Shinji stared at Lily's string of messages, pausing when he reached the last one.
[Can you be my friend...?]
That caught him completely off guard. He'd honestly assumed she hated him after what happened last time, especially after he made her cry. No, there might me something like like-hate relationship.
It was around 4 PM now. What Shinji didn't know was that Lily had been glued to her phone ever since she hit send at 3:40. She'd hesitated a long time before sending that message, torn between courage and second thoughts. After it was sent, she sat frozen in a mix of hope and regret. The status stubbornly stayed marked "unread" the entire time.
Still, unread was better than "read" with no reply. That kind of silence would've been even worse, humiliating, even. So Lily kept waiting, checking her phone between work tasks, her eyes flicking toward the screen every few minutes.
Then, finally, around 4 PM, the message was marked as read.
Her body tensed instantly. Her heart picked up speed, her mind caught in a loop of anxious anticipation. She hoped for a reply but feared rejection just as much.
Then a single-word message popped up on the screen:
[Sure.]
Lily's entire face lit up. She grabbed her phone with both hands, grinning like she'd just won the lottery. Just then, Fubuki walked into the room.
"Lily, who are you chatting with?" she asked casually, having noticed Lily hurriedly typing something on her phone.
Startled, Lily instinctively hit the lock button and set the phone face down on her desk. She hadn't even realized how suspicious her reaction must have looked until it was too late. In front of the person she admired most, she now appeared as if she had something to hide.
Fubuki narrowed her eyes slightly, clearly more intrigued than before. "You were obviously messaging someone. Why are you acting like you got caught doing something wrong?"
"N-no reason…" Lily stammered, then scrambled for an excuse. "I was just slacking off and got caught playing with my phone by you, Lady Fubuki!"
"Oh, is that all?" Fubuki raised a brow but didn't press further. "It's fine to slack off once in a while. Just don't neglect your actual work."
"Of course! You're amazing, Lady Fubuki!" Lily replied quickly, flashing her most enthusiastic smile.
"Good. Then I'll let you get back to it."
With that, Fubuki turned and walked out.
Even after she was gone, Lily remained a little rattled. Only now did it hit her, she really didn't want Fubuki to know she'd been talking to Shinji. Probably because Fubuki had tried several times to recruit Shinji into the Blizzard Group and was turned down each time. Yet somehow, Lily had become friends with him instantly.
Wait a second.
A new thought burst into her mind. Why had he refused every invitation to join Fubuki's group, but didn't hesitate to accept her friend request?
Could it be... he likes me?
That idea hit Lily like a bolt of lightning. Somewhere in her reasoning, she had equated "joining a group" with "making friends," and now she couldn't help but wonder if there was something more behind his decision.
She quickly unlocked her phone again, and to her surprise, a new message from Shinji had already arrived:
[So I guess we're friends now. Come over for tea sometime when you're free.]
Reading that message, Lily's cheeks turned bright pink, and the suspicions in her heart felt even more confirmed.
He definitely has feelings for me, right?
She thought, her pulse racing.
I mean, who invites someone over for tea like that unless they're interested?
Unbeknownst to her, Shinji hadn't given it that much thought. In fact, inviting someone over was no big deal to him. His home was already a revolving door of visitors; Saitama, Genos, Vaccine Man, and even Fubuki would drop by from time to time. The invitation was nothing more than a casual gesture in his eyes.
[I-I will…]
That was the only message Lily managed to send in reply. After that, she went completely silent, too flustered to type anything else.
Back in school, she'd received a fair number of confessions from boys, but she'd turned them all down without hesitation. Getting into a relationship with someone she wasn't even friends with had always felt wrong to her. But now that she and Shinji had officially become friends, the idea that he might actually like her left her completely uncertain and unsure how to respond.
While Lily sat tangled in her spiraling thoughts, Shinji had already set his phone aside and returned to his usual routine.
...
"Master, I'd like to request a sparring session."
That day, Genos approached Shinji with his usual intense seriousness.
"Let me guess, you got some new upgrades after the meteor thing and want to test them out on me?" Shinji asked, his tone relaxed as ever.
"Exactly, Master. You're spot-on," Genos nodded firmly. "During the battle with the giant centipede, I discovered multiple flaws in my design. While I was undergoing repairs, I asked Dr. Kuseno to upgrade my systems again."
"Alright then, let's go. We'll find somewhere open." Shinji agreed without hesitation. "Let me ask that Temu Piccolo. Much like real Piccolo, he might know some good deserted places."
...
Later, the two of them arrived at a clearing far outside the city, the perfect place for a high-intensity match.
"I'll be going all out. I hope to awaken your fighting spirit, Master. Please don't hold back on my account," Genos said as he dropped into a combat stance, energy humming through his body. "Under these conditions, I will fight to the very end."
"Got it," Shinji replied casually, though he had no intention of actually breaking Genos apart. There was another reason he had agreed to this spar: he wanted to test a new ability of his own.
"Then... please allow me to begin!"
With those words, Genos instantly lowered his center of gravity and exploded forward with blinding speed. His movements kicked up a cloud of dust and tore into the earth behind him. Shinji, however, didn't activate his Hollow powers this time. He wanted to rely solely on the clarity granted by his Eternal Mangekyo and his raw physical reflexes.
Even though Genos was a full-fledged cyborg equipped with cutting-edge systems, his speed was still too slow under the eyes of Shinji's Eternal Mangekyo. Every punch, kick, and feint was read and dodged with precision, like Shinji already knew the outcome before it happened.
Genos, knowing the vast gap between their strengths, didn't hold back for even a second. Without hesitation, he launched his Incineration Cannon straight at Shinji, aiming to land a direct hit.
Boom!
A deafening roar tore through the area as the blast flew past Shinji and blasted a massive hole through the mountain behind him. The resulting shockwave sent dust and debris raining down across the entire clearing.
But Shinji remained exactly where he stood, completely unharmed and not even the slightest bit ruffled by the attack. His expression stayed calm as he spoke. "Still not fast enough."
"..."
Genos didn't say anything, but he understood. Even with his newest upgrades, even after pushing his internal systems to the limit, his speed still hadn't caught up.
Just as he prepared to increase his energy output and go all in, Shinji suddenly disappeared from view, his body blurring into a series of overlapping forms that seemed to ripple through space. In a blink, he reappeared around Genos, several versions of him, moving in sync and closing the distance at impossible speed.
Genos didn't hesitate. He lashed out with a powerful sweeping strike toward the Shinji directly in front of him, but his blow hit nothing but air.
And then it happened. The rest of the "Shinjis", which Genos had assumed were mere afterimages, charged in all at once from every direction.
'What?!'
Genos's eyes widened in disbelief. These weren't ordinary afterimages?
In reality, they were. Or rather, they were illusionary projections produced by Shinji's blinding movements, so vivid, so lifelike, that they manipulated the brain into perceiving them as tangible threats. The technique was meant to fool not just the eyes, but the entire sensory system.
This was no standard body flicker. It was the legendary technique passed down by Shisui Uchiha himself.
The Phantom Body Flicker Technique.
(It's a fan name for Shisui's Body Flicker Technique.)