After a sleepless night, Sawada Tsunayoshi finally leaned back in his chair and let himself breathe.
He tilted his head toward the window. "Sun's up, huh."
"Aaah—" A long yawn escaped him. He'd ridden a night-long brainstorm, and the thrill of fixing a route home had kept him wired the whole time. Now that the high had ebbed, the bill for that focus hit hard.
Drowsy. Dangerously so. Only a nap would reset him.
"Beep, beep."
The metal badge on his desk chimed. Tsuna pulled himself together and tapped its face. A projection bloomed above it—first a single feed, then a lattice of views—each a 360-degree panorama of the roads beyond the Labyrinth City. One after another, more angles stitched in: every main approach into Orario, plus a handful of obscure goat paths only locals favored.
He'd seeded "Mimic Eyes" out there—proxies built to watch the comings and goings of people and goods. Before pushing them into the city proper, they needed field tests.
Will these get spotted?
He'd packed the Eyes with mimicry, disguise, damped presence, and reality-shear—yet he still didn't trust them not to be noticed. The Dungeon's "Cleaners" could feel his presence-dampening badges, after all. Against things that broke the curve, concealment often failed.
Until he was sure gods and adventurers wouldn't clock them, he would not scatter the Mimic Eyes inside Orario.
He wasn't suicidal.
Once the first checks passed, it was the badge's turn. He thumbed the metal again; its name glowed faintly along the rim:
InfoSigil.
A purpose-built collector for information warfare—born from the needs he'd face back home.
No combat ability at all. Every point sunk into analysis, capture, and information offense. Which meant tests—speed of acquisition, parsing quality, throughput.
In this world without a modern net, the InfoSigil's bite would be limited. In his own world, it would be fangs.
And tests had to run in both.
He dismissed the Sigil, slumped back, and the fatigue surged in. His eyelids went leaden.
Enough. Out of the bath, out of mind.
He conjured a Healing Bath.
He stripped to a single pair of boxers and slid into the tank. A translucent barrier domed over him; in the room outside, a puppet took its post. He'd gotten lax lately—comfort had dulled edges that shouldn't dull. Sleep was when a human was most vulnerable. If he meant to rest without handing himself over, he'd rest between worlds.
Extradimensional.
Two hours later, knocking rapped him out of the quiet—on the far side of the barrier, at least.
Tok, tok, tok.
The puppet opened the door. Bete stood there.
"Hm?"
He glanced into the room but didn't see Tsuna. The chair at the desk was pulled out, not pushed back in. He put it together quickly: the puppet was present, the master wasn't.
"Resting, then?"
He'd come to ask about Dying Will Flames. With the man asleep, he left without a word. Puppets weren't for conversation. There were other ways to "ask" questions.
Like going to the Challenge Space and putting his fists to the floor bosses Tsuna had built.
Amphisbaena would respawn in under a month. He'd need time after each challenge to settle his gains—the timing lined up cleanly with the Joint Expedition.
He had no minutes to waste. He wanted each one to split into two.
Not long after Bete departed, a lighter knock followed.
The puppet opened up.
"Huh? He's not sleeping in the room today?" Loki blinked. The last few times she'd popped in, Tsuna had napped here in the open. A puppet in his place meant he'd gone off to the between-space.
"Tsuna's puppet, can you send me over?"
The puppet nodded. A Space Rabbit bloomed into being; a half-transparent field folded around Loki and whisked her sideways.
The extradimensional place was gray-white—an unreal mirror of the room. In that palette, everything turned monochrome… except one figure.
Tsuna.
He alone still held color—lying in a clear bath, skin sheened by green solution that flowed over him, mending him in steady waves. He wore nothing but a pair of boxers. Up close, the fatigue on his face was plain.
"Didn't sleep last night?" Loki murmured. Hephaestus? She shook her head. He'd be excited, sure—but not sleepless.
"Ah—now I really want to know," she said, eyes narrowing with mischief.
(End of Chapter)
[Check Out My P@treon For +20 Extra Chapters On All My Fanfics!!][[email protected]/euridome]
[Thank You For Your Support!]