Even after already seeing the five thugs lying there, their fates unknown, Jinno Sumire still hadn't expected that a boy as young as Hikari would be able to strike with such brutality. Right in front of her, he had killed someone instantly without the slightest hesitation.
That kind of decisiveness and ruthlessness was something even the fiercest enforcers in the Jinno family absolutely could not manage.
After all, this was a time of peace, not some chaotic era. Most conflicts never escalated to the point of killing at the drop of a hat.
Yet seeing Hikari's actions, which looked downright savage, the heartbeat that Jinno Sumire had already felt speeding up now began to race even faster.
She truly admired this man who acted with such extreme decisiveness, because she herself was that kind of person too.
If you are not going to do it, then don't. But once you do, you might as well see it through to the end.
Especially Hikari's final words, which hit Jinno Sumire like a thunderclap.
Did Yoshizawa Eigen, whose neck was being strangled, really realize his mistake? No. He just knew he was about to die.
Recalling their exchange, a flush of excitement surfaced on Jinno Sumire's fair face.
On the other side, Hikari had finished checking the system rewards.
Killing Yoshizawa Eigen this time and saving Jinno Sumire directly earned him five hundred Pure Love points and three attribute points. The reward was not small at all.
And since Eigen had already targeted Miyuri and had their eyes on him, Yoshizawa was someone he had intended to kill anyway, so it was a guaranteed profit.
After thinking it over, Hikari came back to his senses. He first wiped his hand on Yoshizawa Eigen's suit, then tossed the corpse onto the pile of thug bodies that had been smashed into a bloody mound of flesh.
Then Hikari turned his head and asked Jinno Sumire, who was still staring at him in a daze, "Aunt Sumire, are you alright?"
"I… I'm fine!", Hearing Hikari's words, Jinno Sumire finally snapped out of it, having been gazing at him a bit absentmindedly just now.
She remembered how, after her daughter Jinno Ai had nearly been kidnapped and then rescued by Hikari, Ai had kept talking about him nonstop, even while eating and sleeping.
Back then, Jinno Sumire had felt that Jinno Ai was just too young, making such a big deal out of something like that, really making a fuss over nothing.
But after personally experiencing a hero saving her in distress, and with that person being Hikari, with whom she had even had intimate contact while pretending to be husband and wife, Jinno Sumire could now vaguely understand just how hard that feeling was to control.
Her emotions were still surging.
But she had long since passed her teenage years and was already a mature woman.
So even though her heart was pounding like a startled deer, Jinno Sumire still forced those wandering thoughts down.
"Hikari-kun, you fought with those guys just now, didn't you? Are you okay?", Jinno Sumire asked worriedly as she quickly walked over to Hikari's side.
"I'm fine. They couldn't break my defense," Hikari waved it off.
"Now's not the time to play the hero. Hurry, let Auntie take a look," Jinno Sumire said. Despite his words, she still reached out with concern and carefully checked his body.
Seeing this unusually excessive concern that she rarely showed, Hikari couldn't help but laugh, "Aunt Sumire, you're touching me more carefully now than when we were pretending to be husband and wife and sleeping in the same bed."
At that, Jinno Sumire's pretty face instantly flushed red. She said shyly, "Don't joke with Auntie like that. I'm Ai's mother!"
"Auntie's right. Men and women shouldn't touch casually. You should let go of me," Hikari nodded, letting Jinno Sumire move her checking hands away from him.
Jinno Sumire, however, laughed, "What do you mean men and women shouldn't touch? We're husband and wife. What's wrong with touching a little while checking you?"
'Well now, flexible husband and wife rules, I see.'
Hikari laughed.
After saying it, Jinno Sumire herself also found it funny and laughed too.
She had just been surrounded here by Yoshizawa Eigen, fallen into despair, and almost died. Now that Hikari had suddenly saved her, Jinno Sumire relaxed a lot after escaping danger, so she was in a very good mood and joked around with him.
And Hikari had killed Yoshizawa Eigen, someone he had long wanted dead, and even gained system rewards, so he was also in a great mood.
The two continued trading a few jokes with each other in their roles as husband and wife. For a moment, the atmosphere in the side hall grew somewhat ambiguous.
Just as they were laughing and joking, even brushing against each other physically, sharing a tacit, unspoken closeness, suddenly, a reckless figure barged into the side hall from outside the courtyard.
"Mom, I heard some strange noises over here just now. Are you okay?", The girl in a JK uniform asked worriedly the moment she rushed into the hall.
The girl who called Jinno Sumire "Mom" could be no one else. It was Jinno Ai.
Seeing her daughter suddenly appear, Jinno Sumire, who had been standing very close to Hikari while joking with him, inexplicably felt like she had been caught in the act. She hurriedly pulled some distance away from him.
"Huh… Hikari-kun, why are you here too? What are you two doing?", Jinno Ai asked.
Following Jinno Sumire's movement, Jinno Ai suddenly noticed that her childhood friend was standing right next to her mother.
Seeing a man and a woman she was extremely familiar with secretly alone together without her knowing, Jinno Ai couldn't help but look at them suspiciously.
"It's nothing, we…", Jinno Sumire, feeling a bit nervous, was about to explain, but Jinno Ai suddenly gagged, interrupting her.
"Ugh!"
Hikari and Jinno Sumire followed Jinno Ai's fixed gaze and saw several corpses and severed heads lying on the ground, with a lot of blood around them.
Hikari understood immediately. Such a bloody, flesh-strewn scene was far too shocking for an ordinary high school girl.
"Let's go outside and talk," Hikari said.
Jinno Sumire also realized this. Knowing her daughter Jinno Ai was not as mentally tough as she and Hikari, she nodded in agreement, "Yes, let's talk outside."
———
Hikari took Jinno Ai's hand and led her out of the side hall, her face pale.
Jinno Sumire followed closely behind. The three of them came together into the courtyard.
Seeing Jinno Ai's brows tightly knit and her face pale with discomfort, Hikari gently reached out and patted her back.
With his help, Jinno Ai stood in the courtyard, took several deep breaths of fresh air, and finally felt a little better.
"What exactly happened just now?", After her discomfort eased somewhat, Jinno Ai asked Hikari and Jinno Sumire curiously.
Jinno Sumire immediately began to explain briefly, "Ai, do you remember how Yoshizawa Eigen kidnapped you a few days ago?"
"Yes," Jinno Ai nodded.
"Over the past few days, I used the family's influence to retaliate against him. He got desperate and panicked, so today he brought people and snuck into the shrine, planning to come straight after me."
Hearing that, Jinno Ai hurried over to Jinno Sumire, anxiously asking, "Then, Mom, are you okay? Were you hurt anywhere?"
Jinno Sumire shook her head, "I'm fine. Luckily Hikari-kun showed up in time and saved me. Otherwise, the consequences would have been unimaginable."
Hearing this, Jinno Ai looked at Hikari with deep gratitude and asked worriedly as well, "Hikari-nii, are you okay? Were you injured?"
"I'm fine," Hikari smiled and rubbed her head, signaling her not to worry.
"That's good!", Jinno Ai finally relaxed, smiling brightly as she gently hugged his arm.
Seeing her daughter's smile, Jinno Sumire smiled too and said to her, "Today was really all thanks to Hikari-kun. Ai, you never told me Hikari-kun was this good at fighting."
Hearing her mother's words, Jinno Ai immediately turned her head and said with a smile, "Mom, you finally see how good Hikari-nii is!"
"How did I not tell you? I told you so many times before that Hikari-kun is really a great and outstanding person."
"It's just that you kept saying you didn't believe it back then. Now that you've seen it with your own eyes, you finally understand."
Hearing her daughter, Jinno Sumire nodded helplessly with a smile, "Yes, I really didn't understand Hikari-kun very well before, so there were some misunderstandings…"
Jinno Sumire's behavior at this moment fit perfectly with the image of a parent who originally disliked her daughter's boyfriend, but later acknowledged his excellence after discovering his strengths.
But for some reason, seeing her daughter Jinno Ai tightly holding Hikari's arm, the two leaning very close together, Jinno Sumire suddenly felt inexplicably uncomfortable.
Jinno Ai was excited at her mother's acknowledgment of Hikari's excellence and didn't notice this subtle change at all.
Eager to tell her mother all about how good Hikari was, Jinno Ai continued praising him cheerfully, "Mom, there are so many great things about Hikari-kun that you haven't even seen yet. Once you get to know him more, you'll definitely be even more surprised."
"I probably know more than you…"
Hearing Jinno Sumire's slip, Jinno Ai felt a bit annoyed. Having once had deep verbal exchanges with Hikari, she subconsciously wanted to say, "I probably know Hikari better than you do."
But the words reached her lips, and Jinno Sumire suddenly realized something was wrong and abruptly stopped herself.
Seeing Jinno Ai already looking at her in confusion, Jinno Sumire paused, then continued, "I really do still lack understanding of Hikari-kun in many ways. There will be chances to interact more in the future. Let's slowly get to know him better."
"Mm, Mom, when you have time, interact more with Hikari-kun and get to know him better. Then you'll definitely know just how outstanding he is and understand how good your daughter's taste is," Jinno Ai said happily. She didn't notice anything strange about her mother's sudden change in wording, only feeling glad that her mother had finally acknowledged Hikari.
"Hikari-kun, Hikari-kun, look at how my precious daughter is completely smitten with you! I raised her for so many years, and now she's going to be taken away by you!", Jinno Sumire shot Hikari a fierce glare, seeming to act angry from a mother's standpoint about her daughter's future son-in-law.
But the shy annoyance in her beautiful eyes made Hikari feel something was off.
Because behind the scenes, the two of them were still cooperating as fake husband and wife.
Their private interactions were far more than what Jinno Ai saw on the surface, and their relationship was actually much closer than it appeared.
So Jinno Sumire's show of displeasure toward him for her daughter's sake should logically have been an act. Yet Hikari felt that her embarrassment and annoyance seemed genuine.
And it didn't seem to be only about her precious daughter being taken by another man. There also seemed to be a hint of sourness mixed in, which made Hikari uncertain.
'Is Aunt Sumire actually jealous of her own daughter?'
'Just because of the fake husband and wife identity?'
'That couldn't be, right.'
Hikari looked back at Jinno Sumire suspiciously. She still wore an annoyed expression on her face, but her gaze had already returned to calm, and he couldn't see any ripples.
Feeling Jinno Ai tugging at his arm beside him, seemingly urging him to respond to her mother, Hikari didn't think further and went along with it. He said to Jinno Sumire, "Thank you for your acknowledgment, Aunt Sumire. Don't worry, I won't hurt Ai."
"The way you say that makes it sound like I, her mother, would hurt her," Jinno Sumire said, suddenly a bit embarrassed and annoyed.
"That's not what I meant," Hikari felt a bit helpless. In front of Jinno Ai, she was someone he had saved.
So shouldn't they be repairing or even improving their relationship now? Where did this sudden embarrassment and annoyance come from? And she was still acting?
Just as the two appeared to be at odds on the surface, Jinno Ai quickly stepped in to smooth things over, "Ah, come on. Whether it's Hikari-kun or Mom, I believe neither of you would hurt me."
"You're the two people in this world who are the best to me. I trust you both."
Hearing this, both Hikari and Jinno Sumire twitched their brows slightly and quietly blushed.
Then, as if by agreement, they turned their heads slightly away, avoiding direct eye contact with Jinno Ai.
"As long as you know Mom is good to you," Jinno Sumire quickly turned her head back, putting on a stern face as she coldly said to Jinno Ai, showing the classic tsundere loving mother act of being tough-mouthed but soft-hearted.
At the same time, she shot Hikari a smug look.
'So Aunt Sumire's embarrassment just now was deliberate?'
'Was it to deliberately create some conflict so Ai would trust us even more?'
Thinking that Jinno Sumire might have planned things that deeply, and that even her earlier performance was something she carefully controlled, Hikari couldn't help but sigh inwardly. As expected of the one in control of the Jinno family, her scheming really was profound.
Since Jinno Sumire had taken her stance, Hikari also smiled and said to Jinno Ai, "Mm, I also thank you for trusting me, Ai."
Hearing the two of them, Jinno Ai's pure and cute face broke into a delighted smile.
She suddenly took a deep breath, pulled Hikari over to stand in front of Jinno Sumire, and said seriously, "Mom, the timing is right now, so there's something I want to tell you directly."
"Hm? What is it?", Jinno Sumire raised her slender brows, looking at her precious daughter in confusion.
"It's that I… I like Hikari-nii! I've decided that I definitely want to marry Hikari-nii in the future. Is that okay?", Jinno Ai said very seriously.
"No… no!", Jinno Sumire rejected her outright without hesitation.
"Huh? Why?", Jinno Ai panicked.
"Uh… I… this…", Faced with her daughter's questioning, Jinno Sumire suddenly started stammering, unable to give a reason. Her rejection had been an instinctive response.
After all, a man who had had a lot of intimate physical contact with her, slept in the same bed, and even had deep verbal exchanges with her, being with her daughter was still pretty hard to accept.
Yet she couldn't tell Jinno Ai any of that. And after being saved by Hikari today, she really had acknowledged his excellence.
So faced with Jinno Ai's confession, Jinno Sumire didn't know how to explain herself for a moment.
"Why? Mom, why don't you agree to me being with Hikari-kun? You clearly praised how outstanding he is just now. Since you don't agree, you should at least give me a reason!", Jinno Ai pressed.
Seeing Jinno Ai's stubborn expression, exactly like her own when she was young, Jinno Sumire suddenly got a bit angry, "Fine, you want a reason, right?"
"Then I'll tell you. I only have… only you as my daughter!"
"So I won't allow you to marry out of the family unless Hikari-kun marries into ours. Otherwise… otherwise it's not allowed. Yes, that's it!"
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