The fluorescent lights of the convenience store hummed with a sterile, clinical energy, casting sharp shadows against the linoleum floor.
Jin moved with the practiced ease of a predator masquerading as a shopper, his cart wheels clicking rhythmically against the tiles.
To any casual observer, he was just another freshman navigating the overwhelming abundance of Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School.
But Jin wasn't just anyone. He was an anomaly in this curated ecosystem, and today, his interests lay in two specific variables: the icy beauty known as Horikita Suzune and the enigmatic, blank-faced boy lingering in her orbit, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.
Jin paused before a black metal shelf, his fingers tracing the edge of a plastic-wrapped container while his peripheral vision locked onto Horikita Suzune.
She was a vision of severe elegance—her waist-length black hair swayed like a silken curtain, anchored by a single, delicate braid tied with a white ribbon.
Her purple eyes, however, were anything but soft. They were twin shards of amethyst ice, broadcasting a singular, crystalline message to the world: "Distance is mandatory."
Unlike the other girls who clustered in chirping groups, debating the merits of various skin creams, Horikita moved with a focused, almost clinical isolation.
She was meticulously sifting through the bargain bins. Her basket didn't contain the trendy snacks or branded toiletries her peers favored; it was a collection of the absolute essentials, chosen purely for their low price point.
Nearby, Jin spotted Ayanokoji. The boy looked like a masterpiece of mediocrity, his expression a perpetual void. Yet, even in his social clumsiness—likely a byproduct of his "White Room" upbringing—he attempted a gambit.
Jin suppressed a smirk as he overheard Ayanokoji's disastrous conversational pivot: recommending hair removal cream to Horikita, with a heavy-handed hint about... certain delicate areas.
The silence that followed Ayanokoji's suggestion was thick enough to choke on. Horikita's glare could have flash-frozen the sun.
Stepping in to break the tension—and to test his own hypotheses—Jin glided toward her.
"This student has been deliberately choosing lower-priced items for a while," he said, his voice smooth and devoid of the awkwardness Ayanokoji had just displayed.
"May I ask the reason why you are doing this?"
Horikita's head snapped toward him. She remembered him from the bus incident earlier that day.
"If you're trying to hit on me, that's incredibly stupid," she retorted, her voice a whip-crack. "I have no obligation to answer you."
"I was just curious if you had discovered the school's hidden rules," Jin replied, offering a thin, knowing smile.
"But judging by the current situation, it seems you are simply being frugal."
The bait was taken.
Horikita paused, a flicker of doubt crossing her features. "It's hard to believe how you can judge that I haven't discovered the school's hidden rules based on just one sentence."
She was testing him, trying to turn the interrogation around to salvage her own lack of information.
Jin held up a finger, shaking it slowly. "Based on your personality, if you truly knew the school's secret, you would remain silent. Instead, you're using vague statements to fish for data—"
"You suspect the 100,000 points are a trap, but you don't know how the trap snaps shut."
As she frowned, her face darkening in frustration, Jin felt it—a faint, rhythmic pulse in the air. It was a Sacred Gear fluctuation.
Subtle, nearly imperceptible, but to Jin's devil-attuned senses, it was unmistakable. Just like Kasumigaoka Utaha, he have discovered earlier, Horikita Suzune was "blessed by heaven."
"Do you want me to prove I know more than you?" Jin asked.
"If you can't provide evidence, it just proves you are a liar pretending to be profound," she challenged.
Jin didn't offer a cryptic riddle. Instead, he pulled out his Student Terminal. He flipped the screen toward her, revealing his balance.
Arima Andras Jin.
ID: S1701B
Class 1-B.
Private Points: 1,600,000.
The number was an impossibility for a first-day student. Horikita Suzune's breath hitched, and for a split second, the Sacred Gear fluctuation flared with her shock before she ruthlessly crushed her emotions back into a state of calm.
How did you do that?" Horikita Suzune's eyes widened, her lips trembling slightly, her voice filled with disbelief.
She blinked her beautiful eyes, thinking she had misread it, but even after checking again, the boy's points were undeniably 1.6 million.
"Do I have an obligation to answer you?" Jin imitated what Horikita Suzune had just said, a satisfied smile on his face.
Why would he risk offending upperclassmen just to win millions of points?
Horikita Suzune bit her lip. How could she not tell that Jin was deliberately imitating her speech?
"It seems I underestimated your strength." The girl adjusted her breathing to calm herself. "But don't get too smug. If you can earn 1.6 million points on the first day of school, I can certainly do it too."
Hearing this, Jin wore an amused smile. "Knowing I have so many points, you don't run away but instead want to challenge me? An interesting woman."
"Since I proactively revealed my points, may I know your name?"
"Although I don't really want to tell you my name, as you said, since I know your points, I do need to give you equivalent information."
The Black-haired girl seemed to think this was a fair trade, so she said, "My name is Horikita Suzune, Class 1-D."
Arima Jin pinched his chin with his finger, nodding slightly. "Suzune, huh? That's a very nice name."
"It's a pity you were assigned to Class D." Jin shook his head and looked smilingly at the girl before him. "I was looking forward to your future actions, but it seems you're likely to disappoint me."
"What do you mean?" Horikita Suzune caught the implication and asked with a frown. "Is there something wrong with me being assigned to Class D?"
"That's not information you can exchange just by giving your name," Jin replied.
"Is it highly valuable information?" Horikita Suzune frowned slightly, understanding that the boy definitely wouldn't say anything more without a tangible benefit.
"If you are willing to tell me this piece of news, how about I reimburse you for this shopping trip?" Horikita Suzune tentatively asked.
"That's far too cheap." Jin held up two fingers. "To know this information, the price is at least this."
"Twenty thousand points?"
Horikita Suzune relaxed slightly.
That's fine. If it's only 20,000 points, that's acceptable.
She didn't usually spend much, and currently, she had 100,000 points.
Spending only 20,000 to gain information about the school was quite worthwhile for her.
"No, it's two million points," Jin said with a light chuckle.
"Are you joking?" Horikita Suzune's expression instantly darkened, and her vermillion eyes glared fiercely at him.
"If you don't believe me, you can go ask your homeroom teacher; they will also quote this price." Jin turned around, waving goodbye with his back to the girl. "I still need to buy some daily necessities, so I'll be leaving now."
Without another word, Jin turned and walked away, leaving her standing in the aisle with the weight of that seven-figure number hanging in the air and the shadow of hidden rules breathing on her neck.
If he were an ordinary Transmigrator, he would definitely hide his points tightly and not let anyone know.
It was necessary to show off a little in front of the Horikita Suzune and guess what? He found faint, very very faint Sacred gear fluctuations coming from Horikita Suzune.
Earlier, he found Kasumigaoka Utaha with this type of fluctuation, from there, his hypothetical analysis is that every heroine is blessed by heaven. So every heroine possesses a chance of having a sacred gear.
When he showed Horikita Suzune his total private points, her emotions churnedand she let out faint sacred gear fluctuations.
It was only possible for Jin to sense because he was literally standing beside her, and she very quickly clammed her emotions, and the sacred gear fluctuations also ceased to exist. Now, even Jin can't say she is any different from an ordinary person.
After proving his motive, Jin silently left the area.
As Jin began his shopping, Ando Sayo returned, her expression dancing with a teasing glint.
"Arima-san, I saw everything," she chirped, her smile widening. "You're quite the social butterfly, chatting up a girl from another class the second my back was turned."
Having finished her own shopping, Sayo had intended to find Jin, but paused when she spotted him deep in conversation. Not wanting to interrupt what looked like a "lucky encounter," she had checked out quietly and waited for him outside.
"I was just... intrigued by her," Jin replied smoothly.
"Oh, really?" Sayo's face flushed with secondhand excitement. "Did you fall for her at first sight?"
Jin didn't skip a beat, leaning into a mantra he lived by. "Don't misunderstand. When a Devil sets his sights on someone, his purpose is never to fall in love—it's to make them sell their soul."
Sayo squinted at him, her skepticism clear. "A 'Devil,' huh? Seriously?"
"Of course," Jin said, flashing a bright, disarming smile. "In reality, I suspected Horikita Suzune had already sniffed out this school's hidden rules. I was simply testing the waters."
"Suzune? Hidden rules?" Sayo blinked, her confusion mounting. "I get that Suzune is her name, but what on earth do you mean by 'hidden rules'?"
"This school isn't the paradise the faculty described today," Jin explained, his tone dropping an octave. "What we were told is a deceptive facade. We won't officially learn the truth until next month, but by then, the damage will already be done."
Ando Sayo's eyes widened. "That sounds... intense. Are you being serious?"
"I plan to reveal everything I've discovered to the rest of the class tomorrow morning. Until then, Ando-san, could you keep this between us?"
"I—I suppose I can," Sayo replied, sounding a bit overwhelmed. "To be honest, I'm so confused that I wouldn't even know what to tell people if I tried."
"I appreciate that, Ando-san." Jin nodded, a satisfied shadow crossing his face.