Anyway, if she were Lin Ye, standing in Lin Ye's position,
facing a request like Yukino Yukinoshita's, the obvious move would be to agree first and sort out the rest later.
Mai Sakurajima was so far away, so distant, that there was almost no chance of them ever actually being together.
And yet Yukino Yukinoshita had already said she was willing to date him, and he still wouldn't agree, still pining after a girl he couldn't even reach.
This was really...
hard to wrap her head around.
Had Lin Ye's willpower really reached this level?
He could already be with a girl he liked, and yet he still couldn't stop thinking about Mai Sakurajima.
If the boys of Sobu High ever found out about this, they'd probably cough up blood from sheer rage.
What kind of man does that?!
As for her, she definitely wouldn't do the same — she'd agree first, then start dating, no question.
Whether she'd keep thinking about Mai Sakurajima after they got together, or even do something like chase after her like a fan, that was a problem for later.
Once they were actually together, there'd be plenty of ways to talk him around and comfort him.
So really,
Rui Tachibana felt Lin Ye could have just said yes!
Why make things so complicated?
She honestly didn't know whether to call it a problem with Lin Ye's head, or just call it his own stubborn principles.
This was probably just that man's own brand of persistence.
The integrity that man held onto for himself.
Rui Tachibana could only keep sighing about it in her heart.
"I can't understand why he'd do this,"
she said, shaking her head. "Most men would just agree first, accept it first, and figure out the rest later, right? Even if there were other things to deal with, that could all wait until after they were together. Why does it have to be like this?"
Yukino Yukinoshita had similar thoughts of her own, and had sighed over it more than once or twice.
"If he were like most men, I probably wouldn't have ended up this far in,"
Precisely because he wasn't ordinary, because the whole situation was so different, things had become this painful and complicated.
She'd lost count of how many times she'd sighed about it.
That soft sigh from the girl with long black hair let Rui Tachibana understand exactly what Yukino was feeling right now.
It seemed Yukino Yukinoshita had already sighed over this same reason more times than she could count.
That alone showed just how deep Yukino Yukinoshita's feelings for Lin Ye ran.
This wasn't just a little bit.
And that made sense, too.
If it were only a shallow bit of fondness, it wouldn't have been enough for Yukino Yukinoshita to accept Lin Ye's feelings for Mai Sakurajima the way she had.
Otherwise, that alone would have been enough for Yukino Yukinoshita to turn cold toward Lin Ye instead of staying tangled up in this ambiguous mess.
"So, Student Tachibana, you understand what you're up against right now?"
The topic circled back to this point.
Yukino Yukinoshita looked at the girl in front of her and went on. "Lin Ye doesn't like you. You know that better than I do."
Rui Tachibana didn't want to admit it, but she couldn't deny it either.
Lin Ye had no real feelings for her — at most, just a sliver. But the fact that he'd choose to break up with her, to keep his distance, said everything about how he actually felt and where he stood.
On that front, there was simply no comparison between her and Yukino.
"But he's still willing to be my boyfriend, at least,"
This seemed to have become Rui Tachibana's last lifeline.
If he really had zero feelings for her at all, if he genuinely wanted nothing to do with her, Rui Tachibana didn't think Lin Ye would have agreed to be her boyfriend in the first place, wouldn't have agreed to date her at all.
Yukino Yukinoshita hesitated, about to speak, but decided against revealing that the one who'd used Lin Ye's body that time hadn't been Lin Ye himself, but her own sister, Haruno Yukinoshita.
Even though Rui Tachibana had already been through a Strange event herself,
Yukino Yukinoshita decided it was better left unsaid.
"Deceiving yourself gets you nowhere,"
Yukino said. "Deep down, you already know exactly how Lin Ye feels about you. If he had even the slightest bit of fondness for you, even the tiniest sliver, he wouldn't act the way he does. Mostly you're just lying to yourself, clinging to wishful thinking."
The girl with long black hair spoke without holding anything back.
For Rui Tachibana, this was a devastating blow.
The blue-haired girl clenched her jaw, refusing to admit it, but reason told her that what Yukino Yukinoshita said was the truth.
"If he liked you, he wouldn't act this way. He has no romantic feelings for you at all."
Every single word cut straight into Rui Tachibana's heart, striking against it again and again.
She felt like... running away,
like fleeing,
that was exactly what Rui Tachibana wanted to do right now, but all she could do was grit her teeth and hold her ground, facing this reality head-on.
"Even so, I still..."
"Never mind me for now — there's also Mai Sakurajima. I can tell you for certain that Lin Ye likes Mai Sakurajima. Likes her a lot."
"And of course, besides her, there's Iroha Isshiki. That junior of his won't give up either, no matter how many times he's turned her down. And there's an adult woman you don't even know about, who's also caught up in something ambiguous with Lin Ye. As far as I know, at least one of them likes him — likes him a lot, the real kind of liking."
Yukino Yukinoshita was thinking of Ryou Fujibayashi —
that gentle-natured girl who turned fiercely aggressive whenever Yukino was around. Yukino Yukinoshita remembered it vividly; she doubted she'd ever forget it in her lifetime.
Because of that,
Yukino Yukinoshita knew exactly how much pressure she herself was under.
Let alone Rui Tachibana.
"Student Tachibana, you're not even liked by Lin Ye — how exactly are you supposed to stand out among all this?"
Hard, wasn't it?
Very hard.
Even Rui Tachibana had to admit it.
Just Yukino Yukinoshita alone had already piled the pressure on her — let alone all the other women.
Never mind Mai Sakurajima. Just hearing about that nurse and that junior from Yukino Yukinoshita already had her stressed out.
In that instant,
Rui Tachibana felt her chances shrinking to nothing, and the excitement in her heart went quiet.
Break up, then keep pushing forward, keep pursuing him?
Would it even work?
If it were ever going to work, it would have worked from the very start.
But at the very beginning, she'd thrown herself at him completely, and Lin Ye still hadn't accepted her. If it hadn't been for that incident in the infirmary, she probably wouldn't even have had this much of a chance.
Rui Tachibana realized just how bad her situation was, realized the real problem she faced.
Without Lin Ye's affection, no matter how hard she kept pushing, she'd truly get nothing out of it in the end — probably just end up moving herself to tears and nothing more.
The more she thought about it, the more helpless she felt. The more she thought about it, the more pathetic it all seemed.
"So, I think giving up is your best choice,"
This suggestion from Yukino Yukinoshita brought Rui Tachibana no real comfort at all.
If anything, it made her feel worse, made her even more unwilling to let go.
Seeing this, Yukino Yukinoshita could only sigh again over Lin Ye's charm.
To make a girl like this fall this hard, unable to let go even now.
What a sinful man, really.
If this guy ever decided to go around chasing after every woman he wanted, who knew how many girls would fall victim to him.
It was a good thing his desires and needs in that department weren't particularly strong — he had a fair amount of restraint and self-control.
Otherwise,
Yukino Yukinoshita genuinely believed Lin Ye could have become the biggest playboy around.
Yes, the biggest playboy in all of Chiba.
That wasn't impossible at all.
Once a man gave in to lust for women,
if Lin Ye ever sank into that kind of indulgence,
if ordinary methods couldn't satisfy him, he could simply pair it with his own superpower and do whatever he wanted, unchecked. No girl could ever escape him.
Everyone would be living under his shadow, at his mercy.
The only thing that could actually restrain Lin Ye was his own Stamina.
But before reaching that limit, how many girls would have already fallen victim?
At the very least, Yukino Yukinoshita was certain she herself could never have escaped.
That this hadn't happened — that was largely because Lin Ye had principles, had a bottom line, and found that kind of behavior beneath him.
That, really, was a stroke of luck.
That extraordinary power hadn't fallen into the hands of someone without morals or boundaries — it had landed in the hands of someone with solid character and ethics.
And even more fortunately, it hadn't landed in the hands of a man who'd lose himself because of that power.
Otherwise, it would have been a disaster — an absolutely catastrophic one.
Yukino Yukinoshita could hardly bring herself to believe it.
Some things were more painful than death itself.
Let alone actually having to live through them.
Yukino Yukinoshita suddenly realized that maybe it was precisely because of this factor she'd never considered before that she'd been so tolerant of Lin Ye.
Because if Lin Ye ever really let loose, unleashed the demon inside him, that was something she couldn't bear, couldn't accept.
Because of this, she also knew that in his lifetime, Lin Ye would probably never have just her alone as his only woman.
Of course,
even knowing that,
she still wasn't willing to give up, wasn't willing to compromise easily.
She still wanted to move forward toward the goal she longed for,
keep pressing on.
Who knew — maybe it would work out!
At least for now, there was still a chance she could get Lin Ye to give up the other women, still that sliver of possibility.
As for the future,
she'd deal with the future when it came. She couldn't think that far ahead.
All she could do was try her best to handle what was in front of her right now.
Just like Yukino,
Rui Tachibana was thinking too.
Given how slim her chances of success actually were, Rui Tachibana also thought giving up outright was the smartest option.
Pursuing something doomed to fail from the start —
what was even the point of holding on?
Giving up was the best choice.
But,
the moment she thought about actually giving up, she felt unwilling. She couldn't bring herself to let go.
She'd finally gotten this far.
How could she give up this easily?
"He already has so many girls around him, and there'll only be more in the future,"
"So why don't you give up, Student Yukinoshita?"
Rui Tachibana turned the question back on her. "You already know Lin Ye has other women, and there'll be even more in the future. Why don't you give up, why don't you just reject him outright?"
She was genuinely curious about Yukino Yukinoshita's reasons.
At this point, before things got any deeper, wouldn't walking away now be the smarter choice?
At least,
that was how Rui Tachibana saw it. Wouldn't it be better to leave a step ahead, before getting in too deep?
"I have my own reasons,"
"You like him? A lot?"
But Yukino Yukinoshita didn't say anything more.
She didn't really want to tell her about the engagement between her and Lin Ye.
"Surely you're not planning to just accept him being intimate and ambiguous with other girls out there?"
She wanted to deny it,
but if one day in the future she actually married Lin Ye, and he still stayed ambiguous and intimate with other girls out there, honestly, she thought she could live with that — as long as Lin Ye wasn't callous enough to bring girls home, and didn't have children out of wedlock somewhere. That much she could accept.
Yukino Yukinoshita knew her own position well enough.
Family ties,
her relationship with Lin Ye wasn't truly one hundred percent pure to begin with.
She was the link the family had used to establish a connection with Lin Ye.
Faced with Yukino Yukinoshita's silence,
Rui Tachibana fell silent too.
She understood what that answer meant — Yukino really did plan to tolerate and accept it.
This...
this, this...
was simply unbelievable.
This was Yukino Yukinoshita, of all people!
With a wealthy family, a beautiful face — and a girl like that was still willing to let the man she loved be intimate and ambiguous with other women out there.
Just how much humility, how much low self-worth did this liking, this love of Yukino's for Lin Ye actually involve?
Just how had Lin Ye managed to make Yukino fall so hard for him?
"Did he... save you too?"
Rui Tachibana's sudden question caught Yukino Yukinoshita off guard for a moment; it took her a moment to understand why she'd ask that.
But she caught on quickly.
It must be the debt of a life saved that made her so tolerant of Lin Ye.
That thought actually made sense.
"He saved me once. But that's not the main reason. I'll leave the specifics at that."
Yukino recalled the time Lin Ye had saved her from the jaws of a mad dog.
That was a debt of life, too.
Of course, Lin Ye had also saved her sister, pulled her sister back from a Strange encounter.
Lin Ye had done so much, so much for the Yukinoshita family.
It would probably be no small feat for her alone to repay it all.
"I understand. I won't pry any further."
Rui Tachibana made a small sound of acknowledgment, accepting it.
For Yukino Yukinoshita to act this way, it had to mean Lin Ye had some redeeming quality she hadn't yet discovered.
Rui Tachibana grew curious — even more curious.
"So, Student Tachibana, are you..."
"I don't want to give up right now,"
she said. "I don't want to give up. That's my honest feeling right now. If I gave up, I'd definitely regret it. So I'm going to keep pushing forward. I'm his girlfriend right now — how could I just decide to give up on my own boyfriend?"
For a moment, Yukino Yukinoshita felt like all her effort had accomplished absolutely nothing.
After all that talking, Rui Tachibana hadn't taken a single word of it to heart.
"Student Yukinoshita, from today on, we're rivals in love."
With that,
Rui Tachibana even reached out her hand toward Yukino Yukinoshita, offering a gesture of friendliness.
Faced with the blue-haired girl's smiling face, Yukino Yukinoshita didn't respond right away.
She looked at the girl, let out a soft sigh. "As a rival, I'll be very hard to beat."
"I know that. But even so, I'll find a way to beat you."
Rui Tachibana's hand stayed there, extended in front of Yukino Yukinoshita, waiting for a response.
Seeing this,
Yukino Yukinoshita no longer hesitated, and reached out to take Rui Tachibana's hand.
"Actually..."
The drawn-out pause caught Rui Tachibana's attention, made her look at the girl and wait for what came next.
"I'd like to be friends with you, Student Tachibana."
As the words settled,
Rui Tachibana's hand trembled.
She stared with sharp eyes, wondering if Yukino Yukinoshita had said something wrong, wondering if she'd just imagined hearing that.
The cold, aloof queen of Sobu High had just voluntarily offered to be her friend?
Even if Yukino ever had such a thought, she'd never actually say it out loud — that was what fit her personality, her image.
"Um, did I just imagine that?"
Seeing that Yukino Yukinoshita didn't say anything more, Rui Tachibana asked again, uncertain, wanting to confirm it.
"No, I mean it."
"Wh— why..."
She didn't understand why, genuinely didn't understand.
"Because I think you're a good person, Student Tachibana. Someone worth trusting. Having you as a friend — I think I'd gain a real friendship."
She'd never really had a friendship she could truly call that.
Among the girls she was close with at Sobu High, there was Yui Yuigahama, there was Iroha Isshiki, but with both of them, Yukino Yukinoshita always felt something was missing.
And as for Miura Yumiko,
Yukino Yukinoshita didn't really have much friendship-level feeling toward her either — it just wasn't quite there.
But with Rui Tachibana,
right now, the urge Yukino Yukinoshita felt to become friends with her was intense, almost impulsive.
"I..."
"But unfortunately, Student Tachibana, you're going to become my rival. So we... can't be friends."
Rui Tachibana: ???
In that instant of shock, her mind went blank for a moment.
Confused, caught off guard — how could things go like this?
She'd finally found someone she wanted to be friends with, someone she'd want to socialize with, and now, because they were rivals, they weren't allowed to be friends?
Well,
that... was true, technically,
but,
something felt off about that.
Rui Tachibana felt this shouldn't be the case.
But,
but...
"Student Yukinoshita, you're not deliberately saying this, are you?"
Using the guise of friendship to get her to give up her position as a rival, to leave this war of love.
"No, I'm being sincere. Ever since you chose to protect me, pulled me behind you to shield me, that's when I started thinking this way. It's just unfortunate."
Yukino Yukinoshita's tone carried a note of regret.
"It can only be this way. I respect your choice, Student Tachibana."
"Actually, we could still be friends, couldn't we?"
Rui Tachibana suddenly said.
She felt that being rivals didn't have to rule out being friends —
the two relationships weren't in conflict.
Rui Tachibana felt there was nothing wrong with that at all, and she didn't want to miss out on this either.
At Sobu High, she'd truly never had a single person she could call a friend.
If she and Yukino became friends now, she'd finally have a friend of her own — and if her sister ever asked, she could answer proudly.
At that moment,
her sister would surely react with a surprised look on her face.
Rui Tachibana looked forward to seeing that amusing reaction.
She was certain she'd get to witness it.
She looked forward to it,
and that was exactly why she needed Yukino Yukinoshita to agree, right now.
Facing Rui Tachibana's hopeful gaze, Yukino Yukinoshita shook her head. "I can't accept that."
"I've never had the habit of treating someone as both a friend and a rival at the same time. I can't accept it."
Yukino Yukinoshita made her position clear. "But if one day in the future, Student Tachibana, you give up, and if you're still willing to be friends with me then, we could have that chance."
Yukino Yukinoshita said this slowly.
This war — Rui Tachibana wanted to take part in it, and Yukino couldn't stop her, but this wasn't a war of love Rui Tachibana could win.
In the end,
Rui Tachibana would lose, and quietly exit the stage.
That was when they'd become friends.
That was what Yukino Yukinoshita thought.
But Rui Tachibana refused. "No."
"We can just not be rivals for now,"
Rui Tachibana said. "We can just be friends first."
A moment later, Yukino Yukinoshita finally understood what Rui Tachibana meant.
Friends first, rivals later — right?
That way, both relationships could exist at the same time.
How could that possibly work?
"Same problem. I can't accept both relationships at once."
Rui Tachibana pursed her lips, then quickly continued, "I've already decided to think of you as my friend, Student Yukinoshita. No matter what your attitude is toward me, no matter whether you consider us friends or not, I've already made up my mind to treat you as my friend."
At that,
Rui Tachibana smiled. "You're the one who said you wanted to be friends with me, after all!"
Yes, since Yukino Yukinoshita was the one who'd said it, the one who'd had the thought of being friends, there was no taking it back now.
This was Rui Tachibana's stance, and she held onto it with shameless persistence.
This made the corner of Yukino Yukinoshita's mouth twitch. She wanted to say something, but found herself utterly at a loss.
Hard, this was so hard.
In the end, she gave up on arguing further.
She couldn't change Rui Tachibana's attitude, just as she'd said herself before.
She could only change her own actions and thoughts — other people's thoughts and minds, she couldn't change. At most, she could influence them a little.
But even that influence had its limits.
"So Student Yukinoshita is agreeing by default, ha ha ha,"
Rui Tachibana laughed.
"No, I'm not."
"You reacted, which means you agreed. I'll take that as a yes."
"No."
"I don't care."
That was her stance, and that was final.
Rui Tachibana looked thoroughly unreasonable in that moment.
Seeing this, Yukino Yukinoshita sighed once again.
Being friends with a rival — what did that even feel like?
Yukino Yukinoshita had gotten a taste of it now.
It was a strange feeling.
Becoming rivals should have made her angry, at least, but somehow she didn't feel that at all.
And becoming friends —
the sudden urge she'd felt should have brought happiness, ease, a kind of contentment, but layered on top of it was the identity of a rival, and that...
Yukino Yukinoshita had no idea what was actually going through Rui Tachibana's head.
They were already rivals — why did she still want to be friends on top of that?
"I... never made a friend at Sobu High,"
Rui Tachibana said suddenly.
"I always heard people say Student Yukinoshita was cold and aloof, that no one dared get close, that you never had any friends day to day. Back then I used to think, wouldn't it be wonderful if I could become friends with Student Yukinoshita?"
She spoke her old thoughts aloud. "And my sister kept telling me to find friends at my new school. I wanted to, but because of my personality, I'm really bad at reaching out and finding friends on my own."
At this point, her voice carried a note of quiet lament.
So hard, really so hard.
Personality issues were hard to change on your own, even with a sister pushing her — it was hard to force herself to change.
"Lin-kun was an accident. Because he was so close to my sister, I felt I needed to understand him. And my sister kept bringing him up to me, even... telling me to date him. That's what finally pushed me to take that step, to try approaching him on my own."
Though the whole process had never gone smoothly.
Looking back on it now, Rui Tachibana felt nothing but sorrow and misery.
"Failure after failure, rejection after rejection. I tried treating him as a friend, but it really didn't work. It was just too hard, really too hard."
She shook her head, recalling her past experiences, left with nothing but sighs.
"I always wanted a friend, a plain, simple friend. I tried talking to the girls in my class, but their social circles had already formed, and there was no room left for me to fit into."
She couldn't get in anymore, couldn't blend into any new circle.
Because of that,
all she could do was wander alone.
"In the end, I gave up on trying to make friends at Sobu High. I had Lin-kun, and that was enough. It's just, now..."
Rui Tachibana looked at Yukino Yukinoshita, her bright eyes shimmering with a moist glow — that was hope, that was a ray of light.
Rui Tachibana had seen hope, and it filled her with anticipation for the future.
"Student Yukinoshita suddenly said she wanted to be friends with me. There's no way I could pass that up. Absolutely no way."
This thing she'd always wanted, a friend, had finally come true right now — how could she possibly let it slip away?
Rui Tachibana would never let go of this friend.
"But my feelings toward you have changed. You're my rival now."
"Being rivals is one thing, being friends is another. The two aren't in conflict."
Rui Tachibana tried once more to push her own logic and ideas onto Yukino Yukinoshita.
Yukino Yukinoshita wouldn't accept it, but by this point, Rui Tachibana wasn't listening to any counterargument either, sticking stubbornly to her own thoughts and convictions.
Well then,
under these circumstances, Yukino Yukinoshita could only stop responding altogether.
And this silence, Rui Tachibana took as agreement.
Yukino Yukinoshita felt utterly helpless.
She really, truly did.
Fine, then.
Friends were friends, rivals were rivals.
She accepted it, all of it.
Rui Tachibana wore an expression of triumphant joy.
It had worked. It had really worked.
Of course,
there was still a lot Rui Tachibana didn't understand about Yukino Yukinoshita — she'd kept things vague.
But now that they were friends, she didn't want to keep digging for answers.
No need, no need for that.
What mattered now was maintaining this relationship well.
Staying friends with a rival —
thinking about it, there really was something strangely wonderful about it.
"Student Yukinoshita, if Lin-kun doesn't change in the future, if he doesn't give up the other girls, are you just never going to agree to be with him?"
This standoff, this tug-of-war between Lin Ye and Yukino —
Rui Tachibana didn't know how long it would go on, but she wanted to know.
"I don't know,"
Yukino Yukinoshita didn't give her a clear answer.
Given that,
Rui Tachibana didn't press further.
At least she now knew Yukino Yukinoshita's feelings for Lin Ye ran even deeper than she'd estimated.
To make a girl like this, the cold and aloof queen of Sobu High, fall this deep — what exactly had Lin Ye done?
Surely he hadn't already found some way to get the girl's body first, had he?
If that were the case, then...
Well,
Rui Tachibana had nothing more to say to that. But given how uninterested, how lacking in impulse Lin Ye seemed to be around girls' bodies, she figured she was overthinking it.
Lin Ye probably hadn't gone that far.
If Lin Ye wasn't making the first move, then a girl like Yukino would even less likely take the initiative herself — meaning the two of them were even further from that.
Small talk,
and by now, both their moods had eased considerably.
The atmosphere in the room had grown much lighter, too.
The white fluorescent light spread its glow,
dispelling the gloom.
Rui Tachibana got to her feet, tapped her legs a couple of times, pressed at them slightly, then walked toward the door.
The light outside had barely changed,
but staying guarded against the outside was still necessary.
Who knew where the Strange outside had gone.
"—"
Just as she reached the door,
Rui Tachibana let out a startled gasp.
"What is it?"
Yukino Yukinoshita rushed over immediately, looking outward.
Empty. No figure in sight anywhere.
The Strange had left.
Earlier, when she'd looked, that golden-haired female Strange had still been refusing to give up, still trying to close in, as if it meant to devour and tear into them.
But now it was gone?
"Did it give up?"
Rui Tachibana suddenly wondered.
It probably saw them hide inside this building and realized it had no way in, so it gave up.
Yukino Yukinoshita found herself thinking the same thing.
At this point,
that was the only explanation that made sense,
but neither of them actually knew what was really going on.
Yukino Yukinoshita and Rui Tachibana exchanged a glance. "Should we..."
go take a look outside.
Yes,
Yukino Yukinoshita felt it was necessary to check outside, just in case the Strange was lurking somewhere, watching them from the shadows.
"Okay,"
Rui Tachibana agreed.
Staying hidden inside was safe for now, but in the long run, it wasn't necessarily safe at all.
Keeping track of the Strange's movements was necessary too, all for the sake of safety.
Rui Tachibana spoke, then stepped outside first.
The two of them stayed close together, eyes sweeping the surroundings, taking everything in, as if trying to search every inch of the area to make sure nothing was missed.
"Tap, tap..."
The two of them stepped outside.
They looked all around, but found no sign of the Strange anywhere.
"It's probably really gone,"
Realizing the Strange had truly given up and left,
Rui Tachibana let out a long, unconscious breath of relief.
The weight of death had lifted, or at least, gotten lighter.
"We still can't let our guard down. It might come back."
Yukino Yukinoshita stayed on alert, refusing to relax completely just because the Strange had temporarily given up and left.
This was still a dangerous place,
a place where anything could happen at any moment.
This was absolutely not the time for her to grow careless.
"Yeah, I know,"
Rui Tachibana nodded firmly to show she understood.
Facing the Strange, the two of them had survived this far.
"I really wonder where Lin-kun is right now,"
Rui Tachibana sighed.
Yukino Yukinoshita, on the other hand, fell silent.
Because she knew there was no way Lin Ye could show up anytime soon.
They'd been separated from Lin Ye across two different spaces.
As for how hard it would be for Lin Ye to reach them, Yukino Yukinoshita couldn't even think of a way.
Of course,
Yukino Yukinoshita firmly believed Lin Ye would find a way to reach them, to come to their side.
As for when,
all she could do was hope it would be as soon as possible.
But worrying about it did no good.
Rui Tachibana understood that much clearly too.
"He'll come. He'll come as fast as he can. We just need to wait patiently for him."
Lin Ye was their greatest guarantee.
Yukino Yukinoshita knew that.
So did Rui Tachibana.
They were fine for now, but how long that would last, neither of them knew.
Only when Lin Ye finally arrived could this whole ordeal truly come to an end, could they truly be safe.
Under the night sky outside,
the evening wind kept blowing, tousling the hair of the two girls.
Yukino Yukinoshita and Rui Tachibana walked toward the door.
The soft white light was their guarantee of safety.
"Tap..."
Suddenly, another set of footsteps rang out.
Both Rui Tachibana and Yukino Yukinoshita instinctively looked toward the distant figure.
Under the night sky, that figure was pitch black, its outline impossible to make out.
A moment later,
the two girls finally made out who that figure was.
"Lin—"
"Lin-kun, it's Lin-kun..."
Yes,
Rui Tachibana's eyes widened, and she confirmed it again and again — that was Lin Ye, the person she'd been hoping would come back soon.
"We're safe,"
"Lin-kun's back,"
In Rui Tachibana's mind, Lin Ye had already become something of an expert at handling the Strange — dealing with them was practically child's play to him.
And connecting it to the Strange's earlier disappearance,
Rui Tachibana was even more convinced that the Strange had sensed Lin Ye's return and fled ahead of time.
Yukino Yukinoshita managed a faint smile too, looking relaxed and reassured.
After all,
just her and Rui Tachibana alone, the pressure weighing on her had been genuinely enormous.
Now that Lin Ye was back, was there anything more welcome than this?
There wasn't.
They were safe for now — with Lin Ye here, this was a safe place.
"Sorry, I'm back later than I meant to be."
The figure ahead spoke with a note of apology.
He waved his hand, his face coming into view —
that familiar face.
Rui Tachibana shook her head. "It's fine, we're okay."
"Let's go, quickly. Come with me."
Hearing this, Rui Tachibana reacted right away, nodding hard. "Mm-hm."
Who wanted to stay here anyway?
She certainly didn't want to,
and Yukino Yukinoshita reacted the same way.
But unlike her, after taking a few steps alongside Rui Tachibana, Yukino sharply caught herself and grabbed Rui Tachibana's wrist.
Something was wrong,
very wrong.
Yukino Yukinoshita's own instincts were screaming at her, surging up inside her.
"What's wrong?"
Faced with Yukino's reaction, Rui Tachibana fell into a brief moment of confusion, making a puzzled sound.
"Something's wrong."
"Huh? There's no monster around."
Rui Tachibana glanced around but saw no sign of any Strange.
It was still pitch dark, the distance stretching out into nothing she could see.
"It's him."
"Huh?!"
A moment later, Rui Tachibana finally understood who Yukino Yukinoshita meant.
Lin Ye — Lin Ye was the Strange?
That couldn't be.
Rui Tachibana instinctively denied it.
"There's no way Lin-kun could be that. Absolutely not."
She looked toward Lin Ye — the figure in her sight looked no different from the one in her memory.
If Lin Ye had really turned into a Strange, then... to Rui Tachibana, that would feel like the sky collapsing.
"It's something that's taken Lin Ye's shape, come back to trick us into leaving."
That was entirely possible, and it made Rui Tachibana instinctively shift her stance, stepping back.
Strange shapeshifting — she'd seen that kind of thing in plenty of videos before.
Rui Tachibana thought what Yukino Yukinoshita was saying was very plausible.
Because of that,
they really did need to be careful.
"What... what should we do?"
"Get him to come here."
Yukino Yukinoshita said.
If it was trying to trick them into leaving, then they'd just make it come to them instead. If it came, that would prove it was human — only a Strange would find itself unable to move under the light.
"Okay,"
Rui Tachibana immediately agreed.
At this point, that was the best option available.
If Lin Ye wasn't a Strange, then he'd surely be willing to come over. But if Lin Ye was a Strange, then he definitely wouldn't want to come.
At this point,
what they needed to do was get Lin Ye to walk toward them.
Rui Tachibana spoke up. "Lin-kun, come over here. We'll wait for you right here."
Her tone was firm, resolute — she needed Lin Ye to come over, that alone would put her mind at ease.
Yukino Yukinoshita stood beside her, saying nothing, but her silence alone made her resolve clear.
"What?"
A confused voice rang out. He sounded genuinely baffled, as if he couldn't understand at all why Rui Tachibana was doing this.
But that confusion did nothing to shake Rui Tachibana's resolve — if anything, she spoke up even more stubbornly.
"Come here. You come here first."
"What are you two doing? Hurry up and come with me, let's get out of here!"
The urging voice rang out.
But this only deepened the suspicion in Yukino and Rui Tachibana's hearts. Maybe, could it be — no, it wasn't a maybe anymore, it was real.
That Lin Ye was fake. It really was a Strange in disguise.
In an instant, the tension and fear in their hearts spiked.
Rui Tachibana marveled at Yukino's caution, at how she'd managed to notice the problem even in a situation like this.
If it had just been Rui Tachibana alone, she probably would have been so overjoyed at seeing Lin Ye again that she'd have forgotten all about the danger.
In that moment, the blue-haired girl felt nothing but admiration for Yukino Yukinoshita.
After all, without Yukino Yukinoshita, she'd probably have walked straight into a Strange's trap more than once today already — getting out of here safely would have been next to impossible.
"Lin Ye, we'll say this one last time — you come here... we'll wait for you right here."
Yukino Yukinoshita spoke.
Even as she said it, she was already gathering her strength, preparing to turn and bolt back toward the building.
Even though her initial judgment was that the Strange couldn't get close to this area, just in case — just in case!
So,
Yukino Yukinoshita still felt she needed to be fully prepared for anything.
"You two..."
The voice spoke. "Fine, I'll come over. Isn't this just a complete waste of time?"
Yukino Yukinoshita watched as the figure began walking toward them,
steps steady, with a slight edge of speed to them, as if eager to reunite with them.
Everything about it seemed natural, seemed normal.
In that moment, Lin Ye's natural response eased some of the tension in both girls.
If it really were a Strange, it wouldn't be so willing to come over — maybe it really was just their imagination.
In that moment, Rui Tachibana instinctively started to wonder if she was overthinking things, if the two of them were both overthinking things. Really, maybe everything was fine after all.
Maybe they'd just been too cautious, and this wasn't a Strange wearing Lin Ye's face — it really was Lin Ye.
This thought surfaced in Rui Tachibana's mind.
She looked toward Yukino Yukinoshita, seeking her confirmation.
Compared to herself, Rui Tachibana felt Yukino Yukinoshita understood Lin Ye far better, knew him far more intimately, so it made more sense to let Yukino Yukinoshita be the judge.
And at this moment, Yukino Yukinoshita found herself caught in the same doubt.
She had the exact same uncertainty Rui Tachibana did.
Could it be that she — could it be that she really was overthinking this?
"You two are so suspicious. Just come with me already, that thing's still nearby."
The voice rang out again, tinged with a hint of impatience.
And right at that moment, another sudden voice cut through the air.
"Roar..."
A tearing, snarling howl.
To both Rui Tachibana and Yukino Yukinoshita, this sound was one they knew all too well by now.
It was the voice of that golden-haired female Strange,
and that sound... it was coming from...
Both Rui Tachibana and Yukino Yukinoshita instinctively spun around to look behind them, and saw that Strange figure, sprinting toward them at furious speed, closing in fast.
"It's here! Run!"
At that moment, the man's voice rang out again.
Yukino Yukinoshita and Rui Tachibana's legs tensed instinctively, and they broke into a run.
Facing the monster, all they could do was flee, run from that dangerous creature.
And their greatest hope, their greatest lifeline, was Lin Ye.
With Lin Ye there, they were bound to make it through safely.
____
Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 50 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter
________________________________________
If you want more chapters, please consider supporting my page on (P). with 50 advanced chapters available on (P)
👻 Join the crew by searching Leanzin on (P). You know the spot! 😉