"...Yes... Master..."
She spoke again.
This time, there was no sob in her voice, no trembling, no emotion of any kind.
Only a deathly stillness of obedience.
"...To be able to make you happy... is my honor..."
Chika Fujiwara had completely abandoned her identity as a human being.
...
The next day.
Fujiwara family residence.
The atmosphere in Daichi Fujiwara's study was suffocating.
"What did you say?! Moeha... had a mental breakdown?"
Daichi Fujiwara shot up from his chair, glaring at the family physician before him, his face livid.
"Yes, Your Excellency."
The doctor wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and answered cautiously. "After the second young lady returned, her fever wouldn't come down, and she kept talking deliriously. After she woke up... she stopped speaking, refused to eat, and shut herself in her room... This is a textbook autistic response to severe psychological trauma."
"Damn it!"
Daichi slammed his palm down on the desk in fury. "What the hell happened?! Didn't she just go to bring Chika some snacks?!"
At that moment, the red secure-line phone on his desk rang.
Daichi's hand froze.
That was... Seiji Fujiwara's private line.
He drew a deep breath, pushed down the fury in his chest, and picked up the phone.
"...Mr. Fujiwara."
From the other end of the line came that young man's lazy voice, edged with a hint of amusement.
"I hear your daughter, Miss Moeha, isn't feeling well?"
Daichi's heart clenched violently.
In an instant, he understood everything.
It was him.
He had to be the one behind it.
A surge of humiliation and anger such as he had never known shot straight to his head.
He was the Prime Minister of Japan!
The man at the helm of this country!
This young man had toyed with his elder daughter, and that wasn't enough. Now he had reached out to his younger daughter as well...
"Seiji Fujiwara!" he hissed through clenched teeth, his voice low. "You... have gone too far!"
"Too far?"
Seiji let out a quiet laugh.
"Mr. Daichi."
"I merely... gave your younger daughter an early lesson in what we call 'social reality.'"
"Besides..."
The voice on the other end of the line suddenly turned bone-chillingly cold.
"It's only a daughter. Not a son."
"And it's not as if it's your first time sending one off."
The hand holding the phone began to tremble violently.
The fury vanished in an instant, leaving only marrow-deep terror.
Yes.
It was only a daughter.
He had already sent one off. He couldn't afford to care about sending off a second.
For men like them, children were a commodity they could produce as many of as they pleased.
A long silence followed.
This old fox who had weathered every storm in the political world slowly closed his eyes.
"...You're right."
"It's Moeha's fault... she has poor mental fortitude. I apologize for the trouble she's caused you."
"...Then, by way of apology..."
He glanced past the study door, toward the firmly shut room of his younger daughter, and a sliver of resolute cold flickered through his eyes.
Since she was already broken, he might as well... throw her out entirely as well.
"Once Moeha's condition stabilizes a little..."
"I'll have her come to Shuchiin as well, to apologize to you... in person."
"I imagine, since Chika has become your 'secretary,' Moeha... should also be able to help shoulder some of your burdens?"
From the other end of the line came Seiji's satisfied laughter.
"Very good."
"Mr. Daichi, you truly are... a clever man."
The call ended.
Daichi sat in his chair, expressionless.
Outside the window, the sky that had been clear was now blanketed with dark clouds, though he had not noticed when.
...
...
Morning at Shuchiin Academy still possessed that enviable serenity and elegance.
Sunlight filtered through the century-old trees, falling across the red brick paths.
Boys in black stand-collar uniforms and girls in dark dresses strolled in twos and threes through the campus, talking about upcoming exams, weekend getaways, or some newly opened French restaurant.
On the surface, this place remained what it had always been: the inviolable, sacred ivory tower that gathered the children of Japan's most elite.
But only the handful of people at the very peak of the power pyramid knew that the interior of this ivory tower had long since rotted through.
It had become a palace of the dead.
...
Student Council Room.
This was the core of the entire theater, the most thoroughly rotten place of all, and also the most lavishly decorated.
Seiji Fujiwara sat in the chair that symbolized supreme authority, idly turning over a delicate golden badge in his hand.
It was the badge of the Shuchiin Student Council President, the symbol of "absolute power" in this miniature society.
And before him, a pantomime called "everyday life" was unfolding.
Kaguya Shinomiya knelt at one side of the desk, a thick stack of documents in her hands.
They were the Shinomiya conglomerate's core financial reports for the quarter, along with several transnational merger and acquisition cases involving sums in the tens of billions of yen.
She, who had once been called the "Ice Princess Kaguya," whose mind had made the titans of business tremble, was now in a posture of humility so deep it touched the dust, lifting those documents above her head one by one and presenting them to Seiji. Documents that could shake the Japanese economy.
Her gaze was as still as water.
It was stagnant water.
That "special cleaning" in the Third Art Preparation Room had scoured away the last shred of pride she had as the eldest daughter of the Shinomiya Family.
The Kaguya of now was no longer a girl. She was a perfect, efficient administrative machine.
In another corner of the room, Ai Hayasaka and Asuna Yuuki were tidying the bookshelves.
Asuna wore the Shuchiin uniform, but on the skin beneath her collar, a faint red mark could be glimpsed. The trace left by wearing a certain collar for an extended period.
Occasionally she would pause in her work, her eyes vacant as she gazed out the window. The "Lightning Flash" Asuna, who had once stormed across Aincrad and pointed her sword at the heavens, seemed to have been locked away forever in that old school building full of dust and plaster statues. She had never walked out again.
But the most chilling of all was Chika Fujiwara.
She was crouched beside Seiji's leg, like a genuine little animal, docilely rubbing her cheek against his knee.
Around her neck, she still wore that collar with the bell.
Jingle.
With each slight movement, the bell let out a clear ring.
The sound echoed through the silent room, and every time it rang, it was like a hammer striking Kaguya and Asuna squarely in the heart, reminding them of the nightmare called "reality."
The Chika who had once been loud and boisterous, who had stirred up chaos and laughter in the Student Council Room, was utterly gone.
In her place was this creature that, at the slightest stroke from her master, would let out a satisfied sigh... a pet.
Ever since the day she had seen with her own eyes the look in her little sister Moeha's eyes, the look reserved for garbage, Chika had been broken.
She no longer thought.
She had sealed away all of her self, leaving only "obedience" as her sole instinct.
Because only this way, only by becoming a shameless "kitten" in every sense, could she escape the guilt that would otherwise drive her mad.
Seiji reached out and gently ruffled Chika's hair.
Chika immediately closed her eyes and obediently pressed the crown of her head into his palm, a faint, almost instinctive whimper rising from her throat.
Watching this, Seiji's lips curved into a satisfied smile, one tinged with a trace of weariness.
Perfect.
Too perfect.
This brought him more pleasure than mere physical conquest ever could.
Physical pain faded, but the brand on the spirit was eternal.
He had not only taken their bodies. He had reshaped their souls, according to his own preferences, into the most obedient forms.
He had destroyed their pride, severed their bonds, and left them in this seemingly normal world, lonely and despairing, orbiting around only him.
This is what real... unrestrained freedom looks like.
[Ding!]
A crisp system chime suddenly rang in his mind.
This sound was unlike any before. It was vast, solemn, like a bell tolling from the depths of the universe, resonating through his soul.
[Congratulations, Host!]
[Phase Four "Unrestrained Freedom"... completed in full.]
[Final Rating: SSS (Perfect Domination).]
[Distributing final-stage rewards...]
[Congratulations, Host. You have obtained the Inherent Concept Armament... [Absolute Authority] (AbsoluteAuthority).]
A roar tore through him.
A power too vast to describe surged into Seiji's body in an instant.
It was not merely energy. It was a "rule."
In that instant, the world in Seiji's eyes changed.
The world, once clear, became transparent like a stream of data.
He saw the dust motes drifting in the air. He saw the velocity of the blood flowing through Kaguya's veins. He saw the faint bioelectric signals firing in Chika's cerebral cortex...
As long as he willed it.
A single thought was all it took.
He could make the cherry blossoms outside the window wither in an instant, or bloom in the dead of winter.
He could make the documents in Kaguya's hands turn into blank paper in a heartbeat, or rekindle the long-dead "love" within her heart.
Every physical law, every causal logic, became a canvas he could paint over as he pleased.
System restrictions? Gone.
Skill cooldowns? Unnecessary.
In this crossover anime world, he was no longer a "player," nor a "usurper."
He had become... a god.
Seiji slowly closed his eyes, savoring this intoxicating omniscience and omnipotence.
So this was... [Absolute Authority].
In this world, his will alone was truth.
But.
When this power had fully fused with him, when he opened his eyes again and looked once more upon this world he now wholly commanded.
A wave of tedium washed over him like a tide, drowning him in an instant.
Bored.
Too boring.
He looked at Chika at his feet, docile. He looked at Kaguya and Asuna working mechanically across the room.
Once, in order to conquer them, he had designed countless traps and woven countless lies, savoring the thrill of dancing on a knife's edge, savoring the pleasure of tearing open their defenses inch by inch.
But now...
The game was over.
Cleared.
Max level.
Every character had been captured, every plotline had been rewritten, every resistance had vanished.
This world held no more secrets for him, no more challenges.
It was like a sandbox game he had grown sick of playing.
No matter what he did, no matter how he used [Absolute Authority] to rewrite reality, he could not recapture that quickening of the pulse from before.
It was like a climber who, after countless hardships, had at last reached the summit of Everest.
The moment of standing at the peak was, of course, exhilarating.
But what followed was the realization that all around him stretched only an endless sea of clouds, with no higher place left to go... the loneliness of it.
"...How lonely."
Seiji murmured under his breath.
His voice was soft, but under the influence of [Absolute Authority] it carried clearly through the entire Student Council Room, and even... made the surrounding air tremble faintly.
Chika seemed to sense her master's shift in mood. She lifted her head uneasily, and a flicker of confusion crossed those eyes now drained of light.
Kaguya also paused in her work, turning around to bow her head respectfully, awaiting his instructions.
Watching them like this, hanging on his every command, the emptiness inside Seiji only deepened.
Broken toys, obedient though they were, had after all... lost that vivid beauty of the moment when they resisted.
It was then.
The system seemed to sense the thoughts in his heart.
Another prompt rang in his mind.
This time, what appeared was not the usual blue dialogue box, but an enormous interface burning with black-and-gold flames.
[Detected: Host's conquest rate of the current world has reached 100%.]
[Detected: Host has obtained "World Master" authority.]
[Begin... a new chapter?]
In the center of the interface, a massive vortex turned slowly, as though connecting to a bottomless abyss.
[Cross-Realm Gate (Cross-RealmGate) activated.]
[Destination: A "battlefield" of a higher dimension.]
[Notice: In this new world, you will no longer be the sole "Singularity." There exist far more powerful systems of power, beauties far harder to conquer, more complex world rules, and... existences capable of truly threatening a "god."]
[Confirm departure?]
[YES / NO]
Seiji's pupils contracted sharply.
A battlefield of a higher dimension?
His blood began to boil.
This was what he wanted.
Not playing king of the kids in a kindergarten. Not toying with mortals in this low-tier everyday world.
What he wanted was conquest.
Challenge.
That new world... what kind of prey will be waiting for me there?
Spirits with the power to destroy worlds?
Valkyries who rule over the stars?
Just imagining it, Seiji felt every cell in his body cheering and dancing.
He slowly rose to his feet.
"Kaguya, Chika, Asuna, Hayasaka."
He spoke.
The voice no longer held that lazy weariness. It was filled with a thrilling madness, the madness of a man about to march onto a battlefield.
"Raise your heads."
The four girls obeyed, lifting their heads to look at this man as dazzling as the sun and as fathomless as a black hole.
"I'm leaving."
Seiji said it lightly.
"Eh?"
That single sentence brought stunned expressions to the four girls' long-numbed faces.
Leaving?
To where?
He was the king of this world. He possessed everything. Where else could he go?
"This narrow 'fishbowl' has grown tedious."
Seiji reached out and gently grasped at empty air.
The [YES] option, burning with black-and-gold flames, was crushed in his fist.
Every clock in the world stopped at that instant.
"Time. Freeze."
A soundless ripple spread outward from him, sweeping across the entire world in a heartbeat.
The shocked expression on Chika's face froze in place.
The strands of Kaguya's hair drifting in midair stilled.
The cherry blossom petals falling outside the window hung suspended in mid-fall.
For that single second, the whole world became a vast, motionless tableau in three dimensions.
Seiji looked over this final work of his with satisfaction.
It was an eternal museum.
And they were the museum's most precious collectibles, forever preserved in this posture of submission, waiting for the day when, perhaps, the mood would strike him and he might come back to "take a look."
"Farewell, my dolls."
He laughed softly, turned, and stepped toward the gate cleaving open in the void, the gate leading to the new world.
Without a trace of attachment.
Because he was Seiji Fujiwara.
He was a born predator.
His journey, forever, was toward... the next sea of stars.
...
[System loading...]
[Coordinate Lock: ???]
[Teleportation commencing.]