"Oi, did you catch Maou Magical Girl last night?" Kazuomi asked, spinning his pen between his fingers while the seconds ticked down before class began.
Takashi didn't even look up from his phone as he answered flatly, "No."
With an exaggerated sigh, Kazuomi leaned in a little, clearly fishing for some kind of reaction. "Come on, man, talk to me. I know I messed up, but seriously, chill out a bit. The book's totally fine. Nothing's going to happen to it."
But Takashi wasn't biting.
He was still pissed.
Still holding onto that simmering grudge over what happened with Kiru-chan, and no amount of small talk was going to fix that.
Finally, he lifted his head, speaking in that same calm voice of his, the one that always sounded too quiet to be threatening until you actually listened to the words. "You're just hoping nothing happens," he said, leaning forward just enough to close the distance, "because if something does happen, you won't be around long enough to regret it."
Kazuomi's throat worked as he tried to laugh it off, but his smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "Don't worry..."
Before he could finish, the classroom door slid open with a soft click that drew every head in the room.
Stepping inside with her usual tight-lipped expression and clinical posture was Ragawa Kiriko, their maths teacher. Her voice was crisp as she set down her notes. "Good morning, class. Before we begin, I have an announcement. A new student will be joining us from today."
That single sentence set the room ablaze.
Whispers spread like wildfire, chairs creaked, feet shifted, and someone from the back called out, "Please let her be hot!"
Kazuomi snorted and leaned toward Takashi, voice dropping to a mischievous whisper. "Let's bet. It's totally a guy."
Still not looking at him, Takashi's eyes remained fixed on Kiriko-sensei as he muttered, "Nope. It's a girl. 83-57-90."
Kazuomi blinked, caught completely off guard. "Wait, what did you just say?"
Realising too late that he had spoken aloud, Takashi blinked slowly, clearly not intending to explain further. "Nothing. Just forget it."
Every day, his memories were becoming clearer, like someone was turning the focus dial on his brain. Faces from another life—other stories—were coming into view, and knowledge was slotting into place like puzzle pieces snapping together.
Kiriko-sensei wasn't just some teacher with a strict reputation and too many buttons undone on her blouse.
He couldn't recall the name of the series, but he remembered exactly where he had seen her before, and it had absolutely nothing to do with algebra.
That woman was from a hentai series. One of those late-night ones with bad lighting, cheesy background music, and an overwhelming lack of plot.
This wasn't just some harmless anime crossover anymore.
Something was wrong with this world.
The lines between safe-for-work and not-safe-for-anyone had blurred, twisted together into some chaotic, corrupted mess, and Takashi had been dropped right in the centre of it.
Not that he was complaining. At least not about that part.
But not all surprises were good ones.
The door slid open a second time, the tension in the room twisting tighter with it.
Everyone turned again as a girl stepped inside, her expression unreadable and her eyes like still water—too calm to trust.
Kazuomi leaned back slightly, trying to whisper without drawing attention. "How the hell did you know?"
"I saw her with Kiriko-sensei going into the principal's office earlier," Takashi replied, not even bothering to lower his voice much.
The girl walked up to the board, picked up the marker without hesitation, and wrote her name in clean, practiced strokes.
Chizuru Hishiro.
"I'm Chizuru Hishiro," she said, her voice flat and devoid of emotion, like she was reciting data.
Kiriko-sensei nodded without much ceremony and gestured toward the back of the room. "Take the open seat next to Kumoro."
Chizuru walked calmly to the seat and sat down beside him, not sparing a glance at anyone else.
Takashi looked over at her, observing her posture, her lack of blinking, the deadpan look on her face, and muttered under his breath, "Another complication."
He hadn't meant to be loud, but he hadn't been careful either.
Her head turned immediately. She locked eyes with him, unblinking and unbothered.
Takashi didn't flinch or try to look away. Instead, he simply replied, "Takashi Kumoro."
She gave a single blink, then said nothing. Her gaze shifted forward again like nothing had happened.
Kiriko-sensei clapped her hands sharply to snap the class back to order. "That's enough. Focus up, everyone. We've already wasted too much time."
Groans echoed across the room as students turned back toward the front, but Takashi's thoughts were still drifting.
As he leaned back in his chair, arms folded, his mind continued racing at full speed.
He knew who she was. Or rather, who she was supposed to be.
The girl was from ReLIFE. That company—the one with the pills that could reverse someone's age and drop them back into high school for a second chance—wasn't as simple as the show made it out to be.
There was so much they left unsaid behind those fake smiles and clinical reports.
The story had layers.
And now?
Those layers were spilling into his reality.
************
World travel