Chapter 81: The Entryway Incident.
....
A month had passed.
Kihara stood in front of the full-length mirror and regarded his reflection with the expression of a man who had been patient about something for quite long enough.
Still twelve years old. Approximately. Give or take.
[Are you serious — does this chibi form run on Gensokyo time instead of this world's time?!]
[Based on current evidence, that does appear to be the case.]
[...Fine. Next time I visit, I'm borrowing Yagokoro Eirin's medical expertise to brew a blood-replenishment tincture. And then I'm slipping it into Kaguya and that old purple lady's food without telling them.]
[You mean the tincture with the side effect that turns the drinker into a small child.]
[Exactly. I feel it's proportionate.]
A rustle from below.
Shinobu emerged from his shadow for the first time in a while — rose up from the darkness at his feet, stepped out of it, and closed the distance between them before he'd fully registered she was moving. She went up on her toes, opened her mouth, and bit down on his neck with the calm efficiency of someone executing a task they'd been planning for some time.
Her canines broke skin without difficulty.
"Gulp."
The effect was immediate. She fed, and her body answered — the slight, compact form filling out and upward, curves arriving with the unhurried certainty of something inevitable, until the woman standing in front of him was golden-haired, full-figured, and wearing an expression that could only be described as satisfied with herself. She drew back from his neck slowly, lips flushed, and let her tongue trace the corner of her mouth.
"Finally," she said, her voice dropping to the register she reserved for occasions like this one. "Finally a moment alone with thee."
Kihara's eye twitched. "...You've been waiting for me to be in this form specifically, haven't you. This whole month."
"Thou hast guessed correctly." The gold in her eyes sharpened. "As thy prize — a chance to pull a cart far too large for thy current chassis." Her fingers curved slowly, deliberately, like a cat extending its claws one at a time. She advanced. "Prepare thyself."
"GYAH — STAY AWAY FROM ME—!!"
Half a month of training had produced results.
Kihara's assessment: the squad was ready for perimeter patrol of Bud Forest's outermost zone. Not deep runs. Not anything that required sustained independent judgment under pressure. But organized perimeter work — manageable threats, controlled terrain, known escape routes — that they could handle.
Their combat flow had settled into something that actually functioned:
Hitamuki pulled aggro on her exceptional evasion, drawing monsters' attention and keeping it. Tokishikko chanted from a designated position, lightning arcing precisely — precisely now, or at least more precisely than before — to the target zone. Hanabata circled wide and herded whatever needed herding into the strike area. Maidena held the rear, monitored everyone's condition, and handled post-combat recovery.
From the outside, it looked bizarre. A monster being led in circles by a bowing beastfolk while a sullen girl chanted at it and a pink-haired giant drove it from behind like errant livestock was not a tactical formation that appeared in any manual.
But it worked. And working was the point.
To celebrate their first successful independent patrol, the girls had collectively decided to show their gratitude in the most direct way available to them — they'd bought ingredients, put on their old school uniforms for the occasion, and were currently walking toward Kihara's new house with the combined energy of people who felt good about themselves and wanted to share it.
"Hehehe~ Four girls in JK uniforms showing up to cook for him — Boss is going to be so moved he won't know what to say~"
"I haven't worn this since graduation. It feels a little strange." Hanabata smoothed the hem of her skirt. "I hope Senpai doesn't mind."
"Hm?" Hitamuki's ears pricked forward. Then her steps slowed. Her ears rotated slightly, catching something the others couldn't. "Um... the door seems to be open, and I think — I think Shishou might be busy right now — maybe we should come back another—"
"If he's busy we can help." Tokishikko was already at the gate. "It's not like we haven't all been physically tangled up with each other at some point at this stage. Helping out a little is—"
"Awuuu... I really am sorry about that, I never mean to knock Shishou over, it just happens—"
"Nobody is blaming you, Hitamuki."
Maidena stepped forward with the crisp stride of someone who had decided the matter was settled. "And Tokishikko, please don't phrase things in ways that create false impressions. Senpai and I have always maintained a perfectly proper relationship."
"Sure you have. You just happen to black out from embarrassment every single time something happens so you don't remember any of it."
Tokishikko said this at a volume approximately one notch above inaudible. Maidena's ears caught it anyway. Her brow twitched.
The truth of the matter — not that anyone said it aloud — was that over the past two weeks, more or less every member of the squad had ended up in some form of accidental and deeply inconvenient physical proximity with Kihara. Hitamuki was responsible for most of it. Hanabata's mana-drunk episodes had contributed meaningfully. The remaining incidents were, statistically speaking, the universe just enjoying itself.
The only reason none of it had produced a scandal was that Kihara's current appearance made him look like the victim in every scenario rather than the instigator.
"Regardless," Hanabata said, with the decisive practicality of someone who had been raised to move past awkward conversational moments without dwelling on them, "we can't just stand at his gate holding groceries indefinitely. Let's go in."
"Please don't—" Hitamuki's protest went unheard.
She watched Maidena push the door open.
She watched Maidena stop.
In the entryway:
A golden-haired woman was pressing Kihara firmly into the floor, her luminous hair falling around them both like a curtain, cascading across the floorboards in waves. Several items of clothing had migrated some distance from their original owners.
The woman looked up at the sound of the door.
"We hear there are visitors who wish to help," she said pleasantly. "Excellent timing. Thou art welcome to come assist from behind."
Maidena produced a sound that began as a word and dissolved into something without linguistic content. Her eyes were open. Processing appeared to have stopped.
She was unconscious before she finished falling.
Hanabata's mana spiked.
The pink floral pattern bloomed in her eyes a full three seconds after she'd already decided she was going to apprehend this woman — assault on a respected senior, committed in broad daylight, in his own home — and the Berserk state arrived not as a cause but as an enthusiastic endorsement of the decision she'd already reached.
Tokishikko's phone was out. She was dialing.
Shinobu's shadows moved.
Two precise impacts. Two people sat down without intending to.
Shinobu looked past the unconscious Hanabata and the crumpled Tokishikko toward Hitamuki, who had retreated to the corner nearest the wall, folded herself small, and was covering her face with both hands.
"Thou," Shinobu said, with mild curiosity. "Thou dost not seem hostile. Why?"
"Awuuu..." Hitamuki's voice came from behind her palms. "Because you smell like Shishou."
"Ho.~" Something shifted in Shinobu's expression — a genuine flicker of interest. "A beastfolk's nose can detect that. Useful."
She tilted her head. "Stop crouching in the corner like a lost pup. Either carry thy companions inside, or get over here and push."
Kihara, whose mouth had been sealed by one of Shinobu's shadows since approximately the moment his students appeared in the doorway, was emitting a series of muffled sounds that communicated a lot without communicating anything actionable.
He felt Hitamuki actually move into position behind him.
He forgot, for a moment, to keep struggling.
Tokishikko rubbed the back of her neck and assessed the situation from the sofa with the expression of someone who had moved past shock into a place of bleak philosophical acceptance.
"So. To confirm." She looked at Shinobu, who was seated beside Kihara on the sofa with the relaxed proprietary energy of someone who had won something and was comfortable letting everyone know. "You're his... fiancée equivalent. Here to check on him."
"Correct." Shinobu ran her fingers through Kihara's hair with complete comfort and zero apparent interest in how this was landing.
"And thou lot must be his new companions. Quite cute, all of thee. I approve."
"We are not his harem," Tokishikko s
aid, reflexively. "There has been some incidental physical contact over the past few weeks but it was entirely accidental and context-dependent—"
"SOME?!" Maidena had revived. She was behind Hanabata now, using the larger girl as a shield, pointing at Shinobu with one rigid finger. "You. You were doing — in the entryway — with the door open — in the middle of the day—"
She turned the accusation to include Kihara.
"And you, without a shred of — of—"
She sputtered to a stop.
The room looked at her.
"...The Finizask faith," Tokishikko said carefully, "teaches very thorough doctrine on many subjects."
"But apparently not that one," Hanabata added, equally carefully.
"Which might actually make it more dangerous, not less—"
"What are you all talking about?!"
"Nothing!!" Hanabata changed the subject with the speed of someone averting a geological event. She turned to Shinobu with determined composure. "Shinobu-san. Aside from visiting Senpai — is there something else you came to address?"
Shinobu's expression shifted into something that was still pleasant but had acquired an edge.
"If this one is not thriving here," she said, "I intend to take him home."
"...Define not thriving."
"Eating poorly when left to himself. Irregular sleep. An Ace Guardian wasting his ability on tasks beneath his tier." She paused. "Any of the above."
Each criterion landed on the four girls like a stone.
Because Kihara had, in fact, done all of those things. He had done all of those things specifically because of them — because training them ran late, because covering their monster quotas ate his mornings, because making sure they ate and rested had somehow become a line item in his schedule before his own had.
By the time Shinobu finished speaking, four girls were sitting in a row.
Sweating.
Then, in unison, they dropped to their knees.
"Please give us a chance to prove ourselves!!"
Shinobu looked down at them.
Then she looked at Kihara.
Then, slowly, the corner of her mouth curved upward.
....
Thank you for reading.