A short while later, the key turned in the lock at the entryway.

Rei Ao was back.

He was carrying a paper bag printed with cute cartoon characters—obviously full of clothes.

He glanced once at Shirogane Kei, still hard-crashed on the sofa, and said nothing.

He headed straight for his bedroom and knocked.

Thump, thump—

There was an immediate rustle of frantic movement inside.

Then the door cracked open.

A slim, fair arm—still visibly flushed—shot out, snatched the bag in a flash, and the door slammed shut with a bang.

A few minutes passed.

The bedroom door opened again.

Gabriel stepped out, fully dressed in a plain T-shirt and jeans.

Her golden hair was still a little messy.

Her delicate face was rosy like a ripe apple, and her golden eyes burned with mortified fury as she glared daggers at Rei Ao.

Just thinking about how she'd appeared stark naked in front of so many people—especially a complete stranger—made her want to explode on the spot from shame and rage.

All of this—

was his fault!

If he didn't live closest to her place (a teleport anchor, really?).

If he didn't… didn't… give off that infuriating aura that somehow attracted her magic malfunctions!

Anyway, it was his fault!

The more she thought about it, the madder she got.

She jerked up her little canvas sneaker and gave Rei Ao's shin a vicious kick!

Rei Ao wore a look equal parts innocent and helpless.

"Hey, Gab, be reasonable. Your magic misfired, and you unilaterally used me as an anchor. I'm the innocent one here, okay?"

"I don't care! It's your fault! Jerk! I'm never speaking to you again!"

She huffed that out,

glared at him one last time like a bristling little golden lion,

then shot a quick look at the silver-haired young woman on the sofa who still seemed scared senseless.

Shirogane Kei (internally): I'm not "senseless," I'm just rebuilding my worldview!

And with that, Gabriel bolted for the entry like the wind.

She yanked the door open and slammed it shut with a bang, vanishing without a trace.

Silence settled over the living room again.

Only Rei Ao—now sporting a delicate footprint on his shin—and Kei, still riding out the aftershocks in her soul, remained.

Rei Ao looked at dazed Kei, sighed, and took a seat in front of her.

Seeing the lost, glassy-eyed look on the young woman's face—as if she'd been hit by some indescribable psychic contamination—he knew the shock tonight had been too much.

She was going to need careful debriefing.

Or… a full re-education?

Either way, he'd have to help her build a new worldview.

That, at least, he was pretty practiced at.

"Ahem."

He cleared his throat and softened his voice.

"Kei… you saw it, right?"

He chose his words.

"As you can tell, the people—well, the folks—around my place aren't exactly ordinary."

Kei's eyes rotated very slowly and focused on his face.

Her lips moved as if to speak, but no sound came out.

Only after a long moment

did she force out, in a parched whisper heavy with hesitation and uncertainty:

"So, that… blonde woman just now, and that…"

She really couldn't bring herself to say "underwear" or "naked."

She could only gesture awkwardly, cheeks flaring red again.

"It was all real?"

She needed a final confirmation—

that she hadn't hallucinated from a split mind.

"Mm."

Rei Ao nodded with devastating certainty, his calm tone enough to crush hope.

"All real."

"That was Gabriel. She used teleportation magic, and there was a minor technical hiccup."

He kept it as light as he could.

"Tele… teleportation?"

Kei struggled to repeat the word she'd only ever seen in fantasy stories,

her eyes full of utter shock and bewilderment.

"Is… is that magic?"

She felt the materialist, science-built skyscraper she'd spent more than a decade erecting collapse in a roar.

"Yes."

He nodded again, a touch of helpless headache creasing his face.

"It's magic."

"And ever since Gabriel—an angel—'fell,' her magic keeps throwing up all kinds of weird glitches."

He paused, tone taking on an oddly certain tilt.

"The strange part is, every glitch beelines to me. She never teleports to anywhere else."

He even pulled a subtle "you know what I mean" face.

"An… angel? 'Fallen'?"

Kei felt like she was listening to a fairy tale.

She recognized every word, but together they made zero sense.

She parroted the two terms dumbly; her head buzzed like a thousand bees throwing a rock concert.

"…That's right."

Rei Ao sounded as calm as if he were remarking on the nice weather.

"Gabriel's the real deal—an angel. She's just currently in a rather lazy, 'fallen' state."

He even shrugged, as if to say it wasn't a big deal.

"???"

Kei's eyes lost focus completely.

The last string labeled "reason" in her brain snapped with an audible twang.

Angel, magic, teleportation, underwear, naked, harem, girlfriends—

A barrage of keywords went berserk in her chaotic mind, scrolling, colliding, exploding.

She sat there slack-jawed on the sofa,

hugging her schoolbag tight like a broken, soul-less porcelain doll.

Her long silver-white hair hung listlessly,

framing a face that screamed, "Who am I? Where am I? What happened to the world?"

Mai Sakurajima finally picked her magazine up off the floor.

Looking at Kei's "played-to-pieces" state, she sighed softly and murmured,

"Poor kouhai… tonight's info dump might take her until the next century to digest."

Rei Ao rubbed his temples, staring at Kei's fully crashed, out-of-body condition.

Seemed he'd have to "reboot" this worldview-shattered little rabbit and install a brand-new operating system compatible with magic, angels, harems, and other complex programs—a pretty daunting job.

"We'll take it slow."

~~~

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