When I wake up, it was already 9:32 in the morning.

Drat. I forgot to turn on my alarm before I went to sleep. Usually, I never needed it since I could wake up on my own, but I should have had the foresight to rely on it just this once, considering the fact that my bedtime was 3:30 in the morning today.

I get up from my bed and wince from the injuries I got this morning still stings. I had them bandaged for me and all, but they won’t just go away in a few hours.

I pick up my phone to check my mail. As expected, there’s one from Yui.

‘Kagenashi-kun, are you all right? Why aren’t you at school?’

The message was sent at 8:20am.

‘I’m all right. It’s just that I overslept. Sorry for worrying you, Kiryuu.’ I reply back.

I got an immediate response.

‘Oh, that’s okay. As long as you’re fine.’

‘Am I the only one who’s absent?’

‘No. More than half the class didn’t show up. Shimazaki-kun and the others are here, though.’

Just as I was about to tell her that I’ll be joining the rest of them during lunchtime, she sent me another message.

‘Our teacher just announced that class is canceled for today, since we’re either too beaten up to come to school, or can’t concentrate during class.’

‘Sweet.’

There’s also some messages at the LINE group that Sakuya made. I’ve never bothered to mention it before, but its name is Akira-kun and His Joyous Band of Girls.

…Yeah.

Anyway, the messages are as follows:

‘Fuyukaze, where are you? Class has already started.’ Ichika

‘She’s probably still sleeping.’ Sakuya

‘Honestly, how undisciplined could her be?’ Ichika

‘Oh, just let her be. She must be tired after having to wake up so early this morning.’ Sakuya

‘President, are you sure you are not making up an excuse for her just because you yourself would have skipped school were it not for the fact that I paid you a visit?’ Ichika

‘What are you saying, Ichika-chan? Would I ever do that?’ Sakuya

‘I had to literally drag you away from your bed.’ Ichika

‘Anyway, how’s everyone else doing?’ Sakuya

‘A bit sleepy, but fine.’ Madoka.

‘I think I can hang in there too.’ Yui.

‘Wait a minute, where is Akira?’ Ichika

‘Yui-chan, is he sleeping at his desk?’ Sakuya

‘No, Morifuji-senpai. He’s absent too.’ Yui

‘Well then, maybe we should pay him a visit.’ Sakuya

‘President, please do not be absurd. It is still school hours.’ Ichika

‘Oh? Are you saying that we should let him sleep? Aren’t you being bias, Ichika-chan? ’ Sakuya

‘I am not. I am merely stating the fact that we should not look for excuses to skip school.’ Ichika

I suddenly imagined Ichika blushing furiously when she was typing this message.

‘Well, we’ll just leave it at that.’

There’s some newly written messages as well. They were sent around the same time that I sent my reply to Yui.

‘Our teacher just gave us permission to go back early so that we could rest. How about Class 1?’ Yui

‘No, we didn’t get such generous offer.’ Madoka

‘Same here. The teachers are stricter on S Ranks, I guess.’ Sakuya

‘Oh. Well then, I’ll be leaving first, then. Good luck on your lessons.’ Yui

‘Thank you, Yui-chan~! Your big sister will work hard!’ Sakuya

‘Be careful on you way back.’ Ichika

Yes, will do.’ Yui

Since I no longer have to worry about tainting my record of perfect attendance (just kidding, I couldn’t care less about it), I get up from my bed and cook a simple breakfast of bacon and eggs. I’m still sleepy, so I got back to bed after I’m done eating.

I was sleeping soundly until I hear multiple whispering. I open my eyes and turned sideways, only to see the girls standing or squatting just a few feet away from me, their phones aimed at me.

‘...What are you girls doing?’ I ask them.

Upon seeing me awake, they keep their phones quick as lightning.

‘Oh, um, good morning, Akira-kun.’ Sakuya tells me nervously.

‘Good morning, senpai. Now could you please tell me what’s going on here?’

‘Well, we’re just hanging out here while waiting for you to wake up.’

‘Uh-huh. And all of you took pictures of me sleeping while you’re waiting.’

‘Pictures? We don’t know what you’re talking about~!’

The other girls are looking away and try their best to whistle, with only Madoka having any success in it.

‘Uh-huh. By the way, how did you girls manage to come inside without having me to open the door?’

Suddenly, realization dawned on me. I stare at Mashiro and Madoka.

Mashiro raises up her hand. ‘Sogdrul did it.’

‘Well, he wouldn’t do anything without your order, would he? Oh, whatever.’

I got hungry again, so I got up and go to the kitchen. I look at the time. It’s 4:12pm, and lunchtime has passed a long time ago. Either way, I’m still cooking a meal.

‘You girls hungry?’ I ask them.

All of them shake their heads, even Mashiro.

‘Just me, then.’

While I’m cooking, Madoka announces a good news.

‘We manage to find Maria Assaf. At least, we found her trails.’

That got everyone’s attention.

‘Where did you last saw her?’ Sakuya asks Madoka.

‘In a small island near Hawaii.’ Madoka answers.

Well, this scene is new. In the original anime, Yuuji and his harem were temporarily assigned to the Academy’s New York branch since they were short-handed. There, Yuuji coincidentally bumped into Assaf at a busy street. She was trying her best to blend in with the crowds, but Yuuji somehow saw through her and tailed her until she led him to an abandoned factory where she was residing. You know the rest.

I wonder what’s the difference between the original anime and this version. If she manage to find Assaf this early, the same scene would have happened in the original.

‘That’s our Madoka-chan! Your big sister is so proud of you~!’ Sakuya says while hugging her.

‘Well, it wasn’t my sole effort. I asked help from my teammates from the Information Squad, and even my father’s old colleagues.’

So that’s how it is. In the original anime, she was still a lone wolf and didn’t cooperate with anyone. Here, I sort of opened up her heart, and as a result she’s more reliant on people.

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‘Anyway, here is a photo of her.’ Madoka takes out a photo from her pocket.

The photo then got passed around. When it was my turn, I almost dropped it, because I couldn’t believe my eyes.

The woman looks nothing like the one I saw in the anime.

Sure, the photo was taken from a distance, and it was quite dark. Still, there’s no mistaking it. She’s not the woman that Yuuji and co. fought.

‘Is something the matter, Kagenashi?’ Madoka asks me when she saw me keep staring at the photo.

‘...Oh, no. Everything’s fine.’ l try to be calm as I give her back the photo.

What’s going on? Did they got the person wrong? But, that’s impossible. There’s no way Madoka would get a wrong information. The only reasoning behind it is that BBB used a decoy, and they managed to fool even the extremely efficient Information Squad.

‘What’s the status of the enemy force on the island?’ I try to distract myself by asking Madoka.

‘For the members, there are 2,043 of them.’ Madoka reports. ‘Naturally, all of them are necromancers, so we won’t be just facing that numbers once the battle starts.’

‘What about their radars?’ Ichika asks.

‘They have lots to detect any incoming vehicles and Destroyers. There are also guards everywhere, both alive and undead. You could say that the island is impenetrable. Even if we did bypass them unnoticed, it is next to impossible for us to defeat Assaf without her alerting her bodyguards.’

Oh, man. What kind of insane mission is this?

‘Well, worse come to worst, I could use Fuu Lin Ka Zan.’ Sakuya says.

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier chapter, Sakuya’s Morifuji Tessen allows her to unleash a storm that consists the power of four elements. The spell’s name is Fuu Lin Ka Zan, which literally translates as Wind, Forest, Fire and Mountain. Those of you who are familiar with the history of Japan would know that this four words were always written on the banners of Takeda Shingen’s army.

I quickly stop her. ‘No no no, that’s a terrible idea, senpai. What if you accidentally obliterated the entire island?’

‘Geez, Akira-kun. I was just joking.’

‘You sure didn’t sound like you were joking.’

‘But, what should we do? If we dispatch an army of our own, it might end up badly for our side, since the enemies are mostly necromancers.’ Ichika says.

‘Kojima, how tight are their air defense?’ I ask Madoka.

‘It’s almost non-existent. Why? Are you planning to land there with a chopper like you always do?’

‘No, not this time. Besides, the chopper would be destroyed the moment it lands. Second question, is there another island near the island they are residing at?’

‘Yes, there are four of them.’

‘And the distance between those islands and the one we’re aiming for?’

‘The nearest one is around 6 kilometers away.’

‘Third question. Do they have any ways of coming to the island and leaving it?’

‘They use helicopters. I believe they own 30 of those military type ones.’

‘Thanks.’ I then look at Mashiro. ‘Can Sogdrul’s magic teleport us to somewhere that’s 6 kilometers away from our location?’

‘It’s possible, provided that Mashiro shares her magic with him.’

‘Splendid. Here’s what we’re going to do.’

The plan involves all of us getting to the island by an airplane. To avoid being detected, we would have the pilot fly the plane as high as possible. When the plane reach the island, we will dive down and use parachutes to ensure a safe landing. To ensure maximum efficiency, we will make sure we land near the helipads where the helicopters are kept.

As soon as we land, we will destroy every last one of those choppers. After that, we will head straight towards the place where Assaf is.

However, we’re not going to fight her right away. Instead, Sogdrul will teleport all of us to the nearest island. While we’re fighting her, Yui will put up a barrir so that the necromancer could not search for us with their familiars. Once we manage to subjugate Assaf, we will make our escape by a ship that was hidden near the island beforehand.

‘An excellent plan as always, Akira.’ Ichika compliments me after listening to the plan.

‘Thanks. I just hope it would work.’

‘I was always curious about this. How did you manage to come up with plans like this whenever there’s a need for one?’ Yui asks me.

‘Honestly, I have no idea.’

It’s true. When I was at the real world, I wasn’t a crazy fan of military tactics, nor was I ever in the army. Even so, I could think up of complicated tactics with ease. At one point, I start to wonder whether I was a tactician or a general in my past life.

‘If you keep this up, a lot of people will hire you as their adviser when you graduate.’ Ichika tells me.

‘Or you could start your own mercenary group.’ Madoka suggests.

‘A mercenary group, huh? That sound nice.’

Of course, that’s assuming I don’t get killed off or being teleported back to my old world before this anime ends.

‘Your employees will consist of all of us here, right?’ Sakuya asks.

I stare at her. ‘Even you, senpai?’

‘I don’t mind waiting for you to graduate. I can wait as long as it takes. Although, there’s a better position that I’m aiming for…’

At this, the other girls look at me expectantly, as if they want me to choose the person that will have the honor of having the position Sakuya speaks of.

Naturally, I know of the position too, but now is seriously not the time to discuss it.

‘Can we talk about this some other time? We’re on a tight schedule here, remember?’

The girls reluctantly agree.

We waste no time in putting the plan in motion. First, Sakuya applies for the permission to get a pilot for the plane and a captain and a crew for the ship. After they are assembled, Madoka brief them about our plan and showed the pilot our destination and the captain and the crew the location that they will park the ship at.

For those of you who had been wondering on how did we manage to get stuff like choppers, airplanes and ships, the answer lies in the government.

Not only are they sponsoring us for extremely expensive vehicles and equipments for research purposes, we are also given amnesty for certain crimes, even murder (only if it’s justified).

These are probably some of the reasons that the police hate us, since we basically have more power than they do even though most of us are still minors.

Anyway, we wait until the ship is almost at the island where it’s supposed to be waiting for us, then we hop on to the airplane and head for the island where Assaf is.

Usually, it would take more than 8 hours for a commercial plane to reach Hawaii from Japan. However, the airplane we’re on board can fly much faster than a commercial one, so it take only 4 to 5 hours to arrive at our destination. At least, that’s what Madoka said. I’ve never ride a non-commercial airplane before, so I could only take her word for it.

While waiting for the plane to arrive at our destination, the girls are suddenly talking about the office that we’ll be getting once our mercenary group becomes official. I was deep in thought about our operation, so I didn’t join in the conversation.

‘We are talking about Akira here, so a huge kitchen is a must.’ Ichika is saying.

‘And a game room.’ Mashiro says.

‘And a large training room so that we could hone our skills.’ Madoka adds.

Ichika swallows her drool excitedly upon hearing that. Just how much does she loves to train?

‘Um, I might sound selfish, but I would love a garden, or at least a balcony.’ Yui says.

‘Why is that, Yui-chan? Are you interested in gardening?’ Sakuya asks curiously.

‘Yes. As a matter of fact, I’m quite of bonsai.’

‘Oh, is that so? That’s nice. I’m sure we could figure something out. Although, it’s kind of surprising that you’re into bonsai.’

‘Well, my mother was the one who got me started.’

‘Aren’t those expensive?’ Mashiro asks.

‘Mm-hmm. Even the cheapest ones could cost several thousand yens. In fact, my fist bonsai costed me 8000 yen! I’m so glad that my salary is high enough.’

‘Wow, you could buy several video games with that amount of money.’ I blurt out without thinking.

The girls look at me with an unusually cold stares. Yui is also puffing up her cheeks.

‘...My bad. Do continue.’

‘You know, your big sister is quite disappointed in all of you. We’ve started the topic for quite a while, but none of you brought up the most important thing of them all.’

‘Which is?’ Ichika prompts.

‘The size of our bed.’

That snapped me back to reality.

‘Bed? Not beds?’

‘Oh, are you a futon person, Akira-kun? You never seemed that way to me, though.’

‘Wait, are you saying that all of us are going to share one bed?’

‘Yup.’

I’ve noticed this for a while now, but Sakuya seems to be on board for me to have a harem. Mind, I would love to be a multi-timing jerk, but I was always worried about what the girls would think.

Yui raises up her hand. ‘Will we be taking turns to sleep next to Kagenashi-kun?’

‘Of course.’

Yui nods. ‘Then I’m fine with it.’

The others nod too, even the usual proper Ichika.

‘So, what do you think, Akira-kun?’

‘Well, we might face a lot of hardships, but please take care of me.’ I say while bowing down my head.

Sakuya smiles. ‘It’s decided then.’

‘There’s still one more thing, though.’ Madoka says. ‘I find it unfair that Kiryuu and I are the only ones who’re not called by our first names.’

‘That’s right! I’ve always wanted you to call me Yui, Akura-kun!’ Yui adds.

‘Oh yeah, we’ve never addressed that properly, huh? Sorry about that, Yui. Madoka.’

The two girls smile brightly, satisfied.

‘Now, I hate to be a party-pooper, but can we concentrate on the mission at hand?’

‘You’re worrying too much, Akira-kun. It’s going to be fine.’ Sakuya assures me.

‘Well, somebody has to.’

I’m of course worried about the fact that the Assaf I saw in the photo is a totally different person from the original anime, but there’s no way I can tell them that. We’re most likely going to fight the wrong opponent, but we need to do this if I want to uncover the mystery.

About 4 hours later, we’re finally near the island.

‘So, which one is it again?’ I ask Madoka while looking down from one of the windows.

She points at one of the bigger island. ‘That one.’

‘All right.’ I turn my head and look at the girls. ‘You girls ready?’

All of them nod.

Each of us grab a parachute and sling it over our shoulders. I then take a deep breath and open the door.

Immediately, huge amounts of wind pours in, and I got swept away. I didn’t resist. I was planning the leave the plane anyway. I just wished I brought a pair of goggles with me, since the wind is sort of hurting my eyes.

While I’m falling, I turn around and look at the plane. The girls are exiting it one by one, with Sakuya being the second to leave. It was not long before all of us are falling from the same height. Unlike me, all of them are wearing a pair of goggles.

Madoka hands me one from her jacket’s pocket. I take it gratefully and wear it.

After a few minutes of falling down, I start to see the island we’re landing more and more clearly. Or to be precise, the helipads where the choppers are. I also see a ship parked near an island that’s two islands away from the one we’re heading for. That must be our ride home.

The necromancers and their undead minions probably never expected an assault from the sky, since we were at a distance where we should open up our parachutes by the time they noticed us.

All of us landed safely, and we waste no time in destroying the choppers while fighting off necromancers and undead creatures alike after we got rid of the parachutes and tuck away our goggles: me using Gáe Bulg, Sakuya using her Morifuji Tessen, Ichika using her Masamune, Mashiro with her wind, Yui with her exploding talismans, and Madoka with her scythe that she rarely uses.

The scythe that Madoka uses is made of normal materials, just an alloy of silver and steel, and has its handle wrapped in a piece of cloth. However, it’s the history of the scythe that’s truly terrifying.

Its owners was always fanatical priests who took great delight in executing innocent people with it. As a result, its blade absorbed tons of blood from wronged victims, and one day it just starts to release an intense aura that induces fear and malicious intent.

When I asked how did she obtained it, she simply shrugged and answered ‘It was a gift.’ Until today, I never pressed her for a proper answer. I had a feeling that it’s a touchy subject, just like why she’s always laughing in an insane manner whenever she’s in a battle.

Anyway, I do my best to avoid looking at it since I could get nauseous and have a strong urge to run far, far away if I stare at it for more than three seconds.

The moment we’re done destroying the choppers, Madoka guides us straight to where Assaf is. Thankfully, it’s not that far from the helipads, and Madoka’s insane laughter and her cursed scythe keeps a lot of the necromancers away, and even undeads shy away from the silver blade.

Madoka eventually leads to the entrance of a cave. Assaf made our job easier by coming out herself.

Well, this is it. The moment of truth.