Chapter 2, Part 1 / Taking Things, One Step at a Time


|-|/ 1 \|-|

Isayuki could certainly say that he wasn't prepared for whatever Murasame had in store for him. Honestly, he didn't know what else to expect, considering the job description had been severely vague, if not lacking. There was no official contract that Isayuki signed, so the entire thing was very sketchy at best. Murasame thought it would be far too bothersome to get that sort of documents prepared for someone who couldn't even gather their own personal information.

It wasn't as if Murasame didn't try to. It seemed like one big scandal, waiting to happen if it ever reached the ears of the public. Having someone working for the Phoenix Conglomerate without the proper paperwork could devolve into a lawsuit, even if Isayuki was accepting of it.

Simply put, Murasame couldn't fill in Isayuki's residence as "currently homeless" and Isayuki's social insurance number as "non-existence". That would likely trigger some more red flags on the system, so until Murasame could figure out a way to magically make that information appear valid, he needed to pretend that the paperwork would be personally dealt with by himself.

And thus, Isayuki's first day as Murasame's assistant started.

"Kid! I need these papers organized and stapled!"

"Y-Yes…!"

"Kid! Have these folders be sent down to the third floor!"

"R-Right…!"

"Kid! Where's my coffee!?"

"I-In my hand! I'm bringing it to you!"

Isayuki was immediately put to work and he was already feeling the workload that Murasame goes through everyday. He didn't exactly have a preconceived notion of how a person usually worked, but if he were to compare the nurses, who sometimes took time during their job to gossip, and Murasame, who looked like he was dealing with five things at a single instance…

"Damn it, kid! Didn't I say two sugars, two cream!?"

"H-Huh!?"

"This is four sugars, four cream! Head back over and remake it!"

"O-Of course, Master Murasame! Right away!"

Murasame wasn't dumb enough to trust Isayuki with anything very complex. The provided jobs were one equivalent to what would be given to a highschool intern student that they would get from time to time, only that Murasame never took one in yet.

Although, a normal intern might have been able to keep up with all these simple requests. Isayuki, on the other hand, looked as if he was going to cry at any given moment, but he never did. The panicking attitude caused Murasame to sigh.

"D-Did you want something else, Master Murasame…?"

Drawing back from the spreadsheet on his computer and putting a call on hold, Murasame sighed and slammed his hand on the desk. It made Isayuki jump a bit, but after a brief silence, Murasame tapped his fingers on the table to get the coffee brought over to him.

"You were not this skittish during our little raid a few days ago…"

"Sorry," Isayuki wryly laughed. "You're doing a lot of work here and I guess I'm afraid that I might be holding you back. That nervousness might be showing…"

"Stop being nervous. That's bothering me more than anything. I can't focus on my damn work if you keep scampering around like I'm going to execute you if you do anything less than a perfect job."

"Uhm…"

"Right, healing and regeneration. I could probably cut your head off and you would still be alive."

"I'd rather not test that out," Isayuki gulped. "That sounds… very painful."

Murasame grunted in defeat.

"Look, that's not my point. Just take a walk around the building to cool yourself or something."

"O-Okay…"

Isayuki bowed and walked out of the office, leaving Murasame to shake his head. It was ultimately his idea to take Isayuki under his wing, but he didn't realize the cost of upkeep to his certified superiority was higher than he could have expected. He could imagine that actual teachers would have their hands more busy with multiple students under their tutelage, but in Murasame's defense, he still had a whole other job to do.

Even if it was Isayuki's first day on a job ever, this was being over-the-top.

Murasame found himself sighing once again, sipping on his coffee before continuing his work. Only for him to slow place it down with his eyes narrowing on the pitch black color.

"... This is really bitter. How did the kid go from one extreme to the other?"

|-|/ 2 \|-|

"Go on a walk, go on a walk, go… on a walk…"

Although Murasame gave him that command, Isayuki wasn't sure what constituted a walk. There hadn't been any range to go, nor a time limit to return to. He figured he would go back to the coffee machine and sort something out for himself. It was one of the things Murasame taught him to use within the hour he first stepped into the building, so it must have been really important.

"It seems like a lot of people use this. There was a machine on every floor, wasn't there? It's so weird too. How could something like this make a lot of drinks for everyone? Everyone probably has an easier time making their drinks though, compared to me…"

Slot the coffee pod into the machine, press a specific set of buttons and wait until the machine stops pouring out this supposed drink Murasame favors.

"Wait a minute…"

Going over the steps in his step, he realized he forgot all about the sugar and cream in the moment, which caused him to panic in front of the machine.

"Aaaah! Master Murasame isn't going to like that coffee!"

He was about to turn around, but the previous command of taking a walk overridden his immediate departure. Has it been enough time yet to count as a walk? Has he gone far enough that it would count as a walk? To both concerns, the answer was certainly not. After all, he had only gone to the private break room in a matter of a few minutes, so Isayuki believed that Murasame would have gotten more distracted if he had suddenly returned with the packets of sugar and small cups of cream.

"Being an assistant is harder than I thought…"

Isayuki fell to his knees, depressed from the dilemma.

"If I can't handle things like this, how am I supposed to call myself a student of Master Murasame!? I'd be dishonoring his name with my inabilities! I told myself that I have to be strong! This must be a trial of his that I must undergo!"

In a flash of inspiration, Isayuki rose back up on his feet, raising his arms upwards.

"This must be the real message he was sending to me! He must have recognized at first glance that I already messed up my second cup of coffee that he specifically asked for. I have to practice making them for Master Murasame in order to ensure I won't mess it up again!"

Isayuki reached out to the box of coffee pods, almost slamming it into the coffee machine. He then quickly snagged a mug from the cupboards and placed it underneath the dispenser. To make sure he wasn't going to forget again, he snuck into the refrigerator, seizing a handful of small cream cups here, and tucked a hand into a drawer, grabbing a sleuth of sugar packets.

Placing them onto the counter, Isayuki stared at the pile for a few seconds.

"So how much is two anyways…?"

… By the way, it wasn't that Isayuki didn't remember what Murasame said about making two sugars, two creams. Isayuki had difficulties in counting when he was so nervous. However, his mathematical skills were still very weak, slowly pondering at the answer.

"Two sugars, two creams…"

Isayuki started to slowly raise his fingers accordingly.

"That should… be the right amount..."

After raising two fingers correctly, he parsed through the sugars and cream for the right amount.

"I should end up with four in total… Because two plus two…" Isayuki slowly counted the required additions to the coffee. "That's four. I think?"

With a confident nod, Isayuki proceeded with the order of operations, pressing the appropriate buttons and waiting patiently for the coffee to spill out into the mug. Isayuki then added the sugar and cream, mixing them into the drink for a crisp brown color.

"It smells really good too…"

Isayuki was tempted to drink from it, but he couldn't. As long as this wasn't muscle memory, he needed to get in more practice. Taking a sip would simply be a distraction.

So once again, Isayuki took out another mug, and placed it into the coffee machine.

He forgot the coffee pod this time, causing a diluted brown color to emerge from the machine. Isayuki blinked, grumbling to himself, and set the mug aside to get out another mug.

… Needless to say, this kept going on for a bit of time.

That was until an intern walked by the break room and noticed that there were around fifteen cups of coffee on the counter, alongside a mysterious "girl" that she had never seen around the office before. The intern paused, wondering if this was something that she wanted to get involved with, but much to her better judgment, she ended up heading in.

"Any reason why you're trying to beat out a coffee chain?"

"A coffee… chain? Uhm, huh?"

The voice, while soft, did surprise her since the tone was evidently of a male. Isayuki tilted his head and his hair antenna poked out its usual question mark.

"I was making a joke. Seriously though, what's up with the cups?"

"I'm practicing."

"Practicing… to make coffee?"

The intern glanced over to see that each cup had been widely inconsistent with one another. Somehow, each shade of coffee had been wildly different to the next. There was even one that was simply a cup of hot water and nothing else. That's not a mistake a normal person could make.

There was, however, one cup that looked perfect, so she reached out for one.

"Mind if I take one?"

"Oh, go ahead. I was wondering what I should do with all of these."

"You can always pour them out."

"And waste them!? I can't do that!"

"... I see."

If anyone would be asked to see this odd scene alongside the intern, they would probably agree with her that whatever Isayuki was doing was already rather wasteful. Though, the intern wasn't really keen on keeping up with whatever Isayuki was talking about, so she shrugged and sipped the coffee.

"I haven't seen anyone like you around here before. Are you new here?"

"Yeah," Isayuki nodded. "I started today. I'm Master Murasame's personal assistant."

"Ouch."

"Ouch…?"

"Yeah. That's some tough luck you got there. Hopefully, you're hanging in there."

Isayuki tilted his head. "Sorry, I… don't understand."

"Well, you're working directly with Murasame, right? That sounds troublesome, even for interns like me. Although he's got a good reputation for pushing out business plans like it's nothing serious, no one really likes his condescending attitude. I can't even handle him in a single board meeting, and I don't have to say anything as an intern during those."

"Master Murasame is a good person though."

The intern scoffed. "A good person? You're not being forced to say that?"

Isayuki glanced at the intern, frowning with confusion.

"Oh, wow. You're serious."

"Why wouldn't I be? I'm not sure what you're talking about, but Master Murasame is an amazing person. He went out of his way to help me out and he even saved me from a tight situation. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him."

The intern raised her eyebrow. It sounded like some propaganda on paper, but she could certainly tell that Isayuki wasn't trying to make any lies here. For now though, she would spare him the entire friction between Murasame and the other employees at the company. Although everyone had their opinions, no one could argue that Murasame takes his work seriously here, despite how he acts.

"... I forgot to introduce myself."

The intern pushed up her glasses and stroked the sideframe against her long, crimson hair. Her outfit exuded the image of an office lady, despite her relatively young age.

"My name is Hikari. Nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you! I'm Isayuki!"

"I have to get back to work now, so I guess I'll be seeing you around."

"Yeah, I have to… continue on my walk too."

"... Is that so? Then I'll leave you to it. If you have anything about the office that Murasame hasn't told you yet, you can always come to me if I'm working that day."

Taking the cup of coffee with her, she walked back out of the break room to head back to work. However, it wasn't before spilling out a little comment for Isayuki.

"By the way, you're overfilling one of the cups. I think you pressed a wrong button."

"Wh-What!? Oh no!"

As it was mentioned, hot water spilled out from the cup and Isayuki tried to instinctively touch it. Of course, touching hot water is not recommended and he made a little cry before bouncing away, all while Hikari sipped on her coffee again, slightly amusing by the unintended tomfoolery.

|-|/ 3 \|-|

Evening was about to settle in and Murasame clocked out for the day.

Usually, he would head out to the riverside training location and practice his attacks, but that wasn't a logical thing to do. Considering Isayuki's situation, he needed to get some documents to essentially make Isayuki a proper person in the eyes of the government, so he had his people work on that. After triple-checking the information, he had the documentation be sent in. It should be approved in a few days, so in the meanwhile…

"You're not only my assistant, kid."

Isayuki glanced up from the limousine's seat, seeing how fancy and relaxing it was inside. His attention became instantly undivided when Murasame spoke.

"You're also my personal bodyguard. That means you're going to take hits for me, if something like the Tengu Foundation incident happens again. I'm very important, so I can't get roughed up if I don't need to. I was down for a few days in the hospital and I'm already behind in my workload. I won't be able to take my next weekend off at this rate, despite me doing whatever work I can in the hospital."

"Will it hurt?"

"Probably, but you have to learn to push through the pain. You can heal it up just fine in the matter of minutes, or even seconds. That's not something that I have the luxury of doing."

Isayuki's face turned pale. He instinctively held his forehead, where the bullet was shot during the fight. The pain he felt in that single moment was insane, as if something was piecing right through him.

"Pushing through the pain…" Isayuki winced. "That's… going to be hard…"

"Anyways, that's not what I was trying to get at here."

Murasame opened up his new phone, checking an appointment he had scheduled. Most of his data was able to be transferred over, thanks to his weekly back-ups on his personal computer. He usually switched out his phones yearly, so it wasn't too much of a hassle.

"We've got to get you something to fight with, so that you don't only take hits, but you can deal them back effectively."

"Oh, just like your kusa… kuri… kagata…"

"Kusarigama." Murasame held out his other hand, as if to simulate having his weapon. "If you can't pronounce it, people call them by sickle and chain."

"Can I go ahead and use that weapon!?"

"Nope. That's not available to you."

Murasame turned off his phone and smirked defiantly.

"The kusarigama is a very advanced weapon. Beginners like you can't simply decide on picking it up randomly. You haven't even gotten through the basic steps of fighting yet, let alone be skilled enough to touch the kusarigama. I'm someone who has mastered it, so I make it look easy."

"It does explain why it felt like you had a lot of control over it during the fight a few days ago!" Isayuki leaned back in his seat. "Now that I think about it, it does look very hard to use. I don't think I can spin those chains like you do it…"

"Chains, huh…?"

Murasame's thoughts briefly flashed back to the fight where Isayuki suddenly summoned chains out of nowhere and turned the tides on Haruto. Although he told himself to not think too hard about it, something about that still bothered him very greatly.

At the end of the fight though, the chains disappeared, just as the scythe did.

"I'll let you take a look at the store for you to check out whatever you want to see."

"But, uh…" Isayuki wryly laughed. "I don't have any money…"

"I'll pull it out from your paycheque ahead of time."

"Huh? I get paid for being your assistant?"

"It's a job, right? The Phoenix Conglomerate's union would have my ass on a silver platter if they discovered that someone is working for the company and not being paid for it." Murasame sighed. "And besides, I'll pay for part of it. I could probably buy out the entire store if I really wanted to."

"You're amazing, Master Murasame!"

Murasame smirked. "Yeah, I know, I know! Keep those praises coming!"

The car stopped in front of a store and the chauffeur came around to open the door for Murasame and Isayuki. They entered the store without no one else in sight, except for the staff. That was because Murasame had reserved the entire thing for themselves, mainly because he wasn't very fond of other people snooping around his personal business.

"Welcome, Mister Houou."

The main store was a mere front, merely selling jewelry and accessories. Usually, weapons aren't sold to regular customers, but because this store had ties to the shinobi lines, they would bring whoever affiliated to the real market hiding underneath the main floor.

"Here is the vast array of selection."

"Yeah, whatever. We'll come back to you once we've made a decision."

"Of course."

The employees bowed and allowed Murasame and Isayuki to do their browsing. The area looked just as bright as the upper floor, but on display, there were an amassed collection of weapons available. Isayuki couldn't believe how much there was to consider and frankly, he wasn't sure if he could come to a decision before the end of the day. His eyes were already spinning at the selection.

"Let's start with the basics, I guess. Catch."

Murasame grabbed one of the katanas on the display and tossed it over to Isayuki.

The unprepared Isayuki, mind if added.

"Huh!? Wh-Wha—!?"

Isayuki panicked, trying to catch it, but the handle slipped away from his hands. It took a bit of a juggling act for Isayuki to finally get both of his hands onto the sheathed weapon.

"That was a close one…"

Glancing at the katana back and forth, Isayuki held it on the sheath and raised it up.

"Do I use it like this? I try to bash this nataka on people, right?"

"It's a katana. And no, it's a blade you use for striking. It's sheathed right now for safety, so pull it out using the handle grip. Don't injure yourself in the process though."

"Yeah, even if I can heal quickly, I don't want to be hurt…"

Murasame's thoughts were to not get blood soaked onto the unpaid product, but he wasn't going to correct Isayuki on that matter.

Isayuki properly removed the sheath with the help of the employees on standby and for testing purposes, they prepared a dummy within the practice range in order have Isayuki get a feel for it.

"Swing forwards with the blade and see how you like it."

"O-Okay…!"

Isayuki tried to tighten his grip and attacked the dummy.

"Hah!"

However, the dummy was still in solid condition once Isayuki's hands came down. In fact, Isayuki's hands were the only things that went down. In the process of swinging the katana, the handle slipped from his hands and the katana went flying into the sidelines.

Nearly piercing Murasame in the process.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"... I'm so sorry!" Isayuki cried.

Not only was Isayuki's form unlike anything anyone has seen before, but for a katana to go flying out in such a manner, it was extremely unlikely unless it was entirely on purpose. Murasame, however, knew that such malicious intentions were impossible from Isayuki, but that didn't stop him from gulping.

"Maybe anything similar to a sword, or even resembling one, isn't for you…"

The employees hastily came to remove the katana away from Isayuki, as the sheath was taken away from him. Isayuki already felt defeated at the first outrageous failure and sighed.

"To think, you were so confident that it would miss that you just stood still, Master Murasame. If that was me, I'd probably flinch and jump out of the way, even if it wouldn't hit me."

Murasame shrugged, the best he could do while in the state of adrenaline. He himself didn't realize the katana landed next to him until he noticed a long steel blade right beside him.

"We should try something… less sharp."

Murasame noticed a bō staff on one of the displays and passed it to Isayuki.

"This should be better for if things go wrong."

"Okay!"

Isayuki started holding the wooden stick like it was a sword, causing Murasame to raise his eyebrow. Murasame wasn't someone that could efficiently use a bō staff, but he at least knew what the stance of someone wielding a bō staff should look like. Before he could correct Isayuki though, an attack was unleashed onto the dummy.

Usually, someone who uses a bō staff would attempt many hits in quick succession to defeat their opponents This was the quantity over quality approach, only leaving the powerful finishing attack until the very end. Actually, that was exactly what Isayuki did with his fist to finish off their fight with Haruto, so there was a chance that a bō staff might have been the weapon for him.

However, the bō staff went right through the dummy, destroying it, but it didn't stop there. It kept going until it hit the ground, where the wooden structure started to bend and bend until…

It snapped.

And a piece of it went flying towards Murasame. Luckily, an employee managed to block the trajectory and knock it away, but Murasame was left in a daze.

"... I'll have that paid for."

"There is no need. That weapon should not have broken in such a way, so we'll be contracting its original manufacturer about it. If anything, we should be thanking you."

"Whatever works for you."

Isayuki's forward nature in combat should be taken into account, but Murasame merely went on to provide random weapons for Isayuki to use. None of the things were working out well, either through a possible accident or not having Isayuki be comfortable in using such weapons. If he didn't know any better, it was like Isayuki was doing all of this on purpose.

"Hey, kid. We've been through, like, ten weapons so far, but you still haven't found one that you liked? You can't be serious, right?"

"I'm sorry…" Isayuki hung his head in shame. "Nothing feels natural for me to use…"

"You're not doing all of this so that you can try using the kusarigama, right?"

Isayuki looked the other way.

"... You're doing this on purpose."

"I-I mean, I'm trying, Master Murasame! I simply can't get the kakugari out of my head!"

"Kusarigama! It's not a difficult word to remember!" Murasame shook his head. "And I'm telling you, the kusarigama is a difficult weapon to use! I can't be teaching someone the basics of the kusarigama when they don't even know the basics of fighting!"

"You're good at using the weapon though! Wouldn't it be easy for you to teach me?"

"It doesn't work like that! Simply because I'm an expert at the kusarigama, it doesn't mean that I can give out the method to my greatness freely! I have a responsibility as a powerful user of the kusarigama to ensure that the weapon is respected at all cost!"

Two employees stood by the sidelines, whispering to each other.

"Wait, didn't Murasame get almost last place in the chain-sickle contest last autumn?"

"Don't say that loudly, you idiot. You don't want to get him mad."

Isayuki showed reluctance in letting go of the notion, but he ultimately took Murasame's haphazard explanation as fact. Collapsing onto the ground, he groaned.

"What weapons could I use though…? I feel like I exhausted everything here."

"We still do have a few more selections to go through," Murasame answered. He glanced over to see something that he didn't notice before, since it was displayed in the corner of the store. "Actually…"

The image of Isayuki punching Haruto countless times played back in his memory as he approached a set of weapons. He grabbed it off the display and glanced at its fine design. For a weapon, it almost didn't look like one, as an employee came over to Murasame.

"You're currently looking at a new product from the Hoori Clan Corporation. They're called the Twin Caladrius Bracers, Mk I. The rumors have it that they're already working on the second version, despite this recently dropping onto the markets."

Having such a clean white color along its metallic sleekness, Isayuki popped in to see what the weapon was all about. These bracers covered the knuckles, but not the fingers, and reached down to the lower forearm section. At least, for Isayuki, it looked like the perfect size already.

Murasame had a good feeling about this, so he turned to Isayuki with a smirk.

"Now that we've allowed you to see all sorts of weapons you might encounter on the battlefield, how about we take this seriously now? I was letting you have your fun, but now that we're running low on time, I'll give you this. I think you'll like this."

"Really!?"

"Yeah, kid. Go ahead and try it out."

Within a minute, Isayuki had the Twin Caladrius Bracers equipped onto his arms and he was shadow-boxing as Murasame suggested him to, in order to get a good feel for it if it was on too tight or not. Luckily, they didn't need to make many adjustments and not before long, the employees got another training dummy for Isayuki to punch down.

"Alright, how about this?"

Isayuki glanced over to Murasame.

"You remember the attack we coordinated at the end of that fight with the Tengu Foundation?"

"The one where you wrapped yourself in your chains?"

"No, not that one! And that was on purpose!"

"Of course it was…?"

Murasame's instinctive answer felt like it needed to be retracted for how innocent Isayuki's observation of [Hien Hosen, Mode Zero] had been. Regardless, he moved on.

"Anyways, that feels like a special art that you should develop for yourself. The one where you punch the enemy a lot of times, and then land a final powerful blow onto them."

"Right."

Isayuki nodded, retracing his steps during that fight.

"Here I go!"

Just as before, Isayuki closed in onto the training dummy and fired off a few slow punches at first, but once he got some chip damage, he accelerated in his consecutive strikes. Some of the employees were frankly surprised at the speed he was going, while Murasame kept his usual expression.

"So that wasn't a fluke, huh…?"

Seeing the reaction of the employees, he felt like he should be standing proud, but his focus retained itself on Isayuki.

"Alright, let's name that attack off with…"

Isayuki finished his flurry of attacks and pulled back for a final strike.

"Hien Hosen! Mode X!"

"Hiyah!"

Isayuki's culminating punch sent the training dummy flying into the wall. If a barrier hadn't been erected to protect the surface, it would have certainly made a dent. Instead, the training dummy was smashed into pieces upon impact as Isayuki made a little victory fanfare.

"So that's the new name of the technique! By the way, what does Hien Hosen mean?"

"Flying Swallow Phoenix Flash. It's a namesake art and proof that you're my student."

"Oh! In any case, these bracers feel really good to use! I think I like them!"

Murasame glanced at the employees as Isayuki cheerfully returned to his side.

"We'll be taking these bracers for him. You can send the bill through the usual account."

"Of course, Mister Houou."

Since the store works closely with his father, they didn't really need to do the usual transaction of payment. It would be directly billed and dealt with at the end of the month, as per all of the usual expenses and since this was technically for the company, as Isayuki was going to be an employee, this would also be a good tax write-off.

The bracers themselves had an interesting holster that came with it. It was similar to a belt, but bracers would be stored on the backside waist on top of each other. Since the bracers were already calibrated to fit Isayuki, all he had to do was stick his hands in them and they would automatically latch onto his arms. It made for quick preparation of combat very easy.

It was ideal as well, since Isayuki wasn't a shinobi and thus, he didn't have access to the usual shinobi scrolls that could help store weapons.

This thought came to Murasame as they were walking out from the store.

"... Wait, kid. Hold on a moment."

"Do you want something, Master Murasame?"

"Do you know what a shinobi is?"

Isayuki's hair antenna answered for him in a question mark, if not for the dumbfounded expression. "I don't know what a shinobi is! Not a single clue!"

"Are you sure about that?"

"Is it like, a type of food or something?"

Considering his raw strength and speed, it was entirely possible that Isayuki could have been a shinobi before he lost his memories. Whenever he got the chance, it would be helpful if he had someone from the shinobi clan to look into the database. Although, he might not get too far because of how heavily protected and secured that identities of the shinobis were.

The only real information he could grab were shinobis-in-training, but Isayuki looked like he should be in his final year of highschool regardless. It should be fine to make a brief scout of the countless shinobis schools to see if there was an account of a missing, or presumed dead, shinobi trainee.

"Ah, it's nothing much."

"So what are we doing now?"

"Well, you don't have a place to stay, right?" Murasame went into the limousine with Isayuki as they both sat down. "I don't mind if you crash at my manor for a while while we get your all sorted out. You can stay in one of the guest rooms."

"Really…? The last time I was there, you kicked me out. I mean, rightfully so."

"Because I didn't invite you yet. Right now, it's a different matter, because there's an invitation being extended to you. And besides, maybe I should go out and make sure my dear sister doesn't get any wrongful ideas about the situation. By now, I think she would have heard about me having a personal assistant, so I might as well introduce you while I have the chance."

As the limousine went on its way, Murasame glared at Isayuki.

"By the way…"

"Yes, Master Murasame?"

"Do not mention anything regarding your previous visit. Act like its your first time coming to the manor. Let us keep that problem underneath the rug while we still can. I don't feel like dealing with that headache."

"Y-Yes…?"


[Author's Notes / Author's Response]

Somehow managed to get this out on one sitting. Hmm. Anyways, the idea for Chapter 2 is going to be settling down, after the climax of Chapter 1. There isn't going to be anything major happening in this chapter and probably for a few chapters onwards, so it's a bit of a breather before... well, things started to kick off. I've got a bit of a brief outline up to the end of the first arc, so I'm still sorting out some ideas.

Genjuki and R1G3L, I'm happy you're enjoying the ride and hopefully, you'll continue to enjoy what's to come.

And Whizel, concerning the Gessen Academy, I know in the Prologue's Author's Notes, I did say I wasn't interested in using anything outside of the Deep Crimson timeline which included Gessen Academy, but after looking into the characters of Gessen's Elite Class, I'm... actually very interested in using some, not all, of them. One of them might actually be a perfect fit in Murasame's and Isayuki's story for a future arc, but for now, I think I could do something with another one of them during this arc. I'm making no promises, but thanks for pointing out Gessen for me.

That means I'll have to look into a playthrough of Shinovi Versus soon... Ugh, damn it, too much things to do, too little time to do them.