Chapter-23: Rias Gremory and Kenpachi ZarakiRose shifted slightly in her seat, her posture still poised and graceful, but there was an uling gleam in her eyes—a mixture of amusement and serioushat made Kuro’s stomach tighten. He braced himself instinctively, knowing that whatever she was about to say would only plicate matters further.

  “There is another matter we must discuss,” Rose said, her voice cool and deliberate, as if sav the tension in the air.

  Kuro raised an eyebrow, feeling a mixture of disbelief and growing unease. “What now?” he asked, though he feared the answer.

  Rose’s lips curled into a faint, knowing smirk, the kind that suggested she was fully aware of the impact her words would have. “Your panions—Reika and Xero. Have you ever wondered why their abilities feel... unique?” she asked, her tone almost pyful, but with an uohat made Kuro sit up straighter.

  Kuro frowned, his mind already rag. “Unique? Yeah, They’re strong, sure, but this world is full of unique people because of their Kekkei Genkai or Kekkei Tota. But… What are you getting at?”

  Rose’s smile widened, but it was the kind of smile that felt uling—there was somethih it that made Kuro feel as though he was about to be exposed to some deeply hidden truth. “They aren’t simply people from this world,” she said, her voice carrying a trausement as though she were speaking to a child who had yet to grasp the full extent of the situation. “They are modeled after characters from your world.”

  Kuro blinked, his mind grinding to a halt. “e again?” he asked, utterly stunned. His brain refused to process what she had just said, as if it couldn’t accept the words in front of him.

  Rose’s smirk widehough her voice remained calm, no loinged with amusement, but with a quiet authority that sent a shiver down Kuro’s spine. “Reika draws inspiration from Rias Gremory, a character you know well. Her personality, her powers, even her presence—everything is a refle of that in. Simirly, Xero embodies traits of Kenpachi Zaraki, anure from your own world’s anime, LN or manga character.”

  The revetion hit Kuro like a punch to the gut, the world around him blurring for a moment. His thoughts scrambled as he tried to process the staggeri of her words. “You’re telling me... they’re not real?” His voice came out as a hoarse whisper, disbelief creeping in as he struggled to uand what Rose was saying.

  “They are as real as you are in this world,” Rose corrected him, her gaze unwavering, calm despite the storm of emotions ing in Kuro’s chest. “But their essence is derived from cepts you already uand. This was no ce. The system desighem to be your allies, knowing their potential would plement your mission.”

  So, now that Kuro’s really thinking about it, Reika’s red hair and, well, her twin mountains are kind of giving him serious Rias Gremory vibes. He never o that together—like, not even o’s almost like the universe didn’t want him to notice. Meanwhile, Xero? Man, that guy's rog the same hair and bells, plus ach that’s straight out of Kenpachi Zaraki’s pybook. Kuro's over here like, Damn, how did I not see that ing? It's like these characters are straight-up pulling from anime cssics, and he's just now catg on.

  Kuro shook his head in disbelief, as if doing so might somehow undo the truth she had just revealed. “And their powers? Are they limited by this world’s rules?” he asked, his mind desperate for any form of crification, some expnation that might help him make sense of the chaotic flood of revetions he was drowning in.

  “For now,” Rose said, her eyes glinting with something that could only be described as knowing. “But their true strength lies dormant. If you help them unlock it, they will bee forces to be reed with.” Her words hung in the air, heavy with the weight of possibilities Kuro hadn’t yet begun to prehend.

  Kuro’s frustration boiled beh the surface, uo stay tained for much longer. His thoughts were a tangled mess of anger and fusion. “Why me?” he spat, the words bitter in his mouth. “Why saddle me with this responsibility? I didn’t ask for any of this.” The rese in his voice alpable. He hadn’t asked to be thrust into a world of dangerous missions, secret anizations, or iflicts. He had just wao survive—no, to find some sembnce of normalcy. But here he was, tangled in a web of fate, with no way out.

  Rose’s expression softehough her eyes remained sharp arating. “Because you are capable, Kuro. You may doubt yourself, but the system does not. It chose you because you have the potential to succeed where others would fail.” Her voice was gentle, almost soothing, but the words carried an undeniable authority, a quiet vi that Kuro couldn’t ignore.

  Kuro stared at her, his mind a whirl of flig emotions. His hands ched into fists at his sides, and his throat felt tight, like he couldn’t quite catch his breath. He didn’t respond immediately, too overwhelmed by the truth that had just been id bare before him. Instead, his thoughts swirled with questions he wasn’t yet ready to ask, questions that he feared would tear apart whatever fragile sense of trol he had left.

  The void around them seemed to stretch, the silence growing heavier as Kuro tried to e to terms with everything Rose had revealed. The idea that Reika and Xero were somehow ected to people from his world—people who existed only in the fial space of stories—was a cept sn, so absurd, that Kuro couldn’t fully grasp it. He had fought alongside them, relied orusted them. A, now, Rose’s words forced him to see them in airely new light.

  Before Kuro could gather himself enough to speak, the void around them began to shift. The table, the chairs, and Rose herself dissolved into nothingness, as if they had never existed at all. The bess that had surrouhem evaporated just as suddenly, leaving Kuro in a state of disorientation. The sensation was overwhelming, as though the very fabric of reality was being ripped away and then hastily restructed in an instant.

  Kuro blinked rapidly, trying to adjust his eyes to the ge. His heart pounded in his chest, and for a brief moment, he felt as though the grouh him had disappeared entirely. But then, as quickly as it had begun, the bess was gone. Kuro found himself ba his seat, the familiar sights and sounds of the inn flooding bato his senses, grounding him. He was back—back to the world he knew, but everything had ged. The notification s that had once hovered before him was gone, as if it had never been there in the first pce. His wooden sword rested against the wall nearby, untouched, as if the entire versation had been a strange, disorienting dream.

  Kuro gnced around the room, his gaze nding on Reika and Xero, who were sitting across from him. They were engaged in quiet versation, their expressions calm and posed despite the chaos of the day. But Kuro’s chest tightened as he thought of Rose’s revetion. They’re modeled after people from my world, he thought, the realization still settling uneasily in his mind. And they don’t even know it.