"Ugh..."
Kitahara Akira slowly hoisted himself up from the bed, his brows furrowing deeply as a wave of intense discomfort washed over him.
His brain felt like it was being repeatedly pricked by a thousand needles, throbbing painfully alongside a heavy sensation of swelling inside his skull.
He pressed the back of his right hand against his forehead. The radiant heat instantly seared against his skin.
'Do I... have a fever?' Kitahara Akira shook his head violently, attempting to scatter the thick fog clouding his consciousness.
Theoretically speaking, given the sheer baseline of his current physical durability, a mundane illness like a common cold shouldn't have been able to breach his immune system so easily.
However, the consecutive life-or-death struggle against Sadako last night had completely drained his stamina reserves. To make matters worse, he had been subjected to the biting night wind while riding Eriri’s ink bird, then ended up falling asleep in the bathtub at home, only to wake up freezing at 2 AM after the water had turned ice-cold.
After absorbing a relentless chain of physical disasters like that, it was honestly no surprise that his immune system had finally thrown in the towel.
Kitahara Akira reached for his phone on the nightstand, checking the digital clock on the screen. The display read 10:18 AM.
'Wait, shouldn't I be in class right now...'
His heart skipped a beat as he slid across the lock screen.
As expected, the notification bar was flooded with over a dozen missed calls. The vast majority were from Shizuka Hiratsuka, two were from Nagano Hirokazu, and surprisingly, one from Kato Megumi had slipped in just a short while before he woke up.
After pondering his options for a brief moment, Kitahara Akira hit redial on Hiratsuka-sensei’s number.
The line rang twice before the connection instantly snapped open from the other end.
"Heh, you've certainly got some nerve calling me back. Skipping class without leaving so much as a word, aren't we bold today?" Shizuka Hiratsuka’s smooth voice drifted through the receiver, laced with her signature teasing tone.
"Cough... cough... Hiratsuka-sensei, I've come down with a severe fever. I'd like to request a sick day today." Kitahara Akira’s voice came out coarse and heavy, his throat feeling as dry as sandpaper.
"A fever?!" Hiratsuka’s voice lost its playful edge instantly, shifting into a serious tone. "Is it bad? Have you taken any medicine yet?"
Her tone had softened without her even realizing it. If this teacher could manage to be this gentle back at school, she honestly wouldn't be struggling to find a marriage partner right now.
"It's nothing too serious, I've already taken some over-the-counter pills. I just need to rest for a bit..." Kitahara Akira stretched his stiff muscles.
A soft, weary sigh echoed from the other end of the line. "Fine. I'll handle your absence report at school. Just stay inside and get some sleep today."
"Right, thank you for your help, Hiratsuka-sensei."
The call clicked shut, leaving only the faint trace of Hiratsuka-sensei's lingering worry before the line went dead.
Kitahara Akira then called Nagano Hirokazu, assuring the man that he had only caught a minor flu to prevent any unnecessary panic. As for Kato Megumi, considering it was currently right in the middle of school hours, he opted to send a brief text through LINE to explain his situation instead.
Dragging his sluggish feet out of bed, he leaned heavily against the hallway wall to find the medicine cabinet. After swallowing a few fever reducers, he buried himself back under the warmth of his blankets and immediately drifted off.
***
Kitahara Akira fell into a dream.
Within his subconscious, he envisioned himself wielding absolute power, capable of turning heaven and earth upside down—an supreme existence standing atop the world. Yet, that glory shattered when he found himself cornered in the middle of a barren desert during an epic war, ultimately claiming his life.
His breathing turned ragged, his chest heaving with heavy gasps.
He had been trudging through the scorching heat of the desert for days on end without finding a single shred of human civilization. The extreme heat peeled at his skin, leaving behind an agonizing burn. The absolute confidence he once held had entirely evaporated into thin air.
Kitahara Akira's throat twitched. His parched throat scraped roughly against his trachea, producing an unsettling, dry rasp with every breath.
His shadow energy had completely dried up due to severe dehydration. Furthermore, in the vast expanse of this open desert, there wasn't a single physical object capable of casting a shadow for him to weaponize.
He could only trudge forward, pushing against despair like a walking corpse, clinging to a microscopic shred of hope for survival.
*THUD!*
His physical limits finally shattered. He collapsed forward, letting his body cave into the blistering sand. The blinding sunlight pierced straight into his retinas, forcing his eyelids to snap shut.
"Water...!"
A low whimper escaped his cracked lips.
"Kitahara-kun, here is the water."
A slender silhouette suddenly materialized, cutting off the piercing glare of the sun overhead. A faint, gentle radiance seemed to bleed from behind her back, creating a tranquil atmosphere reminiscent of a saint from ancient legends.
A soothing, icy sensation suddenly pressed against his forehead, instantly melting away the boiling waves of anxiety raging inside his skull.
'This has to be magic... Am I dreaming?'
The cool rim of a glass cup touched his lips. Kitahara Akira drank the liquid greedily. The clear, sweet water flowed down his parched throat, cooling the boiling heat simmering inside his stomach.
As his consciousness steadily stitched itself back together, Kitahara Akira cracked open his heavy eyelids, blinking at the figure before him.
The girl's face remained blurred by the glare of the light, but judging by the flat cadence of her voice, he could tell she was a beautiful girl. His right hand rose entirely on instinct, reaching forward.
'I want to see her... Even if this is just a fiction inside a dream, let me see her face!'
A soft, delicate texture met his palm. The silhouette before him flinched slightly at the sudden, bold gesture, her movements locking up for a few seconds.
"Hehe... This dream feels incredibly real. I hope I can stay inside this illusion a little longer..."
Kitahara Akira pressed his palm against her cheek, pinching it gently. A faint, dazed laugh escaped his lips as the remarkably soft texture of her skin registered in his fingers.
"Kitahara-kun, this isn't a dream. If you keep doing things like this, I might actually get upset, you know." The silhouette raised her voice just a fraction.
"Eh?"
Kitahara Akira’s mind was abruptly yanked out of the dream world, slamming straight back into reality. His vision snapped into sharp focus, locking onto the bob-haired girl currently sitting right beside his bed.
"Kato...?!"
"Yes, it's me, Kitahara-kun. Sorry for letting myself in..." Kato Megumi cast a brief glance toward his hand, which was still resting against her face.
Realizing the actual situation, Kitahara Akira retracted his hand like it had been burned. "I'm sorry... I'm really, truly sorry...!"
"It's fine. I just didn't expect Kitahara-kun to have an odd habit of casually pinching a girl's cheek out of nowhere. I suppose I should warn Yukinoshita-san to be extra careful from now on," Kato Megumi remarked, her voice flat and devoid of any ripples, yet delivering a pinpoint, devastating strike.
"Hey! Kato, let me explain! That was a complete accident... Ugh..."
***
"By the way, Kato, how did you even get inside my apartment?"
"Hmm... I saw the LINE message you sent this morning, Kitahara-kun. Since I was worried, I decided to come over and visit after school let out."
Kato Megumi smoothed down her skirt as she sat at the edge of the bed, looking at Kitahara Akira with a blank, innocent stare. "Before coming over, I called Uncle Nagano first. But he said he was currently in Tokyo handling an urgent matter. He told me about the spare key hidden under the doormat outside, so that's how I got in."
"Ah... I see... Thanks a lot for taking the trouble to come check on me." Kitahara Akira adjusted the cold compress on his forehead, while internally cursing Nagano Hirokazu to the high heavens.
'I was sold out! My social standing in front of Kato was almost completely annihilated today. Starting tomorrow, I am never hiding a spare key under the mat again...'
***
Meanwhile — Tokyo, Underground Facility
*HATCHI!*
Nagano Hirokazu let out a massive sneeze. The sudden jolt caused the barrel of the strangely shaped weapon in his grip to shift a few millimeters off its original mark.
*Jyugiryoku-ho: Shisaku-gata!*
*VREEEZH!*
A transparent, visible shockwave rippled out from the muzzle, slicing through the room's silence with a faint drone that sounded like the rapid flapping of a honeybee's wings.
In the next heartbeat, the humanoid target dummy on the front-left violently caved in, collapsing from the top down until it was reduced to a flattened pile of scrap metal against the floor.
The wave release technique was an adaptation of vacuum compression concepts. Within the original story arc, gravity-manipulation weapon technology of this caliber wasn't supposed to be developed by the central military until years down the line.
However, thanks to the tactical intervention of blueprint data leaked in stages by the higher-ups, the research department managed to slash the development timeline, realizing this prototype weapon significantly faster than the original story arc.
"Department Head Nagano, are you alright?" A researcher clad in a white lab coat beside him turned with a look of concern.
"It's nothing. I've probably just been a bit overworked and caught a mild cold lately." Nagano Hirokazu casually waved his left hand, his eyes shining as he stared at the crushed dummy on the floor. "Your research department has finally built something worth bragging about!"
The researchers in the room could only offer awkward, synchronized chuckles.
"This gravity weapon is capable of exerting a crushing force up to fifty times the target's original weight." One of the researchers stepped forward, pushing up his glasses. "Its primary advantages are its near-silent operation and ease of use. The only drawback... is that production costs are still astronomical."
The researchers' voices gradually drifted into a low murmur, swallowed by the sterile silence of the underground facility.
Nagano Hirokazu rubbed his chin, deeply immersed in his own tactical calculations as he kept his eyes anchored to the crushed metal dummy.
"Next year, the funding allocated for your research department will be increased by twenty percent." Nagano Hirokazu shifted his gaze, locking it straight onto the men in white lab coats standing before him. "The primary goal is simple: I want this weapon hitting the mass-production line as soon as possible."
The researchers exchanged brief, ecstatic glances. In the next breath, they bowed in unison with immense gratitude, locking in their absolute compliance without a single shred of hesitation.