Kenji walked across the campus as if gravity itself were betraying him. Every step was a silent, agonizing protest. His mind, normally a still haven of apathy, was in active conflict: the crushing weight of guilt battling the crushing weight of expectation. "I'm a professional of minimal effort, and now I have to exert myself just to eat. How utterly idiotic! I'm just a puppet! Selling my precious time of slacking off for... for a few noodles." The one-hundred yen bill Miku had tossed at him still burned in his palm, a symbolic scar of his moral failure.
But his stomach loudly reminded him why this entire sacrifice was worthwhile.
Good food. That was Miku's true, terrifying weapon. A trail of spices and concentrated, rich broth guided him to a discreet alleyway. When the waitress, who looked like she'd stepped right out of a manga about legendary chefs, placed the bowl of Ultimate Tonkotsu Ramen in front of him, Kenji forgot that breathing was an essential function.
The white broth, cooked for countless hours until it achieved an almost sinful creaminess, the chashu with perfectly caramelized edges, the fresh scallions, and the ajitama egg trembling delicately in the center. It wasn't merely food; it was a masterpiece, a fleeting piece of edible perfection.
He took the first spoonful. The searing warmth, the complexity of the flavor, the potent umami that flooded his entire mouth... It felt as if the very God of Cuisine were delivering a welcoming, life-affirming slap to his face. For a fleeting moment, the oppressive chill of the Broken Crystal Wall Aura completely dissolved, instantly replaced by a sense of deep, unexpected peace he hadn't experienced in nearly a decade.
—"Dude, no way! Look at that face! You look like a hermit who just saw the sun for the first time!" —Kazuo Kudo, seated across from him, was absolutely dumbfounded. He was already halfway through his own bowl but kept staring at Kenji with utter disbelief—. "Miku-senpai is a criminal genius! She figured out your only weakness is culinary perfection! You completely sold out, Kenji! She's literally got you grabbed by the throat with the taste of pork! You're her dog now—only fed and obeying without a single whine!"
Kenji slurped a long strand of noodle, completely ignoring his friend with brutal, single-minded concentration.
—"Shut up and eat, Kazuo. This is high gastronomy. It's an investment, not blackmail," —Kenji muttered, wiping the edge of his mouth with the sleeve of his oversized sweatshirt.
—"It is gourmet blackmail!" —Kazuo loudly protested—. "Your trauma forbids you from table tennis, but your addiction forces you to exercise. It's the most messed-up, pathetic life cycle I've ever seen! And the best part is, you like it! You're a masochist in his prime!"
Kenji, despite his practiced apathy, had to silently admit Miku had found the ultimate leverage. It was no longer about saving a pointless club; it was about ensuring his daily emotional sustenance. The table tennis club had become merely a means, and the ramen, the coveted end.
Miku's regime was utterly merciless. Training started promptly at 6:00 a.m. Miku looked like she was carved from steel, charged with a determination that made the air around her visibly vibrate. Her Crimson Lightning Aura shimmered faintly, a constant engine fueled by her pure, unadulterated frustration.
—"Let's go, Yoshida! You have to move like the Dean himself is chasing your scholarship!" —Miku shouted, clutching a stopwatch like it was a deadly weapon.
Kenji stretched with an offensive, deliberate slowness. He wore his baggy sweatshirt, intent on appearing as maximally inefficient as possible.
The first ordeal: Lateral Runs.
Miku demanded speed and sweat, wanting nothing less. But Kenji gave her "thermodynamic efficiency." He moved like a practiced skater, almost gliding his feet instead of lifting them, minimizing muscle expenditure. He pivoted with a slight hip rotation that cleverly utilized momentum, rather than brute force.
—"Don't you dare glide, you utter idiot! Stop!" —Miku kicked a cone over in utter frustration—. "You have to lift your knees! You have to feel the burn! Don't slack off, push yourself, idiot!"
Kenji halted, slightly out of breath, but frustratingly dry.
—"I'm not slacking off, Senpai. I'm simply optimizing my center of gravity and utilizing inertia. It's the path of least effort to complete your order; I simply don't wish to waste energy unnecessarily," —Kenji replied with a flat, impossibly condescending tone.
Miku was absolutely incandescent with rage. "Damn it! He's a prodigy using his entire intellect to be lazy! It's a literal offense to my passion! I'm going to make him regret he was ever born!" Her Strategic Fire Eyes flared, helping her devise a new plan: if she couldn't tire his body, she had to strategically overload his mind.
—"Fine! We'll see if your 'logic' can back you up in the next exercise!" —Miku dragged him toward the light reflex machine.
The Secret Awakening of the Broken Eye
The machine's lights blinked at a truly inhuman speed. Kenji began to hit the buttons. At first, his body was slow to react. But when the stopwatch hit the danger zone (total, absolute humiliation), his mind suddenly activated in a brilliant burst of self-defense.
His Broken Eyes focused sharply, his pupils slightly faceted. He wasn't reacting to the light as it turned on; his brain, operating at an unimaginable, blinding speed, was calculating the algorithm and the precise probability of the flash. He saw a tangible thread of light connecting the current sequence with the next nanosecond of activation, as if he were actually predicting the exact moment the light would appear.
Kenji moved his hand to the spot, and an instant later, the light came on. It wasn't a reaction; it was pure vision—or, as he knew it, the Visión Cero.
Miku shut down the machine, utterly stunned. The monitor displayed an unbreakable, professional-level record.
—"This is impossible! Are you reading the machine's programming?!" —Miku glared at him in fury—. "How the hell can you make that calculation so fast?!"
—"It's strictly logic, Senpai. Technology is quite predictable," —Kenji lied, though his mind was searing from the effort. The mental exertion was exhausting, but it was infinitely preferable to physical effort.
Miku managed a slow, hungry smile. "A lazy prodigy doesn't serve my purpose. But a brain that functions like a supercomputer does. I'll force him to play, regardless of his trauma."
Kenji's "training" quickly became the main source of gossip and the central entertainment for the dwindling club. Kazuo, naturally, had to document everything for his "sports psychology blog."
—"I can't believe it! This idiot uses 100% of his talent just to get more sleep!" —Kazuo whispered to one of the few remaining club members, while Kenji drank water. "He's the most useless and the most prodigious person I've ever met!"
Miku approached Kazuo.
—"Put that phone down, Kudo. We need to have a serious talk," —Miku turned to Kenji, who was drinking water. The few club members approached out of pure curiosity.
—"Look, Kenji's calculation ability is brutal. He manages to predict the machine's failure with a ridiculous margin of error. He's a supercomputer," —Miku explained, her Crimson Lightning Aura flaring just from the frustration Kenji caused her.
Kazuo, his eyes shining, almost dropped his notebook.
—"It's not 'calculation ability,' Senpai! It's something way cooler!" —Kazuo struck a dramatic pose—. "I've analyzed it! That empty gaze he gets, that total calm! He's not seeing the game, he's seeing the absence of the game—the only way he doesn't have to move! We'll call it... Visión Cero! Or Zero Eye!"
Kenji, hearing the shonen name, felt a jolt of alarm. "Damn it. The idiot named it. And I like it. No, no, no. It's just statistics..."
—"It's a stupid name, Kazuo. It's just logic," —Kenji murmured, returning to his manufactured apathy.
—"It's epic, Kenji! The Visión Cero of the lazy prodigy!" —Kazuo insisted.
Miku clicked her tongue.
—"Whatever you call it, that thing is our only card left. Dean Shindo gave us an ultimatum. One month, and if we don't show 'good enough results,' the club closes down."
Kenji drank water slowly, deliberately.
—"And... how does that affect my daily ramen feast?"
Miku felt the vein in her forehead was about to burst, but she managed to control her anger.
—"Are you completely stupid?! If the club closes, you lose your daily ramen for life!" —Miku approached—. "The Dean left us one last chance: the Mixed Doubles tournament at the end of the month."
Kazuo intervened with overdramatic flair.
—"The Mixed Doubles! A challenge of synchronicity and faith! Kenji has to trust you, Miku-senpai!"
—"The contract doesn't include playing, neither in mixed doubles nor in individual games, let that be perfectly clear!" —Kenji protested.
—"The contract obligates you to be by my side," —Miku smiled, a cold, calculating grimace—. "You play, Yoshida. Or rather, I'm going to use you to play. I'm signing you up as a Secret Reserve Player. You won't touch the racket if you don't want to, but you will train with me at the table. I need you to cover the agility and, above all, to use that Visión Cero to read the opponent for me. You are my shadow, my reflection, my weapon."
The club members murmured nervously. Playing doubles without one of the players touching the racket? It was utterly absurd.
—"If we fail... your ramen is over," —Miku finished, her voice a low threat.
Kenji felt a shiver run down his spine. The fear of losing the food was immediate and real, but the fear of failing again was an abyss. His mind entered a chaotic war of risk calculation. "The threat is real. The ramen is real. I'll have to risk using the Visión Cero. But never the racket."
Miku gave him no time to answer.
—"To the table, Yoshida!" —Miku dragged him to the playing line—. "Today is psychological resistance."
Kenji instantly petrified. The Broken Crystal Wall immediately wrapped around him. The gray static and the paralyzing cold cut off the sound of the gym.
—"I can't... Stop," —Kenji gasped. The trauma was a purely physical force.
—"Enough with the nonsense!" —Miku let go of him.
Kenji opened his eyes just as Miku was about to launch a full-power attack.
In that instant of total panic, the Visión Cero violently ignited. His mind, instead of collapsing, focused on the game's sole point of survival. He saw Miku, not as a person, but as an imperfect trajectory algorithm.
And the calculation screamed: "Error! It's going to fall a millimeter outside the line!"
Miku, feeling the brutal intensity of Kenji's gaze, sensed a jolt of doubt that wasn't hers. She instinctively corrected the shot, and the ball landed perfectly, right on the edge of the line.
Miku turned, her Crimson Lightning Aura dissipating. Kenji was pale, trembling visibly.
—"What... what was that?" —Miku asked, using a tone of genuine astonishment, not anger.
—"I just saw... I was watching how you play," —Kenji lied.
Miku stepped closer to him. It was the first time she had touched him without fury. "He just corrected my mistake by simply looking at me. He's a monster. And he is completely broken." Miku felt a sudden, unexpected surge of protection.
—"Listen, Yoshida," —Miku touched his shoulder—. "You owe me a month. I'm going to save this club, and you are going to eat the best ramen for life. I'm not going to force you to touch that thing... but you are going to learn to be by my side."
—"Understood, Senpai," —Kenji said, feeling the void of panic and the gnawing hunger.
The Empress had found her secret weapon. Kenji Yoshida had signed his return to hell.