, was naturally the kind of translucent frosted glass meant to let light through.
When the overhead light inside the bathroom clicked on—
warm yellow light spilled out from within, falling across the frosted glass.
Since the space wasn't especially large, Amanatsu Kazuha's movements as she changed inevitably brought her close to the glass door.
Which meant that, from the outside, the girl's graceful silhouette was cast clearly onto the glass by the light, forming an extremely alluring outline.
Add to that the faint rustle of fabric and the soft sounds of clothes coming off, leaking through the gap under the door.
In this quiet room with just the two of them alone, it really did create a kind of hazy, half-hidden, tantalizing atmosphere.
It had to be said — as one of White House's elite operatives, Amanatsu Kazuha clearly had real talent, and not just in combat.
When it came to reading a man's psychology and building an intimate atmosphere,
she was leagues ahead of someone like Arisu Sakayanagi — all talk and no follow-through, a tsundere young lady who only knew how to tease with words.
Chris propped one hand against the desk, quietly enjoying the silhouette on the frosted glass, and gave himself a fair, honest verdict in his head.
However.
Good things never last.
Before he could enjoy it any longer—
"Knock, knock, knock!"
At the dorm's front door, an urgent-sounding knock rang out again, at the absolute worst possible moment.
Chris raised an eyebrow.
He used his clairvoyant ability to scan outside.
One glance was enough to make his expression turn distinctly odd.
Because the person standing outside the door was none other than—
having just finished her conversation with her director father and cleared her head—
Arisu Sakayanagi, rushing over here to stake her claim, or rather...
Arisu Sakayanagi, rushing over here to catch him red-handed!
Chapter end.
____
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🔥 New history: DanMachi: Inheriting the Legacy of Alternate Versions — posted on The_Mikudayo