Maki's voice cut through the heavy, vengeful atmosphere like a surgical blade. She stepped in front of the stairs, her arms crossed, her sharp purple eyes scanning the faces of the women gathered in the dim hallway.
"Okay, okay, stop," Maki said firmly. "Even for us, this is getting to be too much. Let's dial back the drama before we break the floorboards."
The group paused, the momentum of their "march" stalling.
"We have to remember," Maki continued, her voice dropping into a more clinical, grounded tone. "The man upstairs isn't the 'Deadbeat' who spent the last three years ignoring us. He's the Agung who literally just tumbled out of a timeline thirteen years ago. He's confused, he's out of his depth, and—let's be honest—he's lucky to even be breathing right now."
The Aqours members—Mari, Dia, and Yoshiko—all blinked in confusion. "Lucky to be breathing?" Mari asked, her brow furrowing. "What do you mean?"
Maki sighed, glancing back at the Nijigasaki group. "He barely escaped being murdered on the spot on the Nijigasaki rooftop a few hours ago. Ayumu... she snapped. If it weren't for a few of us stepping in, he wouldn't have made it to the train station, let alone Numazu."
The silence that followed was deafening. The Aqours girls stood stunned, their eyes wide. They knew Ayumu Uehara as the sweet, dedicated face of Nijigasaki, but hearing that she had been driven to a murderous rage by Agung's reappearance made the gravity of the situation sink in.
Mari and Dia instinctively turned their gazes toward Lanzhu, Ai, Kanata, Shioriko, and Mia, looking for a denial.
The five of them didn't say a word. They simply looked away, staring at the shadows on the wall or the patterns on the tatami mats. Their silence was a loud confirmation: *Yes, it was that bad.*
"We aren't here to be a lynch mob," Maki insisted, her gaze softening just a fraction. "We are here because we need an explanation. He has 'Creation Magic,' he has more money than the Oharas, and he has this 'Panda' body that shouldn't exist. We need to confront him as wives and mothers who want the truth, not as a punishment squad."
Umi nodded slowly, her hand resting on the banister. "Maki is right. If he is truly the man from thirteen years ago, then to him, we were just with him 'yesterday.' The shock for him is just as great as the shock for us. We need to be firm, but we must be rational."
"Rational..." Yoshiko muttered, though she lowered her hand. "Fine. But 'Yohane' still demands to know why he's four years older and looks like he's been eating too much bamboo."
"Let's go," Eli whispered, her expression now one of focused determination rather than raw anger. "Quietly. We don't want to wake the children."
The group began to ascend the stairs again, but the energy had shifted. The predatory edge was replaced by a heavy, somber curiosity. They reached the door to **Room 4**.
Eli looked at Chika, who still held the master key. Chika took a deep breath, her heart racing as she looked at the wood of the door. Behind it lay the man who was both the love of their lives and the greatest mystery they had ever faced.
With a soft *click*, the lock disengaged. They didn't burst in. They slid the door open slowly, the moonlight from the window spilling across the floor where the "Panda" lay fast asleep.