Tokyo, Japan. October 24th.
Two full days had passed since the commotion that had shaken the Kendo Club like a sudden typhoon sweeping through a quiet harbor. Peace, as they say, is the default theme of everyday life. But the script of existence never stays on one note forever—just as the waves crashing against the shoreline cannot rage eternally, there must always come a moment of calm. The tempest had passed. The waters were still again. At least, on the surface.
On the afternoon that Hasegawa Saori finally boarded the long-distance bus and departed, the gray autumn sky, which had been holding its breath all morning, finally let out a long, melancholic sigh. Raindrops began to trickle down, one by one, painting the world in muted watercolors.
Shiratori Seiya stood among the scattered crowd of onlookers and club members near the campus gate, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He lifted his gaze upward, watching as Saori, seated by the window of the idling bus, turned to wave goodbye to him. Her small hand moved back and forth like a metronome set to a bittersweet tempo.
As the bus rumbled to life and began to pull away, the rain intensified, streaking diagonally across the wide glass pane. The droplets clung to the window, distorting her features, tracing erratic paths down the transparent surface. From where he stood, it looked almost as if tears were streaming silently down her cheeks.
But she was smiling. Even through the warped veil of rain and glass, Shiratori Seiya could see it with absolute clarity—the girl was smiling. A genuine, radiant, hopeful smile that seemed to defy the gloomy weather entirely.
Strictly speaking, this wasn't truly a farewell. Not in the dramatic, final-curtain sense of the word.
Saori herself probably never entertained the notion that she had actually parted ways with him. Perhaps, from the very moment on that distant, rain-soaked hillside night—when he had wrapped his arms around her and they had tumbled down the muddy slope together, a tangle of limbs and shared warmth—their fates had been irrevocably intertwined. Their threads of destiny had been knotted together so tightly that no amount of pulling could ever truly separate them.
Shiratori Seiya kept his eyes fixed on the bus until it rounded the corner of the school gate and vanished completely from sight, swallowed by the gray Tokyo streets. His gaze lingered on the empty space it had occupied, his expression unreadable.
It was then that he heard the sound of celebration erupting beside him.
"Ahhh... thank the heavens, she's finally gone."
The words, while undoubtedly heartfelt, did not escape from the lips of Fujiyama Takeo. The man himself stood ramrod straight, his square jaw set in a stoic line. But Shiratori Seiya didn't need to hear him speak. He saw it plainly: the tense, coiled-spring rigidity in Fujiyama's broad shoulders instantly dissolved. They slumped forward as if a literal mountain had been lifted from his back. His entire frame sagged with a relief so profound it was practically a physical exhalation.
He might not have said a word, but his body language was screaming at the top of its lungs.
"Alright, everyone," Fujiyama Takeo announced, clapping his thick hands together. "Thank you for your hard work today. You're dismissed."
A chorus of weary acknowledgments rippled through the small crowd. The gathered students began to disperse, breaking off into clusters of two or three. Their conversations drifted back to Seiya's ears on the damp breeze—talk of lunch plans, weekend excursions to Shibuya, and, of course, the inevitable gossip.
The topics swirling around him were as predictable as the changing of the seasons. Phrases like "futamata kuzu yarou"—a scumbag two-timing bastard—floated past. Others muttered about "making a disgraceful scene in the sacred dojo with his girlfriend" and "a complete and utter lack of true kendo spirit."
Naturally, there were a few stray voices tinged with something that sounded suspiciously like envy.
He had certainly become famous. Or rather, infamous. His name was probably being passed around the campus like a hot potato wrapped in scandal.
Shiratori Seiya glanced down at his wristwatch, letting the whispered words flow in one ear and drift right out the other like background noise from a television he wasn't watching. He didn't have the mental bandwidth to care. He had far more pressing matters to attend to than the idle chatter of people he barely knew.
However, just as he took two steps toward freedom, a heavy weight landed on his shoulder. He turned his head slightly to find Fujiyama Takeo's large hand resting there, the club captain having fallen into step beside him.
"Don't let them get to you too much," Fujiyama said, his voice a low rumble. "They're just bored and running their mouths for sport. Give it a few days, and they'll have moved on to the next big drama. Nobody will even remember this happened. And if it gets out of hand, I'll have a word with them myself..."
He offered a smile, but on his broad, squarish face, the expression came across as somewhat naive and clumsy. It made him seem honest to a fault, radiating an aura that made it difficult to harbor any ill will toward him.
Fujiyama Takeo was, in fact, nursing a private guilt. He was the one who had practically begged Shiratori Seiya to come to the club that day. In a roundabout way, he felt responsible for setting his kouhai up for this public spectacle. If he hadn't insisted, Shiratori wouldn't have been ambushed by his past, wouldn't have become the unwilling star of the campus rumor mill.
He figured the least he could do was try to run some damage control. Even if he couldn't completely clear the man's name, he could at least stomp out the more outrageous flames of gossip.
Shiratori Seiya, however, was not a man accustomed to walking arm-in-arm with other guys. With a subtle, almost imperceptible shrug, he slipped his shoulder free from Fujiyama's grip and put half a step of distance between them. He shook his head.
"I'm not bothered by any of that, Buchou," Seiya said, his tone flat and matter-of-fact. "And you don't need to explain anything on my behalf. The more you try to clarify, the more they'll believe there's something to hide. They'll just think you're running interference to bury the truth."
Prejudice, once rooted in the human heart, becomes an immovable mountain. He was no foolish old man from legend who sought to dig away the peaks with a shovel. He had neither the time nor the inclination to wage war against a mountain of idle speculation.
Hearing this, Fujiyama Takeo blinked, momentarily taken aback. Then, a look of genuine understanding dawned on his features. He nodded slowly, letting out a long, contemplative sigh.
"You really do have a solid mindset, Shiratori-kun. I've got to say... I envy you."
"Envy?" Shiratori Seiya glanced at him sideways, a faint, knowing smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "Don't you mean jealousy?"
"Huh?"
Fujiyama met his gaze, and a spark of realization flickered behind his eyes. He understood the implication immediately. His hands flew up in a frantic waving motion, as if trying to physically bat away the misunderstanding.
"No, no, no! It's not jealousy at all. It's pure envy, I swear! Shiratori-kun, do I really strike you as the kind of shallow guy who 'only sees the surface and turns green with jealousy without stopping to think about the why or how'? Come on, give me some credit."
He puffed out his chest slightly, a defensive pride entering his voice.
"I mean, to have two girlfriends... you must have paid a considerable price for that kind of situation, right? Emotionally, I mean."
Shiratori Seiya found himself pausing, genuinely looking at the club captain with a fresh perspective.
Before he could formulate a reply, however, Fujiyama cleared his throat with a conspicuous ahem and leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
"So, uh, Shiratori-kun... you wouldn't happen to have any... you know... secrets? Any tips for dating? Asking for a friend."
Ah. So that's what this was all about. The realization dawned on Seiya with an inward flicker of amusement. After a moment's thought, he decided to answer with complete sincerity, his voice turning serious.
"If there's any secret at all... I suppose it would just be sincerity. Pure and simple. If you meet the right person, they'll understand you without needing a script or a strategy. And if they're the wrong person... well, no amount of clever maneuvering or manipulation is going to make it worth the effort."
"Sincerity... huh?"
Fujiyama Takeo's thick, caterpillar-like eyebrows knitted together in deep contemplation. He mumbled the word to himself, turning it over in his mind like a puzzling koan. But how exactly do you find the 'right person' in the first place?
Before he could untangle that philosophical knot, Shiratori Seiya had already stepped past him, his stride quick and purposeful.
"Oi, don't rush off just yet!" Fujiyama called after him. "Let me treat you to a meal. My way of apologizing."
"No can do, Buchou. I've got urgent business."
"Huh? But it's Sunday," Fujiyama protested, genuine confusion clouding his features. "What kind of urgent business could you possibly have on a Sunday afternoon?"
Shiratori Seiya didn't break stride, merely tossing the answer back over his shoulder without looking back.
"Urgent business called making money."
"Huh??"
....
After leaving the school grounds, Shiratori Seiya grabbed a quick, solitary meal at a nearby family restaurant, the clatter of dishes and murmur of families filling the silence around him. Once finished, he got into his modest car and drove with singular focus toward the Aoyama Artist Training Institute.
Ever since the night he had made that solemn 'three-year' promise to Hasegawa Saori under the warm glow of the izakaya lanterns, a new resolve had crystallized within him. He had immediately put Takahashi Mio's special training regimen onto the front burner, moving it from a vague future plan to an immediate, non-negotiable priority.
The truth was, his promise to Saori hadn't been born from pure impulse or a desperate attempt to calm a crying girl. It was a calculated decision. A strategic pact.
The three-year buffer period served a dual purpose. It was a trial for Saori's unwavering heart, yes. But more than that, it was a trial for himself—a gauntlet thrown down at his own feet.
People change. That was the one immutable law of the universe. The future was a vast, fog-shrouded landscape, and no one, not even the most brilliant oracle, could predict its exact contours. Would Saori still harbor these intense, all-consuming feelings for him three years from now? To him, that variable remained an unsolved equation.
He understood the depth of her current devotion. He had been shaken by the sheer, blistering heat of her love. Logically speaking, the probability that she would still like him in three years was likely north of eighty percent. But he refused to discount that remaining twenty. He couldn't afford to. To bet everything on a near-certainty was still a gamble, and he wasn't a gambling man.
Furthermore, the three-year window granted him something equally crucial: time. Time to accumulate enough capital. Time to build a foundation.
Even if Saori, with her pure and earnest heart, was willing to live a humble, penny-pinching life by his side, sharing a tiny apartment and counting coins for groceries... he wasn't willing. The very thought of it made something twist uncomfortably in his chest. Saori deserved better than a life of scraping by.
If Saori were to follow a conventional career path in the future, her viable options were frustratingly limited. With her skill set, she was essentially pigeonholed into three lanes: a high school physical education teacher, a police officer, or perhaps a university-level kendo lecturer or coach.
And honestly? The only path that sat even remotely well with him was the first one. The idea of Saori patrolling dark streets or dealing with volatile situations as an officer made his stomach clench. A quiet life as a P.E. teacher, with school holidays and a predictable routine, felt infinitely more acceptable.
The royalties from the handful of song copyrights he owned wouldn't sustain them forever. They were a trickle, not a river. And the notion of Saori grinding her Kendo skill all the way to Level 5 purely for monetary gain was utterly impractical. Even with her S-Rank talent—a gift that bordered on the supernatural—reaching LV5 through sheer, brute-force diligent practice alone would likely take decades. Time they simply didn't have.
To accelerate that growth, she needed access to high-level Kendo techniques. Shiratori Seiya had scoured the internet, diving deep into obscure forums and auction sites, hunting for authentic scrolls or manuals. The results were depressingly predictable: incomplete fragments, obvious forgeries designed to part fools from their money, or legitimate dojos offering discipleship at exorbitant costs—costs that rivaled the prices in the System itself, with absolutely no guarantee they'd even teach the genuine article.
In the end, the most time-efficient, labor-saving, and reliable method was painfully clear: exchange for the techniques directly from the System.
Yet, even that path was paved with staggering price tags.
A single Kendo technique at Level 4 cost a cool 500 million yen. Shiratori Seiya had run the numbers until his head ached. Exchanging just one technique might not even be enough to push Saori over the threshold to LV5. And even if she miraculously reached LV5 and triggered the System's 1 billion yen reward, once you subtracted the time and monetary investment required to get her there, the net gain would be... modest, at best.
Modest to the point of being laughable. It might cover a down payment on a decent house in a quiet Tokyo suburb, but it certainly wasn't a "live comfortably for a lifetime" kind of sum.
And the idea of exchanging Kendo techniques from the System and then trying to sell them on the open market? That was pure fantasy.
First, who would believe the authenticity of some random style he was peddling? Second, even if Saori somehow managed to build a formidable reputation as a practitioner of said style, what would be a fair price?
The commercialization level of Kendo as a sport was abysmally low. Winning a national championship brought prestige, sure, but the actual prize money wouldn't even cover the travel expenses and training costs incurred along the way.
He'd already crunched those numbers years ago. Even owning and operating a Kendo dojo in Tokyo—a venture fraught with high rent and fickle student enrollment—barely turned a profit throughout the year. More often than not, such dojos operated at a quiet, dignified loss, sustained more by tradition and stubborn pride than by actual income.
No. The path forward was clear, and it didn't lie with Saori's shinai.
The correct, logical, and most profitable course of action was this: dedicate the next three years entirely to Takahashi Mio. Push her, coach her, refine her until she reached LV5 as swiftly as humanly possible.
Once she hit that milestone, the real game would begin—reselling high-value scripts, leveraging her success to unlock the System's more lucrative rewards. That was the engine that would generate real wealth. That was the plan.
It was no small undertaking. A monumental test of patience, skill, and endurance.
But he'd done it before. He had taken Hojo Shione from a raw, uncertain talent to a solid LV3 in just a year and a half. And Shione, for all her former brilliance, didn't possess the raw, almost otherworldly spark he saw in Takahashi Mio. Getting Mio to LV5 within three years? It wasn't just a possibility.
It was an inevitability.
Shiratori Seiya had absolute, unshakable confidence in her. And more importantly, he had full confidence in himself. The die was cast. The countdown had begun.