Anime Crossover: Tokyo Reincarnation Game — Chapter 22

Chapter 22: The Love Detective of Class B

Several days later, the golden light of a Friday afternoon spilled through the windows of the Class B homeroom at Shuchiin Academy.

The first week of the new semester had passed in relative peace, save for one brief, violent interlude. During lunch break a few days prior, a Pure Shuchiin student from Class C had decided to test the waters. As Asagiri stepped out of the Class A doorway, the boy deliberately stuck his leg out into the corridor, hoping to watch the transfer student eat dirt in front of a crowd.

The result was less of a comedic stumble and more of a medical emergency.

Without breaking his stride, Asagiri had simply walked right through the obstruction. The sickening crack of a fractured tibia echoed down the hall. The boy was hauled off to the infirmary screaming in agony, and promptly shipped out to the local hospital.

Sitting at her desk, Yuuki Asuna felt absolutely zero sympathy for the hospitalized student. Bullying was bullying. Whether it involved throwing a punch, sticking out a foot in the hallway, or splashing water on someone’s desk under the guise of an accident, the core maliciousness remained exactly the same. It was the behavior of a spoiled kindergartener. Anyone who played those petty games and ended up with a shattered leg had simply collected the prize they asked for.

“Asuna~”

A highly energetic voice snapped her out of her thoughts. Asuna looked up to see the beautiful girl sitting in the desk directly in front of her. Fujiwara Chika rested her chin on her palm, flashing a sweet, infectious smile that could instantly disarm anyone in the room. Her light pink hair caught the afternoon sun, tied neatly with her signature pure black bow.

“Do you have any plans after school today?” Chika asked, her eyes bright with anticipation. “Want to come over to my place and hang out?”

“Today… I can’t today. Sorry, Chika.”

Asuna offered an apologetic smile, though her stomach twisted slightly at the real reason. She and Asagiri had already locked in their registration for the next survival game two days ago. Once the clock struck midnight tonight, Friday would bleed into Saturday, and they would be dragged into their second dungeon at an unknown, terrifying hour. Hanging out and eating snacks was a luxury she could not afford right now.

“Eh? Is that so?” Chika blinked, her expression shifting from disappointment to something far more dangerous. The corners of her mouth curled upward. “That’s too bad. But… could it be…”

Chika leaned in close, examining Asuna’s face with intense scrutiny.

“Could it be you’ve already made plans with someone else today? Say, a certain Utsunomiya-san from Class A?” Chika giggled, looking entirely too pleased with herself. “How about that? Did I hit the bullseye?”

Before Asuna could even form a denial, Chika reached out and patted her shoulder with exaggerated solemnity.

“Hehe. In this world, no budding romance can escape the keen eyes of me, the Love Detective!”

“Romance… Chika, you’ve completely misunderstood.” Asuna forced a wry laugh, shaking her head to dispel the ridiculous notion. “Utsunomiya-san and I aren’t like that at all.”

“Is that so? You just aren’t like that yet, right?”

The moment the scent of gossip hit the air, Chika’s eyes practically sparkled with manic excitement. Reaching into her bag, she suddenly produced a red-striped deerstalker hat and slapped it onto her head. To complete the ensemble, she popped a pipe-shaped candy into her mouth, chewing on the plastic stem as she began her grand deduction.

“No matter how you slice it, you are definitely special to Utsunomiya-san,” Chika analyzed around her candy pipe. “I hear he completely ignores everyone else. He hasn’t joined a single club. A few girls from other classes even tried to corner him for his contact info, and he flat-out rejected them without a second thought. It seems the only person in this entire school he is actually willing to talk to is you~”

Asuna frowned slightly, her chest tightening at the new information.

“Girls from other classes asked for his contact info?”

“Yeah, yeah they did.” Chika leaned closer, her grin widening. “Huh? Are you jealous?”

A sudden flush of heat rushed to Asuna’s cheeks. She quickly turned her head toward the window, entirely unwilling to face Chika’s predatory gaze.

“Jealous of what…” Asuna mumbled softly, picking at the edge of her notebook. “I don’t have any special relationship with him. I just didn’t expect that people would already be asking for his number when it’s only the first week of school…”

Chika shrugged, removing her candy pipe with a relaxed sigh. “It’s not that surprising, is it? Utsunomiya-san is incredibly handsome. Sure, his personality is a little… unconventional… but he has this mysterious, dangerous coolness about him. Girls love that~”

“Coolness, huh…”

Seeing the lingering red on Asuna’s cheeks, Chika coughed lightly into her fist. She raised her right index finger, wiggling it in the air like a master sleuth about to deliver the final verdict.

“It is a known psychological fact,” Chika declared slowly. “Only when you secretly like someone, and they are objectively very handsome, will you actively avoid praising their looks out of pure shyness.”

Unable to find a logical counterattack to that specific brand of nonsense, Asuna decided to attack the source.

“For someone who constantly calls herself a Love Detective, you’ve never actually been in a relationship yourself, have you?”

“Precisely because of that, I am the strongest Love Detective in existence!”

Chika crossed her arms proudly beneath her chest. The resulting shift in fabric highlighted a slightly exaggerated bust size that made even the well-proportioned Asuna feel a fleeting moment of inadequacy.

“As the old proverb goes, the players on the board are blind, but the spectator sees everything!” Chika proclaimed. “Only I, an observer who has never been tainted by the confusion of actual romance, am perfectly suited to dispense flawless love advice!”

“You really operate on your own twisted logic…” Asuna sighed, rubbing her temples.

Before Chika could launch into another lecture on the purity of observation, a female classmate approached their desks with a polite smile.

“Fujiwara, Yuuki. Someone is at the door looking for you two.”

“Oh, okay.”

Glad for the rescue, Asuna stood up alongside Chika. The two girls handled through the rows of desks toward the classroom entrance. As they stepped out into the hallway, they found two figures waiting for them: Kaguya Shinomiya and Utsunomiya Asagiri.

Seeing the two of them standing side-by-side, Chika blinked in genuine surprise.

“Eh? Utsunomiya-san, and Kaguya? How come you two are hanging out together?”

“We are not together.”

Kaguya’s voice was flat, carrying an aristocratic chill that instantly dropped the temperature in the corridor. She did not even glance at Asagiri. “It is merely a coincidence of timing. I came here specifically to find you, Chika.”

“Is that so? Okay then!” Chika chirped, entirely unaffected by the icy tone. She turned back to Asuna. “Well, Asuna, I’ll be going now~ See you next week!”

“Okay. Bye-bye, Chika.”

Before following Kaguya down the hall, Chika turned and offered a bright wave to the tall boy standing nearby. “Utsunomiya-san, bye-bye~”

“Mm. Bye.”

As the two girls walked away, Asuna noticed Asagiri standing perfectly still, his dark eyes locked onto their retreating figures. Remembering the gossip Chika had just shared about girls throwing themselves at him, a sudden, uncomfortable knot formed in Asuna’s stomach. When she spoke, her tone carried a faint, sour edge that she couldn’t quite suppress.

“Chika is very cute, isn’t she?”

Asagiri nodded slowly, his expression entirely serious.

“Yes. Not only is she cute, but her chest is also massive.”

“You…” Asuna choked on her breath, her exasperation instantly overriding her jealousy. “Your focus is exactly as terrible as I expected…”

“Oh, come on.”

Asagiri waved a hand dismissively, cutting off her incoming lecture. He let out a dry, quiet chuckle, his gaze finally shifting away from the hallway and down to Asuna.

“You don’t actually think Fujiwara Chika is just some naive, bubbly airhead, do you?” he asked, his tone dropping into something far more analytical. “She is the daughter of a major political family. Beneath that sweet exterior, she has a highly calculating, incredibly dark side. I was simply answering your question with an objective physical observation. I don’t find anything particularly interesting about her… yet.”

Asuna narrowed her eyes, muttering under her breath. “You explained all of that perfectly, and then you just had to add ‘yet’ at the very end. That makes you sound incredibly suspicious.”