"How dare you swindle my wife! Give the money back!"
Ryunosuke pressed the barrel of a gun to the head of a boss who had been trying to run.
This lowlife had specifically targeted his wife because she was easy to fool.
He had tampered with imported medical equipment, replacing it with cheap substitutes to pocket the difference. The financial loss wasn't even the real problem. The problem was that patients depending on this equipment wouldn't receive proper care, which could be fatal. And it would destroy his wife's reputation in the process. Fortunately, Ryunosuke had someone on the inside, and he had arrived with a unit of police officers and cornered the fleeing man at last.
He tapped the man's chin repeatedly with the muzzle of the gun, which was unloaded, his expression thoroughly annoyed. The boss looked on the verge of collapse from terror.
"Hey, be careful with that thing, what if it goes off?" the man cried without a single actual tear. "Let's talk this through calmly! Violence never solved anything, right?"
"Ptoo." Ryunosuke spat directly onto his face with great precision and commitment. The boss felt as though he had been briefly submerged in the ocean.
It had clearly been building up for a while. The man wiped his face with resignation. "Who stores that much saliva in one go..."
Ryunosuke didn't acknowledge the complaint. He holstered the gun and turned to his officers. "Take him in. Maximum sentence if possible. Let him sit behind bars and think about what he's done."
The officers around him snapped to attention in unison. "Yes, Commander!"
On his way out of the police building, Ryunosuke came face to face with his seventh wife, Masumi. He rolled up his sleeve with the expression of a man preparing to deliver a very long lecture. How many times had this woman been deceived?
In the end, he softened as he always did. He stepped up to her and flicked her on the forehead with his pinkie finger, a flick with essentially no force behind it at all.
"How many times do I have to say it? Be more careful! How many times has this happened now?"
Kamuro Masumi stood and took the scolding without a word of protest. Beside her, a small child holding her mother's hand let out a quiet sigh.
Her mother was good at everything else. She just happened to be a little slow in this particular area. This was the nth time she had been tricked. Without her father, her mother's company would have gone under long ago.
This child was Kamuro Kaka, Ryunosuke and Masumi's daughter. Ryunosuke was deeply grateful every day that she hadn't inherited her mother's gullibility. If she had, he genuinely wouldn't know which poor unfortunate soul he would find willing to marry her someday.
Masumi's appearance hadn't changed much from ten years ago. The main difference was in her presence. Having become a wife and mother, the sharpest edges had smoothed a little. She was calmer, though the stubborn, proud streak that refused to back down was entirely intact. That part was actually what Ryunosuke liked most about her, especially at night.
Masumi stood with her eyes closed, enduring the lecture.
(Okay, I admit I was wrong. But can this man please stop talking? Believe me, tonight I will make sure you cannot get out of bed.)
Once he'd said enough, Ryunosuke stopped. He took their daughter's hand, and Masumi took his other hand. The three of them walked together without any particular hurry.
"Next time, let Ichika's mother go with you." Ryunosuke said as they walked. "She has more schemes in her head than anyone and she never gets caught off guard."
Masumi answered impatiently. "Yes, yes, I know. I'm not a child. I've only been tricked twenty-eight times."
"And you're proud of that number?!" Ryunosuke nearly combusted. If he hadn't been watching over her all these years, her company would have collapsed long ago.
Masumi wasn't particularly troubled. "What's there to be afraid of? You're here. You're my husband." She delivered the killing blow with complete sincerity.
Ryunosuke stopped walking entirely. "You really know exactly when to say that, don't you. As compensation, I'm fighting three hundred rounds with you tonight."
"Bring it on! Who's scared?" Masumi crossed her arms and accepted the challenge, even as her face had already gone red. Even after years of marriage, she still got embarrassed.
Their daughter laughed softly from beside them. "Then I'll stay at Mother Ichika's place for a little while, so I'm not in the way."
She wore the expression of someone who understood exactly what was being discussed.
Ryunosuke felt defeated. "How many times have I told you not to pick up habits from Mother Ichika? Someone who didn't know better would think you were her daughter, not Masumi's."
Kaka pushed back without missing a beat. "Technically, Father, I am also her daughter. Just not biologically."
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
Back to the present.
Arisu brought Masumi to the gathering place of the Espada, the Round Table, to be presented to the one sitting at the head of it: Morishita Ai.
Ai sat with one hand propped under her chin and her eyes half-lidded, wearing a slow, mysterious smile that could only be described as Aizen Sosuke at his most theatrical.
"You've come. Quite the rare guest, Fifth Espada."
Arisu rolled her eyes. This girl and Ryunosuke were both acutely, incurably Chuunibyou. The entire Espada naming system had been Ai's idea. At this rate, if the numbers kept growing, she was probably going to rename it the Gotei 13.
Arisu didn't bother with pleasantries. She pulled Masumi forward and made the situation plain. "This is the seventh. You understand what I mean."
What she meant was: this is the seventh wife. You will acknowledge it, or I will take drastic measures, namely letting Masumi be the first to claim something irreversible with Ryunosuke.
Ai didn't react with any visible alarm to Arisu's implied threat. She tapped the table slowly with one finger, waiting for the others to arrive. Before long, they had all assembled.
Second Espada, Sakura Airi. Third Espada, Kato Megumi. Fourth Espada, Shiina Hiyori. Sixth Espada, Hasebe Haruka.
Together with herself as the First Espada and Sakayanagi Arisu as the Fifth, and now Kamuro Masumi taking the Seventh seat, the core members were complete.
Ai, from the head of the table, made the announcement. "From this day forward, I declare Kamuro Masumi the Seventh Espada. Any objections?"
No one moved. No one said a word. There were already six of them before this. Numbness had set in long ago, and commentary no longer seemed worth the effort.
Ai looked around the table, and seeing no resistance, nodded with satisfaction. "Good. Then I'll state the rules."
She fixed her gaze on Masumi. "Now that you've joined the Espada, you follow the rules here. While at this school, no physical intimacy with Ryunosuke. That said, I won't be completely rigid about it. Holding hands or hugging is permitted. But anything beyond kissing is absolutely forbidden."
"Understood?"
At those words, every girl who had at some point taken liberties flinched in unison.
(I... haven't been found out yet, right?) they all thought, more or less simultaneously.
Masumi waved her hand with impatience. "Yes, yes, I get it. You don't have to go on about it. What even is an Espada? You're just Morishita Ai. Stop acting like you're Aizen Sosuke. I've seen Bleach, you know."
Ai very nearly lost her composure, but made a visible effort to recover her cool. "Ahem. I am your leader, the First Espa—"
"Yes, yes, First Espada, I heard you." Masumi cut in again.
Ai went silent.
This girl was her natural enemy. She didn't let her finish a single dramatic line.
Elsewhere, Ryunosuke was at that moment in Suzune's room, eating something she had made herself, wearing the expression of a man who had found temporary peace with the world.
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