"So, mind if we talk about what happened today?"
Without waiting for an answer, Himeko reached out and yanked Nagami toward her, wrapping a fair arm around his shoulders.
She pulled him close like it was the most natural thing in the world, their bare skin touching without a hint of hesitation.
"Tch. C'mon, Himeko-san, aren't you a little too old to be trying the whole 'seductive onee-san' act?"
That casual jab froze the smile on the red-haired beauty's face.
"Oh~? What did you say just now? I didn't quite catch that—care to repeat it?"
The veins on her forehead twitched ever so slightly.
With her blood pressure clearly on the rise, Himeko's smile dropped into a deadly glare, her tone edged with danger.
Nagami was starting to wonder if he was about to die a particularly scandalous death.
Classic locked-room case—Murder by Boobs.
'Damn it!'
'Here I am, and this woman's giving me fanservice—and I go and say that?!'
"Wait, hold up—what are you doing?!"
Before he could escape, Himeko's slender arms looped around his neck, locking him into a tight hold.
Her upper body pressed against him as she applied what could only be described as a seductive chokehold.
It wasn't painless, but that wasn't what had Nagami panicking.
Let's not forget—Himeko was only wearing a towel!
Swallowing hard, Nagami felt like he was under siege from a very specific kind of weapon.
"Brave boy, aren't you~?" Her smile turned sharper, more dangerous, the hold tightening ever so slightly.
"N-Not brave at all, actually!"
Nagami stiffened as the situation got progressively more intimate.
But despite how close they were—despite the faint scent of her shampoo, the warmth of her skin—there was no thrill in his eyes. No blush, no nervous stammering.
Just quiet alertness.
Because he knew.
From the moment Himeko had pulled him in, he understood what she was trying to do.
From the outside, sure, it looked steamy.
The kind of scene that might escalate into something out of a romance manga.
But on the inside… both of them were painfully calm.
Himeko wasn't flirting because she wanted to play around.
She was doing this because her time was running out—and she wanted to feel something, anything, while she still could.
Nagami could see right through it.
"Aww~ you're blushing now?"
She teased, her long lashes fluttering.
With a playful smirk, she tucked a lock of her soft red hair behind one ear and used the ends to tickle his cheek.
"Aren't you supposed to be the little casanova, totally unfazed by a group of pretty girls?"
"And where did you get that idea?" Nagami sighed, twitching at the corners of his mouth. "This is me going into shock, thank you very much."
"Oh? Is that so?"
With a catlike smile, Himeko suddenly shifted, straddling Nagami's lap.
Her arms wrapped around his neck, fingers locking behind him.
Their foreheads pressed together, nose to nose, eyes meeting at point-blank range.
Her amber-gold eyes shimmered with something deeper.
"What about now? Still in shock?"
Nagami gasped quietly, startled by how bold she was.
All it would take was the tiniest lean forward and their lips would meet.
But there was no excitement in his chest.
No joy at having a beautiful woman in his arms.
Only something heavier—something unspeakable creeping in like mist.
"…Maybe just a little better."
He shifted slightly, resting his chin on her pale shoulder, gently wrapping his arms around her warm, curvy figure.
His cheek pressed against her fiery red hair as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"Impatient, are we?" Himeko teased, smirking at the soft contact.
But in Nagami's now-open eyes, something had changed.
Within the inky blackness of his irises, a glowing, violet-blue hexagram turned slowly—his unique vision activating silently.
He didn't need to analyze again.
He had already seen her truth days ago.
Her lifespan… less than six months.
Half a year might sound like a while, but it could vanish in a heartbeat.
Her body—ravaged by the artificial Stigmata—was in shambles beneath the surface.
At the cellular level, even down to her genes, the Honkai energy was eating her alive.
Nagami quietly gave the mental command.
At once, the Honkai energy inside him surged—like loyal hounds rushing to serve their goddess—pooling into his palms.
Wrapped in a bluish-purple glow, his hand began to move.
Himeko frowned slightly, thrown off by his subtle shift in mood.
He's really holding back?
That doesn't seem like him…
She felt his hand rest against her waist. It wasn't the touch she expected, but even so, her tense brows relaxed a little.
A soft smile crept to her lips.
'There's no way he's not tempted. With his personality? Impossible.'
"So?~ Did you like big sis's—mmph!"
Her teasing voice abruptly cut off, like someone had switched off the TV.
"Mmph, well… I'll give you this—your body is amazing. But seeing it every day kind of kills the surprise."
Her skin was white as snow, soft as silk.
Nagami's hands moved with care across her back—not out of lust, but instinct and focus.
He didn't seem concerned about where his hands happened to land.
At that moment, Nagami had completely shut off his ordinary field of vision.
Using the remaining healthy cells in Himeko's body as a blueprint, he began to recreate identical—or at least functionally similar—cells using the power of the Herrscher of Reason.
His gaze shifted toward a spot glowing with a faint crimson light in his special vision—a place that looked like it held the form of a massive greatsword.
That must be her Artificial Stigmata.
With his Alpha Stigma Eyes, he began breaking down and refining her genetic structure, then used the Herrscher of Reason's ability to reconstruct it.
At the same time, Nagami commanded the Honkai energy within him to target and obliterate the nearly-collapsing double helixes in Himeko's DNA—replacing the broken structures with the newly replicated, healthy ones.
Cells shifted.
Genes restructured.
The transformation inside her body was intricate and continuous.
There was no need to worry about the new cells vanishing.
Anything created by the Herrscher of Reason would remain intact until the Herrscher's death—unless destroyed by external force.
This… was the true power of the Alpha Stigma Eyes and the Herrscher of Reason.
"Wait—what do you mean by 'seeing it every day'?!"
Himeko's teasing tone from earlier was cut off by sudden confusion, only to be overwhelmed moments later by a wave of shock.
"You… what did you just do?!"
Her voice trembled with uncharacteristic intensity.
Her slender arms unwrapped from around Nagami, and she tried to push herself up—but he pulled her tightly back into his embrace.
She couldn't see the changes happening inside her, but she could feel them.
The fatigue that had clung to her bones for so long vanished like mist.
That crushing, suffocating weight in her chest that felt like it might kill her at any second—it was gone.
What replaced it was a lightness, a clarity—like someone had shattered the iron chains she didn't even realize were dragging her down.
"Don't move," Nagami said gently. "I'm using the Herrscher of Reason's power to patch up your worn-out body."
His voice was calm and almost playful, like someone working on an old, elegant mansion—one that still looked perfect on the outside, but was falling apart inside.
And for someone like Nagami, this level of work wasn't even particularly difficult.
There were two major hurdles in treating an artificial Stigmata.
The first: physical proximity. It required incredibly close contact—like what he and Himeko were doing now.
Which, incidentally, was why Nagami hadn't offered to heal her earlier.
He'd intended to wait until they were a bit more comfortable with each other.
He definitely hadn't expected her to push herself like this, risking her own body just to play seductress.
The second issue wasn't much of an issue at all—just time.
The artificial Stigmata had been wrecking her body for years.
It wasn't something you could fix all at once.
Even though Nagami had the power to replace cells down to the molecular level, this was a process that had to be done gradually.
Unless, of course, Himeko was willing to give up all the power her Stigmata gave her.
Which, obviously, she wasn't.
"You always look so proud during class, you know. Surrounded by all those cute students who adore you. So why are you so eager to burn yourself out?"
The first phase of treatment complete, Nagami deactivated the special vision of his Alpha Stigma Eyes.
But the moment he switched back to normal sight, he reached up to press a hand to his forehead, wincing slightly.
Then he shook his head, trying to shake off the strange dizziness creeping in.
Though he'd replaced something like several hundred billion cells just now, the actual workload wasn't as extreme as it sounded.
Most of it was just automated duplication after a bit of fine-tuning.
The dizziness?
That was just mana drain from healing a stacked onee-san.
Reaching out, Nagami gently tapped his long finger against Himeko's nose, then leaned back just a little with a smug grin.
He bumped her lightly with his shoulder, nudging her out of her stunned silence.
"So? Not bad, right?"
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