[Ding. Congratulations to the player for successfully recovering the divine artifact Goddess's Hagoromo (Corrupted). Reward: one skill entry item draw, fixed reward 100,000,000 yen.]
[Ding. Draw completed. Congratulations to the player for obtaining the special skill entry: Water Purification.]
Hozuki Nozomi's lips curved. He pulled up the skill information immediately.
[Water Purification: The player may use any water as a medium to cast the world's highest purification magic. (Miracle Water, descend!) ]
"Any water..." His mind wandered. Saliva counted as water. He pictured himself spitting at demons and grimaced. Absolutely not—he had standards.
But blood was mostly water. So was the fluid in a demon's eyes, the sweat beading on a corrupt priest's brow. The applications multiplied in his head like fractals.
He summoned a sphere of water from the humid cavern air. It hung before him, trembling and luminous, refracting torchlight into scattered rainbows.
"Water Purification."
The sphere blazed white-gold. He directed it onto the crimson hagoromo draped across his palm.
The silk shuddered violently. Black vapor hissed from its fibers—acrid, sulfurous, stinging his nostrils—and evaporated into nothing. Red bled to pink, pink to pearl, pearl to crystalline transparency. The fabric grew weightless, cool as spring water against his skin.
He draped it experimentally over his shoulders.
Immediately, prismatic light erupted around him—soft auroras of rose and violet and seafoam rippling outward. His reflection in a nearby puddle showed someone almost too beautiful to be real, features sharpened to divine severity.
A showoff artifact.
He was a grown man. Wearing a goddess's robe.
He stuffed it into his inventory and left the cavern without looking back.
,,,
Morning light spilled through Sakurasou's windows, warm and buttery, carrying the scent of Shiina Mashiro's burnt toast and Aoyama Nanami's desperate attempts to salvage breakfast.
Hozuki Nozomi slipped out to the courtyard hot spring before anyone noticed his absence. Steam curled off the water's surface, carrying hints of minerals and old wood.
He withdrew the hagoromo and let it sink.
The moment transparent silk touched water, light pulsed outward in concentric rings. The spring's murky grey clarified to glass-clear turquoise. A faint floral sweetness rose with the steam—cherry blossom and honeysuckle, clean and intoxicating.
Done.
Sakurasou now possessed a genuine miracle spring. Skin-whitening, youth-preserving, fatigue-banishing. The girls would never need to travel for hot springs again.
He pocketed his hands and walked back inside, face betraying nothing.
Some darkness, he carried alone.
,,,
Elsewhere, on a blood-stained altar in a dimension between dimensions, a Cardinal's eyes snapped open.
"Heretics." Spittle flecked his lips. "Anti-god heretics have appeared. The divine artifact—lost!"
His skeletal fingers clawed at stone.
"Find them. Find them."
…
Days passed. Normalcy settled like dust.
Hozuki Nozomi boarded the morning train with Mahiru pressed warm against his side, her vanilla perfume mixing with the metallic tang of the railcar. Shiina Mashiro dozed against his opposite shoulder, drooling faintly onto his blazer. Behind them, Frieren stared out the window with ancient eyes, and Fern clutched her staff like a security blanket.
Soubu High School's gates came into view.
A black sedan idled at the entrance—sleek, foreign, expensive enough to buy several apartments. Men in dark suits flanked it in rigid formation, sunglasses hiding their eyes, earpieces coiling into starched collars. Students gave them a wide berth, whispering.
"Click."
The rear door swung open.
A blonde woman in a fitted black suit emerged first—ponytail severe, posture military-precise. She bent at the waist and extended one gloved hand into the vehicle's shadowed interior.
Pale fingers accepted the assistance.
Kaguya Shinomiya stepped into the morning light.
Her hair fell past her waist in a cascade of liquid obsidian, each strand catching sunlight like polished lacquer. Skin pale as fresh cream stretched over aristocratic cheekbones, unmarred, poreless, almost unreal. Her eyes—dark garnet, the color of aged wine—swept the gathered students with glacial disinterest. A small mouth, petal-pink and unsmiling. Slender throat disappearing into Soubu's regulation sailor collar, the uniform somehow looking couture on her willowy frame.
She moved like water. Like inevitability.
"The Shinomiya heiress," someone breathed. "She bought the school—"
Whispers rippled outward. Students bowed their heads as her gaze passed over them, unable to hold those wine-dark eyes.
Kaguya's attention snagged on Hozuki Nozomi.
On the cluster of beautiful girls orbiting him—Mahiru's honey-blonde waves, Mashiro's ethereal vacancy, Frieren's timeless poise.
The corner of her mouth twitched. Almost a smile.
Hozuki Nozomi met her stare without flinching.
The Shinomiya family. Impressive?
He'd faced demons. Incinerated rapists. Worn a goddess's robe as a joke.
Kaguya Shinomiya was just a rich girl.
Their gazes held for three heartbeats. Then she looked away, gliding through the parting crowd toward the administrative building, attendants falling into step behind her.
…
By afternoon assembly, the announcement came: Kaguya Shinomiya had assumed the position of Student Council President. The previous president—a sweating, nervous third-year—stood at her elbow as newly-minted Vice President, smile fixed and desperate.
No one protested.
When a girl like that arrived, carrying the weight of Japan's most powerful conglomerate, you bent—or you broke.