On the drive back, Haruno chatted with Yukino about all sorts of things.
She asked how her sister was finding life at Shuchiin Academy, but the conversation kept drifting back to Makoto Nishikado.
As they neared the apartment, Yukinoshita Yukino finally frowned. "Why do you keep asking about him? Did something happen?"-
"Nothing at all." Haruno waved it off, that effortless smile still fixed in place. "My baby sister's school suddenly produces a killer, and I'm not allowed to be a little concerned?"
The sedan pulled up in front of an upscale apartment building.
"We've arrived, Eldest Miss, Second Miss," the driver announced.
Yukino stared at her smiling sister. Two years in the Naruto world, and she still couldn't see past that mask.
"It better be nothing."
She left it at that, pushed open the door, and walked toward the building.
"Let me walk you up," Haruno said, following close behind.
Once Yukino was safely inside, Haruno lingered in the corridor, murmuring to herself. "What happened between those two...?"
She'd already gotten the full account from Shizuka Hiratsuka of yesterday's incident: Nishikado killing someone in broad daylight, then striking her sister. Every detail.
Something about it didn't sit right.
Yukino's sense of justice bordered on absurd. Nine times out of ten, she'd have intervened at a scene like that.
But according to Hiratsuka, judging by the exchange between them, this clearly wasn't their first meeting.
Haruno turned these thoughts over as she headed back to the car.
She reached for the door handle.
And nearly fell flat on her ass.
Makoto Nishikado sat in the back seat, watching her with a half-smile that wasn't quite a smile.
"You...!?"
She stumbled back, eyes wide, staring at the man who had no business being there.
"Drive now." Two syllables. Flat, final.
Her gaze shot to the front. The driver was slumped unconscious in the passenger seat.
"He started screaming when I got in," Nishikado said, raising an eyebrow. "Had to quiet him down."
Haruno still hadn't moved. He slid his gaze toward her, the corner of his mouth curling with amusement.
"What's wrong? You seemed plenty brave when you were calling the police."
Her pupils contracted.
She'd been standing at least ten meters away in a crowd of over a thousand. In all that noise, how could he possibly have known it was her?
What she didn't know was that after entering the Naruto world, the Reincarnation Game's system had physically restructured every player.
Nishikado, Akizuki Airi, Yukinoshita Yukino, all of them. Two years of ninja academy training on top of that had pushed their senses far beyond human limits.
And Nishikado was the best of them.
From a hundred meters out? Sure, he wouldn't have heard a thing. But at a mere dozen meters? Every word she'd spoken had reached him crystal clear."
As for why he'd climbed into her car? It wasn't strictly for revenge—okay, maybe a little.
But the main reason was far simpler: after a full day of training, he desperately needed a place to eat and sleep.
Their place it was.
"Drive. I won't say it a third time."
The impatience in his voice left no room for argument. Haruno scrambled into the driver's seat, started the engine, and pulled onto the road toward home.
Her mind raced the entire way. What do I do?
She couldn't actually bring a man who'd hit her sister and killed someone back to the family estate. Could she?
A voice drifted from the back seat, cool and unhurried.
"Don't try anything beyond your capabilities. I don't have some rule about not killing women."
Her spine went rigid, a chill crawling up her back.
But the next second, her lips twitched, and that flawless smile slid back into place. "Oh, of course not. You're overthinking things."
Nishikado watched her reaction and couldn't help but laugh.
In his previous life, fans of Oregairu had crowned her "Demon Lord Haruno." But that title only held weight from the perspective of ordinary high schoolers.
An adult naturally had the advantage over teenagers, and Haruno, groomed since childhood as the Yukinoshita heir, had spent her formative years navigating the business world. Handling high school kids was child's play.
But against someone like Nishikado, someone who'd flip the table the moment he felt like it?
That was a different game entirely.
Before long, the sedan turned into a traditional Japanese-style estate.
The car had barely stopped when a servant hurried over to open the door. "Welcome home, young mis..." The maid trailed off, staring at the unfamiliar young man stepping out of the back seat.
Then the driver's door opened and Haruno emerged from the other side, leaving the entire staff bewildered.
Nishikado didn't bother pretending he was a guest. He stepped straight onto the polished corridor without removing his shoes.
In Japan, you take your shoes off at the door. Doubly so in a household as steeped in tradition as the Yukinoshitas.
Haruno followed behind, her eyelid twitching with every step he took.
In the main living room, a woman in an understated kimono sat with perfect posture. Dark hair swept up in an elegant knot, a folding fan resting in her hand. Poise radiated from every line of her.
Hearing footsteps outside, she assumed it was her daughter. "Haruno, come here. I need to speak with you."
Anime mothers never seemed to age. Mrs. Yukinoshita had two children, yet she looked barely past thirty.
She'd inherited her eldest daughter's figure and her youngest's striking, cold beauty, though "inherited" wasn't quite the right word. She was the source. The perfected original.
As for the Yukinoshita patriarch sitting quietly beside her? Virtually invisible. He held the title of family head, but everyone knew he'd married into the name. Real power belonged entirely to his wife.
The sliding door opened.
What walked through it was not their eldest daughter.
It was a stranger.
Nishikado dropped onto the tatami without a shred of ceremony, as casual as if he were flagging down a waiter. "Food. Now."
"Um... Father, Mother, this is..." Haruno stepped in behind him, trying to make introductions, but her father's face had already drained of color.
"You're Makoto Nishikado!?"
A man who'd appeared on the crime segment twice in two days wasn't hard to recognize, especially when said man had also struck his daughter. Mr. Yukinoshita had done his homework.
Mrs. Yukinoshita's pupils contracted sharply, but she held her composure far better than her husband.
"Ayano, call the..." He surged to his feet, shouting his wife's name.
He never finished the word "police."
His expression froze mid-syllable, as though something had reached in and snatched his soul clean out. His mouth hung open, eyes locked on nothing.
Then the focus drained from his gaze, and he slowly sank back down.
The bizarre sight seized both wife and daughter.
Haruno gaped at her father, who had gone from panic to dead calm in the span of a heartbeat. "Father? What's wrong?"
Mrs. Yukinoshita, sharper than her daughter, had already found the answer.
The young man sitting across from them had eyes that had turned an ominous crimson.
Three eerie, dark tomoe drifted in slow rotation around his pupils.
The Sharingan.