"Haaah...!"
The sound of heavy breathing filled the air, and her eyes stung faintly, as if something had gotten into them.
In truth, it was just sweat running into her eyes.
The rest of the sweat that had not reached them slid down her pale cheeks to her chin, then dripped off.
In fact, her face was not all that pale right now. It was flushed red, as if she had been standing under a blazing summer sun.
But it was not summer yet, and the sun was not that harsh. The temperature was still fairly mild.
So the cause of this was obvious: intense physical exertion.
At that moment, Tessa was drenched in sweat from head to toe as she underwent combat training.
Her clothes were soaked through, the fabric sticking uncomfortably to her skin.
But more uncomfortable than that was the pain in her body.
Real pain.
At the very start, it had hurt so badly that tears had streamed out of her eyes. By now, at least, it no longer hurt enough to make her cry.
She lowered her body slightly, bent her knees, gathered her strength, and then launched herself forward. Her slender-looking leg whipped toward him in a kick.
Yet he caught her leg easily with one hand.
But Tessa instantly spun like a whirlwind, her other leg lashing out as well.
That one was caught too.
Almost at the same moment, a flash of cold light shot straight at his face.
It was the blade Tessa had thrown.
And yet, just like before, he caught it directly in his teeth.
The next second, her body flew through the air like a human cannonball, hit the ground hard, and rolled a long way, almost reaching the edge of the rooftop.
"Owowowow! Boss, stop it already! You're gonna tear the meat off my leg!!!"
Kurz tried to pry the hand off his thigh, but the problem was that Melissa's grip was too close to the root of it.
He was afraid that if he struggled too hard, he might accidentally grab something he really should not.
That would be the end of his future happiness.
The reason "boss" Melissa Mao was acting like this was because she had been watching Tessa's miserable state and felt so bad for her that she reacted instinctively.
Kurz felt bad too. That guy really could treat an adorable girl like Tessa this harshly. What was he, made of stone?
As for the two of them, they were not at the school itself, but inside an Arm Slave hidden by an electromagnetic camouflage system in an open area some distance away, observing everything.
"This guy trains people at this kind of intensity right from the start? Is he some kind of sadist or what?"
Melissa Mao really could not stand it anymore.
Tessa did have some basic hand-to-hand training, but that was only enough to deal with ordinary people. Giving her training intense enough to break even a normal soldier felt excessive.
She was really getting hurt.
Anyone looking at this would think their blood pressure was about to spike through the roof.
That showed just how merciless this man named Kain was. He did not treat Tessa like a child at all.
That made Mao start maliciously suspecting that he had some kind of abuse fetish.
Still, in a way, this kind of hellish training might be a good thing.
Tessa probably would not be able to endure it.
She would probably give up.
And once she backed down, she probably would not talk about wanting special training again in the future.
Because with Tessa's personality, once she retreated once, she would never shamelessly try again.
And a person's strength did not have to be reflected in individual combat ability. There were many other forms of strength, and Tessa's talents clearly lay in research and command. There was no need for her to put herself through this kind of suffering.
Hm?
"If you dare report this, I'll rip that thing off."
Mao threatened Kurz like that.
Because she had noticed someone heading toward the school rooftop, and that person was their target.
Mao was actually quite happy to see someone walk in on this scene. That would be enough to disrupt Tessa's training.
So, on the school rooftop -
Bang!
The door leading up to the roof was shoved open rather hard.
The one who had pushed it open was Kaname Chidori, and she strode toward the two of them with heavy steps.
"Excuse me, Miss Testarossa and Mr. Kain... just what exactly are you two doing up here on the roof?"
Kaname asked them with a smile.
At the moment, Kain was not wearing his white coat, and Miss Testarossa was not dressed as a nurse either, but in sportswear.
"Um, we're just sunbathing on the roof and getting some healthy exercise. Building up our strength and all that."
Miss Testarossa, hair a little disheveled and body glistening with sweat, offered that explanation.
"Oh? Is that so?"
"Uh-!"
Tessa's expression froze.
Kaname had pulled out her phone and turned the screen toward them, and on it was a video clip.
Because of the distance, the footage was not very clear, but it was obvious that it showed the two of them, and from the way it looked, it was basically a man viciously bullying a girl.
The angle of the shot made it instantly clear to Tessa where it had been taken from: the top floor of another school building, not the roof itself.
Ah.
That was probably the student council room. From there, you had a perfect view of this rooftop.
"Ahh!"
Tessa cried out in pain when Kaname suddenly yanked open her tracksuit jacket.
"Hiss..."
Seeing the state of the slender body beneath the tight exercise wear underneath, seeing the condition of the exposed skin, Kaname drew in a sharp breath.
Then, ignoring Tessa's attempts to stop her, she forcibly stripped more of it away.
Quite a bit of skin had been scraped raw, and there were even small cuts that looked like they had been made by something sharp. None of them were large, but that did not make the situation any less serious.
Kaname immediately pressed 110 on her phone to make the call, but the phone was snatched from her hand.
"...Miss Testarossa, does he have some kind of leverage over you? This is exactly the kind of situation where you can't give in. If you do, it'll only drag you deeper into hell!"
The one who had taken the phone from her was Miss Testarossa.
Naturally, Kaname had immediately assumed that this was the kind of situation they were dealing with.
"No, Chidori, you've misunderstood. I'm having Mr. Kain train me."
"Train you?"
"Yes. He's teaching me hand-to-hand combat."
"Teaching you hand-to-hand combat? Do you think I'm stupid? What kind of combat lesson leaves you looking like this?"
As she said that, Kaname pulled Miss Testarossa behind her and glared fiercely at that refined-looking scumbag again.
How vicious could someone be, laying such cruel hands on an adorable beauty like this?
And this beauty had to have something wrong with her head too. Was she into this or what?
What kind of day even was this? First a disgusting military otaku transferred into her class, and now the new school nurse turned out to be a perverted sadist.
The two of them stayed locked in a tense stare for several minutes, until the hurried sound of high heels on the stairs reached them.
"Chidori, what's going on here?"
The moment she heard the voice of her teacher, Eri Kagurazaka, Kaname finally felt the knot in her chest loosen a little.
As if she would really come up here alone without backup. She had already secretly notified a teacher to come.
"Teacher, look at Miss Testarossa. These injuries on her body were caused by... huh?"
Kaname froze.
The bruises she had seen earlier on Tessa's body were gone.
The cuts - right, there were still faint traces here and there, but not enough to prove they had been caused by any kind of blade.
Wh-what was going on?
Had she imagined it?
Otherwise, how could someone's injuries disappear in just a few minutes?
Out of the corner of her eye, she looked at that refined scumbag again.
He gave her what looked like a friendly little smile.
But Kaname could clearly feel the mockery in it.
Great.
She was absolutely going to find proof and nail him for this.
(End of Chapter)
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