My Infinite Investment System

Chapter 5: The First Return

Ryan woke up with seventeen cents, a burned palm, and enough new hearing to know that Mika was editing his humiliation from the far side of Northstar’s office door.

"Cut before the coffee lands," she told the bartender, laughing, "because the catch looks supernatural if the audience never sees his wrist lose the argument."

Something in his chest went tight about half a second before the second mug slipped out of her hand, so he caught the ceramic while the coffee kept going across his sleeve.

"The miracle remains inconsistent enough to be relatable," Mika said, who had recorded the entire failure.

"You should delete that," Ryan replied, holding the dripping cup at arm’s length.

"It’s already outperforming the club," she said, eyes bright, turning the post around so he could see it.

{Northstar’s new risk consultant saves assets before himself. Training pending.}

The comments had connected him to the repossession overnight and promoted Mystery Suit to Unemployed Boyfriend, then moved on to asking whether Mika was accepting applications for whichever position involved sleeping upstairs.

"I slept in the office," Ryan said, without much hope.

"You can explain that underneath the video," Mika replied, expression entirely unbothered, "every argument is engagement."

His banking app interrupted with a suggested emergency-savings target of one thousand dollars, which Mika dismissed for him before handing the phone back.

"Your bank has started bullying the poor," she said, with a look of real offence.

’It’s not wrong,’ Ryan thought, ’that’s the insulting part.’

A lender notice landed before he could answer, invoking Northstar’s public-safety clause for a noon inspection.

The team was listed as an administrator, a legal observer, then a D-rank enforcer with authority to close the club or seize the regulator if her discharge made the building unsafe.

"They can’t reverse the purchase," Ryan said, expression flattening as he read it twice, "so they’re going to make owning it illegal instead."

"Can you stop the inspection?" Mika asked, jaw setting.

"Not without proving misconduct first," he replied, voice tight.

"Then you handle their paper," she said, with a smile that was mostly teeth, "and I’ll handle what the cameras believe."

Northstar’s staff put phones along the entire inspection route without obstructing one public walkway, while Mika waited past the medical screen in the black-and-pink guild jacket, looking every inch the B-rank the lender wanted to provoke.

The legal observer came in beside an administrator carrying violation forms that had been filled out somewhere else, and behind them walked an enforcer whose disruption tool was far heavier than an inspection needed.

"We’re documenting current conditions only," the observer said, tone carefully neutral.

"Then your report should match the footage," Mika replied, smile bright and entirely without warmth.

Ryan walked the administrator through the receipt and the repair log, which forced him to abandon every allegation the ownership records had already answered.

The enforcer ran out of patience first.

That tightness arrived again, in time for Ryan to catch the man’s thumb shifting before the disruption tool came around toward a bartender.

He crossed the lane and pulled her behind the bar as blue force tore through the space her ribs had been in, though the edge of it caught his shoulder, throwing him over a chair.

"Record the manager’s interference with inspection personnel," the administrator said, without once looking at the bartender.

"Three cameras caught his hand moving before I entered the lane," Ryan replied, forcing himself upright with one arm, "so record the discharge first."

The enforcer stepped over the broken chair and reached for his jacket.

The shoulder turn came early enough to read, which gave Ryan the half-second he needed to trap the man’s wrist against the rail with a support-hunter lever.

For one second, in front of every waiting camera, a D-rank stopped moving.

{one second. he held a D-rank for one entire second}

’That’s it,’ Ryan thought, ’that’s the whole win, and I’m keeping it.’

The man ripped free and punched him across the bar, then the pain arrived afterward, because seeing an attack coming did not make his body durable enough to survive one.

"You should stay down now," the enforcer said, smiling as he raised the tool where every phone could capture restraint turning into an execution.

Ryan tracked the trigger finger, the planted foot, then the exposed shoulder, and saw an opening his F-rank body did not have the strength to buy.

Pink lightning crossed the room before the man could fire.

Mika came in on his blind side, caught his wrist, folded the weapon away, then drove her knee into the back of his leg and put him against the same rail where Ryan’s lever had failed.

Current gathered around her free fist.

The enforcer looked at the cameras and smiled, waiting for an injured B-rank to hand the lender exactly what it had come for.

Mika returned the smile and stopped her charged fist beside his throat without touching him.

"You fired next to my employee," Mika said, voice dropped almost to nothing, "so your next decision determines whether this is misconduct footage or evidence from your hospital room."

His confidence went out as pink current stuttered near her left shoulder, though the stabilised pathway held while she stripped the tool and stepped back under perfect control.

The legal observer reviewed all three angles: the enforcer aiming before Ryan moved, Mika stopping her fist, then the administrator calling interference without checking on the bartender.

"This inspection is suspended pending conduct review, and no safety finding will issue today," the observer said, tone gone very flat as she closed the unsigned forms.

Northstar’s staff waited until the team reached the entrance before they started celebrating, which let Mika follow them out with the cleanest recording already open.

"Withdraw the inspection request and extend the standstill," Mika said, phone raised where he could see the frame, "otherwise every angle reaches hunter labour accounts, local news, then the equipment bureau."

The administrator agreed to recommend both without admitting that public evidence had moved him, and their vehicle left underneath a crowd that had roughly tripled.

{unemployed boyfriend arc is going crazy}

Mika came back with the disruption tool sealed in an evidence bag while Ryan stayed where he was beside the broken chair, shoulder swelling under a torn sleeve.

"Your first move saved my bartender," she said, crouching in front of him, "your second one tried to wrestle a D-rank."

"The lever worked briefly," Ryan replied, not moving.

"The mug catch worked briefly too," she said, with a look he could not read at all.

Then something opened across her smile and started counting.

[Verified Investment Defense]

[Return Credits Awarded: 4]

[Infinite Return Exchange Unlocked]

A black catalogue unfolded behind his eyes, full of things the infinite balance could not touch.

[Combat Valuation: Achievement Locked]

[Opening Position: 120 Return Credits, Locked]

[Physical Adaptation: Rank Requirement Unmet]

[Spear Technique Inventory: Restricted]

Four credits sat underneath a technique priced at a hundred and twenty.

He tried to convert capital into credits anyway, out of principle, and got an answer inside a second.

[Conversion Denied]

[Investment Capital Cannot Purchase Host Power]

’So the money isn’t mine,’ Ryan thought, ’only what it earns is.’

Which meant every dollar he put into somebody else was the only road he had to standing up on his own, and last night had quietly stopped being about the nine hundred dollars.

Mika posted the full discharge sequence while Northstar’s reservation searches climbed past their pre-repossession peak.

Viewers replayed the second Ryan held the stronger man, paired it with her entrance, then named the whole sequence the Accountant Assist.

{the accountant assist. i’m putting it on a shirt}

{he got folded immediately after, but we don’t talk about that}

Nobody watching that clip was going to mistake him for a D-rank, but nobody could call him harmless either.

"I’m offering you a temporary operating partnership," Mika said, sitting down beside him on the broken bar, "you get workspace, meals, and a share of whatever you recover from this debt."

"I want shared vetoes over medical risk and lender negotiations," Ryan replied, meeting her eyes.

"Accepted," she said, without hesitating.

"I also want approval before you post my face," he added.

Mika leaned close enough that he registered the change in her breathing before she’d finished moving, her eyes dropping toward his mouth, then coming back up.

"That particular term requires further study," she said, voice gone low.

He should probably have objected to that. Nothing useful arrived in time, since she was already locking Northstar under its surviving hot-pink sign.

"You bought me one terrible night, accountant," she said, almost fondly, while the relationship theories multiplied under their victory clip.

Ryan opened the lender’s contract next to a balance of four credits.

"I bought us time," he replied, voice steady, "now we make it return something."