After Transmigrating to Become Lady Skylark - Chapter 45

Chapter 45

“Try the other magazines.”

After waiting a moment without receiving a reply from Jin Chaoyan, the man took it as her consent and stepped back from behind her. It was only as his warmth receded and the cold air from the central conditioning hit her that she realized exactly how close and ambiguous their distance had been.

However, Kyoya Hibari gave her no room for romantic fantasies. He took the weapon from her palm, walked to the table, opened the silver case, and took out a box of new magazines.

Simultaneously, the Cloud Ring on his right middle finger ignited with flames. The magazine he held emitted ripples of purple light, like ripples on a lake, steadily absorbing the flames he released.

Holding the handgun, he lightly struck the magazine housing against his other palm to release the latch. Just as the original magazine popped out, Jin Chaoyan suddenly spoke:

“Wait.”

She stared at his movements without blinking. “You said earlier that all demonstrations would only be shown once, right?”

Hibari gave a slight nod. Almost the exact same second he confirmed his answer, Jin Chaoyan finished purchasing the newly listed [Sharingan] from the damn system store—a store that never missed a chance to make a quick buck by offering products priced by the second.

Compared to [Tsukuyomi] or [Amaterasu], a basic Sharingan was practically a bargain.

Clearance Sale: 10,000 Yen/Second

Jin Chaoyan bought it without hesitation. When she closed her eyes and reopened them, her violet eyes had turned into red Sharingan eyes with tomoe. She looked back at Hibari’s hands. “I’m ready. Could you please demonstrate the disassembly and the use of all functional magazines one more time?”

Seeing her eyes suddenly turn scarlet, Hibari raised an eyebrow slightly. Had he not sensed the absence of any illusionary aura, he might have been unable to suppress his killing intent upon seeing that eye color.

Without a word, he detached the magazine and replaced it with a new one. The moment it snapped shut, he raised the handgun with one hand, ignored the recoil, and fired at another target—

Bang!

A single bullet split into multiple warheads in mid-air, each dancing along unpredictable trajectories before all hitting the exact same aiming point.

“This magazine makes the bullet’s trajectory impossible to predict mid-flight.”

After a brief introduction, he repeated the process with the next magazine. The flame infused this time was different—an indigo blue. One could hear the sound of the bullet flying, but no trace was visible until it struck the goal.

Fortunately, with her Sharingan active, Jin Chaoyan could see the thin layer of Mist flames covering the bullet.

“This magazine uses the Mist attribute to conceal the trajectory.”

He listed them one by one. The types and combinations of magazines were so numerous they made Jin Chaoyan’s head spin. Had she not had her store cheat active, she would be standing there slack-jawed, watching this combat genius perform a personal show while assuming everyone else was a genius like him.

After demonstrating the different magazine functions, the man even disassembled and reassembled the handgun right in front of her. The parts moved like magic from zero to whole and back to zero. Then, he turned sideways and said naturally:

“Your turn.”

The woman nodded, not at all intimidated. In a state where the Sharingan had recorded every operation, she replicated his demonstration with identical movements. However, due to the recoil, she used the two-handed grip he had taught her.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The bullseye in the distance was hit by consecutive bullets. The person who didn’t even know how to hold a gun moments ago was now like a marksman trained for years, perfectly recreating a professional shooting posture and achieving beautiful scores.

Kyoya Hibari watched her expression—so different from her usual weak and harmless self—and the light in his grey-blue eyes brightened. He couldn’t help but say, “Wao.”

As the training room fell silent, with only smoke drifting from the distant targets, the man’s smile was obvious. He announced decisively: “Training plan adjustment—”

He asked, “What ability is it this time?”

“Sharingan,” Jin Chaoyan replied instinctively. She was surprised by her own unguarded answer but didn’t want to bother hiding it, so she explained along the way. “When activated, it can see through illusions and copy any technique it sees.”

She then added somewhat sheepishly, “But this is charged by the second, and it’s quite expensive. Do you have anything else you need to teach me all at once?”

“What?”

Basement level nine.

Sawada Tsuna, who had just finished special training with Lal Mirch, deactivated his Dying Will Flame state. He listened blankly to the news delivered by Kusakabe, even struggling to repeat it: “You’re saying… Hibari-senpai wants to borrow this training ground for five minutes to have a fight with Reborn… as a demonstration for Chaoyan-san?”

What on earth was going on?

Hibari-senpai fighting Reborn?

And Chaoyan-san couldn’t even light a flame, right? How could a battle of this level serve as a teaching demonstration?

He was profoundly shocked and found it incomprehensible. But Tetsuya Kusakabe was only responsible for delivering the message; he couldn’t explain why Kyo-san had made such a terrifying decision after taking his wife to the training ground for only a short while.

Lal Mirch, however, thought for a moment and said, “It’s for the best. I haven’t seen Reborn fight in a long time. This is a good opportunity. Sawada, we’ll stay and watch. Whether you can learn anything from an exchange between experts of their caliber is up to you.”

Sawada Tsuna: “?”

He made a “straight man” face, recalling the scenes of being beaten up and down by Hibari every day during training, then thinking of Reborn’s tiny stature. He couldn’t even imagine how this fight would start.

Just then, the elevator opened with a ding. “Juudaime!”

Gokudera, with his hair tied back and wearing glasses, had a cat perched on his head. He stepped out with Yamamoto, who was carrying a bamboo sword. “Yo, Tsuna.”

“Why are you guys here too?” Tsuna looked at his partners in surprise; they were supposed to be doing their own training.

Yamamoto scratched his hair with a bright smile. “Couldn’t help it. When Hibari came, I was training with the kid. I was curious—”

“Yeah,” Gokudera nodded, crossing his arms and looking around. “Me too. Sis was bringing them snacks, heard their conversation, and mentioned it to me. Though my training isn’t finished, at the thought of a battle between Reborn-san and that Hibari…”

He felt it would be a shame to miss it.

However, Hayato Gokudera remembered the second half of what Bianchi had repeated and couldn’t help but frown. “But what does this have to do with Hibari’s wife?”

Recalling how Jin Chaoyan couldn’t even light a ring flame when they last met, Gokudera had no idea what this Hibari from ten years later was thinking.

While they talked, the elevator opened again. This time, Bianchi, Fuuta, and Ryohei arrived.

Finally, in the last trip—

The main characters who were borrowing the training ground arrived.

When Reborn stepped out, he glanced around, pulled down the brim of his hat, and smirked. “You’re all here.”

“Of course, Reborn! Why are you and Hibari-senpai suddenly going to fight?” Sawada Tsuna immediately walked toward him, his expression full of worry.

Kyoya Hibari and Jin Chaoyan trailed slightly behind. As they stepped out, the woman saw the crowd of spectators lined up against the wall near the elevator and couldn’t help but smile. “How lively.”

Hearing her words, the man’s brow furrowed. Fortunately, the opponent he was about to face was more attractive; he could choose to ignore the gathered group.

On the other side.

The questioned Reborn smiled at Tsuna. “Because I owed Hibari a favor for having him perform the Vongola Boss Trial on you. Of course, that’s not the main reason I agreed to fight him.”

As he spoke, his large black eyes looked at the figure walking with Hibari. “It’s just that he promised me this fight would only use one Cloud Ring. Once the ring shatters, the battle ends immediately.”

For the aloof “Floating Cloud” who adhered to the principle of “when I want to fight, I must fight to my heart’s content,” the fact that he was willing to set such a rule—constraining his own battle lust just to give a teaching demonstration for someone else—made Reborn curious about his wife.

With that, Leon on his black fedora transformed into Reborn’s favorite green CZ-75 handgun. He headed toward the man already standing in the center of the training room.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Hibari.”

“Baby,” the man’s lips curled up. He watched Reborn approach, his grey-blue eyes shining with unprecedented battle intent like the edge of a blade. His tone was gentle, yet he released a powerful killing intent that whipped up a gale in the room. “Make sure I enjoy this for a while.”

“You too—”

Reborn tapped the brim of his hat with his gun. “Facing you as you are now, it’s hard for me to hold back. I haven’t stretched my muscles like this in a long time. You’d better keep me entertained.”

Amidst the gale of killing intent, Jin Chaoyan heard them use the gentlest tones to say the most aggressive things. As the hair on her arms stood up, Hibari ignited his ring and opened his Box to retrieve his tonfas. Purple Cloud flames spread like a heatwave as he charged!

“I can’t… see them at all…”

Hayato Gokudera raised a hand to shield himself from the dust and wind kicked up by the violent fighting. He gritted his teeth, trying to catch the movements of Hibari and Reborn. Overwhelmed by their scattered killing intent, he murmured in awe: “…Reborn-san, and this Hibari guy… they’re so strong…”

“Tsuna!”

Yamamoto Takeshi grabbed Sawada Tsuna, who was almost hit by a flying rock fragment. Distracted for a moment, he looked back at the battlefield. “But their fighting is really terrifying. Under these conditions, can Chaoyan see clearly?”

As he asked, Tsuna and Gokudera both turned their gazes, trying to find Jin Chaoyan among the spectators. To their surprise, the woman standing alone in a corner was watching ahead without blinking, her head even turning instinctively to follow their combat trajectories.

“What’s with those eyes of hers?”

Gokudera hadn’t forgotten the striking change in her eyes when she stepped out of the elevator. He felt it was bizarre. “It couldn’t be the same as that Rokudo Mukuro guy, could it?”

“…It’s different.”

Sawada Tsuna instinctively refuted him, then looked dazed himself. He added blankly, “The feeling she gives is completely different from Mukuro.”

As his voice fell—

Crack.

The sound of a ring shattering rang out. Jin Chaoyan saw two golden lights suddenly sprout from the ground beneath Hibari’s feet. They crossed upwards from below, grazing his cheek. The moment his movement was frozen, Reborn’s killing intent vanished, and he reminded with a smile:

“It’s over, Hibari.”

Because the tonfas lost the power guided by the ring, the large area of Cloud flames covering them suddenly extinguished. He was frozen by the bullets that had just emerged from the ground. Even though the battle had reached its most thrilling moment, he had to stop due to the ring’s limitation. He narrowed his eyes unhappily.

But after ten seconds, he still raised his right hand, waved a tonfa, and closed his eyes. When he reopened them, his phoenix eyes, bright with residual killing intent, locked onto Jin Chaoyan’s position:

“Did you see clearly?”

The person being stared at shuddered and nodded like a chick pecking at grain, then shook her head. “No, the move where Reborn-san fired bullets into the ground and had them pop up with a delay—I saw it, but I don’t quite understand it.”

“That is my ultimate move, Chaos Shot,” Reborn smiled as he walked toward the crowd, his childish voice full of matter-of-fact pride. “How could it be learned so easily?”

Jin Chaoyan nodded, marvelling, “So amazing.”

Meanwhile, Hibari had already taken out a fourth ring from his suit jacket. Putting it on his middle finger, he looked at her. “Then, your turn.”

“?”

As a question mark popped up over Jin Chaoyan’s head, the spectators were even more bewildered.

Sasagawa Ryohei, whose competitive spirit had been ignited by their fight, couldn’t help but say, “Hey, Hibari, did you get carried away?”

Sawada Tsuna looked back and forth between him and Jin Chaoyan, saying worriedly, “This won’t work, right? Hibari-senpai, Chaoyan-san hasn’t even learned how to light a flame…”

Until a moment ago, he thought Hibari’s training for him was the most demonic. Now, about to witness this “domestic violence” scene, his palms were sweating.

Lal Mirch frowned, and Bianchi and Fuuta also looked concerned. But before they could speak, Reborn, who had just fought Hibari, spoke up:

“All of you, shut up.”

“He has more restraint than you. Just watch quietly.”

As Jin Chaoyan walked toward Hibari under everyone’s gaze, she truly hadn’t expected this result. Her face remained stiff for a long time. She instinctively stared at the Cloud Ring between his fingers. “You… you surely won’t need to light a fire just to hit me, right?”

Help, help, he’s holding the tonfas, it’s so scary!

Hearing her voice tremble with nerves, Hibari couldn’t help but chuckle. He nodded. “I can go without using flames.”

That said, the shiny body of the tonfas without flames, combined with his strength, still gave off an incomparable sense of pressure.

He met the woman’s scarlet eyes. After a moment, to ease her pressure, he stated the goal of the test: “Ten seconds. If you can dodge all my attacks or hit the corner of my clothes, you pass.”

Then, he gave her room to refuse. “Whether to start is up to you to decide.”

Having seen him suppress his battle intent earlier and not quite fight to his content with Reborn, and seeing him now waiting quietly and giving her the power of choice, Jin Chaoyan suddenly couldn’t bear to let his good intentions go to waste.

—Besides, her “romance-brain” really did need a wake-up call.

Noticing Sasagawa Ryohei standing by the sidelines with Sun healing abilities, she turned back and said one last thing: “Um, if you do hit me, can you just make it quick and knock me out?”

“Mhm.”

After Hibari replied, the smile vanished from his eyes. He suddenly called her name calmly: “Jin Chaoyan.”

The woman, startled by the sudden address: “Eh?”

“You are stronger than you think,” he said.

Completely unexpected of him to use an encouraging tactic, Jin Chaoyan’s eyes widened. She felt that if there were a referee, he would definitely be called for a foul.

She took a deep breath, relaxed her limbs, and kept the Sharingan active. Reborn’s attack movements were still branded into her body. Drawing the silver handgun from her waist, Jin Chaoyan nodded and said, “Let’s start.”

Kyoya Hibari rapidly closed the distance between them. The moment he reached her front and swung a tonfa, Sawada Tsuna, who had endured the force of such a strike, shuddered and instinctively covered his cheek.

This man’s title of “Strongest Guardian” was no empty name. Facing ordinary enemies, he was a one-hit killer. He had no openings, and his close-combat strength was invincible. Attacks without a single wasted motion made defense seem impossible.

Bang—

Jin Chaoyan fired a shot at the ground. Purple flames erupted from the muzzle, generating propulsion. She performed a move she normally never could: she leaped backward lightly, arched her waist, and even did a backflip, fluently dodging the swing.

“Eh?”

Lal Mirch, watching the fight, scrutinized her form. She didn’t think such a movement could be performed by someone who hadn’t trained at all and whose muscle and cell strength hadn’t been developed.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” Reborn, held in Bianchi’s arms at some point, smirked. “Clearly an ordinary person who has never experienced combat, yet she can instantly activate her body’s full potential and perfectly replicate my movements.”

But Kyoya Hibari did not slow his offensive just because that one attack missed. He pursued her, swinging with his other hand. The body of the tonfa clashed with a metallic clang against the barrel she held with both hands. In the next instant, the trigger was pulled with the gun pointed directly at him:

Bang!

The moment the purple Cloud flames exploded toward his face, he used his strength to tilt the muzzle up with his tonfa, and the flames flew into the ceiling above!

As rocks poured down, Jin Chaoyan took the opportunity to retreat. With a movement that surprised the onlookers, she quickly ejected the magazine with one hand and reached for her waist. Before she could load a new one, the man easily knocked aside the falling rocks obstructing him and came at her through the chaotic dust:

“It’s over—”

She saw the smile on his lips.

Struggling to keep her eyes open, her eyes were wide, nearly tearing up from prolonged use of her ability. But just then, a gunshot could still be heard:

Bang!

Hibari’s movement paused. He saw several bullets carrying Cloud flames suddenly swerve from behind her toward him. He could only raise his tonfa to block the successive attacks!

It was then he saw the spare handgun hidden under the clothes at her waist, now held in her other hand. The corners of his lips couldn’t help but rise even higher. He discarded the tonfa that had become bent and unusable from blocking the Cloud flames.

Simultaneously, the ring on his right hand ignited, immediately covering the remaining weapon in soaring purple flames. He raised his hand toward the person who, busy aiming in the air, had no time to steady her landing. The wind whistled. Realizing she couldn’t dodge this time, she closed her eyes before she could even land steadily.

—The tonfa stopped in front of her eyes.

The ignited purple light blazed endlessly. Even through her eyelids, she could seemingly feel that searing heat. A force supported her waist. Jin Chaoyan peeked open her eyes to find the man gazing at her through the purple fire, his smile full of life:

“Ten seconds are up,” he said.

Then, the flames on the tonfa extinguished. He helped her stand steady, glancing at the flames on his ring. “It’s not that I violated the rules; it’s that you got me excited.”

“…”

Hearing such gentle, ambiguous words that sounded like a confession, Jin Chaoyan’s expression was complex.

It was hard for her to understand this style where the harder these battle-maniacs fought, the flirtier their talk became.

Kyoya Hibari looked into her eyes. “Can you remember the battle just now without using that?”

“…I’ll try.”

As Jin Chaoyan spoke, she turned off the Sharingan subscription. Almost instantly, feelings of fatigue, soreness, and cramps flooded her all at once. She felt as though her entire body had been run over repeatedly by a truck. It hurt so much she couldn’t even walk; she fell forward.

“You twisted your ankle when you landed just now.”

Hibari put away his weapon with the Box in one hand and caught her with the other. Then, he picked her up in a bridal carry, thinking thoughtfully, “Has the body already been developed to its limit?” So even if she could copy others’ movements, she could no longer mobilize more stamina to reach perfection.

Jin Chaoyan: “?”

She was in so much pain she could barely control her expression, yet she squeezed words through her teeth to remind him, “Please, can you speak normally?”

She was really scared when he was like this!

On the other side.

The ten seconds that felt incredibly long for Jin Chaoyan on the battlefield hadn’t been much time for the others. The spectators watched dumbstruck as Jin Chaoyan and Hibari had a brief back-and-forth exchange. Before they could even process how she had done it, they were faced with the image of Hibari walking over carrying her.

Sawada Tsuna: =口=!

He still couldn’t forget the image of Hibari-senpai gently picking someone up!

It was completely different from the style where Hibari would unhesitatingly land a tonfa blow every time Tsuna showed a weakness!

What kind of dog food (romantic display) was this!

Gokudera stared at Jin Chaoyan, racking his brain to figure out how she had done it. Yamamoto, however, said in surprise, “Eh, did her eyes change back to violet?”

“Is it some kind of multiple personality?” Gokudera pondered deeply. “For example, the first personality is for normal life, and the second is for fighting?”

Reborn, the calmest person there, smiled. From Bianchi’s arms, he said, “Seeing such an interesting battle, my coming here wasn’t in vain. Hibari, your wife is very interesting.”

Kyoya Hibari smiled slightly and nodded. “I think so too.”

—Like he was showing off a treasure he had found.

Sawada Tsuna burped, or so he thought.

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