Who exactly was Rei Ao-senpai?
With power that could connect different worlds, why was he staying in their seemingly ordinary world, living the life of a normal student?
And what was he really to those girls in the group?
Questions knotted in her chest like a ball of string. She knew she had no right to pry, but curiosityand a subtle sense of lossrefused to settle.
Watching her lowered lashes and heavy thoughts, a look of understanding flickered in Rei Ao's eyes. He leaned forward slightly, softened his voice, and prompted gently, "Kei, are you curious about the people and things in other worlds?"
Kei's head snapped up to meet those eyes that seemed to see straight through a person.
Curious? How could she not be!
Worlds of sword and sorcery?
Worlds where people have superpowers?
Worlds with terrifying ghouls?
And those goddesses and Heroic Spirits who looked like they'd stepped out of myth
Each phrase hinted at a vastness she couldn't even picture.
Of course she was curious.
She nodded before she even realized it.
Rei Ao smiled, an invitation in it. "If there's a chance, I can take you to visit the other members' worlds."
"Seeing with your own eyes is always more vividand more funthan hearing about it."
"R-really?"
Kei's heartbeat quickened, and a spark of anticipation lit her gaze.
Visiting other worldswasn't that the sort of thing that only happened in fairy tales?
"Of course," Rei Ao said. "We'll just wait for the right time."
It was only a small promise, but it was like a beam of light cutting through Kei's earlier tangle of feelings, washing away the vague sense of distance and loss, and replacing it with a bright longing for the unknown.
While Rei Ao and Shirogane Kei were speaking in his world about secrets and what might come next
In Tokyo, in another world
Thunder rumbled.
Rain hissed.
The sky hung low and dark as a fine, steady drizzle fell, draping the bustling city in a gray, misty veil.
Neon bled into soft blurs behind the curtain of rain. On the streets, people hurried along, umbrellas bobbing like little moving mushrooms.
In one corner of the city, inside a cramped, timeworn room of an older apartment building, a girl sat curled on the old sofa by the window, knees hugged to her chest, staring out at the endless silver threads of rain.
She looked around eighteen, with slightly messy long black hair. Her features were delicate, but her face was pale, marked by a trace of wear that life had left behind. Her clothes had been washed so many times they'd faded.
Her name was Amano Hinaan ordinary girl.
Rivulets streamed down the glass, smearing the world outsideand, it seemed, her view of the futureinto a blur.
The room was quiet, save for the patter of the rain.
Hina reached out and absently traced aimless shapes on the fogged-over pane.
Rainy days like this always left her with a restless itch.
~~~
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Chapter 996: Continues Rain
Outside, the rain fell fine and unending, as if the sky had torn a hole that couldn't be mended, pouring its sorrow ceaselessly down to earth. Raindrops drummed on the windowpane with a monotonous, suffocating patter, merging into winding trails that blurred the gray world beyond.
Amano Hina curled up on the old sofa by the window, arms around her knees, chin resting on them, quietly gazing at the cityscape veiled in rain. Her eyes were a clear sea-green, yet they reflected no light nowonly a gloom in tune with the sky.
It had been a full year since her mother died. Those 365 days and nights had stretched like a century for a girl who had just lost her only support. She could still remember her mother's warm smile, the gentle feel of her hand stroking Hina's hair, the profile of her face as she tried to make Hina a bento even while ill. The memories were like old photographs soaked by raincolors still vivid, but damp with heartbreak.
After the funeral, the empty apartment held only her. A cold stovetop. Silent nights. Greetings that no one answered. Life was nothing if not brutally real. At least her younger brother had been taken in by relatives, so he wouldn't have to worry about getting by.
Hina, however, refused to live under someone else's roof. To survive, she had to choose deception. Facing the hiring manager, she straightened her not-yet-fully-grown frame and, in a deliberately steady tone beyond her years, claimed she was already eighteen. Luckily, she had inherited her mother's delicate good looks and managed to pull it off, landing a part-time job at a McDonald's not far from home.
Every day after school she changed into the slightly oversized red-and-yellow uniform, put on the hat with the golden "M," and stood behind the counter, repeating the cycle of taking orders, handling cash, and passing out food. She had to squeeze out a standard smile for every customer, saying "Welcome" and "Thanks for coming," even when she was bone-tired. Even when she ran into picky, difficult patrons, she had to endure it.
That meager hourly wage was her only source for rent, food, and school expenses. Every coin had to be counted carefully. She hadn't bought new clothes in a long time. Lunch was often the cheapest rice ball or bread from the convenience store. On rare "splurges," it was a single employee-discount burger.
The weight of life pressed down on her young shoulders like layers of rain-soaked cottonheavy and unyielding. And the loneliness of losing a loved one seeped into every crack of her days like this unending raincold and suffocating. She often woke in the dead of night, listening to the drizzle outside, feeling like a lone skiff lost on a boundless sea with no shore in sight.
Today's shift ended the same waybusy and exhausting. She changed out of her uniform and stepped out of the restaurant thick with the smell of fried food. The chill and damp wrapped around her at once. The rain wasn't letting up; with night falling, it felt even gloomier.
She turned down the umbrella a coworker offered, pulled her thin school jacket tighter, lowered her head, and walked into the curtain of rain. It quickly soaked her blue short hair, strands sticking to her forehead and cheeks like ice. The jacket drank in the water and grew heavy, clinging to her skin and passing its chill along. Her mood, like the rain-washed streets, felt muddy and dull.
A nameless oppression spread and swelled in her chest, braided with loneliness and helplessness. She needed an outleta place to slip free of this heavy reality, even for a moment. She lifted her eyes to the shabby high-rise in the distance, and a thought surfaced on its ownan almost instinctive impulse she indulged now and then whenever she felt especially lost and powerless. A secret ritual that belonged to her alone.
Instead of taking the familiar path home, she turned down a quieter alley. Her steps hesitated a little, yet there was a dogged resolve in them.
She made her way, as if by habit, to an old high-rise that had long been abandoned. The building looked half-finished for years: gray concrete laid bare on the exterior, most windows unglazedlike hollow eyes staring blankly at the rain-struck city.
Few people came here even on normal days; in the rain it felt all the more desolate. She glanced around, wary, confirming no one was watching. Then she slipped through a half-open, rust-scarred metal side door.
Inside was darker and more ruined than outside. The air was thick with dust and damp mold, undercut by that raw tang unique to construction debris. The emergency lights were long dead. Only the thinnest daylight, washed out by the rain, leaked through a few broken windows, just enough to outline the empty lobby and stairwells.
The fire stairs were rough steel, the handrails scabbed with rust. A thick film of dust coated the steps, mixed with leaks from the roof into patches of muddy sludge. Hina drew a long breath of that cold, murky air and began to climb, one step at a time.
Tap, tap, tapher shoes on steel echoed through the vast emptiness, the sound unusually clear, solitary, almost aching. Her footsteps, her breathing, and the ceaseless rain outside formed the only symphony in that silence.
She climbed slowlynot from fatigue, but with something like a pilgrim's mindset, each step carrying a hard-to-name mix of anticipation and anxiety. The stairwell walls were scribbled with graffiti and symbols that meant nothing, as if recording the building's past and the fleeting traces of those who had slipped inside before.
She had no idea how long she'd been climbing. Her legs were starting to ache, her breathing a little unsteady. At last, she reached the top floor.
Chapter 997: Sunshine Maiden! Amano Hina Joins the Chat Group!
Tap, tap
Her footsteps stopped.
A heavy iron doorits paint mostly peeled away, dark red rust showing underneathblocked the way. The hinges seemed frozen with corrosion. Mustering all her strength, Amano Hina pushed; with a teeth-aching creak, it opened just enough for her to slip through sideways.
The view opened up at once.
It was an island in the sky that the city had forgotten. The broad concrete rooftop, neglected for years and gnawed by rain, was crosshatched with cracks. In many places, pools of water of uneven depth reflected the leaden sky.
In the corners, stubborn weeds and low, nameless plants had forced their way up through the seams in the concrete. Their humble yet unyielding green wavered in the wind and rain, adding an unexpected, defiant touch of life to the desolate gray.
But the most striking thing wasn't this small miracle of life. It was the small structure standing, abrupt and alone, at the center of the roofa red torii gate. It wasn't tall. Its style was plain and old-fashionedone might even call it crude. The vermilion paint, weathered by years of sun, wind, and rain, had grown mottled and dull; in many spots the gray-black wood beneath showed through, like deep wrinkles on a weathered elder's face. It stood there silent and solemn, a stark, uncanny contrast to the cold, modern towers all aroundas if torn from a time-forgotten shrine and dropped atop this forest of steel and concrete, a mysterious, lonely coordinate linking an unknowable past to the noisy present.
Rain washed its frame, gathering into threads that slid down with the grain of the wood.
Without a moment's hesitation, Hina walked straight toward the torii, as if long familiar with it. Cold rain fell on her unshielded. Her clothes, already soaked through, clung to her skin, sipping away what little warmth she had. Her hair was drenched; cold droplets ran from the tips, over her cheeks and along her neck, sending shivers through her. She seemed obliviousor rather, chose to ignore it.
She stopped directly beneath the gate. Tilting her face up, she let the rain strike her. A few mischievous drops slipped into her eyes and stung. She closed them; her long, rain-wet lashes trembled slightly. Then she pressed her hands together before her chest, her movements slow and deliberate, as if performing an ancient, devout ritefacing the silent torii, and the gray sky that seemed it would never clear.
In a voice barely above a murmur, faintly trembling, she began to pray.
"Please let the rain stop"
The words were so soft they were swallowed almost at once by the drizzle, like the faintest ripple from deep inside her.
She paused, as if confirming an identity she herself could not fully grasp. Then, in a clearer voicetinged with uncertainty and a touch of self-encouragementshe spoke the secret buried deepest in her heart:
"I am a Sunshine Maiden."
It was less a plea to some nebulous presence than a declaration to herselfa calling and affirmation of a special gift she could not explain, yet knew was real. She didn't know where it came from, or why it had chosen someone as ordinaryat least on the surfaceas her. She only vaguely remembered noticing it sometime after her mother diedwhen she was at her lowest, silently crying up at a rain-choked sky, and the clouds had miraculously parted before her eyes.
Ever since, she had felt a hazy, uncanny link between herself and the sky. When she truly wished for itwhen she called for clear weather with all her heartthe clouds would indeed give way, and sunlight would break through to bathe her. It was her deepest secret: a strangeness she dared not tell anyone, one that confused her and that she had come to lean on. It was also the one fragile, sunlike thread of warmth and hope she could grasp in a life heavy with gloom and loneliness. Coming to pray before this torii had become her only way to ease the pressure and comfort her heart.
And just as her prayer fadedand her whole being sank into that faint hope and the subtle resonance of her strange gift
A cold, mechanical chime with no trace of emotion detonated without warning in the depths of her mind:
[Ding! You have joined the Trading Chat Group!]
Hina's eyes flew open. Her pupils shrank; shock and bewilderment flooded them. She could clearly hear her heart poundingthud, thud, thudlike a frantic drumbeat threatening to burst free.
Instinctively she looked around, her gaze sweeping every empty, wind-and-rain-lashed corner of the rooftop. No one! Nothing living but herself and the silent torii!
"Am I hearing things? Too tired? A fever hallucination from the rain?"
She shook her wet head hard, flinging cold droplets. But the sound had been so clear, so real.
"Is anyone there?" she whisperedso softly only she could hearher voice trembling with fear and uncertainty. Even a sunshine maiden could be spooked by ghost stories. Her question was swallowed at once by the steady rain; no answer came.
But the chat group did answer.
The rain stopped. The clouds began to slowly part. Warm sunlight poured down like a sanctifying glow over Amano Hina.
Then, in the blankness of her shock, an interface abruptly appeared in her field of vision:
[Trading Chat Group]
The chat group's interface hovered quietly before her, radiating a presence impossible to ignore.
~~~
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Chapter 998: Could this Group Owner Rei Ao be a God?
"What is this?"
Staring at the strange light-screen before her, Amano Hina's irrepressible curiosity sprouted like a seedling breaking through soil and reaching upward.
At the same time, a wordless premonition tugged at her consciousness like an invisible thread. She felt as if she could operate this bizarre screen.
After a brief, almost frozen pause in thought, she reached out with her mindtrembling, chilled through by the rainand cautiously "touched" the chat group.
