Chapter 5: The Heroes’ Sleeping Quarters
Part 1
Even though Kyle had never stepped foot inside the Tokyo Imperial Palace, he found himself wondering if even that legendary landmark would pale beside the Kurogane mansion. Every hallway they passed seemed to whisper wealth, history, and a kind of curated power that made the air feel heavier. After an hour of touring the different rooms, everyone was beginning to get tired so it was decided that they would end the tour with showing everyone where they would be sleeping.
“I’m calling dibs on the first room!” Renji shouted, sprinting ahead the moment the elevator doors slid open.
The living quarters were unnervingly quiet. Not peaceful — controlled. The kind of silence that felt engineered, like the mansion itself was holding its breath.
Sebastian stepped out of the elevator behind them, posture immaculate.
“This way, please.”
They turned the corner, and Sebastian opened the first door with a smooth, practiced motion. Kyle and the others stepped inside — and stopped.
The room was a minimalist dojo.
Cedar walls. Floor‑to‑ceiling windows overlooking a perfectly raked zen garden. Tatami mats arranged with geometric precision. A stillness so complete it felt sacred.
Sebastian spoke with the calm neutrality of a man reciting a script.
“Under the specifications my lady provided, we have arranged accommodations tailored to each guest’s particular needs.”
Masayuki stepped inside without hesitation.
The cedar scent hit him first — clean, sharp, purifying. It burned away the chemical tang of Tokyo’s streets and the lingering smoke of the precinct. The polished wood beneath his bare feet grounded him instantly, anchoring him in a way asphalt never could.
Renji pouted dramatically.
“Yeah… I’ve decided you can have the room, Masayuki.”
Masayuki ignored him. He knelt in the center of the room, spine straight, hands resting lightly on his thighs. His breathing slowed, deepened, and became deliberate.
This wasn’t meditation for peace. This was a reconstruction.
If I cannot move the world, he thought, I will move myself.
Kokoro tilted her head, watching him with quiet confusion. Though she got along with everyone, she never understood Masayuki’s stoic nature.
“Do you think he likes it?”
Kotaro shrugged, arms crossed.
“It’s quiet. He can hear his own thoughts. That’s probably enough.”
A moment of silence, Masayuki bowed twice to the room — a gesture of respect, acceptance, and grounding. Then he turned and bowed twice more to Sebastian, who responded with a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
A professional acknowledgement. A silent note: This one will not cause trouble.
Masayuki rose, gently ushered everyone out, and slid the door shut behind him. His geta clicked once against the threshold — a single, clean sound — and then the hallway fell into a brief, profound silence.
A shared breath of relief none of them realized they’d been holding.
Sebastian turned smoothly, unperturbed.
“Shall we proceed.”
Part 2
Two doors down, Sebastian paused.
His hand hovered over the handle — not hesitating, but bracing, as if he were about to unveil something volatile. Then, with a practiced flourish, he slid the door open.
Everyone froze.
“The next room,” Sebastian announced, “is for ascetic recovery.”
The space inside was a shrine to overstimulation.
Aggressively colored LED strips pulsed across the walls, splashing chaotic light over anime posters, plush figures, and a life‑sized cardboard cutout of a magical girl mid‑transformation. A throne‑shaped gaming chair sat in the center like an altar, flanked by a minibar labeled Mood Stabilizers and a manga tower taller than Masayuki.
A muffled anime theme song leaked from hidden speakers, its cheerful melody vibrating through the floorboards.
Renji stepped inside slowly, eyes widening.
“Anime heaven…”
Then he screamed — a sound of pure, unfiltered joy — and shed the Saint’s Gown like a snake shedding its skin. Before anyone could intervene, he dove onto the gaming chair in nothing but their undergarments exposed.
Kyle, Kotaro, and Kokoro stared in mute horror as Renji flipped through an entire manga volume with manic, childlike glee.
“I knew I was the main protagonist!” he shouted, voice cracking with emotion. “Where have you been all my life?!”
Luna shrieked inside his mind.
“You absolute gremlin! How dare you discard the Saint’s Gown like that?!”
Then the massage function activated.
Renji melted into the chair with a blissful groan. Luna’s indignation dissolved instantly.
“This is a chamber of sin… but why does this chair feel so heavenly…”
Her voice trembled with reluctant ecstasy.
Sebastian cleared his throat.
It was subtle — but the muscle near his left eye twitched, a tiny, violent betrayal of his otherwise perfect composure.
“We hope the Princess and gentleman find the accommodation… tolerable.”
His voice was iced over, formal, and utterly detached.
Renji gave a thumbs‑up without opening his eyes. Luna moaned in bliss.
Minami beamed, clasping her hands together.
“Isn’t it delightful? A perfect fusion of identity and indulgence. The room adapts to their emotional state. It’s practically therapeutic.”
Kyle lingered in the hallway, watching the door hiss shut behind them. The muffled chaos of Renji and Luna arguing over minibar territory echoed faintly — a tempting, dangerous lure of distraction.
Kyle inhaled slowly, grounding himself.
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t step inside. He didn’t let himself want the escape.
He simply kept walking.
Because he knew — instinctively — that surrendering to distraction was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
Part 3
The hallway stretched on in curated silence, each step swallowed by thick carpeting and the faint hum of concealed ventilation. Kyle walked at the front of the group now, not out of confidence, but because the others instinctively fell behind him — as if he were still their leader, even here, even now.
Minami stopped at the largest door on the floor.
Her smile brightened, too wide, too polished.
“This,” she announced, “is my favorite space in the entire mansion.”
Her fingers brushed the handle.
And that was when Sebastian moved.
It was subtle — a half‑step forward, a slight incline of his head — but the urgency in the gesture was unmistakable. He leaned in, whispering something sharp and low, a string of syllables too quick and too quiet to decipher.
But the tone was unmistakable.
Warning.
Minami froze.
Her smile didn’t fade. It switched off — clean, precise, like a stage light cut mid‑scene.
“Oh! My deepest apologies,” she said, her voice smoothing into something cold and practiced. “Sebastian has reminded me that my quarters are under renovation. How terribly inconvenient.”
A ripple of tension passed through the group — small, silent, but unmistakable. The kind of tension that made the air feel heavier, as if the mansion itself were holding its breath.
No one protested. No one asked questions.
They were already sweating from the pressure of the moment, grateful for the deflection, terrified of what might have happened if Minami had opened that door.
Sebastian seized the opportunity with reverent precision.
“Allow me,” he said, sliding open the next door.
The shift in his posture was subtle but telling — a return to control, to choreography, to the script.
“This will be the room for Lady Kokoro and Master Kotaro.”
The twins stepped forward hesitantly.
Kyle lingered behind them, glancing once more at the forbidden door. It sat there, silent and immaculate, but the air around it felt wrong — like a stage prop hiding something alive.
Something that wasn’t meant to be seen.
Part 4
Sebastian slid open the next door with reverent precision.
The twins stepped forward hesitantly, their hands brushing together before Kokoro instinctively latched onto her brother’s sleeve. Kyle stayed close behind them, sensing the tension radiating off both children like static.
The room was dim, lit only by the soft amber glow of a single paper lantern. The walls were a muted gray — silk‑textured, cool to the eye, the color of unspoken things. There was no furniture except a single massive bed, covered by one vast, unyielding sheet.
A quiet reminder of their forced, shared existence.
But the true centerpiece stood at the far end of the room.
A full‑length mirror framed in black lacquer.
Its surface was unnaturally pristine — too smooth, too reflective, as if it refused to acknowledge fingerprints, dust, or time. It didn’t feel like a mirror meant for vanity.
It felt like a mirror meant for judgment.
Kokoro stepped inside first, her bare feet silent on the tatami. She moved slowly, as though approaching an altar. When she reached the mirror, she stopped.
Her reflection stared back.
Her face. Her expression. Her eyes.
But not her body. Not anymore.
She lifted a trembling hand and touched the lacquered frame. It was cold. Too cold. As if the mirror itself rejected warmth — or memory.
Kotaro followed, stiff and quiet. He sat on the edge of the bed, back turned to the mirror, eyes fixed on the floor. His silence wasn’t passive.
It was a shield.
A refusal to watch their truth unravel.
Kyle lingered in the doorway, watching them. The silence between the twins wasn’t empty. It was full — full of unspoken trauma, of borrowed bodies, of blurred boundaries and the fear of losing themselves entirely.
Sebastian cleared his throat softly.
“If Lady Kokoro and Master Kotaro wish, we can arrange separate rooms as well as separate beds.”
His tone was clinical, data‑driven — as if the offer existed only because psychological conflict was expected and accounted for.
Kokoro didn’t turn around.
She whispered, barely audible:
“Do you think we’ll ever go back?”
The question hit Kyle like a blade.
He didn’t know if she meant returning to their original bodies, returning to the other world, or returning to the innocence they’d lost before being summoned.
He didn’t answer.
He couldn’t.
Kotaro’s shoulders tightened, but he said nothing.
Sebastian bowed, his eyes lingering on the pair with a flicker of something almost human — pity, perhaps, or recognition — before smoothing back into neutrality.
“Shall we continue?”
Kyle stepped back into the hallway. Sebastian slid the door shut with a soft click.
Inside, the mirror shimmered faintly — as though it wasn’t sure which soul it belonged to.
Part 5
The door to the twins’ room slid shut with a soft, final click.
For a moment, the hallway held its breath.
Sebastian turned smoothly, hands folded behind his back, posture immaculate.
“This concludes the tour of the guest quarters,” he said. “Your room is at the end of the hall.”
Kyle nodded, but he didn’t move right away.
Masayuki had found a sanctuary — a place to rebuild himself. Renji and Luna had found a distraction — a place to dissolve themselves. The twins had found a mirror — a place to confront themselves.
And Kyle…
Kyle had nothing.
He walked slowly down the hallway, each step muffled by the thick carpet. The silence trailed behind him like a shadow — heavy, watchful, impossible to shake. The mansion’s air felt curated, as if even the oxygen had been filtered for aesthetic consistency.
He wasn’t sure what he expected his room to be. A reflection of who he was? A reminder of who he used to be? A hint of who he was supposed to become?
But the truth pressed against him with every step:
He didn’t know who he was anymore.
Not a hero. Not a leader. Not a savior.
Just a fool who tried to save a world that no longer existed — and returned to one that didn’t need him.
The hallway lights dimmed slightly as he approached the final door, as if the mansion itself were adjusting the spotlight.
Sebastian stopped beside him, bowing with crisp precision.
“Your quarters,” he said.
Kyle reached for the handle.
His hand hesitated.
Not out of fear — but out of the quiet, aching hope that maybe, just maybe, the room would tell him something he couldn’t tell himself.
