Anime Crossover: Tokyo Reincarnation Game — Chapter 90

Chapter 90: The Winner’s Composure

“Is that so?”

Megumi’s voice remained as placid as a still lake, her tone gentle and entirely casual. “I simply thought that, given what we’ve been through together, dropping the formalities wouldn’t be a big deal. Even if we haven’t known each other for very long.”

Asuna blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift in dynamics. She tilted her head, asking tentatively, “But you’ve always called me Yuuki-san. I honestly thought you were just the type of person who disliked overly familiar forms of address…”

Megumi shook her head, her bob swaying slightly with the motion. “That is only because you have always called me Kato. As the last person to join your group, taking the liberty to use your first names without permission would seem far too presumptuous. That is why I mirrored your boundaries, sticking to your surnames and adding honorifics.”

“So that’s how it is?”

Learning Megumi’s true reasoning left Asuna feeling a mixture of amusement and mild frustration. In truth, she couldn’t really be blamed for the misunderstanding. Megumi’s facial expressions were notoriously scarce; she perpetually wore a mask of calm composure, her emotional fluctuations so subtle that guessing her true feelings was like trying to read a blank page.

“Then from now on… I’ll just call you Megumi. And you can just call me Asuna.”

Kotoko, walking slightly ahead of them, spun around with a bright, teasing smile. “And you can just call me Kotoko! Not that it matters, since Asuna here already took the liberty of dropping my honorifics without a shred of permission.”

Asuna pouted, crossing her arms with an exasperated huff. “Tch. I need your permission just to call you by your name?”

Kotoko puffed out her chest, raising her chin with an air of absolute, unearned arrogance. “Of course you do. For ordinary mortals like you, I am the Goddess of Wisdom who maintains the order of this world. I’ve decided. You will address me as Goddess Kotoko from now on. Oh, and remember to offer me premium lunch boxes as tribute every single day.”

“Heh. Wouldn’t it be much easier to offer you tribute if I just dug a hole, buried you in it, and set up a nice memorial tablet?” Asuna shot back, a sweet but dangerous smile curving her lips.

Watching the two of them bicker and cause a racket up ahead, Megumi fell into step beside Asagiri, walking shoulder to shoulder with him. The evening breeze rustled the trees lining the sidewalk.

“Utsunomiya-san,” she spoke softly, her voice barely rising above the ambient noise of the street.

Asagiri glanced down at her, a faint, easy smile on his face. “What is it, Megumi?”

She turned her head, fixing her dark, quiet eyes entirely on his. “As expected. You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

Asagiri feigned ignorance, letting out a light, breathy chuckle as he shook his head. “What are you talking about? I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“You are deliberately pretending not to understand.” Megumi reached up, neatly tucking a stray strand of black hair behind her ear. She had already seen through the entire charade. Or rather, she realized that she was the one who had been completely seen through.

When she first received Asuna’s call inviting her to hang out, a knot of nervous anxiety had tightened in Megumi’s chest. This was the first time since she joined their chaotic little survival group that they were meeting up purely to relax like ordinary high school girls, with absolutely no life-or-death game strategies to discuss.

Somehow, Asagiri had instantly perceived her internal awkwardness. He saw right through her quiet desire to grow closer to Asuna and Kotoko, as well as her paralyzing hesitation on how to bridge that gap.

That was exactly why Asagiri had deliberately addressed her by her first name the second they met up today. He had smoothly forced the topic into the open, creating the perfect opening for Megumi to naturally express her thoughts. Thanks to his subtle manipulation, she had effortlessly crossed the threshold of friendship with the other two girls, shedding the stiff formalities once and for all.

“Utsunomiya-san…” Megumi stared at his sharp profile, her tone carrying a rare trace of deep observation. “Although you usually talk and act like a complete lunatic, you are actually a deeply mature person.”

“Are you roasting me right now?” Asagiri shoved his hands into his pockets, instantly firing back with deadpan hostility. “You have the facial mobility of a brick wall. You’re a flat-faced background character, and you’re coming after me?”

“I can make expressions, you know,” Megumi replied evenly. “Like this one.”

She stopped walking. Stepping directly in front of Asagiri, she blocked his path, tilted her head up to meet his gaze, and slightly furrowed her brows. Her dark eyes locked onto his with intense, unwavering seriousness.

“This is what I look like when I am angry or unhappy.”

A second later, the microscopic tension vanished from her features, and she returned to her usual placid, unruffled default state.

“Utsunomiya-san,” she continued smoothly, “I don’t think I have ever actually seen you angry. No, that’s not quite right. I have only ever seen you smiling, looking amused, or eager to tear something apart. Aside from that, you never seem to show genuine negative emotions. No anger, no fear, no dissatisfaction. You are practically like a saint.”

“Of course I get scared. I’m human too, you know.”

“What exactly are you afraid of?”

Facing Megumi’s genuine curiosity, Asagiri looked down at her, his expression turning dead-serious. The faint streetlights cast long, sharp shadows across his face.

“I’m a sixteen-year-old male high school student at Shuchiin Academy,” he stated, his voice dropping to a low, chilling register. “My absolute biggest fear is that this world simply isn’t violent enough.”

The next morning. The pristine, polished hallways of Private Shuchiin Academy.

A massive crowd of students had arrived at school far earlier than usual. The moment they stepped onto the campus, they bypassed their lockers and swarmed the main corridor outside Class A. The reason was simple: the mid-term exam results had been finalized, and the school administration was posting the official grade rankings on the public bulletin board.

Kaguya Shinomiya, who treated academic supremacy as a matter of life and death, was naturally among the early arrivals.

She stepped into the corridor with measured, elegant strides, her expression a mask of aristocratic calm. However, before she even reached the outer edge of the gathered crowd, the frantic whispers and loud exclamations of her peers drifted into her ears.

“Is that even real…?”

“Holy hell, is this guy even human?”

“Has anyone like this ever existed in the entire history of Shuchiin?”

“I seriously doubt it. My father graduated from here, and I’ve never heard of anyone pulling off a score like that. Our exams are notoriously brutal compared to normal schools. Just passing is a nightmare, let alone…”

Listening to the escalating murmurs, Kaguya’s crimson eyes flickered. A cold, heavy premonition of absolute disaster began to coil in the pit of her stomach.

“Shinomiya is here.”

Someone at the edge of the crowd whispered the warning. Instantly, dozens of heads snapped toward her. The sea of elite students automatically parted, stepping aside in quiet reverence to clear a direct path to the bulletin board.

Maintaining her flawless posture, Kaguya walked slowly down the makeshift aisle. She stopped in front of the massive sheet of paper.

Unlike her middle school days, she did not immediately look at the number one spot at the very top. Instead, her eyes started at the bottom of the top ten and slowly tracked upward.

That single, subtle hesitation proved one obvious fact.

Kaguya Shinomiya was nowhere near as confident as she pretended to be. Beneath her icy exterior, her heart was hammering against her ribs. Her palms were slick with cold sweat. For the first time in her academic career, she truly wasn’t sure she had won.

[Grade Second Place: Class A, Kaguya Shinomiya. Three-Subject Total: 438]

Shuchiin Academy’s exams were divided into three grueling categories: Humanities Composite, Science Composite, and Foreign Language. The maximum score for each subject was 150 points, bringing the absolute ceiling to 450 points.

Given the sadistic difficulty of Shuchiin’s curriculum, achieving a 438 firmly cemented Kaguya as a once-in-a-generation genius. The student in third place had only managed a 412—a staggering 26-point gap that proved Kaguya’s overwhelming superiority over the rest of the student body.

But the moment Kaguya saw her name sitting on the second line, the world seemed to stop spinning.

She had lost.

Her trembling gaze dragged itself up to the very top of the board. What greeted her was that infuriatingly familiar name, followed by a number so utterly absurd it made her pupils contract to pinpricks.

[Grade First Place: Class A, Utsunomiya Asagiri. Three-Subject Total: 450]

“Four hundred and fifty points… A perfect score…”

Kaguya barely breathed the words. She couldn’t process the digits burning into her retinas.

Getting a perfect score in the Science Composite was difficult, but theoretically possible within the world of human logic. But achieving a flawless score in Humanities and Foreign Language? Subjects that relied heavily on subjective essay writing and lacked absolute, rigid grading standards?

What kind of unnatural monster was this?

Had anyone in the century-long history of Shuchiin Academy ever achieved a true perfect score?

On paper, Kaguya had only lost by twelve points. But the sheer, impossible weight of those twelve points crushed the breath out of her lungs.

For the first time in her privileged life, she tasted the bitter, suffocating ash of total defeat. A dark seed of doubt took root in her mind.

Against a monster of this caliber… could she ever actually catch up?

Kaguya slowly raised her right hand, pressing her fingertips against her pale left cheek to steady herself. Then, under the silent, watchful gaze of the entire hallway, she turned on her heel. Her expression remained perfectly blank as she walked into the Class A classroom.

A few minutes later, the buzzing noise in the hallway abruptly died.

Kaguya sat rigidly at her desk. She knew exactly who had just arrived.

Leisurely footsteps echoed from the back door of the classroom, accompanied by the sound of Asagiri and Kotoko casually bantering about something entirely mundane.

‘Is he coming…?’

Kaguya kept her eyes fixed forward, her posture stiff and defensive. She had already braced herself for the inevitable. She was fully prepared for Asagiri to stroll over to her desk, look down at her with that mocking smirk, and ruthlessly humiliate her for losing.

She waited.

And waited.

But until their homeroom teacher, Miwa Ashikaga, finally slid the classroom door open to begin the morning session, Asagiri never approached her. He didn’t even glance in her direction.

By the time the morning classes concluded, the psychological pressure had boiled over. Kaguya couldn’t endure the suspense for another second.

She stood up abruptly, her chair scraping loudly against the floor, and marched straight toward the back corner of the classroom where Asagiri was sitting. She hadn’t absorbed a single word of the morning lectures; her mind had been entirely consumed by this one agonizing discrepancy.

“You…”

Kaguya stared down at Asagiri, who was currently leaning back in his chair, looking thoroughly bored.

“Why didn’t you come to mock me?” she demanded, her voice tight.

Asagiri paused. He slowly blinked, looking up at her with an expression of deep, genuine bewilderment—as if he were staring at a mental patient who had just wandered off the ward.

“Are you okay in the head?” he asked dryly. “Are you some kind of severe, terminal masochist? Why are you actively begging to be verbally abused?”

“Because I lost.”

“You lost. Okay. And?”

Kaguya’s brow twitched in frustration. “Don’t you despise the pure-blooded academy students? You defeated me this time, and it was an absolute, crushing victory. Don’t you have any intention of pressing your advantage to humiliate the opposition?”

“When did I ever say I hated pure academy students?” Asagiri asked, genuinely baffled.

“On the very first day of school, you—”

Asagiri waved a hand dismissively, cutting off her tirade with a sharp scoff.

“What I detest is the pathetic, self-important division between the ‘pure’and’mixed’ factions in this school,” he said, his tone dripping with casual disdain. “And precisely because I find that entire system so incredibly stupid, I would never treat you as an enemy just because you belong to a different imaginary faction. You are simply Kaguya Shinomiya. You’re my classmate. Nothing more, nothing less.”