Memory Reaper's Ascension-Chapter 240: Welcome Back

His first step took him out of the staff bay, the air shimmered around him and then wrapped like a paper and just like that his boy was not there anymore.

The next step took him into an incorporeal world that had nothing but darkness that had multiple shapes.

The third step took him inside his room.

It was always slightly disorienting, but not unpleasant in anyways. Still, the strangeness of it all was something that could never be left behind. It was a very useful skill, if one could overlook the fact that you need to set up anchor points to use it.

His room was dark and smelled like an occupied place rather than an empty one.

He turned the light on, removed his jacket and put it on the hook. Then, changed out of his work cloths, into loose house wear and tidied the room.

After the cleaning the kitchen, he went to the front gate, opened it from the inside and leaned against the post with his hands in pockets.

He had chosen the Ward 9 because of several reasons, the first being that it was closer to the walls and not many people wanted to live here, so it was relatively very calm and less populated.

Much better than the central wards, although this gave them more cases of Xenons trying to breach and Demon attacks... it was nothing serious.

After some time... the noise of the late afternoon thinned down, the light went from warm to the cooler blue of the coming black. The Automatic street lights on the streets flickered to life to their lowest frequency. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

As he took in all this, a red colored car came out of his washing center with a man in his mid twenties. He wore black sunglasses and wore a formal set of cloths.

’heh... never seen hi before.’ Ishiki’s eyes narrowed. But it was perfectly normal for new costumers to come and go daily, not like he was always here to look.

Four or maybe, five minutes later. The headlights appeared at the far end of the street, it was his car, moving at the precise careful pace.

The car turned in and stopped at the gate.

The passenger door opened before the engine was fully off and Nina came out at speed. She crossed the gap and hit him at waist height.

He absorbed it, both arms coming down around her automatically.

"You’re actually home," she said into his shirt.

"hehe, didn’t I say I would be." Ishiki chuckled.

Then she pulled back and announced with a grin. "I have brought a few things."

"Oh, Is that so," he said with a smug face. "I could have never thought."

"I brought something for you too," she said, with the air of someone who had a plan.

Ishiki pat her head and just smiled. That was weird actually, no one had ever brought him anything.

Shiro had gotten out of the driver’s side with his jacket on and his expression composed. He opened the rear door and began the process of extracting, from the back seat, a teddy bear of such considerable dimensions that it required a specific lateral angle to clear the doorframe.

The bear was brown. It had a small red bow around its neck. It was, measured against the man holding it, roughly three times his height.

Shiro set it on its feet on the pavement, steadied it, and looked across the roof of the car at Ishiki.

Ishiki looked at the bear and the bear looked back at Ishiki with its fixed eyes and cheerful expression.

’What the...’

The corners of his mouth twitched... what the hell was he going to do with a bear teddy as tall as his fucking house.

He looked again at Shiro and found that he seemed calm and... a little happy? A bear of this size must have cost a shit ton. How could he look so calm.

Soon, after. Ishiki went to park the car in the garage, while Shiro and Nina, somehow pushed the large Mr.bear... which was apparently its new name into the house.

After the bear was settled into Nina’s room and they sat down, Shiro reached into his jacket pocket and produced a folded piece of paper that he held out towards Ishiki.

Ishiki took it, unfolded it and stared at it for a whole three minutes.

It was a bill... and on his name. It had a list of 10 items that Nina had brought and then there was the final amount that rested at 27,000 credits.

’27,000 credits. Holy cow. That’s half of my monthly salary.’

But that was not the main attraction, it was the line below. "All the funds to be deducted against the monthly salary of the guarantor named Kashima Ryou."

The bill... was to be deducted from his salary!

Ishiki looked at Shiro who tried to turn away instantly. ’This Sly bastard... he took my car, and even took the bill in my name. Holy hell!! ’

Shiro straightened his jacket and said. "Everything according to the Clause 7, It exists."

"I’m sure it does," Ishiki said, although he had no idea what that thing was.

He folded the bill and put it in his pocket. He would review Clause 7 at a time when he had the appropriate emotional resources to be correctly annoyed about it.

Nina, excitingly showed him the new toys she had brought today and then she disappeared to her room and came back with something held behind her back.

"Close your eyes," she said to Ishiki.

Ishiki closed his eyes and felt something was placed in his hands... it was small, light and slightly irregular in shape. Well, he could use Ghost Blade to look it but he didn’t.

"Okay," she said.

He opened his eyes.

It was a small stone — smooth, dark grey and shaped like a house. And there was a board on which it was written "Welcome Back."