Chapter 21: Excess Anxiety

The silence of the mansion was a heavy, suffocating thing. Kyle stood outside his bedroom door, the echo of the lacquer box’s lid snapping shut still ringing in his ears. Every piece of information Masayuki had unearthed felt like a jagged stone added to a pack he wasn't sure he could carry.

Was the figure from Kotomi’s dreams the same Shiraishi who had laughed in a burning palace? And where did the Magical Girls fit into this?

"Good night," Kyle said, his voice barely a murmur as he waved to Kotomi.

She offered a fragile nod, her eyes still glazed with the horror of Masayuki’s tale, before gently clicking her door shut. Kyle retreated to his own room, the darkness greeting him like an old, unwelcome friend.

“Damn it,” he muttered, leaning his forehead against the cool wood of the door. “What have I gotten myself into?”

He had survived another world. He had fought monsters and the Demon Lord, and when he finally touched down on Japanese soil, he thought it was over. He wanted a life of working in a convenience store and quiet nights. Instead, he was being dragged back.

His eyes drifted to the corner of the room, where a trunk lay partially open. Resting inside was the broken half of Sunbreaker. The fractured blade caught the moonlight, a jagged, cruel reminder of the moment his strength hadn't been enough.

He reached out, his fingers inches from the handle, when a rhythmic tapping startled him.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Kyle sighed, rubbing his face before pulling the door open. He expected Masayuki’s grim silhouette or Sebastian’s professional mask. Instead, he found Minami.

She stood there in her sharp teacher’s blazer and skirt, the fabric crisp despite the late hour. Her glasses caught the dim hallway light, obscuring her eyes. Everything about her posture screamed "disciplinary hearing," though Kyle was in no mood for the theater.

“What are you still doing up like this?” Kyle asked, his voice flat.

“Is that the way to talk to your teacher?” Minami asked, her hand moving to adjust her spectacles.

Even in the Isekai world, Minami had been an enigma wrapped in a riddle and buried in a landslide. She played everyone—king, peasant, and hero alike—treating the world like a stage where only she knew the script.

“Alright, Sensei,” Kyle groaned, leaning against the doorframe. “What may I ask brings you here this late?”

He had learned long ago: with Minami, you played the role she cast for you, or you’d be stuck in the prologue forever.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk... Kyle,” she said, wagging a finger with mock disappointment. “It is the sacred duty of a teacher to ensure the well-being of all her students. That includes the brooding ones.”

She stepped into his room without waiting for an invitation, her heels clicking sharply on the floorboards. She turned back to him, her expression shifting into something uncomfortably professional.

“For now, it’s time for you to undress. Chop, chop.”

Kyle froze, his hand still on the doorknob. “I’m sorry, what?”

***

“Huff… huff… huff…”

The air in the room was thick, humid, and smelled of salt and exertion. Kyle’s breathing came in ragged, desperate hitches. Every muscle in his body was screaming, his skin slick with a layer of sweat that gleamed under the dim, low-hanging lights.

A droplet of perspiration traced the line of his spine, sliding down his naked back before being shaken off by another violent shudder of his frame. Above him, Minami’s weight was a constant, pressing force, her breath warm against the back of his neck.

“Come on,” she whispered, her voice a low, teasing silk that cut through his fatigue. “Is that all the stamina you’ve got? I expected more from a Hero.”

Kyle let out a guttural grunt, his arms trembling as he pushed against the floor, his vision blurring. “I don’t know… if I can… endure anymore…”

With a final, bone-deep groan, his strength gave out. He collapsed onto the cold mat, his chest heaving as he fought to pull oxygen into his burning lungs.

“150 push ups,” Minami said, her voice suddenly crisp and clinical. She hopped off his back with the grace of a cat, landing lightly on her heels. She adjusted her glasses, peering down at a stopwatch. “One less than in your peak in the other world. How disappointing.”

Kyle rolled onto his back, staring up at the basement rafters of the mansion. The "physical" hadn't been a medical exam—it was a grueling endurance circuit in the estate’s private gym, with Minami acting as a literal dead-weight.

“Was the… extra weight… necessary?” Kyle wheezed, wiping sweat from his eyes.

“Necessary? Not really,” Minami said, smoothing out her skirt as if she hadn’t just been riding a man like a pack mule. “Still, how do you feel now that you’ve burnt all that excess anxiety?”

Kyle paused, his heart rate finally slowing. The crushing weight of Masayuki’s story, the fear for Kotomi, the dread of the future—it had all been distilled into physical pain, and then purged. His mind felt strangely sharp.

“As a hero, you were active daily,” Minami said, pacing around him like a predator. “When you stop, your muscles don't just relax; they atrophy. Your Chi becomes stagnant, like a pond without a current. A good workout is what the doctor ordered.”

She pulled out a soft measuring tape, her eyes glinting. “Now, stand up. I need your bust, waist, and hips.”

“Why?” Kyle asked, suspicious. “Isn’t that what they do for anime fan service?”

“Come now, Kyle. It’s a classic anime trope. To deny it would be to reject Japan’s greatest contribution to modern culture,” she said with a straight face.

Kyle opened his mouth to argue, but the absurdity of her logic was an iron wall. Instead, he looked her in the eye, his expression turning somber. “Minami… be real with me. Who is Shiraishi?”

The playful light in her eyes flickered and died. She paused, the measuring tape dangling from her fingers like a silver snake.

“If you wanted to learn about sexual health, I could give you a lecture that would make you blush for a week,” she said, her voice losing its mocking edge. “But that name… Shiraishi is common. There are Shiraishis in the healthcare sector, in the financial sector, even near the Emperor’s inner circle. Without a face or a specific era, searching for him is like looking for a specific drop of water in a monsoon.”

She leaned in, her glasses catching a stray beam of light. “It could be that the name is nothing more than a mask, Kyle.”

Before Kyle could press her further, the heavy steel door of the basement was thrown open. The sound of boots sprinting down the stairs echoed through the concrete room.

Kotaro skidded into view, his face white, his breath coming in panicked bursts.

“Kyle! Minami!” he shouted, his eyes darting between them. “It’s Kotomi. She’s gone. Her room is empty, and the window is wide open.”

***

Kyle didn’t wait for Kotaro to finish his sentence. The exhaustion from the workout vanished, replaced by a cold, electric jolt of adrenaline. He took the basement stairs three at a time, his bare feet slapping against the cold stone, the air growing thinner as he raced toward the residential wing.

He burst into Kotomi’s room. The door swung wide, hitting the wall with a crack that echoed through the hollow hallway.

The room was freezing. The moonlight spilled across the floorboards, illuminating a trail of discarded clothing and a bed that had been stripped of its linens. Kyle rushed to the window, his heart hammering against his ribs. A makeshift rope of knotted blankets was anchored firmly to the heavy bedpost, trailing out the open window and disappearing into the darkness of the garden below.

“Damn it!” Kyle snarled, slamming his fist into the windowsill. “Why? Why would she do that? After everything we did for her?”

“She didn't leave because she was captured, Kyle,” Minami said softly. She had followed him up, her expression uncharacteristically somber. She pointed toward the small wooden desk near the bed.

Resting there, held down by a single silver hair clip, was a piece of notebook paper.

Kyle snatched it up. The handwriting was shaky, blurred in places by what looked like dried teardrops.

“Kotaro!” Kyle spun around, his eyes wild and predatory. He grabbed the boy by the shoulders, his grip far tighter than he intended. “Tell me exactly what happened! How long has she been gone? Why didn't you stop her?!”

Kotaro flinched, his eyes wide with fear at the sudden intensity in Kyle’s face. He had seen Kyle angry, but he had never seen Kyle like this. The boy’s lip trembled, his breath hitching.

Seeing the terror in the kid’s eyes, Kyle felt a pang of shame. He let go, exhaling a long, shaky breath. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Kotaro. Just… talk to me.”

“I… I just went to get some water,” Kotaro stammered, rubbing his shoulders. “I saw her door was slightly ajar. I thought she was just restless, so I went to check on her, to see if she needed anything. But the room was empty. The window was already open.”

“She’s been gone for at least an hour,” Minami observed, peering over the windowsill at the scuff marks on the mansion’s stone exterior. “She’s smart. She avoided the main paths.”

Minami turned toward the hallway, her fingers already flying across her phone screen. “I’ll tap into the estate’s perimeter cameras. If she climbed the walls, I can track her direction. We can use the GPS pings from the local cell towers to—”

Kyle didn't hear the rest. Minami’s voice became a dull hum, like a radio losing its signal. His vision tunneled. He wasn't thinking about cameras or pings. He was thinking about a girl with a silver hair clip in her pocket, walking into a trap set by a three-hundred-year-old monster.

He didn’t know where she was going but he still needed to move.

Without a word, Kyle turned and bolted.