“kohai, you’re too heartless, ugh… to actually abandon such a beautiful bride like me.”
Outside the room, Misaki looked at Sorata with exaggerated grievance after being “ruthlessly” pushed out.
“Aha…”
Sorata yawned again.
Standing at the doorway, he looked at her with dull, half-lidded eyes.
“School starts tomorrow. I still have to feed Hikari and the others, and I need to clean up my room. I have a lot to do. Please let me off today, Senpai.”
After saying that, he took the uniform jacket hanging on the wall and slipped it on as he stepped outside.
Seven cats followed behind him in a leisurely line.
Especially the leader, the white cat Hikari.
When it passed by Misaki, it even shot her a smug glance, as if silently declaring, “Foolish human woman, step aside.”
Once dressed, Sorata poured cat food into several bowls.
Watching the seven cats, big and small, eating with oddly refined postures, he could not help but smile.
For some reason, Kanda Sorata had always been close to animals since childhood.
The seven cats raised in Sakurasou relied on him heavily.
The white cat Hikari in particular was unusually intelligent, almost humanlike.
In Sorata’s current understanding, this was likely because of his True Spirit.
The soul born in this life was innately pure and powerful, unconsciously releasing subtle life fluctuations.
A True Spirit was a mark condensed by gods and immortals of countless worlds after reaching the highest realm.
It was immortal and indestructible.
Unlike an ordinary soul, it was a higher-level existence.
Once a True Spirit was formed, even if the divine soul was destroyed and the physical body erased, one would not completely perish.
One day, the True Spirit would recover from the long river of fate.
Back then, Sorata had only succeeded in condensing his True Spirit because of his soul talent and a rare opportunity.
Of course, immortality and indestructibility were only relative.
Even if one could live for a million or ten million years, meeting a stronger existence still carried the risk of falling.
Even the universe would one day collapse and end, let alone living beings born within it.
After finishing feeding the cats, Sorata was about to return to tidy his room when he stepped inside and found that Misaki had not left.
Instead, she had turned on the TV and inserted a disc.
“You still want to play games?” Sorata felt a faint headache.
Throughout the summer break, he had accompanied Misaki in gaming all night, every day.
Day and night had completely reversed.
They often played until morning before collapsing into sleep.
Right now, he only wanted to lie down quietly.
“Seeing how impatient you look, I’ll let you off today. Help me check a sample.” Misaki pressed the play button.
“A new work? Fine. But don’t expect any useful suggestions from me.”
Sorata sat on the bed, shoulders slumped.
Five seconds of loading passed before Misaki’s original animation appeared on the screen.
It had not been recorded yet, so there was no voice or sound effects.
From Sorata’s perspective, the visuals were fluid and dynamic.
The scenes were grand and impactful, incorporating 3D backgrounds.
The character detailing was delicate, and the storyboarding was carefully constructed.
In the current environment, this level of animation was already top tier.
It was impossible to tell it had been completed by a single girl.
“As expected of an elite Art Department student at Suimei High.”
Besides ordinary departments like Sorata’s, Suimei High had Music and Art Departments focused on cultivating a small number of elites.
It gathered genius students from across Sakura nation, and the acceptance rate was terrifyingly low.
Misaki was one of them.
A third-year Art Department student, and even among those geniuses, she stood at the very top.
Bang!
Bang!
Clang!
Zap zap zap!
Cha~~ Cha-la-la-la-la.
“Your fate ends here!…”
Misaki energetically provided her own voice-over.
The lines had nothing to do with what was happening on screen.
To Sorata, she was simply entertaining herself.
Shaking his head, he stopped watching.
He leaned back and lay down, resting his head on the quilt, too lazy to move.
A faint fragrance lingered on the bedding.
Three questions drifted through his empty mind: Who am I?
Where am I?
What am I going to do?
For years, his spirit had lived under urgency, with goals to pursue and missions to complete at every moment.
Now that everything had suddenly relaxed, the accumulated fatigue made him want to sleep indefinitely.
Yet having grown accustomed to constant struggle and pressure, the sudden stillness left his heart feeling strangely empty.
It was as if his soul were split in two, existing in different dimensions at once.
He did not know how much time passed before Misaki’s animation finished.
She removed the disc and sighed.
“There are more parts that need remaking than I expected.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Sorata stared at the ceiling.
“Surpassing your past self, constantly improving. From the perspective of an ordinary person like me, what you’ve made is already good enough.”
“Eh? kohai, you can actually say something like that?”
Misaki widened her eyes dramatically.
She rushed over, struck an Ultraman-style pose, and shouted:
“Reveal yourself! What monster dares to impersonate my underclassman?”
“Ugh… kohai, I will avenge you. Go in peace…”
“Heh heh heh… So you’ve discovered me. In that case, I have no choice but to eliminate you as well.”
Sorata continued staring at the ceiling, cooperating lazily.
“I say, are you two still playing? Isn’t this childish?”
A well-dressed, mature beauty appeared at the doorway, looking at them impatiently.
She was the supervisor of Sakurasou and Suimei High’s art teacher, Sengoku Chihiro.
“Ugh… that’s some heavy makeup. Sensei, are you planning to scare people?” Sorata turned his head slightly, the remark slipping out habitually.
“What do children understand? How could you appreciate an adult’s charm?”
Sengoku Chihiro ignored him and even winked.
The mascara seemed close to falling off.
“Heh…”
Sorata’s mouth twitched into a stiff smile.
At the moment, he was indistinguishable from the original Kanda Sorata, blending seamlessly into his identity.
That Misaki had sensed something off earlier surprised him slightly.
He was not worried.
He simply intended to adjust gradually, changing habits and impressions over time to avoid unnecessary trouble.
He was not some arrogant protagonist who believed himself second only to heaven.
Whether before entering the Nightmare Space or after, Sorata’s personality had always been easygoing.
Fate had forced him to pick up the butcher’s knife and walk through darkness to survive.
Now, adopting Kanda Sorata’s personality, there was little difference.
“Alright, time to start the remake.”
Seeing that Chihiro had business with Sorata, Misaki lost interest in playing.
She grabbed her disc and dashed upstairs like a gust of wind.
Chihiro walked to the bed, took a photo from her bag, and handed it to him.
“What is this?”
Sorata sat up and accepted the photo.
In it was a little girl about five or six years old, fair-skinned, wearing a large straw hat.
Her long pale yellow hair fell softly around her white dress as she sat on a chair.
She showed no expression and did not smile at the camera.
There was a fragile, distant air about her.
Her clear eyes seemed to gaze straight through the lens at him.
Is this Shiina’s childhood photo?
Is she going to ask me to pick her up now?
But in the original plot, wasn’t the request made on the first day of school?
A trace of surprise flashed in his eyes before fading.
After all, reality was not an anime.
A slight shift could change what followed.
Chihiro looked at him.
“She’s my cousin. Starting today, she’ll be living here.”
“Oh.” Sorata nodded.
“Her name is Shiina. I arranged to meet her at the station at six. Go pick her up.”
So it really is this.
Keeping a blank expression, Sorata asked, “Wait… what does that have to do with me? Sensei, why don’t you go?”
“Because I’m heading to a mixer.”
Chihiro’s eyes sparkled.
“My friend said one of them is a doctor. A doctor! That’s a rare target.”
Then she looked at him matter-of-factly.
“Tell me, for the lifelong happiness of your teacher, shouldn’t you help with this small favor? And you’re obviously free. Lying around like that will ruin your mindset. I’m helping you, you know.”
According to his usual personality, Sorata should have started arguing, listing every possible excuse to avoid going.
But right now, he truly had nothing to do.
The boredom lingered.
Participating directly in the script did not seem bad.
So before Chihiro could continue persuading him, he nodded.
“Alright.”
“…Ha?”
His blunt agreement left Chihiro briefly stunned.
“For your future happiness, Sensei, I’ll handle it.” Sorata shrugged.
“But honestly, that outfit…”
His head-shaking look made Chihiro frown.
“What’s wrong with my outfit? It’s stylish. You children just don’t understand.”
“I’m not talking about the clothes. I’m talking about the makeup. Are you sure you want to go to a mixer like that?”
He gestured toward her heavily made-up face, which concealed her natural beauty.
Chihiro froze for a moment before recovering.
“Tsk, what do you know? Anyway, I’m leaving this to you.”
With that, she grabbed her bag and hurried out.
Watching her retreating figure, Sorata stretched lazily, then prepared to head out as well.