Reborn With The Milf "Harem" System

The basement archives weren't meant for living things. The air was heavy, stale, thick with the dust of decades. Yellowed files lined steel shelves that looked ready to collapse under their own weight. Each fluorescent light hummed with a sickly flicker, giving everything a sense of half-existence, caught between the past and the present.

Reina set her borrowed keycard down on a nearby desk, adjusting her glasses as if the gesture could steady the unease prickling her skin. Rika lingered close to me, her arm brushing mine every few steps, like she was afraid the shadows might pull her under if she drifted too far. Mayumi prowled ahead, flashlight beam cutting through the gloom, her stance already defensive.

"We're looking for 'Hoshino,'" I said quietly, eyes sweeping the stacks. "Yearbooks, accident logs, custodial records. Anything that mentions a fall, a student death, or staff cover-up."

Rika's hand squeezed mine, just for a second. "She… she was a year below me. She wore her hair straight. I think she joined the choir. I never spoke to her much." Her voice was soft, but it trembled. Her memories were pieces, jagged and incomplete, but they mattered. They were anchors.

Reina rifled through the nearest cabinet, her movements crisp and precise. "Most incidents of that kind would've been locked away, but sloppy administrators leave trails. Discrepancies in attendance logs, sudden transfers… things that don't add up." She pulled a folder and frowned at the date, too old, then shoved it aside.

Mayumi's voice echoed low from between shelves. "These files go back thirty years easy. It's a graveyard down here. No wonder no one touches it." Her beam paused on a stack of unlabeled boxes shoved against the far wall. "That's where I'd hide something. Out of sight, out of mind."

The System pulsed inside my head like a second heartbeat.

[Quest Marker: Archive anomaly detected.]

[Hint: Misfiled documents often contain the truth buried under bureaucratic negligence.]

I moved to the boxes, crouching to drag one out. Dust exploded into the air, making Rika cough softly. I flipped the lid, fingers sorting through loose folders. Newspaper clippings, student reports, attendance sheets. My soldier's mind catalogued each detail automatically, names, dates, signatures, missing pieces.

And then I saw it.

A single photograph, slipped between pages like it didn't belong.

A girl in uniform, her smile small and brittle, as if it had been forced for the camera. Long straight hair, dark eyes that seemed to follow even in black and white.

Rika stiffened beside me. Her breath hitched. "That's her," she whispered. "That's… Saki."

The moment her name left Rika's lips, the temperature in the archive dropped like a stone. The fluorescent above us flickered violently, buzzing louder. Reina's hand froze on a drawer handle. Mayumi snapped her flashlight toward the corners, her jaw tight.

I didn't move. I stared at the photo until the air felt thick with pressure.

"She's not just tied to this place," I murmured, more to myself than anyone. "She is this place. The cover-up, the silence, it wasn't random. Someone made her vanish."

The System chimed again, sharp this time, almost urgent.

[Fear Sync Active: Rika]

[Warning: Trauma trigger detected.]

[New Objective Unlocked: Identify those responsible for Saki's erasure.]

Rika clutched my arm tighter, trembling. Her voice cracked. "Renji… I don't want to remember. But I do. And it hurts. Like she's whispering it back into me."

Her eyes brimmed with tears, and for a second, I saw the ghost of Saki's smile in her expression.

This wasn't just investigation anymore. This was a battle of memory, one that would scar as much as it revealed.

And I wasn't about to let Rika fight it alone.

---

Mayumi dragged another box into the open, her muscles taut with a tension that had nothing to do with weight. "If this bitch's ghost wants us gone," she muttered, "then she shouldn't have left receipts."

Reina adjusted her glasses, snapping on a pair of thin gloves she kept in her pocket. "Careful. Files like these are brittle. Mishandling could destroy what little truth remains." Even her clinical tone carried an edge because she knew whatever we found was dangerous.

I pulled the next folder free, pages sticking together with time and mildew. The first sheet was an incident report, typed with the bureaucratic neatness of the 90s.

Date: April 12

Incident: Fall from rooftop – female student

Outcome: Fatal injuries sustained. Declared accidental.

Name: Redacted.

Notes: Case closed.

That was it. Three lines. No name. No witnesses. No follow-up.

Reina leaned in, frowning. "Redacted? They don't redact student accident reports. Even suicides are archived under identity. This… this is deliberate erasure."

"Which means someone didn't want her remembered," I said. My voice was low, controlled, but the old soldier in me was already mapping suspects. Faculty. Administrators. Maybe family. Someone with enough pull to bury her twice, once in the ground, once in paper.

Rika's hand hovered over the page like it might burn her. "I remember that day…" she whispered. "The whole school was whispering. But a week later… nothing. It was like no one wanted to admit it happened. Teachers shut us down if we asked."

Her voice broke. "I thought I'd imagined it. But I didn't. She really…"

I covered her hand with mine, steady and grounding. "You didn't imagine it. They just made you believe you did."

Mayumi tossed another file onto the table. "Got something."

She flipped it open: a custodial log.

Access: Rooftop maintenance

Date: April 12

Sign-off: S. Takeda (Head Custodian)

Notes: 'Cleanup completed. Area secured.'

Reina's brow furrowed. "Cleanup. Not repair. Which means they treated it like a mess, not a tragedy."

Rika flinched, horror dawning on her face. "They cleaned her up. Like she was nothing."

Silence pressed heavy, broken only by the hum of the lights. My knuckles whitened around the file. This wasn't just a ghost. This was a wound carved into the foundation of the school.

And the deeper we dug, the more it bled.

The System pulsed again, colder this time.

> [Clue Acquired: Redacted Incident Report]

[Clue Acquired: Rooftop Custodial Log]

[Subtask Progress: 2/3]

[Warning: You are being watched.]

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up instantly. Mayumi's flashlight beam swept the shelves. Reina froze, her eyes flicking toward the farthest aisle.

Rika whispered, barely audible. "Renji… did you hear that?"

It was faint. A scrape. A footstep. The sound of someone or something, moving between the stacks.

---

The scrape between the stacks came again: soft, deliberate, like someone testing whether the room held breath. Mayumi swung her beam slow, methodical, eyes narrowed until the light struck a dark shape pressed against the end of an aisle.

Not a ghost. Not yet.

A girl, hoodie up, knees drawn to her chest, face half-hidden in shadow. She was too young to be staff, thin as a rumor, eyes wide and terrified. She looked like she shouldn't be standing in a school basement at midnight at all.

For a beat no one moved. The fluorescent hummed overhead, the sound suddenly enormous. The girl's fingers curled around the edge of a cardboard box as if it were the only thing keeping her from falling apart.

"Hey," Mayumi said finally, voice low and flat. Not threatening, just loud enough to carry. "You lost?"

The girl flinched so violently she nearly toppled backward. She scrambled to her feet, shoved her hood lower, and impossibly fast, half-ran, half-stumbled down the aisle toward the door.

"Wait." I was up before the thought completed, more pace than panic. Fifty years of movement lived under a sixteen-year-old's body; it put me in front of her in two strides. I blocked her path gently, hands open so she could see I wasn't a hand to be afraid of.

Her face snapped up, eyes rimmed in red. She looked like she'd been crying. "I didn't mean to," she whispered. "I! I heard voices. I thought—please, I shouldn't be here."

Rika moved to hover beside me, trembling but steadier now. Reina and Mayumi formed a shallow semicircle behind, professional and guarded.

"Who are you?" I asked, quiet but firm.

The girl swallowed. "Aika. I—" She paused, swallowed again. The name snagged at something. Rika's breath caught; we'd heard it before in fragments. Aika. A student's voice flushed out of the past.

"You saw something on the roof?" I asked. No accusation. Just a line to draw the truth out.

Her eyes darted to Rika, then away. The answer came in a whisper that wrenched the air: "I, saw them. I saw… someone up there. I didn't want to. I didn't—" Her words splintered. She was too young to carry whatever she'd seen.

Reina crouched to be level with her, gentle competence in her face. "You were scared. You can tell us. We won't make you repeat it. Start small. Names, dates. Anything."

Aika's hands trembled so badly she couldn't hold the box. Slowly, painfully, she said, "April. April 12th. I was looking for my friend. Saki was… she was up there. She looked like she needed help. I....I told Nakamura-sensei, but he told me to go back to class. He said she was making a scene."

Mayumi's jaw tightened. Rika's knuckles went white where they gripped my sleeve. The basement felt suddenly smaller, the walls crowded with new weight.

"You're sure?" I asked. "Did anyone else see?"

Aika shook her head. "No. I left. I was scared. I was only watching the back. And then.....then I heard a sound and I ran. I didn't tell anyone. I was stupid. I thought no one would believe me."

There it was: the missing link. A witness who'd been too afraid to speak. A student suppressed by authority and shame.

I let out a breath that tasted like iron. "You did the right thing coming now. Thank you."

She blinked, not sure if she'd been forgiven or owned. "Will… will they get in trouble?"

I glanced at Reina and Mayumi; their faces were set, hardening into plans. "We're going to find out what happened," I said. "We'll look into it. But you have to promise you'll tell everything — names, times, where you were. No more silence."

Aika nodded once, fiercely, the resolve of someone who had just decided to be honest about a thing that had eaten her for years. She scooped up the box she'd abandoned and tucked it under her arm like a shield.

Mayumi lowered her flashlight. "You should go home," she said. "We'll call you if we need more. And don't tell anyone about this—yet."

Aika hesitated at the threshold, looking back at Rika with something like apology and pleading braided together. "I'm sorry," she mouthed. "I'm so sorry."

Rika brushed a fingertip against her wrist, not touching, only acknowledging and the student's shoulders eased one fraction.

When the door hissed closed behind Aika, the archive felt different. Less like a place of static documents, more like a place where stories waited to be set free. The System pinged in my head, clinical and approving.

> [Witness Identified: Aika (Student).]

[Clue Acquired: Eyewitness account—roof presence confirmed.]

[Subtask Update: Witness needs protection and debrief.]

We watched the small square of darkness swallow her silhouette, then turned back to the files with new purpose. The stalker had been human after all, frightened, young, and holding a shard of truth we needed.

And somewhere, in the quiet between stacks, something else shifted. The air didn't chill this time; it felt like a held breath waiting for someone to finally say the name out loud.

---

We regrouped at the center table, the one drowning in folders and half-erased dust. Rika leaned against me, her face pale but steady, while Mayumi laid her flashlight across the documents like a blade.

"She's a liability now," Mayumi said, voice low. "A student who saw too much. Whoever tried to bury Saki's death won't want her walking free with that memory."

Reina nodded, lips pressed tight. "We need to keep her close. If she disappears, so does our only eyewitness."

Rika's voice cracked, but there was steel behind it. "She's just a girl. I won't let her carry this alone."

I folded my arms, fifty years of experience grinding through the boyish posture of my borrowed body. "Then it's simple. We keep her protected. Aika doesn't go home alone, doesn't move through campus without someone watching. And we find out why Nakamura-sensei silenced her. If he knew… then he's part of this."

The silence stretched heavy, broken only by the fluorescent buzz. Each of them nodded once, reluctant but resolved.

The System whispered approval in my skull:

> [Objective Updated: Protect Witness (Aika).]

[New Thread Unlocked: Nakamura-sensei.]

[Emotional Sync: 12% → 15%.]

I closed the folder in front of me, the clap of paper against wood final enough to feel like a vow. "We don't let her get swallowed the way Saki was."

We left the archive in pairs, shadows thrown long against the hall walls. The night was sharp, cool, almost too quiet.

Aika's small figure was already disappearing at the far end of the hall, her hood tugged low, her steps quick.

I almost called out to her but then I saw it.

Another shadow peeled itself from the corner near the stairwell, a fraction too deliberate, too smooth. A shape followed her at a measured distance, keeping to the edges of light, head low.

The hairs on my neck prickled. Whoever it was, they'd been waiting for her.

I didn't breathe a word to the others, not yet. Just watched the figure tail her down the corridor until both vanished into the dark, swallowed by silence.