Hearing Jinno Ai's words, the group of men in black sped up as they rushed toward Hikari.
Seeing Hikari's slender figure surrounded by several men in black, Jinno Ai panicked.
Worried sick that Hikari might get hurt, she prepared to take the initiative and attack.
Although the chances didn't seem very good, Jinno Ai still wanted to see if she could break through, help Hikari, and then escape together.
But just as Jinno Ai was about to strike, one of the men in black who had reached Hikari first suddenly went "BANG!" crashing heavily to the ground.
Jinno Ai was startled by the sudden noise and instinctively stopped her movement.
The other men in black all widened their eyes at this moment, staring fixedly at Hikari.
Compared to Jinno Ai, who was cornered in the alley, they could see more clearly. They had seen that Hikari had just thrown a single punch and knocked their companion down hard.
In an instant, they realized that this boy who looked like a high school student was anything but simple.
Without saying a word, the men in black swarmed toward Hikari.
But facing the group attack, Hikari remained calm, merely lifting his hands from time to time.
Moving at a speed too fast to see clearly, in just a few seconds, all the men in black charging at him were sprawled all over the ground.
Hikari calmly stepped over their bodies, easily reached Jinno Ai's side, and asked, "Little Ai, are you okay?"
Seeing Hikari suddenly appear beside her, and then seeing five or six people lying on the ground, Jinno Ai was so shocked she couldn't quite react.
After standing there in a daze for a few seconds, she hurriedly shook her head, "N-no, I'm fine! Hikari-kun, you're amazing!"
"Oh right, Hikari-kun, you didn't get hurt fighting these guys, did you?"
As she spoke, Jinno Ai circled around Hikari with a worried expression, stretching out her small hands to check him all over.
Hikari smiled and said, "I'm fine. These guys can't really threaten me. After all, I'm a sports student."
"Pfft!", Hearing Hikari's deadpan joke, Jinno Ai couldn't help but burst out laughing.
"What kind of sports student is this strong!", she blurted out instinctively, her beautiful eyes sparkling as she sized up the solid, muscular build hidden beneath Hikari's clothes.
She herself had studied judo and was already quite good at fighting. Ordinary adult men were basically no match for her.
But she hadn't expected her childhood playmate Hikari's combat power to be even more terrifying. Five or six people weren't his match at all, and he ended the fight incredibly fast.
Even the strongest bodyguards in the Jinno family probably didn't have skills like this, right?
Although she was very surprised, Jinno Ai didn't ask too many questions. After checking that Hikari was fine, she immediately took out her phone and made a call home.
["What? Someone tried to lay a hand on you, Little Ai?"]
["Where are you right now? Are you okay? Mom will send people over immediately!"]
A mature woman's voice with a slightly husky tone came from the other end of the phone. After Jinno Ai briefly explained the situation to her mother, Jinno Sumire, she finally let out a sigh of relief.
"My family will be here in a bit. We'll deal with these guys after they arrive."
Jinno Ai pulled Hikari out of the alley, then clasped her hands in front of her chest and bowed deeply to him.
With heartfelt gratitude, she said, "Hikari-kun, thank you so much for saving me. If you hadn't helped, I would have been taken away by these unknown people. I don't even know what they wanted or what they would have done to me. Thank you, really!"
Hearing Jinno Ai thank him so earnestly, Hikari simply smiled, patted her on the head, and said, "When we were kids, didn't you always call me Onii-chan? Little Ai is like my little sister, so there's nothing to thank me for."
"Okay, Hikari-nii is the best~", Hearing his words, Jinno Ai smiled happily, her eyes curving into crescents. Then she naturally hooked her arm around Hikari's arm, clinging close to him.
Feeling the familiar movement of the cute girl, and the soft sensation pressing against his arm, Hikari couldn't help but turn his head to look.
Noticing his gaze, Jinno Ai didn't get embarrassed at all. Instead, she smiled slightly at him and squeezed a bit.
The sudden softness made his heart waver slightly. Hikari shook his head helplessly and smiled at the mischievous girl.
Hikari stayed with Jinno Ai outside the alley for a short while.
.
.
.
Less than ten minutes later, several vehicles drove over.
At the front was a stretched van. When the door opened, several well-built men got out.
From how they addressed Jinno Ai, it was clear they were all from the Jinno family.
Following Jinno Ai's instructions, these Jinno family members quickly bound the hands and feet of all the men in black that Hikari had knocked down, then carried them into the vehicles one by one.
While the Jinno family members were busy loading the fallen men in black into the vehicles, Jinno Ai opened the door of a sedan that had followed behind and waved to Hikari.
"Hikari-kun, come back to Ino Shrine with me first. I'm worried that whoever's behind these guys might target you and cause you trouble," Jinno Ai said.
"It's fine," Hikari showed no fear at all.
Thinking of Hikari's skills, Jinno Ai understood and immediately changed her words, "Hikari-kun, being suddenly attacked like this today scared me a little. Come back home with Little Ai for a bit, okay~"
"And these guys' backgrounds are unclear. We'll have to interrogate them properly once we're home to find out their motives. Hikari-kun, you're curious too, right?", Jinno Ai ran up to Hikari, hugged his arm, and shook it while acting cute.
Seeing this, Hikari finally agreed and got into the car with her.
———
In a secluded residence on the outskirts of Ino Village.
Yoshizawa Eigen frowned at the phone in his hand, waiting anxiously for a call.
But after waiting for quite some time with no response, he couldn't hold back anymore and directly dialed a number.
[The number you have dialed is powered off.]
Hearing the automated message, Yoshizawa Eigen slammed the phone in his hand onto the ground.
"Baka!"
Yoshizawa Eigen cursed angrily.
"Just as I thought, the plan failed again. A bunch of useless trash!"
The person behind the kidnapping attempt on Jinno Ai today was none other than Yoshizawa Eigen.
After repeatedly failing in his plans against Miyuri, he became wary of retaliation and hid himself carefully, even though he wasn't sure whether the other side could track him down.
Then, based on his subsequent investigation, he discovered that Miyuri had gone home together with Hikari, and that when the deaths of the Natsuki brothers were discovered, she had gone to report the case accompanied by Hikari.
Combining this information, Yoshizawa Eigen couldn't help but suspect that his repeated failures against Miyuri might have something to do with the seemingly insignificant Hikari.
Although the other party looked like nothing more than an ordinary high school student, he absolutely could not be ignored anymore.
After piecing together these clues, Yoshizawa Eigen wanted to send another batch of subordinates to further investigate Hikari and Miyuri.
But he suddenly realized that after his manpower had suffered consecutive losses, he only had a handful of people left under him in Ino Town, seemingly unable to do anything to Hikari and Miyuri at all.
After all, he had previously sent quite a few people to support Doctor Takamura, and not a single one of them had returned. Most likely, they had all been taken out.
With only these few people left now, sending them would probably just be feeding them to the wolves.
Yoshizawa Eigen felt that the main issue was that his influence in Ino Village was still too small, limited to controlling some key medical resources and the like.
The vast majority of affairs in Ino Village were still handled by the Jinno family.
Even if he went back to the neighboring town to mobilize more people, it still might not be easy to carry out the next steps.
So Yoshizawa Eigen came up with a very bold idea: to deal with the Jinno family and get them to assist him.
Doing things properly was no longer an option.
Because before coming from the neighboring town to develop in Ino Town, he had already investigated the Jinno family's influence and intended to join forces with them.
At the time, his approach was to propose marriage to the daughter of the current Jinno family head, Jinno Takashi, namely the shrine's head priestess, Jinno Sumire, shamelessly expressing that he was willing to marry this widow so that the Yoshizawa and Jinno families could become closely related by marriage.
But he had been mercilessly rejected on the spot by Jinno Sumire, who even said that despite his age, he had quite the imagination. That left Yoshizawa Eigen extremely embarrassed and directly formed a grudge between them.
So this time, Yoshizawa Eigen planned to use other means to borrow the Jinno family's power.
He had previously found out that Jinno Sumire doted on her daughter Jinno Ai dearly.
Thus, he came up with the idea of kidnapping her and using that to threaten Jinno Sumire into helping him.
It wasn't completely far-fetched. His demands weren't that excessive, just investigating a few village nobodies. From the perspective of families like theirs, it shouldn't be a big deal.
But all the methods and rhetoric he had planned to use to persuade the other side never even got the chance to be used.
Because the very first step of the plan, kidnapping Jinno Ai, had failed outright.
Thinking of this made Yoshizawa Eigen so angry that the veins on his forehead bulged.
"Useless trash! Can't even catch a little girl! Absolutely useless!"
"No, if this gets exposed, that woman Jinno Sumire will definitely come after me. I have to relocate again!"
Thinking of how much Jinno Sumire cherished Jinno Ai, Yoshizawa Eigen shuddered, quickly packed up his things, and left the residence he was currently staying in.
———
In the pitch-black night, Ino Shrine was still brightly lit.
As the black sedan slowly came to a stop beside the shrine, a shrine maiden immediately hurried over, opened the car door, and respectfully invited Jinno Ai to step out.
Jinno Ai reached out and pulled Hikari out of the car as well.
"Hikari-kun, come rest inside the shrine with me first. My mom will investigate these people's backgrounds soon and will come tell us once she finds out~", Jinno Ai said to Hikari.
"Alright," Hikari nodded and followed Jinno Ai into the shrine.
Unlike the last time he had come to visit the shrine with Alisa, this time Jinno Ai led him through another entrance.
It looked less formal, but the decor was just as refined, and there were guards stationed there.
When the guards saw that it was Jinno Ai, they respectfully addressed her as "Miss" and then allowed her and Hikari to enter the shrine.
Passing through an outer courtyard, Hikari followed Jinno Ai into the shrine.
This time, however, they didn't go to the main hall where people usually worshiped the gods, but to one of the shrine's side halls.
Jinno Ai seemed to come here often. She first pulled Hikari to sit down on the tatami, then skillfully brought over a small table, placing dried fruits, candied snacks, and various small sweets on it, and even a pot of tea.
Seeing Hikari raise an eyebrow at her, Jinno Ai grinned and said, "Usually when Mother makes me work at the shrine and I get tired and want to slack off, I secretly come to this side hall to rest. It was abandoned before, so basically no one comes here. It's perfect for taking a break~"
"So that's how it is," Hikari nodded.
"Here, have some tea. Thank you so much today, Hikari-kun~", Jinno Ai sat properly across from him, poured a cup of tea with graceful movements, and offered it to Hikari with both hands.
"Alright, thanks, Little Ai," Hikari reached out and took it.
"Hikari-kun, do you know why I was blocked in that alley today?", While sipping her tea, Jinno Ai asked with a playful smile.
"That alley is pretty far from both the shrine and your house, but it's very close to mine. Little Ai, did you have something you wanted to come see me about today?", Hikari casually deduced her intentions.
This made Jinno Ai, who had been about to answer, stick out her tongue, "As expected, nothing gets past Hikari-nii~"
"Today, Little Ai wanted to go play at Hikari-nii's house, but I didn't expect to get blocked by those people on the way. Luckily, Hikari-nii saved me. Otherwise, who knows where they would have taken me."
Jinno Ai thanked him again.
"It's nothing," Hikari waved his hand.
"Hikari-kun, the way you took them all down by yourself was so cool. I've learned judo too, but I'm way weaker than you. Can you teach me~"
When the topic turned to something she was interested in, Jinno Ai stopped acting ladylike altogether and ran straight to Hikari's side, hugging his arm and shaking it like she used to as a child, acting spoiled.
"Alright, I'll teach you, I'll teach you," Hikari smiled and shook his head helplessly, "Little Ai, you really are just like when you were little."
"Heehee!", Jinno Ai smiled happily, then suddenly said, "Oh right, speaking of when we were little, Hikari-kun, do you remember? Our promise from back then?"
"Hm?", Hikari felt a v
ague sense of deja vu.
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