"Holy s.h.i.+t. Kenjiro, you're a complete power-house aren't you" Narino said with a glimmer in her eyes. I was still trying to come up with a reason but I decided to say

"There must be some kind of mistake here, there's no way I'm a 'Special individual'."

While thinking I noticed some weird aura that had a really intense nightmare-ish feeling attached to it. I looked around and noticed the girl that could potentially make me die, you guessed it, Anami.

"How the f.u.c.k are you a 'special individual' while I'm just an 'above-average individual'?"

Anami said and started slowly approaching me.

- Whaaat!? This is insanely scary, if I don't watch myself I might wet myself... Yes, I just thought that inside my head, I'll need to process it. For now though, I need to tell her the truth so that she calms down.-

I took a couple of steps back to create some breathing room and said

"Wait, calm down Anami! I just said that there must be some kind of mistake. There's no way that an all-around perfect person like you with high grades looks and so on would be under in terms of powers a n.o.body like me, right?"

A few intense seconds followed, where we stared each other in the eyes. But quickly, Anami's intense aura disappeared.

-Whew, looks like I somehow managed to avoid a death penalty today. Still, why did she get that angry about it? I mean, it was common sense that something was wrong.-

But my celebrations were too early, That intense aura immediately got replaced with an ultrs.a.d.i.s.tic aura that was directed entirely at me. The all-too-familiar Sadosmile came back. I took a couple of steps back as a reflex and accidentally b.u.mped into Aya, when I realized it I quickly said

"Sorry!"

But my words were practically bouncing off a brick wall, because the recipient of my words stood completely still just staring at me. The look she had seemed to contain shock, excitement and masterful planning, it almost gave a chill. I started looking around and saw that Sora and Narino also had a similar look on their faces, although they weren't staring like a zombie.

"Aya? Are you there?" I said and waved my hand in front of her face in search of a response.

"Did she die?" I thought and put my hand on her neck to see if she had a pulse. I let the hand stay there for a couple of seconds and noticed a stable pulse, so she wasn't dead. But when I tried to pull my hand away, the petrified girl immediately woke up and started blus.h.i.+ng intensely. She grabbed a hold of my hand and exclaimed

"What are you doing!?"

I calmly stared into her eyes and said

"It's simple, I checked your pulse to see if you were still alive. I think my self-confidence would end up further unable to recover if someone were to die because of my actions."

Aya turned even redder and yelled out

"Like that's the reason, perv!"

She then took some sort of martial art stance and threw me away. Whilst flying in the air at an unbelievable speed, I yelled out

"What!? No sensible man gets turned on by necks!"

I then pushed my imagination to its furthermost limits and came up with a more accurate answer

"Ok, maybe some do."

I crashed into the ground and fell into a world of hurt.

"Ok, that's funny because I used 'fell' after cras.h.i.+ng into something. You know, it's kind of a fun wordplay and---"

I mumbled loudly.

Narino instantly commented

"I think you broke the poor guy, Aya."

Aya instantly ran over to me and started saying

"I'm so sorry, Kenjiro. Are you okay? I was just in awe after what powers you got."

I stared into Aya's blue eyes, which were filled with sympathy, dramatically and said

"Aya, I think it's my time to go now."

I looked away in sorrow and managed to fake a tear before continuing

"I know none of the five of you here cares about me, but I have one last favor to ask of you before I disappear."

I went quiet for a dramatic pause effect, I then ended with

"Could you please just throw my computer out of the window? Don't question why, it's just a thing I need to delete."

Aya was looking at me with tears slowly dripping down her cheeks.

I got a brilliantly evil smile on my face which I quickly hid.

- All according to Keikaku*.

*Keikaku means plan.

I have to reference something when I have the chance, right?

But now to do the cla.s.sic 'Negotiation-thing' where you first demand something that's very hard to do and then lower the bar to what you actually want so that it's a bigger chance that they agree to it. My freedom is a.s.sured now.-

I coughed a bit before I said

"Or, if that's too much of a ha.s.sle. Could you at least call Eraijo and make her cancel my club members.h.i.+p? I wouldn't want to bother your magnificent club with a dead member so that rumors start spreading. That's all I ask for before I die."

Aya, with her face stuffed with tears, said

"I can do both, Kenjiro! Leave it to me!"

She picked up her cell phone and started dialing Eraijo.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Yeah, it's Aya. Could you please canc-----"

is all the conversation has time to lead to before Anami s.n.a.t.c.hes the phone out of her hand and hangs up. Anami then started ranting

"There are multiple things wrong with what just happened. Firstly, how the h.e.l.l would Kenjiro die from a weak throw like that when you saw how strong he apparently is? Even if the whole thing is some kind of mistake, he must have gotten strong enough to block an attack like that.

Secondly, Why did you even believe what he said? His acting was absolutely horrible and cliched.

Third, If he now were about to die, why would those things be his last wishes? No one would ask for their hard drive full of hentai to be destroyed or their club members.h.i.+p to be canceled if they were about to die.

Conclusion: In this essay, I have explored the faults in Kenjiro's actions these past minutes and why they were wrong. My conclusion is that one shouldn't trust this guy when it comes to things relating to this club and its activities. Do you understand, Aya? You shouldn't trust him, you shouldn't even try to be near him."

The rated essay that was just uttered stunned Aya, I was completely unfazed though. I almost expected to be busted from the beginning. I decided to say some things

"First of all, that was way too many words. Second of all, screw you for ruining my sweet escape out of here."

Aya looked at me with that tear-filled face once again and instantly changed her aura. Suddenly, the aura became very hostile and I once again did not feel welcomed at this place. Like a Cola with Mentos, Aya suddenly burst out

"I trusted you, Kenjiro! How could you deceive me, your friend? I feel so empty now, how can I move on in my life?"

Now that shocked me quite a bit. Contrary to the essay that Anami said, this actually was something I didn't expect. But I focused and said

"A couple of things about that. I don't remember us becoming 'friends', we literally met a couple of hours ago. It's not like I wanted to deceive you, but for me to get back my lifestyle I have to risk some things. And how can that make you feel 'empty', that's an 'overreaction' as we like to call it in the business."

All that I received was an empty stare.

Narino, Ibuki, and Sora also just stood and stared at us. People had started gathering around the field, it felt like we were at a zoo.

I scratched the back of my head and asked the three female onlookers

"To wrap this up quickly now, how do I upgrade an ability?"

Sora chuckled awkwardly and took a couple of steps and handed me a piece of paper and said

"You just write down what ability you want, how many skill points you want to spend and then put a bit of your own blood on it."

I picked up the piece of paper from earlier, where all of the 'currently available' abilities were written.

I sat down on the ground and thought about what to upgrade.

-It's probably the smartest if I upgrade that system-thing first and then start upgrading things. When looking at my choices, I'm really drawn to the 'Anime/Mangstyle' ability. That was another funny word-play, honestly, I should be a comedian.

Ok…

You're not gonna push me down and make me realize what I really am?

No, the wordplay thing you usually do is somewhat interesting.

Really?

I'm not gonna repeat myself, baka.

Ooooh, I really don't like that line you just said. Like, really.

And who did you just insult?

You...?

And I am…

You are… Me. I just insulted myself.

Hahahahahaha. Now I don't have to insult myself anymore because now I insult myself.

What?

I… I don't know anymore. -

I shook my head to shake away the confusion. The paper in front of me was completely empty, ready for me to write something deciding my short-term future. With the pen I borrowed from Sora, I scribbled down the answer to my first decision.

I lifted the pen carefully above my left arm and quickly struck my left arm with a considerable strength. The pain was immense and I let out a surprisingly quiet "Ouuch!" and quickly put the paper under the wound and waited for a drop of blood to infect the graphite-filled piece of paper.

The others stared at me with confusion struck into their brains. Ibuki quietly said

"Why did you strike yourself with the pen? The ink could be really dangerous for you."

I started laughing maniacally, so much so that when I realized that I had laughed a bit too much I was staring into the sky. I awkwardly took my sight down from the heavenly domain and shot a look at the girl that had criticized my earlier decision. I said

"I don't care if I injure myself like this, as I previously disclosed. But you guys seem for some incomprehensible reason care. But the fact that I was just able to strike and injure myself, in quite the 'stupid' way, means that your little 'Kenjiro watching-pact' is completely powerless! Do you now realize how stupid and unnecessary it is? So how about you dissolve it and let me get out of this club?"

- To achieve victory, sometimes you have to sacrifice something. But by doing so, your victory almost becomes more satisfying. Although I almost have no intelligence, I have played enough strategy games to figure that out. Even an imbecile can learn something through intense repet.i.tion, that's one of the rules I have in my non-existent 'how to live as a n.o.body' strategy guide. -

But instead of receiving despairing and defeated looks, the girls started laughing uncontrollably. After several seconds of awkwardly standing around and wondering what my semi-decent plan lacked Aya calmed down and approached me, and said

"Hahha. Kenjiro, you sure know how to make someone laugh. I'll forgive you for earlier. It seems like you have forgotten who the people in this club are."

She then uttered some words and a white light arose and instantly fixed the wound.

- You've gotta be kidding me. Come on guys, I'm two centimeters from falling into a depression at this point. I mean, how many of my attempts have failed at this point? -

The second the white light faded away, another thing started to light up. Namely, my paper. It literally lit up, the paper started burning in front of me.

After a couple of seconds of watching the paper decompose into atoms to be reused, the familiar feeling of a surge of strength flew into my body.

Moments later, I heard a voice

[h.e.l.lo, Kenjiro Asukara. I am the 'Hotou Kaito-system', here to help you with your Kaito abilities and general info about Kaito Powers.]

The voice didn't sound like what I thought at all. It wasn't the slightest robotic, on the contrary, it sounded quite human. The voice was also that of a woman's.

What also popped up when the voice started talking was a UI. In the bottom-left corner of my vision, a couple of b.u.t.tons were visible. Notably, an 'Ability-upgrade' b.u.t.ton was available to the uttermost corner of my 'screen'.

I casually put my hand in the location where the b.u.t.ton was so that if I couldn't press it, I wouldn't have embarra.s.sed myself.

When I did, a huge half-visible screen popped up with the same list that I was presented earlier. The same 'Still calculating the abilities' message was also present. I looked around the list and found the ability I was searching for;

The Anime/Manga Style ability!