A word can wake the dreamer—that fit Nanase perfectly right now.
When she heard Yukio say, "Find the right enemy, prepare, look for your chance—what's crying gonna do?" she finally lifted her head through her tears.
She looked at Yukio with eyes full of watery shimmer. The mist blurred her vision so badly she couldn't even see him clearly—he was just a vague, hazy figure, like a bubble phantom.
But her voice this time sounded like someone dangling over a bottomless abyss, clutching a single straw at the cliff's edge—desperate, clinging to that last shred of hope.
"Then… then is that enough?"
"As long as I prepare… prepare hard enough… and wait for the right chance… I really… I really can still get revenge?"
This is your business—why are you asking me? Yukio blinked, suddenly noticing another side of this first-year girl.
On the surface, Nanase looked proper—serious, disciplined, strict in how she handled things.
But under that proper exterior was a soft, clueless heart… and a downright goofy thought process.
If he had to give an easy-to-understand example, Nanase was the type who'd tell someone, "Watch where you're walking," and then—one second later—walk straight into a telephone pole herself.
Still, whether Nanase was secretly airheaded or just innocent didn't matter. If she truly, sincerely intended to pursue revenge… then what she did next had to be her own choice.
Give up, or keep going—it depended on her. No matter how much an outsider talked, it wouldn't leave that deep of an imprint on her heart.
"Whether you can or can't… depends entirely on what you want."
"M-My… my want?" Nanase murmured the words back blankly, staring at Yukio—then her mind drifted again to that day, when she saw Matsuo-nee hanging there.
It was like a nightmare that never faded. For a full year, day after day, it replayed inside her head, impossible to shake—like she could feel Matsuo-nee's resentment and unwillingness lingering in the air.
That was what forged the hatred in her heart.
Even if Yukio had told her she'd been aiming at the wrong person, it didn't mean that hatred would disappear.
It would only transfer… to the true culprit.
When she thought about how she'd practically been a clown on a stage—mistaking who her real enemy was, getting heated, agreeing to enroll at ANHS, and nearly getting revenge on the wrong person.
For someone who was, deep down, genuinely righteous, that was a whip across the soul. All that humiliation, the bitterness of her best friend's death, the resentment, the rage—every negative emotion piled together.
And Nanase, who already wasn't good at making decisions, became utterly lost.
Like she'd been dropped inside a fog so thick she couldn't see her own hand. No matter which direction she walked, she'd end up lost in it.
So when she heard Yukio say it depended on her—when her instincts latched onto the idea that she might still have hope of revenge—she asked him in confusion.
She wanted his affirmation. Something to be the beam of light in the fog—something to hold up her collapsing heart.
She remembered Matsuo-nee's hanging silhouette. She remembered that suffocating unwillingness.
Nanase clenched her teeth hard, like the answer was dragged out from the deepest part of her throat:
"I still want to… avenge Matsuo-nee…! Violence is wrong… but it's also something revenge needs!"
After forcing those hoarse words out, Nanase finally stood up again.
The tears in her deep-blue eyes seemed to have run dry. What remained now was only a sea-like clarity.
She stared straight at Yukio, gathered her courage, and—dead serious—made her request.
"Yukio-senpai! If possible… please train me. Teach me your fighting techniques!"
…Huh? Yukio genuinely couldn't keep up with her brain's turns. Train you? Teach you techniques?
He subconsciously looked at her small head. Yep—first, very fair skin. Second, features perfectly neat. Third… he still couldn't see what kind of thought process lived in there.
"Why would you think that?" Fine. You couldn't read someone just by looking at them. Better to ask directly.
Nanase straightened her pretty face, expression firm.
"I trained at a dojo before. And in the year after Matsuo-nee died, I practiced fighting techniques even harder."
"I've improved a lot… but I know very clearly that my physical ability still has a big gap compared to an adult man's. My shallow skills still aren't enough to make up for that."
"Just now, when Yukio-senpai fought Housen-kun… I didn't fully understand what I was seeing, but at least I could tell: every time you exchanged blows, you didn't clash head-on. You used technique to overcome strength."
"That kind of advanced fighting skill… I like it. I truly want to learn from you, Yukio-senpai!"
"If… if I can learn your fighting techniques, then revenge will definitely be more certain! The difference in physical ability—I can use your techniques to make up for it! So please… Yukio-senpai!"
By the end, Nanase even bowed at ninety degrees. Her sincerity was practically overflowing.
Yukio's expression turned extremely strange.
At that moment, he suddenly remembered a famous line from a movie: "So you can fight—so what?"
Times had changed, first-year.
A man like Atsuomi—anyone with half a brain cell could guess it—either he himself, or the bodyguards around him, definitely had guns.
No matter how strong your hand-to-hand technique is… what's it going to do?
Sure, fighting skill can be trained. It can be taught. It can make up for differences in physical ability.
But the gap between hand-to-hand and firearms? That gap was way bigger than the gap between people's bodies. Hadn't she heard that saying?
Outside seven steps, the gun is faster.
Inside seven steps… the gun is accurate and fast.
Unless—Yukio paused for one second, thinking.
Unless there was a place where Atsuomi's bodyguards were forbidden to enter… and even Atsuomi himself couldn't bring a gun.
When he reached that thought, Yukio couldn't help getting a little interested.
That place… actually did exist. ANHS.
As the island's most valued institution—steadily producing the mid-level talent society needed every year—security was no joke. Even if Atsuomi Ayanokouji came, he'd have to enter alone. He couldn't bring bodyguards in.
And with the strict inspections at the school gates—so strict even phones couldn't get in—guns were even more impossible.
Huh. It might actually work. Yukio kept the corner of his mouth under control—no grin, no smirk.
Only the faint, passing glint of amusement deep in his eyes betrayed his mood. "Tomorrow morning. Meet me at the field."
....
For every 100 Power Stones → +1 extra chapter.
Read 50+ chapters ahead on Patreon! [patreon.com/METARLN]