After dinner at the Nakanos' and a half-hour of post-meal inertia, Sakurai Saki headed home. His tutoring duties were complete for the day; there was no reason to linger. Besides, the day's mental force-feeding had been sufficient. Any more, and the quintuplets would dream of quadratic equations.
Too much of a good thing is poison. Even knowledge.
He pushed open the door to his rented apartment.
Shinobu, who had been a silent passenger in his shadow all day, materialized in a puff of annoyance. "You used your power… to tutor?! And those five ditzes whose only redeeming feature is their faces?!" She despaired at the sheer waste of supernatural energy on such hopeless academic causes.
"Power isn't a limited resource. And I find the challenge… interesting," Sakurai replied, setting down his bag. He'd changed into casual wear—no one wears a uniform on a holiday, after all. He left the blonde loli pouting on the sofa, swinging her legs in a performative sulk.
He had another guest to attend to. He hadn't summoned Yakumo Shiro yesterday; she was likely restless.
Opening the nightstand drawer, his fingers brushed the old love letter.
The white-haired ghost girl erupted from the pages in a silvery blur. This time, Sakurai was prepared. He caught her mid-lunge, pulling her into a firm, preemptive embrace.
"Sakura-kun So forceful!" Yakumo Shiro's voice was a breathy, teasing whisper.
Sakurai released her with a sigh. "Report. Anything unusual today?"
"No~" She sprawled across his bed, a picture of spectral laziness.
Seeing his expression shift to one of quiet command, Yakumo Shiro straightened. Business time. "Did you enter Oshino Izuko's residence?"
"A ghost cannot cross a threshold without the owner's invitation. I didn't enter. Certainly not the second floor." Her tone was flat, factual.
Sakurai maintained a guarded curiosity about the 'Aberration Expert.' His danger sense had labeled her 'Friendly,' which stayed his hand, but not his suspicion.
"Sakura-kun," Yakumo Shiro murmured, her youthful face unusually serious. "Her 'friendship'… may simply be an investment. She expects a greater return from you."
Ghosts and aberrations occupied different strata of the strange. Ghosts were largely harmless, ephemeral. Experts like Oshino Izuko, who dealt in tangible, dangerous anomalies, often dismissed them as insignificant static. She hadn't known Yakumo Shiro was listening yesterday.
"She told me to save Shinobu. The outcome… benefited me. She approached me seeking goodwill. But she didn't foresee the process…" He recalled the genuine shock in Oshino's eyes when she saw his new vampiric tinge.
"Yes. If she'd known it would make you part-vampire, she likely wouldn't have suggested it. After all, Sakura-kun… you only play at wearing chains. You are not truly imprisoned by them." The ghost girl's insight was chillingly apt.
"Mm. I'm roleplaying an ordinary person. Not actually being one." The desire was real, but the reality was impossible. His power grew daily, a tide he could only channel, not stop. To be 'ordinary' was the ultimate, unattainable challenge—a necessary lighthouse for a being who was, by his own assessment, a galactic battleship adrift.
A being too powerful loses purpose. A thing too easily controlled loses value. Would a goddess ever see her devoted 'simp' as an equal? No. He was an ATM. Pleasant, useful, but not a partner.
"She knows my past. But not my present." A faint, cold smile touched Sakurai's lips. "She wouldn't be naive enough to think that just because I've put on a leash, I've become a 'good person,' would she?"
The seals were for control. For his own amusement. Not for virtue.
The door creaked open. Shinobu walked in. "Who are you talking to?"
Sakurai beckoned. When she drew near, he took her small hand, establishing their peculiar, shadow-bound connection.
Shinobu's golden eyes widened. Her gaze locked onto the smiling, translucent girl lounging on the bed.
Her whole body went rigid.
"Gh… GHOST!"
"Hmph hmph! That's right, I'm a ghost!" Yakumo Shiro declared, puffing out her translucent chest with pride.
Shinobu scrutinized her more closely. Doesn't feel much like a ghost… Ghosts weren't usually this… coherent. And she could touch people! Ghosts categorically could not. Then again, perhaps her own sample size was limited…
"What were you two discussing?" Shinobu finally asked.
"The 'expert' from earlier today," Sakurai replied.
Shinobu plopped down on the bed, a petulant frown on her face. "I hate that woman."
"Even though the contract is settled and she helped resolve your… condition, you still hate her?"
"Hate! Hate! Hate!" Shinobu chanted, stamping a small foot like a truculent child.
Yakumo Shiro floated closer, her voice thoughtful. "Sakura-kun… is it possible Senior Woyuan stole the heart herself? That the whole hunt was a setup to give you the 'solution'?"
"Impossible," Shinobu stated flatly.
"Why?"
"No need." Sakurai Saki answered this time, his voice devoid of emotion. "She wouldn't dare. I have no less than ten thousand ways to uncover the truth. Knowing my past as she does, making an enemy of me is not in her calculus."
He continued, dissecting the encounter like a strategist reviewing a battle map. "The heart was a gift with no explicit strings. Or rather, the 'string' was a feint—her worry that I couldn't control Shinobu, hence the suggestion to bind her to my shadow. The claim that Shinobu is 'dangerous' is laughable. If she were truly unmanageable, yesterday's near-death tableau at the station wouldn't have occurred."
A cold, analytical smile touched his lips. "That wasn't enough. She then graciously offered to mitigate my vampiric side effects, and opened a line of credit for future 'oddity consultations.'"
Yakumo Shiro nodded. "All to indebt you further. The greater the favor, the bigger the expected return."
"Precisely. And from my perspective, the more 'expensive' the heart, the better." Sakurai rubbed his temples. An ordinary person might accept a gift and feel no obligation. Sakurai Saki was different. He operated on a principle of reciprocal exchange. He responded to goodwill, not coercion.
His expression grew solemn. "So the real question becomes… just how dangerous is this 'autumn incident' she mentioned, that she feels the need to invest such a substantial down payment in me?"
Meanwhile, at the Odd-Job Store, Oshino Izuko held a phone to her ear.
"You sound cheerful. Something good happen, Senpai? Calling so late." The voice on the other end was breezy, tinged with a roguish, carefree quality.
Senior Woyuan could picture him perfectly: a garish Hawaiian shirt (likely pink), knee-length shorts, wooden sandals—the picture of calculated slovenliness.
This was her junior, Oshino Meme, another expert in the field, a specialist in maintaining precarious equilibriums. It was he who, witnessing the one-sided slaughter of Kissshot, had intervened by discreetly pocketing her heart. To secure that heart as a 'gift' for Sakurai Saki, Senior Woyuan had paid her junior a considerable price.
"Where are you now?" she asked.
"Ah, wandering lost on the path of life, let's see… There's a small village up ahead. Fox statues at the entrance… the energy here is quite…"
Oshino Izuko listened to his deliberately cryptic, rambling description and felt the urge to converse drain away. She'd half-hoped to reclaim something, but it was futile. This man was a human boomerang, impossible to pin down. He could barely use a phone, only answered calls sporadically, and was perpetually losing the device. Their next meeting was anyone's guess.
She ended the call without ceremony.
Setting the phone down, Senior Woyuan let out a long, weary sigh that seemed to carry the weight of all the world's unseen absurdities.
Life really isn't easy.
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