give it all to miss machima

The last thing she saw was an increasingly dazzling white light, Leisei's smiling face with tears in her eyes, and her farewell, whose words were no longer audible but whose lip movements were still discernible.

...Rese?

As if waking from a dream, Ai felt her consciousness suddenly return to her body, and then she sat up abruptly in bed.

"...Reise!?"

The hospital bed setting stunned her for a moment, and her shouts attracted Conan, who was outside.

"Hey, Haibara, you're awake? How are you feeling?"

"… Kudo?"

Ai looked around in surprise.

"Where am I? Shouldn't I be... in the game pod?"

"Huh? That was all yesterday."

Conan looked at her with concern:

“You’ve been asleep for a whole day. Of all the children, you’re the only one who hasn’t woken up since the cocoon was released. If the doctor hadn’t examined you and said that you were just suffering from a lot of mental shock and were too tired, and that you would wake up after a nap, we would all be worried… Anyway, how are you feeling? You don’t feel unwell anywhere, do you?”

"I...I'm fine..."

Ai rubbed her forehead, full of confusion—had she slept for that long? She felt like only a few minutes had passed…

Wait, was Leisei's farewell a goodbye before logging out of the game, or...?

...Was this all just a dream?

"...So, it's all over now?"

"Yes, thanks to you and that Leisai, all the children are safe and sound."

Ai suddenly raised her head:

"What about Reise?! How is she?"

A scene that made her uneasy unfolded: Conan's eyes darted away, and his tone became hesitant, as if he was debating whether or not to tell her.

"This...she...I mean, the server hosting her...maybe..."

"So... the server is completely destroyed? We... can't repair it, or even copy that AI?"

Locke and Ida frowned as they looked at the equally exhausted technical lead.

The latter nodded:

"Yes, yesterday's forced computation completely overloaded the entire server. Several subroutines crashed first, and then the circuit overload caused a short circuit and a fire... We have done everything we can to salvage and repair it, but... with the main server completely destroyed, the data inside... is basically impossible to recover..."

"I see..."

Locke frowned, his confusion deepening—the last breakthrough was gone, this… was truly…

"That's a real shame..."

Ada sighed. She was well aware of the value of an artificial intelligence. If the United States could acquire its technology, it would likely make significant breakthroughs in many fields...

"Who are the people and team that developed her? The United States can provide support if they can recruit them..."

"Uh... unfortunately, the person who designed and developed this artificial intelligence was a genius teenager, but... he committed suicide two years ago..."

"……cut!"

Ida stubbed out her cigarette.

“Let’s go, Locke. It seems there are no more clues here. It looks like we’ll have to start from the school to find out about Kwanghee’s identity…”

"Oh...so satisfying, so satisfying~"

In a car not far from the hospital where Ai was, Machima opened her eyes, stretched, and sat up from the back seat.

Since her battle with Naraku, Makima has controlled countless demons. Although most of them are weak in combat, they have many strange and wonderful abilities. Infiltrating into someone's dream and controlling them is now incredibly easy for Makima.

"Did I convey my deep love for Ai-chan this time too...?"

Ryoko Tamiya, who was driving in the front seat, rolled her eyes.

"Love? This kind of love is truly terrifying, so cruelly toying with a young girl's heart. Don't you really hate her?"

"Is there a difference? Loving someone or hating someone both involve pouring your whole heart and soul into them without reservation. What I want to enjoy is the feeling that Ai loves me to the point of being unforgettable, and hates me to the point of being unable to extricate herself..."

Machima possessed her, hooked Tamiya Ryoko's chin, and forced her to look at her.

"And you, Ryoko... what I enjoy most about you is that you're terrified of me to the core, so terrified you want to kill me, yet your reason tells you you can only submit to me—that contradiction... That's why I granted you your freedom..."

"..."

Tamiya Ryoko shuddered slightly. Even a cold-blooded parasite felt a deep-seated fear and a sense of powerlessness when facing Makima.

She knew that once Machima got excited, she would only do worse things to herself... so she quickly grabbed a pre-prepared document from the passenger seat.

—Only by giving Machima enough fun can we stop her from constantly thinking about how to torment her.

"Regarding the CIA's infiltrator at Tokiwadai Academy... we've found him, and I think you might be interested."

Machima, who had originally intended to turn Tamiya Ryoko into Shiho to temporarily relieve her boredom, narrowed her eyes, took a look, and immediately found it amusing.

"Hiiragi...Nana??"

Looking at the pink-haired girl in the information, Machima suddenly found it incredibly interesting.

"Interesting. Could there be superpowered individuals in this world?"

"We need to arrest them first, like those female agents..."

"No rush." ​​Machima, her interest piqued, waved her hand. "Let's play around with her first..."

Chapter 250 Hiiragi Nana is already surrounded by Ai!

Something's off about this college.

Tokiwadai Academy, first-year junior high school dormitory.

As the gentle ringing of the bell rang, Hiiragi Nana, who had actually been awake for a while, slowly opened her eyes.

The wake-up bell for junior high school is very user-friendly. The first sound is not loud, and it plays white noise like birdsong and flowing water. The sound only becomes urgent when it is almost time to be late.

Under normal circumstances, Hiiragi Nana, who is trained to wake up at the slightest sound, would definitely get up immediately, but she did not make any movement at this moment.

Because... according to past practice, at this time...

"Xiaoxue... time to wake up?"

A gentle whisper came from the other side of the dormitory—it was Hiiragi Nana's roommate, Sakurai Kanade, calling her younger sister, Sakurai Yukino, to wake up.

Her response was a soft, sweet moan that sent shivers down her spine.

Despite it being a spacious four-person dormitory, with only three people including Hiiragi Nana, and even a spare bed, the two sisters are undoubtedly sleeping together again, judging from the sounds they make.

"If you don't get up, I'm going to kiss you..."

"...Hmm...Kana..."

"Be gentle...be gentle, Nana is still sleeping..."

So if you know I'm still here, don't use such an ambiguous way to wake people up!

Even if you're sisters, isn't this a bit too intimate?

Hiiragi Nana felt a little regretful. She should have gotten up immediately when she first encountered this situation, instead of pretending to be asleep to avoid embarrassing the two sisters.

Now, the two sisters seem to have gotten used to Hiiragi Nana not waking up until the third alarm, and they're becoming more and more unrestrained...

"Xiao Zou, hug me..."

"Seriously... I can only linger for three more minutes, otherwise the cafeteria will be packed in the morning..."

"Xiao Zou...so soft..."

"Um...you...be gentle..."

Nana stared at the ceiling as if it held the most unfathomable secrets of the entire universe, trying to detach her consciousness from this body and away from those embarrassing moments.

Finally, as the slightly loud bell rang, Hiiragi Nana quickly and deliberately yawned loudly to indicate to the two sisters that she had woken up.

She climbed out of bed, pretending to be still half asleep, and greeted her two sisters who had also just hurriedly gotten up:

"Good morning, Yukino-san and Kanade-san~"

"Good morning! Nana!"

Both of them pretended nothing had happened, went to the bathroom to wash up, and then changed into their junior high school uniforms as usual, grabbed their schoolbags, and went out together.

Most of the students in the dormitory wake up at this time, and for a moment, the sight of them is like a flock of beautiful young women.

Hiiragi Nana and the Sakurai sisters are in the same class, so they went to the cafeteria together as usual. They ran into several classmates in the cafeteria.

In the past, Hiiragi Nana's excellent social skills had earned her a good impression from most of her classmates, and she had even made many friends in other classes. As a result, a group of girls chattered together, playing and laughing as they walked toward the teaching building.

"Takemura-kun, have you gained weight recently?"

"Do...do you have one?"

"Oh? Then let me touch it myself!"

"Yaaaaah! Tameyo~"

"Nana! Have you heard? There's a tree in the academy that's said to bring lifelong happiness if you confess your love there!"

"Oh, really?"

Hiiragi Nana gave a polite but respectful smile, while inwardly she couldn't help but think, "It's supposed to be an all-girls school, yet there's this kind of campus legend..."

"That's nothing. I heard that the Tiancang sisters from the next class have been to that mysterious shrine more than once and even got lucky charms!"

"Huh? Isn't that shrine off-limits to ordinary students?"

"I'll sneak up the mountain~ I heard... I heard the shrine maiden there is incredibly beautiful, and she's even a senior from my school~"

In an instant, several female students became excited.

"How...how beautiful is she?"

"Oh? Or is she a senior? That means..."

"That's right, that's right, it should be, right? Hehe..."

This college...something's really off.

Hiiragi Nana's eye twitched slightly.

Most of the female students here come from wealthy families. Their parents send them here with the intention of raising them into elegant, refined young ladies from prestigious families.

but……

For some reason, the level of sex in this academy is a bit too high... so high that even a tough, straight woman like Hiiragi Nana is a little scared.

To be honest, she didn't notice it at first, but... with her keen observation skills, she had already discovered some anomalies hidden beneath the surface of the water from those subtle clues.

"After school... let's go somewhere to hang out? Our senior said he still misses us..."

"Okay, then... let's go buy some pineapples while we're at it..."

It seems like a very ordinary conversation between high school girls, right?

Until Nana Hiiragi learned about the wonderful uses of pineapples...

After realizing this, she looked back and was shocked to find that almost one-fifth of the girls in her class—who often belonged to the same close-knit group—kept their middle and index fingernails exceptionally clean.

When asked, their answer was always that they wanted to learn piano.

You'd better do this so you can learn piano!

and also!

The Amakura sisters, who were quite famous in the grade, lived in a dormitory not far from Hiiragi Nana's. Occasionally, when passing by, Hiiragi Nana would hear occasional soft cries. At first, not understanding what was going on, she would knock on the door to ask, and the two sisters would just blush and say that they had twisted their ankles...

You better have twisted your ankle!

If it were just these few examples, Hiiragi Nana wouldn't have noticed anything unusual.

In fact, such anomalies are everywhere if you look closely!

—Sometimes in the morning, pairs of students, their faces flushed and looking tired, would come out of a dormitory that wasn't their own, holding each other's hands tightly with their fingers intertwined.

Some students, even though there was no physical education class in their curriculum that day, always wore long-sleeved sportswear, and occasionally you could see some hickeys on their necklines when they were not paying attention.