The erosion domain, in its dark and gloomy hues.
Rare, bright moonlight spilled over it.
Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi stood frozen in the doorway in a full-blown Shame Play outfit, the very ink-black carp-patterned dress Su Yuzu had once seen in a dream. Beside her, Mihou Sakai stood just as dumbstruck in a black one-piece bodysuit and stockings.
Inside the room, they could see Su Yuzu, wearing nothing but a lace slip dress, pinning down a tiny figure beneath her.
The Aberrant girl, dressed in a yukata, lay on the tatami with a blank expression.
It was as if the words "Bully me as you please" had been written across her face.
No matter how you looked at it, this steamy scene did not look like Su Yuzu had been abducted by Aberrants and turned into a poor plaything.
On the contrary...
Yuzu-senpai...
She seemed to be thriving in the Aberrant camp.
Sure, you'd think a person couldn't, or at least shouldn't, lay hands on Aberrants.
But...
If it was Sister Yuzu, Yuzu-senpai, it didn't seem like much of a problem.
After all...
Mihou Sakai and Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi were both people Su Yuzu had pulled back from the Edge of Aberration, gnawing the Catastrophe Crystals off their bodies one bite at a time.
Su Yuzu, both hands still pressed against Lian's shoulders, never expected that someone would suddenly shove the door open at a moment like this.
And it wasn't even an Aberrant.
It was her own adorable cousin and her adorable kouhai.
Her right hand was already clapped over her face.
Su Yuzu didn't need to guess what the two girls were thinking right now.
She even wanted to ask:
Did you two go to Hayabusa for some kind of advanced training?
How could the timing be so perfectly, impossibly right?
If they'd been ordinary girls, fine. But of all people, it had to be Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi and Mihou Sakai.
Just seeing Su Yuzu "bullying" a poor Aberrant girl seemed to have sent them straight back to their own first time.
"S-Sorry! Sorry to interrupt!!!" In perfect unison, the two girls, so embarrassed that steam looked ready to whistle out of their heads, moved to shut the door.
"What's going on!?"
"We have to hurry and rescue Miss Soga." A voice Su Yuzu didn't know came from behind Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi and Mihou Sakai.
Actually, Su Yuzu did remember that voice.
She always remembered pretty girls vividly.
It belonged to the Shingai family's maid, a tall and rather stern woman.
Back at the restaurant, she was the one who thanked Su Yuzu and then wheeled Shingai Hitomi away.
Why is she here?
Never mind... If Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi and Little Mihou were here, one more person didn't seem all that strange.
Su Yuzu scrambled off Lian's lap in a rush, her mortification written all over her face.
A woman in a long black dress and over-the-knee high-heeled boots appeared in the doorway.
Her otherworldly Dark golden vertical pupils swept across the room.
Only then did Su Yuzu notice that it wasn't just the Shingai maid. Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi and Little Mihou, too, were each replicating the outfit Su Yuzu herself had worn when she fell into the Edge of Aberration.
The only difference was this: Mihou Sakai's one-piece bodysuit still covered her nose and mouth, leaving only her Dark golden vertical pupils visible.
But the cutouts at her waist and belly, which Su Yuzu had praised so highly, were now sealed up tight.
As for Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi, her carp-patterned dress was much like the one in Su Yuzu's dream, with the parts that should have been covered, her lower belly and chest, almost entirely bare.
But...
Her pale skin lacked the most obvious mark Kiyomi had borne as an Aberrant: that thin crimson line running vertically from where her collarbones met down to her lower belly.
Su Yuzu could all but conclude it.
Both of them were disguised as Aberrants.
She just had no idea what method they'd used to make even Su Yuzu struggle to tell real from fake.
All she had to do was open her Operator list, and she could still see clearly that both of them were in human form.
Even though, as Espers who had returned from the Edge of Aberration, the stars marking their rarity, "★★★★★", had all turned dark gold.
But their background frames were nothing like those of the little cat or Lian, where thick black mist seemed ready to spill past the borders. Theirs were still the ordinary frames of human Espers.
However...
Su Yuzu watched the Shingai maid step forward from behind Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi and Mihou Sakai.
Her expression slowly turned grave.
This was nothing like the impression the woman had made when they first met. Just looking into those eyes, Su Yuzu felt she could hear it:
"Kill..."
"Kill..."
"Kill!!!"
This woman was nothing like Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi and Mihou Sakai.
She was a true Aberrant, through and through.
Lian had also scrambled up from the floor.
Her clothes in slight disarray, the girl planted herself between Su Yuzu and the Shingai maid.
Lian gripped her huge, heavy god-slaying greatsword. "Lady Yuzu, please withdraw at once!!!"
"She's dangerous!!!"
Every nerve in Lian's body was drawn taut.
Lowering her stance, the girl looked like a leopardess about to hunt.
The instant their eyes met, Lian sensed the danger in that woman.
Apart from Lady Kujou...
She was more dangerous than any Aberrant Lian had ever faced.
In some respects, she might even be more dangerous than Lady Kujou.
"Huh?" Mihou Sakai, who still hadn't grasped the situation, was about to say something when Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi, who had caught on to part of it, pulled her back.
"Oh my~~~"
"So the first-generation Godslayer Weapon was hiding here." Catastrophe Crystals grew in the maid's hands and finally became two sharp, long thorns.
She turned her head to the two girls behind her. "You two..."
"Take Miss Soga and get out of here."
Lian, meanwhile, stood guard against the maid with every nerve alert. "Lady Yuzu!!!"
"Run!"
The auras of the two Fifth Sequence Aberrants exploded outward almost at the same moment.
Amid the broken walls and ruins, the last of Kujou Iruka's palaces finally collapsed.
Su Yuzu compared the fighting strength of the Shingai maid and Lian. They were close... There shouldn't be any accidents.
The most urgent thing for her now was to stop Kujou Iruka.
Su Yuzu gave the Shingai family's Aberrant maid one long look, then led Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi and Mihou Sakai toward the exit.
As Su Yuzu looked at her, the maid, still gripping her thorn blades, lifted her skirt and gracefully curtsied.
Her expression seemed to say:
"Please carry out your mission without worry."
"Everything here..."
"Leave it to me."
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