Festival Preparations~

In the morning the first thing I did was check my stats, as I wanted to have a rough estimate on when I would accumulate enough stats to reach the 70 mark.

Intelligence: 70

Luck 69

Endurance: 69

Agility: 68

Strength: 70

Great, marvelous even if I was lucky enough I would only need to receive 4 additional stats to reach my goal. And I still had two big missions active that would give me 13 additional points upon completion. One for performing as a band and the second for keeping my identity as Jesus Honda safe.

So I was positive in that aspect, considering if I used my cards right, none of the dudes could really get in my way. The only thing I was worried about was my lack of fighting experience, yes I gained some by following Hanma's orders at times. But the whole battle was going to be chaotic, perhaps being present at the Bloody Halloween would be overwhelming.

"Wait wouldn't my brother be shocked to see me being part of Valhalla? What if I use the shock factor for my own benefit and force him to return home with me?" Yes if Kazutora didn't follow thru with Kisaki's wishes it would be harder for him to find someone to proceed with his stupid plan. After all, getting arrested with so many witnesses was unavoidable.

Also, the only reason Keisuke died in the first place was that he inflicted himself with another injury so Kazutora wouldn't feel bad.

"That whole arc was a mess." I sighed, but yeah if Tora was out of the picture everything was going to be alright at least I hoped so.

"But a flawed strategy is better than no strategy at all." Maybe that's what the system wanted all along? Why else would it only let me reveal my face during the fight? After all this thinking I merely got ready for school.

Once I follow thru with all the classes, it was time to start preparing for the festival. Everyone would come together and make the necessary decorations and stuff to keep it all going.

Yet my excitement was gone when I found out my only ally in this class was going to leave, so I grabbed his sleeve.

"Come on, stay with me, please?" I begged Kisaki already seeing how the girl which I nicknamed Big Bully was giving me nasty looks. I could tell she was up to no good.

"Like I will waste my time... why don't you ask that tall guy to come to help you out?" I crossed my arms and pouted while hearing the first part, but got totally confused with the later part of the sentence.

"Who?" I asked and tilted my head but he just sent a glare, took his bag, and left.

"Why he gotta be so mean?" What was his deal? And which tall guy did he mean? Did he know how little that description narrowed it down? Was it Ran he was referring to? Since he saw him at the Toman meeting?

"I can just try to make it work." Since it was for a festival I truly wanted to enjoy it to the fullest, I just needed one of my classmates in charge to grant me a task. Who would have thought that their bullying would be the opposite of giving me all the work? No matter who I tried to help they always insisted I was doing it wrong and snatched all the supplies from my hands.

"What is this circus?" I asked myself, but the least I could do in this situation was to ask the girls that were selected to be maids about the outfits they were planning to opt for, short or long dresses. I concluded that it was important we had some kind of matching designs, but only this wacky dialogue came out of their mouths.

"Do you really believe that we will let you be one of the maids? You will scare away all the customers. Why don't you just make some kissing booth at the side and sit there as a form of decoration?" Her words made no sense but neither did the mission that I got soon after.

'Warning: Important Mission.'

'Would you rather beat them up and show them thru sheer force alone who is the ruler of this domain or make a bet regarding setting up a kissing booth per their recommendation and when they lose force them to kneel before you if you manage to accumulate more money than them?' Did the system want me to get in trouble? Because that's what would happen if I acted like a true delinquent. Even Kisaki wasn't steering that much trouble in school, besides I didn't want to get expelled. Yep by definition getting into trouble was more troublesome than a bet, but could I really get enough customers? Then again I didn't need to worry I could always give one of my friend money and make them spend it all on me, underhanded methods were, in fact, a strategy I could utilize.

"How about a bet?" They were taken aback, while I continued.

"How about we make a real kissing booth? And if I manage to gather more money than all of you, you will kneel before me and apologize while admitting I'm far superior to any of you?" They laughed, fairly confident that they would win.

"Great, then you have to obey our request and take off your shirt in front of the whole class." Was this girl for real, I covered myself with my hands.

"If you had a crush on me, you should have said so from the beginning, your pervert." The girls seemed outraged, but I just shrugged my shoulders.

But then it hit me this wasn't some kind of teenage romance movie where I could do what I pleased in a school setting, how could I possibly manage to convince the teacher to let me proceed? I decided to go on a hunt for Mr.Nomura and explained the situation to him, avoiding some crucial details.

"Are you doing this to make your classmate jealous?" Our math teacher was more invested in this relationship than the two people involved.

"Yes, recently I found out he does like me, but won't admit it. So I thought just working as a maid won't cut it, and there are no other places I could catch his attention, so this is my only chance." He put his hand on my shoulder.

"Don't worry go thru with your plan, but each time a teacher comes around you should just proclaim the booth is for decoration purposes only." Suddenly I was also given some marketing strategies.

"How about adding additional fees for things like time and you could even use the club room. Sometimes what you don't see ignites curiosity and jealousy even more." So he wanted Kisaki to arrive at the most outrageous conclusions himself. Sometimes I wondered if the system had some influence on my teacher as well, or if he just personally liked middle school kid relationship drama.

Considering building the booth, figuring out the prizes, and designing my own maid outfit would be my only responsibility, there was no need to stay back at school where people would get in my way. I decided to retreat home to figure it all out, after all, I could ask dad to help me transport my booth with his car once it was finished.

As I was returning home, I spotted a familiar face, one of someone I wanted to see urgently.

"Keisuke!" I yelled trying to get his attention while waving, getting closer, but this fool began to run?

'Would you rather leave it be or proceed with the chase?' Like I would let him get away with such disrespect, I knew he saw me so what was this clownery supposed to be?

"Get back here!" I yelled as he dashed into one of the alleys. The system informed me it was a dead end, but once I thought I had him, this mad person scaled the wall and poof disappeared.

"What the hell is his problem?" Wait don't tell me he plans to escape like this every single time?

"Let's try again." I could always catch up to him, after all, he was on foot.

"System track his location!" I was determined to get a hold of him, the system showed me a red dot on the map, so I started to run towards it. But suddenly a person spawned from an alley and I found myself knocking into someone's bare chest unable to hit the brakes in time. And somehow I bounced away? But got caught.

"Is this your attempt to catch my attention?" The dude asked and although the dizziness hit me I could still tell it was Taiju that was speaking to me.

"No I was chasing after someone, but you got in my way." I saw the red dot moving away at an incredible speed from this area. Did it mean Keisuke found his bike and drove off? I was mad, pissed even.

"Also why are you going around with your chest exposed like that, aren't you cold?" Though he flexed his muscles.

"Not in the slightest, besides they summoned you right into my arms." Was he trying to imply I was some muscle-gazing fanatic? I was about to deny the claim of me being hypnotized by their size.

"How about a date?" Came out of his mouth. In any other circumstances, I would have probably refused, but I was hoping an outing would raise my spirits.

"Approved." He seemed shocked at how quickly I responded and agreed to his request.

"This is weird..." He mumbled probably not expecting this outcome.

"This is seriously not my day, so I just agreed to have something to do to take out this strange mood, I am in right now."

"And your mood is?" He asked as I thought about it.

"Smad." I guess saying it in English was confusing for him.

"Sad, mad, and totally scared for what's to come. So cuddling with someone while watching a movie doesn't sound like a bad deal, and since your ass is not involved in that mess, my mind won't wander around expecting something bad."

"I don't know who made you mad or scared for that matter, but I would like to thank them. Let's go." Wait why were his hands reaching for me.

"Why are you making that face? I already carried you around before." Yeah, but it felt somehow weird this time around, but off we went catching passerby's attention, making our way to Black Dragon's headquarters.

"So what movies do you want to watch? I will send Kokonoi on the quest to fetch them."

"Comedy would be nice." And so we ended up watching 2 movies after Kokonoi was sent out to get them for us. We had even a third movie coming up however, I got tired and was escorted back home, dad being totally confused by the size of the dude when he saw him.

"Michi... who is this?" He asked as I simply answered.

"Taiju...Shiba" I think I knew what he was wondering about.

"He's 16 dad... even if he looks like 30." Taiju just opened his mouth wide open, shocked at my commentary.

"I see." Dad seemed to be conflicted about this muscular giant and his sudden appearance.

"Oh, gotta go, bye Taiju have a safe trip back home." I pushed dad back inside not wanting to see Taiju bursting with rage because of my observation about his age and looks.