Chapter 321: A Group Mission, Long Overdue
Little Sphere: This is giving me chills. Wait, is Josuke wearing Pinko's clothes right now? No wait...I think he raided her entire wardrobe.
Admiral Kizaru: Hey, HEY! Why am I getting dragged into this? I'm a man!
My True Form Is Cola: Calling it now, this is going to be Josuke's last message of the day. Cherish it.
Street-Corner Illustrator: No question, you're the wildest one in this whole chat, JoJo.
I'm Rolling In It: Did Uncle Tony miss some good drama? 9,132 unread messages?! What the hell were you all talking about?
I'm Rolling In It: And what did Josuke actually do? Why's this his "last message"? Did he pull off some kind of epic self-own?
Street-Corner Illustrator: @I'm Rolling In It, Mr. Stark, just scroll back through the chat log and you'll get the whole picture.
I'm Rolling In It: Chat log, huh...Uncle Tony's gonna go check that out real quick.
I'm Rolling In It: ...Okay, I think I get it now. This is even more suicidal than Yukari-senpai's usual antics.
Crazy Diamond: Eh? I didn't say anything! Someone must've hacked my account, I'm so sorry!!!
[Member "Crazy Diamond" has been muted by Admin "RawrSoFierce" for 12 hours!]
Little Sphere: I've had rigorous training in keeping a straight face, so normally I wouldn't laugh at this...unless it gets to be too much...pfffffft HAHAHAHA!
My True Form Is Cola: Knew this was coming. Josuke just taught all of us the terrifying power of a 12-hour mute, courtesy of a Permissions Hound.
Street-Corner Illustrator: Forgive me for laughing this shamelessly hard, pfft...
Master Roshi: Kids these days, just can't keep their mouths shut. Gotta watch what you say and do, you know.
Edward Newgate: Speaking of which, Master Roshi, did you cook up and eat that big tonic I sent you the other day?
Master Roshi: Finished it off already. Genuinely impressive stuff, real tonic-grade quality!
Master Roshi: I feel like I could power through at least five or six of those indescribable movies today!
RawrSoFierce: ...Five or six in a single day? You sure your body can actually handle that?
My True Form Is Cola: Ter-terrifying...300-plus years old and still got THAT kind of stamina.
I'm Rolling In It: Uncle Tony's kind of regretting sending Master Roshi that many movies now.
I'm Rolling In It: If he keels over from overexertion one of these days, wouldn't half of that be on me?
[...]
Chatting away in the group for ten-plus minutes really did work far better as a distraction than sitting alone stewing in silence for the same stretch of time—it pulled his attention away much faster.
By now, Ryū had finally settled down a fair bit. Sprawled out on his own bed, he couldn't help rubbing at his own oddly stiff facial muscles.
It was deep into the night at this point, the fireworks show still going strong somewhere outside, though he'd headed home well before it wrapped up.
Turning to look through the open window at the fireworks still lighting up the distant night sky, Ryū muttered to himself, "More stuff happened in the past hour than probably happened in the entire past month. Still kind of hard to believe, honestly."
"Never expected that youkai sage to actually go through with striking first like that, so decisively. Came pretty close to me ending up on the back foot entirely there. If I'd actually stayed on the defensive the whole time, that youkai would've probably floated straight up to the moon with how insufferable she'd have gotten about it."
Ryū had always known he wasn't destined to stay single his whole life the way he had in his past life—the Dimensional Chat Group had no shortage of anime-style girls who clearly had at least some interest in him.
Made sense, really. He was the group's Admin, decent-looking by any reasonable standard, with no bad habits or shady behavior to speak of—naturally, that kind of thing tended to catch the eye of quite a few of the underage anime characters in the chat.
Which made it all the more unexpected that the person he'd actually ended up out of the single life with turned out to be Yukari, of all people!
Honestly, Ryū's overall impression of Yukari had always been fairly positive. Sure, she liked to talk a big, indecent game day-to-day, but when it actually mattered, nobody in the whole chat was more reliable than her.
And, well, she was genuinely gorgeous—her figure ranked at the absolute top of the entire chat group, too.
Practically no other female member could really compete with her on that front...though, hm, maybe Tohru the dragon could give her a run for her money?
Too bad Tohru's own tastes ran a bit questionable—that one was full-on into girls, and pretty shamelessly so.
Somewhat hazily, Ryū found himself drifting off to sleep sprawled out on his bed without really noticing it happening.
Not even the fireworks still booming away outside could rouse him.
Guess today had just been way too much mental strain to process all at once?
By the time he groggily came to, it was already 10:30 the next morning, the sun already high overhead.
"Feels like it's gotten a good bit colder again today...a few more degrees and it'll probably start snowing. Makes sense, being January—Konoha's location does get snow, if I remember right."
Grumbling to himself a bit, Ryū went straight to brush his teeth and wash up. Another day, fully energized and ready to go!
Slipping his consciousness into the Dimensional Chat Group, he found that Yukari, who hadn't shown a single trace of activity in the chat all last night, had, unusually enough, actually popped back up.
Kaguya-sama: Yukari-nee, be honest, did you really not go see Admin-sama last night? If you didn't go, why'd you go quiet the whole night?
Eternally Seventeen: Ahem! This humble self simply spent the evening in seclusion, working on her Dragon Ball Ki cultivation. Where's everyone getting these wild ideas from?
My True Part Is Cola: So Yukari-senpai was just full of hot air last night, then?
Eternally Seventeen: What? Did I say something last night? Must've all just been in your heads.
Terrible Tornado: Oh ho? If nothing juicy actually happened, does that mean my dear little Kaguya still has a shot after all?
Terrible Tornado: Go get 'em, Kaguya! I've got everything riding on Yukari-senpai, sure, but don't you dare give up either!
Eternally Seventeen: ...Why does it feel like you're just enjoying the chaos here, Little Tornado? Aren't you worried Admin-sama might come for you one of these days?
Terrible Tornado: Eh? Not a chance. I'm a confirmed lifelong bachelor. Never getting married, never falling in love, not in this lifetime.
Terrible Tornado: Dating, marriage, all that hassle—way too much work. Then you've gotta have kids, raise the kids, then the kids grow up, get married, have their OWN kids, and you're stuck taking care of grandkids too...it just keeps going, forever. Staying single's way better.
Admiral Kizaru: You could always just skip the kids part, honestly. Kids aren't exactly a mandatory add-on to marriage.
Senbei Is So Tasty: Hey, HEY! Borsalino, that's a dangerous take to have out loud. You do realize we're pushing for a second-child policy right now? That kind of pessimistic attitude is really not okay.
Street-Corner Illustrator: Calling it now, Tornado-nee's gonna eat those words eventually and say "oh it's not so bad after all."
Eternally Seventeen: Seconding that Little Tornado eventually eats those words+1.
RawrSoFierce: Eh, honestly a lot of young people these days think having kids after marriage will feel restrictive, but really that's just because they don't have money.
RawrSoFierce: Once money's not an issue, that whole concern basically disappears. And Tatsumaki, being the Hero Association's #2 hero, can't exactly be hurting for cash, right? So that whole worry you're describing doesn't actually apply to you at all.
Terrible Tornado: Eh? Genuinely can't argue with that. Is that... actually true? Really??
[...]
Mulling it over for a moment, Tatsumaki found herself unable to come up with a single decent counterargument—Admin's point actually made a fair bit of sense.
Yeah, honestly, everything really did come down to money in the end. With enough money, even having kids wouldn't be a problem—you could just hire people to help raise them.
Under those conditions, having kids wouldn't have to mean giving up much freedom at all.
As for the pain of childbirth?
Hm...given the physical constitution most of the chat group's members currently had, would childbirth even hurt at all?
Probably wouldn't feel anything, honestly.
Might not even experience a single moment of morning sickness during pregnancy—probably wouldn't feel any different at all.
Put that way...didn't being single versus not being single actually make basically zero real difference for members of this particular chat group?
"No, wait, hold on! How did I let Admin talk me into second-guessing my whole worldview with just a few sentences? I need to stay firm in my convictions. Doesn't matter what anyone else says—I'm staying an anti-marriage, lifelong-single person, no exceptions."
Tatsumaki mentally gave herself a firm nod of resolve. Yukari-senpai had stayed single for a few thousand years. Tohru the dragon had stayed single for tens of thousands of years. Wandering Earth was even more extreme, staying single for literal billions of years.
And she, Tatsumaki, was only twenty-eight this year—wait, no, twenty-nine now—only twenty-nine. Plenty more years left to enjoy the single life before worrying about any of that.
Then again, thinking about it further, both Admin and Yukari had still never directly addressed what actually happened last night—both being noticeably vague about the whole thing, leaving plenty of room for everyone else's imagination to run wild.
Back in the One Punch Man world, Tatsumaki rubbed at her smooth, pale chin and muttered to herself, "There's definitely something fishy going on here! Why won't Yukari-senpai just admit to it? If she doesn't, that just leaves the door wide open for Kaguya, doesn't it?"
"This isn't playing out anything like a romance drama, either. In those, once the leads confirm they're together, they can't wait to tell the entire world about it. Are the writers of those shows just making stuff up randomly? Ugh! Can't believe I actually fell for all that drama nonsense!"
[...]
Right as Tatsumaki muttered away to herself, a soft ding suddenly rang out from the Dimensional Chat Group in her mind.
Turning her attention to the message, Tatsumaki blinked in surprise. "Wait, did Admin just tag the entire group? A group mission? It's been over a month since the last one—another one's finally popping up? Wasn't the last one in that Saekano fan-world?"
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