Clang—!
As she dashed forward, Ais drew Feather's Echo from its sheath.
The glint of steel flashed, and the wind roared in response!
"Ais! Wait—!"
Ryota called out instinctively, but what met him was a slash of sword light, aimed mercilessly at his right shoulder!
Zzzzzzt—
Kamui activated. Ryota's figure vanished, reappearing several dozen meters away from Ais.
Watching the blonde girl prepare for a second strike, he sighed, a hint of helplessness flashing across his face.
"Haah…"
There was no way he could bring himself to attack Ais.
Even something as simple as blocking her strike—he just couldn't do it.
"Looks like there's only one option left."
Boom!
In the next instant—
The Chakra around Ryota's body exploded into a frenzy!
With a low, rumbling sound, golden energy surged from his body, bursting outward into the night.
—It was Nine-Tails Chakra!
Golden Chakra roared and rumbled as it condensed in an instant into a massive Chakra hand, lunging straight at Ais.
Ais's expression shifted slightly. Her body instinctively stepped back half a pace, just about to chant to buff herself.
But just as the chant reached her throat, before she could speak a word, she felt her whole body lift off the ground—suspended in the air like a feather.
The blonde girl froze.
A flicker of surprise and confusion flashed in her golden eyes. She clearly hadn't expected Ryota to have such a bizarre technique.
With a twist of his wrist, Ryota hurled a kunai marked with the Flying Raijin Formula, embedding it into the ground.
"Ais, hang in there for a sec."
As soon as the thought crossed his mind—
The space quivered, a golden flash erupted!
Ryota and Ais vanished from the twilight-shrouded backyard of the Twilight Manor.
Fwoosh—!!
Not long after they left, space trembled again in Hephaestus Familia's forge.
With the signature flash of the Flying Raijin Formula, Ryota reappeared, bringing Ais along with him.
Ais was still being held mid-air by the massive Chakra hand formed from Nine-Tails Chakra. Though she had no idea what was going on, she was still struggling against the restraint.
She didn't say a word.
But Ryota could clearly see the rage and resistance burning in her golden eyes.
He had no doubt—if he let her go right now, the next thing greeting him would be Feather's Echo stabbed straight through his chest.
His gaze darkened slightly, and he muttered to himself with a curse:
"When I activate Infinite Tsukuyomi, I'm gonna make Freya lick my shoes every day…"
He didn't speak further, not even bothering to try soothing Ais.
Instead, he activated Rinnegan Perception.
In his vision, the threads of charm entangled deep within Ais's consciousness were instantly revealed.
Like a surgeon with decades of experience, he struck with precision—snap! The thread was cut clean.
In that single breath, Ais's golden eyes shrank sharply!
The fury burning in her gaze wavered, and her pupils refocused on Ryota.
In the next second, her entire aura settled back into calm.
Like a taut bowstring forcibly twisted out of shape suddenly snapping back to its original curve.
[Ding—Quest progress updated]
[Awaken key individuals to their true understanding of your affiliation (2/3)]
The system's mechanical voice signaled success. Only then did Ryota release the golden hand formed of Nine-Tails Chakra.
Ais landed on the stone floor of the forge.
She lowered her gaze to her hands, then looked back up at Ryota.
The wildness in her eyes was gone—no more madness, no more resistance. Only familiarity remained.
Ryota was about to speak, perhaps ask her something.
But to his surprise, Ais suddenly stepped forward and walked into his embrace.
She wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his chest. It was as if she were seeking reassurance, grounding herself in the warmth of something familiar to calm the chaos in her newly recovered mind.
Ryota froze for a moment, then raised his hand to gently pat her back.
He could feel her trembling slightly—not out of fear, but more like an emotional recoil from suppressing everything for far too long.
After a long pause—
Ais whispered softly:
"…Was it Freya?"
Ryota paused, lowering his head to look at the blonde girl in his arms, surprise flashing in his eyes.
He hadn't said a single word, yet she already saw through it?
As expected of the No.1 in his harem (loud and proud).
Ryota gave a slow nod.
"Yeah. It was her."
Ais didn't react much to that, simply stepping back from his embrace.
Gripping Feather's Echo tightly, she glanced down at the blade, as though confirming something.
Then, she turned and headed straight for the forge's exit.
"Eh?!"
Ryota blinked, eyes widening as he quickly reached out and pulled her back.
"Where are you going?!"
Ais paused and replied:
"To find Freya."
Ryota: "…"
He looked down at Feather's Echo in her hands, then at her face—calm, serene… and brimming with murderous intent.
This girl was clearly about to go cut down a god!!
"W-Wait! Calm down!"
Ryota quickly dragged her back, both hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her obviously fuming little head with nothing but eye contact.
After a good bit of back-and-forth and a few seconds of silence, Ais finally gave a soft "Mm," temporarily suppressing her fury.
"So what now?"
"You going to lift everyone into the air one by one like this?"
Ryota twitched. Why did that sound so violently phrased?
Then Ais continued:
"Want me to go tie a few up and bring them back?"
"…"
Looking at the deadly serious expression on the blonde girl's face, Ryota rubbed his forehead with a wry smile before saying:
"Wait here for me."
With that, he offered no further explanation and vanished in a blur.
Ten seconds later, Ryota reappeared in the forge.
This time, however, the massive golden Chakra hand in his right hand was clutching a wildly struggling… elven girl.
"Let me go, you damned Freya lackey!!"
"Just because the Loki Familia lost the War Game doesn't mean you can treat us like this!"
"Waaahh! Put me down!! Do you have any idea how disrespectful this is to an elf?!"
Lefiya thrashed more and more violently in the golden palm.
"And here I was telling Miss Ais how handsome you were!"
"And this is what you really are! You, you—!!"
Ryota twitched, just about to say something, when the furious elf suddenly paused, her gaze locking onto someone else in the room.
She stared dead-on at Ais, who was calmly sitting on a stool, quietly wiping her sword.
"...Miss Ais?!"
"What are you doing here?!"
Lefiya's face was filled with shock. Her eyes darted between Ryota and Ais, her voice rising half a pitch:
"Did he capture you too?!"
"He didn't do anything to you, did he?!"
Ryota: "…"
He turned to Ais with a sigh of resignation.
"Is she always this loud?"
Ais pondered for two seconds, then nodded seriously:
"Mm… maybe… all elves are like this?"
"Probably a racial thing."
Completely ignoring Lefiya's yapping, Ryota became a surgical expert once more, operating on the dumb elf.
With a snap of the thread, the power of charm faded from Lefiya's mental sea.
Her resistance stopped. Her expression shifted from teeth-gritting fury to utter bewilderment.
Then came a sudden and rapid return of clarity.
The dumb elf blinked at her hands, then at Ryota, then at Ais.
One second… two seconds…
"...Ryota, you're back!"
That face, which just moments ago had maxed out its rage stat, suddenly flushed crimson.
And then, in the next instant, she burst into tears in the golden Chakra hand!
"I knew something was weird at the Twilight Manor today!"
"It's because you weren't there, waaahhh!!!"
"You—you didn't even say goodbye before… before Freya kidnapped you!"
"I thought you really changed, waaahhhh!!!"
Ryota: "…"
At the same time, the system's mechanical voice chimed in again:
[Ding! Main branch quest "Awaken key individuals to their true understanding of your affiliation" complete!]
[Calculating rewards—]
[Reward 1: Special Nine-Tails Chakra +10%!]
[Reward 2: Sage Jutsu Chakra +10%!]
[Reward 3: Hashirama Cells +10%!]
[Reward 4: Kekkei Genkai Wood Style: Deep Forest Emergence unlocked!]
[Reward 5: Chakra capacity +200,000!]
A barrage of system notifications exploded in his ears—an absolutely luxurious reward set.
But Ryota's expression didn't budge an inch.
"This is already Phase 5,"
He muttered inwardly,
"If the rewards weren't this good, I'd be calling bullshit on you, System."
Shifting his gaze, Ryota looked down at his palm.
Chakra surged quietly. A greenish wooden pattern began to spread across the back of his hand, like a forest taking root, like life awakening.
This was the first Wood Style jutsu he had truly mastered.
"Deep Forest Emergence…"
This jutsu could instantly summon countless towering trees...
And those trees weren't just for show—they were real, usable weapons!
Offense, defense, control—it could do it all!
Ryota narrowed his eyes. Inside him, the resonance between Hashirama Cells, Sage Chakra, and Nine-Tails Chakra grew stronger, as if completing a long-lost power circuit.
But what he truly looked forward to wasn't the Wood Style.
It was the fusion progress to come!
Sure enough, in the next second, the system voice returned:
[Ding—Chakra Fruit Fusion Progress +9%]
[Current Progress: 20%]
Then—silence. No follow-up.
Ryota waited two seconds. Then two more.
Only Lefiya's sniffling after crying and the sound of his own fingers tapping the table filled the silence.
"…That's it?"
His brow furrowed slightly, a trace of doubt rising in his heart.
[Fusion progress at 20%], and a main branch quest completed perfectly.
Before, moments like this always came with new skills or powers.
But this time, the system just… stopped?
No new Rinnegan abilities, not even a minor one.
"…Something's off."
Ryota narrowed his eyes, his mind racing through the system's usual logic.
Then, a possibility surfaced.
"Could it be… waiting for something?"
In other words, maybe the system was holding off on the next reward because he was about to enter the "next phase."
And that reward wouldn't be just another jutsu—it would be a game-changing power-up.
If the system was keeping quiet now, there could only be two reasons:
It was prepping something huge.
Ryota exhaled slowly. Whether his guess was right or not, he didn't intend to dwell.
The fusion had definitely progressed.
The Rinnegan's aura in his eyes grew denser—like a rising sun still below the horizon, slowly but surely being born.
And once that sun rose, he could cast the entire world of Orario into an eternal moonlit night.
One hundred percent.
Once that point was reached, he wouldn't hesitate to activate Infinite Tsukuyomi.
To rewrite this Freya-twisted Orario from the ground up.
Whether to restore or remake it—
He just wanted the world to return to the version that belonged to him.
His thoughts settled, Ryota looked at the two girls in front of him.
Lefiya's eyes were still red, tears clinging to her lashes.
Ais sat beside her, gently patting her back, occasionally offering quiet words of comfort.
It was a peaceful scene—so peaceful, it felt like everything was already over.
Until the elven girl noticed Ryota watching her and looked up, her voice still slightly nasal:
"Ryota, how… how did you find out?"
"I mean, Freya's charm is so strong… even Lady Loki didn't notice."
Ais looked up too, glancing at Ryota with a hint of curiosity in her eyes.
Charm was a power that even gods couldn't resist.
Yet Ryota not only resisted—it seemed like he could cut through it.
What kind of absurd ability was that?
Facing their inquisitive gazes, Ryota just smiled faintly and pointed to his eyes.
"It's because of these eyes."
Almost reflexively, Ais and Lefiya both looked.
They were met with an utterly calm pair of black eyes.
But in the very next second, a familiar red-and-black pattern began to slowly spin deep within his pupils.
And within those rotating tomoe… faint ripple patterns began to emerge.
"My dōjutsu is constantly evolving,"
"To Freya's charm… I'm basically immune."
"…"
Just one sentence, yet it left both girls completely stunned.
Lefiya opened her mouth, but no words came.
Ais stared blankly at his eyes, as if trying to see what was hidden in the swirl of tomoe.
After a long moment, both of them slowly nodded.
Though they didn't completely understand what "dōjutsu" meant, thinking back to all the mind-blowing feats Ryota had pulled off—
Those eyes really did seem like they possessed a power beyond all restraint.
And for a brief moment, in both their eyes, a new light appeared.
It wasn't just admiration.
Nor was it just awe.
It was—
A silent, soul-deep, nearly instinctual reverence and belief.
Their god Loki had descended upon Orario as a divine being.
But at this moment, the smiling boy before them…
Seemed more reliable than any god.