The taxi pulled up to the massive, ornate gates of the Ohara estate, the headlights cutting through the thick, coastal mist. Agung stared at the dark silhouette of the mansion against the cliffside. He reached for the door handle, but his hand froze.
*Wait.*
He checked his watch: **11:00 PM**. The realization hit him like a bucket of ice water. He wasn't the Agung who had been living in this timeline's memory for the last three years. He was a man who had just "spawned" into a mess he didn't fully comprehend. Charging into a billionaire's estate in the middle of the night to apologize for three years of abandonment wasn't "atonement"—it was a restraining order waiting to happen.
"Change of plans," Agung muttered to the driver, leaning back into the shadows of the seat. "Take me to the nearest inn. Somewhere quiet."
"Understood, sir. There's a very reputable place nearby—the Takami Ryokan. It's traditional, right by the water."
The drive to the Takami Ryokan was short and silent. When the car pulled up to the beautiful, weathered wooden entrance, Agung stepped out, the smell of the sea air filling his lungs. He walked into the lobby, his charcoal suit looking starkly modern against the timeless tatami and warm wood.
Standing behind the front desk was Chika Takami.
The moment their eyes met, the air in the lobby seemed to vanish. Chika, usually the embodiment of sunshine and boundless energy, went utterly still. Her hand, which had been reaching for a guest ledger, gripped the edge of the wood until her knuckles turned white.
In her eyes, Agung saw a flash of the "Deadbeat"—the man who had left Mari, Dia, Kanan, and the others to pick up the pieces of their lives while she, the leader of Aqours, watched her best friends wither in his absence.
Agung opened his mouth to speak, to perhaps offer some of that "creation magic" gold or a practiced apology, but Chika beat him to it.
"Welcome to the Takami Ryokan," she said. Her voice was flat, terrifyingly professional. There was no "Konnichiwa," no signature "Mikan" smile. Her eyes remained fixed on his collar, refusing to meet his gaze. "A single room for the night?"
"Chika-chan, I—"
"I'll need your identification for the registration, guest-san," she interrupted, her tone like a sliding iron door.
She wasn't going to ask where he had been. She wasn't going to scream or demand answers. For Chika, the pain he had caused her friends was so profound that he didn't even deserve the breath it would take to argue. She was treating him like a stranger—a ghost who happened to have a credit card.
Agung handed over his ID in silence, feeling the weight of her professional "hospitality" more than any insult Ayumu had hurled at him. As she processed his check-in with mechanical efficiency, Agung realized that in this town, he wasn't a god or a billionaire. He was just the man who had broken the heart of the sea.
"Room four, upstairs," Chika said, sliding a wooden key fob across the counter without letting her fingers touch his. "Breakfast is at seven. Please try not to disturb the other guests."
She turned her back to him immediately, focusing on a stack of papers that didn't need organizing. Agung took the key, his "infinite stamina" feeling like a lead weight as he climbed the stairs, knowing that just a few miles away, the "Tokyo Express" was closing in, and right downstairs, the one person who could unite all of Numazu against him had just checked him into a room he might never be allowed to leave.