...
{3rd Pov}
“Let’s return home.”
Akari sat by the window beside his mother as she drove the car through the familiar streets. The route felt strangely nostalgic to him because the last time they had traveled along this very road was when they were returning home from the hospital.
Now they were making the exact same journey once again.
He could not help but feel somewhat speechless about the situation. After all, he had already ended up in the hospital twice in such a short period of time. Thinking about all those cliché anime tropes, a small part of him genuinely feared that he would be destined to return to the hospital after every single battle from now on.
Just like in My Hero Academia, where after nearly every major battle someone always ended up hospitalized.
Or in One Piece, where after every battle the characters somehow recovered by throwing a massive feast and partying as if nothing had happened.
And then there was Attack on Titan.
Akari smiled wryly at the comparison.
After every major battle in that series, the characters often ended up becoming fertilizer instead, contributing to the greenery of the planet rather than making it back home.
“Akari-chan, are you alright? Are you feeling ill?” he suddenly heard his mom ask. Her voice was filled with urgency and a trace of nervousness, her eyes briefly leaving the road as she glanced toward him before focusing back on driving.
“Okaa-san, I am A rank. Common illnesses cannot even touch me,” he said proudly, puffing out his chest a little as if making a grand declaration.
His words immediately drew a small giggle from Keiko as she took her words' for something a kid would randomly say.
The tension on her face eased considerably, and the nervousness she had been carrying ever since he woke up from his coma weakened by quite a bit.
“Remember, Akari-chan, if you ever feel ill or if something doesn't feel right, don't hesitate to tell me immediately,” she said gently, her voice overflowing with affection and concern. “Also, if you don't feel like going to school, don't worry about it. We can extend your holidays a little longer. There's no need to force yourself.”
“Hai!” Akari replied cheerfully.
Outwardly, he looked completely carefree but inwardly, his thoughts were entirely different.
Despite becoming a Graduate, he still feared Kaya.
After all, at the end of the day, she was a Specter whose origins were connected to a Deity. Just thinking back to that single punch, she had landed on him was enough to make him return to hospital and nearly dead.
That experience had left a deep impression on him.
Still, things were different now after all now as a Graduate, he was far stronger than before.
At the very least, he no longer had to worry about dying from a single punch like some random villain who appeared for five seconds in One Punch Man before getting instantly obliterated.
He wanted his parents to transfer somewhere else, preferably far away from Kaya, but sadly his father's hands were tied. Even Kaya-chan's father had been unable to secure a transfer despite everything that had happened.
'As expected of Japanese work culture... absolute rubbish,' he thought with mild annoyance.
In this culture, enormous importance was placed on respecting your seniors and people in higher positions. Loyalty to the company often came before personal convenience, and transferring wasn't as simple as requesting it.
'Fine then... in the future, I'll just become a corporate leader myself,' he thought confidently.
He would build a company that every employee in Japan, and eventually even around the world, would dream of joining. A place with proper salaries, reasonable working hours, and an environment where employees were actually treated like human beings instead of disposable machines.
As for where the money would come from? He already had a rough idea.
After all, this was still the early 2000s.
Things like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and many other future internet giants didn't even exist yet.
Of course, he could always plagiarize... ahem... introduce some masterpieces from his previous life to gather his initial capital. Books, games, movies, songs, or countless other ideas from the future would all be worth a fortune if used correctly.
But then again, he was literally a ghost.
'I seriously doubt I'll have to go that route just to earn my first pile of money,' he thought.
With his supernatural abilities, there were probably far easier methods to gather initial capital without spending years working a normal job.
And once he had enough money, the rest would be easy.
He could simply invest in companies that would later manufacture RAM and GPUs, buy shares in future giants like Amazon, invest in Facebook before it exploded in value, and quietly become one of the richest people in the world without anyone realizing how absurdly unfair his advantage actually was.
Another reason he wanted to become rich was to build connections. Money was valuable, but influence and information were often even more important. He wanted to travel across the entire world and devour ghosts from every corner of it.
After all, Japan was not the only country where ghosts existed unlike Curses in JumpJutsuKaisen... cough... Jujutsu Kaisen.
There had to be terrifying spirits, ancient legends, and supernatural beings scattered across every continent. If this world truly merged different supernatural settings together, then remaining in Japan forever would only limit his own growth.
Just as he was about to continue thinking about the countless wonders this world still had in store for him, the car suddenly came to a screeching halt.
“Akari-chan... welcome back to... home,” his mom said with a somewhat awkward smile. She paused briefly in the middle of her sentence after remembering how unfortunate his previous "welcome home" had been.
That memory was clearly still fresh in her mind.
“Just wait for a moment while I park the car,” she added.
Then, completely disobeying the universal law of women drivers, his mother parked the car perfectly in a single smooth attempt.
'This... this must be the power of a mother!' Akari thought, his eyes shining with admiration.
He had already witnessed the first wonder of the world in the form of a Specter connected to a God.
And now he had just witnessed the second wonder of the world.
After returning to his room, Akari once again found himself under the constant watch of his mom. She looked as though she believed he would somehow jump off the roof the very moment she left the room unattended.
As a result, he was once again forced into the incredibly exciting activity of drawing.
Unfortunately for him, his artistic skills had not magically improved during his month-long coma.
Well, this time the drawing itself was rather unique.
It depicted himself happily gobbling up a white orb, with the word "Delicious!" written beside it in large, enthusiastic letters.
“Akari-chan! You are so talented!” Keiko said with a bright smile as she looked at the drawing. “I seriously think you could become a mangaka someday!”
A chill immediately ran down Akari's spine.
“Nah, I'd employ!” he replied with a confident grin, proudly correcting her dream for him.
Keiko blinked for a second before making an exaggerated expression of complete shock.
“Really?! Then my son is going to become a black hearted boss?!” she exclaimed dramatically, placing a hand over her chest as though she had just received the greatest betrayal of her life.
“...”
Akari stared at her in complete silence.
He wanted to cry but no tears came out.
‘Who the fuck says that to a child?!’ he complained inwardly, feeling utterly speechless at his mother's response.
However, completely misunderstanding the reason behind his expression, Keiko playfully stuck out her tongue and smiled mischievously.
“Ara, ara... it seems I've done it,” she said with an embarrassed laugh. “Don't mind your Okaa-san. After all, I'm not as smart as you are.”
“Indeed. I am the smartest person in this room,” Akari replied with a serious nod, speaking as though he had just stated an Heavenly Truth.
Keiko immediately clapped her hands together with sparkling eyes.
“Yes! My son is so smart!!”
“...”
Akari suddenly felt so embarrassed that he wanted to bury his face beneath a pillow and never come out again.
But for some strange reason being treated like an actual child felt good.
The feeling was nostalgic and had a warmth he hadn't experienced in a very long time, something so simple that he hadn't realized how much he had missed it.
Not to mention his Okaa-san was genuinely adorable.
'Now that I think about it... my father isn't the typical Asian father either...' he thought, his expression becoming increasingly strange as another realization hit him.
'Don't tell me... I actually won the parent lottery?!'
He was genuinely shocked this time.
His Asian parents didn't behave like stereotypical Asian parents!
Impossible.
Absolutely impossiblwa!
'But to think I ended up winning this lottery only after dying...'
Well, technically speaking he was still dead.
Next, he found out that his mother had actually bought him a Gundam toy!
Akari, who had always been a fan of those kinds of model toys but never really got the chance to own or play with one in his previous life, was genuinely surprised by the unexpected gift.
Needless to say, he happily accepted it.
...
For the next few days, Akari genuinely began wondering what was going on.
For several consecutive days, his Otou-san came home carrying a brand new toy every single evening. Sometimes it was a Gundam model, other times it was an elaborate train set, and occasionally it was something completely different that looked fun enough to keep a child occupied for hours.
Even with the mind of an adult, there was something oddly satisfying about assembling miniature robots or watching small trains circle around a track.
Still despite enjoying the gifts, he never failed to notice the concern hidden behind his parents' actions.
They were trying their best to cheer him up.
“What do you think?” Keiko asked her husband one evening, her voice carrying obvious worry. “Should we homeschool him... or should we let him return to kindergarten?”
Her eyes were filled with concern as she waited for Takeshi's opinion.
Meanwhile, Akari quietly observed the conversation from inside his own room.
Recently, he had awakened yet another ability, spatial awareness and now combined with his X ray like vision and the fact that he could now enhance his human hearing from normal human ears to an absurd level by channeling spiritual energy through his body, his senses had reached a completely superhuman level.
Even from inside his room, he could clearly hear every word his parents exchanged as if he were standing right beside them.
“I don't know...” Takeshi answered honestly after remaining silent for a while. “Although Akari has never acted like it, I'm afraid he might still have trauma from everything that happened. If he returns to kindergarten... or if he has to meet that girl again... I'm worried it might trigger PTSD.”
His voice remained calm, but the concern in his eyes was impossible to hide.
He was trying to think rationally as a father, yet every conclusion he reached only made him worry more about his son.
Keiko lowered her head slightly.
“I know...” she replied softly. “It's one thing if it's only kindergarten, but when he grows older, if he keeps avoiding school... he'll miss an important part of his social life.”
She paused for a moment before continuing.
“And... I'm afraid other children might make fun of him.”
There was obvious pain in her voice as she said those words because deep down, she knew that after everything her son had gone through, she probably shouldn't even be thinking about sending him back to kindergarten so soon.
His safety and peace of mind should have come first.
But at the same time, she also understood how cruel society could be.
People rarely cared about the reasons behind someone's circumstances.
They only looked at the result.
If Akari grew up without attending school, people would eventually begin labeling him as a failure, the weird child of their group.
Someone who didn't fit in.
Someone who had no place in this world.
That was exactly what she wanted to protect him from.
“I don't want him to go through what I went through,” she said quietly, barely managing to hold back her tears. The painful memories she had tried to bury long ago seemed to resurface the moment she imagined her son suffering the same fate.
“Now, now, Keiko,” Takeshi said gently with a reassuring smile as he wrapped his arms around his wife. “Let's not think about that anymore. Those people already received the punishment they deserved. There's no point letting them continue hurting you.”
He softly rubbed her back, trying to calm her down before she completely broke into tears.
“...”
Meanwhile, Akari silently listened to the entire conversation from inside his room.
He remained completely quiet for a moment, then a complicated expression appeared on his face as he stared absentmindedly at the Gundam model sitting on his desk.
He wanted to tell them there was no need to worry so much.
He wanted to reassure them that he would be fine.
After all he wasn't some helpless child.
He was a Demonic Ghost.
He wasn't the type of person who would be ridiculed and trampled by society.
He was the one who would ridicule society instead.
If anyone dared to bully him now, there was a very real possibility that the bully would end up needing prayers instead.
Of course, as always for him there was absolutely no way he could say something like that out loud.
Akari could only let out a quiet sigh.
Then, resting his chin on his hand, he began seriously thinking about the situation.
If his parents remained this worried, then perhaps he really needed to come up with a way to convince them that he was perfectly fine.
‘A traumatized child... they usually end up going down one of two paths,’ he thought. ‘Either they grow into the kindest person imaginable, someone who would feel guilty even after hurting a mosquito or they grow into a complete psycho who enjoys bullying and torturing others.’
After thinking it over for a while, he finally made up his mind.
He would need to meet Kaya again.
There were several reasons behind that decision.
For starters, he didn't want a traumatized God child constantly associating him with that incident or unconsciously treating him as an enemy. That sounded like an obvious red flag that might come to bite his ass later on.
Secondly, if the two of them managed to reconcile, it would probably help ease his parents' worries as well. They had been concerned ever since the incident, and seeing him interact normally with Kaya again would likely reassure them to some extent.
And third, at the very least, he wanted Kaya-chan to become friendly toward him.
Or perhaps even become friends with her.
‘It would definitely be useful to be on friendly terms with a Specter as powerful as her,’ he thought seriously.
Of course, there was another reason as well.
This would also serve as a test.
A test to determine whether he actually needed to remain on guard against her in the future or whether the previous incident had simply been an unfortunate misunderstanding that would never happen again.
‘Considering everything that happened before, the teachers will definitely be much more careful this time,’ he thought. ‘They'll probably see this as an opportunity for both of us to overcome our trauma and move forward as better children.’
That was assuming the kindergarten teachers were normal, caring adults and not the kind of heartless people who treated children no differently than chickens packed into a pen.
Then again, If they turned out to be nothing like their anime counterparts, at least Akari could finally discard all the assumptions he had built from anime knowledge and start preparing for this world properly.
From that point onward, he would simply become as overcautious as Seiya and make sure he was ready perfectly for every possible situation.
...
Keiko, who was still in Takeshi's arms, tightened her embrace around him. Meanwhile, the man smiled gently and stroked her back.
“Keiko, you should go to sleep. You've worked hard enough today,” he said softly. “I'll go check on Akari one more time, and after that I'll come back and get some sleep as well.”
However, Keiko didn't let go of him.
Instead, she slowly raised her head and looked directly into his eyes.
“Takeshi... I want to...” she began.
He looked at her with a confused expression.
“Want to...?”
A small smile appeared on her face as she leaned closer, bringing her lips near his ear.
“I want to eat you up,” she whispered teasingly.
For a moment, Takeshi simply stared at her.
Then, as her words finally registered in his mind, his face immediately turned red as he realized exactly what she meant.
“I... I...” he stammered, desperately trying to think of an excuse.
But when he saw the hopeful and adorable look on his wife's face, his resolve crumbled almost instantly.
In the end, he silently accepted that perhaps Akari would be getting a new sibling in the future.
Just then the bedroom door suddenly swung open with a loud thud.
Both of them nearly jumped out of their place and almost by instinct, they immediately separated from each other as quickly as possible, their expressions filled with embarrassment.
“Eh?! Akari, you aren't asleep yet?!” Keiko exclaimed in surprise, immediately trying to brush away any suspicious thoughts that might have formed in her child's mind. After all, at his age he wasn't supposed to know anything about the birds and the bees.
Of course, Akari, having successfully interrupted his mother and father'sseggs chapter before it could even begin, simply looked at them with an innocent expression.
“Mom, when am I going to school again?” he asked in a curious tone.
His parents froze and for a brief moment, they glanced at each other, hesitation clearly visible in both of their eyes.
Keiko then slowly stood up from the bed before walking over to him. She knelt down so that she was at eye level with her son, gently placing her hands on his shoulders.
“I don't think you'll be going back just yet...” she said softly. “You got hurt, remember? So your mom and dad have decided that it's better if you rest at home for a while longer!”
She smiled warmly, trying to make the decision sound cheerful rather than overprotective.
Meanwhile, Takeshi quietly watched the interaction before letting out a small sigh.
'She was the one pushing the hardest for him to return to school before... and now she's the one insisting that he stay as far away from it as possible,' he thought with a helpless smile.
'I guess this is what people call maternal instincts.'
Looking at the way Keiko worried over every little thing concerning Akari, he couldn't help but smile softly.
To a mother nothing was more important than her child's safety after all and he as Akari's father felt the same.
“But I've already healed now! And I want to go to school and make friends!” Akari said, intentionally putting pressure on his parents as he looked at them with hopeful eyes.
Keiko and Takeshi exchanged another hesitant glance.
Neither of them knew how to answer.
Slowly, Keiko stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him once again. She gently patted his back and stroked his head, almost as if she were trying to comfort herself as much as she was comforting him.
Her eyes had already begun to moisten.
She knew better than most how cruel the world could sometimes be.
She also knew that one day Akari would inevitably learn what the world was truly like.
But...For as long as she could protect his childhood, she wanted him to grow up seeing the good parts of the world first.
She wanted him to remember kindness before cruelty.
She wanted him to believe there was always something worth smiling about, no matter how difficult life became later.
Only then, she hoped, would he continue searching for the good in the path ahead instead of becoming consumed by its ugliness.
“Akari...” she called softly.
She slowly pulled away from the hug before looking directly into his eyes with a serious expression.
“If you really want to...” she began, carefully choosing her words, “we can send you back to school.”
She paused briefly.
“But it will be the same kindergarten.”
Her voice softened.
“So I want to ask you honestly do you want to go back to school, or would you rather stay home for a while longer?”
She didn't want to force the decision onto him especially not after everything he had experienced.
Meanwhile, Akari felt slightly speechless.
Giving such an important decision to a child even if it concerned his own future still felt somewhat absurd to him.
After all, from everyone else's perspective he was only a little kid who barely understood the world.
Although, inside he was mentally almost an adult.
“I want to go to school! I want to make friends and have lots of fun!” Akari replied, deliberately using the same cheerful tone that the original Akari used to have.
Keiko's heart instantly melted as a bright smile spread across her face as she gently patted his head.
“Very well! Akari-chan is going back to school!” she declared happily. “But not tomorrow! Give your mom and dad a day or two to prepare everything first.”
“Umu,” Akari nodded obediently.
Even so, he felt a little awkward having to act like a child for the umpteenth time.
Still he was in a child's body.
The last thing he wanted was to end up acting like some creepy kid, like a certain Rudeus Eipstein... cough... Rudeus Greyrat.
Satisfied with his answer, Keiko immediately escorted him back to his room.
“There, there. Time for bed,” she said as she gently ruffled his hair before helping him settle beneath the blanket.
She wasn't taking any chances anymore.
Only after making sure he was comfortable did she finally begin trying to lull him to sleep.
Meanwhile, Takeshi watched the mother and son with a warm smile.
Then, an amused expression appeared on his face.
'Sorry, Akari... I guess we'll have to postpone our plans for giving you a younger sibling until another day,' he thought with a helpless chuckle.
Naturally, he had absolutely no idea that Akari had deliberately walked in on their private moment earlier and nor did he know that, thanks to his superhuman senses, Akari had no desire whatsoever to witness or overhear anything that he considered his parents' intimate time together.
From Akari's perspective preventing that situation from happening had been the correct decision.
So, he had cockblocked his own father.
'Your sacrifice will be remembered father', Akari thought one last time before falling into sleep.
...
“So, what do you say, Mero-sensei?” Keiko asked as the discussion turned toward Akari's return and the continuation of his kindergarten classes.
The meeting was being held in the Principal's office.
Currently, Keiko was sitting together with the Principal and Mero-sensei, all three of them discussing what would be best for Akari after everything that had happened.
The Principal folded her hands on the table before speaking.
“If he returns to class... I believe it will ultimately be for the best, even after what happened,” she said after thinking for a moment. “However, I don't know how he will react if he sees Kaya-chan again. I just hope it doesn't trigger his PTSD or bring back those traumatic memories.”
Her voice carried genuine concern, no one wanted Akari to collapse emotionally after finally recovering physically.
“I think we can give it a try,” Mero-sensei said after a brief silence. “However, we'll have to speak with that girl beforehand and make sure she understands the situation.”
As she spoke, she couldn't help recalling the biggest troublemaker in the kindergarten.
Kaya.
Because of that single incident, the reputation of their kindergarten had suffered a considerable blow. Parents had naturally become anxious after hearing that a child had ended up in critical condition during school hours, and the staff themselves still hadn't completely recovered from the shock.
This time she couldn't afford another mistake, unless she wanted to lose this job because of that brat.
The principal frowned slightly after hearing the tone in Mero-sensei's voice, but she chose to remain silent. Even by her own standards, Kaya-chan was a rather unusual child, and the incident had only reinforced that impression.
Still, she couldn't help feeling worried for the little girl.
Recently, almost every student had begun avoiding Kaya-chan as though she were carrying a plague. Even some of the teachers had unconsciously started keeping their distance from her after what had happened with Akari.
Fortunately, the situation had not escalated into outright bullying.
At least not yet.
However, the Principal knew that this kind of isolation could be just as harmful.
If it continued, Kaya-chan might become emotionally stunted, making it difficult for her to trust or interact with others in the future. The last thing the Principal wanted was for Kaya-chan to carry that loneliness into elementary school and eventually become the target of bullying by older children.
'For both Kaya-chan's and Akari-chan's future... I have to do something,' she thought seriously.
'If I can somehow help them reconcile, perhaps both of them can move past this incident.'
As long as Akari-chan wasn't afraid of Kaya-chan, she would do everything she could to help the two children become friends.
At the very least, she wanted them to stop seeing each other as a source of fear and painful memories.
“Do not worry... We will keep a close watch on both Kaya-chan and Akari-chan for the next few weeks,” the Principal said reassuringly, hoping to ease Keiko's concerns.
Mero-sensei, meanwhile, softly clicked her tongue.
Thankfully no one noticed her doing that.
'Damn it... now I'll have to keep an eye on both the problem child and that new transfer student,' she thought with an inward sigh.
In her mind, it was as though she alone would be responsible for watching over the two of them, despite the fact that the other teachers would naturally be helping as well.
The thought annoyed her as she had already been exhausted dealing with Kaya's strange behavior before the incident.
Now Akari, the child who had nearly died inside the kindergarten, was returning as well.
To her, it felt like two troublesome children had somehow ended up in the school as her being a teacher.
If Akari had been present to hear her thoughts he would have immediately realized one thing.
At the very least Mero-sensei was definitely not one of the kinder teachers working at this kindergarten.
To be continued...