Not long after Naoki began cornering Rairen, Tenka returned from the dormitory and joined the cleanup of the remaining enemies. With Kyouka and the others working alongside her, the combined strength of Unit Six and Unit Seven swept through hundreds of Shuuki in short order.
Now the battlefield had been cleared of everything except Rairen, who was still being thoroughly dismantled by Naoki's spatial manipulation.
"So this is Naoki's true strength? His opponent is clearly on a completely different level from ordinary Shuuki, and yet he doesn't even look like he's trying."
In his slave form, which resembled a Shuuki but with considerably more aesthetic appeal, Yuuki watched in genuine amazement as Naoki dominated the fight without breaking a sweat.
"Tenka, should we help your boyfriend?" Kyouka asked, sliding her katana back into its sheath.
"No need, Kyou-chin." Tenka replied with easy composure, one hand resting on her hip. "Naoki-kun doesn't like being interrupted when he's enjoying himself. Just look at his face."
"..."
Kyouka studied Naoki more carefully. Sure enough, amid the whipping portals and the crunch of impact, she could see a thin grin on his face, the expression of someone taking quiet satisfaction in delivering a thorough beating.
"By the way, Kyou-chin, is this the Humanoid Shuuki you mentioned in your report?" Tenka asked without looking away.
Kyouka shook her head, her expression turning serious. "No. The Humanoid Shuuki I fought before was completely different. This one calling herself Rairen is considerably stronger. And honestly, I've never heard the term 'Eight Thunder Gods' before today."
Since she was only watching from the sideline, Kyouka hadn't grasped the full picture. It wasn't that Rairen was weak. It was that Naoki was simply on another level entirely.
In truth, if Kyouka had to fight Rairen right now, even with Yuuki at her side, a clean victory was far from guaranteed. She would likely emerge with serious injuries and pushed to her absolute limit.
The contrast with Naoki, who stood completely untouched and composed behind Infinity, was stark.
Unfortunately, because Kyouka didn't yet understand the true threat posed by the Eight Thunder Gods, her reading of the situation was skewed. She could only watch in silent bafflement as Naoki crushed what should have been a disaster-level threat to the Anti-Demon Corps.
"..."
Himari stood frozen, her eyes fixed on Naoki. She bit her lower lip, feeling the weight of inadequacy pressing harder against her chest with every passing moment.
"How is this possible? He's using Unit Six's Captain's Peach Fruit Blessing with such complete mastery, without a single gap, as though it were a power he was born with. My Blessing is also a copying type, so why is the gap between us this enormous? I feel like an amateur standing next to him."
Not far away, Yachiho was watching her partner with an openly proud expression. She swept her long hair behind her with a graceful, self-assured motion.
"Listen carefully, Himari. To qualify as a son-in-law of the Azuma family, a man cannot be ordinary. He must excel in a way that places him above the standards of normal men."
"And Naoki has already cleared every one of those requirements many times over. Only a man of that caliber is worthy of standing beside me as my partner."
"Hah?"
Himari startled, staring at her sister in open disbelief.
"Yachiho... what did you just say? Son-in-law of the Azuma family?"
She knew perfectly well how impossibly high her insufferable sister's standards were. In every prediction she had ever made about Yachiho, she had always imagined her choosing to remain single for life before lowering herself to marry someone ordinary.
Catching the stunned look on her sister's face, Yachiho gave a dismissive snort and looked at her with a mocking tilt of the head.
"You really are slow. Let me put it in terms simple enough for that dull mind of yours to process." Yachiho smiled with cutting confidence, pointing toward Naoki. "That man is your brother-in-law. So start showing him the appropriate respect."
"Brother... in-law..."
Himari repeated the unfamiliar phrase in a daze. She genuinely hadn't anticipated that out of the three Azuma sisters, it would be Yachiho of all people, the narcissist with impossibly demanding standards, who would be the first to form a serious romantic attachment, and apparently had already claimed her partner as family.
"Wait a moment!" Something struck her then like a bolt of lightning, one crucial detail she couldn't overlook. "Isn't that man the boyfriend of your Captain? Don't tell me you're his mistress?!"
Yachiho's face went immediately red with offence, and she turned a sharp, pointed look on her sister.
"Watch your mouth, Himari! I am not his mistress!" She crossed her arms and worked to reclaim her composure. "The Captain herself was the one who encouraged Naoki to have other women. I wasn't interested at first. But Grandmother gave me a direct order to get close to Naoki and carry his child for the sake of the Azuma family's future."
Hearing it laid out that plainly, Himari felt a headache beginning to take shape. The world she thought she knew had suddenly started to feel like somewhere she'd never been before.
After a moment of effort to collect herself, she pressed on carefully.
"Are you really not bothered by sharing a man with another woman? And... are you already pregnant?"
Her gaze dropped toward Yachiho's stomach, a faint blush spreading across both her cheeks.
The topic of pregnancy turned out to be effective at cracking Yachiho's composure in a way very little else managed to. Despite her best effort to hold a steady front, something deeply private shifted behind her expression. She was only twenty, an age she considered far too early to be thinking seriously about a child.
"I'm not pregnant yet, even though we've already... well, been intimate quite regularly." Yachiho explained, working to keep her tone as neutral as possible. On the matter of sharing a man, she gave a composed wave of her hand. "That isn't a significant issue. A man of Naoki's caliber simply cannot be monopolized by one woman. That's a perfectly logical conclusion."
"..."
Himari had nothing to say. She simply couldn't follow the reasoning of a sister who had apparently become so open-minded so quickly.
Nearby, Shushu stood beside Sahara, who had started dozing against her shoulder.
Shushu had been catching pieces of the Azuma sisters' conversation and was frowning, thoroughly unconvinced by Yachiho's logic. As far as she was concerned, there was no version of things in which she would be willing to let a man she liked be close with other women. But given where she stood, that opinion would stay buried deep inside her.
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
Watching the last of the Shuuki cut down by the combined effort of Unit Six and Unit Seven, Naoki decided he had played around long enough. His gaze settled on Rairen, who was beginning to look overwhelmed.
"Time to end this."
Without any unnecessary movement, he opened a portal directly beneath Rairen's feet. In an instant, her powerful frame fell freely through it and came out of the exit portal high in the open sky, dropping from dozens of meters above the ground.
Still working through «Ame-no-Mitori», Naoki pressed his palms together, focusing the spatial distortion into a single concentrated point.
"Even the strongest defense means nothing if I simply tear the space itself apart."
Naoki spoke the line that, in the original timeline, should have belonged to Tenka.
*BUZZ!*
The space around Rairen erupted. The air howled, coiling into a black vortex that devoured light and matter alike. The sound of reality cracking rang out like an enormous pane of glass shattering, the noise filling everything.
Rairen's body began to be dragged toward the inescapable gravitational spiral. Her steel-like skin wasn't breaking from physical impact. It was fracturing because the dimension she stood in was no longer whole.
"Thinking of running? It won't be that easy."
As a reincarnator with knowledge of the original plot, Naoki was fully aware that Rairen hadn't come alone. Two other members of the Eight Thunder Gods were concealed in the dark, waiting for the right moment to step in.
In the original story, Rairen had escaped after being pulled free by her companions from Tenka's killing blow. Naoki had no intention of letting that happen again.
He activated another Peach Fruit Blessing within the Qliphoth Tree.
Sathariel — «Promise»!
The moment he sensed a third party attempting to pull Rairen out of the spatial vortex, he launched a counterattack without hesitation.
"Reality Slash!"
*SWISH!*
A transparent cutting force capable of severing the fabric of space itself shot forward in an instant, connecting with the dark silhouette attempting the rescue.
*BANG!*
A spatial energy detonation erupted in midair. Although Naoki had successfully disrupted the rescue attempt, the force of the explosion threw Rairen's body clear of the vortex, sending her crashing hard to the ground, alive for the moment.
"Ah, what a shame. We wanted to leave quietly. It seems we underestimated this man."
A voice laced with disappointment drifted through the air.
Precisely where Rairen had landed, a curtain of deep black rose from the ground like a void absorbing every trace of light around it.
From within that absolute darkness, two figures emerged, both radiating a pressure that was immediately oppressive.
On Rairen's left, a girl who appeared to be around seventeen or eighteen stepped into view. Her face held a beauty that was arresting and unsettling in equal measure, the kind that called to mind witches from ancient fables. Her long hair shimmered in deep purple-black and fell freely down her back, tied with a large red ribbon that gave her the look of something delicate placed in a dangerous world. Her lips were pressed into a pout, and her gaze was heavy with dissatisfaction.
On Rairen's right stood a tall, dark-skinned young woman with long blonde hair that contrasted sharply against her short-cut black eyebrows, giving her a wild and formidable impression. A pair of deer-like horns rose proudly from her head, accompanied by elongated ears and a mysterious dark marking that covered the area of her abdomen.
"...!!!"
The arrival of two new enemies radiating power that far surpassed ordinary Shuuki dissolved whatever remaining ease had settled over the battlefield.
Tenka shot forward immediately, while Kyouka, still mounted on Yuuki in his slave form, wasted no time following. The two of them took positions on either side of Naoki, forming the front line to face the three members of the Eight Thunder Gods now assembled before them.
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