(Kai POV – Yokai Academy, Swim Club)
I finish changing and head back out, catching my reflection in a mirror on the way, and I can't help but pause to admire the view.
A month of relentless training, the Hanma bloodline, and my Natural Restoration trait quietly refining my body have all done wonders for my appearance. And that's before I even factor in the Heavenly Restriction.
"Damn." I grin at my reflection. "It's genuinely hard not to turn into a narcissist."
My physique is lean and compact, with every muscle clean and defined without an ounce of unnecessary bulk. It's both functional and easy on the eyes.
Still, as nice as admiring myself is, there's someone I'd rather do so instead.
"So?" I ask the moment I step out, finding Moka right where I left her. "How do I look?"
"You look… good…" She mumbles, her face going pink as she very deliberately stares away from me. One little fang peeks shyly over her lip as she fights a smile.
"If you say so, then it must be true." I nod, satisfied. Then I tilt my head, letting a grin creep in. "Although… I do think this is a bit unfair."
"Unfair?" She blinks. "What is?"
"You get to see me in a swimsuit." I lean in slightly. "But I don't get to see you in one. I wouldn't even need you to swim. You trying one on would make my day."
Moka jolts like she's been struck by lightning.
"Eh—?! M-Me?! In a swimsuit?! In f-front of you?!" She short-circuits on the spot, face flushing from pink to a deep, vivid crimson, swaying slightly like she might genuinely topple over.
I laugh and reach out to pat her head before she faints.
"Relax, I'm just teasing." I soothe her. "You're adorable in anything. Or nothing in particul—" I cut myself off. "…Anyway."
'…It really would be nice to see, though.' I sigh internally. 'But if Inner finds out, she might… will actually kill me.'
Putting my delusions aside, my expression becomes serious, and I lower my voice. "Remember what I told you, alright?"
Moka straightens, giving me a small, determined nod. "Mm. Don't worry. I'll be careful."
"Good girl." I smile, and Moka giggles.
Then, I turn toward the pool, and am immediately intercepted.
"There you are~." Tamao materializes in front of me, her smile honey-sweet, her eyes raking over me with an appetite she's not quite managing to hide. "We've all been waiting for you."
She glides in close and reaches to hug my arm… and I sidestep it, smooth and casual, drifting toward the poolside as though I simply happened to move at that exact moment.
Her fingers close on empty air.
"Can't wait to get in." I say brightly, pretending not to notice. "It's been ages since I've had a proper swim. Hope I'm not too rusty."
'There are very few exceptions to the girls who can hug me.' I scoff internally, picturing a certain blue-haired succubus. 'Besides, I'm spoken for. And I know exactly what those hands of yours want to do to me.'
Tamao's smile tightens at the corners. And for a moment, cold malice and hunger shows through, before disappearing in an instant as her sweet mask slides back into place.
"Swimming's like riding a bicycle. You never really forget~." She recovers smoothly, falling into step beside me. "But I'd be happy to give you some… personal guidance. Just in case."
"Careful." I flash an easy grin. "You might find out I'm a better swimmer than you."
"Mm. I find that quite hard to believe." Her voice dips in amusement, as she steps down into the water ahead of me. "Come on. Let's head out toward the center, there's so much more room to practice there."
'Where the water's deepest, and escape is hardest, you mean.' I keep my expression oblivious and wade in after her.
Around us, the pool is alive with noise, splashing, laughter, a dozen boys having the time of their lives as they swim with the girls.
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We reach the center of the pool quickly, and the moment we do, I feel the atmosphere shift.
It's subtle at first. The girls scattered through the water begin to move with purpose, drifting between the boys and the pool's edges, forming a loose ring that quietly seals off every route of escape.
Then my ears catch the next change, a soft, wet ripple of flesh reshaping itself. Bipedal legs fusing into long, scaled tails. All around the pool, the "club members" begin to transform silently, closing in on their oblivious prey.
One of those changes happens in the water directly behind me.
"Well." I exhale, almost relieved. "This is convenient. Saves me a lot of trouble."
I turn to face Tamao with an easy smile, just as the first screams tear across the pool.
"G-Get off! Why are you biting me—?!" A boy thrashes away from two of the girls, but they're far faster than him, cutting through the water and quickly reaching him. Their lovely faces split open along the jaw like snakes and rows of needle-thin, piranha teeth sink into his shoulder.
He goes rigid. Then, in seconds, his skin withers and sags, the youth draining out of him until he's a gasping, gaunt, hollow-cheeked husk of the boy from moments ago.
The only silver lining being he's still breathing… barely.
'I don't really care what happens to them, but I doubt I can remain uninvolved much longer.' I think calmly.
"You don't seem surprised." Tamao's voice draws my attention back. Her ears have stretched into delicate fins, her legs melded into a shimmering tail. Her eyes narrow with suspicion. "You knew… didn't you? You knew what we are, and you walked into the water anyway."
"So what if I did?" I tilt my head, entirely unbothered.
"…Then you're unbelievably foolish." She says, baring her teeth in a menacing smile. "But I'm glad for it. I've had my eye on you since the opening ceremony, since you—"
"Yeah, yeah. I smell amazing." I wave a hand dismissively, cutting her off mid-monologue. "You're hardly the first to mention it. Honestly, the others who told me that were way cuter than you, so you can save your flattery for someone who cares to hear it."
Tamao stops. Her mouth hangs open mid-word, the entire seductive-villain momentum derailed in an instant. She stares at me like I'm speaking an alien language.
Then, predictably, the shock curdles into fury.
"…You dare?!" Her voice cracks like a whip, loud enough to cut briefly through the chaos. "Are you calling me ugly?!"
"Hm? I said the others were cuter." I shrug, then make a show of looking her over, slow and appraising, chin in hand. "You're the one who jumped straight to 'ugly.'" I nod, as if conceding a fair point. "But now that you mention it… I have to respect the self-awareness. Not everyone can be that honest about themselves."
The pool goes silent.
Even the screaming falters. The mermaids pause, and the boys blink in the sudden stillness, and a dozen pairs of eyes swivel toward me with identical expressions of pure, slack-jawed disbelief.
'It's not even an insult. It's just the truth.' I think, completely serene. 'Next to Moka and Kurumu, there's no contest.'
In front of me, Tamao has begun to tremble. Not with fear… but fury. Her sweet mask is gone entirely now, her beautiful face twisted, her tail lashing the water behind her.
"I was going to be generous." She says, her voice low, shaking and absolutely glacial. "Drain you slowly, and savour you. I was even gonna let you live." Her fins flare. "But you? You don't deserve a single drop of mercy."
She lunges, fast as a striking eel, the water exploding around her.
'Let the games begin.'
My muscles coil, and despite the water's resistance, I ignore it entirely and move.
The suddenness of it, and the sheer force behind the push, makes the water detonate. A wall of water erupts where I'd been standing, the shockwave alone blasting Tamao backward, but I'm already gone.
I come to a stop at the far end of the pool, water churning violently in my wake, rushing to fill the channel I'd torn straight through it just to get here.
'Hm. I'm pretty quick even underwater.' I note, mildly impressed with myself. 'If this pool were bigger, I'd see if I could run across the surface.'
But that's a thought for another day. Right now, the nearest boy, the gaunt one, half a mermaid's jaw from being finished off, is the priority. I grab his arm and hurl him out of the water onto the tiles, then push off again before anyone even reacts.
The mermaids snap out of their stupor and lunge to intercept me, but they don't even get close.
I don't bother swimming. I just run, brute-forcing my way through the water like it's a minor inconvenience, weaving between grasping claws and snapping jaws faster than any of them can track. Boy by boy, I pluck potential victims out of the swarm and fling them to safety on the poolside, until the only ones left treading water are me and a very large number of increasingly furious mermaids.
"Phew." I exhale, brushing wet hair back. "There. Now there aren't any liabilities in the way."
I'm met with a ring of hostile glares, the mermaids drawing in around me, hungry and seething.
"You bastard!" Tamao glides to the front, her tail cutting the water as the circle tightens. "You're fast. I'll give you that. But it won't save you now. You're surrounded and trapped. There's nowhere left to run."
I raise an eyebrow.
"I think there's been a bit of a misunderstanding." I say pleasantly, holding up one finger. "First… I'm not trapped in this pool with you. You're trapped in here with me." I grin, raising a second finger. "Second! I'm not surrounded by all of you. You're the ones surrounded… by me."
There's a moment of stunned silence. Then the circle erupts into mocking laughter.
"You're insane." Tamao says, the amusement draining from her voice into something cold and final. "Girls… get him!"
As one, they dive beneath the surface, and the water comes alive. They circle me at blinding speed, faster and faster, until the pool itself begins to spin and a churning vortex closes in on all sides, the current clawing at me from every direction, trying to drag me down and apart.
I watch it form with idle interest.
"You know…" I say conversationally, as though we're not standing in the eye of a manmade whirlpool. "Fish swim in schools for a reason. There's safety in numbers. The more of you there are, the better your odds against a predator."
I take a single step forward. The vortex slams against me, but I don't so much as sway, easily resisting the crushing force.
"But that's the thing about schooling, isn't it?" I continue, planting my foot. "Fish that move in groups… those are the prey. The real predators… they hunt alone." My grin sharpens. "And right now, in this entire pool… I'm the only one swimming solo."
I don't give them the chance to process it.
My hand shoots into the swirling wall of bodies and closes around the nearest tail, yanking one of the mermaids clean out of the formation. Her eyes blow wide, disbelief flooding them, never having seen my arm move.
"Bad luck." I tell her, hauling her up over my head by the tail, the rest of the swarm faltering as their perfect vortex stutters. "Don't worry, though. This'll only sting a little."
Then I bring her down.
"SWORDFISH!"
I swing her like a blade, slamming her full-force into the water — and the pool splits. The impact carves straight through the vortex and the surface alike, a canyon tearing open across the entire pool as a wall of displaced water erupts skyward in a roaring geyser. Mermaids are flung in every direction, tumbling end over end through the air, and for a moment the water level visibly plunges, the bottom of the pool laid bare in a ragged trench.
…
'…Okay, that might've been slightly excessive.'
I glance down at the mermaid I'd used, now embedded face-first in the cracked concrete at the pool's floor, right up until the water comes crashing back in to fill the void, ripping her loose and tossing her limp form into the churn.
The whirlpool is gone. The formation is shattered. The remaining mermaids bob in the settling water around me, dizzy, soaked, and now staring at me with raw, undisguised terror.
"…Huh." I look around at the carnage, mildly disappointed. "One swing and you guys are done? Come on. I was just getting warmed up."
'It can't end this quickly.' I frown. 'If they surrender, I'll lose my ticket.'
I weigh my options, and realise that grinding through the rest of these mermaids one by one would be unbearably dull.
So I won't.
With a single thought, I switch off my Heavenly Restriction, and the effect is immediate. My monstrous physical strength drains away in an instant, the water suddenly heavier against my limbs. But I don't mind the trade, because in its place, my energy floods back.
'Good thing I tested this beforehand.' I think, my reserves full. A handy little discovery from this past month.
The water rushes back over me as I move, and I don't hesitate.
'Sunlight Spear.'
The energy answers instantly, bubbling up through my nerves, bright and electric. But I don't shape it into a spear. I don't gather it to my hand. Instead, I let it loose outward, straight through my skin, in every direction at once, at full power.
It takes a fraction of a second before the churning, shadowed pool floods gold. Brilliant arcs of lightning tear through the water in every direction, snaking outward like hungry sharks, and they find every single mermaid at once, slamming into, over, and through them.
The screams erupt all around me in a discordant symphony, and the sharp tang of fried fish fills the air.
But I'm not actually trying to kill them. So I cut the flow of power after a single second. It's just enough to put every last one of them down without cooking them alive.
The instant the light dies, I flip the Heavenly Restriction back on, and strength rushes back into my body. Not as powerful as before, but…
'I'll be back to a hundred percent shortly.' I think before glancing at the devastated pool… at the mermaids floating limp and twitching across the surface, smoke curling faintly off their scales. 'Nothing personal, ladies. You just happened to be convenient targets.'
And right on cue—
[Feat Achieved! Defeat a school of Mermaids while submerged in water. Reward: 1× Golden Ability Gacha Ticket.]
I perk up immediately.
'Gold?' My disappointment from earlier evaporates on the spot. 'That makes this whole thing worth it.'
Without hesitation, I use the ticket. Light swirls, the gacha spins, and…
[Tantric Healing]
|Rare Ability|
[Allows the user to heal ailments and negative status effects through sexual intimacy. Even scars, old wounds, and diseases can be mended, and curses themselves mitigated. The greater the level of intimacy and release, the more potent the healing.]
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A/N: Hello Everyone! How are you all? If you've enjoyed the chapter and book thus far, please consider leaving me some comments, reviews, or power stones. It really helps the book out.
So, some things to clarify. I decided to change how the heavenly restriction works in regards to energy. Initially, I planned for him to start at 0 energy, which was fine... But kinda prevented stuff like this. It became quite limited, and I didn't want the entire fic to be about the heavenly restriction. After all, we want to see all the cool abilities being used and doing stuff! So, I did this.
The way it works is equivalent exchange but rather than using his energy and draining it, it replaces Energy for power. And the power scales to how much energy he would have. It's more like converting one to the other. So, when it's disabled, the strength is converted back to energy. Something like that. And the max strength he has is based in the amount of energy he has. It's converted from his current reserves, and his energy basically recovers, increasing his power, but he won't have access to it while it's active.
This way, he can actually switch and strategize with his abilities, and it's more dynamic. It still slightly restricts his ability usage, but not all or nothing anymore. Do you think it's too much?🙃
But moving in from that... I tried to make it the chapter fun. And it was certainly a lot more silly than I'm used to, especially the swordfish part. Another things I wasn't too sure about (since I'm more conservative, I guess), was the Moka swimsuit comment,😅. The or nothing at all. Felt kinda sleazy. Even the Good Girl comment. Part of me wonders if it's offensive, which maybe I'm weird for worrying about😭. Idk, let me know🫠, then I'll be aware of it in the future...
You can also read 8 chapters ahead and support me at [email protected]/AMV_WEAKLY
But yeah, that's all from me. Hopefully you enjoyed, and have a wonderful rest of your day/night😁