Tuesday and Thursday mornings belonged to Outer.
The difference was immediate, almost jarring, after the cold precision of Inner's presence. Where Inner walked like a winter storm, Outer bounced into class like the first warm day of spring. Her green eyes sparkled with genuine warmth, and her smile could melt the frost off a windowpane.
The other students relaxed around her in a way they never did with Inner, shoulders dropping, voices rising, the tension that had gripped the room evaporating like morning mist under a rising sun.
They had started to understand, slowly, that Moka Akashiya was not one person but two. The silver‑haired terror who answered any subjects questions with icy perfection and the pink‑haired girl who lent notes and laughed at bad jokes.
It confused them at first, but Yokai themselves were used to all sorts of supernatural things. Having split personalities was just one small thing to them and easily adapted to their circumstances.
"Moka‑san, can I borrow your history notes?" a girl from the front row asked, leaning over the desk, her hand already reaching out.
"Of course." Outer handed over a neatly organized notebook, the pages tabbed with colorful sticky notes, each color representing a different chapter or theme. "The section on the Meiji Restoration is highlighted in yellow. I found it a bit confusing, so I wrote some extra explanations in the margins. The blue tabs are for the economic reforms, and the green ones are for the military restructuring."
The girl's eyes widened as she flipped through the pages. "You actually explain things," she said, grinning. "Your other self would have just stared at me until I left. Probably would have raised one eyebrow and asked if I had tried reading the textbook first."
Outer laughed softly, shaking her head, her pink hair swaying with the motion. "She is not mean. Just… intense." Her voice grew firmer, though her smile did not waver. "And I would appreciate it if you did not speak about her that way. She is still me."
The girl blinked, then nodded quickly, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "Right. Sorry. I did not mean anything by it. I just… she is intimidating, you know? But I get it. She's still Moka-san afterall, so I should apologize to you."
Outer's expression softened. "Thank you. I know she can be difficult, but she has her quirks."
I watched all of this from my seat, my chin resting on my hand, a small smile tugging at my lips.
Outer was in her element here, surrounded by people who needed her help, who appreciated her kindness. It was where she belonged, where she thrived.
The way she handled that girl's comment, firm but not angry, protective but not aggressive, showed a quiet strength and a maturity growth that most adolescents would overlook.
But I noticed something else too.
Her stares were longer than before, lingering on me when she thought I was not looking.
She thought I couldn't pick up on her stares when my Vampire senses could be said to be greater than hers?
There was a softness in her eyes, a dreamy quality that had not been there a few weeks ago. Her cheeks would flush when our eyes met, and she would look away quickly, her fingers fidgeting with the edge of her notebook, tracing the spiral binding in small, nervous circles.
I was not some dense protagonist that couldn't pick on the clues, that she was in love with me. I knew that. She had admitted that she had feelings for me, but she was still thinking of me as her first friend, her precious friend. In a way, it was relegating me to a friend-zone situation, but I knew she just didn't know how to process her feelings for me, being her first and all.
She had yet to face her own emotions, to gather the courage to confess to me directly. She watched me with Kurumu, with Inner, and I could see the longing in her eyes, the fear that she was being left behind, the quiet hope that I might notice her first.
Once, when she thought I was looking at Kurumu, her hand drifted to her chest, right over the Rosario. She pressed her palm flat against it, as if she could feel Inner's heartbeat through the seal. Her lips moved, silently, and I think she said my name.
It would be hypocritical of me to be forceful with Outer. Considering the fiasco with Inner, the awkwardness, the need to let her come to me on her own terms. I will just let nature take its course when it comes to her.
She deserved that much, and it made me curious to find out what would make her tick into the direction I wanted her to be. Would she finally collapses and express her feelings? Well, it might be an asshole move, so let's just wait and see.
The pressure she might get from seeing Inner with me might tilt the scale in my way. The least I could do was wait. Pushing her would only make her retreat further into her shell.
On another note from what I could observe, Kurumu was the most relieved person in the classroom when Outer walked through the door on Tuesday morning.
I saw it in the way her shoulders dropped, the tension draining from her frame. The way her body relaxed, her usual nervous energy finally stilling after days of anxious fidgeting. The way her smile became genuine instead of strained, reaching her eyes instead of just her lips.
She greeted Outer with a warmth she never showed Inner, pulling her into a quick hug before the first bell rang. Her arms wrapped around Outer's shoulders, and she squeezed lightly, as if reassuring herself that the pink‑haired vampire was real.
"Thank goodness it is you today," Kurumu whispered, loud enough for me to hear, her voice carrying a mix of relief and exasperation. "Maybe I did not like you at the start of the year, but your other self is exhausting to handle. So I like you better. She looks at me like I am a bug she is deciding whether to squish. Or step on. Or both."
Outer laughed, patting Kurumu's arm with a gentle hand. "She is not that bad. She just does not know how to be… soft. It is not her fault. She's just more closed than me to others that she doesn't trust or she might just be annoyed with you. But if she said something hurtful to you, don't take it to heart, she's just like that, a Tsundere."
"I know. I know. But still." Kurumu shuddered dramatically, her whole body shaking with the motion. "Give me warning next time. A text message. A signal. A bat signal. Something. I need to mentally prepare myself for her."
"I will give you a msg when we switch." Outer's smile was warm, understanding. "But no promises. She does what she wants."
Kurumu glanced at me, then back at Outer, and her expression softened. I could see her thoughts playing out behind her amethyst eyes.
She could see Outer as an equal in the strange, unspoken competition for my heart. They were both chasing something, both hoping, both afraid. But Inner was on another level entirely, a mountain that Kurumu did not know how to climb, a peak she could not even see the summit of.
'At least with Outer, I have a chance,' Kurumu thought, watching the pink‑haired vampire be all bubbly. She leaned against her desk, her arms crossed, her expression contemplative. 'With Inner, I might as well be a gnat. A very small, very insignificant gnat.'
She pushed the thought away and focused on her own notes, flipping through the pages with forced concentration, but she would feel a headache minutes later from too many boring texts.
The mid‑term exams would be next week and her preparation levels were exactly zero progress. She would rather spend her time doing anything else but read books.
However, she had to find a way to pass the exams or else she wouldn't be able to graduate to the next class along with Tsukune and Moka.
[> ^ <][> ^ <][> ^ <]
On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, after the last bell had rung and the other students had scattered to their clubs or their dorms, Outer and I walked to the Newspaper Club room together.
The building was quiet at this hour, the halls empty, the only sound was our footsteps echoing on the polished floor.
Outer carried a small bag with her practice clothes, a simple white gi that she insisted on buying to demonstrate how serious she was about training. From where she bought it, you might ask? From the zealous, training maniacs from the Karate Club who had a supply of various Gi sizes and even custom builds for the ladies.
I walked out of the room when she changed into her gi, leaning against the hallway wall with my arms crossed, trying not to imagine what was happening behind the closed door. The minutes stretched, awkward and endless, punctuated by the soft rustle of fabric and the occasional creak of the wooden floorboards.
When she called out that she was ready, I pushed the door open and stepped back inside.
She stood in the center of the room, her pink hair tied back in a loose ponytail, her white gi wrapped snugly around her frame. The fabric was simple, unadorned, but it clung to her curves in a way that made my mouth go dry. The belt was tied in a neat knot at her waist, accentuating the narrowness of it, and the loose pants did nothing to hide the gentle flare of her hips.
I had a hard time not ogling her too much. She was sexy in her gi, and I doubted she intended for this to happen. The outfit was meant for martial arts, not for seduction, but her body had other ideas.
The way the fabric stretched across her chest, the way the collar dipped just low enough to hint at the swell of her breasts, the way her bare feet peeked out from beneath the hem of her pants, all of it conspired to distract me.
I was still in my Academy uniform, having draped my green vest over a chair. I rolled up my shirt sleeves, the white fabric bunching around my elbows, and loosened my bow tie before letting it hang loose around my neck.
I undid the top two buttons of my shirt, revealing more of my chest and the pale skin stretched over my collarbones. The vampire aesthetic was in full display, my lean muscles, my sharp jawline, the way my dark hair fell across my forehead.
We looked at each other for a long moment, the air between us thick with unspoken words. I tried to be cool as a cucumber, keeping my expression neutral, my posture relaxed. But Outer was holding hard on a blush that crept up her neck and spread across her cheeks, staining them a deep pink. Her green eyes flickered over my body, appreciating the growth that had transformed me from a wiry, unassuming human into something more, something that made her heart race.
I saw her gaze linger on my arms, on the defined muscles beneath the rolled sleeves. On my chest, visible through the open buttons. On the sharp line of my jaw, the subtle hollow of my throat. She swallowed, her throat bobbing, and looked away, her fingers twisting the edge of her obi.
'If she keeps looking at me like that, I might forget that this is supposed to be training.'
"We should start," I said, my voice rougher than I intended.
She nodded, unable to meet my eyes. "Yes. Training. Right."
We faced each other, ready to begin a new session.
[> ^ <][> ^ <][> ^ <]
After I pushed the desks aside for training using my Blood Manipulation, sending tendrils of blood flying from my body to act as an extension of my limbs, clearing the clubroom to have enough space for training, we were one step away from initiating this new sparring session.
"Ready?" I asked.
Outer nodded, her jaw set, her green eyes focused. "Ready."
She had been training for weeks now, ever since the night Gin had taken her, ever since she had felt the helplessness of being bound and unable to fight back.
The memory of those Yoki chains, the way they had suppressed her power, the way she had been unable to move, had left a mark on her, and who could blame her? She was determined never to feel that way again.
And with that determination came the drive to improve herself, taking her training more serious than before, because she was aware from what I told her that there were plenty of villainous Yokai in the Academy who might not mind going after her because she was a jewel of the Academy.
While she was with me, there was not much of a danger, but if she was alone, it was in her exposed, vulnerable state to attacks.
She had yet to face Gin since he took two weeks off to recover and think about life in general, that was what I heard from Shizuka-sensei. The link I had with my creation also checked with what Shizuka-sensei told me, he was in his dorm room, doing whatever.
He might think that burning evidence took absolution from his crimes, but no one forgot his misdeeds. Kurumu couldn't wait to have the bastard wipe the toilets from the PE building clean with his tongue.
Back to the sparring itself, I took it slow with her. Deep down I was amazed at my own progress, since I remember the first month since I got here, even a girlish push from her, born of flustered embarrassment, could send me flying.
Now, even when she punched me, they were heavy without a doubt, the body was Moka's afterall, they no longer traumatized me.
And truth be told, Outer was never going to be a brawler. While her body was built to be a destroyer, carrying the same Shinso potential as Inner, her gentle heart recoiled from violence, leaving her almost unable to hurt an insect.
I had seen her apologize after accidentally stepping on a cockroach. But she could learn to defend herself, to create openings, to escape, to reach me.
She moved through the first form slowly, her feet placed deliberately, her hands tracing arcs through the air. The motions were stiff at first, but as she repeated the sequence, her movements became smoother, more fluid.
I circled her, watching, correcting when necessary. "Your left foot is too far forward. Shift it back an inch. You are leaning too much weight onto your front leg. It makes you vulnerable to a sweep."
She adjusted, and the next stance felt more stable. Her center of gravity dropped, and I could see the difference in her balance.
"Better. Again."
She repeated the form, and this time, there was no hesitation. Her punch was sharp, her block solid, and when she transitioned into the next movement, her feet did not stumble.
When she finished, she was breathing hard, sweat beading on her forehead, her pink hair clinging to her temples, but her eyes were bright with accomplishment.
"How was that?" she asked, her voice a little breathless.
"Good. Not perfect, but good." I stepped closer, adjusting the angle of her arm. "There is still room for improvement until you no longer telegraph your attacks."
"You are dropping your shoulder before you punch. It is a tell. Anyone with trained eyes will see it coming."
She smiled, and the expression lit up her face, chasing away the exhaustion. "Inner said I was 'acceptable' last week. I think that is the highest praise I have ever received from her."
I laughed. "A high praise indeed from her. From Inner, 'acceptable' is practically a standing ovation."
From within the Rosario, I felt a faint pulse of crimson light. Inner was watching, as she always did during these sessions, her critical eye missing nothing. She did not speak, but her presence was there, a silent observer to her boyfriend, a demanding teacher toward Outer.
I could almost feel her approval, grudging but genuine.
Outer moved to the next form, and I watched her improve. The girl who had once been unable to throw a punch without closing her eyes could now hold her own in a light spar.
She was not fast enough to land a hit on me (even though Inner could leave me in the dust with her S-tier Agility) but she was learning to read my movements, to anticipate my strikes, to position herself where I would be instead of where I was.
When we finished, she collapsed onto the mats, her chest heaving, her pink hair sticking to her forehead in damp strands.
I lay down beside her, staring at the ceiling.
"You are getting better," I said, my voice soft.
"You are just saying that."
"I am not." I turned my head to look at her, at the profile of her face, at the way her lips curved into a small, uncertain smile. "You have come a long way, Moka-chan. From the girl who could not defend herself to someone who can at least hold her ground."
"Only a blind fool would dismiss that."
She was silent for a moment. Then, softly, her voice barely above a whisper, "Thanks, Tsukune. It means a lot hearing from you, especially you, that I have made progress."
"I do not want to be helpless again. I do not want to watch the people I care about get hurt while I can do nothing. I do not want to be the one who always needs saving."
"You will not be." I reached over and took her hand, feeling the warmth of her palm against mine, the slight calluses forming on her fingers from gripping the mats. "I promise."
Her fingers tightened around mine, squeezing gently, and I saw the Rosario pulse again, a soft crimson glow that faded as quickly as it appeared.
I could not tell if Inner was jealous of my closeness to Outer or if she approved of my words of encouragement. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
We stayed on the mats longer than we should have, the evening light fading through the windows, the room growing dim.
Shadows crept across the floor, pooling in the corners, and the world outside the club room grew quiet. Outer's hand was still in mine, and she was not pulling away.
"Tsukune," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Yes?"
She did not answer. Instead, she sat up slowly, her pink hair falling around her face like a curtain, and she looked at me with those green eyes that held so much hope and fear and longing. Her lips parted, then closed, then parted again.
"I want to try something," she said, her voice trembling just slightly.
I sat up too, facing her, my knees almost touching hers. "What is it?"
She did not answer with words. She leaned in, her breath warm against my neck, and then I felt her lips brush against my skin. Soft, tentative, almost shy. Her fangs pressed gently against my pulse point, not breaking the skin, just resting there, a question waiting for an answer.
I guess this is her breaking the ice with me? She was still too fearful to kiss me on my cheeks or lips, but my neck made it psychologically easier for her to initiate.
Feeding to Vampires could also be interpreted as showing their affection and being intimate. It was something she had done a dozen times before.
"Go ahead," I said, keeping my voice low, steady. "If it helps. Take what you need."
She pressed deeper, and her fangs sank into my neck. The sting was familiar, almost welcome, and I felt the pull of her drinking, the gentle rhythm of her swallowing.
This one felt different from her previous feedings. I remembered the first time, when she had been dazed and apologetic, and out of nowhere had bitten into my neck while I was in a state of urgency since I had just transmigrated into this chaotic world.
Now I feel the difference thanks to the improvements to my senses. First a shy kiss on my neck before she sank her fangs into my skin.
I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close, and she let herself be held. Her body trembled against mine, and I could feel her heartbeat, rapid and wild, a bird trapped in a cage.
"Take your time," I whispered into her hair, breathing in the scent of roses and something else, something that was just her. "I will wait for your heart to be ready. There is no rush. I am not going anywhere."
She pulled back after a moment, her lips stained red, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. She touched the wound on my neck, the punctures already closing thanks to my vampiric regeneration, and she smiled. It was a small, fragile thing, but it was real.
"You are too good to me," she said. Then, quieter, almost to herself, "I wish I could be brave like her."
"Why should I not be good to you, Moka‑chan?" I smiled back, a gentle curve of my lips that I hoped conveyed everything I could not put into words. "Aren't you also precious to me? You were my first friend in this place. The first person who looked at me like I wasn't their next meal. That counts for something."
I reached up and brushed a strand of pink hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. "You deserve someone who waits. I can do that. I have patience when it matters."
She laughed, a sound that was half sob and half joy, thick with emotion, and she rested her head on my shoulder, her body relaxing against mine.
The Rosario pulsed, a soft, rhythmic glow, and I felt Inner's presence, quiet and watchful, like a cat observing from a windowsill.
We stayed like that, tangled together on the mats, until the last light faded and the room grew dark. The silence was comfortable, filled only by the soft rhythm of our breathing and the distant chirp of crickets outside the window. The world outside the club room continued, but we were suspended, caught in a moment that felt both fragile and eternal.
But as I held her, a thought crept into the back of my mind, unwelcome and persistent. Should I be the one to take the next step with Outer, or should I let her bring herself closer to me?
It was an approach similar to winning a frightened cat. If I moved too fast, reaching out to pet her before she was ready, she would retreat into her shell, hiss, scratch, disappear under the bed.
If I did nothing, sitting still and waiting, she might stay there forever, hiding in the shadows, waiting for courage that might not come.
The balance was delicate, easily tipped.
For now, I decided to give her a small reward for being brave.
I kissed the top of her head, soft and brief, and felt her sigh against my chest.
"Thank you, Tsukune," she whispered.
"Anytime, Moka‑chan. Anytime."