Agung stopped dead on the third-floor landing, his hand gripping the cold metal railing so hard his knuckles turned white. He looked at Maki, his eyes wide and pleading, the "Infinite Stamina" humming in his veins doing nothing to soothe the sudden, frantic spike of his anxiety.
"Maki," he whispered, gesturing vaguely at his own face, "can I—just for the next ten minutes—manifest a light kinetic shield? Just for the face? I know I'm not exactly a leading man, but I'd really prefer not to be disfigured by a stray stiletto or a hardbound physics textbook. I'm already bruised enough."
Maki didn't even look at him. She kept climbing the stairs, her pace rhythmic and unrelenting. "Absolutely not. If you go up there with a shimmering field of mana around your head, it'll be the first thing they notice. It's an insult, Agung. You're coming to ask for forgiveness, not to hold a press conference behind a forcefield. If a sneaker is coming your way, you duck, or you take it. That's how a real person earns trust."
Before Agung could offer a counter-argument, Kanata—who had been walking several steps ahead with that slow, dragging gait—paused. She didn't turn around, but her shoulders shook, a faint, sleepy giggle escaping her lips.
"It's too late for that anyway, dummy,"
Kanata said over her shoulder, her voice echoing in the stairwell. "I already posted in the Nijigasaki group chat. I told them a guy who looks exactly like 'him' but definitely isn't 'him' is coming up. I described him as a self-proclaimed otaku with a 'teddy bear' build."
She finally turned, offering him a look of pure, unadulterated mischief. "I told them he claims he's going to mend the faults 'he' created. The last I checked, Setsuna was already warming up her throwing arm, and Rina-chan was calculating the velocity of a standard-issue dictionary."
Agung felt his stomach drop. He looked at Umi and Eli, who were trying—and failing—to hide smiles behind their hands.
"Teddy bear?" Agung choked out, feeling the heat rise to his ears. "Is that really how you see me?"
"It's better than 'deadbeat mogul'," Kanata shrugged, turning back toward the stairs. "And honestly? The 'teddy bear' bit made them curious. They're more confused than angry right now. They think you're either a very elaborate prank or a very lost tourist. That's your best chance, Agung. Confusion is a lot less lethal than rage."
Agung looked at the dark flight of stairs leading to the roof. He could feel the weight of the air changing—the higher they climbed, the more the silence of the school felt like it was sharpening, waiting for him.
He reached up, rubbed his cheek, and let out a long, shuddering breath. "A teddy bear. Right. If I survive this, I'm buying every girl on that roof a lifetime supply of whatever they want."
"Start with a high-quality ice pack," Maki suggested, stepping onto the final landing. "You're going to need it."
He followed them to the roof access door. He could hear the muffled sounds of chatter—voices he had only ever heard through speakers or seen on screens, voices that belonged to lives he had profoundly, unforgivably disrupted.
He stood before the door, his heart hammering against his ribs, his bruised shoulder throbbing. He wasn't a god. He was a man with a teddy bear build and a target on his head, standing at the threshold of the most difficult conversation of his life.