Ren mentally flatlined. Right. The job.
Between surviving Maki's superhuman stamina, unlocking a Heavenly Restriction, and inheriting fifteen years of lethal combat instincts, he had completely forgotten he was supposed to join the workforce today.
He had quit the quiet, boring coffee shop two weeks ago and applied at a high-end, trendy vintage streetwear boutique in Harajuku. He hadn't even needed to hand over his resume. The manager had taken one look at his face, practically seen dollar signs and a flood of female customers, and hired him on the spot.
Ren checked the clock on the microwave. It was 8:45 AM.
"I'll be there," Ren said smoothly, easily slipping into his customer-service persona. "Ten minutes early."
"Good boy. See you then." The line clicked dead.
Ren tossed the phone back onto the counter and let out a long sigh, looking down at the matte-black blade in his hand.
He had a problem. He definitely couldn't walk through the crowded streets of Tokyo or work a retail shift holding a fourteen-inch tactical knife.
But he also couldn't just dismiss it back into the System's Dimensional Inventory. The Wraith's Fang only granted him the ability to see Cursed Energy and spirits as long as the hilt maintained physical contact with his body.
Without it, he was flying completely blind in a city crawling with invisible monsters.
"Guess we're doing this the hard way," Ren muttered.
He walked over to the bathroom cabinet and dug out a thick roll of white athletic tape.
Stripping off his t-shirt, Ren stood in front of the bathroom mirror. His physique hadn't bulked up into some absurd bodybuilder shape, but the muscle density had fundamentally changed.
He looked lean, tightly coiled, and functionally perfect.
He pressed the flat, unadorned scabbard of the tantō diagonally against his lower back, just above his belt line.
Gripping the tape, he tightly wrapped it around his torso several times, securing the weapon firmly against his spine.
He adjusted the angle carefully, ensuring that the leather-wrapped hilt of the blade pressed directly against the bare skin of his side.
The tape held firm. He twisted at the waist, testing his mobility. The new Zen'in muscle memory automatically adjusted his posture, making the rigid weapon feel like a natural extension of his body rather than an obstruction.
Ren grabbed a fresh, slightly oversized black graphic tee from his dresser and threw it on, followed by a loose, unbuttoned flannel shirt. He turned sideways in the mirror.
Between the layered streetwear and the natural curve of his spine, the weapon was completely invisible. Unless someone physically tackled him, no one would ever know he was armed.
He grabbed his keys, took one last look at the broken chunk of marble sitting in the trash can, and headed for the door.
Stepping out of the apartment building, Ren had mentally braced himself to see a world crawling with monsters.
But as he walked toward the station with the Wraith's Fang pressed firmly against his spine, the reality was actually much more eerie.
Tokyo looked... exactly the same.
There were no grotesque spirits gnawing on parked bicycles or looming over the crowds from streetlamps.
It stood to reason: vibrant, bustling districts rarely birthed such horrors. Cursed spirits did not thrive on the superficial excitement of Harajuku; they congealed in the stillness—within the sterile halls of hospitals, the high-pressure corridors of schools, and the forgotten, shadow-choked corners where human misery is left to rot.
The fact that the monsters were out there, hidden in the shadows rather than out in the open, somehow made it worse.
By the time he got to Harajuku, the real struggle wasn't his new sight; it was his body.
In the backroom of the vintage streetwear boutique, Ren picked up a thick wooden hanger and squeezed the hook to slide it into a denim jacket.
Snap.
The thick wood instantly splintered into three pieces in his hand, the metal hook bending at a horrific angle. Ren froze, staring down at the jagged splinters in his palm. He hadn't even applied pressure.
He let out a long, slow breath, tossing the broken pieces into the trash. Okay. Five percent strength. Do not destroy the merchandise.
He spent the next hour out on the floor moving with agonizing, deliberate slowness. The manager's hiring strategy was clearly paying off; almost every female customer who walked through the door did a double-take when they saw him neatly folding shirts near the front display.
He was successfully not breaking anything for a solid twenty minutes when the front bell chimed again.
Ren glanced up, his customer-service smile already in place.
Walking through the door was a girl with short, orange hair, wearing a dark skirt and a casual cropped jacket. She looked incredibly annoyed, aggressively clutching a shopping bag and muttering under her breath.
"...swear to god, just because Maki isn't there to babysit them, that stupid Panda goes completely feral," the girl grumbled, aggressively flipping through a rack of vintage leather jackets.
"And Fushiguro is just sitting there brooding! I'm transferring. Tokyo was supposed to be glamorous, not a depressing petting zoo..."
Ren's hands paused on the sweater he was folding. He definitely recognized the complaints.
Nobara Kugisaki stormed deeper into the boutique, aggressively flipping through a rack of vintage leather jackets to blow off steam.
She was visibly frustrated, looking for something to make her feel like a sophisticated Tokyo city girl again after getting beaten into the dirt all morning.
Ren stepped away from his display table and walked over, carefully maintaining his customer-service smile and keeping his movements measured.
"Can I help you find anything specific today?" Ren asked, keeping his tone perfectly polite and professional. "Or are we just browsing?"
Nobara snapped her head up, a sharp, defensive retort already loaded on her tongue. "Look, I don't need any—"
She stopped dead.
Her brown eyes widened slightly as she actually looked at him. The aggressive, bossy persona that she constantly wore like armor immediately short-circuited.
Ren's "Preternaturally Handsome" trait hit her at point-blank range. Standing there in his layered streetwear, he looked exactly like the kind of effortlessly cool Tokyo guy she had always dreamed of meeting when she left the countryside.
A sudden, bright pink flush dusted her cheeks. She quickly dropped the sleeve of the jacket she was aggressively crushing.
"I, um," Nobara stammered, her voice dropping an entire octave into something suspiciously polite. She cleared her throat, trying to regain her fierce composure. "I'm just browsing. Obviously."
"Of course," Ren nodded respectfully, maintaining a professional distance. "If you're looking for a statement piece, that oversized fit works, but you seem like someone who could pull off something a bit more structured."
Nobara's eyes practically sparkled at the validation. "You think so?" she asked, desperately trying to sound aloof.
Ren turned and carefully slid a sleek, crimson cropped jacket off a high display rack, handing it to her. "This one is pretty popular. Feel free to try it on."
Nobara took the jacket, immediately slipping it on and checking herself in the nearby full-length mirror. Ren was entirely right. It looked incredible on her, perfectly matching her fierce energy.
"Not bad," she murmured, admiring her reflection while trying to suppress a massive grin. She looked back at him, her confidence returning. "You actually have decent taste. Better than the usual retail workers around here."
"Just doing my job," Ren replied mildly, gesturing toward the front register. "I can ring that up for you whenever you're ready."
He walked her over to the counter. As he carefully folded the jacket—making absolutely sure not to accidentally rip the fabric with his new strength—he rang it up and bagged it.
Nobara watched him, tapping her perfectly manicured nails against the glass. A sudden, bold idea seemed to cross her mind.
"You know," Nobara started, flipping her orange hair over her shoulder and giving him a pointed look. "Tokyo fashion changes super fast. It's exhausting trying to keep track of what's actually good in these boutiques."
"It can be," Ren agreed neutrally, sliding the bag across the counter.
"Right. So," she leaned against the counter, trying to look incredibly casual despite the lingering pink on her cheeks.
"You should probably give me your Line ID. Or your number. Just so I can, you know, text you to see if you get any more good imported stuff in. Strictly for shopping recommendations, obviously."
Ren internally panicked. He had just spent an incredibly intimate night with Maki, and now her fiery, volatile junior was demanding his number under the thin veil of "fashion advice."
"Ah, I actually don't give out my personal number," Ren deflected smoothly, maintaining his polite retail smile.
He grabbed a sleek black business card from the display on the counter and slid it across the glass toward her.
"But you can always call the store's main line. I work Tuesdays and Thursdays. We'd be happy to set aside new arrivals for you."
Nobara stared at the generic store card for a second, her eye twitching slightly. She snatched it off the counter, clearly miffed that the 'cool Tokyo guy' hadn't immediately fallen over himself to hand over his digits.
"Whatever," Nobara huffed, grabbing her shopping bag. "I have very high standards anyway."
"Have a great day," Ren called out pleasantly.
He watched her stomp out of the store, the bell chiming loudly behind her. Ren let out a long, heavy sigh of relief, dropping his head into his hands.
If Maki ever found out he had accidentally charmed her junior, he was going to be completely dead.
...
The rest of the shift was a grueling exercise in extreme self-control.
By the time the manager finally flipped the open sign to 'closed' and locked the glass doors, Ren felt more mentally exhausted than he had after four rounds with Maki.
Spending eight hours actively suppressing the urge to accidentally rip the cash register out of the counter or crush the card reader into plastic confetti took a massive toll on his focus.
"Great first day, hotshot," the manager called out from the back office, waving a stack of receipts.
"I haven't seen sales numbers like this on a weekday in months. See you on Thursday."
"Have a good night," Ren called back, grabbing his jacket.
Before stepping out, he reached into his pocket and pulled a standard black surgical mask over the lower half of his face. It was an absolute necessity.
The cool evening air of central Tokyo was a massive relief after eight hours trapped in the stuffy, heavily perfumed boutique.
Ren walked down the bustling sidewalk, the lower half of his face safely hidden behind the black surgical mask.
His "Preternaturally Handsome" trait was a literal hazard in a fashion district like Harajuku ; he had spent the entire day fending off aggressive flirting and dodging requests for his Line ID.
He kept his head down, the glow of his smartphone illuminating his eyes as he mindlessly scrolled through an article just to avoid making eye contact with the crowds.
Despite the physical relief of the Heavenly Restriction, the sheer mental tax of consciously suppressing his strength all day had left him drained.
He was too focused on not accidentally crushing his phone screen to pay proper attention to the flow of foot traffic.
Thump.
Ren collided solidly with a shoulder. It wasn't the soft, yielding bump of a typical pedestrian. It felt like walking into a brick wall.
"Oh, my bad, man," Ren muttered automatically, slipping easily into his polite, customer-service voice. He pocketed his phone and looked up, raising a hand in a casual apology. "Wasn't watching where I was—"
The words died in his throat.
Standing directly in front of him, looking entirely out of place amidst the trendy Shibuya crowd, was a tall man draped in traditional Buddhist monk robes.
He had long, dark hair tied half-up, a serene, dangerously calm smile resting on his face, and a very distinct, jagged line of surgical stitches running horizontally across his forehead.
^_____^
GETOOOOOOOO!!!!