Nanase stared blankly at Yukio, her eyes filled with emotions too tangled to name. At a time when her heart was wavering, all it took was that one gentle question from him.
Almost without thinking, she turned slightly and rested her head against his chest, then closed her eyes in relief.
"I don't know…"
"After avenging Miss Matsuo, I should be happy. If her spirit still lingers, then she should finally be able to rest in peace."
"But then why… why does my heart feel so empty?"
Nanase was no longer the sharp, fearless fighter she had been moments ago. All that remained was confusion. Now that she had personally avenged Miss Matsuo, it felt like something inside her had gone hollow.
Yukio blinked, immediately understanding what was going on in her heart.
Put simply, the thing that had sustained Nanase all this time was her hatred and her need for revenge on behalf of that older sister figure.
With that hatred supporting her, no matter what she faced, she had always been able to grit her teeth and push through.
But now that her revenge was complete and that hatred had finally dissipated, she no longer had a clear goal in life. She did not know where the rest of her life was supposed to go from here, and that was why she felt so lost.
As far as Yukio was concerned, though, this was not a big problem. He gently patted her on the head.
"From now on, you can live for yourself."
"If you feel lost, if you don't know where your future should go, then think back. Before Miss Matsuo died, what was your life plan? What did the old you want to do when you grew up?"
While Yukio was comforting Nanase, two people arrived along the nearby path: Ryuen and Ayanokoji.
Ryuen took one look at Yukio and Nanase, and immediately started waggling his eyebrows with a grin that looked more mischievous than anything else.
Honestly, with how swollen his face was and with blood still at the corners of his mouth, that expression was enough to make a baby cry.
Fortunately, Nanase had her back to him with her head resting against Yukio, so she never saw it.
Yukio raised the hand that had been resting on her head and gave a quick wave, signaling for them to hurry up and get Atsuomi out of there.
Only then did Ryuen stop mugging around. He and Kiyotaka silently grabbed Atsuomi by the back of his clothes and dragged him off like a dead dog.
Ryuen, especially, showed no mercy whatsoever toward the man who was very likely his biological father.
What to do with Atsuomi from here on out was something Yukio intended to leave to Ryuen and Kiyotaka. All he needed to do later was ask whether they'd managed to get any additional information out of him. There was no need for him to personally handle every last step.
The truth was, if Yukio had wanted to subdue Atsuomi right away, he could have done it back in the chairman's office by joining forces with Tsukishiro and forcing him to the ground then and there.
But considering Ryuen and Nanase, he had deliberately let Atsuomi leave instead. Just as he had told Tsukishiro, once Atsuomi stepped through the gates of Advanced Nurturing High, there was no way he was leaving again.
Nanase had no idea her fallen enemy had already been quietly dragged away. She was still immersed in her own confusion.
After hearing Yukio's comforting words, her thoughts slowly started turning again.
"The old me… before Miss Matsuo died… what did I want to do…?"
"I… I don't know."
Nanase was the serious, methodical type. She did everything properly and by the book, but when it came to her own future, she had no plans at all.
"I'd only thought that… maybe after I graduated high school, when it was time to choose a university, I'd think about it then…"
Yukio was not surprised in the slightest.
As society became more developed, the number of opportunities available to ordinary people had actually become narrower and narrower.
In the older generation, if there was a job you wanted, then so long as it wasn't something utterly unrealistic, putting in enough effort usually meant you had a real shot at it.
But for this generation, it was much harder.
It wasn't a matter of simply choosing what you wanted to become.
As children, everyone said things like "I want to be a scientist" or "I want to be an astronaut," and there were countless other dreams just like that. But how many people actually managed to realize those dreams once they grew up?
Modern society was brutally competitive. To earn enough to support yourself, forget becoming a scientist or an astronaut—people were already fighting tooth and nail over even the most basic jobs. Most of the time, you didn't get to choose.
There were also plenty of people who, even after graduating high school and entering university, still had no real plans of their own. They just drifted along, or followed their parents' advice, choosing a school and a major without any strong desire behind it.
That did not mean they were lazy. It did not mean they were incapable of thinking.
It was simply that modern society, especially for this generation, had become overwhelmingly competitive. The pressure and endless rat race had spiraled completely out of control.
Of course there were good jobs and good positions out there. But those were not options ordinary people could simply choose. For most people, they were not even worth considering.
The vast majority could only really think in terms of a few safe, popular majors and career paths. So this wasn't necessarily a problem with Nanase herself.
There were countless people just like her—people who had no idea what to do with their future.
Yukio did not think there was anything wrong with that. He merely gave her a gentle push, hoping she could find a new direction for her life as soon as possible.
"Then start thinking about it now. Think about what you want to do with your life from here on."
Nanase fell silent for a while. Then, very unusually for her, she timidly lifted her head and looked straight into Yukio's deep eyes.
"Could I… keep following you from now on, Senpai?"
Truthfully, Nanase herself did not fully understand it.
At a time like this, filled with confusion, no matter how hard she tried to think, she simply could not figure out what she wanted to do in the future. She could not find an answer anywhere.
Almost instinctively, her mind went back over this stretch of her life.
Before arriving at Advanced Nurturing High, she had been full of hatred. All she could think about was training, building up her body, learning to fight. Revenge had been the only thing in her head.
After she arrived at Advanced Nurturing High and successfully got revenge on Atsuomi, what remained was emptiness—a hollow confusion she could not put into words.
Only that middle stretch, the days she had spent following Yukio and training under him, had felt truly full. Truly warm. Truly steady.
Those days had felt completely different from the emptiness in her heart now.
And that was why, without even realizing it, she had voiced her desire to keep following him.
At the same time, a wave of nervousness welled up inside her.
Because she had no idea whether Yukio would agree to such a selfish request.
"Of course."
Yukio agreed immediately.
"So long as it's the answer you arrived at after truly thinking it through—so long as it's what you genuinely want—then whether that means following me or not, I'll support it."
Nanase finally smiled in relief.
That brilliant smile was like the first ray of sunlight breaking through the clouds after a storm.
"Then from here on out, Senpai… I'll be in your care!"
...
For every 50 Power Stones → +1 extra chapter.