I'm back, here's a chapter!

Chapter 5 — Magi Are Not Complete Without Their Mysterious Cloaks; Part 1

The calm waters of the Mion River flowed towards the sea even as the night of Fuyuki had arrived. Its unchanging waters remained at peace no matter what the time, giving a constant tranquil view and a great venue for a park. As of now it was late at night and there were no people around to visit the place—but even if there were people around, they would quickly find themselves thinking of something else to do.

Currently, the Riverside Park is surrounded with a bounded field that prevents the mundane from entering. Because if they were to come too close, they would realize that just by the river, a silhouette of a surreal monstrous spider-like being that looked like it crawled out from the mouth of a freakishly large head is chasing a figure of a young woman.

The young woman seemed to match the spider-like monster's fast strides by jumping away from its attacks. Each were dodged by just a hair's breadth, with the monster's appendages cracking the concrete on the ground instead of hitting the young woman. She continued to dodge and jump away causing the monster to follow her.

Soon, after enough times of repeating it, the monster began to lose patience and jumped at the young woman in rage. The young woman looked at the monster calmly, opened her mouth, and—

"Emiya-kun, now!" Tohsaka shouted.

With that signal, behind the woman revealed another person who was running at the monster with a fist reared back. The monster noticed this and screeched in fear and alarm as it recognized the figure, but stuck midair, it had no way of dodging. Emiya jumped to meet the monster midair.

Then he punched.

A 'boom' echoed across the Riverside Park as a blast of air pressure rippled the nearby waters and blew away clouds of debris. The monster's spider body folded into itself, its furry carapace that was tougher than steel cracking and shattering into pieces, with the force launching it back into the mouth of the large face. The face scrunched up as it choked in its own spider body, then the momentum hit it and it crashed into the ground.

The sound of concrete getting destroyed followed half a second later, kicking up another cloud of dust.

Emiya landed on the ground, his trembling fist smoking slightly as he observed at the now defeated monster that was bleeding putrid black ichor all over. Tohsaka did so as well, cautiously keeping distance from it just in case it tries anything underhanded like playing dead.

A few moments or so later, she gained the courage to go near. She knelt down and closely observed it..

"Is it dead?" Emiya asked.

She was silent for a moment, before she released the breath she was holding. Tohsaka nodded.

"Finally, that was annoying." she muttered as she stood up.

The monster was a yokai that was scuttling around during the night at certain streets preying on those unlucky enough to be walking there without anyone around. It was an intelligent monster that picked its fights carefully; when they managed to confront it, it immediately escaped instead of fighting back like she expected it to. They chased it throughout the city and it almost managed to lose them once or twice. Interestingly, it was only afraid of Emiya. It must have sensed his strength.

She was able to formulate a plan of her being bait that will give the opening for Emiya to attack it. Fortunately, that one went without a hitch. She would be hard-pressed to think of any other plan if that one failed.

I should probably invest time in researching a stronger restraining spell. It'll make dealing with enemies like this easier. Tohsaka decided as she finished purifying the monster, making it disappear into blue motes of light. But besides that…

Tohsaka side-eyed Emiya. He was standing there dumbly, picking his nose as he waited for her to finish.

…This guy definitely didn't have the strength that he showed right now earlier this week. He's gotten more powerful.

She was sure that if he was this strong during the time with the muscle monster from a week ago, then he would've made short work of it. That punch he did earlier could easily knock out the monster that they saw and destroy the ones she encountered much earlier like the wraith or the rogue magus.

He was getting stronger at an incredibly fast pace to the point that it's scaring her. If he was this strong, what would happen a month or two from now? What about a year?

Then, there's also the fact that the mystery of his strength still isn't fully solved. She questioned him when she got the chance and did some tests while he wasn't looking, but as far as she knows… she still didn't have any clue.

Tohsaka shook her head. There is time for thinking about that later.

"Emiya-kun, catch." Tohsaka threw something at Emiya, who caught it easily.

"Hm? What is this?" he asked as he looked at the object.

It was a small brown envelope. Judging by the thickness, the inside is filled to the brim with something. He opened it in puzzlement and—

"W-Wait, this is—!" Emiya said in shock.

What was inside were ten thousand yen notes. As the envelope is filled, there should be around one million in that envelope alone. Emiya held it with shaking hands.

"Your pay." Tohsaka explained simply. "The targets we managed to take out this week and some materials that I was able to sell to other magi earned us a lot of money, and what you have right now in your hands are your cut. You have about a million yen to spend now."

"M-Million, in a week…!" Emiya looked like he was uncomprehending of what was happening, and he turned to look at her desperately. "H-Hey, you're not joking right? This isn't a prank, right?"

Tohsaka sighed. "I'm not, why would I joke about this? You've been a great help so far."

And he really was. What used to be an extensive search and wasting hours to make a plan to minimize risks when making contact with her targets now just turned into searching for the monster and pointing Emiya to its general direction. She can manage to find and cross out one target on her list and squeeze maybe another one every night, but now, she's crossed out the majority of the list that she has in just the first week—with even free time to spare.

She won't say it out loud but she was thankful that he agreed to work under her. The bags under her eyes have disappeared and she actually managed to sleep properly for a long time. The workload is significantly easier as well and things had been decidedly less dangerous when Emiya could just defeat the enemies in one hit.

Then there's also her pride to consider… she wouldn't allow herself to just be lazing around and let another person risk their life for something that is supposed to be her duty. No, Emiya needed to be rewarded for his actions. No matter how idiotic acting like a hero in real life would've been.

"Is this fine? Is this really fine? I'm not doing a crime, am I?" she heard Emiya mutter to himself.

"It's not. Magi can get ludicrous amounts of money with the right sources. What you have is just a paltry sum compared to others." Tohsaka didn't bother to tell him her earnings and how much she's spending for her jewels. "By the way… we're ending things for today."

"Y-Yeah..." He blinked, registering her words. "...err, not that I'd complain, but isn't this earlier than usual?"

Tohsaka felt her face heat up slightly. "...I didn't expect to catch so many targets this fast, so I didn't gather much information on those left on the list. I'll be doing that in the meantime." she shook her head. "Anyway, it's better for you to rest and focus on something else first rather than wasting time loitering around the city."

"Why? It worked for me."

She turned to look at him. "Yes. Yes it did, didn't it?."

"...Yeah? Is there something wrong?"

"Emiya-kun… tell me, how likely do you encounter something supernatural happening whenever you run around outside?"

"Don't know… once or twice every few days, I guess? I didn't know there was magic at the time, so I can't really be sure." he paused. "Now that I think about it, it's been more frequent recently."

Tohsaka stared at him with an unreadable expression, before sighing. …I work hard to get even a trace of evidence of anything supernatural and he encounters them left and right. Is he a magnet for these things?

"Emiya-kun, as easy it is to just wander around and hope for something to happen, it's still more productive to look for reliable evidence so that it wouldn't end up in us wasting time."

"Yeah I get it… I guess I'm just not used to this." he scratched his head, before looking around. "You're gonna be cleaning this up, right? You sure you don't need any help?"

"No, it's fine. I leave the cleaning to other people." she took out her phone and waved it to him for emphasis.

"Okay, I guess I'll go then… Thanks for the pay, Tohsaka." he said. Turning around, he looked shiftily left and right holding the envelope tight on himself, then walked away. Tohsaka watched him walk away while giggling creepily as he counted the money in the envelope.

That guy…

She shook her head, before turning on her phone. Immediately, she saw an unread mail that she had received earlier. She narrowed her eyes as she read it—

"The Muscle Monster's body was—wait, stolen?!"

Leaves swayed in the wind as it fell from the trees that decorated the Homurahara campus, and Saitama walked towards the High School building to his class in the morning. There were plenty of people roaming about: some looked half-asleep, while some were full of energy as they started their day with enthusiasm.

Saitama yawned.

…A week after accepting Tohsaka's offer and it had already turned into a monday, signaling the start of another week in school. Not much had changed over the past few days, with the only thing interesting going on for Saitama is that he wasn't alone in his hobby.

It was an interesting experience. He was worrying slightly on how it would go, but it didn't feel bad. It felt different working with another on something that he thought was solo work. If he were to describe what he felt in his time alone, it would be him in "patrol". Ever since Tohsaka, it felt more of an "extermination".

He wouldn't say that it's a bad change. Tohsaka had a point with what she said yesterday; it certainly does feel more productive than running around waiting for monsters to just show up. If anything, it was better that way.

"Senpai." a soft voice called out to him.

"Sakura." he greeted back.

He stopped and turned around. There, he saw the young woman smiling slightly at him. She looked as graceful as usual, with her uniform immaculately put in place as she walked towards him.

"...Hm?"

Though, now that he realized, it seemed like the people around him all stopped what they were doing. He could see a few people or so sneaking looks at him. He returned their looks and they quickly broke eye contact.

"Senpai." he looked at Sakura, and now that he was looking closely, it looked like her smile had a forced edge to it. "Do you mind if I walked with you on the way to class?"

He furrowed his brows then shrugged. "Sure."

…

…

"So what's got you feeling down?" he asked suddenly as Sakura accompanied him in the school halls.

Sakura blinked, then looked at him questioningly. "Pardon?"

"You've been quiet and glum for the past few minutes, Sakura." he pointed out. In the corner of his eye, he watched as the other students in the hall moved to avoid him. "...Does it have something to do with whatever's happening right now?"

Sakura frowned as she glared at the students, before huffing. "I don't like the way they talk about you, senpai. It's rude and disrespectful."

"Aah…" So it really is about that.

It was clear that his reputation was down the drain right now. He's not really sure about the details, but he heard a bit from people last week during the time he was eating just before Tohsaka offered him a job. He didn't really think much of it after that, thinking it was going to pass as time went on… but instead of it disappearing it seemed to grow worse.

It went to the point that Taiga was beginning to get upset about it as she caught wind of the rumors about him. Judging by how angry she complained yesterday evening as they ate dinner, he can guess that the particular content of that rumor was probably the same one he heard with those guys at the vending machine.

"Well, it's not really bothering me or anything, so let them act whatever they want." he said confidently, giving the girl a smirk as he waved her concerns away—

"Senpai, it doesn't really look like that when you look really sad."

Of course I'm sad Sakura, who the hell wants to be treated like this!? I want to be popular!

Saitama sighed.

Just like any other person, Saitama didn't want to be talked badly of. Especially since he didn't really have any idea what gave them the idea that he was doing what sort of things they were saying. If anything, he's feeling a bit pissed off since he didn't really think he'd done anything to deserve all this.

But… even if I feel this way… he thinks back to the time when he saw Tohsaka and that girl getting attacked by that monster. Yeah, I'd still save them in a heartbeat despite this. There's really no way I can regret doing that sort of thing.

He guesses he can see this as some sort of pride? Even if the people around him don't think so, he can encourage himself to say that he did the right thing. It's not like he lives for their approval, after all.

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter, Sakura. I can try and be upset about it, but in the end, acting that way isn't worth it."

She turned quiet at his answer.

"Yes… it isn't worth it at all, isn't it…?" she muttered quietly. "These people shouldn't be worthy of your attention…"

"Hm? You said something, Sakura?"

"..." she smiled brightly at Saitama. "Nothing, senpai. Just thinking out loud."

He looked at her, confused. "Well… okay." he looked around the hall they were in. "I guess this is where we separate."

Due to them being in different years their classrooms were far away from each other. He walked Sakura near theirs, but not right at the classroom itself. Saitama might be dumb and can't read the room sometimes, but even he can tell that Sakura walking with him in front of their classroom can bring her bad rumors.

It was a good thing that it was early in the morning. Not too many people saw them walking together, and he saw that most of them were older years so they wouldn't care about them as much.

"Yes. Thank you for walking me here, senpai. I—"

"Sakura?"

A familiar voice echoed near them, making Saitama frown. He looked towards the direction it came from, and there, he saw a wavy-blue haired young man accompanied by two girls. Shinji met his gaze and his lips thinned.

"Shinji-kun, is this your sister? I didn't know she was in that class." the girl beside him commented.

"Well, he didn't really have an opportunity to tell it, did he? It's not like we asked him either." the other girl giggled. "Right, Shinji-kun?"

"..."

The hall became silent as the girl's question remained hanging, and the two girls beside him acted puzzled. When they followed where he was looking they saw Saitama and Shinji stare each other down, with the air between them growing tense. Sakura looked worriedly between the two of them.

"Shinji." he greeted.

"...Emiya." he returned.

"Emiya…? Isn't that the guy that was—" "Shh! Don't interrupt them!" the two girls beside Shinji bickered quietly.

He broke the gaze and looked at Sakura. "So this was why you were waiting at the gate. Sakura, don't you know better than to be with this guy? You're just asking for the others to talk behind your back."

"Nii-san…" Sakura whispered, looking at him pleadingly.

Saitama's face was blank as usual, but there was a definite tenseness to it. He didn't react to the verbal jab that Shinji delivered. "What, you got something to say Shinji? I'm right here."

"I don't have anything to say to you, Emiya—and you don't have the right to interrupt. This is with me and Sakura; a talk between brother and sister."

"Oh yeah? Then why don't we have a talk? Come on, I wanna talk with you."

"Hmph, as if I'd lower myself to talk to someone like you." he flicked his hair with a hand. "And I doubt I'd get an proper conversation from a dumb idiot."

"Really, don't wanna talk to me? What's wrong?" Saitama smirked, making Shinji annoyed. "Chicken?"

"Wipe that smirk out of your face you—"

The gazes of the two girls with Shinji bounced back and forth between the two of them while the boys did their exchange, before stopping and tensing in fear when they saw the one between them.

"Nii-san. Senpai."

Both of them froze, before turning to Sakura.

The girl has a nice smile on her face.

"I thought the two of you made up?" she asked sweetly.

Saitama broke in a cold sweat. Ah, crap.

He immediately nodded his head rapidly. "U-Uh, yeah, totally. We're pretty good friends now." he turned to Shinji, in a rare display of asking for support. "T-This is just, just good ribbing between friends, you know?"

Sakura turned to Shinji, who also broke into sweat but gave her a stubborn glare. The two locked eyes in a few moments.

Shinji proved to be far too weak and broke the gaze first.

"—Tch. Yeah, yeah, whatever." Shinji didn't seem to share his opinion, making Sakura frown. Before she could open her mouth though Shinji had turned around.

"Come on girls, we have better things to do than this." he grumbled. "Great, now my morning is ruined."

With that he went walking down the hall. The two girls with him shared an uneasy look then followed the young man, leaving Saitama and Sakura as they watched them leave.

"Your dinner will be ruined as well. I won't cook you one." Sakura called out. The only indication that Shinji heard it was when he slightly missed a step, but he continued on as if he hadn't heard her. The two of them stayed quiet until Shinji and the two girls fully left.

"I'm sorry about nii-san, senpai." Sakura mutters after a while.

"...Don't apologize for him. You're not the one responsible for his actions." he scratched the back of his head. "Anyway… see you, I guess."

Sakura sent him a bright smile. "Yes. See you later again, senpai."

The girl walked the hall and into her classroom, leaving him alone. Sighing, he turned around and walked toward his own classroom.

…

…Ah, crap. I think I forgot my homework at home.

"—And then he went like shuwwaahh—! And then the guy hit him in the face, but he still stayed standing! What happened next was so fast—like my eyes can't keep up—then next thing I knew they were down on the ground unconscious! It was super cool!"

Her white-haired classmate adjusted her glasses as the bombastic tale from her more energetic classmate finished. "I don't think that's quite right, Kaede-san. Are you sure you're not mixing an action anime with your story? And further yet, did this story really happen?"

"Call me Maki! How many times do I gotta tell you!" the tanned girl said to the white-haired girl. "And I'm saying that it really happened! I can't believe my eyes on it either—but it really did happen! Come on, Saegusa, you were with me that time so back me up here!"

"Um…" the soft-spoken girl beside Tohsaka smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry Maki. I didn't really see… y-you just ran so fast that I couldn't keep up when we left the school grounds so…"

Tohsaka, for her part, simply kept quiet and watched the three friends argue with each other. She kept up her promise of eating with the girl who had invited her a week ago—whom she learned was Yukika Saegusa, the manager of the female track club. She was with her friends Kane Himuro and Kaede Makidera, who were also part of the track club.

Hm… Kane, where have I heard that before… Tohsaka's mind wandered. Ah, that's right. She's the daughter of Fuyuki's mayor. What a coincidence.

"—Hey, Tohsaka-san! What do you think? It's totally believable, right!?" Kaede asked her with a pleading look on her face.

"As if. Tohsaka-san, please dissuade her from forming anymore lies. Perhaps she just wants to show off or something." Kane immediately cut in.

"Please, just call me Rin." she smiled. "And it would be easy to tell if it's real, right? Maki-san, you said that the boy wore our school's uniform—so you must have seen his face? Maybe you can just find him and ask him to demonstrate it again."

Kaede looked at her in shock. "You're right! I didn't think of that!" she pumped her fist and stood up, clattering the table and her chair. "Alright! I'll search for him and then he'll teach me how to do all that! Then I'll be cool too!" then she ran off.

Kane sighed. "I'll make sure she won't hurt anyone." she muttered before following after.

Yukika also stood up and followed after, but not before bowing politely to her with a muttered apology. Tohsaka gave her a smile and gave her a casual wave signaling she didn't mind. The girl smiled then went to follow her two friends, leaving her alone to finish her lunch.

She reached for her bag and retrieved her phone. Scouring her contacts (carefully, since she didn't want to send another message to the wrong person again), she searched for the one she plans on meeting for a while now ever since the lunch break started, then sent a mail.

Tohsaka: Where are you right now? We need to talk.

She sent her mail, then waited for a moment for a reply. She received it not a few seconds later.

Emiya: Back of the school building. Same place as before. Why?

Tohsaka: Work-related. Just stay put, I'll be there.

She closed her phone, then stood up.

It was time for business.

…

…

Emiya sat eating his lunch in the exact same place as before. There were no people around, and no one noticed her walking to this place either. It was a good opportunity to discuss without anyone hearing.

Saitama turned to her from his lunch when she walked up to him. "So, what's up?"

"We have bad news." she sighed, then leaned back on a wall near him. "Someone stole the body of the muscle monster."

"...Which monster?"

"The one from a week ago, where you broke your arm." she clarified without missing a beat. She wasn't even surprised he forgot about it. "Someone attacked my… cleaners, and stole the body. Now I have to find probably some hostile unknown group squatting in my territory, who has the body of an abnormal monster. Who knows what they could do with it."

Emiya was silent for a moment as he chewed his food, then he swallowed.

"Ok." he asked after. "How do we find them then?"

"That's the hard part. I investigated, and they almost never leave any traces… however." she brought out an envelope, then tossed it to Emiya. He caught it and opened it, revealing the files within. "There had been reports of disappearances in the past weeks—mostly to those who happened to be alone in the night. There is, however, a single witness to one of those cases that connects it to the ones who attacked my hired help."

She pointed to a blurry picture shot in the dark in one of the files. "They all wore dark cloaks."

Saitama stared at it. "...You sure this is them?"

She blinked. "Well I can't be too sure, but it's the best lead that we have." she stared at Emiya who was still quiet. "Why? Is there something wrong?"

"It's just that… are you sure these aren't, you know, people in cosplay or something?" he looked at the dark cloak with red markings on it with an odd look on his face. "I think I've seen something like this before. They could be a ninja."

Tohsaka's brow furrowed. "Ninja…?" she muttered, before shaking her head. "Emiya-kun, my hired help have several witnesses of these people in the same outfit doing things only a magus could do. No matter how much they resemble a fiction that you know—I assure you they're the real thing."

Though the police reports I went over did mention the same thing Emiya had… she pondered. She never bothered with reading fiction and tended towards academic books, so she never saw the similarities he was talking about. Maybe I should look into it. What is it anyway, some sort of empirical japan story?

Saitama shrugs at her, dropping the issue. "Alright."

"Anyway, you're available at night, correct?" he nodded his head. "Good. We'll be investigating this tonight. Here's what we'll do…"

Tohsaka began to tell Emiya on how they were going to find the trespassers who dared to impose upon her territory. There were a couple of times she had to hammer on Emiya's head about some things, but she was positive that he got it.

And so, the plan was laid out.

The Fuyuki harbor was quiet. Being far away from the active Shinto district and more into the seaside, it might have been one of the places within Shinto that was spared from the constant urban noise that plagued the district itself. It would've been relaxing—that is, if it wasn't in the middle of the night.

There were little to no lights, so it was almost dark. Various metal cargo from ships were stacked in the harbor littered the place, all so similar to one another, that it felt like a maze where one wrong turn you'd be lost. The stars and the moon weren't visible, shrouded by the clouds, and the sounds of the gentle crashing waves of the sea side were replaced with only a terrifying feeling of silence.

In this harbor, a girl walked. Perhaps she was drunk, perhaps she was troubled—but nevertheless, a girl was there. She looked every bit terrified at her predicament, clutching her thick coat tightly, as she continued to walk in the harbor all on her own.

Just as the girl passed a dark corner, something slinked out from the darkness. Out of nowhere a dark figure had appeared and approached the girl from behind, walking without even making a single sound.

The girl, ignorant of her current situation, continued to walk aimlessly.

Unaware as a pair of hands behind her reached out, promising a terrible fate that will fall upon her, and—

—The figure paused as they heard the sound of something dropping to the ground. They looked down, and saw gemstones, all of which were glowing with ethereal light.

"Anfang, Dornenkette."

Before the figure could react, the gemstones cracked and broke out a surprisingly dense surge of magical energy that sprouted and shaped itself into ethereal thorny vines. The figure managed to get away an instant later, jumping back to avoid their snare—but wasn't quick enough to do so completely and thus getting their left arm caught in the vine.

The girl turned around and observed the person. Her face was a mask of indifference, and the girl that looked afraid earlier disappeared without a trace. "So I was right; you were the ones responsible for the recent disappearances."

The figure covered in cloak tested the vines on their arm. The vine was taut and refused to yield, almost as strong as steel yet still bendable, and their arm bled slightly as the thorns dug deep on their flesh.

The figure then turned to Tohsaka calmly, seemingly uncaring of their predicament. "You are messing with the wrong organization."

Her eyebrow raised. "Hoh? And why would that be? Are you telling me to abandon my responsibility as Second Owner and let you run around freely?"

A tilt of the head. "A person of authority must have the power to back up their authority." they simply stated. "You are a single child, barely out of their education. You do not stand against the might of our group."

Tohsaka smirked, then flicked her hair in confidence. "Hmph, that's what they always say. Yet I can't seem to notice that you're alone here, without any of your organization backing you up." she pointed at him. "You have nowhere to run or hide. Give up now and suffer less—else you want to get a taste of these."

The figure looked wearily at the jewels Tohsaka held between her fingers. They were packed with her mana, and any sane magi would think twice about getting hit with it. She had them cornered—

"—Grhk! Grrrah!"

"W-Wha—!"

Or at least, she got them cornered before the person decided to mutilate their hand by forcing it out of the bind, no matter how hard or dug deep the thorny vines are.

The figure dashed away as their legs suddenly gained a glowing circuit like pattern as they kicked off the ground, bleeding hand limp by their side. Tohsaka stood there for a moment in shock about what had happened, before shaking her head and regaining her composure.

"As if I'd let you get away easily!" Tohsaka growled and followed shortly after, similar circuit patterns appearing on her legs. She dashed to catch up to the retreating figure.

They didn't say anything in reply and simply tried to lose the girl by making sharp turns and taking advantage of the shadows and darkness to confuse her which way they went. It was almost a success—until they stopped cold in their tracks when they realized that there was someone standing in their way.

Emiya stood ready, his expression sharper than his usual blank look. He also still wore his tracksuit like usual whenever they did their missions. Although he looked utterly mundane, the magus seemed to have good instincts as they kept a good distance away from him and haven't attacked.

Tohsaka finally caught up and she sighed. "I told you—you have nowhere to run and hide." she held the gemstones tightly on her fists, ready to throw them at any moment. "Last chance, give up now and suffer less."

"Tch." the magus turned to her. "Very well. You have forced my hand."

Their hands fell to the side, catching Tohsaka off guard for a moment. For a moment she thought that she wouldn't have to fight and that the magus surrendered.

Their next words killed all hopes of that however.

"However, for your transgressions…"

A flash of light, and a magic circle activated and hovered upon their single working hand. Tohsaka's eyes widened as she felt that whatever that thing on their hand is, it would be at least a very powerful mystic code. The magus took a stance, poising to strike.

"Know that you will suffer the wrath of the Rogue Mage's Association."

With that he struck, and the Fuyuki harbor became a battlefield.

Hello, I decided to revive this story. I used to write this story about Doom guy being dropped in Legend of Zelda about a week after I announced the hiatus but I stopped letting out chapters after a month of interesting times.

Anyways, this is the start of a multi-chapter arc. Shinji appeared as well, and as you can see the Emiya had made some changes on how things are by… well, being him. Who knows what else changed by his inclusion.

For those who gave out compliments in the reviews—thank you, it means a lot. I'll also endeavor to pump out chapters by weeks again as well, though I won't really force myself so that I won't burn out.

Thank you for reading everyone. I hope you enjoyed it.