After visiting Natsume Fumiaki at the hospital, Kitahara Akira stepped out onto the sidewalk. Staring at the crimson hues of the setting sun blazing across the horizon, he took a casual stroll back toward his apartment building.
*Meow~*
As his steps passed by the turning points of the dimly lit public park, a familiar parau sound abruptly echoed through the brush.
Akira turned his head, noting that the plump orange cat Yukinoshita Yukino had spent time feeding yesterday afternoon was suddenly sprinting over. The ball of fur directly let out a series of pampered meows while circling continuously around his trouser legs.
Akira crouched low, extending his hand to gently stroke the cat's head. "Hey there, buddy. Sorry, but I'm not carrying any food on me right now."
The plump orange cat closed its eyes, emitting a low, comfortable purr that resonated with pure satisfaction.
"Come to think of it... you look exactly like a lonely stray cat, don't you?" Akira stared intently at the chubby animal before him. "What do you say? Do you want to come home and live with me?"
Akira usually spent all his time entirely alone inside his apartment unit. The presence of a pet would definitely make the domestic atmosphere feel far more lively and warm.
*Meow! Meow!*
The ball of fur before him responded with an enthusiastic series of meows, as if it genuinely comprehended Akira's sentence.
Akira chuckled, lifting the chubby frame into his arms. "Alright then. From now on, your name shall be Anko."
Akira walked back home cradling Anko toward his apartment building. Upon stepping inside the unit, Hirokazu Nagano was nowhere to be found. Akira had absolutely zero clue where his uncle had gone out to at this hour of the night.
After enjoying a brief, simple instant dinner, Akira carried Anko into the bathroom to clean him up. It had to be admitted that cats and water were eternal, natural enemies. Akira was forced to expend a massive chunk of his remaining physical conditioning purely to bathe Anko, who fought back with feral resistance.
*Meow~ Meow~*
Once dried off, Anko trotted over to the sofa where Akira was stretching his back, letting out a loud meow right in front of the youth's feet.
Akira clapped his palm against his forehead, a sudden realization hitting him. "Oh, right. I completely forgot to give you your dinner portion!"
Unfortunately, there wasn't a single stash of cat food available inside his apartment inventory at the moment. Akira tapped Anko's head gently with a deep sense of guilt. "Sorry about that, Anko. I can only buy you some proper cat food tomorrow morning. You'll just have to endure the hunger for tonight."
"Meow! MEOW!" Anko meowed even louder with a distinct tone of protest, as if venting his absolute dissatisfaction at being neglected.
Akira let out a short sigh, attempting to ignore his new pet's noisy complaints. "Haaah... since I don't have any other activities to attend to, I might as well try my luck by spinning the system's remaining lottery tickets."
Akira opened the transparent status panel inside his mind, activating the system's lottery feature.
[ Congratulations! You have obtained item: Senzu Bean x2 ]
[ Congratulations! You have obtained weapon: Blood-Stained Cleaver x1 ]
Akira’s eyes instantly ignited with interest as he scanned the item description floating right before him.
[ Senzu Bean ]: A legendary healing item originating from the Dragon Ball universe. Consuming a single bean can instantly restore all physical injuries and the user's stamina to its peak state, while simultaneously preventing any sensation of hunger for ten consecutive days.
System Note: *Don't even dream about mass-producing them. Your current financial level is nowhere near capable of supporting that!*
Akira’s lips twitched resignedly at his own system's sarcastic commentary. "Even though there are only two beans, this item can serve as an incredibly crucial, life-saving trump card in a crisis situation. This is a highly valuable trade," Akira muttered with satisfaction, staring at the two green beans nestled in his palm before placing them into his inventory.
Akira’s gaze then shifted to inspect the second lottery reward.
[ Blood-Stained Cleaver ]: A sharp blade produced from the School Days universe, heavily drenched in the fresh blood of scumbags.
Characteristics 1: *Anti-Makoto Ito Noble Phantasm* (Increases destructive power by 500% when attacking a target named Makoto Ito).
Characteristics 2: *Ally of Women* (Increases offensive power by 50% if this weapon is wielded by a female user).
Characteristics 3: *Karma is Real* (Increases danger detection capabilities by 100% for any male who maintains romantic relationships with multiple women simultaneously).
Characteristics 4: *Body Separator* (Increases fatal damage aimed toward a humanoid target's head by 200%).
System Note: *Black-and-white or colored, Makoto or Shido, all harem problems ultimately always boil down to the exact same conclusion. Young man, do not narrow down your own path in life!*
Akira reflexively shivered, a chill running straight down to his bones. This weapon possessed four distinct characteristics simultaneously, but why did every single one of them feel so incredibly cursed and terrifying?! Even though the damage multipliers were massive, the triggering conditions were completely absurd.
"Haaah... let’s just disregard that cursed blade. Now, what am I supposed to do with this thing?" Akira extended his hand, materializing his reward from last night's mission onto the coffee table.
[ Parasyte Prototype - Modified Module ]. It was the bizarre parasitic organism he had acquired from the bonus lottery pack after executing the fake cop monster last night.
Akira stood frozen for a considerable time, engaging in a mental tug-of-war regarding whether he should allow this creature to fuse into his own tissue to acquire a massive physical conditioning boost, or reject it due to its grotesque appearance.
'But after witnessing Fumiaki's battle last night, I realized this fictional world is packed with highly dangerous superhumans. I must become significantly stronger to secure my personal safety moving forward. Even conventional firearms can still inflict heavy injuries on me right now. Enhancing my physical durability parameters is absolute,' Akira reasoned firmly.
Akira took a deep, stabilizing breath, steeling his resolve to reach out for the parasitic organism lying motionless on the table.
But at the exact millisecond his fingers were about to brush against the target—
*MEOW!*
Anko suddenly launched his body from the floor, landing squarely on the coffee table, and with lightning-fast speed, directly snatched and swallowed the parasitic module straight into his mouth.
"Son of a—! Don't eat that, idiot!" Akira panicked instantly, reflexively shouting a frustrated curse in his original world's native dialect out of sheer shock.
Unfortunately, it was already too late. Anko's chubby frame instantly froze stiff on the table. A split second later, his cranium violently split open into multiple sections, sending a cluster of rigid, biological tentacles slicing out into the air.
"Crap... this situation is spinning entirely out of control!"
Akira moved swiftly, materializing his pair of dual-wielded Quinque Kula blades into both hands, dropping into a low combat stance to contain Anko's wild mutation.
Yet, contrary to his expectations, Anko didn't launch an aggressive assault toward him. The ball of fur directly spun its chubby frame around, sprinting like lightning straight toward the apartment's main door.
"Damn it, don't let him escape outside!" Akira instantly realized the catastrophic hazard if a parasitic cat were to wander into a civilian residential area. He dashed forward, pursuing Anko's escape route with maximum speed.
*SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!*
The tentacles sprouting from Anko's head suddenly manifested sharp organic blades that slashed nimbly, slicing the wooden structure of the main apartment door to splinters within an instant, leaving a small gap for his tiny body to slither out.
Akira didn't care about his shattered door anymore. He tore through the remaining wood structures using his physical strength, stepping out into the corridor. From over the railing, he briefly caught sight of Anko's silhouette agilely leaping down the emergency stairwell.
Akira’s body dissolved instantly into the shadow below his feet, activating his shadow magic to pursue the fleeing cat down the lower levels with full velocity.
*Meow~*
*Meow~*
A few moments later, Akira’s steps came to a halt as his ears caught a pair of distinct meows echoing from the hallway of the fifteenth floor—exactly a few levels beneath his own unit.
'Those sounds... has Anko's mutation already subsided and his form reverted to normal? But the other meow sound... why does it sound so familiar?' Akira thought in utter confusion.
Akira stepped out from the shadow of the corridor wall on the fifteenth floor, walking slowly toward the source of the sound near a corner of a luxurious apartment unit door.
*Meow~*
Beneath the dim light of the corridor, Yukinoshita Yukino was crouched low right in front of her doorway. The girl with long black hair was happily feeding Anko with a few small pieces of dried fish, occasionally mimicking a cat's meow in an incredibly cute tone.
Akira locked a thin smile onto his face, stepping forward with casual strides. "Thank you very much, President Yukinoshita, for willingly supporting the logistical supply chain of my new pet."
Yukinoshita flinched in shock. She immediately stood up straight while smoothing out her casual home clothes with rapid movements, darting a freezing glare toward Akira's approach. "Your new pet?"
"Yeah. I just adopted this plump orange cat this afternoon, and I’ve officially named him Anko," Akira stated as he leaned down to lift Anko's chubby frame into his arms, locking down the cat's movements so he couldn't flee or cause another scene.
Yukinoshita crossed her arms over her chest, staring at Akira with a highly piercing, judgmental look. "Then why exactly did Anko escape from your apartment all the way down to this floor? Since you've made the decision to adopt him, you bear absolute responsibility for taking care of him properly until the end, Kitahara-kun."
Akira scratched his cheek, forced to warp his thoughts to construct a logical lie to conceal the parasitic mutation incident from earlier. "Um... to be completely honest, after bringing him back to the apartment, I realized I had zero stock of cat food at home. He must have broken out because he was enduring hunger. And as for why he ran directly toward your front door... perhaps he still remembered the warmth of your scent from when you fed him yesterday afternoon."
Anko, cradled in Akira's grip, immediately meowed loudly. *Meow! Meow!* (Host is a massive liar!)
"Is that so?" The lines wrinkling Yukinoshita’s brow gradually relaxed.
Initially, she had assumed Akira was the irresponsible type of teenager who intentionally abandoned or tossed Anko outside after getting bored. If that assumption had been correct, she would have systematically shredded his dignity using her razor-sharp tongue until there was nothing left.
"Wait right here, you pervert!" Yukinoshita instructed sharply. Without waiting for Akira's response, she spun on her heel and stepped straight back into her house.
It didn't take long for Yukinoshita to step back out, clutching a small plastic bag filled with premium cat food. She thrust it directly in front of Akira's chest. "I originally prepared this to feed the stray cats at the park. But since the pervert in front of me is in desperate need of it, I will temporarily lend it to you."
Akira accepted the package with his left hand. His gaze briefly locked onto the premium brand label displayed on the plastic surface, causing his forehead to be painted with dark lines. 'Good grief... this brand of cat food is insanely expensive! Even the stray cats around here eat meals that cost significantly more than my own dinner! Talk about the high-class lifestyle of a young lady from the Yukinoshita family!'
Yukinoshita crossed her arms again, turning her slightly bashful face toward another direction. "You don't need to thank me, you pervert. I am doing this purely because I refuse to see Anko starve to death due to your sheer negligence."
Yukinoshita cast a fleeting glance at Anko, who looked perfectly calm nestled inside Akira's embrace, before her lips curved into a remarkably thin, soft smile—a rare sight that no other student at the academy would ever be permitted to witness. "Even though your behavior at school always looks highly suspicious... I didn't imagine a pervert like you actually possessed a shred of kindness to care for an abandoned animal."
Perhaps due to Anko's presence between them, Yukinoshita’s tone of voice that night felt significantly softer and warmer than usual.
"Of course, you are completely free to point out my academic deficiencies. But when it comes to my moral character, I am highly praised. Back in kindergarten, my teachers always gifted me with massive red flower stickers," Akira countered, lifting his chin with a slight spark of pride.
Catching sight of Akira’s suddenly childish expression, the corners of Yukinoshita’s lips subtly curved upward into a thin, sweet smile. "In that case, have you already prepared a scratching post, cat treats, and a specialized bed for Anko up there, you bizarre person?"
Akira blinked his eyes, utterly bewildered. "Hmm? Is that sort of stuff even necessary?"
Observing Akira’s completely blank, innocent reaction, Yukinoshita let out a heavy, tired sigh, staring at him with a gaze packed with pure pity. "Don't tell me... you actually have zero knowledge regarding what gear needs to be prepped when making the decision to adopt a cat?"
"Um... isn't providing a litter box and some cat food usually more than enough?" Akira stared at the girl before him with a vacant look.
This wasn't entirely Akira's fault. In his previous lifetime, he had lived so profoundly impoverished that simply keeping himself fed was already an exhausting struggle. This was the absolute first time in his life adopting a pet, meaning he was completely blind regarding animal care management.
Yukinoshita massaged the bridge of her nose, launching her signature sharp sentence. "Haaah... it seems the cognitive capacity of the pervert before me has drastically degenerated to on par with a prehistoric Australopithecus."
Akira shrugged his shoulders casually. "I can just drop by the mall tomorrow after school to buy everything anyway, right? Problem solved."
"And does a perverted man like you happen to know the comfort parameters of different cat bed materials? Do you know which food brands feature textures that are easily processed by their digestive tracts? Or which scratching posts possess materials that won't lacerate Anko's claws?" Yukinoshita bombarded him with a rapid-fire sequence of precise inquiries.
"Uh... um..." Akira was instantly rendered completely mute, unable to formulate a single counter-argument.
"Just as I suspected... you know absolutely nothing." Yukinoshita narrowed her eyes sharply. At that exact second, she could already visualize Anko’s future deteriorating miserably if left inside Akira's apartment unit. "I will tag along with you tomorrow morning. Losing a bit of cash is a minor detail, but it will be a massive disaster if Anko has to suffer due to your sheer negligence."
Akira locked a mischievous grin onto his face, attempting to tease the girl in front of him. "Wow, can I actually interpret that sudden invitation as a weekend date?"
Yukinoshita crossed her arms over her chest, darting a gaze at Akira that felt as cold as ice. "Please, you pervert, flush all those filthy thoughts down the drain immediately. This is purely a logistics mission to secure Anko's requirements, absolutely nothing else will happen."
"Fine, fine. So when and where are we mobilizing?"
"Tomorrow morning, Saturday, at exactly 8:00 AM right in front of Mall XX. Any objections, Pervert?"
"Sounds good, no objections here," Akira agreed, locking down the arrangement.
"See you tomorrow morning then, you pervert," Yukinoshita concluded as she took a step backward into the threshold of her home.
"Yeah, see you tomorrow."
*BLAM!*
The main door to Yukinoshita’s luxurious apartment unit shut tight with a heavy thud. Akira immediately spun around, making his way back toward the elevator while cradling Anko to return to his own home on the floors above.
The moment he stepped inside his apartment, Akira placed Anko down onto the living room sofa. The chubby ball of fur directly curled into a comfortable position and drifted off into dreamland within seconds. Akira stared at his new pet, quietly weighing various thoughts within his mind.
'Considering Anko didn't display a single shred of aggressive behavior toward humans earlier... that means his own consciousness successfully dominated and assumed absolute control over the parasitic module inside his tissue,' Akira analyzed internally.
This fact simultaneously served as a highly crucial, new breakthrough for Akira. It proved that any supernatural item he extracted from the system's lottery could be safely absorbed and utilized by other living organisms without destroying their individual autonomy.
*CLICK!*
While Akira was deeply immersed in his pool of thoughts, the lock of the main apartment door suddenly turned, sliding open.
Hirokazu Nagano walked into the residence.
"Uncle Nagano, you're back!" Akira greeted his uncle's return.
Nagano gave a firm, small nod, removing his duty shoes near the genkan area. "Yeah, a pressing emergency matter regarding work suddenly surfaced at the office, so I had to hurry over to clear it."
The uncle's sharp gaze quickly locked onto the orange ball of fur sleeping soundly on the sofa. "By the way, what kind of creature is that sleeping over there, Akira?"
"Ah, that's a stray cat I just adopted this afternoon. I've named him Anko," Akira answered casually.
Nagano locked a warm smile onto his face, patting his nephew's shoulder affectionately. "That's good to hear. At the very least, you’ll have a companion keeping you company at the apartment while your uncle is busy out on duty."
Since Nagano had already eaten dinner outside with his colleagues, the two of them simply engaged in a few minutes of casual banter regarding light topics. Noting that the hour was rapidly getting late, both of them washed up in the bathroom sequentially and prepared for bed.
A few moments later, Akira stepped out of the bathroom with his hair still slightly damp from the shower. He leaned against the wall corridor, staring at Anko who was still sleeping peacefully on the sofa.
'Well... at the very least, with a monster-tier parasitic cat guarding the house, my apartment is guaranteed to be 100% safe from any late-night burglars or intruders,' Akira thought, a thin, amused smile playing on his lips.
Akira immediately marched into his own bedroom, slipped underneath the warm blankets, and drifted into a deep, restful sleep to rejuvenate his exhausted body.