My Scumbag System Chapter 690: The Financially Invested Girlfriend

Akari Miyamoto materialized in the hallway on my left, because Akari Miyamoto had an almost supernatural talent for knowing exactly when and where to stage an ambush. She had that predatory instinct—the kind that made her appear casual, effortless, like she just happened to be there by coincidence. Her tan skin practically glowed under the harsh fluorescent lights, a sun-kissed bronze that made her look like she’d just returned from a tropical vacation rather than crawling out of bed in the Onyx Hounds’ dorm. Her long, jet-black hair fell in perfect, silky waves past her shoulders, and those emerald green eyes of hers did that slow, lazy sweep across my frame—the kind of look that was simultaneously appraising and inviting, assessing both threat and opportunity in the same breath.

She wore the NVA uniform like it was a suggestion rather than a mandate. Her blazer hung open, deliberately careless, revealing a white blouse underneath that had exactly one button undone past what the dress code allowed. It was a calculated transgression, subtle enough to avoid official censure but blatant enough to draw the eye. And she knew it. She absolutely knew it.

"Daddy’s home," she purred, her voice dropping into that sultry register she wielded like a weapon.

"Don’t," I said flatly, not breaking stride.

"You’re no fun." She slid into step beside me with that characteristic hip-swinging gait, the kind that made her look like she was perpetually on a runway. She positioned herself close—uncomfortably close—so that her shoulder bumped against my arm every third stride, a constant tactile reminder of her presence. "You owe me forty thousand credits."

"I owe you nothing."

"I bet against the field on you coming back alive," she said, examining her perfectly manicured nails with the kind of casual indifference that only came from someone who’d already counted her winnings. "Offshore book, six different accounts, terrible odds because everyone in this house is a pessimist except me and Hikari." She glanced up at me, her smile widening into something sharp and triumphant. "I made a fortune on your survival, Satori. An absolute fortune. That makes me your most financially invested girlfriend, which I feel should come with certain privileges."

"It comes with the privilege of not having to explain to Natalia why you bet on my death as a hedge," I said dryly.

Akari’s smile didn’t falter—not even for a microsecond—but it did sharpen, the corners of her lips curling up just a fraction higher, transforming it from playful to dangerous. "I would never."

"You absolutely did."

"Two percent," she admitted with a casual shrug, as if betting on my demise was the most reasonable financial strategy in the world. "For balance. A girl diversifies her portfolio."

Say what you wanted about Akari Miyamoto. She was a compulsive liar who wove elaborate fictions for everyone about everything—her intentions, her feelings, her plans. But when it came to money? Money, she was scrupulously, almost religiously honest about. Numbers didn’t lie, and neither did she when credits were on the line. I found that genuinely, unexpectedly soothing. It was a fixed point in her sea of deception.

"Gate run in three days," I said, cutting through the banter. "You’re on the reserve rotation with your sister."

Akari stopped walking. Just stopped, dead in her tracks, her entire body going still in a way that was deeply uncharacteristic for someone who seemed to be in perpetual, languid motion. "Reserve," she repeated, her tone dangerously flat. "Excuse me?"

"Beta team," I clarified. "Isabelle’s calling it."

"I’m a chain user in a B-Rank Blue Gate with heavy melee spawn projections," she said, each word clipped and precise, her casual mask slipping just enough to reveal the competitive steel underneath. "I’m crowd control, and I’m good at it, and you know I’m good at it."

"I do know," I agreed.

"So?" she demanded, her emerald eyes narrowing.

"So Hikari’s on Alpha, and you two lose your minds when the other one’s in danger," I said, holding her gaze. "Split you across teams and you both fight worse—you’re watching her back instead of your sector, she’s listening for your chains instead of the enemy. Keep you together on reserve and you’re the hammer I drop when the first plan inevitably dies." I tilted my head slightly, letting that sink in. "Which it will. It always does."

Akari studied my face for a long, quiet moment, her expression unreadable. Then, slowly, she laughed—a low, delighted sound that started in her chest and bubbled up into something genuine and warm. She reached up and placed one perfectly manicured finger against my chest, right over my heart, the touch light but deliberate.

"You’ve gotten better at this," she murmured, her voice taking on a note of genuine appreciation.

"At what?" I asked.

"Telling me no in a way I can’t argue with." She tapped twice, the gesture almost affectionate, before pulling her hand back. "It’s very attractive. I hate it."

My phone rang while I was climbing the stairs.

REYNA.

I took it in my room with the door shut and Bartholomew observing from his terrarium with the flat indifference of a creature who cannot die and therefore cannot be impressed.

"You’re alive," Reyna said. No greeting. Just that, in her voice with the accent that slid between two languages when she stopped policing it.

"I’m alive."

"Three days, pendejo. Three days and one text that said busy."

"It was a comprehensive text."

"It was four words." Something moved on her end. Sheets, maybe. "I could feel it, you know. Not the way Kuzmina feels it, I don’t have a magic necklace. But there was a moment two nights ago where the hair on my arms went up and every light in my room flickered and I thought, that idiot is doing something and I’m three hundred miles away."

"How’s the arm?"

"Ninety-two percent channel reconstruction. Doctors say another week before I can pull real voltage." A pause. "Don’t change the subject."

"I got stronger."

"How much stronger?"

"Enough that when we do this again it’s going to be a very different conversation."

Reyna went quiet. I could hear her breathing.

Then, softly, "You have a Gate coming."

"Braxton pulled the contract. B-Rank. My team, my call."

"Take it seriously."

"I always do."

"You never do. You throw yourself at it grinning like a lunatic and let people hit you because it makes you stronger, and one day somebody’s going to hit you with something you can’t convert." Her voice cracked, just barely, and she covered it with a rough laugh. "Veronica wants to know if you’ve decided about the alliance."

"Tell Veronica I’ll answer after the Gate."

"She’ll say that’s not an answer."

"It’s the only one she’s getting."

"Good." I could hear her smiling. "Never let her think she’s driving."

I sat down on the edge of my bed and looked at the ceiling and thought about how absurd it was that I’d spent eighteen years in a body nobody wanted and now there were six women in three cities who all wanted to know if I’d eaten.

"Reyna."

"Mm."

"Thank you for calling."

"Where else would I be," she said.

The line went dead.

Maki poured out of my shadow and onto the bed, human, naked, entirely unbothered.

"You have collected a great many females," she observed, and yawned. "Do you know how many of them are going to be in that Gate with you?"

"Six of mine and eleven other disasters."

"Then it should be very entertaining." She curled against my hip and her twin tails wrapped around my wrist like a cuff. "Fish afterward. As payment for my silence about the lightning girl."

"You have no silence. You have never once been silent."

"Fish," said Maki, "or I tell Natalia about the shower."