I, the spiritual mentor of beautiful girls from all over the world

She hated this feeling.

She felt she didn't deserve peace and quiet.

Lynn took in all her micro-expressions and knew that the time was almost right.

He picked up another clean teacup from the stone table beside him, filled it with warm tea, and gently pushed it over.

The teacup slid silently down the wooden floor to Shinobu's feet.

"A gift for the guests."

Lynn's voice rang out again.

"You look very tired."

He repeated what he had just said, but this time his tone was more certain.

"Especially, it must be very hard to maintain that perfect smile all the time."

"Qiang!"

Shinobu Kocho's body stiffened abruptly, and the smile on her face almost froze.

She instinctively retorted, using that familiar, gentle tone that mimicked her sister's.

"Allah."

She readjusted her expression and smiled flawlessly.

"Teacher, what are you talking about? I don't quite understand."

"I've always been like this."

Deep down, alarm bells were ringing.

Who is this man...?

Why... could he see through me?

Lynn looked at her with an expression that said, "As long as I'm not embarrassed, it's others who are embarrassed," and gently shook her head.

They've already come all this way, and they're still putting on a show here.

For students who lock themselves away with a perfect shell, conventional guidance is no longer effective; drastic measures are needed.

"No, you are not."

Lynn's voice wasn't loud, but it reached Shinobu's ears clearly. Every word was like a heavy hammer, striking the defenses she had built with lies.

"You are angry."

He put down his teacup, leaned forward slightly, and his gaze seemed to pierce through time and space, looking directly at the burning sea of ​​fire deep within her soul.

“No, ‘anger’ is an understatement.”

"That was hatred, that was resentment, that was a mad flame that would burn your own soul to ashes."

He sniffed the air and, in a tone as if commenting on a dish, uttered a sentence that Shinobu Kocho would never forget.

"I could smell a strong burnt smell even from this far away."

"boom--!"

Shinobu's mind went completely blank.

The smile on her face, that gentle mask she had practiced and imitated countless times, a mask that had long since become part of her very being...

At this moment, a barely perceptible crack finally appeared.

Burnt smell...

This man... he actually said that my anger... smells like burning?

How...

How absurd!

And how incredibly precise!

Lynn gave her no chance to breathe, delivering the final and most fatal blow.

He looked directly into her violet eyes, which were beginning to waver violently, and said clearly, word by word:

"You want to avenge your sister, don't you?"

boom!

One sentence was like a thunderclap exploding in Shinobu's mind.

elder sister……

This word is both her sacred domain and her curse.

It was the only reason she was clinging to life, and also the root cause that dragged her into endless suffering.

How could this strange man know?

How could he... use such a calm tone to express her deepest desires and obsessions!

"you……"

Shinobu Kocho wanted to say something, to refute, or to brush it off with "Ara ara" as usual.

But she couldn't do it.

The perfect smile that had been maintained for countless days and nights shattered at this moment.

On that delicate, doll-like face, the gentleness faded, leaving behind a volcanic eruption of undisguised resentment and hatred.

Her purple eyes were no longer lifeless and empty, but instead ignited with two wildly leaping purple flames!

That's not the look of a human being.

Those were the eyes of a vengeful ghost from hell.

"who are you?"

Her voice was no longer sweet; it became hoarse and low, as if squeezed from the depths of her throat, carrying a chilling coldness.

The air in the entire courtyard seemed to drop several degrees because of her dramatic change in mood.

Lynn looked at her like this, but felt nothing.

"See, that's right."

"When you're angry, you should act like you're angry."

He picked up his teacup and slowly took a sip.

"Let me introduce myself again. I am Lynn, and my profession is a teacher."

"My job... is to assign some homework to 'problem students' like you who are about to burst from being cooped up."

Chapter 3: Breaking the Defense? Breaking the defense is exactly what I'm looking for!

"Problem student?"

"Homework?"

The butterfly suppressed a laugh.

That wasn't an imitation of her sister's gentle facade, but a genuine, icy, and intensely sarcastic smile.

She raised her purple eyes, now filled with resentment and madness, and stared intently at Lynn.

He gently ground the word he had just heard between his teeth, each syllable like a knife quenched in ice.

"……teacher?"

This rhetorical question was filled with endless mockery.

However, Lynn remained seated, without changing her posture at all.

He didn't even look at Shinobu's eyes, which seemed to want to devour him, but instead looked down at the tea leaves floating in his cup, speaking in a calm tone as if stating a fact.

"Your anger is just a wildfire that has run out of control."

"It's burning you, not your enemy."

His voice wasn't loud, but it was like a precise scalpel, once again dissecting Shinobu's soul.

Do you think what you're showing right now is the 'real' thing?

Lynn shook his head slightly, a cruel smile curving his lips.

"No, this is just another mask."

“A mask called ‘Vengeful Ghost,’ which is equally weak.”

Shinobu's pupils suddenly contracted.

She wanted to argue, to scream, but all her words were stuck in her throat under the other person's calm gaze.

Lynn's voice continued, giving her no chance to catch her breath.

"Because the real you doesn't know how to use the power of 'anger' at all."

"You're just letting it consume you, using it to hurt yourself, to numb yourself..."

"To escape the fact that your sister is dead, and that you are powerless to change it!"

For a moment, Shinobu's mind went blank.

Is that so...?

Even my current anger... is it fake? Is it also a form of... escapism?

At this moment, a fatal crack appeared in her logical defenses.

At that moment, Lynn raised his eyes.

Those deep eyes calmly gazed at her, and then, they threw out the sharpest dagger that had been prepared long ago.

"Answer me, Shinobu Kocho."

"With your ridiculous attempt to imitate your sister, yet failing to even grasp one ten-thousandth of her strength, you're just a laughingstock..."

"And then there's this flawed new mask called 'Anger'..."

"Can you kill that Upper Moon Two?"

In an instant, the world seemed to be emptied of sound.

Those words, though spoken lightly from his lips, felt like a red-hot branding iron, searing her soul one after another.

imitate.

funny.

Can't kill.

No...no...stop talking...

She tried desperately to build a defense, but that seemingly indestructible dam of will was already riddled with irreparable cracks under the man's all-knowing gaze.

Now, his words are the final flood, easily washing away everything.

He ruthlessly dug out the darkness that she had buried deep in her heart, a darkness she herself was afraid to touch, and laid it out in broad daylight.

...I've always been imitating my older sister.

Learn to smile gently like her, and learn to speak with compassion like her.

But I am not her...

The elder sister's strength stemmed from her genuine compassion and gentleness, which hoped for peaceful coexistence between humans and ghosts.

And me? Beneath my smile lies only a hatred that burns everything!

I can't be her sister... and I never will be her.

I can't even... fulfill the most basic duties of a swordsman.

I am too weak, so weak that I cannot even sever a demon's neck, and can only rely on this despicable poison...

Who am I?