Su Yuzu had always trusted her instincts.
Just like the first time she saw the little rabbit and knew right away that this girl was soft.
…and very easy to bully.
So when she spotted, from a distance, the teachers searching inside and outside the base for her group, and Tsukiyomi Fuya was nowhere among them—
when she caught the faint tremor in Ms. Unohana's voice—
Su Yuzu knew something was wrong.
She had already seen it earlier: Tsukiyomi-senpai looked like she had been wounded even before the "Seat of Evil" descended.
And now… Su Yuzu hardly dared to imagine.
She waved hard in Ms. Unohana's direction, and in the last unspent light of the setting sun, Unohana Chiyo quickly made out the girls huddled beside the bench.
What she didn't understand was why Sakura Mai, who clearly looked to be in bad shape, was here too.
Just as she didn't understand what exactly Yuzu had done a moment ago.
But one thing was beyond doubt: Yuzu seemed to have received the blessing of that Saintess lost nearly twenty years ago, and had successfully driven back the Seat of… Evil?
Unohana Chiyo jogged over, her eyes going to the girl cradled sideways in Su Yuzu's arms, and then to the girl in the white dress standing silently behind her.
Su Yuzu could plainly see the lines of Ms. Unohana's calves pull taut all at once.
The woman looked, on the surface, like nothing more than a worried adult—but her guard had gone straight up.
She had even braced herself for combat.
Ms. Unohana's sensitivity seemed to far exceed anything Su Yuzu had imagined.
With a trace of tension, she glanced at the unconscious, plainly naked girl in Su Yuzu's arms.
"What is wrong with me…"
[She's obviously just an ordinary human girl with nothing unusual about her at all. Probably a refugee Little Yuzu picked up at sea.]
[And I just tensed up like that.]
[It felt like I was looking at the "Seat of Evil" itself.]
Unohana Chiyo tried to make herself relax.
She had seen the "Seat of Evil."
It had been a figure so massive it bordered on terrifying—every bit as imposing as that student's parent, the one called Soga Ishikawa Irube.
Before it, even Little Yuzu had looked as tiny as a doll in someone's palm. It seemed that if the "Seat of Evil" had reached out, it could have closed its fingers around the girl's waist and held her in one hand.
This girl in Yuzu's arms—who looked, at a glance, like she had been thoroughly bullied—how could she possibly be the "Seat of Evil"?
Still—
Unohana Chiyo kept most of her wariness fixed on the barefoot girl in the white dress standing behind Su Yuzu.
"Kirishika."
A name that verged on legend.
The Godmother of the "Holy Royal Court." A rule-type Esper whose rule could erase any abnormal power.
Her era was far, far removed from the present day.
Unohana Chiyo simply could not imagine how, if this girl truly was Kirishika, she had survived until now.
There was really only one answer.
She had long since fallen into the Abyss.
Unohana Chiyo was, after all, only a Second Sequence Esper.
She didn't have power on the level of Sakura Koishin's. All she had was a keen nose, and it had caught the danger clinging to Kirishika on pure instinct.
"Yuzu—" Unohana Chiyo looked at the girl as if she wanted to say something.
Su Yuzu, rather troubled, started working out how to smooth this over.
"Teacher Chiyo." Su Yuzu hugged the "Seat of Evil" tighter against her chest.
In fact, the "Seat of Evil" seemed to be awake already.
Even if she was only an incomplete "Seat of Evil,"
she was still a Sixth Sequence Aberrant.
No—
after Su Yuzu had devoured her down to the last scrap, the "Seat of Evil" had already been reduced to the form of an ordinary human girl.
Su Yuzu could feel the girl's limp little hands straining with everything they had to clutch the woolen coat draped over her, could feel her long lashes trembling from being squeezed deliberately shut.
But… since she was currently lying in the arms of her mortal enemy, and since the way she'd humiliated herself earlier had been far too spectacular a humiliation—
the "Seat of Evil" could only work hard at pretending she hadn't woken up yet.
"This one is… the Sister Kirishika I told you about before." Su Yuzu had no choice but to grit her teeth and make the introduction.
"As for this girl…" She looked down at the "Seat of Evil" diligently faking sleep in her arms, and suddenly had no idea what to say.
Su Yuzu wasn't good at lying.
"She got… caught up by accident. I used a little too much force…" She hesitated over the wording—but the expressions of every girl present were turning strange, one after another. "A girl I injured by mistake."
An injury by mistake that had somehow left the victim without a stitch of clothing, bare from head to toe, ear tips and cheeks flushed a vivid, wine-bright red, able to do nothing but curl up in Su Yuzu's arms.
That kind of injury by mistake… everyone present seemed to have firsthand experience of it.
"Teacher Chiyo… where's Tsukiyomi-senpai?" Su Yuzu's head ached, so she changed the subject in the bluntest way possible.
Bringing up Tsukiyomi-senpai so eagerly right in front of Sister was terrible, admittedly.
But it was still better than lingering on that lethal topic.
Unohana Chiyo's face went grim in an instant. "Ms. Tsukiyomi… ran into some trouble."
The dread in Su Yuzu's chest… was confirmed.
She followed Unohana Chiyo back to the hospital in the mobile base at a near run.
Staff in blue-and-white nurse uniforms hurried back and forth, and the air was thick with the unsettling smell of disinfectant.
Su Yuzu found Tsukiyomi Fuya on a hospital bed.
The woman had lost that composure of hers, the kind that made it seem she could hold the stars in her hand.
Her lips were bloodless.
The woolen coat had been stripped off, leaving her shoulder bare, and from the pale skin there bloomed a small black metal flower, eye-catching as a cluster of crystals.
The Catastrophe's arrow had punched through her shoulder, and it had taken root and sprouted in her flesh.
In the time Su Yuzu had spent devouring the "Seat of Evil," Tsukiyomi Fuya's condition had deteriorated fast.
"Ms. Tsukiyomi's condition is very bad."
A Healing-type nurse beside her explained, "The Calamity Aura has worked its way into her circulation."
"The corrosive power of the 'Seat of Evil' is simply too strong."
"If we had known it would come to this… the arm should have been severed the very moment she was wounded, to save the rest of her."
"Even using a 'Medical Unit' would have been better than where she is now."
"Don't listen to them~" Tsukiyomi Fuya still tried to lift her arm with difficulty, to comfort Su Yuzu.
Her voice was terribly weak.
It sounded like a wounded little cat with no strength left.
"Yuzu… Yuzu isn't hurt, is she?"
Su Yuzu shook her head hard.
She looked at the electrodes taped to Tsukiyomi-senpai's body, at the assorted tubes sunk into her skin.
She looked at that small flower of Catastrophe Crystals on the woman's pale skin.
Even the Calamity Aura filtered out of Tsukiyomi Fuya's blood grew at frightening speed, eating into the specially made containers.
Vein-like tracings had sprouted across the surface of the steel capsules.
Tsukiyomi-senpai's condition was very bad.
She stood on the edge of Aberration.
Su Yuzu found herself regretting that she had been far too gentle with the "Seat of Evil."
Out in the corridor, the girl being held with such malicious delight in Kirishika's arms gave a sudden shiver, feeling that something even more ominous was reaching toward her.
Su Yuzu took Tsukiyomi Fuya's hand.
Tsukiyomi Fuya struggled to pull her hand free.
She said she was fine, but she could feel it herself—she was sinking, step by step, toward the Abyss.
The Catastrophe's power was spreading through her.
She was turning into a monster.
She was afraid… afraid that Catastrophe Crystals would break through her skin and cut the girl. If that happened, she wouldn't rest easy even in death.
But—
Su Yuzu only gripped Tsukiyomi Fuya's hand tighter.
She even bent down and kissed the back of it.
Su Yuzu was not going to let anything happen to Tsukiyomi-senpai in front of her.
She had devoured the "Seat of Evil"—practically the very incarnation of the Abyss Will—down to the last scrap and dragged her back out of the Abyss.
Tsukiyomi-senpai… she could bring her back too. She was certain of it.
"It's all right—" Su Yuzu soothed her.
Tsukiyomi Fuya looked into the girl's eyes, and unease stirred in her.
A completely different kind of unease from what she'd felt facing death.
Su Yuzu tightened her grip on Tsukiyomi Fuya's hand.
Even if it meant…
She looked at that small flower blooming on Tsukiyomi Fuya's shoulder.
Even if it meant devouring Tsukiyomi-senpai herself.
____
________________________________________
💖 Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 50 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter to warm your hearts.
🚀 Community Reward: If we reach 20 supporting members, we'll have a +5 chapter marathon across all stories! The romance won't stop.
👻 Come to our secret corner: Search for GirlsLove on (P). You know that's where the magic happens... 😉