Part 23

I put on my best suit that I had in my closet and got into the limo that was waiting for me outside the house. I waved goodbye to ------ and then we drove off. She would have gone with me too, but she had plans for today, and well, the invitation didn't come to her. So, nothing would have changed, and she didn't mind much.

"Jin-san again, where are we going?" - I turned to the man beside me who had a glass of wine in his hand.

"I've been invited to a reception for the elite of all of Japan and also sent another invitation with a bold hint of you." - he said, casting me a glance. "You just put on a jacket and shoes over your casual clothes? Yes?"

"Maybe." - I didn't deny the obvious thing. After all, the Ultimate had a varied closet and no one would have said anything against me coming to a funeral like that.

"Haaah." - exhaled the man. "I don't have much desire to be there either. But still, try to behave yourself. As I've told you several times, you'll be the face of Hope Peak tonight, not me."

"Yes, I remember, and I always behave myself, so you don't have to worry." - I told the partial truth, because I only look indecent around people I know, but nobody needs to know that.

"Okay." - The man took my word for it.

We walked the rest of the way in silence, so my only amusement was to go over everything else that had happened in the six months since I'd gone to second grade in high school. To my surprise, I guess it could only be described as a time-skip, since there wasn't anything too memorable during that time.

But I think even so you can remember a couple of interesting moments. A couple of times I went for a few days for appointments in other countries, where I was even given time to present my {} which could not cause a furor of course, but it was still appreciated all the same knowing that it could advance medicine several years ahead and help many people.

Also, one of the significant things was that Miaya was able to fit into our company, so that she could often be seen in the company of Chisa or ------ at my house, as well as outside of it. Also, to my own credit I must say that I made a pretty good teacher, after all the evenings we spent together studying and she was able to enhance her professionalism several times over and started teaching her other different things. I even tried to invite her to live with us, but she wasn't comfortable with it, well I figured.

Also, one of the nicest moments of my life was when they threw me a surprise party for my birthday. So, because I forgot about it, the confetti cannon in my face surprised me a lot, but it was nice to see all my new friends together with the old ones in Fuyuhiko and Natsumi together with Peko, even Jin-san and Tengan-san came to congratulate me, they really didn't stay long, just handed a present and left after few minutes, I don't think they had business, maybe they just didn't want to bother the youth with their presence. We celebrated until almost the end of the night.

The memory of blowing out a cake with 14 candles surrounded by my friends will warm my heart the rest of my life, maybe even in the next one if there is one.

But here I was, immersed in my thoughts, not noticing how we pulled up to a huge building, by my conservative estimate, about 60 stories high. This building practically lit up everything around it because of all the light and cleanliness that was on the outer shell of the structure.

"Remember." - Jin-san repeated once more. "Behave with dignity."

Waiting for the door to open on my side I got out of the car and stood next to Jin-san, who had walked a little ahead and was waiting for me. When I walked up to them, we followed the man, who was lined on all sides and the suit was too well groomed, after all there is a difference between people in an expensive suit and people who really were in an expensive suit.

He walked us down the hall of this building and took us to the elevator, and then he let us go ahead and pressed the elevator button, which was practically at the very end. And after a long climb that lacked only the music from the Citadel, the elevator finally stopped almost silently and the elevator doors opened.

I must admit I almost went blind, even with a system that should have canceled out such effects on my eyes. But the place did look like the Queen's reception, only the people were in suits from our era, though you couldn't really tell for the women by looking at all that variety of whips. Most of the floor consisted of yellow, and if my imagination was a little twisted, I might have thought the floor was made of gold.

I walked to the back of the room, saying hello and receiving greetings from several people. Some of these people I even recognized as I was treating them. But as it was, it wasn't as scary as I could have imagined and mostly, I just nodded at people's conversations and tried to talk about topics that were as difficult as possible. And all would be quiet, until Jin-san needed to be excused and he let me go on my own.

And the first thing that crossed my mind that was most cliché was to go and soak my throat for pleasure, I doubt there was anything but the most elite of drinks. And the only thing I found there for my age was regular juice, which was almost no different from what was in my refrigerator, but maybe it was much better in terms of healthiness and naturalness, not taste.

But as I was drinking the juice a little away from the table, a guy came up to me with a glass in his hand, but unlike me he had a light-colored drink with air bubbles in his hand, but from the outside it was hard to tell exactly what he had. Deciding to look around him better, I realized one significant thing, this guy was about my age and we two were the only kids here. So whoever he was, he had to be a significant person. Which was confirmed after a light examination of him.

He was a lean young man with long legs and a little shorter than me, which made him look tall. He was wearing classic black pants with a black belt, along with black classic shoes. And it would make sense that his top consisted of a black suit and the same color tie, which by all rules reached his belt.

An inspection of his face left me with no doubt as to his identity. Pale skin, sharp blue eyes with long eyelashes which also looked easily at me and blond short hair, his face unlike the original was not yet wearing silver rimmed glasses. Though it was hard to tell who it was because of all the external signs, the general idea and appearance of this person ruled out all possibilities, except that the guy in front of me was one of the survivors of the first game, Byakuya Togami.

As I tried to remember everything I could about him and his family, a quick wave of thoughts ran through my head.

The Togami family are the managers of a global financial conglomerate. Which made them overly influential and wealthy. Also, as I recall, they had some pretty brutal inheritance rights in their family. The head of the family had several prominent women and had several children by each, so Byakuya had about 15 brothers. And all of these children are potential heirs to his family, the claimants had to fight for the right to become the head, the last one left to "stand" among his brood was Byakuya. I'm really not sure what is meant by "Standing," but Byakuya was the last, making him heir to the family and giving him the title "Ultimate Heir.

And as far as I remembered, Byakuya was the youngest, so his winning was an amazing thing for his family. Which automatically made him respectable; he was a pretty strong character, both morally and spiritually. It was also impossible to deny that he was smart and talented in all things, as his Ultimate consisted of many different skills. One of his virtues was his sharp mind. And although in the game he was shown as not the smartest and most arrogant character, but this was real life, so all his talents just don't go to waste to highlight the coolness of the main character.

Yes. I want to meet him.

"Yasuke Ma.../Byakuya To..." - we started talking at the same time and almost immediately fell silent.

"Hmm. / Hmm." - we hummed and closed our eyes in acceptance.

We didn't say a word to each other for the next hour, but surprisingly we understood each other, and as strange as it sounds, we managed to get to know each other pretty well. I think we both enjoyed just being with each other, and I was sure we had an air of contentment around us. And it all continued even after a good portion of the people began to disperse, indicating that the reception was over.

"Young Master." - said an older man who approached us.

He was dressed like a butler. He had a stern face and pale blue eyes. His long, all-white hair was combed back. He also had a white beard as well as a thin gray mustache.

"Aloysius." - he said with some annoyance: "Young Master." "I'll be right down."

To this he only nodded while looking at me with a sharp and attentive gaze, studying me. I must say that in spite of some disdain he felt at the sight of my clothes, he liked me.

Without standing still for long, Byakuya and I again joined our thoughts on a mental level and pulled out our phones at the same time to record each other's number. Our farewell was limited to a nod to each other.

It didn't take long before after Byakuya left, Jin-san came up to me.

"Did you enjoy the reception Yasuke-kun?" - He asked as we went down in the elevator.

"I met a couple of interesting people." - I didn't hide the fact that I liked being there. Perhaps even this meeting was the only reason I was at this reception.

Our trip was spent in silence and the only words that were spoken were the words "goodbye." When I got home, I saw ------ sitting on the couch watching TV, even though it was late outside. So, when I sat down on the couch, she lay down on top of me and almost immediately snorted. Yes, she can't fall asleep without me after all.

(Time Skip.)

It had been three months since that super cool reception where the elite were gathered together. And though those months weren't particularly memorable, talking to Byakuya brightened up that time a lot. We talked to him about practically everything and as strange as it may sound, it all came down to the fact that we didn't talk about anything at all. I think it's called an "interesting conversationalist" when you just talk to your companion without topics or context. To my deepest regret, he and I never got a chance to meet, despite our age, we are both busy people.

And today was one of those days when I am completely free and Byakuya has gone overseas to deal with company issues. So, I decided to devote the whole day completely to ------ and the most interesting thing I could think of was a trivial walk around the city, maybe next time we should see where we can go with a girl, ------ it would be nice.

I think in all the time I've known ------ we've transfixed our understanding of each other to the max and understand each other without words and unlike Byakuya it was something that came up over time, overcoming difficulties together, so that was much more valuable to me. And all this led to a simple conclusion, ------ and I did not need to say anything to each other to make us feel good, even though she is an active girl who likes to talk, in a whole day next to me she may not say a word. And it was the same today, to one point when ------ started shaking my hand that she was holding on to.

"Look!" - she said, pointing to a huge line. "I wonder what's in there!"

"Shall we go look?" - I suggested to her.

"Uh-huh!" - it really was interesting.

After walking around the corner almost the entire length of the line, we finally saw the sign of the store everyone was standing toward.

*TODAY ONLY!!! ULTIMATE PREDICTOR!!! 50% OFF PER PERSON!!! ONLY 50,000 YEN!!!

To me, that poster had too many exclamation points. But if there's such a huge crowd gathered here, it's at least working, and maybe the person who calls himself "Ultimate Predictors" has some kind of positive fame in the community. Something familiar... I have a bad feeling about this.

"Oooh..." - came a surprised sound from beside me.

Looking at the girl, who still wouldn't let go of my hand, I saw a pair of anime stars in her eyes that had replaced her pupils.

"Do you want to go?" - I asked for the sake of decorum, not to get her opinion on the matter

"Sure!!!" - she said happily and pulled me by the hand to the end of the line. "I'm wondering what your fate is or what he's going to tell you."

"Aren't you curious about yourself?" - I asked interestedly.

"If I'm in your prediction, I won't have any regrets." - She said with some fanaticism.

"Well..." - that stressed me out.

Of course, no normal guy would be stressed out if a girl like ------ said words like that to him, but if you know the subtext about what she was supposed (I hope) to be, it would stress anyone out.

Be that as it may, we stood in line for the next two hours before it was finally our turn.

Once inside, we saw a typical fortune-teller's room. A pile of curtains, little light, a table in the middle of the room with a fortune-telling ball on a stand. The only thing different from the cliché of the whole situation was the fortuneteller, and instead of the canonical fortuneteller, who was supposed to be dressed in all purple with a scarf on her head and a big nose that should have had a wart on it, there was a guy sitting in front of us.

He had swarthy skin, dark brown, spiky, big, disheveled and wide dreadlocks. The part of his body that I could see consisted of two shirts, the first was a yellow shirt with the buttons buttoned up and the second was a white shirt that was unbuttoned, the rest of his body I couldn't see from behind the table, but you could tell he was tall. His dark brown eyes were examining us with interest, or more accurately, they were examining ------ with interest.

And I'll be damned if it isn't Yasuhiro Hagakura, who was also one of the survivors of the first game, to my surprise, only missing a couple of years and a slight beard. I didn't remember much about him since I thought he would die first, but he seems to have stayed a few times for the second year, and the title "Ultimate Predictor" implies that his predictions have a better chance of coming true than the others. He could be a completely humorous character if one time his delusional prediction didn't turn out to be true, and there's no way to guess such a thing there. So, he most likely can really predict, but it's not like we're going to be in that lucky percentage.

"What a beautiful lady!" - jumped up this "Fortune Teller" that let me see his green breeches, which were held on a string. "I can predict without any divination that we will be together!"

He gently took her hand and tried to pull her close to him, but he didn't have the strength to do so, which confused him a little, but that didn't stop him from pushing her somehow to a seat in front of the table, and sitting down in front of her himself.

"For a girl like you, I'll read your fortune for free!!!" - he said enthusiastically. "What do you want to know? What will be the weather tomorrow? What can you bet on? A fortune on a girlfriend? What lipstick is best to buy, or do you want to know the name of your soulmate. That's not necessary, since it's me!"

"Well..." ------ hesitated. You'd certainly think she was really embarrassed, but I know her too well. "I'm a little embarrassed."

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about!!! I'm a grave! All your secrets are my secrets!" - he began to praise himself. "I'll read your fortune for anything."

"Really on anything?" - she said in a slightly languid voice, and at the same time she pressed her breasts against the table a little. Even though she was only thirteen, you couldn't tell that from her body anymore, so something about him falling for her was natural.

"Y-yes!" - almost gasped with excitement this guy.

"Really free?" - Still a little embarrassed, she said. "Because I don't even have enough money for one appointment."

"Of course!!! I promised!!!" - he said, pounding his chest.

"Then you can..." - she began quietly while leaning slightly in his direction, causing him to unknowingly lean slightly in as well. "Can you..."

"Y-yes?" - he was practically fainting.

"Can you..." - she said again. "Make a guess on him." - she pointed her finger at me and at the same time lost all her intonation in her voice back to normal.

"Y-yes... of course..." - didn't get it right away. "Wait... What?!"

"That's him." - she jumped up from her chair and quickly ran up to me to grab my arm and drag me to the chair to sit on it. "Predict his future."

"But, but, but, but..." - he seemed to break down. "That wasn't our agreement!"

"But you said you'd do anything for me." - He didn't promise that. "So, I'm going to ask you to read a fortune on him!"

"Ehhhhh..." - he gave up, realizing he'd lost. "All right. Give me your hand."

Handing him my right hand, I watched what he wanted to do. Taking my hand, he began to look at it in detail. I don't know why he was doing this, but maybe he just hadn't improved to his original level yet. As I looked at his face, which was tense and dripping with sweat, I realized that he could really see, judging by his eyes, from which all emotion but seriousness was gone. His eyes began to widen in shock, along with his mouth.

"HOLY SHIT DUDE!!!" - he shouted across the room, so much so that you could probably hear him outside.

"What's going on in there!?" - said ------ who was almost laying on my head.

"There... there..." - he began to stammer.

"Well, what's in there!!!" ------ also showed signs of intolerance. "Don't stew!"

"He's got... He's got..." - he pointed his finger at me.

Feeling ------ getting harder and harder on my head that I thought it was going to fall off I had to hold it up with my hand. I have to say, his reaction made me very tense, too. It's hard to imagine what shocked him so much. Still, maybe he saw the future of this world or predicted that I was reborn, or maybe even the system. It was hard to imagine what he might have seen, but here he finally came to his senses and continued.

"He has..." - he said again, but this time his voice was full of seriousness. "There will be a harem."

The next moment I felt my arms weaken because of this statement and ------ began to fall forward causing the chair we were sitting on to flip over and we fell to the floor. I, of course, tried to hold her down or at least minimize the damage, which I thankfully succeeded and, even more thankfully, it happened without anime clichés and she didn't fall with her panties in my face or me groping her breasts.

As we lay on the floor I couldn't see ------'s face, but I could picture my face, and it was full of shock. "It's going to be a harem." Thinking about it one more time, all thoughts flew out of my head, and I just didn't know what I should have said or acted on. In cases where you can't think, it's best to act.

So, I got out from under ------ and stood up, and then I picked up ------ myself while not being able to see her face because of the hair that was covering her face. I decided to say something for my defense.

"I see." - The best defense is an offense. "You're a hustler who profits from other people's problems and when you saw that ----- I was not indifferent, you decided to break off our relationship!"

Too actively I said to myself and if I saw myself from the outside, I just wouldn't believe myself or at least realize that I was being too suspicious.

"What?!?!?!" - he shouted in indignation. "I'm not a cheat!!! My predictions are 28% correct! So, I'm pretty sure you're going to have a harem!!! That's something to be happy about, not retaliated against dude!!!"

"I don't want to listen to you anymore. We're leaving." - Taking my hand ------ I pulled her toward the exit.

After pushing her ahead of me, I turned back to Yasuhiro to look at him with rage and tap myself on the head with my finger to show that he was a moron. To this he just gave me a thumbs up with a happy smile, to which I only had to sigh.

The rest of the day ------ did not say a word to me and was too damn silent compared to my usual self. But even though we lay down together without any play and it was as if nothing had changed, she lay down on my right side and grabbed my hand to put it between her breasts.

Closing my eyes, I started pretending to be asleep. I wasn't going to sleep tonight because I was afraid, I was going to get my arms and legs cut off so no one would have me.

[Relationship update!]

Fuck. It went through my head. It couldn't have meant any better.

"Yasuke." ------ said quietly so as not to wake me up. "Are you asleep?"

"No." - I answered without opening my eyes. "What is it?"

She was quiet.

"I don't mind a harem." - she dumbfounded me.

"What?!" - I opened my eyes and tried to jump up on the spot, but instead I just looked at her. "------! Don't listen to this guy. He's a hustler, don't take his word for it, he could say anything to get money."

"But, if it's true..." - she was quiet for a while and pressed my hand even harder. "Then this will be my place, and I will be the head wife."

"If I have a harem..." - I was silent for a moment, thinking of an answer. "Then we will have equality in the family and there will be no chief wives."

"But I will be the head wife." - she said again.

"Okay." - I didn't argue anymore and closed my eyes. "Good night."

"Good night." - she said and leaned down to kiss me on the cheek, which shocked me a little.

In order not to reject her kiss, I took her palm, which was beside me, in mine and intertwined her fingers with mine. I could tell by the quiet purr in my ear that she liked it.

After that I went to sleep with peace of mind and, to my delight, I woke up in the same place and with my limbs full, and only the girl who was lying on my right side had thrown her legs over me along with her arm in order to wrap her arms around me completely. Damn... How problematic it would be if there were more of them, but... Okay. Those are future me problems, as long as I don't have to worry about it.

(Time Skip.)

Walking down the street from another killer Jack crime scene that confirmed my little assumptions, well how assumptions, let everyone think as if I figured it all out with my Ultimate, not because I know the killer, no of course I could have found all that evidence without my knowledge of the killer, but why bother.

But anyway, from the moment fucking Yasuhiro predicted me a harem a few more months have passed and as hard as it is to imagine, it will be the 2nd year of high school soon and then we have to wait another year for whatever canon to start.

We also had a birthday party at ------, it wasn't that different from mine except it was a little worse because of me setting it up, but think it went well and all our friends came, only this time it was Tengan-san who came from the management, which was also nice. Of course, I wanted to give her something meaningful, but she had practically everything, so I gave her a chibi version of myself so she wouldn't get bored when I was away on "business trips". I think she liked it.

"Beep" "Beep" "Beep" "Beep."

I heard intrusive beeps somewhere in the distance. Because of my interest in what interrupted my thoughts I decided to look in that direction to see a truck rushing from all directions, and in the driver's, seat was a frightened man who was at least somehow trying to turn the wheel, but he was failing.

That wouldn't have bothered me much, because people aren't blind and can see and hear everything perfectly well, so there was no one in the way, and I couldn't do anything with the truck. So, the only thing I had to do was back away from that spot, as he was flying roughly in my direction, and wait for the driver to meet the wall in order to help him, unless of course he died instantly. Even I was powerless here.

But... if it weren't for that, but... If this new reborn. As I looked ahead, I saw a guy standing in the middle of the road and, to my dismay, he was right in the direction of the truck, then he was affected by Truk-kun powerful magic or he was somehow so affected by the letter he was holding in his hand that he sank deep into himself because of what was written there. But whatever it was, he just didn't hear the beeps.

Without giving it much thought, I ran to intercept in order to at least do something. Unknowingly as I ran, I began to study him. A guy of average height. In simple black pants and a white T-shirt, his hair was disheveled and auburn red, and his eyes, which splashed with despair, were dark green. To my surprise, I realized that this was not a character from canon, but I don't think that would have stopped me in any way. Every life is important, especially in the real world, where everyone lives their real life.

When I was an arm's length away time stopped, a moment like that usually happens in critical situations both in reality and in the world of the anime. Was I scared? Without a doubt, the answer is YES. But this time I have the strength to do something, not just stand still, to stop being afraid of what will happen because of my actions.

As I looked to the side, I saw that the truck was practically next to me and I had to decide what to do. If I pushed him, I would fall over and get hit by the truck, which could kill me, no doubt, and there was a good chance of him driving over my head, but the wall that was on the other side was no guarantee that this guy would survive all the shrapnel that was going to come flying out.

I wouldn't have time to pull him out. I could, of course, try throwing a scalpel to puncture the tire, but that wouldn't help if I'd thought of it earlier... and of course I wouldn't have time to get it out and throw it.

Just now the guy started paying attention to what was going on around him and his eyes went to the truck with fear. The only right thing to do, well, what I could think of, was to get in front of him. If we both only got flattened from below, there was a good chance we'd survive, and my body could greatly reduce the damage to the guy. Well, and maybe my talent, which hadn't made itself known for a long time, could prevent it.

Time slowly began to move on, and my body continued to move, and I popped up right in front of the guy's gaze with my arms spread apart.

Without closing my eyes to watch everything with fear I waited to see what would happen in order to see how the truck turned sharply to the side and then there was a loud sound that finally made me see a police car crash into the back of the truck to try to change its course and, surprisingly, it worked. The collision sent shards of what used to be the back of the truck flying in all directions, I noticed several pieces of shrapnel flying near my face and flying on.

As I stood there, I watched the truck practically change direction because of the sharp U-turn and fly in the other direction with severely weakened speed to crash into another car, but luckily it wasn't as serious as it could have been.

Looking back, I saw the kid's eyes, which were full of disbelief. After examining him from all sides that other than his full pants and a couple of scratches there was nothing wrong with him, I turned around to run toward the truck, not paying any more attention to the kid.

"His luck, even more than mine... For my sake he..." - said something the guy said that I wasn't paying attention to and his words just flew through my ears.

(Time skip.)

Good thing it wasn't anything serious. No of course all three drivers were injured in varying degrees of severity, but fatal and irreparable should not have been anything. So, I gave them first aid and waited for the ambulance to arrive in order to monitor the condition of the patients. I looked in the direction where the guy was standing in order to see nothing but a few scraps of paper, which was presumably formerly a letter.

He didn't seem too bad, so there was nothing to worry about. After seeing the ambulance off, I drove to the police station to give a statement about what had happened.

Well... it had been a strange day.