Reborn With The Milf "Harem" System

The laugh didn't belong on a rooftop.

It was too sharp, too broken, too alive with a kind of pain that never healed.

The sound cut through the cold night air, slicing deeper than Nakamura's ragged breaths. He froze on the concrete where I'd left him, clutching his ruined arm, his eyes rolling like a man who already knew damnation had found him.

Mayumi swore under her breath. Reina's flashlight trembled in her grip, the beam swinging wildly until it landed on the far corner of the roof.

That's when the shadows started to move.

They crawled upward, pooling together like spilled ink climbing against gravity. Hair spilled out first, long and wet-black, clinging to a form that hadn't belonged in this world for years. The outline of a girl bled into existence, her uniform tattered, her limbs bent in angles that whispered of a fall that never ended.

And then the face came into focus—pale, lips split, eyes hollow and too dark.

Saki.

The temperature dropped so fast the metal railing shrieked as it contracted. Breath fogged in front of our mouths. Aika whimpered and buried herself deeper against Rika's chest.

No one spoke. No one dared.

Only Nakamura broke the silence, his voice cracking like glass.

"No… no, no, no… you were supposed to stay buried!"

Saki didn't answer. She only looked at him, her head tilting in that impossible, bone-aching angle that made Rika flinch and grip my sleeve hard enough to leave crescents in my skin.

The System stirred inside my skull, a cold whisper:

> [Manifestation Detected.]

[Warning: Sync Surge Approaching.]

I kept my eyes locked on her, even as the others staggered under the pressure of her presence. I'd seen men freeze under artillery fire, I'd seen boys go white staring down a gun barrel but this? This was fear cut with grief, a wound that had never closed.

Reina whispered, almost reverent, "She's… complete. Not just a shadow. She's here."

Mayumi stepped forward, planting herself between Rika and the ghost, fists clenched like she could fight the dead with her body alone. "Stay back," she growled, though her own voice shook.

But Saki didn't even look at her. Her gaze stayed pinned to Nakamura, who was crawling backward now, his glasses lost, his face smeared with tears and snot.

"I did what they told me!" he cried, his voice breaking higher with every word. "I kept quiet, I kept it buried! You weren't supposed to—"

His breath hitched into a sob. "I didn't push you! I didn't… save you! I just… I just watched…"

Rika's knees buckled. She would've fallen if I hadn't caught her by the elbow. Her whole body was trembling, her tears hot against the cold air.

And then Saki spoke.

Her voice was wrong. Too soft and too jagged, like it came from a throat crushed years ago, like two echoes overlapping.

"Why… didn't you… help me?"

The question wasn't loud. But it ripped through the rooftop worse than a scream.

The words clawed into the air, dragging silence in their wake.

Nakamura's sobs turned guttural. He clawed at the rooftop gravel as if he could dig himself into the concrete, escape into the earth. "I— I couldn't, you don't understand!"

Saki's head tilted farther, neck bending until it cracked. Her hair spilled forward like black water. "You watched. You let me fall."

Every word echoed twice: once from her mouth, once from the shadows that clung to her body. The sound crawled under the skin, made Reina stagger back until her shoulders hit the rooftop fence. She muttered a prayer she hadn't said since childhood, clutching her penlight like it could ward off the dead.

Rika shook harder against me, her nails cutting into my arm. "Renji… she's asking him the same thing she asked that night… isn't she?"

I didn't answer. My throat was stone.

Mayumi roared to cut through the suffocating air. "Then answer her, bastard!" She stomped toward Nakamura, eyes blazing. "She's right in front of you! Tell her why!"

Her voice cracked the air like a whip, but Nakamura only dissolved further. He clawed at his shirt collar, wheezing. His eyes locked on Saki like he couldn't look away even if he wanted to.

"Because I was scared!" he screamed finally, voice shredding itself. "If I spoke, they would've ruined me too! You were already ruined, Saki! You smiled too much, you made the wrong people hungry, and when you started crying for help!" He choked, gagged, spat blood onto the rooftop. "…I thought if I stayed quiet, if I didn't see you fall, maybe… maybe it wouldn't follow me."

The rooftop trembled under a sudden gust, rattling the fence. Saki didn't blink. Didn't breathe. Her mouth opened wider than it should have, her question pouring out again like a curse:

"Why… didn't you… help me?"

This time, the words weren't just sound. They pressed against us, weight crushing ribs, forcing breath short. Aika collapsed to her knees, clutching her ears. Reina gasped, Mayumi staggered, even Rika whimpered through clenched teeth.

The System hissed in my skull:

> [Sync Spike: 35% → 55%.]

[Warning: You are experiencing shared trauma resonance.]

I gritted my teeth. Fifty years of war, fifty years of screams, of faces left behind—this was worse. This wasn't the scream of dying men; it was the scream of a girl asking why the world abandoned her.

Nakamura broke completely. He slammed his forehead into the gravel, wailing. "I didn't help because I'm weak! Because I thought your life wasn't worth mine! Because I—" His words twisted into a shriek. "I thought you deserved it!"

The wind cut silent.

Saki's head snapped upright. Her hair flared out like smoke caught in a gale, eyes burning with black light.

Her voice wasn't a whisper anymore. It was a roar from every shadow on the rooftop:

"LIAR."

---

The rooftop shook. Not from any quake, but from the weight of her voice.

"LIAR."

It came from everywhere at once, the fence, the sky, the shadows under our feet. The air rippled like heat haze, but it was cold, bone-cutting cold. My breath fogged in front of me, even though the night was mild.

Nakamura's scream tore out of him as if his ribs had been pried open. He rolled onto his back, kicking, clawing at nothing. His nails split, his throat raw. The shadows swarmed his limbs, pinning him to the gravel without touch.

Rika shrieked and clung tighter to me. "Renji! She's… she's going to kill him!"

Mayumi cursed, stepping forward, fists raised like she could punch a ghost out of the air. But the gust shoved her back a step, forcing her to brace. Even she looked rattled.

Reina's lips moved around frantic words, prayer or denial, I couldn't tell. The flashlight shook so hard in her hands the beam fractured like lightning.

And Aika… Aika had gone dead quiet, wide-eyed, staring at Saki like a girl watching her own reflection drown.

The System crackled inside me like radio static, no longer smooth, almost panicked:

> [Warning: Entity manifestation surpassing known trauma loop.]

[Trauma Conversion unstable.]

[User Sync risk: Overload.]

I gritted my teeth, staring into the storm of her presence. I'd seen battlefields drowned in blood, had heard artillery scream overhead but never had I seen fear itself become a living thing.

Saki's head cocked in an inhuman twitch, her gaze pinning Nakamura flat. Her voice was no longer a question. It was judgment.

"You let me fall. You watched me die. And now you want another girl to follow me."

Nakamura thrashed, sobbing, "No! No, no, I—I tried—I—"

"LIES!"

The rooftop fence rattled so violently I thought it would rip free. A scream not human, not earthly, clawed out of the dark sky, Saki's scream, stretched until it was agony made sound.

The others faltered, clutching their ears, their knees buckling. Even Mayumi's defiance cracked into a wince.

But me? I stood through it. My body wanted to crumple, but fifty years of training chained my spine upright. My voice cut through the storm.

"SAKI!"

The rooftop snapped quiet, like glass dropped into silence. Her head turned toward me. Slowly. Her eyes glowed like burning voids.

I held that gaze, refusing to look away. My voice dropped, low and steady, soldier's steel wrapped in a sixteen-year-old's throat.

"If you want judgment, then give it to the man who abandoned you. But don't take Aika. Don't take the living."

Her shadows trembled, her form flickering between girl and horror. For the first time, hesitation cracked through her wrath.

The System flared:

> [Emotional Sync Surge: 55% → 70%.]

[Connection forming: Entity Response pending.]

---

The rooftop was a battlefield. Not of soldiers, but of shadows and screams.

Saki's form stretched tall against the night sky, her hair moving like it floated in black water. The air stank of ozone and rust, each breath burning like inhaling smoke. Her gaze never left me, but Nakamura's sobs scraped on behind her, desperate, pathetic.

"Don't… don't look at me like that," he wheezed, his voice shredded raw. "You were nothing! Just a mistake—"

Her head snapped back toward him, the movement jerky, unnatural. The shadows surged, wrapping his limbs tighter, dragging him across the gravel like a broken doll. His scream rattled in his throat as gravel tore at his back.

"LIAR," she hissed again. "You watched me bleed. You called me a mistake. You let me rot in the dark."

Nakamura kicked, clawed, sobbed but it was useless. The ghost didn't need hands to choke the life out of him.

Rika clutched my sleeve, nails digging into my arm. "Renji, do something, or she'll kill him!"

I clenched my jaw. Every part of me wanted to let her finish it. Let Nakamura's blood paint the rooftop and be done. He deserved worse.

But Saki's rage wasn't justice, it was an open wound tearing itself wider.

I stepped forward. My boots crunched on gravel, steady, deliberate. My voice dropped low, cutting through the wind.

"Saki."

Her eyes snapped back to me.

"You've made him suffer," I said, each word steady as a trigger pull. "But if you keep going, you won't stop with him. You'll keep bleeding. You'll keep dragging others down with you."

Her shadows writhed, splitting between Nakamura's throat and Aika's trembling body. Aika whimpered, shrinking back against the fence.

The System chimed, voice strained like static.

> [Warning: Entity is tethering to secondary trauma host.]

[Risk: Aika transfer imminent.]

I took another step closer. The cold wrapped around me like knives, stabbing into my lungs, but I didn't falter.

"You were betrayed. Abandoned. Hurt in ways no one deserves," I said, eyes locked with hers. "But if you let this bastard define your eternity, you'll never escape him. Not even in death."

The rooftop fell silent. Even Nakamura's sobs choked off, his eyes bulging with terror.

For a heartbeat, I saw her. Not the monster. Not the shadow. Just a girl. Pale, trembling, eyes wet, lips quivering like she still wanted someone, anyone, to choose her.

The System pulsed:

> [Emotional Sync: 85%.]

[Critical threshold approaching. Anchor or release?]

I extended my hand into the storm, palm open.

"You don't have to rot here anymore. You don't have to keep screaming. Let me carry it."

Her form flickered, glitching between fury and fragility. Her lips parted. Her voice broke, whisper-soft.

"…can you?"

The shadows stilled. The rooftop held its breath.

The rooftop wind howled like it wanted to strip us off the building. Rusted railings clanged, and the night sky pressed down, moonlight cutting through the fog in silver knives.

And there she was.

Saki.

The ghost in the flesh

Her body swayed where she stood at the edge—the same place she'd fallen all those years ago. Only this time, her form wavered between living flesh and bleeding shadow. Her hair floated like it was underwater, her skirt snapping against legs that weren't always solid.

One eye was bottomless black, dragging the world into it. The other… the other was wet, red-rimmed, a girl's eye. Still human. Still screaming.

> [ Vessel Anchor: 94% → 97%]

[Corruption Threshold Approaching]

Her lips parted, the sound torn away by the wind. I couldn't tell if it was "help me" or "let me go." Both sounded like the same plea.

Reina clutched Rika close, Mayumi shifted her stance, ready to spring. But I felt it more than saw it, this wasn't a fight of fists alone. If we lunged too soon, she'd either drag us over the edge… or shatter herself beyond saving.

The rooftop lights flickered once, twice, and then burned out completely, leaving us in a world of silver moon and black shadow.

Saki tilted her head toward me. That one human eye glistened. The black one swallowed all light.

And then she stepped forward, not into the air....

But toward us.