Even though it seemed she'd already eaten her fill today.
Still... Su Yuzu kissed the back of Tsukiyomi Fuya's hand, breathing in the sweet, cloying gardenia fragrance that clung to the woman.
She really wouldn't mind a second helping.
Tsukiyomi-senpai's scent smelled a little bit wrong.
Su Yuzu sat beside the hospital bed, looking down at the woman lying there, her face pale, her lips cracked and dry.
For Su Yuzu, girls had flavors she could taste.
The taste of a cute girl was like a green, unopened bud.
The taste of a mature woman like Ms. Unohana Chiyo was like a peach ripened to the point of bursting.
But now... hidden inside Tsukiyomi-senpai's usually sweet, cloying flavor, there was something astringent, something like fermentation.
It wasn't that all Aberrants tasted that way.
Quite the opposite—
The little cat's flavor gave Su Yuzu the feeling of midsummer after a clearing sky, of bathing in sunlight.
The wrongness in Tsukiyomi-senpai's scent probably had something to do with what the Healing-type teachers had said... that the power of the Catastrophe was spreading through Tsukiyomi-senpai's body, and that she was slowly turning into a monster.
Tsukiyomi Fuya tried to pull her hand out of Su Yuzu's grip.
Off to the side, the Healing-type senpai who hadn't stopped working was preparing the medications.
Among those medications, Su Yuzu suddenly spotted something very bad... a dangerous green.
Su Yuzu recognized that packaging.
It was a lethal dose.
"What do you think you're doing!?" Su Yuzu bristled like a cat and lunged to snatch the vial out of the Healing-type teacher's hands.
"Yuzu." Tsukiyomi Fuya's weak voice came from behind her.
The Healing-type senpai let Su Yuzu take the vial without resisting. The woman lowered her head in silence, her own expression just as grim.
Weakly, Tsukiyomi Fuya explained to Su Yuzu why.
The power of the "Seat of Evil" was spreading through her body.
It was nothing like an ordinary Aberrant.
The power of the "Seat of Evil" was deeply corrosive to Espers.
When she'd stood in the Tide's path, Tsukiyomi Fuya hadn't noticed a thing. By the time The Flowers of Evil bloomed on her shoulder, it was far too late.
Her condition now sat somewhere between an Aberrant and an Esper.
Tsukiyomi Fuya felt the world seen through her left eye going hazy, slowly veiling itself in colors of startling beauty.
On the verge of falling into the Abyss, the thing Tsukiyomi Fuya regretted was that she had never once looked up at the stars through an Aberrant's eyes.
Outside, the sky was still a sheet of red, waves of flame rolling over one another, like a sun in its final years, or like lava flowing slow and about to harden.
Still... never having gazed at the stars wasn't such a loss.
She looked at the girl in front of her, the girl worrying over her.
Through that other sight, the girl before her stood awe-inspiring, carrying a charm that verged on wicked.
Getting to see Little Yuzu from another angle wasn't so bad either.
Tsukiyomi Fuya's voice was very low. Su Yuzu had to lean over the bed, practically pressing down onto Tsukiyomi Fuya's chest, just to catch what the woman was saying.
Tsukiyomi Fuya wanted to stroke Yuzu's hair, still not grown out.
Su Yuzu gently placed Tsukiyomi Fuya's hand on her own shoulder.
Tsukiyomi Fuya could fall into the Abyss at any moment.
The base had to prepare for both outcomes, and fast.
While doing everything possible to save Tsukiyomi Fuya... they also had to prepare for the failure to save her, for the moment Tsukiyomi Fuya fell into the Abyss.
Tsukiyomi Fuya was an Esper at the peak of the Fifth Sequence.
Once she fell into the Abyss... there was every chance she would cross the threshold of the Sixth Sequence and break through in a single stroke.
One Sixth Sequence "Seat of Evil" had already left them in this sorry state.
And at a time like this... a time when no reinforcements could reach them, another Sixth Sequence Aberrant would descend.
None of them dared imagine the consequences.
Su Yuzu pressed her lips together. "I won't let Tsukiyomi-senpai fall into the Abyss."
Tsukiyomi Fuya stroked Yuzu's hair softly, signaling to the colleague beside her to take the lethal dose back from the girl's hand.
If there were a choice, who would ever want to die?
Tsukiyomi Fuya wasn't the sort of person who could face death with noble composure for the good of her species.
If this weren't the Tokyo metropolitan area, if Little Yuzu... Little Yura, and so many colleagues and students she knew weren't right here beside her.
Then perhaps... she would have chosen to fall into the Abyss.
To keep gazing up at the stars in a different form.
But she couldn't—
She had lived through the disaster twenty years ago. She had witnessed how vicious a child could become after falling into the Abyss, no matter how sweet and dear that child had been before.
She didn't want to hurt her colleagues, her students, or... Little Yuzu, with her own hands.
Su Yuzu obediently let Tsukiyomi Fuya stroke her hair, but her fingers stayed clamped around the vial of the lethal dose, refusing to let go.
"I'm going to make Tsukiyomi-senpai well again."
To everyone listening, Tsukiyomi Fuya included, the girl's resolute voice sounded like a small child's stubborn defiance of an unjust Fate.
Tsukiyomi Fuya tried to soothe Yuzu.
Then her gaze met that pair of resolute crimson eyes, and she froze.
The determination in the girl's eyes was no joke.
Su Yuzu turned her head to look at the Healing-type teachers in the room.
Against the power of the "Seat of Evil," they were helpless.
They had already sent out a call for aid to the single most powerful Healing-type Esper in the entire Tokyo metropolitan area.
As it happened, she had returned to the Tokyo metropolitan area during this period.
Though she seemed to be in the middle of some tender time with her husband, at a critical juncture like this she had answered the call for aid, and was rushing toward the bay at top speed.
They didn't want to kill their own colleague either, didn't want to kill the "hope of Imperial Capital University's future."
But when it came down to matters of this magnitude, they had no choice.
All they could do was pray, pray that Tsukiyomi Fuya could hold on until the head of the Sakura family arrived from the Sakura family home.
"Senpais... could you go out?"
"Just for a little while."
"There are some things I want to say to Tsukiyomi-senpai..." Su Yuzu handed the lethal dose over to the Healing-type senpai, putting on her most well-behaved face.
The others looked troubled.
They wanted to say yes to her—Little Yuzu's charm really was hard to resist.
But at a time like this... not one second should be wasted. They wanted to give everything they had to saving Tsukiyomi Fuya.
In the end... it was Tsukiyomi Fuya who wrapped an arm around Yuzu's shoulders. She watched the girl bury her face against her, remembering the pitiful sight of her curled up in the corner of a bed.
Little Yuzu... was probably a girl starved of affection, terribly lonely inside.
Tsukiyomi Fuya gave her colleagues a look.
The Healing-type teacher took the vial of the lethal dose from Su Yuzu's hand, and then, without needing to be told twice, they all filed out of the room.
Only Su Yuzu and Tsukiyomi Fuya remained.
Between that useless, burdensome thickness and how weak Tsukiyomi Fuya had become—
Even pressed against Tsukiyomi Fuya's chest, Su Yuzu could barely hear the woman's heartbeat.
All that filled the room was faint breathing and the steady tick, tick of the machines.
Tsukiyomi Fuya watched the girl lying on her chest push herself up and look down at her, her expression complicated.
"Senpai's whole life from here on... belongs to me now, okay?"
Before Tsukiyomi Fuya could work out what the girl meant, she saw Yuzu lower her little head toward The Flowers of Evil blooming on her shoulder, put out the tip of her tongue, and lick at the wound like a kitten.
"Yuzu!?"
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