Chapter 63: Second Investment [I]

Koya’s eyes widened as Pale Sword kissed him. He could hear Victoria shouting in his head and that was followed by a beam of blood that descended from the air packed with all the hatred that Victoria had for this fragment of a god.

However it bounced off some kind of barrier that was erected around Pale Sword, and sent the beam of blood to Numb who was watching this with barely concealed hatred.

The beam passed by his cheek and carved it open and he grabbed onto the part, just looking at Pale Sword with hatred.

’I swear long kisses look different in the anime we watch.’ Pale Sword deliberated as she kept on kissing him, pulling back her face a bit and slabbering saliva around his mouth, making it drip down his clothes.

It was a whole different thing to watch it in anime and a whole different thing to act it out. That was what the goddess understood now and Mio still dragged at her phantom hair.

Once they switched, they couldn’t cause harm to their physical bodies but they could still touch each other in the astral world.

“Let go of him! You’re making a mess of his mouth.” Mio blushed. She was a trained assassin but who made out in the middle of a fight?

’I don’t wanna.’ Pale Sword shot back and Mio sighed.

After that, Pale Sword reluctantly parted her lips completely from that of Koya. His eyes were a bit dazed and she looked at him with satisfaction written all over her face.

“Did I take your first?” She smiled, her purple eyes gleaming. “Good. I’ll take all of your firsts but later.”

Then she tossed him aside like a piece of luggage, however before he could hit the ground, mana gathered beneath him and formed a platform that caught him without any fall damage.

The construct was solid and warm beneath him and then she changed her gaze onto Numb.

’Hubby… I’ll…. Mangle…. And Kill…’

Koya could hear Victoria’s voice in his head and the vampire was on the verge of crashing out however he touched his lips which had Mio, or rather Pale Sword’s saliva on it. His fingers came away wet and he stared at them for a moment.

It was his first kiss… in both lives. It had been soggy, yes. Messy, definitely but a first kiss was a first kiss and it was with her.

He knocked the thought out of his head shortly after as he pulled himself into a sitting position. His shattered leg screamed in protest but he gritted his teeth and forced himself upright anyway.

’Don’t worry about that, just get the hit in Tori.’ He thought. The goal hadn’t changed… they needed that FP.

“Are you finally done kissing that young man? There’s still saliva on your lips.” Numb said and Pale Sword touched it.

He was right then she used her tongue to round it and swallow. It sent a tingle down her spine and that made Numb even more furious as he held his sword tightly in his hand. His knuckles went white from the pressure.

“Pale Sword! You will not be inheriting the title as the Leader of the Order as long as I am alive!” Numb yelled out while holding his sword in a combat stance. Mana was still leaking from his ruined eye and his severed arm, but he didn’t seem to care.

Pale Sword and Mio blinked at the same time and both of them said the same thing. “Who said we wanted it?”

“We? Have you become delusional Pale Sword? And why are you so surprised… Mother favors you for the position after all.” Numb said hatefully while Pale Sword blinked in genuine confusion.

“So, let me get this straight… you decided that since Boss recommended me, you would come to the academy and destroy everything?” She blinked.

She was confused. If he wanted the position from her, he could always give her romance anime recommendations and she would give in immediately.

Why did he have to attack one of the few places in the whole city where there was a strong enough Internet connection to download a whole anime season in one minute?

The Academy had fiber optic cables that could pull down a 24-episode series in under sixty seconds… That was sacred.

“Once again… I don’t really know what you see in Romance animes.” Mio said from behind her in the astral world. “There’s nothing fun about watching two people fall in love with each other and only realize it after 12 or 24 episodes.”

Pale Sword sighed deeply, she had forgotten that nobody could see Mio.

“You wouldn’t understand. The beauty of romance anime is the slow burn… watching two people who are clearly perfect for each other dance around their feelings for an entire season. The way their hands almost touch during a fireworks festival. The accidental confession that gets interrupted by a passing train. The beach episode where they both realize something has changed but they’re too afraid to say it out loud. It’s about the anticipation, the near-misses, the stolen glances that mean everything and nothing at the same time and then when they finally confess in episode 23 after the rain has stopped and the sunset is painting everything gold, it hits different because you’ve been waiting for it the whole time. You can’t rush that kind of emotional payoff. The confession only matters because of all the moments leading up to it. That’s why Toradora is a masterpiece. That’s why Kaguya-sama worked so well even when it took 100+ Chapters for them to get together. That’s why Horimiya’s confession in episode 7 felt earned even though it was early. That’s why—”

“I don’t care about your thesis on emotional pacing!” Numb roared, his face twisted with rage.

Blood was still dripping from his wounds and pooling at his feet. “You’re supposed to be the Pale Sword, not some romance anime obsessed—”

“Exactly!” Pale Sword continued, completely ignoring him. “And don’t even get me started on shoujo versus seinen romance. Shoujo gives you the fantasy, the idealized version where everything is soft lighting and flower petals. The heroine always looks perfect even when she’s supposed to be a mess. Seinen gives you the messiness, the miscommunication, the way people actually stumble through relationships like idiots who don’t know what they’re doing. Both have value! Both serve different purposes! You can’t tell me that Fruits Basket and Wotakoi are doing the same thing because they’re not, they’re addressing completely different emotional needs in the viewer. One gives you catharsis through fantasy and the other gives you catharsis through recognition. And then you have series like Kimi ni Todoke that somehow blend both approaches and—”

“ENOUGH!” Numb screamed and his body exploded with mana.

Blue energy crackled around him like lightning and his remaining eye burned with fury.

“You dare mock me?! You dare stand there lecturing about cartoons while I’m trying to kill you?!”

He launched himself forward with momentum-enhanced speed that made the air itself scream. His blade cut through the air in a horizontal slash that could split a building in half.

The killing intent radiating off him was so thick that several of the watching students passed out just from the pressure.

Pale Sword didn’t even turn to face him.

“You better come at me with the intention to ki—”

Three punch marks appeared simultaneously on Pale Sword’s back, ribs, and neck… Numb’s momentum manipulation firing at maximum output. The forces shot toward her like invisible bullets, each one carrying enough power to shatter bone.

She redirected the first one with a casual tilt of her shoulder. The momentum bent around her like water flowing past a rock.

The second one she caught with her free hand and crushed between her fingers, the force dissipating into harmless sparks that fizzled out in the air.

The third she didn’t even acknowledge… it simply ceased to exist the moment it touched her barrier, as if the universe had decided it never happened.

Numb’s eyes went wide with disbelief.

He was already committed to the slash.

His blade was inches from her neck. He poured everything he had left into the strike… all his remaining mana, all his momentum manipulation, every ounce of killing intent he’d accumulated over years as an assassin.

The sword gleamed with concentrated blue energy.

Pale Sword turned her head slightly and the blade passed through empty space where her neck had been a fraction of a second before.

Then she was behind him.

Her sword had completely gone through his head from behind, piercing his brain and all. It was so fast that Koya couldn’t keep up with it.

One moment she was in front of Numb… The next moment she was behind him with her blade already through his skull.

There was no transition and no blur of motion, She simply existed in a different location.

He gritted his teeth.

’I los—’

「You have claimed the bounty on Assassin: ’Numb’」

「Bounty: 100,000 FP」

He blinked and looked at Numb’s body properly. Beside from where she had stabbed, a hole had been blasted through his heart which meant Victoria’s Blood Burst had moved even faster than Pale Sword had in that second.

His wife had threaded the needle perfectly and he felt like crushing the Vampire in a hug.

’Tori…’

’Yes?’ She asked in his thoughts. Her voice still sounded very grumpy especially from the kiss.

’Whatever you want today, I’ll give it to you.’ He let out a sigh after that. She deserved it and she perked up instantly.

’Anything…?’ She asked, and he could hear the shift in her tone.

’Yes anything, as long as it’s not weird.’ Koya thought.

’C-c-can w-we go on a date…?’ She asked surprisingly meekly, as if she expected him to reject her.

’A date? Tomorrow then.’ He said and Victoria didn’t reply again so he didn’t know what the bat was thinking.

He looked down at his leg that had been shattered… At least it wasn’t pulled off. He healed it a bit and stopped Heal from continuing.

Who the hell stood up from a literal shattered leg in front of the other students?

Pale Sword took hold of Numb’s dead body and heaved it over her shoulder with one hand like he weighed nothing at all.

With her free hand, she blew him a kiss and vanished into the air without a trace.

’I still have a long way to go…’ His throat bobbed. He had a full-on power battle with the guy and she had just ended it in an instant.

It was more or less surprising because in that instant she moved, he had struck her with a lot of punches with momentum. However she just redirected the momentum before it hit her like it was nothing.

“Koya-kun!” He turned his head to his right. It was Saki and she was running at him. Her hair and breasts bounced with each step and she arrived at his side, kneeling down on the ground next to him.

Her hands immediately went to his shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I’m good.” He said while looking at her. He didn’t look so good. Excluding the several bleeding injuries all around his body, his leg had been shattered too and he would be looking to spend days being injected with Healing fluid in the Academy’s medical ward.

“I’m glad… you shouldn’t go running at everyone you know. What if you die?” She asked.

At this point, she was not looking at him as if he was her trump card to proving the other classes wrong about Class 5 like she had been before.

She was genuinely worried. Her hands slowly touched his cheeks and she looked into his eyes with an expression he couldn’t quite read before burying his face in her bountiful breasts.

Koya blinked and then realized he was being suffocated by breasts and tried talking however Saki pressed his face deeper and placed her hands on his back, holding him there.

“Stop talking… you’re tickling me.” She said, her voice slightly breathless. “Unless you want to spend days healing up… Let me help you.”

Koya quieted down and she blushed furiously. Somehow this was the only way she could use her healing magic… through a bit of stimulation. After discovering this particular requirement years ago, she had never tried it again.

It was too embarrassing. However Koya had not only saved her but a great portion of the students within the Academy. He’d fought a near-Silver rank opponent and survived.

Besides, she was comfortable if it was him.

He was respectful, cute, kind and he didn’t look at her the way some of the other male professors did…

’Whatever… just focus.’ She thought as her hands began glowing with golden light and she used her Creation Magic.

“Create: Holy.”

As she uttered that, Koya felt a burning hot sensation fill his body. It wasn’t enough to knock him out but still, all the wounds were immediately healed and even his leg was reconstructed as if it had never been broken.

The Bone, muscle, and tendons… everything knitted back together in seconds. The pain vanished and was replaced with a warm, pleasant tingling.

He was pulled from her breasts shortly after and laid against her lap. She was breathing a bit harder than before and her face was flushed.

“There, I’ve healed you.” She said and he tried to look up at her face, however he was obstructed by her breasts.

They blocked his entire view.

“You’re amazing.” He managed to say and the breasts obstructed the fact that she was blushing even harder from Koya. “But what’s going to happen to the Academy now…?”

“I don’t really know…” She said softly, running her fingers through his hair without thinking about it.

…

Within hours, the prestigious Academy of ALI had been placed under a two week suspension. Authorities like the KPD stormed the building and “rescued” the students that were in the Underground Bunker.

Ambulances lined the streets and news helicopters circled overhead like vultures.

ALI was also being bashed online by people who had lost their relatives in the attack, however if there was one person being praised in all of this… It was Amagi Koya.

A video had resurfaced of him fighting off Numb and despite losing, the comments were with him completely and he had become an internet legend overnight.

Clips of him dodging the momentum punches had gone viral.

And that legend had currently stepped out of a taxi in front of a run-down building on the edge of the city.

“What are we going to do now?” Victoria asked from his shoulder. She was still annoyed about the forceful kiss thing as well as Saki seducing him with her breasts.

However, she had calmed down and all she wanted to do was to focus on her date tomorrow… She’d already picked out three different outfits in her head.

“I’m testing out my free will.” He replied. He was eighteen, which meant he could adopt legally. “We’re going to be adopting a child.”

He was planning between ten to seventeen and she gave him a look that suggested he’d lost his mind.

“Adopting…? But I’m fertile. If you want a child, we could make love right now.” She said it so matter-of-factly that Koya nearly tripped over his own feet.

“It’s not about that.” Koya’s face reddened like a tomato. “We need another person like Yuna, the second member of the new team.”

Victoria gave a downcast expression and he patted her head gently.

“She’s not replacing you or anything…” He said however his voice trailed off.

In the orphanage where he was in front of, a girl with orange hair had been forced out and with her was a pack of luggage, clattering to the ground.

She looked about his age and the door slammed shut behind her and he heard a lock click into place.

It made Koya remember when he was still Mateo, on his seventeenth birthday.

He had been thrown out of the Orphanage with nothing but the clothes on his back and a garbage bag full of his belongings.

He walked over to the orphanage with some quick steps and looked at the girl still on the ground, tears streaming down her face, and extended his hand to her.

“Need some help?”

’Run a scan…’

If she had what he wanted, he would take her in immediately but then again, a Healing affinity was like one in a million which was why Healers were highly sought out by the government and paid enormous salaries.

The girl who was teary-eyed looked up at him and he was quite surprised. She had awakened, however her line was disconnected.

It was similar to his own, extending from her right eye to her chin. The line was there but it didn’t connect properly… it just stopped halfway like a broken circuit.

’I can see why she was abandoned.’

Among the Awakened, there was also an awakening defect where your crest would not connect. Imagine being awakened but not being able to use your element.

That was what this was and there was no current solution for this. People with disconnected crests were considered defective.

He helped her up and she looked to the ground while still crying while he turned to the door of the Orphanage.

He was sorry for her but there were a lot of people like her in the world. It wasn’t like there was a chance that she would hav—

「Analysis completed… This woman known as Akemi has Holy magic potential and before you ask, Yes a cure for Severed Line Syndrome is available」

Koya performed a full 180 with a swiftness that surprised Victoria on his shoulder.

“Hey, would you like to work for me…?”

This was most probably plot armor, but who cared? As long as he got what he wanted at the end of the day…

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