Reborn With The Milf "Harem" System

We didn't waste time. The corridor was still ringing in my ears from the fight, the metallic tang of adrenaline sharp on my tongue. Mayumi dragged a battered wheelbarrow from a supply closet and used it to haul the stalking bastard's limp body. He cursed occasionally, a wet, humorless sound, but he didn't fight hard, his training had clearly taught him how to survive pain rather than resist it.

Reina moved like someone who had rehearsed triage scenarios a thousand times: efficient, hands steady. She produced a pair of temporary restraints from her med kit, zip-ties and a strip of cloth to stop the bleeding in his lip. "No theatrics," she said to me without looking up. "We contain. We question. We don't play judge." She had the voice of someone who'd seen what revenge does to people; she wanted answers, not more corpses.

Rika walked behind us, limbs still raw from the tension of the night but with that same animal focus she'd had since the first moment she'd locked eyes on the ghost. Aika was with her, pale but steady, wrapped in a donated jacket Mayumi had handed over. The student clutched a thermos like a talisman and kept her eyes fixed on the floor as we worked.

We chose the infirmary for its neutrality: sterile, monitored, hard to escape. Reina pushed open the door and set him down on an examination table, the fluorescent overhead throwing everything stark and blunt. The man's face was a map of bruises and blood, a bruise already darkening around one eye. He spat a curse and spat blood; his gaze slid over us like a rat measuring exits.

Mayumi locked the door with two quick clicks and dropped in a chair opposite him, arms folded. "You're not getting out," she said flatly. "Not tonight, not ever." The promise didn't need dramatics. It was the kind of sentence that carried weight by tone alone.

I stood to the side, the System's analytic hum in my head quiet now but attentive. The old part of me that had been carved by decades of conflict wanted to break him open with bone and fists. The younger part the one that learned the hard way that answers are worth more than blood, kept my hands quiet, palms open on my knees.

Reina produced a legal pad and set a pen on top. "We record everything," she said. "You lie and we'll know. We'll call in the proper channels afterward." Her voice was clinical, but there was iron beneath it. She tore a strip of paper and slid it toward the man. "Name."

He glared, lips peeling back. "I don't tell."

"You're a witness to an ongoing criminal cover-up," I said, quiet and precise. "You can lie and keep your secrets, but people will die if you do. Start with your name. Start with how you know the people who buried Saki."

He sneered. "I don't know any names."

Mayumi leaned forward so the overhead light hit her face. "You're slipping when you lie. You moved like a professional. Someone paid you. Someone who wanted Aika scared. Someone who wanted witnesses silenced. Who sent you?"

His eyes flicked to mine, and I held that look until his jaw worked. "You're a kid," he said with a wet laugh. "You don't know how things are done."

"I know enough," I replied. "Enough to take you apart piece by piece until you give us the one thing that matters: who."

The man's face shifted, the resignation of a sailor who knows the storm's pattern. He spat again, and the sound was half defiance and half surrender. "Takeda paid me," he said finally, like the name was a lump of coal he had to swallow. "But I don't know names above him. Just....just clean-up jobs. Wipes the traces. Makes things look like accidents."

Reina's pen paused over the pad. "Head custodian?" she said. "You expect us to believe a custodian organizes witnesses to be stalked?"

"I told you, orders. Higher-ups want quiet. They give the money through someone who keeps his hands dirty." He laughed again, this one short and humorless. "You're cute, thinking it's one man. It's always a network."

Mayumi's jaw tightened. "Which network?"

He just stared at the ceiling, breathing heavy, the rhythm of someone who'd been pushed harder than he thought possible. "You dig enough," he said. "You'll find the ties. The boys who were around then aren't boys now. They moved up, married into power. They keep things tidy." He drew breath. "You looking for names? Start at the classes Saki was in. Look for the fans, the ones with notebooks of her. Don't trust the teachers who smiled too much."

Aika flinched at that last detail, and Rika's hands balled into fists. That flinch, a tiny, human motion was all the confirmation the room needed. The man watched it and smiled like a vulture. "You should have left it buried."

"Wrong answer," I said. I leaned forward, the old calm in my voice sharpening. "You gave us a place to start. Now you give us names."

He laughed until it turned to a wet cough. "You have time," he rasped. "You won't like what you find."

Reina closed the notebook with finality. "We'll take our chances." She nodded to Mayumi. "Take him to a holding cell. Keep him fed and awake. He'll talk when we tighten the screws—legally."

As Mayumi hauled him up, the man spat again at my feet. "You're too young to carry this," he said.

"Maybe," I answered, the soldier's weight returning to my words. "But I've got enough years to know what to do."

We moved him out under watchful eyes. Outside the infirmary door, the corridor felt colder, as if the building itself had drawn a breath. We had the lead we needed, a name, a job title, a direction. It wasn't everything, but it was real and jagged and useful.

And it put us one step closer to the people who'd decided Saki's life didn't matter.

---

Takeda sat slumped in the chair, wrists bound by Mayumi's gym tape, the kind meant to hold broken ankles together. Now it held a grown man whose eyes wouldn't meet ours. Sweat slicked his temple even though the room was cool.

"Why Aika?" I asked first. My voice was steady, flat, the kind of tone that left no room for lies.

His throat bobbed. He shook his head once, twice. "I… I wasn't—"

Mayumi slammed her palm on the table, the crack loud enough to make Rika flinch. "Don't waste our time."

Reina crouched beside him, her nurse's gentleness warped into something sharper. She pressed two fingers to his wrist, feeling his pulse jump. "Your body betrays you even when your mouth won't. Try again, Takeda."

He shut his eyes. His lips trembled before the words spilled. "I… I was told to watch her. To make sure she didn't talk. That's all. I didn't mean—"

Rika's voice was brittle. "By who?"

Takeda opened his mouth, closed it, then hissed like something inside him hurt. "You don't understand… they said she'd ruin everything. That the past was buried for a reason. If she stirred it up, it'd…" His voice broke. "It'd start again."

I leaned forward, catching his gaze with mine. Fifty years of battle-worn instinct burned through my borrowed teenage face. "Start what, Takeda? A ghost doesn't scare you this much. Who's pulling your strings?"

For a heartbeat, silence stretched thin as glass. Then he whispered a name:

"…Nakamura-sensei."

Rika's breath hitched like she'd been struck. Reina froze mid-motion. Even Mayumi stilled.

Takeda's words spilled in a rush now, desperate to unload. "He, he was there when Saki died. He was the one who said it had to be called an accident. He made me promise, back then, to keep it quiet. And now, now he wants me to clean up loose ends. Aika saw too much."

The System flickered in my head:

> [Thread Unlocked: Nakamura's Role – Cover-Up.]

[Emotional Sync: +5%.]

My jaw tightened. Fifty years of war had taught me that enemies wore uniforms sometimes, and sometimes they wore faculty badges.

I stood, slow, deliberate. "Then Nakamura isn't just a name. He's the rot."

Rika whispered, almost to herself, "All this time… someone we trusted…" Her fingers curled tight around my sleeve, grounding herself on me.

Takeda's head sagged, shame dripping from every word. "I didn't want this. I just… I just wanted to keep my job. My life. But Nakamura… he said if I didn't obey—"

Mayumi cut him off cold. "Pathetic. You let a student die, and now you hunt another, just to protect yourself."

Takeda winced, but he didn't deny it.

I leaned closer, letting my shadow fall over him. "Where is Nakamura now?"

His lips cracked open, hesitant. "…On the roof. He… he said if the girl wouldn't be quiet, he'd finish what should've been finished years ago."

The words dropped like a stone in still water.

Rika's grip on me tightened. Reina's face hardened, every trace of softness gone. Mayumi was already untying her whistle from her neck, looping it around her fist like brass knuckles.

I exhaled slow. "Then we don't waste another second."

The team moved as one, the plan unspoken: protect Aika, confront Nakamura, and end this buried nightmare before it swallowed anyone else.

---

The stairwell swallowed us in echoing steel and shadows. Each step up groaned under the weight of urgency, of dread. I moved first, Mayumi right behind me like the hammer waiting for a target. Reina carried the flashlight, its beam slicing nervous arcs across the walls, while Rika clung close enough that I felt her pulse racing through my sleeve.

The higher we climbed, the colder it grew. It wasn't just night-chill, this was the kind of cold that gnawed marrow, the same aura Saki always dragged with her presence. My instincts screamed ambush, but the fifty-year soldier in me also knew: fear doesn't delay the march.

Halfway up, we heard it.

A voice. A man's. Hoarse, urgent.

"…You don't understand. If you talk, if you keep digging, she'll never rest. Do you want everyone else to suffer too?"

Aika's muffled cry answered from above, pitched with terror.

Rika gasped, but I raised a hand for silence. I didn't want Nakamura to know we were coming..yet.

Reina whispered, "He's trying to rationalize it. He wants her silence more than her life."

"No," I muttered. "He's stalling himself. He doesn't want to remember what he did."

The stairwell ended in the rooftop door. It was ajar, wind pushing it back and forth in a rhythm that scraped metal against frame. A thin slice of night bled through, along with a flicker of movement, shadows cast by the rooftop lights.

I leaned against the wall, listening. Fifty years of combat had taught me that before you breach a door, you map the enemy. Nakamura's voice trembled now, less authority, more desperation.

"You'll be just like her… Saki… she begged too, don't you see? If it stays buried, we can survive. If it comes back—" His voice cracked into something between a sob and a growl.

Rika's hand found mine, her nails digging in. "He killed her," she whispered, horrified.

"Or he pushed her," Mayumi growled. "Doesn't matter. He owned it."

The System pulsed, as if the rooftop itself were holding its breath.

> [Critical Decision Point Approaching.]

[Warning: Emotional Sync may spike.]

I steadied my breathing. Behind that door was a man who had buried a ghost with lies and was about to bury a girl with silence.

"We breach," I said, low, final. "Fast and clean."

Mayumi nodded, fists tightening. Reina's jaw was set. Rika's eyes shimmered with tears—but there was no retreat in them.

Together, we pressed toward the door, ready to explode into the rooftop and drag the truth into the open.

---

The rooftop burst open in a gust of cold wind, the door slamming against the wall with a clang that carried across the concrete.

Nakamura spun around, his hand clamped around Aika's wrist, dragging her dangerously close to the chain-link barrier at the edge. His glasses were askew, his face pale with sweat, eyes wild like a man staring at his own executioner.

We didn't need introductions. The truth was written in his trembling grip, in the way Aika struggled and whimpered.

"Let her go," I said, my voice carrying the weight of fifty years though it came from a sixteen-year-old throat. Calm, lethal.

Nakamura flinched at me. "You don't understand—none of you understand! If she talks, it all unravels! Do you think Saki just fell?!" His laugh was jagged, broken. "She was ruined. And I—I—" His words collapsed into choking breaths.

Rika stepped forward, trembling but fierce. "You let her die. Didn't you?"

Nakamura's jaw clenched, his grip on Aika tightening. "I… didn't push. I didn't… save. I just… watched. I thought if I stayed quiet, it would end. But it never ends! She's still here!" He jabbed a finger at the night air, his face twisting. "She's in every shadow, every hall. And now—now she's looking at me through this girl's eyes!"

Aika whimpered, "Please… I didn't do anything…"

The wind howled against the fencing, rattling chains like distant applause.

I stepped closer, steady, each word cut from steel. "You're right about one thing—it doesn't end. Ghosts don't stay buried when cowards like you feed them with silence. But you're wrong if you think hurting her will fix it."

The System chimed in my skull, ice and fire colliding:

[System Notice: Trauma Source Identified.]

[Target: Nakamura-sensei – Catalyst of Suppression.]

[Sync Path: Fear → Wrath.]

Mayumi edged wide, muscles tight, ready to spring. Reina lifted her flashlight higher, the beam catching Nakamura's face, exposing the madness in his eyes.

"Let. Her. Go," I said again.

For a moment, it looked like he might break. His grip slackened, his lips trembling. Then his face hardened, a last spasm of denial gripping him. "If she falls… it ends…"

He yanked Aika toward the edge.

Rika screamed. Reina shouted. Mayumi lunged—

And I moved first, years of reflex boiling through teenage limbs.

I slammed into Nakamura, ripping Aika from his grip, twisting his arm with a crack that sent him sprawling. His body hit the rooftop hard, glasses skittering across the concrete. He writhed, clutching his arm, cursing us, cursing Saki's name like a prayer turned curse.

Aika collapsed into Rika's arms, sobbing.

The System pulsed once more, heavy with judgment:

> [Critical Node Secured.]

[Final Stage Approaches: Saki's Truth Will Manifest.]

I looked down at Nakamura, broken and raving against the rooftop. "You wanted silence," I said coldly. "Instead, you gave her voice."

The night air turned sharp as knives. And from the corner of the rooftop, where the shadows pooled thickest, something laughed.

Saki was listening.