Chapter 495: Sorry, Aphrodite, I Have a New Stalker

I sat cross-legged on my bed, spine straight, palms resting on my knees. The old yakuza breathing techniques came back like muscle memory. In through the nose, hold for four counts, out through the mouth. Again. Again. Again.

The silence felt like a luxury.

No Natalia plotting something violent in the corner. No Emi stress-baking enough carbs to feed a small army. No Skylar pretending not to care while clearly caring too much. No Cel asking questions with those periwinkle eyes that saw straight through my bullshit. No Akari making everything a game I didn’t remember agreeing to play.

No Maki, which honestly felt like the biggest victory of all.

The catgirl had tried three separate times to sneak back in after I’d bribed her with expensive tuna to spend the night literally anywhere else. The third attempt had involved transforming into her cat form and climbing through the window, which would’ve worked if I hadn’t spotted those glowing hazel eyes in the darkness.

"Master needs to meditate and reflect on tomorrow’s challenges," I’d told her, my voice firm.

"Master needs someone to keep his lap warm," she’d countered, already halfway through the window.

"Out."

"But—"

"Out. Now. Or no ear scratches for a week."

She’d hissed at me, her tails lashing with genuine offense, before disappearing back into the night like smoke.

Now I had what I wanted. Peace. Quiet. Just me, Bartholomew slowly eating lettuce with the confidence of something that genuinely could not die, and the weight of tomorrow’s festival sitting on my chest like a boulder.

The Inter-Guild Tournament kicked off at ten in the morning. Every guild would be watching. Every sponsor. Every professional recruiter. The VHC administrators. Seraphina herself, probably, given that her sister would be fighting for my team.

No pressure.

I exhaled slowly, letting the tension bleed out through my shoulders and into the mattress beneath me. My ribs still ached from the Crucible match, though Emi’s healing had done most of the heavy lifting. The regenerator brace hummed softly against my chest, a constant reminder of how many times I’d been broken and stitched back together in the past two months.

Two months.

Two months ago, I’d been dropped into this body with nothing but a System, a dead boy’s memories, and a cosmic voice in my head telling me I was entertainment.

Now I had five women whose souls were permanently bound to mine, a guild that had clawed its way to first place through sheer spite, and a tournament starting tomorrow that would either cement us as legitimate or expose us as frauds.

The math on that still didn’t add up in a way that made me comfortable.

I opened my eyes, staring at my hands. They looked normal enough. Calloused from gripping a bat, marked with faint scars from where Maki had bitten me yesterday, the skin slightly reddened around my knuckles from sparring with Raphael. But underneath all that, I could feel it. The power. The hidden stats sitting at 6,250 across every attribute, disguised by the System’s deceptive interface as F-0 trash tier.

Anyone looking at my status screen saw a weak C-Rank with delusions of grandeur.

Only Nel and I knew the truth. That I was legitimately A-Rank, approaching the floor of S-Rank, capable of fighting people who’d been training since childhood while I’d spent my teenage years eating instant ramen and hating the world.

The cosmic joke was so absurd it almost looped back around to funny.

Almost.

I closed my eyes again, trying to recenter. Tomorrow would be chaos. I needed to be grounded. Focused. Ready for whatever surprises the VHC and the other guilds had planned for us.

The familiar warmth of the System’s presence bloomed behind my eyes, that distinctive sensation of Nel shifting into the front of my awareness.

"Well, well, well," her voice purred through my consciousness, carrying that playful smugness that usually meant I was about to hate what came next. "Look who’s finally alone. No harem. No catgirl. Just you, your pet snail, and your crippling anxiety about tomorrow’s opening ceremony."

I didn’t open my eyes. "I’m meditating."

"You’re catastrophizing."

"Same thing."

"Not even remotely." A pause, and I could practically hear her grin widening. "But I’m not here to mock your emotional fragility. Well, not primarily. I’m here because someone wants to talk to you. Someone new."

That got my attention. I opened one eye, suspicious. "Apollo?"

"Nope."

"Aphrodite?"

"Already had her fun with you, remember? Five girls, one night, enough divine content to fuel her for a decade." Nel’s voice took on a different quality, something closer to actual seriousness. "This is someone who’s been watching from the sidelines. Someone who finds your particular brand of chaos... interesting."

The air in my room shifted. Thickened. The sensation reminded me of the moment before lightning struck, when everything went still and the world held its breath.

Then she appeared.

Not like Apollo, with his theatrical entrances and golden sparkles. Not like Aphrodite, with her roses and harps and suffocating perfume.

This goddess manifested like a knife sliding between ribs. Quiet. Direct. Lethal.

She stood at the foot of my bed, and I had to force myself not to reach for my bat on instinct.

She was tall. Six feet, easy. Athletic in a way that spoke of actual combat rather than just looking good in armor. Her skin was bronze, kissed by sun or flame or something divine. Her hair fell in dark waves that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it, and her eyes were the color of molten gold, burning with an intensity that made Reyna’s emerald gaze look like a candle next to a forest fire.

She wore battle gear. Not ceremonial bullshit, but actual combat armor. A golden breastplate that fit her like a second skin, greaves that looked like they’d stopped real weapons, and a spear strapped across her back that hummed with barely contained violence.

Wings spread from her shoulders. Not bird wings, but something else. Something that moved like fabric and metal simultaneously, feathers made of bronze and copper catching the lamplight.

"Satori Nakano." Her voice rang like a bell, clear and commanding. "The Stray Dog who bit back. The Scumbag Sovereign who refuses to die. The boy who went twelve rounds with La Sirena and walked away grinning."

I stayed seated, keeping my breathing even. "And you are?"