Shoving Kujou Iruka ahead of her, she got them out of the girls' dormitory building.
Su Yuzu's nerves still hadn't settled.
It was probably an awful thing to think, but thank goodness — thank goodness the person who had walked in on her and Kujou Iruka was Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi, and not Soga Yura.
Otherwise Su Yuzu genuinely believed those two could have turned all of Keigunen Private Academy upside down.
She stole a careful glance at Kujou Iruka.
Kujou Iruka was looking back in the direction of Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi, as though something had caught her interest.
Su Yuzu knew exactly what Kujou Iruka was thinking.
And she knew exactly how bad this situation was for Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi.
Kujou Iruka had chased the Goddess's Blessing until obsession twisted into madness, and in the end she had fallen into the Edge of Aberration. Surely one of her deepest regrets was that, once she had sunk into being an Aberrant, the Goddess of Fate's Blessing could never be hers again.
And yet, right here—
Here stood a girl who had once fallen into the Edge of Aberration herself, who had received the Goddess of Fate's Blessing all the same, and who could even live an ordinary life because of it.
Su Yuzu didn't believe for a second that Kujou Iruka would feel nothing, that she wouldn't want to pry the truth out of it.
But… since this whole mess was her own doing, since she was the one who had let the secret slip, there was no way Su Yuzu was going to let the pressure land on Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi.
All but burying Kujou Iruka's arm against her chest, Su Yuzu clung to it. "All right, all right…"
"There's nothing worth looking at over there."
"So where does Sister Iruka want to go and play?"
Kujou Iruka's gaze drifted back to Su Yuzu.
The girl looked so eager and coaxing that nobody would ever have guessed she was the hostage in this arrangement.
If anything, she looked like a girl at the Midsummer Festival, hanging off her sister's arm and begging to be taken out for the evening.
Kujou Iruka's deep blue eyes took in the soft, warm weight of the girl wrapped around her arm.
This… wasn't bad at all, actually.
Kujou Iruka had found a new weakness in Su Yuzu.
Su Yuzu minded the girls around her far more than she minded being bullied and squeezed herself.
It was only… that she was the Seventh Sequence, "The Abyss of Eternal Smiles," after all.
Kujou Iruka had no taste for using the people who mattered to a girl as bargaining chips.
The same way she despised those wretches for dragging her own stupid, spineless little sister up onto the stage purely to use her as leverage.
What she hated having done to her, she preferred not to do to anyone else.
Of course—
bullying girls counted as the one exception.
It was only a so-called Blessing—
and maybe it wasn't all that important anyway.
She let Su Yuzu keep hugging her arm tight. Honestly, the feeling was rather pleasant.
The girl's figure was more perfect than Kujou Iruka had expected. [Perfect Execution] was quietly, invisibly rewriting Su Yuzu's constitution — generously built, and yet not the faintest risk of anything sagging.
Having a girl like that pressed to your arm felt magnificent, naturally.
Just as Su Yuzu enjoyed having Mihou Sakai hug her arm, Kujou Iruka now tasted that same simple pleasure.
Of course—
if the girl had been wearing a swimsuit, it would have been better still.
"I'll let Miss Yuzu be the one to show me around—" She had finally come back to the Tokyo metropolitan area after so long, and there were more than a few places she'd wanted to revisit.
And yet Kujou Iruka handed the choice straight over to Su Yuzu.
She wasn't the least bit worried that Su Yuzu might set a trap, might walk her into an encirclement.
Quite the opposite. Kujou Iruka understood it better than anyone.
In a situation like this, Su Yuzu wanted nothing more than to stay as far away from every single person she knew as she possibly could.
Because—
she herself was calamity given a body.
What she stood for was endless trouble and ruin.
And besides…
Miss Yuzu, I don't imagine you'd want your nearest and dearest to see the miserable little face you make when you're being bullied and coerced, would you.
There were no photographs, admittedly.
But Kujou Iruka had great confidence in her own sculpting and painting.
Every inch of Su Yuzu… she had already carved into memory.
"Of course—"
"if I'm not satisfied~"
Because of the wide-brimmed hat, Kujou Iruka had to tilt her head slightly to the side as she leaned toward Su Yuzu's ear, so she could press in closer.
"then I'll simply have to trust that Miss Yuzu herself… can satisfy me."
Su Yuzu's knees went soft before she could stop them.
What was that supposed to mean, her satisfying her?
This woman… just how far was she planning to take this?!
Still, Su Yuzu could at least be grateful that Kujou Iruka apparently harbored no strange desire to bully her in the middle of a crowd and socially execute her on the spot.
The trouble was, from where Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi stood — already up on the second floor, still rising onto her toes to peer through the window at Su Yuzu and Kujou Iruka, lips pushed into a wobbling pout like the tears were about to spill — the two of them looked far more like a couple murmuring secrets into each other's ears.
"Wretch!!!"
"Cheating scum!!!"
"Heartbreaker!!!"
"I'm… I'm going to go tell Eldest Young Lady Yura on her!"
But… Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi only dared to think it.
She knew far too well what the so-called "Goddess of Fate's Blessing" had to do with Su Yuzu, and she had heard the terrifying rumor about the Goddess of Fate handing down two Blessings back to back in the small hours of the morning.
She wasn't in any hurry to find out what that felt like.
At least… not as a punishment.
So all Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi could do was sniffle, lips trembling, and watch Su Yuzu walk off in a posture she had never once worn before — wound around somebody else's arm.
"Why… why did I come back to the dorm today?"
"If I'd just gone home to sleep tonight, none of this would have reached my eyes, and none of it would be tearing at me now."
Elsewhere, Su Yuzu had brought Kujou Iruka to the commercial street.
She really had no idea what Kujou Iruka might like.
But since Kujou Iruka had once been a student at Keigunen Private Academy, once the most closely watched hope for the future at Imperial Capital University, walking her back through the places she used to haunt seemed as good an idea as any.
"Was this commercial street here back when Sister Iruka was in school?" She'd been bullied half to pieces only minutes ago, and yet Su Yuzu had already found her footing again.
She was a hostage, technically, but hugging Kujou Iruka's arm the way she was, her voice came out sounding closer to a wheedle.
The truth was, every so often… Su Yuzu did rather like the feeling of clinging to an older girl.
There was nothing wrong with switching roles once in a while.
After all, most of the time Soga Yura was nothing like an older sister — she was more like a crybaby little sister who needed Su Yuzu to look after her.
"This crepe shop is one I come to all the time."
Their strawberry cream crepes were the little rabbit's orange-grade Favorability Gift, that was why.
Any orange-grade Favorability Gift generally landed well with just about any girl.
She had come by so often that the proprietress was thoroughly familiar with her.
"Little Yuzu, back again?"
"And which girl have you dragged along this time?"
That was roughly how these visits usually went.
Except, this time, clearly—
the situation was a little different.
The crepe shop's proprietress was just turning to welcome Su Yuzu when her eyes landed on Kujou Iruka, and she froze where she stood.
"Kujou… Senpai?!"
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