Nothing at all.
Only the old-fashioned clock hanging on the wall continued to tick, the second hand going click, click as it moved.
"What's wrong?" Terumi Mei asked.
"Nothing much, my neck just feels chilly," Ryosuke said. "It's not the first time."
"That's a problem from keeping your head down at a desk for too long. Back when I was on the front lines as a ninja, I got beaten up every now and then, everything hurt except my cervical spine. Now nothing hurts, except my cervical spine."
As she spoke, Terumi Mei set down her pen, rubbed her sore neck, straightened her body, and leaned back against the chair, tilting slightly backward.
That movement made her already full chest stand out even more.
Ryosuke glanced subconsciously, then looked away, and copied Terumi Mei's motion, stretching backward as well.
But he knew.
This had nothing to do with cervical spine issues.
A perfect lifeform getting cervical spondylosis?
If Kars heard about it, he'd laugh himself back to life.
It was the Triple Calamity.
Ryosuke was certain of that.
What he wasn't sure about was how this so-called world-level, fate-level calamity would actually descend.
He had made many guesses about it, and one after another sought out the Great Toad Sage and the shrine maiden Shion, asking whether they had seen any clues about the future.
Unfortunately, he got no answers.
All Ryosuke could do now was wait.
Aside from the Triple Calamity, there was another matter worth paying attention to.
In the past, Ryosuke had consumed huge amounts of resources drawing cards and upgrading. Basically, whatever substitute the system gave him, he used it. If he really couldn't use it, he'd stash it away and wait for a suitable opportunity.
Now that he had the Lucky Roulette, even though it was a bit of a scam, the upside was that Ryosuke could swap out idle substitutes at a low cost.
It was during this process that Ryosuke gradually noticed something was wrong, there were no Stand substitutes from Part Eight: JoJo Gospel.
He couldn't draw them from cards.
He couldn't get them from the roulette.
Since coming to the ninja world, Ryosuke didn't know how many times he had drawn, but no matter whether it was four-star or five-star, not a single Part Eight Stand ever appeared, as if they had been completely removed from the system's gacha pool.
That was extremely strange.
Later, Ryosuke tried using a Resonance Speaker to test it. As usual, it could play the corresponding Stand music, which meant it could theoretically lock onto it, but… in theory only. Since it had never actually been drawn, no one could say for sure.
After all, the system's gacha interface clearly stated that Stands and items from Parts 1 through 8 could all be drawn.
Ryosuke wasn't about to waste a Resonance Speaker just to test whether he could draw a Part Eight Stand, especially when he already had Resonance Speakers, Ascension Star Cores, and Destiny Ink in his hands.
When these three were used together, it meant Ryosuke could take any Stand, especially Gold Experience, and cultivate it from zero into a Requiem.
'Unable to draw Part Eight Stands.'
'The Triple Calamity.'
'Is there a connection between the two?'
'If there is… that doesn't quite make sense either. The Triple Calamity only appeared recently, so why couldn't I draw them in the past few years? Could it really just be a coincidence?' Ryosuke frowned as he thought.
Suddenly, he felt the back of his head touch something soft. A pair of cool hands landed on his temples, gently massaging his head.
Ryosuke opened his eyes.
Their gazes crossed mountains and valleys and met each other.
Terumi Mei's cheeks were slightly red. She looked away and said, "I saw that you were too tired… this is to improve our work efficiency."
Ryosuke smiled and closed his eyes.
"My sincere thanks."
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Ryosuke closed his eyes and quietly enjoyed Terumi Mei's massage, while Terumi Mei quietly looked at him.
Suddenly, she realized Ryosuke's head was resting against her stomach. Then she thought about how she hadn't exercised much lately and had put on a little weight. She quickly and instinctively tightened her abdominal muscles.
"Pfft!"
Ryosuke couldn't help laughing.
Terumi Mei's face flushed red. Knowing he was laughing at her little belly, she snorted, pushed him back, and returned to reading the documents.
Ryosuke also picked up his pen again and casually asked, "Are you free tomorrow night?"
Terumi Mei glanced at the schedule. "Nothing important… Is there a meeting?"
"No."
Ryosuke drew lines and made notes on the document, not even lifting his head as he said, "Tomorrow is Kyoto's Suien Festival. If you're free, want to go together? We agreed before, when we had time, to watch the fireworks."
That "before" probably dated back to three years ago.
When Ryosuke and Terumi Mei were invited by Oda Ieyasu to Kyoto for the Water Festival for the first time.
It was also that night that young Hideyoshi was kidnapped, Oda Ieyasu chose to join Ryosuke's camp, and Saitō Ayachō took poison and died.
That led to the four months of turmoil in the Land of Water, and only then did Ryosuke truly take control of it.
What followed had long since become part of "history," recounted clearly and in detail by many people.
But on that very night, there had been a lovely woman, dressed up in a white yukata with pink cherry blossoms, full of anticipation for the fireworks festival.
Maybe no one remembers that.
But Ryosuke did.
Terumi Mei stared at Ryosuke in a daze. She truly hadn't expected that after so many years, Ryosuke would still remember.
Of course he remembered. It was just that every year around the Suien Festival, he was always entangled in various matters and enemies, unable to fully enjoy the festival.
Besides, back then, there were no convenient things like teleportation gates.
"Do you have time? If not, we can do it another day, "
"Of course I have time!"
Before Ryosuke could finish, Terumi Mei sprang to her feet.
"I'm tired today. I'm not reading any more documents. You go back first."
"Huh?"
Without giving him a chance to respond, Terumi Mei pushed Ryosuke out. With a bang, she shut the office door, and then Ryosuke heard the sound of rummaging through drawers and boxes inside.
Standing outside the door, Ryosuke was momentarily speechless. He shook his head helplessly and turned to leave.
The next day, at dusk, Ryosuke waited by the teleportation gate. He heard the click-clack of wooden geta stepping on stone behind him. Turning around, he saw Terumi Mei walking over with measured steps, a silver-white yukata with water patterns, very plain in color, yet even more fitting for her curvaceous figure.
Her hair was loosely gathered into a low bun, a pearl hairpin inserted at an angle, with the same strawberry bear charm dangling from the end. A few loose strands brushed against her neck, making her skin look even fairer.
Expectation and allure lingered at the corners of her eyes, and her crystal-clear red lips unconsciously curved into a smile.
Terumi Mei stopped in front of Ryosuke and spun around once.
"Well? How is it?"
"It looks great," Ryosuke said honestly.
"Hehe."
Terumi Mei lifted her chin slightly. "Then look, my taste."
She pointed forward with a small hand.
"Let's go!"
They passed through the teleportation gate and arrived in Kyoto.
Since the introduction of teleportation gates, and with Ryosuke's reforms compressing work hours, people had more time to enjoy life. The moment they stepped out of the gate, they saw the streets packed with visitors attending the Suien Festival.
Milk tea in the eastern market, grilled sausages in the western market, people packed shoulder to shoulder, lively beyond compare.
Amid the crowd, Terumi Mei was squeezed next to Ryosuke. To avoid getting separated, she had no choice but to reach out and hook her arm around his.
She lowered her head slightly, her expression as captivating as the evening clouds.
At that moment, Terumi Mei felt Ryosuke tense up.
Not the kind of tension between a man and a woman.
But the tension of a battle-hardened warrior, the kind that only appears when facing real danger.
Terumi Mei looked at Ryosuke.
Ryosuke touched the back of his neck, it was icy cold.
"An enemy?" Terumi Mei's gaze also turned cold as she slightly lifted the hem of her skirt, entering combat mode.
Ryosuke nodded and pointed in a direction.
The two of them moved against the flow of the crowd, gradually leaving the tourist-filled area.
There were fewer and fewer people, until everything fell silent, the distant bustle becoming nothing more than a blurred background noise.
Ryosuke turned a corner, and finally, he saw it.
A woman covered in wounds lay sprawled on the ground, blood pooling everywhere, clearly at death's door.
Ryosuke and Terumi Mei exchanged a glance. He strode over, grabbed the woman by the shoulder, and turned her over. Hot Pants, pale-faced, eyes tightly shut and unconscious. Embedded in her chest was a spinning disc, the Stand displayed on it unmistakably D4C.
And in her hand… She was clutching tightly a piece of a saint's corpse.