章 62: At the end of the lesson and the begining of tomorrow

'Now that she's out of it, what should I do next?'

I took a deep breath as I looked down at Claire slumped down atop my lap. 

After what very likely was over an hour of intense making out, Claire couldn't care less about her advancement. She just curled up, purring as she dozed off, all happy and satisfied. 

'Now that I think about it, I don't really have any real plans for the days ahead,' I thought, finally forced to face the ugly reality of putting all sorts of troubles aside, for later. 

Because now that this later arriver… I couldn't help but feel awfully ill-prepared. 

'Sure, I've racked up achievements with both the devices and now Claire's breakthrough… But what is it that I actually need to do now?'

There were many possible paths for me to take. In the end, however, only three appeared viable enough for me to pursue them. 

First, I had to help Chihiro. An extremely tall order given how…