Harem Sync: Divine Edition

Chapter 78: SILENCES AND REFLECTIONS

They arrived at the carriage, each settling in absolute silence.

Isabela entered first, sitting in the farthest corner. Kira climbed in afterward, sitting on the other side. Yukihime sat in the middle, quiet, feeling the tension.

Haru climbed onto the roof as always.

"Let’s go." He said, looking ahead.

Nothing.

Silence.

They stayed there for about thirty seconds until they realized someone was missing.

The guard. The one driving the carriage.

"Damn it." Haru jumped down. "I’ll go get him."

On the other side of the cemetery, the guard was lost; he had arrived where Haru had released the giant flame too late, and now wandered among the tombstones trying to find his way back.

"Anyone!?" he shouted in the fog.

Haru found him five minutes later, pulled him by the arm without saying anything, and they returned.

They arrived home late; the sun had already completely set, only the light from the streetlights illuminating the street.

They all entered, dragging their feet from exhaustion.

"Who would have thought that adopting was so much work..." Haru thought, climbing the stairs.

Haru went to his room, undressed, letting his clothes fall carelessly to the floor, and went straight to the bathroom. He filled the bathtub and got into the hot water... finally, he stopped.

The voices were still in his head, murmuring softly, but now there was space for him between them. He could separate what was his from what belonged to others, but it still weighed on him...

He got out of the bathtub after an indeterminate amount of time, passed in front of the mirror, and returned.

He stopped, looked at himself. He placed both hands on the sink, supporting his weight.

"What am I doing...?" he thought, staring at his own eyes in the reflection. "What am I DOING?"

Tears came without warning. "I... I was supposed to die and be with you..." He remembered his parents, the accident, the farewell he never had. "At first it seemed like a chance... now the chance seems like my burden."

Haru looked at himself with real attention for the first time in weeks. His hair was already long, past his ears; he needed a cut but never had time.

He didn’t even wear glasses anymore; his vision had improved naturally, or his body had adapted. His face no longer looked idiotic; his features had hardened, his jaw more defined, his eyes colder.

And his body... "If I don’t have visible mortal scars, it’s because I restarted the day every time I died..." But he remembered every death, every pain, every despair.

"I killed people." He wiped tears with the back of his hand, took a deep breath, forcing himself to process everything.

He saw how he was above a normal human now. He had met various types of people: heroes, villains, victims. He had met a god. Death had sent him a message. He knew magic. He had fought a giant skeleton and won. He died and came back.

"There’s no time to be sad." He lightly punched the sink. "This is a gift for all the otaku in the world... why am I complaining?"

He looked at his reflection again, this time with determination. "I should make my parents proud, finishing well... I’m going to lose my virginity with five waifus. So what? Fuck it. Fuck the fear. Fuck the guilt."

Haru dried his face. "Until then... I’ll survive and enjoy everything in the best way possible."

Leaving the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, Haru sat on the bed. "I know how to do magic, parents..." he thought, looking out the window. "Before I’m with you... I’m going to live the happiest life possible."

He turned his head and saw on the table the diary he had taken the day he investigated Vandris’s lab with Aldric.

"That’s right... I’ve never read this." He stood up, pulled up a chair, opened the first page, and read...

"Research Diary, Vandris Necros 5th, Empire."

The system discreetly notified him:

```

[SKILL PROGRESS]

◊ Necromancer’s Path: 1% > 2%

◊ Note: Reading advanced necromantic theory

◊ WARNING: This will define your class at 100%

◊ Current class progress:

- Hacker Skill: 89%

- Necromancer’s Path: 2%

```

Haru ignored the notification, focused on reading. "Spirits are not souls. That’s the first lesson every necromancer learns. A soul is complete: will, memory, emotion, essence. A spirit is a fragment. Residue. Echo."

"When a person dies with trauma, regret, an unfinished mission, immense will... a part of them remains. Not by choice. Because of the impossibility of leaving."

Haru turned the page.

"Necromancy isn’t about controlling the dead. It’s about understanding death. About guiding what’s trapped back into the cycle. Purification. Liberation."

"But some necromancers... choose another path."

Drawing in the margin: a complex summoning circle, runes around it, a symbol in the center that Haru didn’t recognize... ’Evocation.’ was written below the symbol.

...On the other side of the house, Isabela was also taking a bath. Hot water running, steam filling the air, but her mind was far away.

Isabela remembered Haru, the last time she was alone with him in the room. When she had fallen on top of him after the ridiculous fall. Those gray eyes looking at her. That shameless smile. How he called her "little princess, darling, redhead, daddy’s girl, master woman" just to annoy her.

She remembered him chained up in the Valtherion house’s interrogation room, shouting even though he was hurt: "I WANT TO BE MISS ISABELA’S PERSONAL GUARD!"

"Could that be you, Haru...?" she thought, touching her own chest where her heart beat irregularly. "Or is it something else pretending to be that?"

...

Kira kept bumping her head lightly on the bed trying to fill out the registration form for the Academy.

She had already showered, already dressed in her typical clothes, short shorts, a simple top, her tail loose.

Her stomach rumbled loudly.

"Yukihime!" she shouted to her bathroom. "When you finish showering, let’s eat!"

She got up and went to prepare something.

In the kitchen, she began to cut vegetables with natural skill.

The guard, the one who had gotten lost, watched curiously.

"Miss Kira... you seem to know what you’re doing."

"Yeah..." Kira replied without stopping cutting. "Throughout my life I’ve been through various situations. One of them was that I had to be a cook."

"But... aren’t demi-humans supposed to stick together? Tribes, clans, that sort of thing?"

That touched Kira’s face with a mixture of sadness and nostalgia; she stopped cutting for a second. "Not when you’re banished."

Heavy silence.

She resumed cutting.

The smell began to spread through the house: spices, roasting meat, simmering soup.

Isabela was the first to come down, her hair still damp.

"Look at that... you really do know how to cook." She said, joining the kitchen.

Yukihime came down soon after, already dressed in fluffy pajamas, and went to the guards to excitedly tell them what had happened at the cemetery.

Isabela picked up a knife and started helping by cutting potatoes. Kira seasoned the meat with fluid movements, a silent dance of the kitchen.

"Redhead..." Kira began softly. "About the master..."

Isabela didn’t answer, but her ears perked up.

"I know you’re... confused. Maybe scared."

"It’s not fear." Isabela cut in too quickly. "It’s... precaution."

"It’s the same thing."

Silence.

Kira continued: "I bathed with him. Up in the mountains, when we went to get the crystals..."

Isabela stopped interrupting, turning slowly to face her.

"You what!?"

"Hot spring." Kira explained naturally. "We were dirty. Hot water, separate baths but in the same place."

Isabela’s face turned red.

"And... and he... you two..."

"Nothing happened, even though he wanted to mate." Kira smiled slightly. "But I saw that he’s a normal human. Normal body, normal reactions. He got all flustered when he accidentally saw me."

She paused, taking a deep breath.

"Gamers are people, redhead. Just... with... with... with magic and somewhat strange personalities... well, I guess, but underneath? People."

Isabela processed that.

"You trust him completely."

"I trust him... if my goddess chose him as her father... I trust him," Kira replied without hesitation, looking at Yukihime.

"Even after what you saw today? Him devouring spirits?"

Kira stopped, looking directly into Isabela’s eyes.

"You should ask the master what a Gamer is before judging him. He’s up there. Go."

In the room, Haru, in a towel, walked around reading the diary, totally absorbed.

"Spiritual evocation requires three elements: a consecrated circle, a mana offering, and the spirit’s true name. Without the name, the summoning fails... like Flame Path, but instead of crystals, the agent uses circles."

He held the towel with one distracted hand, about to drop it.

A knock on the door.

"Haru, dinner’s ready." It was Isabela at the open door.

He, still in his towel, stared at her, but didn’t really pay attention, just waved without taking his eyes off the diary.

Isabela interpreted that as, "He’s upset with me too..."

She sighed and entered the room.

"Look, Haru..."

Haru stopped reading, turned to her, still holding the diary.

"It’s true... her trust is at 50%... I need to talk to her..."

"Isab..."

"Huh, isn’t that my underwear on the floor?!"

Haru blinked, confused, and looked at the floor.

Among the clothes he had thrown there, a red lace panty peeked slightly out of Haru’s pants pocket.

And yes, it belonged to Isabela.

Absolute silence.

Haru looked at the panty.

Then at Isabela.

Then at the panty again.

"...I can explain."

"YOU CAN!?"