A faintly elegant voice drifted down from the Heavenly Curtain, carrying an effortless calm.
"Let's go, Archer."
The Hagoromo Boy spoke lightly, unconcerned despite having given away such a precious mystic code.
"Aren't you going to stay and demand repayment for your kindness?"
The white-haired female Heroic Spirit raised an eyebrow, her smile teasing as she tempted him. "Such a huge favor—you could totally force her to offer herself to you, then have a steamy little romance that sets the heart racing."
"Huh...?!"
Luo Shu looked utterly baffled. "Junior Shimo has no chest and no butt. She's completely not my type. At the very least, she should be a C cup."
In an instant, the surrounding air seemed to drop several degrees, becoming bitingly cold.
"Master..."
The female Heroic Spirit gritted her teeth. "How could you insult a girl like that?"
"She'll definitely, definitely become an adorable busty girl that everyone envies someday! By then, it'll be too late for you to pursue her!"
"..."
Shimo Yukino fell silent for a long while, glancing at the female Heroic Spirit's equally barren chest.
At last, she experienced that saying firsthand...
What is destined to be yours will come; what is not, do not force.
Sometimes, watching someone deceive themselves was rather pointless.
Wait!
Archer's identity would definitely be exposed. Wouldn't this conversation become her dark history?
Yukino was instantly horrified.
Just imagining herself entering the classroom in the future, only for everyone to laugh and say, "Flatno is here again," while she turned red with panic and kept arguing, citing all sorts of reasoning about how a Parallel World didn't count as the future...
Only to make everyone burst into laughter, filling the air with cheerful energy.
"No! I absolutely can't let that happen!"
She gritted her teeth, absolutely unwilling to let such a scene come true!
After going back, she had to eat more nutritious meals and exercise more, changing from Flatno into Bigboobno!
Medusa's Return Strike, Kazuma's Skilled Dogeza!
The scene abruptly changed, shifting to the time when Yukino had been on the verge of death.
The girl lay in a pool of blood when bright footsteps suddenly sounded from the end of the corridor.
Who was it...
Who would come here...
She tried desperately to think, but her body was stiff and her mind blank from oxygen deprivation.
Her eyelids kept drooping, as though she were about to sleep forever on the cold floor.
That figure slowly crouched down and reached out to inspect the wound in her chest. Icy fingers slipped inside, giving Yukino an inexplicable, embarrassed thrill.
Then, a calm and elegant voice drifted through the air.
"Her heart is damaged, but she can still be saved."
Rustle~
It sounded like a pendant necklace rubbing together.
Mysterious fingers circled her neck and slipped an icy necklace over it.
Streams of warmth continuously poured into her body. The comfort felt like ascending to immortality; even the damaged cells in her heart seemed to be repairing themselves. A drowsiness like a hibernating snake washed over her.
Through the haze, she seemed to hear a young man and woman talking.
"Let's go, Archer."
"Aren't you going to stay and demand repayment for your kindness?"
"Such a huge favor—you could totally force her to offer herself to you, then have a steamy little romance that sets the heart racing."
"Huh...?!"
"Junior Shimo has no chest and no butt. She's completely not my type. At the very least, she should be a C cup."
The elegant young man's carefree voice carried a hint of teasing.
He clearly had no interest in the so-called life-saving favor.
After hearing the "insult" to her figure, the weak girl moved her lips slightly.
She really wanted to argue.
She had a chest; it just wasn't very noticeable...
But in the end, she could not overcome the exhaustion welling up from instinct, and her head tilted to the side as she collapsed.
Before her consciousness fell into darkness, she vaguely saw a moon-white sleeve.
What a familiar style...
"HAHAHAHA...!!"
In the Heavenly Curtain World, everyone immediately burst into laughter.
The flat-chested girl's reaction was so adorable that people even overlooked her beauty.
Someone pointed at the girl in the scene, who was still stubborn even in death, and laughed until tears came out. "Classic 'I have a chest, it's just not obvious.' Is that the standard line for flat girls?"
"Even if her corpse got burned in a crematorium for a week, that stubborn mouth still wouldn't melt away. She'd still be saying she has a chest, hahahahaha..."
Kazuma Sato grinned mockingly, finding it far more entertaining than staying home and playing gal games.
Suddenly, the voices around him stopped.
Sensing the strange silence, he looked at everyone in confusion.
"Why did you all stop laughing? Wasn't it funny?"
At his words, everyone silently stepped back a few paces and looked at him with pity.
The young man finally realized something was wrong. Panic appeared on his face, and a chill crept up his back.
Could it be...
"May I ask, is it really that funny?"
Shimo Yukino appeared behind him with a smile, her voice exceptionally gentle. "I heard from my mother that Tokyo Bay's retaining wall is still short a few human pillars. I think you would be perfect for such an important task."
"Rather than becoming a parasite who wastes the nation's food, you would prefer to become an outstanding person who benefits society, wouldn't you?"
"Sumimasen, sumimasen..."
Cold sweat beaded on Kazuma Sato's forehead as he immediately dropped into a practiced dogeza.
He squeezed out a few crocodile tears and choked out, "My lady, I absolutely didn't mean to laugh at you! Above me is an eighty-year-old mother crying to be fed, and below me is a pure and innocent wife I need to support."
"Please, for the sake of how pitiful I am, be magnanimous and forgive me!"
"Tch..."
Shimo Yukino gave a soft snort. Like a High Mountain Flower, she tossed her long hair and walked away.
Though she looked aloof, she could not help complaining inwardly.
Wasn't it said that a man's knees were worth their weight in gold?
Why was this person so skilled at dogeza?!
Not long after.
Once Yukino had walked away, someone finally failed to hold back their laughter.
As though setting off a chain reaction, the onlookers watching this farce all burst out laughing. Some shouted, "Sato, you knelt for someone again!"
Kazuma was not angry. Instead, he looked proud. "A true man does not sweat the small stuff."
As he spoke, he even shook out his clothes and stood tall with his chest puffed out.
The crowd deliberately shouted even louder, "You must kneel for people all the time!"
Kazuma Sato could no longer sit still. His eyes widened. "How can you slander an innocent man out of thin air..."
Among the crowd, even his close friend betrayed him, grinning wickedly.
"What innocence? The day before yesterday, I saw you picking someone's fruit in the countryside. You got strung up and beaten, then knelt for them for a whole day and night."
Kazuma Sato's face reddened, and the veins on his forehead bulged as he argued, "Touching fruit isn't the same as picking it!... I was just resting my hand on the tree. Can an otaku's business be called picking?"
Then came a string of incomprehensible remarks about "the fruit wasn't ripe" and "it didn't taste good."
This made everyone burst into laughter, filling the Heavenly Curtain World with cheerful air.
No one knew how long passed.
The Heavenly Curtain's image shifted from darkness to light, and the unconscious girl moved her fingers.
In the corridor, Yukino slowly opened her eyes, her gaze somewhat dazed.
"I'm still alive...?"
"My heart was clearly pierced, yet I didn't die..."
"No, I remember someone saved me before I died, and even complained that my chest was small."
She tilted her head in thought, feeling the cold touch around her neck.
This was...
A Ruby Necklace?!
The girl stared at the treasure around her neck in shock, her feelings complicated.
She definitely had to repay this favor, but there were simply too many mysteries right now. She desperately wanted to uncover the truth. If that mysterious and powerful purple-haired woman, who could kill her so easily, were left unchecked, others would also be harmed.
So...
Whoosh!!
The familiar Chain Sword head shot toward her, forcibly tearing through the air and stirring up a fierce gale.
Yukino's pupils contracted sharply. Her vigilance soared, and she instinctively rolled away.
BOOM!!
A concrete wall several meters thick exploded with a thunderous crash, sending countless chunks of rubble flying. The girl, who had barely dodged to the edge of a window, looked grim. Her scratched face carried a sense of determination.
"Being too alert isn't a good thing. Watching yourself get killed is very painful."
Amid the thick smoke and dust, a melancholy female sigh suddenly drifted out.
From within a patch of shadow, a woman slowly emerged, compassion flowing from her deep violet eyes.
The Chain Sword head in her right hand was still stained with blood. It was the very weapon that had killed Yukino before.
The BGM stopped. The calm atmosphere was filled with oppression, with only the girl's tense breathing rising and falling.
A suffocating pressure surged forth like a collapsing mountain and a roaring sea. This was... a battle where only one could survive!
How could a human possibly contend against a Heroic Spirit?
"How tragic. Could Shimo Yukino die again?"
Someone trembled, the hand holding a cigarette shaking slightly.
"Rider is too ruthless. She finally came back to life, only to get hit by a return strike."
Others took a deep breath, scarcely daring to watch what came next.
Now they could only hope that Luo-kun and Archer had not gone too far.
Before you continue