"Oh, it's you guys! Long time no see," Akira called out casually, still shoving mouthfuls of instant ramen into his mouth. His eyes lit up as he spotted Iori and the Togi siblings stepping in.
The group froze instantly. Their eyes widened at the absurd scene before them: a small mountain of empty and half-empty ramen cups completely surrounding Akira. For a moment, they had no idea how to react.
They had been expecting a calm, normal reunion, but well, it was Akira, and nothing about him was ever normal.
Finally, Togi Shiro broke the silence and approached him nervously. "A… Akira onii-chan… It's been a long time. How have you been?"
Akira stood up and gave her a head pat. "Oh, Shiro… you look small as always," he said with a smile.
Shiro blushed. "I'm not small! I grew up, too!"
Akira chuckled, still patting her head. "Sure, sure."
Then he sensed someone glaring at him with murderous intent. "Oh… Sei, you haven't changed at all either," he said casually.
Seichirō's tone remained calm, almost unnervingly so. "Welcome back to Japan. I hope your trip was… enjoyable."
Akira smirked. "Well, it was fun."
His eyes then drifted to someone unusually silent. "Iori… you're being uncharacteristically quiet."
Iori, whose face looked comically swollen, as if he'd been through a battle with a brick wall, said. "Oh, come on… aren't you even a little worried after seeing my face?"
Akira looked at him and said. "Let me guess, you said something dumb, and Erika probably beat you up for it, right? But your healing ability should have fixed it by now."
"I… I'm healing," Iori said sadly. "In fact, I've already healed quite a lot from before."
Akira looked at Erika in mock shock, silently asking just how badly Erika had thrashed him.
Erika herself looked flustered. "I just beat him normally… but for some reason, it was stronger than usual."
Selena's voice echoed in his mind. "She probably became stronger after becoming a Blazer, so maybe that's why".
"I see," Akira replied silently.
Shiro's gaze drifted to the mountain of ramen cups surrounding Akira. Her voice wavered slightly as she asked, "Akira onii-chan… are you really eating all of that yourself?"
"Yeah," Akira said casually. "I kind of messed up an experiment. Now I have to eat fifty people's worth of food per meal to survive."
Shiro blinked. "I see sounds tough...Wait… what?"
Akira's eyes lit up with a sudden idea. "Well, since everyone's here… let's go shopping for materials!"
Everyone looked at him with a look that said Seriously, we just met, but quickly realized this was exactly like Akira, and sighed in resignation.
By the time they finished shopping and began walking home, the sun was beginning to set, casting long orange streaks across the city. Akira walked slightly ahead with Erika and Shiro, smiling casually while sipping on a high-calorie energy drink. Seichirō and Iori lagged behind, struggling under the weight of enormous bags.
"Hey, Akira Kun," Iori asked, panting slightly, "why are we carrying all this? You have storage magic, don't you?"
Akira waved a hand dismissively. "Because they're literally full. That's why you're carrying them."
"But why only us? If we shared it, it'd be more manageable," Iori pressed.
"I can't carry them because I'm eating. And how could I make girls carry them? That's not gentlemanly," Akira said.
Iori sighed, shaking his head in disbelief. "I can't believe you can still eat after annihilating that all-you-can-eat buffet earlier."
"Yeah… I might have underestimated my hunger," Akira said with a sigh. "I need to do something about it before it gets worse."
Seichirō finally asked, "So, why did you buy all these foods, medicines, chemicals, and tools for? Are you going to do some weird experiment again?"
Everyone fell silent, curious about what he was planning.
Akira grinned. "I'm making superfoods. Ones that are extremely calorie-dense and packed with vitamins, so just a few can fill me up for a while."
Erika frowned. "But didn't you say… if you eat some magical creatures, you don't need this much?"
"True," Akira admitted, "but most magical creatures are sentient. Some can even talk. I feel weird eating them."
"Yeah… makes sense," Erika, who had similar concerns herself, nodded understandingly.
As they neared the familiar empty park of encounters, Iori pointed excitedly. "Hey, look! It's that park! Think we might meet some new girl here again?"
Erika rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, Nii-san… It's been years since we met a girl here. There's no way…"
She stopped mid-sentence because she saw someone sitting on the swing.
Just like many times before, but something is different. This time, the girl is not a little girl but a high school-aged beauty, and for some reason, she was wearing a bunny girl costume.
Shiro tilted her head, completely confused by what she was seeing. "Why is she wearing a bunny girl costume?"
"Maybe she is from a cosplay convention or something?" Erika replied with uncertainty.
But Akira was silent as he felt like the girl in front of him felt familiar, so he used his mystic eyes of truth, and looked at her to see who she was, but his eyes widened seeing her name, and he silently contacted his sister. "Hey… sister… what the hell is she doing here?"
Selena's voice answered in his mind. "I have no idea, either, brother."
"Huh, really… I thought you knew everything," Akira replied.
Selena replied with annoyance tinged in her voice. "What? You think I have clairvoyance like abilities like Merlin or something?"
"Well… you do have that trapped in a tower in another dimension vibe, going on like Merlin, and you do act like you know everything," Akira teased.
Selena sighed. "I can only see you, brother. You and what's immediately around you. And others think I know came from your memories and our parents' teachings, but I'm not all-knowing".
Akira sighed and asked. "Well, dear sister, can you at least tell me your thoughts on why the hell that Sakurajima Mai is doing in this park?"
Yes, that girl sitting on the swing is really Sakurajima Mai, the main heroine from Bunny Girl Senpai.