"Oh?"
Genji crossed the threshold, his gaze falling on the petite figure bathed in the afternoon light. Seeing her posture—that of a hunter who had long since scented the wind—a flash of genuine appreciation crossed his eyes.
"It seems you knew I was coming."
He didn't waste time with the theatrics of a typical deity. He walked straight toward the center of the hall, his boots clicking rhythmically against the hardwood.
"Yes, Kami-sama."
Tsukuyo leaned forward, performing a flawless ancient salute. As the title left her lips, Kirukiru Amou's brow twitched with irritation. At the entrance, Rin and Nono froze, their faces pale with disbelief.
"Kami-sama?" Rin whispered, clutching the doorframe.
"You know who I am?" Genji asked, ignoring the girls at the door to focus entirely on the blind prodigy.
"No, Tsukuyo does not know your name," she replied, her head shaking slightly. "However, Tsukuyo can hear it."
"Hear it?"
"Yes." She pointed to her ear. "From the moment you descended, the very frequency of the academy shifted. The wind died, the birds fell silent, and even the dust in this room is trembling. It is the instinctive submission of the world before its superior. Moreover..." Her lips curled into a tiny, knowing smile. "I heard you defeat the Empress. I heard the baton shatter Rin's mask. I heard it all as clearly as if I were standing in that hallway."
As she recounted the details of the battle—the specific resonance of the baton, the exact point of impact on the porcelain mask—Amou's expression darkened. The gymnasium was hundreds of meters from the teaching building, separated by stone, timber, and the cacophony of thousands of students. To reconstruct a battle in real-time from such a distance was a feat that bordered on the divine.
For Amou, who relied on her physical dominance to control her environment, this was an unsettling realization. The "rabbit" had heard her every move, and she had been utterly oblivious.
"Splendid," Genji said, stopping exactly five steps away. He lightly clapped his hands, his eyes burning with undisguised interest. "To reconstruct reality from sound alone... such acuity is rare even in Orario, a city that breathes monsters. Your value far surpasses mere destructive power."
In the evaluation of a God, raw strength was a common currency. But this—this sensory evolution—was a master-key. In the Dungeon, where light was a luxury and traps were a certainty, Tsukuyo was a living radar.
"Kami-sama flatters me," she replied, bowing her head. Her silver-white hair slid forward, partially veiling her face. "This is a desperate trick, forced upon me by a world of darkness. If it pleases a God, I am humbled. But I must ask... why come to this remote corner for me? Am I truly the object of your search?"
"I came precisely for you, Inaba Tsukuyo," Genji said, his voice decisive. "I need your sword. Or, more accurately, I need you to join my Familia."
The word hung in the air, heavy and absolute.
Despite her grandmaster composure, a ripple of emotion broke across Tsukuyo's face. A faint, porcelain blush touched her cheeks. No matter how many masters she had defeated, she was still a girl in her teens. To have a deity descend from the heavens to declare his need for her was a strike far more direct than any blade.
"Familia member?" she repeated softly. She could feel his gaze—intense, sincere, and devoid of the pity she usually sensed from mortals. "Since Kami-sama is so candid, I will not feign indifference. But I am curious... why go to such lengths? What is this world of yours like?"
Genji looked back at the girls gathered behind him—the Empress, the Sword, and the Shadow. He saw the same hunger in all their eyes.
"That world..." Genji began, his voice dropping into a resonant, storyteller's tone. "To understand it, you must first understand the greatest poison for an immortal: Monotony. We Gods spent eons in the Heavens. Day after day, year after year, in a suffocating perfection that drove many to madness. Some chose suicide just to sleep for ten thousand years. Others turned to darker 'games' just to feel a spark of novelty."
The girls stared at him, their understanding of divinity being dismantled in real-time.
"So, we made a pact," Genji continued. "To escape the stagnation of the Heavens, we descended to the lower world. We sealed our power to live as mortals, to taste your wine and feel your struggles. We bestow a gift called Falna—the key to unlocking the shackles of mortal potential. Your life becomes an epic of growth, betrayal, and love, played out in the depths of the Dungeon—a bottomless abyss of monsters."
He smiled, a sharp, enigmatic expression. "You ask why we are obsessed with this game? It is because of the miracle of uncertainty. In Heaven, we are omniscient; the movie has been seen ten thousand times. But in the lower world, life is a beautiful, unpredictable struggle against the ultimate laws of the universe."
He extended his hand toward Tsukuyo.
"I offer you a seat at that table. I offer you a world where your darkness is your greatest weapon, and where the horizon never ends. Will you stay here in this small cage, or will you come with me and show the Gods what your sword can truly do?"