Shizuku Takes the Initiative...

"Shizuku, are you there..."

"Mm, I'm here."

"How long was I asleep..."

"Five hours."

"I was out for that long this time?! Damn it... Shizuku, are you still there..."

"I'm here."

"That's good..."

"Since you're awake, why aren't you opening your eyes?"

"You wouldn't understand..."

"Oh. Okay."

"Shizuku..."

"Mm?"

"How old do I..." Jing Yang cracked open one eye and saw Shizuku sitting at the table, looking at him with confusion. "...look now?"

This time, Shizuku did not answer directly. She got up and left.

Before long, she returned with a mirror and held it up before Jing Yang.

The face in the mirror had not changed all that much.

At least half the weight in Jing Yang's heart was lifted. At least he had not woken up to find himself a middle-aged man...

He took the mirror and examined himself carefully.

Shizuku returned to the table and continued watching him curiously.

Jing Yang lay in bed studying himself for quite a while, feeling around his body. At last, he rolled over and jumped out of bed, his bare feet landing on the floor. The most obvious change was— the world had become shorter.

No, he had grown taller.

Jing Yang turned to look at Shizuku, who was sitting at the table. Shizuku looked up at him curiously as well.

Jing Yang looked at the old book spread open on the table and asked strangely, "You've been reading that book this whole time, haven't you?"

"Mm." Shizuku nodded.

"You still haven't finished it after all this time?" Jing Yang joked casually. "Don't tell me you forget it after every read?"

Shizuku turned to look at the open book on the table. As though she had suddenly realized something, she muttered, "Maybe that really is it... If you forget, then even a book you've read many times can still be interesting."

With that thought, Shizuku slowly closed the old book, though even she did not know how many times she had read it. When she turned back, she found Jing Yang staring at her and asked in confusion, "What is it?"

Jing Yang met her gaze for a moment, then suddenly said, "Stand up."

Shizuku obediently rose and stood before Jing Yang.

Jing Yang laughed. "Look, we're about the same height now."

He gestured at the top of his own head, slicing his hand horizontally through the air. It came right level with Shizuku's rosy lips.

Shizuku did not dodge. She merely asked curiously, "Is this one of your abilities too?"

Jing Yang was even more curious than she was. "Can't you at least be shocked? A little kid suddenly shoots up this much!"

"Because you already seemed more like an adult before..." Shizuku's glasses slid a little lower down her nose as she said blankly, "so it feels like only your appearance changed."

"I'll say you've got a point." Jing Yang pushed her glasses back up, and only then noticed that she seemed to still be injured.

Shizuku explained, "Since I can't use Zetsu, I've been recovering a little slowly..."

Jing Yang understood what she meant. Shizuku was a Nen User, so her natural recovery was certainly stronger than an ordinary person's, but she was not an Enhancer. And in order to protect his unconscious self, she could not enter Zetsu, where she would have no means of self-defense, to speed up her recovery. That was why her injuries had still not fully healed.

He sensed the surroundings, then looked out the half-open window. The Star Marks of the three birds were outside the building, guarding it like surveillance cameras arranged in a triangle.

"What happened after I passed out?" Jing Yang sat by the table. Being taller was nice; at his former height, he would have had to hop to get onto the table. "Give me the short version."

"Okay." Shizuku said, "After I ran away with you, I noticed your body was changing. I had no choice but to find a nearby shopping mall. After rushing into the underground parking lot, I hid in an empty stairwell. Within an hour, your body rapidly grew larger, and you seemed to give off some kind of Aura. I had some minor internal injuries myself, but they healed quickly. My hair also grew a tiny bit longer."

She touched the tips of her hair and continued, "You kept growing from one meter ten until you were over one meter fifty, then the changes stopped. Once I saw you had stabilized, I took you out of the underground parking lot. I carried you on my back and pretended you were my sleeping little brother, then rented a room at this inn. Since you never woke up, I stayed here reading, and put your three birds outside to stand guard... Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You remember all that so clearly?" Jing Yang smiled. "You didn't make it up, did you?"

"No." Shizuku said. "I just remember."

Jing Yang reached out and gave the top of her head a hearty rub. "I've wanted to do that for ages, but I was never tall enough. Haha."

Shizuku touched her ruffled hair and tried her best to smooth it back into place.

"Anyway, thanks." Jing Yang said. "Without you, I probably would've been exposed this time."

"Exposed?" Shizuku asked curiously.

"An ability this awesome would be trouble if people found out about it." Jing Yang thought for a moment and said, "If a living creature dies near me, something flies into my body. Once it accumulates to a certain extent, what happened earlier happens."

"Oh..." Shizuku nodded. Who knew what she was imagining? At last, she asked, "Shouldn't you go to a hospital and get checked?"

Jing Yang fell silent in thought.

"Because you don't seem certain what age your body will be each time you wake up, it proves you can't control these changes." Shizuku still wore that vacant expression. "If this keeps happening, you'll definitely be very short-lived."

"...Shizuku, has anyone ever told you that you can be pretty harsh?"

"No." After saying that, Shizuku looked at Jing Yang curiously again. "Or maybe once your body reaches the end of old age, you'll turn back into a child?"

"What kind of setting have you been imagining for me..."

Jing Yang sat back down on the edge of the bed and looked out the window. He could faintly hear one or two sirens racing through the distance when he suddenly asked, "Shizuku, do you know about the International Server?"

"Mm." Shizuku nodded.

Jing Yang patted the spot beside him. Shizuku sat down, then said, "Everyone in Meteor City should know about it. The International Server contains identity records for everyone in the world, except us."

"Except you." Jing Yang said.

After a while, he slowly said, "That's the problem. I don't know whether the International Server has my identity records. If it does, going to the hospital could very well mean exposing myself. And for now, I can't be exposed. At least not until I have some ability to protect myself, or at the very least, until I leave this continent."

Shizuku thought for a while, then turned to him and said, "So you really will be very short-lived."

Jing Yang reached out and pinched her cheek, then let out a long sigh and fell backward.

Before long, Shizuku heard him say from the bed, "I won't be short-lived. Let's make a promise. At the latest, when my body reaches twenty-eight, I'll definitely find a way to solve this problem."

"The Dog Zodiac seems to be a Difficult Illness Hunter... By the time I'm 'twenty-eight,' I should be able to get a word in, right?" Jing Yang muttered to himself as he stared at the ceiling. "Unless the next time I absorb too much Death Qi and my body shoots straight to twenty-eight..."

Shizuku asked in confusion, "Why twenty-eight?"

Jing Yang said, "Because after twenty-eight, even aging one day too fast feels like a huge loss..."

Shizuku still did not quite understand what he meant.

Jing Yang smiled. After sitting upright, he looked at his palm and said to Shizuku, "As long as the Star Mark itself isn't destroyed, a target carrying one won't completely lose its life force even if its head is cut off. Recovering from injuries that severe would be slow, but at least they wouldn't die immediately."

"That's amazing..." As Shizuku spoke, she suddenly understood. "You want to put a Star Mark on me so I can heal faster?"

"Do you mind?" Jing Yang asked.

Shizuku shook her head. She looked down at herself, then suddenly lifted the hem of her black sweater, revealing her smooth, pale abdomen. Pointing at the clearly defined curve of her oblique line, she said, "Draw it here."