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"…You know the new director of Excellent Girls' Academy?"
The Fujiwara family head sucked in a sharp breath. After ruling out every impossible option, only one conclusion remained—and it startled him.
"Mr. Veyron?"
Chika nodded. "Yeah. I know him. We get along pretty well."
"…Would it be alright to ask for a bit more detail—assuming, of course, it doesn't cross any lines with… him?"
Straightening from his previously relaxed posture, the Fujiwara patriarch leaned forward, voice low and cautious.
"Well, originally, there were strict confidentiality rules in place," Chika admitted. "The kind where, if you leak even a word, soone from the upper echelons would co deal with you personally within minutes."
"And Veyron himself was actually in charge of enforcing those secrets these past few years."
She gave a quick glance at Toyomi and Moeha, then continued, "But sothing unexpected happened about three months ago. Ever since a little over a month back—just like you said, Grandpa—the world has changed."
"So now, keeping everything as tightly under wraps as before doesn't really make sense anymore. They've started easing up on restrictions. For example, Mr. Veyron is openly teaching that training thod in a school that now belongs to him."
Chika released her telekinetic grip on the floating booklet—it hovered for a second, then gently drifted down in front of the Fujiwara patriarch. It was the sa one that detailed the physical workout Saeko Busujima had been teaching in martial arts class.
The family head caught it, and the mont he felt its real weight in his hands, a glint of understanding flashed in his eyes.
"So… you had access to this 'extraordinary' world before all this went public?"
Chika nodded. "That's right."
"Then… does that an you've already surpassed the strength of that enhanced test subject from overseas? The one who hit 2.5 tis the average human capacity using drugs?"
"Yup."
Chika's tone was calm and matter-of-fact. "According to Mr. Veyron's latest findings, the current cap for natural human potential is roughly three tis the norm."
She paused for effect.
"But even the current limit isn't hard. For people like us—people who've already made contact with that extraordinary world—it's not impossible to go beyond."
As she spoke, she laid out nine 500-yen coins on the table. Then, picking one up between her fingers, she gave it a slight squeeze.
The coin now had the fingerprints of her two fingers—one on each side. It was like remaking the whole coin in the shape of her finger.
Then she moved on to the second coin. And the third…
The Fujiwara patriarch picked up one of the coins, rubbing the fingerprint grooves thoughtfully with his fingernail. Then, looking up, he asked the question that had been on his mind:
"May I ask… what's Mr. Veyron's goal in spreading this thod so openly? This power to break the human limit—what's he really planning?"
"…Nothing, actually."
Chika shook her head. "As far as I know, Mr. Veyron just thinks the world is already starting to change. He figured, why not join the fun instead of just sitting on the sidelines watching?"
The patriarch stared at her in disbelief.
A training thod that didn't rely on bloodlines, secret dicines, or complex rituals. No requirents besides mastering the moves, syncing your breath with each one, and ensuring your body's energy needs were t.
Male, female, young, old—it didn't matter. Anyone could use it to push past human limits. And he was just… sharing it? For fun?
He thought back to the intel he'd received from the head of another influential family—one close to the Fujiwaras, whose daughter happened to be a third-year student at Excellent Girls' Academy.
From birth until now, bearing the Fujiwara na had always been a passport to success. Whether in school or in politics, everything had always gone his way. But for the first ti, he was feeling the gap—the overwhelming difference between himself and soone else.
"…You really don't need to worry too much, though," Chika said with a reassuring smile, misreading her grandfather's silence as concern that the training thod might cause chaos if it spread.
"Mr. Veyron might like to ss around, but don't forget—he used to be the one in charge of keeping this stuff under wraps. He may act playful, but when it cos to the really important boundaries, he knows exactly where the line is."
She pointed to the booklet. "The moves in there—if soone fully masters them, the most they'll get out of it is doubling the human limit. That's it—just 200%. Anything beyond that—like pushing toward 300%, 400%, or even higher—that's when he steps in and enforces strict control."
As for the booklet itself? The so-called "martial arts class material"?
To quote Miss rlin's grumbling in the group chat: it was just Veyron's way of wasting ti.
The truth rlin suspected that Veyron hadn't left the school simply because the girls were too hot to walk away from.
...
After the three sisters left the room, the Fujiwara patriarch glanced at his two sons and their wives, who had deliberately stayed behind. Then he spoke up.
"Did you notice?"
"Yeah," Chika's father nodded. "When Chika pulled out that booklet, Toyomi and Moeha didn't look all that surprised. And when she ntioned his na, they even seed to recognize it."
The patriarch's daughter-in-law—who was not only the sisters' mother but also a seasoned diplomat—chid in with a knowing look.
"They've probably t him before," she said. "Just not as closely as Chika has."
"…About three months ago, I received a report," the other son said suddenly.
"It said that Toyomi had rented out an entire resort under her na. For over two months after that, several unidentified won were spotted coming and going from the place. The economic and internal affairs departnts wanted to dig deeper, but I shut it down."
"You did well."
The patriarch nodded in approval, then turned to the three girls' father.
"How many families have approached you and your wife in the past six months, looking to arrange marriages with our girls?"
"Thirty-five," he replied calmly. "Seven proposed for Toyomi, sixteen for Chika, and twelve for Moeha. I turned all of them down."
"You did right," the patriarch said with a firm nod. "Didn't I tell you? The Fujiwara family's long passed the point of needing political marriages to maintain power. Let them choose their own futures—who they want to be with."
"Understood," his son replied. "I'll make that clear to the rest of the families too, so no one plays dumb and pretends they didn't know."
The patriarch gave a small grunt of acknowledgnt.
"Excellent Girls' Academy…"
Whether Veyron had beco the school's director out of personal interest or because the timing was just right, the fact remained: he'd picked that school as his starting point.
And from there, he began spreading a thod that could break the limits of the human body.
Fujiwara family head was starting to wonder if this might just be the greatest opportunity the Fujiwara clan had encountered in the past thousand years.
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