Magnificent, blazing dark golden vertical pupils, close enough to touch.
Before her—
—was a Seventh Sequence Aberrant, the Throne of Ultimate Evil that stood above the entire world.
In the game, your average Aberrant could only manage a few grunts and moans through the simplest Interact prompts, and most of them were the wild-mob type you couldn't communicate with at all.
In the game—
Kujou Iruka had also been the first Aberrant Su Yuzu could actually talk to.
Even now, Su Yuzu still remembered that CG of Kujou Iruka from after the interception operation was finished.
A woman, all but naked, slumped in a puddle of water, her one remaining thigh-high sock hanging in tatters, pale purple hair spilling loose across her body. She gazed up at the sky as the first thread of sunlight after the great battle broke through the clouds.
The look on that woman's face had been so helpless, so fragile — the kind that made your chest ache with tenderness.
And not… not like this!!!
Even the left hand she'd braced against the wall had already been seized.
Su Yuzu could feel it — Kujou Iruka's exquisite, pliant body bearing down on her, as if she meant to hang every ounce of her weight off Su Yuzu's shoulder.
So close—
Far, far too close.
Close enough that Su Yuzu could hardly bring herself to look straight into those eyes.
Kujou Iruka was a "Throne", and at this distance her magnificent, blazing dark golden vertical pupils were practically a lamp burning in front of her face.
Still… there was one other piece of good news.
Namely, that by the light of Kujou Iruka's eyes, Su Yuzu had finally shaken off that instinctive terror of endless darkness.
Her rigid body eased, loosening a fraction, and her voice came out smaller and meeker than it ever had.
"Ku…"
"Sister Kujou." The words came out thick and clinging, on the edge of tears.
Su Yuzu had chickened out. She really had.
Unlike Honored Aunt Sakura, whose whole philosophy was to keep talking tough even after her knees gave out, Su Yuzu had never minded playing meek for a while and waiting for the chance to turn things around.
Besides… Seventh Sequence—
The woman in front of her was the single most terrifying Seventh Sequence Aberrant there was.
Top-tier combat power standing at the absolute summit of this world.
In the game, you had to wear down Kujou Iruka's fighting spirit with an item like the damaged music box, then call on the radiant power of Saint Michael to back you up, just to complete the interception on Kujou Iruka—
And even then, it was only an interception.
Some day down the line, Kujou Iruka could always be hauled back out to headline as a world boss all over again.
Short of hinting around it and talking Kujou Iruka into cooperating—
Su Yuzu really had no nerve at all for a frontal assault.
"Oh my, my, my~~~" Su Yuzu could feel it perfectly clearly: the hand that had merely rested on the wrist of her wall-braced arm was slowly closing tight.
She… she wasn't even allowed to hold on to the wall?
Somewhere inside, Su Yuzu was already bawling her eyes out.
It looked like someone had finally come to collect on all the terrible things she'd done to Soga Yura… to Kujou Katora and the others.
So her old hunch had been right after all.
Kujou Katora really was going to be a troublesome character.
Su Yuzu didn't even need to think it through — Kujou Iruka had obviously tracked her down by following Kujou Katora's 'scent'.
"Sis~ter~ Ku~jou~" Kujou Iruka repeated the name Su Yuzu had used for her.
Those dazzling, resplendent eyes brimmed with wicked amusement.
"Nngh…"
Su Yuzu couldn't take much more of this… ah… no, wrong word — this was bad.
Kujou Iruka pressed in close.
Damp, warm breath drifted across her ear, and Su Yuzu could feel the fine, soft strands of Kujou Iruka's hair settling lightly against her neck.
Su Yuzu had always been weak to a girl speaking into her ear in that low, soft voice.
But only Soga Yura knew about that particular weak point of hers.
Unfortunately—
Soga Yura, physical-fitness disaster that she was… even when she managed to brush up against Su Yuzu's weakness, she could never do much with it.
Kujou Iruka was another matter entirely.
She was an Aberrant.
A Seventh Sequence Aberrant.
Kujou Iruka could read it plainly: the stiffness in Su Yuzu's body from the moment she laid eyes on 'her' — the stiffness she'd taken for fear of herself, which had turned out to be fear of the dark — had gradually gone loose and soft, and then, once she started whispering by the girl's ear… had snapped taut and rigid all over again.
Oh my, my, my—
It seemed she'd found herself a rather interesting little switch.
Kujou Iruka pressed closer still.
Clatter—
With Kujou Iruka's grip locked on the wrist of her wall-braced hand, Su Yuzu finally buckled under her own weight and the pressure rolling off the woman, and toppled sideways into the shoe cabinet.
About all Su Yuzu could hope for now was that the "Seat of Evil" — who had once been Seventh Sequence herself — and Kirishika, right across the hall, might catch some hint of the noise and come save her.
But… in the room across from Su Yuzu's.
Kirishika and the "Seat of Evil" lay sprawled spread-eagle on the bed, each one's hand mashed flat against the other's face, still lost in the aftermath of a double dose of "Combat Records" and nowhere near coming back to their senses.
Two pairs of pitch-black eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.
Kirishika seemed to have long since gotten used to these conversations between 'herself and herself'. "What should we make Su Yuzu buy us tomorrow?"
"No idea."
"I'm starving. You?"
"Same here—"
"…"
Her body tipped toward the shoe cabinet.
But the pain Su Yuzu had braced for — the small of her back cracking against the cabinet's corner — never came.
Something soft had cushioned her from behind.
She could feel it perfectly well, perfectly well — Kujou Iruka had one hand clamped around her wrist and the other pinning her shoulder.
And yet—
And yet Su Yuzu still had the distinct illusion of being wrapped up in another pair of arms.
"Care to guess?" Kujou Iruka murmured tenderly against Su Yuzu's ear.
She savored the sensation of the girl in her arms — the way she shivered faintly, stiffening just a little, with every single word that dropped from her lips.
"Interesting—"
"Far too interesting—"
"No wonder that useless, spineless Little Sister of mine has taken such a liking to this one."
Still—
Kujou Iruka thought back to what she'd seen: the way Kujou Katora carried herself in front of Su Yuzu, in a manner that could only be called 'servile'.
Her grip on Su Yuzu's wrist tightened, and tightened again.
"Is Miss Su's mouth always this sweet?"
"To an Aberrant—" The instant the word came up, Kujou Iruka's voice went cold, as though she were reciting something forbidden.
"To an Aberrant… you speak this intimately?"
Su Yuzu's right hand — the one she could still move — braced backward on reflex, and at last she felt out what it was that cradled the small of her back.
Feathers.
Soft feathers.
Su Yuzu finally remembered what Kujou Iruka looked like in that CG.
Aside from the scattering of armor plates covering the essentials, the only thing she wore was a thigh-high sock on her right leg.
Pale purple hair, impossibly long and impossibly lovely.
Jet-black wings unfurling from her waist.
Long, slender, perfectly straight legs balanced on needle-thin heels.
Precious little fabric on her body, but no shortage of glittering little ornaments.
For all that bare skin, the look wasn't really lewd — instead it carried the holy, wicked beauty of a Lost Angel.
Which meant… the thing curled around her waist was… a wing?
Remembering how the monster girls in that other game reacted when you grabbed them by the base of the tail or the base of a wing—
Su Yuzu's hand closed around the root of the wing at Kujou Iruka's waist before her brain could catch up.
"So eager—" Kujou Iruka breathed against Su Yuzu's ear. Far from having been struck in a weak spot, she looked more savage and more terrifying than before.
Dark golden vertical pupils, with flames of excitement all but spilling out of them.
"I do wonder, though—"
"—whether Miss Su tastes as sweet as she sounds."
She was going to cry—
Su Yuzu really was going to cry.
Her hands… her stupid, meddling hands!!!
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