Tokyo: My Superpower Refreshes Every Week

At seven o'clock in the evening, Arakawa Reina clocked out right on time.

She never worked late shifts.

For a minor girl, returning to Adachi District too late was a challenging thing.

She stayed in the locker room, changing out of her maid outfit.

The two colleagues beside her were discussing—which part of a man's body smells the worst?

Big, R-rated topics like this happened all the time in the women's locker room.

Unlike what guys imagined, things like "your boobs are huge" and so on—girls actually rarely talk about that stuff in private.

Men, cosmetics—those are what they actually discuss most often.

Arakawa Reina took off her contact lenses, put on her black-rimmed glasses, messed up her hair, threw on a drab yellow sweatshirt, loose dull yellow sweatpants underneath.

Her style totally screamed middle-aged lady in her forties or fifties.

Turning from a pretty maid into a completely ordinary country girl only took a few minutes.

Once she was ready, she bowed to her seniors and said, "I'll be leaving now."

"See you tomorrow, Nashi."

Her colleague beside her replied with a smile.

She stuffed her maid outfit into her bag and hurried out of the shop.

The evening wind swept through the alley, a little chilly.

The sky overhead was a deep blue, with streetlights outside the alley already lit.

She hurried toward the station, not as cheerful as usual.

One question kept bothering her inside: should she apologize to Aozawa?

Taking it upon herself to imagine a boy as one of those manga villains in her head was doubtlessly rude.

If she kept avoiding this, it would always weigh on her mind and mess with her studies.

It wasn't until Arakawa Reina got to her front door that she finally decided to just apologize to Aozawa.

Running away wasn't going to solve anything.

Of course, apologizing to Aozawa face to face felt a little too much for her.

Only online could she manage to properly apologize.

Thinking this, Arakawa Reina opened her front door. The warm light shone into the entryway. She called out inside, "I'm home!"

Closed the door behind her.

No reply from the living room. She guessed, nine times out of ten, her parents were working again.

Once those two entered work mode, they completely ignored any sound from the outside world.

She took off her shoes and placed them atop the shoe cabinet, then walked to the living room.

Sure enough, Mom was on the sofa, striking a pose, not a stitch of clothing on her.

Dad was seriously drawing her body from life.

This wasn't art for art's sake—they were just making adult manga.

Her dad made a living drawing doujinshi and all kinds of erotic comics.

In that business, you could honestly call him a master.

In every single one of his works, her mom appeared in some way, and countless manga fans praised his work for being incredibly lifelike.

Because of her parents, she'd been exposed to all kinds of erotic manga since childhood.

With that kind of childhood, she would either end up as a woman with nothing but smut in her head—

Or a woman who totally rejected that kind of thing.

Arakawa Reina became the latter.

She tried hard to drive out her parents' manga influence, but the more she cared, the more she remembered every detail from those comics.

Which ended up causing this misunderstanding now.

Arakawa Reina found it all pretty ironic, sat down at the dining table, and polished off the cold leftovers.

Parents who could draw that kind of manga right in front of their daughter—don't expect their heads to be screwed on straight.

Leaving her a bit of dinner was already a sign of supreme benevolence.

Sometimes, Arakawa Reina wondered if her very existence in the world was just an accident.

Her parents' relationship was insanely close—even she, their daughter, couldn't get between them.

Most of the time, she felt like invisible air at home.

Arakawa Reina worked part-time just so she could have the money to move out and live on her own in college.

She finished her dinner, washed the dishes, went to her room to gather up her clothes, and tossed both her dirty laundry and the maid outfit into the wash.

Underwear she washed by hand, separately.

Girls, for various physiological reasons, have underwear that gets way dirtier than guys can imagine.

Then it was bath time—a soak in the tub.

By the time she finished, the laundry in the washing machine was done. She took out some hangers and hung her clothes on the balcony.

In the living room, her parents had moved on to the next stage: sketching passionate facial expressions.

Didn't care at all whether their daughter was home or not—probably the only pair of weirdos like this in the world.

Arakawa Reina thought to herself, and as usual, headed upstairs to her bedroom.

She placed her phone on the stool and turned on the video mode.

Kneeling all the way on the floor, forehead pressed to the ground, she said, "Aozawa-kun, I'm really, really sorry. I shouldn't have misunderstood you. Please forgive me."

Thump, thump, she tapped her head on the floor twice so it was caught on video, then stood up and stopped recording, sending the video to Aozawa.

The moment her finger hit send, she started worrying he might delete her from his friend list. That would be seriously embarrassing.

Apologizing offline took a ridiculous amount of courage.

Thankfully, Aozawa didn't remove her, and the message went through.

No idea when he'd see it, but now she could study in peace. As Arakawa Reina was thinking this, she noticed the video had already been marked "read".

That was fast!

Arakawa Reina didn't go to her books yet, waiting for his reply. Would he forgive her or not?

"Class rep, this was really nothing. You don't have to worry about it so much.

By the way, your pink plaid pajamas are super cute."

Seeing this, Arakawa Reina's pale cheeks suddenly flushed. She'd been so focused on apologizing, she'd forgotten she was in her pajamas.

This was the first time a boy had seen her in pajamas.

If Aozawa… smack.

Arakawa Reina started envisioning manga scenarios again, and quickly slapped her face—absolutely not falling into adult manga worldviews again.

Aozawa really was a kind and gentle person.

She couldn't be rude anymore, so she replied, "Thanks for the compliment."

"No problem. Next time I come to the maid cafe, make sure to use your super-serious love magic on me."

"Okay."

Arakawa Reina answered, still blushing, then typed, "I'm going to study, we can chat later."

"What a coincidence, I'm studying too."

Aozawa replied and even sent a picture of the textbook he was reading.

Arakawa Reina didn't know what else to say, so just sent a rabbit smiley sticker.

Message marked as read.

To her, sending a sticker meant the conversation was over, so she started to set her phone down.

Aozawa replied with an "OK" sticker.

Arakawa Reina could accept if people didn't reply to her messages, but she absolutely would never ignore someone else's reply.

So she sent a Shiba Inu smiley sticker.

Aozawa sent back a panda sticker.

She sent another one; getting a bit anxious—maybe Aozawa didn't understand how stickers worked online?

Back and forth, after a dozen or so stickers, Aozawa sent a message:

"Haha, class rep, you're so funny. Does this mean as long as I keep messaging, you'll keep replying to me?"

Arakawa Reina replied with a puffed-cheek angry sticker.

Seriously, if you know, then stop sending messages, will you.

She grumbled mentally.

"Chatting with you is really fun, class rep, but I do have to study now. Let's talk another time."

Arakawa Reina's eyes went round—so he did know what stickers meant in chat?

Damn it, she fired off a sticker of a white bear getting smacked.

This time the message was marked as read, with no reply coming in.

She breathed a sigh of relief, put down her phone, and started seriously on her textbooks.

If an ordinary girl wanted to get into a decent college, she'd have to work much harder than everyone else.

No outstanding ability? Even if luck fell from the sky, you couldn't grab hold of it.

...

At eight o'clock in the evening, Phoenix Academy.

Phoenix Academy Maggie was getting herself ready with painstaking care.

She bundled her golden hair up on her head, letting two locks hang down at her temples, and wore a wine-red evening gown.

The bright red straps set off her pale, soft-as-tofu shoulders.

She glanced at herself in the tall mirror—her burgundy gown was studded with shards of red gemstones, reflecting the light in a mesmerizing swirl of color.

"What a pain."

Phoenix Academy Maggie muttered to herself. Tonight, she'd be accompanying her mother to a very important banquet.

The scale of this banquet was about as high as it gets in Japan.

In public, it was the six biggest conglomerates running things; behind the scenes, it was the hidden giant, the Phoenix Academy family.

This event would bring together the top capitalists in the country.

It was Maggie's first time attending such a gala.

Top capitalists usually never gathered casually; if they did, it meant something big was about to happen.

Something bound to affect people's livelihoods both domestically and abroad.

And implied that somewhere, some normal people were about to get unlucky.

Feasts thrown by capital were always especially brutal.

If you weren't at their level, you could become the next meal on the table.

She walked out her room.

Outside, Butler Miwa was waiting and smiled: "Miss, tonight you'll definitely be the center of attention at the banquet."

"Don't underestimate those people, Miwa."

Phoenix Academy Maggie replied modestly and walked down to the living room.

Kochou was just as elegantly dressed, in a deep purple evening gown studded with diamonds.

She also wore pale purple netted gloves on both hands.

"Maggie, let's go."

Phoenix Academy Maggie followed Kochou, curiosity on her face: "Mother, what's this gathering for?"

Kochou didn't answer, but ushered her into the helicopter, answering leisurely: "The main organizer of this event is the Silver Hexagram."

"Silver Hexagram?!"

Maggie looked surprised. "I've never heard of it. What kind of organization is that?"

"It's an organization of capitalists from all over the world. From World War I to World War II, even now—

all the global chaos, every major event on the international stage, there's always the shadow of Silver Hexagram behind it."

Kochou began telling Maggie about Silver Hexagram, "You were too young before, so I didn't talk about some things.

But now it doesn't matter. Our Phoenix Academy family is actually Silver Hexagram's branch member in Japan."