Are the Classics of the Anime Multiverse Finally Here?

Outside the faculty office at Sōbu High School.

Just after the lunch break, Lin Xiao was dragged over by his homeroom teacher, Shizuka Hiratsuka.

"Lin Xiao, I looked through your student records. Since enrolling, you haven't joined a single club?"

Wearing her signature white lab coat and holding an unlit ladies' cigarette between her lips, Shizuka Hiratsuka frowned at the perpetually calm boy before her.

"According to school policy, every student must join a club to promote their healthy physical and mental development. You go straight home after school every day. Are you some legendary ace of the Homecoming Club?"

Hearing that familiar line, Lin Xiao's eyes immediately lit up.

"Oh? Is it finally happening?"

Lin Xiao rubbed his chin, a dragon-king-like smile of someone who saw through everything curling across his lips. "A childhood friend transferring in, and now a single female teacher forcing me to join a club... Is the classic light novel plot finally about to unfold around me?"

Smack!

Without any mercy, Shizuka Hiratsuka chopped him on the head with her hand and snapped irritably, "What nonsense are you spouting now? Stop reading all those weird light novels! Hurry up and pick a club!"

Rubbing his head, Lin Xiao chuckled and looked at Shizuka Hiratsuka with an expression that said, I understand, I understand.

"Then, since you're forcing me to join, you must have a club you strongly recommend, right? For example... that Service Club, where only a lofty flower reads books and helps people solve their troubles?"

The moment those words came out—

The cigarette in Shizuka Hiratsuka's mouth nearly fell out. Her eyes widened as she sized Lin Xiao up and down like he was some kind of pervert.

"The Service Club?!"

A vein bulged on Shizuka Hiratsuka's forehead as she gritted her teeth. "What kind of filthy nonsense are you thinking about all day long?! This is a proper public school! How could we possibly have a club with such a suspicious name?!!!"

"Think about it properly yourself! Hand me your club application before school ends today!"

With that, Shizuka Hiratsuka turned and returned to the office as though fleeing from the plague.

Lin Xiao was left standing in the corridor, completely bewildered.

"What the hell?"

Lin Xiao pulled out his phone, his head full of question marks, and looked at the ID sitting high in the administrator position of the Myriad Worlds Chat Group—[Snow Queen of the Service Club].

"This makes no sense. The ID given by the chat group clearly says Service Club. Did the butterfly effect erase it?"

To figure out what was going on, Lin Xiao decided to ask the person involved directly.

A few minutes later, in the empty reading room.

Sunlight streamed through the windows into the quiet room. Yukino Yukinoshita sat alone at a long table, calmly flipping through a thick book in its original language.

Until a hand suddenly slapped down onto her desk.

Yukino slowly raised her head. Her cool gaze traveled up from that hand and landed on Lin Xiao's puzzled face.

"Yukinoshita, I need to ask you something." Lin Xiao got straight to the point. "Didn't you create a club called the Service Club?"

The air fell deathly silent.

Yukino's page-turning motion abruptly stopped.

Her eyes, clear as secluded springs just moments ago, visibly turned cold at a speed the naked eye could see, as if the surrounding air had frozen over.

She slowly closed her book and held it against her chest like a shield. Her body even instinctively leaned back, and the way she looked at Lin Xiao was filled with utter wariness and disgust.

"Mr. Lin Xiao..."

Yukino's uniquely icy tongue became especially lethal at that moment.

"Although I know you possess enough power to tear myths apart with your bare hands, if in the real world your desires have expanded to the point where you need to use a vulgar and perverted term like 'service' to test a girl from the same school..."

Yukino very naturally took out her phone, her finger already resting on the emergency shortcut for the police.

"Then even if you are a god, I can only act on heaven's behalf. May I ask, have you become perverted to this extent?"

Lin Xiao: "..."

Lin Xiao finally understood.

Yukino Yukinoshita had not created that club yet!!

Without any context, the word "service" was practically as damaging as sexual harassment to a high school girl!

"W-Wait! It's a misunderstanding! That was only a metaphor!" Lin Xiao sweated profusely as he tried to salvage his crumbling reputation.

Bang! At that moment, the reading room door was violently shoved open.

"Found you! Lin Xiao, you big idiot!" Eriri Spencer Sawamura rushed in, hands on her hips and cheeks puffed out, her little leather shoes clicking against the floor.

However, when she saw that not only was Lin Xiao inside, but there was also a black-haired beauty whose looks and presence did not lose to hers in the slightest, her aggressive stride suddenly froze. Her fair cheeks instantly flushed bright red.

A lone man and a lone woman! An empty classroom! The sensitive nerve in Eriri's head immediately snapped. Pointing at Lin Xiao, even her voice began to stammer.

"Y-You! Not only did you leave me behind to go 'dominate through eternity,' but now you're secretly meeting another woman in an empty classroom behind my back..."

Halfway through, Eriri suddenly realized that she sounded far too much like a girlfriend catching her boyfriend cheating. She violently shook her head like a rattle drum, her golden twin tails whipping through the air in a trail of extreme tsundere afterimages and nearly smacking into the doorframe.

"D-Don't misunderstand! I didn't come here specifically to find you!" Eriri turned her head away and crossed her arms, desperately hiding the panic and jealousy in her eyes as she loudly insisted, stubborn as ever.

"I was just... just passing by! That's right, just passing by! And as your former childhood friend, I have an obligation to supervise whether an incurable chuunibyou like you is causing trouble for others at school! Yes, supervision!"

Even so, Eriri could not help giving Yukino a vicious sidelong glare. In a sour tone, she added, "So... who exactly is she? Don't tell me that instead of saving the world, you actually have time to get yourself a girlfriend? Idiot! Pervert! Shameless!"

Faced with that classic string of tsundere denials and insults meant to cover them up—

Yukino gently set down her phone. Looking at the blonde girl whose flushed face and entire body screamed, I'm jealous, hurry up and comfort me, the cold smile at the corner of her lips became even more pronounced.

"I see. 'I didn't come here specifically to find you,' 'just passing by,' 'the obligation of a childhood friend'..."

Yukino's devastatingly sharp tongue precisely repeated Eriri's words, her tone brimming with sympathy and mockery. "Mr. Lin Xiao's daily life is more exciting than fighting monsters. Not only does it involve vulgar topics like 'service,' but he has also been dragged into a childhood-friend love triangle reeking of loser-girl energy."

"W-Who are you calling a loser girl?! What nonsense is this flat-chested black-haired woman spouting?!!!" Eriri was instantly struck where it hurt. Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, she completely exploded.

Yukino Yukinoshita's aura turned even colder. "Flat... chested..."

"Ordinary Lord Lin Xiao!!!"

Before Lin Xiao could stop the century-defining battle about to erupt, an extremely fanatical cry came from outside the door. Miko Yotsuya hid directly behind Lin Ye, trembling all over.

"T-There's one of those things by the stairs! Please let me stay inside your purification barrier!"

A black-haired sharp-tongued queen. An absurdly tsundere blonde childhood friend. And a Yin-Yang Eyes fanatic trembling behind someone's back.

The air in the entire reading room completely froze at that moment.

Lin Xiao took a deep breath and slapped the table, drawing everyone's attention.

He looked at the three girls before him, then recalled the "club task" Shizuka Hiratsuka had assigned him. An idea that could perfectly solve every problem at hand naturally arose in his mind.

He quickly filled out a club application form.

"I hereby declare that from today onward, we are members of the same club!"

Yukino, Eriri, and Miko were all stunned at once, following the paper in Lin Xiao's hand with their eyes.

Club Name: [All-Heavens Rescue Club]

President: Lin Xiao

Members: Yukino Yukinoshita, Eriri Spencer Sawamura, Miko Yotsuya

"..." Looking at the utterly ridiculous application form, the reading room became so quiet that a pin dropping could be heard.

"Are you insane?!"

Eriri was the first to lose it. Covering her face in embarrassment, even her golden twin tails trembled. "What kind of name is 'All-Heavens Rescue Club'?! It's ten thousand times more embarrassing than your old 'dominate through eternity' line!! If you submit something like this, the entire school will absolutely think we're lunatics!"

"And..." Eriri blushed, her gaze drifting away as she bit her lip and spoke with extreme awkwardness. "W-Who said I agreed to join the same club as you?! Don't flatter yourself! I'm the ace of the Art Club! I refuse to do any embarrassing club activities with an idiot like you! Absolutely. Not. Happening!"

Although Miko did not dare contradict a god, she nervously swallowed. "Um... Lord Lin Xiao, while I know you really are saving all the heavens, the dean of students probably doesn't know that, right?"

Even Yukino, who was usually composed, could not help rubbing her forehead with a sigh. "Lin Xiao, Sōbu High may encourage independent student innovation, but that does not include anti-human clubs combining elements of cults, chuunibyou syndrome, and delusional disorder. That name will never pass review."

Faced with the girls' collective pessimism and Eriri's textbook-level refusal to say what she meant, Lin Xiao simply picked up the application form without caring and confidently flicked the paper.

"Don't worry about the details. How will we know if we don't try?"

"Eriri, don't speak too soon. Once it gets approved, don't come begging to join."

"Who would ever beg you?! Idiot Lin Xiao!"